Horror as a genre has roots in western culture's earliest myths. Horror can be seen as a representation of universal fears or of society's greatest fears. Horror films attempt to deal with society's fears on a subconscious level, because even if audiences may only perceive a film about a supernatural or paranormal form, they are actually seeing symbolic representations of universal fears such as death and destruction.
The Silent Era
Horror films first found inspiration from Gothic Literature. The genre was popular in both books and in theatre at the time. Although the term horror did not come to use until the 1930's, what we consider to be the first horror film was made in 1896 by Georges Melies: House of the Devil. The film was silent and contained bats, ghosts and a demon. The elements of the Gothic genre were firmly established by this time in the public's mind. Silent films continued to explore this new medium in the teens and the 1920's, but silent horror films only really picked up after the First World War. However, during this time several 'classic' horror films were made including the likes of: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Monster and The Phantom of the Opera.
The 1920's and 1930's
The 1920's and 1930's were the first decades to really show films intended to scare their audience. Sound had a drastic effect on the horror genre, as sound is a crucial part in horror films as it assists to develop an atmosphere and terrify the audience. Universal Pictures in Hollywood was the main studio in Hollywood to develop films of the horror genre. Their first hit was Dracula, directed by Tod Browning in 1931. This was followed by Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Werewolf in London and Dracula's Daughter.
The 1940's
The 1940's saw a decrease in the production of horror films. This was mainly due to World War II but also because Universal had started to develop comedy-horror films. Other studio's stepped in to fill the horror void in the film industry, for example RKO developed Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. MGM also created The Picture of Dorian Grey, which won an academy award for cinematography, along with a remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Meanwhile, Paramount released the haunted house film The Uninvited.
The 1950's
After the war ended, the Soviet-American arms race was on everyone's mind, resulting in the production of films with a plot line of invasion including: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, The Blob, Forbidden Planet and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Horror films also fed the fears of ramping mutants created by nuclear proliferation in Godzilla and Them!. Filmmakers competing to entertain and excite their audience also led to the development of the 3-D gimmicks: House of Wax and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Britain's Hammer Films Production also developed the first horror film shot in full colour: The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957.
Psycho and The 1960's
Alfred Hitchcock shocked audiences into believing that films of the horror genre could be more than B-Film Fare with Psycho. Unlike the monsters in previous horror films, Norman Bates was an everyday human on the outside with a psychological monster in his mind. This terrified audiences, and made Psycho one of the best known films to date. This also led to more films using the idea of 'realistic evil'. Audiences had begun to find the monsters and mutants used in the 1950's unrealistic and silly, so the 1960's and 1970's horror films started to focus on a much more realistic and haunting evil. This led to the development of: The Haunting, The Exorcist, Jaws and Carrie.
The 1980's
Ridley Scott's 1979 classic Alien successfully mixed horror and sci-fi, which led to the development of John Carpenters remake of The Thing. Spielberg also returned to horror with Poltergeist. The Shining was also a hit for horror movies in the eighties. However, the main horror hits in the eighties were slasher movies. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street were all great successes and are now classed as slasher classics. The Evil Dead was an independent horror film released in 1981 featuring splatter effects and slow motion gore.
The 1990's and 2000's
By the nineties, the 'slasher cycle' had pretty much run its course, and was starting to release parodies. The release of Wes Cravens Scream about a group of teens who know the rules of all the slasher movies started a thread of Teen Horror movies including I Know What You Did Last Summer and Final Destination. However there were three modern horror cycles that started in the nineties. The first was the horror cycle that revolved around torture and gore which started with the Saw franchise, which are named the most successful horror movies of all time. The Blair Witch Project started the release of many found-footage horror films including Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. And finally, 2002 saw the start of the Zombie Apocalypse cycle with the release of 28 Days Later. This cycle is still going strong with films such as World War Z and I Am Legend, it has even started a chain of television shows including The Walking Dead and Z Nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment