History Of Horror

Kelsey Wheeler

"If movies are the dreams of the mass culture... horror movies are the nightmares"— Stephen King,

Danse Macabr

HORROR• noun 1) an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. 2) a thing causing such a feeling. 3) intense dismay. 4) informal a bad or mischievous person, especially a child.— ORIGIN Latin, from horrere ‘shudder, (of hair) stand on end’.

Oxford English Dictionary Definition. . .

Horror Conventions

D.I.S.T.I.N.C.TDon’tIgnoreSettingTechnicalIconographyNarrativeCharacterizationThemes.

On this slide you will see a range of horror conventions you would expect in a horror film/trailer now days, previously majority of these conventions may not have even been recognized.

THEME

ISOLATED SETTINGS

DARKNESS/DARK COLOURS

BLOODSUPERNATURAL

VIOLENCE

VOICE OVER/COPY

EMPATHY

SCREAMS

WEATHER

WEAPONS

FAST CUTS

EXTREME EDITS

NON DIAGETIC SOUNDS

SUSPENSION/TENSION

ACCOMPANIMENT

AND MANY MORE…

The First Horror Movies

Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style to the stories played out by the “Grand Guignol Theatre Company.” Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time therefore back in those days sequences including a vampire for example If the character was to be running between trees it would be in broad day light which seems surreal to us now.

The Golem (1915/1920)“There were several versions of this, dubbed 'the first monster movie'. Paul Wegener directed and starred in the screen version of the Jewish legend,set in medieval Prague. A Golem (a solidly built clay man) is fashioned to savethe ghetto, but when his job is done he refuses to cease existing, and runsamok through expressionist sets, eventually to be confronted and defeated by alittle girl. The legend influenced Mary Shelley during her creation of a monster acentury earlier, and a decade or so later, the cinematic golem influencedWhale's and Karloff's depiction of a false creation lumbering menacinglythrough the streets.” www.filmhistory.co.uk

The cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1919)

“Often cited as the 'granddaddy of all horror films', this is an eerie exploration of the mind of a madman, pitting an evil doctor against a hero falsely incarcerated in a lunatic asylum”

www.filmhistory.co.uk

Nosferatu (1922)“Nosferatu is the very first vampire movie, baldly plagiarising theDracula story to present Count Orlok, the grotesquely made-up 'MaxSchreck', curling his long fingernails round the limbs of a series ofhapless victims. Described as the vampire movie that actually believesin vampires, Nosferatu gives us a far more frightening bloodsucker thanany of its successors; Shreck is simply inhuman.”

www.filmhistory.co.uk

Horror reborn in the 1930’s!

Horror movies were re born in the 1930’s, the advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema, had a huge impact on the horror genre. In the 1920’s the films people saw were silent throughout, but around 10 years later, over dramatic facial expressions for example when a victim saw a monster, the facial expression would be replaced with a scream or a grunt from the monster. Most films of the 1930’s were exotic fairytales, usually set in a a different period, horror was still essentially the main genre of this time for moving pictures.

Changes.

It is hard to grasp the changes that took place in popular consciousness between 1940 and 1950. In ten years the concept of a horrific monster had altered irrevocably. The 1950s are also the era when horror films get relegated in to the B-movie category.

“The studios were wildly over busy incorporating technical changes such as widespread colour production and trying to meet the challenge posed by TV to have much truck with making quality horror pictures.” www.filmhistory.co.uk

Further Adaptations

After the 1950’s horror has become further developed to what we all know as ‘modern horror’ which can be categorized into sub genres such as paranormal, psychological, slasher, thriller, sci-fi, supernatural and many more. Having this change has benefited the horror genre in many ways for example, the audiences can now have wider choices of the types of horror films they wish to see. Also its benefitted the directors and producers giving them a chance to create a horror of their choice without the worry of repetition.