History of horror [recovered]

History of Horror
By Tony Mutombo and Elisabeth Frier

What is Horror?
• Its an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Horror can also be a thing
causing such a feeling of either intense dismay. Dependent on the various
genres in film, it correlates around an informal, hellish or mischievous
person, especially a child.
• The word Horror originates from the Latin language as it comes from
horrere ‘shudder, (of hair) stand on end’.

The term 'horror' first comes into play with Horace Walpole's
1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto, full of supernatural shocks and
mysterious melodrama. Although rather a stilted tale, it started a
craze, spawning many imitators in what we today call the gothic
mode of writing. Better writers than Walpole, such as Ann
Radcliffe and Matthew Gregory Lewis took the form to new
heights of thrills and suspense. For half a century, gothic novels
reigned supreme. As the Age of Enlightenment gave way to the
new thinking of the early nineteenth century, Romantic poets of
the stature of Coleridge and Goethe reflected the strong emotions
of the movement through a glass darkly, recognising that fear and
awe aren't so very different sensations. The first great horror
classic (Frankenstein 1818) was written by a Romantic at the heart
of the movement - Mary Shelley. historyofhorror.com

As long as there have been stories, there have been stories about
the Other, the unrealities we might categorise today as speculative
fiction. Early creation myths in all cultures are populated by
demons and darkness, and early Abrahamic and Egyptian
mythology resounds with tales of a world beyond the physical, a
realm of the spirits, to be revered and feared. Classical mythology
is replete with monsters - Cereberus, the Minotaur, Medusa and
the Hydra. The heroes must navigate safely through the land of
the dead on frequent occasions. Ancestor worship and the
veneration of the dead begins with the Zhou dynasty in China,
1500 years BC. horror.about.com. The modern horror genre as we
know it is only around 200 years old (it begins to have form and
conventions towards the end of the eighteenth century) but it has
distinguished backgrounds. Every culture has a set of stories
dealing with the unknown and unexplained, tales that chill,
provoke and keep the listener wondering "what if..?“ Horror films
are the present-day version of the epic poems and ballads told
round the fires of our ancestors.

ClassicalGreekMythologytomoderndayHorror

The first horror films that were ever produced were surreal.
Disturbing pieces, owing their visual appearance in part to
expressionist painters and in part to spirit photography of
the 1860s. Drawn from Gothic literature, they draw upon
the folklore and legends of Europe, and render monsters
into physical form.
Spirit photography – the practice of using double
exposures or superimpositions to depict ghosts within a
frame of film – was popular from the 1860s onwards, not
only among Spiritualists (who may have believed the images
were real, vindicating their belief in the afterlife) but also
among stage musicians and their audiences, who delighted
in the fakery as entertainment.
1920s - The Silent Screen Era

1920s - The Silent Screen Era
Nineteenth century audiences enjoyed seeing ghosts captured in
still photography and magic lantern shows, so it was natural that
the techniques of superimposition would be transferred to the
new technology in order to tell fantastic and bizarre tales. During
the development of technology, they had to overcome the limits
imposed by the technology and tell a story powerful enough to
make the audience suspend their disbelief. Darkness and shadows,
such important features of modern horror, were impossible to
show on the low contrast film stock available at the time, so some
sequences, for example in Nosferatu, where we see a vampire
leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight,
will seem doubly surreal to a modern audience primed to expect
pitch black and bright light. Nonetheless, these early entries to the
horror genre established many of the codes and conventions still
identifiable today.

Nosferatu, 1922, was one of the silent
era's most influential masterpieces

Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as
well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge
impact on the horror genre. The dreamlike imagery of the 1920s,
were replaced by monsters that grunted and groaned and howled.
Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it be music used
to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat, or magnified
footsteps echoing down a corridor. Horror, with its strong
elements of the fantastic and the supernatural, provided an
effective escape to audiences tiring of their Great Depression
reality, and, despite the money spent on painstaking special effects,
often provided a good return for their studio.
1930s

1930s
The House of Frankenstein film focuses on the exploits of the
evil Dr. Niemann as he revives not only the Frankenstein Monster,
but also Count Dracula, and The Wolf Man. In the days before
Dracula was such a well-worn story, it could be dealt with
originality and flair. The concept of Dracula is taken from the
stage play as opposed to the novel, and the results are highly
theatrical. Lugosi laughs evilly throughout; no wonder, his
depiction of the Count-as-seducer is aeons removed from the feral
creature represented in Nosferatu and is definitive - not until
Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1994 were there any real
variations on the theme. It was very successful for Universal and
paved the way for a series of high profile horror classics.

Wartime horror movies were purely an American product. Banned
in Britain, with film production curbed throughout the theatre of
war in Europe, horror movies were cranked out by Hollywood
solely to amuse the domestic audience. This was not an age of
innovation, but horror movie memes were evolving.
If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established
fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century
for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the
horror market. The Americans could not keep themselves separate
and pure, their basic European roots kept peeking through, their
links with the lands of their ancestors eventually pulling them into
World War Two. In the same way, many horror films of this period
deal with roots peeking through – in the form of men or women
who were subject to the emergence of a primal animal identity.
1940s

Cat People 1946, tells the story of a young Serbian woman, Irena,
who believes herself to be a descendant of a race of people who
turn into cats when sexually aroused.

These monster movies of the 1950s were also the first
blockbusters, opening in US theatres coast-to-coast amidst a
marketing storm of advertising and merchandise. Individual
monster movies may now have been largely forgotten, and only
appeal to cultists prepared to forgive their creaky dialogue and now-
clumsy SFX, but their collective memory is still cherished, and has
had an influence on many recent movies. This era's obsession with
the monster movie stems from the fears generated by co-existence
with the atom bomb. America had to deal with the mass trauma
over using a nuclear weapon on another nation, and also the
perpetual fear of future apocalypse. Monster movies offered a
vision of destruction created by non-humans; instead of generating
chaos and disaster, humans represent a force for good, often
manifested in a yearning for peace as nations and organisations
unite against the common threat, thus providing a cathartic couple
of hours' escapism from the realities of the Cold War.
1950s

It Came From Beneath The Sea, 1955 was a
movie about a nuclear submarine on
manoeuvres in the Pacific Ocean that comes
into contact with a massive sonar contact. The
boat is disabled by it but manages to free itself
and return to Pearl Harbour. After receiving
reports of missing swimmers and ships at sea
being pulled under by a large animal. Scientists
conclude the octopus is from the Mindanao
Deep, having been forced from its natural
habitat by hydrogen bomb testing in the area,
which has made the octopus radioactive,
driving off its natural food supply.

1960s
The 1960s saw a great sea change in what the public perceived as
horrible. The social stability that had marked the post-war years
was gone by the end of the decade as a huge rethink occurred in
everything from hemlines to homosexuality and explore new ways
of perceiving sex and violence. They wanted horror that was more
rooted in reality, more believable, more sophisticated, that dealt
with some of the issues they faced in a rapidly changing world.
Despite the often tragic events of this era, there was a seeming
feeling of optimism, the sense that humanity was moving forward,
onward and upward. The concept of Cold War lost heat, and, in
20-odd years without nuclear holocaust, the threat of mass-death-
by-radiation had receded. The mutant monsters of the 1950s now
looked a little silly. No aliens had turned up either. Going to the
cinema to be scared at this time was the equivalent of gazing in
the mirror, and noticing, for the first time, that there was
something a little... strange about your own face.

Psycho, 1960, presented us with Norman Bates, the monster so close to
normal it was only in the final section of the film that he revealed how
monstrous a man could be. Based on the real- life story of Ed Gein,
which has since proved fruitful for movies as diverse as Silence of The
Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho has become iconic
in a way few other movies have ever become. Everyone "knows" the
story; the name Norman Bates is familiar to those who have never seen
the film.

1970s
Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the grim mood of the decade.
After the optimism of the 1960s, with its sexual and cultural
revolutions, and the moon landings, the seventies were something
of a disappointment. By 1970, the party was over; the Beatles
split, and in many senses it was downhill all the way from there.
However, when society goes bad, horror films get good, and the
1970s marked a return to the big budget, respectable horror film,
dealing with contemporary societal issues, addressing genuine
psychological fears.
One consistent fear apparent in the horror films of the 1970s is
the fear of children, and the fear of the messy, painful and often
fatal process of childbirth. Once sex and conception have been
separated, and sexual activity becomes primarily a pleasure, the by-
products (ie children) become monstrous aberrations.

Carrie, 1976, was a great success at the box office, tapping in
to teenage fears about what happens when you don't fit in
with the in crowd, and more adult preoccupations with ‘What
Regan Might Do’ at senior prom. Like The Exorcist, 1973,
before it, Carrie garnered Oscar nominations (for Spacek and
Laurie) and Spacek won the Golden Globe for her
iconoclastic portrayal of an unwilling and very female
monster. Horror seemed to be back at the forefront of
popular consciousness

1980s
Horror movies of the 1980s (which probably begin in 1979 with
Alien) exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects
finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and
movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics,
and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be
distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close
up. This coincided with the materialistic ethos of the 1980s, when
having it all was important, but to be seen to be having it all was
paramount.
Horror films during this decade delivered the full colour close-up,
look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous
practitioners of the art could only dream about. Everything that
had lurked in the shadows of horror films in the 1950s could now
be brought into the light of day. The monsters were finally out of
the closet.

Heeeeeeerrrrrresssssssss Johnny!!
The Shining, 1980, looks like no other horror
movie, which resulted in an difficult and prolonged
production process. There are hints that the hotel is
built over an ancient burial ground, and that this
might be the source of the nasty energy that
pervades its walls...

1990s
By the end of the 1980s horror had become so reliant on gross-
out gore and buckets of fake blood that it seemed to have lost its
power to do anything more than shock and then amuse. It seemed
that horror had become safe, a branded product (Jason, Freddy,
Michael) bringing easy recognition and a rigid set of expectations.
The uncanny had somehow become the norm, tame and
laughable.
However, each generation needs something to be scared of, and
craves for its fears to be fairly represented on the screen. Finding
no satisfaction in sequels and satire. For adults, intelligent horror
was provided in the form of disturbing, violent thrillers such as
Silence of The Lambs. As horror appeared to run out of original
ideas, more film-makers turned to re-making old ones, re-
interpreting old narratives through a postmodern, 1990s lens.
Hence movies like The Exorcist III, which plays not on society's
anxieties about its children, but about its old and frail.

Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (1992) epitomises this;
a riot of campy spatter, it climaxes with a zombie
orgy through which the bespectacled hero must cut
his way with a lawnmower. It's hilarious, and not
scary in the slightest. The 1990s were a difficult
time for horror films but one movie which
deserves special attention is Se7en (1995). Jodie
Foster described it as "about as close to a perfect
film on the topic as I can think of". The movie
reads ‘We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in
every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it
because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it
morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm
setting the example. And what I've done is going to
be puzzled over, and studied, and followed...
forever.’

2000s
Horror movies in the late 1990s predicted dire things for the turn
of the century. Whilst January 1st, 2000 came and went without
much mishap, many commentators have identified the true
beginning of the 21st century as September 11th, 2001. The
events of that day changed global perceptions of what is
frightening, and set the cultural agenda for the following years.
Horror films routinely topped the box office, yielding an above-
average gross on below-average costs. It seems that audiences
wanted a good, group scare as a form of escapism.
The monsters have had to change, however. Gone were the lone
psychopaths of the 1990s, far too reminiscent of media portrayals
of Bin Laden, the madman in his cave. As the shock and awe of
twenty first century warfare spread across TV screens, cinematic
horror had to offer an alternative, whilst still tapping into the
prevailing cultural mood.

Final Destination (2000) saw passengers sucked through the fuselage, crushed by
falling hand baggage or have their faces burnt off by ignited jet fuel. In-flight
entertainment this is not. Final Destination implies a changing direction in horror
cinema, as well as setting the stage for post-milliennial nightmares about Death
raining from the sky. Supposedly, yet another teen-focused horror movie in which
protagonists get picked off one by one, Final Destination marks a significant
paradigm shift. Even before the first plane hit the North Tower, it seems that
audiences were searching for a new source of dread, something less cartoonish,
something that couldn't be blamed on an unhappy childhood, or a revenge
mission. The new millennium brought with it a new unease, a feeling that the evil
in the world cannot be contained inside one masked human. Step forward the
most ancient and enduring of human adversaries: Death.
The Final Destination killer has no cumbersome back story, no mother waiting in
the shadows, no daughters/sons unaware of their parentage. It has no Achilles
heel. It has everyone in its sights and no one - virgins and geeks are in just as
much danger as cheerleaders. The rules are clear and simple: if you are a character
in a Final Destination movie, you are going to die. It's just a matter of when,
where and - most importantly for the entertainment factor of these movies.

2010s – Decade of Reboots
Remakes remain popular and serialized, found footage style web
videos featuring Slender Man became popular on YouTube in the
beginning of the decade. The character as well as the multiple
series is credited with reinvigorating interest in found footage as
well as urban folklore. Child's Play saw a sequel with Curse of
Chucky (2013). While Halloween, Friday the 13th and Hellraiser
all have reboots in the works. Horror has become prominent on
television with The Walking Dead and American Horror Story and
many more popular horror films have had successful television
series made: The Silence of the Lambs spawned Hannibal, You're
Next (2011) and The Cabin in the Woods (2012) led to a return to
the slasher genre. The Green Inferno (2014) pays homage to the
controversial horror film Cannibal Holocaust (1980). The Purge
(2013) and its sequel The Purge: Anarchy (2014) both became
commercial successes with their unique concepts of society being
the killer.

Horror films' evolution throughout the years has given society a new
approach to resourcefully utilize their benefits. The horror film style has
changed over time, but in 1996 Scream set off a "chain of copycats",
leading to a new variety of teenage, horror movies. This new approach to
horror films began to gradually earn more and more income as seen in the
progress of Scream movies. The importance that horror films have gained
in the public and producers’ eyes is one obvious effect on our society. Their
main focus was to express the fear of women and show them as monsters;
however, this ideal is no longer prevalent in horror films.
Women have become not only the main audience and fans of horror films
but also the main protagonists of contemporary horror films. The horror
industry is producing more and more movies with the main protagonist
being a female and having to evolve into a stronger person in order to
overcome some obstacle. This main theme has drawn a larger audience of
women movie-goers to the theatres in modern times than ever historically
recorded. Movie makers also go as far as to integrate women relatable
topics such as pregnancy, motherhood, lesbian relationships, and babysitting
jobs into their films in order to gain even more female oriented audiences.

History of horror [recovered]

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History of horror [recovered]