The Evolution of Horror Films Essay

            Anyone who has ever seen one of the several adaptations of Dracula as a movie will know that it was intended to be a horror story.  Stoker goes to great lengths in order to create an

Everyone loves to watch a good horror film. Whether the effects in the movie are really gory or extremely unsettling, these nail-biting experiences are what give the audience a thrill as they try to peel their eyes away from the screen. The concept of these movies is to give the viewers a good scare, one that will have them glancing over their shoulders or double checking if their doors are locked at night for the next week. This genre has been around since the late nineteenth century, but horror movies did not gain much popularity until the 1930s. Modern day horror films have evolved from its beginnings, but the elements in a horror movie are consistent regardless of time.

FW Murnau’s 1921 film Nosferatu is an appropriation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Despite it being an appropriation, explicit gothic conventions remain evident, which explore societal fears and values. These fears and values differ from Dracula, due to distinct contextual influences of different time periods.

Do you enjoy watching murder, the paranormal, and any other morbid scene which makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your palms sweat, and your adrenaline surge? Why people enjoy watching murder, tragedy, and carnage in their spare time has been a mysterious phenomenon. If these gruesomely horrific scenes would not be enjoyable in real life, why is watching a recreation of it so riveting? Stephen King, a world-renowned horror novelist, wrote “Why We Crave Horror Movies” to give insight as to why horror movies, although gruesome and morbid, captivate audiences. King also aims to persuade readers to continue to watch horror movies, arguing that they are a crucial part of keeping sanity. King delves into this psychological aspect of humans and believes that the desire to watch horror films is a normal tendency of humankind. “Why We Crave Horror Movies” includes appeals to emotion, logic, and author credibility in order to convince readers of the positive, normal desire to watch horror films, why it is important to watch them, and why the reader should believe what the author is saying. King utilizes the rhetorical devices—pathos, logos, and ethos—in an effective way through the use of metaphor, logic, humor, and emotion to persuade readers that watching horror films is normal.

As a society, there is a lot of excitement placed upon horror and horror films; ask anybody and they could recall what the first horror movie they saw was and when they saw it. In fact, there were 753 horror films release in 2015 alone. However, during the 1950s, there were only approximately 244 or so horror films released throughout the whole decade. During the 1960s, that number nearly doubled from 244 to 517 (“Letterboxd”).

James Whale’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) was one of the biggest horror hits of the 30’s despite it starting off and a small movie idea based on the 1818 book by Mary Shelly. This could have been because of the newly introduced use of sound, ultimately turning it into a cultural phenomenon that changed the way all audiences saw horror movies from then onwards. (McCormick, 2011).

I was very eager to see what type of production went into the old horror films. I decided I would watch one of the original vampire movies: Nosferatsu 1922. The movie was adapted from the urban legends about vampires, along with, Bram Stoker 's Novel: Dracula. I had never watched any horror movies as old as this one before and thought this would be an interesting new observation, especially seeing as Noferatsu is a silent film. I knew it would be very different from the other horror movies I had viewed in the past, but I did not expect what I noticed throughout the film.

Nosferatu was one of the first horror films that can make an impact on audiences even today. It was made in 1922 in Germany by F.W.Murnau. A Vampire, Count Orlok, summons Thomas Hutter to his dark castle in the mountains. Orlok expresses interest in buying a house in Hutter’s town which brings grave danger to his wife and the rest of the townspeople. Nosferatu has a heavy contrast of light and dark represented by night and day in the film.

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauen, is a german expressionist horror film that takes its roots from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While being an adaptation of Stoker’s work, the films main anti-hero is seperate ways. Dracula is suave while Count Orlok is depicted as a monster would be imagined. Orlok is seen as decrepit and much more frightenting. This adds a sense of realism in that he is a monster and acts as such.

Wolfman, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, all horrific images of the “Universal Monsters” created from the 1920s to the 1930s by Universal Studios. To the audience these monsters created panic and suspense that made leaving the lights on before bed a necessary precaution; they are what is seen as a true, scary, monstrous fiction. Many of these monsters did not begin their stories in cinema however; they began as novels. For Director Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula, Bram Stoker is truly the mastermind behind the character, in which Browning brought to life. In today’s cinematic vision, we continue to do the same interpretation from novel to film however not with the same intention and with a new view. For example, Stephanie Meyer’s vampire monster-drama Twilight was reimaged by Catherine Hardwicke in 2008 as a film, gives a whole new image to the “classic monster” compared to vampire Dracula. In contrast from Dracula to Twilight, the vampire genre almost becomes a terrifying interpretation of the past, and with societal interpretation the imagination of a cinematic “monster” almost becomes a mirroring image of its own time, and its own social environment ultimately creating a modern character that becomes more of a desire to be involved with than something to frighten.

Horror film is designed to scare the viewer, and what is scarier than seeing the real world for how it truly is? Films have always replicated reality but there is something quite different about the horror genre. Horror films have always mirrored reality but, unlike other genres, have heightened our fears and manifested them into atomic monsters (post World War II), or mummies and skeletons (early 1900s). But as the world around us got scarier and reality was twisted with war, horror films began to add aspects of political and social climates. With political campaigns happening every four years and the rapid development occurring, it was not hard for film directors in the late twentieth century to latch on to something.

From Literature to Twilight, Vampires have been in the public eye for decades. The characteristics may change as will the looks but they have the same amount of popularity. It all started in 1897, the writings of Bram Stoker gave the world the story of Dracula. This story is considered the source material for all vampires to follow. Many of the characteristics laid out in Dracula can still be easily found in current vampire movies. Though there was never a “golden age” for vampire movies, as it is a subgenre for film, it did greatly participate in the golden age of horror films, giving greatly to the popularity of horror films. This popularity still demands a very active hold on film goers today. Bela Lugosi is the poster child for the character of Dracula. He set the tone for what a good vampire in the 1931 film Dracula. After Lugosi, Christopher Lee is the next person credited with the popularity of vampire movies. Lee has starred in 10 separate movies as Count Dracula, the quality of the movies and Lee’s prior acting credits gave way to the resurgence of Dracula in the mid 1900’s. All of these credits however mean nothing in the world of film without the movies that kicked everything off, Nosferatu, the 1922 film keeps true to the book Dracula. This allowed a new archetype to come to the world of film. This archetype however, has undergone dramatic changes over the decades. From Nosferatu to the new release of Dark Shadows, change has clearly

(Given) Nosferatu was one of the first horror movies to utilize fear to generate interest

Film came around in the late 1880’s. It at that point was just still images being run in front of a light and projected on a screen. This was done all without sound, save for the sound of the projector shuttering. Though films were just pictures on a screen, it still moved audiences. “One could not only get lost in the crowd, one could also get ‘lost’ in the images, which is one of the primary aims of the spectarorial experience (Dixon, 9). They were not only moved by plain images, but also by the image of sound. Audiences would react to the image of a gunshot or cannon fire by covering their ears. Audiences still experienced sound even though there was none. This was through a process that was referred to as the ‘silent sound sense.’ “This phenomenon, referred to as subception or subliminal auditive perception by psychologist, was exploited by numerous makers of silent films, who peppered their products with visual

In his Great Movies list, Roger Ebert called Nosferatu (1922) "the account of Dracula before it was covered alive in platitudes, jokes, TV dramas, kid's shows and more than 30 different films. The film is in amazement of its material. It appears to truly have faith in vampires” but today some vampire films are completely different from older films like Nosfesatu and Dracula.