History of Horror

1. Horror is unique amongst the film industry because their detectible design tends to repeat
itself again and again. By this I mean someone will come along take an old film or book and
re-invent it. They can get away with it because the purpose of a horror filmis to scare its
audience. Therefore, today most horror films will have a similar plot to every other film in its
sub-genre. Furthermore, most films today can be traced back to the original which, has just
been forgotten about. For example, when people think of the women in black people think
of Daniel Radcliff in the women in black film which was realised in 2012. That film has had a
prequel made and is in making of 3rd movie. However, the first one in 2012 was a copy with
different jump scare of the first women in black film released in 1989. And that version was
a straight copy of Susan Hills Horror novella in 1983. My point is when the women in black
sequels run out of steam, the original smash hit fades into memory waiting to be re-made
by someone else. And no one will mind because unlike other filmgenres, people watch
horrors to be scared, so as long as the scenes are different, the plot can be exactly the same
every time.
Looking at films today and tracing them back to their original is easy. However, tracing the
genre of horror back to its starting point is impossible. This is because monsters, murderer’s
demons and beasts have been around for as long as religion, whereas ghost stories have
been around since our species have learned to talk. But, the roots of filmed horror can be
rooted back to gothic literature. Gothic literature took off in the late 1700s in both Britain
and America. Famous gothic writers such as Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Edgar Alan Poe
popularised the genre in their pieces Frankenstein, Dracula and the Raven.

2. Around the time of the late 1800s silent films had just came about. Meanwhile, Gothic
literature was becoming popular hit in books and theatre. This inspired the creation of the
‘spoke tale’ in 1895 createdby the Lumiere brothers. Althoughthe word‘horror’didnotcome into
use until the 1930s. Spoke Tale wasthe firsttime filmmakerssaw opportunityinusinggothic
elementsintheirfilms. In1896 GeorgesMêlées wouldgoonto create what isconsideredtobe the
firsthorror filmevermade: “TheManorof theDevil” – withbats,castles,trolls,ghosts,andademon
– playedbyGeorgesMêlées himself,youcansee the elementsof gothichorrorare already
firmly beingused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo
Silentfilmsinthe teensand20swere still exploringthe possibilitiesof thisnew filmmakingmedium.
Several experimentswere conductedincludingthe firstFrankensteinadaptedbyThomasEdison’s
studiosin1910. But, the heart of Horror in silentfilmswouldonlystarttobeatafterthe conclusion
of WW1 in the destroyedcountryof Germany.
GermanExpressionismiswhere Germanfilmsemphasizedexpressionoverthe harshrealitythatall
Germanswere facedafterWW1 and the brutal Treatyof Versailles. Thisstyle of cinemawas
developedinAmericaduringthe roaringtwenties.Itwasadaptedin Germanyas a way of lifting
morale.Withoutaninflux fromanalreadyinternationallypowerful Hollywood,the Germanfilm
industrygrewrapidly.The Germangovernment(WeimarRepublic) gambledonthe filmindustryand
decidedtoputmore moneyintoit despite all the economicproblemsandsocial problemsleftafter
VersaillesandWW1. Thisbecame knownasthe UFA and it wassuccessful.The UFA contributedto
Economicrevival of Germanyin1925-1939 in a famousperiodof Germanhistoryknownasthe
‘golden years’.However,asmostpeople are aware the goldenyearsbecame famousasitwasthe
onlybrightperiodinwhichfollowedthe mosthorribleperiodinGermanhistoryafterthe wall street
crash in 1929.
In the firstfewyearsof the WeimarRepublic,electricitywasstill scarce, sothe filmmakersdecided
to paintthe shadowsonthe setrather thantry to create themnaturallywithelectriclight. This
made the filmsdarkerwhichgave theirhorrorfilmsmore chilling.The firsthorrorfilmmade bythe
UFA withthistechnique wasthe film‘Golem:How he came to the world’in1925 whichwasa huge
success.

3. The UFA were on brink of collapsing in 1929 after government funding stopped after the
wall street crash which saw hyperflation leave Germany in ruins once again. On the brink of
collapse, Hollywood studios MGM and Paramount offered the UFA 4-million-pound loan to
continue and come make films in America. This agreement effectively moved German
Expressionisminto Hollywood. The wall street crash and the rise of Nazismlead to millions
of Germans fleeing the country. Many of which went to work in America, some in
Hollywood. The German Immigrant contribution would leave a lasting mark on the style of
films in the coming years.
The introduction of sound had a massive impact on the filmindustry. Horror perhaps
benefited from sound the most except perhaps musicals. Universal studios had made some
huge achievements in horror during the silent era most notable ‘the phantom of the opera’
and ‘Hunchback’. They noticed the curiosity people had with this genre and after the
introduction of controlled sound they made the first ‘Horror’ film compared to the previous
‘Gothic’ films. The first horror film was Dracula in 1931, it was lensed by the UFA and copied
Bram Stokers original novel. This was then followed by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein also
lensed by the UFA and was released in the same year. The cycle kicked off here and after
these two universal went on to make The Mummy, the invisible man, Werewolf in London
and the first ever prequel Dracula’s daughter in the next 3 years.
Unfortunately, momentum was slowing down when they ran out of ideas and made some
really bad prequels. Such as the Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy’s Hand, and
Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man in 1943. It got even worse when they brought all the
characters together in 1944’s House of Frankenstein and 1945’s House of Dracula. And by
1948 when Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in a surprising popular comedy, the
momentum of horror was lost.
From the post WW2 years and into the 1950s was a really bad time for Hollywood with the
supreme court rulings apart the studio systems. And after the universal string of bad
horrors, no one was making horror films as Hollywood desperately tried to stay relevant.
But, in the late 1950s the Soviet filmindustry took off and they were making all types of
films including horrors. Well, never to be out done by the soviets, the American government
put more money into Hollywood. Despite this, Hollywood wasn’t totally sure in horror films
but blended horror films with science fiction films. Films like The Thing from Another World,
The Day the Earth Stood Still both from 1951, and Forbidden Planet and Invasion of the Body
Snatchers both in 1956 and the first ever Godzilla became big hits.

4. By the mid-1950s the Pulp Sci-Fi Horror cycle would start to wear down and be taken over
by exploitative producers like WilliamCastle who relied on gimmicks to sell tickets to low
rent horror outings. They started to go back to traditional horror films with the slogan of
‘you will die of fright’. To make people even more curious, he made people sign a 1-
thousand-pound life insurance contact when they went to watch the haunted hill in 1958.
House on Haunted Hill in 1959 was filmed in “Emergo” which triggered a skeleton that
would fly around the theatre suspended on wires.

5. The 1960s saw the rise in popularity of horror films, instead of having skeletons on strings
scaring kids like would happen on a ghost train. The films wouldn’t allow kids in to watch the
film as the first age restrictions were made. They now faced a task off scaring adults. To do
this they needed to explore more daring and realistic plots. Once the restrictive censorship
of the Production Code was abandoned in 1964. The films got rid of monsters and sci-fi
ideas and concentrated on murderers and more realistic style of horrors. However, in the
UK horror films decided to re-boot the old universal movies but add sex, gore and jump
scares into the films. For the first time in a Frankenstein film, blood was shown on screen
and in full chilling colour. In the UK between 1957 and 1974, Hammer cranked out 7
Frankenstein movies, 6 Draculas, 9 other vampire outings, 2 Jekyll & Hyde’s, and 3 Mummy
films.
Back in the US, inspired by the adding of sex and gore. Rodger Corman, who can be seen
above, is regarded as a legend in the horror industry. Corman pumped films as fast as he
could – Little Shop of Horrors in 1960 was shot in just under three days with a budget of just
$30,000 using sets that had been left over from Bucket of Blood. He re-made a lot of Edgar
Allan Poe’s novels as he figured it was what American audiences wanted. House of
Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), and The
Raven (1963).
Horror was starting be taken seriously both at the highest craft of film production and at the
lowest: setting the stage for important horror films sub-genres that come in the following
decades.
The Occult – films about the Satan and the Supernatural. Then came what many consider
the greatest entry in the Occult cycle 1973’s: The Exorcist, The Omen and the Amityville
Horror. These films got people truly scared as they were films based on ‘true stories’. The
Amityville was especially popular as the actual Amityville murders which saw a 23-year-old
male murdered his family members and blamed it on a demon living in the house

6. dominated the news. Turning into a film exploiting the idea of demons and ghosts turned it
into chilling horror which many thought to be true.
Soon after this the rise Steven Spielberg. He created films which are regarded as classics
even too many of today’s younger generation. In creations of Jaws, Poltergeist and ET.
Horror films continued to rise in popularity in the 1980s with the creation of Friday the 13th
and nightmare on ElmStreet.
Horror reached its peak in Modern Horror, mainly down to the creation of CGI, the
evolvement in cameras, set design etc. Sub genres today can be defined easily, with
ghosts/demons, Aliens/Science fiction, Zombies, Vampires, murderers, etc.