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Humanities 17: film Appreciation
Mary Copeland
2 November 2015
PSYCHO (1960, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)
History, Contexts and Themes
HISTORY
Psycho is a 1960 American psychological thriller-horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock
starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. While this was Hitchcock's
first real horror film, he was mistakenly labeled as a horror film director ever since. Psycho
initially received mixed reviews, but outstanding box office returns prompted reconsideration
which led to overwhelming critical acclaim. The public loved the film, with lines stretching
outside of theaters as people had to wait for the next showing. It is now considered one of
Hitchcock's best films, and praised as a work of cinematic art by international film critics and
film scholars. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for
violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films.
In 1992, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The master of suspense skillfully manipulates and guides the audience into identifying
with the main character, luckless victim Marion (a Phoenix real estate secretary), and then with
that character's murderer: a crazy and timid taxidermist named Norman (a brilliant typecasting
performance by Anthony Perkins). Hitchcock's techniques voyeuristically implicate the audience
with the universal, dark evil forces and secrets present in the film.
Psycho broke all film conventions by displaying its leading female protagonist having a
lunchtime affair in her sexy white undergarments in the first scene; photographing a toilet bowl
and flush in a bathroom (a first in an American film), and killing off its major 'star' (Janet Leigh)
a third of the way into the film (in a shocking, brilliantly-edited shower murder scene
accompanied by screeching violins).
The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the
best-known in all of cinema. The 90-odd shot shower scene was meticulously storyboarded by
Saul Bass, but directed by Hitchcock himself. The shower scene itself has been referenced,
spoofed and parodied in numerous films, including Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the
Paradise (1974) and Dressed to Kill (1980), Squirm (1976), Victor Zimmerman's low-budget Fade
to Black (1980), Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981), John De Bello's Killer Tomatoes Strike
Back! (1990), Martin Walz' The Killer Condom (1997, Ger.), Wes Craven's Scream 2 (1997), Scott
Spiegel's From Dusk Till Dawn 2:"Texas Blood Money" (1999), and the animated Looney Tunes:
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Back in Action (2003), in which Bugs acts out with the film's black-and-white footage and a can
of Hershey's chocolate syrup poured down the drain.]
The film's screenplay by Joseph Stefano was adapted from a novel of the same name by
author Robert Bloch. Bloch's 1959 novel was based on legendary real-life, Plainfield, Wisconsin
psychotic serial killer Edward Gein. Both Gein, who lived just 40 miles from Bloch, and the
story's protagonist, Norman Bates, were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each
dressed in women's clothes, and had deceased domineering mothers, sealed off a room in their
home as a shrine to her. However, unlike Bates, Gein is not strictly considered a serial killer,
having been charged with murder only twice. His murderous character also inspired the
mother-obsessed farmer in Deranged (1974), the Leatherface character in The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (1974), and serial killer Jame Gumb ("Buffalo Bill") in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Like many of Hitchcock's films, Psycho is layered and complex, and multiple viewings are
necessary to capture all of its subtlety. Although it's one of the most frightening films ever
made, it has all the elements of very dark, black comedy. This film wasn't clearly understood by
its critics when released.
Psycho was nominated for four Academy Award nominations, but failed to win any: Best
Supporting Actress (Janet Leigh with her sole career nomination), Best Director (Alfred
Hitchcock with the last of his five losing nominations), Best B/W Cinematography, and Best B/W
Art Direction/Set Decoration. Bernard Herrmann's famous and memorable score with shrieking,
harpie-like piercing violins was un-nominated.
When the film was originally aired in theaters in mid-1960, Hitchcock insisted on a
publicity gimmick (a la P.T. Barnum) that no one would be seated after the film had started. The
decree was enforced by uniformed Pinkerton guards. Audiences assumed that something
horrible would happen in the first few minutes. Violence is actually present for about two
minutes total in only two shocking, grisly murder scenes, the first about a third of the way
through, and the second when a Phoenix detective named Arbogast is stabbed at the top of a
flight of stairs and topples backwards down the staircase. The remainder of the horror and
suspense is created in the mind of the audience.
Paramount, whose contract guaranteed another film by Hitchcock, did not want him to
make Psycho. Their official stance was that the book was "too repulsive" and "impossible for
films", and nothing but another of his star-studded mystery thrillers would suffice (a la glossy
Technicolor hits Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959). They did not like "anything
about it at all" and denied him his usual budget. In response, Hitchcock financed the film's
creation himself, shooting at Universal Studios using the film crew from his black/white TV
series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including cinematographer John L. Russell. Hitchcock chose to
film Psycho in black and white, keeping the budget under $1,000,000. Other reasons for
shooting in black and white were his desire to prevent the shower scene from being too gory
and his admiration for Les Diaboliques's use of black and white.
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The original Bates Motel and Bates house set buildings, which were constructed on the
same stage as Lon Chaney Sr.'s The Phantom of the Opera, are still standing at Universal Studios
in Universal City near Hollywood and are a regular attraction on the studio's tour.
CONTEXTS
Psycho is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the United States, during
the 1960s, after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of
sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in which Sam and Marion are shown as
lovers sharing the same bed, with Marion in a bra. In the Production Code standards of that
time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would be taboo.
According to the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the censors in charge
of enforcing the Production Code wrangled with Hitchcock because some of them insisted they
could see one of Leigh's breasts. Hitchcock held onto the print for several days, left it
untouched, and resubmitted it for approval. Each of the censors reversed their positions: those
who had previously seen the breast now did not, and those who had not, now did. They passed
the film after the director removed one shot that showed the buttocks of Leigh's stand-in. The
board was also upset by the racy opening, so Hitchcock said that if they let him keep the
shower scene he would re-shoot the opening with them on the set. Since they did not show up
for the re-shoot, the opening stayed.
Another cause of concern for the censors was that Marion was shown flushing a toilet,
with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible. No flushing toilet had appeared in
mainstream film and television in the United States at that time.
A powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho is considered the "mother" of all
modern horror suspense films. It is the earliest example of, and singlehandedly ushered in an
era of screen 'slashers' with bloodletting and graphic, shocking killings (e.g., Homicidal (1961),
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), musical horror film Phantom of the Paradise (1974),
Halloween (which starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh's daughter; 1978), Motel Hell (1980),
and DePalma's Dressed to Kill (with another transvestite killer and shower scene; 1980) and
Wes Craven's 1996 horror satire Scream. A satirical parody of scenes from various Hitchcock
films, including some from Psycho, were included in Mel Brooks' comedy High Anxiety (1978).
After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Studios began producing follow-ups: three
sequels, a remake, a television film spin-off, and a TV series (none directed by Hitchcock) and
other imitations or TV films:
Title
Psycho (1960)
Psycho II (1983)
Director
Alfred Hitchcock
Comment
Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates
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Note: This was a record interval
years between a 'I' and 'II'
picture.
Richard Franklin
Anthony Perkins as Norman, 23
released from a mental hospital
after 22 years; Marion's sister Lila
Loomis (again Vera Miles) protests
his release
Psycho III (1986)
Anthony Perkins, in Anthony Perkins as Norman, 25
his directorial debut years later
Bates Motel (1987)
Richard Rothstein
TV pilot film, with Bud Cort as Bates
Motel manager
Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
Mick Garris
Made for Cable TV film, with
Anthony Perkins as Norman, Henry
Thomas as a young Norman, and
Olivia Hussey as Norma Bates
Psycho (1998)
Gus Van Sant
An almost 'scene-by-scene'
(actually 'shot-by-shot') remake (or
replication) of the original classic,
that only generated interest for the
original film
Additional contexts include life in the late 1950's and women’s issues, such as family,
work and monetary power. It is claimed that the film reflected, or contributed to, a growing
permissiveness in society: its violence, sexual content and even the flushing of a toilet on
screen, all breaking new ground for mainstream Hollywood film. Its themes struck at many
cherished American values; mother love, in particular, would never be quite the same again.
Following its release, Psycho was even blamed in court for being the cause of a number of
horrible murders, stimulating a debate about the links between screen violence and anti-social
behavior that continues unabated to this day.
THEMES, MOTIFS, TOPICS
The nightmarish, disturbing film's themes of immorality, corruptibility, confused
identities, voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimization, the deadly effects of money,
Oedipal murder, and dark past histories are realistically revealed, through repeated uses of
motifs, such as birds, stuffed animals, eyes, hands, and mirrors.
Hitchcock uses birds as a main character in his film The Birds. There are a number of
references to birds in Psycho. Marion's last name is Crane and she is from Phoenix. Norman
comments that Marion eats like a bird. The motel room has pictures of birds on the wall.
Brigitte Peucker also suggests that Norman's hobby of stuffing birds literalizes the British slang
expression for sex, "stuffing birds", bird being a British slang for a desirable woman.[136]
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Robert Allan suggests that Norman's mother is his original "stuffed bird", both in the sense of
having preserved her body and the incestuous nature of Norman's emotional bond with her.
Psycho also includes such taboo topics as transvestitism, implied incest, and hints of
necrophilia.
Light and darkness feature prominently in Psycho. The film often features shadows,
mirrors, windows, and, less so, water. The shadows are present from the very first scene where
the blinds make bars on Marion and Sam as they peer out of the window. The stuffed birds'
shadows loom over Marion as she eats, and Norman's mother is seen in only shadows until the
very end. More subtly, backlighting turns the rakes in the hardware store into talons above
Lila's head.
Mirrors reflect Marion as she packs, her eyes as she checks the rear-view mirror, her
face in the policeman's sunglasses, and her hands as she counts out the money in the car
dealership's bathroom. A motel window serves as a mirror by reflecting Marion and Norman
together. Hitchcock shoots through Marion's windshield and the telephone booth, when
Arbogast phones Sam and Lila. The heavy downpour can be seen as a foreshadowing of the
shower, and its cessation can be seen as a symbol of Marion making up her mind to return to
Phoenix.
Themes include binary oppositions (male/female, black/white, good girls/bad girls, good
Norman/bad Norman, boyfriend/voyeur), and construction of gender (gender ideologies
present in the film, transgression of social codes).
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was nicknamed the "Master of Suspense" for employing a kind
of psychological suspense in his films, producing a distinct viewer experience. His impact on film
history outclasses most contenders. Hitchcock came to define entire genres of cinema, and his
body of work - not to mention his rotund body itself - is both immense and iconic, full of tense
thrillers, psycho-dramas and adventure flicks that were not only wildly popular at the time, but
inspired both critical re-evaluation and whole new generations of filmmakers in ensuing years.
Director, producer and screenwriter Hitchcock was born in London, England, on August
13, 1899, and was raised by strict, Catholic parents. He described his childhood as lonely and
sheltered, partly due to his obesity. He once said that he was sent by his father to the local
police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for 10 minutes as punishment for
behaving badly. He also remarked that his mother would force him to stand at the foot of her
bed for several hours as punishment (a scene alluded to in his film Psycho). This idea of being
harshly treated or wrongfully accused would later be reflected in Hitchcock's films.
Hitchcock attended the Jesuit school St. Ignatius College before going on to attend the
University of London, taking art courses. He eventually obtained a job as a draftsman and
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advertising designer for the cable company Henley's. It was while working at Henley's that he
began to write, submitting short articles for the in-house publication. From his very first piece,
he employed themes of false accusations, conflicted emotions and twist endings with
impressive skill. In 1920, Hitchcock entered the film industry with a full-time position at the
Famous Players-Lasky Company designing title cards for silent films. Within a few years, he was
working as an assistant director.
Hitchcock's first few films faced a string of bad luck. His first directing project came in
1922 with the aptly titled Number 13, filmed in London. The production was cancelled because
of financial problems; the few scenes that had been finished at that point have been lost.
Michael Balcon gave Hitchcock another opportunity for a directing credit with The Pleasure
Garden (1925), a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka, which he made
near Munich in the summer of 1925. The film was a commercial flop. Next, Hitchcock directed a
drama called The Mountain Eagle (1926, possibly released under the title Fear o' God in the
United States). This film is lost.
Hitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
(1927), a suspense film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper type of serial killer in London.
Released in January 1927, it was a major commercial and critical success in the United Kingdom.
As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques
Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany. Some commentators regard this piece as the
first truly "Hitchcockian" film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man". His 1929 film
Blackmail is said to be the first British "talkie." Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using
famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax of the film taking
place on the dome of the British Museum. In the 1930s, he directed such classic suspense films
as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and The 39 Steps (1935). Hitchcock was lauded in
Britain, where he was dubbed "Alfred the Great" by Picturegoer magazine, and his reputation
was beginning to soar overseas by the end of the 1930s, with a New York Times feature writer
stating: "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not.
Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen
melodramas in the world." Variety magazine referred to him as, "probably the best native
director in England."
In 1939, Hitchcock left England for Hollywood. The first film he made there, Rebecca
(1940), won an Academy Award for best picture. Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film
as a producer as well as director. It was set in England, and Hitchcock used the north coast of
Santa Cruz, California for the English coastline sequence. This film was the first of four projects
on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it was one of the rare occasions that Grant
was cast in a sinister role. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favorite of all his
film. It is about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved
uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. The director showcased his
personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various
ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.
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His works became renowned for their depictions of violence, although many of his plots
merely function as decoys meant to serve as a tool for understanding complex psychological
characters. His cameo appearances in his own films, as well as his interviews, film trailers and
the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-65), made him a cultural icon.
Hitchcock fashioned for himself a recognizable directorial style. His stylistic trademarks
include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in
a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximize anxiety, fear, or empathy, and
used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside "icy
blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots
featuring depictions of murder and other violence. Many of the mysteries, however, are used
as decoys or "MacGuffins" that serve the films' themes and the psychological examinations of
their characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and
sometimes feature strong sexual overtones.
Hitchcock directed more than 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He
received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1979. One year later, on April
29, 1980, Hitchcock died peacefully in his sleep in Bel Air, California. He was survived by his
lifetime partner, assistant director and closest collaborator, Alma Reville, also known as "Lady
Hitchcock," who died in 1982. The British Film Institute names Hitchcock "the most influential
and iconic British director of all time."
The French New Wave critics picked Hitchcock as a prime example for their auteur
theory, a way of reading films that highlights the creative authority of the director over all other
influences. As with any crackpot critical theory, auteurism becomes a little masturbatory and
inaccurate when applied generally, and its dismissiveness towards other aspects of the creative
process is downright ungenerous. But there’s something about a Hitchcock film - the dry wit,
the recurring themes, the willingness to experiment with the artform - that is undeniably
distinctive.
This partial list of his work contain films which are considered landmarks and
extraordinary achievements, among many others. They have achieved cult status, and have the
dubious distinction of being some of my personal favorite films:
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Saboteur (1942)
Lifeboat (1944)
Notorious (1946)
Rope (1948)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Vertigo (1958)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Rebecca (1940)
Suspicion (1941)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Spellbound (1945)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Stage Fright (1950)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
North by Northwest (1959)
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Psycho (1960)
Marnie (1964)
The Birds (1963)
HISTORY OF HORROR FILMS (to the 60s)
This section supplements the "Genre Films" chapter in Engaging Cinema and is mainly taken
from the AMC Filmsite
Horror films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm,
and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and
entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the
dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most
primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our
terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of
sexuality.
Whatever dark, primitive, and revolting traits that simultaneously attract and repel us
are featured in the horror genre. Horror films are often combined with science fiction when the
menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by
aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not synonymous with the horror genre,
although thriller films may have some relation when they focus on the revolting and horrible
acts of the killer/madman. Horror films are also known as chillers, scary movies, spookfests, and
the macabre.
Horror films, when done well and with less reliance on horrifying special effects, can be
extremely potent film forms, tapping into our dream states and the horror of the irrational and
unknown, and the horror within man himself. (The best horror films only imply or suggest the
horror in subtle ways, rather than blatantly displaying it, i.e., Val Lewton's horror films.) In
horror films, the irrational forces of chaos or horror invariably need to be defeated, and often
these films end with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous.
We use our vivid imaginations to see ghosts in shadowy shapes, to be emotionally
connected to the unknown and to fear things that are improbable. Watching a horror film gives
an opening into that scary world, into an outlet for the essence of fear itself, without actually
being in danger. Weird as it sounds, there's a very real thrill and fun factor in being scared or
watching disturbing, horrific images.
Introduction to Horror Films Genre:
Horror films go back as far as the onset of films themselves, over a 100 years ago. Of
necessity, the earliest horror films were Gothic in style - meaning that they were usually set in
spooky old mansions, castles, or fog-shrouded, dark and shadowy locales. Their main characters
have included "unknown," human, supernatural or grotesque creatures, ranging from vampires,
demented madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, "Frankensteins,"
"Jekyll/Hyde" dualities (good against evil), demons, zombies, evil spirits, arch fiends, Satanic
villains, the "possessed," werewolves and freaks to even the unseen, diabolical presence of evil.
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Horror films developed out of a number of sources: folktales with devil characters,
witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories, Grand Guignol melodramas, and Gothic or Victorian
novels from Europe by way of Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo or Irish writer Bram Stoker, and
American writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe. Oscar Wilde's 1890 Faustian tale
The Picture of Dorian Gray and H.G. Wells' 1896 story of The Island of Dr. Moreau were adapted
into early film versions. In many ways, the expressionistic German silent cinema led the world in
films of horror and the supernatural, and established its cinematic vocabulary and style. Many
of the early silent classics would be remade during the talkies era.
The Earliest Horror Films: Vampires (Vamps), Monsters, and More
Bloodsuckers (leeches) and vampire bats have always intrigued and frightened people
from cultures around the world. Demonic or supernatural possession was often juxtaposed
with blood-drinking, sex, and corpses. Many religions, myths, folk-tales and cults espoused the
idea of obtaining the life-essence from blood – in its extreme was the practice of cannibalism.
Vampires began to emerge in popular fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, during which time
Anglo-Irish writer Bram Stoker's 1897 vampire novel Dracula was written. It has become the
most popular, influential and preeminent source material for many vampire films. Sheridan Le
Fanu's 1872 lesbian vampire tale Carmilla came a close second to Stoker's writings. Stoker's
seminal book hatched all the elements of future vampire films -- predatory female vamps who
kissed the neck of male victims for their human blood, an elderly Count who vied for their prey,
and a vampire hunter with garlic to ward off the "Prince of Darkness" and with a wooden stake
to drive through Dracula's heart.
The earliest significant vampire film was director Arthur Robison's German silent film
Nachte des Grauens (1916, Ger.) (aka Night of Horror) with strange, vampire-like people. Until
recently, the lost Hungarian film Drakula halala (1921, Hung.) (aka The Death of Dracula), was
widely assumed to be the first adaptation of Anglo-Irish writer Bram Stoker's 1897 vampire
novel Dracula, and featured cinema's first Drakula. Nosferatu (1922) was the first genuine
vampire picture was also produced by a European filmmaker, director F. W. Murnau.
Der Golem was the first artistically important German production (1920). The
expressionistic film was based upon Central European myths and influenced later 'Frankenstein'
monster films in the early 1930s with themes of a creator losing control of his creation. The
Golem, played by Wegener, was an ancient clay figure from Hebrew mythology that was
brought to life by Rabbi Loew's magic amulet to defend and save the Jews from a pogrom in the
16th century threatened by Rudolf II of Habsburg. The man-made, clay creature roamed
through the Jewish ghetto of medieval Prague to protect it from persecution.
The earliest horror pictures were one-reel or full length features, many of which were
produced in the US from 1909 to the early 1920s, making the horror genre one of the oldest
and most basic. Many of them are now-forgotten "vamp" pictures (featuring devilish,
captivating ladies). The first Frankenstein monster film in the US was Frankenstein (1910) by
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director J. Searle Dawley, a 16-minute (one-reel) version made by the Edison Studios and
starring Charles Ogle as the monster.
Before the 1930s, Hollywood was reluctant to experiment with the themes of true
horror films. Instead, the studios took popular stage plays and emphasized their mystery genre
features, providing rational explanations for all the supernatural and occult elements.
One actor who helped pave the way for the change in outlook and acceptance of the
horror genre was Lon (Alonso) Chaney, Sr., known as "the man of a thousand faces" because of
his transformative, grotesque makeup and acting genius as a pantomime artist. He appeared in
numerous silent horror films beginning in 1913 at Universal Studios. He was soon to become
the first American horror-film star and Hollywood's first great character actor.
The Phantom of the Opera
Chaney's most memorable portrayal was in the ground-breaking, vividly-frightening,
Beauty-and-the-Beast silent film, Rupert Julian's costume horror classic The Phantom of the
Opera (1925), as Devil's Island escapee Erik (based on the character in Gaston Leroux's 1911
novel). This film was a technical achievement, with a two-color Technicolor 'Bal Masque'
sequence, the falling chandelier and underground lake scenes. Its dark expressionistic tones
helped set the tone for horror films in the 30s. Its most famous scene was ingénue Christine's
(Mary Philbin) unmasking of Lon Chaney's mask, revealing a hideous skull-face, lipless mouth,
rotten teeth, snouty nose, and bulging eyes.
The Phantom has had great longevity in both horror films and theatrical musicals,
played by Claude Rains in 1945, as a disfigured violinist; in 1962 by Herbert Lom as Professor
Petrie/the Phantom; in 1974 by Paul Williams as a Svengali impresario named The Swan in Brian
DePalma's rock-opera musical version (and cult favorite) Phantom of the Paradise; by Michael
Crawford (and others) in the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber theatrical musical show; in the
film made from the musical by Gerard Butler (2004), among many others.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
There were a few very early renditions in the 1900s of the classic tale taken from Robert
Louis Stevenson's story "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (and Thomas Russell
Sullivan's 1887 stage play "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") about a doctor/scientist whose evil side
was brought out by a magic formula. The first filmed version was also the first American horror
film - director Otis Turner's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1908). Broadway idol John Barrymore also
starred in one of the earliest versions of the Jekyll/Hyde story, a silent film from Famous
Players-Lasky Corporation titled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920).
The familiar story was made in many versions, but the two most noteworthy versions
are Rouben Mamoulian's first sound version Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), starring Fredric
March (the first Oscar-winning horror performance) and Victor Fleming's Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (1941), starring Spencer Tracy, which won the Academy Award for black and white
cinematography.
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The Advent of Classic Horror Films of the 30s:
By the early 1930s, horror entered into its classic phase in Hollywood - the true Dracula
and Frankenstein Eras, with films that borrowed from their German expressionism roots. The
studios took morbid tales of European vampires and undead aristocrats, mad scientists, and
invisible men and created some of the most archetypal creatures and monsters ever known for
the screen. Universal Studios, with many groundbreaking silent horror films, continued its
tradition by providing talkie horror films derived from literature and other mythic-legendary
sources. It was best-known for its pure horror films in the 30s and 40s, horror-dom's characters
(Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Wolf Man) and its classic
horror stars, Hungarian matinee idol Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.
Dracula:
According to Guinness World Records, the character most frequently portrayed in
horror films is Dracula, with nearly 200 representations (at the present count). Under Tod
Browning's direction, Universal Studios produced a film version of Lugosi's 1927 Broadway
stage success about a blood-sucking, menacing vampire named Dracula (1931), released early
in the year. The atmospheric, commercially-successful film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel
played upon fears of sexuality, blood, and the nebulous period between life and death. The
heavily-accented voice and acting of Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi in his most famous portrayal
as the 500 year old vampire was elegant, suave, exotic and stylish - and frightening to early
audiences - while the undead villain hypnotically charmed his victims with a predatory gaze.
A Spanish version, with director George Melford in place of Browning, was shot
simultaneously on the same sets at night, but with a different cast and crew (Carlos Villarías
replaced Lugosi, and Eduardo Arozamena as Van Helsing, along with provocatively-dressed
actresses Lupita Tovar as Eva (Mina) and Carmen Guerrero as Lucia (Lucy)). It is considered by
some to be the superior version of the film
In the same year, Danish writer/director Carl Theodor Dreyer's dreamlike, atmospheric,
seminal horror film Vampyr (1931, Ger./Fr.) (aka Not Against the Flesh/Castle of Doom) was
released. The unsettling film, Dreyer's first sound feature, was loosely based on the 1872
lesbian vampire short story Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. It told the story of an occult
researcher named Allan/David Grey who slowly came to believe he was surrounded by
vampires in a remote country inn.
Frankenstein:
The first Dracula film was followed closely by the definitive, quintessential combination
of science fiction and Gothic horror in a 'mad doctor' thriller. This classic monster/horror film Frankenstein (1931) was James Whale's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel about Dr. Henry
Frankenstein, and featured a virtually unknown actor Boris Karloff. Karloff's poignant portrayal
of the pathetic created Monster's plight gave a personality to the outcast, uncomprehending
character with a lumbering and lurching gait. There were three more films in the series
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The Wolf Man:
Without resorting to an existing literary horror figure, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or The Invisible Man, Universal also created a new and 'original' creature -the werewolf - the last of its great original horror characters. The first US werewolf film was
Stuart Walker's well-made The Werewolf of London (1935); the second, most famous and
definitive Wolf Man character was in director George Waggner's excellent B-grade film, The
Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney, Jr. in his first appearance as the accursed Larry Talbot, a
portrayal which came to be his best-known role. The "transformation" scene from man-to-wolf,
involving complicated cosmetic/makeup artistry, was remarkably realistic. [The makeup artist
used yak hair and a rubber snout.]
Other Early Classic Horror Films:
Other classic horror films of the 1930s and early 1940s included one of the best
adventure/horror films of all time, the "beauty and the beast" classic, King Kong (1933). Special
effects expert Willis O'Brien created many of the models for the film.
After his success with Dracula (1931), Tod Browning directed the unusual, gothic Freaks
(1932) with real-life side-show "freaks." It is considered one of his best works. It told how a
group of freaks took revenge on a beautiful gold-digging trapeze artist and turned her into a
monstrous half-human, half-bird. This cult film redefined the concepts of beauty, love, and
abnormality, but was so disturbingly ahead of its time that audiences stayed away in huge
numbers, and it was even banned for 30 years in England. After this film, Browning's career
would never be the same. He directed only a few more films through 1939 before retiring.
When Karloff refused the title role, Claude Rains starred as The Invisible Man (1933) in
James Whale's second hit and Universal's critically-acclaimed film version of H. G. Wells' novel.
Charles Laughton took the role of the horribly deformed bellringer who saves Esmeralda
(Maureen O'Hara) in the excellent The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939
The Mummy Films:
One of the earliest 'mummy' films was The Vengeance of Egypt (1912, Fr.), with a
terrifying mummy seeking revenge for its stolen ring. Notable films with living (or walking)
dead, "zombie" plots included Universal's and first-time director Karl Freund's classic The
Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff in the title role as the 3,700 year-old bandaged corpse of Imho-tep. Four sequels to the 1932 film were: The Mummy's Hand (1940); The Mummy's Tomb
(1942); The Mummy's Ghost (1944) and The Mummy's Curse (1944).
Dracula Sequels at Mid-Century:
Although more plentiful, Dracula films and sequels were less successful than many of
the superb Frankenstein sequels. To capitalize on its earlier successes, Universal Studios (and
other studios) slowly churned out more Dracula sagas in the 30s and 40s, but only two featured
Bela Lugosi as the character of Dracula (the original 1931 film, and the comedy hybrid Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)). In two similar roles, first in Tod Browning's and MGM's
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Mark of the Vampire (1935), Bela Lugosi played Count Mora (an actor pretending to be a
vampire) and Carol Borland starred as his ghoulish-looking daughter Luna. In Lew Landers' The
Return of the Vampire (1944), Lugosi portrayed a reawakened vampire (very similar in
appearance to Count Dracula) named Armand Tesla.
The first official Dracula sequel with hints of lesbianism, Dracula's Daughter (1936),
starred Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska who arrived in London to claim her father's
body and developed a taste for blood, mostly from female victims. It would take another seven
years for the next Dracula sequel, Robert Siodmak's Son of Dracula (1943) set in the American
South. Lon Chaney, Jr. starred in the title role as the vampire. Universal placed the Dracula
character mostly in a number of monster hybrid films: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945).
Increasingly regarded as a campy horror character, Bela Lugosi (who had sunk into
poverty by the 1940s after showing a reluctance to be typecast as Dracula) appeared in the
horror-comedy parody, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) as Dracula, and then
after struggling with drug addiction, stooped to work with cult director Ed Wood on Glen or
Glenda? (1953) and Bride of the Monster (1955).
Frankenstein Sequels and Other Horror-Star Hybrids at Mid-Century:
The witty Frankenstein sequel directed by James Whale, Bride of Frankenstein (1935),
outdid the original as a marvelous mixture of campy (and sophisticated) black humor, classic
terror, and unforgettable images, including Elsa Lanchester (actor Charles Laughton's wife) in
two roles: as the spectacular bride with a Nefertiti hairdo, and as Frankenstein author Mary
Shelley.
The continuing series of Frankenstein films included Son of Frankenstein (1939), The
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943). Additional campy
entries included I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and I Was a Teen-age Werewolf (1957),
one of the best 'teenage' monster films.
Zombie Films in the 1930s - 1940s:
Zombies are 'walking dead' creatures, often with decayed flesh, that are destructive,
malevolent, prey on human flesh, and almost impossible to 'kill.' The word zombie was derived
from the Bantu language of Angola (n-zumbi meaning ghost or departed spirit), and zombies
(involved in Haitian voodoo) debuted in William B. Seabrook's sensational book about Haitian
voodoo titled The Magic Island. The lurid book detailed his adventures and encounters with the
'living dead' – shambling hulks with unfocused staring eyes and expressionless faces. It could be
argued that the 'somnambulism' in the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(1920, Germ.) was one of the earliest examples of a hypnotic, sleep-walking state similar to that
exhibited by zombies.
The first 'true' zombie film was director Victor Halperin's and UA's low-budget
independent film, the atmospheric White Zombie (1932), with Dracula (1931) star Bela Lugosi as
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'Murder' Legendre, an evil voodoo master, necromancer and sinister hypnotist. The inspiration
for the film was the short-lived 1932 Broadway play titled Zombie by Kenneth Webb.
During the 1940s, there were three zombie films from 'Poverty Row's' Monogram
Studios, some of which tied Nazism to zombie-lore: the pre-war King of the Zombies (1941); its
B-film sequel, director Steve Sekely's Revenge of the Zombies (1943) (aka The Corpse Vanished);
the third was Voodoo Man (1944), a recycled Revenge of the Zombies (1943) which brought
back Bela Lugosi as practicing voodoo master Dr. Marlowe, and John Carradine as a retarded
manservant.
One of the better zombie films of the 40s was RKO director Jacques Tourneur's (and
producer Val Lewton's) atmospheric, intelligent and spooky B-film masterpiece I Walked With A
Zombie (1943), a West Indies derivation of Charlotte Bronte's classic dark romance Jane Eyre.
The movie's most atmospheric scene was the dream-like nocturnal walk through the sugar-cane
plantation fields to a native voodoo ceremony with the sound of drums, and the startling
appearance of giant, bug-eyed zombie guard Carre-Four (Darby Jones).
The zombie sub-genre declined after the mid-40s, although there were a few notable
entries in the 50s, such as Republic's 12-part sci-fi serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952),
producer Sam Katzman's The Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) with a zombified crew of sailors
protecting a sunken treasure vessel, AIP's Voodoo Woman (1957), and the box-office bomb
Teenage Zombies (1960).
By 1948 classic horror films were going out of style with an audience faced with the real
'horrors' of World War II.
Britain's Hammer Studios: The Dracula Cycle:
The UK's Hammer Studios reinvigorated the Bram Stoker Dracula novel in a collection of
low-budget films by employing garish, sensual colors and bloody reds, as well as and more
overt, suggestive sexuality and graphic violence. The British production company remained
faithful to the genre's material (the classics from Universal Studios) in tightly-produced,
spectacular Technicolor sequels featuring a seductive, alluring and virile vampire. Talented
director Terence Fisher (with Christopher Lee in one of his best appearances as the reclusive
Count Dracula and Peter Cushing in a cat-and-mouse game as arch nemesis vampire hunter Dr.
Van Helsing) created the classic Horror of Dracula (1958, UK) (aka Dracula) - the first of the
Hammer horror films about Dracula. Following its success, Hammer Studios produced more
Dracula films with the same characters until the mid-70s (a total of nine films from 1958 to
1974).
Britain's Hammer Studios: The Frankenstein Cycle:
Hammer had its first horror hit with the Frankenstein creature in director Terence
Fisher's gory The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), with Peter Cushing in the starring role as the
insane Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee in his first appearance as the monster. It
was the first of many installments of Frankenstein sequels from the studio.
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Britain's Hammer Studios: The Mummy Cycle:
Hammer updated the Mummy films with its own first entry The Mummy (1959) directed
by Terence Fisher, starring Peter Cushing as John Banning, the archaeologist who opened up a
tomb in 1895, and Christopher Lee as the awakened ancient Egyptian Kharis. There were three
other Mummy films from Hammer.
RKO Producer Val Lewton:
Russian-born Val Lewton, using a more subtle, suggestive, eerie approach in a number
of atmospheric, sophisticated horror/suspense films, produced eleven low-budget films for RKO
Studios in the 1940s, directed first by Jacques Tourneur, and then by Mark Robson and Robert
Wise. Lewton's first psychological horror film, directed by Tourneur in his feature-film debut,
was the suspenseful horror classic The Cat People (1942), possibly the first horror film to never
show its monster.
Under Lewton's production, Mark Robson directed the noirish classic film of Satanic
worship called The Seventh Victim (1943); Isle of the Dead (1945) with Karloff in a starring role;
and Bedlam (1945).
The most influential of Lewton's directors was Robert Wise, who created such classics as
The Curse of the Cat People (1944) and The Body Snatcher (1945) with Boris Karloff as a sinister,
wily grave-robbing cabman. Later in his career, Wise also directed the superior ghost story The
Haunting (1963) based on Shirley Jackson's classic novel The Haunting of Hill House, which
remains one of the greatest of all haunted house films.
The Cycle of 50's Horror Films:
In the atomic age of the 1950s, much was made of the modern effects of radioactivity
exposure, toxic chemical spills, or other scientific accidents, such as the development of giant
mutant monsters or carnivorous insects, including Gojira (1954, Jp.) (aka Godzilla). During that
time, most of the monster horror films were cheaply made, drive-in, teenage-oriented, grade-Z
films, such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). There was also the creature feature, for
example The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954).
A few American-made monster/horror films of the time, however, effectively capitalized
on terrorizing threats that included extraterrestrial powers or space invaders, such as the alien
found in the Arctic in The Thing (From Another World) (1951), the unusual gill-man in The
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), mutant ants in the New Mexico desert in Them! (1954),
and the aberrant or alien threat in Don Siegel's classic tale of Cold War paranoia Invasion of the
Body Snatchers (1956). The latter film, a tale cautioning against conformity, was a classic tale of
zombie-like clones taking over the bodies of the residents of a small California town. Director
Jack Arnold's allegorical The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), from a screenplay by author
Richard Matheson, showed the deadly mutations and after-effects of exposure to radioactivity.
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To counter the popularity of TV, film studios experimented with 3-D in films such as
House of Wax (1953).
Two other late 50s films with sci-fi/horror features included: The Blob (1958) and the
original The Fly (1958).
Roger Corman's Films:
Producer/director Roger Corman, known for his low-budget, 'exploitation' films, helped
to keep the horror genre alive when the larger Hollywood studios turned away. He created the
low-budget, horror lampoon-satire A Bucket of Blood (1959) and the cheapie cult film The Little
Shop of Horrors (1960) about a meat-eating house-plant named Audrey inspired an offBroadway stage musical with the same title and another film in 1986 directed by Frank Oz.
Other more expensive, lavishly-Techni-colored Corman films followed from American
International Pictures (AIP), including eight Gothic Edgar Allan Poe-inspired horror tales (mostly
starring a villainous Vincent Price) such as:
The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)
The Premature Burial (1962)
The Raven (1963)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Tales of Terror (1962)
The Haunted Palace (1963)
The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
Other Horror Films in the 60s:
Horror films branched out in all different directions in the 1960s and after, especially as
the Production Code disappeared and film censorship was on the decline. Directors began to
frankly portray horror in ordinary circumstances and seemingly-innocent settings. While Roger
Corman was producing and directing his cheaply and quickly-made horror films in the early 60s,
Hammer Studios in England was making their Dracula and Frankenstein sequels. Hammer
rounded out their horror sequels with director Terence Fisher's The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
(1960) and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961).
A controversial English film by Michael Powell titled Peeping Tom (1960, UK) was met
with outrage for its chilling story of a murderous psychopathic photographer. In Harold (Herk)
Harvey's cultish, low-budget, expressionistic, dream-like zombie film Carnival of Souls (1962), a
young girl suffered ghoulish and nightmarish experiences in a bizarre land of specters after a
near-fatal car accident. More suspenseful, atmospheric horror was displayed in the British film
Burn Witch, Burn! (1962) (aka Night of the Eagle), written by horror screenwriters Richard
Matheson and Charles Beaumont, which was an exploration of modern witchcraft.
Director Robert Aldrich's modern gothic thriller starred two aging Hollywood actresses
(Bette Davis with her tenth Oscar nomination and Joan Crawford) as sisters in What Ever
Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Aldrich and Bette Davis were re-teamed together in the
Southern Gothic horror tale Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965). Corman promoted young
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filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's early film, a low-budget thriller about an axe-murderer titled
Dementia 13 (1963).
The first Amicus portmanteau film and one of the best British horror films of the 60s
was Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1964), an entertaining, five-story anthology with Peter
Cushing as Dr. Schreck (meaning horror in German), a mysterious doctor who told fortunes for
five passengers on a train in a series of vignettes, and horror genre components including a
severed hand, a vampire, a man-eating plant, a voodoo curse, and a werewolf.
Roman Polanski:
Polish director Roman Polanski's first film in English, the potent and scary British
production titled Repulsion (1965, UK), depicted a young, sexually-disturbed beautician's
(Catherine Deneuve) unstable descent into hallucinatory madness in a London apartment.
Polanski then directed the offbeat ghoulish comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers (1966) starring
his wife Sharon Tate (a victim of the gruesome Manson 'family' murders). Polanski's greatest
commercial hit was his adaptation of Ira Levin's best-selling book Rosemary's Baby (1968).
George Romero:
In a revolutionary way, now-acclaimed George A. Romero, now known as the Master of
the 'zombie film,' ushered in the modern era of graphically violent and gory zombie pics in the
waning years of the 60s. Stephen King praised him for taking the horror "out of Transylvania"
and bringing it to modern-day America. Romero's first Dead film appeared at the same time as
civil unrest, Black Power and student protests, the Vietnam War, fear of nuclear annihilation,
the gruesome assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the breakdown
of the family - all coupled with the idealistic innocence of the previous year's Summer of Love.
Romero realized that his archetypal zombie narratives, with extreme blood, violence and gore,
could also provide worthwhile sub-textual commentary on societal themes. He recognized that
the ultimate in horror was humanity itself ("I also have always liked the monster-within idea. I
like the zombies being us"), allegorically presented during turbulent times as mobs of mindless
reanimated 'living dead' creatures.
Romero's debut horror feature, the first of a canon of zombie classics, was the lowbudget, intensely-claustrophobic, unrelenting B&W cult classic Night of the Living Dead (1968).
It was a milestone 'splatter' film about newly dead, stumbling corpses/zombies (not produced
by voodoo rites, or outer space mutants), that returned to life with indiscriminate, ravenous
hunger for human flesh. Romero himself defined them as average-Joe "blue-collar monsters,"
who lumbered stiffly out of their graves (due to the effects of rigor mortis) and toward a
barricaded farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. The amateurish, allegorical film made in just one
month showed rotten human corpses walking with outstretched arms and threatening a few
trapped survivors who sought refuge.
Horror Films in the 70s:
In 1968, the MPAA created a new rating system with G, M, R, and X ratings, in part as a
response to the subversive, violent themes of horror films.
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The figure of Dracula reappeared in a number of films, including Frank Langella
recreating his starring Broadway role as the charismatic, and suave but tragically-anguished
Count in director John Badham's Dracula (1979), with Laurence Olivier as the famed vampire
hunter. And in the same year, the vampire myth was spoofed in director Stan Dragoti's highlysuccessful and campy Love at First Bite (1979) with George Hamilton.
In the 1970s, nightmarish horror and terror lurked everywhere. One of the top boxoffice hits in the early 70s was Willard (1971) about a wimpish 27 year old loner (and Mama's
boy) who trained his bloodthirsty pet rodent friends to vengefully attack his co-worker
enemies. Master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's controversial A Clockwork Orange (1971) was a
brilliant adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel about rape, murder, and behaviorist experiments
to eradicate aberrant sex and violence. And in the kitschy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971),
madman Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) let loose Biblical plagues against his victims,
physicians who failed to save the life of his wife (Caroline Munro).
Director Nicolas Roeg's psychological thriller Don't Look Now (1973) duplicated
Hitchcockian terror in a tale of disaster in Venice for Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Jack
Starrett's fast-paced horror chase film, Race With the Devil (1975) starred Peter Fonda and
Warren Oates as innocent vacationers, with their wives (Loretta Swit and Lara Parker), who are
pursued by Satanists after inadvertently watching them perform a human sacrifice.
Although it was a musical/comedy, the cult-campish Frankenstein classic The Rocky
Horror Picture Show (1975) was set in a haunted castle with a group of transsexual aliens. The
weird and bawdy film soon became a cultural institution and phenomenon as it played for
many years in packed midnight showings, with costumed audience members participating in
the screenings
As the decade of the seventies progressed, the horror genre was subjected to violence,
sadism, brutality, slasher films, victims of possession, and graphic blood-and-gore tales.
Director John Boorman's terrifying Deliverance (1972) examined primeval human evil and
included graphic mutilation and sodomy by crazed hillbillies upon an unsuspecting group of
wilderness adventurers.
Two of the most effective, box-office successes of the 70s included the camp classic It's
Alive! (1974) about a murderous baby, and Tobe Hooper's exploitative, low-budget, hand-made
cult film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Hooper's notorious first film, about a terrorized
group of teenagers, was loosely based on the true crimes of grisly, notorious Wisconsin serial
killer Ed Gein, as was Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Three on a Meathook (1972), Deranged:
Confessions of a Necrophile (1974), and Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
There were numerous sequels to the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, stretching
over 38 years.
Halloween:
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John Carpenter's influential, and acclaimed independent-sleeper horror classic
Halloween (1978), with a creepy soundtrack, brought about the modern slasher movie. It
featured the iconic character of Michael Myers: a deranged, threatening knife-wielding killer of
teenage babysitters, who had returned to his old neighborhood of Haddonfield, Illinois after an
escape from a mental institution. The film brought about the Puritanical clichéd notion that
promiscuous, sex-loving teenagers were marked for death.
This popular slasher, serial killer film inspired numerous, mostly inferior sequels, a total
of ten films by the year 2009. The only film in the series without Michael Myers was the third
installment in 1982.
Monsters:
Steven Spielberg's first notable film (originally made-for-TV) was the paranoiac Duel
(1972) about a monstrous and malevolent gas-tank truck without a driver. His second horror
film, Jaws (1975), was a terrific summer blockbuster about a threatening great white shark off
an Eastern beach community.
Horrible conflicts could occur with supernatural, Jaws-like monsters in space, such as in
director Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), with the tagline: "In space, no one can hear you scream."
There were three Alien films in a continuing franchise. An adapted Stephen King tale provided
the basis for Stanley Kubrick's masterfully-directed gothic film The Shining (1980) about a
crazed husband and alcoholic, failed wannabe writer (Jack Nicholson) with personal demons in
the Overlook Hotel, closed and snowbound for the winter in Colorado.
Brian De Palma:
In the early 1970s, shock director Brian DePalma (often using film techniques
comparable to horror Master Alfred Hitchcock) emerged as a significant contributor to the
horror genre, breaking out with his original mainstream film Sisters (1973), followed by his first
commercial hit Carrie (1976), an adaptation of writer Stephen King's best-selling 1974 debut
novel about a socially-outcast, shy, abused and bullied schoolgirl (Sissy Spacek) possessed with
retributive telekinetic powers, and her religious fanatic mother (Piper Laurie). After the psychic
phenomenon thriller, The Fury (1978), De Palma's next successful film was the erotic
horror/thriller Dressed to Kill (1980) about a transvestite therapist/stalker (Michael Caine), with
a marvelous seduction-stalking scene of Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) in a museum, a razorslashing murder in an elevator, and ending with an imitative Psycho-shower scene.
Devil-Possession Films:
Evil spirits possessed the body of a young 12 year-old girl (Linda Blair) in director William
Friedkin's manipulative critical and box-office success The Exorcist (1973) from William Peter
Blatty's best-selling novel, with extravagant, ground-breaking special effects and startling
makeup. Its twisting head, pea-soup vomit spewing, crotch-stabbing with a crucifix, and other
horrific visuals terrified audiences. The blockbuster, about the attempted exorcism of the
demonic entity by two priests (Max von Sydow and Jason Miller), inspired inferior sequels of its
own.
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Some of the better devil-possession sequels in the late 70s and early 80s were The
Amityville Horror (1979) about a devilish haunted house; Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982), a
supreme ghost story about menacing spirits that kidnap a young child by sucking her into a TV
set ("They're heeere!"), and taking her into a parallel dimension. Poltergeist encouraged two
sequels in 1986 and 1988. The Omen (1976), with a memorable score by Jerry Goldsmith, about
a young adopted son (of parents Gregory Peck and Lee Remick) named Damien - Satan's son,
also inspired two sequels to compose a trilogy: Damien: Omen II (1978), and The Final Conflict
(1981)). There was also a made-for-cable TV sequel titled Omen IV: The Awakening in 1991.
Other devil films included: Taylor Hackford's Devil's Advocate (1997) with tempting Al Pacino,
and Peter Hyams' action horror thriller End of Days (1999) with Gabriel Byrne as the seductive
Devil Lord.
David Cronenberg's Unique Brand of 'Body' Horror:
Subversive Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, known for disturbing sexual and
'body' horror with perennial themes of mutation and infection, made his directorial debut with
his first major film Shivers (1975, Can.) (aka They Came From Within/The Parasite Murders)
about a group of Montreal high-rise apartment occupants at Starliner Island on a permissive sex
and violence spree after being infected by parasites (slimy, phallic turd-like creatures), a
metaphor for the spread of the AIDS virus. His next notable film, his fourth film, was Rabid
(1977) (aka Rage) starring ex-porn film star Marilyn Chambers (the ex "Ivory Snow girl") - in the
lead role as Rose, a mutant predator with vampirish blood cravings following plastic surgery for
injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. Cronenberg's graphic The Brood (1979) depicted the
birth of murderous demon-children from an insane mother. Scanners (1981) involved psychic,
telepathic warriors with mental powers strong enough to explode heads.
Wes Craven:
Wes Craven began his career in violent horror films in the 70s, with the low-budget
rape-revenge shocker The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977). His two
most famous films were teens-in-terror slasher flicks that spurred a flurry of imitations and
sequels: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), introduced the scary character of Freddy Krueger
(Robert Englund), a re-incarnated, sadistic child molester and serial killer with razor-fingered
gloves and a burn-scarred face; the surprising horror hit-spoof Scream (1996) that helped to
reinvigorate films in the genre in the late 90s, with a whopping domestic box-office gross of
$103 million. It rejuvenated the slasher film in subsequent years by self-reflectively honoring
various stalking/slasher films in the character of a slasher dressed as the Grim Reaper.
In Red Eye (2005), his 20th feature film, Craven added to his horror repertoire this
psychological thriller set on board an overnight jetliner flight to Miami, with Rachel McAdams
as the terrified passenger Lisa Reisert taken 'hostage' by stranger/passenger Jackson Rippner
(Cillian Murphy).
Blaxploitation Horror Films:
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The first of the so-called exploitative 'blaxploitation' films (with predominantly AfricanAmerican casts, music and themes) was Melvin Van Peebles' controversial independent film
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). It jump-started a whole series of similar films about
black private detectives and gritty urban life. As the movement progressed, it merged with the
horror film genre (and others too, such as the sci-fi genre), and produced re-hashed hybrid films
with blaxploitation content, often spoofing the titles of famous horror films from the past:
William Crain's Blacula (1972), with William Marshall as the accursed African prince title
character terrorizing LA as a vampire; its sequel Scream, Blacula, Scream! (1973); The Thing
with Two Heads (1972), a campy horror/comedy cult classic about a racist white mad scientist
(Ray Milland) whose head has to be grafted onto the body of a huge black man (Rosie Grier);
the sci-fi crime fantasy Top of the Heap (1972) - about a crazy young DC black cop fantasizing
about being the first black man on the moon; and many others.