Film History. Genre. –Horror.Shannon Webb

Horror film beginning.

While the first moving pictures tended to be action and comedy, early filmmakers also used photographic trickery to explore darker stories with psychological and supernatural themes, recognizable as the first horror films.

The very first horror films found were from the 19th

Century. The horror genre was not actually categorized till 1930. The following films were referred too as ‘spook tales’ to begin with:

Le Squelette joyeux - Created by the Lumière brothers in 1895.

Le Manoir du Diable – Created by Georges Méliès in 1896.

1980’s – 1920’s.The first horror film came in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Mélièa in the late 1890s, the main popular one known is Le Manoir du diable. Many people cedited this as the first horror film.

Another one of Georges Mélièa’s short horror films is La Cavernemaudite. This was created in 1898.

The first produced Frankenstein, was by Edison Studies in 1910, which was believed to have been lost for many years.

The second monster appeared was Quasimode in the hunchback of Notre-Dame.

The first ever vampire based film was made in 1922 called Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau.

1930’s – 1940’s.In 1931, the beginning of an successful gothic series called Dracula began by the American Movie Studio Universal Pictures. This was then shortly followed by James Whales Frankenstein in 1931 and The Old Dark House in 1932.

Many studio followed the American Movie Studio Universal Pictures in their paths, like Tod Browning who created the film ‘Freaks’ in 1932. This remained unreleased in the UK for thirty years after it’s creation.

Michael Curtiz’s ‘Mystery of the wax museum’ made in 1933 and ‘Island of lost souls’ made in 1932 were always seen to be important films.

1950’s – 1960’sWhen the advances in technology came along, the type of horror films shifted from Gothic towards contemporary concerns. Two sub-genres began to emerge: the Horror of Armageddon film and The Horror Of The Demonic film.

A stream of usually low-budgeted productions featured humanity overcoming threats from ‘outside’. These would be the Alien invasions and deadly mutations of humans, insects and plants.

Ghosts and monsters remained a frequent feature in horror, but many films decided to use the supernatural premise to express demonic horror. ‘The Innocents’ created in 1961 by Jack Clayton and The Haunting created in 1963 by Robert Wise was the beginning of demonic horror films that started in the early 1960’s. Meanwhile this happened, Japanese horror continued to still focus on ghosts.

1970’s – 1980’sAfter the popular success of ‘Rose mary’s babies’ and the money increase of low budget filming, there was a rise in more gory films with cult relations during the 1970’s.

‘Evil children’ and ‘Reincarnation’ become popular subjects. Examples of this would be 1. Robert Wise’s film Audrey Rose made in 1977, deals with a man who claims that his daughter is the reincarnation of another dead person. 2. Alice sweet Alice made in 1977 was another Catholic themed horror slasher about a little girl’s murder and her sister being the prime suspect. 3. A really popular satanic horror film was ‘The Omen’ made in 1976 was about a man who realizes that his 5 year old adopted son is the Anti-Christ.

The Cycle of slasher film were made during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. The film Halloween made in 1978 by Sean Cunningham and Friday the 13th made in 1980 was among these. Halloween became a successful independent film.

1990’sIn the 1990’s there was two main problems. These problems pushed horror backwards during this period. The first problem was the nonstop slasher and gore films in the eighties become worn out. The second provlem was the adolescent audience who feasted on the blood and morbidity of films grew up and become un-interested. The replacement audience for films were captured more by the explosions of Sci-Fi’s and fantasy films of the special effects with the more advance computer generated imagery. The examples of these CGI’s were Deep rising made in 1998, Blade made in 1998 and The Haunting remade in 1999.

To draw the audience back into horror, Horror itself become more self-mocking and ironic. This especially happened in the later half of the 1990’s. Examples are: Scream movies made in 1996 which featured teenagers who were fully aware of and often made reference to the history of horror movies but mixed in with ironic humor and the shocks. Braindead made in 1992 by Peter Jackson took the splatter film to ridiculous excesses for comic effect.