This week, I thought, I’d show you the origins of real horror. No, I’m not talking about those naked pictures of Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, I mean horror films.
As a serious film and horror geek, I want to do this properly, so rather than give a simplistic overview of this subject, I’m going to spread this over two columns. This first part covers the basics of horror films, from their beginnings up to the early Sixties.
There are a number of standard basic greats in the horror field that — if you want to call yourself a fan — need to be seen. For instance, the old silent black-and-white redo of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, by FW Murnau, called Nosferatu, has stayed as the vampire template for most films, for about 80 years now. Read this enlightening article on Nosferatu.
Another film that has become a template for many later stories, and also stands as a weird moment in cinema and art, is The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
Very early on, the concept of “horror” began being explored as being something beyond mere ghost stories. Take the Fritz Lang film from 1931, about a serial child-killer, called M.
In a similar time period is my own favourite, the still deeply disturbing film by Todd Browning from 1932 that used genuinely deformed humans in a deceptively simple tale of circus performers taking their revenge. The film itself was banned for a long time, and is still a unique moment in cinema. Look over the pictures at Freaks: Love in a Circus Sideshow. For a read-through of the script, see Freaks.
(The curse of “big monsters” would only really emerge later, as an ongoing sub-genre — aside, of course, from Willis O’Brien’s ground-breaking 1933 work on King Kong.)
Naturally, the big studios began churning out their versions of horror. Now, like big-game hunting, horror film has its version of the “big five”: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman and, bringing up the rear, the Creature (from the Black Lagoon). Untold thousands of books have been written about each of these creations, and their impact on the genre and culture in general.
To discover more than you expected possible, visit Frankenstein Castle. And read this overview of The Mummy. (Then try this short but pithy article from the Flick Filosopher on The Mummy.)
For info on the actor whose life became defined by his Frankenstein’s monster and mummy role, read Boris Karloff.
Despite Max Shrek’s first appearance as the Count, detailed above, it was Bela Lugosi who caught the world’s imagination as the thirsty Count Dracula. Those of you who saw Tim Burton’s Ed Wood will know how Lugosi’s life ended, but for a long time, Bela was the ultimate horror actor. Read Wikipedia: Bela Lugosi. And read a suitably somber final overview — via a site dedicated to Celebrity Graves.
Lon Chaney Jnr emerged out of the mists in the Universal Studios back lot, furry and growling, to enter legend as the Wolfman (not to be confused with his famous father, who specialised in intricate and painful physical contortions for his film roles, predating the Robert de Niros and others by 50 years or more).
Chaney Snr seemed almost to delight in playing roles that required hooks and wires to tug his face and body into painful new shapes. To see pain in action, look at the pix of Lon Chaney Snr in Phantom of the Opera. And for a variety of Lon Chaney Snr & Jnr pics, see what Google’s image search gives you here. Existing as mostly a sell-through vehicle, here’s the “official” Lon Chaney Snr/Jnr Site.
But it was Lon Junior as the Wolfman in 1941 who entered film legend. Here’s a very short but accurate summing up from St James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. And read the very insightful reviews at Amazon: The Wolfman.
And last, but by no means least, in the pantheon of horror greats is the scaly menace of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Read Wikipedia on The Creature.
The above “big five” tend to be used by horror geeks to refer to the golden age of Universal Studios (just like the amphetamine-crazed Judy Garland is used by MGM film fans to refer to that studio’s “golden age”). Each of these films has spawned and inspired entire genres of horror films that continue to reverberate and produce new retakes on these classic stories.
The late Forties saw the rise of stop-frame animation as a technique to create big monsters — most notably in the painstaking work of a creative genius whose films inspired a whole generation of new filmmakers, from Steven Spielberg to Tim Burton and beyond. Learn about Ray Harryhausen.
As you can probably guess, I could spend this entire column (if not an entire book) on just one or another of each of these threads, as well as showing how each decade reinvented one or another of the “big five” genres, to reflect the concerns and focuses of a new generation.
Instead, let’s just briefly mention that the Creature character ushered in the new Fifties-era concept of “us versus them”: a theme of alienation perhaps reflecting the Cold War paranoia, but also an increasing disillusion with modern society.
Jack Finney’s 1955 “pod people” takeover perhaps captured this new trend best. Read about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And here’s a very useful article putting the film into social context — read You’re Next!.
(One of the interesting points to this is that horror films began subtly becoming “political”. In recent times, the Fifties Body Snatchers-derived concept of “pod people” — the phrase itself — has become part of modern language and is used to smear “conspiracy theorists”.)
Given the A-bomb testing and paranoia, “radiation” began being used as the reason for the eruption of monsters left, right and centre. Read this great look at the 1950-1960 trend known as Creature Features. Richard Matheson’s The Incredible Shrinking Man and Neville Shutes’s apocalyptic 1959 vision On the Beach continued this rising tide of focus on humanity’s apparent powerlessness — read And You Call Yourself a Scientist.
(Then, here’s an example of how we just don’t learn anything. Read this odd review of On the Beach, where the reviewer tries to use the clear anti-war message of the 1959 film as a “reason” for invading Iraq and North Korea.)
In the West, radiation caused things like giant ants, as in the 1954 classic Them!. Over in Japan, however, nature apparently decided that downtown Tokyo would be stomped into dust by the first of many gigantic creatures — usually disturbed from their secret resting places by atomic-bomb testing. See Godzilla.
The British had their own monster genres, such as the classic 1957 Night of the Demon and the Godzilla clone known as Gorgo.
Horror film had already begun to divide by this time into roughly two forms: “mainstream” and “cult”. Here’s a quick overview of the concept: The Concept of Cult Films.
So, on the one hand there’d be the “big” studio idea of horror films, and then there’d be the independent (indie) shoestring-budget version. Often the indies would strike it big, and the big studios would duplicate what appeared to be the formula for success.
One of the most notable indies in this time period was William Castle, (Castle was the PT Barnum of early horror film advertising and PR, from seats wired to give electric shocks to “heart-attack insurance policies” and flying plastic skeletons over the heads of audiences.)
Then there was the beach-movie genre (boy meets girl, they go to a beach party, monster attacks, boys and girls fight off monster, big celebration, film ends.) This, more or less, was the no-budget cinema of Roger Corman.
These two spawned untold numbers of imitators and copycats, both in the United States and over in Europe. where much darker things were brewing.
Up until now, things had remained relatively “nice” in horror cinema. The occasional minor lapse in taste aside, certain boundaries had always been adhered to. Minimal or no real gore, blood or attacking of social taboos.
But the Sixties approached, and the horror film (and cinema in general) was about to show audiences that nothing would be as nice, safe or tasteful ever again.
(Continued next week)
Until the next time, if those who don’t like horror movies, get me.
Quick picks
Read A crash course in horror (part two) and the final installment