Horror Genre Presentation
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The horror genre originated from Latin terms meaning "to shudder" and was present in early mythologies featuring monsters. While the modern horror genre began taking shape in the 18th century, the first horror films emerged in the late 19th century as "spook tales". Some key early films included Le Manoir du Diable (1896) and those produced by Universal in the 1930s like Dracula and Frankenstein. Common conventions in horror include using settings like abandoned buildings, handheld camerawork, point-of-view shots, lighting/color contrasts, and iconic props or villains.
Horror Genre Presentation
- 2. ORIGINS • Originally from the Latin word, from ‘horrere’ to ‘shudder, or have (of hair) stand on end’ • Every culture, religion, continent, and language has ‘horror stories’, stories told by ancestors. Myths were first told as stories around the early Abrahamic and Egyptian times, where tales of classical mythology were discovered. • Classical mythology like Cerberus, the minotaur, and Medusa were all part of a genre that had monsters as main characters. • The modern horror genre known today began around 200 years ago, it has already begun to have forms and conventions around the eighteenth century. Cerberus, the three headed ‘dog’
- 3. THE FIRST HORROR FILMS • The first horror films were silent. They started at the end of the nineteenth century, and were referred to as ‘spook tales’, as the term ‘horror’ wasn’t created until the 1930’s. • The first short horror clip was created by the Lumière brothers in 1895 and featured a dancing skeleton. • However the first horror film on record is Le Manoir du Diable (1896) created by Georges Méliè. • It has a running time of just over three minutes, but still manage to include all the now usual patterns of horror: • Bats, witches, ghosts, devils, trolls, devils, and lots of appearing and disappearing in smoke.
- 4. 1930’S The 1930’s were a very prominent time for the horror genre to appear and begin. • Dracula was originally put out into cinemas in 1931, and became very very successful for Universal, a now very big film company. • Frankenstein was also first aired in 1931 to audiences. The Mummy aired in 1932 Notes: Universal. Produced: Carl Laemmle, Jr. Directed: Karl Freund Script: John L. Balderston Plot: Nina Wilcox Putnam, Richard Schayer Special Effects: John P. Fulto King Kong aired in 1933 Director Merian C. Cooper Writers James Ashmore Creelman Ruth Rose
- 5. KEY NAMES AND DIRECTORS IN HORROR Ridley Scott ‘ Alien, Blade Runner, Hannibal’ George A. Romero ‘Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies, Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Day Of The Dead, Monkey Shines, The Dark Half, Land of the Dead’ Alfred Hitchcock ‘The Lodger, The Lady Vanishes, Rope, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Frenzy’
- 6. CONVENTIONS • Setting • Technical • Iconography
- 7. SETTING • Binary opposites: very urban environments or completely urban rural settings • Often places with ‘dark’ histories: abandoned hospitals, warehouses, psychiatric hospitals, hospitals, or ‘haunted’ hotels and houses back Abandoned hospitals Cities ‘after’ the apocalypse
- 8. TECHNICAL Handheld shots are used to connote fear and emotion, as the handheld cameras are held by those who are experiencing the film as a real life event. Grave encounters is an example of this as the film is a ‘documentary’ on the paranormal inside an abandoned psychiatric asylum. Everything in the film is filmed by the documentary ‘crew’. back POV shots are used to either show the character’s point of view and what they are seeing, or can also be used so the audience can look through the eyes of the villain. For instance in Evil Dead there is a chase in the POV of the monster. Camera angles are also used to connote fear and desperation. High or low camera angles show this. Sounds are also key for horror films and are used to show the emotion of the character, to build suspense, and sometimes silence is used at the pinnacle of the chase, or just after the suspense has been built with loud music, so that the audience can’t know what will happen next.
- 9. ICONOGRAPHY back • Colours and Lighting They are usually either dark or bright to give normalcy before the horror begins. This is an example of a binary opposite film. A film example of this would be Paranormal Activity, who has a light normal atmosphere at the beginning and then slowly becomes darker and more scary as the film progresses. • Props In certain horror films props can be used to show the exact storyline of the film. For instance a chainsaw and mask would insinuate a murder storyline in the horror film, while supernatural symbols would connote paranormal storylines. The actual ‘villains’ of the horror genre vary, because murderers can be human and are villains, yet ghosts and werewolves and vampires are also villains because they go against the protagonist in the story usually. In Paranormal Activity the films goes from a bright daytime to dark nights like the picture above, or are filmed in night vision like the picture right.