My name is Mariusz and I will tell you a few interesting things about one of the most belittled genre of movies - Horror films!
Lets start with some history...
The silent film Le Manoir du Diable directed by Georges Mèliès (114 years ago) was the first horror movie ever and the first vampire flick ever made. Despite the fact that themovie lasted only 2 minutes, audiences loved it, and Mèliès took pleasure in giving them even more devils and skeletons.
In the 1900-1920 period German directors created the first horror-themed films. One of them - Paul Wegener achieved great success with his Der Golem in 1913 ( remade in 1920, movie was based on old Jewish folk tale ). This fable about an enormous clay figure, which is brought to life by an antiquarian and then fights for freedom, was a clear precursor to the many monster movies.
The most famous early German horror film is probably Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), the first feature film with vampires. In that time there was one movie that paved the way for the "serious" horror films - Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, still held up as an model of the potent creativity of cinema even to this day. Early Hollywood drama dabbles in horror themes including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) (with Lon Chaney - first horror movie star).
In the early 1930's Universal Studios bringing to the screen a series of successful mythic-based features including Dracula(1931) , Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932) (and their numerous sequels). No other studio had as much success with the genre.
In the nuclear-charged 1950's the tone of horror films shifted away from the mythic and towards the modern. Aliens took over the local cinema. Humanity had to overcome endless threats from Outside. Two of the most popular films of the period were The Thing From Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) ( <- one of my favourites).
Most famous bad movie from late 1950's is E. Wood's movie called "Plan 9 from Outer Space". The plot of the film is focused on extraterrestrial beings who are seeking to stop humans from creating a doomsday weapon that would destroy the universe. In the course of doing so, the aliens implement "Plan 9", a scheme to resurrect Earth's dead as zombies to get the planet's attention, causing chaos. In the late 1980's this move achieved title of "worst movie ever made"
In the late Fifties the technical side of cinematography became easier and cheaper. This era saw the rise of studios centered exclusively on horror, particularly British production, which focused on bloody remakes (gore movies) of traditional horror stories. Best example of movies from that period is a series of Edgar Allan Poe themed films.
The early 1960's saw the release of two films that changed the viewers' approach to horror films - first was Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, the other was a very low-budget film called Psycho, both using all-too-human monsters rather than supernatural ones to scare the audience.
When Rosemary's Baby began ringing tills in the late Sixties, horror film budgets rose significantly, so many top actors decided to take part in these horror productions. By that time, a public fascination with the occult led to a series of serious, supernatural-themed movies. The Exorcist (1973) broke all records for a horror film, and led to the commercial success of The Omen. Horror movies become mainstream commercial entertainment.
In 1975, Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, became the highest grossing film ever. There were still few independent filmmakers, for example Tobe Hooper with his disturbing and explicit gore-fests The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
John Carpenter's Halloween introduced the teens-threatened-by-
Horror movies turned to self-mocking irony and downright parody in the 1990's - the teenagers in Scream (spiritual successor of Carpenter's Halloween) often made reference to the history of horror movies. Only 1999's surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project attempted regular scares.
The rest is just remakes ...
That's all for now!
In my next post I will tell you about most common kinds of horror movies with some great exaples.
Few interesting links:
http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ss/horrortimeline.htm <- horror movies time line
http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html <- nice article about horror film history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film <- wikipedia page about horrors
http://www.horror.gildia.pl/ <- home page of polish horror community
http://www.imdb.com/chart/horror <- best/worst horror movies according to imdb.com
Questions:
Do you like horror movies ?
How often do you watch horror movies ?
What's your best horror movie ?
Did you hear about movies from my presentation ? If yes whats your opinion about them ?
Lets start with some history...
The silent film Le Manoir du Diable directed by Georges Mèliès (114 years ago) was the first horror movie ever and the first vampire flick ever made. Despite the fact that themovie lasted only 2 minutes, audiences loved it, and Mèliès took pleasure in giving them even more devils and skeletons.
In the 1900-1920 period German directors created the first horror-themed films. One of them - Paul Wegener achieved great success with his Der Golem in 1913 ( remade in 1920, movie was based on old Jewish folk tale ). This fable about an enormous clay figure, which is brought to life by an antiquarian and then fights for freedom, was a clear precursor to the many monster movies.
The most famous early German horror film is probably Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), the first feature film with vampires. In that time there was one movie that paved the way for the "serious" horror films - Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, still held up as an model of the potent creativity of cinema even to this day. Early Hollywood drama dabbles in horror themes including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) (with Lon Chaney - first horror movie star).
In the early 1930's Universal Studios bringing to the screen a series of successful mythic-based features including Dracula(1931) , Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932) (and their numerous sequels). No other studio had as much success with the genre.
In the nuclear-charged 1950's the tone of horror films shifted away from the mythic and towards the modern. Aliens took over the local cinema. Humanity had to overcome endless threats from Outside. Two of the most popular films of the period were The Thing From Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) ( <- one of my favourites).
Most famous bad movie from late 1950's is E. Wood's movie called "Plan 9 from Outer Space". The plot of the film is focused on extraterrestrial beings who are seeking to stop humans from creating a doomsday weapon that would destroy the universe. In the course of doing so, the aliens implement "Plan 9", a scheme to resurrect Earth's dead as zombies to get the planet's attention, causing chaos. In the late 1980's this move achieved title of "worst movie ever made"
In the late Fifties the technical side of cinematography became easier and cheaper. This era saw the rise of studios centered exclusively on horror, particularly British production, which focused on bloody remakes (gore movies) of traditional horror stories. Best example of movies from that period is a series of Edgar Allan Poe themed films.
The early 1960's saw the release of two films that changed the viewers' approach to horror films - first was Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, the other was a very low-budget film called Psycho, both using all-too-human monsters rather than supernatural ones to scare the audience.
When Rosemary's Baby began ringing tills in the late Sixties, horror film budgets rose significantly, so many top actors decided to take part in these horror productions. By that time, a public fascination with the occult led to a series of serious, supernatural-themed movies. The Exorcist (1973) broke all records for a horror film, and led to the commercial success of The Omen. Horror movies become mainstream commercial entertainment.
In 1975, Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, became the highest grossing film ever. There were still few independent filmmakers, for example Tobe Hooper with his disturbing and explicit gore-fests The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
John Carpenter's Halloween introduced the teens-threatened-by-
Horror movies turned to self-mocking irony and downright parody in the 1990's - the teenagers in Scream (spiritual successor of Carpenter's Halloween) often made reference to the history of horror movies. Only 1999's surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project attempted regular scares.
The rest is just remakes ...
That's all for now!
In my next post I will tell you about most common kinds of horror movies with some great exaples.
Few interesting links:
http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ss/horrortimeline.htm <- horror movies time line
http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html <- nice article about horror film history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film <- wikipedia page about horrors
http://www.horror.gildia.pl/ <- home page of polish horror community
http://www.imdb.com/chart/horror <- best/worst horror movies according to imdb.com
Questions:
Do you like horror movies ?
How often do you watch horror movies ?
What's your best horror movie ?
Did you hear about movies from my presentation ? If yes whats your opinion about them ?
I'm not a movie enthusiast in general, although I really don't like horrors.
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me what's so funny in being scared :)?
1. Yea, I like to get scared once in a while, not too often though.
ReplyDelete2. As mentioned above, not very often. Maybe once in few months
3. I liked "Gothica" even though I think it's a thriller. From the ones you mentioned I liked "Exorcist" the most. "Jaws" are pretty bad if you ask me.
4. Check answer number 3 =)
Although I don't find horrors the best movie genre for me I found your presentation quite interesting. It's good to know some historical background of cinematography in general. I don't know movies discussed by you as I don't watch horrors at all. They seem for me quite funny and not rational. I just can't find any sense in the plot which usually seems to be ridiculous and not probable at all.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest with you most of horror movies dissapointed me... That's why I'm not the biggest fan of the genre. The last horror movie I have seen was "Hills have eyes" - probably the worst movie ever made; I walked out of the cinema. Although that was a long time ago, my reluctance towards horrors is still valid.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I recall one VERY good horror movie - quite frequently ranked on 'All-Time Best Horror Film' lists - 'The Shining' by S. Kubrick
This movie was great and if you can recommend on any equally majestic and truly, profoundly scary movie as 'The Shining'... Well, I wouldn't say no to that title :)
edit: disappointed with a single 's' and a double 'p' [;
ReplyDeleteI'm not really great fan of horrors. I have nothing against them, but when I can choose I prefer other kinds. I can totally agree that "The Shining" was super, but the movie that influenced me the most was "The Ring". Trust me, if I could get back in time I wouldn't watch it :) It was some years ago but I clearly remember it even today. It is a bit embarrassing but I could sleep then... and my girlfriend making the sound of dead body in the dark just for fun, didn't help me.
ReplyDeleteI like watching horror movies from time to time- I have to be in the mood for it ;) If I have to tell more accurate, I think it's about 4 horrors in a year.
ReplyDeleteMost present-day horror movies are more funny than scary, sometimes even pathetic. I'm talking about the ones which try to be scary, not those especially exaggerated.
I don't have my favourite horror, but I liked "The Hole" and the like others "The Shining". "Alien" saga is also classified as horror, so I put it on my list ;) And from movies you mentioned- "The Exorcist".
"Scream", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Blair Witch Project" are in my opinion very poor.
Somebody said: "The best horror movie is when You dont know who kill" I think that its true because if we know who kill and what for, we are not scared. In my opinion the good horror movies are:
ReplyDelete"The Ring"- American version :) "REC" and "Jaws".Also I liked "The Hole" too. But for me is not horror, its "Teen thriller".
To be honest I don't really like horror movies. I'm just too scared when watching them :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I have watched quite a few of them, and some were really good too. Among my favorites certainly are Rosemery's Baby and The Shining. When it comes to the newest productions I must say I find them rather shallow and stupid - vide all parts of Saw...
Personally I don't like horror movies. I'm so bored watching any of them probably, because they are very smilar to each other. Usually there is huge massacre and a lot of fake blood which look like spilled ketchup all over actors. There are few that might be interesting and worth watching but from this experience of watching few bad ones I am not tempted. That is probably why I do not have much to say about horror movies described in this presentation. However I have seen "The Blair Witch Project" and it was so boring I was watching it for 3 or 4 hours, because I was stoping the video and watching something else just not to fall asleep.
ReplyDeleteOne I enjoyed was Screem, maybe because it was more of a thriller than a horror :)
1 & 2) I don't consider "horrors" as any special kind of movies - I watch one in a while if it could be good (basing on it's reviews)
ReplyDelete3) Mhm, this is a good question. I would probably call for "The Ring" as it has very good atmosphere. But after this movie there were definitely too many horrors with kids as main characters...
4) I watched some of the "Edgar Allan Poe" series and as they cannot present what this great writer wanted to, I found them entertaining enough.