A Short History of the Horror Film: Beginnings to 1945

Rick Worland

“The champion for the Danes, in a dreadful fury, despairing of life, seized the hilt of the sword, swung its great blade and angrily struck so that it dug deep in the neck of the monster, breaking the bone-rings, slicing all the way through her body doomed by fate, and she fell dead on the floor. The sword sweat blood, while the warrior rejoiced” (Beowulf).

Introduction

• Horror has always been around…
• Various cultures, various media
• Film, literature, painting (2), theatre, mythology, folk tales, etc.
• Fear of death always at the heart of horror tales

Vasari & Zuccari’s The Last Judgment (1572-79)

Jan Van Eyck’s The Last Judgment (1440-41)

Limbourg Brothers’ Tundal’s Hell, Tres Riches Heures du de Berry (1415)

Fra Angelico’s The Last Judgment (1425)

Intro Cont...

• Modernity: Mid-18th century, Western world more and more secularized
• 1890s: horror portrayed on film
• The Haunted Castle (Le Manoir du Diable) (Melies, 1896)
• Two major horror themes:
• destruction/preservation of physical body
• damnation/salvation of the soul
• Monster is always culturally and historically shaped

Gothic Literature

• Late 18th Century England
• Coincided with American Revolution and French Revolution
• Stories of terror, mystery, the supernatural (supernatural threat)
• Ominous atmospheres
• Associated with the Medieval
• Decaying castles, manors, towers, and other Medieval structures
• Clash between religion and science, superstition and reason, ancient and modern, etc.

Gothic Cont...

• Antique dwellings containing several stories, eerie rooms
• Foreboding castles became haunted houses in horror films
• Psycho, Crimson Peak, House on Haunted Hill
• House/castle often crumbles at the end
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Increasingly secularized Western World
• Explain the supernatural through science, reason, and the natural
• Leads to detective novels (The Private Eyes)

Gothic Cont...

• Violent eruption of the unresolved and/or irreconcilable past
• Haunted castle is concrete symbol
• Ghost as gothic threat par excellence - restless spirit from long ago
• “Gothic manors or haunted abbeys were also signs of class conflicts, identified with the arbitrary power and dangers of corrupt nobility, hypocritical religious authority, or rapacious [greedy] plutocrats [power derives from wealth]” (28)

Gothic Cont...

• Women are typically central characters
• Read and written by women
• Descent into the unknown - re-emerge anew
• Clemens claims: “One aspect of the ritual of descent in gothic fiction that undoubtedly appealed to women readers of the day was its suggestion that the above-ground, or conscious, public version of reality is incomplete;
• if one dares to venture into the strange and uncanny world below the surface, one finds a different story” (29).

Castles as “multivalent symbol” according to Valdine Clemens:

“...may be associated with the maternal or the sexual body, the human psyche, or the patriarchal social order.

The dark tunnels and underground passages of Gothic edifices represent descent into the unconscious, away from the socially constructed self and toward the uncivilized, the primitive.

Violence, pursuit, and rape occur in these lower depths, yet they are also the realms where valuable discoveries are made” (28).

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Terrible Trio

• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818)
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)
• Iconic characters that gave modern context to ancient myths
• Considered by some critics to be THE three archetypes of modern horror

Frankenstein

• “...Considers the moral, philosophical, and ultimately social implications of increasing human mastery of the natural world, extending here to speculation about the consequences of man usurping the powers of God or nature in the creation of life itself” (30-31).
• Prometheus - Greek mythological figure that tried to steal fire from Zeus to give to humankind and eventually caught and tortured
• Dangers of advancing scientific, industrial, and technological discoveries

Frankenstein Cont...

• Frankenstein (1910)
• “Edison publicity emphasized that it had ‘carefully tried to eliminate all the actually repulsive situations and to concentrate...upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale. Whenever...the film differs from the original story it is purely with the idea of eliminating what would be repulsive to a moving picture audience.’”
• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
• The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
• The Monster Squad (1987)
• I, Frankenstein (2014)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

• The Double, Doppelganger (“double-walker”)
• Dark alter-ego
• Lustful, cruel, and violent side of Dr. Jekyll’s nature that proper Victorian gentlemen were not allowed to show

Jekyll & Hyde Cont...

• Human vs. animal natures, good vs. evil, or Freudian psychological conceptions
• The relationship between normality and monster is most important and essential subject of horror - Repression...
• The relationship has one privileged form: the doppelganger, alter-ego, or double - monster as normality’s shadow
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ), normality and monster are two aspects of the same person

Dracula

• Vampires!
• Most sexually charged of the archetypes (though all contain important psychosexual implications)
• “Dracula is not just a murderous fiend but a seducer who appears in the bedrooms of young virgins at midnight, embraces them, and sucks their blood, leaving them limp yet eager to invite him back the following night” (31).

Dracula Cont...

• The vampire’s deadly kiss, a source of fear and pleasure, focused on oral eroticism, draws forth sexual connotations/interpretations (Interview with the Vampire)
• Vampire is most unabashedly supernatural, connecting to the mythic.
• Modern and archaic ideas and beliefs collide.
• Dracula’s bite is both toxic and contagious, spreading like the plague
• Racist fear of reverse colonization from foreign cultures
• Most malleable of the three archetypes

Georges Melies Trick Films

• Distort and transform reality
• Manipulating physical space
• Stage magic
• Supernatural beings, wizardry, nightmares, whimsy
• Special effects
• Cinema of Attractions
• Spectacle for its own sake (from Melies forward…)
• The Haunted Hotel (1907), The Bewitched Inn (1897), A Terrible Night (1896), The Apparition (1903) (combining illusion and reality, eroticism and death - still the case today)

The Grand Guignol Theatre, 1897-1962

• Le Theatre du Grand Guignol staged hundreds of one-act plays devoted to tales of terror, insanity, and murder
• Realistic presentation of shockingly graphic mutilations, eviscerations, stabbings, beheadings, electrocutions, hangings, rapes, and other atrocious acts
• Audience members vomited, fainted, left abruptly, etc.
• Hard to determine if this is true, but it made for great PR!

Grand Guignol Cont...

• “At The Telephone” was one of the more popular shows
• Husband had to helplessly listen over the phone to his housekeeper, wife, and child being strangled to death
• The D.W. Griffith film The Lonely Villa ends in similar fashion, but the bourgeois family survives of course…
• “One is melodramatic suspense that affirms dominant values; the other is a horror vignette that thwarts those very assumptions.”

Nickelodeon Nightmares, 1908-1914

• 1908-1914
• Not a lot of “horror films” during this period
• Censorship has been an issue in film since the very beginning!
• Edison’s Frankenstein in 1910…
• More than a dozen Dr. Jekyll films were made during this time period
• Domestic and abroad

German Expressionism

• 1920-1930
• German Expressionism (GE)
• Post-WWI
• Influenced horror aesthetics as well as content
• Renders the internal (subjective/psyche) in an external fashion (film/art/etc)
• These films were not “Horror Films”
• Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), The Hands of Orlac (1924), Waxworks (1924), Warning Shadows (1923), Metropolis (1927), M (1931)

Lon Chaney and Hollywood Horror, 1920-1930

• “The Man of a Thousand Faces”
• Most famous roles: Quasimodo and Erik from Phantom of the Opera
• Not known as a “horror star” in his day, but remembered as such
• Surrealists’ fixation with mangled human forms in the 1920s direct result of misshapen soldiers coming back from WWI

Lon Chaney & Hollywood Cont...

• The Unknown (1927), The Phantom of the Opera (clip 2) (1925)
• Comedic haunted house films
• Ghosts ended up being created by real people and/or illusory
• The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Old Dark House (1932) Hold That Ghost (1941) (1:00:00)
• “Ufa shots” and “German lighting” coming into the U.S. in the 20s as well as German directors, cinematographers, set designers, actors, etc.
• The Cat and the Canary utilized GE techniques and laid the groundwork for other Universal horror film aesthetics

The “Golden Age” of Hollywood Horror 1931-1939

• Dracula (Browning, 1931), Frankenstein (Whale, 1931) despite the Great Depression
• Context!
• Bela Lugosi IS Dracula, despite Bram Stoker’s book’s actual description…
• Whale heavily influenced by GE films

Golden Age Cont...

• Jack Pierce: legendary makeup artist! The Man Who Laughs, Dracula, Frankenstein, Murders in the Rue Morgue, White Zombie, The Old Dark House, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, Imitation of Life, Bride of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London, The Raven, Dracula’s Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Hand, etc.!
• These films of this period have been remade and parodied so often, these original films seem tame or slow or even silly in comparison

Golden Age Cont...

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian, 1931)
• All about repression, intense violence
• Murders in the Rue Morgue (Florey & Sutherland, 1932)
• Unsung hero of the time, lots of GE influence
• White Zombie (Halperin, 1932)
• Hollywood’s first official zombie film
• Low budget, Bela Lugosi in similar Dracula role (the majority of his career after Dracula)

Golden Age Cont...

• Freaks (Browning, 1932)
• MGM’s attempt to enter the horror genre
• M (Lang, 1931)
• Last great pre-WWII work of horror
• Mad Love (Freund, 1935)
• Concert pianist’s hands chopped off and replaced by haunted knife-killer hands!
• Remake of The Hands of Orlac

Golden Age Cont...

• King Kong (Cooper & Schoedsack, 1933)
• RKO landmark of old Hollywood
• Incredible effects for the time!
• Svengali (Mayo, 1931), Dr. X (Curtiz, 1932), and Mystery of the Wax Museum (Curtiz, 1933)
• WB horror films
• The Black Cat (Ulmer, 1934)
• One of Universal’s best!

Golden Age Cont...

• Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935)
• Horror/Comedy/Camp masterpiece
• Dracula’s Daughter (Hillyer, 1936)
• Last official entry in Universal Horror film series
• Lesbianism subtext…?

Golden Age Cont...

• Attendance dropped by half after 1933 due to The Great Depression
• Catholic Legion of Decency, the Hays Code/Motion Picture Production Code, and the PCA
• British Board of Film Censors in 1932 created the H (Horrific) rating
• Horror films increasingly unwelcome in British market at this time
• In 1938, re-release of Dracula and Frankenstein, double billing
• Lead to Son of Frankenstein starring Karloff and Lugosi again, a great ending to the decade’s horror craze

Horror Films in the WWII Era

• A string of recycled films intended to be headline attractions or to fill half of a double feature
• Films like The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy’s Hand, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and Son of Dracula
• Breaking new ground was not the goal
• PCA in full swing - horror films that were being made were targeted to juvenile audiences
• The Wolf Man (Waggner, 1941) was a standout success
• Freudian symbolism
• Similar to Jekyll and Hyde story

WWII Era Cont...

• “Critics have suggested that the perceived aesthetic decline of the horror film in the 1940s must have been an effect of the war experience” (71).
• Take our minds off of the “Japanese War” or “European War,” yet easy to associate with wartime contexts
• Invisible Agent (Marin, 1942)
• Take on The Invisible Man (Whale, 1933), but he infiltrates Nazi Germany and attacks Japanese spies

WWII Era Cont...

• Return of the Vampire (Landers, 1943)
• Lugosi as the vampire and a woman as Van Helsing character, wartime “Rosie the Riveter” propaganda
• Val Lewton low-budget films at RKO between 1942 and 1946
• Cat People (Tourneur, 1942), The Leopard Man (Tourneur, 1943), Isle of the Dead (Robson, 1945)
• Creative freedom as long as budgets were below $150k

WWII Era Cont...

• Val Lewton low-budget films at RKO between 1942 and 1946
• Cat People (Tourneur, 1942)
• Psychological thriller, no visible monster, not really supernatural, between rational and uncanny
• The Leopard Man (Tourneur, 1943), Isle of the Dead (Robson, 1945)
• The Seventh Victim (Robson, 1943)
• Shower scene may have influenced Psycho?
• Creative freedom as long as budgets were below $150k
• Ambiguity and psychological effects rather than the “monster of the week” films

WWII Era Cont...

• “If 1940s horror had a characteristic theme aside from the war, it was this increasing psychoanalytic undercurrent rivaling supernatural rationales for monstrous doings” (75).
• The horror film was about to enter a decade of hibernation