Specialist study powerpoint

1. Specialist Study – How The
Horror Genre Has Evolved
Ewan Wild

2. Summary: The first chapter of this book talks about the evolution of shots.
In around 1908 actors would all be in a row and shot from far away, which
would now be considered “uncinematic”. The book then goes on to show
examples of how the shots have changed over the next 50 years. From this
chapter of the book I have learnt how far cinema has come. The film
“Accidents Will Happen” from 1907 has continuous wide shots and we can
see that six years later in “Red and White Roses” how much film advanced
in such a short space of time.
“In the narrowest sense, I take style to be a film’s systematic and
significant use of techniques in the medium. Those techniques fall into
broad domains: mise en scene… framing, focus, control of colour values,
and other aspects on cinematography; editing; and sound”
Tags:
Classic Film,
Movies, History,
David Bordwell,
cinematography,
Film Style, mise
en scene
The Significance of Stylistic Cinema

3. Summery: In 1891, Thomas Edison’s company developed the first
prototype for the kinetoscope. This used multiple images moving fast
enough to create one continuous moving image. The Lumiere brothers
were the first to project these images to an audience in 1895,
essentially creating the first cinema. However these films were all very
short, lasting around a couple of minutes, if not less. It wasn’t until the
early 1900s that films started getting longer and storytelling became
more common. In the first kinetoscope, Edison used 35mm film. Later
on in 1909 this was adopted as the industry standard.
Tags: History,
Cinema, Edison,
Kinetoscope,
Lumiere, film.
Summery of Cinema

4. Summary: This section gives the basic information on different shots that are used in
films. It explains in what way they’re used, for example it mentions close ups can be
used to show intimacy and give access to someone’s mind or thoughts. They are also
used to show the importance of a certain character. Medium shots are usually used for
indoor scenes allowing for “a visual signification of relationships between characters.”
This is very useful to show the basics as each shot shows something different. Using a
variety of shots is important in film and this section of the book teaches a wide variety
of them.
Tags: Cinema Studies,
Shots, Long Shots, Medium
Shots, Close-ups, Concepts
Different shots in
film

5. Summery: The term ‘horror’ wasn’t used to describe movies
until the 1930’s. Before this they were known as ‘Spook tales’.
The earliest recorded horror was in 1896, it was called ‘Le
Manoir du Diable’. It is three minutes long and includes all the
classic horror monsters, bats, devils, witches, etc.
At the beginning of the 20s, horror was starting to move
away from sets and began showing characters interacting
with real life locations. Hollywood, which favoured realism,
then began to start competing with Europe forcing the
filmmakers to compete themselves. Nosferatu in 1922 mixed
expressionist interior design with recognisable exteriors to
create a more realistic feel to the film. Haxan was much more
experimental in trying to figure out the rules of the genre at
the time. It featured gore, nudity, and a lot more explicit
imagery, which at the time was much more serious than it
would be now. Both of these experimental films were created
to compete with Hollywood.
Le Manoir du Diable (1896)
Tags: Horror, 1890s, 1920s, French, Haxan, experimental, European
Early Horror films

6. Horror Films in the 1930s
Summery: By the 1930s, horror was a very popular genre. This was the
beginning of Universal dominating the industry for the next two
decades. In 1931, they released Frankenstein, arguably one of the most
famous horror films of all time. The story is told beautifully, and they
managed the bring all sorts of emotion to a monster which, at the time,
had never been done before. The next year, Freaks was released. It’s a
dark story about circus folk who attempt to revolt against one of their
co-performers who’s attempting to marry into wealth. The director,
Todd Browning, cast people with real physical disabilities, making the
film even scarier at the time as it’s not something people saw that
often.
30s horror moves away from classic twisted love stories which were
common in the 20s, they use regular monsters with no emotional ties
rather than villains who’ve lost their loves. It created more intense films
and sometimes took a direct look at real social fears. A lot of the time
in these films was an intelligent man’s downfall.
“It’s easier to scare someone with something they have not seen or
experience before”.
Tags: Horror, thirties, Frankenstein, Freaks, Browning

7. The Invisible Man Special Effects
Summery: This documentary talks about how they created
the game changing special effects for the 1993 version of
The Invisible Man. As they couldn’t do any special effects in
post, as it was the 30s, all the effects shown were done on
camera. The top photo shows the main example of how
they achieved this invisible look. They covered the actor in
black felt which was the same colour as the background.
This created a fairly realistic invisible look unless you looked
closely. Another shot, the footprints in the snow, was
apparently the most difficult shot James Whale (the
director) had ever done. They had a fake floor with foot-
shaped holes in it and filled the wholes with blocks. They
then layered fake snow above it and unblocked the holes
when it was necessary to create the effect of the invisible
man walking. This was also difficult as the cameras had to
have been positioned in a certain way to avoid being able to
see below the snow, where it would’ve fallen.
Tags: Horror, The invisible man, SFX,

8. Origins of Horror
Summery: Although horror films are a concept which
began in 1896, the origins of horror stories can be
traced all the way back to 2000 B.C. with the
Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. It involved a variety of
contests between monsters and humans where
humans were used as tools for the Gods. Another
story similar to this is Homer’s Odyssey in 800 B.C..
Later in time the stories began to get more terrifying,
with Dante’s Divine Comedy in 1310, which gives
visions of eternal damnation. Although not seen as
very horrific now, in the days where religion was a
much more common thing damnation was a real
belief.
In 1764 Horace Walpole released The Castle of
Otranto, which is generally considered to be the first
horror novel. It tells the story of a prophecy that the
king believes is coming true due to his son dying, so
he attempts to marry his late son’s fiancé to counter
this prophecy, leading her to running away.Tag: Horror, novels, poetry,

9. Horror in the 1940s
Summery: By the 40s, horror had declined in both quality and
popularity. There are multiple reasons for this. The formula
and conventions of horror became too well established so they
became predictable, to the point where the same monsters
were being used over and over again. This was also the
beginning of people believing people would begin believing,
and even mimic what they were watching. This gave
Hollywood filmmakers certain regulations to follow when they
made horror. This meant they had to stick with material that
has been tried and tested, making the films repetitive to the
point where actors were typecast to in multiple movies a year.
To avoid certain subjects, such as supernatural being, it was
agreed upon that mad scientists were a safe enough subject. In
an attempt to keep some variety, you see different narrative
within the mad scientist genre. For example, in Dr. Cyclops
(1940) the scientist uses his colleges as subjects by shrinking
and then killing them, whereas in Son of Frankenstein (1939)
we see the scientist’s character arc as he destroys his creation
to amend after he sees the error of his ways
Tags: 40s, scientists,
hollywood, cyclops

10. How Horror Has Evolved
Summery: To a certain degree, horror has been going
on for all of mankind. It began with exaggeration.
Ancient people telling their story of a run in with a
horrific animal or tribe they had, making the story
more scary to seem more heroic. The bragging made
good stories as well as good listeners and it stopped
people from roaming too far out of fear from
something hideously dangerous. This evolved into
fairy tales, horror stories told to kids to make them
cling to their parents for comfort. Making the parents
seem fearless and brave, almost using horror as a
form of operant conditioning. From their upbringing,
boys were typically raised to be brave and fearless,
and so they were read horror stories to make them
strong. This made them better in war and fighting,
whereas when the women were told these same
stories, it’s suggested that it was to make them scared
and feel more needed.

11. Horror Films that Have Shaped the
Genre – Halloween
Summery – The United States Library of Congress
called Halloween “culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant” and it’s hard to argue why.
Halloween (1978), popularized the slasher genre,
creating a lot of what most would consider a cliché
today. This independent film had a budget of only
$300,000, yet grossed over $70 million worldwide.
Because of the lack of budget, they had to use a lot of
cheap items. The mask was created from an old
Captain Kirk mask which was changed to look more
lifeless. Halloween lead to other classics, such as
Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and
Scream. Credit is given to Psycho (1960), which is
considered to be the first slasher film.

12. The Genre Cycle
Summery: Giannetti’s genre cycle consists of four sections; Primitive,
classic, revisionist and parody. The horror genre has made its way
through this cycle completely over the course of its history. The first
stage, primitive, is the time where directors try to decide what makes
a genre, and the audience figure out what they should expect from
these types of films. This makes the films sometimes seem messy as
the directors find out what works and what doesn’t. Next is classic.
This is the genre in it’s prime, the follow a set of conventions that is
used in most films, and are usually seen as a prime period for the
genre. Third is revisionist. This is the time where films tend to drift
away from the usual conventions and try things differently that
haven’t been established yet in the genre. Finally it goes to Parodic.
These conventions used originally are exaggerated and created into
comedy.

13. Summery: Psycho is a psychological thriller loosely based
on real life serial killer Ed Gein (The same man who inspired
The Silence of The Lambs). As stated before, it is considered
to be one of the first Slasher film, and paved its way for the
next style of Horror. Not just with the sub-genre and
cinematography, but Bernard Herrmann score for the film
gave us the famous screech of violins, violas, and cellos (I
think this sound is still used today, although usually in
satirical horror films). The famous shower scene had 77
different camera angles alone, as well as 50 different
editing cuts. It was ground breaking due to many
differences it had compared to a normal horror film at the
time. The biggest star was killed towards the beginning of
the film, a twist that nobody saw at the time. As well as
this, viewers started to feel sympathy towards Norman
Bates, the killer, due to his mental problems. This was also
unusual at the time as bad guys were usually portrayed as
just evil, or at least complete a character arc and become
good. This was not the case for Norman Bates.
Psycho Pfeiffer, L. (2010). Psycho. Available: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Psycho-film-1960.
Last accessed 22nd Oct 2019.
Griffith, D. (2010). Psycho – Classic Hitchcock Horror Turns 50. Available:
http://www.voxy.co.nz/entertainment/psycho-%E2%80%93-classic-hitchcock-horror-turns-50/1117/51910. Last
accessed 22nd Oct 2019.

14. Jaws

15. Bibliography
• Bordwell, D. (1999). The Way Movies Look: The Significance of Stylistic History. In: On The History of Film Style.
2nd ed. Massachusetts : Harvard University Press. p1-11.
• Anon. (2011). A very short history of cinema. Available: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/very-short-
history-of-cinema/. Last accessed 24th Sep 2019.
• Hayward, S (2000). Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. p328-331.
• Wilson, K. (2017). The Silent Era of Horror Movies. Available:
https://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1920s. Last accessed 1st Oct 2019.
• Cosens, T. (2019). Horror Through The Ages Part 2: A Brief History Of The 1930s. Available:
https://25yearslatersite.com/2019/03/15/horror-through-the-ages-part-2-a-brief-history-of-the-1930s/. Last
accessed 8th Oct 2019.
• Skal, D. (2000). Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed!.Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ysmepAjLIs&feature=youtu.be&t=863. Last accessed 8th Oct 2019.
• Dixon, W. (2010). Origins. In: A History of Horror. New Jersey: Rutgers University. p1-25.
• Wilson, K. (2017). Horror movies of the 1940s. Available:
http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1940s. Last accessed 15th Oct 2019.
• Zillmann, D Gibson, R. (1996). Evolution of the Horror Genre. In: Weaver, J Tamborini, R Horror Films: Current
Research on Audience Preferences and Reactions. Alabama: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . p15-22.
• Anon. Halloween. Available: https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/56347?cxt=filmography. Last accessed
22nd Oct 2019.
• Watkins, Z. (2018). The Four Phases of Genre, The Bloody Olive. Available:
https://medium.com/@zayvvatkins/the-four-phases-of-genre-the-bloody-olive-one-film-a-day-n%C2%BA13-
9278b915b8df. Last accessed 5th Nov 2019.
• Pfeiffer, L. (2010). Psycho. Available: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Psycho-film-1960. Last accessed 22nd Oct
2019.
• Griffith, D. (2010). Psycho – Classic Hitchcock Horror Turns 50. Available:
http://www.voxy.co.nz/entertainment/psycho-%E2%80%93-classic-hitchcock-horror-turns-50/1117/51910. Last
accessed 22nd Oct 2019.
• Konow, D. (2013). The Robot Shark Technology of Jaws. Available: https://www.tested.com/art/movies/456576-robot-shark-
technology-jaws/. Last

16. More Bibliography
‘Le Manoir du Diable’ (Méliès, 1896)
‘Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh ‘ (Unknown, 1800 B.C)
‘Homer’s Odyssey’ (Unknown, 800 B.C)
‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’ (Alighieri, 1310)
‘The Castle of Ontranto’ (Walpole, 1764)
‘The Witch’ (Eggers, 2016)
‘MacBeth’ (Shakespear, 1606)
Wood, J. (2019). 20 Terrific John Carpenter Quotes About Horror Movies. Available: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/90977/20-john-
carpenter-quotes-about-horror-movies. Last accessed 12th Nov 2019.

17. Layout
• Opening
• First Section – Origins
• Second Section – Special Effects
• Third Section – Popularity of Sub Genres
• Conclusion