Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, horror films have for more than a century featured scenes that startle the viewer. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes; as a result they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural, and thriller genres.
Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and fright of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, and serial killers. Conversely, movies about the supernatural are not necessarily always horrific.
Since this is one of the most popular genres among cinemagoers, we decided to investigate about famous films from the moment of its invention to the 1950’s.
1890-1920s
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du Diable, which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Another of his horror projects was 1898's La Caverne maudite. Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898. In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, which was thought lost for many years. Edison's version of Frankenstein followed the 1908 film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the first of many film adaptations of Stevenson's 1885 novel, in a slue of other literary adaptations including the works of Poe, Dante, Shakespeare and many other authors. This trend instilled a macabre element intro these early films and made it synonymous with the horror film genre.
The second monster to appear in a horror film: Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, who had appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). Films featuring Quasimodo included Alice Guy's Esmeralda (1905), The Hunchback (1909), The Love of a Hunchback (1910) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1911).
German Expressionist film makers, during the Weimar Republic era and slightly earlier, would significantly influence later films, not only those in the horror genre. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1920) and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (also 1920) had a particular impact.
The first vampire-themed movie was made during this time: F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Man Who Laughs (1928), based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, released by Universal Studios shows the influence German Expressionism had on early American horror films.
Hollywood dramas used horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) both starring Lon Chaney, the first American horror movie star. Other films of the 1920s include Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1920), The Phantom Carriage (Sweden, 1920), The Lost World (1925), The Phantom Of The Opera (1925), Waxworks (Germany, 1924), and Tod Browning's (lost) London After Midnight (1927) with Chaney. Another great film from this period is, also a Browning/Chaney collaboration, The Unknown (1927). These early films were considered dark "melodramas", the word "horror" to describe the film genre would not be used until the next decade after Universal Pictures released Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). These films were grouped in with melodramas because of their stock characters and their emotion heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality.
The trend of inserting an element of macabre into these pre-horror melodramas was continued into the 1920s. Directors known for putting a large amount of macabre into their films during the 1920s were Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram and Tod Browning; many of his works have already been mentioned above. The Magician (1926), a Rex Ingram film, provides one of the first examples of a "mad doctor" and it is said to have had a large amount of influence on James Whale's version of Frankenstein. The Unholy Three (1925) starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning is a great example of Browning's use of macabre and shows his own unique style of morbidity. Browning remade the film in 1930 as a talkie which also starred Chaney and it became the actor's only sound film.
The Terror (1928) was the first horror film with sound.
1930s–1940s
During the early period of talking pictures, the American Movie studio Universal Pictures began a successful Gothic horror film series. Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), with Bela Lugosi, was quickly followed by James Whale's Frankenstein (also 1931) and The Old Dark House (1932), both featuring Boris Karloff as monstrous mute antagonists. Some of these films blended science fiction with Gothic horror, such as Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) and, mirroring the earlier German films, featured a mad scientist. These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements. Frankenstein was the first in a series which lasted for many years, although Karloff only returned as the monster in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The Mummy (1932) introduced Egyptology as a theme for the genre.
Other studios followed Universal's lead. Tod Browning made the once controversial Freaks (1932) for MGM, based on "Spurs", a short story by Tod Robbins, about a band of circus freaks. Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931), was remembered for its use of color filters to create Jekyll's transformation before the camera. Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933), and Island of Lost Souls (Paramount, 1932) were all important horror films.
With the progression of the genre, actors were beginning to build entire careers in such films, most especially Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.
Frankenstein (1931)
After Lugosi turned the part down, screen legend has it that Boris Karloff was plucked from obscurity in the studio canteen to play the Monster. Studio executives thought his character was so peripheral to the movie that they did not even invite him to the premiere, yet it is his lumbering, pathetic creation that is now synonymous with Frankenstein. James Whale, still numbered amongst the best horror directors of all time, directs with great attention to both spectacle and detail.
The Mummy (1932)
The Tutankhamen Exhibition toured the world in the 1920s and 1930s, and the concept of Egyptologists suffering the effects of an ancient curse was part of contemporary urban legend. Audiences were fascinated by the concept of 3000 year old remains, and the Ancient Egyptians' rituals that ensured immortality. The film, which may seem overly slow-moving to modern viewers, introduced the concept of the desert escape and terrible, ancient evil to movie audiences.
The main action takes place in Cairo (or the Universal backyard’s version of that city) and revolves around a mummy who is brought to life by the accidental reading of a spell. He then hunts down the reincarnation of his lost love, only to be thwarted, and reduced to the dust from whence he came. The storytelling is slow and atmospheric, and, as with all Karloff characters, the monster is imbued with a sense of tragedy. Its influence can be seen in assorted films like The English Patient (The Mummy revolves around a similarly tragic love story) and... um... Stargate.
The reboot of the franchise in the 2000s focuses more on blockbuster action sequences, but it's interesting to note that both Clive Barker and George A. Romero were attached to the project as directors at some stage. It would have been interesting to see this property regenerated as low-budget horror rather than a multi-million dollar special effects festival.
Camila Fernández, Micaela Rolle and Belén Rivera Tola - 4th Year
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