Chronology
facts about world horror cinema
1910 –
2007
Note:
the informations above were taken from the book ‘The A to Z of horror cinema
(The A to Z guide)’ by Peter Hutchings (2009).
1764 Great Britain: Horace Walpole’s The
castle of Otranto has come to be seen by many literary historians as the
first major Gothic novel.
1818 Great Britain: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
is published.
1849 United States: Edgar Allan
Poe dies. Several of his Gothic stories are
later adapted for the screen, among them The
fall of the House of Usher, Murders
in the Rue Morgue and The pit and the
pendulum.
1872 Great Britain: J. Sheridan LeFanu’s vampire story Carmilla is published. It will provide
inspiration for several lesbian vampire films of the 1960s and 1970s.
1886 Great Britain: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is published.
1888 Great Britain: The 'Jack the Ripper' killings take place in London.
1891 Great Britain: Oscar Wilde’s The
picture of Dorian Gray is published.
1896 Great Britain: H. G. Wells publishes his prototype 'mad scientistꞌ story
The island of Dr. Moreau.
1897 Great Britain: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
is published.
1901 Great Britain: Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The hound of the Baskervilles, the most horror-like of all Sherlock
Holmes stories.
1910
1915
1919
Germany:
Expressionist cinema begins with the release of Robert Wiene’s
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The
cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (watch
online).
1920
Germany:
More expressionist cinema comes in the form of Paul Wegener’s
Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The
golem) and F. W. Murnau’s
Der Janus-Kopf (The
head of Janus), an adaptation of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde' that features Béla
Lugosi in a small role.
1922
Germany:
F.
W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens
(Nosferatu,
a symphony of terror) is an unauthorized adaptation of
Dracula.
1923
United
States: Lon Chaney
delivers one of his most celebrated performances as Quasimodo in The hunchback of Notre Dame.
1924
Germany:
Robert
Wiene’s Orlac’s
Hände (The
hands of Orlac) (watch online)
and Paul
Leni’s Das
Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks)
(watch
online) continue the Expressionist tradition.
1925
United
States: Lon Chaney
delivers his most horror-like performance in The phantom of the opera
(watch
online).
1926
Germany:
F.
W. Murnau’s Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage (Faust)
contains some impressive Gothic imagery, while Paul Wegener’s
Der Student von Prag (The
student of Prague) develops the supernatural doppelganger
theme.
1927
Great
Britain: Alfred
Hitchcock directs the proto-serial killer thriller
The lodger:
A story of the London fog .
United
States:
believed to be a lost film.
1928
France:
Jean
Epstein’s experimental adaptation of Edgar
Allan Poe’s work, La chute de la maison Usher (The
fall of the House of Usher) is released.
United
States: Paul Leni’s
Gothic-themed melodrama The man who laughs
is considered by some critics to be his best film.
1929
France:
Luis
Buñuel and Salvador
Dali’s surrealist Un chien andalou (An
Andalusian dog) contains some striking horror-like
imagery – not least an eye being sliced open – although it has little immediate
impact on popular genre cinema.
1931
United
States:
starring Béla Lugosi
and Frankenstein,
directed by James
Whale and featuring Boris Karloff,
kick-starts a boom in horror production.
some critics to be superior to the English
language version.
Fredric
March, receives an Academy Award for his performance.
1932
Germany:
Danish director Carl
Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr
(watch
online) offers a different, more dream-like
take on the vampire story.
United
States:
The horror
boom begins in earnest.
Universal
releases Karl
Freund’s The
mummy and James Whale’s
The old dark house,
both of which star Boris
Karloff and Robert Florey’s
Murders in the Rue Morgue,
which stars Béla
Lugosi.
Michael Curtiz
directs Doctor X at Warner
Brothers, Tod Browning
makes the controversial Freaks
at MGM,
Fay Wray features in Ernest B.
Schoedsack and
Irving Pichel’s The most dangerous game
(The hounds of Zaroff) and Béla Lugosi
stars in Victor Halperin’s independently produced White zombie.
1933
Mexico:
La llorona (The crying woman)
combines U.S. horror conventions with local superstition.
United
States:
James Whale
develops his distinctive brand of comedy-horror with The
Erle C. Kenton
directs Island of lost souls, a
striking adaptation of H. G.
Wells’ novel 'The island of Dr. Moreau',
while Michael Curtiz directs
Mystery
of the Wax Museum.
The classic
monster movie King Kong is also
released, along with Murders in the Zoo,
Secret of the Blue Room, Supernatural and The vampire bat.
(watch
online)
1934
Mexico:
Dos moinjes (Two monks) and El fantasma del convento (The phantom of
the convent) continue a small Mexican cycle of horror films.
United
States: Edgar G. Ulmer’s The black cat turns out to be one of the most stylish of all 1930s
Universal horrors. In comparison, the independently produced Maniac is a low-budget curiosity.
1935
Great
Britain: The mystery of the Marie Celeste
(US title: The pahntom ship), which stars Béla Lugosi,
comes from an early version of the Hammer company, a later incarnation of which
would become a leading horror specialist in the 1950s.
United
States:
This is a key
year for the American horror film with the release of James Whale’s
Bride of Frankenstein,
Karl
Freund’s Mad
love and Tod Browning’s
Mark of the vampire.
Other horrors include
The black room, The crime of Dr. Crespi, The
raven and Werewolf of London.
1936
France:
Julien Duvivier’s Le golem (The golem)
is a rare French horror production.
Great
Britain: Tod Slaughter stars in two horror-themed
melodramas: The crimes of Stephen Hawke
and Sweeney Todd-The demon barber of
Fleet Street, while Boris Karloff
stars in The man who changed his mind.
United
States: Dracula’s
Daughter is an impressive follow-up to the 1931 Dracula. Other horrors include the mad scientist drama The invisible ray, Tod Browning’s
The devil-doll,
Victor Halperin’s Revolt of the zombies
and Michael Curtiz’s final horror film, The
walking dead.
1939
Great
Britain: Tod Slaughter returns in The face at the window and Béla Lugosi
stars in The dark eyes of London
(US title: The human monster).
United
States:
comedy element.
The hound of the Baskervilles
(watch online: YouTube,
YouTube,
Dailymotion)
inaugurates a series of occasionally horror-themed Sherlock Holmes stories that
feature Basil Rathbone as the great detective.
Charles Laughton
generates pathos as Quasimodo in The hunchback
of Notre
Universal’s Son of Frankenstein and Tower of London represent the company’s
return to the horror genre after a three year break.
1940
United
States:
The mummy’s hand starts
a cycle of Mummy films.
A
busy Boris Karloff stars in The ape, Before I hang and Black Friday and Béla Lugosi
stars in The devil bat.
(watch
online)
Bob Hope
returns to comedy-horror in Ghost breakers (watch
online) and Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi
and Petter Lorre send themselves up in You’ll find out.
1941
United
States:
Lon
Chaney Jr. becomes a horror star through his role
in The wolf man
and also features in Man made monster.
Meanwhile,
comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello make their comedy-
horror debut with the haunted house
spoof Hold that ghost.
1942
France:
Le loup des Malveneur (The wolf of the
Malveneurs) is an unusual – for French cinema at least – horror-like
production.
United
States:
Universal’s The ghost of Frankenstein and The mummy’s tomb demonstrate the
studio’s commitment to the production of sequels. By contrast, producer Val Lewton,
who is based at RKO, offers a more middlebrow version of horror in Cat people.
Other horror themed
entertainments include the comedies The
boogie man will get you and I married a witch, as well as the
innovative werewolf film The undying monster.
1943
France:
La main du diable (The devil’s hand)
is a stylish version of the Faustian pact.
United
States:
Universal continues
sequel production with Son of Dracula
and Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man,
the first of its multiple monster films. More tasteful is the studio’s
production of The phantom of the opera.
More ludicrous
is Captive wild woman, in which a mad
scientist turns an ape into a woman.
Val Lewton
develops his artful strain of horror with The
ghost ship, I walked with a zombie, The Leopard Man and The
seventh victim.
1944
United
States:
More sequels
appear from Universal, namely House of
Frankenstein, The mummy’s ghost and The mummy’s curse.
Val Lewton
makes a more upmarket sequel in the form of The
curse of
the
Cat People.
Béla Lugosi
plays a Dracula-like vampire in The return of the vampire,
while the Sherlock Holmes films The pearl
of death,
The scarlet law and Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman all contain
horror-related material. Other horrors
include The climax and the ghost
story The uninvited.
1945
Great
Britain: Ealing Studios produces one of the
great horror anthologies, Dead of night.
United
States:
Universal’s House of Dracula is the last of its
non-comedy multiple monster
films.
At RKO, Val
Lewton produces the period drama The body
snatcher and the stylish but morbid Isle
of the dead. Albert Lewin directs a similarly upmarket
adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The picture of Dorian Gray.
Robert Siodmak
directs the stylish serial killer drama The
spiral staircase. More prosaically, Sherlock Holmes and the House of fear is another horror-themed
adventure for the great detective.
1946
Great
Britain: The indefatigable Tod Slaughter performs
in another overheated horror melodrama, The
curse of the Wraydons, while Vernon Sewell directs Latin quarter, a stylish
tale of artistic insanity.
United
States:
Insanity is
the theme in Robert
Florey’s The beast with five fingers
and Val Lewton’s final horror film, Bedlam.
She-Wolf of London turns
out to be a whodunnit rather
than a werewolf film.
1948
Great
Britain: Tod Slaughter is back in The greed of William Hart, an everyday
tale of body snatching.
United
States: Abbott and Costello meet
Frankenstein is the first and best of a series
of comedies in which the duo encounter classic monsters, in this case,
Frankenstein’s
monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man (although, oddly, not Frankenstein).
1951
Great
Britain: The ‘X’ certificate - denoting films
for adults only - is introduced. United
States: Howard Hawks’ production of The
thing from another world successfully combines science fiction conventions with
horror material. Many other films of its type are subsequently made during the
1950s, although few are as distinguished.
1952
Great
Britain: Béla Lugosi
shows how far his career has fallen from grace by appearing in the low-budget
comedy-horror Old Mother Riley meets the vampire (Vampire
over London).
1953
United
States:
Vincent Price
stars in House of wax, a color remake
of Michael Curtiz’s 1933
Mystery
of the Wax Museum.
1954
France:
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s psychological thriller Les
diaboliques
{the greatest film that Alfred Hitchcock
never made} (watch
online) is released. It will be an inspiration
for many later horror filmmakers.
United
States: Jack Arnold’s Creature from The Black Lagoon and Gordon Douglas’s Them! are horror-like monster movies.
1955
Great
Britain: The science fiction/horror film The Quatermass Xperiment (The creeping unknown)
is the first major success for a small company by the name of Hammer.
1956
Great
Britain: Hammer follows up its success with The Quatermass Xperiment by releasing
another SF/horror, X The unknown.
Italy:
Riccardo Freda’s I vampiri (The
devil’s commandment) is the first Italian
horror film. It is not commercially
successful.
United
States:
Horror themed science
fiction production continues with Invasion
of the body
snatchers
and It conquered the world, while The bad seed is an early example of the
'monstrous child' film.
Béla Lugosi
dies on 16 August.
1957
Great
Britain: The
curse of Frankenstein is Hammer’s first color Gothic horror and is directed
by Terence Fisher, who will be responsible for many of the later Hammer
horrors. The film stars Peter Cushing as Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as
the creature and is a substantial commercial success. Hammer also releases the
alien invasion fantasy Quatermass 2
(Enemy from space).
Cat Girl and Night of the demon (Curse of the demon)
are impressive contemporary-set supernatural thrillers.
Mexico:
La momia Azteca (Attack of the Aztec
mummy), El vampiro (The vampire) and El ataud del vampiro (The vampire’s coffin),
among others, signal the beginning of a new Mexican horror cycle.
United
States:
SF/horror
films include The monster that challenged
the world and two films from Roger Corman,
Attack of the Crab Monsters
and Not of this Earth.
A new emphasis
on teenage horror is apparent in Blood of Dracula, I was a teenage
Frankenstein
and I was a teenage werewolf.
American
serial killer Ed Gein is arrested in Wisconsin; he will subsequently become an
inspiration for such horrors as Psycho
(1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
and The silence of the lambs (1991),
to name but a few.
1958
Argentina:
The television horror show Obras maestras
de terror (Masterworks of horror) is a popular success and runs until 1960.
Great
Britain:
Hammer
consolidates its position as a horror market leader with Dracula (Horror of Dracula), which stars Christopher Lee as the
vampire; it also releases The revenge of
Frankenstein.
Other British
horrors include Blood of the vampire,
Corridors of blood, Grip of the strangler and The
Trollenberg terror.
United
States:
Teenage horrors
include the self-reflexive How to make a monster
(watch online: YouTube,
Dailymotion)
along with Monster on the campus, The return of Dracula and Teenage monster.
Vincent Price
stars in The fly and
producer-director William Castle makes his horror debut with Macabre. The SF/horror It! The terror from beyond space
is later cited as an influence on Alien
(1979).
Boris Karloff
plays Frankenstein for the first time in Frankenstein 1970
and also hosts the (horror/suspense anthology)
television horror series The veil.
1959
France:
Jean Renoir’s made-for-television Le
testament du Docteur Cordelier (The testament of Dr. Cordelier) is an
impressive version of the 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' story, while Georges
Franju’s Les yeux sans visage (Eyes
without a face) is an artful, but also gruesome surgical horror.
Germany:
Die Nackte und der Satan (A head for
the devil, the head) is a rare German horror production from this period.
Great
Britain:
Hammer
releases period horrors The hound of the Baskervilles,
The man who could cheat death and The
mummy.
Other
filmmakers enter the market with The
flesh and the fiends, Horrors of the
Black Museum and Jack the Ripper.
Philippines:
Gerardo de León’s Terror is a man is
an early example of Filipino horror.
United
States:
Roger Corman
directs A bucket of blood,
one of the best of all comedy-horrors, while
William Castle also keeps his tongue in his cheek with the gimmicky House on Haunted Hill and The tingler.
Ed Wood’s cult
film Plan 9 from outer space, which
features the last performance from Béla Lugosi,
is also released.
The sometimes
horror themed television series The
Twilight Zone begins; it runs until 1964.
1960
France:
Roger Vadim’s Et mourir de plaisir (Blood
and roses) is an artful version of Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla.
Germany:
Der Rächer (The avenger) is an early
entry in a series of Edgar Wallace adaptations that often incorporate
horror-like material and imagery.
Great
Britain:
Hammer’s The brides of Dracula and The two faces of Dr.Jekyll continue its
production of Gothic horrors.
The non-Hammer
contemporary-set Circus of horrors
and Peeping Tom are gaudier affairs, while
the SF/horror Village of the damned
develops the theme of monstrous children.
City of the dead
(Horror hotel) is writer-producer Milton Subotsky’s first horror credit; he
will subsequently become a significant figure in British horror.
Italy:
Mario Bava’s
stylish witchcraft film La maschera del
demonio (Black
Sunday) begins a cycle of Italian horror and
makes a star out of British actor Barbara Steele.
Il mulino delle donne di pietra
(Mill of the stone women) is an impressive Italian/French co-production.
United
States:
A prolific Roger Corman
directs The Wasp Woman
and the comedy-horror The little shop of horrors.
More significant is his direction of the Edgar
Allan Poe adaptation House of Usher,
which stars Vincent
Price and which leads to a cycle of further Poe
films.
Alfred
Hitchcock’s Psycho is an
influential serial killer drama. By contrast, William Castle’s 13 Ghosts offers more gimmicks and a
silly story.
1961
Germany:
Die Toten Augen von London (The dead eyes
of London) is one of the best of the horror-themed Edgar Wallace films.
Great
Britain: Hammer releases what will be its only
werewolf film, The curse of the werewolf and also begins a cycle of
Psycho-like thrillers with Taste of fear
(Scream of fear). In contrast, Jack Clayton directs The innocents, a classy adaptation of Henry James’s ghost story 'The
turn of the screw'.
Italy:
Mario
Bava’s Ercole
al centro della terra (Hercules
in the Haunted World) is one of several musclemen
movies that incorporate horror imagery.
Mexico:
Santo contra los zombies (Santo vs.
the Zombies) is the first of many films in which masked wrestlers take on
horror monsters, including vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein’s monster.
United
States:
Roger Corman’s
second Poe
film is The pit and the pendulum,
which stars Vincent
Price and Barbara Steele.
William Castle
maintains the jokier tradition in American horror with Homicidal and Mr. Sardonicus.
1962
Germany:
The horror-themed Edgar Wallace cycle continues with Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee (The secret of the red orchid) and Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern (The door
with seven locks).
Great
Britain:
The commercial
failure of Hammer’s The phantom of the opera
temporarily slows down the company’s Gothic horror cycle.
From
elsewhere, Night of the eagle (Burn, witch,
burn!) is a superior witchcraft film.
Italy:
Riccardo
Freda’s morbid L’orribile segreto del Dr.
Hichcock (The
horrible Dr. Hichcock) is one of Barbara Steele’s
best films.
Meanwhile, Mario Bava
directs what is often considered to be the first giallo-style
psychological horror, La ragazza che
sapeva troppo (The
girl who knew too much).
Spain:
Jesus Franco introduces horror into Spain with the gory surgery-based drama Gritos en la noche (The awful Dr.
Orloff), although full-scale Spanish horror production does not commence until
later in the 1960s.
United
States:
Roger Corman
adds The premature burial and Tales of terror
to the Poe
cycle, while the idiosyncratic Carnival
of souls is a ghost story with a final plot twist that will later be
re-used by numerous other ghost stories.
Bette Davis and
Joan Crawford, both in full-on grotesque mode, star in Robert Aldrich’s grand guignol
thriller What ever happened to Baby Jane?
1963
Great
Britain:
Hammer
delivers Don Sharp’s stylish period horror The
kiss of the vampire and continues its psychological thriller cycle with Maniac and paranoiac.
Robert
Wise’s ghost story The haunting, shot
in Britain for MGM, is also released.
Ireland:
Francis
Ford Coppola makes his genre debut with Dementia 13 (UK
title: The haunted and the hunted), shot in Ireland for Roger Corman.
Italy:
It is a good year for Italian horror with Mario Bava’s
La frusta et il corpo (The
whip and the body) and I tre volti della paura (Black
Sabbath), Riccardo Freda’s Lo spettro (The ghost) and Antonio
Margheriti’s La
vergine di Norimberga (The virgin of Nuremberg, Horror castle)
all released.
United
States:
Exploitation
specialist Herschell Gordon Lewis introduces an unprecedented level of gore
into Blood feast.
Roger Corman
directs The haunted palace,
which is marketed as a Poe
adaptation although it is actually based on a H. P.
Lovecraft story and the charming comedy-horror The raven.
More laughs
are provided by Jerry Lewis’s The nutty professor,
a comedy version of the Jekyll and Hyde story.
1964
Brazil:
Director and actor José Mojica Marins begins his controversial career in horror
with the confrontational À meia-noite
levarei sua alma (At midnight I will take your soul).
Great
Britain:
Hammer’s Gothic
output includes the routine The curse of
the mummy’s tomb and The evil of
Frankenstein, as well as Terence Fisher’s innovative The gorgon and the psychological thriller Nightmare.
Dr. Terror’s House of horrors
is the first of a series of horror anthologies produced by the Amicus company,
Hammer’s main rival in the British horror market for the next ten years.
American
director Roger
Corman makes two of the best films of his Poe
cycle in Britain: The masque of the red death
and The tomb of Ligeia.
Italy:
Horror specialist Antonio
Margheriti directs two of Barbara Steele’s
finest films, Danza macabra (Castle
of blood) and I lunghi capelli della morte (The
long hair of death), while Mario Bava
is responsible for the seminal giallo
thriller Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood
and Black Lace).
Japan:
The upmarket ghost stories Kaidan
(Kwaidan) and Onibaba make an
international impact.
United
States:
Herschell
Gordon Lewis offers more extreme gore in Two
thousand maniacs and Robert
Aldrich and William Castle more grand guignol in, respectively, Hush. .. Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Strait-Jacket.
Ray Steckler’s
strikingly titled cult horror The incredibly
strange creatures who stopped living
and became mixed-up zombies is also released.
1965
Great
Britain:
Hammer releases
two of its best horror-themed psychological thrillers in Fanatic (Die! Die! My Darling!) and The nanny.
Christopher
Lee stars as ‘Fu Manchu’ in The face of
Fu Manchu, the first of a series. Amicus’s The skull is a superior contemporary-set horror, while Roman
Polanski’s Repulsion, the director’s
first English language film, is a clinical and disturbing study of insanity.
On a more escapist
note, Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper for the first time in A study in terror.
Italy:
Mario
Bava’s SF/horror Terrore nello spazio (Planet
of the vampires) will be yet another influence
on Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien.
1966
Great
Britain: Dracula-Prince
of darkness, The plague of the zombies
and The reptile are three of Hammer’s
best period horrors; other Hammer releases include Rasputin: The mad monk and The
witches. The Amicus psychological thriller The psychopath revisits some of the themes from Psycho.
Italy:
Mario
Bava’s Operazione
paura (Kill,
Baby, Kill) is an impressive ghost story, while
the young British director Michael Reeves makes his debut with La sorella
di satana (Revenge of the blood beast, The She Beast).
Spain:
The television horror series Historias
para no dormir (Stories to keep you awake) is a popular success and runs
until 1968.
United
States:
Dan Curtis’s daytime
television soap Dark shadows
incorporates horror characters; it runs until 1971.
In cinema, Billy the Kid versus Dracula provides
one of the genre’s sillier titles.
1967
Great
Britain:
It is another
impressive year for Hammer period horror with Frankenstein created woman and the SF/horror Quatermass and the pit (Five million years to Earth), although The mummy’s shroud is less successful.
Roman
Polanski’s Dance of the vampires (The
fearless vampire killers) is a stylish and – in places disturbing – comedy-horror,
while Carry on screaming offers more
vulgar horror-themed laughs.
Michael Reeves
builds on the promise shown in his first film with the London-set The sorcerers and torture garden is a superior anthology from Amicus.
Other British
horrors include the surgery-based Corruption
and the H.P.
Lovecraft adaptation The shuttered room.
United
States: Herschell Gordon Lewis’s The gruesome twosome and Jean
Yarbrough’s Hillbillys in a haunted house
make for an undistinguished year for American horror, although Curtis
Harrington’s horror-themed psychological thriller Games is noteworthy.
1968
France:
The cult director Jean Rollin makes his genre debut with Le viol du vampire (The rape of the vampire).
Great
Britain: Terence Fisher’s The devil rides out and Michael Reeves’ third and final film Witchfinder General are two of the
finest of all British horrors.
Less
impressive are Curse of the Crimson Altar
and Dracula has risen
from
the grave.
Philippines:
The mad scientist film Mad doctor of Blood
Island demonstrates that older forms of horror still retain popularity.
Spain:
Actor Jacinto Molina, who often works under the name ‘Paul Naschy’, makes his
genre debut as werewolf ‘Count Waldemar Daninsky’ in La marca del hombre-lobo (The mark of the Werewolf). He goes on to
play the part in several sequels as well as starring in numerous other Spanish
horrors.
United
States: This is a key year in the development of
modern American horror with the release of George Romero’s Night of the living dead, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s baby and Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets and the introduction of a film
rating system that formally recognizes
the possibility of 'adult-only' films.
1969
Great
Britain:
Terence
Fisher’s Frankenstein must be destroyed is an impressive traditional Hammer
horror, while Gordon Hessler’s The oblong
box and Scream and scream again confirm the emergence of
new youthful talent in British horror.
Boris Karloff
dies on 2 February.
Italy:
Mario
Bava’s Il
rosso segno della follia (Hatchet
for the honeymoon) innovatively combines a giallo
with a ghost story.
Spain:
La residencia (The finishing school,
The house that screamed) is a substantial commercial success for Spanish
horror.
1970
Germany:
Michael Armstrong directs Hexen bis aufs
Blut gequält (Mark of the devil), a violent and controversial witch hunter drama.
Great
Britain:
The
youth-friendly Taste the blood of Dracula
and the explicit female nudity in The vampire
lovers suggest a change in Hammer’s approach, although The horror of Frankenstein
and Scars of Dracula are less
successful attempts at innovation.
Gordon
Hessler’s Cry of the Banshee is a
confident supernatural drama and Amicus produces another effective horror
anthology, The house that dripped blood, along with a weak Jekyll and Hyde
adaptation, I, Monster.
Italy:
Dario
Argento makes his directorial debut with the giallo
L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The
bird with the crystal plumage). Initially
dubbed the Italian Hitchcock, he will go on to become one of Europe’s leading
horror directors.
Spain:
Christopher Lee stars as a mustachioed Dracula
in Jesus Franco’s indifferent El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula).
United
States: Count
Yorga, Vampire introduces a Hammer-style vampire into contemporary American
settings and The Dunwich horror is a
stylish adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft
story.
1971
Belgium:
Harry Kümel’s lesbian vampire film Le
rouge aux lèvres (Daughters of darkness) combines genre conventions with an
art-house sensibility.
Great
Britain:
New
innovations continue to appear in British horror, including Hammer’s
revisionary Blood from the mummy’s tomb,
Countess Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and Hands of
the ripper and the more obviously exploitative lesbian vampire films Lust for a vampire and twins of evil.
From other
companies come the tongue-in-cheek The abominable
Dr. Phibes and psychomania, along with the disturbing rural horror The blood on satan’s claw
and Ken Russell’s controversial witch hunter epic The devils.
Italy:
Some impressive Italian giallo
films are released, among them Dario Argento’s
Il gatto a nove code (The
Cat o’ Nine Tails) and 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four
flies on Grey Velvet), Mario Bava’s Reazione a catena (Ecologia del delitto,
Twitch of the death nerve, Bay of blood) and Lucio Fulci’s Una lucertola con la pelle di donna
(A lizard in a woman’s skin).
Spain:
Amando de Ossorio’s La noche del terror
ciego (Tombs of the blind dead, The blind dead) begins a cycle of four
films about undead Knights Templar threatening the modern world.
United
States:
Modern vampire
stories prove popular, with Night of dark
shadows, The Omega Man, The return of Count Yorga and The velvet vampire all being released.
The rural
horror Let’s scare Jessica to death,
the possession drama The Mephisto waltz and the rat story Willard
also make an impression.
1972
Great
Britain:
The
cannibalism film Death line (Raw meat) imaginatively combines British and
American horror themes.
Hammer brings
Dracula to contemporary London in Dracula
AD 1972 and offers a critique of the family in Demons of the mind, while Amicus comes up with two quality horror
anthologies, Asylum and Tales from the crypt.
Italy:
Mario Bava, now nearly at the end of his career, directs two impressive
horrors, Gli orrori del castello di Nuremberg (Baron Blood) and Lisa e il diavolo (Lisa and the devil)
and Lucio Fulci, who is relatively new to the genre, is responsible for the
innovative rural giallo
Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t torture
a duckling).
Spain:
Jacinto Molina
plays a hunchback in one of his best known films, El jorobado
de
la morgue (Hunchback of the morgue), while genre
specialist León Klimovsky directs the atmospheric La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (Vampire’s night orgy).
Also released
is La novia ensangrentada (The blood-spattered
bride), seen by some critics as a powerful critique of machismo values.
United
States: Wes Craven makes his horror debut with
the disturbing rape-revenge drama The last
house on the left. More somber horror is provided by The other and The possession
of Joel Delaney.
Frogs is a
relatively serious revenge of nature horror while Night of the Lepus – about
giant rabbits – is a silly one.
John Boorman’s
Deliverance is also released; it is
not a horror film as such, but it provides a template for later rural horrors.
Slightly more lighthearted are the blaxploitation production Blacula and the zombie film Children shouldn’t play with dead things.
Meanwhile, the vampire story The night stalker
receives the highest ever ratings for a television film.
1973
Germany:
Ulli Lommel’s Die zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (The
tenderness of wolves) is a disturbing serial killer film that refers back to Fritz Lang’s
M
(1931).
Great
Britain:
The period
horror cycle is winding down, although And
now the screaming starts! and The creeping flesh are creditable late
entries.
Amicus offers
its two final horror anthologies From beyond
the grave and The vault of horror, Hammer concludes its
Dracula cycle with The satanic rites of
Dracula and British horror sends up
its established formats in Horror hospital
and Theater of blood.
New approaches
are also emerging. The ghost story Don’t look
now, the pagan-themed thriller The wicker
man and the demonic haunted house drama The
legend of Hell House all suggest new ways
forward for the British version of the genre.
Italy:
Former Andy Warhol-collaborator Paul Morrissey camps up the Frankenstein story
in Flesh for Frankenstein.
Spain:
The eerie psychological thriller La
campana del infierno (The bell from hell) and the period horror Pánico en el Transiberiano (Horror
Express) are impressive contributions to European horror.
United
States:
The main event
is the release of the phenomenally successful The exorcist. Other
interesting work is done by George Romero (The
crazies) and Brian De Palma (Sisters).
Blaxploitation
horror continues with Blackenstein, Ganja & Hess and scream, Blacula, Scream and John Landis makes his directorial debut with Schlock.
Television
provides revisionary versions of classic movie monsters in Dracula and Frankenstein: The True Story.
Lon
Chaney Jr. dies on 12 July.
1974
Australia:
Peter Weir incorporates American horror themes into an Australian landscape in The cars that ate Paris.
Canada:
Bob Clark directs the proto-slasher film Black
Christmas.
Great Britain: Hammer’s period horror
cycle finally comes to an end with Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter,
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (which is also Terence Fisher’s final
film) and the kung fu horror The legend
of the Seven Golden vampires. Pete Walker’s nihilistic House of whipcord and frightmare and José Larraz’s sensual Vampyres offer a type of horror more in
keeping with the times.
Italy:
Paul Morrissey
follows up Flesh for Frankenstein
(1973) with the equally over-the-top Blood
for Dracula.
L’anticristo (The
Antichrist) and Chi sei (Beyond the door,
The devil within her) are the first of many attempts to cash in on the success
of The exorcist (1973).
Spain:
Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti
(The living dead at the Manchester Morgue) is a striking and gruesome zombie
film, shot largely in Britain.
United
States:
Larry Cohen’s It’s alive! and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre engage with
the family horror theme.
Deranged is a
gory, thinly fictionalized account of Ed Gein, Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the paradise is a more
playful treatment of horror material, while Abby
and Sugar Hill are blaxploitation projects. Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein is an affectionate and
very funny tribute to classic horror of the 1930s.
1975
Canada:
David Cronenberg makes his horror debut with The parasite murders (They came From within, Shivers).
Great
Britain:
By this stage
the kind of period horror offered by Legend
of the werewolf seems anachronistic.
Pete Walker’s House of mortal sin (The confessional) is
a more convincing expression of the troubled 1970s.
I don’t want to be born
(The devil within her) is another Exorcist-influenced possession story, while
the horror musical The Rocky Horror
Picture Show is not initially a success, but later becomes a significant
cult phenomenon.
Italy:
Dario
Argento directs Profondo rosso (Deep red),
which takes his work emphatically into the horror genre.
United
States: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws draws upon old horror films for
inspiration. In comparison, the more conventional horrors Bug and The devil’s rain seem
tame, although Race with the Devil is an effective combination of horror and
road movie.
1976
Great
Britain:
Hammer
releases its last horror film (to date at least), To the devil a daughter.
Also released
are Norman J. Warren’s Satan’s slave
and Pete Walker’s Schizo. Italy: Pupi Avati’s La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The
house of the laughing windows) is one of
the more unusual giallo
films.
United
States:
The key horror
films are Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie and the apocalyptic thriller The omen;
both are substantial successes.
Less
spectacular, but in their own more modest ways intelligent and worthwhile are Burnt offerings, Communion (Alice sweet Alice), God
told me to (Demon) and Squirm.
1977
Australia:
Peter Weir provides a compelling Australian version of apocalyptic horror with The last wave.
Canada:
Rabid, David Cronenberg’s second
horror film, develops his distinctive vision.
Italy:
commercial success, while Mario Bava
directs his last horror film, the ghost story Schock (Shock, Beyond the door II).
Holocaust 2000 is a more
routine attempt to emulate the success of The
omen (1976).
United
States:
Wes Craven’s The hills have eyes proves more
audience-friendly than his earlier Last house
on the left (1972), while George Romero’s Martin is one of the most important of all modernday vampire
stories and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten alive
(Death trap) is a strange but compelling piece of Southern Gothic.
The
misconceived Exorcist II: The heretic
is a commercial disaster. By contrast, Robert Wise’s Audrey rose is a superior possession drama that offers quiet thrills
rather than the more customary blood and thunder and Curtis Harrington’s Ruby is also a modest, but effective
ghost story.
Day of the animals and The sentinel are more conventional.
1978
Australia:
A mini-cycle of Australian horror continues with the revenge-of-nature drama The long weekend and the telekinesis
thriller Patrick.
United
States:
George
Romero’s Dawn of the dead redefines the
cinematic zombie and John Carpenter’s Halloween
inaugurates the slasher cycle (as well as making a star out of Jamie Lee
Curtis). There is a thoughtful remake of Invasion
of the body snatchers and good sequels to both It’s alive (1974) and The omen
(1976).
Joe Dante
makes his horror debut with Piranha.
The low-budget
rape-revenge drama I spit on your grave
is not much noticed at the time, but it will become notorious later as part of
the British Video Nasties scare of the early 1980s.
1979
Canada:
David Cronenberg creates a horror version of Kramer versus Kramer with The
brood.
Germany:
Werner Herzog remakes the 1922 Nosferatu
as Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
(Nosferatu the Vampyre).
Great
Britain: Bob Clark turns the Jack the Ripper story
into a political conspiracy and throws in Sherlock Holmes for good measure in Murder by decree.
Italy:
Lucio Fulci directs Zombi 2 (Zombie flesheaters),
an unauthorized follow-up to George Romero’s Dawn of the dead (1978). Numerous gory zombie films will follow.
United
States:
More
revisionary vampires feature in Dracula,
which stars Frank Langella as the Count, Love
at first bite and Tobe Hooper’s television production of Stephen King’s Salem’s lot.
The Amityville Horror
is a successful haunted house story, Alien
combines horror with science fiction, Phantasm
is a cult oddity and When a stranger calls
is an early example of urban legend horror.
1980
Great
Britain: Hammer, now under new management,
produces the television horror series Hammer
House of horror.
Italy:
Graphic nastiness
of the zombie and cannibal kind features in Apocalypse
domani (Cannibal Apocalypse), Cannibal Holocaust and Incubo sulla città contaminata (Nightmare city).
Lucio Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi
(City of the living dead) is just as gory, but considerably more stylish.
Lamberto Bava,
son of Mario, makes his directorial debut with the atmospheric psychological
thriller Macabro (Macabre).
United
States:
Friday the 13th
is critically disliked, but very popular with teenage audiences; it inaugurates
one of the major horror franchises of the 1980s.
Other slashers
include the Jamie Lee Curtis vehicles Prom
night and Terror train. These, along with Brian De
Palma’s self-consciously Hitchcockian thriller Dressed to kill, inspire a public debate about violence against
women in film.
John
Carpenter’s The fog is an atmospheric
ghost story, while Stanley Kubrick’s monumental The Shining confuses many on its initial release, but has since
come to be considered by many as one of the greatest of
all horror films.
1981
Canada:
David Cronenberg’s Scanners turns out
to be a more audience-friendly affair than his previous grimmer work in the
genre.
Italy:
L’aldilà (The beyond) and Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The house
by the cemetery) are key films from Lucio Fulci, combining gore with an
intensely dream-like atmosphere.
United
States:
John Landis’s An American werewolf in London and Joe
Dante’s The howling reinvent the cinematic werewolf and together represent a
significant
step forward in special effects
technology.
Sam Raimi’s
The evil dead joins gory horror with slapstick, while sequels to Friday the 13th (1980) and Halloween (1978), along with Hell night, keep the slasher cycle going.
The final conflict, the
third entry in the Omen cycle, is
also released, as are interesting films from Tobe Hooper (The funhouse) and Wes Craven (Deadly
blessing).
1982
Italy: Dario Argento
directs Tenebrae (Tenebre),
considered by some to be one of the greatest of all giallo
films.
United
States:
John Carpenter’s
impressive The thing is not a
commercial success, although it later becomes a cult classic.
Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist is more popular.
Paul Schrader
remakes the 1942 version of Cat people
and George Romero directs Stephen King’s comic-influenced Creepshow and there are more sequels to Friday the 13th and
Halloween, along with other slashers, including The house on Sorority Row
and The slumber party massacre.
In defiance of
market trends, Larry Cohen makes the eccentric Q-the winged serpent.
1983
Canada:
David Cronenberg directs Videodrome,
one of his more challenging and obscure films.
Great
Britain: Pete Walker, master of grim British
horror, directs his last film, the surprisingly gentle and nostalgic House of the long shadows, which
features horror icons John Carradine, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.
United
States:
Adaptations of
Stephen King novels prove particularly popular, with John Carpenter making Christine, Lewis Teague directing Cujo and David Cronenberg responsible
for The Dead Zone.
Richard Franklin
revives the Psycho story with Psycho II; more sequels will follow.
1984
Great
Britain: Neil Jordan’s The company of wolves is an ambitious and innovative werewolf film
drawing upon the writings of Angela Carter.
United
States: Wes Craven’s A nightmare on Elm Street is the first in what will be the most
commercially successful horror cycle of the 1980s; it will generate seven
sequels.
Re-animator combines gore
and comedy in a manner akin to that of the Evil
dead films, while more family-friendly
comedy-horror is offered by Ghostbusters and
Joe Dante’s Gremlins.
1985
Italy:
Lamberto
Bava directs and Dario Argento
produces the slick Euro-horror Démoni
(Demons);
Argento also directs the innovative giallo
Phenomena.
United
States:
George Romero
directs Day of the dead, the third in
his Living Dead series, with less
serious zombie fare coming from Dan O’Bannon’s comedy-horror The return of the living dead.
More tongue in
cheek horror can be found in the vampire film Fright night and Larry Cohen’s satirical The stuff.
1986
United
States:
James Cameron
combines action, science fiction and horror in Alien and David Cronenberg has one of his biggest commercial successes
with his remake of the 1950s monster movie The
fly.
The serial
killer also makes an impact in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, an adaptation of Thomas Harris’s novel 'Red dragon'
which introduces the character of Hannibal Lecter and in John Naughton’s grim
Henry - portrait of a serial killer.
1987
Germany:
Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik is a
confrontational, necrophilia-themed low-budget horror project.
Great
Britain: Clive Barker makes his directorial
debut with Hellraiser, a striking
horror influenced by sadomasochistic iconography.
Italy:
The talented director Michele Soavi debuts with Deliria (Stagefright, bloody bird), while Dario Argento
directs the equally theatrical Opera
(Terror
at the opera).
New
Zealand: The comedy-horror Bad taste is yet another directorial debut, this time from Peter
Jackson.
United
States: Idiosyncratic genre fare is provided
by Kathryn Bigelow’s inventive vampire-western film Near dark, John Carpenter’s Lovecraftian
Prince of darkness and Joseph Ruben’s
family horror The stepfather, while a
more straightforward
action/SF/horror combination is offered
by the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Predator.
1988
Canada:
David Cronenberg continues to develop his own very personal type of cinematic
horror with the gynecology themed Dead ringers.
United
States:
Two minor
horror cycles commence with the release of Child’s
play and Maniac Cop.
Wes Craven directs
the revisionary voodoo film The serpent
and the rainbow.
1989
Japan:
The cyberpunk science fiction/horror Tetsuo
contains some groundbreaking body horror
imagery.
United
States: The satirical cannibalism drama Parents and the body-horror epic Society provide off-beat genre thrills,
while Mary Lambert’s Pet sematary is
a more straightforward Stephen King adaptation. The anthology television horror
show Tales from the Crypt begins; it runs until 1996.
1990
Great
Britain: Nightbreed,
Clive Barker’s ambitious follow-up to Hellraiser,
is not a success.
Italy:
Dario
Argento and George A.
Romero collaborate on the Poe
project Due occhi diabolici (Two evil eyes).
United
States: William Peter Blatty directs The Exorcist III, Tom Savini remakes Night of the living dead and Roger Corman
returns to direction after a long absence with Frankenstein unbound.
1991
United
States:
The silence of the lambs
is a box-office smash and wins several Academy Awards,
including for Jodie Foster, director Jonathan Demme and for Anthony Hopkins as
the cannibalistic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.
Wes Craven
directs the socially critical The people under the stairs,
one of his best films.
1992
New
Zealand: Peter Jackson’s Braindead takes comedy-horror onto a new level of gore.
United
States:
Candyman explores
racial politics from within a horror idiom, Buffy
the Vampire Slayer relocates vampires
within a high school setting and Francis
Ford Coppola directs a blockbusting new version of Dracula
featuring Gary
Oldman as the Count and Anthony
Hopkins as Van Helsing.
Alien 3 is the
grimmest entry to the Alien cycle.
1993
Mexico:
Guillermo del Toro makes his directorial debut with Cronos, an innovative vampire film.
United
States:
Two more
Stephen King adaptations appear, Needful
things and George Romero’s The dark half.
Tim Burton
produces the horror-themed animation The nightmare
before Christmas.
The
horror-influenced television series The X
Files begins; it runs until 2002 and also generates a cinema film.
Vincent Price
dies on 25 October.
1994
Great
Britain: Peter Cushing dies on 11 August.
Italy:
Michele Soavi directs his best film, the zombie drama Dellamorte dellamore
(Cemetery Man).
United
States:
Big-budget
horror includes Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the vampire, a version of Frankenstein starring
Robert De Niro as the Monster and the
Jack Nicholson werewolf drama Wolf.
Ed Wood is Tim
Burton’s tribute to the film director and features an Academy Award-winning
performance from Martin Landau as Béla Lugosi.
Wes Craven
returns to the Nightmare on Elm Street
cycle with the intensely self-reflexive New
bightmare.
The crow’s offering of
morbid Gothic is underlined by the accidental death of its star, Brandon Lee,
during filming.
1995
Spain:
El día de la bestia (Day of the beast) is a stylish horror from a national
cinema that has produced little horror since the 1970s.
United
States:
Dark serial
killer films prove popular with the release of Copycat and Seven.
In the Mouth of madness and Vampire in Brooklyn are the latest from,
respectively, John Carpenter and Wes Craven.
Dracula - Dead and loving it
is a crude Mel Brooks spoof that seeks to recapture the glory of Young
Frankenstein (1974), while Species
combines science fiction and horror in Alien-style.
1996
Spain:
Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis, which
deals with snuff movies, is an impressive feature debut.
United
States:
Peter Jackson comes
to Hollywood to make the comedy-horror The
frighteners, Robert Rodriguez
combines crime and horror effectively in From
dusk
till
dawn, Mary
Reilly is an upmarket revision of the Jekyll and Hyde story and John
Frankenheimer provides an eccentric version of The island of Dr. Moreau that stars Marlon Brando in the title
role.
However, the
main horror film of note is Wes Craven’s Scream,
which cleverly combines slasher conventions with generic in-jokes. Sequels and
other teenage horror films wanting to cash in on its success inevitably follow.
1997
United
States:
I know what you did last summer
is an effective Scream-like film,
while Wes Craven directs Scream 2.
Guillermo del
Toro makes his American debut with Mimic,
a giant insect story.
Alien: Resurrection
is the penultimate film in the Alien cycle
(AVP: Alien versus Predator
shows up in 2004 and Aliens
vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007).
The
horrorthemed television series Buffy the
Vampire Slayer begins; it runs until 2003 and also generates a spin-off
series, Angel.
1998
Japan:
Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is a
breakthrough international success for Japanese horror; it will lead to sequels
and remakes and encourage the development of a broader East Asian horror
cinema.
United
States:
A
preoccupation with horror’s past becomes apparent. Black horror is triumphantly
revived with the urban vampire drama Blade,
Halloween H20: 20 Years later is a clever sequel that brings
Jamie Lee Curtis back to the cycle and Gods
and monsters is a fine biopic
dealing with James
Whale, director of the 1931 Frankenstein.
More eccentric
is Gus van Sant’s remake of Psycho. The last broadcast, a mock documentary
about a folk legend, is little noticed at the time, although it does seem to
anticipate themes more successfully addressed by the following year’s Blair Witch Project.
Other
Scream-like horrors include I still know what
you did last summer and Urban legend.
1999
Japan:
The development of Japanese horror continues with Ringu 2 and Takashi Miike’s shocking, torture-based Ôdishon (Audition).
South Korea: The release of The ring virus, a version of the Ringu story,
along with the evocative ghost story Memento Mori
highlight the development of a distinctive S. Korean horror cinema.
United
States:
Two
supernatural dramas capture the public attention. The mock documentary The Blair Witch Project makes highly effective
use of internet marketing, while The sixth
sense offers the chills of an old-fashioned ghost story topped by a
much-discussed plot twist.
Other ghost
stories – including remakes of House on
Haunted Hill (1959) and The haunting
(1963) – are less impressive.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
takes on the Devil in the millennial End
of days, Stephen Sommers directs the action-horror The mummy, Antonia Bird is responsible for the cannibalism
horror-western Ravenous and Tim Burton’s
Sleepy hollow is a handsome period
horror.
Roman
Polanski’s Spanish-French-American production The ninth gate offers an altogether more idiosyncratic take on
horror themes.
2000
France:
Promenons-nous dans les bois (Deep in
the woods) and the serial killer drama Les
rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers) offer a distinctively French take on
horror conventions.
Germany:
The surgical horror Anatomie does something similar for Germany, cleverly relating
its narrative to German history.
United
States:
Wes Craven concludes the Scream trilogy, Scary Movie sends up the
Scream films and Cherry Falls and Final Destination demonstrate that there is
still
life in the teenage horror formula.
Robert
Zemeckis’s What lies beneath is an
intelligent big budget ghost story, Lost souls
a noisy millennial thriller and Ed Gein a disturbing account of the real-life
serial killer who inspired several horror films.
The
international co-production Shadow of the
vampire deals with the production of the 1922 Nosferatu and speculates that
the actor who played the vampire was actually a vampire.
2001
France:
Le pacte des loups (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) successfully combines horror
elements with period drama, while Trouble Every Day is an artier exploration of
the cannibalism theme.
Great
Britain: The Second World War supernatural
drama The bunker is an early sign of
a revival of the British horror film.
Spain:
The Fantastic
Factory company is established to produce
English-language horror films in Spain. Early examples of its products are Dagon and Faust.
Guillermo del
Toro directs the ghost story El espinazo
del diablo (The devil’s backbone).
Tuno negro is a
distinctly Spanish version of the Scream films.
United
States:
Jack the
Ripper returns in From hell, Hannibal
Lecter returns in Hannibal and Friday
the 13th killer Jason is sent into outer space in Jason X, which, as the title suggests,
is the tenth film in the cycle.
Alejandro
Amenabar’s international production The others
is a worthy addition to the fast developing ghost story cycle, while Jeepers Creepers is an inventive monster
movie.
2002
China:
The Hong Kong-Singapore production The eye
is another international success for East Asian horror.
Great
Britain: The release of First World War horror Deathwatch, werewolf
drama Dog soldiers, the psychological thriller My little eye, the apocalyptic
thriller 28 Days later and the international co-production Resident Evil confirm the renaissance of
the British horror film.
Japan: Hideo Nakata’s Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark water)
is another
successful example of East Asian horror.
United
States:
The influence of
East Asian horror is felt, both in the American remake The ring and in the Japan-style internet horror FeardotCom.
Hannibal
Lecter returns for the remake Red dragon,
the comedy-horror Scooby Doo gets a liveaction makeover and the
gruesome low budget Cabin fever
suggests that a new toughness has entered American horror. By contrast, Bubba Ho-tep is an enjoyably eccentric
affair in which Elvis Presley takes on a mummy.
2003
France:
Alexandre Aja directs Haute tension (High
tension, Switchblade romance), a
slasher that manages to be stylish, gory and iconoclastic.
Japan:
Ju-On: The grudge is the latest
international success to come from Japanese horror.
United
States:
Freddy vs. Jason is the
latest in the Friday the 13th and Halloween cycles.
Rock musician Rob
Zombie makes his directorial debut with the 1970s-style horror House of 1000 corpses;
more references to the 1970s crop up in the remake
of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and the rural horror Wrong Turn.
2004
France:
Calvaire (The ordeal) is an effective
rural horror.
Great
Britain: The revival of British horror
continues with the London Underground-based Creep.
South Korea: The Korean production R-Point
combines an evocative ghost story with an account of Korean involvement in the
Vietnam war.
United
States:
George
Romero’s 1978 production of Dawn of the dead
is remade and there is a prequel to The exorcist
in Exorcist: The beginning and a
remake of the Japanese Ju-on: The grudge.
The horror
musical The phantom of the opera and the
action blockbuster Van Helsing also revive old horror
conventions.
More original
is M. Night Shyamalan’s rural horror The
village.
2005
Australia:
Wolf Creek is Australia’s disturbing contribution to the new emphasis on
torture in horror cinema.
Great
Britain: The subterranean horror The descent and the animated horror The curse
of the Were-Rabbit, each in its own way, testify to the new vitality of
British
horror.
United
States:
The devil’s rejects
and Hostel are America’s contribution
to the new ‘nasty’ horror.
George Romero makes a fourth zombie
film, Land of the dead and Tim Burton
returns to animated horror with Corpse bride.
Remakes
include Dark water (from the Japanese
original) and The fog (from John
Carpenter’s original).
Doom is a
computer-game adaptation, while Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
is Paul Schrader’s original prequel, temporarily
shelved by its producer while another film prequel was produced and released.
Japanese
director Hideo Nakata makes his first American film, The ring Two. The horror television anthology series Masters of horror showcases the work
of many cinema directors.
2006
Great
Britain: Severance
and Wilderness lead British horror into rural horror territory.
Spain:
Guillermo del Toro’s dark fantasy El laberinto
del fauno (Pan’s labyrinth) is considered by many to be his finest film.
United
States:
This year’s
remakes include The hills have eyes, The omen and Pulse (the latter from a Japanese original).
Slither is a
throwback to the alien invasion format, while the international production Silent Hill is a computer game
adaptation and Stay alive is a
horror film about a deadly computer
game.
2007
Great
Britain: 28
Weeks later is a successful sequel to 28
Days later.
United
States:
Remakes of Halloween and The hitcher appear.
The release of
Captivity, Grindhouse and Hostel Part
2 spark a debate about the cinematic use of torture and the extent to which
such films offer ‘torture porn’.
