Audiences like to be shocked and scared. Horror allows us to live out fantasies, face our fears in a controlled environment, and feel the adrenaline rush that comes with a good fright. We are curious about darkness and evil, and watching horror lets us explore these ideas. From the birth of film, people have enjoyed being entertained and terrified at the same time. Some of the first German expressionist silent movies were horror, like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu.
1930s America was marked by the Great Depression – the global economic crisis that saw millions of people unemployed. Despite the little money they had to support their families, millions of Americans visited the cinema weekly throughout the Depression, paying a small fee for hours of entertainment. Watching movies became a form of escapism, which shaped the way horror films were made. Universal Studios’ horror in the 1930s focused largely on literary adaptations of popular novels – audiences could forget their hardships and immerse themselves in familiar fantasy worlds, including those of Dracula and Frankenstein. These films were characterised by ominous, gothic settings such as castles and laboratories, supernatural beings and monsters, and the near-constant threat of death. There would usually be a villain, a damsel in distress, and a hero, the latter of which would try to kill the monster or break a curse. There was little to no music as, in addition to financial constraints, the filmmakers felt that for true immersion there should not be any non-diegetic sound. This led to large sections of the films being very quiet, which only added to the tension felt by the audience. Heavy vignettes and camera trickery were also used to draw the audience into the narrative.
Dracula was intended to be a big-budget movie, but the filmmakers had to downscale due to the economic downturn. Instead of an A-list star, the lead role went to Bela Lugosi – a Broadway actor whose Hungarian accent and menacing stare helped him establish one of the most iconic representations of the vampire. Despite his success as Dracula, Lugosi turned down the role of Frankenstein as he did not want to become typecast as a horror actor, although this would end up being the case. Instead, Boris Karloff took the role, and Frankenstein dominated the box office. Karloff and Lugosi starred in many horror films throughout the 30s, often together, although Karloff became the more successful of the two.
During the late 30s and early 40s, war gripped America. Interest in horror movies declined as the reality of war was more horrifying than fake scares. Audiences began to favour comedies that would take their minds off their troubles. To breathe new life into their monster horrors, Universal decided to create a shared universe. They focused on sequels and crossover films such as Son of Dracula and House of Frankenstein. They even inserted comedy into their productions with the help of comedy duo Abbott and Costello, making parody-horrors such as Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. These strategies successfully led to a new surge in the popularity of horror films. Karloff and Lugosi were often cast as supporting roles in these movies, with the title roles going to a new rising star, Lon Chaney Jr. Chaney was most famously cast as The Wolf Man, his first title role and one that would typecast him as a horror actor. Due to his versatility and his depiction of all of Universal’s classic monsters, Chaney came to be known as the face of the franchise.
While Universal dominated the monster horror scene, RKO Pictures focused more on B-movies through the 1940s. Producer Val Lewton had to work within constraints – a limited budget under $150k, a maximum runtime of 75 minutes, and a film title with no plot. His first movie, Cat People, was a success, despite its lack of special effects and elaborate sets. Lewton’s style incorporated many elements of film noir which, along with horror itself, was inspired by the earlier German expressionist movement. Rather than big-budget monsters, Lewton concentrated on suspense and suggestion. You never see Irena turn into a panther, but the disembodied growls and shadows on the wall are enough to terrify audiences. The film is purposefully very dark and atmospheric, implying that you cannot know what danger lurks in the shadows. Lewton wanted to demonstrate that the imagination is scarier than anything you could see on screen. Playing on people’s increasing tension, he also pioneered the cat-scare, more commonly known as the jump-scare.
Lewton also had success with The Body Snatcher, the last film to star Karloff and Lugosi together. Both stars had left Universal, feeling that the series had come to an end, and tired of being typecast as monsters. In Lewton’s movies, the monsters were usually humans, and in the case of The Body Snatcher, the main villain was a cab driver and graverobber-turned-murderer. The idea that a very normal person could be a killer is what scared audiences, this realism being a stark contrast with the supernatural ideas in previous monster films.
Further highlighting the hard truths of reality was Lewton’s final horror film for RKO, Bedlam. Through the 1940s, many cases of abuse throughout the mental health system were exposed. Thousands of people were ill-treated, neglected and tortured in the name of “treatment”. This led to the closure of numerous asylums and institutions, and a greater public concern for the welfare of the most vulnerable members of society. During World War Two, many soldiers were left with PTSD, emphasising the need for a reform to mental health services. Post-war, there was a public outcry for governments to increase spending on the health, welfare, and education of those most in need, and outrage at the inequality between the rich and poor. Lewton managed to bring all of this together in the setting of late 18th Century Bedlam, where Master Sims parades around his “loonies” for the sole purpose of entertaining aristocrats and politicians, a genuine example of how patients were humiliated and exploited. A young woman protests against the treatment of the patients, resulting in her being committed to the asylum. This plays on the fear of being wrongfully institutionalised and illustrates the proletariat’s distaste for the way they were treated by the elite. This accurate representation of history is what made Lewton’s last film so terrifying.
Hammer Films incorporated sci-fi into their horror movies. Sci-fi had been going through its own golden era after the war, with governments boosting research into science and technology. This resulted in advancements such as the computer, space travel, and the atomic bomb – all perfect sci-fi elements to include in a horror movie. The idea of space travel led to an increase in the fear of the unknown, illustrated perfectly in The Quatermass Xperiment, or The Creeping Unknown as it is called in America. Crash landings, aliens and the destruction of humanity left audiences petrified and asking if we are alone in the universe.
In the 50s came the widespread use of colour film, and with it, a reimagining of the monster films from the 30s. Hammer Films led the way, producing seven Frankenstein and nine Dracula features over the next few decades, as well as countless other horrors. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were often cast as the title roles. As well as appearing as Frankenstein’s monster, Lee frequently returned to his role as Dracula, bringing a dark sensuality to the character beyond that of Lugosi. Cushing’s recurring roles were opposite those of Lee. He starred as both the mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and the vampire-hunter, Van Helsing. This duo would star in over twenty films together and became the quintessential faces of horror through the 50s, 60s and 70s.
After the slight relaxation of rules surrounding what was appropriate for the big screen, Hammer’s films were characterised by sex, violence, and due to colour film, the frequent use of blood. There is no scene more iconic of “Hammer Horror” than the bright red blood dripping from the fangs of Christopher Lee’s Count Dracula. While the level of gore is nothing compared to what we see today, it was quite radical and shocking to the audiences of the time. Some thought it distasteful, but overall the new Frankenstein and Dracula were well-received and paved the way for other filmmakers to include more graphic content.
Alfred Hitchcock was certainly inspired by the graphic nature of Hammer’s monster movies when creating Psycho in 1960, the earliest example of a slasher movie. He, too, pushed the boundaries when it came to displaying sexuality and violence on screen, and Psycho is still considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.
Horror was no longer a single genre, but an umbrella for many sub-genres which are still expanding today. What started as a few key elements of monsters, suspense, and violence turned into a vast library of ways filmmakers try to scare us and make us wonder if it’s really safe to turn out the light.
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