Film 101: A Harrowing History of Horror
“Do you like scary movies?” -Scream (1996)
You may be surprised to discover (since I am writing a blog on the subject) that I do not particularly enjoy them. In fact, I avoided horror like the plague and believed that all horror movies were renditions of the same bloody, gory, woman-screeching narrative.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong.
The horror genre is anything but a listless, putrefied zombie. On the contrary, horror adapts to its environment; warping, oozing, and mutating into an agile, shape-shifting monster. The evolution of horror reflects the fears and anxieties of the time period in which it is conceived. And this self-reflexive nature of horror is only one way of exploring the genre. Other film critics and theorists focus instead on the intentions of the directors, the understanding of film critics, and the reactions from mass audiences.
Following in the footsteps of Bela Lugosi’s introduction to Frankenstein (1941), the George Eastman Museum feels it would be a little unkind to present this blog without just a word of friendly warning.
Drawing from the ideas conceived by the founding fathers (and mothers!) of horror theory, we are about to unfold the evolution of the genre. A corpus of fear, disgust, and disturbance.
I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even…horrify you.
So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now is your chance, to uh-
Well, we’ve warned you…
Where did the Horror film come from?
Before there were horror films, there was gothic literature. Themes and motifs such as archaic settings, use of the supernatural, literary suspense, and highly stereotypical characters were first conceived in works of literature before they were adapted for the screen. Gothic writers implemented hypothetical constructions and linguistic qualifiers to craft suspense, fear, and uncertainty within their works. Words such as “maybe”, “probably”, and “perhaps” were then translated into photographic techniques of film editing, lighting, framing, and sound design to inspire feelings of anxiety and suspense.
Many film critics and historians trace the roots of the horror genre to the early 1930s. The genre began with the production of art films, now retroactively labeled as the earliest contributions to the horror corpus. The initial phase of horror existed almost completely in the U.S, however, many American gothic works were not made into films. Instead, American producers and directors turned to British gothic stories. And on this American-British axis, horror was conceived.
You might have heard of some of these gothic stories- Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, oh, and a little known work titled Dracula. By re-creating monsters from British Gothics, and omitting American ones, Hollywood studios indirectly shifted the origins of monstrosity away from United States soil. Monsters might exist, but they were distinctly foreign.
The translation from literature to film includes three main shifts in medium, audience, and content. If you’ve read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published anonymously in 1818, you’ll notice how the 1931 film butchers the literary narrative. Like all failed book-to-film adaptations, the content of Frankenstein (1931) was butchered for the purposes of entertaining mass audiences. Nevertheless, the production set a precedent for the following literary adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Murderers of Rue Morgue (1932).
The main producer of early horror was Universal Studios. Universal’s success began with the release of The Phantom of the Opera in 1925 and continued into the thirties with the productions of Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Invisible Man (1933). A decade later, Universal exploited these earlier successes with a handful of low-budget sequel films such as The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Son of Dracula (1943), and The Mummy’s Ghost (1944). It’s important to note that movies are more than their makers, and each horror film (especially those of the thirties) is more diverse than the brand name or generic expectations that links them.
As Universal Studios’ capitalization on the horror genre dwindled, the fifties gave way to a corpus of unique horror films entrenched in Cold War anxieties regarding nuclear technology and radiation experiments. The horror genre became entangled with science fiction, and the early fifties were dominated by a proliferation of creature features born in the wake of Gojira (1954) and Them! (1954).
Which brings us to the 1960s.
The Birth of Modern Horror and the Cinematic Experience
Film critics and theorists alike credit Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) as the birth of modern horror. Hitchcock retrieved monstrosity from the foreign lands of 1930’s Transylvania and 1950’s Antarctica and brought it back to infiltrate American neighborhoods and stalk nuclear families. In this endeavor to unmask the horrors of normality, the character of Norman Bates was conceived. Norman Bates was not only the boy-next-door but a monster born of social repression. He was the uncanny incarnate; human, yet not quite familiar.
In addition to permanently changing the landscape of what is deemed monstrous, Psycho revolutionized the immersive, immediate, and communal nature of the cinematic experience.
Before Psycho, movie-going was a casual activity. Going to the movies meant double features accompanied by newsreels and short films that were screened in a continuous loop. Audiences would arrive at any time during the screening and then leave where they came in. Furthermore, the disclosure of the narrative was common, and “spoilers” weren’t a concern until Hitchcock deemed them so.
These laidback movie-going practices came to a screeching halt with Alfred Hitchcok’s production and distribution of Psycho. Hitchcock was the first notable director to market a publicity campaign focused on discouraging the disclosure of narrative secrets. To protect the script’s integrity, Hitchcock purchased the rights to Robert Bloch’s novel of the same name (of which the film was based) and bought as many copies of the book as he could to stall public circulation. At the time of the film’s production, Hitchcock even made the cast and crew raise their right hands and swear to keep the details of the film secret.
Hitchcock further controlled his audience by demanding that they make a date with the film. This immediate insistence encouraged audiences to arrive before the film began, and wait in a line to anticipate the experience ahead. Hitchcock even prohibited anyone from entering the theatre after the film had started. The master of suspense also created a press book, detailing how to screen the film and regulate the terrified audiences.
In addition to the installation of the cardboard cut-outs, Hitchcock urged Paramount Studios to provide records to the theatres of Psycho’s soundtrack. These records included the voice of an ominous narrator, interrupted by the recording of a woman’s screams, counting down the time to the screening of the film.
“Ten minutes to Psycho time… five minutes to Psycho time….”
Through the execution of Hitchcok’s rigorous policies, he managed to revive cinema’s methods of attraction. When film was first exhibited, it existed as an astonishing spectacle. For instance, the final scene of the Great Train Robbery (1903) had audiences screaming, running from their seats, in horror that the gun on-screen was pointed at them. The original emphasis on the interplay of editing, camerawork, and surprise eventually gave way to a linear narrative construction that audiences enjoyed silently in their seats.
Psycho managed to re-cultivate a communal, immersive cinematic experience by reviving the shock factor. The infamous shower scene in Psycho left audiences shrieking in fear, grabbing those next to them, and running for the door. The trailers for Psycho lived up to their promise that “no one would be seated after the movie began.”
Modern Horror Today
Many of today’s popular horror films follow the reflectionist trend of exploiting audiences' current doubts and anxieties.
In 2017, Director Jordan Peele shocked audiences with the release of Get Out. With Peele’s unique genre mixing, the horror film transformed into a dramatic social commentary on American racism. Today, Peele’s film continues to engage our current cycle of society, appealing to what sells as well as to what is true, in order to expose how our modern and advanced American society remains haunted by the zeitgeist of our violent past.
With the combination of globalization and access to streaming technology, the corpus of the horror genre has been heavily influenced by the artistry of foreign films. Midsommar (2019) is a Swedish folk horror film by Hereditary (2018) Director Ari Aster, which exploits the dynamics of personal relationships, emotional manipulation, and personal trauma through the murderous traditions of a pagan cult. More recently, Director Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019) took the world by storm for its masterful portrayal of greed and class discrimination.
What makes this new wave of horror so intriguing and so harrowing?
The answer can only be found in the pursuit of greater reflection and repeat viewings. Only then can you begin to appreciate the depth and complexity of the horror genre and the diversity and ingenuity of its corpus.
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