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How Star-Power Affects Horror Films

Star-power is easily one of the most important aspects about marketing a film. Having a number of big-name stars in your film can instantly draw in larger audiences, simply based on the fact that they are a fan of a particular actor or actress. Take for example the recent Marvel films, such as Ant-Man, Iron Man, Captain America and numerous others. Those films more often than not cast big stars to play the main heroes (or villains) of the films, such as Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Chris Evans as Captain America. This can also lead to many big-name actors coming together for an extremely successful crossover film, such as Avengers: Endgame, which has already grossed $2.303 billion.

As stated in a previous blog, sometimes star-power works for only one side of hero vs. villain spectrum in a film. This typically happens in horror films, especially those with a masked killer. In the Friday the 13th films for example, it is almost irrelevant who plays Jason to casual fans, as they will not be able to see who is behind the mask. This often leads to there having to be a hero character that has some name value attached to them, such as Jared Padalecki in the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot.

One example of star-power saving a film before things got bad for it is the film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later from 1998. After the release of Halloween II in 1981, the Halloween series had become extremely bogged down with confusing timelines, nonsensical storylines and simply bad movies, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers typically come to mind when bringing this up. This was a case of a creator and studio not knowing when to simply let a series end when it should, and attempting to make the most money it possibly could off of the character name value of Michael Myers. When H20 was in production, it was originally going to adhere to the continuity of all of the other films in the series, and it was on track to being a direct-to-video release, which had not happened in the Halloween franchise, or any of the main horror franchises at the time. 

This all changed once Jamie Lee Curtis arrived on the set. Curtis was offered to reprise her role as Laurie Strode, the role that launched her career. Curtis accepted, however there was one problem. In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, it is directly stated that Strode was killed in a car accident, as a way to write Curtis out of the series. This led to the writers and producers having to come up with an entirely new script, and creating an alternate timeline in the series. Originally, the series timeline was simple; containing Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween 4, Halloween 5, and Halloween 6. This new timeline however, erases the events of Halloween 4, 5, and 6, making H20 a sequel to Halloween II. 

This change in continuity led to H20 being the highest grossing and most successful film in the series since Halloween II, grossing $55 million at the box office, almost exclusively to Curtis’ involvement in the film. This same situation happened with the release of Halloween 2018. The series had once again become damaged by confusing timelines, due to the Rob Zombie remakes, and bad movies such as Halloween: Resurrection. The creators decided to reboot the series entirely, once again hiring Jamie Lee Curtis to return, and once again creating a new timeline. This time, every film was eliminated from the continuity except the original 1978 Halloween. This meant that Halloween 2018 was a direct sequel to the original film. Much like H20 in 1998, Halloween 2018 was extremely successful in the box office, grossing $254.3 million. Currently, it is the highest grossing film in the Halloween franchise, and it is additionally the highest grossing slasher film of all time in unadjusted dollars, beating a record that was held for over 20 years by Scream. This film was so successful that another sequel is already early in development. 

One example of a horror movie that was affected negatively by star-power is the 2010 Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Throughout the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, the character of Freddy Krueger became instantly iconic, soon becoming a pop culture icon, even outside of the horror genre and community. This was in large part due to the portrayal of Freddy Krueger by actor Robert Englund. Englund has portrayed Krueger in every film that the character has appeared in until Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, which had the highest gross in the box office at $123 million. Despite many of the later Nightmare on Elm Street films not being very highly received, Englund’s portrayal of Krueger is often viewed as the best part of all of the films. The 2010 Nightmare on Elm Street remake is the only film in the series to not feature Englund in the role of Freddy Krueger, who is instead played by Jackie Earl Haley. Haley does a good job playing Krueger in a different style than Englund, doing his best with the script and film he was given. Despite this, many people cite Haley’s portrayal of Krueger as a reason for this film not being very successful. Many long-term fans of the series did not feel as though the film was the same without Englund donning the iconic skin makeup, and that Englund’s star-power would have at least made this film slightly better. 

There are currently no plans for any more Nightmare on Elm Street films, and the older age of Robert Englund, combined with the less than positive reviews of Jackie Earl Haley’s performance as Krueger are likely to be the reasons for this. 

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Character Types and Themes in Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Sadako vs. Kayako is a Japanese horror film directed by Kōji Shiraishi and released in 2016. Sadako vs. Kayako is a cross-over film between both the Ju-On: The Grudge series, and the Ringu series. Due to this fact, it is often also referred to as “The Ring vs. The Grudge”, in the same vein as similar crossovers such as Alien vs. Predator and Freddy vs. Jason. Sadako vs. Kayako was originally only teased as an April Fools’ Day joke on April 1, 2015 after being a long-demanded concept in the J-Horror community and fanbase. On December 10, 2015, Sadako vs. Kayako was confirmed to be in actual production in Japan, much to the enjoyment of the fanbase. Sadako vs. Kayako was released publicly in Japan on June 18, 2016, and was eventually released in North America on the horror movie streaming service Shudder. 

The plot of Sadako vs. Kayako, as one would expect from the title, converges the worlds and mythologies of the Ju-On: The Grudge and Ringu franchises, while simultaneously having nothing to do with the characters or storylines of the films from the source material franchises. The plot follows Yuri Kurahashi and Natsumi Ueno, two Japanese university students who are sold the cursed videotape from the Ringu series. They originally purchase the tape in order to burn a copy of Natsumi’s parents wedding video onto a DVD. There are slight differences about the content of the videotape in Sadako vs. Kayako. These are that the actual images on the videotape show a decrepit and broken down house, rather than a well, as well as the curse only taking two days to kill its victims, rather than the typical seven from the original series. Natsumi is the first to watch the tape in its entirety, after Yuri gets distracted by someone calling her on the phone. Once the tape is over, Natsumi receives the phone call that has become iconic because of the Ringu series. During this phone call, Sadako appears behind Yuri, giving us our first glimpse of the first demon.

In order to search for help and answers about the videotape, the two seek out their university professor and an author of a book about urban legends, Morishige, who has a dream of meeting Sadako. Morishige excitedly watches the tape, and receives the same phone call as Natsumi. Morishige then brings the girls to an exorcist in order to help save Natsumi, when Sadako possesses Natsumi, leading to everyone in the room being killed except for Yuri. The exorcist then calls Keizo Tokiwa, a man who has psychic abilities, to help them. Keizo eventually arrives to help the girls, but only after Yuri watches the tape herself, because she blamed herself for Natsumi’s situation. Keizo essentially tells Yuri that she just cursed herself for no reason. He also tells the girls that the only way to get rid of the curse is to find another vengeful spirit to have Sadako face off against, in order for both of them to eliminate each other. 

It is then revealed that Natsumi has uploaded the cursed video onto the internet, in an attempt to have many more people killed by the curse. She then decides to commit suicide so she is not killed by Sadako, however her plan is unsuccessful and she is killed by Sadako anyway. After Natsumi is killed, Keizo and his blind sidekick Tamao decide that they are going to find Kayako (the spirit from the Ju-On: The Grudge franchise) and attempt to have she and Sadako face off.

While all of this is going on, high school student Suzuka Takagi, moves next door to the cursed house where Kayako and Toshio reside. She begins having nightmares about the house and its ghostly inhabitants. Suzuka eventually encounters Keizo and Tamao, who tell her not to enter the house under any circumstances. This does not stop her from entering the house in the middle of the night with her parents, however. Suzuka’s parents are swiftly killed by Toshio and Kayako, but Suzuka is rescued by Keizo, Tamao and Yuri. During the rescue, Keizo throws a bag full of Sadako’s hair into the house, and the hair attaches itself to Kayako. The group then decides that they must all work together to put Keizo’s plan into action. His plan is for both girls to enter the house, Suzuka will then watch the cursed tape, and Yuri will see Kayako. This, in theory, would cause both girls to become victims of both curses, leading to both spirits fighting over both girls, leading to them destroying each other. 

When they eventually put the plan into action, Toshio appears and attempts to attack the girls. Before he can attack the girls, Sadako drags him into the television with her hair. Toshio lets out a scream and is presumed to be dead, or at least defeated. Sadako then comes completely out of the television, just as Kayako is crawling down the stairs and the heroes are attempting to escape. This leads to the first face-off between Sadako and Kayako.  The two fight for a short while, however the fight does not have a clear winner, with neither spirit being defeated. Keizo realizes that his plan was not successful, and orders the girls to escape before he goes to his final gambit plan.

Keizo then tells the girls that one of them will have to lure both Kayako and Sadako into the well in the backyard, in order to trap both spirits inside. Yuri decides that she will be the one to sacrifice herself, wishing to defeat Sadako once and for all. Both spirits sprint toward Yuri, however she jumps into the well just before the two collide. The collision creates a large explosion that knocks Keizo unconscious and creates a massive misshapen mass of flesh and large eyes and hair. The mass plummets into the well and it is presumed that Yuri is crushed to death. Suzuka then seals up the well and it is believed that both curses have been defeated once and for all. 

This is proven to not be the case, however, as the curses of both Kayako and Sadako have combined into one single entity, with the same mannerisms of Sadako and the same noises as Kayako, which is referred to as “Sadakaya”. Sadakaya has possessed Yuri’s body, and Toshio appears behind the heroes once again. It is not specified what happens to the heroes after this, however it can be heavily assumed that they are all killed by Sadakaya.

Sadako vs. Kayako grossed the equivalent of $8,385,267 when it hit the Box Office in Japan. The reviews of Sadako vs. Kayako, however, have been extremely mixed. Despite having “Vs.” in its title, as well as being billed as “The Scariest Showdown in Horror History” on much of the promotional material, John Squires, a writer for the horror news site “Bloody Disgusting” was very critical of the title. Squires stated that the title was extremely deceptive, even going o to state “It’s not merely that it takes too long to get to the good stuff, it’s that the good stuff never comes at all.” Squires then went on to state that the film was simply just not interesting. He wrote, “Feeling like a reboot of The Ring crudely smashed together with a reboot of The Grudge, the film hardly brings the two franchises together in any sort of creative fashion, and it’s all very clunky; worse yet, it’s incredibly boring.” Another negative review came from Joe Lipsett who also wrote for Bloody Disgusting. He wrote, “The biggest flaw of Sadako vs. Kayako is that it takes far, far too long to get the titular to face off.....Even the narrative hoops required to bring the two franchises together doesn’t hold up under scrutiny!”

There were still positive reviews for Sadako vs. Kayako, however. One of these came from Chris Alexander writing for comingsoon.net. He described the film as “goofy but entertaining”, and went on to write “The entire thing feels like an expanded viral video stunt, a fan-flick. But as we mentioned, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a good time.” Another similar review came from Katie Rife from “The A.V. Club” who wrote that the “vs.” in the title admittedly came up short, but she still also wrote “Still, for fans of Japanese horror looking for popcorn entertainment, or for fans of Western horror looking for something different-yet-familiar, it’s worth indulging your curiosity for 98 minutes.”

Sadako vs. Kayako is, understandably, very similar to other films in the J-Horror sub-genre, especially in terms of character types and themes. This film does not stray very far from the typical types that can be found in other J-Horror films. This is evident when the main characters in this film, much like the other films I have written about, are young Japanese women, either high school or college aged. This is the case for almost all of the films of both of the source franchises. Due to this being a cross-over film, the character type of the pale ghost with long black hair and a white dress remains. However, there is something to be said about this character type being almost identical in both of these source franchises. One character type that appears in this film that is more uncommon in other films of this genre is a character who has explicit psychic powers. There might be the occasional character in other films that may have some small psychic ability, however the character of Keizo in this film is the only one that I can think of who is in complete control of his psychic powers, and uses them constantly throughout the film.

Another element of Sadako vs. Kayako that is very similar to other J-Horror films are the themes present. The theme that is most prevalent is that of curses. Both source franchises have a foundation of curses being the cause of the main conflict. This is still true in this film, as both source curses are simply viewed concurrently. Curses, ghosts and spirits are extremely prevalent in Japanese culture, and they are taken very seriously which is why the ghosts in these films might be frightening to people from other parts of the world, but are simply terrifying for people of Japanese heritage, especially those from more traditional families.

Another element of Sadako vs. Kayako that is prevalent throughout the J-Horror sub-genre is the isolation of the events taking place. Essentially, these spirits and curses only exist in certain places, and only take certain forms. For instance, Sadako can only curse someone if they watch the cursed videotape, and Kayako can only curse someone if they set foot into her home. Due to these limitations, these curses are not spreading throughout the entire world (despite Natsumi attempting to put the cursed video on the internet), they are only happening to those who are unfortunate enough to come across them, more often than not by accident. This is why it is uncommon to see the police in these films, or even a great deal of other characters who are not part of the main cast. These characters are extremely for removed from the curses, and would not be able to interact with them. 

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Genre in Film in The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

The Cabin in the Woods was the first film directed by Drew Goddard, produced by Joss Whedon, and released in 2012 by Lionsgate. The Cabin in the Woods is primarily and most notably a horror film, however it is interesting due to the fact that it blends horror with comedic elements extremely well. Whedon and Goddard took only three days to write the screenplay for the film, and went on to describe the film as an attempt to both “revitalize the slasher film genre” as well as act as “a critical satire on torture porn”, which is another sub-genre of horror films that grew in popularity throughout the 2000’s.

The plot of Cabin in the Woods centers around a group college friends who travel to the isolated and titular cabin in the woods. Once they arrive there, they are made the victims of a family of zombie hillbillies who are attempting to kill them. It is then revealed that the cause of the zombies are a group of underground technicians working for a sinister organization, with the goal of sacrificing the teens as a yearly ritual to appease the bloodlust of an ancient god and prevent it from destroying the planet.

The way that this film expertly mixes horror and comedy comes from its meta and self-aware nature. There are numerous points during the film where the characters are about to make a decision that would typically be considered a horror movie cliche, and then an explanation is given for why the decision is made. This was mainly made popular by Scream in 1996, however not many films did this until Cabin in the Woods. Films began having more meta elements in them once many films were released in the late-80s that led to many horror franchises becoming stale, and the horror genre was viewed negatively, often being thought of as the same film over and over again.

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One Missed Call (2003)

One Missed Call is another Japanese supernatural horror film, this one released in 2003 and directed by Takashi Miike. This is another Japanese horror film that is derived from a novel; in this case, Chakushin Ari by Yasushi Akimoto. One Missed Call was released in theaters in Japan on January 17, 2004 and was originally distributed by Toho. It was eventually released in the United States with English subtitles by the company Media Blasters on April 22, 2005. The film was created with a budget of 1.7 million dollars, and made a total of $16,234,612 in the Box Office. Much like Ju-On: The Grudge and Ringu, this film received a sequel, which was released in 2005, as well as a third film, One Missed Call: Final which was released in June of 2006, and an American remake of the same title which was released in 2008.

The plot of One Missed Call focuses on a psychology student named Yumi Nakamura who is attempting to solve the mystery of her friend Yoko who suddenly died after receiving a call that is said to have come from her own phone number. Yumi eventually receives one of these messages herself coming from her own number. The date on the message claims that it came from two days in the future, and the audio of the message simply contains Yumi screaming in it. This is because the audio on the message is of Yumi’s own death taking place. Yoko’s death from earlier in the film eventually begins a chain reaction of more deaths, until Yumi comes into the knowledge that events similar to Yoko’s death have been happening for a long time in Japan, even before Yoko’s mysterious death. The rest of the film follows Yumi as she attempts to uncover the reason that these calls are taking place, as well as prevent her own death.

One Missed Call was given both positive and negative reviews from various critics, however the majority of the reviews stated that One Missed Call was too similar to other Japanese horror films, including Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge. Entertainment Weekly wrote a review of One Missed Call that stated, “One Missed Call is so unoriginal that the movie could almost be a parody of J-horror tropes”, yet "Miike, for a while at least, stages it with a dread-soaked visual flair that allows you to enjoy being manipulated.” LA Weekly wrote another review of the film that described the film as “a prolonged, maddening, predictable—yet curiously pleasurable—descent into incomprehensibility.” A third review of the film from The Philadelphia Inquirer made the statement “Miike, whose work usually veers into more surreal, experimental terrain, uses creepy-crawly juxtaposition, grisly violence, and dark humor to create a nightmare scenario for the text-message generation.” Although many of these reviews pointed out the flaws of One Missed Call, it did well enough in the Box Office to create its own franchise, though not as expansive as it’s J-horror counterparts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RIIEjG4gBM

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Ringu (1998)

Ring (also referred to as Ringu) is another Japanese horror film, which was directed by Hideo Nakata, and released in 1998. Ringu is often seen as a counterpart film to Ju-On The Grudge, and their American adaptations, The Ring and The Grudge, are also often seen as counterparts. Ringu is also based off of a novel written by Koji Suzuki, with the same title. The plot of Ringu centers around a reporter who is searching for the answers to a new mystery about a cursed VHS videotape that somehow kills anyone who watches it, seven days after they watch it. Ringu was released on January 31, 1998 in Japan, as the exact same time as its sequel, Rasen. 

Production for Ringu took roughly nine months, and following the release of the film, it was a massive success in Japan, reaching over 1 billion yen in Japan, the equivalent of over 8,980,000 United States Dollars. Ringu was also critically acclaimed by critics, scoring a 97% on the Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer”. As previously stated, Ringu led to many more continuations of the Ring franchise, including an American remake that has two sequels, the most recent one, Rings, being released in January of 2017. 

One theme that is prevalent in Ringu, and often talked about by critics is that the film is somewhat heavy-handed with its depiction of Japanese traditions colliding with more modern elements. One example of this was cited by Colette Balmain who stated “In the figure of Sadako, Ring [utilises the] vengeful yūrei archetype of conventional Japanese horror”. She then goes on to describe how the more traditional Japanese culture is signified by the cursed VHS video tape, which she states “embodies contemporary anxieties, in that it is technology through which the repressed past reasserts itself”. This final statement relates to the backstory of the character Sadako in the film. Sadako was a young girl with psychic powers, who was thrown down a well by her father, where she eventually died. Her spirit remained, however, and possessed the VHS videotape, leading to people being killed by it. This is what Balmain meant by the past reasserting itself.

The ending of this film can be viewed multiple ways, due to the fact that there is resolution to it, however it is somewhat of an open ending. Essentially, the characters realize that they can prevent their deaths after watching the tape by creating a copy of the tape and showing it to someone else. One critic, Jay McRoy, viewed the ending in a more optimistic light. He viewed it with the point of view that if the characters understand what they have to do in order to prevent their deaths, they can simply do what they must do and then move on. Balmain had a different viewpoint, however. She views the ending as the replication of the videotape acting as a form of technology spreading through Japan almost in the same way a virus or disease would. 

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Film sound in The Thing (1982)

The Thing is a science-fiction horror film from 1982 directed by John Carpenter. The Thing is extremely highly regarded for its use of practical effects used to create the titular Thing. One aspect of The Thing that is often overlooked by casual viewers of the film, however, it its use of sound, and in many cases a lack of sound. The scene that I have attached to this post is an example of this. This film utilizes many quiet areas and scenes throughout its runtime. Due to this normally quiet atmosphere, moments where an extremely loud sound comes out of nowhere are made even more impactful, such as this scene, where a seemingly dead body becomes the titular Thing and bites off the hands of the crew’s doctor Copper. Moments like this appear throughout the film, and in general the film maintains a relatively calm yet tense atmosphere during any scenes where The Thing is not present. This helps to increase the tension of the film, as The Thing can take the form of any of the humans shown in the film, so there is a growing sense of distrust throughout the film as all of the survivors begin to become suspicious of one another.

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Editing and Montage in Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz is a film directed by Edgar Wright in 2007. Edgar Wright has an extremely distinct style of editing and directing his film, in that he uses a great deal of montages throughout them. One example of this is during the beginning the film when Officer Angel is moving to his new home in Sanford. This montage consists of many short, close-up shots of Angel and all of his belongings. These montages are very common throughout Hot Fuzz, as well as Edgar Wright films in general. These montages often act as ways to very quickly show various events taking place, even quicker however in this case, as these shots are all extremely short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8dFK5nI1YA

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Ju-On: The Grudge is a supernatural, ghost-based horror film, and is one of the most well-known films of the J-Horror genre. It was released on October 18, 2002, directed and written by Takashi Shimizu. Ju-On: The Grudge is the third film in the Ju-On franchise, and the first to be released in theaters, with the first two being direct-to-video releases. Ju-On: The Grudge has since spawned numerous sequels, as well as an American remake in 2004 with the abbreviated title The Grudge, which also has several sequels Ju-On: The Grudge made over 500 million Japanese Yen, and additionally made $3,657,876 in various theaters overseas.

Ju-On: The Grudge, as well as the rest of the Ju-On franchise all focus around the Japanese belief and superstition that if a person is killed in a state of incredible sadness or anger, that the person’s vengeful spirit will remain in the place that they were killed, and curse anyone who enters that place. These spirits are known as onryō, literally translated to “vengeful spirit” or sometimes “wrathful spirit”. This term refers to a ghost that is believed to be capable of causing harm in the world of the living, harming or killing enemies, or even causing natural disasters in order to exact vengeance on the people who killed them, and to redress the wrongs it received while it was alive, before taking the spirits of it’s enemies dying bodies.

These spirits have a specific and very iconic appearance that has developed, in no small part due to the success of the Ju-On franchise. The appearance of the ghosts typically consisted of three main elements. The first is a while burial kimono or white dress, while the second is wild, unkempt long black hair, which is often seen to be supernatural and having a mind of its’ own in these films. The third element is face make-up, usually consisting of white foundation, to give the ghost the look of being extremely pale. This foundation is typically coupled with face paintings of blue shadows and an “indigo fringe”, which is very similar to how villains are shown in kabuki make-up artistry normally. 

In my research I found this particular point about the face paint interesting, due to the fact that throughout the films in the Ju-On franchise that I have seen, the ghosts are almost never seen with any sort of color on their faces. Except for the occasional splatter of blood, their faces remain almost entirely barren of color throughout. I am very curious about this design decision. Was this simply to make the ghosts be more pale to make them more frightening? I personally believe that if that were to be the case, that it was a successful idea. These ghost always scared me half to death when I saw these films in my youth, and still do to this day, although to a slightly lesser extent. Would they have had the same impact on me if they were outfitted with these colors on their faces? I do not think so…

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Horror is a genre of film in Japan that is instantly recognizable. This is because most horror films that come from North America follow a standard formula of getting their horror from jump scares and great deal of blood and gore, typically with a serial killer such as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees stalking a group of teenagers and killing them one by one. Most Japanese horror, or “J-horror” as it is commonly abbreviated, however, has more of a focus on suspense and psychological horror. Rather than having a killer run around slaughtering teenagers, they usually instead include elements such as paranormal activity such as ghost or poltergeists, as well as features such exorcism, possession, shamanism, precognition and yokai (various types of ghosts in Japanese culture). 

Japanese horror has origins that can be traced back to classical periods in Japanese history, such as the Edo and Meji periods, which are also referred to as “kaidan” or “kwaidan” which literally translates to “ghost story”. The folktales form these periods contained certain elements that have been incorporated into many modern Japanese horror films, the most notable one being the Japanese ghost. Films in this category have been described as a great deal more scary than horror movies from the West. These films include titles such as Noroi, The Curse Ju-On (which has an American remake titled The Grudge), Ringu (which also has an American remake titled The Ring), and One Missed Call (along with an American adaptation of the same name), and all of these films contain some form of Japanese ghost or paranormal activity. This led to these Japanese films often being deemed “supernatural dramas”. Many of these films have American remakes or adaptations, which provides interesting competition for these films. If someone has seen the American versions first, like myself, they can potentially then become interested in seeing the original Japanese versions, and deciding which version they prefer. This can also be applied inversely. If someone sees the original Japanese versions of these films, they can potentially be interested in seeing the American remakes, and deciding which version they enjoy more. 

Japanese horror movies are unlike typical American horror movies that we are used to seeing, do to the fact that they utilize silence to create suspense and terror, rather than loud screams and jump scares. It is typical of these Japanese films create a sense of dread that stays constant throughout the entire film. This feeling of dread and suspense usually shows up in the film, despite there not being very much actual content on the screen. These things can include an item that was seen earlier, now knocked over from it’s original location, or a shadow behind a character that you are sure belongs to the ghost in question. All of these elements create this feeling of suspense, that typically leaves the viewer with a feeling of unease and tension due to not knowing what will come next.