User:Andrzejbanas/sandbox/Horror film

History

Main article: History of horror films

In his book Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror (1980), author Siegbert Solomon Prawer stated that those wanting to read into horror films in a linear historical path, citing historians and critics like Carlos Clarens noting that as some film audiences at a time took films made by Tod Browning that starred Bela Lugosi with utmost seriousness, other productions from other countries saw the material set for parody, as children's entertainment or nostalgic recollection. John Kenneth Muir in his books covering the history of horror films through the later decades of the 20th century echoed this statement, stating that horror films mirror the anxieties of "their age and their audience" concluding that "if horror isn't relevant to everyday life... it isn't horrifying".

Early influences and films

Prior to the development of film in the late 1890s, Gothic fiction was developed. These included Frankenstein (1818) and short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, which would later have several film adaptations. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, more key horror texts would be developed than any other period preceding it. While they were not all straight horror stories, the horrific elements of them lingered in popular culture, with their set pieces becoming stapes in horror cinema.

Critic and author Kim Newman described Georges Méliès Le Manoir du diable as the first first horror film, featuring elements that would became staples in the genre: images of demons, ghosts, and haunted castles. The early 20th century cinema had production of film so hectic, several adaptions of stories were made within months of each other. This included Poe adaptations made in France and the United States, to Frankenstein adaptations being made in the United States and Italy. The most adapted of these stories was Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), which had three version made in 1920 alone.

Early German cinema involved Poe-like stories, such as The Student of Prague (1913) which featured director and actor Paul Wegener. Wegner would go on to work in similar features such The Golem and the Dancing Girl and its related Golem films. Other actors of the era who featured in similar films included Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt who starred in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, leading to similar roles in other German productions. F. W. Murnau would also direct an adaptation of Nosferatu (1922), a film Newman described as standing "as the only screen adaptation of Dracula to be primarily interested in horror, from the character's rat-like features and thin body, the film was, even more so than Caligari, "a template for the horror film."

1930s

Following the 1927 success of Broadway play of Dracula, Universal Studios officially purchased the rights to both the play and the novel. After the Dracula's premiere on February 12, 1931, the film received what authors of the book Universal Horrors proclaimed as "uniformly positive, some even laudatory" reviews. The commercial reception surprised Universal who forged ahead to make similar production of Frankenstein (1931). Frankenstein also proved to be a hit for Universal which led to both Dracula and Frankenstein making film stars of their leads: Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff respectively. Karloff starred in Universal's follow-up The Mummy (1932), which Newman described as the studio knowing "what they were getting" patterning the film close to the plot of Dracula. Lugosi and Karloff would star together in several Poe-adaptations in the 1930s.

Following the release of Dracula, the Washington Post declared the films box office success led to a cycle of similar films while the New York Times stated in a 1936 overview that Dracula and the arrival of sound film began the "real triumph of these spectral thrillers". Other studios began developing their own horror projects with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros.. Universal would also follow-up with several horror films until the mid-1930s.

In 1935, the President of the BBFC Edward Shortt, wrote "although a separate category has been established for these [horrific] films, I am sorry to learn they are on the increase...I hope that the producers and renters will accept this word of warning, and discourage this type of subject as far as possible." As the United Kingdom was a significant market for Hollywood, American producers listened to Shortt's warning, and the number of Hollywood produced horror films decreased in 1936. A trade paper Variety reported that Universal Studios abandonment of horror films after the release of Dracula's Daughter (1936) was that "European countries, especially England are prejudiced against this type product [sic]." At the end of the decade, a profitable re-release of Dracula and Frankenstein would encourage Universal to produce Son of Frankenstein (1939) featuring both Lugosi and Karloff, starting off a resurgence of the horror film that would continue into the mid-1940s.

1940s

After the success of Son of Frankenstein (1939), Universal's horror films received what author Rick Worland of The Horror Film called "a second wind" and horror films continued to be produced at a feverish pace into the mid-1940s. Universal looked into their 1930s horror properties to develop new follow-ups such in their The Invisible Man and The Mummy series. Universal saw potential in making actor Lon Chaney, Jr. a new star to replace Karloff as Chaney had not distinguished himself in either A or B pictures. Chaney, Jr. would become a horror star for the decade showing in the films in The Wolf Man series, portraying several of Universal's monster characters. B-Picture studios also developed films that imitated the style of Universal's horror output. Karloff worked with Columbia Pictures acting in various films as a "Mad doctor"-type characters starting with The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) while Lugosi worked between Universal and poverty row studios such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) for The Devil Bat (1941) and Monogram for nine features films.

In March 1942, producer Val Lewton ended his working relationship with independent producer David O. Selznick to work for RKO Radio Pictures' Charles Koerner, becoming the head of a new unit created to develop B-movie horror feature films. According to screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen and director Jacques Tourneur, Lewton's first horror production Cat People (1942), Lewtwon wanted to make some different from the Universal horror with Tourneu describing it as making "something intelligent and in good taste". Lewton developed a series of horror films for RKO, described by Newman as "polished, doom-haunted, poetic" while film critic Roger Ebert the films Lewton produced in the 1940s were "landmark[s] in American movie history". Several horror films of the 1940s borrowed from Cat People, specifically feature a female character who fears that she has inherited the tendency to turn into a monster or attempt to replicate the shadowy visual style of the film. Between 1947 and 1951, Hollywood made almost no new horror films. This was due to sharply declining sales, leading to both major and poverty row studios to re-release their older horror films during this period rather than make new ones.

1950s

The early 1950s featured only a few gothic horror films developed, prior to the release of Hammer Film Productions's gothic films, Hammer originally began developing American-styled science fiction films in the early 1950s but later branched into horror with their colour films The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula (1958). These films would birth two horror film stars: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and led to further horror film production from Hammer in the decade.

Among the most influential horror films of the 1950s was The Thing From Another World (1951), with Newman stating that countless science fiction horror films of the 1950s would follow in its style. For five years following the release of The Thing From Another World, nearly every film involving aliens, dinosaurs or radioactive mutants would be dealt with matter-of-fact characters as seen in the film. Films featuring vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein's monster also took to having science fiction elements of the era such as have characters have similar plot elements from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Horror films aimed a young audience featuring teenage monsters grew popular in the 1950s with several productions from American International Pictures (AIP) and productions of Herman Cohen with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957). This led to later productions like Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and Frankenstein's Daughter (1958). Horror films also expanded further into international productions in the later half of the 1950s, with films in the genre being made in Mexico, Italy, Germany and France.

1960s

Newman that the horror film changed dramatically in 1960. Specifically, with Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho (1960) based on the novel by Robert Bloch. Newman declared that the film elevated the idea of a multiple-personality serial killer that set the tone future film that was only touched upon in earlier melodramas and film noirs. The release of Psycho led to similar pictures about the psychosis of characters and a brief reappearance of what Newman described as "stately, tasteful" horror films such as Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). Newman described Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) the other "event" horror film of the 1960s after Psycho.

Roger Corman working with AIP to make House of Usher (1960), which led several future Poe-adaptations other 1960s Poe-adaptations by Corman, and provided roles for aging horror stars such as Karloff and Chaney, Jr. These films were made to compete with the British colour horror films from Hammer in the United Kingdom featuring their horror stars Cushing and Fisher, whose Frankenstein series continued from 1958 to 1973 Competition for Hammer appeared in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom with Amicus Productions who also made feature film featuring Cushing and Lee. Like Psycho, Amicus drew from contemporary sources such as Bloch (The Skull (1965) and Torture Garden (1967)) led to Hammer adapting works by more authors from the era.

Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Earlier British horror films had their gorier scenes cut on initial release or suggested through narration while Psycho suggested it's violence through fast editing. Black Sunday, by contrast, depicted violence without suggestion. This level of violence would later be seen in other works of Bava and other Italian films such the giallo of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Other independent American productions of the 1960s expanded on the gore shown in the films in a genre later described as the splatter film, with films by Herschell Gordon Lewis such as Blood Feast, while Newman found that the true breakthrough of these independent films was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) which set a new attitudes for the horror film, one that was suspicious of authority figures, broke taboos of society and was satirical between its more suspenseful set pieces.

1970s

Historian John Kenneth Muir described the 1970s as a "truly eclectic time" for horror cinema, noting a mixture of fresh and more personal efforts on film while other were a resurrection of older characters that have appeared since the 1930s and 1940s. Night of the Living Dead had what Newman described as a "slow burning influence" on horror films of the era and what he described as "the first of the genre auteurs" who worked outside studio settings. These included American directors such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven and Brian De Palma as well as directors working outside America such as Bob Clark, David Cronenberg and Dario Argento. Prior to Night of the Living Dead, the monsters of horror films could easily be banished or defeated by the end of the film, while Romero's film and the films of other filmmakers would often suggest other horror still lingered after the credits.

American and British productions often had vampire films set in a contemporary setting, such as Hammer Films had their Dracula stories set in a modern setting and made other horror material which pushed the erotic content of their vampire films that was initiated by Black Sunday. Both Amicus and Hammer ceased feature film production in the 1970s. Remakes of proved to be popular choices for horror films in the 1970s, with films like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978) and tales based on Dracula which continued into the late 1970s with John Badham's Dracula (1979) and Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). Although not an official remake, the last high-grossing horror film of decade, Alien (1979) took b-movie elements from films like It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958).

Other horror trends included Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) which created a trend in Italy for the giallo film. Other smaller trends permutated in Italy such as films involving cannibals, zombies, nazis which Newman described as "disreputable crazes". Following the success of Willard (1971), a film about killer rats, a trend of horror films were made with both giant-size and small animals becoming human killers. Muir described as the "turning point" in the genre with Jaws (1975), which became the highest-grossing film at that point and moved the animal attacks genres "towards a less-fantastic route" with less giant animals and more real-life creatures. Newman's described Jaws' memorable music theme and its monster not being product of society like Norman Bates in Psycho carried over into John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) Newman described that along that high grossing films like Alien,Jaws and Halloween were hits based on being "relentless suspense machines with high visual sophistication."

1980s

With the appearance of home video in the 1980s, horror films were subject to censorship in the United Kingdom in a phenomenon popularly known as "video nasties", leading to video collections being seized by police and some people being jailed for selling or owning some horror films. Newman described the response to the video nasty issue led to horror films becoming "dumber than the previous decade" and although films were not less gory, they were "more lightweight [...] becoming more disposable , less personal works." Newman noted that these directors who created original material in the 1970s such as Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Tobe Hooper would all at least briefly "play it safe" with Stephen King adaptations or remakes of the 1950s horror material. In Italy, the 1980s started with a high-budgeted production of Argento's Inferno (1980) but with the death of Mario Bava, Fulci became what historian Roberto Curti called "Italy's most prominent horror film director in the early 1980s". Fulci would grow ill health as the decade continued leading the the Italian horror film industry to gradually move towards making films independently, or home video and television.

In the 1980s, the older horror characters of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster rarely appeared, with vampire themed films continued often in the tradition of authors like Anne Rice where vampirism becomes a lifestyle choice rather than plague or curse. Replacing Frankenstein's monster and Dracula were new popular characters with more general names like Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th), Michael Myers (Halloween), and Freddy Kruger (A Nightmare on Elm Street). Unlike the characters of the past who were vampires or created by mad scientists, these characters were seemingly people with common sounding names who developed the slasher film genre of the era. The genre was derided by several contemporary film critics of the era such as Roger Ebert, and often were highly profitable in the box office. The 1980s highlighted several films about body transformation, through special effects and make-up artists like Rob Bottin and Rick Baker who allowed for more detailed and graphic transformation scenes or the human body in various forms of horrific transformation.

Other more traditional styles continued into the 1980s, such as supernatural themed films involving haunted houses, ghosts, and demonic possession. Among the most popular films of the style included Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), Hooper's high-grossing Poltergeist (1982). After the release of films based on Stephen King's books like The Shining and Carrie led to further film adaptations of his novels throughout the 1980s.

1990s

Horror films of the 1990s also failed to develop as many major new directors of the genre as it had in the 1960s or 1970s. Young intendent filmmakers such as Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, Michael Moore and Quentin Tarantino broke into cinema outside the genre at non-genre festivals like the Sundance Film Festival. Newman noted that the early 1990s was "not a good time for horror", noting excessive release of sequels. Muir commented that in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, the United States did not really have a "serious enemy" internationally, leading to horror films adapting to fictional enemies predominantly within America, with the American government, large businesses, organized religion and the upper class as well as supernatural and occult items such as vampires or Satanists filling in the horror villains of the 1990s. The rapid growth of technology in the 1990s with the internet and the fears of the Year 2000 problem causing the end of the world were reflected in plots of films.

Other genre-based trends of the 1990s, included the post-modern horror films such as Scream (1996) were made in this era. The release of Scream, led to a brief revival of the slasher films for the rest of the decade. Post-modern horror films continued into the 2000s, eventually just being released as humorous parody films. Following the release of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a small wave of high-budgeted gothic horror romance films were released in the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s, three films were released that Newman described as "cultural phenomenons." These included Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998), which was the major hit across Asia, The Sixth Sense, another ghost story which Newman described as making "an instant cliche" of twist endings, and the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project (1999). Newman described the first trend of horror films in the 2000s followed the success of The Blair Witch Project, but predominantly parodies or similar low-budget imitations.

2000s

Teen oriented series began in the era with Final Destination while the success of the 1999 remake of William Castle's House on Haunted Hill led to a series of remakes in the decade. The popularity of the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) led to a revival in American zombie films in the late 2000s, Beyond remakes, other long-dormant horror franchises such as The Exorcist and Friday the 13th received new feature films. After the success of Ring (1998), several films came from Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan with similar detective plotlines investigating ghosts. This trend was echoed in the West with films with similar plots and Hollywood remakes of Asian films like The Ring (2002). In the United Kingdom, there was what Newman described as a "modest revival" of British horror films, first with war-related horror films and several independent films of various styles, with Newman describing the "breakouts of the new British horror" including 28 Days Later (2002) and Shaun of the Dead (2004).

David Edelstein of the New York Times coined a term for a genre he described as "torture porn" in a 2006 article, as a label for films described, often retroactively, to over 40 films since 2003. Edelstein lumped in films such as Saw (2004) and Wolf Creek (2005) under this banner suggesting audience a "titillating and shocking" while film scholars of early 21st century horror films described them as "intense bodily acts and visible bodily representations" to produce uneasy reactions. Kevin Wetmore, using the Saw film series suggested these film suggested reflected a post Post-9/11 attitude towards increasing pessimism, specifically one of "no redemption, no hope, no expectations that 'we're going to be OK'"

2010s to present

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, noted that the popularity of sites like YouTube in 2006 sparked a taste for amateur media, leading to the production of further films in the found footage horror genre later in the decade including the particularly financially successful Paranormal Activity (2007). After the film studio Blumhouse had success with Paranormal Activity (2007), the studio continued to films that grew to become hits in the 2010s with film series Insidious. This led to what Newman described as the companies policy on "commercial savvy with thematic risk that has often paid off", such as Get Out (2017) and series like The Purge. Laura Bradley in her article for Vanity Fair noted that both large and small film studios began noticing Blumhouse's success, including A24, which became popular with films like The Witch (2015) and Midsommar (2019). Bradley commented how some of these films were classified as "elevated horror", declaring "horror aficionados and some critics pushed back against the notion that these films are doing something entirely new." noting their roots in films like Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Rosemary's Baby (1968). In the early 2010s, there became a wave of horror films that showed what Virginie Sélavy noted described as having psychedelic tendency that was inspired by experimentation of 1970s and its subgenres, specifically folk horror. The trend began with two films: Enter the Void (2009) and Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) and was continued throughout the decade with films like Climax (2018).

Adapted from the Stephen King novel, It (2017) set a box office record for horror films by grossing $123.1 million on opening weekend in the United States and nearly $185 million globally. The success of It led to further King novels being adapted into new feature films. The beginning of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic led to several horror films being held back from release such or having their production halted. During lockdown, streaming for films featuring fictional apocalypse increased.