After watching ‘The History of Horror’ (Filmmaker IQ), as a group we collated our ideas on the historical context of horror.
Horror Cycles/Gothic Horror
- Stories originating from literature
- Horror goes through boom and fade cycles
- Sub-Genres are often ‘remixed’ through other films, or through parody.
- Horror originated from the Gothic area - castles, forests etc
Silent Era
- Before film included sound!
- ‘The Manor of the Devil’ and Edison’s Frankenstein
German Expressionism
- Rising movement inside the German cultural bubble during WW1
- Very quick and creative, and still offers lots of inspiration today.
- Lack of visual effects meant that shadows had to be painted onto sets, offering a unique perspective distortion experience.
- ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (1920)
- Paramount and MGM’s joint venture UFA brought German horror into Hollywood - a key event for the future of horror!
Sound (Hollywood Learns to Scream)
- Universal, Columbia and United Artists pushed sound in horror, especially with Universal’s Gothic Horror Cycle (which ended in self-parody)
- Studios regularly chose titles for the films, and got someone to make them (average budget of $150,000)
- ‘Cat People’ Mood and Shadow - Psychological horror.
Mutated Monster Mash
- Hollywood declining in horror: End of classic studio system, Battle with Television
- Pulp Science Fiction Horror Cycle (1950s)
- Provide thrills for teens, yet the battle between cinema and TV has grown significantly over time - so the film industry must try to stay relevant!
Psychology, Sex and Gore
- Production code gone in 1964, and censorship restrictions were relaxed.
- Blood was shown for the first time on screen, in colour too!
- It was at this point that horror as a genre was taken very seriously.
- Alfred Hitchcock : Psycho, The Birds
- Hammer gothic horror cycle
- Edgar Allen Poe cycle
- Occult horror style - the Exorcist
- Jaws - creature horror and sharks
- Teen horror cycle - Carrie
- Horror and science fiction - Alien, The Thing
- The Shining
Independent Horror and the Slasher
- ‘Halloween’ (John Carpenter) - backgarden horror
- ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘Halloween’ brought horror into everyday suburbia/life
- ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Friday 13th’
The 90s and Modern Horror
- New CGI effects
- ‘Scream’
- Found footage style becomes increasingly prevalent.
Torture
- SAW Franchise is very successful.
- Approximately $873million made from just a $64 million budget across seven films!
Found Footage
- ‘Blair Witch Project’ started popularity of found footage films
- easy to produce - low budget
Zombie Cycle
- Fears of medical pandemic or breakdown or society.
- ‘28 Days Later’ rejuvenated sub-genre
- Cycle fading out with comedy and mock films such as ‘Shaun of the Dead’
From our research we have decided to incorporate some of the ideas and themes shown in ‘The History of Horror’ in our coursework. Drawing inspiration from multiple mediums we plan to create a production of the Occult sub-genre. Researching films such as The Craft (Flemming, 1996) and The Skeleton Key (Softley, 2005) will enable us to devise concepts as well as assist us in identifying suitable props and locations. We plan to take ideas from 90s and modern horror by creating the illusion of 'found footage' similar to The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and Sánchez, 1999) to construct verisimilitude.
well done boys, good detail and notetaking. Please take out underlines as these conventionally denote hyperlinks; and point your ideas as blocks of texts are difficult to read on web pages
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