German Expressionism History
of horror
The German expression started in the trenches in the first world war and when they lost the
war in 1918 they came to hate there leaders like Hitler and Emprorer Wilheim ,
and the more artistic people in the German army
Horror films in the 1910-1920’s
In the 1920s it was when they first started making horror movies and
they were all silent horrors this is where the first supernatural events
appeared such as Frankenstein which was produced in the Edison Studios, the original
version of this was thought to be lost for many years. Other films made in this
period or just before were; the hunchback of Notre Dame, The Monster, The Lost
world and of course Dracula. Just with this list of films you can see how much
of an impact they have made in our horror movies today because even in horror movies today you see people taking
things from these Film makers from the
Weimar Republic era such as remaking the films like Dracula and The hunchback
of Notre Dame and making new films with similar codes and conventions of these
films and they were nearly a hundred years ago, some might say if they had not
have gone through what they did at the time they wouldn't have had the
inspiration to make such brilliant films
with these codes and conventions.
Horror films in the 1930-1940’s
This was the years where American Movie Studio Universal Pictures became
one of the most successful Horror film series (Gothic) with Dracula,
Frankenstein and the invisible man. This is also where music was first put into
film, so while watching a horror movie you didn’t have to just imagine the
music effects, this really was a major adjustment to the genre in a good way,
it was more significant than the transition
from black and white to color which happens many years later. With this
major change to movie making procedure the major film makers had to make huge
changes in the way that they produce films and
the adaption did not happen automatically… it took time for them to
master the art of making films with sound and some of their first films were
simply awful.
The biggest names in horror in this time was ‘Bela Lugosi’ and ‘Boris
Karloff’ who got chose to play Dracula and Frankenstein who were viewed by many more people than
before with this genre, and are still shown today, in the 21st
century. In the 1930’s around 80millon people went to the cinema weekly, so you
can see just how much the people of this time were amazed and loved horror
films especially with the sound effects now so they could really feel as if it
was a real event and get into the movie.
Horror films in the 1950-1960’s
The change to this era in the history of horror is very large, in the
‘baddy’ changing to very surreal monsters and the changes so severe that it had
changed horror for years to come, and for the first time the enemy in the films
actually had faces to the evil that they were, a lot of this imagination behind
the films was from some of the survivors from WW2 (40 million people dead) and
there amazing horror stories from the war. The film makers were also trying to
keep up with TV and make them in color…
As the horror genre was changing at this time you can see in movies as
Godzilla, The fly and King Kong that it was clearly the evil in these films
were large surreal monsters and these were made to be extremely successful
movies at the time and these days they are still too quite successful movies,
but with movies like that like today they needed to use the top of the art
special effects and they obviously cost a lot of money which was a problem for
the low budget films that were trying to fit in with the niche at that time.
The two main genre’s that came out in this period were called ‘Horror of
Armageddon and the horror of the demonic, quite simply because of the massive
threat of being nuclear bombed because of WW2 and they didn’t know what would
happened to people, plants, animals or anything in fact if that did happen so
the horror was real for them, this is why they were so successful in scaring
the audience. One of the most successful films of the time was called Night of
the living dead made by George A Romero who both directed and produced it on a
budget of $114,000 and grossed at 30million dollars in total and 12million just
in America.
Horror films in 1970-1980’s
Dawn of the Dead 1978
The exorcist 1973
Jaws 1975
Halloween 1978
The omen 1976
Texas chainsaw massacre 1972
The shining 1980
The evil dead 1981
Child's play 1988
Nightmare on Elm Street 1984
Hell raiser 1987
Evil Dead 2 1982
This is the period of time where the most famous and successful horror
movies were made; even today there are extremely successful remakes to most of
these films as you can see above just how many successful and well known films
were made in the same genre is such a small amount of time. In this era it was the
most unexpected people to be the evil in the films, for example your mum
(shivers) your dad (the shining) your daughter ( the exorcist) and your son in
(the omen) this made the watcher paranoid and a little on edge because it’s
basically saying anybody can be evil, literally anybody could be someone in
your family or it could be your next door neighbor. But in this genre of horror
with it being completely different to the previous niches in the market it had
a whole lot of room to make an impact in the genre of horror.
Horror films in 1990's-2000's
In the first half of the 1990’s it was very similar to the late 1980’s
because there was a lot of sequels (Nightmare on elm street, Friday the 13th
and Childs play) which all have sequels in this era but they were all slated by
the critics and fans at the time but many years later they were seen as amazing
films like now they are seen as great films. In the 2000’s was a very small
period of the horror genre but also had some very successful films such as the
exorcist and the final destination sequel which is extremely successful and
also was a new type of horror which was supernatural horror which was very
successful in this era and they have pumped out 5 films in the final
destination sequel and with all of them being extremely successful there is
room for more to come. With the constant scare of nuclear war there has been lots of zombie apocalypse films
such as 28 days later, and these work so well because it is a constant worry
for the public to be ambushed by nuclear war and the fear of not knowing what would happen
after the nuclear bombs.
