KBA AS Media Studies : History of Horror Films: A Journey Through Time

In the 1930's traditional characters used in this era were created, such as:

Monsters
Vampires
Werewolves
Egyptian Mummies
Frankenstein
Mad Scientists

Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was one of the most popular movies in the 1930's. "Count Dracula" and his hypnotic gaze caught the eye for the audience and ultimately set the stage for the horror genre as we know it. Contextually, this was a popular movies due to it being one of the first "talkies", meaning that before this all movies were silent, therefore this also boosted and promoted the move and the genre as suspense could be heard via music, voice and sound effects.In addition, this was named the "golden age for cinema". In the movie, "Dracula" has a foreign accent, conveying that all immigrants were evil, this fits in as the Americans believed this to be true.

This was the best time for creativity as less was known and anything could be true, even a mad scientist named Dr Frankenstein (1931). "German Expressionism" emphasized expression over realistic depictions reality, and the camera work consisted of being at a steady angle and facing straight on. Shadows were also commonly used in German Expressionism. Also, Fredian researchers study logical effects that horror has on the audience, whether it is crying, nervously laughing, shouting or screaming.

Furthermore, the 1940's was really no different. Spin-offs and more sequels were produced based on the originals, due to them being bestsellers. During this decade, Adolf Hitler started to associate himself with a wolf, many more films with a wolf based villain began to appear. Yet, women began to have more main parts, such as the film "Cat People" (1942).

3 comments:

Mr Henton8 October 2016 at 16:22
I am quite pleased with the fact that you have found information from sources other than those that I gave to you on my blog. Your use of sites such as http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/a-brief-history-of-horror/ is to be commended although you need to be careful not to copy other people's work too exactly - I was able to locate the site you had used by entering a section of your research into Google.

as a teenager in the 21st century, do you think that you would find 1930s horror films scary? Has the advancement in technology as we have moved into the 21st century meant that it is easier for the makers of horror films to scare people or is this not reliant solely on technological advancements?
Unknown10 October 2016 at 13:37
Thank you for your feedback. As a teenager in the 21st century, I do not find the horror movies in that era scary, as you have mentioned the advancement of technology enables the directors of the movies to make more realistic scenes within the movie. Special effects can now be use as well as make-up, back in that era factors like this were very limited. In addition, the storyline of the movies fro 1930-1940 were very unrealistic and weak compared to the ones we have now. The horror directors now are extremely reliant on technology, without it we would not recognise the horror genre as we do now.
Mr Henton11 October 2016 at 15:53
Some interesting thoughts Loris. You are an intelligent young lady and your ability to read around the topics we are studying will become increasingly important. In our lessons we will only be able to scratch the surface of some topics and independent reading is going to be a vital contributory factor in relation to your progress and success.