History of Horror

History of Horror

Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The creation 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, the films peopled by ghostly wraiths floating silently through the terror of mortals, their grotesque death masks a visual representation of 'horror', were replaced by monsters that grunted and groaned and howled. Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it is 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. This was also despite the struggle that many of the major players - such as director Tod Browning - had to adapt to the new medium.

War focused horror films were mainly productions from America. They were banned in Britain, with film production restricted throughout the theatre of war in Europe, horror movies were brought out by Hollywood solely to amuse the domestic audience. The studios stuck with experimented ideas and tests, aware of the risks being taken. The 1940s was not the decade of modernisation, but horror movie memes were broadening. If horror movies in the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the 19^th century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. The Americans saw themselves as being safe, whereas Europeans were fighting their way through the way. The main horror characters in the 1940s were “big bad wolves”, who posed a major global threat. Hitler himself was strongly branded with the iconography of the wolf, with the name ‘Adolf’ meaning “noble wolf” in Old German language.

It’s hard to believe how many changes occurred between the 1940s and 1950s. In a decade, the concept of what a ‘scary monster’ was had changed dramatically. The military action of World War 2 had left over 40 million dead and millions exposed to the full spectrum of inhumanity in the human race. There were too many horror stories being told by those coming home from the war and those experiencing death of loved ones for people to worry about what was being shown on the big screen. There was a dawning of post-war posterity in America, and with it, a new breed of horror monsters was born. The wars after the Second World War, like the Cold War and Vietnam War, were a wake up to civilization that it didn’t matter about your numbers in war, all that counted was the technology you had. Better technology equals deadlier artillery and equipment. Like the atom bomb. The first recorded sighting of a flying saucer occurred in 1947, followed a few months later by the infamous Roswell Incident. The horror movies in the 1950s were about science and technology (Sci-Fi). An accurate reflection of reality and the technological change occurring. Mutation on existing themes provided the inspiration for countless 1950s monsters. Radiation could either enlarge (Godzilla, Them!) or shrink (The Fly, The Incredible Shrinking Man) existing life forms. Real, existing forms of life made it better for studios to make monsters, as they could be photographed using blue screen methods or recreated in model form and stop-motion animation could be used to ‘bring them to life.’ Early attempts at this, in films such as King Kong and Devil Dolls were used effectively, but became widespread in the 1950s.

In the 1960s, a lot happened. Kennedy assassination, thalidomide and the Vietnam War. The sexual revolution. Between Psycho (’60) and the Manson family murders (’69), the 1960s saw a major change in what the public defined as ‘horror.’ The social stability that marked the post-war years was gone by the end of the decade as a huge reconsideration occurred in everything from hemlines to homosexuality. Horror movies were starting to be more open to nudity, violence and other ropes; the drive-in teens of the 1950s were growing up and becoming wise to the empty promises of lurid titles and titillating posters. Monsters being played in rubber suits and creatures with miniaturized sets were no longer a scare to the general public. They wanted to produce horror movies that were more based in reality and ones that were more believable and sophisticated that dealt with some of the issues they faced in a rapidly changing world. The 1960s were more focused on monsters being mutants of a human. Movie goers would go and see a horror film but be looking at one of them. Just a slight tweak. The equivalent of looking in the mirror and noticing for the first time that there might actually be something strange about your own face.

Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the depression and bleakness at the time. After the hype of the 1960s, with sexual and cultural revolutions, the 70s were when it all went downhill. The Beatles split up, oil strikes, feather haircuts, glam rock. But this was seen as an advantage for the horror film industry. Horror films got big again and dealt with contemporary society issues, addressing genuine psychological fears. One fear that cropped up a lot in horror films of the 1970s was 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 sex turns into a thing for pleasure rather than love, the results become monstrous abnormalities. Infants are the main subject of horror movies in the 1960s – this reinforces that kids can really be spooky and unwanted. Yet this dominates the 1970s as the deterioration family element becomes the source of much fear and mistrust. Unlike most horror movies where the enemy is from a foreign world or created, these horror movies are based around an enemy being inside your own home.

Horror movies in the 1980s exist at the glorious watershed when special effects finally caught up with the bloody creations of horror fans and movie producers. Technical advances in animation and introductions to liquid and foam latex meant that the human figure could be distorted in a completely new way (and look realistic close-up). 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.” Most common in horror films of the 1980s, once these monsters came into contact with light; they proved to be the same as most other monsters: ghosts, werebeings and slimy things. Werewolves made quite common appearances in horror movies, with the Howling series and An American Werewolf in London. The horror movies produced during the 1980s show a new spark in the genre. There were to be no more monsters with zippers up the back. Some films which show no monster at all (like The Cat People and The Blair Witch Project) manage to terrify through ideas. Studies and experiments on the effects of media violence, even on the hardest viewers, show that anyone finds it difficult to keep watching a video of a surgical operation – linked with the thought of what’s inside our bodies; this creates repulsion.

Horror movies in the 1990s started focusing on being more comical than scary (like Brain Dead). It seemed that horror had become safe and brought easy recognition for audiences. However, each decade has had a main villain who audiences are afraid of. Generation X created its own version of the bogeyman; the serial killer. It could be argued that ‘psychological thriller’ took charge over horror in the first half of the 1990s, and many of these dark, disturbing movies can be classed as thriller, not horror.  Like the beginning of the 1960s, there was a need of adult, intelligent horror and it was presented in the form of thrillers, such as ‘Silence of the Lambs’. As directors gradually ran out of original ideas for horror plots, they started to reinterpret and recreate past horror movies, giving them a more postmodern through a 1990s outlook.

Horror movies in the late 1990s predicted dire things for the turn of the century. January 1^st, 2000 came and went with little eventful occurrences going on. Many class the real beginning of the 21^st Century as September 11^th, 2001. The events that took place that day effected global perceptions of what is frightening, and set the cultural plan for the decade. Filmmakers found it a struggle to come to terms with what was and wasn’t acceptable for showing to the general public. Anyone trying to sell horror films in the autumn of 2001 got rebuffed (for example, Land of the Dead by George Romero). By 2005, the horror genre, however, was at its best. They often topped the box office, and audiences clearly wanted a good, group scare as a form of escaping the real world. The monsters changed a great deal, however. The psychopathic villains of the 1990s had gone. As a shock and awe of the 21^st Century, warfare spread across television screens, cinematic horror had to offer an alternative, whilst still tapping into the fundamental cultural mood.