A HISTORY OF HORROR FILMS: PART II

1950 - 1970

Throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s British producer Hammer struck exposing high quality movies as  The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) , Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959). The star directors of that time were the English Terence Fisher and the American Roger Corman, who specialized in low-budget films, based on stories by the writer Edgar Allan Poe. 

The beginning of the Cold War gave place to new ways of seeing horror in cinema and films like Gojira / Godzilla ( 1954) by Ishiro Honda came to light.

In the 60s , George Andrew Romero had premiered the Night of the Living Dead, film that gave birth to another theme : that of zombies. These, like the werewolf or vampires, are part of folk tradition and the oldest folk tales. The contemporary horror, however, both in literature and film, deals with the zombies without any romanticist shade, trying to achieve in the reader or viewer -through the raw expression of his cannibal monstrosity- an effect of ancestral pure terror.

From the 70's we found two remarkable films. The Exorcist by William Friedkin (1973) is considered by many critics the scariest movie in the history of cinema; the same goes for that infamous Jaws (1975) by Steven Spielberg. 

A new topic was used in this decade: paranormal powers. This was perfectly demonstrated in Carrie (1976), based on the novel of the same title by Stephen King, who later entered the psychological terror with Dressed to Kill (1980). 

Then, the mixture of horror and science fiction literature by Lovecraft reappears with an excellent film called Alien (1979).

1980 - 1990

In the 80s, movies of "teen horror" became fashionable, addressed to that one group in particular. Friday the 13th by Sean S. Cunningham began a series of films in which the manager is a wild terrifying murderer operating in the dark. They were followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street another one signed by Wes Craven. Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), Bloody Valentine (1981), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), The Slumber Party Slaughter (1982), Sleepaway Camp (1983), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), The Day Aprils Fool (1986), Devil Doll (1988), and Clownhouse (1989) all explored the same theme.

Other notable films of the decade were The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick; The body (1981) by Sidney Furie; The Thing (1982) by John Carpenter; Poltergeist by Tobe Hooper; Re-Animator (1985) by Stuart Gordon; Hellraiser (1987) by Clive Barker. The Canadian David Cronenberg hit it again with The Fly (1986, a remake of the 50s version) and Dead Ringers (1988). The film that would close a decade of the best adaptations on the work of novelist Stephen King is Pet Sematary by Mary Lambert (1989).

The 90's brought lots of horror movies, like Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994); the production of the Canadian science fiction Cube (1997), powerful and innovative in its theme; the aforementioned Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola (1992), and the great success among teenagers Wes Craven's Scream (1996) and its sequels; besides I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) parodied in Scary Movie (2000, Keenen Ivory Wayans). 

The New Zealander Peter Jackson (trilogy The Lord of the Rings) had opened with the spectacular -although parody- entitled Braindead (1992) and Bad Taste (1987) . Indian-born director M. Night Shyamalan, gave us the original The Sixth Sense (1999), which has also been compared with the chilling Others by Alejandro Amenabar.

2000's

The 2000s were a quiet time for the genre. Horror films began to be based on sales rather than on creating original stories . The extended version of The Exorcist and blockbusters like Final Destination (2000) -which includes 4 years following- sequels-, Jason X  (2001) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003) were launched. The Jeepers Creepers series also succeeded . Films like Hollow Man, The Orphan, Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever and House of 1000 Corpses helped bring the genre back to qualifications restricted in theaters. Comic book adaptations such as Blade, Constantine (2005) and the Hellboy (2004) series also became box office hits. Adaptations of video games like Doom (2005) and Silent Hill (2006) also had a moderate box office success , while the Van Helsing (2004) and Underworld series had a huge box office success .

Style web videos featuring Slender Man became popular on YouTube in the beginning of the decade. Horror has become prominent on television with The Walking Dead, American Horror Story and The Strain. Many popular horror films have had successful television series made, like Psycho spawned Bates Motel, The Silence of the Lambs spawned Hannibal; while Scream and Friday the 13th both have television series in development. 

Horror cinema has grown since its very first movie came out. Nowadays, we can find frightening films for everyone, even on television. Some people think that old scary movies were better than today´s movies. We believe that times have changed and that we can find excellent cinematographic productions even today. Here are our top movies. Enjoy!

• The Amityville Horror (1979)
• Mama (2013)
• Carrie (1976)
• Friday the 13th (1980)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• The Sixth Sense (1999)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Scream (1996)
• The Exorcist (1976)
• Psycho (1960)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• The Ring (2002)
• Paranormal Activity (2007)
• Insidous (2010)
• Grave Encounters (2011)

Nadia Palaziol, Iara Stendler, Ignacio Penzotti and Melina Estaras - 4th Year