Monsters and Demons: A Short History of the Horror Film
by: Astrid Bullen
Going to the movies may not seem like a novel way for
little kids to spend an afternoon. But have you ever brought your
child to see
a Disney flick and ended up viewing trailers for Jeepers Creepers 2
or Freddie vs. Jason? When this happened in a Birmingham, Alabama cinema
last year, parents became concerned about what the main attraction
would be. But before the managers at the cinema could turn off the
previews, the main attraction came on, and it wasn’t Piglet.
Instead they were presented with the gruesome opening of Wrong Turn,
an 18-rated slasher flick in much the same vein as the previews.
Is there a more genre more criticized than the horror
film? Not bloody likely. There’s the argument that horror films are socially and
morally irresponsible, even influencing some people to imitate the
brutal methods of the killers portrayed on screen. Horror films actually
have the opposite effect on normal people – sick minds will commit
atrocities anyway. Watching horror films lets us encounter our secret
fears, share them with other viewers, and eliminate the terror by meeting
it head-on.
The genre is almost as old as cinema itself – the silent short
film Le Manoir du Diable directed by Georges Mèliès in
1896 was the first horror movie and the first vampire flick. The movie
only lasted two minutes, but audiences loved it, and Mèliès
took pleasure in giving them even more devils and skeletons.
In the early 1900’s German filmmakers created the first horror-themed
feature films, and director Paul Wegener enjoyed great success with
his version of the old Jewish folk tale Der Golem in 1913 (which he
remade – to even greater success – in 1920). This fable
about an enormous clay figure, which is brought to life by an antiquarian
and then fights against its forced servitude, was a clear precursor
to the many monster movies that flourished in Hollywood during the
Thirties.
The most enduring early German horror film is probably
F.W. Murnau’s
Nosferatu (1922), the first feature-length vampire movie. But one movie
paved the way for the “serious” horror film – and
art cinema in general – Robert Wiene’s work of genius The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, still held up as an model of the potent creativity
of cinema even to this day.
Early Hollywood drama dabbles in horror themes including versions
of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) starring Lon Chaney, the first
American horror-film movie star.
It was in the early 1930’s that Universal Studios, created the
modern horror film genre, bringing to the screen a series of successful
gothic-steeped features including Dracula, Frankenstein (both 1931)
and The Mummy (1932) – all of which spawned numerous sequels.
No other studio had as much success with the genre (even if some of
the films made at Paramount and MGM were better).
In the nuclear-charged atmosphere of the 1950’s
the tone of horror films shifted away from the gothic and towards
the modern. Aliens
took over the local cinema, if not the world, and they were not at
all interested in extending the tentacle of friendship. Humanity had
to overcome endless threats from Outside: alien invasions, and deadly
mutations to people, plants, and insects. Two of the most popular films
of the period were The Thing From Another World (1951) and Invasion
of the Bodysnatchers (1956).
Horror movies became a lot more lurid – and gorier – in
the late Fifties as the technical side of cinematography became easier
and cheaper. This era saw the rise of studios centered exclusively
on horror, particularly British production company Hammer Films, which
focused on bloody remakes of traditional horror stories, often starring
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and American International Pictures
(AIP), which made a series of Edgar Allan Poe themed films starring
Vincent Price.
The early 1960’s saw the release of two films that sought to
close the gap between the subject matter and the viewer, and involve
the latter in the reprehensible deeds shown on screen. One was Michael
Powell’s Peeping Tom, the other was a very low-budget film called
Psycho, both using all-too-human monsters rather than supernatural
ones to scare the audience.
When Rosemary’s Baby began ringing tills in the
late Sixties, horror film budgets rose significantly, and many top
names jumped at
the chance to show off their theatrical skills in a horror pic. By
that time, a public fascination with the occult led to a series of
serious, supernatural-themed, often explicitly gruesome horror movies.
The Exorcist (1973) broke all records for a horror film, and led to
the commercial success of The Omen.
In 1975 Jaws, directed by a young Steven Spielberg,
became the highest grossing film ever. The genre fractured somewhat
in the late 1970’s,
with mainstream Hollywood focusing on disaster movies such as The Towering
Inferno while independent filmmakers came up with disturbing and explicit
gore-fests such as Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
John Carpenter’s Halloween introduced the teens-threatened-by-superhuman-evil
theme that would be copied in dozens of increasingly violent movies
throughout the 1980’s including the long running Friday the 13th
and A Nightmare on Elm Street series. Horror movies turned to self-mocking
irony and downright parody in the 1990’s – the teenagers
in Scream often made reference to the history of horror movies. Only
1999’s surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project attempted
regular scares.
So go ahead, take a stroll through these favourite
horror movies of all time. But pick your way very carefully, this
walk is not for the
faint of heart. And if you happen to hear what sounds like some subdued
whispering or soft creepy grating sounds, just pay no attention to
it. It’s probably only the wind.
About The Author
Astrid Bullen is a freelance writer and movie buff living in St. George’s,
Grenada. Visit her cool movie website at http://aboutfilm.info.
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