Creating Fear: The Evolution of the Horror Genre in the 20th Century

Part 2 - Classical Horror

The history of the horror film is essentially a history of anxiety in the twentieth century. (Wells, 2000, p.3)

It is very important to acknowledge the impact that silent horror cinema had on the later periods of the horror genre. The 1920s was an era of technological advances in both sound and vision and was when many of the horror film's stylistic conventions were trialled and tested.

Just after the First World War, Germany was producing numerous monster horror films with expressionistic set design and lighting style influenced by fine artists such as Van Gogh, Edvard Munch and theatre directors such as Max Reinhardt.

He [Reinhardt] began experimenting with sharp contrasts of light and shade, partly to emphasise which parts of a scene he wanted the viewer to observe, partly to let the viewer imagine what was going on in the darkness and partly to hide the cheap sets. (Soren, 1995, p.16)

One of the smaller studios in Hollywood, Universal, was owned by Carl Laemmle, a German-Jewish immigrant who had entered America in 1884.

His German background and the studio’s majority of first-run cinemas in Europe influenced the films that Universal produced.

As the most European of the American studios, Universal was not just producing films with foreign filmmakers, but it was financially supported by its ownership of foreign exhibition circuits, on which it showed its Hollywood-made films often produced with a European content. (Ian Conrich as cited by Prince, 2004, pp44, 45)

The 1920s saw many German filmmakers immigrate to America and work for the Hollywood Studios, bringing with them their talents and European style in all areas of film making.

Universal’s early horror reputation was based on the production of ‘horror-spectaculars’; large scale literary dramas that focused on misunderstood, physically deformed characters unaccepted by society. The 1925 horror-spectacular ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ demonstrates the introduction of these European styles, the French gothic set designs and the lighting style of Germany.

Monsters, Make-up and Special Effects

The first two horror-spectaculars, ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1923) and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (1925) owe their public success mostly to one man, Lon Chaney, whose heart-warming acting and hideous, elaborate make-up captured and terrified the films’ audience. Chaney’s make-up, although effective on screen, was physically painful for the actor.

His expressive body was as important as his face in creating roles that came to be characterised as his ‘experiments in self- torture’... Chaney, working without prosthetics, contorted and modified his body and face through harnesses, corsets, and fishhooks for a desired horrific appearance. These were such central narrative devices that films would reveal the disability in its totality in a dramatic and spectacular moment of unveiling. (Ian Conrich as cited in Prince, 2004, p.46.)

To create the most horror from the unveiling, Chaney had it written into his contract that his make-up would not be revealed till the films release. Even publicity shots for the films were censored, masking the monsters physical appearance. Actor James Karen comments in the BBC documentary, ‘Universal Horror’ (2000) when talking about Chaney’s unmasking in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’;

“As he was unmasked and you saw the face without a nose... People screamed. It was the loudest scream I’ve ever heard in my life.” (James Karen, Universal Horror, 2000)

Many of Universal’s 1920s horror films avoided the supernatural, instead presenting the monster as a disfigured human (The Man Who Laughs [1928]) or as a human villain disguised as a creature (The Cat and the Canary [1927]). It wasn’t until 1931, with the release of ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’, that Universal’s supernatural monsters took centre stage in American films.

It’s clear to see that these monsters had key connections with the travelling freak shows, which were at their height in popularity in the 1920s.

Human-animals and recidivist behaviour were a particular fascination of Western society in an age inflamed by theories of Charles Darwin. They can be observed in these freak show productions, where the boundary separating beast and mankind is often challenged. (Ian Conrich as cited in Prince, 2004, p48).

Film historian David J Skal in his interview for the BBC documentary “Universal Horror” (2000) suggests that these monsters are also physically linked with the surviving victims of the First World War.

New advances in medicine at the turn of the century meant that many wounded soldiers were returning from war with, at times, extreme physical injuries. Skal comments how these physical deformities acted as a guilty reminder for people of the viciousness of battle and is the hidden social secret to early horror monsters.

It wasn’t until the end of that first Universal Horror cycle, that a film in France, “J’Accuse“ faced it right on and there’s a terrifying moment at the end... where the dead of World War 1 rise from their graves with their broken, mutilated faces and they march into the cities of the world. And in their faces as they march, you see glimpses of Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff and all the others. It took that long for the secret of horror films to be faced directly. (David J Skal, Universal Horror, 2000)

Of course this focus of the physically repulsive or impure creature fits into Noel Carroll’s theory (1990) of key elements of a monster. All of the monsters during the Classical Horror period had some form of physical abnormality. Frankenstein was a large, strong, physically abnormal creature built from pieces of the recently deceased. These monsters also presented some kind of threat. Dracula presented a physical and social threat to his victims. By biting them he was effectively killing them, but also liberating them to eternal life and power.

As Carroll points out, all of these monsters need to be plausible. ‘The Mummy’ (1932) played on the media fascination with Egyptology and curses in the 1920s, when Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Frankenstein’s Monster and the Invisible Man’s origins are explained in terms of man playing with advance science. All of these fictional monster’s origins can therefore be placed easily into our real world.

Of course, as the silent horror genre developed into the new technology of sound, the make-up and special effects also developed further to make the unbelievable more amazing and realistic to its audience. In Paramount’s 1920 version of ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ the transformation between man and alter-ego is captured in one static shot. However, the performance of John Barrymore is crucial to the transformation as make- up is unable to be applied and therefore the monster is revealed through the actor’s physical movement and facial gesture.

The Paramount sound remake in 1931 however uses a combination of camera trickery and make-up to achieve the same continuous shot transformation. Like Chaney’s make-up, the camera and make-up trick was never revealed, keeping the transformation believable and realistic. It wasn’t until after director Rouben Mamoulian’s death, that cinematographer Karl Struss revealed that main actor Fredric March’s make-up for that scene was blue and red and that by slowly changing a blue coloured filter for a red one in front of the camera revealed different areas of make-up. (Universal Horror, 2000)

Sound and Technological Advances of Classical Horror

As I mentioned earlier, the Classical Horror period was a time of technological change. Sound and colour were the two main features that were experimented with during the 1920s. Colour processing company Technicolor was introduced to Hollywood in 1923 and was used in odd sequences during numerous films. The masked-ball scene in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (1925) for example was filmed in the 2-colour Technicolor process which showed the Phantom dressed as the “Red- Death” (Universal Horror, 2000) looking increasingly ghoulish. It wasn’t until 1926 when ‘The Black Pirate’ (1926) was produced entirely in colour that the Technicolor processing became more popular.

Business dropped to nearly nothing in 1931 and fell even further in 1932 as the Great Depression took a stranglehold on the world economy, and theatre patronage began to decline. Audiences had become apathetic of the limited palette colour systems and were more then satisfied that their favourite film stars could speak and sing for them. (American Wide Screen Museum, 2003)

However, in 1933, Warner Brothers released “The Mystery of the Wax Museum” (1933), which was filmed completely in the two-colour Technicolor format. Saying this however, Technicolor had produced a 3- strip-colour process which offered better colour quality but with the need of a camera at $30,000 was used for large-scale films.

The biggest technological change in the Classical Horror period was the introduction and development of sound.

Using the Mathematician’s formula (Whitaker, 2004) (as discussed in chapter 1), the majority of conventions put forward (except the use of gore due to strict censorship codes) can be applied to Classical Horror. Although silent horror films used live music that accompanied the film to create tension and drama, the Horror talkies could use a wider variety of techniques to create the same effect.

Dialogue and music were not integrated together straight away, in fact ‘Dracula’, Universal’s first full-talking horror film, lacks any music to create tension or atmosphere. Instead the film has an eerie, silent feel, using diegetic sound only to create a realistic world.

This allowed film-makers to use sound more creatively in an attempt to create tension and drama. Film Historian, George Turner comments on the impact the background sound in ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) had on him as a small boy;

You hear the monster walking around in the corridor. That was very scary then because you don’t even notice it now... but then, it really shook people. (George Turner, Universal Horror, 2000)

The added advantage sound also had over silent film was that the film’s suspense and fulfilment were not disrupted by an inter-narrative card providing details as to what was being said.

‘The Cat and the Canary’ (1927) is a perfect example of where the tension is broken due to the use of inter-narrative cards. The film rotates around a mansion where the will of a millionaire is being read. Each possible inheritor at the reading starts being picked off one by one and killed. In one scene the lawyer is about to announce who the inheritor is but, as he builds up to the announcement, the book shelf behind him opens and a mysterious, monstrous hand appears from it. Slowly edging forward towards the un-expectant lawyer, suspense is built. As the hand gets to the lawyer’s neck an inter-narrative card appears on screen;

“...the name is...” before cutting back to the monster dragging the lawyer back into the bookcase.

Although visually the suspense is broken, the use of escalating music contributes to the continuity of the overall suspense of the moment. This, in turn, demonstrates the importance of music in the horror genre and how the music alone can create and heighten suspense, tension and drama.

Early Horror Structure

A distinctive element of Classical Horror that distinguishes it from Paranoid Horror (which I will discuss in more detail in chapter 3) is that each film is an isolated item in their franchises. Although between 1931 and 1948 a total of seven films were made featuring the character of Frankenstein’s Monster, none of the films allow the monster to (perceptually) survive, making each film separate under the Frankenstein franchise.

“The basic structural premise of the horror film is to show the restoration or reconstruction of an order in a portrayed society” (Le Blanc, 2003, p.8)

The Classical Horror film begins by either creating tension or by suggesting an explanation for the disruption of order in the society. The opening of ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) shows the moral disruption that Henry Frankenstein is creating, as he and his servant Fritz steal the body of a recently deceased man.

The opening act introduces us to the community, or isolated group of individuals, who are blissfully unaware of the impending danger that is about to be released upon them.

In ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (1943) we are introduced to the characters of the opera theatre (in-particular the love triangle between Christine, Anatole and Raoul) before the Phantom (Eric) makes an established appearance.

The second act shows the arrival of the monster and in turn the breakdown and change to the social order.

In ‘Dracula’ (1931) the second act begins when the Count arrives in England and begins to take victims.

The social order is resolved and restored to the community in the final act. However, the resolution and social order may not be exactly the same as that at the start of the film but the monster is always destroyed. At the end of ‘The Invisible Man’ (1933), ‘Dracula’ (1931), ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) and the ‘Wolf Man’ (1941) all of the monsters are destroyed by the protagonists of the film even though resurrected later to scare again.

Social Context and Nuclear Horror

As mentioned earlier, David J Skal claims that the wounded war veterans of World War 1 are the secret inspiration behind the physical look of monsters in the silent and Classical Horror period. Social context seems to play a large role in horror films, capitalising on the already established fears (like the Magnification and Meteonymy Monsters put forward by Carroll [1990]) of its audience.

‘The Mummy’ (1933) for example, played upon the fears of recent media over-reaction to the possible curse connection to the opening of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. ‘The Invisible Man’ (1933), a mad man with the intention of building invisible armies to take over the world, was released in cinemas the same year as Adolf Hitler came to power with the Nazi Party.

Although these are general, some could say coincidental, social connections, the use of social context in creating fear was seen much more clearly after the end of the Second World War.

“It is common practice when discussing the films of the 50’s to evoke the cold war, the bomb and the ‘Red Scare’. (Humphries, 2002, p56)

The dramatic end of the Second World War for America with the Nuclear bombing of Hiroshima left the country fearing an equally dramatic counter-attack and the effects of radiation. The tension between America and the U.S.S.R and the threat of communism reflected very much within the Hollywood horror film industry.

The national fear resulted in the creation of a government committee in 1947, the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC), which prosecuted individuals who publicly promoted communist ideas and values. Hollywood, being a popular medium and used as a source of propaganda during the war, came under harsh scrutiny from the committee.

The Nuclear Horror cycle’s "Us or Them" films (also known as the ‘creature features’) reflected these social factors in their themes and introduced America to horror monsters from other worlds.

Much has been made of The Thing from Another World as a warning against Soviet aggression – “Keep watching the Skies!” – and as a tribute to the vigilance of the military and the need for discipline to protect the human race from scientific irresponsibility. (Humphries, 2002, p.57)

In these films we, the audience, relate to and support our own kind, “Us”, the liberal, conservative humans, as they defend themselves against “Them”, the radical, communist monsters from another world.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has always been interpreted...as part of the anti-Communist thrust, where the aliens threaten freedom and the American way of life like the Soviets and their ‘Hollywood’ allies. (Humphries, 2002, p60)

The 1950s was also a period of a new American social order with significant changes in gender status, class and generational identities.

...fragmenting previously established models of community and simultaneously provoking a reargued re-entrenchment in the institutional apparatus. Consequently... horror texts were constantly addressing how individualism was re-constituted in relation to the rise of key social groupings. (Wells, 2000, p.58)

Like communism, film, not just horror, began to reflect these factors in their storylines. ‘Attack of the 50ft Woman’ (1958), ‘Teenage Monster’ (1957) and ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ (1957) are three key examples of how horror films attempted to redefine the status and position of women, men and teenagers in the new social order.

For example, the increase in size of the leading female in "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" reflects the increasing rise in women’s demands for equal rights. In turn, the "Incredible Shrinking Man" represents the diminishing social power of men.

Noel Carroll’s theory (1990) again can be applied to the Monsters of Nuclear Horror. Many are physically repulsive and impure (the Creature from the Black Lagoon [1954], The Blob [1958]), threatening (Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956]) and also, because of their scientific origins, possess an air of possibility.

The type of monsters as well, can still be placed into at least three of the four categories as suggested by Carroll. Nuclear Horror has used fusion (Creature from the Black Lagoon [1954]), fission (Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956]) and Magnification monsters (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman [1958]).

Silent, Classical and Nuclear Horror films should really only be seen as 3 separate phases in the development of the present day horror genre. Each phase owes a lot to its previous phase, especially in terms of conventions and style. The genre’s development and growth also owes a great debt to new advances in make-up and special effect technology as well as the constantly changing world in which we live.

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Check out Part 3 as we explore the shift in horror when the monster became human

https://www.curiousspirit.co.uk/post/creating-fear-the-evolution-of-the-horror-genre-in-the-20th-century-part-3-the-impact-of-psycho