History of horror films
The history of horror films was described by author Siegbert Solomon Prawer as difficult to read as a linear path, with the genre changing through the decades, based on the state of cinema, audience tastes and contemporary world events.
Films before the 1930s, such as early German expressionist cinema and trick films, have been retrospectively described as horror films, since the genre did not become codified until the release of Dracula. Dracula was a box office success, leading Universal and several other American film studios to develop and popularise horror films well into the 1940s. By the 1950s, horror was often made with science fiction themes, and towards the end of the decade horror was a more common genre of international productions.
The 1960s saw further developments, with material based on contemporary works instead of classic literature. The release of films such as Psycho, ''Black Sunday and Night of the Living Dead led to an increase in violence and erotic scenes within the genre. The 1970s would expand on these themes with films that would delve into gorier pictures, as well as films that were near or direct pornographic hybrids. Genre cycles in this era include the natural horror film, and the rise of slasher films which expanded in the early 1980s. Towards the 1990s, postmodernism entered horror, while some of the biggest hits of the decade included films from Japan such as the successful Ring.
In the 21st century, streaming media popularised horror trends. These trends included torture porn influenced by the success of Saw; films using a "found footage" technique; and independent productions such as Get Out, Hereditary, and the Insidious'' series which were box office hits.
Background
In his book Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror, author Siegbert Solomon Prawer stated that horror films cannot be interpreted as following a linear historical path. Historians and critics like Carlos Clarens noted that while some film audiences at the time took films made by Tod Browning that starred Bela Lugosi with utmost seriousness, other productions from other countries saw the material set for parody, as children's entertainment or nostalgic recollection. John Kenneth Muir in his books covering the history of horror films through the later decades of the 20th century echoed this statement, stating that horror films mirror the anxieties of "their age and their audience" concluding that "if horror isn't relevant to everyday life... it isn't horrifying".Prior to the release of Dracula, historian Gary Don Rhodes explained that the idea of the horror film did not exist yet as a codified genre and although critics have used the term "horror" to describe films in reviews prior to Draculas release, the term has not truly developed by this time as the genre's name. The mystery film genre was in vogue and early information on Dracula being promoted as mystery film was common, despite the novel, play and film's story relying on the supernatural.
Early influences
Pre-film
Forms of filmmaking that would become film genres were mostly defined in other media before Thomas Edison devised the Kinetograph in the late 1890s. Genres, such as adventure, detective stories, and Westerns were developed as written fiction while musical was a staple to theatre. Author and critic Kim Newman stated that if something was referred to as a horror film in 1890, no one would have understood what it meant as a specific genre, while following up that these types of films were being made but were not categorized as such at the time. Early sources of material that would influence horror films included gruesome or fantastical elements in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where heroes fight monsters, and the Bible, where plagues and apocalypses are discussed. Beliefs in ghosts, demons and the supernatural have long existed in folklore of many cultures and religions, that would go on to be integral elements of horror films. Zombies, for example, originated from Haitian folklore. In Asian Horror, Andy Richards suggests that there is a "widespread and engrained acceptance of supernatural forces" in many Asian cultures, and suggests this is related to animist, pantheist and karmic religious traditions, as in Buddhism and Shintoism; these would go on to strongly influence horror cinema from the region. Classical dramas also include elements later expanded upon by horror films, such as Hamlet, which includes vengeful spectres, exhumed skulls, multiple stabbings and characters succumbing to madness.Early Gothic fiction such as The Castle of Otranto and works of Ann Radcliffe dealt with the stories involving seemingly supernatural doings and magnetic yet repulsive villains set in castles, but with their supernatural pretenses often explained in the end. The most famous of these gothic novels was Frankenstein which would be adapted into several film adaptations. American writer Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories in the 1830s and 1840s that would be translated to the film screen in the future. These included "The Black Cat", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Masque of the Red Death". Poe's tales often presented women who were dead, dying or spectral and focus on the obsessions of their male protagonists.
More key horror texts would be produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s than in all centuries preceding it, including: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Trilby, The King in Yellow, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Turn of the Screw, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, and The Phantom of the Opera. As these and many similar novels and short stories were being made, early cinema began in the 1890s. Many of these stories were not specifically focused on the horrific, but lingered in popular culture for their horrific elements and set pieces that would become cinema staples.
Early film
The first horror film is usually considered to be Le Manoir du diable by Georges Méliès, with its imagery coming from centuries of books, legend and stage plays, featuring imagery of demons, ghosts, witches and a skeleton and a haunted castle which transforms into the devil. The film has no story, but a series of trick shots and vaudeville acts filmed. L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat by Auguste and Louis Lumière has sometimes been considered the first horror film, as the shot of a train approaching the camera frightened viewers who were unfamiliar with motion picture technology.While the word "horror" began to be used as a generic signation in the 19th century, its use was initially rare. In early cinema, trick films were sometimes described with various terms: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company sometimes called their films "fantastic", Selig Polyscope Company called such films "mythical and mysterious" while Vitagraph Studios both "mysterious" and "magical". During the era of Nickelodeon exhibits, exhibitors would use the label "weird", with Frankenstein being advertised as "weird and wonderful" and Arturo Ambrosio's La maschera tragica a "weird story".
In the early 20th century as films became popular around the world films were production was so hectic that often told tales were made and then remade within months of each other. Adaptations of the work with Poe were often adopted in France such as Le Puits dett le Pendule and America with The Sealed Room ''The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum. Other famous horror characters made their film debut in the era including Frankenstein's monster with Edison's Frankenstein, Life Without Soul, and the Italian production Il mostro di Frankenstein. Several adaptations of other novels like The Picture of Dorian Gray were adapted around the world, including Denmark, Russia, Germany and Hungary. The most adapted horror story was Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which included early adaptations like William Selig's Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This was followed by several versions, including a British version of the story, a Danish production, and another American film in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1912. In 1920, three versions were made: J. Charles Haydon's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, John S. Robertson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and F. W. Murnau's Der Januskopf.
A film movement that appeared in Germany in the first half of the 1920s labeled the German expressionist film closely resembled the horror film. The term is borrowed from art groups such as Der Blaue Reiter and Der Sturm. These films feature sensationalist titles such as Warning Shadows, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Secrets of a Soul. German film historian Thomas Elsaesser wrote that what was retained in popular film memory of these films were the characters who resembled bogeymen from children's fairy tales and folk legends. These included characters like the mad Dr. Caligari, Jack the Ripper from Waxworks and Nosferatu as well as actors like Conrad Veidt, Emil Jannings and Peter Lorre. Director F.W. Murnau, made an adaptation of Dracula with Nosferatu. Newman wrote that this adaptation "stands as the only screen adaptation of Dracula to be primarily interested in horror, from the character's rat-like features and thin body, the film was, even more so than Caligari, "a template for the horror film."
Hollywood would not fully develop horror film stars, but actor and make-up artist Lon Chaney would often portray the monsters in film, such as the ape-man in A Blind Bargain, Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Erik in The Phantom of the Opera and a false vampire in London After Midnight. While horror was provided as an occasional adjective to the films of Chaney such as The Unknown and West of Zanzibar, the actor was mostly known for the melodramas he made with director Tod Browning.
The term "horror film" was used with various interpretations during this period, such as Evening Star which told readers that Horror' Films May Be Barred Transit," a reference to US Senator Thomas Gore's bill that would have prohibit interstate transportation of films that showcased "activities of ex-convicts, bandits, train robbers or other outlaws." In 1928, the Warren Tribune of Pennsylvania reviewed the film Something Always Happens and compared it The Bat and The Wizard and "other films of the same type" in an article titled "Horror Film Thrills Audience at Columbia." Rhodes noted that different descriptions were used for films like The Bat, The Wizard, and The Cat and the Canary'', but they were most commonly referred to as mystery films."