Horror film History

Horror film history

Silent era

Horror in film started with silent film made by European films such as “The Golem”. Most of these early films were made using what is called “German expressionism”. German expressionism was an artistic movement that started in Germany in the 1910’s and was a direct result of the horrors of the First World War. This type of expressionism was isolated in Germany because of the German government banning imported films in 1916. This lead to over 5 times as many film being made in 1918 compared to 1914.International audience started to appreciate German film by the time of the 1920’s due to hostility towards the Germans fading. When the international import ban was lifted Germany was part of the international film market.

A great an example of a film that uses German expressionism is the “Cabinet of Dr Cagliari” (1919). 

1930’s

In 1930’s the factor of Sound came into movies changing a lot of the narrative and technical features of the film. Sound added an extra dimension to terror, whether it is music used to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat. With the induction of sound horror films moved away from the horror characters of the 1920’s and the monsters such as Frankenstein came into play. 1930’s was also a decade of mad scientists representing the dangers in the development of science.

1940’S

In the 1940’s during the war horror exports were banned in Britain and were only aloud in America. A lot of the horror films in America had a wolf-like antagonist as Hitler at the time identified himself with iconography of the legend of the wolf. Also in this time universal studio’s created a separate unit for horror films universal was slipping from relevance as they were in decline.

1950’s

In the 1950’s ww2 had ended and communism was on the rise in the east. Communist greatly affected American cinema as America feared communism this was the undertone for films such as The BLOB and Invasion of the body snatches. Another event that happened in the 50’s was the Roswell incident where there is speculation that a “flying saucer” landed their which inspired many sci-fi related horror films. Also in the 50’s was the rise of television which pushed horror movies to b movie status as people worked on meeting the challenge met by TV.

1960’S

In the 1960’s the way people lived was revolutionised as conservative ideology lost its power because the post war era had passed. With this ideology diminished what previously was a perceived as scary by the public had been completely changed.  In the 1960’s Alfred Hitchcock released a horror/thriller by the name of Psycho which was odd for this time as horror films were usually b movies at this time which would be similar to movies that come in the future.

1970’s

In the 1970’s society took another hit as things started to go downhill for the decade which greatly influence horror at this time and arguably improved it. The seventies were about deep-seated paranoia, and the fear that the moral shift of the 1960s had created a culture of monsters. Therefore a lot of the films were about kids such as The OMEN or the exorcist. Another Genre they rose uo in the 70’s (and 80’s) was the slasher movie which often involved a murderer hunting down a group of people and murdering them in gruesome ways. Usually it was women who died the most as the slasher film is the a indirect response the rise of feminism.

1980’S

Horror movies of the 1980s 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 transformed as they wish. Also in the 1980’s we had horror films that ere dubbed “Video nastiest” which were horror films that went straight to video and were often very gruesome as for a time they were not regulated by a rating committee. An example of a video nasty would be the Evil Dead series. A

1990’s

It can be argued that the so-called psychological thriller took precedence over horror in the first half of the 1990s, and indeed, many dark, disturbing films of this period describe themselves as thriller, not horror with such films like Slaughter of the lambs which could be argued as a thriller but borrows many horror elements. It also highlights the rise of serial killers in films. Also in 1996 we had the introduction of postmodernism in horror films. We also had parody’s of older horror films such as Scream.