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HORROR FILMS Page 1 of 23 HORROR FILMS Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality. Horror films go back as far as the onset of films themselves, over a 100 years ago. From our earliest days, we use our vivid imaginations to see ghosts in shadowy shapes, to be emotionally connected to the unknown and to fear things that are improbable. Watching a horror film gives an opening into that scary world, into an outlet for the essence of fear itself, without actually being in danger. Weird as it sounds, there's a very real thrill and fun factor in being scared or watching disturbing, horrific images. Whatever dark, primitive, and revolting traits that simultaneously attract and repel us are featured in the horror genre. Horror films are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not synonymous with the horror genre, although thriller films may have some relation when they focus on the revolting and horrible acts of the killer/madman. Horror films are also known as chillers, scary movies, spookfests, and the macabre. See this site's Scariest Film Moments and Scenes collection - illustrated, including Entertainment Weekly's selections for the 20 Scariest Movies Horror films, when done well and with less reliance on horrifying special effects, can be extremely potent film forms, tapping into our dream states and the horror of the irrational and unknown, and the horror within man himself. (The best horror films only imply or suggest the horror in subtle ways, rather than blatantly displaying it, i.e., Val Lewton's horror films.) In horror films, the irrational forces of chaos or horror invariably need to be defeated, and often these films end with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous. Of necessity, the earliest horror films were Gothic in style - meaning that they were usually set in spooky old mansions, castles, or fog-shrouded, dark and shadowy locales. Their main characters have included "unknown," human, supernatural or grotesque creatures, ranging from vampires, demented madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, "Frankensteins," "Jekyll/Hyde" dualities, demons, zombies, evil spirits, arch fiends, Satanic villains, the "possessed," werewolves and freaks to even the unseen, diabolical presence of evil. Horror films developed out of a number of sources: folktales with devil characters, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories, Grand Guignol melodramas, and Gothic or Victorian novels from Europe by way of Mary Shelley or Irish writer Bram Stoker. In many ways, the expressionistic German silent cinema led the world in films of horror and the supernatural, and established its cinematic vocabulary and style. The Earliest Horror Films: Monsters, Vamps and More The first horror movie, only about three minutes long, was made by imaginative French filmmaker Georges Melies, titled Le Manoir Du Diable (1896) (aka The Devil's Castle) - containing some elements of later vampire films. One of the more memorable and influential of the early films was Germany's silent expressionistic landmark classic, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1919) (aka The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) from director Robert Wiene, about a ghost-like hypnotist- therapist in a carnival named Dr. Caligari (Werner Kraus) who calls pale-skinned, lanky, black leotard-wearing Cesare (Conrad Veidt, later known for his portrayal as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942)), his performing somnambulist (and haunted murderer), from a state of sleep. The shadowy, disturbing, distorted, and dream-nightmarish quality of the macabre and stylistic 'Caligari,' with twisted alleyways, lopsided doors, cramped rooms, overhanging buildings, and skewed cityscapes, was shot in a studio. It was brought to Hollywood in the 1920s, and later file://D:\000_MySnippets\My Snippets\HORROR FILMS.htm 07.10.2007 HORROR FILMS Page 2 of 23 influenced the classic period of horror films in the 1930s - introducing many standard horror film conventions. As with many classic films (i.e., Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)), the original story was altered (due to its insinuation that "authority" was questionable and insane), and a flashback framing device (composed of an epilogue and prologue) was added to soften its message. This made the film appear to be a delusional nightmare in a psychotic mental patient's (Francis) dream, thereby diluting the subversive nature of the original. The earliest vampire film was director Arthur Robison's German silent film Nachte des Grauens (1916), aka Night of Terror, with strange, vampire-like people. The Hungarian film Drakula halala (1921), aka The Death of Dracula, was the first adaptation of Irish writer Bram Stoker's 1897 vampire novel Dracula. The first genuine vampire picture was also produced by a European filmmaker - director F. W. Murnau's feature-length Nosferatu, A Symphony of Terror (1922), aka Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Shot on location, it was an unauthorized film adaptation of Stoker's Dracula with Max Schreck in the title role as the screen's first vampire - a mysterious aristocrat living in distant Bremen named Count Graf Orlok (Max Schreck). Because of copyright problems, the vampire was named Nosferatu rather than Dracula, and the action was changed from Transylvania to Bremen. [Note: At the turn of the century, Shadow of the Vampire (2000) fancifully retold the making of the 1922 classic, with John Malkovich as obsessive director F.W. Murnau. It asked the question: "What if Max Schreck (Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe), who played the character of Count Orlok, was indeed a vampire?"] The emaciated, balding, undead vampire's image was unforgettable with a devil-rat face, pointy ears, elongated fingers, sunken cheeks, and long fangs, with plague rats following him wherever he went. In the film's conclusion, the grotesque, cadaverous creature is tricked by the heroine Nina (Greta Schroder) into remaining past daybreak, so Orlok meets his fate by disintegrating into smoke in the sunlight. [The film was remade by German director Werner Herzog - Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), with Klaus Kinski faithfully recreating the title role.] In Danish director Stellan Rye's early German silent horror film Der Student von Prag (1913) (aka Student of Prague), based upon the Faust legend, a poor student made a pact with the devil in return for wealth and a beautiful woman. [The student was portrayed by actor/producer Paul Wegener in his film debut.] It was the first artistically important German production - and was later remade in 1926 and directed by Henrik Galeen. Wegener directed the first of his influential adaptations of the Golem legend by Gustav Meyrinck - Der Golem (1914) (aka The Monster of Fate), and then remade it a few years later as Der Golem Und Die Tanzerin (1917) (aka The Golem and the Dancer) - notably the first horror film sequel. He remade the film a third time, with Karl Freund as cinematographer, again titling it Der Golem (1920) (aka The Golem: or How He Came Into the World). The expressionistic film was based upon Central European myths and influenced later 'Frankenstein' monster films in the early 1930s with themes of a creator losing control of his creation. The Golem, played by Wegener, was an ancient clay figure from Hebrew mythology that was brought to life by Rabbi Loew's magic amulet to defend and save the Jews from a pogrom threatened by Rudolf II of Habsburg. The man-made, clay creature roamed through the Jewish ghetto of medieval Prague in the fifteenth century. The earliest horror pictures, now-forgotten "vamp" pictures (films featuring devilish captivating ladies) in one-reel or full length features, were produced in the US from 1909 to the early 1920s, making the horror genre one of the oldest and most basic. The first Frankenstein monster film in the US was Edison Frankenstein (1910), a 16-minute (one-reel) version made by the Edison Studios and starring Charles Ogle as the monster. In this early version, the Monster was created in a cauldron of chemicals. Two other silent precursors to later Frankenstein films were Life Without a Soul (1915) and the expressionistic German film Homunculus (1916), a serial about an artificially-created man. Before the 1930s, Hollywood was reluctant to experiment with the themes of true horror films. Instead, the studios took popular stage plays and emphasized their mystery genre features, providing rational explanations for all the supernatural and occult elements. Man of a Thousand Faces - Lon Chaney: The First American Horror Film Star One actor who helped pave the way for the change in outlook and acceptance of the file://D:\000_MySnippets\My Snippets\HORROR FILMS.htm 07.10.2007 HORROR FILMS Page 3 of 23 horror genre was Lon (Alonso) Chaney, Sr., known as "the man of a thousand faces" because of his transformative, grotesque makeup and acting genuis. He was the first American horror-film star. He appeared in numerous silent horror films beginning in 1913 at Universal Studios in collaboration with director Tod Browning (in films including Outside the Law (1921), The Unholy Three (1925) with Chaney as a criminal ventriloquist, and West of Zanzibar (1928)). In the first of Chaney's two horror masterpieces, he appeared in the earliest version of Victor Hugo's novel about the hunchbacked Quasimodo - a tortured bellringer in a cathedral in director Wallace Worsley's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - the second film version of the classic tale.