Early Horror Pieces:
·
Horror as
we know it started with Gothic Horror, with castles, corridors and an emphasis
on the unknown, stemming often from classic works of horror literature such as
Edgar Allen Poe.
·
The
Haunted Castle (Melies, 1896) is credited as being the first ever horror film,
that took the form of a brief pantomimed comedy piece.
World
War influences:
·
A style
known as German Expressionism took over in Europe, affecting art, literature,
and most importantly, film. More towards expression than realism.
·
This gave
birth to one of the forefathers of horror, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Wiene,
1920) which was a silent film and considered one of the most quintessential
works of Expressionist cinema in Europe.
·
With the release of The Golem (Wegener, 1915) the
German film industry boomed and was the most prospering industry in Germany and
out of this was created the UFA – Universum Film AG – a motion picture
production company that was eventually purchased by Paramount and MGM in 1925.
Hollywood’s
takeover 1930 - 40’s
·
Universal
pictures began a new cycle of gothic horror in America, starting with the
classic; Dracula (Browning, Freund, 1931)
·
The cycle began to lose
steam towards the 1940’s.
·
1942 saw
the release of Cat People (Tourneur, 1942), a film considered to be the forerunner of
Psychological horror.
Cold
war influences: 1950’s
·
In the
60s, nearing the end of the classic studio system, the era of pulp science
fiction horror came to be, and by this time horror as a genre was incredibly
varied for its time.
·
The
cycle began,
with The Thing (Nyby, 1951) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (Wise, 1951)
·
Featured
more alien creatures from outer space.
Explosion
after Psycho: 1960’s
·
Psycho
(Hitchcock, 1960) was released, widely considered to be one of the greatest and
most famous horror films of all time, and helped cement horror and
psychological horror as a serious and impactful genre with a lot of potential.
·
The British film industry created the
Hammer gothic cycle. Hammer
studios began a gothic horror cycle of their own, rebooting it with a
combination of gore and sex that previously hadn’t been permitted in feature
films. This made the new generation of horror films a new and appealing
experience for audiences.
The immersion of new styles of Horror: 1965-80’s
·
Films about satin and
more religious based topics were made, the most famous being The Exorcist (Friedkin,
1973).
·
Jaws (Spielberg,
1975) set a good example as what is known today as a summer blockbuster. Started
the shark horror cycle and more creature films in general.
·
Carrie (de Palma,
1976) started the teen horror genre.
·
Alien (Scott, 1979)
merged horror and science fiction genres together.
·
The Shining (Kubrick,
1980) proved to stand the test of time, and although it was not as popular when
it released, today it is considered a horror masterpiece.
Rise of independent film genres: 1974-80’s
·
This time also saw
the rise of the slasher genre, which started with Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper,
1974) but Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) hugely popularised it.
·
Icons like Friday The
13th (Cunningham, 1980), one of the first studio backed slasher films, and
Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984) were created, and terrified audiences
around the world.
·
In the 80s and early 90s there was an influx into
the Indie film scene, and because horror was such an accessible genre, films
such as The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, Sanchez, 1999) were created and became
massive cult hits.
·
Contemporary horror brought with it new and exciting subgenres such as
the found footage film and torture porn, both of which became hugely successful
in the 90s and 2000s as special effects became better and better.
good notetaking, did this inspire any ideas?
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