The Dawn of the Horror Movie

Mankind has always been fascinated by stories of the dark and unnatural. Artists depicted macabre images on cave walls and canvas, and film makers strung these images together making them into movies. Collectively these movies are called “Horror” films. Horror films are designed to frighten. Mirroring the darker side of life, they depict the primal feelings of vulnerability, terror of the unknown, and the fear of death. With the action moving slowly towards horrifying scenes, unsuspecting characters and audience alike are suddenly and swiftly struck with terror. This is a successful formula developed by ancient Greek playwrights. The horror film genre incorporates a number of sub-genres and repeated themes, such as slashers, vampires, zombies, demonic possession, alien mind control, evil children, cannibalism, werewolves, animals attacking humans, haunted houses, etc. Some horror films exhibit a substantial amount of cross-over with other genres, particularly science fiction.

The First Horror Films

The horror movie genre is nearly as old as film itself. The first "monster movies" were silent shorts in the late 1890’s. The earliest horror-themed feature films were created by German filmmakers in the early 1900's. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Destiny (Der Müde Tod), Nosfertatu and Metropolis are classic horror films from this era. These films gave rise to the modern day horror films. Horror movies have always served two purposes. Besides delivering thrills, and telling stories of the dark and forbidden, they also provide a reflection of the social anxieties of their time. Horror films developed out of a number of sources: folktales with devil characters, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories melodramas, and Gothic or Victorian novels from Europe.

German Expressionism

The art form known as German Expressionism directly influenced the developing film industry of Germany in the 1920's. German Expressionism as an art form was an answer to the grim reality of daily life. It was a way to represent a reality few could imagine. Sex crimes, murders, depression, maimed veterans returning from the war, innocence lost and a rejection of the past were the things the German people dealt with during the post-war years from 1919 to 1929. Germany's Expressionists declared that facts and objects alone are meaningless. The artist had to get to their essence. In painting or sculpture, it meant a straight line was not necessarily a straight line. Buildings and the human figure conformed to the perception of artists, not the other way around. In theater productions it meant isolating an object or figure in light and having everything else fall back into deep darkness.

German Cinema

Following World War I, German Expressionism was recreated within the German film industry. German films were developing a particular style. These films emphasized an expressive, imaginative point of view. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, clinical insanity, betrayal and other intellectual topics. The combination of the realistic in depicting social conditions, human suffering, the outward signs of bodily disorder and the expressionistic in the use of symbolism in shape and color, the blurring of boundaries between reality and dreams, the distortion of the material world to give expression to inner mood and sensation can be seen in German films of the 1920's. These films used symbolism and mood to create films with deeper meanings. Lighting, surrealistic settings and mobile framing characterized German Expressionism in the film industry. Light and dark contrasts, exaggeration and tilted angles created a dread -like atmosphere. The Expressionistic influences extended further, into the make-up and some of the acting. German cinema of this time is described as fantastic as opposed to realistic. The dark, demonic, haunted and somehow profoundly irrational character was linked to a particular social and political meaning. Fantastic films were the expressions of the middle class seeking escape in the cinema because their real prospects were so limited. Growing urbanization, the industrial revolution and new forms of political or social control drove patrons into the films.

Conclusion

German Expressionism set the groundwork for horror films in the coming decades. The premise remained the same- frighten the audience by depicting what they see every day or put normal everyday people in situations completely out of the ordinary. The Horror film genre has grown and evolved from silent films to the films audiences see today. The silent films might appear humorous to today's viewers, but they were revolutionary for their time. These films touched on topics no one had seen yet. The dark and mysterious were just that, dark and mysterious. These films opened audiences eyes to a new world of film.

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