RG The History of Horror

      Stories that aim to scare their audience are popular because people create meanings for the monsters that feature in horror films by associating them to the characteristics that they most fear. It allows the audience to normally see the impossible from real life, as many of the stories that scare audiences contain a large fictional character. This is the character that audiences then associate with their deepest fears and taboos and therefore are able to enjoy the fact they’re being scared, as often, it is something they would never dream of seeing this ‘monster’ in real life.

      Studying horror monsters can give an insight into what a culture fears and their concerns about the contemporary world in which they live in. Obviously, many people aren’t all scared of the same thing, however, it enables you to create a general idea of the fears certain cultures have and their contextual trends, through the monsters that feature in horror texts.



In Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) the director used the vampire that featured in the film as a metaphor for sex. This is because the monsters method of attack involved penetration and the exchange of bodily fluids. However, the outcome of his attack was death or infection. This however could be read as the vampire being a metaphor for the politicians that featured in the First World War, as the film was released just after the war, and with the country being ridden with poverty and diseases, it was no surprise that audiences reacted to a monster that represented invasion and infection, much like the politicians did during the First World War to many Germans.

 

Nosferatu (1922)

 

      Pre World War 2

      In the Pre World War 2 era many horror texts reflected the social changes in terms of power, authority and class that followed the political upheaval of World War 1. In Nosferatu, Dracula (Browning, 1931) and Frankenstein (Whale, 1932) the aristocratic class are presented as abusive and corrupt and they are the sources of horror. 



      The 1960's

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

      The 1960’s represented social change and this was shown in the horror texts of this era. The decade begins with Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) reflecting the impact the culture’s understanding of the human psyche. The monster here is a man whose family dynamics created an ‘abnormal psychology’. In the UK a similar story was told in Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960) where a dysfunctional family created another human monster. The monsters in both films were normal people but they brought horror close to home for the 1960’s audience. 

      By the end of the decade horror was reflecting some of the big social and cultural changes that had taken place. At the start of the decade attitudes to race meant it would have been unthinkable to have had a black male lead in an American film but this occurred in Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968). 

The 1970's

      As horror moved into the 1970s the human monster became more sadistic. The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) became infamous for their sustained graphic violence. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre showed the effect of social and economic isolation on a rural family whilst The Last House on the Left bought the horror into small-town America. Both films showed that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and many places that appear normal, have a underlying horror behind them.

      The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1972) created a great deal of public and media attention and outrage for its depiction of a possessed girl. The Exorcist was also a film that identified post-war changes in the structure of the family. The possessed child is from a single-parent family headed by a working mother. The era ended with more “homespun” monsters as the idea of realism was created through the horror movies in this era, with the film Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) being released.

The 1980's

      The 1980's saw the horror genre change as the slasher films began to become outdated as audiences pressed for outlandish and extreme spectacles to impress them. Film franchises replicated the same ideas over and over, and the genre grew tired and cliched, becoming less economically viable.

Contemporary Monsters
 

An example of a trap from Saw (2004)

In more recent years, horror has looked to its past and there have been many remakes of the films that I have already mentioned.  The introduction of CGI has in some ways improved the realism of the horror movies we see today, but many disagree with it's use in remakes, and it means some of the gory nature of old horror films is lost. Horror also began to be influenced by movies in Asia. Especially relating to the sub-genre of supernatural and technology. For example, The Ring (Verbinski, 2002). Aside from remakes, the most notable development in contemporary horror is torture-porn which focuses on extreme visceral violence, nudity and torture. Saw (Wan, 2004) is a long-running series of torture porn films, using CGI to maximize the extreme nature of the violence depicted. 

Why is horror still relevant?
 

Hendry believes horror is still relevant to audiences because the genre has the ability to easily adapt and appeal to an audiences preoccupations and concerns, along with it's metaphorical approach, meaning it can relate to issues that a wide social group may be dealing with. Other genres such as Westerns may not be able to speak to modern audiences in the way they used to but horror continues to succeed over 100 years since it first hit celluloid.