Special Feature: Horror

Horror films are probably the most suited to being displayed in the dark rooms of spacious theatres and big screens with surround sound. A horror film uses these elements to epic success to scare the audience; since the dawn of the film industry horror films have been a successful genre, scaring people out of their wits from decade to decade. Horror seems to be so much in demand that in the last decade Hollywood has taken to remaking all the classics that we have grown up with. I've decided to take a look at the horror genre in all its glory.

 

Lon Chaney’s iconic horror characters from The Phantom of the Opera (1925), London after Midnight (1927) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

The horror genre really began in the 1920’s in the heart of the Hollywood studios. The godfather of horror pictures is ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’ Lon Chaney, his characters were so memorable they are still recognised today. His portrayal of the phantom and his reveal in the silent classic The Phantom of the Opera (1925) is considered the first true horror moment. What made Chaney so impressive was not only that he could completely disappear into a part and look nothing like his true image, but that he did all the make-up himself. If it were not for Lon Chaney in the early 1920’s we would not have the classic horror films and monsters that we are so accustomed to today.

Universal Studios were at the helm of horror and developing it into a real genre. Carl Laemmle Jr. the son and partner of the Universal head had many ideas to push the success of this new kind of film. In 1931 he released Dracula to great success, Tod Browning directed Bela Lugosi the Hungarian actor cast in the role of the count. He made it entirely his own and is the image that most Dracula’s have drawn from ever since. Lugosi was even buried in his Dracula cloak. The same year Laemmle hired James Whale the eccentric English Director to helm the adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1931). He worked with the genius make-up man Jack P. Pierce to transform a little known English actor Boris Karloff into the monster creation. Frankenstein was a huge hit and Universal knew they had found a magic formula; audiences wanted to be scared, and they loved monsters. This lead to a slew of monster pictures and to this day Universal monsters are beloved around the world. The Mummy (1932) and The Wolf Man (1941) came next in the line of success, the first played again by Boris Karloff and the latter by none other than Lon Chaney Jr. son of the great horror actor. Sequels followed naturally, the best being The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) widely considered superior to the first. Universal made many of these films to great success in the 1930’s like The Old Dark House (1932), The Black Cat (1934) and The Invisible Man (1933). But the sequels became predictable and boring with ridiculous titles and even more ridiculous plots. They tried to mix popular monsters together in titles like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and even hired popular comedians of the day Abbott and Costello to take on their monsters. But as the decade slipped by and the 1950’s arrived horror was failing rapidly. There were some stand outs like It came from out of Space (1953) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) but for the moment the genre had become clichéd and laughable, horror it seemed was dead.

For almost a decade Hollywood forgot about Horror, the industry was changing and horror seemed to be a part of the old days; no longer popular or financially stable. That did not mean everyone had forgotten about it, at Bray Studios in England Hammer films found that America might have had enough of Horror films but Brits were ready for more. Beginning with the slightly more Sci-Fi film The Quatermass Experiment (1955) hammer recreated the classic monsters for a new generation along with the helping hand of their new find Christopher Lee who has since gone on to have an incredibly long and diverse career. Along with Lee was an actor who became a horror staple, both actors becoming the equivalent of Lugosi and Karloff at Universal, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are now forever linked with the horror genre. The most impressive of the collection are of course the most famous of the monsters The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) with Cushing on board as Dr Frankenstein and Lee his creature. Then came Horror of Dracula (1958) with Lee being promoted to star as Dracula himself and Cushing as Van Helsing.

Inspired by Hammers success was the man who became one of the most famous independent producers in the industry. Roger Corman created a series of films between 1960 and 1964 based on gothic stories from Edgar Allan Poe. He used another English actor who will always be remembered for his work in the horror genre, even being asked personally to narrate the speech at the beginning of Michael Jackson’s hit song Thriller. Vincent Price had great success with House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and many more.  British horror was beginning to follow a similar pattern; cheap films with mediocre scares and over acted performances. That was until the most famous of directors turned the genre on its head. Alfred Hitchcock was looking for a new script; he found the book Psycho about the famous serial killer Ed Gein and decided this would be his next film project. What he ended up with was a film unlike any he or the industry had ever made before. Anyone who hasn't seen Psycho (1960) is missing out; it was Hitchcock’s most successful movie and left audiences screaming and running for the exits.Psycho did wonders for the horror genre; it showed film-makers that there could be realism and serious drama in these films. Hollywood rediscovered the horror genre and unlike the independent studios they had money to burn. Films like Night of the Living Dead (1968) introduced the world to zombies without a hint of humour, they were a serious threat. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was the first American film from European director Roman Polanski; his star Mia Farrow plays a woman who moves in next door to Satanists who decide she is the perfect host to have the devils baby. The Innocents (1961), an excellent British feature, focuses more on the supernatural, but it is played just as straight, if not more so as those listed above. Hollywood had found a new formula for horror movies; play it straight, give them realism - or as realistic as you can get within the horror genre.

As the 1970’s arrived Hollywood delivered more and more impressive examples of how to best scare an audience. This decade probably gave birth to the most memorable and classic of the horror model. William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) being the best of these, it stars Ellen Burstyn as the mother of a young girl (Linda Blair) who is possessed by the devil. The film was so realistic it terrified audiences out of cinemas and was banned in many countries (including the UK until 1990), yet it was the first horror film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best . 

Along similar lines, and almost as frightening was Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976) with Gregory Peck as a politician who learns to his terror that his son is the antichrist. This seemed to be an era of films with superb performances from

terrifying children, delivering horrific scenes the like audiences had never seen before. It was this loss of innocence that I feel makes these films so dramatically lucrative. Breaking the mould was Toby Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) another film based on the life of serial killer Ed Gein but in much more depth and gory detail than Psycho. Brian De Palma’s Carrie about a young girl repressed and bullied both at school and home and discovers she is telekinetic almost isn’t a horror film at all, directors added more social elements and dimensions to their movies, it was obvious that money was being put into a significant budget, scripts were being drafted carefully and because of this noteworthy actors were taking notice. The 70’s developed horror films of a much higher quality than ever before and the box office only proved this.

Halloween (1978) was a new breed, proving that the genre could be developed and pushed further in every sense. Halloween ushered in the serial killer movie or slasher movie as many became, it welcomed in the 80’s and the horror franchise. John Carpenter created a memorable horror villain in Michael Myers, one who audiences wanted to see more of. Most importantly he made it cheaply; this was a movie that was filmed on a miniscule budget but reaped huge rewards at the box office. Studios took notice and tried to recreate this little miracle, there were a lot of failed attempts but some did strike gold. Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) introduced audiences to the pizza faced Freddy Krueger as a paedophile serial killer killed by parents but comes back to haunt and murder teenagers in their dreams. This premise was so popular with audiences that the franchise has produced seven sequels and a reboot of the original film in 2010.

Similarly Friday the 13^th (1980) or rather Friday the 13^th 2 (1981) introduced yet another serial killer this time attacking camp counsellors attempting to reopen a summer camp that was the location of a child drowning years before. Jason Voorhees is of a similar build to Michael Myers and just as viscous. But instead of a stretched and painted William Shatner mask, Jason wore an ice hockey mask, it might not sound scary but it did the trick. Friday the 13^th outdid Elm Street with 10 sequels and a reboot of the original in 2009.

The 80’s was a decade of similar works, directors copied what worked or tried to and many failed in the attempt. But there were some stand-alone movies that did not belong in the B movie trash bin or any of the franchises taking over the cinema. Poltergeist (1982) was a Steven Spielberg produced horror, which happens to be one of my favourites. Unlike the gore that filled Elm Street and Friday the 13^th, Poltergeist concentrated on the good old fashioned supernatural; when a young girl is drawn inside an otherworldly portal inside the family Television by malevolent spirits haunting the house, her family bring in an expert to help get her back.

Long considered the scariest movie of all time (personally sceptical of that analysis) and an audience favourite was Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King multi-layered head-spinner The Shining (1980). It starred Jack Nicholson as a man who takes a job as a caretaker in a hotel closing for the winter season which will be blocked off and remote. He takes his wife (Shelley Duvall) and their son but soon becomes murderously influenced by an evil presence in the hotel that his psychic son can sense. This was not your usual horror film, as with any Kubrick film it had been masterfully shot with every minute detail there for a purpose. There are supposedly so many hidden meanings and interpretations in the film that an excellent documentary Room 237 (2012) was made trying to explain it. This was a horror film with much more depth a plot unlike the simple murderers and victims that were frequently on offer to audiences. This was a film that made you think, lots of the most intriguing points to the films are beneath the surface. But also had lots of humorous moments and one of the most infamous film quotes of all time; who hasn't heard “Here’s Johnny!!” even if they haven’t seen the film.

Ridley Scott changed the genre for the better when he made his Sci-fi epic Alien (1979) but it is widely considered a horror film due to its terrifying scenes of an alien murdering the crew of a ship in space. It became more frequent to see films merging genres together to create superb new editions to the canon. John Landis took audiences back to the days of the studios with his love of old fashioned horror pictures for An American Werewolf in London (1981) with a monster to rival the best of those classics from Universals glory days. The 1980’s proved that horror was on the up and up with a host of successful franchises, stand-alone classics and a return to the best of horror from the studio era.

The 90’s was really a decade of sequels; sagas that had been introduced the decade before were continued because once again ideas were lacking. Horror was laughable and predictable; everyone who went to see a horror film knew who the victims were and how the plot would play out. It was from this that a very clever film was created. Scream (1996), directed by A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven, was a look at the rules and conventions of horror films, basically a piss take of how the genre had lost its edge. Teenagers today knew what was coming; they couldn't be scared any more, and it was a villain who used these rules and contradicted them to murder his victims; It is a very very clever film. Along with Scream were a number of horror films for young adults based around the lives and murders of teenagers. It really was a case of directors biting the hand that fed them; the majority of a target audience for horror films by the 1990’s were teenagers and here they were seeing a film about relatable young characters like themselves being killed off one by one. I know What You did Last Summer (1997) and Jeepers Creepers (2001) were among many of this particular type; good looking casts, cheap scares and predictable stories.

The Sixth Sense (1999) was a Hollywood sleeper hit; it had Bruce Willis starring and was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense follows Willis’ psychologist who is trying to help a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who can see dead people. The reason the film was such a huge hit was not just that it had a promising cast and budget but that it had the biggest twist in horror movie history. It was that one revealing scene that got people talking and it was word of mouth that got people into the cinema to see it and before the boom of the internet the ending could not be spoiled in a matter of minutes. Another film that used the public, in a way no other film had before was The Blair Witch Project (1999). The film is based on an old myth, a group of teenager’s camp in the woods to find evidence of the myth being true, but with dire consequences.  Filmed like a home movie, in itself a new concept, the film-makers used the internet to attract audiences. They created a website, used advertising in a way that was new to the industry. Audiences were made to believe the actors in the film were really missing. By using the internet and advertising to a wider range of people Blair Witch is now a cult classic, despite being a terrible horror film. But most importantly it paved the way for movie marketing in the 21st Century. Without it we would have no Paranormal Activity (2007) franchise which successfully copies the hand held camera/found footage technique.

Horror seems to have been on the back-burner during the naughties; there are maybe one or two worthwhile horror films in a year. But apart from these many are cheap B movie horrors that come and go straight to DVD, with little or no marketing to attract audiences. There have been interesting ideas in the last decade The Ring (2002), The Grudge (2004) and Rec. (2007) were all successful but all followed the same pattern; they were remade from the original, often better foreign film. Saw (2004) became the new horror franchise to follow, bringing gore and torture front and centre. Along with Final Destination (2000) about a group of teenagers who survive an accident only to have death hunt them down one by one to correct the balance.

There have been a number of high quality horror pictures recently due in most part to director James Wan who brought the world of Saw to life 10 years ago. He has reinvented horror films and brought realistic scares back to a dying genre. Supernatural horror was the trend in 2012 and 2013 with Insidious (2010) and its sequel (2013) being hugely popular and genuinely scary, it had a great script and plot which has been sorely missed in many horror films of recent years, and a spin-off Annabelle coming later this year. Wan said an apparent goodbye to horror with the spine tingling The Conjuring (2013) about a real-life paranormal investigating couple at their peak in the 1970's, which will get

a sequel next year though perhaps without Wan's involvement. Hammer studios also made a comeback after a nearly 30 year hiatus with The Woman in Black (2012) Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter attempt. This is yet another film with a quality story behind it, a good cast and genuine scares, it's sequel The Woman in Black: Angel of Death  is due in 2015.

With a list of impressive films in the last two years and many successful actors more than willing to get their hands dirty it looks like the horror genre is done stumbling and might be in for a cracking few years, here’s hoping.