History of horror

1. history of horror

2. Silent era of horror and german expressionism
German expressionism was a style of cinema that emphasized expression. It started its way through europe which allowed
German filmmakers and artists to develop a unique style inside a cultural bubble, this came about mainly because of World
War 1. Hitler tried to make many directors film propaganda for the war, but as most of them were Jews so they decided to
run to America and which then began the spread of creativity of the german film industry grew quite quickly and creatively.
The films created also draw upon the folklore and legends of Europe, they rendered monsters into physical forms for
example sprites, by capturing ghosts on camera. This allowed filmmakers to take a darker root with their stories.

3. The cabinet of Dr Caligari
This film is about a madman, pitting an evil doctor against a hero was was falsely incarnated at a lunatic
asylum. Through a clever framing device the audience is never sure on who the mad or who is sane, and
viewing the skewed take on reality and stylised performances explain that.
The audience views the film in a twisted vision of the narrator where: roads, houses, and hills took on a
terrifying form. It struck a chord with many of the viewers that watched it, around this time it mainly would
have the Germans that saw it as they were suffering from the economic consequences of the war.

4. Nosferatu
Nosferatu was the first vampire film to be released which plagiarised the Dracula story. The character in
the film has extremely long fingernails which he wraps around his victims necks. Throughout the film
shadows and light are used effectively to enhance the horror in the film.
The film clashed very heavily with dracula causing friction between the director of the film and Bram
Stoker's widow. After negotiations the director changed the characters names but did not change the story
which resulted in copies of the film got destroyed apart from one which allowed the film to resurface quite
recently.

5. Roots of the horror genre
The very first horror films were based on gothic literature which came around in the 1700s from the likes of Edgar Allan Poe,
Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. Their stories mainly contained monsters, murders, demons, beasts. Such as Dracula and
Frankenstein which became the foundation for most horror films that we know today. There was also ghost stories which
had been told around the campfire in the 1700s. The stories used for the first horror came from Great Britain and America,
the gothic part of the name refers to pseudo medieval buildings that the stories took place in.
Many of the films created from gothic literature was either psychological or supernatural and it was left to the audience to
decide which one it was. For example Dracula combined the supernatural with him being a vampire but also the
psychological with sexaul reinforcements behind it which creates an anti-hero in the count whose appeal shows no sign of
diminishing over the centuries

6. Monsters and mad scientists
It’s hard to overstate just how important sound was
when it came to film in the 1920s. It benefited horror
films immensely by allowing them to add screams as
well as the tense music we all know and love today.
The Hollywood studio system ( Universal Studio ) of the
1930s were the first studio to be responsible for the
cycle of horror films. They distributed films but did not
have any theater holdings. During the silent era,
Universal were responsible for few achievements in
American horror for example The phantom of opera, The
hunchback of notre dame which both starring Lon
Chaney. But in the 30s Universal really sunk their teeth
into the gothic horror genre.
Dracula was the first big hit which was released in 1931.
James Whale continued the cycle with Frankenstein in
the same year. But after awhile the universal gothic
horror cycle began to lose steam and parodies came
around which made the monsters seem less scary so
the studies had to think of a new way to give the
audience a scare.

7. The primal animal within
The period between post World War 2 and the 1950s was perhaps the most difficult time Hollywood had ever gone through.
Horror films got relegated to strictly B-film status as they preserved its A-list talent for lavish films, but horror films were still
popular among the teens. The icy soviet-american arms race meant the nuclear boogey man was always top of mind.
Horror films tapped into cold war fear of invasion blending into a pulp science fiction cycle with films like: The thing from the
other world, The day the earth stood still which were both made in 1951, and Invasion of the body snatchers and Forbidden
planet both in 1956. But monsters didn’t only come for outer space, creatures also emerged from under the earth’s surface
with the film Black lagoon and Godzilla in 1954.
By the mid 1950s the pulp sci-fi cycle would come to an end and be taken over by exploitive producers like William Castle
who relied on gimmicks to sell tickets to low rent horror outings. Castle promised $1000 life insurance to anyone that died
of fright while watching his film Macabre in 1958. Also while the audience watched The Tingler in 1959 they wired up movie
theater seats with joy buzzers and encouraged the audience to scream as a way of calming down the spine monster that
was set loose in the theater.

8. Psychology, sex and gore
From the 1960s on there was a massive explosion of style and cycles into the horror
genre as it gained in popularity, prestige and freedom once the restrictive censorship of the production
code was abandoned in 1964.
Alfred Hitchcock was the main director in this time producing the film Psycho which shocked audiences into believing horror
could be more than just monsters. Unlike monsters from previous horror films, Norman Bates was an ordinary human on the
outside but has deep psychological problems which meant he was a monster inside. Hitchcock delivered another film The
birds which followed the same nature in 1963.
On the other hand in Britain, Hammer productions started to reboot Universals gothic horror films by adding sex and gore. It
was shot in full colour, Hammer’s first gothic horror reboot was The house of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing as Dr
Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as Frankenstein. For the first time in the film, blood was shown on screen and in full
colour. Between 1956 and 1974 Hammer released 7 Frankenstein films, 6 Dracula's, 9 other vampire films, 2 Jekyll and
Hyde and 3 Mummy films. Back in America, Hammers success was now starting to work its way over there
Horror was now starting to be taken seriously

9. Nightmare decade: in front of children
In the 1970s many things changed from its happy outlook in the 60s, but when society went bad, horror film got good and
the seventies saw the return of big budget respectable horror films which dealt with contemporary societal issues,
addressing genuine psychological fears.
Children are the main focus in horror films in the 1960s for the example The village of the damned which showed kids can
be spooky and do horrible things to their parents, this theme continued through the 1970s. It became known as the enemy
within, but instead of it being an alien or monster it was someone from your own family. The seventies were about deep set
paranoia, and the fear that the moral shift of the 1960s had created a culture of monsters.
The Exorcist came from this time being voted the scariest horror film in 1999. The special effects
were good for its time which made the film even more shocking to the audience even to
our standards now.

10. Slasher movies and body gore
Horror has been the staple for low budget world since the Universal creature day as a film production progressed and costs
steadily declined the rise of independent filmmakers meant a rise of new takes of horror.
Tobe Hooper’s The chainsaw massacre in 1974, based on the plot serial killer Ed Gein who was also the inspiration for
Psycho and Silence of the lambs was shot on a low budget. Although it did not do well financially it made many teenagers
terrified which then brought around many more teen slasher movies. John Carpenter’s Halloween was one of the most
successful independent films ever made, produced of a budget of $325,000 and grossing an income of $240 million as of
2012, Halloween is the first of it’s kind Hitchcock inspired slasher film. Unlike many of its follow ups, Halloween contained
little graphic violence and gore. Without much money to spend on props and sets, Carpenter constructed his inside
everyday suburbia. But horror in the streets worked.
Friday the 13th directed by Sean S. Cunningham in 1980 and Nightmare on elm street by Wes Craven in 1984 were both
studio backed slasher films that followed the similar horror in the backyard formula to big success and lots of sequels. Evil
dead increased the amount of gore and blood splatter to make a high gross income. Theses films are now what we consider
classics