Here’s a ridiculously obvious statement: movies are a visual form of storytelling. This means that everything that goes into a shot or frame is a deliberate choice, from camera angles, the set, character blocking, wardrobe, props, overall production design, etc.; anything you see on screen contributes to the overall mood or aesthetic that tells you something about the scene, characters on screen, or overall narrative whether you realize it or not. And color is a common tool used to manipulate audience’s emotions in all genres, especially horror.

Sometimes the use of color is overt and loud, like the vivid, psychedelic palette of Suspiria– namely the intense reds- for which Dario Argento drew inspiration from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a means of conveying an innocent heroine surrounded constantly by evil. Just as Snow White was in her story. The use of color was a visual stand-in for evil, or the unseen Mother. While Suspiria is on the extreme end of the spectrum, bold colors in horror tends to be the standard. Reds and blacks are the most obvious, but cool tones of blues and purples often lend a chilling, tense mood.

Guillermo del Toro has said that “color should tell you about the character,” and uses it a bit more subtly for thematic effect. Yellow represents light and hope in del Toro’s films. Lead heroine Edith (Mia Wasikowska) in Crimson Peak is often dressed in yellow; she is the lightness that contrasts the harsh rage of Lucille (Jessica Chastain), shown in her red gowns or the crimson clay and ghostly victims of Allerdale Hall. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the fairy world is warm yellow while the harsh real world is cold blue. The director is providing insight to how we should feel about his characters or his worlds through color. In The Shape of Water, green was mostly an unwelcoming, clinical color. Giles paints lime green jello, which he refers to as “mold green.” The key lime pie? Bad. The lab? An unpleasant place washed in mint green. The ruthless Richard Strickland’s car? Also green. So, too, is the creature to some extent, but his greens are earthlier, mixed with blues and neutrals.

In The Shape of Water, its the pastel and mint greens that provide an unsettling feeling, and it’s hardly the first time the color has been used in that way.

Stanley Kubrick was fond of using red in his films, and that was evident throughout the Overlook hotel in The Shining. From the patterned carpet, the elevator doors, the bathroom walls, and the copious amounts of blood, red was everywhere. Everywhere except Room 237. The moment little Danny Torrance stepped out of the bold halls of the Overlook into the excessively mint green bathroom of Room 237, something felt off before we even laid eyes on the eerie woman in the bathtub. Pastels and muted colors like the extreme use of green in Room 237 are meant to be soothing, but in horror it signifies psychological turmoil lurking beneath the surface. It’s exacerbated in The Shining by the jarring transition from bold hues to a muted palette, only separated by a single door in a sprawling hotel.

This color transition is the opposite in It Follows, where the muted pastel palette represents the innocence of Jay (Maika Monroe). In the beginning, she dresses in baby pinks and her room is painted and decorated in similar tones. But once she receives the inherited entity post-coital from a one-night stand, both Jay’s dress and surroundings shift into bolder, darker colors. Once again, pastel hues are prominent in psychological-based horror.

Director Gore Verbinski doesn’t dabble in horror often, but when he does you can count on him to go heavy handed with the mint, clinical green to deliver a feeling of unease. Both The Ring and A Cure for Wellness relied on washed out tones and greens to convey a sense of sickness. Something is very off in these worlds, and that green is the visual cue.

Last year’s Hereditary was packed with oppressive dread, and its color scheme reflected that. The dark undertones matched the bleakness of the narrative. Conversely, Ari Aster’s follow up, Midsommar, is vibrant and rich. The sunny blues, and yellows, and oranges, and pinks makes sense, given the summer and blossoming nature festival setting; but the soft focus lighting gives the colors a dreamlike quality that makes it feel off kilter. There’s something menacing hiding behind the lush greenery under the bright blue sky.

Production design is a vital component in filmmaking. In horror, it’s a necessary tool in creating dread and atmosphere, as is the sound design. Sometimes the meaning behind a film’s color palette is simply a preference, but often it’s something much more intricate and symbolic. The meaning behind the color’s use is ever fluid, too; red might be evil in Suspiria, but it represents a love of cinema in The Shape of Water. Color is a way to trigger primal feelings in an intuitive way, and it doesn’t get much more primal than horror.

What are your favorite uses of color in horror?