History of horror
By Sian Knight
Gothic literature is where horror came from however, the actual term ‘horror’ did not come into use for film until the 1930s. In 1896 Georges Méliès went on to create the first horror film ever made ‘The Haunted House’. In 1919 Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, created a film that went on to be the best of all even though they had an estimated budget of $18,000: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
In the 1940s, Universal’s offerings slipped from horror and a small division at RKO, started to lay foundations for low budget horror films to come. Val Lewton; a journalist, novelist and poet turned story editor for David O Selznick was put in charge of a low budget division at RKO to produce horror films for a measly $150,000 a piece. The studio would provide the title and Lewton would develop the story. The title? Cat People - which would be directed by Jacuqes Tourneur and photographed by film noir veteran Nicholas Musuraca in 1942 they made a profit of $4,000,000 (USA). After this happened Gothic Horror began to lose steam with titles like The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy’s Hand, and Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man in 1943. Then the Universal Monsters started to be treated like villains from Batman by bringing all the characters together for example 1944’s House of Frankenstein and 1945’s House of Dracula. And by 1948 when Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in a surprising popular comedy outing, Universal would retire the first string of monsters from serious horror filmmaking.
By the mid 1950s the Pulp Sci-Fi Horror started to be took over by exploitative producers like William Castle who relied on gimmicks to sell tickets to low rent horror outings. No discussion of the horror film could be even self respecting without the mention of Alfred Hitchcock and his abilities to play an audience like a musical instrument. It was in 1960’s when Psycho shocked audiences into believing horror could be more than B-Film (A B-movie is a low budget film) they had $806,947 (estimated) to create the film. They made a profit of $32,000,000 in the USA and $50,000,000 worldwide.
Hammer Films Productions (in The United Kingdom) began to reboot Universal’s Gothic Monsters – by adding sex and gore. Hammer’s first Gothic horror was shot in full colour. The first Frankenstein film with blood that was shown on screen and in full chilling colour was Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein.
The Film school generation – a group of filmmakers who grew up on and formally studied horror began to inject B-movie horror devices into their mainstream work. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975 made creature horror massive because he ignited not only a Sharks but the whole summer style of production and marketing. Jaws had a budget of $8,000,000 and made a profit of $7,061,513 in the first weekend and an overall profit of $470,653,000 worldwide. Brian De Palma’s Carrie in 1976 was a Teen Horror cycle by turning Stephen King’s first novel into a film that received Oscar Nominations for the leads. 1979’s Alien by Ridley Scott successfully used horror and science fiction they had a budget of 11,000,000 and made a profit of $1,023,665 in the USA in its first weekend and made a profit of $203,630,630 worldwide. John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing in 1982 stood out because of the terrifying special effects within the film. Spielberg would return to horror with 1982’s Poltergeist.
Horror has been in the low budget world since the Universal Creature days. As film production technology progressed and costs declined; independent filmmakers tried new takes on horror. Then in 1978 came John Carpenter’s Halloween one the most successful independent horror film ever made. They had a budget of $300,000 and made a profit of $70,000,000 worldwide.
2012, Halloween is the first of it’s kind. Hitchcock inspired slasher film.. Halloween actually contains very little graphic violence or gore. Without much money to spend on sets and props, Carpenter constructed his horror inside everyday borders.
Friday the 13th directed by Sean S. Cunningham in 1980 and A Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven in 1984 were both studio backed slasher films that followed the similar horror in the backyard formula to tremendous success and left the audience squealing. But independent horror was not just about the slasher; it was the promise of distribution through this new technology video tape and cable that unleashed a flood of blood soaked horror films that were never made for the theatre.
When the 90s came around, the slasher cycle had pretty much run its course. Peter Jackson created Dead Alive (also known as Brain-dead) in 1992.
Wes Craven’s self aware slasher film Scream in 1996 about a killer among a group of kids that already know all the rules of slasher films rebooted a new Teen Horror cycle which led to I Know What You Did Last Summer directed by Jim Gillespie and Final Destination directed by James Wong. Psychological Horror and Thriller have remained popular throughout the 90s and 2000s including films like Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Seven, The Others and The Ring.
Torture Porn as it is labelled it is the modern reboot of the Splatter films going back to the Hammer Horror era. This latest cycle emphasizes intense gore and often tortuous violence. The Saw franchise, (the most successful horror film franchise of all time), is considered the first in the latest crop of splatter films with it’s first film in 2004 by James Wan. This was followed by Eli Roth’s Hostel in 2005 and onwards. The first Hotel film has a budget of a $4,800,000 and they made a profit of $80,578,934 worldwide.
And finally, the most recent Zombie Cycle. With roots going back to George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968 the modern Zombie Apocalypse Cycle began when Danny Boyle breathed a new life into the undead genre with 28 Days Later in 2002. Recent Zombie films feed our fears of a medical pandemic and the break down of society fears brought on by the financial meltdown in the mid 2000s. Still going strong with films like World war Z and the long form Television melodrama The Walking Dead, the Zombie Cycle may be seeing it’s fade out as comedic outings like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead have poked fun at the formula.