Liz Hearney's A2 media blog

The History of Horror

Literature Based Horror

This was the beginning of the age of horror, and inspiration was taken from horror based literature which had been about for years, examples include ‘Dracula’, ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. Some of these films upset certain sections of society, such as the religious (Christians) when films were based around ‘playing God’ (such as Frankenstein). Nosferatu is another horror film from this era – roughly based on the story of Dracula. It was a silent film which makes it all the more scary, because in the modern day we’re used to sound and colour, making the lack of this very surreal and spooky.

Other horror films of this time were often based on folk tales, or religious tales, rather than literature, such as ‘The Golem’, which is a Jewish story about a clay man created by a magical rabbi.

The 1930’s

Horror films really took off in the 30’s, mainly due to the invention of the use of sound. Directors were able to recreate well-known literature stories (such as the ones above) in film and give them a never experienced before element – sound. As well as being literature based, they were often

dark fairy-tales, brought to life, with scenes being set in far away lands, and characters with exotic accents.

Viewers seemed to embrace horror more in the 30’s than they had in the 20’s and flocked to cinemas to watch these new films, perhaps trying to escape the reality of looming war and the great depression. Some films from this time include the previously mentioned ‘Dracula, ‘Frankenstein’ and others such as ‘The Mummy’ (1932), ‘King Kong’ (1933), and ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ (1935).

As technology improved, sound and film quality got better and special effects became more advanced, it wasn’t uncommon for films to come out using the same characters and/or story line as films that had already been released, as the film producers knew the story was successful the first time round. The technological improvements brought a new lease of life to an already familiar and popular story.

The 1940’s

Horror films of this era often feature human/animal hybrids, such as Wolfmen, Cat People and Vampires. A lot of the films were a form of propaganda against the war against the Nazis. For example, the movie ‘The Wolfman’ (1941) was meant to make a mockery of Hitler and his Nazi party. The name ‘Adolf’ in German means ‘noble wolf’ and a lot of the Nazi Party HQs were named after wolves, therefore a film having a wolf like main character, that ultimately got defeated, was meant to give off the message that they would win in the war against Hitler, and therefore raise the USA’s morale.

The 40’s were also a time of sexism and feminism. In 1942, ‘Cat People’ was released, the female alternative to the Wolf Man. Although it was meant to be a feminine version of the human/animal hybrid, in the film they were still shown as delicate and sophisticated (perhaps with a pair of kitty ears) rather than hairy, rugged and untamed like the Wolf Men. The way they feminised the characters resulted in the films not being as scary as their masculine counterparts.

Although later into the 40’s, ‘The She-Wolf of London’ was released, the woman was still seen as well groomed and tame. But the fact she was compared to a Wolf, rather than a cat, shows the advancements feminism was making at the time.

The 1950’s

After WW2, the remaining soldiers returned and widows started life alone, and people had enough horrors in their own lives to be dealing with, they didn’t want to see realistic horror that would remind them of what was going on, they preferred something more light hearted. This was the beginning of the era of ‘Creature Figures’. They played on the real fears of nuclear war, and the resulting ‘mutations’. Even though storylines and characters adapted to what people wanted to see, horrors became more of a ‘B-Class’ genre, and big stars were saved for epics and musicals.

The loss of popularity of horror wasn’t helped with the fact that the original ‘Universal Horrors’ greats had passed away, such as the original Dracula, Bela Lugosi, who died in 1956.

Some popular films from the 50’s include ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ (1954), ‘The Blob’ (1958) and ‘Godzilla’ (1954)

The 1960’s

During this time, the idea of the Cold War had become stale, and after almost 20 years without the threat of nuclear holocaust – the idea of nuclear mutants seemed outdated. This brought around the era of horror where the scary thing was you. The idea of psychopaths and cannibals, normal people with messed up minds. This led to the film ‘Psycho’ (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitchcock was an innovative director of the time who directed some very popular and famous films, including Psycho, and ‘The Birds’ (1963). He influenced many later films such as ‘Dressed to Kill’ (1980) by Brian De Palma, and ‘The Vanishing’ (1988) by George Sluizer.

This was an era where special effects improved greatly, which led to the influx of horrors based around ghosts and the super natural. These films usually had simple plots, and depended on suspense and disbelief to entice their audience. They were often filled with psychosexual tension, and had sadistic tendencies (as made fashionable by Hitchcock).

Some of the more popular ghost films included: ‘The Haunting’ (1963), and ‘Carnival of Thrills’ (1962).

This was also the time of the first ever ‘Splatter Movie’, ‘Blood Feast’ (1963), where there was minimal actual plot and people watched, and still do watch it for the gore. This film was the first in the sub-genre that went on to be very popular, and paved the way for directors like John Carpenter, and Wes Craven in the 70’s.

The 1970’s

The films of the 70’s reflect how low the mood of society was, after the 60’s being full of exciting new things such as the moon landing and its cultural revolutions. The 70’s seemed a disappointment in comparison. In America, where most horror films were made, bad things also happened in the 70’s, Nixon became president, the war with Vietnam, and oil strikes, but as history has shown, when things get bad, horror gets good.

One constant theme in horrors of this decade is children, and messy and or painful child birth, influenced by the western world being shocked by the effects of ‘Thalidomide’, an anti sickness drug being used during pregnancy, causing children to be born with severe limb deformities. The scary element of horror in this age was ‘Horror in your family’, where it is somewhat realistic and could happen to you.

‘Alice Sweet Alice’ (1976), ‘Halloween’ (1978), ‘and The Omen’ (1976) are all films in which the antagonist is a member of your family. In the case of ‘Alice Sweet Alice’ it’s the sister, ‘Halloween’ it’s the brother, and ‘The Omen’, it’s the son.

One famous horror film that’s main character is a child is ‘The Exorcist’ (1973), which has been voted ‘scariest movie of all time’ (Total Film Magazine 1999). Although it is now seen as a horror classic, it was banned in the UK until 1999.

Hammer Horror

Hammer Films is a British film production company, best known for its gothic ‘Hammer Horror’, making films since 1934. They changed the style of films it made in the 70’s, due to lack of funding, and also had a short hiatus from the mid 80’s till the 2000s, when the company was taken over in 2007 by a Dutch media tycoon, and started producing some of the best selling horror films of the 2010’s.

Some of its older films include: ‘The Brides of Dracula’ (1960), ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ (1962), ‘Dracula: Prince of Darkness’ (1966), and ‘Moon Zero Two’ (1969).

After it was revived in the late 2000’s, it produced films like: ‘Let Me In’ (2010), ‘The Woman In Black’ (2012), ‘The Quiet Ones’ (2012), and ‘The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death’ (2014).

There have been several tributes and parodies of Hammer Horror, most well know being ‘Carry On Screaming’ (1966), and the ever popular ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ (1975). The singer, Kate Bush, had a song named ‘Hammer Horror’, which referenced ‘Dracula, ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’.

Slasher Movies and body horror

Slasher movies became so common in the 1980’s due to the huge advances in special effects at this time, meaning that graphic gore could be portrayed easily and effectively. Mutations and deformities on bodies became more common due to the improvements of animatronics and liquid foam, meaning that close up shots could be used on the actors wearing these materials, and it would still look realistic. These advances in special effects often cost a lot of money, and during the 80’s it was very fashionable to be wealthy and have lots of material possessions, so maybe this sub-genre of horror film was so popular because the budgets corresponded with the social norms of the time. Surprisingly, some of the highest grossing Slasher films of this time, including ‘Halloween’ were very cheap to make (some averaging at only a few thousand dollars) but made a very big profit.

Although all this body horror was popular, it often wasn’t seen as scary, unlike the spooky films of the past that were filled with mystery, fear, and suspense, the main focus of these films was the gore, not the storyline. They do feature a set of conventions, often inspired by ‘Halloween’, usually a psychopathic antagonist, whose victim is typically a teenage girl or young adult, and their weapon of choice is something that will make a mess, such as an axe or chainsaw. Often, the last standing person is the female protagonist who has become the victim-hero of the film.

Even with these production advances, history repeats itself, as it did with the introduction of sound and colour etc. The same popular characters and ideas from literature, and the 20’s/30’s, such as werewolves, vampires and zombies, were being made again, but with more realistic violence.

The zombie in particular was a favourite to bring back, with films such as ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1978), ‘Night of the Creeps’ (1988), and ‘Evil Dead II’ (1987).

This subgenre of film is sometimes linked with ‘Splatter Films’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Evil Dead II’ are two of these, as well as ‘City of the Living Dead’ (1980), ‘The Beyond’ (1981) and ‘Basket Case’ (1982).

These films are still popular in the modern day, including films such as ‘Human Centipede’ (2009), ‘The Machine Girl’ (2008), and ‘Hostel’ (2005).

Despire inspiring sequels and spin off movies, horror seemed stale and boring in the 90’s, people thought everything had been done before. This all changed when Wes Craven, started the idea of horror films that joke about how predictable horror films are. For example, Craven plays himself as a director of horror films in ‘New Nightmare’ (1984), and ‘Scream’ (1996) is full of ‘what should I do next’ references, (Hint – don’t go outside to investigate the spooky noise).

Gore-nography and torture porn/2000’s

The whole point of ‘Gore-nography’ (or torture porn, as phrased by David Edelstein) is to bring a physical reaction to watching gore, much like when watching porn, e.g feeling sick, gagging, cringing. This idea of torture has been done before in horror, for example, damsels in distress being tied to railway tracks, but this modern portrayal of torture and realistic special effects makes it seem ‘real’ and all the more scary. The realism was also spurred by the rumours that the American military had been torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, so people knew it was happening in real life and it was scary.

The special effects were so advanced at this point that film makers were able to create very realistic and drastic looking injuries and didn’t leave much to the imagination, such as an amputated arm, or intestines being pulled out. This added to the effect that the makers of the film desired, to make it seem real.

These films were often set in a familiar setting, a normal looking street, home or shop. They wanted to create an effect that that there was ‘nowhere safe’. In the cinema you may feel safe, but when you leave, the places are recognisable as the places in the films where terrible things were happening.

It became popular for films to have very graphic scenes of torture in the 2000’s, in films such as Hostel (2005) (also mentioned above in slasher movies), Wolf Creek (2005), the ‘Saw’ series, 1 through to 5, and ‘Would you Rather’ (2012)

‘Would You Rather’ is a great example of this sub-genre, it involves a group of people being faced with ‘would you rather’ questions, such as ‘would you rather stab yourself or the person next to you?’.

Although this sub-genre was popular, it went too far in 2007 when the film ‘Captivity’ was released. The posters featured lone words such as ‘termination’ and ‘confinement’ which caused them to be taken town, and when the film was released, it flopped. Torture porn seemed to fizzle out by the end of the noughties, with ‘Hostel II’ making £50 million less than its predecessor, ‘Hostel’.

Present day

As always, the horror of today plays on the fears and worries of society. This is why many horror films nowadays are based on terrorism, spurred on by the tragic events of 9/11, 7/7 and the many other events, that are slowly becoming more frequent (or more easily available to know about thanks to the advances in the news, technology and social media).

‘Final Destination’ (2000) is another film that was influenced by our fear of terrorism, featuring a plane crash (which is a common way that terrorists commit their acts) that leads on to a string of bad events for the characters.

As technology becomes more and more advanced, with artificial intelligences and other inventions, that used to just be ideas becoming reality, another fear of society is killer robots or evil computers. Ironically, the advances in technology are what make these types of films possible, using green screens and CGI to make scenes in outer space and monsters seem so much more real than they ever have before.

‘Prometheus’ (2012) is a good example of this, based in 2093 and in the same universe as the ‘Alien’ movies, space travellers land on a moon trillions of miles away, but find that it is inhabited by snake like creatures, that proceed to try and kill them. The looming advances in space travel makes this film somewhat realistic, and therefore plays on what people in today’s society find scary.