Horror Films

The horror genre

Origins

·         The horror story in literature arose from the 18^th and the 19^th centuries tales of terror and often repressed sexuality in historical setting of dark, brooding menace

·         Described at the time as romantic literature, Mary Shells Frankenstein and Bram Stokers Dracula are the most enduring, but the Werewolf and the Mummy can also be traced back to novels from this period

·         Film versions of these stories have been remade many times from Universal in 1930s, to Hammer in 1950s and 60s to recent versions by Coppola and Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Sommers’ ‘Van Helsing’.

·         The American gothic tradition derives from the work of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. Roger Corman made several films in the 1960s based on Poes’s novels.

Haunting and Demonic Possessions

·         These films play on our fear of the unknown, superstition and the idea that evil forces exist in the world. These forces can remain spiritual presences (don’t look now) or can take the guise of witches (Blair Witch Project), ghosts (The Haunting) in demons (The Exorcist)

·         The characters fall prey to an evil force that is trying to victimise them in some way. The evil entity is doing this perhaps to gain vengeance e.g. in Blair Witch the witch is taking vengeance on the characters for trying to expose her.

·         In Nightmare on Elm Street Freddie is taking revenge on the people who killed him by haunting the dreams of their children and stalking them in their dreams. In many haunted house stories the ghost simply resents the presence of the people who have just moved in

·         Sometimes the evil force wants to corrupt its victims – to make them do evil. Eg “The Shining”.

·         In this case the evil force wants to take control of its victim – takes over his body or his mind or soul. Vampires and werewolves turn you into one of their kind

·         Often a fight between good and evil. In the Christian sense – temptation and sin

·         Witches, vampires and demons have their roots in folklore. Before modern medicine many disorders, blood diseases and psychological illnesses were attributed to supernatural causes: e.g. epilepsy was thought to be cause by possession by demons. So these mythologies are in our “collective unconscious” and are brought to the surface by horror films.

·         Sometimes the threat comes from t he everyday traditionally harmless creatures with whom we share the planet. All at once these creatures decide to gather against us and take over the world. The most famous film of this type is Hitchcock’s, The Birds.

·         In the 70s there was a whole spawn of films featuring all types of creatures: rats (Willard), bees, worms (squirm), ants and even giant rabbits

The Human Monster

·         Generally dates from Psycho (1960) deals with horror of the personality: psychopathology and murder (the serial killer) or psychosis and insanity. So the audience is taken inside the mind of a killer or a person who appears to be going insane

Iconography of horror films

·         Symbolic images which recur throughout the history of the horror film include:

·         the haunted house

·         Symbols of death

·         The disfigured face or mask

·         The screaming victim

·         The phallic murder weapon: knife, stake, chainsaw

·         Binary oppositions of good and evil e.g. Dracula/Van Helsing

·         Darkened places where the monster lurks: woods, cellars.

·         Blood and body parts

Universal Studios Horror Films (1930-48)

The significance of these films is thought to be linked to working class discontent arising from the Great Depression which led to mass unemployment