![Devils castle poster](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Devils_castle_poster.jpg)
The history of horror films is one that was described by author
Siegbert Solomon Prawer as difficult to read as a linear historical path, with the genre changing throughout the decades, based on the
state of cinema,
audience tastes and
contemporary world events.
Films prior to the 1930s have been retrospectively described as
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
s as the genre did not become a codified genre until the release of ''
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
'' (1931), where the style and themes of the film have been specifically re-adapted into similar works.
Context
In his book ''Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror'' (1980), author Siegbert Solomon Prawer stated that horror films cannot be interpreted as following a linear historical path. Historians and critics like
Carlos Clarens Carlos Clarens (1930–1987) was a film historian and writer on the cinema particularly noted for his sensitive, pioneering '' An Illustrated History of the Horror Film'' (1967, revised 1968). Having left Havana in his younger years, he made his mar ...
noted that while some film audiences at the time took films made by
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...
that starred
Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...
with utmost seriousness, other productions from other countries saw the material set for parody, as children's entertainment or nostalgic recollection. John Kenneth Muir in his books covering the history of horror films through the later decades of the 20th century echoed this statement, stating that horror films mirror the anxieties of "their age and their audience" concluding that "if horror isn't relevant to everyday life... it isn't horrifying".
Prior to the release of ''
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
'' (1931), historian
Gary Don Rhodes
Gary Don Rhodes (born 1972) is an American writer, filmmaker, and film historian. His work includes research on early 20th century films and key figures such as filmmakers and actors involved in the process. He is best known for his contribution ...
explained that the idea of the horror film did not exist yet as a codified genre and although critics have used the term "horror" to describe films in reviews prior to ''Dracula''s release, the term has not truly developed by this time as the genre's name. The
mystery film
A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur Detective, sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means ...
genre was in vogue and early information on ''Dracula'' being promoted as mystery film was common, despite the novel, play and film's story relying on the supernatural.
Early influences
Pre-film
![MNPKcanal side74](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/MNPKcanal_side74.JPG)
Forms of filmmaking that would become film genres were mostly defined in other media before
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
devised the
Kinetograph
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that would ...
in the late 1890s. Genres, such as adventure, detective stories, and Westerns were developed as written fiction while musical was a staple to theatre. Author and critic
Kim Newman
Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula (1931 ...
stated that if something was referred to as a horror film in 1890, no one would have understood what it meant as a specific genre, while following up that these types of films were being made but were not categorized as such at the time. Early sources of material that would influence horror films included gruesome or fantastical elements in the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh ...
,'' where heroes fight monsters, and the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
, where
plagues and
apocalypses
Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imagery ...
are discussed. Beliefs in
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
s,
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
s and the
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
have long existed in
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
of many
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
s and
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
s, that would go on to be integral elements of horror films.
Zombie
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
s, for example, originated from
Haitian folklore. In ''Asian Horror'', Andy Richards suggests that there is a "widespread and engrained acceptance of
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
forces" in many Asian cultures, and suggests this is related to
animist
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...
,
pantheist
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
and
karmic
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
religious traditions, as in
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
and
Shintoism
Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintoists ...
; these would go on to strongly influence horror cinema from the region.
Classical dramas also include elements later expanded upon by horror films, such as ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
,'' which includes vengeful spectres, exhumed skulls, multiple stabbings and characters succumbing to madness.
Early
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
such as ''
The Castle of Otranto
''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Se ...
'' (1764) and works of
Ann Radcliffe
Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for G ...
dealt with the stories involving seemingly supernatural doings and magnetic yet repulsive villains set in castles, but with their supernatural pretenses often explained in the end. The most famous of these gothic novels was ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' (1818) which would be adapted into several film adaptations. American writer
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
wrote several stories in the 1830s and 1840s that would be translated to the film screen in the future. These included "
The Black Cat", "
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
C. Auguste Dup ...
", "
The Pit and the Pendulum
"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual ''The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843''. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of ...
", "
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in ''Burton's Gentleman's Magazine'', then included in the collection ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' in 1840. The short story ...
", and "
The Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death" (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague ...
". Poe's tales often presented women who were dead, dying or spectral and focus on the obsessions of their male protagonists.
More key horror texts would be produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s than in all centuries preceding it, including: ''
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...
'' (1886), ''
The Picture of Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...
'' (1890), ''
Trilby
A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is sometimes called the "brown trilby" in Britain Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. Barnes & Noble. and ...
'' (1894), ''
The King in Yellow'' (1895), ''
The Island of Doctor Moreau
''The Island of Doctor Moreau'' is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells (1866–1946). The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick who is a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the islan ...
'' (1896), ''
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
'' (1897), ''
The Invisible Man
''The Invisible Man'' is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in ''Pearson's Weekly'' in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devote ...
'' (1897), ''
The Turn of the Screw
''The Turn of the Screw'' is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James which first appeared in serial format in ''Collier's Weekly'' (January 27 – April 16, 1898). In October 1898, it was collected in ''The Two Magics'', published by Macmill ...
'' (1898), ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles
''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set i ...
'' (1902), ''
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
''Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'' is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1904 (some had previously appeared in magazines). Some later editions under this title contain both the original collection and its su ...
'' (1904), and ''
The Phantom of the Opera
''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierr ...
'' (1911). As these an many similar novels and short stories were being made, early cinema began 1890s. Many of these stories were not specifically focused on the horrific, but lingered in popular culture for their horrific elements and set pieces that would become cinema staples.
Early film
In the nineteenth century, the word "horror" began to be used as a generic signation, albeit a rare one. In early cinema,
trick films
Trick(s) may refer to:
People
* Trick McSorley (1852–1936), American professional baseball player
* Armon Trick (born 1978), retired German international rugby union player
* David Trick (born 1955), former Ontario civil servant and universi ...
were sometimes described with various terms:
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, ...
sometimes called their films "fantastic",
Selig Polyscope Company
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom ...
called such films "Mythical and mysterious" while
Vitagraph Studios
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, ...
both "Mysterious" and "Magical". During the era of
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
exhibits, exhibitors would use the term "weird" label such films such as ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' (1910)
Arturo Ambrosio
Arturo Ambrosio (1870–1960) was an Italian film producer who was a pioneering and influential figure in the early years of Italian cinema.
Biography
Ambrosio was a photographer who owned a shop in Turin. In 1904, after returning from a visit ...
's ''La maschera tragica'' (1911) as a "weird story".
Newman described
Georges Méliès
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was well known for the use of ...
''
Le Manoir du diable
''Le Manoir du diable'' or ''The House of the Devil'', released in the United States as ''The Haunted Castle'' and in Britain as ''The Devil's Castle'', is an 1896 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. The film, which depicts a b ...
'' as the first horror film, with its imagery coming from centuries of books, legend and stage plays, featuring imagery of demons, ghosts, witches and a skeleton and a haunted castle which transforms into
the devil
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. ...
. The film has no story, but a series of
trick shots and
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
acts filmed. Méliès made over five hundred films between 1886 and 1914 ranging from historical recreation, religious films, drams, literary adaptations and false newsreels.
In the early 20th century as films became popular around the world films were production was so hectic that often told tales were made and then remade within months of each other. Adaptations of the work with Poe were often adopted in France such as ''Le Puits dett le Pendule'' (1909) and America with ''The Sealed Room'' (1909) ''The Raven'' (1912) and ''The Pit and the Pendulum'' (1913). Other famous horror characters made their film debut in the era including
Frankenstein's monster
Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compares ...
with Edison's ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' (1910), ''
Life Without Soul
''Life Without Soul'' (1915) is a lost horror film, directed by Joseph W. Smiley and written by Jesse J. Goldburg. This film is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 Gothic novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. The film is about a ...
'' (1915), and the Italian production ''
Il mostro di Frankenstein'' (1921). Several adaptations of other novels like ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' were adapted around the world, including Denmark (''Dorian Gray's Portaet'' (1910)), Russia (''Portret Doryana Greya'' (1915)), Germany (''
Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (German: ''Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray'') is a 1917 German silent fantasy film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Bernd Aldor, Ernst Pittschau, and Ernst Ludwig. The film is based on the 1890 novel ''The Pict ...
'') and Hungary (''
Az Élet királya
AZ (or similar) may refer to:
Companies and organizations
* Alkmaar Zaanstreek, formerly AZ '67, a Dutch Eredivisie football club
** AZ (women), the affiliated women's football club (2007–2011)
*AstraZeneca, a UK-based pharmaceutical company
* ...
'' (1918)). The most adapted horror story was ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'', which included early adaptations like
William Selig
William Nicholas Selig (March 14, 1864 – July 15, 1948) was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry. In 1896 he created one of the first film production companies, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago. Selig produced a string of c ...
's ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...
'' (1908). This was followed by several versions, including a British version of the story (''The Duality of Man'' (1910)), a Danish production (''
Den skæbnesvangre Opfindelse'' (1910)), and another American film in ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
'' in 1912. In 1920, three versions were made:
J. Charles Haydon
James Charles Haydon (March 27, 1875 – October 15, 1943) was an American film director, actor and screenwriter of the silent film era. He directed twelve films between 1914 and 1920. He also appeared in five films between 1912 and 1914. ...
's ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
'',
John S. Robertson's ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
'', and
F. W. Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter.
He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at t ...
's ''
Der Januskopf
''Der Januskopf'' () is a 1920 German silent film directed by F. W. Murnau. The film was an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde''. Little is kn ...
''.
Only a few actors and directors began specializing specifically in the genre. These included the German actor and director
Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener (11 December 1874 – 13 September 1948) was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.
Acting career
At the age of 20, Wegener decided to end his law studies and conce ...
, who would portray Balduin in ''
The Student of Prague'' (1913), a Poe-like story about a deal with the Devil and a deadly doppelganger. Wegener would often work on stories involving a Jewish folktale character
Golem
A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...
, with ''
Der Golem'' (1915), a sequel that also was a parody with ''
The Golem and the Dancing Girl
''The Golem and the Dancing Girl'' (original German title: ) is a 1917 German silent film, silent comedy horror film. It is part of a trilogy, preceded by ''The Golem (1915 film), The Golem'' (1915) and followed by ''The Golem: How He Came into ...
'' (1917), and a prequel ''
The Golem: How He Came into the World'' (1920). The German film ''
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (german: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, ...
'' (1920) was described by Newman as having "breakout performances" by actors
Werner Krauss
Werner Johannes Krauss (''Krauß'' in German; 23 June 1884 – 20 October 1959) was a German stage and film actor. Krauss dominated the German stage of the early 20th century. However, his participation in the antisemitic propaganda film ''Jud S ...
and
Conrad Veidt
Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (; 22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German film actor who attracted early attention for his roles in the films ''Different from the Others'' (1919), '' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), and ''The Man Who Laugh ...
. Veidt also work in ''
Der Graf von Cagliostro'' (1920), ''
The Hands of Orlac ''The Hands of Orlac'' may refer to:
* ''Les Mains d'Orlac'', a novel by Maurice Renard
and several adaptations of that novel:
* The Hands of Orlac (1924 film), ''The Hands of Orlac'' (1924 film), an Austrian film
* The Hands of Orlac (1935 film) ...
'' (1924) and both Veidt and Krauss would work together in ''
The Student of Prague'' (1926) and ''
Waxworks'' (1924) where Krauss would portray the Devil and
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...
respectively. Murnau, who had previously adapted ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'', made an adaptation of ''Dracula'' with ''
Nosferatu
''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...
'' (1922). Newman declared that this adaptation "stands as the only screen adaptation of ''Dracula'' to be primarily interested in horror, from the character's rat-like features and thin body, the film was, even more so than ''Caligari'', "a template for the horror film."
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
would not fully develop horror film stars, but actor and make-up artist
Lon Chaney
Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and affli ...
would often portray the monsters in film, such as the ape-man in ''
A Blind Bargain
''A Blind Bargain'' is a 1922 American silent horror film starring Lon Chaney and Raymond McKee, released through Goldwyn Pictures. The film was directed by Wallace Worsley and is based on Barry Pain's 1897 novel ''The Octave of Claudius''. Lo ...
'' (1922),
Quasimodo
Quasimodo (from Quasimodo Sunday) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the novel ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (1831) by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo was born with a hunchback and feared by the townspeople as a sort of monster, but h ...
in ''
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story o ...
'' (1923) and
Erik in ''
The Phantom of the Opera
''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierr ...
'' (1925) and a false vampire in ''
London After Midnight'' (1927). Chaney was not a true horror film star and was mostly known for the
melodramas
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
he made with director
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...
such as ''
The Unknown'' (1927) where he plays a murderer. Horror was provided as an occasional adjective to the films of
Lon Chaney
Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and affli ...
such as ''
The Unknown'' (1927) and ''
West of Zanzibar'' (1928). The term was still used with various interpretations, such as ''
Evening Star'' which told readers that “'Horror' Films May Be Barred
nTransit,” a reference to US Senator
Thomas Gore
Thomas Pryor Gore (December 10, 1870March 16, 1949) was an American politician who served as one of the first two United States senators from Oklahoma, from 1907 to 1921 and again from 1931 to 1937. He first entered politics as an activist for ...
's bill that would have prohibit interstate transportation of films that showcased "activities of ex-convicts, bandits, train robbers or other outlaws." In 1928, the ''Warren Tribune of Pennsylvania'' reviewed the film ''
Something
Always Happens'' (1928) and compared it ''
The Bat'' (1926) and ''
The Wizard
Wizard, the wizard, or wizards may refer to:
* Wizard (fantasy), a fictional practitioner of magic
* Wizard (supernatural), a practitioner of magic
Art, entertainment and media Fictional characters
* Wizard (Archie Comics), a comic book super ...
'' (1927) and "other films of the same type" in an article titled "Horror
Film Thrills Audience at Columbia." Rhodes noted that different descriptions were used for films like ''The Bat'', ''The Wizard'', and ''
The Cat and the Canary'' (1927), but they were most commonly referred to as
mystery films
A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, ...
."
1930s
![Dracula (1931 film poster - Style A)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Dracula_%281931_film_poster_-_Style_A%29.jpg)
In 1924, British producer
Hamilton Deane
Hamilton Deane (1880 – 25 October 1958) was an Irish actor, playwright and director. He played a key role in popularising Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula'' as a 1924 stage play and a 1931 film.
Biography
Deane was born in New Ross in C ...
premiered a stage version of ''Dracula'' at the Grand Theatre in
Derby, England
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gain ...
. An American version had premiered on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in 1927 and featuring actor
Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...
as
Count Dracula
Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by som ...
. Rhodes described the play as "taking America storm". In June 1930,
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
officially purchased the rights to both the play and the novel ''Dracula''. ''Dracula'' premiered on February 12, 1931, at the
Roxy Theatre Roxy Theatre or Roxy Theater may refer to:
Australia
*Roxy Theatre (Warner Bros. Movie World), a movie theatre within Warner Bros. Movie World, Queensland
*Roxy Community Theatre in Leeton, New South Wales, originally called the Roxy Theatre
*Roxy ...
in New York again with Lugosi in the title role. Contemporary critical response to ''Dracula'' was described by Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas and John Brunas, the authors of the book ''Universal Horrors'', as "uniformly positive, some even laudatory" and as "one of the best received critically of any of the Universal horror pictures." Universal was reportedly surprised at the strong box office and critical praise for the film, and forged ahead to make similar productions of ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' (1931) and ''
Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
C. Auguste Du ...
'' (1932) which would also star Lugosi for their 1931–1932 season. British filmmaker
James Whale
James Whale (22 July 1889 – 29 May 1957) was an English film director, theatre director and actor, who spent the greater part of his career in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood. He is best remembered for several horror films: ''Fran ...
directed ''Frankenstein'' starring
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
as the Monster also proved to be a hit for Universal which led to both ''Dracula'' and ''Frankenstein'' making film stars of Lugosi and Karloff respectively. While Karloff did not have any dialogue in ''Frankenstein'', he was allowed to speak in Universal's ''
The Mummy
A mummy is an unusually well preserved corpse.
Mummy or The Mummy may also refer to:
Places
*Mummy Range, a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado in the United States
*Mummy Cave, a rock shelter and archeological site in Par ...
'' (1932), a film Newman described as the studio knowing "what they were getting" patterning the film close to the plot of ''Dracula'' while historian Gregory W. Mank called the "one-two punch Boris Karloff needed after ''Frankenstein'' to boost his stardom. Lugosi and Karloff would star together in several Poe-adaptations in the 1930s, including ''
The Black Cat'' (1934) and ''
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...
'' (1935) and other horror features like ''
The Invisible Ray'' (1936).
Following the release of ''Dracula'', ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' declared the film's box office success led to a cycle of similar films, while ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' stated in a 1936 overview that ''Dracula'' and the arrival of
sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
began the "real triumph of these spectral thrillers". Other studios began developing their own horror projects with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
making ''
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...
'' (1931) and ''
Mad Love __NOTOC__
Mad Love may refer to: Books
*''Mad Love'' (French ''L'amour fou''), collection of poems by André Breton
*'' The Batman Adventures: Mad Love'', an Eisner and Harvey award-winning comic by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm
* Mad Love (publisher), ...
'' (1935) and
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
with ''
Island of Lost Souls'' (1932) and ''
Murders in the Zoo
''Murders in the Zoo'' is 1933 pre-Code horror film directed by A. Edward Sutherland, written by Philip Wylie and Seton I. Miller. Particularly dark, even for its time, film critic Leonard Maltin called the film "astonishingly grisly."
Plot
Bi ...
'' (1933), and
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...
with ''
Doctor X'' (1932) and ''
Mystery of the Wax Museum
''Mystery of the Wax Museum'' is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery- horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh. It was produced and released by Warner Bros. and filmed in two-color ...
'' (1933). Universal would also follow-up with Whale's ''
The Old Dark House'' (1932) and ''
The Invisible Man
''The Invisible Man'' is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in ''Pearson's Weekly'' in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devote ...
'' (1933), and ''
Bride of Frankenstein
''Bride of Frankenstein'' is a 1935 American science fiction horror film, and the first sequel to Universal Pictures' 1931 film ''Frankenstein''. As with the first film, ''Bride of Frankenstein'' was directed by James Whale starring Boris Karlo ...
'' (1935).
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
had also developed their own
monster movie
A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall under ...
with ''
King Kong
King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...
'' (1933) which Newman felt owned more to
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
's ''
The Lost World
The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late- Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century.
The g ...
'' than the ''Dracula-Frankenstein'' cycle. Other productions included independents in the United States, such as the Halperin Organization making ''
White Zombie'' (1933) with Lugosi, whose success led to a series of voo doo related film such as ''
Drums O' Voodoo
''Drums O' Voodoo'' (also known as ''Louisiana'' and ''She Devil'') is a 1934 film about voodoo. The film was written by J. Augustus Smith, based on his 1933 play ''Louisiana'', and was directed by Arthur Hoerl.
Cast
This is the cast of charact ...
'' (1934), ''
Black Moon Black Moon may refer to:
* Black moon, one of four astronomical events involving new or dark moons
* Black Moon (person) (c. 1821–1893), Lakota (American Indian) headman
* Black Moon or Lilith (hypothetical moon), a hypothetical natural satelli ...
'' (1934) and ''
Ouanga
Ouanga is a village in the Bagassi Department of Balé Province in southern Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Ma ...
''. A few productions outside of America were also made such as the British film ''
The Ghoul'' (1933) starring Karloff and the films of
Tod Slaughter
Norman Carter Slaughter (19 March 1885 – 19 February 1956), also known as Tod Slaughter, was an English actor, best known for playing over-the-top maniacs in macabre film adaptations of Victorian melodramas.
Early life
Slaughter was born o ...
.
Many horror films of this era provoked public outcry and censors cut many of the more violent and gruesome scenes from such films as ''Frankenstein'', ''
Island of Lost Souls'' and ''
The Black Cat''. In 1933, the
British Board of Film Censors
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of fi ...
(BBFC) introduced an "H" rating for films labeled "Horrific" for "any films likely to frighten or horrify children under the age of 16 years" In 1935, the President of the BBFC
Edward Shortt
Edward Shortt, KC (10 March 1862 – 10 November 1935) was a British lawyer and Liberal Party politician. He served as a member of David Lloyd George's cabinet, most significantly as Home Secretary from 1919 to 1922.
Background and education ...
, wrote "although a separate category has been established for these
orrificfilms, I am sorry to learn they are on the increase...I hope that the producers and renters will accept this word of warning, and discourage this type of subject as far as possible." As the United Kingdom was a significant market for Hollywood, American producers listened to Shortt's warning, and the number of Hollywood produced horror films decreased in 1936. A trade paper ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reported that
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
abandonment of horror films after the release of ''
Dracula's Daughter
''Dracula's Daughter'' is a 1936 American vampire horror film produced by Universal Pictures as a sequel to the 1931 film '' Dracula''. Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay by Garrett Fort, the film stars Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden in ...
'' (1936) was that "European countries, especially England are prejudiced against this type product ." The latter half of the decade had Karloff making low budget films for
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios i ...
and Lugosi being on
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
. At the end of the decade, a profitable re-release of ''Dracula'' and ''Frankenstein'' would encourage Universal to produce ''
Son of Frankenstein
''Son of Frankenstein'' is a 1939 American horror film that was directed by Rowland V. Lee and stars Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The film is the third in Universal Pictures' ''Frankenstein'' series and is the follow-up to the ...
'' (1939) featuring both Lugosi and Karloff, starting off a resurgence of the horror film that would continue into the mid-1940s.
1940s
![Cat People (1942 poster)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Cat_People_%281942_poster%29.jpg)
After the success of ''Son of Frankenstein'' (1939), Universal's horror films received what author Rick Worland of ''The Horror Film'' called "a second wind" and horror films continued to be produced at a feverish pace into the mid-1940s. Universal looked into their 1930s horror properties to develop new follow-ups such as ''
The Invisible Man Returns
''The Invisible Man Returns'' is a 1940 American horror science fiction film directed by Joe May. The film stars Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey and John Sutton. The film is a sequel to the 1933 film ''The Invisible Man'', and the sec ...
'' (1940) and ''
The Mummy's Hand
''The Mummy's Hand'' is a 1940 American black-and-white horror film directed by Christy Cabanne and produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Studios. The film is about the ancient Egyptian mummy of Kharis (Tom Tyler), who is kept alive with a brew o ...
'' (1941). ''
Man Made Monster
''Man-Made Monster'' is a 1941 American science-fiction horror film directed by George Waggner and produced by Jack Bernhard for Universal Pictures. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Lon Chaney, Jr. (in his horror film debut) and Lionel Atwill ...
'' (1941) was a pivotal release for Universal's horror output, introducing actor
Lon Chaney, Jr.
Creighton Tull Chaney (February10, 1906 – July12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film '' The Wolf Man'' (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dra ...
Chaney, Jr. had received attention for his performance as Lennie Small in ''
Of Mice and Men
''Of Mice and Men'' is a novella written by John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job o ...
'' (1939). Universal saw potential in making Chaney a new star to replace Karloff as he had not distinguished himself in either A or B pictures. Chaney, Jr. would become a horror star for the decade showing in the films in ''
The Wolf Man'' series, portraying the Mummy three times in ''
The Mummy
A mummy is an unusually well preserved corpse.
Mummy or The Mummy may also refer to:
Places
*Mummy Range, a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado in the United States
*Mummy Cave, a rock shelter and archeological site in Par ...
'' series, Frankenstein's Monster in ''
Ghost of Frankenstein
''The Ghost of Frankenstein'' is a 1942 American horror film directed by Erle C. Kenton and starring Cedric Hardwicke, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. It is the fourth film in the ''Frankenstein'' series by Universal Pictures, and the follow-up t ...
'' (1942) and as Count Dracula in ''
Son of Dracula'' (1943). Universal also created new horror series such as the three-picture feature about Paula the Ape-woman, starting with ''
Captive Wild Woman
''Captive Wild Woman'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Evelyn Ankers, John Carradine, Milburn Stone, and features Acquanetta as Paula, the Ape Woman. The film involves a scientist, Dr. Sigmund Walters, who ...
'' (1943). Universal began
crossing their horror franchises in what was colloquially called "monster rally" films. Beginning with ''
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
''Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. This was the first of a series of later called "monster rallie ...
'' (1943) which had Frankenstein's Monster meet The Wolf Man, further crossovers that included Count Dracula continued in the 1940s with ''
House of Frankenstein'' (1944) and ''
House of Dracula
''House of Dracula'' is a 1945 American horror film released and distributed by Universal Pictures. Directed by Erle C. Kenton, the film features several Universal Horror properties meeting as they had done in the 1944 film '' House of Frankens ...
'' (1945). B-Picture studios also developed films that imitated the style of Universal's horror output. Karloff worked with
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
acting in various films as a "
Mad doctor
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or " insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly a ...
"-type characters starting with ''
The Man They Could Not Hang
''The Man They Could Not Hang'' is a 1939 American horror film directed by Nick Grinde from a screenplay by Karl Brown. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Henryk Savaard,Stephen Jacobs, ''Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster'', Tomahawk Press 2011 pp. ...
'' (1939) while Lugosi worked between Universal and
poverty row
Poverty Row is a slang term used to refer to Hollywood films produced from the 1920s to the 1950s by small (and mostly short-lived) B movie studios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's Gower Street in Hollywood, the term did n ...
studios such as
Producers Releasing Corporation
Producers Releasing Corporation was the smallest and least prestigious of the Hollywood film studios of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called "Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower Street in Hollywood where shoest ...
(PRC) for ''
The Devil Bat
''The Devil Bat'' is a 1940 black-and-white American horror/howcatchem film produced by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and directed by Jean Yarborough. The film stars Bela Lugosi along with Suzanne Kaaren, Guy Usher, Yolande Mallott and ...
'' (1941) and Monogram for nine features films.
In March 1942, producer
Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a paint ...
ended his working relationship with independent producer
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick (May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca'' (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture.
E ...
to work for
RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
'
Charles Koerner
Charles Koerner (September 10, 1896 – February 2, 1946) was an American film executive, best known for being executive vice president over production at RKO Pictures from 1942 to 1946.
Koerner is best remembered for firing Orson Welles fr ...
, becoming the head of a new unit created to develop
B-movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...
horror feature films. According to
DeWitt Bodeen
DeWitt Bodeen (July 25, 1908 — March 12, 1988) was an American film screenwriter and television writer best known for writing ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat People'' (1942).
Biography
Born Homer DeWitt Bodeen on July 25, 1908, in Fresno, Cali ...
, the screenwriter of the Lewton's first horror production ''
Cat People'' (1942), Bodeen watched British and American horror and suspense films that he felt were "typical of what we did not want to do" while director
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur (; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir ''Out of the Past'' and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat ...
recalled Lewton deciding to not make a "cheap horror movie that the studio expected but something intelligent and in good taste". Newman later described ''Cat People'' and the other horror productions by Lewton such as ''
I Walked with a Zombie
''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison (actor), James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who trave ...
'' (1943) and ''
The Seventh Victim
''The Seventh Victim'' is a 1943 American horror film noir directed by Mark Robson and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, and Hugh Beaumont. Written by DeWitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal, and produced by Val Lewton f ...
'' (1943) as "polished, doom-haunted, poetic" while film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
the films Lewton produced in the 1940s were "landmark
in American movie history". Several horror films of the 1940s borrowed from ''Cat People'', specifically feature a female character who fears that she has inherited the tendency to turn into a monster or attempt to replicate the shadowy visual style of the film with ''
Jungle Woman
''Jungle Woman'' is a 1944 American horror film directed by Reginald LeBorg. The film stars Evelyn Ankers, J. Carrol Naish, Samuel S. Hinds, Lois Collier, Milburn Stone, and Douglass Dumbrille. The film involves Dr. Carl Fletcher who is in court ...
'' (1944), ''
The Soul of a Monster
''The Soul of a Monster'' is a 1944 American horror film directed by Will Jason and starring Rose Hobart, George Macready, Jim Bannon, Jeanne Bates and Erik Rolf. The film involves the near-death of George Winson, leading to Anne Winson to call ...
'' (1944), ''
The Woman Who Came Back
''The Woman Who Came Back'' is a 1945 horror film directed by Walter Colmes and starring John Loder, Nancy Kelly, and Otto Kruger. The film concerns an offbeat woman who becomes convinced that she is a witch, a conclusion which eventually leads ...
'' (1945), ''
She-Wolf of London'' (1946), ''
The Cat Creeps'' (1946), and ''
The Creeper'' (1948).
In April 1946, the ''Hollywood Reporter'' announced that horror films were earning "heavier adult patronage" and were receiving "universal appeal" due to higher budgets and higher standards. Rhodes and Kaffenberger noted the elasticity of the term horror in the article, specifically mentioning films like ''
The Spiral Staircase'' and ''
Bedlam'' (1946). The magazine also referred to films such as
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
's ''
Spellbound'' and a few foreign films such as ''
The Girl and the Devil
''The Girl and the Devil'' (Swedish: ''Flickan och djävulen'') is a 1944 Swedish mystery thriller film directed by Hampe Faustman and starring Kolbjörn Knudsen, Gunn Wållgren and Stig Järrel.Qvist & Von Bagh p.58 It was shot at the Centrumatel ...
'' (1944) and ''
Dead of Night
''Dead of Night'' is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Wi ...
'' (1945) under the term. In 1946,
Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak (August 10, 1902 – September 2, 2000) was a German-American novelist and screenwriter. He is known for his work in the horror and science fiction film genres, with such films as '' The Wolf Man'' and '' Donovan's Brain'' (the l ...
, the screenwriter of films like ''
The Wolf Man'' (1941) stated that "When horror enters the gilded gate of top production, it is glorified as a '
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting.
In terms of context and co ...
.' But a rose by any other name. . . " Between 1947 and 1951, Hollywood made almost no new horror films. Between this period, American studios were re-releasing their back catalog of horror film productions by studios such as Universal and Monogram. Box-office receipts had fallen sharply due to decling theatre attendance leading to the ''
Motion Picture Herald The ''Motion Picture Herald'' was an American film industry trade paper published from 1931 to December 1972.Anthony Slide, ed. (1985)''International Film, Radio, and Television Journals'' Greenwood Press. p. 242. It was replaced by the ''QP Herald ...
'' reporting that seven of the eleven major producer-distributors companies including MGM, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and PRC would re-release their previous seasons films. In the period between 1947 and 1951 at least 25 Bela Lugosi horror films were re-released theatrically.
1950s
![The Thing From Another World (1950 poster)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/The_Thing_From_Another_World_%281950_poster%29.jpg)
While studies suggest that
gothic horror
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
had fallen out of fashion between the release of ''House of Dracula'' (1945) and ''
The Curse of Frankenstein
''The Curse of Frankenstein'' is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus '' by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour horror film, and the first of t ...
'' (1957), small glimpses of the genre appeared in films such as ''
The Son of Dr. Jekyll
''The Son of Dr. Jekyll'' is a 1951 American horror film directed by Seymour Friedman and starring Louis Hayward, Jody Lawrance and Alexander Knox. The film is a continuation of Robert Louis Stevenson's original classic 1886 novella ''Strange ...
'' (1951), ''
The Strange Door
''The Strange Door'' is a 1951 American horror film, released by Universal Pictures, and starring Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest and Richard Stapley. Karloff's role is actually a supporting one but his name carried significant w ...
'' (1951), ''
The Black Castle
''The Black Castle'' is a 1952 American horror film directed by Nathan H. Juran and starring Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally, Rita Corday and Lon Chaney Jr. It was produced by William Alland. The film was made in the United States ...
'' (1952) and ''
House of Wax'' (1953). Prior to the release of
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve clas ...
's gothic films, the last gothic horror films of the 1950s often featured aged stars like
Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...
,
Lon Chaney Jr.
Creighton Tull Chaney (February10, 1906 – July12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film '' The Wolf Man'' (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dracu ...
, and
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
in films made by low budget indie film directors like
Ed Wood
Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker,
actor, and pulp novel author.
In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult cla ...
or
Reginald LeBorg
Reginald Le Borg (11 December 1902 – 25 March 1989) was an Austrian film director. He was born in Vienna, Austria with the surname Groebel and directed 68 films between 1936 and 1974.
Le Borg made a series of low-budget horror films at Un ...
or producers like
Howard W. Koch
Howard Winchel Koch (April 11, 1916 – February 16, 2001) was an American producer and director of film and television.
Life and career
Koch was born in New York City, the son of Beatrice (Winchel) and William Jacob Koch. His family was Jewish. ...
. Hammer originally began developing American-styled science fiction films in the early 1950s but later branched into horror with their colour films ''The Curse of Frankenstein'' and ''
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
'' (1958). These films would birth two horror film stars:
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor and singer. In a long career spanning more than 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultimat ...
and
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor. His acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage, and radio roles. He achieved recognition ...
. Along with Hammer's more science fiction oriented series ''
Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the Brit ...
'', both the gothic and science fiction films of Hammer would develop many similar films within the years.
Among the most influential horror films of the 1950s was ''
The Thing From Another World
''The Thing from Another World'', sometimes referred to as just ''The Thing'', is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, directed by Christian Nyby, produced by Edward Lasker for Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporati ...
'' (1951), with Newman stating that countless science fiction horror films of the 1950s would follow in its style, while the film, ''
The Man from Planet X
''The Man from Planet X'' is a 1951 independently made American black-and-white science fiction horror film, produced by Jack Pollexfen and Aubrey Wisberg, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, that stars Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, and William Sch ...
'' (1951) was still in debt to Universal horror style of filming with a bearded scientist and foggy sets. For five years following the release of ''The Thing From Another World'', nearly every film involving aliens, dinosaurs or radioactive mutants would be dealt with matter-of-fact characters as seen in ''The Thing From Another World''. Even films that adapted for older characters had science fiction leanings such as ''
The Vampire'' (1957), ''
The Werewolf'' (1956) and ''
Frankenstein 1970
''Frankenstein 1970'' is a 1958 science fiction/horror film, shot in black and white CinemaScope, starring Boris Karloff and featuring Don "Red" Barry. The independent film was directed by Howard W. Koch, written by Richard Landau and George Wort ...
'' (1958) being influenced by the atomic inspired monsters of the era. Films with a ''
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...
'' theme also appeared with ''
The Neanderthal Man
''The Neanderthal Man'' is a 78-minute, 1953 American black-and-white science fiction film produced independently by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, as Global Productions Inc., from their own original screenplay.
It starred Robert Shayne, Ri ...
'' (1953), ''
The Fly'' (1958), ''
Monster on the Campus
''Monster on the Campus'' (a.k.a. ''Monster in the Night'' and ''Stranger on the Campus'') is a 1958 American black-and-white science fiction/horror film from Universal Studios, Universal-International, produced by Joseph Gershenson, directed b ...
'' (1958) and ''
The Hideous Sun Demon
''The Hideous Sun Demon'' (sometimes billed as ''The Sun Demon'', or in the UK as ''Blood on His Lips'') is a 1958 American science fiction horror film produced, directed, and cowritten by Robert Clarke, who also starred in the title role. It al ...
'' (1958). Smaller trends also included the Universal-International produced the film ''
Cult of the Cobra
''Cult of the Cobra'' is a 1955 American black-and-white horror film from Universal-International Pictures, produced by Howard Pine, directed by Francis D. Lyon, that stars Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Kathleen Hughes, Marshall Thompson, Ja ...
'' (1955) which created a brief wave of horror films featuring
Pin-up model
A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion models ...
like mutants such as ''
The Leech Woman
''The Leech Woman'' is a 1960 black-and-white US horror film from Universal-International, produced by Joseph Gershenon, directed by Edward Dein, and starring Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott, and Phillip Terry. The film was actual ...
'' (1960) and ''
The Wasp Woman
''The Wasp Woman'' (also known as ''The Bee Girl'' and ''Insect Woman'') is a 1959 American independent science-fiction horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Mich ...
'' (1959).
Films from the 1950s reflected the filmmaking styles of the era. These included some horror films being shot in 3D, such as ''
The Mad Magician
''The Mad Magician'' is a 1954 American horror film in 3D, directed by John Brahm
John Brahm (August 17, 1893 – October 12, 1982) was a German film and television director. His films include ''The Undying Monster'' (1942), '' The Lodger'' ( ...
'' (1954), ''
Phantom of the Rue Morgue
''Phantom of the Rue Morgue'' is a 1954 American mystery horror film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin and Patricia Medina. The film is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story ''The Murders in the Rue ...
'' (1954), and ''
The Maze'' (1953). Director
William Castle
William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor.
Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attenti ...
also attracted horror audiences with his gimmick-themed horror films such as ''
The Tingler
''The Tingler'' is a 1959 American horror film produced and directed by William Castle. It is the third of five collaborations between Castle and writer Robb White, and starring Vincent Price.
The film tells the story of a scientist who discover ...
'' (1959) and ''
House on Haunted Hill
''House on Haunted Hill'' is a 1959 American horror film produced and directed by William Castle, written by Robb White and starring Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal, Carolyn Craig and Elisha Cook Jr. Price plays an ec ...
'' (1959) that involved props and effects happening within the cinema. Horror films aimed a young audience featuring teenage monsters grew popular in the 1950s with several productions from
American International Pictures
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...
(AIP) and productions of
Herman Cohen
Herman Cohen (August 27, 1925 – June 2, 2002) was an American producer of B-movies during the 1950s, and helped to popularize the teen horror movie genre with films like the cult classic ''I Was a Teenage Werewolf''.
Career
Born in Detroit, ...
with ''
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
''I Was a Teenage Werewolf'' is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager, Yvonne Lime and Whit Bissell. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen and was one of the most successful films released ...
'' (1957) and ''
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' (U.K. title: ''Teenage Frankenstein'') is a film starring Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates and Gary Conway, released by American International Pictures (AIP) in November 1957 as a double feature with '' Blood of Dra ...
'' (1957). This led to later productions like ''
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll'' (1957) and ''
Frankenstein's Daughter
''Frankenstein's Daughter'' is an independently made 1958 American black-and-white science fiction/ horror film drama, produced by Marc Frederic and George Fowley, directed by Richard E. Cunha, that stars John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald ...
'' (1958). Horror films also expanded further into international productions in the 1950s such as Mexican production ''
El vampiro
'' El vampiro'' ( en, The Vampire) is a 1957 Mexico, Mexican horror film, produced by Abel Salazar (actor), Abel Salazar and directed by Fernando Méndez from an original screenplay by Ramon Obon, and starring German Robles as Count Lavud, the ...
'' (1957). In Italy,
Riccardo Freda
Riccardo Freda (24 February 1909 – 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror film, horror, ''giallo'' and spy films.
Freda began directing ''I Vampiri'' in 1956. The f ...
and
Mario Bava
Mario Bava (31 July 1914 – 27 April 1980) was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter, frequently referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Ma ...
developed early Italian horror films with ''
I Vampiri
''I Vampiri'' ( The Vampires) is a 1957 Italian horror film. The film was directed by Riccardo Freda and completed by the film's cinematographer, Mario Bava. It stars Gianna Maria Canale, Carlo D'Angelo and Dario Michaelis. The film is about a s ...
'' (1957) and ''
Caltiki – The Immortal Monster'' (1959). Productions also extended into the Philippines (''
Terror Is a Man
''Terror Is a Man'' (also known as ''Blood Creature'', ''Creature from Blood Island'', ''The Gory Creatures'', ''Island of Terror'' and ''Gore Creature'') is a 1959Warren, Bill (1986). ''Keep Watching The Skies Volume 2''. McFarland & Co., Inc. ...
'' (1959)), Germany (''
The Head'' (1959) and ''
Horrors of Spider Island
''Horrors of Spider Island'' (german: Ein Toter hing im Netz, "A Corpse Hung in the Web") is a 1960 West German horror film written and directed by Fritz Böttger, and produced by Gaston Hakim and Wolf C. Hartwig for Rapid-Film/Intercontinental Fil ...
'' (1960)) and France (''
Eyes Without a Face'' (1960)).
1960s
![Psycho (1960) theatrical poster (retouched)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Psycho_%281960%29_theatrical_poster_%28retouched%29.jpg)
Newman that the horror film changed dramatically in 1960. Specifically, with
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
's film ''
Psycho'' (1960) based on the novel by
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small ...
. Newman declared that the film elevated the idea of a multiple-personality serial killer that set the tone future film that was only touched upon in earlier melodramas and ''
film noirs
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarde ...
'' such as ''
Hangover Square
''Hangover Square'' is a 1941 novel by English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton. It follows the schizophrenic alcoholic George Harvey Bone and his tortured love for Netta Longdon in the months leading up to the Second World War. Subtit ...
'' (1945) and ''
While the City Sleeps While the City Sleeps may refer to:
* ''While the City Sleeps'' (1928 film), an American silent film starring Lon Chaney
* ''While the City Sleeps'' (1950 film), a Swedish drama scripted by Ingmar Bergman
* ''While the City Sleeps'' (1956 film), ...
'' (1956). The release of ''Psycho'' led to similar pictures about the psychosis of characters, including ''
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?'' (1962) and the Bloch-scripted ''
Strait-Jacket
''Strait-Jacket'' is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by William Castle, written by Robert Bloch and starring Joan Crawford. Its plot follows a woman who, having murdered her husband and his lover decades prior, ...
'' (1964) by
William Castle
William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor.
Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attenti ...
. The influence of ''Psycho'' continued into the 1970s with films ranging from ''
Taste of Fear
''Taste of Fear'' is a 1961 British thriller film directed by Seth Holt. The film stars Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd, and Christopher Lee in a supporting role. It was released in the United States as ''Scream of Fear''.
Plot
Afte ...
'' (1961), ''
Paranoiac
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...
'' (1962), and ''
Pretty Poison'' (1968). Following ''Psycho'', there was a brief reappearance of what Newman described as "stately, tasteful" horror films such as
Jack Clayton
Jack Isaac Clayton (1 March 1921 – 26 February 1995) was a British film director and producer who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.
Overview
Starting out as a teenage studio "tea boy" in 1935, Clayton worked his way up ...
's ''
The Innocents'' (1961) and
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...
's ''
The Haunting'' (1963). Outside America, Japan released films to critical acclaim such as
Masaki Kobayashi
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, best known for the epic (genre), epic trilogy ''The Human Condition (film series), The Human Condition'' (1959–1961), the samurai films ''Harakiri (1962 film), Harakiri'' (1962) and ''Samurai Reb ...
's ''
Kwaidan
is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 (''kai'') meaning "strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparition" and 談 (''dan'') meaning "talk" or "recited narrative".
Overall meaning and usage
In its broadest sense, ''kaidan'' refers ...
'' (1965) which won international awards including Special Jury Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
. Newman described
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a (né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two ...
's ''
Rosemary's Baby'' (1968) the other "event" horror film of the 1960s after ''Psycho''. The influence of ''Rosemary's Baby'' story involving satanic themes would not be felt until the 1970s with films like ''
The Exorcist
''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin and written for the screen by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel of the same name. It stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty W ...
'' (1973) and ''
The Omen
''The Omen'' is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer ...
'' (1976).
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
convinced AIP to develop two cheap black-and-white horror films, and used the budget of these two films to make the colour film ''
House of Usher'' (1960). The film created its own cycle of Poe-adaptations by Corman, including ''
The Pit and the Pendulum
"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual ''The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843''. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of ...
'' (1961), ''
Tales of Terror
''Tales of Terror'' is a 1962 American International Pictures horror film in colour and Panavision, produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson, and Roger Corman, who also directed. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, and th ...
'' (1962), and ''
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...
'' (1963) which provided roles for aging horror stars such as Karloff and Chaney, Jr. These films were made to compete with the British colour horror films from Hammer in the United Kingdom featuring their horror stars Cushing and Fisher. Hammer made several films in their ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...
'' series between 1958 and 1973, while still producing one-offs such as ''
The Reptile
''The Reptile'' is a 1966 horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. It was directed by John Gilling, and starred Noel Willman, Jacqueline Pearce, Ray Barrett, Jennifer Daniel, and Michael Ripper.
Plot summary
In the 20th century in the fict ...
'' (1966) and ''
Plague of the Zombies'' (1966). Competition for Hammer appeared in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom with
Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions was a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England, active between 1962 and 1977. It was founded by American producers and screenwriters Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.
Films
Prior to establishi ...
such as ''
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
''Dr Terror's House of Horrors'' is a 1965 British anthology horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, written by Milton Subotsky, and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
It was the firs ...
'' (1964) and also featured actors Cushing and Lee. Unlike Hammer, Amicus drew from contemporary sources such as Bloch (''
The Skull
''The Skull'' is a 1965 British horror film directed by Freddie Francis for Amicus Productions, and starring the frequently paired horror actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, alongside Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Nigel Green, P ...
'' (1965) and ''
Torture Garden'' (1967)) which led to Hammer adapting works by
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yeats Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a British writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series ...
(''
The Devil Rides Out
''The Devil Rides Out'' is a 1934 novel by Dennis Wheatley telling a disturbing story of black magic and the occult. The four main characters, the Duke de Richleau, Rex van Ryn, Simon Aron and Richard Eaton, appear in a series of novels by Wh ...
'' (1968)).
Mario Bava's ''
Black Sunday'' (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to Bava's film, Fisher's early Hammer films had attempted to push the envelope; ''The Curse of Frankenstein'' relied on make-up to depict the horror of the monster, ''Dracula'' had its gorier scenes cut by the
British Board of Film Censors
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of fi ...
, and the violence in the backstory of ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles
''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set i ...
'' (1959) was conveyed mostly through narration. The violence in ''Psycho'' (1960), which was released a week earlier than ''Black Sunday'', was portrayed through suggestion, as its famous "
shower scene" made use of
fast cutting
Fast cutting is a film editing technique which refers to several consecutive shots of a brief duration (e.g. 3 seconds or less). It can be used to quickly convey much information, or to imply either energy or chaos. Fast cutting is also frequent ...
. ''Black Sunday'', by contrast, depicted violence without suggestion. This level of violence would later be seen in other Italian genre films, such as the
Spaghetti Western
The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
and the ''
giallo
In Italian cinema, ''Giallo'' (; plural ''gialli'', from ''giallo'', Italian for yellow) is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers that often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, ...
'', including Bava's own ''
Blood and Black Lace
''Blood and Black Lace'' ( it, 6 donne per l'assassino, lit=6 Women for the Murderer) is a 1964 ''giallo'' film directed by Mario Bava and starring Eva Bartok and Cameron Mitchell. The story concerns the brutal murders of a Roman fashion house ...
'' (1964) and the ''gialli'' of
Dario Argento
Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and film critic, critic. His influential work in the horror film, horror genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as ...
and
Lucio Fulci
Lucio Fulci (; 17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and Spaghetti Westerns, he garn ...
. Other independent productions of the 1960s expanded on the gore shown in the films in a genre later described as the
splatter film
A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the human body a ...
, with films by
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Herschell Gordon Lewis (June 15, 1926 – September 26, 2016) was an American filmmaker, best known for creating the " splatter" subgenre of horror films. He is often called the "Godfather of Gore" (a title also given to Lucio Fulci), though hi ...
such as ''
Blood Feast
''Blood Feast'' is a 1963 American splatter film. It was composed, shot, and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, written by Allison Louise Downe from an idea by Lewis and David F. Freidman, and stars Mal Arnold, William Kerwin, Connie Mason, a ...
'' which led to similar minded independent directors making similar works like
Andy Milligan
Andrew Jackson Milligan Jr. (February 12, 1929 – June 3, 1991) was an American playwright, screenwriter, actor, and filmmaker, whose work includes 27 movies made between 1965 and 1988. In spite of the fact that he directed a number of movie ...
and
Ted V. Mikels
Ted V. Mikels (born Theodore Vincent Mikacevich; April 29, 1929 – October 16, 2016) was an American independent filmmaker primarily of the horror cult film genre. Movies that he both produced and directed include ''Girl in Gold Boots'' (196 ...
. Newman found that the true breakthrough of these indepdent films was
George A. Romero
George Andrew Romero (; February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017) was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer, editor and actor. His ''Night of the Living Dead'' series of films about an imagined zombie apocalypse began with the 1968 film of the ...
's ''
Night of the Living Dead
''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven peop ...
'' (1968) which set a new attitudes for the horror film, one that was suspicious of authority figures, broke taboos of society and was satirical between its more suspenseful set pieces.
''Black Sunday''s focus on combining eroticism and horror, specifically the eroticism of a tortured body — a trend that other European horror filmmakers like the French
Jean Rollin
Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil (3 November 193815 December 2010) was a French film director, actor, and novelist best known for his work in the fantastique Film genre, genre.
Overview
Rollins' career, spanning over fifty years, featured earl ...
and Spanish
Jesús Franco
Jesús Franco Manera (12 May 1930 – 2 April 2013) was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a prolific director of low-budget exploitation film, exploitation and B-movies. In a career spanning from 1959 to 2013, he wrote, directe ...
would follow. Franco would make several horror films from the 1960s on, borrowing the plot of ''Eyes Without a Face'' (1960) for ''
The Awful Dr. Orloff
''The Awful Dr. Orloff'' ( es, Gritos en la noche, translation=Screams in the Night; french: L'Horrible Docteur Orloff) is a 1962 horror film written and directed by Jesús Franco. It stars Howard Vernon as the mad Dr. Orloff (sometimes spelled O ...
'' (1962) while screenwriter and actor Jacinto Molina under the name
Paul Naschy
Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina Álvarez, September 6, 1934 – November 30, 2009) was a Spanish film actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures— The Wolfman, ...
began developing Spanish horror films by borrowing characters from Universal properties such as ''
La Marca del Hombre Lobo'' (1968).
1970s
Historian John Kenneth Muir described the 1970s as a "truly eclectic time" for horror cinema, noting a mixture of fresh and more personal efforts on film while other were a resurrection of older characters that have appeared since the 1930s and 1940s. ''Night of the Living Dead'' had what Newman described as a "slow burning influence" on horror films of the era, some just adapted the zombie framework such as ''
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
''Let Sleeping Corpses Lie'' ( it, Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, ''Do Not Profane the Sleep of the Dead''; es, No profanar el sueño de los muertos, ''Do Not Profane the Sleep of the Dead''), also known as ''The Living Dead at Manc ...
'' (1974) while others became what Newman "the first of the genre auteurs", finding previous great genre directors such as Whale, Lewton and
Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher (23 February 1904 – 18 June 1980) was a British film director best known for his work for Hammer Films.
He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films, ...
had worked within studio settings. These included American directors such as
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
,
Tobe Hooper
Willard Tobe Hooper (; January 25, 1943 – August 26, 2017) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work in the horror film, horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influenti ...
,
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...
and
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for his work in the suspense, crime and psychological thriller genres. De Palma was a leading ...
as well as directors working outside America such as
Bob Clark
Benjamin Robert Clark (August 5, 1939 – April 4, 2007) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He is best known for his work in the Canadian film industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where he was responsible ...
,
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...
and
Dario Argento
Dario Argento (; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and film critic, critic. His influential work in the horror film, horror genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as ...
. Prior to ''Night of the Living Dead'', the monsters of horror films could easily be banished or defeated by the end of the film, while Romero's film and the films of other filmmakers would often suggest other horror still lingered after the credits.
Horror films continued to be made around the world in the 1970s. In the United Kingdom, Amicus focused their production on humorous horror anthologies, such as ''
Tales from the Crypt
Tales from the Crypt may refer to:
* ''Tales from the Crypt'' (album), by American rapper C-Bo
* ''Tales from the Crypt'' (comics), published by EC Comics during the 1950s
** ''Tales from the Crypt'' (film), a 1972 Amicus film starring Ralph Ric ...
'' (1972). The studio stopped producing horror films by the mid-1970s and closed in 1977. By the 1970s, Hammer Films pushed their films in different directions, such as their new series where vampires are implied to be lesbians in ''
The Vampire Lovers
''The Vampire Lovers'' is a 1970 British Gothic horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, George Cole, Kate O'Mara, Madeline Smith, Dawn Addams and Jon Finch. It was produced by Hammer Film Productions. I ...
'' (1970), ''
Lust for a Vampire
''Lust for a Vampire'', also known as ''Love for a Vampire'' or ''To Love a Vampire'' (the latter title was the one used on American television), is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Ralph Bates, Barbara Jeffo ...
'' (1970) and ''
Twins of Evil
''Twins of Evil'' (also known as ''Twins of Dracula'') is a 1971 British horror film directed by John Hough and starring Peter Cushing, with Damien Thomas and the real-life identical twins and former ''Playboy'' Playmates Mary and Madeleine C ...
'' (1971). Hammer's Dracula series was updated to contemporary settings with ''Dracula A.D. 1972'' (1972) and its sequel ''
The Satanic Rites of Dracula
''The Satanic Rites of Dracula'' is a 1973 British horror film directed by Alan Gibson and produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is the eighth film in Hammer's ''Dracula'' series, and the seventh and final one to feature Christopher Lee as Drac ...
'' (1973), after which, Lee retired from the Dracula role. Hammer ceased feature film production in the 1970s. Other small booms in the Italian film industry included Argento's ''
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
''The Bird with the Crystal Plumage'' () is a 1970 giallo film directed by Dario Argento, in his directorial debut. The film has been credited with popularizing giallo, an Italian genre of thriller developed in the 1960s. It is the first in what ...
'' (1970) which created a trend in Italy for the ''giallo'' film. Other smaller trends permutated in Italy such as films involving
cannibals
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...
,
zombies
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
,
nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
which Newman described as "disreputable crazes". Some films of the 1970s pushed the eroticism to the point of horror and
Pornographic film
Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, sex films, and 18+ films are films that present sexually explicit subject matter in order to arouse and satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films present sexual fantasies and usually include eroticall ...
hybrids. The rise of zombie films towards the end of the decade was triggered by Romero's follow-up to ''Night'', with ''
Dawn of the Dead'' (1978).
Remakes of proved to be popular choices for horror films in the 1970s, with films like ''
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers'' (1978) and tales based on ''Dracula'' which continued into the late 1970s with
John Badham
John MacDonald Badham (born August 25, 1939) is an English television and film director, best known for his films ''Saturday Night Fever'' (1977), ''Dracula'' (1979), ''Blue Thunder'' (1983), ''WarGames'' (1983), ''Short Circuit'' (1986), and ...
's ''
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
'' (1979) and
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with un ...
's ''
Nosferatu the Vampyre
''Nosferatu the Vampyre'' (german: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, lit=Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night) is a 1979 horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. It is set primarily in 19th-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, and was conce ...
'' (1979). Other American production also placed vampires in a contemporary settings with ''
Count Yorga, Vampire
''Count Yorga, Vampire'' (also known as ''The Loves Of Count Iorga, Vampire'') is a 1970 American vampire horror film written and directed by Bob Kelljan and starring Robert Quarry, Roger Perry and Michael Murphy. It was followed by a sequel, ''Th ...
'' (1970) and ''
Blacula
''Blacula'' is a 1972 American blaxploitation horror film directed by William Crain. It stars William Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire (and later locked in a coffin) b ...
'' (1972). ''Blacula'' set off a cycle combining the
blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...
and horror films with titles like ''
Scream Blacula Scream
''Scream Blacula Scream'' is a 1973 American blaxploitation vampire horror film. It is a sequel to the 1972 film ''Blacula''. The film was produced by American International Pictures (AIP) and Power Productions. This was the acting debut of Ri ...
'' (1973), ''
Blackenstein
''Blackenstein'', also known as ''Black Frankenstein'', is a 1973 American blaxploitation horror film directed by William A. Levey and starring John Hart, Ivory Stone, Andrea King, Roosevelt Jackson, Joe De Sue, Nick Bolin, and Liz Renay. It is ...
'' (1973), and ''
Ganja and Hess
''Ganja & Hess'' is a 1973 American blaxploitation horror film written and directed by Bill Gunn and starring Marlene Clark and Duane Jones. The film follows the exploits of anthropologist Dr. Hess Green (Jones), who becomes a vampire after his ...
'' (1973). European production also continued to feature ''Dracula'' and ''Frankenstein'' such as
Paul Morrissey
Paul Morrissey (born February 23, 1938) is an American film director, best known for his association with Andy Warhol. He was also director of the first film in which a transgender actress, Holly Woodlawn, starred as a girlfriend of the main cha ...
's ''
Blood for Dracula
''Blood for Dracula'' is a 1974 horror film written and directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry, Stefania Casini, Arno Juerging, and Vittorio de Sica. Upon its initial 1974 release in West Germany a ...
'' (1974) and ''
Flesh for Frankenstein
''Flesh for Frankenstein'' is a 1973 horror film written and directed by Paul Morrissey. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren and Arno Juerging. Interiors were filmed at Cinecittà in Rome by a crew of Italian filmmakers.
In W ...
'' (1973) which both delved into the eroticism of their stories. Although not an official remake, the last high-grossing horror film of decade, ''
Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'' (1979) took b-movie elements from films like ''
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
''It! The Terror from Beyond Space'' is an independently made 1958 American science fiction horror film, produced by Robert Kent, directed by Edward L. Cahn, that stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith (Shirley Patterson), and Kim Spalding. The ...
'' (1958).
''
The Exorcist
''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin and written for the screen by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel of the same name. It stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty W ...
'' (1973) was a film that Newman described as getting Hollywood back into horror film production. Along with ''Rosemary's Baby'', Newman described the film as having the "grit and realism" that was part of the
New Hollywood
The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence.
They influenced the types o ...
movement of the period with "nuanced performances" and non-star actors. Several films with the religious motifs of ''The Exorcist'' followed in the seventies in America with films like ''
Abby'' (1974) and ''
The Omen
''The Omen'' is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer ...
'' (1976) as well as Italy with films like ''
A Black Ribbon for Deborah
''A Black Ribbon for Deborah'' ( it, Un fiocco nero per Deborah) is a 1974 Italian horror film directed by Marcello Andrei.
Cast
* Bradford Dillman as Michel Lagrange
* Marina Malfatti as Deborah Lagrange
* Gig Young as Ofenbauer
* Delia Bocc ...
'' (1974). In 1988, Newman later described the cycle as being "burned out instantly" with films mostly borrowing from ''Rosemary's Baby'' and the last of the cycle to borrow from ''The Exorcist'' being ''
Amityville II: The Possession'' (1982).
In 1963, Hitchcock defined a new genre nature taking revenge on humanity with ''
The Birds'' (1963) that was expanded into a trend into 1970s. Following the success of ''
Willard'' (1971), a film about killer rats, 1972 had similar films with ''
Stanley
Stanley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Film and television
* ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film
* ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy
* ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short
* ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...
'' (1972) and an official sequel ''
Ben
Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right.
Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, ...
'' (1972). Other films followed in suit such as ''
Night of the Lepus
''Night of the Lepus'' (also known as ''Rabbits'') is a 1972 American science fiction horror film directed by William F. Claxton and produced by A. C. Lyles. Based upon Russell Braddon's 1964 science fiction novel '' The Year of the Angry Rabbit' ...
'' (1972), ''
Frogs
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...
'' (1972), ''
Bug'' (1975), ''
Squirm
''Squirm'' is a 1976 American natural horror film written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, starring Don Scardino, Patricia Pearcy, R. A. Dow, Jean Sullivan, Peter MacLean, Fran Higgins and William Newman. The film takes place in the fictional to ...
'' (1976) and what Muir described as the "turning point" in the genre with ''
Jaws
Jaws or Jaw may refer to:
Anatomy
* Jaw, an opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth
** Mandible, the lower jaw
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Jaws (James Bond), a character in ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' and ''Moonraker''
* ...
'' (1975), which became the highest-grossing film at that point and moved the animal attacks genres "towards a less-fantastic route" with less giant animals and more real-life creatures such as ''
Grizzly
The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America.
In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...
'' (1976) and ''
Night Creature
''Night Creature'' is a 1978 American horror film starring Donald Pleasence and Nancy Kwan. Its plot follows a group of visitors on an island who are stalked by a vicious leopard that a big-game hunter has let loose to hunt.
Plot
Cast
Extern ...
'' (1977), ''
Orca
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only Extant taxon, extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black ...
'' (1977), and ''
Jaws 2
''Jaws 2'' is a 1978 American thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's ''Jaws'' (1975), and the second installment in the ''Jaws'' franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider as ...
'' (1978). Newman's described ''Jaws'' as a "concerto of shock" noting its memorable music theme and its monster not being product of society like
Norman Bates
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 thriller novel '' Psycho''. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, wh ...
in ''Psycho'' or family like in ''
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American horror film produced and directed by Tobe Hooper from a story and screenplay by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, w ...
'' (1974). These elements were carried over into Carpenter's ''
Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
'' (1978) Newman described that along that high grossing films like ''Alien'',''Jaws'' and ''Halloween'' were hits based on "relentless suspense machines with high visual sophistication." Along with the other mainstream hit film De Palma's ''
Carrie
Carrie may refer to:
People
* Carrie (name), a female given name and occasionally a surname
Places in the United States
* Carrie, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
* Carrie, Virginia, an unincorporated community
* Carrie Glacier, Olympic Nati ...
'' (1976), ''Halloween'' began the trend of teenagers becoming ever-present lead characters in horror films while ''Carrie'' itself was a film Newman described as having a "dream-logic" to its supernatural plot, which was extended to the plot of Argento's films like ''
Suspiria
''Suspiria'' () is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, who co-wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay ''Suspiria de Profundis''. The film stars Jessica Harper as ...
'' (1977) and ''
Inferno
Inferno may refer to:
* Hell, an afterlife place of suffering
* Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire
Film
* ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film
* Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker
* Inferno (1973 fi ...
'' (1980), whose narrative logic was pushed to the point that Newman described their plots as "making no narrative sense".
1980s
![Stephen King, Comicon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Stephen_King%2C_Comicon.jpg)
The 1980s marked the first time since the early 1960s of horror film fandom with far more loose organized community of fans rose with the increased publication of fanzines and magazines such as ''
Cinefantastique
''Cinefantastique'' is an American horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine.
History
The magazine originally started as a mimeographed fanzine in 1967, then relaunched as a glossy, offset printed quarterly in 1970 by publisher/editor ...
'', ''
Fangoria
''Fangoria'' is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr.
The magazine was originally released i ...
'' and ''
Starburst
MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California. They are best known as the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers.
History Founding and early su ...
'' as horror film festivals like Shock Around the Clock and
Dead by Dawn developing. In the appearance of home video, horror films came under attack in the United Kingdom as "
video nasties
Video nasty is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette that w ...
" leading to people having their collection being seized by police and some people being jailed for selling or owning some horror films. Newman described the response to the video nasty issue led to horror films becoming "dumber than the previous decade" and although films were not less gory, they were "more lightweight
..becoming more disposable , less personal works." Newman noted that these directors who created original material in the 1970s such as Carpenter, Cronenberg, and Hooper would all at least briefly "play it safe" with
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
adaptations or remakes of the 1950s horror material.
In Italy, the Italian film industry would gradually move towards making films for television. The decade started with a high-budgeted production of Argento's ''Inferno'' (1980) and with the death of Mario Bava, Fulci became what historian Roberto Curti called "Italy's most prominent horror film director in the early 1980s". Several zombie films were made in the country in the early 80s from Fulci and others while Argento would continue directing and producing films for others such as
Lamberto Bava
Lamberto Bava (born 3 April 1944) is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film ''La Venere d'Ille'' with his father and in ...
. As Fulci's health deteriorated towards the end of the decade, many directors turned to making horror films for
Joe D'Amato
Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (westerns, decamerotici, peplum, war films, ...
's Filmirage company, independent films or works for television and home video.
In the 1980s, the older horror characters of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster rarely appeared in film outside nostalgic films like ''
The Monster Squad
''The Monster Squad'' is a 1987 American black comedy horror film directed by Fred Dekker, and written by Dekker and Shane Black, who met as classmates at UCLA. Peter Hyams and Rob Cohen served as executive producers. It was released by TriSta ...
'' (1987) and ''
Waxwork'' (1988). Vampire themed films continued often in the tradition of authors like
Anne Rice
Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941 – December 11, 2021) was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and Christian literature.
She was best known for her series of novels ''The Vampire Chronicles''. B ...
where vampirism becomes a lifestyle choice rather than plague or curse. This was reflected in such films as ''
The Hunger'' (1983), ''
The Lost Boys
''The Lost Boys'' is a 1987 American supernatural black comedy horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, from a story by Fischer and Jeremia ...
'' (1986), and ''
Near Dark
NEAR or Near may refer to:
People
* Thomas J. Near, US evolutionary ichthyologist
* Near, a developer who created the higan emulator
Science, mathematics, technology, biology, and medicine
* National Emergency Alarm Repeater (NEAR), a former ...
'' (1986). The 1980s highlighted several films about body transformation and men becoming wolves. Special effects and make-up artists like
Rob Bottin
Robin R. Bottin (born April 1, 1959) is an American special make-up effects creator. Known for his collaborations with directors John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher, Bottin worked with Carpenter on both ''The Fog'' and '' The Thing ...
and
Rick Baker
Richard A. Baker (born December 8, 1950), known professionally as Rick Baker, is an American retired special make-up effects creator and actor. He is mostly known for his creature designs and effects. Baker won the Academy Award for Best Makeu ...
allowed for more detailed and graphic transformation scenes for creatures such as werewolves in films like ''
An American Werewolf in London'' and ''
The Howling
''The Howling'' is a 1977 horror novel by Gary Brandner. It was the inspiration for the movie ''The Howling'' (1981), although the plot of the movie was only vaguely similar to that of the book.
Brandner published two sequels to the novel, '' ...
'' while films like ''
Altered States
''Altered States'' is a 1980 American science fiction body horror film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky's 1978 novel and is his f ...
'' (1980) and ''
The Thing'' (1982), ''
Videodrome
''Videodrome'' is a 1983 Canadian Science fiction film, science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and Debbie Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO o ...
'' (1983) and ''
The Fly'' (1986) would show the human body in various forms transformation. Several other sequels took to the revival of 3D film in the 1980s following the surprise hit film ''
Comin' at Ya!
''Comin' at Ya!'' is a Spanish-American 3D Western film, featuring Tony Anthony, Victoria Abril and Gene Quintano and directed by Ferdinando Baldi.
It was produced as a co-production between American company Filmways and The Lupo-Anthony-Quinta ...
'' (1981). These included ''
Friday the 13th Part III
''Friday the 13th Part III'' is a 1982 American slasher film directed by Steve Miner, produced by Frank Mancuso Jr., and starring Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, and Richard Brooker. It is the third installment in the ''Friday the 13th'' franchise. S ...
'' (1982), ''
Parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
'' (1982), and ''
Jaws 3-D
''Jaws 3-D'' (titled ''Jaws III'' in its 2-D form) is a 1983 American thriller film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett Jr. It is the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's ''Jaws'' and th ...
'' (1983).
Replacing Frankenstein's monster and Dracula were new popular characters with more general names like
Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees () is a character (arts), character from the Friday the 13th (franchise), ''Friday the 13th'' series. He first appeared in ''Friday the 13th (1980 film), Friday the 13th'' (1980) as the young son of camp-cook-turned-killer Pamel ...
(''
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year. ...
''),
Michael Myers (''
Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
''), and
Freddy Kruger
Freddy Krueger () is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in the A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise), ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' film series. He was created by Wes Craven and made his debut in Craven's ''A Nightmare on Elm Str ...
(''
A Nightmare on Elm Street
''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' is a 1984 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Robert Shaye. It is the first installment in the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp ...
''). Unlike the characters of the past who were vampires or created by mad scientists, these characters were seemingly people with common sounding names who developed the
slasher film
A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools like knife, chainsaw, scalpel, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a ...
genre of the era. In his book on the genre, author Adam Rockoff that these villains represented a "rogue genre" of films with "tough, problematic, and fiercely individualistic." Following the financial success of ''
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year. ...
'' (1980), at least 20 other slasher films appeared in 1980 alone. These films usually revolved around five properties: unique social settings(campgrounds, schools, holidays) and a crime from the past committed (an accidental drowning, infidelity, a scorned lover) and a ready made group of victims (camp counselors, students, wedding parties). The genre was derided by several contemporary film critics of the era such as Ebert, and often were highly profitable in the box office.
Other more traditional styles continued into the 1980s, such as supernatural themed films involving haunted houses, ghosts, and demonic possession. Among the most popular films of the style included
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
's ''
The Shining'' (1980), Hooper's high-grossing ''
Poltergeist
In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "rumbling ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descr ...
'' (1982) and films in the ''
Amityville Horror
''The Amityville Horror'' is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, b ...
'' film franchise. After the release of films based on
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
's books like ''The Shining'' and ''Carrie'' led to further film adaptations of his novels such as ''
Cujo
''Cujo'' () is a 1981 psychological horror novel by American writer Stephen King about a rabid Saint Bernard. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1982 and was made into a film in 1983.
Background
Cujo's name was based on the alias of Wi ...
'' (1983), ''
Christine
Christine may refer to:
People
* Christine (name), a female given name
Film
* ''Christine'' (1958 film), based on Schnitzler's play ''Liebelei''
* ''Christine'' (1983 film), based on King's novel of the same name
* ''Christine'' (1987 fil ...
'' (1983), ''
The Dead Zone'' (1983) and ''
Firestarter'' (1984), and ''
Children of the Corn
"Children of the Corn" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 1977 issue of ''Penthouse'', and later collected in King's 1978 collection '' Night Shift''. The story is about a couple who end up in an abandoned Nebraska t ...
'' (1984). King would even direct his own film with ''
Maximum Overdrive
''Maximum Overdrive'' is a 1986 American comedy horror film written and directed by Stephen King. The film stars Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, and Yeardley Smith. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King's short ...
'' in 1986.
1990s
![2019-10-18 Q&A The Blair Witch Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/2019-10-18_Q%26A_The_Blair_Witch_Project.jpg)
Horror films of the 1990s also failed to develop as many major new directors of the genre as it had in the 1960s or 1970s. Young intendent filmmakers such as
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, author, YouTuber, and podcaster. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy buddy film ''Clerks'' (1994), which he wrote, directed, co ...
,
Richard Linklater
Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies '' ...
,
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism.
Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ' ...
and
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...
broke into cinema outside the genre at non-genre festivals like the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
. Newman noted that the early 1990s was "not a good time for horror", noting excessive sequels such as ''
The Exorcist III
''The Exorcist III'' is a 1990 American psychological horror film written and directed by William Peter Blatty. It is the third installment in the ''Exorcist'' series, an adaptation of Blatty's ''Exorcist'' novel ''Legion'' (1983), and the fin ...
'' (1990), ''
Amityville 1992: It's About Time'' (1992) and returns of sequels to ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'', ''Friday the 13th'' and ''A Nightmare on Elm Street''. Muir commented that in the 1990s after the end of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the United States did not really have a "serious enemy" internationally, leading to horror films adapting to fictional enemies predominantly within America, with the American government, large businesses, organized religion and the upper class as well as supernatural and occult items such as vampires or Satanists filling in the horror villains of the 1990s.
Muir described the 1990s, more than any decade before it blurred genres and transcended existing ones. This led to
post-modern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
horror films such as ''
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
''Wes Craven's New Nightmare'' (also known simply as ''New Nightmare'') is a 1994 American meta slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven, creator of 1984's ''A Nightmare on Elm Street''. A standalone film and the seventh installment in ...
'' (1994) which examined horror films in an American society, ''
In the Mouth of Madness
''In the Mouth of Madness'' is a 1994 American supernatural horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca. It stars Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner and Charlton Heston. Neill stars as J ...
'' (1995) which turns reality into a horror film, and ''
Scream
Scream may refer to:
*Screaming, a loud vocalization
Amusement rides
* Scream (Heide Park), a gyro drop tower in Soltau, Germany
* Scream! (ride), a tower ride at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Six Flags New England
* Scream! (roller coaster), at ...
'' (1996) which made several references to horror films of the past. The release of ''Scream'', scripted by
Kevin Williamson led to a brief revival of the slasher films including the Williamson-scripted ''
I Know What You Did Last Summer
''I Know What You Did Last Summer'' is a 1997 American slasher film directed by Jim Gillespie, written by Kevin Williamson, and starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. It is loosely based on ...
'' (1997). Other styles of teen-oriented horror that were popular in the 1990s, but with less visibility than the post-''Scream'' films were films about supernatural youth such as ''
Mirror, MIrror'' (1990) and ''
Shrunken Heads
A shrunken head is a severed and specially prepared human head that is used for trophy, ritual, or trade purposes.
Headhunting has occurred in many regions of the world, but the practice of headshrinking has only been documented in the northwest ...
'' (1994) with the most popular of these films being ''
The Craft'' (1996). Cultural conflicts of the 1990s became the backdrop for several horror films of the era. Ranging from issues involving
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
seen in films like ''
The Unborn'' (1991) and ''
Alien 3
''Alien 3'' (stylized as ''A''LIEN³) is a 1992 American science fiction horror film directed by David Fincher and written by David Giler, Walter Hill, and Larry Ferguson, from a story by Vincent Ward. It stars Sigourney Weaver, reprising her r ...
'' (1992),
political correctness
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
(''
Body Snatchers
Body snatching is the illicit removal of corpses from graves, morgues, and other burial sites. Body snatching is distinct from the act of grave robbery as grave robbing does not explicitly involve the removal of the corpse, but rather theft from ...
'' (1993)), to
affirmative action, welfare and race related issues seen in ''
The People Under the Stairs
''The People Under the Stairs'' is a 1991 American horror comedy film written and directed by Wes Craven and starring Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, and A. J. Langer. The plot follows a young boy and two adult robbers who become tra ...
'' (1991), ''
Tales from the Hood
''Tales from the Hood'' is a 1995 American comedy horror anthology film directed by Rusty Cundieff and executive-produced by Spike Lee. The film presents four short urban-themed horror stories based on problem concepts that affect the African-Am ...
'' (1995), and ''
Village of the Damned'' (1995). The rise of other television shows such as ''
Inside Edition
''Inside Edition'' is an American news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed in first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine program that is n ...
'', ''
America's Most Wanted
''America's Most Wanted'' (often abbreviated as ''AMW'') is an American television program whose first run was produced by 20th Television, and second run is under the Fox Alternative Entertainment division of Fox Corporation. At the time of i ...
'' and ''
The Jerry Springer Show
''Jerry Springer'' is an American scripted syndicated tabloid talk show that aired from September 30, 1991 to July 26, 2018. Produced and hosted by its namesake, Jerry Springer, it aired for 27 seasons and nearly 5,000 episodes. The television ...
'', ''
Geraldo'' and ''
Donahue Donahue is the Americanized version of Irish surname Donohoe, which, in turn, is an Anglicized version of the ancient Irish name "Donnchadh" (sometimes "Donncha").
Donncha was a common “first name” in 9th Century Ireland, and when the use of ...
'' , horror films often featured anchorwomen and TV tabloid hosts as protagonists or supporting characters in films like ''
Man's Best Friend
"Man's best friend" is a common phrase used to describe domestic dogs, referring to their millennia-long history of close relations, loyalty, friendship, and companionship with humans. The first recorded use of a related phrase is by Frederick t ...
'' (1993), ''Scream'' (1996) and ''
The Night Flier
"The Night Flier" is a horror short story by American writer Stephen King, first published in the 1988 anthology '' Prime Evil: New Stories by the Masters of Modern Horror'', and then in King's own 1993 ''Nightmares & Dreamscapes'' collection.
...
'' (1997). The rapid growth of technology in the 1990s with the internet and the fears of the
Year 2000 problem
The year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, Y2K scare, millennium bug, Y2K bug, Y2K glitch, Y2K error, or simply Y2K refers to potential computer errors related to the Time formatting and storage bugs, formatting and storage of cale ...
causing the end of the world were reflected in plots of films like ''
The Lawnmower Man
"The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the May 1975 issue of ''Cavalier'' and later included in King's 1978 collection '' Night Shift''.
Plot summary
Harold Parkette is in need of a new lawn mowing service. The ...
'' (1992), ''
Brainscan
''Brainscan'' is a 1994 American science fiction slasher film directed by John Flynn and written by Brian Owens and Andrew Kevin Walker. The film stars Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, Amy Hargreaves, Jamie Marsh, and T. Ryder Smith. The soundt ...
'' (1994) and ''
End of Days End of days may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''End of Days'' (film), a 1999 supernatural film
Music
* ''The End of Days'', a 2010 album by Abney Park
* ''End of Days'' (soundtrack), a soundtrack album from the 1999 film
...
'' (1999).
Following the release of
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...
's ''
Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992), a small wave of high-budgeted gothic horror romance films were released in the 1990s.These included ''
Interview with the Vampire
''Interview with the Vampire'' is a gothic horror and vampire novel by American author Anne Rice, published in 1976. It was her debut novel. Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, w ...
'' (1994), ''
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein'' (1994), ''
Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...
'' (1994) and ''
Mary Reilly'' (1996). By the end of the 1990s, three films were released that Newman described as "cultural phenomenons." These included
Hideo Nakata
is a Japanese filmmaker.
Life and career
Nakata was born in Okayama, Japan. He is most familiar to Western audiences for his work on Japanese horror films such as ''Ring'' (1998), ''Ring 2'' (1999) and ''Dark Water'' (2002). Several of these we ...
's ''
Ring
Ring may refer to:
* Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry
* To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell
:(hence) to initiate a telephone connection
Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...
'' (1998), which along with the South Korean film ''
Whispering Corridors
''Whispering Corridors'' () is a 1998 South Korean supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Park Ki-hyung. It was part of the explosion in South Korean cinema following the Cinema of South Korea#Recovery (1980–1996), liberalization of ...
'' (1998), was the major hit across Asia leading to sequels and similar ghost stories from Asian countries. The film only crossed over into the Western world after the 1990s.The second major hit was ''
The Sixth Sense
''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient (Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead.
Released by ...
'', another ghost story which Newman described as making "an instant cliche" of
twist endings. The final hit was the low-budget independent film ''
The Blair Witch Project
''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (director), Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Mic ...
'' (1999)
2000s
![Zombieland panel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Zombieland_panel.jpg)
Newman described the first trend of horror films in the 2000s followed the success of ''The Blair Witch Project'', but predominantly in a
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
format: ''
The Bogus Witch Project
''The Bogus Witch Project'' is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Victor Kargan and starring Pauly Shore. It satirizes ''The Blair Witch Project''. It uses different tellings of the Blair Witch, such as ''The Blair Underwood Project''. The f ...
'' (2000), ''The Blair Underwood Project'' (2000) and the pornographic ''The Erotic Witch Project'' (2000). Other films included similar low-budget imitators like ''
The St. Francisville Experiment'' (2000) with a similar plot to ''The Blair Witch Project''. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, noted that the popularity of sites like
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
in 2006 sparked a taste for amateur media, leading to the production of further films in the
found footage horror genre later in the decade with ''
Rec
REC or Rec is a shortening of Recording, the process of capturing data onto a storage medium.
REC may also refer to:
Educational institutes
* Regional Engineering College, colleges of engineering and technology education in India
* Rajalakshmi E ...
'' (2007), ''
Diary of the Dead
''Diary of the Dead'' (promoted as ''George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead'') is a 2007 American found footage horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. Although independently produced, it was distributed theatrically by The Weinst ...
'' (2007), and ''
Cloverfield
''Cloverfield'' is a 2008 American found footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams, and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel and Odette Yustman ...
'' (2008) and the particularly financially successful ''
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
'' (2007). Following ''Paranormal Activity'', the style was not known for the footages possible authenticity as it was with ''Blair Witch'', but more of a specific film style.
Post-modern horror films continued into the 2000s as well with ''
Cherry Falls
''Cherry Falls'' is a 2000 American slasher film directed by Geoffrey Wright, and starring Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, and Michael Biehn. The plot focuses on a small Virginia town where a serial killer is targeting teenaged virgins. After being s ...
'' (2000) and ''
Psycho Beach Party
''Psycho Beach Party'' is a 2000 comedy horror film based on the off-Broadway play of the same name, directed by Robert Lee King. Charles Busch wrote both the original play and the screenplay. As the title suggests, ''Psycho Beach Party'', set in ...
'' (2000) but soon drifted purely into comedy and parody territory with the ''
Scary Movie
''Scary Movie'' is a 2000 American slasher parody film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by Marlon and Shawn Wayans (who both also star), alongside Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Starring Anna Far ...
'' film series and ''
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th
''Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th'' is a 2000 American direct-to-video Parody film, parody slasher film directed by John Blanchard. The film stars Tiffani Thiessen, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Tom Arnold (actor), Tom Arnold, Coolio ...
'' (2000). Other teen oriented series began in the era with ''
Final Destination
''Final Destination'' is an American horror franchise that includes five films, two comic books, and nine novels. It is based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for ''The X-Files'' television series, and was d ...
'' while the success of
the 1999 remake of William Castle's ''House on Haunted Hill'' led to a series of remakes in the decade: ''
Thi13en Ghosts'' (2001), ''
Willard'' (2003), ''
Dawn of the Dead'' (2004), ''
The Fog
''The Fog'' is a 1980 American supernatural horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and created the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook. It ...
'' (2005), ''
Prom Night'' (2008) and ''
The Last House on the Left
''The Last House on the Left'' is a 1972 American exploitation horror film written, directed and edited by Wes Craven in his directorial debut. The film follows Mari Collingwood (Sandra Peabody), a hippie teenager who is abducted, raped, and ...
'' (2009). Several film series long left dormant were resurrected in the 2000s as well with ''
Jason X
''Jason X'' is a 2001 American science fiction slasher film directed by Jim Isaac, written by Todd Farmer and starring Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, and Kane Hodder in his fourth and final cinematic appearance as Jason Voorhees. It is ...
'' (2001), ''
Beyond Re-Animator
''Beyond Re-Animator'' is a 2003 horror film directed by Brian Yuzna and starring Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Simón Andreu and Santiago Segura. It is the third and final installment in the ''Re-Animator'' film series.
An internatio ...
'' (2003), ''
Exorcist: The Beginning'' (2004), and ''
Land of the Dead
''Land of the Dead'' (also known as ''George A. Romero's Land of the Dead'') is a 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero; the fourth of Romero's six '' Living Dead'' movies, it is preceded by ''Night of the Li ...
'' (2005).The popularity and innovative approach to
zombie
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
s seen in ''
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagi ...
'' (2002), ''
Shaun of the Dead
''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed (Nick Frost). The fi ...
'' (2004) and ''Dawn of the Dead'' (2004) led to a revival
zombie film
A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...
s in the 2000s, with ''
I Am Legend'' (2007), ''
Zombieland
''Zombieland'' is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer in his theatrical debut and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film follows a geeky college student ( Jesse Eisenberg) making his wa ...
'' (2009), ''
Dead Snow
''Dead Snow'' ( no, Død snø) is a 2009 Norwegian comedy horror film directed by Tommy Wirkola, starring Charlotte Frogner, Stig Frode Henriksen, Vegar Hoel, Jeppe Laursen, Evy Kasseth Røsten, Jenny Skavlan, and Lasse Valdal. The film centers ...
'' (2009) and ''
Pontypool
Pontypool ( cy, Pont-y-pŵl ) is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales. It has a population of 28,970.
Location
It is situated on the Afon Lwyd ri ...
'' (2008).
Several films came from Hong Kong,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
, and
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
in the wake of the success of ''Ring'' (1998). These films mostly involved female detectives using various forms of detective work to learn mystery about malevolent female
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
s. These included ''
The Eye'' (2002), ''
Dark Water Dark Water may refer to:
Books
* '' Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil'', 1920 book by American philosopher W.E.B. Du Bois
* ''Dark Water'' (book) (仄暗い水の底から; ''Honogurai mizu no soko kara''; literally ''In the Depths of Dark ...
'' (2002), and ''
Into the Mirror
''Into the Mirror'' () is a 2003 South Korean supernatural horror film about a series of grisly deaths in a department store, all involving mirrors, and the troubled detective who investigates them. It was the debut film of director Kim Sung-ho.
...
'' (2003). This trend was echoed in the West with films like ''
FeardotCom
''FeardotCom'' is a 2002 horror film directed by William Malone and starring Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone and Stephen Rea. The plot details a New York City detective investigating a series of mysterious deaths connected to a disturbing websi ...
'' (2002), ''
They
In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject.
Morphology
In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms:
* ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form
* ''them'': the accusat ...
'' (2002) and ''
Gothika
''Gothika'' is a 2003 American supernatural psychological thriller film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, written by Sebastian Gutierrez, and starring Halle Berry in the title role, Robert Downey Jr., Penélope Cruz, Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll ...
'' (2003). Hollywood also began remaking these Japanese films with ''
The Ring'' (2002), ''
Dark Water Dark Water may refer to:
Books
* '' Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil'', 1920 book by American philosopher W.E.B. Du Bois
* ''Dark Water'' (book) (仄暗い水の底から; ''Honogurai mizu no soko kara''; literally ''In the Depths of Dark ...
'' (2005). Outside the Japanese ghost stories, Asian film industries also began developing what Newman described as "bizarre" horror films with ''
Uzumaki
is a Japanese horror manga series written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Appearing as a serial in the weekly ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Big Comic Spirits'' from 1998 to 1999, the chapters were compiled into three bound volumes by Shoga ...
'' (2000), ''
Stacy
Stacy or Stacey may refer to:
Places
In the United States:
* Stacy, California, an unincorporated community
* Stacy, Kentucky
* Stacy, Minnesota, a city
* Stacy, Virginia, a village
People
* Stacy (given name)
* Stacy (singer) (born 1990), ...
'' (2001) and several films by
Takashi Miike
is a Japanese film director, film producer and screenwriter. He has directed over one hundred theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. His films run through a variety of different genres, and range from violent an ...
.
There was a what Newman declared to be a "modest revival" of British horror films in the 2000s, with tiny trend of
War film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...
related horror films with ''
The Bunker'' (2001), ''
Dog Soldiers
The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (Cheyenne: ''Hotamétaneo'o'') are historically one of six Cheyenne military societies. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne re ...
'' (2002) and the Hollywood produced ''
Below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
'' (2002). Outside several independent films and films attempting a style of horror that
Dimension Films
Dimension Films is an American film production company owned by Lantern Entertainment. It was formerly used as Harvey and Bob Weinstein's label within Miramax, which was acquired by The Walt Disney Company on June 30, 1993, to produce and relea ...
was making in the 1990s, Newman felt the breakouts of the new British horror were ''
My Little Eye
''My Little Eye'' is a 2002 British horror film directed by Marc Evans about five adults who agree to spend six months together in an isolated mansion while being filmed at all times. The idea for the film came from reality television shows su ...
'' (2002), ''
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagi ...
'' (2002), ''
Shaun of the Dead
''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed (Nick Frost). The fi ...
'' (2004), and ''
The Descent
''The Descent'' is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who enter a cave system and struggle to survive against the humanoid creatures inside.
Filming took place in the United Kingdom. Ex ...
'' (2005).
At the turn of the millennium, a movement in French cinema known as
New French Extremity
New French Extremity (New French Extremism or, informally, New French Extreme) is a term coined by ''Artforum'' critic James Quandt for a collection of transgressive films by French directors at the turn of the 21st century. Also available othe ...
was named by film by film programmer James Quandt, initially describing arthouse films that "determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile, or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration mutilation and defilement" In her book ''Films of the New French Extremity'', Alexandra West found that some of directors started making horror films that would still fit their art house standards such as
Claire Denis
Claire Denis (; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film ''Beau Travail'' (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s, as well as of all time. Other acclaimed works include '' Trouble Ev ...
's ''
Trouble Every Day'' (2001) and
Marina de Van
Marina de Van (; born 8 February 1971) is a French film director, screenwriter and actress. Her film, '' Don't Look Back'', was screened out of competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
Her brother is , he appeared with her in the 1998 f ...
's ''
In My Skin'' (2002), which led to other directors to make more what West described as "outright horror films" such as
Alexandre Aja
Alexandre Jouan-Arcady, known professionally as Alexandre Aja, (; born 7 August 1978) is a French filmmaker best known for his work in the horror film, horror genre. He rose to international stardom for his 2003 horror film ''High Tension, Haute ...
's ''
High Tension
''High Tension'' (French: ''Haute Tension'', ; released in the United Kingdom as ''Switchblade Romance'') is a 2003 French slasher film directed by Alexandre Aja, co-written with Grégory Levasseur, and starring Cécile de France and Maïwenn, ...
'' (2003) and
Xavier Gens
Xavier Gens (born on in Dunkirk, France) is a French film director.
Filmography
Director
*''Lights Out'' (TBA)
*''Vanikoro'' (TBA)
*'' Gangs of London'' (2020) Season 1 Episodes 6, 7 and 8
*''Budapest'' (2018)
*'' Cold Skin'' (2017)
*''The Cru ...
' ''
Frontier(s)
''Frontier(s)'' (french: Frontière(s)) is a 2007 French-Swiss independent horror film written and directed by Xavier Gens in his feature length debut and stars Karina Testa, Aurélien Wiik, Estelle Lefébure, and Samuel Le Bihan. It follows a ...
'' (2007). Some of these horror films of the New French Extremity movement would regularly place on "Best Of" genres lists, such as ''
Martyrs
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...
'' (2008), ''
Inside
Inside may refer to:
* Insider, a member of any group of people of limited number and generally restricted access
Film
* ''Inside'' (1996 film), an American television film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Eric Stoltz
* ''Inside'' (2002 f ...
'' (2007) and ''High Tension''. West described journalists and fans as seeing the more horror-oriented films of the movement as "an intellectual sibling" to the emerging trend of "
Torture porn
A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the human body a ...
".
David Edelstein
David Edelstein (born 1959) is a freelance American film critic who has been the principal film critic for ''Slate'' and ''New York'' magazine, among others, and has appeared regularly on NPR's ''Fresh Air'' and ''CBS Sunday Morning'' programs. O ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' coined a term for a genre he described as "Torture porn" in a 2006 article, as a label for films described, often retroactively, to over 40 films since 2003. Edelstein lumped in films such as ''
Saw
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood, though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and mo ...
'' (2004), ''
The Devil's Rejects
''The Devil's Rejects'' is a 2005 black comedy horror film written, produced and directed by Rob Zombie, and is the second film in the ''Firefly'' film series, serving as a sequel to his 2003 film ''House of 1000 Corpses''. The film is center ...
'' (2005), and ''
Wolf Creek'' (2005) under this banner suggesting audience a "titillating and shocking" push audiences to the margins of depravity in order to "feel something". The label was described as "intense bodily acts and visible bodily representations" to produce uneasy reactions. Kevin Wetmore, using the ''
Saw
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood, though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and mo ...
'' film series suggested these film suggested reflected a post
Post-9/11
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy.
Pol ...
attitude towards increasing pessimism, specifically one of "no redemption, no hope, no expectations that 'we're going to be OK'" Newman also noted a post-9/11 trend of stories that tend to re-work or re-do a reality that was to difficult to handle, similar to films like ''The Sixth Sense'' or ''The Matrix''. Horror films that followed this trend included ghost stories with films like ''
The Others'' (2001) and ''
The Orphanage'' (2007).
2010s
![Johannes Nyholm presenting Koko-di Koko-da at BAFICI 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Johannes_Nyholm_presenting_Koko-di_Koko-da_at_BAFICI_2019.jpg)
After the film studio
Blumhouse
Blumhouse Productions (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH) is an American film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum.
It is known mainly for producing horror films, such as ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Insidiou ...
had success with ''Paranormal Activity'' (2007), the studio continued to films that grew to become hits in the 2010s with film series ''
Insidious
Insidious may refer to:
* ''Insidious'' (film series), a horror film series consisting of the films listed below
** ''Insidious'' (film), a 2010 American supernatural horror film
** '' Insidious: Chapter 2'', a 2013 sequel
** '' Insidious: Chapt ...
''. This led to what Newman described as the companies policy on "commercial savvy with thematic risk that has often paid off", included ''
Get Out
''Get Out'' is a 2017 American psychological horror film written, co-produced, and directed by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut. It stars Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Lil Rel Howery, LaKeith Stanfield, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landr ...
'' (2017), ''
The Invisible Man
''The Invisible Man'' is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in ''Pearson's Weekly'' in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devote ...
'' (2020), ''
Happy Death Day
''Happy Death Day'' is a 2017 American black comedy slasher film directed by Christopher Landon, and written by Scott Lobdell. It stars Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard. The film was produced by Jason Blum through his Blumhouse Productions b ...
'' (2017) and series like ''
The Purge
''The Purge'' is an American anthology media franchise centered on a series of dystopian action horror films distributed by Universal Pictures and produced by Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes, which are written and in some cases also d ...
''. Laura Bradley in her article for ''
Vanity Fair'' noted that both large and small film studios began noticing Blumhouse's success, including
A24
A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. It is based in New York City.
A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. Pr ...
who did not specialize in horror or genre films, made their names grow popular with films like ''
The Witch
A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft.
Witch, WITCH, or variations thereof may also refer to:
Animals
* Witch (lefteye flounder) (''Arnoglossus scapha''), a Pacific flatfish
* Witch (righteye flounder) (''Glyptocephalus cynoglossus''), a Euro ...
'' (2015), ''
Hereditary
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...
'' (2018) and ''
Midsommar
''Midsommar'' is a 2019 folk horror film written and directed by Ari Aster. The film stars Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor as a dysfunctional couple who travel to Sweden with a group of friends for a midsummer festival, only to find themselves ...
'' (2019). Bradley commented how some of these films were classified as "
elevated horror
Art horror or arthouse horror (sometimes called elevated horror) is a sub-genre of both horror films and art-films. It explores and experiments with the artistic uses of horror.
Characteristics
Art-horror films tend to rely on atmosphere build ...
", declaring "horror aficionados and some critics pushed back against the notion that these films are doing something entirely new." noting their roots in films like ''Night of the Living Dead'' (1968) and ''Rosemary's Baby'' (1968).
In the early 2010s, there became a wave of horror films that showed what Virginie Sélavy noted described as having
psychedelic
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...
tendency that was inspired by experimentation of 1970s and its subgenres, specifically
folk horror
Folk horror is a subgenre of horror film that uses elements of folklore to invoke fear and foreboding. Typical elements include a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition, folk religion, paganism, sacrifice and the dark aspects of natu ...
. The trend began with two films: ''
Enter the Void
''Enter the Void'' is a 2009 English-language experimental art film written and directed by Gaspar Noé and starring Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, and Cyril Roy. It is a psychological drama fantasy film set in the neon-lit nightclub environ ...
'' (2009) and ''
Beyond the Black Rainbow
''Beyond the Black Rainbow'' is a 2010 Canadian science fiction film, science fiction horror film written and directed by Panos Cosmatos in his feature film debut. It stars Michael Rogers (actor), Michael Rogers and Eva Allan.
''Beyond the Blac ...
'' (2010). Since these films, a series of films that Sélavy described as being like "a calamitous trip or creepy dreams" were released such as ''
Berberian Sound Studio
''Berberian Sound Studio'' is a 2012 British psychological horror film. It is the second feature film by British director and screenwriter Peter Strickland. The film, which stars Toby Jones, is set in a 1970s Italian horror film studio.
Plot
B ...
'' (2011), ''
Under the Skin'' (2013) and ''
We Are the Flesh
''We Are the Flesh'' (Spanish: ''Tenemos la carne'') is a 2016 Mexican-French horror film that was written and directed by Emiliano Rocha Minter. The film premiered on 2 February 2016 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and had a limited r ...
'' (2016), and ''
Climax
Climax may refer to:
Language arts
* Climax (narrative), the point of highest tension in a narrative work
* Climax (rhetoric), a figure of speech that lists items in order of importance
Biology
* Climax community, a biological community th ...
'' (2018). These films do not always share the consciousness-expanding spirit of 1960s and 1970s. The reasons for these trends tended to be from filmmakers who grew up in the 1970s as well as home video distributors such as
Arrow Video
An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers ca ...
, Shameless and Nucleus Films releasing restorations of the more outlandish and forgotten films of the original psychedelic era.
The expansion of international
streaming media services is thought to have boosted the popularity of horror.
Several
horror television series
Horror may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Genres
*Horror fiction, a genre of fiction
** Japanese horror, Japanese horror fiction
**Korean horror, Korean horror fiction
* Horror film, a film genre
*Horror comics, comic books focusing o ...
on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
such as
''The Haunting of Hill House'' became successes for the platform,
Blumhouse
Blumhouse Productions (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH) is an American film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum.
It is known mainly for producing horror films, such as ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Insidiou ...
partnered with
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...
for distribution,
and
Shudder
Shudder may refer to:
*Shivering
* ''Shudder'' (album), a 2008 album by American band Bayside
*Shudder (streaming service)
Shudder is an American over-the-top subscription video on demand service featuring horror, thriller and supernatural fic ...
, a streaming service dedicated primarily for horror titles, was launched in 2015 and grew in popularity in subsequent years. Streaming was cited as bringing increased international attention to Southeast Asian horror films, particularly
Indonesian titles such as
Joko Anwar
Joko Anwar (born 3 January 1976) is an Indonesian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, he worked as a journalist and film critic.
Anwar first rose to prominence for co-writing Nia Dinata's 2003 hit ' ...
's ''
Satan's Slaves
''Satan's Slaves'' ( id, Pengabdi Setan) is a 2017 Indonesian gothic horror film written and directed by Joko Anwar. It is a loose remake- prequel to the 1980 film of the same name directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra based on a story by Subagio ...
'' and ''
Impetigore
''Impetigore'' ( id, Perempuan Tanah Jahanam, lit=Woman of the damned land) is a 2019 Indonesian horror film written and directed by Joko Anwar. The film stars Tara Basro, Marissa Anita, Christine Hakim, Asmara Abigail, and Ario Bayu. The fil ...
'',
and
''Roh'' from Malaysia.
Adapted from the
Stephen King novel, ''
It'' (2017) set a
box office record for horror films by grossing $123.1 million on opening weekend in the United States and nearly $185 million globally. The success of ''It'' led to further King novels being adapted, including ''
It Chapter Two
''It Chapter Two'' is a 2019 American supernatural horror film directed by Andy Muschietti, with a screenplay by Gary Dauberman. A follow-up to '' It'' (2017), it is the second of a two-part adaptation of the 1986 novel '' It'' by Stephen King, ...
'' (2019), ''
Pet Sematary
''Pet Sematary'' is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019. In November 2013, PS Publishing rel ...
'' (2019), and ''
Doctor Sleep'' (2019). Following the turn of the millennium rise of Asian horror films,
South Korean horror films
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...
resurrected itself with zombie films including ''
Train to Busan
''Train to Busan'' () is a 2016 South Korean action horror film directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok, Kim Su-an, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee, and Kim Eui-sung. The film mostly takes place on a high-speed train ...
'' (2016), ''
The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale'' (2019) ''
Peninsula
A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...
'' (2020) as well as non-zombie related films such as ''The Wailing (film), The Wailing'' (2016).
2020s
The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema, disrupted the film industry, leading to the release of several horror films being postponed, such as ''A Quiet Place Part II'' (2020) and ''Candyman (2021 film), Candyman'' (2021), while other films like ''Censor (2021 film), Censor'' (2021) had production halted. During COVID-19 lockdowns, lockdowns, streaming for films featuring fictional apocalypses increased. Found footage horror found itself imposed into films set on desktops in Zoom meetings with ''Host (film), Host'' (2020), a film shot and set during the quarantine period of 2020, to what Newman described as further enhancing the "this really happened" aspect of the genre.
Blumhouse furthered its relationship with Universal Pictures by scheduling similarly budgeted films like ''
The Invisible Man
''The Invisible Man'' is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in ''Pearson's Weekly'' in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devote ...
'' (2020) following the halted launch of their Dark Universe (film studio), Dark Universe series with the release of ''The Mummy (2017 film), The Mummy'' (2017).
See also
* History of horror fiction
* History of science fiction films
* ''A History of Horror''
* ''Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror''
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Horror film
History of film, Horror
Horror films, *History