Confronting Reality: How Nosferatu Exemplifies Film Horror Tactics

“What’s your favorite scary movie?” is the most well known line in all of the horror film genre which comes from the opening scenes of Scream (1996). The movie Scream is about a series of murders around the one year anniversary of Maureen Prescott’s death, mother of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). The killer known as Ghostface is after Sidney Prescott to make her pay for the sins committed by her mother. In the beginning of the film, Ghostface calls Casey ( Drew Barrymore) and one of the questions during their phone call is “What is your favorite scary movie?” Scream is one of the most famous scary movies because of Randy’s (Jammie Kennedy) played by three rules for surviving a horror movie. The rules are (1) never have sex, (2) never do drugs and drink alcohol, and (3) never say “I’ll be right back”. Randy makes the argument that the people murdered are the fornicators, substance users, and

The story of Nosferatu is a tale of xenophobia that used heavy expressionism to display its stances. Without all of the expressionist elements for it, it would just be a bunch of people fearing migrant citizens as they don’t want their culture to be taken over by them. The added expressionism in the makeup, cinematography, acting, and set design added a more fearful and anxious tone to the film. The people of yesterday and today fear everything that Orlok stood for such as madness, disease, and lust as they still believe foreigners will bring all of those things to their home countries. The imagery in the film warned us about the power of Nosferatu and that he was something not to be tampered with. All of these techniques formed Murnau’s masterpiece film and it set the standard for the horror films of yesterday and today.

When people in Germany have a little bit of free time they choose to watch movies just like many Americans. Jan said that he really enjoyed watching “hollywood movies.” He said that hollywood movies were way better than the movies that are made in Germany. “Germany movies are terrible,” is what he had to say about them. After he said that I started to think about how American culture is slowly imperializing other countries. American culture is becoming the new normal for other countries.

To fully express the gravity of the situation I must first explain the Paramount importance of movies. German Philosopher

American horror films have often played on our societal fears, and in Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992), the film directly deals with race, reminding us that it is still very much a problem in society today, and that ‘our traumatic racial past still haunts us’ (Vern, 2015). The film ‘marks the introduction of an African-American monster to the horror mainstream’ (Donaldson, 2011) and it ‘succeeds in asking some very pointed questions about race and class’ (Elizabeth, 1992). Ultimately this is done by investigating ‘the obscure fears we harbour about the unknown’ – or the racial ‘other’ (Blackwell, 2015). Andrew Tudor says that ‘typically, a horror movie will exploit the tensions implicit in a particular contrast, confronting known with the

A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the

The 1920s also known as the “Roaring Twenties”, “Jazz Age” or the “Golden Age” by North Americans and Europeans were the years of economic and artistic growth as well as social and cultural change. Whether in the 1920s or present day, films are a result of the public’s demand for entertainment. However, the production of films is an art that subtly delivers hidden messages to the public or as Kracauer suggests, coded references. After World War 1, despite the hardships each nation had dealt with and the frustration towards those in power, the public was happy it finally ended. Afterwards, America dealt with economic prosperity and a rise of interest in entertainment and enjoyable activities, specifically films, to in a way make up for the

Why? This essay proposes that cinema took on harsher, more realistic tone after WWII-- showcased by Jules Dassin’s 1948 iconic Film Noir, The Naked City-- because of consumers’ need for something that spoke to them more personally after the emotional stress of the war and in reaction to wartime films. Furthermore, Film Noir catered to those needs by adopting traits from German

People seek ways to entertain themselves. It may be by spending some time outdoors, staying home playing with their siblings or playing games. For many years, one thing that has been an entertainment for people and it is movies. Movies entertain people and it allows them to hang out with friends; it even allows family to bond. Movies are ways that allow someone step outside their homes. Movies have different types of genre. Movies vary from action, comedy, fantasizes, heartwarming, romance etc. All types of movies entertain people, but the one that takes it all is horror movies. Horror movies allow friends to bond, helps face fear and it is best known for its thrill.

Horror films have been around for over 100 years, petrifying people and bringing their worst fears to life but still they can’t get enough of this sick and gory genre that is unbelievably entertaining and captivating to the audience. Horror comes with many sub-genres from your bloody slashers like Friday the 13th to your Supernatural-Horrors like The Exorcist, but in the end they all seem to do their job by scaring you and leaving you with nightmares for weeks on end. Usually Horror’s films have the same character stereotypes such as the nerd, the jock, the slut, the virgin, the junky, the tough hero, the unlikely hero and last but not least the masked murderer, but yet they all play their own part in the making of these horrors movies whether it is the extremely slow walk the killer does but almost always catches the victim, or the unwise decision to split up and investigate where the unusual noise is coming from.

The literal dislocation between East and West Germany was a major factor in the suffering of German cinema

Having Halloween just around the corner the horror genre has been on demand. What is a horror genre? Horror is defined as being “an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust” and genre is defined as being “a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter” according to Oxford Dictionary. Therefore a horror genre is a horror film in one of the many categories in a genre that makes the audience feel fear, shock or disgust. Many of the films that everyone watches today are now called movies. Since scary movies have been requested, Netflix has even added a “Halloween favorites” on its search bar.

German Expressionism was a movement that started in the 1920’s soon before as well as after World War I occurred. The country was overwhelmed with major economic, social and political problems that the amount of reparation for the costs of war was over the roof. “In 1916, Germany’s government had banned foreign films but the demand from theaters to generate films led to an increase in domestic film production from 24 films in 1914 to 130 films in 1918” (INSERT) With inflation on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money’s value was constantly decreasing. The movement was meant to stray away from realism, with set designs that were often unrealistic featuring hard and dark shadows, jagged lines and

German expressionism is a art movement that originated in Europe in the 1920’s. It is broadly defined as ‘rejection of Western conventions’. German expressionism is the depiction of reality that is distorted and twisted for emotional effect (Darsa, 2013). Expressionist films are massively influenced by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky and Edvard Munch, who were less interested in producing aesthetically pleasing paintings as they were to provoking emotional reactions to their work through the use of bright colours, jagged lines and abstract shapes. The movement was interested in the relationship between art and society. Expressionist films initially originated from Germany’s isolation in the 1910’s, and was soon in high demand due to the government’s ban on foreign films. Similar to the paintings, expressionist films sought to convey the inner, subjective experience of its subjects (Kolar, 2014). German expressionism was a reflection of the grim reality of post-war Germany, but it was not shown on the screen in a literal sense, more through the use of metaphor and hidden meanings.

SM is known for her lack of fear. When a stranger pressed a knife at her throat and said he was going cut her, she said “If you’re going to kill me, you’re going to have to go through my God’s angels first.” The stranger let her go, and she continued walking. Moreover, she voluntarily walked into this situation because when the stranger initially called her over, she approached the stranger even though it was dark and she said the stranger looked like he was drugged according to Melnick reported by the Associated Press. Her inability to feel fear is from a degenerative disease that damaged her amygdala, the center of fear.