Brief History Of Horror

BRIEF HISTORY

Horror is an ancient art form. We have tried to terrify each other with tales which trigger the less logical parts of our imaginations for as long as we've told stories. From the ballads of the ancient world to modern urban myths, audiences willingly offer themselves up to sadistic storytellers to be scared witless, and they are happy to pay for the privilege. Theories abound as to why this is so; do we derive basic thrills from triggering the rush of adrenalin which fear brings, or do horror stories serve a wider moral purpose, reinforcing the rules and taboos of our society and showing the macabre fate of those who transgress?

Horror movies have long served both purposes. They deliver thrills by the hearseload, as well as telling us stories of the dark, forbidden side of life (and death) - cautionary tales for grown ups. They also provide a revealing mirror image of the anxieties of their time. Nosferatu (1922) is not simply a tale of vampirism, but offers heart-rending images of a town beleaguered by premature and random deaths, echoes of the Great War and the Great Flu Epidemic fatalities. At the other end of the century Blade (1998) is not just a tale of vampirism either, but reflects a fear of the powerful yet irresponsible elements in society, echoes down the corridor indeed of the seemingly impunitive behaviour of those at the top.

Each generation gets the horror films it deserves, and one of the more fascinating aspects of the study of the genre is the changing nature of the monsters who present a threat. In the early 1940s, a world living under the shadow of Hitler's predatory tendencies identified a part-man, part-wolf as their boogeyman, whose bestial nature caused him to tear apart those who crossed his path. In the 1990s however, there was no need for a part wolf component: Jonathan Doe (Se7en 1994) and Hannibal Lecter (Manhunter 1986, Silence of the Lambs 1991, Hannibal 2001) were entirely human in their calculated and stylised killing methods. As we move on into the twenty first century, the ghosts and zombies are back in vogue as Eastern and Western superstitions converge, and once more we yearn for an evil that is beyond human. In an era of war and waterboarding, supernatural terror is more palatable than the fear inherent in news headlines.

History Of Horror- 'The First Horror Movies'

The first horror movies

Silent film offered the early pioneers a wonderful medium in which to examine terror. Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style to the stories played out by the Grand Guignol Theatre Company. Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time, so the sequences, for example in Nosferatu, where we see a vampire leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight, seem doubly surreal to us now. Nonetheless, these early entries to the genre established many of the codes and conventions still identifiable today. They draw upon the folklore and legends of Europe, and render monsters into physical form. Sadly, the fragility of early film stock means that many of these early attempts at horror have been lost to us, but these three classics are currently available on DVD.

The Golem (1915/1920)

There were several versions of this, dubbed 'the first monster movie'. Paul Wegener directed and starred in the screen version of the Jewish legend, set in medieval Prague. A Golem (a solidly built clay man) is fashioned to save the ghetto, but when his job is done he refuses to cease existing, and runs amok through expressionist sets, eventually to be confronted and defeated by a little girl. The legend influenced Mary Shelley during her creation of a monster a century earlier, and a decade or so later, the cinematic golem influenced Whale's and Karloff's depiction of a false creation lumbering menacingly through the streets.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919)

Often cited as the 'granddaddy of all horror films', this is an eerie exploration of the mind of a madman, pitting an evil doctor against a hero falsely incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. Through a clever framing device the audience is never quite clear on who is mad and who is sane, and viewing the film's skewed take on reality is a disturbing experience, heightened by the jagged asymmetry of the mise en scene. Although modern viewers might find the pace slow, with long takes and little cutting between scenes, "The Cabinet..." is stylish, imaginative, and never less than haunting.

This is largely because the diegetic world is wholly artificial, a complete re-imagining of a Northern German town. The audience views the tale throught the twisted vision of the narrator, where roads, hills, houses and even trees take on a menacing new shape. This is not reality, and the stylised performances reflect that, with the players moving as symbols through the surreal landscape, their stark make up adding to the dreamlike sensation. This contrasted dramatically with the documentary style of film making prevalent in Europe at the time, and proved that film could be a poetic, stylised medium as well as a reflective one. Much has been written on the politics of The Cabinet..., representing as it does puppet humans controlled by a sadistic madman. It certainly struck a chord with German audiences of the time, suffering as they were from the economic consequences of war reparations, helpless in the face of spiralling inflation.

Nosferatu(1922)

Nosferatu is the very first vampire movie, baldly plagiarising the Dracula story to present Count Orlok, the grotesquely made-up 'Max Schreck', curling his long fingernails round the limbs of a series of hapless victims. Described as the vampire movie that actually believes in vampires, Nosferatu gives us a far more frightening bloodsucker than any of its successors; Shreck is simply inhuman. Murnau demonstrated an early mastery over light and shadow which was to distinguish his subsequent work in Hollywood, such as Sunrise (1927), as well as sheer inventiveness with the photographic image, in the microscope sequences and the stop motion special effects. He also clashed with Bram Stoker's widow over the rights to the Dracula story, which had proved very popular as a stageplay. He changed the names of the central characters, but did not alter the story, and the subsequent legal wrangling meant that prints of the movie were destroyed, Murnau lost control of the film, and it is only recently that a version approximating to the original has become available to the viewing public.

Horror Magazine Analysis 2: Fangoria

Horror Magazine Analysis 1: Horror Hound

Third Poster Analysis: The Possession

Second Poster Analysis: The Exorcism of Emily Rose

First Poster Analysis: Shutter

Practice Horror Storyboard

Yellow Brick Road: Personal Film Review

“Yellow Brick Road” is a psychological horror film that was released in 2010. The horror movie’s title is a key part from a recognisable children’s fantasy story (the wizard of Oz) this is a clever way to intrigue horror fans and make them curious as to how this beautiful fairy-tale will be twisted, darkened, and developed into the horror genre. The film consists of a group of intrigued individuals that are hoping to have the first successful trip to find out why many did not return when trying to walk the yellow brick road. Before starting their journey into the wilderness the group have to prove their intellectual level, alongside their memory ability and overall personality, this is recorded from before they set off to then every day into the quest. This is where we start to see the deterioration in the characters and the gradual forgetfulness about how far they have travelled and how to get home. A contrapuntal music sound in the world of the characters gradually starts to turn them insane and animal like, a simple argument could then lead to death, so much so that many characters end up killing themselves because of the torture that their mind is suffering. Lack of food supplies, aggressive deaths, and a broken group leads to every character dying on the path to the yellow brick road.

 

This particular film has many key genre parts, however it also challenges some making it even more interesting to analyse. The most common within the film was the distinctive contrapuntal music that plays within the world of the characters making it very noticeable. In the majority of the film it reflects the opposite emotion to those of the characters, to create a juxtaposition between the characters and the yellow brick roads power. Another vital part to a successful horror films is the creepy location in which they are set, and this horror film sets the scene very well by making a giant road seem so enclosed and trapped within itself. Pathetic fallacy also adds to the creepy location, and helps us understand the characters emotions more in depth.

 

There are many editing techniques used ranging from quick montages in death scenes, slow montage for a more emotional effect, and collusion cutting to make scenes become more dramatic, however the most effective technique within the film seems to be the hand held camera, as we feel as though we are the ones recording their answers and the first ones that start to see the unusual behaviour taking place. We can convey that the hand held camera is there so that we become part of the adventure, and so we experience the same emotions as to those of the characters. Characters and representations are the most difficult to tick of the genre checklist as the nice friendly characters become the killers, but not by choice, it’s the insane, crazy location that starts to turn them into the monsters that they never wanted to be. I think this is purposely done to create shock and to make the audience become mortified to what they have witnessed. This horror also lacks a female survivor and a visible male hero, however we could deduce that this is because you can’t survive or save yourself from the power of that the forbidden yellow brick road holds. We could also suggest that the male hero is the man that asks the young girl to kill him before he kills her, as this is self-sacrifice so that he doesn’t become a murderer.

 

I took many aspects of the film that I would like to include when making my trailer, the key one being the use of the hand held camera, and camera shots from canted angles to make things seem more rapid and disorientated. The one part of the film I would avoid in my own trailer is the lack of key characters, because I personally believe that you cannot make attachments to six or seven characters, however when you have one or two dominant leaders you start to feel their pain and worry. The most interesting part to the film was the first death and the reactions of the characters as they look stunned, yet their shock only seems to last for a while before moving on and forgetting about the horrific death that had just occurred. I think that this works well when creating a horror movie because if death starts to become normal then you know that the equilibrium will never return back to normal or even have a happy ending.

30 Days Of Night: Class Trailer Analysis

30 DAYS OF NIGHT TRAILER ANALYSIS

Our second highest place horror trailer was 30 days of night released in 2007 that scored an average of seven out of ten. This particular trailer was an action horror featuring unstoppable vampires due to the fact sunlight wouldn’t come and they would be stuck with darkness for 30 days. The overall trailer worked really well for this particular genre. The beginning was by far the best part to the trailer as it started with an immediate jump scare that automatically grabs your attention. This is an extremely positive aspect to the trailer as we get an idea that the comfortable equilibrium is not going to last for much longer. Another interesting feature is the use of editing on the trailer, I loved the way the text gives the information and then slowly bleeds off the screen, and this use of animation is effective for a vampire horror film. I think the reason our class gave it the second highest score is because it used restricted narration throughout it, meaning that we became more intrigued and many of us wanted to know the storyline, this technique is really effective when trying to pull in your target audience as it left them wanting more. I believe this came second to Evil Dead because it missed a key jump scare at the end, for me this is one of the main reasons that it got marked down as the trailer simply stopped, without any cliff-hanger or frightening picture that would have left us more interested. I also think that the positivity of the jump scare at the beginning later got forgotten as the pace did gradually slow down and lost the powerful tension that it currently had. Despite these errors I still believe it was a successful trailer, it has many uses of camera angles and different shots within it, making it seem disorientated- which is the perfect emotion for an action horror! If I had to improve this particular horror trailer I would make sure that I kept the tension high and the pace fast, and I would also add in that vital jump scare to leave my audience wanting to see more!

Evil Dead (2013): Class Trailer Analysis

EVIL DEAD 2013 HORROR TRAILER

I have been researching into the importance of horror trailers and trying to analyse strengths and weaknesses within them to help me with my own trailer. When analysing particular trailers in class we have come up with the strongest one being the new Evil Dead released in 2013, we selected this due to the fact it had many features of the genre checklist from close ups, canted angles, cross cuts, gore, parallel music and gore.

The new Evil Dead is a strong horror trailer that is very particular at hitting its genre of being a gory horror film. I believe that this scored a very high average score of 8.5 due to the fact it has a series of action shots that define the plot well and make us curious as to what is going on. The trailer begins with young teenagers in the woods having what seems to be a good time. It is not until the evil is unleashed from the ‘book’ that we start to question our certainty as to whether this location was a deadly mistake. The pace of the horror trailer worked incredibly well. It started off with a distressed girl explaining her fright of what is ‘inside of her’, from these words onwards we see a myriad of jump scenes and cross cuts to make us become gripped to the thrilling dilemma the young teenagers have now found themselves to be in.

The makeup used within the horror film was extremely well presented and the girl becomes extremely creepy and unnerving for the audience. I think that when I come to make my horror trailer I will really focus on this type of miss-en-scene as I believe that it really enhanced the gory features and made the trailer even more intriguing. When analysing the negativities within this trailer it was hard to do so, as I believed it worked really well for attracting its audience. For some off the class they believed a negativity would be that it displayed too much gore and it didn’t look that realistic, I can understand this to some level however I do believe that the purpose was to attract their target audience being ‘gory horror fans’ and therefore they would like to gory features within this trailer.

I think that the general script also helped this horror trailer come out first in my class, due to the fact it had many key lines that grabbed our attention. The context within it was cleverly written and really stood out in comparison to the other horror trailers we had written.  Overall it was able to portray its movie clearly without giving the whole movie away, making the audience intrigued by the trailer and therefore want to watch the horror film.

Insidious: Personal Film Review

Media Studies- horror review

Insidious two was directed by James Wan and is an American supernatural horror film that is a sequel from the first insidious that was released in 2011. This film received over $137 million worldwide, nearly twenty eight times its production budget due to the dark story that made many horror fans hungry to watch it. The film is psychologically scary, and does not depend on gore and blood to make it dominant and strong in the competitive horror market. The story is about a dangerous connection being made between family members and dark figures that live in the spirit world, leading to death, panic, and an unsettled family scared of trusting one another in case of unwanted demons possessing and taking over their bodies. The film is very dependent on its use of music, it uses strong contrapuntal music (harsh thuds and squeaks) that builds tension in many scenes and gets us on edge for what is about to happen. We can hear this music repeatedly before we see the ghostly figure. The technique of using this particular type of music fits perfectly with this supernatural horror as it makes us as an audience feel more involved and adds to the scared emotion that already lingers around this twisted movie.

A key scene within the horror film is the returning of a mental hospital; this uses many parts of our genre checklist, including creepy location, low key lighting, canted angles, and hand held camera shots. With the use of these techniques we feel very vulnerable to the danger that is about to occur, and very uncertain of what is going to actually happen, the darkness and mixtures of different angle shots makes the scene very disorientated, confusing and for most extremely unnerving. The use of the hand held camera allows us to be part of the action, and helps us mimic the same emotions to those of the characters. In many supernatural horror films the hand held camera is used, to create a sense of realism and normality even in the most unsettling situations.  Another scene that stands out in this particular film is the death of the spiritual connecter Elise, the music goes from contrapuntal to complete silence as we get a close up of her facial expression as she has just been killed, the use of the makeup on her face (dark and shadowy) makes it a memorable frozen picture, and makes us aware that death is a key theme within this film. This is the first time we see that connecting with these spirits gets people badly hurt, and starts the drama off to be intriguing and lets the audience become more curious as to why these things are happen to the nicest of people.  The low key lighting in the background of this scene makes us scared of what is going to come out of the darkness, and it also connotes the evil that haunts the family.

This particular film has the majority of the genre checklist for horror within it, and as we can see the statistics of the amount of viewers was incredibly high and therefor the films criteria was obviously extremely successful for horror fans. This proves that to make a successful horror movie you have to be confident with the key parts needed within a horror film. The film covered a broad area of the checklist and only missed out things that were not relevant to this particular type of horror.  We can convey that the director James Wan had been influenced by many of these key genre techniques and therefor made them all work for this particular horror movie, further emphasizing the quality and success of the film.

When analysing this particular film I found it incredibly interesting to pick parts out that worked very well and that could possibly work when making my own trailer. I thought that the quick changes between camera angles worked fantastically as it allowed us as an audience to take on the stress of the characters and to feel generally unnerved about the whole setting. I loved the use of the hand held camera as it sometimes went from restricted narration to seeing the whole setting, the jump between these two opposites also made us as an audience frightened due to the fact we could see exactly what the character holding the camera could see, therefore making us part of the drama and involving us with the thrilling fright that makes us all intrigued about horror. I think that this would work well within the particular trailer I am planning due to the fact out of everything this part of the film made me feel in the world of the characters and took me out of my comfort zone.

In this particular film there was a lot of contrapuntal music, especially when connecting with the demons in the house, I think that this worked incredibly well, however I sometimes think that too much music can take away effect from the drama. I am going to try and avoid using the same music repeatedly and go from parallel to silence as I think that this is different, unique and memorable. I also think that this film needed more close ups of facial expressions so that we can get a more in-depth analysis of the persons inside thoughts, and this is something I aim to do when making my trailer. I am not a fan of horror movies and therefore my most preferred part of the movie is when they reach a new equilibrium, as we see reconciliation between the family and us as characters feel the same emotional thoughts as they do.  This also allows us to understand more about the film in general as it pulls together a conclusion of what the whole film was about and why particular aspects in the film occurred. 

When researching about the director James Wan I was interested by the amount of horror films he had directed, ranging from saw, death sentence, and dead silence. Within all of these movies it tries to push the boundaries of innocent people, and mental torture takes place due to hatred of their lives.  In insidious we see this in the main female character Rose Byrne who plays Renai Lambert in the film. She starts to doubt herself and the thoughts of negativity start to become too overwhelming, so much so that she starts to show her frustration and pain through lack of sleep, constant looking around and general shaking when scared. We see the influence of its auteur director through these small but impacting points within the film. James Wan also likes to show the person/object/ghost or anything that brings the thrill to the movie, and happily displays this on screen without using restricted narration. This occurs many times in the movie, when seeing the lady in the white dress sitting on the sofa, walking around the house, or appearing in the mirror. These three repeated actions show us as an audience the influence that James Wan has on the film and how they are portrayed on screen. 

This film was released in 2011 and therefore is relatively new. Historical context allows us as an audience to relate particular things from the movie to the particular year that the movie was made. We can see from this movie that death and unwanted figures reflected our historical context. Nowadays many people are scared of intruders and being harmed by members of the society, and therefore this is reflected by the ghostly figure that harms the father (Josh Lambert) who can’t do anything to stop it from happening. This particular horror film ends with a happy equilibrium for the family we feel as though we understand, however the clip then cross cuts to a new family having similar problems, leaving the overall film open, and us on a very unsettling cliff-hanger.

 

Choice of Trailer Style

                 CHOICE OF TRAILER

As a group we have decided to focus on a highlights trailer. We believed this to be the best choice of trailer due to the fact it can contain a fast paced montage of different clips from the film. We have researched into highlights trailers and believed that this would suit our trailer more. We liked the fact they usually start off with the equilibrium being challenged and later they lead to the best parts of the film being shown to scare the audience and leave them wanting more. We are planning to use a mixture of shots however we think that it will be effective to include close ups. The use of a close up shot will enable us to show the emotions of the characters easily and see the pain in their eyes as the story progresses. We are also going to have a mixture of both contrapuntal and parallel music to create a disorientated pattern that affects the mood of the observers and make them curious as to what is going on.

 

We have decided to include the use of a hand held camera in our trailer however we understand that this can often be overpowering so we have decided to have the use of a normal filming camera alongside it, so that we get a personal viewpoint as well as an observer’s role. As a group we have come to the conclusion that one of our favourite shots is when the camera is used at a canted angle. We believe this to be the most successful simply because for the horror genre it works incredibly well and creates a sense of disorientation and suspense. As a group we have decided to use a myriad of different shots from, high angle, low angle, close ups, medium two shots, and establishing shots. We have decided to select so many as we think that the faster paced and more rapid the trailer is then the more successful it will be. We looked through many trailers that had a mixture of shots and felt that they were scarier in comparison to other trailers with less amounts of camera shots. We believe that because our trailer is going to be psychological then the use of the over the shoulder shot and point of view shot will work well at making the audience feel involved. This technique is used cleverly in other horror trailers because it makes us sympathise with the characters that are actually stuck in the horrific situation.