What is it that draws viewers to scary movies? Is it the suspense factor? The jump scare? That rush of adrenaline when you hear the eerie music before something horrible happens?

From the classics, like “The Birds” and “Psycho” to the campy, like “Friday the 13th,” to the psychological, like “The Shining,” there’s movies to make you laugh, start your heart pumping, get you ready to leap out of your seat or afraid to go to sleep.

Recently, members of the Southwest Minnesota State University Drama Club shared some of their thoughts on what makes a good scary movie or television show and a few of their horror favorites.

A good plot is essential to a scary movie, said Emilie Baartman.

“Because if you just have the scary stuff, then why is there so much gore in the first place,” she said.

A sense of dread is also necessary, Jaylee Schanus said.

“Because if you’re going to a horror movie, you want to be scared,” she said.

A good scary movie has a few qualities to it, said Kyle Havlicek – a relatable setting or situation, it can get into the audiences’ heads and makes them think, characters that aren’t just one-dimensional, an interesting story that can keep the attention of the audience and has the label “based on a true story,” whether it actually is or not.

Erica Hansen said a good scary movie will have a lot of “jump scares.”

“The way eerie music (plays) – just building up the tension, then the jump scare,” Hansen said. Also, she said, a scary movie should makes you think and always keeps you guessing.

“What makes a good scary movie is a sense of unease, a sense of knowing something is off,” said Kevin Huizenga.

Havlicek said it’s hard to describe what’s scary as not much scares him.

“Scary movies have some suspense, but it can’t be built just around just that, that’s what differentiates the two genres of suspenseful and horror,” he said. “The scariest movies happen in an isolated part of town where I could possibly be living, especially if it mostly takes place inside a house or a school. It needs to have some shock value that the audience wasn’t expecting, and it needs to be built up properly.”

“I think that a suspenseful atmosphere really makes a horror movie,” Schanus said. “If it didn’t have one, it really wouldn’t be very scary.” She said she is more often scared by suspense because she never knows what is going to happen next, and that is always scary.

Scary means a thing, person or situation that puts a person in a state of unease, Huizenga said.

“Personally, I prefer suspense over shock because shock tends to pull me out of the unease, while it may cause a scream, and it is jarring and disjointed,” Huizenga said.

Havlicek has a couple of movies he really enjoys and feels like they are horror movies for different reasons. One of the few movies that has ever truly scared him was “The Strangers.”

“It takes place in the house of a fighting couple, and we can see the killers throughout the whole movie, but they are wearing masks so there is a lot of mystery to them,” Havlicek said. “Just thinking that someone could be hiding somewhere in your house would make anyone feel uncomfortable.”

“Requiem for a Dream” is another “scary” movie Havlicek enjoys. It follows the story of four drug users, three of which are hard drug users, and the final one is an older woman who went to the doctor for diet pills and was prescribed some type of pill that gives her huge spurts of energy.

“Seeing how addiction destroys the lives of these four characters is extremely disturbing by itself, but when you think that this same thing is happening to many people across the world this very minute also gets into your head and makes you scared,” he said.

Huizenga said he likes movies like “The Shining” and “Signs,” which build a lot of suspense through the uneasy feeling that pervades the film.

“The Conjuring” or “The Taking of Deborah Logan” were a couple of scary movies Hansen noted.

Schanus said she likes to watch “American Horror Story” sometimes, and she also really likes watching any horror movies with her dad, mom and a few of their friends.

Horror movies are addicting because they get your adrenaline running, Havlicek said.

“They leave you thinking even after the movie is over, and you debate whether you should go outside in the dark or just wait until the daytime,” Havlicek said. “Different movies scare different people depending on what their personal fears are.”