A presentation about the history of horror

1. The Horror film genre
Early Horror was inspired by art and literature as well as
ancient myth & folklore & focused on the supernatural
& the occult for its horror. Henry Fuseli’s painting The
Nightmare (1781) is believed to have influenced Mary
Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein & features a demon.

2. Emerging in the late 1700s, Gothic Literature was a key
influence. The ‘Gothic’ part of the name refers to pseudo
medieval buildings that these stories took place in – old
castles on a dark & stormy night – gloomy forests,
dungeons & secret passage ways.
The Gothic Novel

3. The monster’s murder of Victor Frankenstein’s wife in Mary
Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein (1819) Is believed to be
inspired by The Nightmare. It was later made into a
Hollywood film with Carl Laemmle’s Universal Pictures
releasing it in 1931 ( James Whale) starring Boris Karloff.

4. Frankenstein was well received by audiences & critics at the box
office and led to many sequels. It helped to establish alongside
Dracula, the supernatural/monster genre, as well as being an early
example of science fiction.

5. The sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was
born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre
by John Polidori & was influential in the early
19th century. But it is Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic
novel Dracula which is remembered
The Gothic novel
& the occult

7. The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia; the
Ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of blood drinking
demons and spirits which were precursors to modern
vampires. Many myths emerge during the medieval period
but the folklore for the modern vampire originates in the
late 17th century in southeastern Europe. These tales formed
the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany
Nosferatu

8. Nosferatu (Murnau 1922), is one of the earliest classics of Horror
& was influenced by German Expressionism. The film was an
unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, & Stoker's heirs
sued over the adaptation. A court ruling ordered all copies of the
film be destroyed. However, one print survived, & the film is now
regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.

9. The Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany
due to the isolation the country during World War I. The plots
often dealt with madness, insanity, & betrayal, & were a direct
reaction against realism. They used extreme distortions in
expression to show an inner emotional reality rather than
what is on the surface.
German
Expressionism

10. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish
budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic,
geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls
and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. This
dark, moody school of film making was brought to the United
States when the Nazis gained power and a number of German
filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood.

11. Two genres in Hollywood clearly influenced by Expressionism were
horror & film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had made
a name for themselves producing such famous horrors of the
silent era as The Phantom of the Opera. Now German filmmakers
such as Karl Freund ( cinematographer for Dracula 1931) set the
style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with
their dark and artistically designed sets.
German Expressionism’s influence on Hollywood horror

12. Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are
common today in films that do not need reference to real
places such as science fiction films (eg, Ridley Scott's 1982
Blade Runner, which was itself influenced by Metropolis).[

13. Universal Pictures made the first cycle of horror films –
triggered in part by the coming of sound in 1927. In the silent
era, Universal had made The Phantom of the Opera &
Hunchback of Notre Dame both starring Lon Chaney. But in
the 30s, Universal sunk their teeth into horror, kicking off the
Universal Gothic horror cycle with Dracula, 1931 starring Bela
Universal’s 1930’s
Horror

15. While Universal’s offerings slipped from Horror to formula the
smallest of the big 5 studios – RKO started to lay the stylistic
foundation for low budget horror films to come. Val Lewton
produced these for $150,000 a piece. Using leftover studio sets
& creating the scares by using mood and shadows rather than
makeup and monsters – Cat People (Tourneur 1942) was a stab
at the more psychologically scary films in the decades to come.

16. After the Supreme Court rulings of 1948 which ripped apart the
studio system & cut-throat competition with tv for audiences, in
the 1950s, Hollywood became increasingly desperate. Horror films
got relegated to B-film status & A-list talent was used for lavish
epics. But horror was popular with teens who wanted thrills even
if the plot lines were becoming more ludicrous. Cold War
Horror
Break up of Studio System

17. Horror films began moving away from the dominant
staple of Monsters & the Supernatural & began to tap
into the 1950’s cold war fear of invasion & nuclear
annihilation. This developed into a Pulp Science Fiction
cycle with films like The Thing From Another World, The
Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) & Forbidden Planet &
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

18. The 1960s herald an explosion of styles and cycles & sub-genres in
the genre as it gains in popularity, prestige & freedom. (The
restrictive censorship of the Production Code was abandoned in
1964). Advances in technology also allow for greater use of special
effects & more gore.
Psychology, sex & gore

19. Hitchcock’s Psycho shocked audiences & led
to the view that Horror could be more than B-movie fare.
Unlike the monsters of previous horror cycles
be they supernatural, demonic, mutated or from
outer space, Norman Bates was rooted in reality.
Human on the outside but with the mind
of a monster.
Psychological Horror
Hitchcock

20. In the late 50s Hammer Films Productions in Britain began
rebooting Universal’s Gothic Monsters – but adding sex and
gore. Shot in full color, Hammer’s first Gothic horror reboot
was Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)with
Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein & Christopher Lee as the
monster. For the first time in a Frankenstein film, blood was
shown on screen in full chilling color.
Hammer Horror – sex & Gore

21. Between 1957 & 1974, Hammer cranked out 7 Frankenstein
movies, 6 Draculas, 9 other vampire outings, 2 Jekyll &
Hydes, and 3 Mummy films. The Hammer Studio, located on
the banks of the River Thames became the setting of it’s
own parody – as it’s country style Down Place mansion was
used as the set for Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975, a
film that is a send up of the Hammer Horror style.
Sex & Gore
Hammer Horror

22. In the US, inspired by Hammer’s winning formula of sex and
gore B-movie producer Roger Corman began making low
budget movies beginning with Little Shop of Horrors in 1960;
shot in three days with a budget of just $30,000 using sets
that had been left over from Bucket of Blood. Corman knew
what audiences wanted, blood and babes. His greatest
acclaim as a director came with his Edgar Allan Poe Cycle
released between 1959 and 1964.

23. From the 60s Horror was being taken seriously by critics &
audiences. This set the stage for important horror films sub-
genres that developed in the following decades. The Occult
– films about Satan and the Supernatural – was a popular
big budget subjects – notably Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s
Baby in 1968 & The Exorcist (1973) directed by William
Friedkin, Richard Donnor’s The Omen (1976) & Stuart
Rosenberg’s Amnityville Horror (1979).
The Occult

24. In the 70s a group of filmmakers The Film School
Generation who formally studied horror began to make
horror films or inject it into their filmmaking. Brian De
Palma’s Carrie in 1976 set the stage for a Teen Horror cycle.
1979’s Alien by Ridley Scott successful remixed horror and
science fiction as did John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing
in 1982.
The
Film School
Generation

25. Horror has been a staple of the low budget film world since the
50s. As film production technology has advanced & costs have
steadily declined the rise of independent filmmakers has allowed
for more & more new takes on horror. Films like Stanley Kubricks
1980s The Shining which fused the psychological and the
supernatural & went on to become a classic.

26. Produced on a budget of $325,000 & grossing $240 million
dollars, John Carpenters 1978 hit Halloween is one of the
most successful independent horror film to date. The first
of it’s kind - a Hitchcock inspired slasher film- there is in fact
very little gore; low budgets forced Carpenter to construct
his horror inside everyday suburbia.

27. There are three modern horror film cycles which arose in late
nineties & 2000s Torture Porn is the modern reboot of the
Splatter films going back to the Hammer Horror era. This
latest cycle emphasizes intense gore, grunge and often
tortuous violence. The Saw franchise, the most successful
horror film franchise of all time, is considered the first in this
latest crop of splatter films with it’s first installment in 2004
by James Wan.

28. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Eduardo Sanchez & Daniel
Myrick represents the first major film in the modern
found footage horror sub-genre. It pieces together first
hand footage to reconstruct the last terrifying moments
of the original eye witness. Blair Witch also one of the
first films to be marketed through the internet.

29. With roots going back to George A Romero’s Night of the
Living Dead in 1968 the modern Zombie Apocalypse
Cycle began when Danny Boyle breathed a new life into
the undead genre with 28 Days Later in 2002. Recent
Zombie films feed on our fears of a medical pandemic and
the break down of society.