Horror Film from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "Horror Movie" Redirects Here
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Horror film From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Horror Movie" redirects here. For the Skyhooks song, see Horror Movie (song). For the 2002 film, see Horror (film). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2013) A famous scene from one of the first notable horror films, Nosferatu (1922) Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror films have, for more than a century, featured scenes that startle the viewer. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes, and may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction andthriller genres.[1] Horror films often deal with viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Prevalent elements includeghosts, extraterrestrials, vampires, werewolves, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, andserial killers. Movies about the supernatural are not necessarily horrific.[2] Contents [hide] 1 History o 1.1 1890-1920s o 1.2 1930s–1940s o 1.3 1950s–1960s o 1.4 1970s–1980s o 1.5 1990s o 1.6 2000s o 1.7 2010s 2 Subgenres 3 Influences o 3.1 Influences on society o 3.2 Influences internationally 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links History[edit] 1890-1920s[edit] See also: List of horror films of the 1890s, List of horror films of the 1900s, List of horror films of the 1910s and List of horror films of the 1920s Lon Chaney, Sr. in The Phantom of the Opera. The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du Diable, which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film.[3] Another of his horror projects was 1898's La Caverne maudite (a.k.a. The Cave of the Unholy One, literally "the accursed cave").[3] Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizoand Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.[4] The era featured a slew of literary adaptations, with the works of Poe and Dante, among others. In 1910,Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein,[5] following the 1908 film adaptation of the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The macabre nature of the source materials used made the films synonymous with the horror film genre.[6] Around the Weimar Republic era, German Expressionist film makers would significantly influence later films. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1920),Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and The Man Who Laughs (1928), based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, were influential films at the time. The first vampire-themed movie, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), was made during this time, though it was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Though the word "horror" to describe the film genre would not be used until the 1930s, after Universal Pictures released Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), Hollywood dramas often used horror themes. Some notable influences on the genre include The Phantom Carriage (Sweden, 1920), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Waxworks (Germany, 1924), The Lost World (1925), and The Unknown (1927). These early films were considered dark melodramas because of their stock characters and emotion heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality.[7] The trend of inserting an element of macabre into these pre-horror melodramas continued into the 1920s. Directors known for relying on macabre in their films during the 1920s were Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram, and Tod Browning. The Magician (1926) contains one of the first examples of a "mad doctor" and is said to have had a large influence on James Whale's version of Frankenstein. [8] The Unholy Three (1925) is an example of Browning's use of macabre and unique style of morbidity; he remade the film in 1930 as atalkie, though The Terror (1928) was the first horror film with sound. 1930s–1940s[edit] Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster in Bride of Frankenstein(1935). See also: List of horror films of the 1930s, List of horror films of the 1940s and Universal Monsters During the early period of talking pictures, Universal Pictures began a successful Gothic horror film series. Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) was quickly followed by James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and The Old Dark House (1932), both featuring monstrous mute antagonists. Some of these films blended science fiction with Gothic horror, such as Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) and featured a mad scientist, mirroring earlier German films. Frankenstein was the first in a series of remakes which lasted for years. The Mummy (1932) introduced Egyptology as a theme;Make-up artist Jack Pierce was responsible for the iconic image of the monster, and others in the series. Universal's horror cycle continued into the 1940s with B-movies including The Wolf Man (1941), as well as a number of films uniting several of the most common monsters.[9] Other studios followed Universal's lead. The once controversial Freaks (1932), based on the short story "Spurs", was made by MGM, though the studio disowned the completed film, and it remained banned in the UK for thirty years.[10] Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, (1931) is remembered for its use of color filters to create Jekyll's transformation before the camera.[11] With the progression of the genre, actors like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were beginning to build entire careers in horror. Both appeared in three of Val Lewton's atmospheric B-movies for RKO in the mid-1940s, including The Body Snatcher (1945). 1950s–1960s[edit] See also: List of horror films of the 1950s and List of horror films of the 1960s Christopher Lee starred in several British horror films of the era, shown here in 1958's Dracula. With advances in technology, the tone of horror films shifted from the Gothic towards contemporary concerns. Two subgenres began to emerge: the Doomsday film and the Demonic film.[12] Low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats such as alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. Japan's experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki bore the well- knownGodzilla (1954) and its sequels, featuring mutation from the effects of nuclear radiation. Hollywood directors and producers found ample opportunity for audience exploitation through gimmicks. House of Wax (1953) used the advent of 3-D film to draw audiences, while The Tingler used electric seat buzzers in 1959. Filmmakers continued to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. Considered a "pulp masterpiece"[13] of the era was The Incredible Shrinking Man(1957), based on Richard Matheson's existentialist novel. The film conveyed the fears of living in the Atomic Age and the terror of social alienation. Zombies in Romero's influentialNight of the Living Dead. During the later 1950s, Great Britain emerged as a producer of horror films. The Hammer company focused on the genre for the first time, enjoying huge international success from films involving classic horror characters which were shown in color for the first time. Drawing on Universal's precedent, many films produced were Frankenstein and Dracula remakes, both followed by many sequels. Other British companies contributed to a boom in horror film production in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s. Peeping Tom (1960) was the first "slasher"; Alfred Hitchcock cemented the subgenre with Psycho (1960), while his The Birds (1963) introduced natural horror, in which the menace stems from nature gone mad. France continued the mad scientist theme, while Italian horror films became internationally notable. American International Pictures (AIP) made a series of Edgar Allan Poe– themed films. Films in the era used the supernatural premise to express the horror of the demonic. The Innocents (1961) based on the Henry Jamesnovel The Turn of the Screw. Meanwhile, ghosts were a dominant theme in Japanese horror, in such films as Kwaidan, Onibaba (both 1964) and Kuroneko (1968). An influential American horror film of this period was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Produced and directed by Romero on a budget of $114,000, it grossed $30 million internationally. An armageddon film about zombies, it began to combine psychological insights with gore. Distancing the era from earlier gothic trends, late 60's films brought horror into everyday life. Low-budget splatter films from the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis also gained prominence. 1970s–1980s[edit] See also: List of horror films of the 1970s and List of horror films of the 1980s The financial successes of the low-budget gore films of the ensuing years, and the critical and popular success of Rosemary's Baby, led to the release of more films with occult themes during the 1970s. The Exorcist (1973), the first of these movies, was a significant commercial success, and was followed by scores of horror films in which a demon entity is represented as the supernatural evil, often by impregnating women or possessing children. "Evil children" and reincarnation became popular subjects. Robert Wise's film Audrey Rose (1977) for example, deals with a man who claims that his daughter is the reincarnation of another dead person. Alice, Sweet Alice (1977), is another Catholic-themed horror slasher about a little girl's murder and her sister being the prime suspect.