The Rough Guide To Horror Movies - Alan Jones

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THE ROUGH GUIDE TO
Horror
Movies
ROUGH
GUIDES
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The Rough Guide to Horror Movies Rough Guides Reference
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This first edition published September 2005 by The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the
Rough Guides Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL accuracy and currency of all information in The Rough Guide to
345 Hudson St, 4th Floor, New York 10014, USA Horror Movies; however, they can accept no responsibility for
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1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO
Horror
Movies
by
Alan Jones
www.ebook777.com
Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction viii
The Origins:
horror literature 1
The History:
over a hundred years of horror 11
The Canon:
50 horror classics 57
An American Werewolf In London 59 Dracula (1931) 84

Black Sunday 61 Dracula (1958) 87
Braindead 63 The Evil Dead 89
The Bride Of Frankenstein 66 The Exorcist 92
The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari 69 Eyes Without A Face 94
Cannibal Holocaust 71 Frankenstein 96
Carrie 73 Freaks 98
The Cat And The Canary 75 Halloween 101
Cat People 77 The Haunting 102
The Curse Of Frankenstein 79 The Innocents 104
Dawn Of The Dead 81 I Walked With A Zombie 106
Diabolique 83 Jaws 108
V
Near Dark 112 Ringu 139

A Nightmare On Elm Street 113 Rosemary's Baby 140
Night Of The Demon 115 Scream 142
Night Of The Living Dead 117
The Shining 144
Nosferatu 119
The Old Dark House 122 Shivers 146
Onibaba 123 The Silence Of The Lambs 148
Peeping Tom 125 The Sixth Sense 150
The Phantom Of The Opera 128 Suspiria 152
The Pit And The Pendulum 130 Switchblade Romance 155
The Plague Of The Zombies 132
Psycho 133 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 156
Re-Animator 135 The Uninvited 159
Repulsion 137 Witchfinder General 160
The Icons:
the faces of horror 163
The Global Picture:

horror movies around the world 217
The Information:
where to turn next 249
picture credits 265

index 267
vi
Foreword
If anyone is going to be your tour guide through have to thank Alan. It was 2001 and I had just
t h e realm o f h o r r o r m o v i e s , i t h a s t o b e A l a n completed my first feature film, Dog Soldiers,
J o n e s . I first read his n a m e o n m a n y a r t i c l e s a n d which Alan helped to make successful. The
r e v i e w s e x t o l l i n g t h e v i r t u e s (and failings!) o f t h e film's producer had come to the conclusion that
dark side of movies, as an enthusiastic teenager the title would be "Night Of The Werewolves",
already m a k i n g m y first t e n t a t i v e s t e p s i n t o f i l m - and no amount of persuasion would convince
m a k i n g a n d eager to splash s o m e b l o o d and guts
him otherwise. However, at the eleventh hour
a c r o s s t h e silver s c r e e n .
Alan heard of this development and intervened,
And I've two reasons to be eternally grateful telling him that Dog Soldiers was the best title
to Alan. The second he's only too well aware of, for the film and always would be. What Alan
and I'll get to later. The first came about many had was clout - the producer listened, and Dog
years before I made my first horror movie. Back
Soldiers won awards at film festivals on both sides
in the early 1980s the only access I had to hor-
of the Atlantic.
ror materials was Newcastle's sci-fi and horror
shop, Timeslip, a cramped and dusty Aladdin's So thank you Alan, for many hours of quality
cave. Back then, movie memorabilia was sacred, reading and a film title I can be proud of. All of
and unavailable in the high street stores, and on which brings me, in a roundabout way, to this
Saturday afternoons I would rummage through book. Alan Jones and horror movies go hand in
the boxes hoping to find hidden gems, such hand, and with the Rough Guide to Horror Movies,
as rare back issues of magazines like Starburst, Alan takes you beyond the shadows, through the
Fantastic Films and Fangoria. It was through these places you are afraid to go, and shows you hor-
that I began to read Alan's work and gain an ror in all its bloody glory. Enjoy.
appreciation and appetite for all things horror
that has taken me to where I am now. Neil Marshall, director of Dog Soldiers (2002)
Twenty years later came the second reason I and The Descent (2005)
vii
INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES
Introduction
Horror has b e e n a p a r t of my life f o r as l o n g as I men. Mike Childs is my best friend, and a pro-
c a n remember. Even as a c h i l d g r o w i n g up in t h e ducer at London's Capital Radio, who was asked
late 50s, I w a s d r a w n to t h e lurid p o s t e r art g r a c - to become the UK correspondent for the influ-
ing every release w i t h t h e p r o m i s e o f f o r b i d d e n ential American fantasy magazine Cinefantastique/
terror. T h e first d e s i g n to h a v e a real i m p a c t on CFQ. He asked me to help him write the feature
my c o n s c i o u s n e s s w a s Circus Of Horrors (1960) interviews and much of what we did together
- "He t u r n e d t h e g r e a t e s t s h o w on earth i n t o a ... on The Wicker Man (1973), Carrie (1976) and Star
Circus of Horrors!" - w h i c h was c o m p l e t e w i t h Wars (1977) is still being reprinted in books and
tumbling trapeze artists and knife-throwing gone read by scholars today.
w r o n g . I lost m y h o r r o r v i r g i n i t y t o t h a t f i l m a s
To go from being a starry-eyed rabid fan to
soon as I c o u l d pass for sixteen, as was neces-
interviewing Carrie director Brian De Palma for
sary t h e n t o see a n X - r a t e d f i l m t h e n , a n d i t w a s
two hours in the back of his limo on the way to
on a d o u b l e bill w i t h t h e e q u a l l y c l a s s i c Horrors Of
Heathrow airport was amazing and unforgettable.
The Black Museum (1959).
When Mike bowed out because of his workload,
The moment the victim's eyes were gouged I took over as sole C F Q correspondent and
out in the latter by booby-trapped binoculars, editor Frederick S. Clarke let me do anything I
everything I'd heard about the horror film was wanted.
proven true. I was shocked rigid! And the next Thanks to him I've met all my film idols, have
week, when I braved the steely stare at the box covered every major horror movie on location
office to see the Italian movie Blood And Black - the main body of quotes in this book com-
Lace (1964), I knew I'd never be the same again. ing from those interviews — and have banked a
From that moment on I wrote diary reviews raft of memories; these range from becoming
of everything I saw, a practice I kept up until I director Dario Argento's official biographer and
became a professional journalist specializing in visiting Chernobyl for Return Of The Living Dead:
the genre in 1977. I still go back to those reviews Necropolis (2005) to being a jury member at every
today for my gut reaction to seeing Rosemary's international horror film festival (and being given
Baby (1968) or the countless Hammer horrors of the original Lament Configuration box by G i v e
the period for the first time. You will read many Barker for helping him on 1987's Hellraiser). Fred
of those original observations in this Rough is so longer with us but there isn't a single day I
Guide. don't mentally thank him for turning my obses-
My journalistic career began because of two sion into my profession.
viii
INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIESI
and the age we live in, and even on our gender.

So what is horror? As children it's the fear of abandonment or the
This strong emotion, one of the oldest and deep- death of a parent. In our teenage years it's rite-
est of humankind, is what we feel when anything of-passage anxiety about our burgeoning sexu-
frightens us or promotes fear or terror. ality that fuels the flames of fear. In middle age
The urge to scare oneself witless might seem it's the possible death of a child or a loved one
masochistic. But exploring the notion of fear is that haunts our daily life. And in our older years
revealing. We can open ourselves up to being it's the fear of loneliness, isolation and death
scared if we know that no harm will befall us. that remains uppermost in the mind.
And it's the wave of relief once the fright is over As long as film exists as something that
that makes being scared so much fun. provokes the essential emotions of humanity,
Since the invention of cinema more than a the horror film will continue to exist too. The
century ago, this relief is what the horror movie technology behind films will change, as will the
has provided, while frequently dragging itself way that we view the finished product. But our
from the grave and reinventing itself. So it's no vulnerability, our terror of the unknown and
accident that the birth of the horror movie in our nightmares won't disappear; those irrational
Paris in 1896 coincided with the public accept- forces of chaos will, however, always be defeated
ance of psychoanalytical theory (and especially by a movie genre that is defined purely in terms
the teachings of Freud), which for the first time of its intended emotional impact.
openly discussed the ambivalence of human The Rough Guide to Horror Movies is designed
desire - horror is a direct conduit to uncon- to help you understand horror movies. You'll
scious fears and thoughts of love, pain and loss. find out how horror developed from its literary
And it's because it speaks of the unspeakable origins. You'll discover how the genre devel-
that it's so frequently attacked. Self-appointed oped, decade by decade, from the nineteenth
moral guardians often don't like the questions century to the twenty-first. You'll meet the
that are asked. icons of horror, from the directors to the most
But the roots of horror go back further. Safe famous characters. You'll encounter the themes
inside the four walls of a darkened cinema, we of horror movies around the world. And then
are begging to be frightened in the same way you can see where to head for more, depending
that we were in previous centuries, when sitting on where your taste lies.
by campfires listening to stories about mythical You'll also be given a tour of the 50 hor-
creatures and demonic villains. And countless ror movies that are essential when getting to
horror movies relate to the Bible. Religions grips with the history of horror. The list will,
extol a divinely inspired division between Good of course be, controversial — that is inevitable,
and Evil and have rules to follow, and many and no bad thing. But there are also dozens of
horror films are about breaking those rules and shorter reviews of other horrors to satisfy your
the punishment that rains down from above for curiosity.
such arrogantly transgressive behaviour.
Even if elements of horror stories are uni-
versal, what scares us depends on the age we are Alan Jones, 2005
www.ebook777.com
INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Keith Williams, Geoff Simm, Kjell Colin Pregent, Paul McEvoy, Ian Rattray, Billy
Wirum, Frances Lynn, David Cox, Mark Chainsaw, Sloan Freer, Rosemary Goodfriend,
Kermode, Nigel Floyd, Rel Pinto, Fernando Debbie Turner, Sue Blackmore, Chris Paton,Jane
Dos Reis Prazeres, Mark Ashworth, Dez Skinn, Gibbs, Frederic Albert Levy, Angel Sala, Mario
Alan McKenzie, Stephen Payne, Jonathan Rutter, and Beatriz Dorminsky, Chiara Barbo, Nicole
Anthony Timpone, Sharon Kent, Julia Wrigley, Gregory, Asia Argento, Guillermo del Toro, Don
Stefan Jaworzyn, Tim Lucas, Sue Oates, Buddy Mancini, Neil Marshall, Brian Yuzna, Christophe
Giovinazzo, Kim Newman, Damon Wise, Jamie Gans, Chris Smith, Nicolas Winding-Refn and
Graham, Greg, Sofie and Tobias Day, John Fallon, my tireless Rough Guides editor Daniel Crewe.
FOR DIEGO HERNAN CAVALLARO
X
Frontispiece from an 1831 edition of Mary

Shelley's Frankenstein
The Origins:
horror literature
Fear of death and the unknown, and a sense of awe at the uncontrollable power of
nature are common to almost all cultures. One of the functions of ancient religions
and mythologies has been to explain the many violent - and seemingly arbitrary
- events that shaped peoples' lives. It has mostly done so by creating an alterna-
tive world of gods and monsters beyond the realm of man. A supernatural world,
where the forces of good and evil are forever locked in conflict, and with which
mankind struggles to exist.
Man's heroic, and often horrific, interaction with with other terrifying beasts - where, in the form
forces larger than himself forms an integral part of a dragon, he is eventually vanquished by the
of the oldest surviving examples of literature, reli- archangel Michael.
gious and otherwise. Both the Babylonian Epic Man's essentially sinful nature (according to
Of Gilgamesh (c.2000 BC) and Homer's Odyssey Christianity) led to an obsession with the fate of
(c.800 BC) involve adventurers battling against an souls after death. This is reflected in Dante's elab-
array of malevolent monsters, sometimes helped orate poem of the after-life, The Divine Comedy
and occasionally hindered by the gods.The Bible (c. 1310), as well as in the wealth of horrific depic-
also contains an extraordinary collection of mon- tions of the Last Judgement that appeared in the
sters and demons, from the sea-beast Leviathan Middle Ages and the Renaissance - of which the
to Satan (aka the Devil), the arch-enemy of nightmare visions of Bosch and Bruegel are sim-
God. Satan was developed by Christianity into ply the most famous examples. The Middle Ages
the absolute embodiment of evil, and appears also produced an early werewolf tale in Marie
in the apocalyptic Revelation of St John — along de France's Bisclavaret (Lay Of The Werewolf), and
3
THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE
the first mention of the legend of the man who Renaissance period was that of Faust, an actu-
mocked Jesus on his way to the cross, and who al German necromancer whose exploits were
was thereby condemned to roam the earth until embroidered after his death into the tale of a man
Judgement Day. Recorded in the chronicles of who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for all
Roger of Wendover and Matthew of Paris, the the knowledge in the world. Among the many
man was only identified as the "Wandering Jew" writers to exploit the story v^ere Christopher
in later versions of the tale. Marlowe in his play The Tragical! History of Doctor
One of the most compelling legends of the Faustus (c.1590) and Goethe in his two-part dra-
matic poem Faust (1808 & 1833).
The work of Marlowe's contemporary
William Shakespeare also contains a good deal
of horrific and supernatural elements — from
the witches and ghosts in Macbeth (a supposedly
jinxed play), through the blood-soaked shocker
Titus Andronicus (which features rape, hand ampu-
tation and cannibalism), to The Tempest, set on
an island where a banished magician rules over a
motley assortment of spirits and monsters.
Ironically horror as a recognizably autono-
mous genre had its main origins in the eighteenth
century, the so-called Age of Enlightenment
when science and reason were meant to banish
superstition and ignorance for ever. Perhaps as
a reaction against this optimism, certain artists
and writers produced work that explored the
darker side of their own imaginations. One such
was Horace Walpole, the dilettante aesthete and
son of the prime minister, who produced the
first British horror novel. The Castle Of Otranto
(1764). Prompted by a nightmare (but claimed
to be based on an Italian original), it's a tale of
usurpation and skullduggery among the Italian
aristocracy — complete with ghosts, prophecies
and poisonings. The novel established a vogue
for what became known as Gothic fiction and
spawned a host of imitators.
Among the most successful was Ann Radcliffe,
who took Walpole's approach even further in her
five novels, and set out the parameters of the
An early vision of the Frankenstein monster Gothic horror romance in the most popular
4
Seasons griefings
Christmas became the traditional time to tell ghost stories in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Charles
D i c k e n s came up with one of the best, creating the quintessential image of the winter wonderland season,
complete with puddings and parties, in the process. A Christmas Carol has been Muppeted, Scrooged (1988),
animated and made into a musical, and the fable of the miser-turned-philanthropist, its plot based around Yuletide
ghosts and dark miracles, rarely fails to move.
Christmas cheer as a backdrop to crisis remains one of horror cinema's most frequently used devices, from
Deanna Durbin discovering husband Gene Kelly is a murderous psycho in Christmas Holiday (1944) to the trashed
trappings of a traditional Noel in Gremlins (1984). If that wasn't bad enough, Father Christmas was attacked by
demons in the Mexpioitation Santa Claus (1959), abducted by aliens in Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)
and zombie-fied in Trancers (1986).
But Santa has struck back in the most prolific of all Christmas-themed horrors, the violent night psycho Santa
slasher. The Amicus anthology Tales From The Crypt (1972) had J o a n Collins bludgeoning her husband to death
under the Christmas tree just as an escaped maniac dressed as Santa terrorizes the neighbourhood. Silent Night,
Bloody Night (1973) and Black Christmas (1974) also link the holiday with escaped lunatics and in You Better
Watch Out (1980) Santa steals from the toy company rich and gives to the handicapped poor while gouging out
eyes with tin soldiers. The film that became the pariah of parent-teacher associations in America, Silent Night,
Deadly Night (1984) had nude sleaze queen Linnea Quigley impaled on reindeer antlers; the free publicity made it
a hit and four sequels followed in rapid succession.
one, The Mysteries Of Udolpho (1794). With her concerns a man's bargain with Satan to extend
crumbling castles, misty landscapes, monstrous his life, and its terrible consequences.
crimes, and rationalized supernatural happenings, Gothic fiction was brilliantly mocked in 1818
Radcliffe laid the foundation for the entire genre, by Jane Austen in her clear-headed parody of
and in The Italian (1797) created the seminal dark the genre, Northanger Abbey, but the same year
and sexy hero. Her novels nearly always include saw the publication of one of the greatest works
a beautiful, virtuous heroine and a male tyrant, of literary horror: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein;
with a powerful tension between the two. Or, The Modern Prometheus. Begun as a ghost story,
More sensational still is The Monk (1795) by the finished work is a powerful tale of corrupted
M.G. Lewis, which tells of a charismatic and scientific ambition and nature's terrible revenge.
devout preacher who becomes a slave to lust Some critics have interpreted it as expressing an
and sexual depravity. The novel is set in Catholic underlying social anxiety at the speed of techno-
Spain which, like Radcliffe and Walpole's Italy, is logical change brought about by the Industrial
an exotic fantasy world where barbarism and civ- Revolution.
ilization are only thinly separated. Lewis's empha- Mary Shelley was part of the Romantic
sis on the extreme psychological struggles of movement which, with its emphasis on subjectiv-
his protagonist is even more marked in Charles ity and opposition to the idea that the universe
Maturin's Melmoth Tlte Wanderer (1820), which could be understood in purely rational terms,
5
was ideally attuned to exploring supernatural Murders In The Rue Morgue (1841). Poe brought
themes. It was also very much a pan-European a new psychological depth to tales of terror, for
phenomenon, existing against the backdrop of example in The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) in which a
the Napoleonic wars that were convulsing the man develops a neurotic obsession with the dis-
continent in the early nineteenth century. In eased eye of the old man with whom he boards.
Germany Heinrich von Kleist wrote a series of In the era of modern cinema Poe became the
deeply pessimistic short novels in which arbitrary most adapted of American authors.
and irrational acts of violence seem to govern As the nineteenth century was transformed
peoples lives. E.T.A. Hoffmann's work is even by the Industrial Revolution, economic growth
stranger: his first weird tale, Ritter Gluck (1809), led to an increasing appetite for reading material,
tells of a musician convinced he is the famous which was satisfied through the relative cheap-
composer Gluck, but his most familiar tale is ness of mechanized printing; and so the "penny
probably The Sandman (1816), a story of a young dreadful" was born. From the 1830s crudely
man who cannot free himself of the memory of printed and illustrated forerunners of the comic
a traumatic childhood incident which blights his book, such as The Terrific Register, Leisure Hour
existence. The Sandman reads like a Freudian case and Family Herald, began pandering to prurient
history, and indeed Freud made the story the and bloodthirsty tastes; horror tales published
centre of an influential essay in which he defined included Frederick Marryat's Tlie Phantom Ship
the uncanny as deriving its terror "...not from (1839), based on the Flying Dutchman legend, and
something externally alien or unknown but - on Lady Esther Hope's The Blue Dwaf (1861).The
the contrary — from something strangely familiar most famous was Varney The Vampire, Or The Feast
which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves Of Blood (1845), one of the earliest vampires and
from it." The early nineteenth century also saw the first to sport fangs, whose authorship was
an increasing awareness of indigenous folk litera- attributed to J.M. Rymer, though it may be the
ture, with writers like the brothers Grimm rekin- work of Thomas Preskett Prest. It was Prest
dling an interest in folk tales and fairy tales. who wrote the famous penny dreadful based on
The weaving of the bizarre into the real a French murderer of fourteenth-century legend
world by Hoffmann had an enormous influence that led to several versions of Sweeney Todd, Tlie
on the grotesque humour of Nikolai Gogol's Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. The period also saw
Russian stories (such as Diary Of A Madman, something of a craze for sensational theatrical
1835), as well as on the Americans Washington melodramas, the most famous being Maria Martin
Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan or Murder In The Red Barn (1840), based on the
Poe. Irving's most famous work, The Sketch Book famous murder case of 1827.
Of Geoffrey Crayon (1819), includes the short Often the penny dreadful stories were adapt-
stories The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow and Rip ed from the pages of contemporary newspapers,
Van Winkle; while Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote with the facts so distorted in their breathless
several successful horror stories, collected in Twice retelling that they became tangled up with real-
Told Tales (1837). Even more significant for the ity. This was the case with the story of "Spring-
genre was Edgar Allan Poe, one of the origi- Heeled Jack", a bogeyman of uncertain ori-
nators of the detective mystery story with Tlie gin who assaulted women indiscriminately and
6
Johnny Depp and Marc Pickering in Sleepy Hollow (1999), which was based on the timeless tale by Washington Irving
7
escaped from crime scenes by taking giant leaps fallout from the theft of a gemstone sacred to
on supposedly spring-loaded boots; the image Hindus, Collins was pretty well burned out as a
of him with pointy ears and nose, red glowing novelist.
eyes and ability to emit flame from his mouth are Meanwhile, in the same decade Irish writer
only embellishments to a figure who terrorized J. Sheridan Le Fanu was producing his own
London, starting in the 1830s. Headlines were contribution to horror literature: a series of
also made by Scottish body-snatchers Burke and supernatural tales which emphasised the mysteri-
Hare in the late 1820s - the influence for Robert ous and the inexplicable. His novel Uncle Silas
Louis Stevenson's The Body Snatcher (1885). (1864) and his most famous story, the vampire
Real life crime stories and the conventions tale Carmilla (1871), have both been filmed - the
of the Gothic novel were fused in the work of latter several times.
the now largely forgotten William Harrison By the 1880 and 90s the supernatural had
Ainsworth, whose 1834 novel Rookwood - a become so respectable a literary subject, that
highly romanticized account of the highway- many highly regarded authors tried their hand
man Dick Turpin — catapaulted him to success. at it. In France the cult of Poe (fuelled by
Crime stories (so-called "Newgate novels") were Baudelaire's translations) fed into the decadent
taken up by other novelists, including the young sensibilities of the Symbolists to produce a num-
Charles Dickens (Oliver Twst, 1838) and Edward ber of darkly morbid works such as the Contes
Bulwer Lytton (Eugene Aram, 1832), although Cruels (1883) of Villiers de l'lsle-Adam and J-
compared to Ainsworth their agenda was more K. Huysmans's Satanist novel La-has (1891).
social than sensational. The only Ainsworth novel Huysmans was an important influence on
to remain in print is The Lancashire Witches Oscar Wilde whose The Picture Of Dorian Gray
(1849), about a monk who sells his soul to Satan (1890) provides a modern take on the Faustian
and brings forth a whole progeny of witches. pact. Four years earlier R o b e r t Louis Stevenson
The rather more talented Charles Dickens was penned his famous tale of a hubristic scientist
responsible for the appearance of the first detec- in The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
tive in British fiction (Inspector Bucket in Bleak (1886), a story which offers an intriguing look
House, 1853) and for some of the finest ghost at the idea of a divided or repressed personality.
stories ever, including A Christmas Carol (1843) Stevenson's friend Henry James also wrote a
and The Signal-Man (1866). number of ghostly tales, of which the most dis-
Dickens's friend Wilkie Collins was the key turbing is the deeply ambiguous The Turn Of The
exponent of a literary sub-genre, the "sensation" Screw (1898), with its hints of child abuse and its
novel, which reached the height of its popular- unreliable narrative voice.
ity in the 1860s. Credited by Henry James with The same period also produced a classic vam-
introducing into fiction "those most mysterious pire novel in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and
of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own saw the appearance of Arthur Conan Doyle's
doors", Collins wrote The Woman In Wlxite in great detective Sherlock Holmes, a character with
1860 - a brilliantly plotted thriller that is equally an almost uncanny ability to unravel difficult, and
strong on atmosphere and suspense. By the time often gory, cases. One real-life case that Holmes
of The Moonstone (1868), which involves the might well have struggled with was that of Jack
8
the Rapper, who between August 1888 and July story from 1922. Heavily influenced by Poe, the
1889 committed a series of horrifyingly brutal dreamy settings of Lord Dunsany and the mysti-
murders of women in London's Whitechapel area cal writings of Arthur Machen, Lovecraft had a
that remain unsolved to this day. Fictionalized limited readership during his short lifetime, but
accounts of the murders appeared almost imme- his works in turn had a crucial impact on hor-
diately, but the best-known early novel based ror writers including Ramsey Campbell, Clive
on the case is The Lodger (1913) by Mrs Belloc Barker and Stephen King.
Lowndes, filmed by Hitchcock in 1926. Two further Lovecraft disciples were respon-
As the cinema era dawned, filmmakers appro- sible for reshaping the horror genre in modern
priated the bestsellers of the day to ensure a times. By attempting to get inside the mind of
guaranteed audience. So despite the diversity of a psychopath - in novels like The Will To Kill
their themes, authors such as Poe, Conan Doyle,
Shelley, Stevenson, Stoker, H.G. Wells (The
Island Of Dr Moreau, 1896), Gaston Leroux
(The Phantom Of The Opera, 1911) and Gustav
Meyrink (The Golem, 1915) were all lumped
together as horror writers, simply because their
material was voraciously drawn upon by the
founders of the genre. Also placed in this group
was the German writer Harms Heinz Ewers. A
friend of occultist Aleister Crowley, Ewers popu-
larized the Schauerromans ("shudder novels") of
the early twentieth century with his short stories,
Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, 1907),
Alraune (1911) and Vampir (1921). One of Ewers'
translators in America was Guy Endore, who
went on to write The Werewolf Of Paris (1933).
In England the scary ghost story was practi-
cally re-invented by M.R. James's Oh Wliistle
And I'll Come To You, My Lad (1904) and Casting
The Runes (1911). His stories emphasized the
hair-raisingly intangible to such a degree that
they are rarely filmed; the same is true for those
of the American writer responsible for creating a
wave of abnormally warped Gothic horror, H.P.
Lovecraft. His work was directly inspired by his
nightmares, and it is this insight into the symbolic
subconscious that resonates with latter-day film-
makers, as seen, for example, in Stuart Gordon's An engraving, published in Illustrated Police News in
Re-Animator (1985, see Canon), based on the 1889, imagines Jack the Ripper being caught
9
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(1954) and Psycho (1959) - Robert Bloch suc- Phantom Of The Paradise
ceeded in blurring the distinction between crime dir Brian De Palma, 1972, US, 91m
and horror fiction. More recently Anne Rice, in Brian De Palma's highly entertaining take on the Faust
her Vampire Chronicles series, breathed new life myth features the first rock'n'roll Faust. That's diabolical
into what had become the most cliche-ridden impresario Swan (Paul Williams), who buys the soul of
of horror sub-genres. Interview With The Vampire naive composer Winslow Leach (William Finley) in return for
(1976), the first and most celebrated of the series, stardom for his ingenue, Phoenix (Jessica Harper). A savvy
is remarkable for the way it creates a fully-realized satire on the music industry, it delivers glam rock camp, fun
world, one in which the vampires possess a wide chills and a witty send-up of the Psycho shower scene.
range of recognizable feelings and emotions.
Interview With The Vampire
dir Neil Jordan, 1994, US, 122m
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of
Anne Rice's chic and influential page-turner got short
Fleet Street
shrift in Neil Jordan's lacklustre, lightweight adaptation.
dir George King, 1936, US, 76m, b/w
Plantation owner Louis (Brad Pitt) is the reluctant
Until Stephen Sondheim's musical, George King's creaky bloodsucker who tells journalist Malloy (Christian Slater) the
and campy "quota quickie" was the most famous account story of how his life changed two centuries earlier when
of the barber with the trapdoor under his chair providing
he met master vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). Only Antonio
fillings for Mrs Lovett's pie shop. As played by the
Banderas (as the bisexual Armand) exudes any sense of
appropriately named Tod Slaughter, Sweeney Todd is a
the sinister/sexy charisma of the book.
cackling villain of the hammiest order whose corpulence
can be attributed to the steady supply of pastries.
Sleepy Hollow
dir Tim Burton, 1999, US/Ger, 105m
The Flesh And The Fiends
dir John Gilling, 1959, UK, 97m, b/w Washington living's legend of the Headless Horseman had
been ill-served until Tim Burton magisterially combined
Of the numerous films based on the exploits of body-
snatchers William Burke and William Hare, only director John alchemic adventure, splendid visuals, sly humour and
Gilling's Hammer-influenced chiller creates an atmosphere dreamy bloodthirstiness. A perfect cast - Johnny
that is both morbid and bleak. Peter Cushing stands out as Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson and Michael
effete pioneer surgeon Dr Knox, who strikes a fatal bargain Gambon - milk every nuance of menace and mirth from
with the venal grave robbers (played by George Rose and living's timeless tale while creating a supernatural Gothic
Donald Pleasence) for corpses on which to experiment. whodunit.
Le moine (The Monk) From Hell

dir Ado Kyrou, 1972, Fr/lt/WGer, 92m dir Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes, 2001, US/Cz, 123m
This adaptation of M.G. Lewis's trend-setting Gothic novel, By far the most enthralling and visceral stab at putting
without the book's supernatural excesses and shocking across the squalid horror of the Jack the Ripper story, the
finale, has depraved Father Ambrosio (Franco Nero) making Hughes brothers' adaptation of the cult graphic novel by
a pact with the Devil to escape investigation by the Spanish Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell is wonderfully textured
Inquisition for imprisoning and raping virginal nun Antonia and surreal. Fred Abberline of Scotland Yard is played by
(Eliana De Santis). Scripted by Luis Bunuel, who had
a superb Johnny Depp in a blood-soaked ripping yarn
always wanted to film it, the uninspired direction makes for
poised brilliantly between the stylization of Hammer and
Jumbled, academic sexploitation.
the atmospherics of Dickens.
10
Drew Barrymore in the self-reflexive

Scream (1996), Wes Craven's post-
modern Halloween homage
The History:
over a hundred
years of horror
There are certain themes that have recurred during the history of horror - vampires,
ghosts, zombies - all of which have been chosen to frighten the willing audience.
But in the past hundred years the films in which they have appeared have changed,
influenced by social, political and technological developments, and the genre that
exists today is also the result of the interaction between Hollywood and the film
industries outside America, who will be the focus of chapter five.
a puff of smoke. With this two-minute short,

The early years Le manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle), on
A large bat flies into a medieval castle. Circling Christmas Eve, 1896, at the Theatre Robert-
slowly, it flaps its monstrous wings and suddenly Houdin, 8 boulevard des Italiens, Paris, the horror
changes into Mephistopheles. Conjuring up a film was born.
cauldron, the demon then produces skeletons, On the night in 1895 that cinema was
ghosts and witches from its bubbling contents unveiled to the world by Louis and Auguste
before one of the summoned underworld cava- Lumiere, through the everyday image captured
liers holds up a crucifix and Satan vanishes in in The Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat, women
13
THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS
had screamed while men tried to hold on to their of the century that the only way that cinema
reserve. But the shriek of fearful surprise, when could have a future was if the boring travelogues
the locomotive seemed to be coming at them, and historical reconstructions were replaced by
became a laugh of relief. And that night this time- engaging dramas, he built the world's first movie
less combination, the cornerstone of the horror studio in the Paris suburb of Montreuil and
film to the present day, was famously noted by the devised the first special effects. By simply stop-
renowned stage illusionist Georges Melies. ping and restarting the camera, he made people
Fired by the possibilities opened up by the disappear; by replacing someone with a skeleton
new medium of the Kinetoscope, developed in he simulated a supernatural transformation.
the laboratory of Thomas Edison, Melies bought Such tricks reached their apotheosis in his
a camera to show moving pictures of magic tricks film Cinderella (1899) and in his classic achieve-
between the vaudeville and conjuring acts that ment of the first decade of film, Le voyage dans la
he showcased each night. Realizing at the turn lime (A Trip To The Moon, 1902). Meanwhile, in
Melies (bald, with moustache) directing at the end of the nineteenth century
14
THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S
England George Albert Smith had invented pelganger classic - five were released in the silent
"spirit photography" - double exposure - for era alone.
ghostly apparitions in The Corsican Brothers Stevenson's good-against-evil staple reflected
(1898); and although it was patented in Britain, the direction in which horror cinema was
Melies stole it wholesale for The Cave Of The moving. The monsters, myths and topics that
Demons (1898). endured all appeared from the very beginning
Such trickery meant that the fresh medium of because of their prior success in other media.
cinema was giving a new visual form to night- Frankenstein (1910), directed and written by J.
mares. But it was only when filmmakers went Searle Dawley, was the first attempt to capital-
beyond the short sharp sudden jolt into longer ize on the popularity of the many stage versions
pieces that horror really took a hold; adult audi- of Mary Shelley's monster; the second fea-
ences started paying attention to the circus side- ture-length attempt was Joseph W. Smiley's Life
show elements of early cinema only when the Without Soul (1916). Filmmakers grabbed best-
wealth of horror literature and the often more selling books and theatrical triumphs, as adapta-
lurid and melodramatic stage adaptations started tions of work by Edgar Allan Poe demonstrated:
making their way onto the screen via the studios The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Feather
— worldwide dream factories. became Maurice Tourneur's The Lunatics (1912);
The freak shows that horror films in many The Tell-Tale Heart provided technique pioneer
respects resembled became more sophisticated D.W. Griffith with the basis for his first hor-
when Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) ror hit, The Avenging Conscience (1914); and The
became Esmeralda (1906), featuring Quasimodo Masque Of The Red Death became Fritz Lang's
the hunchback. Directed by a woman, Alice The Plague In Florence (1919).
Guy, the pantomime plot was successfully pirated Other traditional themes appeared in films
around the world — in America it led to The such as The Werewolf (1913) and adaptations of
Hunchback (1909) and in Britain The Love Of A Oscar Wilde's Faustian The Picture Of Dorian
Hunchback (1910) —' and Quasimodo soon became Gray. Meanwhile The Monkey Man (1908) and
the first monster in a full-length horror film, in the Island Of Terror (1913), a thinly veiled version of
French triptych Notre-Dame de Paris (1911). H.G.Wells's The Island Of Dr Moreau, foreshad-
Before that the Danish director V i g g o owed gruesome transplant movies. The Vengeance
Larsen had put Sherlock Holmes in the ghostly Of Egypt (1912) was the first feature to be sold
The Grey Lady (1909) and Sir Arthur Conan on the strength of its Mummy terrors; Balaoo
Doyle's famous detective then appeared in three (1913), based on a newspaper serial by Gaston
German versions of The Hound Of The Baskervilles Leroux, featured as its tide character horror's first
(one in 1914, two in 1915). But for those with rampaging ape-man; and The Miser's Conversion
a more macabre palette, in 1908 there was Dr (1914), from man to ape, contained the first
Jekyll And Mr Hyde, which used the atmosphere screen transformation to use primitive make-up
and faster pace of the theatrical adaptation upon dissolves rather than a single jump cut.
which it was based to appeal to broader, cin- But the country most open to the imagina-
ematically inclined audiences. It was the first of tive possibilities of the fledgling fear industry was
many versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's dop- Germany. If Americans cared more about keep-
15
The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1919), a classic work of German Expressionism
ing audiences interested with pace and action, Homunculus (1916), about a laboratory-created
the Germans, who dominated the Expressionist superman turning malevolent, and the popular
art movement, accented the weird and wonder- Schauerroman ("shudder novel") oeuvre produced
ful. The Student Of Prague (1913) borrowed from the first version of Alraune (1918) and its mad
Poe's William Wilson and E. T. A Hoffmanns The scientist, it wasn't until The Cabinet Of Dr CaMgari
Sandman; it starred and was directed by Paul (1919, see Canon) that horror lost its pulp image
Wegener, who while filming in Prague came and took its rightful place as an artistic cinematic
across the legend of the Golem, just before the genre to be taken seriously.
publication of Gustav Meyrink's novel focusing on
the man of seventeenth-century Jewish folklore Dr J e k y l l And Mr Hyde
dir William Selig, 1908, US, 16m, b/w
moulded from clay to protect the ghetto from per-
The first American horror movie stuck closely to the 1897
secution. Wegener went on to play the milestone
stage version by Luella Forepaugh and George F. Fish,
German Frankenstein three times and directed the which starred Richard Mansfield, and It compressed the
two later manifestations (1917, 1920) himself. novel Into four acts, with a curtain rising and falling at each
While the most fashionable German hor- start and finish. The three-character piece - Jekyll, the
ror of the Great War era was the six-hour epic vicar and his daughter Alice, all played by actors who were
16
not credited - accented the sensational transformation that what could be achieved. Germany proffered one
resulted in the vicar's death.
menace masterpiece after another. F. W. Murnau
Frankenstein ripped off Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde for Der Januskopf
dir J. Searle Dawley, 1910, US, 16m, b/w (1920) before feeding on Bram Stoker for
"Many repulsive situations have been eliminated", stated
Nosferatu — eine Symphonie des Grauens (1921, see
the official press release for J. Searle Dawley's short version Canon) and minting an enduring vampire classic.
of Mary Shelley's classic. It was hardly selling the product, Paul Wegener's The Golem (1920), an elaborately
but was symptomatic of horror cinema's beginnings. expanded version of the novel, superbly lit by
Starring as the Monster, made like Shelley's in "a cauldron cinematographer Karl Freund, was a classic of the
of blazing chemicals" rather than through the electrical birth
legend, and Paul Leni directed the remarkable
of later versions, Charles Ogle created his own make-up for
the role of the untidily misshapen man who eventually looks omnibus Waxworks (1924). Fritz Lang's Between
in the mirror and flees in shock. Two Worlds (1921), in which Death recounts three
tragic tales, so impressed Alfred Hitchcock (see
The Avenging Conscience Icons), then an inter-title designer, producing
dir D. W, Griffith, 1914, US, 78m, b/w dialogue frames, that it confirmed his desire to
Widely regarded as horror cinema's first masterpiece, this become a director and greatly influenced his
adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart (also killer chiller The Lodger (1926).
with sections from his Annabel Lee) finds Henry B. Walthall All these foreign names would be lured to
justifying the murder of his sweetheart's tyrannical uncle
America to help shape the Hollywood horrors
among potent religious visions and spider-web images.
Effective editing of clock-ticking, shoe-tapping and bird- that the rest of the world would rush to imitate.
calling establishes the dead man's heartbeat before the Sweden's Victor Sjostrom followed the emigre
nightmarish conscience attacks. talent after his skilled direction and starring role
in The Phantom Carriage (1920), which outlined
Alraune the story that anyone dying at the stroke of mid-
dir Mihäly Kertesz, 1918, Hu, 80m, b/w night on New Year's Eve is condemned to drive
Because of its popularity, two versions were filmed in a death coach for the next twelve months. The
1918 of Hanns Heinz Ewers' Schauerroman about a mad Danish director Benjamin Christensen, who
scientist artificially inseminating a prostitute with a hanged
had made Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922), also
murderer's seed to produce the demonic beauty Alraune.
The German version, directed by Eugen Hies and Joseph went to America, where he switched to a simi-
Klein, was not as good as the effort by Hungarian director lar if less threatening parade of witches, dwarfs,
Mihäly Kertesz - who changed his name to Michael Curtiz madmen and crazed gorillas in Seven Footprints
for Doctor X (1932) - which had the prostitute copulating For Satan (1929). Italian directors stayed put,
with a mandrake root. even though Eugenio Testa's The Monster Of
Frankenstein (1920) was the last horror film in the
country for nearly forty years because of hugely
restrictive censorship.
The Twenties The contrast between European and American
horror movies was stark. Whereas European stu-
The Twenties started with the expressionism of dios went for dark artistry and inner meaning,
films led by The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari showing in America studios were interested solely in
17
cheap thrills and marquee exploitation. Dr Jekyll The true make-up genius of the era was the
And Mr Hyde (1920) was the prime example: startling Lon Chaney (see Icons), who starred
John Barrymore, the prince of Broadway's in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923) and The
royal family, played handsome Henry Jekyll, who Phantom Of The Opera (1925, see Canon). He was
under close scrutiny contorted himself into an also the first horror artist to understand genuinely
expression of ancient evil; only after inserting a that no amount of facial distortion, skin putty or
shot of fingers dissolving into bony talons did false hair could itself create a believable character;
director John S. Robertson cut back to show he realized that however warped his monstrosi-
Mr Hyde's abnormal pointed head and his face ties were in body and soul, unless his characters
in grease-painted glory. A theatrical tour de retained their humanity they wouldn't reach out
force of character dislocation, associated with the to the audience.
prestigious name of Barrymore, it led many film But it was the combination of Chaney and
critics to proclaim that horror was, in effect, the director Tod Browning (see Icons) that gave
new black. the silent screen its most chilling moments and
John Barrymore (standing), whose name contributed to the success of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
18
grotesque villains. Exercises in disturbing and

masochistic self-loathing hit home because
people had become used to the scarring and
amputation ofWorld War I: the victims of bar-
barity were visible on street corners begging
for charity, and newsreel footage had often
been seen unedited, so Chaney and Browning
had to crank up their images to make an
impact.
Meanwhile D. W. Griffith's One Exciting
Night (1922) profited from the trend of
jokey haunted house mysteries that peaked
with Paul Leni's The Cat And The Canary
(1927, see Canon). And as was also visible in
the Benjamin Christensen films The Haunted
House (1927) and The House Of Horror (1929),
and Browning's Chaney vehicle London After
Midnight (1927), these horrors rationalized
their denouements, underlining the American
practice of debunking real fears with laughter
and deception. This vogue for tiresome spoof
shockers would smother the gentle flowering
of a darker and broader-based horror genre
until the start of the Thirties.
The movies that took their subjects more Laura La Plante with company in the haunted house mys-
seriously included two Faustian tales. Frank tery The Cat And The Canary (1927)
Tuttle's Puritan Passions (1923), an adaptation
of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Feathertop, borrowed core, the second all-talking motion picture from
German imagery for its depiction of a witches' Warner Bros, Roy Del Ruth's The Terror (1928) -
Sabbath and a mirror of truth where sinners the first was Vie Lights Of NewYork (1927) - tested
see themselves for whom they really are. D. W the waters of sound for the growing horror indus-
Griffith's The Sorrows Of Satan (1925), based on try. An adaptation of a play by Edgar Wallace that
Marie Corelli's Victorian bestseller, laid down the had become an enormous West End success, it was
first guidelines for future psychological horrors. essentially just another haunted house affair, and
By giving the hero's reaction to Lucifer, who was owed debts to both The Phantom Of The Opera and
visible as giant bat-wing shadows, Griffith estab- The Cat And The Canary. It featured a homicidal
lished the precept of never showing too much asylum escapee hiding in an old country mansion
on screen. and terrorizing the guests with his organ playing
After the first tearful sobs of Al Jolson in The and his habit of creeping around in a hangman's
fazz Singer (1928) shook silent Hollywood to the hood and cloak. The credits were spoken and
19
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scenes set by Conrad Nagel and the effects of the Waxworks

Vitaphone sound-on-disc process meant that for dir Paul Leni, 1924, Ger, 65m, b/w
the first time every door-creak, wind-howl and Designed with swirling Expressionistic flair and using light
flash of lightning could be heard, as well as eerie and shadow to perfection, director Paul Leni's classic
organ music. The Terror was hopelessly stagy and anthology, about a writer furnishing the proprietor of a
acted stiffly — everyone was too self-conscious wax museum with stories of various chamber of horrors
exhibits, artfully unleashes the full stylistic potential of silent
about being in the range of a microphone — and
horror. Caliph Harun al-Rashid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack
received poor reviews, but what it showed about the Ripper are the three historical figures seen respectively
the contribution that sound could make to a hor- in opulent palaces, nightmarish torture chambers and
ror story did not go unnoticed. London's East End in a slice of fanciful fear that looks
It was also clear that sound could be used for fabulous.
effects that were marvellously macabre. For when
The Lodger
Lon Chaney, dressed as a woman in the remake
dir Alfred Hitchcock, 1926, UK, 96m, b/w
The Unholy Three (1930), gave away his identity
on the witness stand by accidentally letting his A policeman's sexual jealousy compels him to accuse
a mysterious stranger of being the strangler terrorizing
voice assume its normal masculine sound, audi-
London in Hitchcock's third film, subtitled A Story Of The
ences realized how powerful the fusion of images London Fog. It was the first of his works to show the
and sound could be. influence of German Expressionism and introduces many
of his favourite plot devices (false accusations, moral
Witchcraft Through The Ages ambiguity) as well as many images that he would later
dir Benjamin Christensen, 1922, Swe, 87m, b/w develop brilliantly (staircases, psychological symbols).
Christensen, a former opera singer, found his surreal silent
shockumentary banned in many countries because of its
nudity, stomach-turning fiction and sacrilegious imagery.
Tracing the history of diabolism from the witchcraft trials
of the fifteenth century to modern-day possession, this The Thirties
grotesque terror inspired by Bosch and Goya attempts
"to reconstruct those wretched aberrations of an age There were two forces behind the true start of
when Satanism disturbed many souls" and is still powerful cinematic horror — a description that can be
and unique. Christensen plays the Devil as well as the used in only the loosest of ways to describe the
psychiatrist who explains the strange happenings. genre during Hollywood's formative years. First,
as the movie industry experimented with the
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame possibilities of sound, many silent crowd-pleasers
dir Wallace Worsley, 1923, US, 108m, b/w were made into talkies, the results including Lon
This silent version of Victor Hugo's classic novel impresses Chaney's swansong The Unholy Three (1930) and
with its epic sets and showcasing of Lon Chaney's Rupert Julian's The Cat Creeps (1930), a remake
inimitabiiity as a pantomime artist and make-up genius;
of The Cat And The Canary. Second, the world
here he wears a plaster hump for his performance. As
desperately needed diversions after the Wall Street
Quasimodo, infatuated with gypsy dancer Esmeralda (Patsy
Ruth Miller), and outraged at the social injustice she faces, Crash in 1929 ushered in the Depression, and
Chaney reveals one of horror cinema's purest hearts - one through horror films audiences could draw slight
willing to risk ridicule in order to be loved. comfort in fates worse than their own.
20
Only when Universal found that the medium-

budget Dracula was building into their biggest
cash cow did the studio declare in the trade press
their intention of making "another horror film". It
was the first time the term had been used, and so
the Stoker saga became the inaugural horror film
in retrospect. But the floodgates soon opened,
with Universal unleashing their iconic catalogue
of monsters and mayhem: Frankenstein (1931, see
Canon), The Mummy, Murders In The Rue Morgue
(both 1932), The Old Dark House (1932, see
Canon), The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935),
Werewolf Of London (1935), and son, daughter and
bride sequels to their most famous franchises.
The innocent pathos of Frankenstein turned
in The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935, see Canon)
to cynical wit, because James Whale (see Icons)
so resented being forced to direct it, and Son Of
Frankenstein (1939) was pure exploitation; and
this cycle of peaks and troughs was repeated by
other studios, producers and actors tied to the
genre. The careers of Bela Lugosi and Boris
Karloff (see Canon in both cases) echoed the
A key moment from The Black Cat (1934), starring Bela
trend and served as a sobering thought to anyone
Lugosi, a classic Universal horror from the Thirties
who saw one of these typecast individuals and
thought about following their footsteps.
But new stories were needed for this new-
Other studios saw the huge grosses that
found voracious mass audience. Universal had
were being earned and eagerly hopped onto
made a name for themselves in the silent hor-
ror tradition with groundbreakers such as The the horror bandwagon. Dr fekyll And Mr Hyde
Hunchback Of Notre Dame and The Phantom Of (1931) featured Fredric March in the first
The Opera, so business sense, particularly in tough Oscar-winning horror performance, as well as
economic times, led them to similar frights from groundbreaking transformation effects achieved
literature and legend. Yet only with the success with clever lighting techniques. Doctor X (1932)
ofTod Brownings Dracula (1931, see Canon) did was the first horror to be shot in two-strip
the recognizable world of movie monsters take Technicolor, which presented an oddly ethereal
shape — the claustrophobic universe of fog-bound atmosphere to the few people who saw it, and
forests, imposing castles, torch-bearing peasants the second Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933)
and gothic melodrama firmly placed in a mythic was the first film using the same process to be dis-
Mitteleuropa. tributed on a wide scale; the latter also launched
the combination of chills and laborious comedy
21
Fay Wray (1907-2004)

Horror cinema's first "scream queen" was the Canadian-born actress best remembered as the leather-lunged
heroine Ann Darrow who fascinated the giant ape in King Kong (1933). Born Vina Fay Wray, she made her horror
debut in the human-hunting shocker The Most Dangerous Game (1932), which she followed with DoctorX (1932),
Mystery Of The Wax Museum and The Vampire Bat (both 1933), before nestling in Kong's paw. Her career then
went into decline and at the start of the Forties she retired for ten years. Her autobiography, On the Other Hand: A
Life Story, was published in 1989, and just before her
death in 2004 she turned down an offer from direc-
tor Peter Jackson of a cameo appearance in his King
Kong remake.
Peter Loire (1904-1964)

Twelve lines of dialogue in Fritz Lang's M (1931) made
Peter Lorre a star. As the psychopathic child-killer who
screams that he can't help his compulsion, the pop-
eyed, squat Hungarian, born Laszlo Lowenstein, made
the most of his whining accent, and it became his sig-
nature. Although best known for The Maltese Falcon
(1941) and Casablanca (1943), horror was Lorre's
forte, as he proved in films such as Mad Love (1935),
The Face Behind The Mask (1941) and Arsenic And
Old Lace (1944), and then in the early Sixties in two
Poe films with Roger Corman, Tales Of Terror (1962)
and The Raven (1963), and Jacques Tourneur's The
Comedy Of Terrors (1964). He was known for his wick-
ed sense of humour, quipping to Vincent Price on see-
ing Bela Lugosi's body at his funeral: "Do you think we
should drive a stake through his heart just in case?"
Lorre in the film that established him, M (1931)
that became more pronounced as the decade O'Brien's stop-motion model created the world's
wore on. Meanwhile White Zombie (1933) was most famous ape, thanks to skilful mixing of
the debut for a sub-genre that was soon to be exotic adventure and horror-tinged fantasy by
far grislier and Peter Lorre astounded in his Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper.
first American role in Mad Lope (1935), the best In the rest of the world, horror movies almost
version of Maurice Renard's terror staple The failed to develop at all, with other countries' film
Hands of Orlac. And in the "Beauty and the Beast" industries affected by civil wars, political turmoil
fable King Kong (1933), starring Fay Wray,Willis and stricter censorship. But from Germany came
22
Vampyr (1931). Based on J. Sheridan Le Fanu's of the horror movie had been diluted by studio
Carmilla, Carl Theodor Dreyer's pale and hazy complacency, as was clearest when Bela Lugosi
impressionism — initially the result of a lighting met the three Ritz Brothers in The Gorilla (1939),
fault but then adopted throughout - formed one and what had at first been treated as a serious
of horror's most powerful evocations of a night- genre with great potential was downgraded to
mare world that was logically skewed. It was the popcorn material.
first horror to find cryptic chills in the recesses of
the unconscious mind, but like Arthur Robison's Vampyr
remake Der student von Prag (The Student Of dir Carl Dreyer, 1931, Ger/Fr, 83m, b/w
Prague, 1935), it barely found an international Although not a great success when released, and
despite mainly featuring non-professionals, this revered
audience because it was not recreated and refash-
genre pioneer's evocation of a nightmare world, based
ioned by Hollywood. on J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, later became widely
The only country where there was no down- acclaimed. Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg financed the
swing during this period was Mexico. Thanks to project and plays the hero, David Gray, who is given
interest in the Spanish version of Dracula, shot on a vampire combat book by an apparition. In the most
Tod Browning's sets during the night by George celebrated sequence Gray is buried alive in a glass-
windowed coffin.
Melford and starring Carlos Villarfas, the native
horror tradition flourished. La llorona (The Crying
Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Woman, 1933) was the first Mexican horror to
I dir Rouben Mamouiian, 1931, US, 96m, b/w
feature the legendary wailing ghost mourning her
"Put yourself in her place! The dreaded night when her
dead child that would last into the Sixties; it was lover became a madman!" ran the tagline to a classic,
scripted by Fernando de Fuentes, who directed enduring adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's oft-
the country's best-known horror of the period, abused text, in which the timeless theme is given a
El fantasma del convento (The Phantom Of The powerful and shocking adult treatment. Fredric March
Convent, 1934), about a mummified monk haunt- supplies the first of his two Oscar-winning performances,
and particularly impressive is the one-take metamorphosis
ing an eerie monastery. Its writer, Juan Bustillo
using Wally Westmore's celebrated make-up and special
Oro, also became a director, making the Caligari- lighting filters.
esque Two Monks (1934), and Nostradamus (1936).
Two variations on Frankenstein, The Macabre Trunk Island Of Lost Souls
(1936) and The Macabre Legacy (1939), continued dir Erie C. Kenton, 1932, US, 72m, b/w
the Mexican wave. This is the definitive adaptation of The Island Of Dr Moreau,
The decade ended with three landmarks in though it was loathed by H. G. Wells and banned in Britain
1939 — Bob Hope's comedy horror vehicle The until 1958. It features fabulous photography, an atmosphere
Cat And The Canary, Tod Slaughter's The Face At that is morbidly perverse, and one of Charles Laughton's
best performances, as the crazed doctor transforming wild
The Window and Sidney Lanfield's The Hound
beasts into hideous manimals. The grim finale, in which
Of The Baskervilles, the first appearance by Basil Moreau is dragged to the House of Pain for surgical torture,
Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes — but it was is a suitable climax to a gripping, uncompromising and
apparent that the genre was deteriorating, often mature vivisectionist nightmare.
turning into plodding pastiche. The innovation
23
The Most Dangerous Game (aka The

Hounds Of Zaroff)
dir Ernest B, Schoedsack, 1932, US, 63m, b/w
Produced by the same creative team as King Kong, and at
the same time, this Sadeian shocker concerns decadent
connoisseur of forbidden pleasures Count Zaroff (Leslie
Banks), who hunts shipwrecked humans (including Fay
Wray) for fun. Its top-notch art direction, and Banks's
style and restraint as the twisted hedonist, produce a
tightly constructed terror zinging with nastiness that in its
time was hard-hitting and explicit - not least in the dark
eroticism implied in the post-chase revels.
The Forties
By 1940 Hollywood film production and dis-
tribution was highly organized and stratified.
The double feature was the norm, resulting in a
division between A- and B-movies; the latter got
lower budgets and lower billing, and became the
home for horror because the saturated market for
products of the genre had resulted in audiences
declining significantly.
Horror directors, including Tod Browning and
James Whale, had been weeded out of the system
by the studios, though there were exceptions,
such as Erie C. Kenton (Ghost Of Frankenstein,
1942) and Robert Florey (The Beast With Five
Fingers, 1946). Films in the declining genre were
aimed increasingly at younger audiences, and the
quirkiness of auteurs such as Whale didn't sit well
with such superficial thrill-seekers. In any case,
adults were far more preoccupied with the very
real terrors of World War II. In Britain, horror
movies were effectively suppressed at this time;
there was no actual ban but films that already had
the H certificate, introduced in 1937, were with-
drawn by studios and distributors and between
1940 and 1945 only four made it to the screen.
24
A few horror productions with big stars,

lush settings and soft shocks rather than hard
ones made inroads into the collective con-
Lon Chaney Jr (1906-1973)
sciousness: the lavish The Phantom Of The Opera Always to remain in the shadow of his iconic father, the
(1943), starring Claude Rains; The Climax actor born Creighton Chaney first found fame when he
(1944), an attempt at a sequel in which Boris played the simple-minded Lennie in Lewis Milestone's
adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men
Karloff makes his debut in colour; the elegant
(1939). Using the same brand of pathos, The Wolf
The Uninvited (1944, see Canon) with Ray Man (1941) made him a star, and he became the only
Milland; the stately The Picture Of Dorian Gray actor to play all four classic movie monsters: The Wolf
(1945), for which Angela Lansbury was Man, the Frankenstein monster, Kharis (the Mummy)
nominated for an Oscar and the magnificent and Count Dracula. But personal problems, includ-
photography won one; and the respectable, if ing alcoholism, gradually pushed him towards horrors
ponderous, Spencer Tracy remake of Dr Jekyll that were cheaper and trashier, including Man Made
And Mr Hyde (1941). Monster (1941), Face Of The Screaming Werewolf
(1959) and The Alligator People (1959), and among his
At the other end of the spectrum were a host
later credits only Spider Baby, Or The Maddest Story
of cheaper horrors, with either Bela Lugosi or Ever Told (1968), for which he sang the theme song,
the still commanding Boris Karloff (or both), or has any real cult merit. Dracula Vs Frankenstein (1971),
lower-ranked wannabes such as Lon Chaney Jr his last film, is his worst.
and John Carradine. There was the occasional
innovative idea, such as the mummifying gas in
The Mad Ghoul (1943) or Erich von Stroheim
as a sleazy magician in The Mask Of Diijon (1946). John Carradine (1906-1988)
But most of these potboilers had make-do pro- "I've made some of the greatest films ever made - and
duction values, and usually they were bottom-of- a lot of crap too," said the actor born Richmond Reed
the-barrel fillers, like The Ape (1940), The Devil Carradine of a career that took in more than 250 mov-
Bat (1941) and The Mad Monster (1942), made by ies. The good ones include Stagecoach (1939), The
Grapes Of Wrath (1940) and The Ten Commandments
bargain-basement outfits such as Monogram and
(1956); the bad mostly include his horror output,
PRC who established themselves as efficient if examples being Revenge Of The Zombies (1943), Billy
threadbare fear factories. The Kid Vs Dracula (1966) and Satan's Cheerleaders
Only R K O producer Val Lewton (see Icons) (1977). His association with Universal began with The
cut through the dross, with his eleven evocative Black Cat (1934) and included the role of Dracula in
horrors that started with Cat People (1942, see House Of Frankenstein (1944) and House Of Dracula
Canon). Another highly influential movie was (1945), and later notable horrors included The Boogey
Man (1980) and House Of The Long Shadows (1983),
Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1946),
the only film to star Carradine, Christopher Lee, Peter
which concerned a homicidal maniac whose
Cushing and Vincent Price. But in his declining years
dedication to preserving beauty compels him to he was mainly locked into cheap exploitation, such as
rid the world of maimed or disfigured imperfect Vampire Hookers (1978) and the disco horror Noctuma
women. Alfred Hitchcock and Dario Argento (1979). Three of his sons became actors.
would dramatically embellish Siodmak's startling
use of a murderer's point-of-view.
25
When the first wave of horror had receded, Fernandez Bustamante's The Revolt Of The
Universal had stayed afloat thanks to the modest Ghosts (1949), in which the phantoms of Chopin,
musicals starring Deanna Durbin; but when all Paganini, Caruso, Tutankhamun, Don Quixote,
the horror classics were re-released and made just The Crying Woman and The Wandering Jew
as much money second time around the studio join forces to stop a house being demolished.
found itself back in the fright business. But no There were also three notable Mexican movies
real care or protective handling was taken when directed by R e n e Cardona starring English
the favourite old monsters returned in ever more illusionist David T. Bamberg, appearing under
routine and desperate sequels: The Mummy's Hand his stage name Fu Manchu: El espectro de la
(1940), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Ghost of novia (Spectre Of The Bride, 1943), El as negro
Frankenstein (1942) - the first without Karloff (The Black Ace, 1944) and La mujer sin cabeza
- and Son Of Dracula (1943) were all racked by (The Headless Woman, 1944). In Japan the kai-
sloppy storytelling and continuity errors. (In The dan eiga ("ghost story"), which had been seen
Mummy's Hand,Wallace Ford's character is Babe as irrational and suspicious in the war years,
Jenson, but in The Mummy's Tomb he returns as a regained its footing; the foundations were laid
member of the original expedition with the name when Keisuke Kinoshita made Nanboku
Babe Hanson.) Telling the stories for sheer dra- Tsuruya's mythic kabuki play of 1825 into
matic effect, Universal never worried if an ending Shinshaku Yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost OfYotsuya
precluded the possibility of a character returning; - New Version, 1949).
when a profit-making sequel was required, any The first horror film to be made in Britain
inconveniences were simply ignored. after the wartime smothering adopted Val
But Universal did create a classic monster Lewton's philosophy of suggestion. Ealing
character in The Wolf Man (1941), through the Studios' Dead Of Night (1945), an omnibus with
addition of fake folklore to the werewolf myth parts directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles
and Lon Chaney Jr's sympathetic central per- Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer,
formance. And it was Universal who had the starred Michael Redgrave as the host at a
idea of adding monsters to successive features: country cottage that one guest recognizes as a
Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) led to place from his worst nightmares, triggering an
the rallies House Of Frankenstein (1944) and exchange of frightening stories; and a vicious
House Of Dracula (1945), both of which feature circle of terror is formed by the self-contained
the Frankenstein monster, Dracula and the Wolf tales, including Hamer's The Haunted Mirror and
Man. The conclusion of these creature features Cavalcanti's The Ventriloquist's Dummy, in which
was the first of the virtually laughter-free scare Redgrave surrenders his will to his living pup-
spoofs, Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein pet. Acclaimed as a supernatural masterpiece,
(1948). it tentatively began the British horror revival
Around the world horror movie produc- that would explode in the mid-Fifties thanks to
tion had virtually evaporated, but there were the efforts of H a m m e r , and also foreshadowed
again decent efforts from the Spanish-speaking the frequent use of the anthology format by
territories. Mexican filmmakers made monster another British studio, Amicus - Hammer's
combos like Universal did, such as Adolfo biggest rival.
26
Creature feature meets scare spoof: Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
27
The Ghost Breakers wife whom he killed in order to marry a rich heiress. The
dir George Marshall, 1940, US, 82m, b/w accepted definitive version of this classic tale, however,
came from Nobuo Nakagawa in 1959.
This horror comedy remake of Paul Dickey and Charles W.
Goddard's play from 1909 is definitely Bob Hope's best
movie vehicle. Hiding from the Mob, radio personality Larry
Lawrence (Hope) and his manservant (Willie Best) go to
Cuba, where Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard) has inherited
a haunted castle. Cue the beloved Hope quips - when
The Fifties
they arrive during a thunderstorm: "Basil Rathbone must It's no wonder that the science fiction genre was
be throwing a party" - and well-orchestrated frights from created at the beginning of the Fifties: human-
zombies, coffins and poltergeists.
kind was on the threshold of space travel and
The Picture Of Dorian Gray paranoia reigned as the development of nuclear
iir Albert Lewin, 1945, US, 110m weapons during the Cold War hinted at the
The classic, award-winning version of Oscar Wilde's novel
extinction of the species. But the sci-fi genre,
stars Hurd Hatfield as the Victorian London rake staying after starting with thoughtful, hopeful space
young while his portrait ages because of his decadent opera parables such as Destination Moon and The
lifestyle. As the cynical friend Lord Henry Wotton who Day The Earth Stood Still (both 1951), gradually
puts evil thoughts into Dorian's impressionable mind, moved on. By taking rules and characteristics of
George Sanders shines, playing Wilde in all but name,
the horror film — such as the adoption of the clas-
spouting pithy one-liners ("Faithfulness is merely laziness").
Meanwhile the dark depravity builds up to the climactic sic horror creature the spider, in Tarantula (1955)
revelation - in colour! - it became a far more frightening hybrid and
before long cinema audiences were being terror-
The Beast With Five Fingers ized by Them! (1954) and Invasion Of The Body
dir Robert Florey, 1946, US, 88m, B/w Snatchers (1955).
In the last decent American horror movie for nearly a Horror suffered initially as a result of the subtle
decade, Peter Lorre is superb as the occult scholar who drift of science fiction, but before long there was a
is driven to murder the famed pianist (Victor Francen)
major revival for the genre. The studio system, in
for money and is then psychologically terrorized by his
victim's severed hand. Brilliantly directed by Robert Florey which organizations such as M G M kept stars on
for maximum eeriness, scenes of the disembodied hand salaries and had their own cinemas, had collapsed,
crawling like a spider, poised like a cobra while playing and with many stars freelancing to boost their
Bach, getting impaled by a letter spike and strangling Lorre salaries, it was attention-grabbing, sensational plots
contain awe-inspiring special effects. rather than individuals that had to become the
Shinshaku Yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost
selling points; and this was also the case at a time
Of Yotsuya - New Version) when fewer but more lavish films were made to
dir Keisuke Kinoshita, 1949, Jap, 85m, b/w
challenge the rising medium of television.
The film industry had to find ways of luring
Radically altering the plot of Nanboku Tsuruya's kabuki
staple from 1825 for the spirit of the post-Hiroshima era, back patrons with anything that marked out the
Keisuke Kinoshita energized the moribund kaidan eiga cinema as different. One was to increase screen
genre with his poetic, subtle and seductive tale of an dimensions, with use being made of Cinemascope
unemployed samurai who is haunted by the ghost of the and Cinerama away from large expositions and
28
Vincent Price hovering over a victim in House Of Wax (1953), the first major feature in 3-D
theme parks; stereophonic sound also helped; and (1953), the film that made Vincent Price (see
so did a range of gimmicks. Stereoscopic 3-D, Icons) a star.
a process that had been around since the Thirties, Television also played a key role in fuel-
came into its own, with a series of "in your face" ling the flames of the fear renaissance. In 1957
effects arriving in the wake of House Of Wax Universal sold many of their monster movie
29
William Castle (1914-1977)

A producer, director and master showman, William prise revelation; and MrS ardonicus (1961) supposedly
Castle was the undisputed king of the g i m m i c k s in allowed the audience to choose the fate of its villain.
an era when every means necessary was employed to (Castle often boasted he never had to use the "happy"
attract crowds. For Macabre (1958) he issued insur- ending, so his gamble worked.) After directing the
ance policies covering death by fright; The House Hammer disaster remake The Old Dark House (1962),
On Haunted Hill (1959) featured a process called Castle marked time before producing Rosemary's
"Emergo", in which a skeleton was cranked across the Baby (1968), and his final production was Bug (1975),
cinema ceiling when Vincent Price mirrored the action for which he sought unsuccessfully to fit fake cock-
on screen; for The Tingler (1959) "Percepto" buzz- roaches to cinema seats. Affectionate homage was
ers under seats administered mild shocks when the paid in Popcorn (1991) and Matinee (1992) to Castle's
monster was let loose; Homicidal (1961) had a "fright brand of eccentric showmanship and desire for com-
break" so that scaredy-cats could leave before the sur- munal participation that captured imaginations.
An ad block for Homicidal (1961), for cinemas to use in local papers
30
Gimmick gimmick gimmick

It wasn't only William Castle's famous audience lures or • "The Fear Flasher" & "The H o r r o r H o r n " .
the 3-D glasses that tried to part audiences and their Whenever a gory scene was about to begin in Hy
cash. If Castle's insurance policies, electric jolts or ani- Averback's Chamber Of Horrors (1966), about the
mated skeletons weren't enough, there were other fun exploits of the owners of Baltimore Wax Museum,
means of heightening the terror in a movie experience, the screen flashed red and a siren sounded so that
with numerous films being marketed through gimmicks those of a nervous disposition could look away. A simi-
that were unique and memorably titled. lar audible ploy was used for Ivan Reitman's Cannibal
Girls (1972) - "The picture with the warning bell. When
• " D u o - V i s i o n " . "See the hunter, see the hunted - it rings ... close your eyes if you're squeamish!"
both at the same time," boasted the tagline for Richard
L. Bare's Wicked, Wicked (1973). The method was the • "The Final W a r n i n g S t a t i o n " . "The first motion
split screen, used throughout the entire feature; the picture to require a face-to-face warning," cautioned
idea was that all the action, revolving around a sea- the posters for the American release of Mario Bava's
side hotel handyman in a monster mask killing and dis- Twitch Of The Death Nerve (1971). This meant the cin-
membering women with blonde hair, could be viewed ema manager stood in front of grouped patrons advis-
from more than one angle. ing them that the body-count movie they were about
to see had "thirteen periods of intense shock".
• " P s y c h o r a m a " . Also k n o w n as "The Precon
Process", this use of subliminal imagery, with informa- • " T h e D-13 T e s t " . Before seeing Francis Ford
tion flashing on screen so quickly that it was picked Coppola's Dementia 13 (1963), producer Roger
up only subconsciously, was used for an axe murder- Corman's attempt to copy Psycho, you had to fill out a
er movie directed by Harold Daniels, My World Dies questionnaire to see if you were psychologically sound
Screaming (1958); fear was instilled through graph- enough to take the shock content: "Are you afraid
ics of a Devil face and messages like "Get ready to of death by drowning? ... Have you ever attempted
scream". The process was banned because of its suicide? ... Have you ever thought of committing
moral implications, but the success of The Exorcist murder?" Accompanying the yes/no queries was the
was supposedly due to a revival of this technique. statement: "If you fail the t e s t . . . you will be asked to
leave the theatre."
• " H a l l u c i n o g e n i c H y p n o v i s i o n " . "Monsters come
real! Crash out of screen! Invade audience! Abduct • " H y p n o V i s t a " . American audiences had Horrors
girls from their seats! Not 3-D! Don't miss it!" This Of The Black Museum (1959) extended by 13 minutes
wonderfully lifelike gimmick was devised by direc- thanks to a prologue preparing them for the autosug-
tor Ray Dennis Steckler for The Incredibly Strange gestion shock contained in the Grand Guignol spec-
Creatures Who Stopped LMng And Became Mixed-Up tacle. Emile Franchel, "registered psychiatrist in the
Zombies!!? (1964). When at the start of the film a hyp- State of California, speciality hypnotism", invited the
notist called The Great Ormond appeared on screen to audience to take part in a series of simple tests and,
warn that the story's three homicidal mental patients accompanied by an Archimedean spiral graphic, he
would soon be on the loose in the theatre, usherettes guaranteed that once the "truly frightening" motion
and cleaners employed by the cinema ran through the picture commenced they would experience "the damp
audience wearing phosphorescent masks to terrorize chill of the tomb" and "the panic of fear".
planted stooges.
31
classics to American networks in a package that dubbed "teenagers". Before the chart-topping
had the series title Shock Theater, which reached arrival of Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley &
a massive audience that was suddenly hungry for His Comets in 1955, children went straight from
more. And that audience was mainly drawn from adolescence to adulthood; but rock'n'roll changed
an entirely new section of the population, newly all that: it created a new youth market eager to
spend money on anything that
was seen as a rebellion against
staid adult values, and along
with Elvis Presley, "race music"
and beatniks, horror movies fit
the bill. Heavy petting went
in tandem with screaming at
drive-in screenings of I Was A
Teenage Werewolf (1958) and its
ilk, where budding sex drives
were equated with monster-
hood, and from this point on
teenagers were added to the
list of horror protagonists; they
played increasingly active roles
as the decades rolled on.
The screaming to radi-
cal reinventions of horror
themes had started in Italy in
1956, with Riccardo Freda's
I Vampiri (Lust For A Vampire,
aka The Devil's Commandment).
But the film's worldwide
release in 1957 tied it irrevo-
cably to the H a m m e r jugger-
naut that was breaking global
box-office records with the
epoch-making The Curse Of
Frankenstein (1957, see Canon).
Hammer had seen their audi-
ences increasing every time
they raised the shock bar — The
Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Michael Landon in / Was A Teenage Werewolf (1958), which drew teenagers was the first movie to exploit
in to the genre the new "adults only" certificate
32
by using the letter of the rating in the title - and

although critics hated the sexed-up, bloodied-up,
colour reinterpretation of Mary Shelley's myth by
Terence Fisher (see Icons), audiences flocked
to it. They liked Dracula (aka Horror Of Dracula,
1958, see Canon) even more, and made the tiny
British company who accidentally established the
modern horror film the leading brand name to
this very day.
Hammer even had the temerity to turn the
recent past into powerful horror. One sensa-
tion, advertised with the tagline "Jap War Crimes
Exposed", was The Camp On Blood Island (1958),
which tapped into the raw nerve of xenophobia
that remained from the war years, with border-
line offensive taste. Val Guest's brutal depiction
of POWs preventing their sadistic captors from
discovering that World War II has ended in case
of cruel reprisal may have been made with hon-
ourable intentions, but its orgy of atrocities played
to the gladiatorial bloodlust of spectators who
had unforgiving memories. The squalid prequel
The Secret Of Blood Island (1965) jettisoned all
serious intent for an audience-pleasing parade of
abominations.
Hammer's success soon had an impact on film
industries around the world. Barely thirty horror
movies were made outside the US and UK in
the first half of the decade, but in the second half Edith S c o b during her perfect performance in the
the figure quadrupled. As usual, Mexico stumbled influential French film Eyes Without A Face (1959)
on indefatigably, and The Vampire and The Curse approach to seduce audiences into the unfold-
Of The Aztec Mummy (both 1957) were the first ing mystery; it was veteran director N o b u o
Mexican horrors to be sold internationally. The Nakagawa, though, who set off the new wave of
French films Diabolique (1955, see Canon) and kaidan eiga horrors, first with Kaidan Kasanegafuchi
Eyes Without A Face (1959, see Canon) had an (The Kasane Swamp, 1957), based on a nineteenth-
influence on America's mainstream and Kenji century vampire tale, and later with Tokaido Yotsuya
Mizoguchi introduced Western audiences to kaidan (The Ghost Of Yotsuya, 1959), the definitive
Japanese cinema with Ugetsu monogatari (Tale version of the famous kabuki play.
Of The Pale And Mysterious Moon After The Rain, This period also saw the launch in 1958 of
1953), which adopted an elegant neo-realist Famous Monsters Of Filmland, the first magazine
33
aimed specifically at those who rushed to see any Circus Of Horrors (1959) and Peeping Tom (1960), this
horror movie, no matter how bad the reviews sensational shocker forms a trilogy of charnel-house terror
made by the British company Anglo-Amalgamated.
were; this resilient breed, with low expectations
and high tolerance, stood in line in the hope A Bucket Of Blood
of something never seen before, as promised by dir Roger Corman, 1959, US, 66m, b/w
the hype on the sensational posters. Despite the House Of Wax meets the Beat Generation in this $50,000
childish puns of the editor, memorabilia collec- cult comedy horror. There are guffaws and there's gore
tor Forrest J. Ackerman (columns included as beatnik beret-wearing busboy Walter Paisley (Dick
"Ghoulden Days of Horrorwood", "You Axed Miller) kills a cat accidentally, covers it in clay and displays
for It" and "Fang Mail"), his informed enthusiasm it as modern art. Hailed a genius sculptor, he murders a
nosy cop and a nude model for further exhibits before he
for all matters monster led to a rapid increase in
becomes his last masterpiece. Charles Griffith's hip script,
the number of horror movie buffs. Miller's performance and Corman's unpretentious direction
This flew in the face of the 1953 controver- make for a cool classic.
sies involving EC Comics and the excessive
violence and gore in the company's titles Haunt
Of Fear, Vault Of Horror and Tales From The Crypt.
It would take nearly twenty years before a com-
pendium of those nasty stories would make it to The Sixties
the screen, in Tales From The Crypt (1972); and in The Fifties saw a revival of horror cinema, but
1989 there was a TV series in the United States. when the Swinging Sixties began the genre
By then the horror genre had faced uninformed flourished like never before, and went to unthink-
attacks from self-appointed moral guardians for a able places. The main appeal was simple: although
long time. British kitchen-sink dramas discussed sex frankly,
the horror film remained the only place to see
I Was A Teenage Werewolf
passionate encounters between the two sexes.
dir Gene Fowler Jr, 1958, US, 76m, b/w
And if the grappling wasn't sexual, it could
The trendsetting, youth-focused horror had rock'n'roll,
certainly be deadly: it was possible to show an
teen angst and campus fistfights. Michael Landon, playing
in the style of James Dean, is Tony Rivers, the troubled
erotic high-angle shot of a lingerie-clad blonde
student turned into a murderous hairy monster by mad Dr prostitute in bed having her head severed by a
Brandon (Whit Bissell). Hypnotism causes him to undergo guillotine (in Horrors Of The Black Museum, 1958),
an animalistic makeover whenever he's startled - as he is though the censor would never have allowed the
in the classic moment when the school bell rings while he's same shot of a girl having sex with her boyfriend
watching a girl hanging upside down from the parallel bars.
no matter how innocent their lovemaking was.
Horrors Of The Black Museum Much horror film imagery was based on the
dir Arthur Crabtree, 1958, UK, 81m similarity of the sexual embrace to the homicidal
one and the overtly phallic thrust of knives, and
After one of the most vicious shocks of the era - a girl
unwraps a gift of binoculars, looks through them and has medical horror movies became the vogue for
two spring-loaded metal spikes gouge her eyes out - a similar reasons; this was evident in the surgical
crime book author commits horrendous murders to give debasement shown in Riccardo Freda's The
him details that will satisfy his reader's demands. With Terror Of Dr Hichcock (1962), spelt without the T so
34
that Hitchcock wouldn't be offended, and in the children could still see the stronger R (restricted)
soon-to-be ubiquitous Jess Franco's The Awful movies if accompanied by an adult.
Dr Orloff (1962). It was because Hammer geared their products
But many of the more restrictive countries did to specific countries, and because they continued
not see the overt imagery and brief nudity that with their traditional monsters, that they still
was getting into many productions in continental dominated the global market. Stronger scenes
Europe where competition was stiff. In Britain, were filmed for release in continental Europe and
horror films were forbidden for those under the the strongest ones for Japan. The Curse Of The
age of sixteen, and salacious and shocking mate- Werewolf (1961) is the most famous example of a
rial was censored; the spiked mask opening of the Hammer horror being more heavily censored in
landmark movie from Mario Bava (see Icons), its country of origin than anywhere else. Cuts to
Black Sunday (1960, see Canon) was still cut when the contentious scene in which a servant girl is
released after a seven-year ban. In America the raped and the three killings made the British ver-
core audience for horror movies has always been sion three minutes shorter than the export.
the adolescent, and most of the genre was cen- Terence Fisher's haunting classic bore the brunt
sored for a PG (parental guidance) rating, though of British censor wrath because of timing. Just
Viva las divas

After fading, feuding divas B e t t e D a v i s and
Joan Crawford gritted their teeth and co-starred
as washed up Hollywood has-beens in Robert
Aldrich's Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
(1962), every ageing femme fatale followed
their lead and gave the horror genre a stab. The
spectacle of previously glamorous leading ladies
indulging in psychological torture and grotesque
punishments proved massively successful, and
in Aldrich's companion pieces Hush ... Hush
Sweet Charlotte (1963) and Whatever Happened
To Aunt Alice? (1969) Olivia de Havilland, Agnes
Moorehead, Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon
added pensioner power. Curtis Harrington's
What's The Matter With Helen? (1971), starring
Debbie Reynolds, and Whoever Slew Auntie
Roo? (1971), with Shelley Winters, were similarly
popular "trash yourself terrors". Joan Crawford
hilariously parlayed her bravura turn into mature
love-interest roles in Straight-Jacket (1964), /
Saw What You Did (1965) and Trog (1970).
Whatever happened to Bette and Joan?
35
T H E HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS
Roman Polanski in front of the camera in the Hammer tribute Dance Of The Vampires (1967)
tribute Dance Of The Vampires (1967)
Roman Polanski in front of the camera in the Hammer
by George A. R o m e r o (see Icons), introduced
before its release Psycho (1960, see Canon) and, to
the flesh-eating zombie to the glossary of hor-
an even greater extent, Michael Powell's Peeping
ror. Herschell Gordon Lewis was responsible
Tom (1960, see Canon) had focused yet more
for the forerunner of the splatter genre, Blood
unwanted attention on the genre, with pressure
Feast (1963), which updated Grand Guignol
groups, including religious authorities and tabloids,
gore trickery with its mutilation shots. It was
insisting on a total ban. Although Hitchcock's sly
a huge grind house drive-in smash and soon
shocker prompted Hammer to produce a series of
became part of a hastily assembled gore trilogy
suspense thrillers that were high on screams and
alongside 2000 Maniacs (1964) and Color Me
low on logic — Maniac and Paranoiac (both 1963),
Blood Red (1965). But it was R o m a n Polanski
Nightmare and Hysteria (both 1964), Crescendo
(see Icons) who covered every significant Sixties
(1970) - and influenced the genre more in the long
trend with his distinguished terror-filled trio
run, Powell's stand-alone masterpiece remains the
- the distaff Psycho equivalent Repulsion (1965,
definitive discourse on voyeuristic terror.
see Canon), the elegant Hammer tribute Dance
Other films pointed to the future too. Night
Of The Vampires (1967) and the biblical witchcraft
Of The Living Dead (1968, see Canon), directed
36
fable Rosemary's Baby (1968, see Canon). Black Cat, 1968). In France surrealist direc-
Meanwhile, after years of working in B- tor Jean Rollin put up-front eroticism into a
movie Hollywood, director Roger Corman lyrical sex vampire series that started with Le
(see Icons) finally convinced his main employ- viol de vampire (Rape Of The Vampire, 1967). From
er, American International Pictures, to follow Germany there was the traditionalist horror
Hammer's lead and produce colourful costume Blood Demon (1967) and a succession of popular
horror with a distinctly New World flavour, and thrillers based on the work of Edgar Wallace that
beginning with The Fall Of The House Of Usher were dubbed krimis; in many the chilling and
(1960), Corman brought numerous Edgar Allan gruesome elements were substantial, and they
Poe stories to the screen with great box-office shared stylistic ingredients with the Italian gialli
and critical success. Films such as The Pit And thrillers, established by Mario Bava with The Evil
The Pendulum (1961, see Canon), Tales Of Terror Eye (1962). During a frantic new golden age Italy
(1962) and The Masque Of The Red Death (1964) beat Mexico in the number of horror titles being
created a marketing device whereby Poe was
quickly attached to any dubious investment; one
of his poems was the source of the seemingly
arbitrary title that Michael Reeves's Witchfinder Amicus: the house that
General (1968, see Canon) went by in America, dripped blood
The Conqueror Worm.
As the Hammer formula, and that of its clos- There were many Hammer pretenders but only
est rival Amicus, which borrowed the House of one British company took on its market leadership
and had its own identity. Formed by the American
Horror's stable of stars, got cloned internationally,
producers Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg
many sub-genres started to percolate in differ- and based in the UK, Amicus made its first horror
ent cultures. Paul Naschy became the Hispanic movie in 1960 but it wasn't until the portmanteau
Christopher Lee and embarked on a long career classic Dr Terror's House Of Horrors (1964), star-
as the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky in La ring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, that aficio-
marco del hombre lobo (Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, nados really took note. The successful reinvention
1968). The South American actor turned direc- of the moribund Dead Of Night anthology format
tor Narciso Ibanez Serrador circumvented - a collection of short stories with a connecting
wraparound - led to films including The House That
General Franco's stringent censorship by making
Dripped Blood (1970), but the biggest hit with the
a film about repression as a horror, the nightmare formula was Tales From The Crypt (1972), based on
La residencia (The House That Screamed, 1969). the EC Comics title. Directed by horror profession-
In Mexico the popular silver-masked wrestler als such as Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker,
Santo (born Rodolfo Guzman Huerta) began and often written by Psycho author Robert Bloch,
a supernatural series, beginning with Atacan las Amicus movies were always fun, quirky, interesting
brujas (Santo Attacks The Witches, 1965). miniatures. But Subotsky clashed with the busi- i
Thanks to international festivals, the world nessman Rosenberg and their increasingly public
spats led to a loss of direction in the mid-Seventies
found out about the key Japanese movies of the
that quickly became fatal.
period: Onibaba (The Hole, 1964, see Canon),
Kwaidan (Ghost Story, 1964) and Kuroneko (The
37
produced - the star was usually Barbara Steele

— and everything from vampires, werewolves and The Seventies
musclemen to sadism, disfigurement and necro- Horror had been a poor relation to all other
philia made its way to the rest of the world from genres after its first golden era, in the Thirties, but
Rome. was seized upon again by the major studios when
the success of the Oscar-winning Rosemary's Baby
The Terror Of Dr Hichcock
filtered through to the higher echelons of power.
dir Riccardo Freda, 1962, It, 88m
With his modern witchcraft tale Roman Polanski
"The candle of his lust burnt brightest in the shadow of
made the genre respectable again by employing a
the grave" screamed the tagline for this compelling and
provocative tale of necrophilia, shot in ravishing colours,
religious perspective, a bigger budget and major
and beautifully composed. Robert Flemyng is the bad acting talent.
doctor with a kinky taste for injecting women with an When a wide audience responded enthusi-
anaesthetic to simulate death in sex games; Barbara Steele astically to the care and attention lavished on an
is the second wife haunted by the spirit of the first. Freda's occult pop culture bestseller, the studios began
fetish fantasy is a superb showcase for Steele and all her
new searches for crossover success. By playing on
dark desirability.
the theme of a lack of faith in godless times - the
Carnival Of Souls result of the Vietnam War, racial tension and the
dir Herk Harvey, 1962, US, 81m, b/w quest for alternative spiritual convictions - back-
The first cult horror movie was Herk Harvey's $30,000
psychological chiller, featuring a woman who survives a car
accident but is caught between life and death; she is then The church
pursued by a cadaverous figure (Harvey) and a range of
fatalistic symbols to a deserted pavilion where she watches In horror movies churches very rarely offer the sanc-
a revelatory danse macabre. This compelling home movie tuary they were designed for. Usually there are dan-
exudes a uniquely eerie power, and the ghoul attack, gers lurking in every nave and cranny. In The Omen
pre-dating Night Of The Living Dead (1968), is cited as an (1976) Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) is killed
inspiration by director George Romero. when a lightning rod falls from the roof in a storm,
spears him through the back and transfixes him to
Carry On Screaming the spot, after he has given Robert Thorn (Gregory
dir Gerald Thomas, 1966, UK, 97m Peck) a warning about Damien; in The Church
(1989), when priest Tomas Arana unlocks an ancient
Even though horror films are close to parody already, for
this comic effort the Carry On team sent up Hammer in a mystery in a basement crypt that was built on a pit of
silly, funny romp about women who are kidnapped by a tormented souls buried alive as witches in the Middle
monster and literally petrified by zombie doctor Kenneth Ages, a manifestation of Dante's Inferno erupts in the
Williams before being sold as shop window mannequins. nave; and in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness
Harry H. Corbett is the bumbling cop investigating the (1987) a strange cylinder of green liquid in a church
disappearances at an old dark house that is home to a basement enters the mouths of derelicts (including
vampire, Dr Jekyll and a coffin-load of puns and farce. Alice Cooper) and infects them with an evil spirit.
And all manner of psychotic priests have used the
secrecy of the confessional to their advantage, most
notably in House Of Mortal Sin (1975).
38
to-basics religious shockers eventually became

front-runners. William Friedkin's The Exorcist
(1973, see Canon) and, later, Richard Donner's
The Omen (1976), and their sequels, might
have been overly pious, but they, and Steven
Spielbergs equally trendsetting Jaws (1975, see
Canon), delivered the gory set pieces usually seen
in exploitation fodder to new and astonished
eyes. Later Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) shook up
the rubber space monster formula by wrapping
its blood-soaked highlights in classy production
design.
The B-movie retreated into ever more
bizarre sub-genres, such as Italy's flesh-eating
zombie/cannibal fiestas and America's blax-
ploitation, the latter using mainstream stories
more than making political statements, in Blacula,
Blackenstein (both 1972), Dr Black, Mr Hyde
(1976), The House On Skull Mountain (1974),
which ghettoized The Cat And The Canary, and
Abhy (1974), the black Exorcist. The low budgets
and minor stars in ever-sleazier schlock looked
dated, but even Hammer's supernatural fairy tales
were hokey when compared with the Friedkin
juggernaut, and no amount of sexing up vam-
pire flicks with lesbians (for example in Twins
Of Evil, 1971) could compete with the tone and
finesse of the major studios' output. In changing
times Hammer lost its way and exhausted key
franchises in one misjudged fiasco after another:
when Christopher Lee strutted his groovy stuff
in London in Dracula AD 1972 he was instantly
old-fashioned and when he was a property spec-
ulator in The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1974) the
flaws were compounded. Hammer's sad swan-
song was the completely banal To the Devil ...
A Daughter (1976), a misguided bid to beat The
Exorcist at its own game.
Why didn't Hammer survive by exploiting
the women-in-peril theme that erupted when
39
After testing the waters he directed three bona

fide genre classics: House Of Whipcord (1974),
which wallowed in sadomasochism, nudity and
flagellation while purporting to be an attack
on self-appointed guardians of moral propriety;
Frightmarc (1974), the first film to use bad review
quotes on the poster to sell tickets; and House Of
Mortal Sin (aka The Confessional, 1974), which
featured a killer priest hiding behind Catholic
Church piety and caused a tabloid sensation when
Walker revealed he used real human blood.
Meanwhile another key figure in the history
of horror was getting into his stride, in America:
the enjoyably unclassifiable Larry Cohen shook
up the genre with the cult hit It's Alive (1974),
about mutant babies deformed by environmental
pollution, and it was followed four years later
by It Lives Again (and in 1987 by It's Alive III:
Island Of The Alive) .The similarly unconventional
David Cronenberg (see Icons) made the intel-
ligent sex-fest Shivers (aka The Parasite Murders/
They Came From Within, 1974, see Canon), which
William Marshall in Blacula (1972), which like other blax- was an arthouse hit.
ploitation movies was based on a familiar story While Cohen's quirky, inspired films were
notable for their irony and Cronenberg's Shivers
Dario Argento (see Icons) made the revolu- was typical of his statements about contemporary
tionary The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970)? society, each of Pete Walker's potent shockers
It remains a mystery. They tested the waters with exposed a malevolent netherworld of madness,
a double bill of Straight On Till Morning (1972) obsession, moral obscenity and vindictive vio-
and Fear In The Night (1972), but by the time a lence. And there was a similar, broader trend in
chance was there after John Carpenter intro- America. While the blockbuster horror movie,
duced the world to Michael Myers (see Icons in for all its bluster and blood, was surprisingly
both cases) in Halloween (1978, see Canon), and conservative in its themes, its complete antithesis,
its copycat calendar chillers marked a return to apart from the rise of porno cash-ins like Dracula
the horror scene outside the Hollywood main- Sucks (1979), was the subversive American rural
stream, they had already lost the plot. gothic in The Last House On The Left (1972)
But while Hammer did not enjoy success and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), both directed
during the Seventies, in Britain former porn by Wes Craven (see Icons); and in the hugely
director Pete Walker created a gruesome and influential The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974,
important collection of Home Counties horrors. see Canon) by Tobe Hooper (see Icons). All three
40
radical movies showed sensationalist images that

Lucio Fulci (1927-1996) had never been seen on screen before and each
broke the accepted mould for what constituted
Anarchic horror specialist or reprehensible panderer
horror. Even Linda Blair's foul-mouthed cursing
indulging bloodthirsty like-minds? The jury is still out
on the spaghetti sadism of Lucio Fulci, whose stag-
in The Exorcist paled in comparison with a penis
gering output during the late Seventies and Eighties being bitten off and a girl being hung on a meat
meant he nearly dethroned the master of Italian hook.
terror, Dario Argento. Although he directed many It took financially challenged radicals to redis-
movies featuring graphic high-impact violence dur- cover the shocking power and bestial nature of
ing the Seventies, such as Don't Torture A Duckling the genre, which had also been evident in foreign
(1972), Fulci didn't get into his stride until Zombie films that reached America, such as the Australian
Flesh-Eaters (1979), promoted in Italy as Zombi 2,
survival horror Night Of Fear (1973) and, from
which ripped off Dawn Of The Dead (Zombi, 1978)
without George A. Romero's blessing. The eye-
Mexico, Rene Cardona's Supervivientes de los
gouging, throat-ripping splatter show revitalized Andes (Survive!, 1976), the true story of plane
the Italian exploitation industry overnight and made crash survivors. But, with headway being made
Fulci a horror marquee name. The autobiographi- in special effects and prosthetic make-up by Dick
cal Nightmare Concert (1990) featured Fulci playing Smith (The Exorcist) and Tom Savini (Dawn
himself as a troubled horror film director. Of The Dead, 1978, see Canon), horror soon
went through the taste barrier in Hollywood
41
- as exemplified by Abel Ferrara's urban gothic hit stage musical, sending up Frankenstein, haunted house
The Driller Killer (1979), about a druggie maniac mysteries, glam-rock and pansexual stereotypes, is the
Queen Mother of cult horror movies. Naive newlyweds
clearing winos from the streets — and in the
Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) take
Eighties it was firmly on the other side. refuge in a creepy castle where Dr Frank-N-Furter and other
transsexual aliens are creating the perfect He-Man stud:
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage cue fabulous entertainment, with smart horror references,
dir Dario Argento, 1970, It/Ger, 98m electrifying musical numbers and infectious energy that
Who is the modern-day Jack the Ripper holding Rome in a created a midnight sing-along sensation.
grip of terror? Blocked writer Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante)
knows that he's witnessed a vital clue - but what exactly
was it? Argento's giallo trendsetter, scored by Ennio
Morricone, is a glossily gory cosmopolitan whodunnit firmly
entrenched in Hitchcockian paranoia and baroque style,
which has echoes in films ranging from Klute (1971) to
The Eighties
Dressed To Kill (1980). Tired of seeing upstart independent companies
making a fortune from shockers such as Halloween
The Devils and The Amityville Horror (1979), Paramount
dir Ken Russell, 1971, UK, 111m were determined to exploit audiences' growing
Ken Russell's adaptation of Aldous Huxley's non-fiction thirst for bloody horror entertainment, and pick-
book The Devils Of Loudon, with sets by Derek Jarman ing up for distribution a cheaply made, obscure
based on those in Metropolis (1927), was hugely
film about teenagers in jeopardy proved a canny
controversial and much censored. Oliver Reed gives his
finest performance as a priest, Urbain Grandier, the erotic
move: Friday The 13th (1980) - and its subject
fantasy butt of the slanderous accusations of nun Sister
Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), Laden with sexual perversion,
demonic possession and gory torture, it's an excessive but
brilliant study of madness, repression and bigotry. Troma
There are bad movies and there are Troma movies.
Don't Look Now Founded in 1974 by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael
dir Nicolas Roeg, 1974, UK/It, 110m Herz, Troma was the home of The Toxic Avenger
A tale of ordinary people who have suffered bereavement is (1985), the crude shocker that put their crass
at the heart of this arthouse mosaic of the mental, physical crusading ethos on the map. Much was made in
and spiritual complexities of real life. After the tragic drowning the Eighties horror press of the committed Troma
of their daughter, John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland team's approach to the genre: pick up a film for
and Julie Christie) go to Venice, where she encounters a peanuts, annoy the director/producer with penny-
blind psychic conveying comforting messages from the other pinching budgeting, gear the advertising to the
side; and soon John thinks he is seeing his daughter's ghost appropriate crowd and start counting the cash.
dressed in a red raincoat. It's a brilliant, engrossing, multi-
For the most part the movies, featuring buckets
dimensional examination of extra-sensory perception and
of blood, promiscuous sexuality and slapstick vio-
human scepticism.
lence and including Girls School Screamers (1986),
Tromeo & Juliet (1996) and Terror Firmer (1999), are
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
almost unwatchable. Kaufman has said that they
dir Jim Sharman, 1975, UK, 101m are all satires on contemporary issues.
This bright, breezy and camp adaptation of Richard O'Brien's
42
In Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill (1980) the devil is in the detail
Jason Voorhees (see Icons) — became a huge before the AIDS epidemic made the sexual con-
commercial success, and was highly influential. tent socially unacceptable. (In 1987 Larry Cohen
Only three years earlier, when 20th Century was the first filmmaker to refer to AIDS through
Fox had raked in the cash from releasing Suspiria a vampire blood plague, in A Return To Salem's
(1977, see Canon), they had hidden behind Lot.) Meanwhile assorted derivative psychopaths
a subsidiary corporation, International Classics stalked numerous campsite/campus locations, in
Inc., but after Paramount's decision every major films including The Burning, Night School and The
company followed suit, with Columbia, Warner Boogeyman (all 1980).
Bros and M G M releasing Happy Birthday To Sequels to all the horror hits, including the
Me (1980), Wolfen (1981) and The Beast Within groundbreaking A Nightmare On Elm Street
(1982) respectively. (1985, see Canon), became de rigueur, the open
The "have promiscuous sex and die" theme of ending being seen as a legitimate narrative struc-
both Halloween and Friday The 13th subsequently ture, and these follow-ups proliferated to a degree
got taken to its logical conclusion in a welter of not seen since Universal's heyday in the Thirties.
"calendar date" horrors. Every holiday, tradition Meanwhile an explosion in explicit horror gave
or event was called upon for movies ranging rise to heated, if usually uninformed, debates
from New Year's Evil to Mother's Day (both 1980), over films such as Don't Answer The Phone (1980),
43
for gross imagery, and Dressed To Kill (1980) Betamax tape formats caught British authori-
by Brian De Palma (see Icons), for violence ties napping. There was no law about movies
against women; the explosion was driven by on video having to carry a rating certificate, so
more sophisticated, "the gore the merrier" special underage children along with genre enthusiasts
effects, which An American Werewolf In London were watching what was once deemed forbid-
(1981, see Canon) vividly showcased. den. Escalating tabloid furore and a gory back
Technology also helped Stanley Kubrick page advertisement in the January 1982 issue
when he tried his hand at horror: his use of the of Television And Video Retailer for The Driller
Steadicam in The Shining (1980, see Canon) Killer put the nail in the coffin of the exploita-
was pioneering, though as a whole the film tion bonanza, and eventually this led to video
pleased mainstream cinemagoers more than censorship guidelines on the statute books. Few
die-hard horror fans. There was also in the other countries in the world were as affected by
early Eighties a revival of the three-dimensional this issue.
process, fuelled by the unpredicted box-office Video had further effects on the horror film.
success of Friday the 13th Part 3 3-D (1982), Many low-budget movies made more money
with other movies including Parasite (1982), when released on video than in the cinema, so
Amityville 3-D and Jaws 3-D (both 1983). But theatrical outings were often bypassed, giving rise
lower-budget films also succeeded, such as The
Evil Dead (1981, see Canon) from director
Sam Raimi (see Icons), which became a cult
zombie classic.
Video nasties
It was because of h o m e video recorders In Britain in May 1982 The Sunday Times carried a
that most of the vitriolic argument, mainly in feature under the headline "How High Street Horror
the UK, was filtering into mainstream discus- Is Invading The Home". It reported that because of
the new industry's unregulated practices the video
sion. They had arrived on the market in the
trade's biggest money-spinners were dubbed "nas-
late Seventies and rapidly became a consumer ties" and were as far removed from traditional horror
staple, and while the major studios dithered suspense as possible, dwelling on graphic scenes
about releasing blockbusters on tape because of of murder, rape, castration, sadomasochism and
piracy concerns, enterprising distributors filled cannibalism. As other newspapers joined the
the empty shelves of video rental stores with Daily Mail's "Ban the sadist videos" campaign, the
anything they could lay their hands on. This usu- Director of Public Prosecutions published an official
ally meant the controversial (Possession, 1981), list of the main offenders - which quickly became a
shopping guide for some horror buffs. The rushed
and the lurid (Nightmares In A Damaged Brain,
1984 Video Recordings Act, outlawing videos with-
1981), and European cannibal/zombie shock-
out a governmentally approved certificate, failed to
ers (Cannibal Apocalypse, 1980), which would differentiate between the shoddy exploiter and bona
rarely have achieved a widespread cinema release fide masterpiece. And the issue of censorship did
because of censorship issues. Graphic horror not go away, rearing its head in 1993 when a judge
scenes and mutilation shots were even used on linked the infamous Jamie Bulger murder to Child's
the video covers for brazen promotion. Play 3 (1991).
The overnight popularity of the VHS and
44
to the "straight-to-video" tag that often implied the video revolution receded in the latter part
that the product was down-market schlock. But of the decade, these kinds of film, including
the obvious next step was for companies to Hellraiser, Brain Damage, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial
devote themselves to producing budget-con- Killer (all 1987), Beetlejuice and Lady In White
scious horror movies for the straight-to-video (both 1988), all unshackled the genre from the
market alone with no intention at all of a cinema corner it had painted itself into.
release. Enter, among others, Charles Band,
Friday The 13th
producer of Re-Animator (1985, see Canon) and
dir Sean S. Cunningham, 1980, US, 95m
director of Trancers (1984), who launched Full
Moon Video and pumped out a competent col- The landmark slasher, about the reopening of a summer
camp twenty years after a drowning and two murders
lection of chillers, including the above-average
there, propelled low-budget Independent splatter into
Puppetmaster (1989) series. the big time and kicked off a franchise, as well as many
Also influencing the horror being watched imitators. The one-note plot - systematic slaying by a
in the West during the Eighties were new inter- relentless killer - is empty-headed, but it's fast-paced and
national markets. Towards the end of the decade imaginatively graphic, thanks to the make-up king Tom
came the first horror from Hong Kong to have Savini, who also thought of the ending. The sleepy climax
at the lake steals wholesale from Came (1976, see Canon)
a genuine impact outside its home, A Chinese - but it remains fabulously effective.
Ghost Story (1987), produced by Tsui Hark. And
from Spain, director Agustin Villaronga's Tras Hellraiser
el cristal (In A Glass Cage, 1987) controversially dir Clive Barker, 1987, UK, 93m
stretched the boundaries of the genre. That same Best known for his fright fiction, Barker proved he could
year was also notable for the success of two direct in the film version of his novella The Hellhound
vampire movies, Joel Schumacher's The Lost Heart, a surreal and claustrophobic study in outrageously
Boys and Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (see sadomasochistic horror in which owning an Oriental
puzzle box leads to the thresholds of sensual pleasure and
Canon), which not only showed the influ-
pain. An instant success, which brought a more sobering
ence of AIDS but was also a rare horror to be atmosphere to late Eighties horror, it launched Pinhead
directed by a female. (Doug Bradley) on the growing "meet your favourite horror
By then, in the light of the video horror maniac" convention circuit, and Barker never bettered his
backlash, with outcries from pressure groups, delicious debut.
prudent studios had begun to cut from their fran-
chise earners splatter scenes that were covered Angustia (Anguish)
dir Bigas Luna, 1988, Sp, 89m
in full-page spreads in fan magazines before the
films were released.The Hollywood powerhouses The trickiest of chiller conceits is offered in this meditation
on the medium of horror. While the viewer watches oedipal
began to mount more watered-down horror
eye-gouger John, Luna cuts to an audience watching this
- Fright Night (1985), House (1986) - or mega- take place within the slasher movie The Mommy (directed
budget family-friendly fear laden with special by Anul Sagibl). Then John goes into a cinema in which he
effects, such as Gremlins and Ghostbusters (both blights the vision of members of the same "real" audience.
1984). Yet against this conservative backdrop the Meanwhile in the other frame of action the shared audience
occasional oddball or subversive horror would is being held hostage. The final disclosure reveals the
depth of Luna's grotesque reflections. It's a must-see.
often cut through, and after the fears regarding
45
Michael Rooker in the minimalist Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1987)
Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer army of fanboys, rather than being limited by what
dir John McNaughton, 1987, US, 83m was showing in cinemas, was watching as many
This underground study in slaughter psychology hits horror titles as they could. An exhausting number
home like a sledgehammer. Loosely based on the chilling of horror films was available, and they weren't just
confessions of Henry Lee Lucas, it follows him and his new releases; the video industry was pouncing on
accomplices and forces the audience to identify with him
to a harrowing degree. Groundbreaking in its thematic use
entire back catalogues and thrusting them onto a
of video (it was heavily censored for the sequence where a glutted market. The whole genre could be rented
family are brutalized on tape), its minimalist form is riveting or purchased on any High Street. And the Digital
and the uncompromising glimpses into cold-blooded minds Versatile Disc, far more friendly than the con-
are sickening rather than visually upsetting.
noisseur collector's laserdisc, was poised to become
a new, improved home entertainment format,
which, to an even greater extent than the video,
meant that the money spent making a film could
The Nineties be earned back without a theatrical release.
During the nineties video continued to mould the Horror on video was the cinematic equivalent
horror film in unpredictable ways. An emerging of junk food, and the steady diet was turning a
4 6
Guillermo del Toro

There are some directors who simply get the job done, nal life, and the typically understated set piece in which
but there are others, including Mexican-born Guillermo he licks blood from a white-tiled toilet floor is one of
del Toro - a horror fan first, then a brilliant director the most memorable moments of Nineties horror. The
- who truly care about creating popular art in their Devil's Backbone (2001), set in an orphanage during
favourite genre. He has crafted some of horror's most the Spanish Civil War, combines supernatural dread
unusual and elegiac works. Cronos (1993), a delicious and sophisticated political commentary, and Toro's pet
modern twist to vampire legend, features an antiques project Hellboy (2004) was the best film in the horror
dealer (Federico Luppi) discovering the secret to eter- comic sub-genre.
Federico Luppi as an antiques dealer in Cronos
couch potato generation into horror trivia buffs And, pandering successfully to the cine-literate
with movie-making ambitions; this was best exem- demographic raised on a decade of bloodletting
plified by video store clerk Quentin Tarantino, and new-style boogey men, scriptwriter Kevin
whose violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992) Williamson fashioned the self-reflexive Scream
and vampire genre-bender From Dusk Till Dawn (1996, see Canon) for director Wes Craven and
(1996) were driven by cult horror references. the post-modern Halloween homage hit the nail on
47
(1994). Each lengthy opus was directed by a

well-known name - Francis Ford Coppola
and Kenneth Branagh respectively - and each
pretentiously included the authors' name in the
title to suggest (erroneously) a more literary ver-
sion. The failure meant that other staples were
not adapted direcdy; instead, classic themes were
placed in more modern retellings.
Coppola's conceit cleverly included references
to silent era filmmaking techniques and traded
on the new computer graphics industry that was
allowing artists to put their wildest ideas on screen.
Gone were the jerky stop-motion dinosaurs of
"imagineer" Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years
BC and in came the fluid, ultra-realistic Jurassic Park
(1993) and The Mummy (1999), where creatures
the world had forgotten could be seen in high-
definition animation form. But just like foam latex
prosthetics in the Eighties, in the Nineties com-
puter-generated imagery was seen as the answer
to everything, solved nothing if the story wasn't
strong enough, and became overused to a distract-
ing degree.
Other forms of horror were assimilated
into mainstream cinema more than ever before.
Following the success of Fatal Attraction (1987), in
the early Nineties faux slasher titles proliferated,
with The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Cape Fear,
Sleeping With The Enemy (all 1991), Basic Instinct
Drew Barrymore during her cameo in Scream (1996)
(1992) and Shallow Grave (1994) all asking what
the head, and could not be equalled.The same audi- a horror movie is. And this burgeoning sub-genre
ence was reading comic books and flocked to Alex gave the decade its biggest anti-hero - Hannibal
Proyas's The Crow (1994) and Stephen Norrington's Lecter, whose "fava beans and Chianti" cannibal
Blade (1998) in such vast numbers that this new charmer in Jonathan Demme's masterfully creepy
source of material started to be mined, moving hor- The Silence Of The Lambs (1991, see Canon) earned
ror further into the mainstream. Anthony Hopkins an Oscar.As had also happened
Meanwhile, although long series still had after Psycho thirty years earlier, modern horror had
their place, the genre returned to its roots with returned to the real world from the supernatural
two lavish studio productions, Bram Stoker's and indestructible ones haunted by Freddy Krueger
Dracula (1992) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (see Icons) and his masked maniac kin.
48
THE HISTORY:OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

And the real world continued to affect the propelled horror into the twenty-first century.
genre. As the handover of Hong Kong to China Shot by amateurs on digital camcorders avail-
in 1997 loomed, for example, many of the big- able in any technological equipment store, and
gest names in horror there, such as Ronny Yu, using the power of the Internet for the first
went to America. The collapse of communism time to promote its supposed authenticity, the
in Eastern Europe had proved less important home movie horror made a fortune (and led to
for the genre, though it did inspire Christoph the establishment of online departments at PR
Schlingensief's Das Deutsche Kettensagen Massaker companies). Its aesthetic has not been adopted,
(The German Chainsaw Massacre, 1991), which but it lit the way for many filmmakers in that the
had a theory about East Germans who disap- cheaper format was used to deliver equally profes-
peared. Later in the decade Spain returned to sional results, in films such as Collateral (2004), by
the international scene, with Tesis (Thesis, 1996), Michael Mann. And with the use of the Internet
the debut of Alejandro Amenabar, and Alex by horror geeks often making and breaking titles
de la Iglesia's El dia de la bestia (Day Of The months before release, technology meant that
Beast, 1995), which showed that The Exorcist more power lay with the people as the century
remained highly influential. From N e w Zealand
drew to a close.
came Braindead (1992, see Canon), the outra-
geous zombie shocker from Peter Jackson (see Candyman
Icons) that was the most original work of the dir Bernard Rose, 1992, US, 98m
Nineties. "Look in the mirror, say his name five times and the
Candyman will appear behind you," runs the urban
The end of the decade also saw the start of
legend in this triumphant adaptation of Cllve Barker's The
the Asian horror boom, after a period in which Forbidden. Virginia Madsen, who claims that she was
the region's horrors had been seen only in select hypnotized for some of the scenes, gives an amazing
arthouse cinemas, when Hideo Nakata and performance as a researcher who is looking into the legend
Takashi Miike, with Ringu (The Ring, 1998, see of a hook-handed maniac when a murderer starts to bring
Canon) and Audition (1999) respectively, began dread to the Chicago ghetto.
to approach the sub-genre from an oriental
Dust Devil
perspective that harked back to the philosophy
dir Richard Stanley, 1993, UK, 103m
of producer Val Lewton. Many directors from
African tribal myth is melded with politics in a mystical
the area, such as John Woo, had headed west for
chiller powerfully linking black magic with the visual style
Hollywood careers, but Asian horror began its of spaghetti Westerns. Hitch is an ancient shape-shifting
slow emergence from underground and its move demon collecting souls drawn to a drought-ridden town
to the multiplex because of those who stayed in the Namib Desert. The strength this evil medicine man
put. Meanwhile, Hollywood realized the truth of is building is the reason that the country is on the brink of
the adage that there are very few basic plots and apocalyptic collapse - so thinks cop Ben Mukurob as the
up-and-coming filmmakers remade the films that serial killer litters the wasteland with disfigured corpses.
inspired them; GusVan Sant and Jan de Bont did Dellamorte dellamore (Cemetery Man)
this badly with Psycho (1998) and The Haunting dir Michele Soavi, It/Fr/Ger, 1994,105m
(1999).
Most horror movies are about the fear of dying; this dark
But it was The Blair Witch Project (1999) that tale is about the fear of living. Rupert Everett stars as a
50
cemetery caretaker, Francesco Dellamorte, who tries to director was still to make a low-budget horror
bury the living dead. When he meets She, mistakenly kills
movie that would more often than not earn its
his perfect love, and is then cursed to see her face in every
future female encounter, the zombie allegory turns into a investment back in the ancillary markets such as
chilling romance. It's the last truly great Italian horror. television, cable and DVD. So Eli R o t h helmed
Cabin Fever (2003), a homage to The Evil
The Blair Witch Project Dead, R o b Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses
dir Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999, US, 81m (2003) reworked The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
The most successful independent production in history, Tim Sullivan's 2001 Maniacs (2005) followed
this deliberately artless micro-budget fly-on-the-wall 2000 Maniacs and Alexandre Aja's Switchblade
mockumentary details the attempt by three amateur
Romance (2003, see Canon) was a homage to
filmmakers to uncover the facts about a legendary witch
who kills anyone who enters her dark domain: the film is
Death Weekend. If films weren't being remade
supposedly edited footage that was found a year after or referenced, they were being combined, and
their disappearance. An exercise in creating atmosphere Universal's "versus" sub-genre was rekindled by
(screams in the night, twig sculptures) more than anything
visceral, it's either the world's scariest movie or the biggest
con trick that the public has ever fallen for.
The Asian boom
By delving into the space between Western urban
legend and Buddhism, at the turn of the century up-
From 2000 and-coming Oriental directors focused on Eastern
At the start of the millennium filmmakers con- concepts of spirituality and the supernatural that are
not as undermined as they are in Occidental culture.
tinued to embrace the remake trend that GusVan
When Hollywood acquired the rights to Ringu (1998)
Sant and Jan de Bont had kicked off. There was
and the 2002 remake grossed a fortune, Asia was
a retooling of a William Castle gimmick picture, proclaimed "the next big thing" and, along with Hideo
Thirtten Ghosts (2001), but the restyling then Nakata (Dark Water, 2002), Kinji Fukasuku [Battle
shifted to Seventies standards, with The Texas Royale, 2000) and Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge,
Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Dawn Of The Dead 2001), auteur directors quickly came to prominence.
(2004). The latter two movies were such block- From Hong Kong, working in Thailand, there were
busters that every studio returned to their dusty the Pang brothers, (The Eye, 2002), from Korea there
was Chan-wook Park (Three ... Extremes, 2004),
vaults to look for titles to update that even people
from Thailand there was Yuthlert Sippapak (Buppah
not interested in horror knew about, resulting in
Rahtree: Scent Of The Night Flower, 2003) and from
The Amityville Horror, House Of Wax (both 2005), the Philippines, Chito S. Rono [Feng Shui, 2004).
The Hills Have Eyes and The Evil Dead (both Yet it was Takashi Miike who became the star of the
scheduled for 2006). Asian explosion, after years of haunting the festival
The classic splatter titles were also driving circuit, primarily because he was its hardest worker.
all those in the horror industry's talent pool (He made seven features in 2001 alone!) The quality
who, having grown up watching every famous has been variable but much of his horror work is truly
inspired, such as the zombie musical The Happiness
and (more importantly) infamous title on
Of The Katakuris (2001).
video, realized that the best way of becoming a
51
Thirl3en Ghosts (2001), one of many remakes at the start of the new century
the face-offs Freddy Vs Jason (2003) and Alien Vs other films, such as House Of The Dead, Undead
Predator (2004). (both 2003) and Choking Hazard (2004) do not
The Dawn Of The Dead remake in 2004 approach.
was also part of a return to the zombie fever In Britain, thanks to tax breaks from the
that had infected horror movies in the late government, the early years of the new millen-
Seventies; contemporary opinion put the desire nium proved very busy and varied for horror.
to see such gut-wrenching apocalyptic visions Productions ranged from Stuart Urban's super-
down to insecurity following September 11 natural epic Revelation (2001), which The Da
and concerns about lives being too full of trivi- Vinci Code strikingly resembles, to Neil Marshall's
alities. After the surprise box-office hit 28 Days werewolf update Dog Soldiers (2002), and from
Later (2002) from Danny Boyle, in which Roland Suso Richter's point-of-death chiller
Britain is devastated by a rage virus, the undead The I Inside (2003), to Craig Strachan's kitchen
started eating flesh again in ever increasing sink werewolf Wild Country (2005). Meanwhile
numbers: zombie master George A. R o m e r o , the British comedy horror Shaun Of Tlie Dead
with sobering skill, laced the fourth part of his (2004) found favour with audiences worldwide
socio-political series, Land Of The Dead (2005), thanks to its balanced blend of hardcore splatter
with terrorist concerns, showing genius that and side-splitting comedy.
52
This period also saw the video game movie

The Fantastic Factory finally take off - after a disastrous start in the
Nineties, with Super Mario Bros (1993) and Street
In 2000 Brian Yuzna, producer of Re-Animator Fighter (1994) - Resident Evil (2002) spearhead-
(1985) and director of Return Of The Living Dead
ing the way forward. Before that zombie offshoot,
3 (1993), moved from Los Angeles to Barcelona
following an invitation from top Spanish produc-
directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, most video
er Julio Fernandez. Tired of paying too much for game movies failed because they couldn't rep-
international horrors to distribute in Spain through licate the interactive thrills created in the home
his company Filmax, Fernandez bankrolled The or arcade, but horror, being such an emotion-
Fantastic Factory, a studio label that was modelled ally charged genre, proved the best vehicle for the
after Hammer and designed to provide a steady expectation. Increasingly large amounts of money
stream of horrors. The enterprise started badly were spent across all media, including computer
with Yuzna's Faust: Love Of The Damned (2001),
game magazines, on mass-marketing campaigns
but it picked up steam with Stuart Gordon's Dagon
for game-based films, including Alone In The Dark,
(2002) and Yuzna's Beyond Re-Animator (2003).
It then hit its stride and lived up to its Hammer Resident Evil: Apocalypse (both 2004), Bloodrayne,
allusions with Paco Plaza's gothic reality mys- Doom (both 2005) and Silent Hill (scheduled for
tery Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004), and 2006). Meanwhile many studio-based horrors,
the flow continues with Yuzna's Rottweiler and including The Mummy Returns (2001), Underworld
Beneath Still Waters and Luis de la Madrid's The (2003) and Van Helsing (2004), were accused of
Nun (all 2005). appropriating the CGI-based video game look and
manic feel.
Van Helsing (2004), which was clearly influenced by video games
53
Whether mediocre Western fare such as Wliite spiralling spookiness, Amenabar, who appears as a dead
man in a photograph, evokes the spirit of The Innocents for
Noise (2005) or American remakes of Asian hits,
his neo-classic terror that relies on gothic mood and high-
like The Grudge (2004), horror movies have been strung performance.
racking up enormous grosses, and the genre, after
more than a hundred years of peaks and troughs, Saw
is more widely appealing and profitable than at James Wan, 2004, US, 102m
any other time in its history. Two men wake up chained to opposite walls in a filthy cell
and a tape-recording tells one that unless he kills the other
Final Destination and commits suicide his family will be slaughtered. So
dir James Wong, 2000, US, 98m begins this devious nerve-jangler, laden with sneaky twists
and wincing turns. The gruesome games in this dazzling
Survivors of a plane crash can't escape their true fate
razor-sharp puzzler are the work of the infamous "jigsaw
in this frightfully good supernatural premonition shocker.
killer", who places his victims in life-or-death scenarios to
Every character surname is a nod to the heritage of horror
teach them the value of being alive.
- Chaney, Browning, Lewton, Hitchcock and so on - and
each cleverly interlocking demise, drenched in an off-kilter
atmosphere, evokes genuine scares. Final Destination
Night Watch
2 (2002) was as smart, shuddery and gripping as its dir Timur Bekmambetov, 2004, Ru, 114m
predecessor. The highest grossing Russian movie ever - and it's a
horror! This fast-paced epic, based on the first part of
Jeepers Creepers Sergei Lukyanenko's bestselling trilogy, has hunters
pursuing nocturnal demons in strict observance of an
dir Victor Salva, 2001, Ger/US,91m
old treaty signed by the forces of light and darkness, and
Shocking and sensational, this superbly orchestrated a "Great Other" who will determine the outcome. The
flesh-snatching saga created a classic monster for the stylized subtitling for export versions of this fast-paced SFX
new millennium. The Creeper is a winged demon of extravaganza often becomes an artistic statement itself:
folklore reborn for 23 days every 23rd spring to sniff out when a vampire strikes, for example, the red text drips off
tasty body parts - and he wants Darry Jenner's eyes the screen.
in a graphic, gripping variation on the psycho-from-Hell
formula. In Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) The Creeper lays Wolf Creek
siege to college kids on a stranded bus and Jeepers dir Greg McLean, 2005, Aust, 95m
Creepers 3 (scheduled for 2006) shifts into the future.
Two female British tourists and a Sydney surf dude visit
the meteor crater in Wolf Creek National Park. When their
The Others car breaks down, bushman Mick Taylor (John Jarratt, in
dir Alejandro Amenabar, 2001, Sp/US, 104m a blood-freezing portrayal of evil incarnate) offers to help,
The Santiago-bom director's English-language debut but lures the trio into a worst-case scenario of humiliation,
features Jersey housewife Grace Stewart (Nicole torture and gory death. Harrowing, grisly, full of white-
Kidman) and her two light-sensitive children waiting for knuckle suspense, and based on a true story, McLean's
her soldier husband to return from World War II. Relying impressive debut inevitably draws comparisons with The
on deliberately old-fashioned bumps in the night for its Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
54
Devon Sawa as Alex Chance Browning in the survival shocker Final Destination (2000), in which the characters' names acknowledge horror's heroes
55
An iconic image from The Exorcist (1973), a

landmark film that inspired many cash-ins
The Canon:
50 horror
classics
An American Werewolf
In London
dir John Landis, 1981, UK, 97m
David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John
cast
Woodvine, Brian Glover, Rik Mayall cin Robert Paynter m
Elmer Bernstein
Among the public there was a lycanthropic battle royal in 1981, between
Joe Dante's The Howling, with make-up designed and created by R o b
Bottin, and John Landis's An American Werewolf In London, with make-
up by Rick Baker. But for the devoted fright fan there was no contest.
Landis's creature feature won paws down and Baker won an Oscar for his
prosthetics and groundbreaking werewolf transformation.
59
THE CANON: 50 HORROR CLASSICS
"From the director of

National Lampoon's Animal House
- a different kind of animal"
roared the promotional trailer
for Landis's pet project, which
he wrote in 1969, long before
he had even turned director
with Schlock in 1973. "The
movie is very scary, extreme-
ly violent and upsetting," said
Landis. "It is very Greek in that
respect: you get to like peo-
ple, and then you watch them
destroyed. Primarily I wanted
to scare the shit out of you."
Landis achieved that aim with
a brilliant meld of enjoyable
laughs and hair-raising terror
that set the standard for the
modern werewolf movie. The
unrelated cash-in An American
Werewolf In Paris (1997) was
hopeless.
Young Americans David
Kessler (David Naughton)
and Jack Goodman (Griffin
Dunne) are attacked by a were-
wolf while backpacking at night
on the English moors. The last
thing that David remembers
from before he passes out is the
sight of Jack's mangled body as
the snarling creature then turns
towards him...
Three weeks later David
wakes up in a London hospital
and, although he is told that
The astonishing transformation of Jack's body has been sent back to the States for burial, he is visited
David Kessler (David Naughton), repeatedly by his friend's ghost, urging him to commit suicide to stop
devised by Rick Baker himself from turning into a wolf-man at the next full moon. Believing
Jack to be just a hallucination, David moves in with his new lover,
60

nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter). But, sure enough, he turns into
the predicted werewolf and roams through London committing brutal
murders. It all reaches a stunning climax in a Piccadilly Circus cinema,
where David's mutilated victims urge him to take his life, and London's
West End is then the scene of a massive car pile-up.
The superbly cast Naughton and Dunne ground the movie effort-
lessly with their easy sparring, which is peppered with witty dialogue;
and their likeability means that the grisly flow of their predicament
can be identified with. The David and Alex romance is sweet without
being cloying and another reason why audiences sympathize with
David and want him to overcome the curse.The film has many in-joke
horror references (David's mention of Lon Chaney Jr's The Wolf Man),
and Landis also has great fun with the soundtrack — all the songs feature
the word "moon" in the title.
But it's mainly for Rick Baker's incredibly realistic creation of a
metamorphosis from man to beast that Landis's lycanthropic landmark
will always be remembered. David's bones and muscles bend and re-
form, his flesh moves, his backbone ripples, his face distorts as his jaw
extends and his hair sprouts everywhere. It's absolutely astonishing.
Black Sunday
(La maschera del demonio)
dir Mario Bava, 1960, It, 88m, b/w
Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Ivo Garrani,
cast
Andrea Checchi, Arturo Dominici cin Mario Bava m
Roberto Nicolosi
Filming in sepulchral black and white, acclaimed Italian cinematog-
rapher Mario Bava turned director with Black Sunday and created
one of the most beautiful and disturbing of all horror films. Opening
with a legendary shock - a spiked mask hammered onto the face
of a cursing witch, an image considered so potent that the film was
banned in Britain for seven years - Bava's chiaroscuro masterpiece
also crowned former Rank starlet Barbara Steele as the queen of
Italian horror.
61
Based on Bava's favourite ghost story from Russian folklore,

The Vij by Nikolai Gogol, it revolves around the one day in every
century when, according to superstitious tradition, Satan is allowed
to freely walk the Earth and witches return to haunt their descen-
dants. Put to gruesome death by the Inquisition of a province
in Middle Europe, Princess Asa (Steele) and her lover Javutich
(Arturo Dominici) are accused of witchcraft and vampirism and
burnt at the stake by her brother. Two hundred years later, doctors
Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and Gorobek (John Richardson,
who in 1966 starred in One Million Years BC) are travelling to
Moscow when their carriage breaks down next to the graveyard
where Asa's coffin rests. Removing the mask from her face and
finding it horrifically pitted, Kruvajan accidentally cuts his hand
and the spilt blood begins its reviving process on the vengeful
witch. Outside the cemetery Gorobek meets and becomes smit-
ten by Princess Katia (Steele again), the daughter of Prince Vajda
(Ivo Garrani); he fears for her safety because of the resemblance
to her demonic ancestor. His concerns are well founded because
the resurrected Asa summons Javutich from his grave, and inducts
Kruvajan to her dark side, to help her exact terrible revenge and
take over Katia's identity.
Bava's malefic world is a magnificently art-directed spectral
landscape of dark mountains set against moody skies, mist-shrouded
forests where branches clutch at travellers, and ornate black coaches
floating in slow-motion past scenes of decadent decay. Abetted by
a restless moving camera that travels through cobwebby sets crawl-
ing with insects — most effective when Javutich is followed down a
secret passageway leading to Asa's tomb — Bava conveyed every tense
emotion in visual terms, thanks to his technical background. The
resulting ambience of a nightmare fairy tale is an undisputed and
unsurpassed pinnacle of visionary poetry that would influence the
work of many self-confessed rabid fans, including Joe Dante, who
directed The Howling (1980), and T i m Burton, who directed Sleepy
Hollow (1999). Bava stated: "Filmed entirely with a dolly because of
time and money, the photography in a horror film is 70 percent of
its effectiveness; it creates all the atmosphere."
Most of the other 30 percent came from horror icon Barbara
Steele in her quintessential performance. Steele's otherworldly
persona is captured perfectly by Bava's camera, which successfully
brought out her dark vampire/sexy virgin duality. In casting Asa/
62
Barbara Steele (1937-)

Steele by name, steely by nature, the first femme fatale to be crowned
the undisputed queen of horror left the Rank Organisation's "charm
school" and fled to Rome after her talent was wasted in harmless fluff
such as Bachelor Of Hearts (1958). Yet she had no idea that she'd soon
be typecast as the sultry siren of supernatural shockers. Employed for her
smouldering dark looks and brooding sexuality, Steele made her incred-
ible debut as both vampire and victim in Black Sunday, and in her Italian
career playing roles of good and evil would be a constant. Her incandes-
cent beauty and screen presence won her a royal sobriquet to savour,
but her working-class accent was dubbed over in most films, including
The Pit And The Pendulum (1961). Riccardo Freda's kinky The Terror Of
Dr Hichcock (1962) and its follow-up Lo spettro (The Ghost, 1963) are
two of the best movies she appeared in, but she was rightly convinced
that horror was sabotaging her mainstream career - Fellini cast her in 8
1/2 (1963) and then cut her out - and she backed away from numerous
projects; although her attitude towards her classification has softened, it's
a stance that her legion of horror admirers has grudgingly accepted. She
resurfaced in America for supporting roles in Piranha (1978) and Silent
Scream (1980) and then moved into the production arena, where she was
involved in the Dark Shadows TV horror soap in 1990.
Katia so well, Bava took hold of a horror cliche and remoulded it

in baroque Italian terms - and that was the key to Black Sunday's
success. From the fog-shrouded mausoleums to the shadowy
castle interiors, Bava elevated tired motifs and the new renditions
sparkled.
Braindead
dir Peter Jackson, 1992, NZ, 104m
Timothy Balme, Diane Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian
cast
Watkin, Brenda Kendall cin Murray Milne m Peter Dasent
The goriest zombie horror ever made bar none. Peter Jackson
raised the blood bar to dizzying heights with his groundbreaking
63
masterpiece Braindead and no one has tried to match him. They

couldn't. Jackson's landmark splat-stick black comedy, in which
custard pies are replaced with fountains from assorted body parts,
was the most original and astounding work of the 1990s and there
will never be a bloodier, more hilarious, more outrageous, gross-out
zombie shocker.
Jackson goes all the way, then beyond and then even further
than you might have thought possible in this extraordinary accom-
plishment, which he scripted with his future wife Frances Walsh
and Stephen Sinclair; the trio had worked on the screenplay for
Jackson's Meet The Feebles (1989) and went on to glory with his
Lord Of The Rings films (2001-2003). "It's a rot-infested romance",
explained Jackson. "A social metaphor for a pretty universal theme.
Here's this guy who lives at home with his domineering mother and
at some point there's going to be another woman in his life. It's set
in the Fifties to make that more believable and the scary tension is
the contrast between the two women who want his attention taken
to the ultimate crazed, splatter limits."
The sequence before the credits barely hints at the carnage to
come. In the low-rent style of Indiana Jones, a hunter (Jackson him-
self) evades natives to get a sacred Sumatran rat-monkey, for delivery
to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand. However, the vicious creature
bites him, and every infected body appendage is hacked off because
the simian carries a virus that turns victims into the living dead. The
demon monkey, brought to life in jerky stop-motion a la Jason And
The Argonauts (1963) in homage to veteran special efFects man Ray
Harryhausen, also sinks its toxic fangs into Vera Cosgrove (Elizabeth
Moody) when she follows her browbeaten son Lionel (Timothy
Balme) to the zoo for his clandestine date with shop girl Paquita
(Diana Penalver).
W h e n the putrefying venom transforms his mother into a rabid
flesh-eater, Lionel keeps some semblance of normality in their lives
by faking her funeral. But as Vera's victims grow in numbers, the
strain on Lionel matches the one on the cellar door padlocks that
are holding his new undead "family" at bay. Then slimy uncle Les
(Ian Watkin) arrives to lay an inheritance claim on the house; and
when he throws a huge celebration party — just as Lionel acciden-
tally injects animal stimulant into his rotting "guests" instead of
poison — the scene is set for atrocious splattering on the grandest
of scales.
64
65
Braindead is Jackson in show-stopping form and is suffused with

his unique immature charm and weird world vision. His flamboyant
gore deforce includes kung-fu priests, shots from the point of view of a
severed head, murderous spinal columns, Godzilla-size Vera trying to
push Lionel back into her womb and weapons ranging from blend-
ers and ornamental flying ducks to lawnmower blades and umbilical
cords - and this is the tip of a blood-soaked iceberg that is unparal-
leled. Brilliantly brought to life by designers Bob McCarron and
Richard Taylor, it was a showcase opportunity for artists that will
never be repeated. The comic highlight is Lionel trying to pacify
zombie baby Selwyn in a park by beating him into submission. The
gory highlight is, well, the rest of the movie.
The Bride Of
Frankenstein
dir James Whale, 1935, US, 80m, b/w
cast Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Ernest
Thesiger, Elsa Lanchester, Dwight Frye, Gavin Gordon cin
John Mescall m Franz Waxman
The finest of all the Frankenstein movies proved that a sequel could
be better than the original. With its directorial style, visual design
and literate scripting, yeoman performances from never-better Boris
Karloff and Ernest Thesiger, superior score from Franz Waxman,
and classy minute detail, The Bride Of Frankenstein is practically
unsurpassed.
The offbeat Grand Guignol fairy tale laid down in Frankenstein
(1931) is given an injection of dynamism and a richer, quirkier, witti-
er and more lavish texture. Whereas the original had been something
of a novelty act at the dawn of sound, and the first American movie
with the type of mad scientist usually seen only in badly distributed
weird German movies, the sequel emphatically marked the peak of
Universal's horror cycle.
After a prologue where author Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester)
is persuaded by Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) to continue her
66
Elsa Lanchester in a brief but

famous story, it's revealed that the Monster (Karloff) didn't die in
almost show-stealing performance
the mill fire but escaped further villager hounding by taking refuge
with a blind hermit (O. P. Heggie) who teaches him how to talk.
(Karloff's 44-word vocabulary came from the test papers of the child
actors at Universal's on-site school.)
Recognized by hunters, the Monster then falls under the evil
influence of Dr Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), the former teacher
of Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) who wants to create a race
of monsters and has been growing experimental homunculi from
cultures. The Monster and Pretorius then force the still recuperating
Frankenstein to create a mate to ease the Monster's loneliness. But
when the moment arrives for him to claim his bride (Lanchester
67
again), she flinches in terror and the grief-stricken creature destroys

himself and everyone else after permitting Frankenstein to join his
wife Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) in safety.
Neither James Whale nor his cameraman John Mescall strove
for any realism at all in this completely set-bound visualization of the
second half of Shelley's novel, about the Monster's need for female
companionship. The claustrophobic castle, the candle-lit chambers,
the bleak expressionistic forest and the electric look of the non-spe-
cific period laboratory are all stunningly realized at off-kilter angles
to suggest Frankenstein and his creation's mutual derangement.
The big moment when the synthetic Bride begins to breathe is
spellbinding. Basing her birdlike movements on the quick darting
of swans, and dressed in a white shroud, perched on 30-inch stilts,
with a bushy Nefertiti hair-do accompanied by lightning streaks,
Lanchester nearly manages to steal the film from under Karloff's nose
in her brief yet bravura showcase. She was highlighted by the ghostly
hollow ring of wedding bells and timpani to suggest her beating
heart by Franz Waxman, one of the first composers to use musical
leitmotifs for his screen characters. (He successfully sued Rodgers
and Hammerstein for stealing his eerie three-note "Bride's Theme"
for their "Bali Hai" song in the hit musical South Pacific.)
While the film evokes a genuine pathos among its high-tone
chills, displaying Whale's trademark of bold, macabre humour, his
distaste for religion is equally brazen in the symbolic use of the
Monster in parallels with Christ. And the intolerance subtext can
easily be read in terms of his own homosexual experiences in closet-
ed Hollywood. Karloff, for his part, gives his best and most powerful
performance, once again under Jack Pierce's tremendous make-up
design, expressing the Monster's complexity and soul. Breathtaking
in its emotional and visual scope, The Bride Of Frankenstein fully
deserves its lofty status as a genre institution.
68
The Cabinet Of Dr
Caligari (Das Kabinett
des Dr Caligari)
dir Robert Wiene, 1919, Ger, 82m, b/w
cast Werner Krauss,Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover, Friedrich
Feher, Hans Heinz von Twardowski cin Willy Hameister
Two Eastern Europeans changed the face of early silent cinema and in
doing so created the first horror film of real artistic quality when, in
1919, the Czech Hans Janowitz and the Austrian Carl Mayer sold a The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, which
film script to Erich Pommer, director of the pioneering Decla Film showed that a film's design could
Company in Berlin, based on events from their turbulent lives. express mental states
69
Strolling down the Reeperbahn in Hamburg in 1913, Janowitz

saw a respectable gentlemen emerge from behind bushes, adjust his
clothes and merge into the evening crowd.The next day, newspapers
carried a story about a young girl who had been raped and mur-
dered in exactly the same place. Convinced that he'd seen the mur-
derer, Janowitz attended the girl's funeral and saw his suspect again.
The killer was never apprehended and Janowitz became obsessed
by the possibility that casual assassins were freely roaming the streets
laughing at the authorities.
When he met fellow writer Mayer, who shared his desire for
a career in film, Janowitz had just been discharged from the army,
because a psychiatrist had attributed his rebellious attitude to mental
instability. For recreation the friends would go to funfairs and one
Asylums night they attended a "Man and Machine" sideshow, in which a
It's a primal fear to be consid-
stooge carried out feats of strength and foretold the future while
ered insane and unable to prove supposedly in a trance. This attraction, Janowitz's fixation with the
the contrary, and to be locked murder and Mayer's bitterness at regimentation were transferred to
up for life in a madhouse, and paper in a savage indictment of bourgeois hypocrisy. Their script,
Bedlam (1946), Shock Corridor referring in its title to an officer character described by Stendhal,
(1963) and The Dead Pit (1989) dealt with a travelling magician, Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss) and
concern precisely those wor- the somnambulist assistant Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who is kept in
ries. The lunatics taking over a coffin-shaped cabinet and who, through hypnosis, is led to kidnap
the asylum, taken from Edgar and murder.
Allan Poe's The System Of Dr
Tarr And Professor Fether, is a
The film was due to be directed by future Metropolis visionary
common horror theme, as used
Fritz Lang, whose planned triptych including The Spiders (1919)
in The Monster (1925), Dr Tarr's was taking a long time to complete, but the project was eventually
Torture Dungeon (1971) and handed over to Robert Wiene, who, although not a name of note
Don't Look In The Basement in cinema, was conversant with Berlin's bustling art scene. And the
(1972), and plot twists revolving big story during this period after World War I was Expressionism, a
around who is sane and who movement seeking to restore man to the centre of his universe, in
isn't are central to The Cabinet contrast to the old orders, where nature was the focus. Accordingly,
Of Dr Caligari (1919) and Asylum objects, light and shadows were reshaped into an individual world-
(1972). But most frequently view, and the best exponents of this chaotic art form were the
madhouses are places where avant-garde group Der Sturm; so Wiene hired its principal purveyors,
psychopaths escape from, as
Walter Reiman, Walter Rohrig and Hermann Warm, as design-
is the case in films ranging from
ers. This was not only to make his film a timely conversation piece
The Cat And The Canary (1927)
but also because electricity cost a fortune, and the canvas set with
to Halloween (1978). Don't any
painted highlights saved money.
of them have decent security?
To explain this stylized look Wiene changed the script, add-
ing a framing device that made the story the ravings of an asy-
70
lum inmate. Janowitz and Mayer were furious. It obliterated their

political polemic: that a Caligari-esque Prussian establishment was
turning the German population into zombie-like Cesare figures.
But Caligari's influence, as one of the most timeless artefacts of the
twentieth century, would have nothing to do with any outdated
messages. Wiene's madman's vision of the world was the first movie
to suggest psychological horror as an alternative to physically fright-
ening shocks and demonstrated that visual design could express
emotional fracture and mental states — the standout sequence is the
heroine Jane (Lil Dagover) being abducted by Cesare and carried
over weirdly angled hills, roads and steps. Even more important was
that Caligari showed how the new medium of film could capture
dark fantasies more potently and dramatically than had ever been
thought possible.
Cannibal Holocaust
dir Ruggero Deodato, 1979, It/Col, 98m
castRobert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen,
Luca Barbareschi, Salvatore Basil, Gabriel Yorke cin
Sergio d'Offizi m Riz Ortolani
Banned in 33 countries and the cause of protests that forced director
Ruggero Deodato to defend his filmmaking methods in Italian
law courts, Cannibal Holocaust is arguably the most shocking and
horrifying movie ever made.
Produced at a time when graphic American stalk-and-slash was
taking over the global marketplace, Cannibal Holocaust was part of
the Italian reaction: hitting back with a brand of "realistic" horror
drawn from their film culture. Animal torture and killing had been a
mainstay of the country's exploitation industry since the worldwide
success of the shockumentary Mondo Cane (1962) - which, amaz-
ingly, was Oscar-nominated - and its copycat ilk, including Africa
Addio (1966) and Savage Man ... Savage Beast (1981).
During the Seventies documentary work akin to images in
National Geographic and footage that was often staged got edited
into racist exotic dramas that were purportedly to show the dif-
71
ference between civilization and the rest of the world. Cannibal

Holocaust wasn't the first in this unsavoury development; Deep River
Savages (1972), Prisoner OfThe Cannibal God (1978) and Deodato's
Last Cannibal World (1977) popularized authentic violence. But they
didn't have the literary device — later used by Tlie Blair Witch Project
(1999) - that sent Deodato's visceral epic, which in truth had no
message, into the shock stratosphere.
A film crew led by Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke) goes missing in
South America while shooting a documentary on tribal cannibalism.
Anthropologist Professor Monroe (porn star Robert Bolla, appear-
ing here under his real name of Robert Kerman) is assigned the
task of leading an expedition into the "Green Inferno" to establish
their fate. In the Colombian jungle they witness various nasty rituals
and eventually find sealed cans of film shot by the Yates party being
kept by the feared Tree People.
The rest of the film consists of the found footage providing
details of the film crew being hunted down, mutilated and eaten.
Complete with amateurish zooms, scratches, graininess and lab
marks, it unfolds in front of stunned New York television executives
who predict massive ratings should they air it. It's because Deodato
imitates the cynical art form he seeks to condemn that his barrage
of barbaric set pieces is so challenging, so morally repugnant and so
horrifying.
All of the animal butchery is real (the hardest to watch is the live
turtle being cut into pieces) but most of the human atrocity is faked
(the castration, a native having her unborn baby forcibly aborted by
hand, a woman vertically impaled on a ten-foot pole). However, just
before the main carnage, Deodato plays his trump card - Monroe
shows real-life archival footage of a firing-squad execution as an
introduction to Yates's "style". This bravura coup de theatre helps to
lend nerve-shredding authenticity to the cruelty then provocatively
paraded on screen.
So is this mutilation extravaganza a powerful visionary work
using the "violence as art" idiom of Italian horror, or the definition
of unethical obscenity sarcastically masquerading as a meditation on
man's capacity for evil? No matter which side of the fence you fall
on, Cannibal Holocaust is a procession of extreme imagery that proves
unforgettable.
72
Carrie
dir Brian De Palma, 1976, US, 98m
castSissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William
Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen cin Mario Tosi m Pino
Donaggio
Based on Stephen King's debut novel, Brian De Palma's modern
gothic fairy tale significantly improved upon the 1974 bestseller. De
Palma expanded its scope by positioning his CiWere//a-in-the-abat-
toir as a religious morality tale dealing with the bigotry, peer pres-
sure and bullying that can be found in any high school. Portraying
Carrie White as a kindly figure and making it clear that her teleki-
netic power is more a stigma for her than a saving grace made the
character doubly sympathetic; thanks also to Sissy Spacek's heart-
rending and subtly shaded performance — the staring Carrie, rigid
in her bloodied ball gown, quickly became an iconic image — this
unforgettable package of pop psychology and psychic phenomena is
a transfixing and viscerally moving experience.
Constantly chastised and physically abused at home by her
religious fanatic mother Margaret (Piper Laurie), Carrie finds no
respite from her miserable existence at Bates High School either.
There she's mocked mercilessly for being such a shy wallflower,
especially after a menstrual incident in the showers. This episode
gives Carrie's bitchy classmate Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen)
the idea of engineering, with her scheming boyfriend Billy Nolan
(John Travolta), that Carrie be crowned "Prom Queen" at the end-
of-term festivities and drenched in pig's blood from a bucket rigged
in the gymnasium rafters. This macabre practical joke tips Carrie
over the edge, causing her paranormal powers to erupt into a blazing
inferno of death and destruction.
Laurie is as striking as Spacek — both actresses were nominated
for an Oscar - and her symbolic crucifixion by kitchen utensils is
a thrilling highlight that matches the overwhelming shock of the
bloody gym massacre. A wonderfully romantic moment is accentu-
ated by the fabulous music of Pino Donaggio: troubled about her
uncaring treatment of Carrie, Sue Snell (Amy Irving) asks her boy-
friend Tommy Ross (William Katt) to be Carrie's dance partner, Sissy Spacek as Carrie, at the
and while the camera revolves around the actors, who are themselves end-of-term prom
73
King of Horror
Not only did Carrie begin a trend of using the innovative shock ending
as a selling point; it also turned Stephen King into a household name.
Since that debut novel in 1974, he has become one of cinema's most fre-
quently adapted authors and one of the best-selling writers in the world.
While movies on the conveyor belt of adaptations have included the good
(The Dark Half, 1992), the bad (The Mangier, 1994) and the ugly (Stephen
King's Thinner, 1996), aside from Carrie, only the following have achieved
any lasting standing:
• The Shining (1980). Stanley Kubrick's version of King's 1977 terror tome
is a disappointment for fans of the book who felt that Kubrick took the
easy scare option, but its reputation has grown consistently and many
now consider it a modern horror masterpiece.
• The Dead Zone (1983). In David Cronenberg's loyal and restrained
rendering of King's psychic tale from 1979, Christopher Walken can see
a person's past, present and future just by touch. Performances from
Walken and Martin Sheen are highlights in one of Cronenberg's biggest
commercial and critical hits.
• Misery (1990). Rob Reiner's adaptation of King's 1987 success won
an Oscar for Kathy Bates, as a deranged fan keeping captive, and "hob-
bling", a best-selling author (James Caan). Reiner only got the rights to
the novel because King loved his compassionate treatment of Stand By
Me (1986).
• Dolores Claiborne (1995). Kathy Bates returned to King's universe as the

title character under suspicion of murder, in Taylor Hackford's sparkling
rendition of the 1992 chiller - the best psychological thriller Alfred
Hitchcock never made.
• Apt Pupil (1997). After discovering that his neighbour (Ian McKellen) is
an SS war criminal, Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) wallows in Nazi death-
camp horror in Bryan Singer's expansion of King's 1982 short story from
Different Seasons. (Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, 1994,
came from the same source.) Aborted once during production a decade
earlier, Singer's exploration of the evil lying hidden in the mundane and
everyday is the most controversial and underrated King adaptation.
on an unseen revolving platform, it highlights the dizzying swirl of

awakening emotions and possibilities felt by both characters.
De Palma also uses blood motifs for visual and verbal texture
and his signature split-screen technique to overload the senses dur-
74
ing the climactic scenes of frenzied panic. In other ways he was

deliberately understated. "More telekinesis had been planned," said
Spacek. "Brian wanted to play it down. The crying too - I didn't
want Carrie to be this wimp, so anytime she cried she bottled it in.
There was never any release, she was like a time bomb, until finally
she explodes."
It's Carrie that the horror world has to thank for the much-cop-
ied shock ending. The jolt when Carrie's hand suddenly springs out
of her rocky grave led to hefty business through word-of-mouth
and marked out both De Palma and King as rising talents. Filmed
in lyrical slow-motion to lull the viewer into an other-worldly false
sense of security, it caps De Palma's best film.
The Cat And The

Canary
dir Paul Leni, 1927, US, 86m, b/w
castLaura LaPlante, Creighton Hale, Lucien Littlefield,
Forrest Stanley, Arthur Edmund Carewe cin Gilbert
Warrenton
Talon-clawed hands appear from the wainscoting to reach for the
heroine's throat, bodies lurk in secret passageways, panels slide open
in walls, dark corridors billow with breeze-blown curtains, torch
beams waft through deserted rooms and relatives gather in a creepy
mansion to hear the reading of a will. All these subsequently hoary
cliches, and more, are contained in the most famous of all spooky
spoofs, German director Paul Leni's charmingly scary, genuinely
amusing old dark house mystery based on the popular 1922 play by
John Willard.
During the 1920s the Broadway stage developed its own genre
of thriller comedies that took place in gloomy environments with
only one set. The Bat in 1920 was the first spine-tingler to run for
more than 500 performances - and became a film in 1926 — and
many lesser efforts followed in the attempts to challenge it, includ-
75
Laura La Plante as
ing The Monster, The Last Warning and The Gorilla., all of which were
Annabelle, who to gain
adapted for the cinema.
a fortune must not
But while Willard's supernatural shenanigans, ultimately revealed
appear insane
to be contrived machinations, might not have matched The Bat in
terms of theatrical success, the adaptation became synonymous with
sinister screen satire. It had an enormous effect on the horror genre
because Leni brought his stylistically weird and wonderful sensi-
bilities, as seen in Waxworks (1924), to drawing-room America, and
even Alfred Hitchcock cited it as an influence.
On the twentieth anniversary of his death at midnight, the will of
eccentric millionaire Cyrus West is read out to his surviving relatives
in the dusty confines of his hilltop mansion overlooking the Hudson
76
River. Obsessed with hereditary insanity, he identifies distant rela-

tive Annabelle (Laura La Plante) as his sole beneficiary. But if she
should show any signs of mental imbalance, a second envelope will
be opened and another heir named. As the greedy relatives do their
best to pass off Annabelle as insane, it's announced that a criminal
called The Cat has escaped from a nearby asylum. That night the
mansion teems with mysterious off-screen murders and cowardly
family members shivering under bedcovers, until dawn breaks and
it's revealed that The Cat is the second heir, cousin Charlie (Forrest
Stanley), who is hoping to drive Annabelle crazy.
Beginning marvellously with a hand wiping away cobwebs from
the credits, the film's ominous mood is established immediately by
the cringing, dying West being surrounded by shadows turning into
enormous medicine bottles. These then transform into the house
battlements and the interior mechanism of a clock is shown with the
cogs turning to meet midnight - the first time it will have chimed
since West's death.
It's this eye-catching opening that puts the grim chill in The Cat
AndThe Canary and grounds perfectly the ensuing ghastly goofiness.
Leni captures every detail, and uses points of view that were unusual
at the time, such as that of the murderer peering from behind a
portrait. So successful was this approach, it became the cornerstone
of Universal's horror technique. Of the five remakes, the 1939 Bob
Hope comedy vehicle is the best - because it relies heavily on Leni's
delightfully atmospheric original.
Cat People
dir Jacques Tourneur, 1942, US, 73m, b/w
cast Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane
Randolph, Elizabeth Russell cin Nick Musuraca m Roy
Webb
A new artistic approach was applied to horror in Val Lewton's
first production and the genre would never be the same again. In
Jacques Tourneur, son of French silent director Maurice Tourneur,
Lewton found a director with the same senses of graceful style and
77
scintillating mood aesthetics as his own, and one who would realize
his ambitions perfectly in the pair's most popular evocation of the
silent and the unseen.
Saddled with a title that the R K O front office had tested with
positive results, and inspired by French fashion magazines picturing
models with heads of cats, Lewton's team constructed an ambiguous
variation on the werewolf legend. New York fashion designer Irena
Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is convinced that she descends from
a Serbian race of women that Balkan folklore says are capable of
shape-shifting into dangerous cats when their passions are aroused.
Her obsession beguiles navy man Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), who
courts and then weds Irena, despite her fears preventing consumma-
tion of the marriage.
Frustrated, Oliver sends Irena to psychiatrist Dr Judd (Tom
Conway), who convinces her that she's just paranoid while clearly
turned on by her erotic fantasies, and turns to jealous co-worker
Alice (Jane Randolph) for sympathy. The stage is set for ominously
sexual fuses to blow and for subliminal hints of something too evil
for words slinking in the darkness.
Saturating the film with feline artefacts — statues, paintings and
furnishings — all designed to underscore subconsciously Irena's fixa-
tion, Tourneur artfully keeps us guessing as to her actual orientation.
Is she frigid (as an opening quote from Freud suggests), a repressed
lesbian (at her wedding reception a strangely cat-like woman
addresses her as "my sister" in a voice dubbed by Simon) or indeed
an unwilling cat woman?
Tourneur's tasteful teases became moments of classic horror in
their own right: Irena trying to coax the canary, a gift, out of its cage,
the paw-like batting of her hand suggesting something else entirely;
Alice being stalked by something ghastly and unseen as she walks
by Central Park, ending with a magical moment when the doors of
a bus hiss open to offer safe refuge. (So delighted was Lewton with
that jolt — it never fails to catch its audience unaware - he termed all
his frissons from then onwards "busses".) Later, in one of the most
iconic sequences in horror history, Alice is in a basement swimming
pool when the lights go out, a cat shadow shimmers on the wall and
she finds her robe clawed to shreds at the water's edge.
Rational calm counter-pointed by elliptical horror fantasy: that's
what makes Cat People so fear-inducing. But Tourneur was such a
master of manipulating the imagination, he allowed audiences that
78
he held in the sweaty palm of his hand the ultimate terror indul-
gence — the freedom to frighten themselves.
The Curse Of
Frankenstein
dir Terence Fisher, 1957, UK, 82m
Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court, Valerie
cast
Gaunt, Robert Urquhart cin Jack Asher m James Bernard
Peter Cushing, playing the Baron,
"All new and never dared before" hyped the blood-red poster for opposite friend and co-star
the turning point in postwar British horror. With The Curse Of Christopher Lee, the Creature
Frankenstein, Hammer sparked off a money-spinning worldwide

Black Park renaissance of the genre; the international fear careers of two of its
best-loved practitioners, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee,
The m o s t f a m o u s l o c a t i o n were launched; and journeyman director Terence Fisher found his
in horror movies is this large
forte. It's hard now to imagine what a sea change was represented by
country park on the outskirts of
this remodelling of Mary Shelley's classic novel as a gory drawing-
London, wedged between Iver
room melodrama.Yet it was a sensational novelty to have all the blood
Heath, Slough, the M40 and
Pinewood Studios. Used for a
in vivid Technicolor - and to cause such disgust. "For sadists only"
host of movies ranging from the wrote one critic, while another went as far as apologizing to America
Harry Potter series to the Carry for exporting such repulsive degradation.
On comedies, Black Park was Hammer had already been producing successful science-fiction
the main forest backdrop for movies such as The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) when they hit upon
literally every Hammer horror, the idea of redoing the classic monster catalogue in colour and in a
from The Curse Of Frankenstein more graphic style. Universal were not pleased when alerted to the
(1957) a n d The Brides of fact that this upstart British company planned to remake Frankenstein
Dracula (1960) to Kiss Of The
— as a vehicle for the ageing Boris Karloff, star of their own 1931
Vampire (1963) and Twins Of
landmark. They threatened to take legal action if Hammer appro-
Evil (1971). It was handily near-
priated any element unique to their version, and in particular Jack
by the House of Horror's home
of operations, Bray Studios, and
Pierce's copyrighted monster make-up. So Jimmy Sangster went
saw everything from coaches
back to Shelley for his script, and rather than making the monster
trundling d o w n m u d d y path- the central focus, as it had been in James Whale's film, he shifted the
ways to nubile, semi-naked focus to Baron Victor Frankenstein (Cushing) and his fiercely driven
heroines being chased. quest to create the perfect being.
The Curse Of Frankenstein begins with narration by the Baron
from a prison cell as he awaits the guillotine for his unspeakable
crimes against humanity. He tries to convince a priest brought in to
listen to his confession that it wasn't he who committed the murders
for which he's being condemned but the Creature (Lee), which he
and his assistant Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) assembled from
body parts. In flashback we see how Victor's intense passion and
megalomania grow as the Creature is brought to life, is given a crash
course in behaviour and breaks its bonds to cause uncomprehend-
ing murder.
Putting the action in the novel's original setting, Fisher's direc-
torial verve gave it the patina of a witty fairy tale and a high scare
score. The Creature's introduction is memorable: a rapid track into a
disfigured face before, on coming abruptly to life, he tries to strangle
his creator. And the impact was greater because of make-up man
Phil Leakey's frantic last-minute design for the Creature, amid
panic about copyright infringement, which was a corpse-like collage
80
of mortician's wax, rubber and cotton wool that took three hours
to apply to Lee's face.
"It was the first time I worked with Peter," recalled Lee. "I told
him,'I haven't any lines in this,' and he said,'You're lucky! I've read
the script.'" But although he has barely fifteen minutes of screen
time, Lee still makes an indelible impact as the man-made being
without any control over his actions. However, the movie inevitably
belongs to Cushing who, hardly ever off the screen, is superb in
delivering Victor's delight and wonder in the new medical avenues
that he's opening, and his lack of regard for the pain and suffering
he's causing to those around him.
Dawn Of The Dead

dir George A. Romero, 1978, US, 126m
cast DavidEmge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen
Ross, David Crawford cin Michael Gornick m Goblin,
Dario Argento
Ten years after Night Of The Living Dead (1968), director George
A. R o m e r o resurrected his zombie flesh-eaters for the second seg-
ment of what he had decided would be a trilogy. {Day of the Dead
followed in 1985 and twenty years later the series came to include
Land Of The Dead.) The result was an audacious horror masterpiece
which, thanks to its shopping mall setting and brainwashed zombie
"consumers", immediately represented the materialism of Seventies
America. One of the most profitable independent film productions
ever made, it earned Vietnam combat photographer and make-up
artist T o m Savini the title "the King of Splatter" and sent critics of
the genre reeling with its clammy " N o Exit" grimness, and its potent
social message told in an intelligent horror vernacular. It was even
called "the Gone With The Wind of gore" because of its unusually
epic length for a horror film, of more than two hours.
With society teetering on the verge of collapse because of
human pettiness and lack of cooperation more than the rampant
zombie plague, television broadcaster Fran (Gaylen Ross), her
daredevil helicopter pilot boyfriend Stephen (David Emge), their
81
THE C A N O N : 50 HORROR CLASSICS
SWAT friend Roger (Scott H. Reiniger) and heroic black police

trooper Peter (Ken Foree) take refuge in a huge shopping mall
relatively devoid of the undead. While the men can't resist looting
the deserted stores for luxuries, Fran is the only one who recognizes
that the precinct represents a lifestyle that must be forsaken if they
are to survive the onslaught of cannibal cadavers.
The foursome's fragile false sense of security is further shattered
when a gang of nomadic Hell's Angels (led by Savini) break in
through the doors and let in the gathering hordes of the living dead.
Fatally wounded in an elevator, Stephen leads the zombies straight
to his former friends. Peter, originally planning to sacrifice himself
so that Fran can escape in the helicopter, changes his mind and both
fly off into an uncertain future.
This was the first horror film to suggest the possibility of moving
beyond impending apocalypse towards creating a new social order.
"The mall was a temple to the 'me' generation of the time," Romero
explained. "The stores were symbolic cathedrals meant to appear
as an archaeological discovery revealing the gods and customs of a
civilization now gone."
But this subtext didn't matter to the hardcore splatteratti, who
mainly regarded the whole bloody business as a horror comic; the
sheer sensationalism of the graphic gore popped the pupils unnerv-
ingly. The film was seen first in Italy after co-producer Dario
Argento released it in a cut that accented the operatic violence,
such as the zombie walking into the helicopter blades and getting
his cranium severed; when Romero unleashed his longer, un-rated
cut on America eight months later, the throwaway details dear to his
heart were kept in but the blade sequence was excised.
Far from being the disaster that everyone was expecting, the
2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake by Zack Snyder, which had a scale
and budget denied to Romero, though geared more towards high
action was an engaging roller-coaster ride through gripping gory
terror.
82
Diabolique
(Les diaboliques)
dir Henri-Georges Clouzot, Fr, 1954, 114m, b/
w
cast Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse,
Charles Vanel, Pierre Larquey cm Armand Thirard m
Georges Van Parys
Before Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) raised the horror thriller
to new heights of suspense, Henri-Georges Clouzot's chiller
was considered the most frightening and artistic
nightmare that the genre could produce. In France
Clouzot was even dubbed "the Gallic Hitchcock"
for this brilliant follow-up to The Wages Of Fear
(1953). And Hitchcock paid attention to the themes
of Diabolique, because of the critics' reviews; and
because he had been beaten by the Frenchman to
the rights to the novel on which it was based, Celle
qui n'etait plus (The Woman Wlio Was No More), by
Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. And so
the horror world has this clever classic to thank
for Psycho, for Diabolique foreshadowed it in many
ways; it centred on a murder in a bare bathroom, for
example, and benefited from a smart publicity cam-
paign that urged moviegoers not to watch unless
they did so from the very beginning.
A dark puzzle picture employing the apparatus
of terror within the context of a detective story,
Diabolique focuses on the relationship, implied at times
to be lesbian, between the sickly Christina Delasalle
(Vera Clouzot, the director's wife) and the stiff,
ice-cool Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret), the
wife and mistress, respectively, of Michel Delasalle
(Paul Meurisse). The head of a boys' school that
has his name, Delasalle is unkind towards his teach- Nicole (Simone Signoret) gets her revenge - or does she?
83
ers and his pupils, and abuses his fragile wife in front of his mistress
(who herself hides behind dark sunglasses), and even in front of the
schoolboys, when he asks her to swallow a bone.
The plan of the two women to murder him, as organised by
Nicole, to take place at her home far away, seems justified. But
Christina - whose religious beliefs frequently put doubts in her
mind - gets nervous, so it is her partner who terrifyingly drowns a
drugged Michel in the bath. And then the corpse vanishes. Before
long Inspector Fichet (Charles Vanel) is making them nervous,
and after mysterious appearances and disappearances, including a
sighting reported by one of the almost ubiquitous schoolboys, an
ill Christina is forced to take to the long, dark corridors to put her
mind at rest.
Clouzot crafted a gripping scenario loaded with subtle insights
into the basest aspects of human nature, which are often conveyed
through movements of the eyes and snippets of dialogue about lies
and responsibility. Handled particularly masterfully is the unnerving
final sequence, which reaches a climax when Michel's corpse appears
to rise from the bathtub, witnessed by the traumatized Christina, and
which features the fiendish revelation. (After the end credits came
the plea, "Don't be diabolical yourself. Don't spoil the ending for
your friends by telling them what you've just seen. On their behalf
— Thank you.") And the darkness is not disturbed by the seamlessly
incorporated irreverent humour; both are present in tense scenes
when the body is almost discovered. The black-and-white cinema-
tography, frequently focusing on water, captures the foreboding that
makes the clever Diabolique — unlike the remake of 1996 starring
Sharon Stone - a pinnacle in cinematic dread.
Dracula
dir Tod Browning, 1931, US, 85m, b/w
cast Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight
Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade
cin Karl Freund
"I ... am ... Dracula. I bid you ... welcome" is probably the most
famous line of dialogue in horror history. Dracula brought Universal
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84
Tod Browning's Dracula influenced

monsterdom into the big time, made a movie star out of Hungarian every vampire film that followed it
stage actor Bela Lugosi and catapulted director Tod Browning,
"the Edgar Allan Poe of Cinema", to the frontline of fear-making.
Restoring the true meaning of the word "vampire" to the language
- in the silent era "vamp" had tended to stand for predatory females
played, for example, by Theda Bara - "the strangest love story of them
all", as the poster had it, presented Count Dracula being undead as a
supernatural fact. There was no final revelation that everything was
an elaborate con, as it was in Browning's London After Midnight four
years earlier, nor the kind of cheating that existed in The Cat And
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The Canary, as was the vogue. Browning's script acknowledged that

Blood audiences were now ready to deal with fully-fledged horror, and the
film's instant smash-hit status stabilized Universal's f i n a n c e s during
Sucked by vampires, spilt by the Great Depression.
murderers, bathed in by mad
For Browning, Dracula was the culmination of an obsession with
countesses, and used as paint
the shadowy horror themes that the American cinema had long
by crazed artists and as ink in
Devil pacts, the fluid that keeps
resisted. One of the few Hollywood players conversant in develop-
us all alive is the life force of the ments in other cultures, Browning was familiar with English gothic
horror movie. Though its nick- literature and knew of Robert Wiene and F. W Murnau's pioneering
names have ranged from tomato movie work in Germany. He and his cinematographer Karl Freund
ketchup to K e n s i n g t o n Gore, almost certainly perused Nosferatu, as there are numerous parallel
like w o r d s such as "curse", shots in Dracula - notably Orlok and Dracula studying their foreign
"castle" and "monster" the word leases, and a cut hand stimulating the vampire's bloodlust. Browning's
"blood" in a title conveys exactly genius was in taking this melting pot of influences from around the
what the movie is about. But
world and forging a new baroque style, American Gothic.
while gallons are often splashed
about to cover up deficiencies Based on the 1927 hit stage version of Dracula by Hamilton
in low-budget B-movies, less Deane and John L. Balderston, adapted from the Bram Stoker
is often more powerful: the novel, Browning's classic chiller opens in high style with Renfield
s m u d g e on Renfield's finger (Dwight Frye) travelling to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to sell
in Dracula (1931), the trickle in the lease of Carfax Abbey in Yorkshire to the deceptively urbane
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Count (Lugosi). Later the ship Vesta arrives in Whitby Harbour
In black-and-white movies the near Carfax Abbey and Renfield is found aboard the eerily deserted
most common blood substitute vessel raving mad, eating rats and insects. As Renfield is placed in
was chocolate syrup - Psycho
the asylum of Dr Seward (Herbert Bunston), Dracula begins his
used the Shasta brand - and in
nocturnal exploits and turns Lucy Weston (Frances Dade) into a
colour movies, blood could be
anything from scarlet to crimson
vampire. Her friend Mina Seward (Helen Chandler) then catches
depending on the film stock or his attention, and when her health deteriorates her father calls in
the secret recipes of the make- a specialist, DrVan Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), who diagnoses
up men. For the exploitation her sudden anaemia. Realizing what's happening Van Helsing tells
horror brigade Cochineal and Mina's f i a n c e Jonathan Harker (David Manners) and Dr Seward all
Karo corn syrup were favou- about vampirism and prepares them for the desperate measures to be
rites. taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead.
Although Dracula's demise coming as only an off-screen groan
is hardly a fitting end for the powerful nobleman, and although the
Transylvanian beginning is so brilliantly staged that the rest of the
movie seems to remain in awe of it, Browning shaped the way that
every vampire movie would be made afterwards. Its standing as a
memorable genre milestone cannot be overstated, even though,
like most of its contemporaries, it's the quaint charm more than
the transfixing horror that it is now famous for. Yet Dracula was an
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influential piece of cinematic mood-making, with Freund's eerie

photography helping to scale up the unease; and, having perfected
his performance through countless appearances in the stage hit,
Lugosi is the definitive monochrome Count Dracula. With his for-
mal dinner suit, black cape, cultivated demeanour, cruel smile and
East European accent, he claimed the part of the Prince of Darkness
as his own, and Lugosi's enduring image casts a weighty shadow to
this day.
Dracula
(aka Horror Of Dracula)
dir Terence Fisher, 1958, UK, 82m
castPeter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough,
Melissa Stribling, Valerie Gaunt cin Jack Asher m James
Bernard
Epochal in its impact and unequivocally the best Hammer horror
ever made, Dracula sexually liberated the horror movie, allowing it
to become more sensually provocative; it was also more graphically
violent after the company tested the bloody waters in their break-
out success The Curse Of Frankenstein the previous year. Director
Terence Fisher's shocker might not be the most faithful adaptation
of Bram Stoker's novel; but, sparsely and crisply scripted by Hammer
veteran Jimmy Sangster, who set the story in the cod Mitteleuropa
that Hammer would soon make a notorious cliche, it remains one
of the finest renderings of the Dracula theme. Of the well-mounted
scenes hardly any are without rousing action, erotic frisson or unfor-
gettable suspense and Fisher's masterly direction set an unmatched
standard in romantic gothic horror.
When Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) dies at the teeth of
Count Dracula (Christopher Lee), an attempt is made by his close
friend DrVan Helsing (Peter Cushing) to track the vampire king
down. But he eludes all capture and shows up in London, promptly
killing Harker's fiancee Lucy (Carol Marsh). After Van Helsing
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frees Lucy's immortal soul, Dracula retaliates by kidnapping Mina

(Melissa Stribling), wife of Lucy's brother Arthur Holmwood
(Michael Gough). A chase across Europe ensues, with Arthur and
Van Helsing pursuing the bloodsucker and his enslaved victim back
to the undead demon's Transylvanian castle.
Peter Cushing, as the heroic Van Helsing, is one of the film's
greatest strengths, projecting genuine intelligence, and a dogged
determination to eradicate evil. (He later admitted that of all the
roles he played, this one required the least amount of acting.)
Dracula is introduced by Fisher as an imposing figure at the top of
Terence Fisher's Dracula, the best
a staircase - without any footstep sounds, to add to the royal fiend's
Hammer horror, showed masterly
supernaturalism - and it is one of the greatest entrances in horror
directorial skills
history. Christopher Lee's overall performance was one of immense
88
stature that was cruel, predatory and, most importantly, seductively

charming - all with only thirteen lines of dialogue. "It was a mile-
stone in my career", he said. "And it has proved to be a mixed bless-
ing. But I always tried to impress on the audience the majesty and
dignity of this immortal character as well as the savagery, ferocity
and, above all, great sadness."
The film was packed with hugely effective moments showing
what could be done on a low budget when everyone's flair and
elegance was used well; and the best was kept until last and would
prove so popular through word-of-mouth that it was reprised at
the beginning of the first official sequel, Dracula, Prince Of Darkness
(1965). This was the sequence where Van Helsing and Dracula fight
tooth-and-nail throughout the castle, with the battle ending in
the massive library; using two candlesticks to form the sign of the
cross, Van Helsing leaps across the room, pulls the curtains from the
window and forces Dracula into the rays of the rising sun, where
he disintegrates into ash. It was a thrilling end to a blood-curdling
smash that grabbed the horror world by the jugular, and Hammer
never looked back. "The filming of Dracula went like a dream," said
Fisher. "Everything worked."
The Evil Dead

dir Sam Raimi, 1982, US, 86m
castBruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Hal
Delrich, Sarah York cin Tim Philo m Joseph LoDuca
Stephen King raved after the premiere of The Evil Dead at the Cannes
Film Festival — "the most ferociously original horror movie I have
ever seen" — but British moral guardians sounded the alarm when it
was released because of its supposedly harmful psychological effects.
The Maine man was right about its originality and, as usual, the self-
appointed arbiters of public taste got it wrong. Made as a calling card
that announced the arrival of three tyro filmmakers on the indepen-
dent scene, the no-budget zombie bloodbath from director Sam
Raimi, producer Robert Tapert and star Bruce Campbell soon
gained its well-deserved status as a cult classic. Through combining a
haphazard narrative, gushes of gore to cover every glaring fault and
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90
an inventive style borne out of poverty-stricken necessity — Raimi

jokingly dubbed the dizzying fast tracking shots "Shakicam" — The
Evil Dead became a frighteningly atmospheric, cunning innovation
Bruce Campbell
with a wry sense of humour. The nearest that latter-day horror
Five college students, Ash (Bruce Campbell), Cheryl (Ellen has to a journeyman star in the
Sandweiss), Scotty (Hal Delrich), Linda (Betsy Baker) and old tradition, Bruce Campbell
is the king of the un-credited
Shelly (Sarah York), arrive at a rickety cabin deep in the Tennessee
cameo. The countless movies
backwoods for a weekend of sex and drugs. There they discover the
in which he has appeared briefly
Necronomicon, a fictional book of the dead, that puts a curse on
or as just a voice include those
whoever reads it, and a tape-recording of weird incantations. The of his friends the Coen brothers,
magic spell awakens a terrifying life force in the forest, and one by but he is perhaps most famous
one the characters become violently possessed by ferocious demons. for the role of Ash in best friend
The only way to break the hex is by dismemberment and decapita- Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and
tion, which leaves Ash as the reluctant hero, barricading every door its t w o sequels. Campbell's
and making a last stand against the satanic intruders. square-jawed classic matinee-
It might have an anaemic plot and no characterization, but idol looks - his autobiography is
titled If Chins Could Kill - have
Raimi delivers on all delightfully disgusting and creepy claustro-
g r a c e d Maniac Cop (1988),
phobic levels. The unsubtle bloodletting is extreme and frequent,
Darkman (1990), Sundown:
funny and repulsive. Pencils, knives, clocks, chainsaws, trees, writh-
The Vampire In Retreat (1991)
ing vines, vices, fingernails and more are used as weapons of messy and - one of his finest hours
destruction. Informed by Raimi's love of the Three Stooges as - cult horror c o m e d y Bubba
much as down-and-dirty shockers such as The Texas Chainsaw Ho-Tep (2002), in which he por-
Massacre (1974) — the scene where the light bulb fills up with blood trayed Elvis Presley as a bitter,
is his student horror appropriation of the trio's comedy sketch "A lonely old man living out his life
Plumbing We Will G o " - The Evil Dead is gory and goofy in equal in a rural Texas nursing home.
pulse-pounding parts. "There is a large element of me
in every role I do," he once said.
"We made it for our local Detroit drive-in crowd," said Raimi,
"Actors who say they can dive
who went on to direct Spider-Man (2002). "We wanted to make a
inside a character are either
film that would stop people kissing in their cars and turn their atten-
schizophrenic or lying."
tion to the screen. Since we never got any girls we figured it was
only fair to make a film so other people didn't get them either!"
The Evil Dead was followed by Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
(1987), not so much a sequel as a big-budget version of the original,
and Army Of Darkness (1992), which was way too manic and camp
(and which because of its thirteenth-century time travel plot had the
working title "The Medieval Dead"). While Bruce Campbell's Ash
evolved into a more gung-ho action hero as the series progressed,
it's his ultra-game performance here, coupled with Raimi's keen-as-
mustard direction, that gives The Evil Dead its still contagious heart
and soul.
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The Exorcist
dir William Friedkin, 1973, US, 122m
cast Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J.
Cobb, Jason Miller, cin Owen Roizman m Jack Nitzsche
With the most talked-about, widely shocking and controversial fear-
inducer ever, director William Friedkin took horror into the big-
budget arena and inspired numerous cash-ins. The Exorcist did for
the genre what 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) did for science fiction:
it legitimized horror in the eyes of the world and the film industry,
which previously considered such movies as giggles or drive-in
fillers. It therefore made history in a way that few films, especially
horrors, ever do.
The Exorcist also became a cultural happening. People left screen-
ings shaking, nauseous and screaming. Some sought psychiatric help
because of the film's overwhelming impact and there were claims
that it led to a rise in church attendance. Even the Pope reacted; he
delivered an address on the Devil, saying "evil is not merely a lack of
something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted
and perverting ... a terrible reality".That was the only rave review
that Warner Bros needed to have their satanic sensation enter the
record books.
Based on true events occurring in 1928 and 1949, Friedkin's
adult horror was scripted by William Peter Blatty - he won an
Oscar - who adapted his own bestseller set in Georgetown, where
actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is living with her 12-year-
old daughter Regan (Linda Blair) while shooting a movie. The
world around them is shown to be falling apart: there's poverty,
decadence, youths on the rampage, political turmoil, divorce for
Chris and a crisis of faith for Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller),
who is suffering from guilt because he couldn't care for his old
dying mother.
And so the chaotic stage is set for the Devil to make a dramatic
entrance. Lucifer takes possession of Regan and soon she's projec-
tile vomiting, rotating her head, levitating and uttering inhuman
obscenities during violent tantrums. When the medical world can't
offer a rational solution Chris turns to the Church and Karras
agrees to assist in an exorcism, performed by the mysterious globe-
82
The arrival of Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow)
93
trotting priest, Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow).

Unbearably intense because of its revolutionary special effects
make-up work by Dick Smith and Rick Baker, shocking lan-
guage and sexual imagery — Regan stabbing at her crotch with a
bloodied crucifix is a key horror moment — its high point comes
when the two priests eventually engage in a battle between good
and evil. It's here that the well-developed parallel storylines con-
verge — Regan struggling against the spirit that has taken over her
body and Father Karras confronting his own demons.
Friedkin pulled off what had seemed impossible with The
Exorcist: he incorporated state-of-the-art special effects into the nar-
rative completely naturally, so they made the fright even more pow-
erful. And he conveyed a fear rarely tackled in horror — the innocent
becoming the monster rather than those around her. It was followed
by Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977, bad), The Exorcist III (1990, good)
and ExorcisV.The Beginning (2004, ugly).
Eyes Without A Face

(Les yeux sans visage)
dir Georges Franju, 1959, Fr, 90m, b/w
castPierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob, Juliette
Mayniel, Francois Guerin cin Eugen Schufftan m Maurice
Jarre
In Georges Franju's unflinching surrealistic masterpiece, the usu-
ally elusive alliance of poetry and terror combined with sensational
force; and handling the brutalizing horror with a sly velvet touch,
Eyes Without A Face owes as much to the B-movie carnival sensibil-
ity of William Castle as it does to the hypnotic imagery of Jean
Cocteau and Luis Buiruel. Famed for taking his camera into the
abattoirs of Paris for the documentary Blood Of The Beasts (1949) to
show the truth of conveyor-belt death, Franju set out to challenge
medical ethics in his only venture into horror movies, and he had to
approach the issue with surgical precision — the issue that the film
94
itself features so controversially. "When I shot Eyes Without A Face,"

he said, "I was told, no sacrilege because of the Spanish market, no
nudes because of the Italian, no blood because of the French and no
martyred animals because of the English. And I was supposed to be
making a horror film!"
By his reckless driving, brilliant plastic surgeon Dr Genessier
(Pierre Brasseur) is responsible for disfiguring his daughter
Christiane (Edith Scob). To make amends, he experiments with
facial tissue skin grafts that continually fail to take. The reluctant
donors are all Sorbonne students resembling Christiane, who are
found in the Paris streets by the doctor's devoted nurse-cum-
mistress Louise (Alida Valli) and lured back to his laboratory.
Eventually, Christiane rebels against the constant operations, accepts
that her face will always be an emotionless mask, stabs Louise to
death and sets dogs on her father that ferociously tear his face off in
revenge for the inhumane tests carried out on them.
Working with an adaptation by Pierre Boileau and Thomas
Narcejac (the authors whose stories led to Diabolique and Vertigo) of
the novel by Jean Redon, Franju transforms shock into high art by
extending its melodramatic horror concerns into mythological mal-
aise through superb atmospheric imagery. The prison of caged dogs,
the shadowy rooms of the exquisite mansion used as cheap-rent
student bait and leather-clad Louise stalking her prey in a Citroen
through the Latin Quarter like a sinister scuttling beetle are heart-
palpitating details that sear into the psyche.
Edith Scob is perfection as Christiane. In the extended climactic
sequence where she walks through rooms ethereally — dressed in a
full-length white nightgown and blank because of the luminescent
white wax mask fashioned by her father's guilt - and liberates his
black zoo of test creatures and a flurry of doves, the shimmering
fairy-tale grace of her one-inexpressive-face-fits-all demeanour is
stunning.
Franju's esoteric frightener is notorious for one particular
scene, in which, without customary shock tactics, the minutiae of
a skin-grafting procedure is shown in every queasy detail. (This
led the film to be exploitatively re-titled The Horror Chamber Of
Dr Faustus in America so it could be identified with the scalpel-
and-formaldehyde bargain basement.) Although directing with
unnerving realism, Franju's focus is on Genessier, the labour of
true love it represents to him and the guilt he can never eradicate.
95
It is one of horror cinema's most enduring images; a moment of

pure Grand Guignol elegance.
Frankenstein
castBoris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Edward Van
Sloan, Dwight Frye, Marilyn Harris cin Arthur Edeson m
David Broekman
The success of Dracula (1931) dispelled any doubt in Universal's
mind about the marketability of monsters, and their next diver-
sion went on to become the most famous horror film of all time.
Frankenstein not only made a star out of Boris Karloff; it also fixed
an image of the Monster's look in popular culture that has never
declined.
With his legs stiffened by steel struts and two pairs of trousers,
his arms made to look longer by a shortened jacket, his feet in
asphalt-spreader boots and his head transformed by make-up man
Jack Pierce's scars, waxen eyelids and electrical neck bolts, Karloff's
first entrance is a masterful reveal.
Director James Whale focuses on shambling footsteps, a slowly
turning dark figure in a doorway and then a series of increasingly
closer shock cuts as the monster's frightening visage fills the entire
screen. Karloff said that the part, which was turned down by Bela
Lugosi when he realized it contained no lines, "was what we call
a natural. Any actor who played it was destined for success." But
it was Karloff's sensitive portrayal and the range of emotions he
beautifully conveyed without dialogue that contributed to the hor-
ror, that grows as his warmth and wonderment when newly born
turns to murderous incomprehension at being rejected for looking
grotesque.
Karloff's success in making the Monster both fearsome and
tender is highlighted in the most controversial and heavily censored
scene, with Maria (Marilyn Harris), the little girl he meets by the
lake who doesn't recoil at his appearance. The two share a gentle
bond, but he inadvertently drowns her in a poignant moment of
96
playfulness. Yet her death is the result not of any innate savagery on
his part, but of his failure to understand that not all delicate beautiful
things, like the flowers he picked beforehand, can float.
Although adapted from Peggy Webling's hit London play rather
than the novel by Mary Shelley, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive)
is still obsessed with the concept of creating artificial life. After leav-
ing school because the scientists there would not permit him to
continue his experiments, he retreats to an isolated Bavarian castle,
where he uses corpses stolen from graves to further his work. One
dark and electrically stormy night, he succeeds in bringing life to a The Monster (Boris Karloff) and
crudely stitched together collection of body parts. But his hunch- Maria (Marilyn Harris) in the film's
backed assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) mistakenly stole a criminal most heavily censored scene
97
brain instead of a normal one from a medical college, and the

Monster soon shows signs of aberrant and animalistic behaviour.
Everything comes to a head on Henry's wedding day, when the
Monster embarks on a killing spree, terrorizes his bride Elizabeth
(Mae Clarke) and ends up in a burning mill.
The most justifiably memorable scene is Henry in his spec-
tacularly elaborate art-deco laboratory animating his creation with
lightning flashes and screaming, in orgasmic exultation, "It's alive!"
In a terrific performance Clive makes Frankenstein a complicated
and sympathetic character, conveying his obsessed brilliance and
tragic heroism in broad strokes. Both Clive and Karloff would
suffer forever from the public confusion of Frankenstein and his
Monster.
Frankenstein was also notable for revolutionizing movie advertis-
ing. Until this point no studio had used the ploy of frightening audi-
ences into buying tickets, but the intriguing poster publicity carried
a "friendly warning" from a studio copywriter advising the weak-
hearted not to watch, and people then went to find out if they could
take it. In addition, Edward Van Sloan, who played Frankenstein's
old teacher Dr Waldman, filmed a speech to precede the opening
credits saying that the entertainment would thrill, possibly shock
and even horrify. Few left their seats and even reports of the mild
hysteria quelled by smelling salts administered by concerned cinema
managers were fanned into further promotional opportunities.
Freaks
dir Tod Browning, 1932, US, 64m, b/w
cast Harry Earles, Olga Baclanova, Wallace Ford, Leila
Hyams, Henry Victor cin Merritt B. Gerstad
Hot from his Dracula triumph for Universal, Tod Browning
moved back to MGM, where he had enjoyed success with Lon
Chaney on films such as The Road To Mandalay (1926) and West Of
Zanzibar (1928), and directed the most personal, controversial and
unusual horror film of all. It was Harry Earles who suggested that
Browning take a look at the story Spurs, written by Clarence Aaron
"Tod" Robbins. Earles had splayed tiny Tweedledee in both ver-
98
sions of The Unholy Three (1925,

1930), also written by Robbins,
and he thought his friend would
be interested in the circus-set
horror show because he had
made his start under the big top
and had already used it as a set-
ting in his silent movies.
Browning loved the story.
Here was a chance to pres-
ent a world that was important
to him, where sideshow freaks
were the norm. The viewer, he
thought, might feel fear and pity
at first, but that would soon give
way to respect, understanding
and amazement at the way that
they function in spite of their
handicaps. This, along with the
macabre moral and the ultra-
horrific punch line, was exacdy
The stars of Freaks, which provides a
the route that Browning was convinced he should follow to push
portrait of circus life
public tolerance further than even he had dared previously.
Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a normal trapeze artist, sets her
sights on rich midget Hans (Earles) and agrees to be his bride.
Together with her strongman lover Hercules (Henry Victor), she
plans to wed and then kill her husband for his wealth. But the
odd affair arouses the anger of the freak circus population - The
Boy with Half A Torso (Johnny Eck), The Living Torso (Prince
Randian), The Armless Wonder (Martha Morris), The Siamese
Twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton), The Human Skeleton (Peter
Robinson), The Bearded Lady (Olga Roderick), The Bird Girl
(Koo Koo),The Half Woman/Half Man (Josephine-Joseph), The
Snow Twins (Elvira and Jennie Lee) and The Pinhead (Schlitze)
- who know few outsiders and love even fewer.
Gradually they come to accept the idea, even though Cleopatra
gets drunk at her wedding reception, drops her guard and lets her
new "family" know exacdy what she thinks about them. When
they keep their eye on Cleopatra after the outburst, her venal plan
is finally uncovered, and they plot a terrifying revenge. In one of
99
the most legendary and disturbing shock moments of the burgeon-

ing genre, the group gather in the rain one stormy night and crawl
in the mud, the knives in their mouths glinting in the lightning,
to transform Cleopatra by crude surgery into a half-woman, half-
chicken freak.
Browning pits the physical beauty of both Cleopatra and
Hercules against the accidental deformities of nature and lets the
audience decide who the most repugnant characters are. Moreover,
camera angles at low level convey a sense of normality until a
"normal" person walks into frame: such simple techniques offset all
arguments about gratuitous voyeurism, and despite its reputation
as a full-on shocker, Freaks is mainly an absorbing portrait of daily
circus life.
Nevertheless, it was greeted by audiences with wholesale revul-
sion and on initial release critics called it everything from "an abom-
ination" to "loathsome, obscene, grotesque and bizarre". Hastily
pulled from release, put in a vault and forgotten about by M G M as
a knee-jerk reaction, and banned for 31 years in Britain, Freaks was
ignominiously dragged around the cheap grind-house circuit of the
southern US by exploitative producer Dwain Esper in the Forties
under the more alluring title Forbidden Love.
But Freaks was rediscovered in the light of the Thalidomide
tragedy at the start of the Sixties, and was programmed at the 1962
Venice Film Festival. After the headlines regarding the morning
sickness drug that triggered birth defects, a film could be seen that
treated blighted individuals with tenderness and compassion. Its
reputation growing as a misunderstood masterpiece, Freaks was then
picked up by the midnight cult movie circuit in New York, where,
in times when the counterculture challenged social norms and val-
ues, its underdog message struck a chord. The maligned film that had
effectively ended Browning's career had become the critical darling
that the eternally bitter director always thought it was, though he
never lived long enough to taste the victory in its reappraisal.
100
Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis

dir John Carpenter, 1978, US, 91m Capable, assured and attractive,
the daughter of Janet Leigh and
Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis,
cast Tony Curtis briefly b e c a m e a
P. J. Soles, Charles Cyphers cin Dean Cundey m John fixture in slasher shockers after
Carpenter her appearance as the engag-
ing and resourceful heroine of
One of the most successful films of all time in terms of its ratio of Halloween (1978). Immediately
afterwards came Prom Night,
cost ($300,000) to takings on first release ($50 million), Halloween is
Terror Train, The Fog (all 1980),
the father of the modern slasher movie. But although director John
Road Games and Halloween II
Carpenter unleashed an endless wave of calendar maniacs-on-the-
(both 1981), before she did the
loose in its wake, he generated its constant menace by building up virtually impossible and escaped
the suspense and not the gore. the typecasting trap, carving
The portrayal of the violence, which initiated many horror out a reputation as a first-class
cliches, is brief and virtually bloodless; Carpenter deliberately went comedienne in the aftermath of
back to the tradition of suggestion rather than showing, albeit in Trading Places (1983). It was her
the most grandstanding ways possible. In wide-screen, rarely used suggestion that led to Halloween
for horror, Carpenter accented subjective camerawork (the new H20 (1998) and to her repri-
gyroscopic Panaglide adding marvellous fluidity), quick editing, sal of the iconic role of Laurie
driving music (which he composed) and the creative use of light Strode. Ironically horror films
and shadow. have always terrified Curtis and
she prefers not to watch them
In a modern retelling of the cautionary urban legend The Tale Of
- even her own.
The Hook, on Halloween 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers dons a
mask and stabs his teenage sister to death; fifteen years later, Michael
escapes from a lunatic asylum and is tracked down to Haddonfield,
Illinois, by his doctor Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Will
he locate Michael before he stalks and kills college friends Annie
(Nancy Loomis), Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee
Curtis), on babysitting duty with the bogeyman-phobic Tommy?
Carpenter combined the dark, spooky atmosphere essential toVal
Lewton, the humour and tension that go hand and hand in Alfred
Hitchcock's oeuvre — Pleasence's character has the same name as
John Gavin's in Psycho - and the fun shocks found in William Castle
potboilers to phenomenally scary effect. But what made it such a
massive crossover hit was the believability of its teenage characters
and their easy-going interaction. Laurie is smart, feels her intelli-
gence is the reason she doesn't get dates and is slightly jealous of her
sex-mad friends. That was something every girl in the world under-
101
stood and the impressive debut by Curtis - who as the daughter of

Urban legends Psycho star Janet Leigh was part of another Hitchcock in-joke - led
to her being temporarily typecast as the scream queen dujour.
Essentially m o d e r n - d a y folk- Her particular plot strand also led to the popular cliche of pro-
tales, appearing mysteriously
miscuous teenagers being marked for horrific death. Carpenter had
and spreading like wildfire, these
stories of the misfortunes of a
this to say about the connection that was made between sexual activ-
friend's friend's girlfriend's father ity and dead-cert doom: "They completely missed the point there.
are a means of expressing our The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing
often irrational fears about the this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's
dangers just beneath the sur- the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all
face of our seemingly calm that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those
world. The macabre apocryphal phallic symbols on the guy."
stories often have a basis in
Of the seven Halloween sequels, Halloween III: Season Of The
truth, but it's their ever-changing
lives after the events that makes
Witch (1983) is the quirkiest because Nigel Kneale, who wrote
them intriguing. the television series The Quatermass Experiment (1953), deliberately
avoided anything to do with the Michael Myers backstory. Instead
Jamie Blanks' Urban Legend
it focused on a mad toy-maker intending to restore the holiday to
(1998) a n d J o h n O t t m a n ' s
its witch cult origins.
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
both failed because they includ-
ed too many urban legends, but
all horror movies have effec-
tively used elements of The Tale
Of The Hook, the legend that
The Haunting
Stephen King has described dir Robert Wise, 1963, UK, 112m, b/w
as "the most basic horror story
cast Julie
Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ
I know", in which a young cou-
ple on the verge of "the sin of Tamblyn, Lois Maxwell cin Davis Boulton m Humphrey
fornication" are saved from the Searle
clutches of a mad stalker by the
timely deflation of the sexual
While Hammer were continuing during the early Sixties with their
urge. Other urban legends to
colourful excesses, it took Robert Wise, an apprentice of producer
appear in films include the ones
about a maniac on the top of
Val Lewton, to take horror back to its less-is-more, atmospheric
the car [Halloween, 1978), a roots. The Haunting, which fed into the trend of renewed public
maniac calling a babysitter from interest in extrasensory perception and psychic phenomena, marked
inside the same house {When A a triumphant return to the genre in which Wise had made his name
Stranger Calls, 1979) and the but hadn't worked since Boris Karloff's The Body Snatcher in 1945;
alligators living in the New York using the Shirley Jackson novel The Haunting Of Hill House, he
sewers (Alligator, 1980). turned a fairly conventional haunted house potboiler into one of
the most effectively frightening chillers of all time.
Hill House is aVictorian mansion in New England, with a repu-
tation for being eerie. Legend has it that the wife of the eccentric
102
Eleanor (Julie Harris)

architect who built it, Hugh Crain, was killed when her carriage
and Theodora (Claire
crashed into a tree on the grounds, and that since then the house
Bloom), both of w h o m
has been the cause of many mysterious deaths. Eager to learn if the
are seeking ghosts
dwelling is as ghost-filled as the locals believe, psychic investigators
arrive to put the place through its poltergeist paces. Led by Dr John
Markway (Richard Johnson), the team includes Eleanor (Julie
Harris), a girl who has experience of the supernatural, Theodora
(Claire Bloom), a woman with a history of extrasensory percep-
tion and Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn), sceptical nephew of the
current property owner.
The spiritual manifestations begin with an icy caress from
nowhere brushing Eleanor's cheek and her name written in dust,
pinpointing her as the target of the house's paranormal powers. By
103
the time Markway's cynical wife Grace (Lois Maxwell) shows up,
Haunted and old the house has become a roaring dynamo of invisible psychic energy
that is trying to penetrate her bedroom. To booming sound effects
dark houses and over-emphatic music, and through subtle anamorphic camera
lens use and infra-red (or false colour) technical trickery, walls melt
A group of strangers with dark
secrets are brought together
and doors buckle while furniture flies and all manner of black souls
by a will being read, a dinner from the beyond torment the highly-strung Eleanor. In a chilling
party, a dare or by accidents conclusion echoing past events, the house of hell makes one last
on a stormy night; but whatever attempt to make Eleanor part of its ethereal realm for ever.
gets them into the chilly interior, Without showing anything overtly, Wise creates superb scares and
you can be sure that, because projects an atmosphere of palpable evil and menace in the claustro-
of crazed relatives or something phobic locales. Indeed, one of the neatest explanations for the pos-
more supernatural, they'll be session is the idea that because Crain deliberately avoided using any
lucky to get out alive. And you right angles in the house construction, all the wrong angles added up
can be sure of massive rooms to a massive distortion, allowing the spirit to find a home.
with giant fireplaces; endless
Notable for its fine-tuned characterizations and for its ability to
stairways and dark passage-
shatter the nerves via suggestion, The Haunting belongs to acclaimed
ways; sliding panels in walls
stage actress Julie Harris, who gives one of the finest performances
and portraits with spy-holes;
that the genre has ever seen. As the neurotic virgin medium haunted
statues of armoured knights
along creepy corridors; and
by her feelings of other-worldliness and possible attraction to les-
flickering lights. The locations bian Theo, her frightened mouse literally has a special effect in a
are clearly advertised in Terror film devoid of SFX. Wise's intention was for the audience of The
In The Haunted House (1958), Haunting to take it seriously — hence the lack of explicitness that
House On Haunted Hill (1959) doubled its power to horrify — and Jan de Bont's terrible remake
and The Haunted House Of in 1999, in over-emphasizing the computer generated imagery to
Horror (1969) but The Uninvited catastrophic effect, only proved how right Wise's approach was.
(1944), 13 Ghosts (1960) and
The Haunting have a similar
share of poltergeist activity. The
most famous old dark house of
them all, however, is the Bates's The Innocents
home in Psycho.
dir Jack Clayton, 1961, UK, 99m, b/w
Deborah Kerr, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin,
cast
Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave cin Freddie Francis m
Georges Auric
Oozing class and academic distinction, director Jack Clayton's
stunning version of Henry James's The Turn Of The Screw, one of
literature's most famous ghost stories, was a prestige picture from
104
the first frame. The psychosexuality barely hinted at in the 1897

novella was leapt upon by screenwriters Truman Capote and
William Archibald (one of the writers of Hitchcock's 1953 thriller
/ Confess), who had no problem translating James's signature theme
of the corruption of innocence into the post-Freudian analytical
idiom so popular at the dawn of the Sixties. It was becoming more
accepted then that traumatic childhood events could have devastat-
ing effects upon the adult personality. Deborah Kerr as the repressed
Adding enormous resonance to the well-bred shivers, shudders governess Miss Giddens, with
and spine-tingling ambiguity is the ethereally beautiful black-and- Martin Stephens as Miles
white-photography of Freddie Francis, who went
on to become a prolific horror director. And the
remarkably shaded performance by Deborah Kerr,
at the top of her game during this period, is the
frosting on the multi-layered cake. She plays the
repressed governess Miss Giddens, who is employed
to look after the orphaned Flora (Pamela Franklin)
and Miles (Martin Stephens), niece and nephew of
a selfish uncle (Michael Redgrave).
The first clue to the theme of this sophisticated
shocker comes when he asks the new nanny if she
has an imagination — something he thinks will prove
an asset in dealing with his wards. In fact she has an
increasing belief that the two children in her care are
possessed by evil spirits, possibly the product of her
own sick fantasies and spinster suppressions.
Why else do the ghosts of sadist gardener Peter
Quint (Peter Wyngarde) and masochist Miss Jessel
(Clytie Jessop), the children's former governess,
only become visible after Miss Giddens has seen
their portraits and housekeeper Mrs Grose (Megs
Jenkins) has informed her of their odd deaths?
Whatever the truth - and Clayton's masterstroke
is that he stages most of the uncertain imagery
during daylight — Miss Giddens is determined to
drive the spirits out, and embarks on a tragic path
of exorcism.
Very much a product of its unspoken times — the
only way for Clayton to capture the taboo sexual-
ity of the piece was through suggestion — its proper
105
approach is precisely what heightens the inexplicable terror. A bril-

liant double-edged example is when nine-year-old Miles kisses Miss
Giddens on the mouth and her reaction is one of breathless shock,
as if the ravished heroine of a bodice-ripping romance. Is it merely
a display of innocent affection? Or is he playing up to the stand-in
romantic illusions that she is imposing on him because of her attrac-
tion to Quint?
While critics still argue over the justice done to James's
subtleties, the stature of The Innocents as a rare breed of delicate
horror continues to grow, not least because of the cinematog-
raphy. "It was one of the very few films ever to be designed for
Cinemascope," said Freddie Francis. "It was an intimate story so I
had some large sideways graduated filters made up. That way we
could move in and out of shots but leave the frame edges dark
and dirty. So viewer interest was kept centre frame and they could
never really see what was going on beyond it. Therefore some-
thing could conceivably happen at any time. It was that sort of
suspense that made The Innocents so creepily effective. It's the best
work I've ever done."
I Walked With A
Zombie
dir Jacques Tourneur, 1943, US, 69m, b/w
cast Frances Dee, Christine Gordon, Tom Conway, James
Ellison, Edith Barrett cin J. Roy Hunt m Roy Webb
By the time Cat People defied all odds and began to rack up the
money, R K O production head Charles Koerner had already
decided what producer Val Lewton's follow-up was going to
be. He had bought the rights to an article published in American
Weekly magazine by columnist Inez Wallace entitled "I Walked
With A Zombie". Lewton was mortified and was convinced that
no one would go to see a psychological horror study with such
a catchpenny label. So he wisely made the diversion more classy
by jettisoning everything in Wallace's feature and, in the guise of a
106
zombie chiller, freely adapting the dark

romance Jane Eyre, a personal favourite
of the Charlotte Bronte scholar, in
the tropical setting of the West Indies.
The final result is Lewton and director
Jacques Tourneur's greatest achieve-
ment in the genre; it's a rare piece of
visual poetry, constructed as a haunt-
ing symphony of elegant nightmare
imagery.
Canadian nurse Betsy (Frances
Dee) goes to Haiti to look after the
catatonic Jessica (Christine Gordon),
the wife of the rich American plantation
owner Paul Holland (Tom Conway).
The St Sebastian island natives believe
that Jessica's mindless state is the result
of a voodoo curse placed on her by
Holland's mother Mrs Rand (Edith
Barrett) for having had an affair with
Wesley James Ellison), his half-broth-
er. But Holland refuses to listen to
local superstition and is convinced that
Betsy (Frances Dee) and Jessica
Jessica is mentally ill. Then further troubles develop: Betsy and Paul
(Christine Gordon) on their
start to fall in love with each other. Betsy seeks to solve the vari-
nocturnal walk
ous problems, however, by curing Jessica, through taking her to a
voodoo ceremony. She hopes that this will help her return to her
normal self.
It's this nocturnal walk that is Tourneur's supreme tour de force.
After a servant draws a map in cornmeal showing how to get to
Houmfort, the island's voodoo nerve centre, Betsy leads Jessica
through the eerie sugar cane fields, past various talismans — a tree-
hung goat carcass, a horse's skull garlanded with faded flowers — as
approaching drums drown out the sound of the rustling wind. This
hypnotic, wordless and completely stage-managed sequence of
gliding tracking shots and twinkling dissolves ends when Betsy's
flashlight hits the imposing Carre-Four (Darby Jones), the giant
zombie guard. Constituting the chilling core of the tone poem, this
gorgeous gala of shadows, light, music and exotica represents a high
watermark in screen terror.
107
Remarkably respectful of the customs of the voodoo culture

used as an atmospheric backdrop, Tourneur brings to the fore
Lewton's most common thematic thread — the powers of reason
struggling against the powers of the unknown. Complete with
a one-man Greek chorus, calypso singer Sir Lancelot, to fill in
the plot gaps — "Shame And Scandal In The Family" is adapted
to explain the underlying infidelities, sibling rivalry and meddling
in-laws - / Walked With A Zombie blends beauty and beastliness to
perfection.
Jaws
dir Steven Spielberg, 1975, US, 125m
cast Roy Scheider,
Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine
Gary, Murray Hamilton cin Bill Butler, m John Williams
Shark sightings rose at an extraordinary rate during the summer
Jaws minted the sea of 1975 while Steven Spielberg's rampaging Great White ripped
suspense formula
108
apart American box-office records — it was the first film to reach

the coveted $100 million mark - and redefined the blockbuster.
An unprecedented and expensive marketing campaign shot the
exciting horror adventure based on Peter Benchley's bestseller
to the top of the charts around the world too. It became not only
the most profitable Hollywood film that had ever been made but
also a benchmark for every future event movie.
Police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) fears that a large
man-eating shark has been picking off swimmers at his sleepy
N e w England seaside town of Amity Island. Mayor Vaughn
(Murray Hamilton) won't let him go public with his suspicions
because of the lucrative July 4 tourism that is approaching. But
when the shark causes wholesale beach panic the cover-up is over.
So Brody, ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and
grizzled shark-hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) take a small boat
out to sea to track down the eating-machine. Is it also searching
for them?
There is constant fun, tension and horror, with Spielberg bril-
liantly mining the primal fear of being in the ocean and not know-
ing what could be swimming below, about to bite. Just as Alfred
Hitchcock minted the shower scare with Psycho, the 27-year-old
Young Turk, who despite being recognized as an emerging talent
had only one feature film behind him, set in stone the sea sus-
pense formula: water lapping unsettlingly over the camera lens, the
shark appearing out of left field (when Brody casually dispenses
chum into the ocean) and sly direction (the head of a shark victim
appearing in a hole in a sunken shipwreck). Solid performances
from the three leads, and their convincingly volatile dialogue, added
to the shrewd package of terror, humour and - trendy in the after-
math ofWatergate — authority-figure conspiracy.
Spielberg insisted on filming in the Atlantic Ocean rather
than a studio backlot water tank because he maintained that "it
just wouldn't look real". But the nightmare logistics and variable
weather on location at Martha's Vineyard meant endless wait-
ing around for the three mechanical sharks - named Bruce after
Spielberg's lawyer - to operate properly in the salt water. Each cost
$150,000 and malfunctioned, dragging out the shooting schedule
and doubling the original budget. But, knowing that the success
of the film rested entirely on the shark being believable, everyone
stuck to their guns and crafted the best nature-retribution fable
109
Horror soundtracks
Nowadays every movie soundtrack is available for purchase - and often
there is also the "music inspired by the movie". But it wasn't always like
that. The first soundtracks released to wide acclaim that recorded sales
to match were obvious Rodgers and Hammerstein musical spin-offs and
West Side Story (1961); and Bernard Herrmann was already well known
when he scored Psycho, so it was understandable that his music would
have a large market.
It was the success of Ennio Morricone's scores for spaghetti Westerns
such as A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) that put soundtracks in the charts that
were not from musicals or written by eminent composers. In the horror
world the soundtrack for The Exorcist was the first to be bought by the
masses; none of the famous Hammer movie soundtracks was available
until decades after the films were released, after the composer-as-celeb-
rity vogue really took off in the Seventies. Soundtracks from before then
are, however, among the ten greatest in the history of horror, listed here in
descending order:
• Psycho (1960). Bernard Herrmann forced Alfred Hitchcock to use—

the seminal strings-only nerve-shredding score. Hitch wanted a jazz
soundtrack and no music in the shower scene! Happily for horror history,
Herrmann had enough clout to insist.
• The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935). In one of the first movie scores to use
leitmotifs for the characters, Franz Waxman wittily incorporated wedding
bells into the bride's first steps towards her intended monster mate, and to
build tension expertly employed timpani to suggest her beating heart.
• Suspiria (1977). Goblin's pounding progressive rock fusion of lead guitar,

discordant contrapuntal melody, breathy whispers and amplified sighs
proved revolutionary in the way that music is used in horror movies.
• Jaws (1975). Steven Spielberg's composer of choice J o h n Williams
used brilliantly a deceptively simple low string motif in his classic theme.
since Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Here the shark represents the
force of nature determined to reclaim its home.
There were further Hitchcock analogies. John Williams's
pounding shark music became the most celebrated and talked-about
score since Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho, winning an Oscar, a
110
It symbolizes the great white shark's hunting mode: slow at first, and then
getting faster and faster, louder and louder as it circles its prey and sud-
denly strikes without warning.
• Halloween (1978). On one of the most well-known and re-used of all

horror soundtracks, director J o h n Carpenter exploited the limitations of
early synthesizers when creating a jolting mix of piano, rattle and pounding
for his effectively repetitive stalking theme.
• The Wicker Man (1973). "Corn Rigs", "Gentle Johnny", "Willow's Song"
and Christopher Lee singing "The Tinker Of Rye" are a few of the haunt-
ing melodies on a chillingly authentic pagan folk song compendium by
Paul Giovanni, played by Magnet, that is laced with sinister eroticism and
bawdy darkness.
• The Exorcist (1973). When Lalo Schifrin had his entire score axed by
director William Friedkin on went Mike Oldfield's dreamy "Tubular Bells",
alongside original work by Jack Nitzsche and previous compositions, to
make horror soundtrack history. Krzysztof Penderecki's "Polymorphia"
track also featured in The Shining (1980).
• The Haunted Palace (1963). Big, bold and full of shimmering strings,
growling brass and clashing cymbals, this is the most memorable and
ambitious score by the musical director of American International Pictures,
Ronald Stein. It's laden with creepy dissonance to artfully raise the ten-
sion.
• Hellhound: Hellraiser II (1988). The score for Hellraiser was incredibly

powerful, but Christopher Young surpassed himself for the sequel, with his
awesome orchestral soundtrack rapidly gaining ground as one of the most
unsung horror gems.
• Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943). The ability of Vienna-born

Hans J. Salter, who brought harmony to countless Universal horrors, to
convey dark mystery behind the most ordinary of events reached its melo-
dious zenith in director Roy William Neill's sequel to The Wolf Man (1941).
Even the lilting song "Faro-La, Faro-Li" has a descending tonality that
evokes brutal inevitability.
Bafta and a Golden Globe. And the poster featuring one of the most
famous film logos ever — a woman swimming above a giant open-
mouthed shark - showed up constantly in popular culture. None of
the three sequels that followed-Jaws 2 (1978) Jaws 3-D (1983) and
Jaws - The Revenge (1987) - matched the power of the first.
i1i
Near Dark
dir Kathryn Bigelow, 1987, US, 94m
cast Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen,
Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein cin Adam Greenberg m
Tangerine Dream
In 1987 two vampire movies were released that had virtually the
same story. One was Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys, a flashy piece
of entertaining fluff. The other, perhaps the only essential horror
movie to be directed by a woman, ingeniously revamped the genre
with a dose of erotic symbolism, influenced by Anne Rice, that was
tempered with AIDS awareness. Kathryn Bigelow, who soon after-
wards was briefly married to director James Cameron, had only co-
directed the biker movie The Loveless (1981) before this cult vampire
Western, scripted with writer of The Hitcher (1986) Eric Red, which
put her firmly on the map when it came to the macabre.
In their effort to modernize the creaky neck-biting genre, the
duo got rid of all the gothic aspects of the mythology — the fangs, the
bats, the holy water, the crucifixes and the mirrors — and kept only
the most salient: the undead are burnt by sunshine, aren't killed by
bullets, are incredibly strong and live forever. "I wanted a hybrid of
genres," explained Bigelow. "At heart, it's a road movie with modern-
day gunslingers, and because we set it in the Midwest, it was shadows
at High Noon."
Texas farm boy Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) picks up Mae
(Jenny Wright) one hot summer night and lives to regret it. After
a passionate kiss turns into something more than a love bite, Caleb
finds himself uncomfortable in the daylight. And when he's kid-
napped by a pack of marauding punks, whose camper van's windows
are covered in tinfoil, his destiny becomes clear - he must learn to
kill and drink his victims' blood in order to survive. But that's an act
Caleb can do only by proxy.
In a brilliantly conceived shake-up of vampire lore, Pasdar gives
a wonderfully nervous performance as the adjusting would-be
nightwalker. He's backed by precision characterizations from Lance
Henriksen (Jesse, the wise Civil War veteran who was turned into a
vampire then and is resigned to his fate) and Bill Paxton (Severen,
who makes a dangerously manic ritual out of every conquest). After
112
a slow-burning start, Bigelow's precise direction locks in when the

murderous nomads lay siege to a local bar. The power of this sequence
— unified by an orgy of violence and psychological torture - is so
strong that it takes the rest of the movie to get over the shock.
Yet for all Bigelow's purging of Hammer hokiness, one of the
story's seemingly less logical premises — that a vampire can be saved
if given a transfusion of mortal blood - comes straight from the
original authority on the undead, Bram Stoker. "It was called 'blood-
letting' in Stoker's Dracula"remarked Bigelow."The whole notion of
being able to reclaim a victim that way interested me." Even so, the
word "vampire" is not mentioned once during her movie, as she did
not want it to be easily categorized. Vampirism is merely her meta-
phor for the restlessness of youth: the constant search for new thrills
and the inevitable fateful consequences.
With a driving score by Tangerine Dream, pertinent in-jokes
such as the bullet that remains in the flesh before being coughed
out, and the sublimely visual motel-room police raid, Near Dark is
a neon-washed nightmare from a director who sadly never returned
to the genre in which she made her name. Although she said at
the time that women are interested in violence, she found that the
cinema was a male-dominated industry, also observing: "Within the
codes of who does what material, women are more associated with
emotional material and men with the apparatus, the technology, the
hardware." Indeed, she said: "I don't think of Near Dark as a violent
horror movie, but an emotional, moral one."
A Nightmare On Elm
Street
dir Wes Craven, 1984, US, 91m
cast John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp,
Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund
cin Jacques Haitkin m Charles Bernstein
After dabbling with the "Is it a dream, or is it real?" concept in
The Last House On The Left (1972) and Deadly Blessing (1981), Wes
113
Craven concocted a whole surreal shocker based on that conceit

and re-energized the moribund teens-in-terror cycle. In the process
he invented one of the most recognizable of modern horror villains
in the grotesquely scarred Freddy Krueger, a vicious sadist with one-
liners as razor-sharp as his steel fingernails.
In Craven's fresh nerve-rattler, getting a good night's sleep can
severely damage your mental health. Four teenagers led by Nancy
Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) share an identical nightmare
about a dead child-molester who has returned from Hell to haunt
their dreams. Nancy's best friend Tina (Amanda Wyss) is thrown
around her bedroom - a bravura sequence based on a similar revolv-
ing-set trick as the 1950 Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding. Then
Tina's boyfriend R o d (Nick Corri) is strangled by a sheet and
Nancy's boyfriend Glen (Johnny Depp, in his feature film debut)
is sucked into his mattress and spat out as blood.
The reason why all this is happening is eventually explained by
Nancy's perpetually drunk mother Marge (Ronee Blakley).When
local child-killer Freddy Krueger escaped justice on a technical-
ity, the townspeople, including Nancy's police chief father Donald
(John Saxon), turned vigilante and burnt him to death_in the
basement furnace. So Freddy is tormenting the children of his old
enemies through their nightmares. Soon Nancy realizes that the
only way to stop the vengeance-crazed dream demon is to draw him
into her reality and confront him on her own terms with a little help
from her booby-trapped house.
What elevates Craven's warped twister above its mundane stalk-
and-slash contemporaries is that the plot invites intellectual involve-
ment - and this is why it was such a critical and commercial hit.
While offering the visceral thrills, inventive jolts and sequel hook
necessary for a mid-Eighties horror, Craven also wanted viewers to
think - about the multi-layered divisions between nightmare worlds
and dreamscapes, illusion and delusion, and, ultimately, closed parental
attitudes and their children seeing that Freddy has no power in the
cold light of day.
Investing Craven's wild ghost train ride with major teen appeal is
ail-American girl-next-door Heather Langenkamp. Aided by witty
dialogue — "God, I look 20 years old!" she sighs after one sleepless
night — her virtuoso performance remains credible throughout,
whether being pulled under bathwater into a pitch-black pool or
chased down a shadow-strewn back alley, while Craven blurs all
114
distinctions relating to fantasy and reality. "It worked because it was

one from the heart," he said about its success. "It had a good, solid
story, it was totally original and Freddy did not use any cliche weap-
ons." It also epitomized all that was great about Eighties horror.
Night Of The Demon

(aka Curse Of The Demon)
dir Jacques Tourneur, 1957, UK, 82m, b/w
castDana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinniss,
Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler cin Ted Scaife m Clifton
Parke
One of the finest horror movies produced in the Fifties had noth-
ing to do with the contemporary Hammer horror trend sweeping
all before it. Instead it had everything to do with the summoning
of the ominous in understated and suggested forms that had been
the signature of Jacques Tourneur, in partnership with producer
Val Lewton, a decade earlier. Tourneur's forte was to create mood
and atmosphere to chilling effect, and using M. R.James's famous
Edwardian ghost story Casting The Runes he excelled with a master-
ful essay on the realm of the supernatural.
Establishing the film's tenseness right from the start, a frenzied
chase sequence has crusading demonology debunker Professor
Harrington (Maurice Denham) hounded to his death by an
unworldly ball of light that gradually comes to resemble a demon.
Cut to Dr Holden (Dana Andrews), arriving in London intending
to help Harrington, now deceased, to expose the supposedly fake
devil cult operated by Dr Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Befriending
Harrington's daughter (Peggy Cummins), the sceptic Holden
takes up the baton, aiming to prove the other doctor a fraud and
connect him to the Professor's bizarre death.
But as Holden researches witchcraft at the British Museum,
Karswell, the real satanic deal, passes him a parchment inscribed with
runic symbols. This slip of paper has the power to summon primeval
ghouls from places outside time and space, and unless Holden can
115

pass the runes back to Karswell within three
days, he'll face a similar fate to Harrington.
With well-constructed precision and his
trademark use of shadow-filled dark corners,
Tourneur leads the viewer along the same
path as his hero, from disbelief to uncertainty
to sheer terror. Each commonplace situation
turns implacably into a nightmare: the cor-
ridor at the Savoy that stretches into infin-
ity, the party for orphaned children thrown
by clown-dressed Karswell that turns into a
demonstration of his formidable powers, the
picturesque farm that Holden discovers is run
by a coven, and the cat that suddenly turns
into a diabolical panther when Holden breaks
into Karswell's house. Every visual flourish is
geared to putting the viewer on alert: horror
could be only a nanosecond away.
The script by Charles Bennett, who
wrote many early Alfred Hitchcock screen-
plays, retained the literary grace and sinister
mystery elements of James's short story, and
it's the accent on elaborated suspense here
that makes the horror so potent. Much of it is
generated by the charmed parchment trying to
escape of its own accord from Holden before
he and Harrington's daughter realize how
to relocate its curse; there's also the startling
appearance of light splinters forming a fireball
in the distant forest signalling that Holden
hasn't got much time left. Although producer
Hal E. Chester added demonic shots against
Tourneur's wishes that go against the grain of
the subtly wrought atmosphere — for reasons
that were commercially understandable given
the popularity of monster movies at the time
— it is a tribute to Tourneur's directorial skill
that these never compromise the film's dread
and the presence of the supernatural.
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Night Of The Living

Dead
dir George A. Romero, 1968, US, 96m, b/w
cast JudithO'Dea, Duane Jones, Karl Hardman, Marilyn
Eastman, Kyra Schon cin George A. Romero
From the moment that director George A. Romero's flesh-
eating zombies lumbered across the screen, they left an indelible
mark on the history of horror cinema and spawned countless
imitations. Before abject terror was struck in the hearts of morti-
fied audiences by Romero's assured debut, horror had mainly been
about rubber monsters, cardboard gravestones or hands groping in
the shadows.
Suddenly naked ghouls were visibly eating human meat, an ado-
lescent girl viciously killed her own mother with a garden trowel
and, worst of all, no one got out alive; even the hero was slaughtered.
And having a black man as the lead was as radical as setting the ter-
ror firmly in the present day. Romero revolutionized the genre and
finally made the horror picture something to contend with graphi-
cally and socio-politically.
Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and her brother Johnny (Russ Streiner)
are making their annual trek to a cemetery in Pennsylvania to lay a
wreath on their father's grave. "They're coming to get you," taunts
Johnny wickedly as an unnoticed figure clumsily staggering in the
background suddenly attacks and kills him and chases Barbara to an
isolated farmhouse. This galvanizing and unexpected shock serves
notice that what follows will continue in an unsentimental and pes-
simistic vein.
Realizing that her only companion is a mutilated corpse,
Barbara rushes back outside, into the blinding glare of headlights.
The truck driver Ben (Duane Jones) pulls her back inside and
proceeds to board the place up against the unstoppable gathering of
the undead. This zombie plague is explained perfunctorily as being
casued by high radiation from a disintegrating space probe return-
ing from Venus. But this old Fifties standby is the only cliche used
by Romero; in another landmark departure from horror heroine
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Graveyards
From the Allegheny Cemetery on Butler Street, Pittsburgh, the famous
location for Night Of The Living Dead, to the dry-ice covered soundstages
of the Titanus Studios, Rome, for Mario Bava's Black Sunday, the grave-
yard is a classic backdrop for horror movies. Cemeteries are places where
vampires congregate and zombies emerge, where detectives nose around
for clues and the disturbed hang out, and where demonic rituals take
place and teens spend nights alone for a dare. Bodies are either buried
alive, exhumed, snatched or displayed for gruesome laughs; and when
coffins are unearthed and their lids wrenched open they reveal either noth-
ing inside or steps leading down to somewhere mysterious. Two of the
most interesting graveyard movies are from Italy: Massimo Pupillo's Terror
Creatures From The Grave (1965) and Lucio Fulci's The House By The
Cemetery (1981).
convention, Barbara slips from hysterical confusion into a state of

catatonia where she remains immobilized, never to bounce back.
After the house has been securely barricaded, a group of fugi-
tives hiding in the cellar reveal themselves. These include the
annoying pain Harry Cooper (producer Karl Hardman), his wife
Helen (Marilyn Eastman) and their daughter Karen (Hardman's
daughter Kyra Schon), who has become sick after being bitten.
Stupid survival squabbles within the farmhouse start to outweigh
the threat from the zombies with Ben and Harry continually argu-
ing over what to do for the best. In the downbeat end, it doesn't
really matter.
Night Of The Living Dead was shot on 35mm black-and-white
film, using natural lighting and hand-held camerawork for a docu-
mentary realism that helps to emphasize the ruthless logic, the subtle
irony, and the claustrophobia and primal fears of hopelessness and
the dark. And although Romero has repeatedly said there was no
racial implication in casting Jones — he simply gave the best audition
— it can't be denied that his ghastly and grisly opus reflects the social
upheavals of the turbulent time. "It was 1968, man," Romero said,
"Everybody had a 'message'. The anger and attitude and all that's
there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so
we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so
some of that crept in."
118
Nosferatu - eine
Symphonie des
Grauens
(Nosferatu - A Symphony
Of Terror)
dir F. W. Murnau, 1922, Ger, 95m, b/w
Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von
cast
Wangenheim, Greta Schroder. G. H. Schnell cin Fritz Arno
Wagner
Alongside The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, few films have had a
more profound and lasting impact on horror movies than F. W.
Murnau's prime example of German Expressionism. But while
Caligari's influence was mainly a result of its distorted design, it was
Murnau's determination to evoke unsettling chills with a strong
visceral appeal that would lead to Nosferatu's indelible stamp on
the genre. His symphonic lighting, rhythmic editing and symbolic
mise en scene were unparalleled and the horror imagery that he
minted has been copied endlessly and probably will be forever.
Werner Herzog attempted an often shot-by-shot remake in 1979;
Francis Ford Coppola lifted chunks for his Bram Stoker's Dracula in
1992; and E. Elias Merhige was so entranced by the whole incep-
tion of the seminal shocker that he wrote and directed Shadow Of
The Vampire (2000) to communicate the importance of Murnau's
genius creation.
The vampire myth had been almost ignored in cinema's early
days, until Henrik Galeen, who wrote two versions of The Golem
(1915 and 1920) for director Paul Wegener, adapted an unofficial
version of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Stoker's widow and estate
119
Max Schreck as F. W. Murnau's were not pleased, and sued the German producers, and eventu-
stunning creation Count Orlok, ally an English court ordered that the negatives be burnt. Despite
who is fading away the resulting mad scramble to destroy all copies, with historians
attempting to save what they knew was a milestone cinematic
achievement, numerous versions were available around the world,
including in the United States, where it was shown in its most
butchered form.
Nosferatu is a pretty straightforward Stoker rip-off, even though
Galeen changed all character names, moved locations from London
to Bremen and virtually excised the Irish writer's lore of the
undead; the vampire here does cast shadows and reflections in mir-
rors. But while such deletions might remove the genuine horror of
Stoker's original story, it's obvious why they were made. Shadows
120
and reflections were crucial components of the Expressionist pal-

ette, and Murnau intended to use them as substitutions for shock
to help create an eerie and disturbing atmosphere.
At the time of the Bremen plague in 1838, young estate agent
Hutter (Gustav Von Wangenheim) is sent to the Carpathian
mountains to arrange a property sale for the mysterious Count
Orlok (Max Schreck). Disregarding local peasant warnings about
the Count's blood-drinking habits, Hutter falls under his thrall and
goes half-mad when his master leaves with several coffins and boards
a ship to Bremen. While Hutters wife Ellen (Greta Schroder) has
ominous dreams about her husband's safety, and his boss Knock
(Alexander Granach), a student of the occult, is sent raving to an
asylum, Hutter escapes from the castle and heads home. As Orlok's
boat docks, the plague breaks out — victims have scars on their necks
- and after reading a vital book that explains what she must do Ellen
devises a plan to lure him to her bedroom and keep him there until
the cock crows, so that he will evaporate into thin air.
Using negative (for Hutter's passenger ride in Orlok's hearse-
like coach through the land of phantoms) and fast motion (for
Orlok piling up coffins in his cart), Murnau calls into duty sophis-
ticated narrative patterning, dramatic lighting and editing tricks to
lend his masterpiece an uncanny atmosphere that remains true to
the intimidating, illogical nature of nightmares. The most famous
sequence features Orlok climbing the stairs to Ellen's boudoir,
the shadows highlighting his menacing outline and elongated
claw-like fingers; and then the focus is on her eyes, which show
pure fear.
Count Orlok is the film's most stunning creation. As portrayed
by Max Schreck (whose name translates as "Maximum Terror"), he's
a walking corpse, with the stiffest of gaits, pointed ears and teeth that
resemble those of the rats that are one of the film's leitmotifs. (His
skinned-bat look was copied by Tobe Hooper for Reggie Nalder's
Kurt Barlow in his 1979 TV adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's
Lot, and by Neil Marshall in 2005 for the cannibal creatures in The
Descent). But although, unlike many villains, the vile Orlok is highly
unsightly, Nosferatu still has an erotic side to it, with hints of sexual
repression, necrophilia, sadomasochism and homosexuality - and the
vampire horror would continue throughout its life to trade on that
unusual aspect of attraction.
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The Old Dark House

cast Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton,
Gloria Stuart, Raymond Massey, Lilian Bond cin Arthur
Deformity and Edeson m Heinz Roemheld
disfigurement In the same year that Tod Browning made "freaks" appear more
Usually character deformity, from human than humans, James Whale reversed the idea by putting on
birth, or disfigurement denote a dazzling display of caricature grotesqueness. In the process he gave
villainy or latent homicidal ten-
Boris Karloff his first top billing and provided Charles Laughton
dencies: plot motors have been
and R a y m o n d Massey with their American film debuts.
communicated cynically through
After the phenomenon that Frankenstein became in 1931, Whale
facial scars (Boris Karloff's in
The Old Dark House, 1932),
was crowned Universal's master of horror, and making this decep-
birth defects (the dwarf in Don't
tively sly, melodramatic chiller honed his penchant for wit and ele-
Look Now, 1973) or a m p u - gance into a skilful style, which confounded viewers at a time when
tees (Lon Chaney in numerous most other directors were still struggling to adjust to the addition
mutilated performances). The of sound to the medium. Distilling the best features of The Cat And
Hunchback Of Notre Dame in its The Canary, and filtering them through Whale's own sardonic twist-
many screen versions (including edness, The Old Dark House is the definitive film about a group of
1923, 1939 and 1956) is one lost travellers trapped overnight in a spooky mansion. Every Rocky
of the few instances where a Horror Picture Show cultist knows that.
physically repulsive character is Whale blackened J. B. Priestley's story Benighted, an allegory
treated sympathetically.
about disillusionment in postwar England, into a study in darkly
Deformity and disfigurement eccentric extremes. Lost in the Welsh mountains, Philip Waverton
are usually the work of talented (Massey), his wife Margaret (future Titanic star Gloria Stuart) and
make-up specialists, but real Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) seek refuge from a raging storm
circus acts have been used for
causing road landslides in a remote mansion owned by the Femm
potent dramatic effect in Freaks
family. Whale's wicked parody of the upper classes has the unwel-
(1932), House Of The Damned
(1963), The Mutations (1973) coming house serve as the home to the aged bedridden patriarch
and The Sentinel (1977). Rondo (named John Dudgeon in the credits but really Elspeth Dudgeon),
Hatton, who suffered from acro- his prissy atheist pensioner son Horace (Ernest Thesiger), Horace's
megaly, a progressive deforming extremely religious sister Rebecca (Eva Moore) and their hulking
of bones, portrayed murderers mute butler Morgan (Karloff), who cannot be trusted near alcohol
and specifically "The Creeper" or pretty girls. The dynamic changes when two bedraggled travellers
in The Pearl Of Death (1944),
arrive, Sir William Porterhouse (Laughton) and chorus girl Gladys
House Of Horrors (1946) and
DuCane (Lilian Bond); as they all try to get some rest, Roger falls
The Brute Man (1946).
for Gladys, and a jealous Morgan frees the Femm's secret shame
122
from his attic prison - older brother Saul (Brember Wills), who is
a mad pyromaniac.
Creating a thick gothic atmosphere, Whale brings out the goose
bumps even though the whimsical terrors arise from nothing more
than the human foibles of insanity, decrepitude, sibling hatred and
infirmity. With the safe haven proving to be just an illusion, the
acting ensemble leave no stone unturned in highlighting the per-
versity of each character cipher. Whale brought in Ernest Thesiger
from England specifically to play Horace, and his waspishly haughty
personification is another outrageously demented delight. Thesiger
comes into his own when sarcastically berating his sister for wanting
to say grace at dinner and then, in menacing and miserly fashion,
offering his unwanted guests a potato in turn.
Whale alternates between humour and horror, lulling viewers
into a false sense of security until building up the sinister suspense
in the madman-on-the-loose finale. In a tongue-in-cheek nod to
Frankenstein, he introduces Karloff as the dangerously drunk brute
Morgan with three jump cuts, each moving closer to his scarred
face. As is the case with all Whale films, every camera angle, every
use of lighting and every character is there for a reason, and here
the elaborate camera movements are clearly designed to get the best
three-dimensional effect out of the limited sets, to detract from any
possible staginess. William Casde's dreadful Hammer remake in 1963
completely failed to do this.
Onibaba (The Hole)

dir Kaneto Shindo, 1964, Jap, 105m, b/w
cast Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Sato, Taiji
Tonoyama, Jukichi Uno cin Kiyomi Kuroda m Hikaru
Hayashi
For too long the image of Japanese cinema in the West was somewhere
between the arthouse sobriety ofAkira Kurosawas Seven Samurai (1954)
and a man in a rubber suit stomping on a miniature model of Tokyo
in Godzilla (1954). Even though Kenji Mizoguchi's thriller Ugetsu
monogatari (Tale Cf The Pale And Mysterious Moon AfterThe Rain, 1953)
123
had attracted wide critical

acclaim outside the Orient
and Nobuo Nakagawa was
hard at work perfecting the
kaidan eiga ("ghost story")
genre on home shores, to
scant international attention,
very few people had ever
seen a Japanese horror movie.
Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba
was the first to attract a sub-
stantial release worldwide.
And for all the wrong
reasons. Audiences flocked
to see this absolute peak
of atmospheric black-and-
white horror in the crisp
Val Lewton tradition largely
because of its topless actresses
and frank sexuality, Western
cinema at the time facing
heavy censorship. These were
the days when people trav-
elled hundreds of miles for
a soft-core Scandinavian sex
flick. Shindo's sexy period
Jitsuko Yoshimura, Nobuko Otowa
melodrama opened at most
and Taiji Tonoyama in Kaneto
inner-city grind houses, and horror aficionados could finally experi-
Shindo's period melodrama
ence the terrors which had shaken the supposed Japanese reserve.
The cruelty of war-ravaged feudal sixteenth-century Japan snaps
into harsh focus in Shindo's comfortless, rebarbative screenplay that
is fraught with an atavistic eroticism. An elderly woman (Nobuko
Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) live hand-to-
mouth by killing battle-weary samurai, dumping their bodies in a deep
black pit and selling their stolen armour for food. Bad news arrives
with Hachi (Kei Sato), who returns from the war and informs the
old woman that Kichi, her son, is dead. When the daughter and Hachi
become lovers, the old woman grows increasingly desperate, fearful
that the young girl will leave her, and is powerless when she goes off
on her nightly trysts.
124
One night a lost soldier (Jukichi Uno) wearing a horrific demon

mask (to protect his handsome face in combat, or so he claims) sur-
prises the old woman and orders her to show him the way out of the
grass forest. She kills him by leading him into the hole, and a plan forms
in her mind.The next time her daughter-in-law heads for Hachi's hut,
she dons the mask, pretends to be a devil, and scares her into running
home. Each night she repeats the trick, and her plan appears to work
- her daughter-in-law is too fearful to visit Hachi, believing the advent
of this "devil" to be retribution for her sin. But the feudal mask of
superstition ultimately proves to be a curse that will have terrifying
effects.
Surprisingly slanted away from the traditional Japanese cinema
theme of the haunted samurai (as seen in Hideo Gosha's Goyokin,
from 1969), Onibaba focuses on the destitute peasant trying to make
ends meet in near sub-human conditions. It has startling imagery, with
slender spears of pampas grass stabbing the darkness in high-contrast
black and white. It has poetic symbolism: the hole itself is the fulcrum
of the movie, an omnipresent menace around which all the characters
must take care, and is a symbol that could represent death, moral con-
sciousness or even the oppressiveness of the superego. And, ultimately,
the film has a harsh, moralistic twist when the supernatural intervenes
to punish the two women's greed. Onibaba is full of pent-up emo-
tions, and is fuelled by a slow-burning tension that eventually builds to
abrupt violent horror, all borne of desperate material need.
Peeping Tom
dir Michael Powell, 1960, UK, 109m
cast CarlBohm, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley, Moira
Shearer, Esmond Knight cin Otto Heller m Brian Easdale
"The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom is to shovel
it up and flush it swifdy down the nearest sewer," read a not unrep-
resentative review. "Even then the stench would remain." The heavily
censored, authentically Sadeian and prescient psychological thriller
about a scoptophiliac - a term coined by Freud for a person sexu-
ally stimulated by looking or being looked at - ruined the glittering
career of its director overnight. Michael Powell had already indulged
125
126
his passion for the bizarre in such outre excursions as The Red Shoes
(1948) and Tales Of Hoffmann (1951), but no one was expecting him
to cross the line so fearlessly with a complex intellectual discourse on
voyeurism, disguised as a sleazy horror movie, from the cheap outfit
behind such lurid exploiters as Horrors Of The Black Museum (1958).
Peeping Tom was a sophisticated study exploring the links between
watching and being watched, and between being horrified but too fas-
cinated to look away. Powell's brilliantly analytical approach to horror,
so misunderstood at the time, is now seen for what it always was: dar-
ing exploration of the correlation between acts of violence and sexual
gratification and their wide philosophical implications. Sex, pain, fear
and filmmaking are related to each other endlessly in Powells open
acknowledgement that voyeurism has a horrifying price.
The four powerful forces are all interconnected in the life of the
lonely Mark Lewis (Carl Bohm), who works as a focus-puller in a
London film studio, as a sideline takes pornographic pictures, and is
obsessed with the effects of abject fear and how it registers on the
face and in the behaviour of the frightened. As a result of his child-
hood, when his callous scientist father used him as a guinea pig in his
psychology experiments, he has turned into a compulsive murderer
killing women with a knife concealed in his camera tripod leg that
also has a mirror attached. That way he can film their dying gasps and
contorted features as they watch their own reflections of terror, for
private snuff movie projection.
Peeping Tom brims with mordant wit (Mark pretending to be a
news photographer from The Observer, bad actress Shirley Anne
Field playing a bad actress), overt symbolism (the phallic presence
of the erect tripod leg, the literal and metaphorical blindness of his
wholesome girlfriend's mother) and hidden allegory (all three of
Mark's victims — prostitute, starlet, pin-up — rely on being gazed at
for their trade). Powell's masterstroke is that he plays Mark's cold-
blooded father in the grainy black-and-white home movies that
show how he induced his son's psychosis just as, directing, he induces
not only terror but also a mortified reaction to it.
From the opening murder, shot subjectively through Mark's
camera so that we watch a film within a film, to its richly saturated
Technicolor filtered look, Powell uses elaborate techniques to infuse
Peeping Tom with multi-layered meaning about the experience of
watching a true horror movie. It may be drenched in the pale imagery
of Fifties pornography — the pin-up was played by Pamela Green,
127
the era's nude icon — but Powell's controversial shocker, eternally

creepy and uniquely perverse, has never gone out of style.
The Phantom Of The

Oper
dir Rupert Julian, 1925, US, 94m
castLon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Snitz
Edwards, Arthur Edmund Carewe cin Charles van Enger,
Virgil Miller, Milton Bridenbecker
The first filming of Gaston Leroux's novel from 1908 is one of the
great horror classics of the silent era, and is Lon Chaneys crowning
achievement as an actor/make-up artist, in a role that would immor-
talize him. It also established a formula that Universal studio head
Carl Laemmle would rigorously rework well into the Thirties and
Forties, introducing the significant idea for horror that those who
are monstrous-looking will inevitably act monstrously. A pinnacle
of the Hollywood fantastic — "Wild, Weird, Wonderful, the Picture
Sensation of the Age" boasted the poster — it is memorable for three
moments: the falling chandelier, the masked ball and, most famous
of all, Chaney's image-shaping unmasking.
Dogged by persistent director problems - Chaney hated the
credited Rupert Julian, had him replaced with Edward Sedgwick,
and then directed many scenes himself - and extensively re-edited
before release, Leroux's Gothic romance spirals into nightmare
horror as the hero, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Norman Kerry),
undergoes a series of booby-trapped ordeals to rescue beauty from
the beast.
The beast here is disfigured composer Erik (Chaney), who
haunts the backstage of, and the maze of tunnels under, the Opera
in Paris. (All the sets were built on the Universal backlot by
production designer Ben Carre, who had worked in the place.)
Smitten with ingenue soprano Christine Daae (Mary Philbin),
he trains her to sing his composition "Don Juan Triumphant"
128
Erik (Lon Chaney) entering the

and informs the Opera's directors of the dire consequences that masked ball dressed as if
will befall the company if she does not perform it. But Christine Poe's Red Death
betrays her mentor by seeing suitor Raoul again, and as Erik's evil
side takes control of his tortured mind he imprisons her in the
macabre bridal suite of his cellar lair. She is eventually saved, but
Erik meets a grisly death.
From the moment the Phantom summons Christine into his
catacomb domain through a mirror on the wall, this celebrated
classic becomes a perfect evocation of Grand Guignol elegance
129
and powerful nightmare imagery, which culminates in the quintes-

sential unmasking scene. The intrigued Christine sneaks up behind
Erik, who is playing the organ manically, and removes his mask, and
there's a double shock: his skull-like face opens its distorted mouth
in a silent scream before Christine shrieks, and her terrified delayed
reaction adds another layer of fright.
Although the film has been remade several times, the chills
have never been bettered, because of Chaney's self-imposed suf-
fering, through his make-up, for his art. And while the story found
new popularity as a musical, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber paid
tribute to the Chaney version by re-creating exactly Erik's entry
at the masked ball down a sweeping staircase dressed as if Edgar
Allan Poe's R e d Death — a chilling moment heightened by being
presented in the tints of early two-strip Technicolor. With its epic
playing of light and shadow and its creepy cobwebby secret pas-
sageways that hold hidden dangers, and with Chaney's awesome
performance creating the most accurately portrayed of Leroux's
figures of mystery, the film has a reputation that is fully deserved.
There have been remakes by directors ranging from Dario
Argento to Joel Schumacher, but none can match it.
The Pit And The

Pendulum
dir Roger Corman, 1961, US, 85m
cast Vincent
Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, Luana
Anders, Antony Carbone cin Floyd Crosby m Les Baxter
After the box-office success of their inaugural Edgar Allan Poe
adaptation The Fall Of The House of Usher (1960), which gained
all-important acceptance from snobby critics who rarely reviewed
low-budget horrors, American International Pictures immedi-
ately asked director R o g e r C o r m a n for another. The Pit And The
Pendulum set the Corman house style — even if it was considered
ersatz Hammer — that would serve him well during the following
non-stop Poe years. "It determined the way we did the rest of the
130

Poe films," said Corman. "Most of the short stories were only two
or three pages long. They were really wonderful fragments. The
method we adopted was to use the Poe short stories as the climax
for a third act. We then constructed the first two acts in what we
hoped was a manner faithful to Poe."
This quintessential Corman/Poe production might not owe
much to the Boston-born author beyond its chilling torture appa-
ratus, but the ambience created is completely faithful, intertwining
habitual Poe ciphers (submissive male, dominant female) in a fore-
boding atmosphere of gloom, doom and death.
The only film to pair Vincent Price, the king of American hor-
ror, with Barbara Steele, the Italian queen, finds Francis Barnard
(John Kerr) travelling to coastal Castle Medina in Spain, where
he discovers his sister Elizabeth (Steele) has died and her husband
Nicholas (Price) on the brink of madness. Given assurance that his
sister died of natural causes, Francis is taken to the burial chamber
and shown where her wall-interred coffin lies. But Elizabeth's phy-
sician Dr Charles Leon (Antony Carbone) tells him that she was
frightened to death by a husband who seems to have inherited the
family penchant for torture.
Soon the ghost of Elizabeth is haunting the castle grounds, and
to satisfy Francis's mounting suspicions and Nicholas's gnawing guilt
her crypt is opened. The agonizing posture of the decaying corpse
suggests that she was buried alive. But the whole charade has been
planned by the scheming Elizabeth to drive her husband crazy so
that she can inherit his fortune.
Marvellously fusing sustained horror suspense, rich colours, Les
Baxter's creepy music and production designer Daniel Haller's torture
implement, the completely demented Nicholas chains Francis below
a razor-sharp swinging pendulum and shuts Elizabeth in the spiked
iron maiden in which his father killed his mother. Although many
of the costumes, props, furniture and special effects would be reused
(and easily recognized) in every future Corman/Poe production, here
they all combined to create genuinely nerve-wracking accumulative
horror.
In this lusty and gloriously Grand Guignol sideshow, Price gives
a suitably rococo performance as the manipulated aristocrat rather
than the villain. "Am I not the spawn of depraved blood?" he moans,
racked with remorse. Steele uses her dark, fiery femme fatale looks
to great effect yet again and the final shot through the iron maiden's
131
eye slit, of her face contorted in horror, creates the finest frisson in
the Poe series.
The Plague Of The

Zombies
dir John Gilling, 1966, UK, 91m
cast Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams,
Jacqueline Pearce, John Carson cin Arthur Grant m
James Bernard
By the mid-Sixties Hammer horrors had become a staple of the
British film industry, and after producing nearly a hundred movies
a certain conveyor belt mentality had crept into the studio's ethos.
But occasionally they released a left-field entry that made critics
and audiences sit up and take more note than usjual. Don Sharp's
fairytale Kiss Of The Vampire (1964) was one, and the superhero-
infused Captain Kronos — Vampire Hunter (1974) another.
But the quirkiest was J o h n Gilling's The Plague Of The Zombies,
which was not only one of the most pessimistic Hammers, but also
contains one of their most imitated clips. It's a nightmare sequence
suffused with green that sums up the film's darkest concerns — rot-
ting graveyard corpses with dead fingers churning their way up
through the earth to encircle the shocked dreamer in a clutching,
crawling mass. Copied by filmmakers ever since — it caused a whole
horror generation to have bad dreams — it may also have been one
of the subconscious inspirations behind George A. Romero's Night
Of The Living Dead.
Hammer had run out of old Universal films to remake by the
time the Sixties were really swinging. So they were forced to find
inspiration in other sub-genres, and they found it in the voodoo
ceremonies of Haiti that had served well both White Zombie
(1932) and J Walked With A Zombie. Shot back-to-back in 1965
at Bray Studios with Gilling's other oddball slice of nineteenth-
century Cornish gothicism, The Reptile, The Plague Of The Zombies,
originally titled The Zombie, has village folk falling victim to a fatal
132
illness. When his wife Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) falls strangely sick,
distraught doctor Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) calls on his
former tutor Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell) for help. After he
arrives with his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare), an old school friend
of Alice's, they uncover a macabre plot by Squire Hamilton (John
Carson) to keep his tin mine productive after a work accident
legally enforced its closure. He has been using ancient voodoo rites
to raise the dead "plague" victims — though, in a typical Hammer
come-on, it's not a plague - who serve at night as slave labour.
Scripted by the writer of Terence Fisher's The Hound Of The
Baskervilles (1958), Peter Bryan, the visually captivating piece
does not have a hard-hitting moral and political tone; but for
Hammer horror in the second half of the Sixties, it struck, even
if not deliberately, an untypical political note with its premise
of the corrupt, arrogant aristocrat at the decadent manor being
responsible for "infecting" his community. Those sharp enough to
be on Gilling's wavelength would have guessed immediately that
Hamilton was the villain: as Forbes arrives in the stricken village, the
foxhunting nobility ride through a funeral procession and knock the
coffin to the ground, positioning Hamilton as a callous landowner
with no respect for the working class.
There's no sense of relief once the mystery has been solved.
The most attractive character, Alice, meets the worst fate - she's
decapitated with a spade - and although fire purges the community
of foul Godforsaken wickedness in typical Hammer style, the ending
is unusually downbeat.
Psycho
dir Alfred Hitchcock, 1960, US, 109m, b/w
cast Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John
Gavin, Martin Balsam, John Mclntire cin John L. Russell
m Bernard Herrmann
All modern horror starts here. Alfred Hitchcock's landmark psy-
chological thriller is undoubtedly the boldest, most innovative and
most influential horror film of all time. Hitchcock was the master
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of audience manipulation and sus-

pense, and Psycho is the most fright-
ening film ever produced because
he made a murderer the nice boy
next door, meticulously laced his
sleekly modern chiller with subtle
wit and repeatedly had the violence
happen when least expected.
Psycho is a manual for any would-
be horror director: the shower scene,
which seemed to show everything
— blood, stabbing, naked flesh — but
actually showed very little; the cas-
cading death on the stairs, seen from
above until Bernard Herrmann's
seminal shrieking strings shatter the
silence and our nerves; Lila finding
the corpse of Norman's mother in
the cellar basement and hitting a
lightbulb as she recoils that accents
every frightful eye-socket detail and
mummified wrinkle.
Based on Robert Bloch's grisly
pulp novel, itself based on the life of
Wisconsin necrophile Ed Gein, the
story, and its surprise ending, is now
part of the fabric of popular culture.
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and
The shower scene was her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) can't marry because of his
terrifying but showed less heavy debts. So Marion steals $40,000 from her real estate employ-
than is often thought er and leaves Phoenix, Arizona, to start a new life with him in
California. A heavy storm and fatigue cause her to spend the night
off the beaten track at the Bates Motel, where shy owner Norman
(Anthony Perkins) seems to live with his elderly, cranky mother.
After Marion is murdered in the shower, her sister Lila (Vera
Miles) joins Sam and insurance detective Milton Arbogast (Martin
Balsam) to investigate her sudden disappearance. It's only when
Sam and Lila learn from the local sheriff (John Mclntire) that Mrs
Bates has been dead for years and search the Bates home to solve the
mystery that they discover the terrifying truth. Norman is a schizo-
134
phrenic homicidal lunatic who has kept his mother's rotting corpse
in the house and takes on her domineering personality in the effort
to deny his crime of matricide.
Psycho was revolutionary in many ways. It was the first movie in
which a character who had been cleverly positioned as the main pro-
tagonist was killed off early on (after forty minutes), to make the initial
murder even more disturbing, and that was the reason Hitchcock
chose Janet Leigh at the height of her celebrity: no one would guess
that he would dare dispense with Tony Curtis s wife so viciously and
arbitrarily. Hitchcock also broke new ground by filming a toilet bowl;
by putting a star (Leigh) on screen in a brassiere in a movie that wasn't
sexploitation; and by casting a popular teen idol, and Top Forty hit-
maker, as a murdering transvestite. Anthony Perkins knew he was mak-
ing the career move of his life: he was right, but he didn't know how
typecast he would be because of the film's astonishing success.
Psycho was also the first English-language movie to be promoted
with the " N o one ... BUT NO O N E ... will be admitted to the
theatre after the start of each performance" gimmick. Audiences of
the day thought nothing of arriving in the middle of movie and
leaving during the next showing; Hitchcock knew that his shock
ending would never work in that environment and he instigated a
permanent change in viewing habits.
Most significantly, though, Psycho was the first horror movie to
scare audiences senseless and leave them rigid with terror.
Re-Animator
dir Stuart Gordon, 1985, US, 86m
cast Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David
Gale, Robert Sampson cin Mac Ahlberg m Richard Band
Rhode Island recluse H. P. Lovecraft's Herbert West - Reanimator short
stories were going to be the basis of a play at Chicago's Organic
Theatre and a pilot for a television series, but innovative stage direc-
tor Stuart Gordon was persuaded by first-time producer Brian
Yuzna that film would be the best medium. The horror world
will always remain eternally grateful, for Re-Animator is a witty
excess-all-areas horror gem capturing perfectly the sick humour
135
of Lovecraft's pulp pastiches, written purely for the money, which

were first published in the magazine Home Brew (1922) and were
reprinted twenty years later in the magazine Weird Tales.
"It was deliberately re-written as a horror feature that wouldn't
pull any punches," recalled Yuzna. "Since Stuart and I were both
novices, I reasoned that not stinting on the horror would at least win
over the hardcore audience, however deficient it might be in other
areas. I did not want to be in debt for the next decade. It was the
perfect example of beginner's luck."
Shot in sixteen days at an old studio in East Hollywood, Gordon's
demented comedy horror is different in its use of Lovecraft's mate-
rial from Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace (1963), David Greene's
The Shuttered Room (1967) and Daniel Haller's Die, Monster, Die! (aka
Monster Of Terror, 1965) and The Dunwich Horror (1970). "We stayed
close to the original," as Gordon put it. "All the main routines are
Lovecraft's, and I made sure we used his recurrent signature line 'I
guess it wasn't fresh enough' because I believe he intended it to be
funny."
After a gory mishap in a college in Switzerland where his profes-
sor literally explodes (accompanied by composer Richard Band's
disco remix of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score), intense student
Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) arrives at the-Miskatonic Medical
School of Arkham, Massachusetts, determined to make a scientific
breakthrough and bring the dead back to life. Creating a luminous
green serum that reanimates dead tissue, he involves roommate Dan
Cain (Bruce Abbott) and Dan's fiancee Megan Halsey (Barbara
Crampton) in his dubious research by experimenting on their
deceased cat. The next stop is the hospital laboratory of West's ego-
tistical tutor Dr Carl Hill (David Gale), where the unstable reagent
causes the death of Megan's father, the Dean (Robert Sampson) of
the school. Because he wants to claim the formula as his own, Hill
is turned into a megalomaniac head on a platter plotting with his
severed body to bring West down and move in on Megan.
The outrageously over-the-top finale is twenty minutes of gory
morgue mayhem, where drooling lobotomized zombies fight each
other and, in the movie's most censored sequence, Hill's severed
head performs oral sex on a screaming Megan. Re-Animator is a
major-league splatter spectacular with an accent on grisly, ludicrous
humour; and the film is made more macabre by its deadpan direc-
tion. It was followed by Brian Yuzna's Bride Of Re-Animator (1990)
rehash and his Spanish-shot Beyond Re-Animator (2003).
136
Repulsion
dir Roman Polanski, 1965, UK, 104m, b/w
cast CatherineDeneuve, Yvonne Furneaux, John Fraser,
Ian Hendry, Patrick Wymark, Helen Fraser cin Gilbert
Taylor m Chico Hamilton
Still blood-freezing after all these years, Polish arthouse director
R o m a n Polanski's first English-language movie is a compelling
study in homicidal psychosexual mania.The intelligence with which
it explores the symbolic language of Freudian fantasies, desires and
anxieties within the context of commercial horror cinema lingers in
the mind long after the final image has disappeared. With this classic
work, Polanski allied himself with horror pioneers Alfred Hitchcock,
Michael Powell and Fritz Lang in his understanding that cinema as
voyeuristic spectacle involves a complex balancing act of informing,
Carol (Catherine Deneuve) with
engaging and entertaining. suitor Colin (John Fraser)
137
In Psycho Hitchcock made the viewer identify with the victims. In

Repulsion Polanski cleverly inverts this and the viewer identifies with
the sexually repressed psychotic Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve)
while being slowly and seductively taken into her deranged private
world. The Belgian beautician lives in South Kensington, London, with
older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux, star of 1959 Hammer movie
The Mummy) and her lover Michael (Ian Hendry). All day long Carol
hears from her ageing clientele how men are crude beasts and is whis-
tled at by vulgar construction workers. All night long she's kept awake
by Helen and Michael's noisy lovemaking.
Romance looks on the cards when she meets young suitor Colin
(John Fraser) but he mistakes her paranoid shyness for erotic acquies-
cence, and his brush-off leads her to withdraw completely from reality.
With her sister and boyfriend away on holiday, she starts to imagine that
men are breaking into the apartment and raping her. And when Colin
tries to apologize for his actions, her murderous fantasy becomes reality
when she pounds him to death with a candlestick.
Sleazy landlord (Patrick Wymark) arrives to investigate the infes-
tation of flies around Colin's corpse, stored in the bathroom, and in
the film's most unforgettable and gasp-inducing scene, is slashed to
death with a razor. Her sister returns home to find two dead bodies,
the apartment a shambles and Carol out of her mind. In the famous
Rosebud-style ending, which influenced Stanley Kubrick's last shot in
The Shining, the camera moves in on an early photo of an unsmiling and
self-conscious Carol, revealing that she was "different" even then.
Carol's deterioration into madness is shown in stark hallucino-
genic horror form, with rooms becoming distorted, solid plaster turning
mushy and hands shooting out of it to claw and caress her frigid body.
Her unrelieved alienation, sexual frustration that she both repulses and
attracts, and loneliness gain further artful resonance by being depicted
in searing black-and-white.
Played with utter haunted conviction by the exquisite Deneuve,
Carol becomes a predecessor of the "bunny boiler", because of the the-
matic density of frequent Polanski collaborator Gerard Brach's script;
for her slide into ever more frantic and disturbed behaviour is linked to
leaving out a skinned rabbit that she hadn't yet cooked to rot for days
on end. A truly harrowing descent into murderous claustrophobia, this
masterpiece of personality disintegration was revisited by Polanski for
his bleak black comedy The Tenant (1976).
138
Ringu (The Ring) Mirrors

dir Hideo Nakata, 1998, Jap, 95m Who would have thought that an
ordinary household object could
Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Hiroyuki
cast reveal a vampire who casts no
Sanada, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato cin Ichiro Hayashi m reflection, act as a gateway to
strange worlds, display an evil
Kenji Kawai alter ego or be possessed by the
evil deeds committed in front of
Accept no substitute - especially the ridiculously overblown 2002 it? But these are respective sce-
Hollywood remake directed by Gore Verbinski. (What were those hors- narios in Dance Of The Vampires
es doing?) Before its festival showcasing and eventual worldwide release (1967) and many more, House
in 2001, the West had completely missed out on the massive Asian (1986), Snow White: A Tale Of
horror phenomenon kick-started by Hideo Nakata's Ringu. Japan's Terror (1997), and both The
highest-grossing horror movie rivalled the global Pokemon craze in Haunted Mirror s e g m e n t of
terms of tie-in merchandise and quick-fire copycat clones, which made Dead Of Night (1945) and Mirror,
Mirror (1990). You can c o n -
its central evil spirit, Sadako, the new Freddy Krueger.
jure up the hook-handed villain
Based on the young adult novel of 1991 by Koji Suzuki, the in Candyman (1992) if you say
Japanese Stephen King, Nakata's breath of fresh scare has a decep- his name five times while look-
tively simple premise, which combines the conventions of New ing in a mirror, and breaking
Wave American urban legend with the classic kaidan eiga tradition one brings particularly bad luck
of long-haired, pale-faced lady spooks: a videotape curse. Anyone in The Boogeyman (1980), in
who watches the strange VHS cassette, and sees the fractured grainy which a malevolent supernatural
visual of a woman combing her hair in a mirror, receives an ominous force is contained in a glowing
shard.
telephone call immediately afterwards saying that they have only
seven days left to live.
Following many unexplained deaths linked to the video, televi-
sion reporter Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) investigates.
Finding a copy, and blinded by naive curiosity, she watches it. Sure
enough, the phone rings, she's told that her days are numbered, and
in a panic she calls her ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) for
help. He too can't resist the impulse to watch the video and both
realize that they must decipher its weird arcane images and, more
importantly, learn everything about Sadako (Orie Izuno), the ter-
rifying demon girl at the root of each demise. Together they discover
that forty years earlier, a psychic woman who could predict volcanic
eruptions had an affair with a married researcher, and bore him a
daughter who is responsible for the killing curse.
With its intelligent script, nerve-wracking gradual pace, disturb-
ing atmosphere that is carefully contrived and often left-field twists,
Ringu exerts a steely grip from the restrained opening onwards
139
and delivers a conveyor belt of delectable shocks and unsettling

surprises. The need to watch the unwatchable, a key feature of the
horror tradition, is neatly encapsulated in modern form using video
technology and the primeval spiritual thrust of the piece is rooted
in such classic iconography as the water-well imagery from Kaneto
Shindo's Onibaba. Matsushima, cool as ice, gives a paranoid edge to
her demure role and is brilliantly choreographed by Nakata (direct-
ing only his second film, following Ghost Actress in 1996), within his
well-calculated and tightly constructed terror frame.
Ringu is highbrow horror that packs sneaky multiplex punches.
The spine-tingling tension created when Sadako slowly crawls
out of a television screen that is rewinding the angst-ridden video
memories she has is a landmark moment in contemporary horror
and must be seen by any fan of the genre. The film was followed
by Ringu 2 (1999) and the prequel Ringu 0 (2000); Ring 2: Spiral
(1998) and The Ring Virus (1999), two unofficial cash-ins; and every
variation possible on the theme of the ancient curse meeting mod-
ern technology, including Phone (2002), One Missed Call (2003) and
Shutter (2004).
Rosemary's Baby
dir Roman Polanski, 1968, US, 137m
castMia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon,
Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Bellamy cin William A. Fraker m
Krzysztof Komeda
Although produced by king of gimmick horror William Castle,
starring headline-grabber Mia Farrow — Mrs Frank Sinatra at the
time — and based on a Gothic coffee-table bestseller by Ira Levin,
Rosemary's Baby wasn't burdened by the weight of expectation. But
no one had banked on R o m a n Polanski taking a fresh look at
the American Dream turned Nightmare or credibly placing such
ancient biblical evil slap-bang in the centre of modern Manhattan.
Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (Farrow and John Cassavetes),
young and in love, move into an apartment and find themselves
embraced by the very friendly neighbours, and in particular
140
Mia Farrow in Roman Polanski's

elderly Minnie and Roman Castevet (Ruth G o r d o n and Sidney
vision of evil in modern Manhattan
Blackmer). Soon Minnie is handing out lucky charms and choco-
late mousse with a chalky under-taste on the same evening that the
young couple have planned a romantic baby-making session.
After a weird dream in which she is surrounded by naked chant-
ers, and Guy changing demonic shape before her eyes, Rosemary
learns that she is indeed pregnant. But as her husband's acting career
soars, her health and mental stability plummet. And her paranoia and
concern for her child grow, especially when the Castevets' own doc-
tor, Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy), delivers her baby and says
that it was born dead. However, searching the house after hearing a
baby crying, she discovers that everyone in her new life is a witch, that
Guy betrayed her for fame and fortune, and that her baby is Satan's
son. The issue is whether she will accept the child as her own.
In his first Hollywood film Polanski successfully turned Levin's
somewhat old-fashioned page-turner into an absorbingly tense
study with mounting terror. The suspense comes from the empathy
felt for Rosemary as she struggles to retain her sanity in the com-
pletely alien situation she finds herself dealing with. The pregnancy
anxiety was the reason that the film also became one of the first
horrors to appeal directly to women.
141
The malevolent atmosphere grows through the sheer narra-

The Devil tive momentum provided by Polanski's script (which discarded the
novel's interior monologue), his restraint with visual images when
The Devil is the main force horrific occurrences are taking place and his use of naturalistic set-
behind every supernatural hor-
tings, including the later even more infamous Dakota apartment
ror film, but is rarely shown in
building. Even though many people who saw the film swore that
red-skinned, horned and clo-
they actually saw the devil's spawn in the black crib, they imagined
ven-hoofed glory. Exceptions
it. And that was Polanski's overall triumph.
include Witchcraft Through The
Ages (1922), The Devil Rides God is absent in the world of the acclaimed Polish director,
Out (1968), Fear No Evil (1981) professionally and personally. He watched his mother die in a Nazi
and Legend (1985). Most often concentration camp and he escaped after being used by German
he's depicted as a suave, well- soldiers as target practice. So a victory for the coven with their
dressed gentlemen with a keen omnipotent dark powers isn't a surprise in an adult-themed master-
wit. Actors who have played piece that replaces the usual terror thrills associated with the genre
Lucifer's human persona include with tightly-wound unease.
Adolphe Menjou {The Sorrows An overnight sensation when released, Rosemary's Baby became
Of Satan, 1925), Telly Savalas
one of the few horror movies to win an Oscar - for 71-year-old R u t h
(Lisa And The Devil, 1972),
Gordon. She was one of the Hollywood veterans who Polanski had
Jack Nicholson (The Witches Of
deliberately cast around Farrow to further accent her gamine, youth-
Eastwick, 1987), Robert De Niro
ful, callow confusion. Polanski commented, "When I made Rosemary's
{Angel Heart, 1987) and Peter
Stormare (Constantine, 2005).
Baby I was severely attacked by Catholic groups. Never by witches as
some people said. Witches told me they liked the film."
Scream
dir Wes Craven, 1996, US, 111 m
cast Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, David Arquette,
Courteney Cox, Henry Winkler cin Mark Irwin m Marco
Beltrami
Self-reflexivity became an art form in Wes Craven's teen block-
buster Scream. The first horror movie to pay tribute to stalk-and-
slashers and to explore sardonically the relationship between gore
movies and their hardcore audience, it was a scream in both senses.
Just as he breathed fresh life into his A Nightmare On Elm Street
series with Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), the veteran direc-
tor reinvents the slice-and-dice genre while also paying homage to
142
it, thanks to fan Kevin Williamson's elaborate script, which man-

ages to chill and thrill subversively even when sinister events are at
their funniest. Williamson's screenplay was originally called "Scary
Movie" — the reason why every character says it at least once — and
the title was cheekily commandeered by producers at Miramax for
their lampoon series, which started in 2000.
The sick maniac is on the loose in the small town ofWoodsboro.
First this phone freak pretends he's got a wrong number; then he
asks his prey questions about her favourite horror movies before
moving in, as in When A Stranger Calls (1979), for the sudden kill.
Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) gets her facts wrong on Friday
The 13th (1980) and her disembowelled body is found hanging
from a tree because of her sore lack of terror flick trivia.
Now the tightly knit community is living in fear again because
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is being threatened, a year after
her mother was found brutally murdered. As the news media gathers
disbelievingly in the troubled town again — most notably TV report-
er Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), who always thought Sidney
identified the wrong person as her mother's assassin — bumbling
deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) tries to sift facts
to make sense of the movie-driven stalkings and slashings. Events
shift into jolting top gear when principal Arthur Himbry (Henry
Winkler) is horrifically mutilated and news of his death reaches a
house party being thrown by Stuart (Matthew Lillard), where the
nervous students are watching a video of Halloween for tips on deal-
ing with a masked assailant.
In this typical haunted house setting the completely atypical
Grand Guignol finale is staged expertly by Craven to maximize
tense bloodletting while indulging in hilariously smart theatrics. As
video store worker Randy (Jamie Kennedy) advises everyone not
to lose their virginity, a sure way to attract death, and wishes he'd
watched Prom Night (1980) for extra security, the real psychopath
creeps up on him from behind the sofa just as Michael Myers does
the same to Jamie Lee Curtis on the television screen. How Craven
manages to combine the two in his film is a devious delight among
many that together altered the shape of Nineties horror.
In less skilful hands the fast and furious self-referencing might have
tripped itself up. Here it only heightens the suspense, because Craven
exposes the genre's devices while deftly using them for his own ends.
And he doesn't cheat when it comes to the final unmasking. After
143
slyly pointing a finger at each character in turn, Craven bucks con-

vention yet again by delivering a perverse denouement that comes as
a genuine surprise. "Scream confirmed my belief that horror films are
essentially great character pieces," he said. "They get in deep under
the skin of human psychology. Kids today have fears and need a way
to process their terror in a positive and funny manner. Scream accom-
plished that with scenarios of intense anxiety and playfulness."
Scream has it all: engaging performances; inventive deaths (the
garage door cat-flap crushing is pure genius); cameos from Priscilla
Pointer (Carrie), Linda Blair (The Exorcist) and Craven himself
dressed as Freddy Krueger; and great dialogue - "Life is a movie,
only you can't pick your genre." There's also a trademark Craven
message, with one character telling Sidney: "Don't blame the mov-
ies. Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more cre-
ative."The sequels, Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 3 (2000), mocked the
shock with diminishing returns.
The Shining
dir Stanley Kubrick, 1980, UK, 146m
cast Jack
Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd,
Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson cin John Alcott m
Wendy Carlos
Celebrated directors — and you couldn't ask for a bigger name than
A Clockwork Orange maestro Stanley K u b r i c k - all make the same
blunders when it comes to horror. They arrogantly think the rules
don't apply to them when they deign to tackle the idiom, and/or
they are so unfamiliar with the genre that the most moribund cli-
che images are called upon in the mistaken belief that viewers have
never been shocked by them before. Many have come a cropper
with both problems — Richard Donner with The Omen (1976) and
Peter Hyams with End Of Days (1999) are only the tip of the ice-
berg. And Kubrick fell into this trap too with his carefully nurtured
ghost story based on the bestseller by Stephen King.
The author wasn't very impressed with the finished result.
"Kubrick knew exactly where all the scares should go and where
all the pay-offs should come," he said. "It seems as though he simply
144
said,'This is too easy, I'm not going to do it that way.' So he didn't,

and what he got was very little." But King changed his mind when
the critical dust had settled. "Could it have been done better? Over
the years I've come to believe that it probably could not." It's a sen-
timent echoed by many and now The Shining regularly tops lists of
masterpieces of modern horror.
Kubrick may have minted the visual lexicon for science fiction
with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but he did nothing remotely
similar when focusing on a son's primal fear that his father will
murderously turn on him and his defenceless mother. The only
exceptions were the outdoor maze shots and his pioneering use
of the Steadicam, a stabilized hand-held camera brace allowing the
operator to achieve seamless fluidity in difficult locations.
Heavily influenced, as King admitted, by Shirley Jackson's book
The Haunting Of Hill House (which was turned into the classic 1963
chiller The Haunting), the movie finds failed schoolteacher and
would-be writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) offered the win-
ter caretaker job at the luxurious Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Stanley Kubrick put Shelley Duvall
mountains. Seeing it as an opportunity to work on his novel in an through 127 takes of the infamous
isolated environment, and despite its grisly past — the previous care- "Here's Johnny" bathroom scene
taker, Mr Grady, went insane
and murdered his family — he
accepts the position and moves
into the imposing snow-bound
edifice with his wife Wendy
(Shelley Duvall) and son
Danny (Danny Lloyd). Danny
has a special mental power, "the
shining", to see things that no
one else can and has visions
of the previous slaughters and
premonitions of his father's
homicidal tendencies.
Rejecting King's screenplay,
Kubrick wrote his own ver-
sion (with Diane Johnson)
and changed the hotel from
the embodiment of pure evil,
affecting the inhabitants' per-
sonalities, to a place that merely
1 45
houses the evil entity that Torrance, suffering from writer's block,
has become. Not for nothing did many reviews comment that it
wasn't King's vision that appeared on screen but "the house that Jack
built" — a reference to the Torrance character and to Nicholson's
overly crazed playing of the psychotic axe-wielder, complete with
the Joker smile that he reprised in Batman (1989). By far the best
performance comes from Duvall, who attributed her woman on the
constant verge of hysterics to Kubrick s exhaustingly endless takes
- 127 for the infamous "Here's Johnny" bathroom scene.
There are scary moments - the appearances of the mysterious
twin girls, the never-explained vision of an elevator unleashing a
river of blood and Wendy reading her husband's lengthy manuscript
and realizing that it simply repeats "All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy". Yet Kubrick struggles to maintain a sense of unease
as absurdities and Nicholson's tedious muggings pile up. But if it's
borne in mind that this is a Kubrick film first and a horror film
second, this mannered, big-budget version of The Amityville Horror
(1979) could be the celebration of the perverse beauty of horror that
some of its defenders proclaim it to be.
Shivers (aka The

Parasite Murders/They
Came From Within)
dir David Cronenberg, 1974, Can, 87m
castPaul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Allan
Migicovsky, Barbara Steele, Fred Doederlein cin Robert
Saad
David C r o n e n b e r g has the uncanny ability to produce caution-
ary horrors that with hindsight are prophetic. And it all began with
Shivers (originally released in Canada as The Parasite Murders and in
the United States as They Came From Within, before being given
the name by which it is best known), which chillingly seemed to
146

forecast the onset of the AIDS virus.
Cronenberg's take on Invasion Of
The Body Snatchers (1955), with a
sexual slant, was the most financially
successful Canadian movie of the
decade and it has only improved
with age in the light of the devastat-
ing events that followed it.
Starliner Island seems the ideal
suburban development. Only minutes
from Montreal, it offers a self-con-
tained community away from the hus-
tle and busde of the big city. Amenities
include shops, a Laundromat and resi-
dent doctor Roger St Luc (Paul
Hampton). But as a real estate agent
drones on about the advantages of the
luxury apartments, one of them is the
scene of a brutal suicide and murder.
Dr Emil Hobbes (Fred Doederlein)
has cut open his teenage mistress,
poured acid into her stomach and then slashed his own throat. Shivers seemed to forecast the
The reason? Experimenting with venereal diseases and aphrodi- onset of AIDS and w o n David
siacs, Hobbes has accidentally invented a parasite that causes rampant Cronenberg a cult following
and wanton sexual behaviour while it gestates inside the body. And
because his Lolita-like lover was far from faithful, she has infected
quite a few other residents with the turd-like creature that crawls into
any orifice available. St Luc and his girlfriend Forsythe (Lynn Lowry)
- the wooden Ken and gorgeous Barbie of Cronenberg's sexual fantasy
- are the last to succumb to the high-rise orgy and they join the pro-
miscuous convoy heading for the mainland to start infecting the rest
of the world with their deadly brand of permissiveness.
Owing equally to Don Siegel's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
and George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, the first of
Cronenberg's seminal "body horrors" travels through a nightmare
world of our own making where the grotesque and bizarre make
the flesh creep. The parasites of special effects make-up artist Joe
Blasco are terrifically sleazy-looking and phallic and are disgust-
ing when flying out of washing machines, crawling from bath
plugholes, vomited out of windows, wriggling in the stomach, or
prised off screaming faces with pliers. Striking slow motion is used
147
when a parasite is passed via a lesbian kiss, involving scream queen

Barbara Steele.
It was the sexual pastimes portrayed in Cronenberg's catalogue of
excess that meant that Shivers not only was a gut-churner but also
broke into the arthouse and soft-core porn enclaves. There is incest,
bestiality and a notable scene of a young girl raping the apartment
doorman, though no sense of exploitation. That was why world cen-
sors were unusually kind to Cronenberg's cutting-edge work: they
saw the intelligent subtext amid the nudity and explicit bloodletting.
And the director's attitude won him a die-hard cult following; he felt
that the ending of Shivers was a happy one and that the pansexual
shenanigans were a response to uptight society regarding imagina-
tion in the bedroom as a disease.
The Silence Of The

Lambs
dir Jonathan Demme, 1990, US, 118m
cast Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted
Levine, Anthony Heald, Roger Corman cin Tak Fujimoto
m Howard Shore
Michael Mann's adaptation ofThomas Harris's book Red Dragon into
Manhunter (1986) gave movie audiences the first glimpse of Hannibal
Lecter, played by Brian Cox. But it was Anthony Hopkins who,
doing the seemingly impossible, made the cannibal viewer-friendly
and won an Oscar for playing the smiling face of erudite evil to
perfection. It was a clean sweep, as the film won the best movie
Oscar, and there were also Academy Awards for director Jonathan
D e m m e , actress Jodie Foster and screenwriter Ted Tally.
Demme's must-see of the 1991 summer season was an awesome
shudder masterpiece and the leanest, meanest psycho-chiller for a
long time. The protege of Roger Corman — who cameos as the direc-
tor of the FBI - delivered the sensationally scary goods with one of
the finest ever adaptations of a bestseller. Thanks to Ted Tally's faithful
tuning of Harris's perverse companion piece to Red Dragon, for once
148
a gripping novel arrived on screen with every ounce of brutality and

menace intact. Eschewing Mann's Manhunter designer splatter, Demme
focuses on tight close-up performances and hard-hitting adult themes
to generate maximum edge-of-the-seat suspense, and the intelligent
result evokes a visceral response without relying on hackneyed visual
cliches.
Tenacious FBI recruit Clarice Starling (Foster) is in hot pursuit of
the transsexual serial killer known as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) who
is kidnapping, murdering and skinning young girls across America's
Midwest. For behavioural pointers and clues to his identity, she
enlists the reticent aid of an imprisoned psychopath, Lecter. But in
exchange for possible leads, the cool, calculating cannibal gleefully
forces the troubled Starling to confront her own haunted past. In
some of the most chilling scenes committed to film, the intellectual
worming of the brilliant Lecter into Starling's vulnerable psyche, to Anthony Hopkins played the
uncover her innermost secrets and fears, is unforgettably potent. cannibal perfectly
149
It's their relationship and the developing dynamics of their cat-

and-mouse battles of nerves that drive Demme s dance of derange-
ment, and, frank imagery aside, the scalp-freezing core comes from
the dialogue; and only a top-flight director like Demme would have
the confidence and courage to let such shivers occur without flashy
embellishment. A hypnotic Hopkins reinvents the warped genius
Lecter, making the role unequivocally his own with a numbing effec-
tiveness; like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, he recognized the impor-
tance of the iconic part and rose to the challenge, etching the character
indelibly into popular culture even though he later joked that he
based the voice on "a combination of Truman Capote and Katharine
Hepburn". Hopkins returned to this signature role in Ridley Scott's
Hannibal (2001) and Brett Ratner's Red Dragon (2002).
There's not a single false note in Demme's masterwork, and beauti-
fully designed touches leave the fingers hovering over a panic button:
the huge hall where Lecter is eerily caged before making his grue-
somely clever escape; his arrival at an airport in a metal straight-jacket
with barred mouthpiece; the dingy cellar where "Buffalo Bill" keeps
his terrified quarry. It's guaranteed to electrify.
The Sixth Sense

dir M. Night Shyamalan, 1999, US, 107m
Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel
cast
Osment, Donnie Wahlberg cin Tak Fujimoto m James
Newton Howard
It put the phrase "I see dead people" in the vernacular and in
every spoof; but the real importance of writer/director M. N i g h t
Shyamalan's supernatural brainteaser is that it made the clever script
leading to the big surprise ending, thanks to sleight-of-hand clues
and sly misdirection, a winning formula again, as was clear from films
such as Switchblade Romance. "Can you keep the Secret?" was one of
the many taglines employed to scare up record-breaking business in
this psychological meditation on the afterlife, which was designed
by Indian-born Shyamalan to be "a cross between The Exorcist and
Ordinary People". Even though its famous sucker punch tends to dis-
tract from its hidden qualities — "Aren't all endings a surprise?" asked
150

Shyamalan - The Sixth Sense remains a revered paranormal chiller
and is uncommonly intelligent.
The champion bamboozler, unfolding at an effective measured
pace, opens with Philadelphia-based child psychologist Malcolm
Crowe (Bruce "Willis) and loving wife Anna (Olivia Williams)
celebrating his latest prize-winning achievement. Suddenly, a
patient, Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg) breaks into their bed-
room, accuses Crowe of having failed him years before, and shoots
the doctor before committing suicide. The following autumn, the
slowly recovering Crowe is at a professional and personal crossroads:
he's torturing himself over Gray's accusations and his self-obsession
is making his medicated wife consider an affair.
Then Crowe takes an interest in the case of eight-year-old Cole
Sear (Haley Joel Osment), whose problematic psyche seems to
resemble that of Gray's aberrant schizophrenia. Cole's single mother
Lynn (Toni Collette) is at her wit's end trying to understand why
her loner son walks around in a perpetual state of anguish, covered
in inexplicable cuts and bruises. The truth is that Cole can see the
ghosts of victims of murder, accidents and suicide, who need his
assistance to resolve issues in the real world so that they can cross
over to the other side. Sceptical at first of Cole's powers, Crowe
soon helps him to come to terms with his abnormal capability and
in doing so takes his own shattered existence towards a genuinely
touching and gasp-worthy revelation.
Tapping effortlessly into the ethereal vibe of Ghost (1990) and
the carefully constructed jolts first seen in the gimmick-ridden
catalogue of William Castle, Shyamalan carefully builds an eerie
mood through confidently stylish direction, and the potent synergy
of disarming shocks and intense acting makes for an unsettling
and painfully believable experience. If Willis overdoes the cute-
ness, it doesn't matter, because Osment is riveting as the moppet
spirit intermediary bemused by his strange gift. Shyamalan builds
his whole harrowing house of cards around the young actor (who
had previously played Forrest Gump Jr), which pays dividends that
are intimate and tear-jerking — so much so that he and Collette,
and Shyamalan for his writing, were all nominated for Oscars. In
many ways, however, The Sixth Sense was a curse for Shyamalan; he
felt compelled to increase the power of his conclusions, and often
veered into silliness, as his next three mysteries, all withholding
information - Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004)
- revealed.
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Poster taglines
Nothing that has gone before can compare with this! They couldn't escape
the horror - and neither will you! It's the year's shock suspense sensa-
tion, the most terrifying story ever told and you'll grip your seat in sweat-
inducing excitement!
If the taglines of many horror films were true we'd have been frightened by
now into early graves, but we fall for exaggerated taglines because they
describe exactly what we want to see - and this is more so for horror than
for any other genre. But in horror, where marketing materials have more
impact than critics, few movies have lived up to the outrageous cam-
paigns created by press agents and copywriters.
The cheapest trick is comparison: "First Rosemary's Baby, then The
Omen and now And never believe reviews from magazines you've
never heard of because they probably don't exist. As a rule of thumb, the
further over-the-top the claim, the worse the movie. Here are ten of the
best, ending with two that are plain daft:
The Abominable Snowman (1957): "We dare you to see it alone! Each
chilling moment a shock-test for your scare-endurance!"
Blood And Black Lace (1964): "Guaranteed! The 8 greatest shocks ever
filmed!"
Blood Beach (1981): "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the
water - you can't get to it!"
7he Curse of Frankenstein (1957) "will haunt you forever!"
Dr Jekyll And Sister Hyde (1971): "The sexual transformation of a man into
a woman will actually take place before your very eyes!"
Pieces (1982): "You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre.

Pieces ... It's exactly what you think it is!"
Suspiria
dir Dario Argento, 1976, It, 97m
cast Jessica
Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel
Bose, Udo Kier, Joan Bennett cin Luciano Tovoli m Dario
Argento
D a r i o Argento, "The Italian Hitchcock", turned his back on the
152
Schlock (1973): "Due to the horrifying nature of this film, NO ONE will be
admitted to the theatre."
Spider Baby (1968): "So shocking we can't advertise what's in it. So
shocking - it will Sliver Your Liver!"
The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971), in a spoof on Love Story: "Love means

never having to say you're ugly."
Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970): "Drink a pint of blood a day."
A poster for Mario Bava's Blood And Black Lace (1964), which combined
classic elements of horror with an exaggerated tagline
stylish cosmopolitan thrillers with which he made his name (such

as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage in 1970) to direct Suspiria, his
first fully fledged horror fantasy. It remains his biggest international
success and one that has influenced everyone from John Carpenter
to Quentin Tarantino.
Written by Argento and his partner at the time.Daria Nicolodi,
the three-ring Grand Guignol circus pushed the furthest boundaries
of vicarious shock, visual flair and vicious violence, through ultra-
gory special effects, lush decor and dazzling lighting, achieved by
filming with outmoded Technicolor stock that gave the effect of
153
being 3-D. In tandem with Argento's extraordinary contrapuntal use

of a pounding progressive rock soundtrack by Italian super-group
Goblin (he discovered them for Deep Red in 1975), this made for a
breakthrough into new levels of cinematic sensation. Argento stated,
"Fear is a 370 degree centigrade body temperature. With Suspiria I
wanted 400 degrees!"
Suspiria was based in part on Thomas De Quincey's semi-autobi-
ographical classic from 1822 Confessions Of An Opium Eater - and in
particular the section on the "Three Mothers of Sighs, Darkness and
Tears" - and also on the Walt Disney cartoon Snow White And The
Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the true story of Nicolodi's grandmother
attending a Swiss school with witchcraft on the curriculum.
Aspiring ballerina Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) enrols as a dance
student at the Tanz Akademie in the Black Forest. But her arrival in
Germany on a stormy night concludes with two female students
being savagely murdered in the most acclaimed Argento set piece of
them all. Beginning with one victim having her heart exposed and
repeatedly stabbed, before hanging from an ornate ceiling, and ending
on another girl's face sliced through by falling skylight glass as blood
drips on her from the dangling corpse, Suspiria's opening salvo is the
most electrifying in the history of horror. The point was to start the
film in the way that a normal horror would usually finish; that kept
the audience on edge wondering what could possibly come next.
After further stunning occult deaths (by steel coils, possessed dog,
nailed eyes), and a clue mouthed during gale force winds by one of
the mutilated students, Suzy realizes that the school is held in a grip
of terror by "the Black Queen" Elena Markos, reincarnated as head-
mistress Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett). And Suzy must fight the
rotting witch's zombie alter ego if she is to escape from the cursed
Akademie alive.
"Don't think, panic," read one contemporary review, and this is
the best way to view Argento s treatise on the magical chaos lurk-
ing beneath everyday reality that still exerts a spellbinding allure.
Argento said, "All the sets were built to scale, the higher than normal
door handles for example, because I wanted to reduce the actresses
down in size and have them seem like adolescents. Suspiria is told
from the child's point of view - the reason it remains so primal
and frightening." It was followed by the commercially unsuccessful
sequel Inferno (1980), focusing on the Mother of Darkness.
154
Switchblade Romance
(Haute tension)
dir Alexandre Aja, 2003, Fr, 91 m
cast Cecile
De France, Mai'wenn Le Besco, Philippe
Nahon, Franck Khalfoun, Andrei Finti, Oana Pellea cin
Maxime Alexandre m Francois Eudes
Switchblade Romance was the first influential horror film of the new
millennium to terrify, disturb and shock. French director Alexandre
Aja's sophisticated slasher conforms to the trend of young devotee
filmmakers recreating their favourite morbid memories, as crafted
by the older generation of merchants of menace. "It's Gregory
Levasseur [co-writer and art director] and my self-confessed
homage to such survival exploiters as Wes Craven's Last House On
The Left, Bill Lustig's Maniac and William Fruet's Death Weekend,"
explained Aja. "Those were the movies we enjoyed most because
the violence was excruciatingly real." Hence the neo-nasty atmo-
sphere, courtesy of wincing make-up effects by Zombie Flesh-Eaters
veteran Giannetto de Rossi. The contemporary touches of Maxime
Alexandre's crisply cool photography and Francois Eudes's
nerve-jangling score — composed for instruments that he created for
bodily and aural sensation - take the suspense to new heights in this
grisly charnel house of horror.
Students Marie (Cecile De France) and Alex (Mai'wenn Le
Besco, the blue diva in the 1997 fantasy The Fifth Element, which
was directed by Switchblade Romance co-producer Luc Besson)
arrive at Alex's family's house in the French countryside to cram
for exams. As soon as they have settled in for the night a mysterious
trucker (Philippe Nahon) appears at the door, decapitates Alex's
father, cuts her mother's throat, and ties Alex up and puts her in the
back of his rusty vehicle after raping her. Having witnessed every-
thing in mute distress, Marie — "my take-charge Jamie Lee Curtis,
Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver all rolled into one", said Aja
— hides alongside Alex, and when their assailant stops for petrol she
tries to get the garage cashier to call the police. But the suspicious Aja's film is made more powerful
trucker axes him through the heart and drives off with Alex, whom by its cool photography
155
he tortures during the rest of the journey into the dark backwoods
and into a major plot twist.
In a highly controversial sudden climactic shift to gruesome real-
ity, Aja (son of French director Alexandre Arcady) gleefully sets
up an instant rewind of all that has happened to take on board new
psychosexual implications and redefine what's initially considered
glaring slice-and-dice cliche. It's a daring and outrageous move (and
yet its politically incorrect sordidness dovetails with the film's tone
of nostalgia). "The violence has to over-convince the audience into
averting their eyes so they might miss that vital piece of crucial
information," revealed Aja.
From start to finish, all the blood-soaked ultraviolence carries a
forceful impact. Underlined by layers of ironic wit in the style of
Brian De Palma (the bravura slow slitting of Alex's mother's throat
and death rattle), the relentlessly involving action is bookended by
scenes in a lunatic asylum. Watch out for the torch, the string, the
plastic bag and the barbed wire in this artfully deranged, horrifically
flinch-inducing bloodbath.
The Texas Chainsaw

Massacre
dir Tobe Hooper, 1974, US, 83m
Marilyn Bums, Gunnar Hansen, Allen Danziger,
cast
Edwin Neal, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn cin
Daniel Pearl m Tobe Hooper, Wayne Bell
"Who will survive and what will be left of them?" was one of the
greatest ever horror poster taglines. It belongs to this landmark clas-
sic that started the power tool cult and is the recognized ancestor of
splatter mania, even though it doesn't contain the geysers of blood
that everyone imagines it does. What's really astounding is that the
scalp-freezing value of Tobe Hooper's ferociously terrifying horror
has never diminished, because of the razor-sharp skill with which it
was made.
Hooper's trump card in this grungy marvel — the micro-budget
156
only adds to its harshly gritty, creepy tone — is his reliance on grainy
cinema vérité realism coupled with the true horror of anticipation and
suggestion. It was the three sequels — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
(1986), which Hooper directed, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
III (1989) and The Return Of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
— that were more violent and exploitative, but they were nowhere
near as uncompromisingly scary.
Based on the same story of Ed Gein that provided the inspiration for
Psycho and Deranged: Confessions Of A Necrophile (also 1974), Hooper's
scream-filled suspense masterpiece has five young hippie Texans, Sally
Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her wheelchair-ridden brother Franklin
(Paul A. Partain), her boyfriend Jerry (Allen Danziger) and friends Gunnar Hansen as
Kirk (William Vail) and Pam (Teri McMinn), visiting a graveyard Leatherface
desecrated by vandals where Sally's grandfather is
buried. After picking up slimy hitchhiker (Edwin
Neal), who cuts himself and slashes Franklin, they
stop for petrol and encounter a demented family of
murderous cannibals who kill passers-by and use the
human meat in their special-recipe sausages.
Cleverly making his audience identify vicar-
ously with the plight of animals in a slaughter-
house, Hooper has the innocent victims hung
on meat hooks, put in freezers and sliced into
chunks. If these murders don't stun you into
shocked silence, the toe-curling climax set around
a ramshackle dinner table will finish you off. Sally
is tied up, tortured and held over a bucket by the
crazed inbred family as their corpse-like grand-
father attempts to hit her over the head with a
too-heavy hammer. This grotesque tableau is the
film's most prolonged and unpleasant scene and
owes itself to Hooper's intent to have each family
member embody one of Gein's personality traits;
from mumbling shyness to sudden barbarity, there
is a Geinocological side to each diner, such as the
skin mask of Leatherface.
Although filled with quirky humour and bizarre
characters (the prime example being Leatherface,
played by Gunnar Hansen), it's the brutal accu-
mulative effect of Hooper's disturbingly matter-of-
157
fact direction that sears the brain and puts the alarmed imagination
on exhausting overdrive.The revulsion that the film engenders is the
result of the senselessness and cruelness of the murders rather than
gruesome special effects.
Hooper said, "It's a film about meat, about people who have
gone beyond dealing with animal meat and rats and dogs and cats.
Crazy retarded people going beyond the line between animal and
human. The single most important influence on Chainsaw was the
old EC Comic collections which I loved reading as a seven-year-
the Establishment banning them, but not before

That's exploitation exploiters saw a way to tap an eager audience.
Dictionary definitions of the verb "to exploit" give The inexpensive gruesome binges featured graphic
the meanings of using, especially for profit, and detail that inadvertently led to the rise of Hammer.
using selfishly for one's own ends. "Exploitation"
Later developments showed that films could be
films can be tied to both definitions.
exploitative in other ways. The term can refer to
The movie industry is a business and the bottom movies where unscrupulous producers promise
line is that, as in every other industry, the products perverse chills on the poster that are not delivered,
have to make money, and exploitation films and indeed much of American International
are made solely for this purpose and have few Pictures' drive-in fodder started with a poster first
redeeming features. They are usually made by - such as Creature From The Haunted Sea (1960)
canny businessman filling a gap in the market, as - that then had to be vaguely adhered to on a
the director Herschell Gordon Lewis did in Blood shoestring budget by the unfortunate director.
Feast (1963), when he drenched mannequins in Also coming under the banner of exploitation are
more gore than had been used before. the films by hungry wannabes who deliberately
Exploitation movies are also the price that society court controversy solely to get noticed - The Last
pays for living a lie: no one wants to admit they House On The Left (1972) by Wes Craven being a
enjoy watching the misfortunes of others, but that textbook example.
enjoyment is what horror exploitation promotes.
Whatever category the filmmakers fall into, they
Although the ideal of the cinema is of life-
are all totally shameless (and in some cases talent-
enhancement, for many people, there is a secret
less), but precisely because of that they often
thrill in witnessing the misfortunes of others, and
create bone-chilling reactions that are unparalleled;
exploitation films can provide that without the guilt
Tobe Hooper showed that he could do this in the
attached to situations when the victims are real.
twisted cheapie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
While exploitation films have been around since the Always seen as the lowest, sickest and most
dawn of cinema, and came into their own in the shocking of sub-genres, the exploitation film finally
grind houses of the Thirties and Forties, with the became respectable when Paramount picked up
accent more on nude titillation, horror exploitation the distribution rights to Friday The 13th in 1980
began in 1947 with the publication of the notorious and forever changed the way the once derided
EC Comics. Their graphic depictions of wronged product was viewed by the industry and by the
victims taking inventive bloody revenge soon had public.
158
old." When remade reasonably in 2003, director Marcus Nispel

merely piled on the gore and filtered the retooled story through
thirty intervening years of slasher cliche.
The Uninvited
dir Lewis Allen, 1944, US, 98m, b/w
cast Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey, Donald
Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner cin Charles Lang Jr m Victor
Young
Advertised as "The story of a love that is out of this world", director
Lewis Allen's polite tale of the supernatural was the cinema's first real-
ly good and unapologetic ghost story.With Universal interested only in
the classic franchise monsters, anything of a phantom or spectral nature
was conspicuously absent from most studios' agendas during the first
golden age of horror. Or if they crept in they were used for comic
effect, as in Rene Clair's The Ghost Goes West (1936), its huge popular-
ity based on sidelining eeriness in favour of side-splitting fantasy, put-
ting anything mildly scary on the back-burner. Even haunted houses,
such as those featured in The Cat And The Canary and its remakes, were
revealed to be dull, ordinary and usually just full of bogus bogeymen
and jokers dressed in white sheets. But The Uninvited was different.
Made by Paramount Pictures as a big-budget riposte to the cheap
R K O chillers produced by Val Lewton that were frequently attract-
ing critical acclaim, the film is almost a forerunner of The Haunting.
Based on Dorothy Macardle's female-friendly 1941 novel Uneasy
Freehold, it follows composer and music critic Roderick Fitzgerald
(Ray Milland), on holiday in Cornwall with his sister Pamela (Ruth
Hussey). Coming across the charming Wentwood House overlook-
ing the sea and finding it up for sale at a (suspiciously) low price, they
buy it. But the moment they move in, strange things start to happen;
their pet dog refuses to go upstairs, some places feel decidedly chilly,
flowers wilt almost instandy, one room is impregnated with the scent
of mimosa and a romantic piano piece suddenly turns sombre as the
ghosdy chords waft through the house.
Conducting a seance, they learn that the house is haunted by two
female apparitions; one friendly and mournful, the other evil and
159
hostile. Matters soon become clearer when Roderick

falls in love with neighbour Stella Meredith (Gail
Russell), who lived in the house as a child and
believes that her dead mother's ghost is trying to tell
her something important. The other spirit is deter-
mined to stop this, being implicated in the tragically
haunting secret.
Very much a product of its Lewton-influenced
time, and similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940)
in being a popular mystery romance featuring an
eerie house, Allen's disquieting melodrama has a chill-
ing touch when dosing out its well-calculated shivers,
and is gready aided by Charles Lang's stylish cin-
ematography. The eerie seance still has simple shock
value through exploiting a natural fear of the unseen
- the well-timed moment when a window flies open
remains an effective jolt - and the menacing myste-
riousness is well maintained until the movie finishes
with a wholly satisfying climax and a witty last line.
Yet Paramount felt that the film would per-
Ray Milland and
plex audiences with its wilful obscurity, so they added some shots of
Ruth Hussey in Lewis Allen's
Stellas mother's ghost to spell out the supernatural explanation. But in
Lewton-influenced classic
the United Kingdom the censor removed them and, as a result, The
Uninvited pleased British critics for relying on mood rather than tacky
visualization.
Witchfinder General
(aka The Conqueror Worm)
dir Michael Reeves, 1968, UK, 87m
cast Vincent
Price, Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Dwyer, Rupert
Davies, Robert Russell, Nicky Henson, Wilfrid Brambell
cin John Coquillon m Paul Ferris
Vincent Price gave a performance that was more restrained than
usual as the Puritan angel of death Matthew Hopkins in wunderkind
160

director Michael Reeves's final masterpiece before he commit-
ted suicide at the age of 25. A work of classic horror that is brutal,
despairing and thematically fascinating, this nihilistic chiller based on
the vaguely factual book by Ronald Bassett carries the message that
evil begets evil and violence begets violence. It was condemned on all
sides when released for its extreme savagery; but it crystallized Reeve's
reputation, after he died, as a stylish filmmaker of serious intent.
Hopkins is appointed by Parliament during the English Civil War
to root out sorcery and witchcraft across the land. Richard Marshall
(Ian Ogilvy), a young soldier on leave from Cromwell's army, heads
home to Brandiston, Norfolk, where his girlfriend Sara (Hilary
Dwyer) fives under the watchful eye of her priest uncle John Lowes
(Rupert Davies). Having promised to marry Sara so that she'll come
to no harm in such Godforsaken times, Marshall passes Hopkins and
his sadistic apprentice John Stearne (Robert Russell) on the journey
back to join his regiment.
But Hopkins has gone to Brandiston to brand Lowes an idolater,
and takes up Sara's desperate offer of her body for her uncle's life.
After Stearne rapes her, has Lowes killed anyway and scythes through
the rest of the village, Marshall returns to uncomprehending mayhem.
Learning of what Sara has gone through, he swears to bring Hopkins
and his assistant before God's divine judgement.Yet as Hopkins' reign
of terror spreads, and Marshall's bloodlust grows, it becomes clear that
his intention is to bring the witchfinder not to society's justice, but
his own.
Although Reeves does focus on the ludicrously loaded witch tests
that always resulted in death - the pricking to find the Devil's mark,
the ducking stool, hanging, burning on a pyre - it's his brilliant stag-
ing of the horrifying climax that pulls together all the elements of
the Jacobean revenge tragedy. As Sara undergoes further torture by
Stearne pricking her and Hopkins moving in to brand her with a
cross, Marshall knocks Stearne to the floor, gouges out his eye with
his spur and hacks Hopkins repeatedly with an axe. It's then trooper
Swallow (Nicky Henson) who shoots Hopkins to put him out of
his misery - the last thing Marshall wanted. "You've taken him from
me," he screams, deranged, as audiences retreated behind their seats in
stunned shock at such a powerful and meaningful conclusion.
For if Witchfinder General effectively depicted how men in author-
ity can exploit their positions to satisfy their own debauched and
depraved tastes, it also showed the perversion of a once innocent man
being driven to become exactly what he despises. Marshall's desire
161
for vengeance comes not from the harm done to his beloved — he
is oblivious to Sara's final torment - but from the realization that
Hopkins caused him to break his oath to protect her. Yet ultimately
he relishes the torture that he metes out to Hopkins as much as the
Michael Reeves's film showed witchfmder enjoyed his. The circle of corruption is complete.
how evil begets evil
162
Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, the part

that made him a household name, in
James Whale's film of 1931
The Icons:
the faces of horror
Horror can be analyzed not only through its key films, but also through the influen-
tial actors and directors whose careers are spent entirely or predominantly in the
genre, and the characters who have been re-created constantly or popular enough
to have their own franchise. This alphabetically arranged chapter tells you about all
those who in this way are crucial to the genre of horror: the icons.
Dario Argento the script for Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time
Director, 1940- In The West (1968).
His first directorial effort, The Bird With The
Dario Argento was born in R o m e to a family Crystal Plumage (1970), was a chilling thriller
already immersed in the visual arts; during the that appropriated the basics of Mario Bava's gialli
1950s his father, Salvatore, was crucial to the but made the murder of key stylistic importance
introduction and popularization of Italian films rather than the plot, and thus marked a sea
around the world, thanks to his job as a pub- change for the Italian film industry. Its massive
lic relations executive at Unitalia, the govern- critical and box-office success led him to be
ment-funded organization for promoting cinema dubbed "the Italian Hitchcock". More sexually
exports, and his Brazilian mother, Elda Luxardo, graphic and violently bloody shockers followed
was a famous celebrity photographer. Starting in its wake, all filmed with his signature over-
his career as a film critic for the newspaper Paese wrought flair — The Cat O'Nine Tails, Four Flies
Sera, Argento was lured into directing after his On Grey Velvet (both 1971) and Deep Red (1975).
collaboration with B e r n a r d o Bertolucci on The latter, showcasing a score by Goblin, set an
165
THE ICONS: T H E FACES OF HORROR
international benchmark for use in a soundtrack scenes of abject horror. Argento never bettered
of high decibel progressive rock music. this image, which reflected the experience of
It was the visually ornate, shocking hor- watching his own oeuvre.
ror Suspiria (1977, see Canon) that brought In 1978 Argento turned to producing horror,
Argento cult status, recognition around the world overseeing George A. Romero's zombie classic
and credit for influencing the modern splatter Dawn Of The Dead (see Canon), and then films
sub-genre. His imagery, striking technique and that included Demons (1985) and Demons 2: The
startling use of camera moves added lustre to Nightmare Returns (1986), by Mario Bava's son
disturbing visions that pushed the boundaries of Lamberto; Michele Soavi's The Church (1989)
epic violence and that few dared follow — Inferno and The Sect (1991), which starred Kelly Curtis,
(1980), Tenebrae (1982), Phenomena (1985) and Jamie Lee's sister; and the debut of his veteran
Opera (1987). This last grisly opus contains his special effects man Sergio Stivaletti, Wax Mask
most enduring and upsetting sequence - a girl (1997). He teamed up again with Romero for
forced to keep her eyes open because of needles the Edgar Allan Poe tribute Two Evil Eyes (1990),
taped under her eyelids so that she has to watch before embarking on a trilogy of terror with his
Argento, who led where few dared to follow, with "the Black Queen" from Suspiria (1976)
166
THE ICONS: THE FACES OF HORROR
actress daughter Asia: Trauma (1993), The Stendhal Bava's ability to conjure up weird and won-
Syndrome (1995) and The Phantom Of The Opera derful, spectral and sadistic worlds in bizarre tales
(1998), a very Italian remake. of warped terror became his signature talent and
After that European hit, Argento returned to remains unparalleled. Having learnt everything
the gialli — the fear formula he has made well and from his cameraman father Eugenio (Quo Vadis?,
truly his own - with Sleepless (2001), The Card 1913), a special effects expert, he created chilling
Player (2003) and the TV movie Do You Like atmospheres simply through deft lighting, vivid
Hitchcock? (2005). His other TV work includes colour schemes, unsettling sound effects and
producing, hosting and directing two of the four clever camera tricks.
parts of the series The Door Into Darkness (1973), It was teaming up with director Riccardo
and producing the 1987 game show Giallo. His Freda for I Vampiri (Lust Of The Vampire, aka The
devotees are still waiting for him to direct the last Devil's Commandment, 1956) that was crucial to
part of the trilogy begun by Suspiria and contin- Bava's subsequent career, for Freda walked off
ued in Inferno, The Third Mother. the movie in a huff over the twelve-day schedule
and Bava, his cameraman, completed the tale.
Inferno
Freda did the same again on Caltiki, The Immortal
dir Dario Argento, 1980, It, 107m
Monster (1959), leaving Bava to direct 70 percent
The sequel to Suspiria is a gothic masterpiece; an alchemic of the rip-off of The Quatermass Xperiment (1955).
tapestry that, like the music world it's set in, provides
variations on the themes of surrealistic magic. Mark Elliot
Grateful producer Lionello Santi then offered
(Leigh McCloskey) searches for "the Mother of Darkness" him the chance to make his official directorial
in Manhattan and uncovers a dream-like landscape of debut - and Black Sunday (1960, see Canon) was
hallucinogenic horror, all of which is orchestrated to Keith an instant classic and international success.
Emerson's hard rock music. Bava made his stunning Technicolor debut
with Hercules In The Haunted World (1961), star-
ring Christopher Lee as the king of the under-
Mario Bava world. His next effort was The Evil Eye (1962),
Director, 1914-1980 a Hitchcockian parody, which, along with his
Telephone segment from Black Sabbath (1963), was
One of the horror world's most important
important for being the first move towards gialli,
directors, Mario Bava, during a glittering career,
stylish shockers that focused on murders rather
played a part in every influential development
than mystery; the works upon which they were
of twentieth-century Italian cinema. He became
based had covers that were yellow — in Italian,
a cameraman for director Roberto Rossellini
giallo. Bava would develop this genre with the
in 1939 just as the neo-realist movement took
influential body counter Blood And Black Lace
hold. He photographed and directed segments of
(1964), in which a masked psychopath brutally
the sand-and-sandal progenitor Hercules (1958).
kills fashion models.
His comic-strip fantasy Danger: Diabolik (1968)
One of Bava's most censored Freudian
preceded Barbarella. And Ridley Scott paid
nightmares was The Wliip And The Body (1963),
homage to the visuals of Planet Of The Vampires
a beautiful work of pure Gothic art — inevitably
(1965) in Alien (1979).
different from the gialli, always set in the present
167
- that featured Christopher Lee in a sadomasoch-

istic romance from beyond the grave. The three-
part anthology Black Sabbath the same year gave
Fog
Boris Karloff" the chance to shine in a vampire The quintessential horror movie weather condition,
tale. Three years later came Bava's worst film, the fog is perfect for Sherlock Holmes to lurk in, the
Wolf Man to emerge from and Jack the Ripper to
spy spoof Dr Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs (1966),
cover his murderous exploits with, and Bava used
which inspired the Austin Powers movies. fog in everything. The ability of fog to produce an
Other important works from Bava include the eerie atmosphere is obvious, but less so is the fact
masterpiece of suggestive horror Kill, Baby, Kill that in shoestring budget shockers the dry ice was
(1966), in which a Transylvanian town is haunted used as a necessity to mask tatty sets. In Planet Of
by the ghost of a young girl, and Twitch Of The The Vampires (1965) Bava used it throughout the
Death Nerve (1971), which is now seen as the picture to hide the fact that the only set dressing
blueprint for the splatter wave that started with was a car that had been cannibalized to look like
spaceship portholes.
Friday The 13th (1980). Bava's most subtle and
persona] rnovie was Lisa And The Devil, which
put into focus his own obsessions and fears; only Exorcism (1973) in the post-Exorcist exploitation
recently has the original cut been seen, on DVD, frenzy. His later films included the sneaky kidnap
but it was re-edited, re-filmed and released every- thriller Wild Dogs (1974), which was unreleased
where as the jumbled concoction The House Of for 25 years, and his last, un-credited, project
was working on the special effects for Dario
Argento's Inferno (1980).
Bava's treasure trove of horrors has stood the
test of time: they are among the finest achieve-
ments the genre has to offer. His son Lamberto is
a director (Demons, 1985) and his grandson Roy
a technician (The Card Player, 2003).
I Vampiri (Lust Of The Vampire, aka

The Devil's Commandment)
dir Riccardo Freda, 1956, It, 81m
It was Bava who completed this retelling of the Countess
Bathory legend, the first Italian horror film of the sound era
- Mussolini having banned them. It beat Hammer's The
. Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) to the horror renaissance
punch and minted the look of all Italian gothica to follow,
but it flopped at the Italian box office, and Freda, believing
that Italians didn't take Italian-made horror seriously, took
on the nom de plume Robert Hampton. For the same
reason, Bava's pseudonyms included John Foam, John
Old and Mickey Lion.
Bava, whose work ranged from gialli to gothic art
168
Tod Browning clown, a barker, a contortionist, an escape art-

Director, 1882-1962
ist and a man buried alive in a "hypnotic living
corpse" sideshow.
The first American director to fully understand Without question, it was this period of show-
the fascination of the audience with the macabre manship, and attendant hype in the highlighting
as well as ways in which it could be illuminated the reaction to the bogus miracles and fantastic
on screen, Charles Albert Browning was born in illusions, that shaped Browning's destiny and his
Louisville, Kentucky, and nicknamed Tod. As a genius for creating spectacles that were macabre
teenager he courted a dancer in a travelling fair and crowd-pleasing. His enduring fascination
that sparked his interest in a life in the circus, and with carnival life informed his work and was
he went on to tour with several companies, as a a motif throughout his career, though it ended
Browning (left) with Lon Chaney on the set of Where East Is East (1929)
169
with his most penetrating look at big-top cul- established Universale tight hold on the genre
ture, the outrageous shocker Freaks (1932, see that lasted for the next two decades. After the
Canon). debacle of his terrifying trip into the twilight
A complicated, troubled, alcoholic and fiercely world of Freaks, he directed a musty remake of
private man, his rapid climb to wealth and fame London After Midnight (1927), under the title
in the burgeoning silent film industry began after Mark Of The Vampire (1935), and his genre swan-
he met D. W. Griffith, then a rising director. Like song, before retiring to become a script doctor,
Browning, the fellow Kentuckian had worked his was the bizarrely engaging The Devil-Doll (1936),
way up through the circus hierarchy to managing which starred Lionel Barrymore in drag selling
the early slide shows that would segue into cine- miniaturized humans as dolls in Paris. In 1962,
ma; the link forged between the two led Griffith like Chaney, his artistic muse, Browning died of
to hire the vaudevillian to star in two comedies, throat cancer, just as the re-released Freaks was
Scenting A Terrible Crime and A Fallen Hero (both attracting interest. There are numerous film trib-
1913), and he found Browning a reliable actor utes: Tod Browning is the name of the hero, for
who was eager to gain experience in all aspects example, in Hammer's Blood From The Mummy's
of the fledgling movie industry. They moved to Tomb (1971).
Hollywood together when Griffith embarked
on his innovative epic The Birth Of A Nation The Unknown
(1915), and Browning then directed the one-reel dir Tod Browning, 1927, US, 65m, b/w
The Lucky Transfer (1915) and his feature-length Alonzo the Armless Wonder (Lon Chaney), who performs
debut Jim Bludso (1917). a knife-throwing act with his feet but is actually a strangler,
It was The Unholy Three (1925), about a side- falls in love with the circus-owner's daughter (Joan
Crawford), who fears touch, so he decides to have his arms
show trio turning to jewel theft, starring Lon
amputated, just as she torments him by dating Malabar
Chaney, that shot Browning into the front ranks the Strongman (Norman Kerry). Elaborate deception and
of horror. In all of his mutilation melodramas twisted psychosexual horror are the essential elements of
featuring Chaney — whose roles ranged from Browning's pairings with Chaney, and this morbid carnival of
a crook with a broken back in The Blackbird the bizarre and the brutal features both.
(1926) to a scarred animal trapper in Wlicre
East Is East (1929) — Browning served as either
scriptwriter or co-writer, sometimes basing the John Carpenter
finished product on one of his own ideas. His Director, 1948-
ability to give any literary work a surreal sense of
nightmarish horror meant that all his films had In 1953, when he was five years old, John
an uneasy and menacing air. Carpenter's mother took him to see Jack Arnold's
Browning effortlessly got to grips with the It Came From Outer Space. As the meteor hurtled
new era of sound and put himself firmly in the towards him in 3-D, exploding in his face, the
horror vanguard when he made the cinematic boy from Carthage, New York, knew where his
landmark Dracula (1931, see Canon). With this destiny lay. His enthusiasm for Fifties B - m o v -
vampire classic, starring Bela Lugosi, Browning ies was reflected in all his work, as a director,
launched the international horror movie and producer, writer, actor and composer, and in
170
his favourite theme - a group of people pulling

together while struggling against unexplained
outside forces.
While continuing within the horror genre, and
making assets out of minimal budgets, Carpenter's
later efforts haven't matched the energetic inven-
tiveness of his three unqualified masterpieces
- Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978,
see Canon) and The Thing (1982). Yet he remains
a powerful force in the horror industry and an
eloquent spokesman for the positive qualities of
the genre. He is also one of the few directors to
have his name included in the title of his work,
as in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) and John
Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars (2001).
Carpenter studied film at the University
of Southern California, where he wrote The
Resurrection Of Bronco Billy (1970), which won
the Oscar for best live-action short. His fea-
ture debut was the 2001 homage Dark Star
(1974), which was written with and starred D a n
O ' B a n n o n , future Alien (1979) co-writer. And
after directing the cult Assault On Precinct 13,
drawing heavily on Night Of The Living Dead
(1968, see Canon) for its inner-city police siege
structure, Carpenter's breakthrough came with Carpenter on the set of Christine (1983), for which
the landmark chiller Halloween. he also served as composer
His creative involvement with the series
continues, and meanwhile his films have includ- to come was the dud H. P. Lovecraft adaptation
ed The Fog (1980), in which the ghosts of In The Mouth Of Madness (1995) and Village
shipwrecked sailors threaten a seaside town, Of The Damned (1995), based on the John
and the futuristic thriller Escape From New York Wyndham novel that Wolf Rilla made into a
(1981), which sneaked in more social com- classic in 1960.
ment and featured his favourite actor, K u r t Carpenter also appeared as The Coroner in
Russell; Carpenter used him in The Tiling, the the Body Bags (1993) TV series, for which he
Hong Kong inspired supernatural action failure composed the music and directed two of the
Big Trouble In Little China (1986) and Escape three segments, and other writing credits include
From L.A. (1996). Memoirs Of An Invisible Man The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) and El Diablo
(1992), starring Chevy Chase, seemed to halt (1990). He plays keyboard in the rock band The
Carpenter's spiral into mediocrity, though still Coup de Villes, which also features Halloween III
171
T H E ICONS: T H E FACES OF HORROR
director Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle, contortionist with corkscrew limbs and rolling
who plays The Shape in Halloween; the band can eyes, drew critical praise and was the kind of
be heard on the soundtrack to Big Trouble In Little pantomime grotesque performance - another
China and The Boy Who Could Fly (both 1986). came when playing Blizzard in The Penalty
(1920) — that would propel him to stardom and
Christine
the title "the Man of a Thousand Faces".
dir John Carpenter, 1983, US, 110m
The two most famous Chaney charac-
Misfit student Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) buys a terizations are The Hunchback Of Notre Dame
killer car in this assembly line adaptation of the Stephen
King best-seller that went into production before the book
(1923) and The Phantom Of The Opera (1925,
was even published. The possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury see Canon). The part of Quasimodo required
- which was seen to transform itself thanks to footage Chaney to don a fifty-pound plaster hump, a
played backwards of the car being compressed - makes breastplate, shoulder pads, a tight-fitting skin of
him trendy, trashes his enemies and plays vintage pop hits hair-lined latex, a prosthetic eye, a dental device
on the radio, but in other respects the film is clapped out.
that held his mouth partially open and a harness
that meant he could not stand up straight; and
his painful dedication to his craft and to new
Lon Chaney make-up techniques made him an innovator.
Actor, 1883-1930 The masochism was necessary, according to
Chaney, because he wanted "picture-goers to be
Born in Colorado Springs on April Fool's Day bewildered and stirred by what they see", and
1883, Leonidas Frank Chaney was the consum- he continued to refine his art through portray-
mate silent film actor, a mime artist of immense als that included truncated criminals, Chinese
talent who could easily summon feelings in an fiends and ape-men. These roles gave rise to the
audience of horror, compassion and mirth, often joke: "Don't step on it, it may be Lon Chaney."
at the same time. Because his parents were deaf In terms of cinema that shocked, Chaney's
mutes, Chaney became an expert visual commu- collaborations with Browning were his best
nicator at an early age, and when his stagehand films, and their pairing resulted in some of the
oldest brother John asked him to join a theatre most deranged gems of the silent era. He fea-
group, his talent shone, and he flourished on the tured in The Unholy Three (1925) as ventriloquist
early-twentieth-century vaudeville circuit. Professor Echo, in London After Midnight (1927)
Chaney joined Universal in 1912, as an as Mooney, the hideous vampire man, and in
actor in dozens of comedy and action shorts West Of Zanzibar (1928) as "Dead Legs" Flint,
and as a director (The Stool Pigeon and For Cash, a paralyzed magician. Acquitting himself well
both 1915). It was here that, playing the pick- in the talkie remake of The Unholy Three (1930),
pocket "Stoop" Connors in The Wicked Darling he seemed destined to emerge as the first sound
(1919), he met director T o d B r o w n i n g for horror star, especially as Browning wanted him
the first time. But shortly afterwards Chaney to star in Dracula (1931), but he died of throat
left Universal for Paramount to take on a role cancer. He was played by J a m e s C a g n e y in a
that transformed his career, in The Miracle 1957 biopic, The Man Of A Thousand Faces, that
Man (1919). His portrayal of Frog, a charlatan focused more on his private life than his art.
172
The Unholy Three is blurred with that of his dummy and who teams up
dir Jack Conway, 1930, US, 72m, b/w with Tweedledee (midget Henry Earles) and Herman
(strongman Ivan Linow) for ingenious criminal activities
Chaney's first sound film replicated exactly Tod that lead to murder. Chaney died soon after filming,
Browning's version from 1925, with the star playing making this the only movie in the era of sound that he
Professor Echo, a drag ventriloquist whose identity appeared in.
Chaney in The Penalty (1920) as double amputee Blizzard, who is mutilated by an evil surgeon
173
Roger Corman job description in the movie industry that Roger

Corman hasn't had. One of the most successful
Director, 1926-
names in the history of the genre, he began as a
Producer, director, writer, studio head, distribu- runner for 20th Century Fox and became one
tor, entrepreneur and talent scout: there isn't a of the main suppliers for American International
Pictures, the distribution outfit begun by Samuel
Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson in the
mid-Fifties to cash in on the new teenage market.
Corman s head for business, ruthless efficiency; eye
for trends in pop culture and immaculate tim-
ing meant that he rarely lost money. Only when
he veered from the drive-in date movie double-
bill with a "message picture" - with The Intruder
(1962), for example - did he come unstuck.
After producing and writing The Monster From
The Ocean Floor (1954), which was shot in six days
for $12,000, Corman rose swiftly; the film's direc-
tor, Wyott Ordung, introduced him to Arkoff
and Nicholson, who released his second produc-
tion, The Fast And The Furious (1954), and a long
and very fruitful relationship began. In his various
roles Corman churned out multi-genre products
that had liberal doses of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll,
as well as violence and cheap monster menaces,
and he made his directorial debut with Five Guns
West (1955). The bravado, resourcefulness and
wicked humour that Corman put into his high
grade B-movies meant that a house style emerged
that made him not only a popular favourite but
also the darling of foreign critics, film school
graduates and festival fans.
Key horror titles from this early period
include Attack Of The Crab Monsters (1956), A
Bucket Of Blood (1959), The Creature From The
Haunted Sea and The Little Shop Of Horrors (both
1960).Then came Corman's most popular films,
commercially and critically: the series of sump-
tuous Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that he made
Corman with a prop from the stageshow of The Little for AIP, beginning with The Fall Of The House
Shop Of Horrors of Usher (1960) and including The Pit And The
174
Pendulum (1961, see Canon). Outside the Poe Famous for being able to spot the best, and hun-
arena he worked with Vincent Price on The griest, young talent in Hollywood, Corman also
Tower Of London (1962) and with Boris Karloff kicked off the careers of Francis Ford Coppola,
on the incomprehensible The Terror (1962), foot- Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme
age from which one of his many discoveries, and Jack Nicholson.
Peter Bogdanovich, reused for Targets (1968). Tired of studio politics, Corman stopped
directing in 1970 and formed New World
Pictures. For more than a decade it produced
Animal horror and released an eclectic mix of foreign arthouse
After the horrifying attacks for no apparent reason in (Fellinis Amarcord, 1973, Ingmar Bergmans Cries
The Birds (1963), based on the novel by Daphne du And Whispers, 1972) and exploitation (The Velvet
Maurier and one of thriller director Alfred Hitchcock's Vampire, Lady Frankenstein, both 1971, Piranha,
rare ventures into horror, it was only a matter of time 1978). Corman sold New World in 1982, created
before other creatures freaked out against man's inhu- Millennium Pictures and then in 1985 formed
manity towards nature. Usually the animals took a Concorde/New Horizons exclusively for the
stand over the ecological damage being done to the
video, cable TV and DVD markets. Since then
planet (Frogs, 1972), but some went on the rampage
because of laboratory experiments (giant rabbits in
he's overseen the production of hundreds of bud-
Night Of The Lepus, 1972); others just wanted to mete get features, including many remakes of his own
out to mankind a bit of revenge (rats in Willard, 1971). famous back catalogue.
Whatever the reason for the protest, the sub-genre of Corman made an inauspicious directing come-
nature's revenge has been around for a long time and back in 1990 with Frankenstein Unbound and that
can be relied upon for a good laugh (Anaconda, 1997) same year wrote his entertaining autobiography
and a good scare (Arachnophobia, 1990). with Jim Jerome, How I Made A Hundred Movies
Spiders have been the main stars in this field In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime. Innovative,
(Kingdom Of The Spiders, 1977, Spiders II: Breeding versatile and indefatigable — the drug and motor-
Ground, 2001), but watch out too for cats (Night
cycle sub-genres didn't exist until he created them
Of WOO Cats, 1972), ants (Phase IV, 1974), cock-
with Tlie Wild Angels (1966) and Vie Trip (1967)
roaches (Bug, 1975), sharks (Jaws, 1975, see Canon;
and Devouring Waves, 1984), worms (Squirm, 1976), - Corman's talent for making money and making
bears (Grizzly, 1976), octopuses (Tentacles, 1977), movies, however uneven in quality, has carved him
bees (The Swarm, 1978), piranhas (Roger Corman's a special niche in Hollywood horror history.
Piranha, 1978) wild boars (Razorback, 1984) slugs
(Slugs: The Movie, 1988), crocodiles (Killer Crocodile, The Little Shop Of Horrors
1989), ticks (Infested, 1993), mosquitoes (Skeeter, dir Roger Corman, 1960, US, 70m, b/w
1993) and komodo dragons (Komodo, 1999). A Famous for being shot in two days and one night, using
whole menagerie goes on the rampage in Wild Beasts the set for a production that was about to finish and that
(1984), when a disease mysteriously finds its way into was redressed, this camp cult classic has dim-witted florist
the water supply at Hamburg Zoo, and because of Seymour Krelboln (Jonathan Haze) breeding a blood-hungry
damage to the ozone layer there is furry menace carnivorous plant named Audrey. Equally famous for Jack
awaiting campers in the High Sierra in Day Of The Nicholson's riotous masochistic dental patient reading Pain
Animals (1977). magazine in the waiting room, it was remade in 1986 as a
big-budget musical.
175
Wes Craven
Director, 1939-
"To avoid fainting, keep repeating: It's only a movie

... only a movie ..." One of the most famous
advertising campaigns in horror history was for
Wes Craven's still controversial rape revenge drama
Last House On The Left (1972). Based on Ingmar
Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960), the hard-hit-
ting shocker illustrated the malaise that existed in a
country that had been battered and desensitized by
nighdy images of the Vietnam War. Many found
Craven's frenzied stabbing, prolonged torture and
intestine evisceration scenes too powerful to bear
and his crude, brutal, barrier-breaking debut has
been vilified, censored and banned.
Yet Last House On The Left — produced
by future Friday The 13th director Sean S.
Cunningham, and the first horror movie to fea-
ture a chain saw — established Craven's perennial
themes: the undermining and destruction of the
American middle-class family and the tensions
of class, ethnicity and religion. Even when he
showed a greater fascination for dreams, night-
mares, the subconscious and self-reflexivity in A
Nightmare On Elm Street (1984, see Canon) and
Scream (1996, see Canon), Craven adhered to an
analytical thoughtfulness that is rare among seri-
ous American horror directors.
With a masters degree from Johns Hopkins
University, and a previous career teaching
humanities in the university sector, Craven has
had a harder time than other directors justifying
his horror career to himself, and he often comes
across as pretentious and self-important because
of that. But no one can deny the social com-
plexity than underpins even inane affairs such as
SwampThing (1982), Shocker (1989) and Vampire
In Brooklyn (1995).
Craven on the set of Vampire In Brooklyn (1995)
176
Cravens outrageous Last House follow-up,

based on the "Sawney" Bean legend and tinged
David Cronenberg
with black comedy, was the savage The Hills Director, 1943-
Have Eyes (1977), in which a degenerate can-
"The King of Venereal Horror", "the Baron
nibal family ruin the desert vacation of some
of Blood" and "the Canadian Prince of Body
innocent campers.The lousy The Hills Have Eyes
Horror": David Cronenberg has been dubbed
II (1985) featured every surviving character,
all of these and more. But while his cinema is
including Beast, the dog, having flashbacks to
always sensationally visceral, visually unafraid
the superior original. Captive cannibals were The
and full of startling images aiming to disturb,
People Under The Stairs (1991) in Craven's politi-
the exploding heads, breathing television sets
cal gore comedy. And just when it looked like his
and phallic armpit growths are just one part of
career was running on empty, along came Wes
the terrible beauty he is keen to underline in his
Craven's New Nightmare (1994), a reworking of
unique catalogue.
his Freddy Krueger myth that had waned during
Go beneath the grotesque gore provocatively
five variable sequels. That conjuring trick led to
on show and the force of his dazzling visions
three lashings of Scream (1996, see Canon, 1997,
becomes apparent. For Cronenberg has devel-
2000), and Cursed (2004), the werewolf shocker
oped his own bizarre genre, incorporating philo-
famous for being filmed once and then virtually
sophical dimensions, rare emotional intensity and
re-filmed from scratch.
richly complex seriousness. It isn't enough for
Along the way Craven has been a producer
Cronenberg to jolt his audience on an easy boos
for films including Wishmaster (1997), Carnival
cruise. He wants to make the flesh creep even
Of Souls (1998) and Dracula 2000. Films for tele-
more, by relendessly challenging our sensibili-
vision that he's directed include Stranger in Our
ties and passions, and by breaking barriers with
House (1978), theatrically released in Europe as
profound statements on the progress of humanity
Summer Of Fear, Invitation to Hell (1984), Chiller
and on an ever-changing society. With his finger
(1984) and Night Visions (1990), and TV series
on the pulse, Cronenberg has often been eerily
he's worked on include The Twilight Zone (1985-
prophetic: Shivers (1975, see Canon) anticipated
86), The People Next Door (1989) and Hollyweird
AIDS, and Videodrome (1983) foreshadowed the
(1998).
cheap sexual images of early satellite TV.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare After starting by studying biochemistry, in
dir Wes Craven, 1994, US, 112m Toronto, Cronenberg switched to English litera-
"He isn't you," says Heather Langenkamp to Robert
ture and wrote unpublished sci-fi fantasy stories.
Englund, the stars of Nightmare On Elm Street playing He made his first short film in 1966, Transfer, and
themselves in Craven's innovative and sophisticated followed it with the futuristic underground hor-
revamp of his dream demon myth. "He's scarier." And he is rors Stereo and Crimes Of The Future (both 1969),
too! The adept glimpse into the Hollywood horror industry, both of which presented in rudimentary form
with a potent exploration of the need for dark fairy tales
the themes of telepathy, mutation and sexual
and a send-up of Craven conventions from prior Freddy
films, is pulled off with magical aplomb. disease that he would later expand upon. Shivers,
Rabid (1977) and The Brood (1979) all focused
177
Cronenberg on the set of Dead Ringers (1
on a society that was under threat from moral attempt at filming William Burroughs's surrealis-
decay and newly discovered neuroses, while his tic drug trip Naked Lunch (1991), his adaptation
mainstream breakthrough Scanners (1981) and of J. G. Ballard's Crash (1996) was far better and
the masterpiece Videodrome took confrontational far more controversial, causing tabloid headlines
views on dark, corrupted futures. because of its depraved automobile eroticism.
In the same year he made The Dead Zone, The virtual reality essay eXistenZ (1999) was
which, though one of the best Stephen King followed by a moving portrayal of mental illness
adaptations, is conventional by Cronenberg's in Spider (2002), with Ralph Fiennes, and the
standards. The more technology-inspired The Fly vigilante comic-book adaptation A History Of
(1986), a remake of Kurt Neumann's movie from Violence (2005). Painkillers is scheduled for 2006.
1958, was his biggest box-office success, though "I want to show the unshowable, to speak
Dead Ringers (1988), featuring an amazing dual the unspeakable," he once said. "All my films
performance by Jeremy Irons, as identical have to do with physical existence and what
twin gynaecologists in love with a woman with happens when that breaks down in some radical
a deformed womb, was another sophisticated, way." He's also played bit parts in his own films,
offbeat and harrowing masterpiece. After a brave and had significant cameos in Into The Night
178
THE ICONS:THE FACES OF HORROR
(1985), To Die For (1995) and Jason X (2001), nized by George Lucas when the director cast
though his real acting debut came when he him as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977),
played a serial killer in Clive Barker's Nightbreed which brought him a whole new generation of
(1990). admirers.
Taking every role deadly seriously, no matter
Videodrome
how bad he thought the script was, Cushing put
dir David Cronenberg, 1983, Can, 89m
an enormous amount of preparation into each
A multi-dimensional masterpiece fusing satire with shock character. He never began any part without hav-
as cable TV executive Max Renn (James Woods) monitors
ing every nuance worked on, his entire wardrobe
pirated "snuff" telecasts and learns too late that the
signal causes brain tumours, bizarre hallucinations and
bodily transformations. A surrealistic wonderland of grisly
torture, perverse sex and archetypal Cronenberg chills
with a philosophical kick, like many of the director's films
it showed prescience, predicting that satellite television
would rule the world.
Peter Cushing
Actor, 1913-1994
The true gentle man of horror, Peter Cushing

never railed against the superstardom that his
portrayals brought him. Realizing that his "seri-
ous" acting days were over once Hammer's
The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957, see Canon)
and Dracula (1958, see Canon) became global
phenomena, Cushing remained philosophical
about his instant typecasting and decided that
the benefits far outweighed the disadvantages.
He once lamented, "I suppose I'm only really a
footnote to the kind of stage acting to which I
once aspired. But I think that Baron Frankenstein
- for which I know I'll be remembered — was a
worthwhile creation." Cushing played the Baron
six times, and Dracula s nemesis Van Helsing in
five incarnations, all of these performances in
Hammer productions.
Cushing, always an absolute professional, gave
surprising depth to a range of villains who were Cushing as Baron Frankenstein in The Curse Of
usually driven, cool and cultured - a talent recog- Frankenstein (1957)
179
Hammer: The house of horror

The brand leader of the horror movie from the mid-Fifties Hammer also built up an enviable repertory stable,
until the late Seventies, Hammer still retains the affec- including stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing
tions of aficionados. Originally a production offshoot of and directors Terence Fisher and Freddie Francis. In
Exclusive Films, a British distribution company formed in the early Sixties the company launched a strand of thrill-
1935 by Enrique Carreras, Hammer was named after ers in the Psycho vein, including Taste Of Fear (1960),
entrepreneur founder William Hinds's failed comedian Paranoiac (1962) and The Nanny (1965).
alter ego, Will Hammer. He was half of the Hammer and
Keenly aware of market trends and the possibilities of
Smith double act, so called because of the London dis-
exploiting well-known monsters and the relaxation in
trict they lived in.
censorship laws, during the Sixties Hammer continued
Hammer's first full-length feature was a sign of things to to satisfy audience demand for fantasy and horror. In
come, The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste (1935), star- 1968, the year after the company moved from Bray
ring Bela Lugosi, and during the late Forties and early Studios in Berkshire to Pinewood in Buckinghamshire,
Fifties they turned out a range of low-budget thrillers the staff received the Queen's Award for Industry in
and comedies, which were mostly adaptations of BBC recognition of their global success and their determina-
radio plays and serials. Their most successful was Dick tion to make horror a respectable genre.
Barton: Special Agent (1948), and that made Hammer
But after a rash of lesbian vampire flicks drenched in
think about licensing other BBC hits from the new
gore, including The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Twins
medium of television. When they made The Quatermass
Of Evil (1971), Hammer lost their grip on their core
Xperiment (1955), based on the series written by Nigel
youth market by refusing to locate their monsters in
Kneale and dropping an E to cash in on the lure of the X
the contemporary world. When they did try to follow
certificate, they got a much-needed commercial boost.
this American trend, with Dracula AD 1972 and To The
The company's new prominence overseas rose further Devil A Daughter (1976), they failed miserably. Hammer
after the massive success of The Curse Of Frankenstein, remained in the Carreras and Hinds families until cash-
and the access allowed to Universal's past monster glo- flow problems put it in the hands of the Official Receiver
ries led to films including Dracula, The Mummy (1959) in 1979. Despite many attempts at revivals, Hammer
and The Phantom Of The Opera (1962); meanwhile, now remains a distant memory - but a glorious one.
sketched out and every prop he was going to use Television Producers and Directors for his per-
already selected. He considered that each of these formance as Winston Smith in Nigel Kneale's
elements was essential for conveying truth to an BBC adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 (1955).
audience who always expected the best from him Another BBC adaptation by Kneale was The
and always got it. Creature (1955), which Hammer transformed into
Although Cushing began his acting career Cushing s Frankenstein follow-up, The Abominable
in Hollywood, as Louis Hayward's stunt double Snowman (1957), once they had tempted the
in James Whale's The Man In The Iron Mask award-winner into their fold.
(1939), it was the new medium of television that Cushing's career then became studded with
provided him with security, and he was named gems. He was a superb Sherlock Holmes in
British TV Actor of the Year from the Guild of The Hound Of The Baskervillcs (1959), a brilliant
180
body-snatching Dr Robert Knox in The Flesh of themes, artifices and images flagrantly lifted
And The Fiends (1959) and a delicious Grim from him. Many critics have been unable to look
Reaper in DrTerror's House Of Horrors (1965); and beyond his predilection for successfully synthe-
there were similar performances in Dr Who And sizing updated "quotes" for modern audiences in
The Daleks (1965), Corruption (1967), Tales From his unapologetic assaults on the senses.
The Crypt (1972) — playing Arthur Grimsdyke in His technically polished manipulative style
one of his favourite roles - The Ghoul (1975) and and accent on visceral shock has also made him a
ShockWaves (1977). controversial figure in the debate about violence
After he had cancer diagnosed in 1982, against women, and this has often overshadowed
Cushing made his last film, Biggies, in 1986. his sublimely suspenseful, visually stunning and
Appointed OBE in 1989, he occupied his final blackly humorous work. "My view of the world
years writing two volumes of autobiography (An is ironic, bitter, acid", he once stated. "But basi-
Autobiography, 1986, and Past Forgetting: Memoirs cally funny too. I'm a real gallows humorist. I
Of The Hammer Years, 1988). There he confessed see something funny in the grimmest of circum-
to having many affairs with his glamorous lead- stances."
ing ladies before the death of his wife, Helen, in The son of a surgeon, De Palma made short
1971. films while studying physics at university. After
seven independent productions, including The
Corruption Wedding Party (filmed in 1964 and released in
dir Robert Hartford-Davis, 1967, UK, 91m 1969) and Greetings (1968), both starring Robert
Cushing hated this energetically sleazy gem, scripted by De Niro, his first success came with Sisters (1973),
Hartford-Davis's regular writers, brothers Donald and Derek a voyeuristic Psycho shocker complete with a
Ford, in which he plays a brilliant surgeon decapitating
score by Bernard Herrmann. Then Phantom
prostitutes for pituitary gland fluid to repair the disfigured
face of his model girlfriend. The depraved film, which
Of The Paradise (1974) cleverly took the Gaston
advertised itself as "not a woman's picture", remains a Leroux classic into the rock music idiom. Obsession
benchmark in Cushing's Sixties golden period. Its ending (1975) was De Palma s riff on Vertigo, and featured
- hippies sending a lethal laser beam out of control - is another magnificent Herrmann score.
demented. After his horror breakthrough with Carrie
(1976, see Canon), there was more telekinetic
action in his vastly underrated psychic phe-
Brian De Palma nomena chiller The Fury (1978). His next take
Director, 1940- on Psycho, Dressed To Kill (1980), which features
Michael Caine as a transvestite stalker, recre-
Part of the "Movie Brat" generation (with direc- ates a part of De Palma's childhood that explains
tor friends Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, his obsession with voyeurism. When he was a
Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola), child, his parents split up, his mother accusing his
Brian De Palma is touted as "the American father of infidelity, and the young De Palma spent
Hitchcock"; but while Alfred the Great was pri- several days stalking his father with recording
marily a director of thrillers, De Palma earned equipment, hoping to find evidence to confirm
this nickname because of his graphic re-workings his mother's suspicions.
181
Dressed To Kill
dir Brian De Palma, 1980, US, 104m
The best Eighties Psycho movie - it starts and ends
with a shower scene - is this bloody suspense horror
revealing psychiatrist Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) to
be a transvestite killer who murders Kate Miller (Angie
Dickinson). The wonderful splitting of the screen and lyrical
camera choreography make this macabre black joke,
which was criticized when released for its violence towards
women, a real jolter - and especially the unforgettable razor
murder in the elevator.
Dracula
The most famous vampire of them all is Dracula
(an elongated form of the Romanian for devil),
based on the novel by Anglo-Irish writer Bram
(short for Abraham) Stoker, published in 1897.
Inspired by a nightmare he had in 1890 about
De Palma, who likes using updated "quotes" three predatory females, their fondness for kiss-
ing necks, their entranced male victim and an old
Then came De Palma's grimmest ending, in Count who wants their prey for himself, no other
Blow Out (1981), in which the sound technician, single book has had a greater impact on the hor-
played by John Travolta, uses the death-scream ror movie than this classic of English literature.
recordings of his girlfriend for exploitation hor- Like the vampire bat in nature and Vlad
ror looping; the film turned Michelangelo the Impaler, the infamous mid-fifteenth-century
Antonioni's Blow Up (1966) into a paranoid ruler of Wallachia, the southern half of Romania,
conspiracy. In Body Double (1984), set inside the Dracula feeds on human blood, and preferably
porn industry, there was a woman drilled to the that of beautiful women such as Lucy Westenra
floor, in Raising Cain (1992), a psycho with mul- and Mina Harker, two of the novel's several
tiple homicidal personalities, and in Fetnme Fatale narrators. From influences including the blood-
(2002), double-crossing doppelgangers. and-thunder of Shakespeare's Macbeth, anxieties
De Palma's output has been extremely diverse, about his sexual prowess (in 1912 Stoker died
ranging from gangster movies such as Scarface from syphilis), his favourite holiday destinations
(1983), The Untouchables (1987) and Carlito's (Whitby is the scene of the arrival of Dracula's
Way (1993) to The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1990), ship), the early psychoanalytical theory of Freud
Mission: Impossible (1996) and Mission To Mars and the characteristics seen as degenerate at
(2000). But all his movies have been excessive the time, Stoker created a story with a sexually
displays of the mesmerizing nature of stylish alluring, much-imitated monster in a mystifying
visuals. human shell.
182
Tapping into the wish-fulfilment fascination 1914, Dracula's Guest, which became the basis
with immortality and the inferred decadence for the first Universal sequel, Dracula's Daughter
of living by night, Stoker brought to life the (1936), starring Gloria Holden. Since then
"undead, allowing him to break all taboos with- hosts of Dracula's relatives and associates have
out consequence. Moreover, Stoker's folkloric arrived on the scene: Son Of Dracula (1943),
interpretation of the deployment of garlic, cru- Countess Dracula (1970), Doctor Dracula (1977),
cifixes and wooden stakes has powerfully shaped Mamma Dracula (1979), Dracula's Widow (1992)
all cinematic depictions of his "filthy leech" from and even Dracula's Dog (1977).
Transylvania who moves from the dark and sinis-
ter reaches of the Carpathian Mountains to fog- Dracula
shrouded England. That's where vampire hunter dir George Melford, 1931, US, 85m, b/w
Dr Abraham Van Helsing must use every arcane Based on the same script, using the same sets, and shot
skill he can to defeat the attractively evil Prince at night when Tod Browning's production had wrapped,
the Spanish Dracula by Melford and his translator Enrique
of Darkness. Tovar Avalos is 30 minutes longer, while fast-paced, and
Stoker's rich combination of terror, mystery, more cine-literate. Carlos Villarias isn't bad, but Lugosi's
romance and pulse-pounding adventure provided performance in the Browning version is so unforgettable
perfect material for filmmakers, and although the that Melford's lesser-known effort is inferior, despite being
first notable but unofficial adaptation was Nosferatu superior technically and aesthetically.
(1922, see Canon), it was Dracula in 1931 (see
Canon), based on Hamilton Deane's stage play
and starring Bela Lugosi, that became the iconic Terence Fisher
foundation for the entire Dracula film industry, Director, 1904-1980
which is still in existence today. Aside from the
Universal and Hammer films, the latter including Terence Fisher could never be called daring:
Terence Fisher's Dracula (1958, see Canon), there when it came to visuals and lighting, he was so
have been scores of foreign language interpreta- measured and undemonstrative that he often
tions, including the Hungarian Drakula (c.1920), verged on the pedestrian. But his consistently
the Turkish Drakula Istanbul'da (1953) and the high standards of craftsmanship, and his laid-
Pakistani Zinda laash (The Living Corpse, 1967). back techniques that accent the robustness of his
The long list of actors who have played the solid dramatic narratives and their physical and
nefarious bloodsucker includes Lon Chaney emotional energy, redefined the moribund hor-
Jr, Carlos Villarias (in the Spanish version of ror genre and defined the H a m m e r style. Fisher
1931), John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Howard translated the classic Universal monster gallery
Vernon, Udo Kier, Paul Naschy, Gary Oldman, into colour and as one of the originators of the
Klaus Kinski, David Carradine, Leslie Nielsen modern vocabulary of horror, such as the use of
and Jamie Gillis, in the 1978 porno version gore and showing of nastiness, he left an indel-
Dracula Sucks, which uses much of the script from ible impression on a generation of filmmakers
the Lugosi classic. and filmgoers.
Stoker revived his most famous creation in After serving an apprenticeship in the
just one short story, published posthumously in Merchant Navy and working as a window
183
Pygmalion-lite horror A Stolen Face (1952), and

two science-fiction thrillers, Four Sided Triangle
and Spaceways (both 1953).
Because he was always dependable and speed-
ily efficient, Hammer entrusted Fisher with
their first colour gothic retread, The Curse Of
Frankenstein (1957, see Canon). Its meteoric glob-
al success meant that Fisher became Hammer's
principal director of their choice product and
forged a reputation as a prime purveyor of gore
with gravitas. Dracula (1958, see Canon), The
Mummy, The Hound Of The Baskervilles (both
1959), The Two Faces Of Dr Jekyll (1960), The
Curse Of The Werewolf (1961) and The Phantom
Of The Opera (1962) gave all the basic stories
Technicolor trappings and Fisher even tried to
add to the monster pantheon with the plodding
The Gorgon (1964).
Sidelined by Hammer when his early Sixties
output started to falter at the box office, and
when younger talents were brought in to cut
their teeth on the franchises, Fisher's work for
other production companies - Sherlock Holmes
And The Deadly Necklace (1962) and a sci-fi trio
— was variable. He returned to the Hammer fold
triumphantly with Frankenstein Created Woman
(1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
and their last in the series, Frankenstein And The
Monster From Hell (1974). Easily his best Hammer
film in this later period is The Devil Rides Out
(1968).
Fisher: gave Hammer gore and gravitas If any terror theme was Fisher's it was the
charisma of evil. Prior to his and Hammer's
dresser, London-born Fisher joined Shepherd's breakthrough in the mid-Fifties, it was an ugly
Bush Studios in 1930 as "the oldest clapper force that was always depicted visually as repel-
boy in the business", as he put it. Within six lent. But Fisher felt that the "great strength
years, he had become a film editor, and twelve of evil" was that it could make itself attrac-
years later, he directed his first feature, Colonel tive. "Evil always tempts you — the promise
Bogey (1948). A variety of cheap fillers followed of something you'll get ... That's [the Devil's]
before he joined Hammer in 1952 and made the great power."
184
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil's abridged by Shelley in 1831; the scientific and
Bride) political polemic was cut to give more flesh-
dir Terence Fisher, 1968, UK, 95m creeping action and adventure, and a prologue
Dennis Wheatley's classic black magic novel provided the was added about the story's birth that worked
basis for Fisher and Christopher Lee's best Hammer horror its way into popular culture. Because it was
after Dracula. Lee, in a rare role as a good guy, is occult published in three unwieldy volumes — Arctic
specialist Due de Richleau, stopping a close friend from
explorer Robert Walton's letter about finding the
being initiated into a coven, and in a terrific supernatural
showdown fights giant spider apparitions and the Angel of frozen creature, Victor Frankenstein's reminis-
Death. Dignified, gripping and scary, the film, though a box- cences about making it, and the creature's own
office flop, was loved by the critics. interior monologue - it has always been dif-
ficult to bring the complete story to the screen,
but this has not prevented directors from trying,
The Frankenstein Monster as Kenneth Branagh did with Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein (1994).
With a filmography that ranges from the one- Its original form also helps to explain why
reeler Frankenstein (1910), produced by Thomas the story skeins have been plundered, realigned
Edison and directed by J. Searle Dawley, starring and expanded to create a bewildering range
Charles Ogle as an ashen-faced, frizzy-haired of titles. Yet what connects everything from
hunchback, to Shuler Hensley's hi-tech creature Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943) and I Was
in Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing (2004), the A Teenage Frankenstein (1957) to Frankenstein's
monster that Mary Shelley called her "hideous Great Aunt Tillie (1983) and Frankenhooker
progeny" is reinvented by every movie genera- (1990) is the basic theme of a scientist creat-
tion and is still thriving. ing an unpredictable monster out of a load of
Frankenstein; Or: The Modern Prometheus was body parts.
written as part of a ghost story competition in The quintessential Frankenstein monster
June 1816, when Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was unequivocally Boris KarlofF, aided by
her future poet husband Percy Bysshe Shelley Jack Pierce's make-up, in Universal's pioneer-
and Dr John Polidori (who would introduce ing classic of 1931. Copyright on the Karloff
the word "vampire" into the English language look meant that many outre designs have
in The Vampyre: The Tale, 1819) stayed at their been used, including the hairy Neanderthal in
friend Lord Byron's rented Villa Diodati on Hammer's Frankenstein And The Monster From
Lake Geneva. The parlour game creation of Hell (1972) and the bulbous-headed, well-
her gothic horror story, suggested by a dream endowed lover of Lady Frankenstein (1971). The
but also reflecting public fascination with both creature has been played by a wide range of
the invention of electricity and evolutionary actors, including Lon Chaney Jr, Bela Lugosi,
theory, was used as a dramatic prologue in The Glenn Strange, Christopher Lee, wrestler Kiwi
Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), Gothic (1986) and Kingston, Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster
Frankenstein Unbound (1990). in TV's The Munsters), Peter Boyle (in Young
Expanded during her 1817 stay in Bath and Frankenstein, 1974), Paul Naschy, Robert De
published anonymously in 1818, her novel was Niro and pop idol Luke Goss.
185
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein determined to frighten audiences, used all the

dir Kenneth Branagh, 1994, US, 123m techniques that he had perfected over more than
Over-referential and overwrought, Branagh's take on three decades in cinema.
Shelley's influential myth, starring himself, is not so much The son of a greengrocer, he was born in
The Modern Prometheus as post-modern and problematic: Leytonstone, London, had a Jesuit education and
it's an empty exercise in grandiose style full of luwie acting.
became interested in the cinema as a teenager.
It's as haphazardly stitched together as the monster who
Branagh's driven surgeon Victor Frankenstein is hell-bent
After working for a telegraph company, in 1920
on zapping to life in the only imaginative sequence, and he joined the Lasky studio in London, designing
Robert De Niro, playing the creature, barely registers at all. the titles between the shots in silent films. His
first film was The Lodger (1926), a re-telling of the
story of Jack the Ripper, and like all of his films,
Famous for 15 minutes the last of which was Family Plot (1976), it was
imbued with paranoia, revelations and abnormal
After producing Paul Morrissey's Flesh (1968) and psychological states.
Trash (1970), pop artist Andy Warhol used his On constant guard of repeating himself,
Factory icon branding for two of the wildest and
Hitchcock continually made daring experiments
campiest decadent horrors, Blood For Dracula and
with cinema. He confined suspense to microcosms
Flesh For Frankenstein. Both were made in Italy in
1973, co-directed by Morrissey and Italian hack (Lifeboat, 1945; Rear Window, 1954), splashed it
Antonio Margheriti, and German favourite Udo Kier across famous public places (The 39 Steps, 1935;
starred in both title roles. The former is kept light by North By Northwest, 1959), made it part of a sur-
consistent humour - Kier's heavily accented utter- real Dali-esque dreamscape (Spellbound, 1945),
ance of the word "wirgin" helping enormously - and used such gimmicks as the ten-minute take
in the latter excellent 3-D meant that glossy guts (Rope, 1948) and 3-D (Dial M For Murder, 1953),
on ends of poles jutted into the audience. Flesh
and played with harrowing emotional and intel-
For Frankenstein was the first gross-out horror to
lectual metaphysics (Vertigo, 1958).
reach a wide audience, because of its stereoscopic
shock. He made the low-budget, black-and-white
Psycho which he saw as a radical departure
from his Fifties rash of all-star colour epics, to
"recharge the battery". But in doing so, in the
Alfred Hitchcock process filming his much-copied scream-filled
Director, 1899-1980 shower scene, he recharged the battery of the
entire horror genre too, through the influence of
Although Sir Alfred Hitchcock's only horror his themes (such as voyeurism), techniques (light-
movies are Psycho (1960, see Canon) and The ing, camera angles) and methods of storytelling
Birds (1963), he is the genre's patron saint and has (the heroine, played by Janet Leigh, being killed
exerted a major influence on the genre and many off early in the film).
of its key practitioners - not least Dario Argento, Hitchcock then changed tack again with his
Brian De Palma and John Carpenter. Psycho adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel The
became a crucial turning point in the develop- Birds, starring Tippi Hedren, which was an
ment of the genre, after "the Master of Suspense", audacious new take on the monster-on-the-loose
186
format of the Fifties. The

stunning example of con-
struction and the use of the
creatures was simply ter-
rifying, not least because of
the silences between attacks
— there was no soundtrack
but composer Bernard
Herrmann was employed
as a sound consultant —
and the result influenced
all subsequent revenge-of-
nature films.
Famous for his portly
figure and profile, thanks
to the popularity of two
TV series (Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, 1955-62, and The
Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 1962-
65), he made a brief cameo
appearance in every one
of his movies. His use of
MacGuffins - seemingly
important objects that lead
absolutely nowhere — was
as frequent as his falling
for blonde leading ladies
(including Grace Kelly
and Kim Novak), despite
being notoriously dismissive
of actors. He was never an
Oscar winner for best direc-
tor, despite being nominated
five times, but in 1979, the
year before he died, he was
knighted and was the recipi-
ent of the American Film
Hitchcock, who inspired horror directors despite making only t w o films Institute Life Achievement
within the genre, Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) Award.
187
T H E ICONS T H E FACES OF HORROR
Tobe Hooper own life because I spent a lot of time in a

movie theatre," he recalled. "My dad owned a
Director, 1943-
movie house in San Angelo, Texas, so I stayed
Until his remarkable 2003 comeback with the there when they went out to dinner." The
remake The Toolbox Murders, Tobe Hooper never first film he made himself was the little seen
properly capitalized on his astonishing horror Eggshells (1969), about hippies in a haunted
debut, Tire Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, see house, which was written with Kim Henkel,
Canon). Precisely because it was such a fero- his Chainsaw collaborator.
cious, unforgettable and one-off nightmare, it Following their breakthrough in the mid-
overshadowed everything that came afterwards. Seventies, Hooper directed Death Trap (aka Eaten
Even the success of Poltergeist (1982) was mainly Alive, 1977), which detailed the habit of a Bayou
laid at the feet of Steven Spielberg, who wrote hotelier of scything his guests into alligator food
and produced it. before they checked out. Neville Brand's harrow-
Hooper started watching films at a very ing turn, the screaming from Marilyn Burns
early age. "My memories from childhood are that echoed her performance in Chainsaw, and
mostly memories of movies rather than my the same grim rural atmosphere, made it a cult
favourite. The future Freddy Krueger,
Robert Englund, appears as a cowboy
uttering the immortal line "My name is
Buck and I like to fuck."
After directing the television mini-
series Salem's Lot (1979), adapted from
Stephen King, which in some coun-
tries was cut down to feature length,
furnished with extra gore and given a
cinema release, Hopper administered a
distinctive twist to his sleazy carnival-set
stalk-and-slash The Funhouse (1981), in
which thrill-seeking teens get murdered
by a cleft-headed freak in a Frankenstein
mask.
Post-Poltergeist, Hooper directed two
disasters, Lifeforce (1985) and Invaders
From Mars (1986), and then The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). In the strik-
ingly perverse sequel Dennis Hopper
plays an obsessive, evangelical former
Texas Ranger pursuing the Sawyer fam-
ily, demented cannibals, after the disap-
Hooper (left): came to light with an astonishing debut pearance of his nephew, the wheelchair
188
THE ICONS:THE FACES OF HORROR
victim of the first film. Bursting with style,

energy and inventive satire — the poster was a
Peter Jackson
wicked parody of The Breakfast Club - it also Director, 1961-
had a frighteningly epic scope that fleshed out
"I never set out to become a horror director," said
powerfully the stark terror of his original. A rich
Peter Jackson. "My two major movie loves are
slice of American Gothic, Chainsaw 2 is Hooper's
James Bond and Ray Harryhausen stop-motion
most underrated horror, solely because it remains
animation techniques." Once the bad-boy pariah
in the shadow of its predecessor.
of the New Zealand Film Commission, icono-
But he then hit rock bottom cinematically,
clast Jackson is now their mascot thanks to his
with Spontaneous Combustion (1990), two Robert
mammoth Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which has
Englund vehicles - Night Terrors (1994) and the
swelled local bank balances and created a new
Stephen King story The Mangier (1995) - and
tourist trade.
Crocodile (2001). Meanwhile he had turned to the
How different it was back in 1983, when
music video (Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself")
Jackson began a four-year period of shooting his
and television (Freddy's Nightmares, 1988, Taken,
debut feature at weekends, with friends playing
2002).
the roles and an improvised script. Based on an
Hooper's infamous script rewriting and
idea from 1981 entitled "Roast Of The Day",
post-production tinkering gets in the way of the
Bad Taste (1987) was a homage to George A.
actual process of directing, and his scattershot
Romero's famous trilogy, zombies being cheap
career is filled with more commercial ups and
to employ as a plot focus. It lived up to its name
downs and fiascos — he was replaced as direc-
with its Alien Investigation and Defence Service
tor on both The Dark (1979) and Venom (1982)
- the initials were one of the film's many outra-
- than actual achievements. But modern horror
geous jokes — who are surrounding a small town
will always have Tlie Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
depopulated by cannibals from outer space. The
and that is more than enough to excuse every-
creatures intend to use low-calorie human flesh
thing else.
as the main ingredient for their new intergalactic
The Toolbox Murders fast food chains. During the assault on the aliens'
dir Tobe Hooper, 2003, US, 95m headquarters, the A.I.D.S. operatives are mari-
In the same year that Marcus Nispel remade The Texas
nated, forced to eat Martian vomit and mutilated
Chainsaw Massacre surprisingly well, Hooper did in all the gory ways that Jackson could think of
the same to this exploitation classic from 1978. His when working with yoghurt, muesli and food
supernatural reinvention combined the original's sleazy colouring in his mother's kitchen sink.
derangement with gorier splatter, with the maniac cutting Jackson funded most of the film himself, until
a swathe through apartment tenants now a deformed
the N Z F C gave him money to finish it after
monster who has been kept alive by occult symbols.
Hooper's strength has always been his realism and he being impressed with what he'd already made. It
executes this catalogue of carnage expertly for maximum was when Bad Taste started riots at the Cannes
shock value, while also echoing Scream in referencing Film Festival and attracted controversy in reviews,
genre B-movies. which called it everything from vile to vital, that
the Council regretted their decision.Yet because
189
Jackson (left) with Ian Watkin on the set of Braindead (1992)
of the growing interest around the world they latter's mother to death. In many ways his most
felt they had to support Jackson's next effort, shocking movie, and certainly his most dazzling
Meet The Feebles (1989), a depraved puppet show. technically, through use of stunning fantasy visu-
Much too extreme for most markets, it led the als to depict the girls' crumbling grip on reality,
aghast N Z F C to give the naughty filmmaker it won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film
only half the budget for his next outing, the even Festival and made a star out of Kate Winslet.
sicker and more outrageous Braindead (1992, see The film also won the attention of Universal,
Canon). who grabbed him to direct an ironic script, writ-
Having made the gore movie to end them all, ten with his wife Fran Walsh, that took him
what Jackson did for his surprising encore put back to his ghoulish roots. The Frighteners (1996)
him on the road to fame beyond his hardcore fan starred Michael J. Fox as a ghostbuster for hire
base, forgiveness from the N Z F C and fortune who is actually in cahoots with the spooks he's
from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. His next film, paid to exterminate. After it flopped Jackson
Heavenly Creatures (1994), dissected chillingly a embarked on his epic Oscar-winning Tolkien
notorious 1954 murder case in which schoolgirls voyage and a remake of his favourite movie, King
Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker battered the Kong (2005).
190
Meet The Feebles (1947) - it was his monstrous portrayals that the
dir Peter Jackson, 1989, NZ, 97m public demanded. The Mask Of Fu Manchu, The
The all-singing, all-dancing puppet show, with less taste Mummy (both 1932), The Ghoul (1933), The
than Bad Taste, Jackson's previous film, is a deranged Black Cat (1934, with Lugosi), and The Raven
Sesame Street, where characters including Robert the (1935) all added to his evil repertoire, and the
Hedgehog and Barry the Bulldog, not too far removed
two sequels, The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)
from Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog, indulge in every
vice and sleazy perversion imaginable. An off-beat, clever and Son Of Frankenstein (1939) maintained his
marvel in which a hippo ends up firing a machine gun, it's reputation.
continuously camp and shocking. During the Forties and Fifties, Karloff expand-
ed his horizons, returning to the stage in critically
acclaimed Broadway productions such as Arsenic
Boris Karloff And Old Lace (1941), and appearing in three hor-
Actor, 1887-1969 rors produced by Val Lewton: in Robert Wise's
The Body Snatcher (1945), based on the story by
Born William Henry Pratt in Camberwell, Robert Louis Stevenson, he played a "resurrec-
London, Boris Karloff was one of the few actors tionist" in nineteenth-century Edinburgh sup-
to be billed by his last name only and one of the plying doctors with cadavers; in Mark Robson's
first kings of horror. Brought up to follow his Isle Of The Dead (1945) he was a Greek freedom
father into public service, Karloff rebelled and at fighter convinced that a plague is being caused by
the turn of the century moved to Canada, before vampire demons; and in Robson's Bedlam (1946),
turning to acting and joining a small theatre he was the sadistic head jailer of the infamous
company there and then moving to California, asylum. He also started editing horror antholo-
lured by the movies. A heart murmur prevented gies, including Tales Of Terror (1943) and then
him from fighting for Britain in World War I so And The Darkness Falls (1946).
he started playing bit parts in Hollywood films, His role of Dr Gustav Niemann, who was
and his big break came with The Bells (1926), in the brother of a former assistant to the original
which he was a Caligari-like sideshow mesmer- Dr Frankenstein, in House Of Frankenstein (1944),
ist who breaks down a murdering Alsatian inn- was his last in the Universal series, though he did
keeper, played by Lionel Barrymore. play Baron von Frankenstein in Frankenstein 1970
Karloff's murder scene in The Criminal Code (1958) for Allied Artists. And the horror potboil-
(1931), which he had appeared in on stage, ers continued: they included Abbott And Costello
brought him to the attention of director James Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), The Strange
Whale and Universal after Bela Lugosi turned Door (1951), The Black Castle (1952), Abbott And
down the Monster role in Frankenstein (1931). Costello Meet Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1953) and
It was Karloff's flawless ability to bring compas- The Haunted Strangler (1958).
sion and pity to a seemingly thankless part, and In the early Sixties, incapacitated by arthritis
his gimmick billing as "?", that would ironically and pneumonia that meant he had to appear on
make him a household name. screen in a wheelchair, Karloff got a second wind
Though Karloff made many mainstream films when he hosted the NBC Thriller series and
- Scarface (1932), The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty director Roger Corman cast him in The Raven
191
Targets
dir Peter Bogdanovich, 1968, US, 90m
The horrors of the real world and "the reel world" are
combined in former film critic Bogdanovich's shrewd,
insightful and stunning directorial debut. Cast as veteran
horror star Byron Orlok, appalled at a sniper's senseless
shootings during a drive-in screening of the icon's own
quickie The Terror (1962), Karloff gives a tremendously
moving and personal portrayal of being an anachronism in
a world of war, crime and murder. It's'a skilful combination
of nostalgia, exploitation and sincerity.
Monkeys
King Kong (1933) aside, blame Edgar Allan Poe for
introducing the killer gorilla into genre cinema: his
oft-filmed story Murders In The Rue Morgue (1841)
was the first to connect simians with slaughter.
Related comical scares proliferated in the silent era
thanks to repeated filming of the Ralph Spence's hit
play The Gorilla, the animals almost always men in
suits. The cheaper the budget the rattier the cos-
tume and the more fun there was spotting the zip
on the back. The Ape (1940) had killer Boris Karloff
dressed in animal skin and Gorilla At Large (1954)
featured murderer Anne Bancroft in similar disguise
in 3-D. Elsewhere monkey glands or gorilla parts
were often used in mad doctor experiments, like
those in the dotty Captive Wild Woman (1943), and
different species of deadly monkeys appear in Link,
Phenomena (both 1985), Monkey Shines (1988),
Karloff in the part for which he was billed " ? " Shakma (1990) and Congo (1995).
(1963), another Edgar Allan Poe remake. A hor-

ror institution who changed with the times, dur-
ing this period his output was variable, the most
interesting films being Corridors Of Blood (1958), Freddy Krueger
Black Sabbath (1964), Die, Monster, Die (1965) and
The Sorcerers (1967), but in 1968, a year before he Sporting a sickly green and blood-red jersey, a
• died in his sleep, came one of the best films of his ratty brown fedora on his furnace-burnt head and
career, Peter Bogdanovich's Targets. a razor-fingered glove on his right hand, Freddy
Krueger is the wisecracking dream demon whose
192
weapon of choice is the nightmare. "He's the

Wicked Witch of the West for a new generation,"
said Robert Englund, who brought "the bastard
son of a thousand maniacs", as the film put it, to
life, thanks to David Miller's make-up artistry
in A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984, see Canon)
and six sequels, including the fiend grudge match
Freddy Vs Jason (2003).
In the first of the franchise, Wes Craven posi-
tioned Krueger as an enchanting antihero. Capable
of the most vicious acts, he was still someone the
audience could identify with, even though he was
a child murderer who had plagued the neigh-
bourhood while his teen victims were still infants.
Within any villain there is still potential for vul-
nerability and love, and although a nasty piece of
work, Freddy has humanity and a sense of humour.
And it was all evident thanks to a powerhouse
portrayal by former bit-player Englund, who saw
the possibility of horror fame and extended his
larger-than-life performance into moneymaking
merchandising and a multi-media crossover phe-
nomenon that saw him host the spin-off TV series
Freddy's Nightmares (1989-90).
Krueger's popularity with audiences in the
original and the sequels — Jack Sholder's Part 2:
Freddy's Revenge (1985), Chuck Russell's 3: Dream
Warriors (1987), Renny Harlin's 4: The Dream
Master (1988), Stephen Hopkins's 5: The Dream Freddy Krueger, the demon played by Robert Englund
Child (1989) and Rachel Talalay's Freddy's Dead:
The Final Nightmare (1991) in 3-D - is the result the unspeakably monstrous character through-
of several factors. He has, unlike Frankenstein's out the series, and in the final "official" episode,
lumbering creation, an educated voice, unlike Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), in which he
Dracula, a wicked sense of fun, and a personal- played himself playing Freddy in a mature explo-
ity that can move from buffoon to butcher in ration of Hollywood myth-making and the need
an instant. "Freddy's not just a one-dimensional for dark villains in audiences' lives.
splatter film killer," explained Englund. "He's Other films quickly made reference to
your classic bogeyman and a Freudian kind of Freddy's growing cover-boy status: Tom Hanks
nightmare. He's the physical incarnation of some impersonated him in Dragnet (1987), kidnapped
of our deepest fears." Englund added shading to Carla Headlee (Amy Madigan) sported a Freddy
193
mask in The Prince Of Pennsylvania (1988) and

Critters 2: The Main Course (1988) had Freddy's
image adopted by a shape-shifting alien. The
attention proved too much for Craven — the
reason that between the first film and 1994 he
contributed only the script for the third instal-
ment and story ideas — but Englund happily rose
to the occasion and spun off an entire career from
his tongue-in-scarred-cheek routine. "The series
was a hit," he remarked philosophically, "And I'd
be a fool not to go where I'm wanted." That now
includes the new Freddy Vs Jason franchise, set to
extend the lives of both monster maniacs.
Freddy Vs Jason
dir Ronny Yu, 2003, US/It, 97m
In this face-off too many maniacs spoil the blood-stained
broth. It's gory, with head-twisting, body severing and an
instant nose-job with Freddy's razor fingers, but the poor
Lee in Dracula (1958), in his most famous role
quality of the story (Freddy entering Jason's dead body to
cause dream panic) and the dialogue ("Freddy died by fire,
Jason by water, surely there's something we can use there")
(1990), while still accepting roles in terror trash like
mean that the result is complete chill-free claptrap. Hollyivood Meatcleaver Massacre (1977), Curse IT. Blood
Sacrifice (1991) and The Funny Man (1994).
In what he rightfully considered his due, Lee
moved from horror has-been to living legend in
Christopher Lee his later years, appearing in Sleepy Hollow (1999),
Actor, 1922- the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003),
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002),
Tall, Dark And Grusome was the tide of his 1977
Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (2005) and
autobiography, but add aristocratic, commanding
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005).
and authoritative, and Christopher Frank Carandini
Lee is all summed up. Lee is the last king of hor- Born in 1922, to a mother whose Carandini
ror, but this role is one that he inherited reluctandy: family is one of Italy's oldest, after spending World
his disdain for being identified with the Count War II in intelligence, Lee chanced upon an act-
Dracula part he played in five Hammer movies is ing career when the Rank Organisation signed
well known. For years he moaned about typecasting. him to a seven-year contract in 1946 based on his
Yet he starred in prestigious blockbuster productions foreign looks. Corridor Of Mirrors (1948) was his
such as The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970), debut feature, but nothing of note came his way
as the detective's brother Mycroft, The Man With until he was chosen over Bernard Bresslaw to
The Golden Gun (1974), for he was a cousin of 007 play the man-made Creature in Hammer's break-
creator Ian Heming, and Gremlins 2: The New Batch through hit The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957, see
194
Canon). Refusing to play the Creature again His best horrors include The Wliip And The
because of limited character scope, rather than Body (1963), which was one of his nastiest roles, as
fear at this stage of being typecast, Lee was cast in a vengeful undead sadist, The Face Of Fu Manchu,
Dracula (1958, see Canon), the landmark horror Rasputin, The Mad Monk (both 1965), The Devil
that established him as a star. The films launched a Rides Out (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973); and
personal and professional relationship with fellow in 1972, for his short-lived Charlemagne produc-
icon Peter Cushing that would endure during tion company, he served as producer for Nothing
the following decades. But The Night. He gave notable renditions of the
famous Bram Stoker vampire in Jess Franco's
El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula, 1970) and in
Monster mash Edouard Molinaro's Dracula pere et ftls (Dracula
As well as horror musicals, like The Rocky Horror And Son, 1975) and was also the Count in twen-
Picture Show (1975), The Little Shop Of Horrors tieth-century London in Dracula AD 1972, but
(1986), and The Phantom Of The Opera (2004), his oddest role came when he played a gay Hell's
there have been some memorable terror tunes. Who
Angel in Serial (1980).
could ever forget Burt Bacharach and Mack David's
For all his martyrdom for the genre, Lee dem-
theme song for The Blob (1958) - "It creeps and
leaps and glides and slides across the floor, right
onstrated a remarkable ability to get inside the
through the door and all around the w a l l . . . Be care- skin of a vast array of characters. Adrian Conan
ful of The Blob!" Here are ten of the strangest: Doyle, the author's son, saluted his performance
in the title role of Sherlock Holmes And The Deadly
• "Alligator Man" by Stoneground - Dracula AD
1972 Necklace (1962), his five portrayals of Fu Manchu
were praised by Elizabeth Sax Rohmer, the wife
• "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" by John De Bello
of the character's creator, and Maria Rasputin
- Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes (1978)
told him that he looked just like her father. With
• "Ben" by Michael Jackson - Ben (1978)
one of the longest CVs in movie history, in 2001
• "Daybreak" by Harry Nilsson - Son Of Dracula Lee was appointed CBE for his contribution to
(1974)
the film industry.
• "Eeny Meeny Miney Moe" by Paul Dunlap - / Was
A Teenage Werewolf (1958) The Wicker Man
• "Geronlmo" by Nancy Sinatra - Ghost In The dir Robin Hardy, 1973, UK, 102m
Invisible Bikini (1966) Devout Christian policeman Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward
Woodward) finds his beliefs tested to the limit while
• "Love Is Just A Heartbeat Away" by Gloria Gaynor
investigating a young girl's disappearance on the pagan
-Noctuma (1978)
shores of Summerisle. Literate scripting (by Anthony
• "Spider Baby" by Lon Chaney Jr - Spider Baby, Schaffer, author of Sleuth), a memorable Scottish folk
Or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968) score, a challenging religious subtext and lyrical eroticism
• "Strange Love" by Harry Robinson - Lust For A make for a provocative combination. Lee thinks that this
cult horror classic, nearly destroyed when the negatives
Vampire (1971)
at Shepperton Studios were almost thrown out by new
• "The Zombie Stomp" by The Del-Aires - Horror owners, is the finest film he's ever made.
Of Party Beach (1964)
1 95
ing genre an entirely different way with a series

of films that changed the face of fear. He was
convinced that by withholding certain amounts
of visual information the audience would fill
in the nasty details, and he was right. On this
learning curve he built up a stable of directors,
editors and writers — including Jacques Tourneur,
Robert Wise and Mark Robson - who shared his
vision and learnt to create and manipulate a sense
of unease through mere hints.
Born in Russia in 1904, Vladimir Ivan
Leventon was raised in New York, where his moth-
er Nina lived with actress sister Alia Nazimova.
Starting in the M G M publicity department, he
became an experienced fiction writer (one of
his stories appeared in the book Weird Tales),
before moving to Hollywood to be editorial
assistant to Gone With The Wind producer David
O. Selznick. In 1942 he joined R K O to help
challenge Universal. He was allowed complete
creative control — as long as he agreed to use
the studio's already-tested sensationalist titles, to
avoid messages, to spend less than $150,000 per
picture or per month on shooting and to limit
the length to around 75 minutes. Working to
those guidelines and his own professed terror
formula — "A love story, three scenes of suggested
horror and one of actual violence" - Lewton
rethought and revitalized the genre, though a
series of revered nightmares that rejected mad
Lewton, a producer who brought subtlety to the scientists and monster make-up.
genre, with a boat made by his son Lewton, who feared the feline, wrote Cat
People (1942, see Canon) after dumping the
original plot source, Algernon Blackwood's story
Val Lewton Ancient Sorceries, and its huge success saved R K O
Producer, 1904-1951 from bankruptcy after their overspending on
Citizen Kane (1941). / Walked With A Zombie
Feeling that the Universal monsters were old- (1943, see Canon) foDowed, and flopped, so
fashioned and their recycled shock theatrics passe, Lewton changed tack by producing Jacques
maverick producer Val Lewton steered the creak- Tourneur's The Leopard Man (1943). Based on
196
the thriller Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich, 46. But through the subsequent work ofTourneur
its supernatural leopard overtones are red her- (Night Of The Demon, 1957, see Canon), Wise
rings, the inventions of a psychopath to mask his (The Haunting, 1963, see Canon) and Robson
murders, one of which — behind a locked door, (Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, 1969), the subtlety of
revealed by trickling blood - was frequently his sophisticated studies in psychology, more reli-
copied. ant on suggestion than shock, would live on.
Editor Mark Robson turned director for
another Lewton classic, The Seventh Victim (1943), Bedlam
about an orphaned schoolgirl in New York dis- dir Mark Robson, 1946, US, 79m, b/w
covering that her sister is a devil worshipper. It While trying to reform the notorious British asylum, Nell
captured perfecdy the nocturnal menace of a Bowen (Anna Lee) is wrongly entrusted to George Sims
(Boris Karloff), the warden, in producer Lewton's eccentric
large urban city and the evil lurking beneath the frightener that evokes both horror and pity. Karloff renders
everyday. Next Robson directed The Ghost Ship his callous character's sadistic confrontations expressively,
(1943), which concerned a jinxed vessel whose and this overshadows the visions of lunacy in the artful
captain turns homicidal. It was quickly with- direction, which was inspired by the work of William
drawn from release because of a plagiarism law- Hogarth, including plate eight of A Rake's Progress.
suit that Lewton contested vehemently but lost.
The Curse Of The Cat People (1944) began
life being directed by Gunther von Fritsch but Bela Lugosi
was then taken over by second unit director and Actor, 1882-1956
editor Robert Wise. In many ways improving
on the original, it focused on Amy (Ann Carter), Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko, who took his stage
the daughter of Irena (Simone Simon) and surname from Lugos, the Hungarian town of his
Oliver's (Kent Smith), being haunted by her dead birth, became the first king of horror with Dracula
mother's neuroses. A poetic balance of the real (1931), and his embodiment of the consummate
and the imaginary that transcended the limita- vampire helped to usher in an era of massive
tions of the genre, Lewton's most personal pro- popularity for the genre. But his star quickly faded
duction recalled some of his earliest memories because of the bad roles he chose, money problems
and his strained relationship with his daughter, and the formaldehyde addiction that would see his
Nina. His final eccentric trio for RKO, The Body career end in Hollywood's gutter.
Snatcher, Isle Of The Dead (both 1945) and Bedlam Always fascinated by acting, Lugosi entered
(1946), starred Boris Karloff; for the first and the professional theatre as an operetta chorus
last Lewton used the pseudonym Carlos Keith for boy, before a stint at the Budapest Academy of
the screenplays he wrote. Theatrical Arts. By 1901 he was a leading actor
Lewton never occupied the commanding with Hungary's Royal National Theatre, and he
horror heights again. When he returned to the appeared first under the pseudonyms Arisztid Olt
R K O fold, his power had been wrested by his or Olt Arisztid, beginning with A Regiseggyujto
former proteges; they offered him a job as story (1917).
editor and then reluctantly fired him for being After fleeing to Germany during the political
too slow, and he died of a heart attack aged only turmoil in Hungary of 1918-19, Lugosi starred in
197
F. W. Murnau's Der Januskopf (Dr Jekyll and Mr The Thirteenth Chair (1929) that put him on the
Hyde, 1920). In 1921, he emigrated to America director's radar when Dracula came to be made
and made his debut there in The Silent Command as a movie.
(1923), but he struggled to find work because He was propelled to international fame, but
of his thick Eastern European accent. However, his refusal to play the Monster in Frankenstein
learning lines phonetically gave him a distinctive (1931) opened the door to Boris KarlofF and
depth that proved perfect for the 1927 Broadway lost him career momentum; he did, however, play
transfer production of Hamilton Deane's West the Monster in Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman
End hit Dracula. Reviews were bad, but audiences (1943). Although he remained a prolific screen
flocked to see it, and Lugosi spent three years presence in such commendable chillers as Winte
in the role. It was a part in Tod Browning's Zombie, Murders In The Rue Morgue (both 1932),
The Island of Lost Souls (1933)', The Black Cat
(1934) — the first of many collaborations with
Karloff - and Dark Eyes Of London (1940), most
were forgettable. Lugosi's choice of projects was
indiscriminate at best, and his reputation went
into rapid decline when he played successively
more desperate parodies of his Dracula role, as
he did in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948) and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla
(1952).
Lugosi's last gasp of fame had a surprising
source. By 1953, he was collaborating with the
notorious Ed Wood, widely recognized as the
worst director in history. After the hilarious cross-
dressing exploiter Glen Or Glenda (1953) and the
ludicrously cheap Bride Of The Monster (1955),
the duo were about to embark on the infamously
awful Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956), but after
filming only a handful of scenes, Lugosi died of a
heart attack. He was buried in his Dracula cape.
Ed Wood became a cult figure and his work
with Lugosi was immortalized in Tim Burton's
affectionate biopic Ed Wood (1994). Martin
Landau won the best supporting actor Oscar
for his wonderful performance as Lugosi — a
posthumous ironic twist to a career that took
the Hungarian from the peak of horror to the
Lugosi in his most famous role, in 1 9 3 1 ; he was background disco ditty "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by
buried in his Dracula cape Bauhaus that featured in The Hunger (1983).
198
.,."*" Dark Eyes Of London (aka The Human reincarnation, went into the Hammer blender
•i Monster) for The Mummy (1959), starring Christopher
dir Walter Summers, 1940, UK, 76m, b/w Lee in an athletic and eloquently mimed per-
Based on a novel by Edgar Wallace, the first British film to formance; the sequels were The Curse Of The
receive the "H for Horror" certificate, introduced in January Mummy's Tomb (1964), The Mummy's Shroud
1937, features Lugosi in the roles of a manager of a (1967), with frequent Christopher Lee stunt
home for the blind, Professor Dearborn, and an insurance
double Eddie Powell in the main role, and Blood
company head, Dr Orloff, who tortures its residents for
their indemnity money. Lugosi rises to the occasion when From The Mummy's Tomb (1971), which, like The
electrocuting or drowning innocent victims and instructing Awakening (1980), was based on Bram Stoker's
his blind henchmen to dump their bodies in the Thames. The Jewel Of Seven Stars.
It's atmospheric and full of evil. When the story was transplanted to Mexico,
the curse of Xochitl brought her warrior
lover Popoca back to life in La momia Azteca
The Mummy (Attack Of The Mayan Mummy, 1957) and
director Rafael Portillo resurrected the char-
In November 1922 archaeologist Howard acter for La maledicion de la momia Azteca
Carter found the tomb of the boy pharaoh (Curse Of The Aztec Mummy, 1957); another
Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, near Mexican mummy cycle began in Las momias
Luxor in Egypt. Global interest in the discov- de Guanajuato (The Mummies Of Guanajuato,
ery was fuelled further when his sponsor, Lord 1972), with wrestler Alejandro Cruz as the
Carnarvon, who was present when the tomb Blue Demon. Amen-ho-tep was played by Paul
was opened, died of blood poisoning the fol- Naschy in the Spanish La venganza de la momia
lowing year. Soon other alleged happenings (The Mummy's Vengeance, 1971), while flesh-eat-
- a power failure in Cairo and the demise of ing zombie mummies came from Italy in Dawn
Carnarvon's favourite dog at the precise moment Of The Mummy (1981). Universal revived their
of his death - led to growing talk of a curse that franchise as a pure adventure blockbuster with
had been dormant since 1323 BC. Stephen S o m m e r s ' The Mummy (1999) and
Although Egyptian exotica featured in silent The Mummy Returns (2001).
movies such as The Vengeance of Egypt (1912) and
Eyes Of The Mummy (1918), the curse legend jt*^ The M u m m y
first reached Hollywood in Karl Freund's The Ip dir Karl Freund, 1932, US, 72m, b/w
Mummy (1932), which starred Boris KarlofF Boris Karloff (billed as "Karloff the Uncanny") stars as 3700-
as the ancient Egyptian prince Im-ho-tep. The year-old priest Ardath Bey, formerly the ancient Egyptian
Mummy's Hand (1940), The Mummy's Tomb and prince Im-ho-tep, who after removing his own bandages in
The Mummy's Ghost (both 1942) transformed the British Museum offers eternal life to the reincarnation
of the woman he loves (Zita Johann). Freund's directorial
Im-ho-tep into Kharis, who was portrayed by debut, after working as a cinematographer on films
Tom Tyler in the first and Lon Chaney Jr in including Metropolis, is imbued with an eerie hallucinatory
the following two. After the inevitable Abbott quality that makes it a moody horror classic.
And Costello Meet The Mummy (1955), the many
Universal story threads, such as curses and
199
Michael Myers the London Film Festival and then released it,
and Carpenter was so grateful for the critical
"This force, this thing that lives inside of him acclaim and commercial success that kick-
came from a source too violent, too deadly started his moribund career, he paid Myers what
for you to imagine. It grew inside him, con- seemed at the time to be a campy tribute. It is
taminating his soul, it was pure evil." So says Dr now seen by his son Martin as a tremendous
Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), the psychiatric honour that will be a lasting memorial to his
Captain Ahab obsessed with tracking down his late father.
silent nemesis in Halloween: The Curse Of Michael The menacing persona of Michael Myers
Myers (1995). With the introduction of Michael expressed Carpenter's belief that "evil never
Myers, the unstoppable masked maniac, John dies", and six sequels later it still seems to be
Carpenter's Halloween (1978, see Canon) cre- the case. Myers has been played by Carpenter's
ated the stalk-and-slash sub-genre and invented old friend Nick Castle, Dick Warlock, George
a new aspect of movie horror: the boundaries Wilbur (twice), Don Shanks, Chris Durand and
between the real and supernatural worlds were Brad Loree, and by Mikael Lindgren and Anders
no longer clearly defined after Myers, despite Ek in two unofficial Swedish shorts. Tommy
being stabbed, blinded and shot, kept returning Lee Wallace's Halloween III: Season Of The Witch
from apparent death and killing again. (1983) was sans Myers; everyone thought that the
In Carpenter's last-minute addition to his psycho wave was over, so Nigel Kneale explored
script, originally titled "The Babysitter Murders", the roots of the Halloween myth, but this was a
Myers transcended death because he was liter- flop, and so Myers returned.
ally Death incarnate. This left-field supernatural
explanation is anticipated by Tommy (Brian Halloween H20
Andrews), whom Laurie Strode Jamie Lee dir Steve Miner, 1998, US, 87m
Curtis), revealed in later movies to be Michael's Jamie Lee Curtis's return to the fear franchise that made
younger sister, looks after on the fateful night "he her famous sees her character Laurie Strode still haunted
by the spectre of her homicidal brother Michael, who
came home" to Haddonfield after escaping from reappears so that she can "face her demon". Some
Smith's Grove mental institution. Seeing Myers inventive twists and moderate scares aside, stalk-and-slash
lurking, Tommy tells Laurie he saw "the boogey- director Miner approaches the unbelievable, even for this
man". She tells him that there's no such thing, but sub-genre. The appearance of Curtis's own mother, Janet
his childish interpretation of events turns out to Leigh, is one of the many Psycho riffs.
be closer to the truth than her reasoning. Indeed,
it was the most terrifying "boogeyman" of all
coming to get them — a human divested of all Roman Polanski
notions of right, wrong, guilt and reasoning. Director and actor, 1933-
Often referred to as The Shape, Michael
Myers was named after the head of Miracle The work of the Polish director, screenwriter
Films. The British distribution outfit entered and actor R o m a n Polanski is most notable
Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) into for its recurring themes of violence, paranoia
and loneliness. These issues are hard to divorce
200
from his experience of being sent at the age couple acting out a series of dangerous e m o -
of eight to a German concentration camp, tional games with a stranger, and its claustro-
where his mother died, and from his moving phobia would be echoed in his later work. It
between countries during a life punctuated by was denounced by his country's communists
tragedies. but was nominated for the Oscar for best for-
Born in Paris in 1933, Polanski moved to eign language film.
Poland in 1936 and was educated in Krakow After leaving for Paris, Polanski moved to
and at the country's film school in Lodz. His Britain, where he made his first English-language
first feature, Knife In The Water (1962), found a films. In the psychological horror Repulsion
201
T H E ICONS: THE FACES OF HORROR
(1965, see Canon) the mutating apartment of a year-old girl, Polanski fled to France, where he has
young Belgian woman represents stunningly her remained, working at a slower pace. He directed
inner torment, and Cul-de-Sac (1966) portrays the Hitchcock parody Frantic (1988), about a man
the sinister breakdown of family order on a whose wife vanishes, and after a break from horror
remote island. to make the drama Bitter Moon (1992) he returned
Then came a change of tack, when Polanski to form with the satanic horror The Ninth Gate
directed and starred in the Hammer parody (1999). He finally won the best director Oscar for
Dance Of The Vampires (1967). It had awesome his Holocaust film The Pianist (2002), which had
sets, sumptuous colour photography, a stun- similar themes to his horror classics.
ning title scene and two firsts: a Jewish vampire
immune to crucifixes and a camp gay blood- The Ninth Gate
sucker. The US version was cut and marketed dir Roman Polanski, 1999, Fr/Sp, 133m
with the title The Fearless Vampire Killers, Or Based on the bestseller El club Dumas by Arturo Perez-
Pardon Me But Your Teeth Arc In My Neck, and Reverte, Polanski's triumphant return to horror has antiques
book expert Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) hired to find an
Polanski asked for his name to be removed from ancient tome that has the power to open the Ninth Gate
the credits. of Hades and free the Prince of Darkness. A rich satanic
After moving to America, he helmed the spectacular of razor-sharp irony, sinister unease and
blockbuster Rosemary's Baby (1968, see Canon). subtle gothic chills, it satisfies the intellect and haunts the
Based on the novel by Ira Levin and produced memory, and the burnished hallucinatory climax can be
placed on a par with the spine-tingling finale to Rosemary's
by William Castle, like Repulsion it concerned a
Baby.
lonely, frightened female, but this time the result
was a credible atmosphere of witchcraft in every-
day Manhattan. The film, for which Polanski won
an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, played Vincent Price
a crucial part in making horror respectable at the Actor, 1911-1993
end of the Sixties.
In 1969 his life was shattered after his preg- Lean, effete and haughtily sinister, Vincent Price
nant wife Sharon Tate, star of Dance Of The had a staggering and distinguished career as the
Vampires, who he had married in 1968, was mur- master of the arched eyebrow, the hair-raising
dered by members of the Charles Manson cult. sneer and the menacing double take - but he was
This tragedy, one of the most notorious events also an art collector and a celebrated lecturer on
of the late Sixties, was behind his graphic and art history, a gourmand and a cookbook writer, a
bloody version of Macbeth (1971). Three years poet and a nationally syndicated columnist. In the
later, after playing a peasant in Andy Warhol's year before his death, the aristocratic Renaissance
Blood For Dracula (1974), he directed the crime man said: "I would like to be remembered by
classic Chinatown, and then he took the tor- something I strongly believe in — that there is
mented lead role in The Tenant (1976), which was a great difference between earning a living and
an apartment horror like Repulsion, but also had knowing how to live. An awful lot of people earn
elements of black comedy. a living to put it in their bellies. It should be put
Facing charges in the late 1970s of raping a 13- in your head."
202
Price with Meredith Merridew (Robert Morley) in Theatre Of Blood (1973)
Born in St Louis (and eventually sharing costume gothic horror came when he starred
his birthday with Christopher Lee), after taking opposite Boris Karloff in Tower Of London
a masters degree at the University of London, (1939). The first of his highly acclaimed movies
Price auditioned for a part in the off-West End was the film noir classic Laura (1944); another
play Chicago for a dare. Bitten by the acting bug, was the biblical epic The Ten Commandments
he starred as Prince Albert in the same company's (1956).
next production, Victoria Regina (1935), and when But it was starring as crazed sculptor Henry
it moved to Broadway as a smash-hit vehicle for Jarrod in House Of Wax (1953), the 3-D update
diva Helen Hayes, Price went with it. After being from Warner Bros of their Mystery Of The Wax
signed up by Universal, Price's screen debut was Museum (1933), that changed the course of
in Service Deluxe (1938), and his first brush with his career. It made him a horror icon, which
203
T H E ICONS: THE FACES OF HORROR
Trust me, I'm a doctor

The only doctor you can really trust in horror movies is Terror (1967), who through genetic mutation turns his
Dr Abraham Van Helsing, vampire hunter and Dracula own daughter into a blood-sucking giant death's head
defeater; otherwise they tend to bring dishonour to the moth
medical profession. Here are the ten worst doctors to
• Dr Richard Marlowe (Bela Lugosi) in Voodoo Man
be seeing for an appointment:
(1944), who uses black magic rites and the souls of
• Dr Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) in Dr Blood's Coffin kidnapped girls to revivify his long-dead wife
(1961), who exhumes corpses and puts living hearts in
• Dr Rossiter (Anton Diffring) in Circus Of Horrors
them to bring them back from the dead
(1960), who uses revolutionary plastic surgery methods
• Dr Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) in The Tingler to turn scarred women into gorgeous big-top perform-
(1959), who suspects that fear causes a lobster-like ers
organism to grow in the body if it is not released by a
• Sir John Rowan (Peter Cushing) in Corruption (1967),
scream
who kills prostitutes and uses their pituitary gland fluid
• Dr Giggles (the nickname of Dr Rendell), played by to restore the beauty of his disfigured fiancee
Larry Drake in Dr Giggles (1992), who escapes from an
• Dr Christian Storm (Michael Gough) in Horror Hospital
asylum and then murders with surgical implements (1973), who lobotomizes teenagers to make them his
• Dr Leon Kravaal (Boris Karloff) in The Man With Nine zombie puppets
Lives (1940), who places his research victims in an
• Dr Wells, played by Preston Foster in Doctor X
underground ice chamber
(1932), who adds a murderous arm to his disfigured
• Dr Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) in The Blood Beast body with synthetic flesh
would be a blessing and a curse for the rest of side fellow maestros of malevolence Christopher
his life. Lee and Peter Cushing.
After The Mad Magician (1954), again in Price starred in three classics in the Seventies
3-D, and The Fly (1958), Price joined pro- - the camp art-deco delight The Abominable Dr
ducer/director William Castle for two popular Phibes (1971), its imaginatively macabre fol-
horrors, House On Haunted Hill (1958) and The low-up Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972), and his
Tingler (1959). He then embarked on the eight personal favourite, Theatre Of Blood (1973) — and
Edgar Allan Poe adaptations directed by Roger he joined forces with Christopher Lee and
Corman that would establish his horror persona: Peter Cushing again, plus John Carradine, for
in The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960) Price House Of The Long Shadows (1983), the only film
gave what is regarded as his best performance, as in which all four feature together. T i m Burton,
the hypersensitive Roderick Usher, who has a who had made the short film Vincent (1982),
fear of premature burial, and other notable titles about a boy who dreams about being just like
include Twice Told Tales (1963), Witchfinder General Price, because he was the horror actor Burton
(1968, see Canon) and Scream And Scream Again most admired, directed his last screen appearance,
(1970), the first film in which he featured along- in the poignant Edward Scissorhands (1990).
204
Theatre Of Blood
dir Douglas Hickox, 1973, UK, 102m
Sam Raimi
Director, 1959-
In his mirthfully macabre magnum opus, Price plays the
supposedly deceased ham actor Edward Lionheart,
who dishes out Shakespearean deaths to the theatre
From director of a cheap, controversial horror
critics who denied him a prestigious award. The inspired exploiter to one of the most powerful figures in
murders range from immolation at a hairdresser's to a the movie business: Sam Raimi's career trajec-
gay Meredith Merridew (Robert Morley) being force-fed tory has been the ultimate Hollywood dream
his twin poodles. Price, disguised as all the best Bard come true. But it's perhaps not surprising given
characters, is clearly having a ball. He loved Shakespeare
the people with whom he shared a Hollywood
and during the production he met his third and final wife,
Coral Browne. apartment in his early days: The Evil Dead actor
Bruce Campbell, Evil Dead 2 writer Scott
Spiegel, the Coen brothers, and Oscar-winning
Raimi filming the comedy horror Army Of Darkness (1993), and wearing a shirt on set, as always
205
actresses Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand and After producing the hit remake of The Grudge
Kathy Bates. (2004), Raimi andTaperts Ghost House Pictures
Prior to turning his 1978 short Within The is now a major force in horror, boasting a raft
Woods into the cause celebre shocker The Evil Dead of enviable titles — Scarecrow, Boogeyman (2005),
(1982, see Canon), Raimi wasn't a horror fan at Rise, The Grudge 2 and Evil Dead Regeneration (all
all. His favourite genre was comedy - as is visible scheduled for 2006), a remake of the film that
in the references throughout his body of work to began it all. Raimi, who always wears a shirt and
The Three Stooges, in re-created sequences and tie when directing, in deference to his idol, Alfred
in the way he credits stand-ins and body doubles as Hitchcock, summed up his philosophy when he
"Fake Shemp", nods to the Stooges shorts where said: "I prefer making people laugh rather than
an extra was used after Shemp Howard died. scream, but both are similar unconscious out-
Realizing that his entry into the industry bursts when audiences get caught up in a story."
would be best served by a horror debut, which
had a chance of making money fast, Raimi Darkman
Dir Sam Raimi, 1990, US, 91m
steeped himself in the lexicon of James Whale,
Roman Polanski, EC Comics and Universal Raimi's first studio movie is an expressionistic amalgam of
The Phantom Of The Opera, Grand Guignol pulp fiction
monsters. Like most horror directors, he had no
and exaggerated psychedelic visuals. As scientist Peyton
film-school training, and his amateur bravura led Westlake and Darkman, Liam Neeson expertly portrays the
him to fuse genres, which has given his movies pathos and tragedy of the scientist donning synthetic skin
broad appeal while also making him a distinc- masks to take revenge on the crooks responsible for his
tive auteur. He deftly mixed The Phantom Of disfigurement.
The Opera with The Hunchback Of Notre Dame to
concoct the engaging horror superhero crossover
Darkman (1990); and he later moved further into George A. Romero
the mainstream with The Gift (2000), culminat- Director, 1940-
ing in his massive success with Spider-Man (2002)
and Spider-Man 2 (2004). Born in the Bronx, long before making
Raimi has also acted in various movies, Pittsburgh his home and film location base,
including Intruder (1998), the two Maniac Cop George Andrew Romero showed strains of
movies (1988, 1992) and the mini-series 77;e non-conformism even at an early age: as a 14-
Shining (1997). "I wanted to learn what it would year-old he was arrested by police for throw-
be like so I could give my actors the support ing a burning dummy from a rooftop for his
they needed," he said. "The lesson I learnt is to first 8mm short, The Man From The Meteor. He
keep it simple." Having produced various movies continued to flout conventions when master-
apart from his own — including Lunatics: A Love minding not one but two of the greatest films
Story (1991), starring his brother Ted, and Timecop that have changed the course of horror, Night
(1993) — he had success in the same job for TV, Of The Living Dead (1968, see Canon) and its
and, with Evil Dead partner Robert Tapert, was sequel Dawn Of The Dead (1978, see Canon).
behind Hercules:The Legendary Journeys (1995-99) They made him the definitive master of the
and Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001). zombie flick, which he still influences today.
206
In 1962 Romero established a successful com- legacy of his watershed Dawn Of The Dead — he
mercial production company, and it was the grind said that having children made his values change
of TV adverts, industrial films, political campaign regarding shocking horror — Romero barely
shorts and documentaries that led him to trans- made a ripple when he came back with the total
form the genre. After Night Of The Living Dead, dud Bruiser (2000). But while he was unsuccess-
because he did not want to get trapped, he chose fully trying to get the vampire virus movie The
to direct films that would not carry the horror tag; III and the zombie musical Diamond Dead off the
nevertheless, There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's ground, the smash hit Dawn Of The Dead remake
Wife (aka Season Of The Witch, 1972) and The in 2004 revitalized interest in his illustrious career
Crazies (1973) still contained acute insights into and led to the "fourth" in his zombie trilogy,
the darker side of human nature that characterized Land Of The Dead (2005).
all his work. Both feet were back firmly in the
horror camp when he provided a new twist on
Transylvanian terror in Martin (1977).
After Dawn, Romero directed the modern-day
Camelot fable Knightriders (1981), the five-part
EC Comics anthology Creepshow (1982), which
began his association with novelist Stephen King,
and the third part of his zombie trilogy, Day Of
The Dead (1985), in which zombies are trained to
be obedient by the military for integration back
into society. In between his two Dr Jekyll And
Mr Hyde variants, Monkey Shines (1988), where a
paraplegic's pet simian acts out his subconscious
wishes, and King's The Dark Half (1993), Romero
made The Facts In The Case Of Mr Valdemar for
the two-part tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, Two Evil
Eyes (1990); the other director was Dawn Of The
Dead collaborator D a r i o A r g e n t o .
Romero produced and wrote episodes for
the TV series Tales From The Darkside (1984-86),
wrote the Cat From Hell segment based on the
Stephen King story in Tales From The Darkside: The
Movie (1990), and produced and rewrote his earlier
screenplay for T o m Savini's 1990 Night Of The
Living Dead remake. As an actor he had un-credited
cameos in his own movies and played an FBI agent
in The Silence Of The Lambs (1990, see Canon).
After a decade in the doldrums making criti- Zombie king Romero during a publicity stunt for
cal remarks about the artistic value and splatter Day Of The Dead (1985)
207
Martin success, Cat People (1942, see Canon), and the

dir George A. Romero, 1977, US, 95m famous sequence of the woman in a basement
In an impressive, offbeat and adult-strength update of the swimming pool was based on an experience
vampire myth, Martin (John Amplas), a dysfunctional teen that Tourneur had one night when he almost
living in a depressed steel industry town, is so traumatized drowned.
by the religious persecution of his European family that
The next two films that Tourneur made for
he takes to violent blood-sucking for rebellion and relief.
Romero's scarily bittersweet tragedy uses the garlic-and- R K O showed, as Cat People had, expert composi-
crucifix sub-genre to comment on the collapse of religion tion and how fear can be created from shadows;
and on fractured moral values in a brilliantly believable way. and although The Leopard Man (1943) is under-
rated, / Walked With A Zombie (1943, see Canon)
is an acknowledged masterpiece of darkness and
Jacques Tourneur light. Tourneur demonstrated similar directorial
skills when working for R K O on the film noir
Director, 1904-1977
Out Of The Past (1947), the war drama Days
Jacques Tourneur was crucial to producer Val Of Glory (1944) and the thriller Berlin Express
Lewton's quest to provide horror movies that (1948).
contained "the reality of terror". An excellent in- After R K O unwisely decided to end their
house director who was part of the "little horror relationship, Tourneur moved to bigger budget
unit", as Lewton put it, that popularized B-mov- pictures and tried his hand as a television direc-
ies during World War II, he was blessed with an tor. But he returned to suggestive horror with
eye that could develop spookiness and suspense Night Of The Demon (1958, see Canon), which
from any narrative. was another psychological chiller dealing with
Born in Paris in 1904, Jacques Tourneur was rationality being eroded by encounters with the
the son of the director M a u r i c e T o u r n e u r , supernatural. Although a monster was inserted
and in 1913 moved with his father to America, by the film's producers, just as a panther found its
where he went to school in Hollywood and then way into Cat People, it again showed the power
worked on scripts for his father. They returned of understatement.
to Paris at the end of the Twenties, but after After co-directing the sword-and-sandal spec-
breaking away from his paternal ties Jacques went tacle The Giant Of Marathon (1960) with Italian
back to America and began to work as a second maestro of the macabre Mario Bava - who along
unit director. From 1939 he directed shorts and with Riccardo Freda and other Italian directors
MGM B-movies, in which the visual quality dis- was influenced by Tourneur's scenes of hidden
guised the lack of finance. menace - he ended his sublime horror career
While he was arranging sequences on A Tale ignominiously, with The Comedy Of Terrors (1964)
Of Two Cities (1935) Tourneur met Val Lewton, and The City Under the Sea (aka War-Gods Of The
and the pair formed one of horror's key part- Deep, 1965). He retired in 1966 and returned to
nerships when, in 1942, Tourneur was the first France.
director Lewton hired for his R K O production In his declining years Tourneur, who died in
unit. He directed its most enduring and popular 1977, was frank about his short but successful
208
period making horrors with Lewton. He said The Leopard Man

that they had a perfect collaboration, and that dir Jacques Tourneur, 1943, US, 66m, b/w
"Val was the dreamer, the idealist, and I was the This moody chiller creepily stages a series of savage
materialist, the realist." But he continued: "We killings that occur in a small Mexican town after a leopard
should have gone right on doing bigger, more escapes from a nightclub act. Is the leopard responsible,
ambitious pictures." He will always be remem- or an insane maniac? Tourneur fills his blood-pumping
story with classic examples of horror artistry, including the
bered, however, for a stylish collaboration that
justly famous blood-under-locked-door punishment and
after the Universal era of the Thirties broke the trapped-in-cemetery ordeal, and, unusually for a film
new ground. produced by Lewton, good triumphs over evil.
Tourneur, a master of creating fear from shadows
209
Jason Voorhees session aggravates him back to life for another

slaughter spree.
"Kill, kill, kill," whispers the barely audible cho- Danny Steinmann's Friday The 13th: A New
rus in Harry Manfredini's music scores for the Beginning (1985) had the troubled teenager
Friday The 13th films. And that is exactly what (Corey Feldman) who "killed" Jason in the
the machete-wielding maniac Jason Voorhees has prior film seemingly take on his murderous per-
done in ever more inventive ways during most of sona. Tom McLoughlin's Friday The 13th Part VI:
the reviled, graphic and controversial body count Jason Lives (1986) resurrected the mass murderer
series, masterminded by director/producer Sean as a lightning-powered killer zombie, John Carl
S. Cunningham. "Jason grew out of basic things Buechler's Friday The 13th Part VII: The New
that would scare me as a little kid. I was sure there Blood (1988) has a telekinetic psychic girl releas-
was somebody lurking under the bed, and I was ing Jason's soul from his Camp Crystal Lake
afraid to move," he said. watery grave and R o b Hedden's Friday The 13th
In Friday The 13th (1980), which launched Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) had Jason
end up as toxic waste after stalking high-school
one of the most successful franchises in horror
graduates on a cruise ship to New York.
history, Jason wasn't a murderer; it was his moth-
er Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer). Because her Jason entered an exciting new phase in Adam
Marcus's Jason Goes To Hell, The Final Friday (1993).
son drowned at a summer camp while incom-
New Line Cinema had taken over the franchise
petent assistants were fooling around, she takes
and this, the goriest of them all, featured a parasite,
revenge on another sex-starved bunch when it
which has kept Jason's corpse animated, passing
reopens. Mrs Voorhees is beheaded at the cli-
between other bodies in its quest to find one of
max, but it turns out in Steve Miner's Friday
the surviving members of the Voorhees family for
The 13th Part II (1981), in the usual twisted
a new skin. The coda featured the steel-clawed
logic of sequels, that Jason survived and is lurk-
hand of Freddy Krueger, from New Line's other
ing in the nearby woods, waiting to mete out
profitable Nightmare On Elm Street skein, popping
phallic machete vengeance on any sexually
up to snatch away Jason's dropped hockey mask.
active co-ed student.
This hinted at the long-awaited face-off
It wasn't until Miner's Friday The 13th Part which, after Jim Isaac's Jason X (2001), became a
3: 3-D (1982) that Jason was transformed from reality in Ronny Yu's Freddy Vs Jason (2003), the
a scrawny psychopath sporting a burlap bag start of a new franchise. It was such a blockbuster
with eye-holes into a brawny goon wearing hit that Jason Voorhees' true demise may have to
the hockey mask that audiences have come to wait until Sean S. Cunningham decides on his
know and love. Despite its title, Joseph Zito's preferred cut-off point. "I had no idea the first
Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) wasn't, film would be as big as it was, even less of an idea
of course; respectable Paramount, who shocked it would turn into a series with such longev-
the industry by picking up the first cheap and ity," he said. Jason has been played by the actors
nasty film, were making far too much money and stuntmen Ari Lehman, Warrington Gillette,
from the series. In this episode Jason's body is Richard Brooker, Ted White, C. J. Graham, Ken
taken to the morgue where a couple's petting Kirzinger and, four times, Kane Hodder.
210
Star debuts in shockers

Many, many movie stars have made their film debuts
in horror movies they would rather forget. Here are ten
of the worst.
• Jennifer Aniston appeared in Leprechaun (1993) as
Tory Reding, the main target of the murdering Irish elf
• Kevin Bacon was in Friday The 13th (1980) as one
of Jason's victims, Jack Burrell
• George Clooney appeared in Return Of The Killer
Tomatoes (1988) as pizza man Matt Stevens
• David Copperfield featured in Terror Train (1980) as
Ken, the magician
• J o h n n y Depp made his film debut in A Nightmare
On Elm Street (1984) - he was sucked into his mat-
tress and spat out as a blood geyser
Aniston (left) in Leprechaun (1993), before cutting it
• Tom H a n k s appeared in He Knows You're Alone as Rachel in Friends
(1980) as Elliott, whose first words are "I'm too tired to
scream from the pain you've just caused me" played smirking hillbilly Vilmer.
• Philip S e y m o u r H o f f m a n featured in the zombie • D o n a l d S u t h e r l a n d had roles in Castle Of The
comedy My Boyfriend's Back (1993) as slow-witted, Living Dead (1964) as Sergeant Paul, an old man and
high school jock Chuck Bronski a witch in drag
• Schoolgirl Jenny was played by Renee Zellweger • Naomi Watts was the top-billed star of the cheesy
in The Return Of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fright franchise episode Children Of The Corn IV: The
(1993); in the same movie M a t t h e w M c C o n a u g h e y Gathering
Jason X
dir James Isaac, 2001, US, 93m
The Werewolf
Super-scary, and side-splitting without tarnishing Jason's Wolves have shape-shifted into men since the
iconic charisma, the best sequel has the cryogenically dawn of time, in every ancient culture. With a his-
frozen killer, being transported to "New Earth" for a tory in literature that dates back to the thirteenth
museum exhibition 400 years in the future, thawing out
century (Marie de France's Lay Of The Were-wolf),
on board a spaceship and systematically murdering the
crew. Reconstituted into Terminator gear for a brilliantly
the werewolf novel's most famous incarnation
conceived virtual reality return to Crystal Lake, where he remains Guy Endore's The Werewolf Of Paris
tries hilariously to kill holographic babes, this ingenious (1933), adapted extremely loosely by Terence
self-aware shocker is fantastic fun and provides gory Fisher for Hammer as The Curse Of The Werewolf
interstellar chills. (1960).
21 1
The first movie werewolf was female: Henry Woodstock (1975) and The Werewolf Of Washington
McRae's silent The Werewolf (1913) featured a (1973), the next leap was taken by The Howling,
Navajo witch raising her werewolf daughter. Wolfen (both 1981) and An American Werewolf In
But although Bela Lugosi turned into a wolf London (1981, see Canon), thanks to advances
off-screen in Dracula (1931) and was surgically in make-up and animatronic techniques.
made a wolf-man in Island Of Lost Souls (1932), Since that high watermark, werewolves have
the monster's proper debut was in Universal's crept into horror movies at a regular pace, adding
Werewolf Of London (1935). Henry Hull played new elements to the oft-told stories: Red Riding
a botanist in Tibet, bitten by werewolf Warner Hood in The Company Of Wolves (1984), comedy
Oland, fighting for possession of the rare moon in Teen Wolf (1985), gay camp in Curse Of The
flower "Marifasa Lupina", the only known anti- Queerwolf (1987), museum exhibition figures in
dote to lycanthrophy. Waxwork (1988), superstar Jack Nicholson in
The cinematic myths invented for Werewolf Wolf (1994), menstrual curses in Ginger Snaps
Of London were rewritten by Curt Siodmak (2000), war manoeuvres in Dog Soldiers (2002)
for The Wolf Man (1941). A horror classic, it and Scream-style parodies in Cursed (2004). Wild
made Lon Chaney Jr, the tormented Larry Country (2005) didn't stick to the established
Talbot, a star, and established the folklore of folklore at all.
gypsy curses, full moons, silver bullets and wolf-
Ginger Snaps
bane: "Even a man who is pure of heart/And
dir John Fawcett, 2000, Can, 104m
says his prayers by night/May become a wolf
when the wolfbane blooms/And the moon is Lycanthropy is transmitted sexually as a menstrual curse
full and bright." Chaney Jr also played the part of in this intellectually potent, brutal shocker. The legend-
Talbot in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), ary Beast of Bailey Downs attacks death-obsessed
House Of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula sisters, played by Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle,
and the latter, Ginger, turns aggressive dominatrix c o m -
(both 1945) and put in an appearance in Abbott
plete with tail. With the silver bullet melted down into a
And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
pierced navel ring and the wolfbane of Lon Chaney Jr's
After the appearance of mad scientists in The day changed to a drug called Monkshood, Fawcett pro-
Werewolf (1956) and / Was A Teenage Werewolf vocatively places the lycanthrope myth in the cauldron of
(1957), the beast within went back to its super- tortured adolescence.
natural roots in the Italian Werewolf In A Girl's
Dormitory (1961) and the Spanish La marca del
hombre lobo (Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, 1967). James Whale
The latter began a series featuring Paul Naschy
Director, 1889-1957
as the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky, a
role he would play more than a dozen times. One of the few directors from the first golden
As the wannabe Hammer company Tyburn age of Hollywood horror to view filmmaking
attempted the old-school Legend Of The Werewolf as an art form, James Whale laid down many
(1974) and Americans added Hell's Angels, hip- ground rules that determined the development
pies and politics respectively into the mix with of the genre, through his bizarre angles, sets with
Werewolves On Wheels (1971), The Werewolf Of
212
high ceilings, imaginative production design, demonstrated his mastery of sound and spectacle,
meticulous editing and new sound techniques. so Universal asked him to direct Frankenstein
Born in Dudley, England, Whale trained as an (1931, see Canon). Whale, an out-of-the-closet
art student and after drawing cartoons for news- homosexual, was urged by his long-term lover
papers he took up acting in a German prison- David Lewis, producer of Greta Garbo's Cainillc
of-war camp during World War I. Returning (1936) and Bette Davis's Dark Victory (1939), to
to Britain to act and direct and to design for consider Boris Karloff as the Monster.
the stage, it was his peerless direction of R. C. Ironically, Whale took on the Mary Shelley
Sheriff's critically acclaimed war drama Journey's adaptation simply to avoid being pigeonholed as
End, both in the West End and on Broadway, that a war movie director. Thanks to his sheer artistry
led him to Hollywood, where he helmed the film he took screen fright to new levels. Every frame
version of 1930. of Frankenstein, starring his bisexual buddy Clive,
Remaining in California with British actor exhibited Whale's attention to detail in an attempt
Colin Clive, who was the lead in all versions of to create an aura of creepiness. This use of visu-
the piece, Whale quickly established his reputa- als to unnerve audiences was an innovation that
tion thanks to two other war movies. He directed every horror director was influenced by.
the dialogue inserts for Howard Hughes's Hell's Whale spent the next four years desperate to
Angels (1930), and then in Waterloo Bridge (1931) avoid directing the Frankenstein sequel that he
Whale with Boris Karloff while shooting The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)
213
knew Universal wanted. Meanwhile the studio Gods And Monsters

turned a blind eye to what was a flagrant lifestyle dir Bill Condon, 1998, UK/US,105m
for the era. To assuage them, and to ensure that This study of the twilight years of the "Father of
the ex-pat British acting community continued Frankenstein" (the original title), mixing fact and fiction,
working, he cast Karloff in The Old Dark House focuses on Whale's infatuation with his hunky but
(1932, see Canon), Claude Rains in The Invisible heterosexual gardener, who he wants to seduce. The
powerful examination of media immortality and the
Man (1933), a masterful special effects extrava-
eccentric creative process, which won an Oscar for its
ganza, and Elsa Lanchester in the inevitable screenplay, marvellously and poignantly combines half-
sequel to his classic, The Bride Of Frankenstein forgotten images from Whale's shadowy war years, the
(1935, see Canon). All were notable for the Mary Shelley myth, his Hollywood experiences making
impish strain of humour coursing through their Bride and drug-induced sexual hallucinations.
horror veins.
For The Bride Of Frankenstein, which replaced
the scrapped Karloff assignment A Trip to Mars, The Zombie
bitterness made Whale add over-the-top sexual,
They've had nights, dawns and days, returns,
religious and camp whimsy. But his "anything
revolts and nightmares, and children, kings and
goes" approach made for an accidental master-
plagues, in cities, lakes and lands from Broadway
piece and one of his most highly regarded hor-
to Mora Tau. And yet zombies are one of the
rors. Although he was tied briefly to Dracula's few horror cinema staples invented for the
Daughter (1936), Whale never returned to the medium without any genesis in literature. The
genre in which he made the reputation that he word zombie was first mentioned in William
scorned, and his last hit was the musical Show B. Seabrook's study of voodoo The Magic Island
Boat (1936). Two of his last four pictures found (1929), in which he reported his experiences
him passing on the torch to the new horror wave on Haiti and his supposed encounters with the
- Peter Cushing, who featured in The Man In walking dead; the unique belief in them was part
The Iron Mask (1939), and Vincent Price, who of the ritualistic religion carried over by African
featured in Green Hell (1940). slaves in the eighteenth century.
Whale then retired to a more private and Using a Creole word apparently derived from
hedonistic life that included painting and gay Nzambi, a West African deity, Seabrook described
pool parties. After suffering several debilitat- the zombie in detail. "The eyes were the worst.
ing strokes, he drowned in his pool in Pacific It was not my imagination. They were in truth
Palisades, California, probably committing sui- like the eyes of a dead man, not blind, but star-
cide. As is seen in the loose biopic Gods And ing, unfocused, unseeing. The whole face, for
Monsters (1998), in which Ian McKellen gives a that matter, was bad enough. It was vacant, as if
superb, Oscar-nominated performance as Whale, there was nothing behind it. It seemed not only
the suicide note read: "The future is just old age expressionless, but incapable of expression."
and illness and pain.... I must have peace and this Seabrook's lurid account led to the first walk-
is the only way." ing dead movie, White Zombie (1932), which
starred Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, the
214
operator of a Haitian sugar mill run by legions violence to the extreme. Not voodoo rites but
of human automatons. Shot by the Halperin future social ills would cause the dead to walk the
brothers on borrowed sets from The Hunchback earth, when there was no more room in hell.
Of Notre Dame (1923), King Of Kings (1927), While the juju voodoo explanation didn't
Frankenstein and Dracula (both 1931), using the die out altogether (Sugar Hill, 1974, Zombie
make-up talents of Universal's Jack Pierce, its Flesh-Eaters, 1979, The Serpent And The Rainbow,
unearthly Caribbean atmosphere set a tone for 1987), Romero's slow-moving, brain-eating lega-
the living dead genre, as could be seen in films cies loom large over the contemporary living
including Revolt Of The Zombies (1936), I Walked dead sub-genre. His influence is evident in
With A Zombie (1943, see Canon), the comedy films including Zombi Holocaust (1981), Braindead
The Ghost Breakers (1940) and I Eat Your Skin (1992, see Canon) and 28 Days Later (2002), and
(1964). in the two Resident Evil films (2002, 2004) and
Normal people were zombified by a "bokor" the Return of the Living Dead series (1985, 1988,
(voodoo sorcerer) who casts a spell or brews a 1993, 2005, 2005).
potion until Hammer's The Plague Of The Zombies
(1966, see Canon), which visualized the living Shaun Of The Dead
dead as rotting reanimated cadavers. Further socio- dir Edgar Wright, 2004, UK, 99m
political radicalization by George A. Romero London becomes Zombieville. This rom-zom-com starring
in Night Of The Living Dead (1968, see Canon) Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the script, gleefully plunders
ushered in the modern zombie (or "ghoul", as they Italian zombie flicks - there's a restaurant called Fulci's
were referred to within the narrative) - a ferocious - and George A. Romero's trilogy for inspiration (and he
loved it). Humour straight from the student union, sitcom
flesh-eater on the attack constantly and indiscrimi-
banality and extreme morgue mayhem play out against a
nately. Death became even more of a lottery than perfectly captured video nasty feel, and Penelope Wilton
usual, with no rational explanation, in Romero's and Bill Nighy make the gory horror farce moving as well
apocalyptic vision, which pushed graphic screen as comic.
215
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), the first horror

from Hong Kong to make an impact in the West
The global
picture:
horror movies
around the world
Horror's icons are mainly from America and Britain, and as the story of the genre
shows, countries such as Italy and Japan have also been important in its develop-
ment. But other nations and regions have developed their own cinematic styles,
which have often influenced (while being influenced by) mainstream horror.
Horror fans had truly international taste long if a movie is dubbed from Italian, German or
before "world cinema" came into its own, and Spanish, or subtitled with dialogue in Mandarin,
still watch more foreign films than devotees of French or Russian, if it delivers fright on the
any other genre. Why should horror fans care night?
219
T H E GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND THE WORLD
Argentina
Argentina is the most European of Latin What followed for Vieyra was the only vam-
American countries, in cultural terms, and in the pire film ever made in Argentina, and one of
Forties and Fifties had a huge film industry that the first to combine sex with horror. Sangre de
e x p o r t e d all o v e r t h e S p a n i s h - s p e a k i n g w o r l d . virgenes (Blood Of The Virgins, 1968) has swing-
But because movies were government-funded, ers on a ski holiday in the Patagonian mountains
horrors were impossible to finance. seeking shelter in a deserted lodge, the domain
Una mujer sin cabeza (Headless Woman, 1947) of resurrected buxom blonde vampire Ofelia
from director Luis Cesar Amadori got made (Susana Beltran). With its copious nudity and
only because it was a parody of The Old Dark bloodletting for an era stuck in the moribund
House genre. Things began changing with Mario Hammer milieu, and its unusual special effects
Soffci's El extrano caso del hombre y la bestia (The (red-tinted shots of seagulls were used for images
Man And The Beast, 1951), featuring an imagina- resembling vampires), Vieyra's sleazy tone and
tive transformation by make-up artist Neron eagerness to push boundaries could not be more
Kesselman, achieved in the shadows of a passing striking, especially given that he was working
train, and with Roman Vinoly Barreto's El vampiro within the confines of a repressive police state. It's
negro (Black Vampire, 1953) and Enrique Carreras's not surprising that it was banned for seven years
Obras maestras del terror (Master Of Horror, 1960), an in its home country - or that no filmmaker has
anthology of three stories by Edgar Allan Poe. attempted to make anything similar.
Then actor-turned-director Emilio Vieyra
came on the scene in the mid-Sixties and practi- La venganza del sexo (The Curious Dr
cally invented the Argentinian horror film, during Humpp)
a brief golden age around the world of sexed-up dir Emilio Vieyra, 1966, Arg, 85m
shock, laced with drugs, rock and romance, that In one of the most bizarre horror movies ever made, mad
scientist Dr Humpp (Aldo Barbero) follows the orders of a
has never been repeated. Nothing like La ven-
talking brain and force-feeds aphrodisiacs to copulating
ganza del sexo (The Curious Dr Humpp, 1966) has couples so that he can extract sexually potent blood to use
been seen since. Placer sangriento (Feast Of Flesh/ as a flesh-preserving elixir. Seventeen minutes of (boring)
The Deadly Organ, 1967) was made for $16,000 simulated lovemaklng was inserted into the American
in ten days and centres on a monster-masked version of this exploitation extravaganza that already
sex maniac who injects heroin into beach babes featured strippers, lesbianism and burning bodies.
and then lures them back to his place by playing
ethereal organ music. Vieyra's next film, La bestia
desnuda (The Naked Beast, 1967), was a Phantom
Of The Opera clone modelled on his favourite
American film noir thrillers in which none of the
actors involved knew who the masked maniac
was until the shooting of the reveal scene.
220
THE GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E W O R L D
A poster for Argentina's only vampire film, which hints at the reasons why it
banned for several years there after being made in 1968
221
THE GLOBAL P I C T U R E : HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E WORLD
Australia
Until t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f s u b s t a n t i a l g o v e r n m e n t Roche, an ex-pat American responsible for the
f u n d i n g i n 1970 g e n e r a t e d a m a j o r h o r r o r m o v i e best Aussie horrors of the next decade, including
w a v e , A u s t r a l i a h a d a l m o s t n o n e t o its n a m e , Colin Eggleston's Long Weekend (1979), Simon
apart from John Cosgrove's The Guyra Ghost Wincer's Snapshot (1979), renamed The Day Before
Mystery (1921), an a c c o u n t of a f a m o u s " t r u e " Halloween in America, and rock video wunderkind
haunting, and Raymond Longford's Fisher's Russell Mulcahy's debut, Razorback (1984).
Ghost (1924), about Australia's most famous One vampire variant was R o d Hardy's Thirst
apparition. (1979), produced by the country's most prolific
Ted KotchefFs Wake In Fright (aka Outback, horror figure, Antony I. Ginnane, who was a
1971) was the first borderline horror to use the producer or executive producer, often in associa-
recurring Australian themes of the moral collapse tion with actor David Hemmings, on dozens of
of civilization and man's alienation from nature, Antipodean films during the following decades.
and it was then Peter Weir who successfully These included Patrick, Snapshot and Hemmings's
translated national motifs into both local and The Survivor (1981), based on the book by James
international success; The Cars That Ate Paris, Herbert. Meanwhile the teen psycho horror
Picnic At Hanging Rock (both 1974) and The Last Dangerous Game (1987) was director Stephen
Wave (1977) all conveyed the surreal, Aboriginal Hopkins's calling card (A Nightmare On Elm Street
mystic edge of the indigenous horror genre. 5: The Dream Child followed in 1989), and Dead
The first director to go explicitly after the Calm (1989) made the same impact for direc-
American market was Terry Bourke, with the tor Phillip Noyce, and Nicole Kidman. That
survival horror Night Of Fear (1973), the pseudo- ocean-set horror was for a long time the last great
historical psycho chiller Inn Of The Damned Australian horror film, despite Dead Sleep (1990)
(1975) and the sordid slasher Lady, Stay Dead and Kimble Rendall's Cut (2000); but then came
(1982). Jim Sharman used well-heeled univer- Greg McLean's wilderness worst-case scenario
sal motifs to explore themes of suburban social thriller Wolf Creek (2005).
paralysis - in films including Shirley Thompson
Versus The Aliens (1972) and The Night The Prowler Patrick
(1978) — but his main claim to fame will always dir Richard Franklin, 1978, Aust, 110m
be that he directed the cult spectacular The Rocky From the depths of a three-year coma, hospitalized Patrick
Horror Picture Show (1975) and its less successful (Robert Thompson) wreaks telekinetic revenge on his
enemies. Kathy (Susan Penhaligon) is the nurse who "talks"
sequel, Shock Treatment (1981).
to him through blinks of the eye and suspects that he's not
It was Hitchcock-influenced director Richard as benign as everyone thinks. Stylishly directed, several
Franklin who minted an effective and distinctly scenes produce calculated jolts: the bathtub electrocution,
recognizable Australian mood, in Patrick (1978) the malfunction of an elevator door and the moment
and Roadgames (1981), the latter starring Jamie Kathy's typing is mentally taken over by Patrick. It's the
Lee Curtis. Both were written by Everett de best Carrie clone there is.
222
T H E GLOBAL P I C T U R E : HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E WORLD
Robert T h o m p s o n as Patrick, w h o in Richard Franklin's film of 1978 does not take things lying d o w n
Belgium
W h e n B e l g i u m has c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e horror genre, (1986) barely caused a blip on the international
it has usually b e e n w i t h a f i l m of n o t e . stage, unlike Man Bites Dog (1992), even though
H a r r y K u m e l made an early Seventies it had many characteristics that were typical of
splash with the chic, decadent and very elegant Belgian cinema: surrealism, documentary realism,
Daughters Of Darkness (1971), based on the reflexivity and a meaningful use of violence.
Countess Bathory myth, and the stunningly Co-directed by Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel
designed Malpertuis (1971), in which Orson and Benoit Poelvoorde, Man Bites Dog stars the
Welles corrals the Greek Gods and sews them latter as a freelance hit man going about his daily
into human skins. The comic Mama Dracula business, with Belvaux and Bonzel as characters in
(1980) and the necro-psychological horror Lucker the fly-on-the-wall documentary crew recording
223
THE GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND THE WORLD
his every move. Though detached at first from Fabrice Du Welz's international collabora-
the sudden slaughter that their camera captures, tion Calvaire (The Ordeal). Looking like the result
before long they help his thrill-killing spree. A of putting Deliverance, Delicatessen and Wrong Turn
sick satire on the media seeking to provide the through a Belgian blender, this hipster horror con-
goriest pictures that the public seem to want, the cerned an amateur cabaret singer who is forced to
shocker mixes dark philosophy with trenchant wit. stay in a remote guest house after breaking down
But then there's the infamous gang-rape scene, the en route to his next gig; the full terror dawns
moment when audiences stop laughing and start when the innkeeper embarks on his demented
looking away uncomfortably. That's the point of agenda. Graced with superb photography, Calvaire
this cleverly constructed slice of chilling irony. (meaning "martyrdom" in French) reverberated
After another fallow period, in 2004 came with the freshness of classic horror that had been
a further significant contribution to the genre, distorted though an offbeat European lens.
Brazil
B r a z i l i a n h o r r o r is J o s e M o j i c a M a r i n s , a l e g e n d film is O ritual dos sadicos (Awakening Of The
i n his n a t i v e c o u n t r y f o r i n v e n t i n g a n " a e s t h e t i c s Beast, 1970), a depraved nightmare about drug
o f g a r b a g e " s u b - g e n r e , i n w h i c h his evil a l t e r e g o experiments, which was banned by the Brazilian
Z e d o C a i x a o (literally " J o s e p h o f t h e G r a v e " , b u t government for almost twenty years.
k n o w n o u t s i d e Brazil a s " C o f f i n J o e " ) f e a t u r e s i n Marins's life had been transformed when,
movies, TV shows and comics and has even while living in the back of a cinema in Vila
s t o o d as a political candidate. Marins's cheaply Anastacio, Sao Paulo, he saw a dead man rise in
m a d e o f f b e a t m o v i e s t w i s t t o g e t h e r g o t h i c hor- the middle of his own wake. The local grocer
ror, d i s t u r b i n g E x p r e s s i o n i s m , d i s g u s t i n g s u r r e - had actually suffered a cataleptic fit, but what
alism, Sadeian sex and barbarism, and emerge the future samba composer and funeral parlour
uniquely weird and disorientating. owner saw put him on the road to fame as Ze
At the same time that Herschell Gordon Lewis do Caixao, the dandy undertaker and libertine
was getting gore flicks going in America with with long nails whose contempt for the world
Blood Feast (1963), Marins became disillusioned leads him to inflict torture and suffering on lesser
with the Catholic Church and expressed his frus- mortals. (Separating Marins from his human art
trations through film, using horrific and sexual counterpart is extremely difficult - though the
imagery to explore deeply personal and political equivalent would be Alfred Hitchcock being
issues and entering the field precisely because it fused with Norman Bates.)
was socially unacceptable. Marins's most extreme Marins began his horror career with the
224
violent and blasphemous A meia-noite levarei sua cadaver (Tonight I Will Eat Your Corpse, 1967). Also
alma [At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, 1963), about notable was Deltrios de um anormal (Hallucinations
a gravedigger searching for a woman to bear Of A Deranged Mind, 1978), a collage of disturb-
him a son; and although no one in Brazil had ing, bizarre and perverse scenes censored from
produced a horror film before, he had a huge hit. his earlier films.
The film made Ze do Caixao a bogeyman who Dogged by Draconian censorship and finan-
was used by parents to frighten their children, cial problems that compromised his artistic con-
and spawned the sequel Esta noite encarnarei no teu trol, in recent times Marins has worked mainly
as a director, hired by produc-
ers to helm their scripts. The
documentary Maldito — O estra-
nho mundo de Jose Mojica Marins
(Coffin Joe: The Strange World Of
Jose Mojica Marins, 2001) features
re-creations of his misfortunes
and his run-ins with authority.
The Strange World Of

Coffin Joe
dir Jose Mojica Marins, 1968,
Br, 80m, b/w
Coffin Joe introduces three tales of
terror already adapted for his TV show.
In The Doll Maker the main character
uses human eyes in his handiwork.
The wordless Obsession is a display
of necrophilia. And Ideology features
Marins as a human behaviour specialist
staging horrific re-creations to test out
his theories. Using real circus freaks
and vile documentary footage, and
ending with a cannibal banquet, the
final part of this moody trilogy is brutal
and shocking.
Coffin Joe in Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadaver (1967)
225
T H E GLOBAL P I C T U R E : HORROR MOVIES AROUND THE WORLD
The Czech Republic

The dark fairy tales of the Czech writer and But the small crown of Czech gothic horror
director Jan Svankmajer, often based on the cinema belongs to director Juraj Herz. Primarily
w o r k s of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de known in the West for his nauseous black com-
Sade, have received much critical attention edy Spalovac mrtvol (The Cremator, 1968), his two
and have been widely celebrated. A n d in recent horrors are Upir z Feratu (The Vampire Of Ferat,
t i m e s M a r e k D o b e s ' s Choking Hazard (2004) had 1981) and Morgiana (1971); the former has a
the distinction of being the Czech Republic's vampire car running on blood for fuel and the
first zombie movie; like Shaun Of The Dead, latter is based on the story Jessie And Morgiana by
r e l e a s e d in B r i t a i n t h a t s a m e year, it w a s a l s o a Aleksandr Grin, Russia's Edgar Allan Poe, and is a
romantic comedy. more elaborate version of Poe's The Black Cat.
France
The French might have had the best horror film All that changed during spring 2000 when,
magazine, Midi-Minuit Fantastique, but they cer- against all the odds, a locally produced hor-
tainly haven't had the industry to m a t c h . ror became a runaway hit and confounded the
Although notable titles did appear from time to watchdogs of French cinema. Lionel Delplanque's
time — such as Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique Promenons-nous dans les bois (Deep In The Woods)
(1954, see Canon), Georges Franju's Eyes Without was an adult version of Little Red Riding Hood,
A Face (1959, see Canon), Roger Vadim's Blood shot through with the stage-managed style of
And Roses (1960), Alain Jessua's Traitement de choc Tim Burton and the outre goriness of Dario
(Shock Treatment, 1973) and Jean Rollins sex-vam- Argento (see Icons). It put chic chills back into
pire output - horror movies were rarely made the nation's consciousness and single-handedly
in France. The director of Switchblade Romance kicked off Gallic horror production, for in rapid
(2003, see Canon), Alexandre Aja, explained: succession came Christophe Gans' elegant block-
"The problem with the French is they don't trust buster Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Pitof's Vidocq (both
their own language [when it comes to horror]. 2001), Julien Magnat's Bloody Mallory (2002), Eric
American horror movies do well, but in their own Valette's Maleftque (2003) and Pascal Laugier's
language, the French just aren't interested." Saint-Ange (2004).
226
Germany
Since some of the pioneers of American horror hit in Germany, having cleverly been given the
were veterans of Germany's film industry, such made-up rating "V for Violence". (In Britain
a s P e t e r L o r r e a n d Karl F r e u n d , a n d t h a n k s t o the film was banned and in America those who
s u c h s e m i n a l e a r l y o f f e r i n g s as The Cabinet Of might have needed them were issued with vomit
Dr Caligari (1919, see Canon) and Nosferatu bags that were marked with a tongue logo in
(1922, see Canon), the c o u n t r y is c o m m o n l y vivid red.)
a c k n o w l e d g e d as the birthplace of the horror The next significant horror movie emerged
film. when Ulli Lommel directed Zartlichkeit der Wolfe
So it is extraordinary that it was the novels, (Tenderness Of The Wolves, 1973), produced by
plays and short stories of British crime writer Rainer Werner Fassbinder, about a homosexual
Edgar Wallace that dominated German horror in mass murderer. Like Fritz Lang's M (1931), it was
the late Fifties. Nicknamed krimis, derived from based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann, who
taschenkrimi, the term for pocket crime novel, was executed in 1925 for the dismemberment and
the Wallace horror movies began in 1959 with cannibalism of at least forty boys. By never try-
Der Frosche mit der Maske (The Fellowship Of The ing to exploit its character or situations, Lommel
Frog), which was directed by Harald Reinl, who allowed terror to seep through slowly and quietly,
went on to specialize in the form. The best rec- and therefore more effectively. It was the director's
reations of Wallace's fictional universe, complete calling card for fame in America, which he first
with colourful masterminds, dapper detectives found with The Boogeyman (1980).
and lurking femme fatales, were Die toten Augen The complete opposite of the slow-burning
von London (Dead Eyes Of London, 1961) and Die Tenderness Of The Wolves was Jorg Buttgereit's in-
blaue Hand (Creature With The Blue Hand, 1967), your-face outrage Nekrornantik (1987). Daktari
both of which were directed by Alfred Vohrer, Lorenz and Beatrice Manowski (credited on this
starred Klaus Kinski and were promoted in film as Beatrice M) play the death-obsessed duo
other countries as all-out horrors. whose house is adorned with body parts col-
Christopher Lee (see Icons) often popped lected from road accidents and who find sexual
over the water to appear in Wallace adapta- fulfilment with the acquisition of a male cadaver.
tions, such as Das Geheimnis der delben Narzissen Buttgereit's raw 8mm taboo terror came com-
(The Devil's Daffodil, 1961); and in Reinl's Die plete with a warning that "Some of this film may
Schlangengrube und das Pendel (Blood Demon, be seen as offensive and shouldn't be shown to
1967), based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe, minors", and for once the caution was spot-on. A
Lee played the vampire Count Regula. Other sequel followed in 1991, after the original, banned
costume horrors, however, were few and far by the German government, proved popular on
between until Hexen bis aufs Blut gequaelt (Mark the festival circuit.
Of The Devil, 1970) stomped all competition into Matching Buttgereit for bad taste was
the ground, becoming a number one box-office Christoph Schlingensief with his Das Deutsche
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THE GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E WORLD
Kettensagen Massaker (The German Chainsaw loid. But ten years later, Stefan Ruzowitzky s
Massacre, 1991), a heavy-handed gore-fest that Anatomie (2000), the tale of an ancient secret soci-
embroidered scary fact. As the film relates, four ety renowned for its ruthless research on humans,
percent of the citizens who left their East starring superstar Franka Potente, became the
German homes on October 3, 1989, high on biggest box-office sensation in German horror
reunification promises, never appeared beyond history. Anatomie 2 followed in 2003.
the crumbling Berlin Wall. So what happened
Hexen bis aufs Blut gequaelt (Mark Of
to them? According to this account they were
The Devil)
turned into wurst by crazed cannibals eager for
Michael Armstrong, 1969, Ger, 97m
new sources of meat. Schlingensief went for
another reunification shocker with the neo-Nazi For a cheap horror exploiter this unbelievably gory voyage
Into witch-hunting in nineteenth-century Mitteleuropa is well
nightmare Terror 2000 (1992).
made and well performed. The spectacular scenery, like the
Meanwhile Michael Bergmann's campy My lush Eurovision score, adds contrast to the carnage, which
Lovely Monster (1990) was a vain attempt to marry serves as a vitriolic attack on the Church. The British-born
Germany's past and slapstick shock, with a silent director defended his sex-obsessed mutilations by saying
horror film character stuck in a Hamburg cinema "The worst sort of violence is the sort you don't look away
from."
wanting to turn himself into a piece of cellu-
M (1931), which was based on the same true story as Zartlichkeit der Wolfe (1973)
Hong Kong
Flying g h o s t s , h o p p i n g v a m p i r e s , living s k e l e t o n s , Mr Vampire rip-offs was Billy Chan's Crazy Safari
tree d e m o n s , killer t o n g u e s a n d o t h e r p o s s e s s e d (1991), which took the horror hopper to Africa to
b o d y p a r t s : all t h e s e a n d m o r e c a n b e f o u n d i n fight a tribal head possessed by the spirit of Bruce
horror f r o m Hong Kong. Lee. John Woo's favourite actor, Chow Yun-Fat,
Drawn from spiritual beliefs about bad luck, fate appeared in two similar productions.
and respect for the ancestral dead, all of which are The country's horrors took a more serious
present in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, turn when Hark Tsui, after directing the can-
the regions horror films began with Li Beihai's nibal comedy Diyu wu men (We Are Going To Eat
Yamzhi (1925). Five decades on Hammer tried fus- You, 1981), made the epic ghost story Zu: Warriors
ing their own gothic sensibility with the martial From The Magic Mountain (1983).Then, in 1987 he
arts movie craze popularized by the Shaw Brothers, was the producer behind A Chinese Ghost Story
in Roy Ward Baker's The Legend Of The Seven — the first Hong Kong horror to make any proper
Golden Vampires (1974), in which Professor Van impression in the West. It told of an impoverished
Helsing (Peter Cushing) lifts an undead curse from monk in love with a spirit enslaved by a demon;
the village of Ping Kuei, but after "the first kung-fu to please her he faces decapitated heads, screaming
horror spectacular", a co-production trend did not skulls and a life-sucking giant tongue. Beautifully
develop and there was a return to Hong Kong's shot, with visual flair and dynamism, it reinvigo-
traditional terrors, where hell is a fog-shrouded rated the genre with its poetic approach to the
limbo stuffed with desperate souls waiting for an supernatural. Two official sequels followed in 1990
opportunity for reincarnation. and 1991, but by then the market had been glutted
The country's horror cycle really began with with imitations, including Rouge (1987), produced
Sammo Hung's comedy Gui da gui (Spooky by Jackie Chan; the best of the bunch is King
Encounters, 1980), which featured a zombie-vampire Hu's Painted Skin (1992).
hybrid as a kyonsi (hopping ghost) of Chinese folk- As the Chinese repossession of Hong Kong
lore — and was an enormous but surprise hit. Hung loomed in 1997, many of the biggest names in
reworked the formula of ghoulishness, action and horror there went to America. Before Ronny
low comedy in The Dead And The Deadly (1982), Yu emigrated, however, he directed two elegant
Hocus Pocus (1984) and the inevitable Spooky The Bride With The White Hair horrors (both
Encounters 2 (1989), and cash-ins on his success 1993), featuring lashings of blood and lethal hair
include John Woo's satanic pact farce To Hell With tendrils. Hark Tsui's Green Snake (1993) told of
The Devil (1981) and Lau Kai-Wing's Till Death love between a human and a serpent. By far the
Do We Scare (1982), which featured the work of biggest box-office success in this period, however,
make-up genius Tom Savini. But Hung followed was the anthology Troublesome Night (1997), with
up best on his success, by producing and working eighteen sequels to date, generally warning callow
as a director on the kyonsi series that started with youth about the dire supernatural consequences of
Mr Vampire (1985). One of the more outrageous disrespecting the dead.
229
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), which showed a poetic approach to the supernatural
Yin yang lu (Troublesome Night) driver who loses her way while she is trying to contact
her unfaithful husband via telephone. The third features
dir Wai-Man Cheng, Long-Cheung Tarn & Herman
a supernatural seduction and the fourth is based on a
Yau, 1997, HK, 98m haunted cinema. With the same characters turning up in
This comedy horror consists of a raconteur telling four each different twilight zone, the accent is more on comic
strange.tales. In the first, six campers narrate spooky cleverness than gory fright, but it remains good creepy fun
stories with help from actual ghosts. The second has a throughout.
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India and Pakistan

P o p u l a r w i t h t h e u r b a n p o o r a n d i n rural areas, ke neeche (Two Yards Under the Ground, 1972),
B o l l y w o o d horror movies feature higher rations which concerned a murdered man w h o is
of sex, b l o o d and g u t s than m o s t chaste m a i n - chemically revived, the family operation con-
stream releases, but in order to cover as many centrated exclusively on horror during the next
bases as possible, they also, of course, have two decades. Darwaza (The Door, 1978) opened
singing and dancing. the way for them to become the most pro-
The earliest Indian horrors were intended lific purveyors of Hindi horror, and their Parana
not to scare but to give love stories strange new mandir (The Old Temple, 1984), which told of a
dimensions, and revolved around themes of rein- curse placed on the female members of a rich
carnation and rebirth; the most famous is Kamal middle-class family, was a massive success that
Amrohi's Mahal (1949), which features Ashok characterized Eighties Bollywood horror. Hit
Kumar moving into a haunted mansion, and this after hit followed, including Saamri (Satan, 1985)
was the first major movie to feature the concept in 3-D and the Dracula-inspired Bandh darwaza
of lost souls. (The Closed Door, 1990).
Bollywood horror entered a mini boom in The Ramsays had a successful formula: plots
the mid-Seventies, led by Raj Kumar Kohli's that revolved around evil spirits and deformed
Nagin (Tire Female Snake, 1976), about the bloody creatures terrorizing villages, and as much sex and
revenge of a shape-shifting serpent after her mate nudity as the censors would allow. They rarely
is killed. A big success, it was followed by Kohli's used other recipes, until turning their attention
werewolf shocker Jaani dushman (Beloved Enemy, to television with The Zee Horror Show (1993),
1979) — but this time the cursed creature preys on which in theory left an opportunity for other
young brides dressed in the traditional red wed- directors. Despite a proliferation of low-grade
ding ceremony outfit. Then Padmini Kolhapure horror from India since the start of the decade,
played the possessed child in the best of the films it's less ambitious, and it's doubtful that the
inspired by The Exorcist, Gehrayee (Depth, 1980), country's horror output will reach the heights of
and the American slasher trend inspired superstar the Ramsay era again.
Rajesh Khanna to play a serial killer in Bharathi
Rajaa's Red Rose (1980). Seen as highly misogy- Zinda laash (The Living Corpse)
nistic, it triggered protests by Indian feminists, at dir Khwaja Sarfraz, 1967, Pakistan, 103m, b/w
the same time that Dressed To Kill did in the West, The only Pakistani horror of note, this obscure "Lollywood"
but it did not prevent Khanna from returning to oddity - Dracula In Pakistan, as it was called in America
the horror genre. - put local censors in such a tizzy that virtually no
more Pakistani-based horror has been made. Set in
But the Bollywood B-movie horror was contemporary times, and inspired by the atmosphere of
defined by the Ramsay Brothers, the most Hammer - the main actor, Rehan, even looks a bit like
notable among them being the director Tulsi Christopher Lee - the narrative features well-placed pieces
Ramsay. After their initial success, Do gaz zameen of Urdu music.
231
Indonesia
Movie production in the world's largest a r c h i - One of its most adept practitioners was H.
pelago w a s initially a i m e d a t t h e w o r k i n g c l a s s e s Tjut Djalil, who directed the few Indonesian
who lived i n t h e small villages. Intended only horrors that were released internationally. But Leak
for local consumption, all Indonesian movies (Mystics In Bali, 1981) and Jaka Sembung & Bergola
produced through the mid-century decades of Ijo (Warrior 2, 1985), the latter starring Barry Prima
conflict, chaos and corruption were indigestible as the popular comic-based Robin Hood hero Jaka
m i x t u r e s o f v i o l e n c e , sentimentality, k n o c k a b o u t Sembung, were considered too narrow in appeal,
c o m e d y a n d m u s i c . This c h a n g e d i n t h e Seventies so in his next movie Djalil took the unprecedented
when imports from America swamped the movie step of casting an American lead and filming in the
h o u s e s ; d i s t r i b u t o r s w e r e f o r c e d into h o m e - g r o w n concrete jungle of downtown Jakarta.
p r o d u c t i o n b e c a u s e f o r every m o v i e t h e y m a d e The outcome was Lady Terminator (1988), which
t h e y w e r e given a license to release five A m e r i c a n was hugely controversial (because of the plentiful
ones. A n d what were the cheapest movies to pro- nudity) and massively successful, faring extremely
duce? Horrors. well overseas while the video industry blossomed.
It is considered that the first Western-style It features the most feared queen of them all, the
horror film to be produced in Indonesia was sexually rapacious Queen of the South Seas, who
Beranak dalam kubur (Birth In The Tomb, 1972); lives in a palace on the ocean floor and summons
it starred Suzzanna, "the Queen of Indonesian drowned studs to service her wanton needs: "She
Horror", who made her name specializing in mates ... then she terminates," read the memorable
roles of Indian-derived terror deities such as poster tagline. Djalil followed it with Dangerous
the Snake Queen and the White Crocodile Seductress (1992), which had almost the same story;
Queen. Suzzanna's most famous horrors include this time the Queen of Darkness possesses an
Ratu ihnu hitam (Queen Of Black Magic, 1979), American tourist.
Sundelbolong (Ghost With Hole, 1982)' and Nyi Other popular horrors to make it abroad
blorong (The Hungry Snake Woman, 1982). were El Badrun s The Devil's Sword (1984) and,
These featured weird witchcraft and mystical by Sisworo Gautama Putra, the cannibal flick
martial arts rooted in deep cultural traditions, with Primitif (Savage Terror, 1978) and Pengabdi Setan
cheapjack special effects and geysers of ludicrously (Satan's Slave, 1982), which was inspired by the
staged gore courtesy of El Badrun, the local Tom American movie Phantasm (1979). By the mid-
Savini. Heads float off bodies with entrails attached, Nineties, however, the boom was over, because the
based on the myth of the penanggalan, a woman flailing dictatorship of General Suharto saw horrors
murdered in prayer who spreads disease via her as politically threatening; the Devil was a thinly
exposed innards; flying torsos are chopped up in veiled allegory for the rule of the Government.
mid-air; and villains are transformed into every- More recently the rise in digital video movies has
thing from snakes to wild boars. Indonesian horror had an impact on Indonesia, with the $30,000
was a clutter of everything trashy. Ouija Board (2004) a reasonable success.
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THE GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E W O R L D
Italy
Italy's p i v o t a l i m p o r t a n c e t o h o r r o r i s c o v e r e d Canon) inspired many directors to move towards
e x t e n s i v e l y i n t h e History, C a n o n a n d I c o n s c h a p - his style.
ters. Italy is of course also responsible for the mondo
Italy has periodically revived horror around films, the famous "shockumentaries" which fea-
the world via films such as Riccardo Freda's I tured depraved archive footage; most notable was
Vampiri (Lust Of The Vampire, 1956). Mario Bava Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (1979,
(see Icons), who helped to direct it, also made the see Canon). And Italy kick-started the Eighties
first giallo thriller, The Evil Eye (1962), a format exploitation revival, with Zombie Flesh-Eaters
developed by the legendary Dario Argento (1979), directed by Lucio Fulci.These are but a
(see Icons), in his debut The Bird With The Crystal few of the many influential Italian directors and
Plumage (1970). Argento's Suspiria (1976, see classic movies covered elsewhere in this book.
Japan
As is clear f r o m the History chapter, Japanese Kasane Swamp), ba sed on a nineteenth-century
h o r r o r has relied heavily o n g h o s t s t o r i e s , o f t e n vampire tale, and similarly, two years later came
s e e n in k a b u k i t h e a t r e . his vampire film Onna Kyuketsuki (The Lady
These kaidan eiga arrived on the postwar Vampire) and Morihei Magatani's The Blood Sword
global film scene when Keisuke Kinoshita turned Of The 99th Virgin. But national themes were
an 1825 kabuki play into ShinshakuYotsuya kaidan still influential, as was evident in the the Sixties
(The Ghost of Yotsuya - New Version, 1949); the through the classics Onibaba (The Hole, 1964, see
most renowned adaptation, however, was Nobuo Canon), which told of destitute peasants, Kwaidan
Nakagawa's in 1959. In between came Kenji (Ghost Story, 1964), which was based on domestic
Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari (Tale of the Pale ghost stories, and Kuroneko (The Black Cat, 1968),
And Mysterious Moon After The Rain, 1953), based which featured the Japanese female cat vampire.
on domestic ghost stories, which reached a wide Eventually the kaidan eiga became less popu-
audience at the Venice Film Festival in 1953. lar and the influence of Western horrors rose,
In the Fifties and Sixties international themes as could be seen in the increase in films like
began to affect the domestic film industry: in Yoshiyuki Kuroda's Yokai daisenso (Great Monster
1957 Nakagawa made Kaidan Kasanegafuchi (The War. 1968) and Michio Yamamoto's Seventies
233
vampire trilogy, including Chi o suit me (Lake Of for the home market. It was only when Hideo
Dracula, 1971). From the Sixties onwards there was Nakata's Ringu (The Ring, 1998) and Takashi
more fusing of genres, too, which often meant that Miike's Audition (1999), both of which combined
ghosts were combined with gore. strains of Western horror with an oriental feel,
Also influential have been manga (comics), and reached foreign shores that Japanese horror broke
this was particularly so in the Eighties, as was clear in out again. The American remake of Ringu in 2002
films such as Vampire Hunter D (1985). But during was a huge hit and inspired many similar adap-
the Eighties and Nineties, when animation also be- tations while also making it easier for Japanese
came more popular, the country's various sub-genres directors such as Kinji Fukasuku (Battle Royale,
were still made predominantly 2000) to reach an international audience.
Malaysia and Singapore

I t w a s n ' t j u s t Universal a n d H a m m e r w h o s t r u c k is later dispatched by a nail through her head. It
box-office g o l d with the vampire formula: so did was a box-office phenomenon, and Rao quickly
the film industry of Malaysia and Singapore. The followed it with sequels. (Meanwhile Filipino
Malay culture has many supernatural creatures, director R a m o n Estella hopped aboard the
a n d t h e s t u d i o s m a d e a m o n e y - s p i n n i n g series bandwagon with further pontianak films, each
out of the revenant pontianak, a mythological containing violent horror suspense along with
female vampire, taking the form of a night o w l , humorous song and dance routines.)
w h o is t h e s t i l l b o r n c h i l d of a langsuyar a n d s u c k s Such moneymaking led to a new Malay
infant b a b i e s ' b l o o d ; t h e langsuyar is t h e g h o s t of monster, the "oily man", a slippery spirit who
a w o m a n w h o died in childbirth. hypnotizes women into submission, rapes them
The golden age for these movies, produced while they are transfixed by his bewitching stare
by arms of the Hong Kong studios of the Shaw and then leaps through the air to vanish into the
Brothers and Cathay, was from 1957 to 1965, night; the character appeared in various films
and Balkrishna Narayan Rao's Pontianak (The during this period, including L. Krishnan's Orang
Vampire, 1957) began the trend. Shot in black and minyak (Oily Man, 1958). Attempts to revive
white, it concerned a hunchback village outcast, the pontianak genre, such as Pontianak (1975),
played by beauty queen Maria Menado, who is by director/producer Roger Sutton, and the
transformed by magic into a gorgeous sex bomb. modern-day Return To Pontianak (aka Voodoo
Marrying the local catch, when she sucks venom Nightmare, 2000), by Ong Lay Jinn (aka Djinn),
from his snakebite, she becomes the vampire; she have not been successful.
234
Mexico
In the 1930s only the United States produced more Dracula in Mexico City, which featured wonder-
horror movies than Mexico. ful sets, a great atmosphere and marvellous direc-
The main spur was the Spanish-language tion by Fernando Mendez, who like everyone
Dracula (1931), though it was a cacophony to involved in the nuevo horror had a wealth of film
Mexican ears because of the international cast, experience behind him. Salazar himself played
with Carlos Villarias, the nearest Mexico had the Van Helsing figure Dr Enrique, and there was
at the time to a star like Bela Lugosi, as Conde a terrific performance from German Robles,
Dracula. Immediately after this classic, films such the Mexican Christopher Lee, as Count Karol
as La llorona (The Crying Woman, 1933) and El de Lavud, who seduces the sexy owner of a haci-
fantasma del convento (Phantom Of The Convent, enda to reach his undead brother buried below;
1934) hit home with a different formula by mix- and everyone returned for the sequel, El ataud
ing supernatural twists with indigenous cultural del vampiro (The Vampire's Coffin, 1958). Robles
experiences — mainly breakdowns of trust. then found himself another vampire franchise
In the middle of the decade, the popular with La maldicion de Nostradamus (The Curse Of
theme, in films including El misterio del rostro pdlido Nostradamus, 1960), which was cut down from a
(The Mystery Of The Ghastly Face, 1935), starring ten-part TV series, and its sequels.
Villarias, El superloco (The Crazy Nut, 1936), and Torture, the Inquisition, comets, astronomers,
Herencia Macabra (The Macabre Legacy, 1939) was of and a brain-sucking 300-year-old demon fea-
normality being corrupted by outside forces. By tured in another Robles/Salazar cult favourite, El
1939, when El signo de la muerte (Sign Of Death) was baron del terror (The Brainiac, 1962). Famous for its
made, comedy had began to dominate the horror deliberately artificial special effects and interiors
film — as it did in its US counterpart — with fun- on the insistence of director Chano Urueta, who
nyman Cantinflas taking centre stage, and the first hated being reduced to horror films to make a
age of Mexican horror came to a close. living, it was precisely that outre atmosphere that
Just like everywhere else in the mid-Fifties, made it work. Rafael Baledon's La maldicion de la
film audiences declined because of television llorona (The Curse Of The Crying Woman, 1961)
and cheaper movies became the order of the day. was Salazar's swansong, and masterpiece: the
The producer and former matinee idol Abel legendary tale of the woman cursed to eternally
Salazar saw the writing on the wall. He looked search for her dead children contained a mon-
for inspiration towards Hammer and back at the tage of sequences culled from his entire horror
Universal monster factory and put into produc- catalogue.
tion a canny series of hybrid shockers that were The horror craze continued with films such
permeated with European Catholic traditions as Echenme al vampiro (Bring Me A Vampire, 1959)
but also steeped in macabre Mexican folklore. and Muhecos infernales (Curse Of The Doll People,
Salazar's first genre offering was the no- 1961), and running alongside in popularity were
brainer El vampiro (The Vampire, 1957), essentially movies starring the comic-book superhero and
235
silver-masked wresder Santo (born Rodolfo

Guzman Huerta). When both genres began to
show signs of fatigue they were combined into
one, the supernatural Santo series beginning with
Atacan las brujas (Santo Attacks The Witches, 1965).
Santo also appeared with the famous wrestler
Blue Demon (Alejandro Cruz) in Santo y Blue
Demon contra los monstruos (Santo And Blue Demon
Vs The Monsters, 1969).
A veteran of the Santo movies was actor and
director Rene Cardona, whose variable horror
career encompassed making two of the sleaziest
shockers of all time - the notorious video nasty
La horripilante bestia humana (Night Of The Bloody
Apes, 1968), and the most widely released of his
films, Supervivientes de los Andes (Survive!, 1976),
the true story of plane-crash survivors forced to
eat their dead compatriots. Cardona later turned
the genre over to his son Rene Cardona Jr, who
carried on in the same dubious tradition with the
Jaws rip-off Tintorera (1977) and the Birds rip-
off El ataque de los pdjaros (Evil Birds, 1987). The
dynasty continues with Rene Cardona III, who
made Vacaciones de terror (Vacations Of Terror, 1988)
and its sequel in 1990.
While the Cardonas were barely raising the
genre above the bargain basement, the surreal-
ist Panic Theatre group, including Juan Lopez
M o c t e z u m a and Alejandro Jodorowsky,
thought differently: their aim was to "create
a whirlpool of emotion to break down rigid
structures of perception". Jodorowsky certainly
did that with his mega (and the first) "mid-
night movie", which played in New York and
then around the United States, the cult epic El
Topo (The Mole, 1970); and Moctezuma tried
to duplicate it with La mansion de la locura (Dr
Tarr's Torture Dungeon, 1972), which was set in
Axel Jodorowksy (right) in Santa Sangre (1989), the an asylum run by the lunatics who have locked
last great Mexican horror movie up their keepers and was loosely based on the
236
Edgar Allan Poe story The System Of Dr Tarr will never forget. My psyche is full of graves and
And Professor Feather. Moctezuma's convent-set I merged them with an actual murderer's reality
vampire tale Alucarda (1978) later went all out to direct it. But God really made Santa Sangre; I
for sex and gore. was just a pawn in the accident."
It was Jodorowsky who directed the last great
Mexican horror movie, Santa Sangre (1989), La horripilante bestia humana (Night
which was produced by Dario Argento's brother Of The Bloody Apes)
Claudio. It tells the story of deranged circus dir René Cardona, 1968, Mex, 83m
performer Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky, the director's One of the film's alternative titles, Horror And Sex, sums
son), and his armless mother, with a shocking up this cheap, madcap remake of the director's own Las
luchadoras contra el medico asesino (Doctor Of Doom,
message that murder leads to a state of graceful
1962), which is spiced up by nudity, women wrestlers and
redemption. A sublime tapestry of challenging actual heart-transplant footage. Dr Martinez (Armando
emotions, Santa Sangre is a signature Mexican Silvestre) puts a gorilla's heart into his dying son's body
arthouse horror."I will shoot you with celluloid," and says "I was prepared for everything but this" as he's
said Jodorowsky. "Wound you with images you reanimated into a hairy deformed killer. Chiller con carne.
The Netherlands
"From t h e s h o r t story of t h e s a m e n a m e in Flemish known Dutch horrors are directed by rock video
Tales by Pieter Van Weigen", boast the open- whiz kid Dick Maas. His debut feature, De lift
ing credits for the Euro-horror // mulino delle (The Lift, 1983), dealt with an evil elevator that
donne di pietra [Mill Of The Stone Women, 1960). raised the hackles with scenes of claustrophobia
T h e w i n d m i l l - t u r n e d - w a x m u s e u m has a fairy-tale and decapitation; and he remade it as Down (aka
a t m o s p h e r e , b u t n o s u c h v o l u m e ever e x i s t e d , a n d The Shaft, 2001). Both Amsterdamned (1988) and
even t h o u g h t h e D u t c h have a rich fairy-tale t r a d i - Do Not Disturb (1999) swapped the slasher play-
t i o n - The Entangled Mermaid, The Princess With ground of summer camps for the Dutch canal
Twenty Petticoats, Why The Stork Loves Holland system, the former famously opening with the
- their f e w horror f i l m s resemble thrillers, layered suspended body of a mutilated prostitute trailing
w i t h s t a n d a r d chiller c o n v e n t i o n s like Italian gialli. blood over a glass-topped boat.
With the exceptions of The Fourth Man The quirkiest of all the country's horrors is
(1983), a mysterious and macabre tale full of Rudolf van den Berg's The Johnsons (1992); only
symbolism from Paul Verhoeven before he in liberal Holland could shivers be contrived from
joined the Hollywood mainstream, and George merging underage sex and surreal horror. The
Sluizer's Spoorloos (The Vanishing, 1988), the best- plot concerns the legend from an Indian tribe of
237
THE G L O B A L PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND T H E WORLD
a girl giving birth to a monster that will destroy man- obsessed Rex is finally given the chance to learn the
kind, and supernatural mumbo-jumbo never looked so horrifying truth by meek sociopath Raymond. Devoid of
flashiness or stylish pretension, Spoorloos takes time
good nor carried its Freudian psychology into such
to develop its characters, but is unusual for being a
hauntingly weird areas. psychological shocker that delivers a climactic sucker
punch. The director's misconceived Hollywood remake
Spoorloos (The Vanishing) in 1993 trampled over everything that made his original
dir George Sluizer, 1988, Neth/Fr, 106m so potent and tacked on a gory and ridiculous happy
Three years after his girlfriend suddenly vanishes, ending.
New Zealand
N e w Z e a l a n d has g i v e n t h e h o r r o r w o r l d Peter Girl (1990) and Moonrise (1991), did nothing to
J a c k s o n (see Icons), but before he broke the promote his career.
m o u l d w i t h S a d Tasfe (1988), t h e h i g h p o i n t o f t h e Other notable New Zealand productions
c o u n t r y ' s t e r r o r w a s M i c h a e l Laughlin's Strange include Gaylene Preston's Dark Of The Night (aka
Behaviour (aka Dead Kids, 1981), about a mad Mr Wrong, 1985), John Day's The Returning (1990),
doctor's mind experiments. It was followed by Garth Maxwell's clairvoyant slasher Jack Be Nimble
S a m Pillsbury's The Scarecrow (1982), w h i c h w a s (1993), starring Alexis Arquette, and Greg Page's
based on a novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson, the The Locals (2003). In the wake of Peter Jackson's
nearest t h a t N e w Z e a l a n d has to a h o r r o r writer. defection to Hollywood, Scott Reynolds' The
The New Zealand horror tradition really began Ugly (1997), about a mental patient incited to kill
with David Blyth's Death Warmed Up (1984), the by supernatural entities, shook up the moribund
first film in the genre to be financed by the coun- industry again.
try's Film Commission. Inspiring Peter Jackson's Reynolds's psychic thriller Heaven (1998) and
later gore frenzies, Blyth's punk chiller, full of burn- his tension-filled twister When Strangers Appear
ing torsos, exploding heads and brain surgery, charts (2001) are just as bizarre and interesting. Glenn
the revenge taken on a genetic surgeon who has Standring followed in Reynolds's footsteps with
turned patients at his island hospital into mutant The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (2000), in
zombie killing machines. Blyth said, "I wanted an which an anthropologist becomes the target of
outrageous and grotty approach. I didn't care that a satanic sect. It was the first horror film in the
the special effects looked tacky - they captured country's history to make a profit through global
the underlying spirit of the film. I wanted it to be pre-sales alone, before it was released anywhere,
the New Zealand equivalent of The Evil Dead'.' and this allowed Standring to helm the postmod-
Blyth's vampire follow-ups, Red Blooded American ern vampire myth Perfect Creature (2005).
238
The Ugly into past crimes that has repercussions on the present
dir Scott Reynolds, 1997, NZ, 91m when the perpetrator says he's coerced by supernatural
"visitors". A uniquely designed, stylish chiller with imaginative
Can a celebrity lawyer get inside the head of a serial killer to metaphors, which shows the killer's perspective - all the
see if he's still insane? The Ugly - the name comes from a deaths are drenched in black blood - it's a tension-filled
torn page of The Ugly Duckling - goes on a horrific journey original.
The Philippines
The most notable of the many horror films made in distributing in America many of the exploitation
t h e P h i l i p p i n e s i n t h e Fifties, S i x t i e s a n d S e v e n t i e s f i l m s of Filipino p r o d u c e r Cirio H. S a n t i a g o , s u c h
by director/producer Eddie Romero and Gerardo as t h e C h a r l e s B. Griffith c r e a t u r e f e a t u r e Up From
de Leon were the Blood trilogy of joint US/ The Depths (1979). But despite the familiarity
F i l i p i n o p r o d u c t i o n s , Mad Doctor Of Blood Island, w i t h t h e s e s h o c k e r s , virtually n o t h i n g w a s k n o w n
Brides Of Blood ( b o t h 1968) a n d Beast Of Blood a b o u t t h e h o m e l a n d h o r r o r industry.
(1971). F o r e i g n a u d i e n c e s also b e c a m e f a m i l i a r It had begun in the silent era with Ang
w i t h Filipino b a c k d r o p s after R o g e r C o r m a n (see manananggal (The Viscera Sucking Witch, 1927) and
Icons) g o t i n o n t h e act b y c o - p r o d u c i n g a n d variations on the aswang (witch) theme appeared
throughout the following decades, in films such
as Mang Tano, nuno ng mga aswang (Mr Tano, Elder
Mysterious islands Of The Witches, 1932). And there are two fur-
ther sub-genres of Filipino horror: the occult
Placing action on uncharted islands, usually with
ghost story and the slasher thriller. The latter
tropical jungles, is the easiest way to establish a
strange eco-system, either human or animal, that
appeared after the American vanguard in the
will face the unwary castaway. The classic situation Seventies, and when they did they were mainly
of being trapped on an island, and having no option gory, sexed-up versions of true stories, in which
but to fight the unknown, features in Island Of Lost a poor tortured female was the victim of a rich
Souls, The Most Dangerous Game (both 1932), privileged abuser. Carlo Caparas's The My ma
King Kong (1933), fete Of The Dead (1945), The Diones Story, Lord Have Mercy (1993) starred
Flesh Eaters (1961), Tower Of Evil (1971), Zombie
Kris A q u i n o , daughter of the former President,
Flesh-Eaters (1979) and It's Alive III: Island Of The
Cory Aquino, who soon became known as "the
Alive (1986). Islands are very rarely used as actual
locations because of shooting difficulties, but usu-
Massacre Queen", and in 2004 she starred in
ally an establishing shot does the trick. one of the biggest Filipino successes of all time,
the Ringu-inspired Feng Shut.
239
Mad Doctor Of Blood Island (1968), the first in a famous trilogy of US/Filipino productions
That hit forms part of the trajectory of the rial debut, Itim (Black, 1976), which features the
occult ghost story, which always features unre- vengeful spirit of a failed abortion and contains
solved issues haunting the present. A n t o n i o Jose masterful imagery and an atmosphere that is flam-
Perez's Haplos (Caress, 1982) is representative boyantly creepy.
of the cycle, with its poltergeist plot concerning But the most prevalent Filipino genre is the
friends reunited. The country's colourful Spanish aswang movie, which was particularly popular in
past lent costume flair to Armando Garces s Maruja the Nineties, with productions including Aswang
(1967), a spectre romance in the style of Romeo (1992), directed by Peque Gallaga and Lore
And Juliet; based on a nineteenth-century novel Reyes, and Don Escudero's Impakto (The Devil,
by national hero Jose Rizal, Maruja was remade 1996), which has a doctor's wife bearing a child
in 1978 and 1995, but the best entry in the occult who turns out to be a bloodsucking devil. That
ghost story sub-genre is Mike de Leon's directo- aswang variation bears the name tiyanak; others are
240
the mandurugo (vampire), the manananggal (the man- when holidaymakers inadvertently summon a gang
eating were-beast), the mangkukulam (evil-eyed of malevolent spirits via a Ouija board, and in Yam
witch), the kapre (tree giant) and the nuno sa punso Laranas's Sigaw (Scream, 2004) apartment block
(anthill dwarf).The folkloric myths have all featured residents are as trapped by their own frailty as they
in horrors, including Sa piling ng aswang (With The are by the confined space and the ghosts that haunt
Witch, 1999), also by Gallaga and Reyes, who have the place. "I want the audience to bring home their
been the key figures behind the longest running fear," said Laranas. "To be afraid of being left alone
horror franchise in Filipino history, the Shake, Rattle in their house or in their room, to feel a chill when
And Roll series, which began in 1984 and includes they walk in empty dark corridors."
five sequels; each consists of horror and comedy
revolving around aswangs, curses and ghosts. Aswang (The Unearthing)
Recendy, the success of Feng Shui has encour- dir Wrye Martin & Barry Poltermann, 1994, US, 82m
aged local filmmakers to come up with more ghost Directors from Wisconsin adapt Filipino folklore in this mean
tales, such as Pasiyam (Nine Days, 2004), the title and moody Lynchian Evil Dead/Texas Chainsaw hybrid
about unwed pregnant Kat (Tina Ona Paukstelis) agreeing to
referring to the traditional period of prayer for the
give up her offspring to Peter (Norman Moses) and pose as
deceased, to prevent the soul from wandering on his wife to fulfil the conditions of his inheritance. But, as she
earth and disturb the living. In Jose Javier Reyes's learns too late, it's all set up so that her unborn baby can be
Spirit Of The Glass (2004) a beach trip goes awry sacrificed to a foetus-eating vampire, Gritty and grimy.
Poland
The international praise w o n b y R o m a n Polanski, revisited, and in particular Jewish experiences of
b o r n in France b u t raised in P o l a n d , f o r Repulsion the Holocaust.
(1965) a n d Rosemary's Baby (1968) m e a n t t h a t dur- Better known outside Poland than the work
ing t h e late Sixties Polish horror w a s in t h e s p o t l i g h t of Has were the films of Walerian Borowczyk,
f o r t h e first t i m e . and in particular Contes immoraux (Immoral Tales,
The film that received the most attention was 1974), a quartet of stories that included two
Wojciech Has's Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie historically based tales of evil. Erzsehet Bdthory
(Tire Saragossa Manuscript, 1965), which was based featured Paloma Picasso, daughter of Pablo, as
on a story of a military captain's descent into the infamous Countess Dracula, who bathed in
hell, and later came Sanatorium pod klepsydra (The virgins' blood to keep young, and Lucrezia Borgia
Sandglass, 1973), in which doctors conquer death starred Florence Bellamy enjoying heretic sex
by slowing down time, allowing past events to be and torture. Borowczyk's Beauty And The Beast
241
fable The Beast (1975) garnered a horror fol- doomed relationships and metaphysical evil, was
lowing more for being an erotic nightmare than repulsive. Zulawski returned to the theme of
anything else, and Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (Dr a monstrous entity encroaching upon human
Jekyll And His Women, 1981) starred U d o Kier relationships in the supernatural Szamanka (The
as a crueller version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Shaman, 1996).
Victorian villain, terrorizing women with a
phallus-shaped knife. Blood-soaked and highly Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (The
graphic, it was, like The Beast, censored heavily Saragossa Manuscript)
by the authorities. dir Wojciech Has, 1965, Pol, 124m, b/w
Censors around the world were also given Count Jan Potocki's sprawling early-nineteenth-century
headaches by Andrzej Zulawski. When novel about a military captain's descent into hell was
adapted by Has Into an ambitious and intellectually
Possession (1981) was launched at the Cannes demanding exploration of the occult. With an experimental
Film Festival, many critics were stunned during score by Krzysztof Penderecki, who features on the
the sequence where Isabelle Adjani gives birth soundtracks for The Exorcist and The Shining, it contains
to a full-grown man after making love to a slimy moments of true horror, including the scene where the
monster (created by H. R. Giger of Alien fame), captain wakes up in a satanic landscape filled with
skeletons and hanging bodies.
and for some the whole film, an allegory about
Russia
Russian c i n e m a has a l w a y s s e e n horror a s a n poem than full-blooded horror, the film drew a
unacceptable genre, preferring i n s t e a d t o use cult following.
m o m e n t s of horror in other kinds of films, includ- It was followed by Yevgeny Yufit's Papa, umer
ing a d a p t a t i o n s of w o r k s by Aleksandr Grin, ded moroz (Daddy, Father Frost Is Dead, 1992) which
a n d of Nikolai G o g o l ' s Viy, t h e v a m p i r e tale t h a t concerned a psychic biologist who witnesses
M a r i o B a v a t u r n e d i n t o Black Sunday (1960, see bizarre events, from his son's suicide to suburban
Canon). sado-masochism and during the mid-Nineties the
The movie advertised as "the first Russian Gorky studio embarked on a series of low-budget
horror film" was Oleg Teptsov's Gospodin horrors, but they all failed to find an audience.
oformitel (Mister Designer, 1988), which starred However, Nikolai Lebedev's Zmeinyi istochnik (The
Viktor Avilov as an artist daring to challenge Snake Spring, 1997) and Aleksei Balabanov's Pro
God by bringing a doll to life, and being pun- urodov i lyudey (Of Freaks And Men, 1998) led to a
ished for. his sins. More a philosophical tone watershed moment for Russian horror in 2004.
242
Timur Bekmambetov's Night Watch, the has ever produced. Various elements of the smash
first part of a trilogy based on Sergei Lukyanenko's hit show the impact of Westernization - its CGI
novel about a battle between the forces control- enhancement and rock video style of direction
ling night-time and daytime, out-stripped Spider- make it similar to Hollywood blockbusters - and
Man 2 at the Russian box office and became the it is set to be followed by Day Watch and then
biggest success that the country's film industry Dusk Watch.
Scandinavia
T h e Norse m y t h s o f S w e d e n , Finland, N o r w a y a n d the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague, and
D e n m a r k c o m e m a i n l y f r o m t h e Icelandic E d d a s , The Devil's Eye (1960), in which the Devil sum-
which were written d o w n a few centuries before mons Don Juan from Hell to seduce a virgin. And
Christianity r e a c h e d t h e s e territories. B u t w h i l e t h e similar satanic themes have been made clear in
c r e a t u r e s of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord
Of the Rings o w e t h e m s e l v e s to t h e s e
sagas, the few Scandinavian horror films
t h a t exist rarely i n v o k e similar i m a g e s .
Ingmar Bergman's Jungf'rukdllan
(The Virgin Spring, 1960) is a case in
point. It's more a revenge story, with a
father reverting from Christian faith to
paganism, to slaughter the brothers who
raped and murdered his naive daughter.
Wes Craven (see Icons) stole the motors
of Bergman's masterpiece for his pow-
erful shocker The Last House On The
Left (1972).
The tension between paganism and
Christianity, revealing a deep-rooted
Scandinavian cultural fear usually evi-
dent in depictions of witchcraft, is also
evident in Bergman's The Seventh Seal Stellan Skarsgard in Insomnia (1997), which was eventually
(1957), in which a man plays chess with remade in Hollywood
243
films from the region that range from Benjamin twist. Ole Bornedal's Nattevagten (Nightwatch,
Christensen's Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922) 1994), concerning a mortuary attendant, Erik
and Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vredens dag (Day Of Skjoldbjasrg's Insomnia (1997), a mystery focus-
Wrath, 1942) to Anders Ronnow-Klarlund's Besot ing on the detective, and Johannes Runeborg's
(Possessed, 1999) and Mikael Hafstrom's Strandvas- Sleepwalker (2000), about an architect whose
karen (Drowning Ghost, 2004). family goes missing, all contain gimmicks and
The other Scandinavian strand of gore — the reason why each was snapped up by
horror is the serial killer chiller with a the Hollywood remake industry.
quirky
South Africa
If y o u h a v e n ' t h e a r d of S o u t h A f r i c a n horror, y o u transference experiments. Darrell Roodt's City
w o n ' t be alone. The country's sweeping vistas Of Blood (1983) concerns a medical examiner
might be recognizable in the many films that discovering that a prostitute murderer is in fact
use t h e l a n d s c a p e a s a n a t m o s p h e r i c b a c k d r o p , a zombie witch doctor; and Roodt has another
but the country's horror films of note, with their shaman curse a platoon of soldiers after they
imported has-been stars, shoddy technique and wipe out a village in The Stick (1987). In V. V.
cliche scares, can be counted on the fingers of Dachin Hsu's Pale Blood (1990) George Chakiris
one hand. and Wings Hauser are modern-day vampires, and
Ray Austin's House Of The Living Dead (1973) Neal Sundstrom's Slash (2002) features a rock
deals with a mad scientist conducting occult soul band getting stuck on a haunted farm.
244
Spain
S p a i n d o e s n o t h a v e a t r a d i t i o n of h o r r o r litera- brought about the horror boom. Paul Naschy
ture, t h o u g h strains can be found in the w o r k of was just a stocky weightlifter until bit parts in
Francisco de Quevedo and Miguel de Cervantes, sand-and-sandals B-movies led to his signature
a n d t h e r e f o r e l a c k s t h e g o t h i c vein t h a t p r o v i d e d role here of wolf-man Waldemar Damnsky, and
rich source material for other national film indus- he made his iconic alter ego a top box-office
tries. (Some films, s u c h as J a u m e Balaguero's draw in his home country. He eventually turned
Los sin nombre (The Nameless, 1999), i n s p i r e d by director, using the name Jacinto Molina, with
R a m s e y C a m p b e l l , t o o k c u e s f r o m Great Britain.) Inquisicion (Inquisition, 1976), but before that he
Because of the power of the Catholic Church, bit the men and bedded the women in a variety
t o o , a n d the lack of an industrial revolution to of fun frighteners. A beloved national institution,
s p a w n t e c h n o l o g i c a l fear, virtually n o h o r r o r m o v - he continues to make films today, recent efforts
ies a p p e a r e d b e f o r e t h e b o o m o f 1968 t o 1975. including Rojo Sangre and Countess Dracula's Orgy
Edgar Neville's La tone de los siete jorobados Of Blood (both 2004).
(Tower Of The Seven Hunchbacks, 1944) was the Meanwhile, after directing Malenka (Fangs Of
exception before the Sixties, when Julio Coil's The Living Dead, 1969) Amando de Ossorio
Fuego (Pyro, 1964), featuring a maniac disfig- created truly unique and frightening monsters in
ured by fire, also came along. And in 1961 Jess the zombie Knights Templar series that began with
Franco - often known as one of a catalogue of La noche del terror ciego (Tombs Of The Blind Dead,
pseudonyms - embarked on the first of his hor- 1971). Sequels soon followed, with more nightmare
rors in a career that took in more than 150. Gritos imagery of the crusty Knights' withered hands pro-
en la noche (The Awful Dr Orlojfi 1961) starred truding from coffins to mount their ghostly steeds.
Howard Vernon as the titular mad doctor in a There were also moments of horror glory during
cheesy variation on Eyes Without A Face. Over this period for Narciso Ibanez Serrador, for his
the years, Franco's movies have ranged from the extraordinary twosome, La residencia (The House
absolutely terrible to the weirdly remarkable, and That Screamed, 1969) and ^Quien puede matar a un
he's given fans his unique take on the works of nino? (Would You Kill a Child?, aka Island Of The
J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo Damned, 1976), a harrowing film in which a couple
and the Marquis de Sade. But the jury is still go to a fictitious Balearic island and find nothing
out on Franco: some think he's an audaciously but rebellious children who have murdered all the
crazed surrealist, others a rank amateur with little adults. Among the films that were sexually explicit
command of proper cinema technique. The Sadist and gory for the Franco era was Jorge Grau's No
Of Notre Dame (1979), which took five years to profanar el sueno de los muertos (The Living Dead At
make, can support either side of the argument. The Manchester Morgue, 1974, the city being chosen
But the true saviour of Hispanic panic was because Grau always wanted to go there).
La marca del hombre loco (Hell's Creatures, 1968), The most notable horror to emerge from
which proved the right film at the right time and Spain in the Eighties was one of the genre's most
245
T H E GLOBAL PICTURE: HORROR MOVIES AROUND THE WORLD
virulently disturbing movies, Tras el cristal (In A Vanilla Sky (2001).Then Nicole Kidman agreed to
Glass Cage, 1987). Agustin Villaronga's con- star in the stylish and spooky ghost story The Others
troversial portrait of pure evil explores a circle (2001). "I wanted to play with the supernatural in
of abuse by focusing on a paedophile who used its simplest forms and craft a more classic adult hor-
his post as a Nazi concentration camp doctor ror than had been seen for a while," said Amenabar
to torture and sexually abuse boys, and who is of one of Spain's greatest horror successes.
later kept alive on an iron lung by a young home
carer, Angelo.Villaronga uses traditional suspense La campana del infierno (The Bell Of
mechanics in places, but the film remains firmly Hell)
outside simple genre boundaries and achieves a dir Claudio Guerin Hill, 1973, Sp/Fr, 106m
nightmarish intensity that divides audiences into Director Claudio Guerin Hill died on the last day of shooting
his fascinating Spanish psycho-horror, falling from the bell
those who admire it for its quality of craftsman-
tower featured In the macabre climax. Renaud Verley stars
ship and those who despise it for being taboo. as the man taking revenge on the relatives who to gain
In the Nineties, having been banished to his inheritance had declared him mentally unstable, and
the backwaters of television in the wake of Hill keeps Verley's character ambiguous while he indulges
Pedro Almodovar s camp successes, Spanish horror in disturbing mind-games and physical torture. It's loaded
became a more significant player on the interna- with anti-Catholic satire, surreal images, perverse sex and
bizarre plot twists.
tional scene thanks to two key directors. It was
Almodovar himself who recognized the talents of
Bilbao-born Alex de la Iglesia and produced his
debut feature, Accion mutante (Mutant Action, 1993).
Transylvania
That sci-fi horror comedy led to the amazing lam- Home to Vlad the Impaler, the bloodthirsty ruler who
poon of doom prophecy horrors, El dia de la bestia was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, and
(Day Of The Beast, 1995), about a priest who deci- Countess Bathory, who apparently bathed in blood,
Transylvania has provided the setting for many folk-
phers an ancient sacred text and deduces that the
lore horror movies. Historically part of Hungary and
Antichrist will be born in Madrid on Christmas
now a province of Romania, the area Is a backdrop
Day. "I wanted to explode the seriousness of such for virtually every vampire movie, a few with were-
movies as The Exorcist and The Omen" said Iglesia, wolves, such as Howling II: Stirba Werewolf Bitch
who has since moved into more mainstream fare. (1986), and the comedies Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)
"My priest isn't aware of his 'big' responsibility to and Transylvania Twist (1990); and, of course, Tim
save the world and that's why it's funny and fright- Curry's sublime Frank. N. Furter was "just a sweet
ening at the same time." transvestite from transsexual Transylvania" in The
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). The area has
The second Spanish director to find interna-
even been important in film production: at the start
tional fame in the Nineties had an even greater
of the new millennium Romania became the location
impact. Alejandro Amenabar made his astonish- of choice in Eastern Europe for many cost-conscious
ing debut with Tesis (Thesis, 1996), about a Madrid horrors, including Seed of Chucky (2004), Spirit Trap,
film student realizing that her school is being used as Return Of The Living Dead: Necropolis, Return Of
a snuff movie base; and then he had his major break The Living Dead: Rave To The Grave and Bloodrayne
with the unique fantasy Abre los ojos (Open Your (all 2005).
Eyes, 1997), which was remade with Tom Cruise as
246
Turkey
A l t h o u g h t h e first Turkish feature film a p p e a r e d (Tarkan: The Silver Saddle, 1970). The fictional
in 1917, no real m o v i e i n d u s t r y e x i s t e d until t h e Italian anti-hero Killing and his arch-villain's
Fifties, w h e n p r o d u c e r s b e g a n t o e x p e r i m e n t w i t h signature skeleton costume were also paraded
t h e genre p o o l . through a variety of movies, starting with Kilink
A vague chiller appeared in 1949 — Ciglik Istanbul'da (Killing In Istanbul, 1967). One featured
(Scream) - but the first identifiable horror was Frankenstein, as would Nejat Saydam's 1975
Drakula Istanbul'da (Dracula In Istanbul, 1953), comedy Sevimli Frankestayn (Cute Frankenstein),
based on an abridged version of the Bram Stoker an almost exact replica of Mel Brooks's Young
novel translated by Ali Riza Seyfi; and Atif Frankenstein (1974).
Kaptan was the first to play Dracula as Vlad One of the few relatively straight Turkish
the Impaler, the Romanian who had fought horrors was Oluler konusmaz (The Dead Don't
the Turks. The Vlad character appears in many Talk, 1970), which is set in a ghostly hotel.
Turkish costume epics, but the first film to depict Another was Metin Erksan's Seytan (Satan,
him as an actual vampire in his own era was Kara 1974), a straight remake of The Exorcist (1973)
boga (1974). with an Islamic backdrop; the notorious stabbing
Female vam-
pires turned up in
another histori-
cal epic, Malkocoglu
(1966), which like
many popular light
Turkish horrors, was
based on a comic
strip. And a vampire
witch named Gosha
featured promi-
nently in the Tarkan
comic created by
Sezgin Burak; played
by Swedish dancer
Eva Bender, Gosha
appeared as the
always nude, blood-
bathing seducer
in films including
Tarkan: Gumus eger
A poster for Metin Erksan's remake of The Exorcist in 1974
247
sequence had a knife rather than a crucifix (not its European and Asian influences, Karanlik sular
that anyone knew, because the original wasn't was rich in horror metaphor — and a dismal box-
released in Turkey until 1982). And before Gus office flop. It prevented the possible progress of
Van Sant's dreadful remake of Psycho in 1998, horror in a culture that had never fully embraced
Mehmet Alemdar had beaten him to it with the genre.
Kader diyelim (Let's Say It's Fate, 1995), which
Drakula Istanbul'da (Dracula In
includes jaunty musical numbers. Alemdar also
Istanbul)
directed one of the few Turkish serial killer hor-
dir Mehmet Muhtar, 1953, Tur, 85m, b/w
rors, Suphenin bedeli (The Price Of Doubt, 1995).
By popular critical census the best Turkish The first Turkish horror, this was also the first adaptation
to show Dracula scaling down his castle's walls and to
horror film is E. Kutlug Ataman's arty Karanlik
contain the contentious scene, completely absent in the
sular The Serpent's Tale, 1993), in which a rich Universal landmark, of him feeding a newborn baby to his
aristocrat is told that his son didn't drown in an female companion. The Turks axed most of the Christian
accident but discovered an ancient text with the symbolism, and Dracula is killed when his head is cut off
power to dispense eternal life. Incorporating the and stuffed with garlic, all after having a stake through the
identity crisis of the Turkish nation, torn between heart.
248
An audience watching a 3-D film in the

early 1950s: a great deal of memorabilia
owes its availability to such gimmicks
The Information:
where to turn next
So you know the story of horror all around the world, have come across the clas-
sics and love the icons: where next? This chapter - inevitably by no means exhaus-
tive - will give you the best starting points for buying horror merchandise and for
finding out more about the genre.
Memorabilia and merchandise

The m a r k e t for horror collectibles has g r o w n t o m a s - D V D s are available through mainstream
sive p r o p o r t i o n s over the past f e w years. media retailers and through specialists, often
It's still only film critics and journalists who with online facilities, and it is worth looking at
can get the most sought after tie-in merchandise labels, since all of them are now releasing horror
(like the Darkman cigar-cutter, the Torture Garden movies with introductions and commentaries;
packet of seeds and the Legend Of The Seven Golden even the magazine Fangoria has its own label.
Vampires box of vampire dust), but the range for the Criterion, which has released a few horrors,
consumer to buy is growing far bigger, and you can such as Diabolique and Peeping Tom, is the widely
find magazines, posters, autographs, masks, games, acknowledged Rolls Royce of the DVD, and
photographs, collector cards, fridge magnets and for foreign horror the leaders include Dagored,
action figures in stores, at conventions and online. Mondo Macabro, Nocturno and No Shame.
251
THE INFORMATION: WHERE TO TURN NEXT
These are the best places to turn to, aside Creepy Classics
from general websites such as www.ebay.com, www.creepyclassics. com
when searching and buying:
An American website offering online ordering
of hard-to-find horror movies from around the
The Cinema Store world on DVD and video.
www.the-cinema-store.com
A wide range of film merchandise available for Forbidden Planet

ordering online from this store based in the heart www.forbiddenplanet.com
of London.
Goodies and DVDs galore from the British-based
retailer, slanted at cult, fantasy and sci-fi film fans.
Cinestore
www.cinestore.com
Hollywood Book and Poster Company
An easy-to-navigate French website offering a www.hollywoodbookandposter.com
wide range of DVDs and novelties to buy online.
The website of an American store that opened
in 1977 and specializes in film, television and
wrestling memorabilia.
Horror Movies
www.horrormovies.com
This American web-

site sells posters, collect-
ibles and DVDs, which
are presented with
reviews.
The rare "Illusion-O" glasses from William Castle's Thirteen Ghosts (1960)
252
Moviemarket ProfondoRosso
www.moviemarket.co.uk www. profondorossostore.com
Sophisticated website of a business specializing A bottega in R o m e that specializes in horror,

in film photographs and posters for purchase fantasy and sci-fi, founded in 1989 by Dario
online. Argento.
Events
film critics, but far fairer is what the European
Film festivals Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals now
In the beginning film festivals were tourist attrac- does: panels including stars and directors, selected
tions to promote particular areas rather than by the Federation, attend each festival in the
the movies or the stars: Cannes, Venice, San member cartel and choose a European film that
S e b a s t i a n , V i e n n a , M o n t r e a l a n d Berlin all s t a r t e d is given a Melies D'Argent award (named after
life t h a t way. To h a v e an i m p a c t a l o n g s i d e s u c h Georges Melies). Every selected film is then
heavyweights, other t o w n s and cities had to find showcased in one big programme and the panels
a niche, and as the fantasy genre began to grow choose a Melies D ' O r winner.
i n p o p u l a r i t y i n t h e Fifties h o r r o r a n d s c i e n c e f i c - There are many horror film festivals around
t i o n f i l m f e s t i v a l s b e c a m e t h e ideal. the world nowadays, lasting from four days to
The first genre festival to gain any interna- three and a half weeks, and you could spend your
tional profile was in Trieste, Italy, which in 1963 whole life just going from one to the next, as
memorably gave the Golden Asteroid to Roger the important ones follow each other with little
Corman's The Man With The X-Ray Eyes. overlap. The best way to see the world on the
The main horror festival then became cheap is to make a short film or digital-video
Avoriaz, in the French Alps, which started in feature and to submit it to every venue: even if
1973 and attracted international journalists for it's only above average you'll be invited, usually
sixteen years, until the governing bodies pulled all-expenses paid, to introduce it on stage and to
the event; the town of Gerardmer, further down be interviewed about it by the local press.
the mountains, happily took over. Both Avoriaz Of the film festivals that either showcase hor-
and Trieste, now the SciencePlusFiction festival, ror exclusively or have it as a main strand, here are
awarded prizes decided by a jury of international the top five, in order of importance:
253
THE INFORMATION: WHERE TO T U R N N E X T
Sitges: Festival Internacional de Cinema de changed from single screen cinemas to multiplex-
Catlunya es, but its importance as a cultural event for the
www.cinemasitges.com host nation - the President is often in attendance
— and for filmmakers from around the world
The nearly 40-year-old state-funded Sitges, at the
remains the same.
gay-friendly beach resort just outside Barcelona
usually every October, is the best festival in
terms of selection, presentation and celebrity. The Brussels International Festival Of Fantastic Film
major films in competition are projected at the www.bifff.org
Gran Melia Sitges Hotel, and other cinemas in
the picturesque town play host to film events or First organized in 1983 by the Belgian PeyMey
director retrospectives. directors' group, the BIFFF takes place in Brussels
every March. The two-week event has a repu-
tation for noisy audiences but its program-
Fantasporto: Oporto International Film Festival ming is second to none and has established the
www.fantasporto.online.pt reputations of many of the genre's filmmakers in
French-speaking territories.
Taking place every February/March in the hilly
city of Oporto in north Portugal, Fantasporto has
been going for more than 25 years. Venues have Puchon International
Fantastic Film Festival
www.pifan.com
A relatively new festival

location, the small town of
Puchon, near Seoul in South
Korea, hosts a vibrant nine-
day event every July, and is
responsible in no small part
for focusing Western eyes on
the burgeoning Eastern hor-
ror scene.
Fantasia International Film

Festival
www.fantasiafestival.com
Since 1996 FanTasia has

showcased contemporary
Ray Milland as Dr Xavier in The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963), which horror movies for around
helped Trieste gain international status for its film festival four weeks every July/August
254
in Montreal, where it has become a hugely popu- with a useful and welcoming website.
lar summer tradition.
Cinema Wasteland Movie And Memorabilia Expo

Five of the best of the rest: www.cinemawasteland.com
• Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival, An American event with guests and events from
Switzerland,July (www.nifff.ch) a store specializing in drive-in era horror and
• FrightFest, London, August (www.frightfest.co exploitation.
.uk)
• Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest, September
(www. ravennanightmare. com) Cinevent Classic Film Convention
• Cinemuerte,Vancouver, October (www www.cinevent.com
. cinemuerte. com) An annual convention held in Columbus, Ohio,
• New York City Horror Film Festival, October specializing in silent and early sound films.
(www.nychorrorfest.com)
Fangoria's Weekend Of Horrors

www.creationent.com/cal/dod.htm
Conventions The website for the weekend organized by the

H o r r o r c o n v e n t i o n s , w h i c h are o f t e n o r g a n i z e d American magazine Fangoria, with dealers, cos-
b y s t o r e s t h a t s p e c i a l i z e i n t h e g e n r e , are m o r e tume competitions and giveaways.
a c c e s s i b l e t o f a n s t h a n f e s t i v a l s a n d are u s u -
ally w e e k e n d e v e n t s w h e r e a t t r a c t i o n s i n c l u d e
merchandise, screenings and stars signing auto-
The Festival Of Fantastic Films
www.fantastic-films.com/festival/
graphs.
While there are fewer conventions for hor- This festival is organized by Britain's long-estab-
ror than there are for sci-fi and fantasy, many lished Society of Fantastic Films, which also has
have sprung up in the past few years, mainly in regular meetings in Manchester.
America; and there are also one-off events, for
example to celebrate particular anniversaries,
which are advertised through horror websites. Horror-find Weekend
Here's where to go for the best regular conven- www.horrorfind.com
tions:
This useful website from America presents an
event with celebrities, dealers, movies, writers
Chiller Theatre
and seminars.
www.chillertheatre.com
An American event for videos, models and toys,
255
Memorabilia The World Horror Convention

www.memorabilia.co.uk www.worlrJhorrorsociety.org
This regular bash at the Birmingham NEC, par- The society organizes the well-established con-
ticularly good for its celebrity signings, is billed vention, which has a literary slant, at different
as Europe's largest collectors' event. venues in America.
Monster Bash
www.horror-wood.com/Bash.htm
The family-friendly American weekender has

films, talks and Q&A sessions.
Books and magazines

The BFI Companion To Horror
Books Kim Newman, ed. (Cassell and BFI, 1996)
W h e n t h e g e n r e t o o k off d u r i n g t h e Fifties a n d
Running from Abbott, Bud to Zucco, George,
the number of horror films being made reached
this detailed and wide-ranging companion cov-
gigantic proportions, books were an offshoot
ers horror from its pre-cinema beginnings to the
of the burgeoning horror magazine market, and
modern day.
were often written by people responsible for
m a g a z i n e a r t i c l e s . W h i l e t h e earliest b o o k s w e r e
always overviews of the genre, the trend today is Bizarre Sinema: Horror all'ltaliana 1957-1979
f o r a f o c u s on a p a r t i c u l a r area or t i t l e , s u c h as Stefano Piselli & Riccardo Morrocchi, ed. (Glittering Images,
L a w r e n c e M c C a l l u m ' s Italian Horror Films Of The 1996)
1960s ( M c F a r l a n d , 1998) or M a r k K e r m o d e ' s The
Exorcist (British Film I n s t i t u t e , 1997). A superbly illustrated guide to Italian horror with
Many of the following are out of print, but all the focus on the sub-genre's earliest purveyors,
are worth the effort to track down. Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava.
256
Danse Macabre Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod

Stephen King (Macdonald, 1981) Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre
David J. Skal & Elias Savada (Anchor Books, 1995)
The bestselling author writes informally on the
entire phenomenon of horror movies. An insightful and illuminating biography of how
the pioneering creator of Dracula (1931) and
Freaks (1932) is tied to the genre's invention. A
classic volume.
English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema

Jonathan Rigby (Reynolds & Hearn, 2000)
The ups and downs of the horror genre from

its nineteenth-century beginnings to the pres-
ent day.
Eyeball Compendium
Stephen Thrower, ed. (FAB Press, 2003)
Horror cinema at its most obscure, excessive and

marginalized put under the spotlight, with an
emphasis on sex, art and exploitation.
Fear Without Frontiers

Steven Jay Schneider (FAB Press, 2003)
An exploration of horror cinema around the

world, with hidden terror treasures from other
cultures.
Gore: Autopsie d'un cinema

Marc Godin (Editions du Collectionneur, 1994)
If it's gory, violent or nasty, it'll be featured in this

stunningly illustrated book on splatter through
the ages.
Stephen King, w h o as well as writing fiction wrote a
book on the phenomenon of horror movies that was
typically broad for the era
257
The Hammer Story The Horror People

Marcus Hearn & Alan Barnes (Titan Books, 1997) John Brosnan (St Martin's/Macdonald & Jane's, 1976)
The definitive and authorized history of the All you could ever want to know on all the lead-
British film studio. ing horror film personalities, with interviews.
A Heritage Of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema Horror!

1946-1972 Drake Douglas (Macmillan, 1966)
David Pirie (Gordon Fraser, 1973)
Leaning towards literature, Douglas includes
The British horror movie evaluated with insight- chapters on all the movie monsters.
ful precision. A classic volume.
Men, Women And Chainsaws: Gender In The

Heroes Of The Horrors Modern Horror Film
Calvin Thomas Beck (Macmillan, 1975) Carol J. Clover (Princeton University Press, 1992)
Biographical facts on all the vintage actors who Low-life horror is feminist art, according to this
created the immortal monsters, from Lon Chaney landmark textbook.
to Vincent Price, and plot synopses.
The Modern Horror Film

Horror: The Aurum Encyclopedia John McCarty (Citadel, 1990)
Phil Hardy, ed. (Aurum, 1985; revised and updated, 1993)
A chronological homage to the horror film, begin-
A classic volume, with year by year reviews, that ning with Hammer's The Curse Of Frankenstein
was the first reference book to cover far-flung
(1957).
global productions in depth.
Mondo Macabro: Weird & Wonderful Cinema

Horror In The Cinema Around The World
Ivan Butler (Zwemmer, 1970) Pete Tombs p a n , 1997)
A groundbreaking early horror primer. Global horror sub-cultures explored by Tombs,

who owns the tie-in DVD label of the same
name.
Horror Movies: An Illustrated Survey
Carlos Clarens (Seeker & Warburg, 1968)
The Monster Show: A Cultural History Of Horror
The first level-headed and well-researched text
David J. Skal (Norton, 1993)
of true merit to focus on the genre. A classic
volume. "The best book on horror movies I've ever read,"
said Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho.
258
Nightmare Movies: A Critical History Of The

Horror Film 1968-88 Magazines
Kim Newman (Bloomsbury, 1984; revised and updated The horror magazine market really established
1988) itself in A m e r i c a in 1958, w i t h Famous Monsters
Of Filmland.
The definitive guide to twenty years of horror.
France got in on the act in 1962 with Midi-
Minuit Fantastique, but the contrast between the
A Pictorial History Of Horror Movies two could not have been more marked. Famous
Denis Gifford (Hamlyn, 1973) Monsters was angled towards the juvenile while
Midi-Minuit was intellectual and cine-literate, did
The popular compendium of horror, which sold not shy away from the erotic aspects of the genre
widely in bookstores, is playful and informed. and championed certain films (by Corman and
Bava, and Hammer) long before they were fash-
ionable; among its contributors were future hor-
Ten Years Of Terror: British Horror Films Of The
ror scriptwriter Chris Wicking and cult director
1970s
Jean Rollin. The American Castle Of Frankenstein
Harvey Fenton & David Flint, ed. (FAB Press, 2001)
(which began life as The Journal Of Frankenstein
An encyclopaedic account of independent hor- in 1959), which featured writing by future hor-
ror's heyday. ror director Joe Dante, was a mixture of both and
although it's no longer around it's still one of the
world's best-loved horror magazines today.
The Vampire Cinema The British Supernatural, featuring future
David Pirie (Hamlyn/Crescent, 1977) horror author Ramsey Campbell, lasted only
two issues in 1969, but paved the way for British
On the cult of the vampire as a source of inspira-
magazines such as The House Of Hammer, Shivers
tion to filmmakers, starting with silent cinema
and The Dark Side. Meanwhile America's defunct
and including later Hammer incarnations.
The Monster Times and Photon, and the spo-
radic Little Shoppe Of Horrors, were supplanted in
Video Nasties! 1970 by the groundbreaking Cinefantastique, now
Allan Bryce (Stray Cat, 1998) shortened to CFQ; in its wake followed Fangoria,
Psychotronic, Filmfax, Rue Morgue, Scarlet Street
Everything you wanted to know about the most and Video Watchdog. Italy's short-lived Horror,
horrifying films that have been banned, from published in 1970, was followed by Amarcord and
Absurd to Zombie Flesh-Eaters. Nocturno.
In terms of content, while Famous Monsters
Of Filmland focused mainly on the golden era of
Universal, most magazines that followed it were
broader in oudook, juxtaposing reviews and news
with retrospective features on the entire canon.
In recent times there has been a movement back
259
Fangoria
www.fangoria.com
For more than 25 years this American publica-

tion has ruled the horror market with its up-to-
date set reports, informed reviews and coverage
of all things gory and gruesome. The magazine
hosts its own conventions and has a DVD label
and an invaluable website. The editor, Anthony
Timpone, says that the magazine has gone from
strength to strength because it covers all horror's
bases. He also says: "The magazine is more popu-
lar than ever because horror is bigger than ever
... horror films open almost every weekend, and
DVD sales have made the industry more profit-
able than ever."
Femme Fatales
www.femmefatales.com
Scream queens and glamour pin-ups are accented

by Femme Fatales, which uses its subjects in exclu-
The director Joe Dante, an early writer for the maga- sive photo-shoots.
zine Castle Of Frankenstein
towards specialization. This, and the brief lives Filmfax

typical in magazine markets, means that many of www.filmfax.com
the magazines listed below have shown remarkable
longevity. The editorial staff of the American magazine
Filmfax pride themselves on documenting gaps in
the history of horror. It deals with radio, televi-
The Dark Side sion and film produced between the late Twenties
www.ebony.co.uk/darkside and the mid-Seventies.
How many angles on zombie and cannibal mov-
ies can there be? Find out in this unapologeti-
Little Shoppe Of Horrors
cally retro British publication that mixes sleaze
www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com
with bad puns and has a bent towards the video
nasty era. It publishes many book tie-ins, which Every issue of this magazine is devoted to some
have included Zombie, Fantasy Females and Video aspect of Hammer or British horror. It often
Nasties. resembles a book more than a journal.
260
THE INFORMATION: WHERE TO TURN N E X T
Mad Movies of horror in entertainment and culture.

www.madmovies.com
With an accent on gloss, gore and girls, this French Scarlet Street
magazine covers all aspects of the horror genre. www.scarletstreet.com
The magazine of mystery and horror from N e w

Midnight Marquee Jersey celebrates classics old and new.
www.midmar.com
Every aspect of the horror movie genre is covered Shivers

in this Baltimore-based journal, from the arcane www.visimag.com/shivers/
and barely remembered to more popular fare.
The more refined British equivalent of Fangoria,
Visual Imagination's sister publication to their
Nocturno sci-fi Starburst goes easier on the gore shots and
www.nocturno.it/index.php heavier on the European coverage.
This Italian magazine, unusually, gives more space
to its past and present home horrors than new Uncut
American releases. www.midnight-media.demon.co.uk
Uncut concentrates on gore and censored movies

Psychotronic with near-the-knuckle illustrations to match.
www.psychotronicvideo.com
If it's weird, wild and wonderful, it's somewhere Video Watchdog

in Michael J. Weldon's magazine, or in his indis- www.videowatchdog.com
pensable book The Psychotronic Video Guide.
"The perfectionist's guide to fantastic video"
is how tireless editor Tim Lucas describes his
Quatermass indispensable Cincinnati-based magazine. Most
[email protected] directors subscribe to find out about their own
DVD transfers! Serious but not humourless,
This Spanish magazine with a horror nostalgia
academic or overly technical, it's the crucial
base is published sporadically — there have been
magazine for delving into matters of letterbox-
six issues since 1993 - but is beautifully laid out
ing, missing or restored footage and alternative
and lavishly presented. versions. In fourteen years of publishing, it has
amassed a larger body of wide-reaching hor-
ror interviews and criticism than any other
Rue Morgue
monthly.
www.rue-morgue.com
This Canadian magazine is devoted to all aspects

261
Fanzines
Wannabe horror film journalists who couldn't get pub- white foldouts with lurid ad-blocks. It was packed with
lished in the prominent magazines of the day, like pithy reviews of grind-house exploiters as well as main-
Fangoria and Cinefantastique, simply did it themselves. stream horrors, and Landis and future co-editor J i m m y
When Mark P (aka Mark Perry) photocopied a few M c D o n o u g h also interviewed personalities in the genre's
sheets of paper that had his thoughts on punk rock and underbelly, with precision. Landis compiled the book
sold them as Sniffin' Glue in 1976, he had no idea how Sleazoid Express from the groundbreaking fanzine while
his cheapskate style and semi-literate typewritten enthu- McDonough also wrote The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore
siasm would translate to the world of horror movies. Netherworld Of Filmmaker Andy Milligan, one of the finest
examinations ever of the life of a cult horror director.
The first equivalent was projectionist Bill Landis's
Sleazoid Express, published fortnightly in New York from As a riposte to Sleazoid Express Rick and Rosemary
1980 and costing 50 cents. It was available at movie- Sullivan started up the free Gore Gazette, because
related shops and at the newly emerging video stores, "Landis's reviews were becoming increasingly critical and
and photocopies on coloured paper progressed to unfairly analytical of a genre that just don't hold up to that
style of criticism and were never made
to". Hence the lionization in the Gore
Gazette of such directors as Herschell
Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, 1963),
Jean Rollin (Rape Of The Vampire,
1967) and Jess Franco (The Sadist
Of Notre Dame, 1979), who had been
considered uninteresting hacks. Britain
offered Pretty Poison and Crimson
Celluloid before the influential Shock
Xpress made its debut in 1985; it last-
ed three years and then, as offshoots
of the magazine, books were pro-
duced that were full of new material.
Also emerging from Shock Xpress was
the London's popular "Shock Around
the Clock" 24-hour horror festival,
which later turned into FrightFest.
Fanzines were the voice of the street,

read by the video generation who
could access all the titles their elders
had either travelled miles to see or
waited years to view. The influence
that they enjoyed as a result was a
precursor to the significance of the
A key scene from Blood Feast (1963) by Herschell Gordon Lewis
internet, which has killed them off.
who was a fanzine favourite
262
Websites
A m o n g the best websites for further information Variety
o n h o r r o r m o v i e s are g e n e r a l f i l m w e b s i t e s . T h e s e www.variety.com
include:
These are just three of the film magazines and
trade journals that have their own websites.
The Internet Movie Database
www.imdb.com
Ain't It Cool News
This database contains more than 200,000 film www.aintitcoolnews.com
entries, each of which lists details such as cast and
crew members, awards and trivia; and these are Dark Horizons
cross-referenced so that individuals can also be www.darkhorizons.com
looked up, for lists of their films and biographies
and further facts.There is separate information on These are two websites that provide the latest
the horror movies that are highest rated and most news on the film industry. Also useful are those
requested through the website. that are part of larger portals, such as http://
movies.yahoo.com/ and www.virgin.net/movies,
which also offer showtimes for the US and UK
All Movie Guide respectively.
www.allmovie.com
T h e f o l l o w i n g w e b s i t e s s p e c i a l i z e i n horror, t h o u g h
This is a less sophisticated website than the IMDB i t s h o u l d b e n o t e d t h a t for t h e s m a l l e r o u t f i t s , w e b
but the material that it offers, on a wide variety of addresses frequently change:
movies, is at times more thorough.
Arrow In The Head

Silent Era
joblo.com/arrow/
www.silentera.com
News, reviews and interviews, all in actor/
This site for all things before the talkie era is par-
scriptwriter John Fallon's singular informed
ticularly strong on events and recent re-releases. style.
Premiere
The Astounding B-Monster
www.premiere.com
www.bmonster.com
Empire The coolest cult movie chronicle. Tap in any title

www.empireonline.co.uk and get the lowdown.
263
Bride Of House Of Universal Horrorview

movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/brideofriouseofuniversal/ www.horrorview.com
For fans of classic Universal movies and mon- Features an excellent section on Asian horror
sters. movies.
Dread Central
www.horrorchannel.com/dread/index.php Latarnia: Fantastique International
www.latarnia.com
Up-to-date news and reviews from the online
offshoot of the Horror Channel on American This is the place to go for Spanish horror, Italian
cable. gothic classics, Mexican wrestlers and more.
DVD Drive-ln Monster Kid

www.dvddrive-in.com www.monsterkid.com
If it's a horror film and is on DVD or video, you'll A fun salute to the horror movie magazines of
find information on it here. the Sixties, inspired by the magazine Famous
Monsters Of Filmland.
Eccentric Cinema
www.eccentric-cinema.com The Wonder World Of K Gordon Murray
www.kgordonmurray.com
DVD reviews with handy symbols designating
"action-packed", "bare flesh", "blood 'n' guts", This website is dedicated to the distributor/pro-
"extra cheese" and so on. ducer who took countless Mexican horrors to
America.
HammerWeb
www.hammerfilms.com
The official website for Hammer Films.
264
Picture credits
The Publishers have made every effort to identify correctly Kobal/United (73) Redbank Films United Artists Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
the rights holders and/or production companies in respect Studios Inc. Mgm/Ua Studios Kobal/Universal (19) Universal Pictures
of images featured in this book. If despite these efforts any Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Corp. Image Entertainment (76)
Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Corp. Image
attribution is incorrect the Publishers will correct this error
Entertainment (213) Mary Evans Picture Library (1) (4) Movies tore (7)
once it has been brought to its attention on a subsequent Paramount Pictures Mandalay Pictures American Zoetrope Paramount Pictures
reprint. Pathe" Distribution Ltd. Karol Film Productions GmbH & Co. Paramount
Home Video (11) Dimension Films Woods Entertainment Dimension Films
Miramax Film Corporation Dimension Home Video (16) Decla-Bioscop AG
Goldwyn Distributing Company Video Yesteryear Image Entertainment (21)
Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Realart Pictures Inc. Universal Pictures
Corp Universal Studios (22) Nero-Film AG Foremco Pictures Corp Goodwill
Cover Credits Pictures Inc Paramount Pictures Criterion Collection (24) Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer (MGM) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (32) American International
Anchor Bay, UK/Boulevard Entertainment Pictures (AIP) Sunset Productions Inc. Academy Pictures Corp American
International Pictures (AIP) Columbia Tristar Home Video (35) Aldrich Seven
Arts Pictures Warner Bros. Warner Bros. The Associates & Aldrich Company.
Inc. Warner Studios (36) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGjM) Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer (MGM) Warner Home Video (39) 20th Century Fox Twentieth Century
Fox Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation Twentieth Century Fox Home
Illustrations Video (43) Cinema 77 Films Filmways Pictures Warwick Associates Filmways
Pictures Orion Pictures Corporation Warwick Associates Mgm/Ua Studios (46)
Alan Jones Collection (30) William Castle Productions Columbia Pictures Filmcat Fourth World Media MPI Maljack Greycat Films Maljack Productions
Columbia Tristar Home Video (41) (196) (211) Trimark Pictures Trimark Mpi Home Video 2 (47) CNCAIMC Grupo Del Toro October Films Lions
Pictures Vidmark/Trimark (223) Australian Film Commission Australian Gate Home Entertainment (48) Dimension Films Woods Entertainment
International Film Corp Patrick Productions Victorian Film Corporation Dimension Films Miramax Film Corporation Dimension Home Video (49)
Filmways Australasian Distributors Australian International Film Corporation Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co. Ltd Omega Project Universal Studios/
Pty Ltd Elite Entertainment (252) William Castle Productions Columbia MGM/UA (52) 13 Ghosts Productions Canada Inc. Dark Castle Entertainment
Pictures Columbia Pictures Bourn (168) (221) Ventura Distribution (225) Warner Bros. (2001) Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International Warner
Iberica Filmes Image Entertainment (247) Saner Film Corbis (174) (257) Getty Bros./Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Warner Home Video (53) Carpathian
Images (9) (18) Famous Players-Lasky Corporation Medialnternational Pictures Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Universal Studios Universal
Republic Pictures Home Video Kino Video/Madacy Entertainment/Image Studios (55) Hard Eight Pictures New Line Cinema Zide-Perry Productions
Entertainment Kobal (83) Filmsonor S.A. Vera Films Criterion Pictures Corp New Line Cinema New Line Home Entertainment (57) Hoya Productions
Criterion Collection (157) Vortex Blue Dolphin Film Distribution Ltd. Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Warner Studios (60) American Werewolf, Inc
Bryanston Films Ltd. New Line Cinema Vortex, Inc. Pioneer Video (166) Guber-Peters Company Lyncanthrope Films PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
(169) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (209) Universal Pictures PolyGram Video American Werewolf, Inc. Artisan
(262) Box Office Spectaculars Box Office Spectaculars Image Entertainment Entertainment (65) WingNut Films Avalon/NFU Studios New Zealand Film
(207) Kobal /Melies (14) George Albert Smith Films Kobal/Monarchia (153) Commission Trimark Pictures PolyGram Filmed Entertainment WingNut
Emmepi Cinematografica Films Georges de Beauregard Monarchia Top Film Films Limited Vidmark/Trimark (67) Universal Pictures Universal Pictures
Allied Artists Pictures Corporation Vci Home Video Kobal/Toho (124) Kindai Universal Pictures Corp. Universal Studios (69) Decla-Bioscop AG Goldwyn
Eiga Kyokai Tokyo Eiga Company Toho Company Ltd. Criterion Collection Distributing Company Image Entertainment (85) Universal Pictures Universal
265
Pictures Universal Pictures Corp. Universal Studios (90) Renaissance Pictures Cinema Warner Communications Company (U.K.) New Line Home
New Line Cinema Renaissance Pictures Ltd. Anchor Bay Entertainment (93) Entertainment (198) Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Realart Pictures
Hoya Productions Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Warner Studios (97) Universal Inc. Universal Pictures Corp Universal Studios (201) (203) United Artists
Pictures Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Corp. Universal Studios (99) United Artists Alpha Video Distributors (205) (228) Nero-Film AG Foremco
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) MGM (103) Argyle Enterprises Metro- Pictures Corp. Goodwill Pictures Inc. Paramount Pictures Criterion Collection
Gold vvyn-Mayer (MGM) Warner Home Video (105) 20th Century Fox (236) Productora Fflmica Real Produzioni Intersound Expanded Entertainment
Achilles Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. Twentieth Century Fox Haxan Films Mainline Pictures Republic Pictures Corporation (243) Nordic
Corporation Twentieth Century Fox (107) RKO Radio Pictures Inc. RKO Screen Production AS Norsk Film A/S Norsk Filminstitutt First Run Features
Radio Pictures Inc. Turner Home Entertainment (108) Universal Pictures Norsk Filmdistribusjon Criterion Collection (254) Alta Vista Productions
Zanuck/Brown Productions Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Universal American International Pictures (AIP) American International Pictures (AIP)
Studios (116) Columbia Pictures Corporation Sabre Film Production Columbia World Beyond Video MGM/UA Video (260) Ronald Grant Archive (27)
Pictures Columbia Tristar Horn (120) Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal Prana- Universal Internationa] Pictures MCA Universal Pictures Universal
Film GmbH BijouFlix Kino International (126) Anglo-Amalgamated International Pictures Universal Pictures Co. Inc. Universial Studios (29)
Productions Michael Powell Rialto Pictures LLC Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Warner Home Video (33) Champs-Elysees
Criterion Collection (128) Universal Pictures Universal Pictures Universal Productions Lux Film S.p.a. Lopert Pictures Corporation Rialto Pictures LLC
Pictures Image Entertainment (134) Shamley Productions Paramount Pictures
Criterion Collection (40) American International Pictures (AIP) Power
Universal Pictures Universal City Studios, Inc. (137) Compton Films Tekli
Productions American International Pictures (AIP) . Columbia-Warner
British Productions Compton Films Royal Films International Compton Tekli
Distributors Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (79) Hammer Film Productions Limited
Film Productions Ltd. Koch Vision Entertainment (141) Paramount Pictures
Goldstone Film Enterprises Regal Films International Warner Bros. Warner
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corp./William Castle Enterprises, Inc.
Home Video (88) Hammer Film Productions Limited Goldstone Film
Paramount Home Video (145) Hawk Films Ltd Peregrine Producers Circle
Enterprises Rank Film Organization Universal International Pictures Hammer
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Warner Studios (149) Orion Pictures Corporation
Film Productions Warner Home Video (147) Canadian Film Development
Orion Pictures Corporation Orion Pictures Corporation Image Entertainment
Corporation Cinepix D A L Productions Trans American Films Image
(155) Alexandre Films Europa Corp. EuropaCorp. Distribution Lions Gate
Films Inc. Optimum Releasing Alexandre Films EuropaCorp (160) Paramount Entertainment (173) Eminent Authors Pictures, Inc. Goldwyn Pictures
Pictures Paramount Pictures Universal Studios (162) American International Corporation Goldwyn Distributing Company Gouverneur Morris Kino Video
Productions Tigon Pictures American International Pictures (AIP) (163) (178) (182) (184) (188) Scary Movies LLC Toolbox Murders Inc. Lions Gate
Gaumont British Picture Corporation Ltd. Gaumont British Picture Films Inc. Toolbox Murders Inc. Lionsgate (194) Hammer Film Productions
Corporation of America Janus Films Woolf & Freedman Film Service Metro- Limited Rank Film Organization Universal International Pictures Hammer
Goldwyn-Mayer (171) (176) (179) Hammer Film Productions Limited Wamer Film Productions Warner Home Video (217) Cinema City Film Productions
Home Video (187) (190) (192) Gaumont British Picture Corporation Ltd. Film Workshop Ltd Manga Films S.L. Tai Seng Video (230) Cinema City
Gaumont British Picture Corporation of America Janus Films Woolf & Film Productions Film Workshop Ltd Manga Films S.L. Tai Seng Video (240)
Freedman Film Service Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (193) Heron Media Home Hemisphere Pictures Inc. Hemisphere Pictures Inc. Motion Picture Marketing
Entertainment New Line Cinema Media Home Entertainment New Line Inc. Image Entertainment (249)
266
Index
Page references to films discussed in the C a n o n chapter, people or things described in the Icons chapter, a n d
specific feature b o x e s are indicated in b o l d .
20th Century Fox 43, 174 Alraune 17 The Avenging Conscience 17

2007; A Space Odyssey 92, 145 Amarcord (film) 175 Avoriaz 253
28 Days Later 52 Amarcord (magazine) 259
3-D 29, 31 Amenabar, Alejandro 50, 54, 246
An American Werewolf In London 44,
5 9 - 6 1 , 212 B
A Amicus 26, 37
Amplas, John 208
Baclanova, Olga 98, 99
Bacon, Kevin 211
Abbott And Costello Meet Dr Jekyll And Anders, Luana 130
Badrun, El 232
Mr Hyde 191 Anderson, Paul W.S. 53
Bad Taste 189, 191, 238
Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein Andrews, Brian 200
Baker, Rick 59, 60, 94
26, 198, 212 Andrews, Dana 115
Angustia (Anguish) 45 Baker, Betsy 89, 91
Abbott And Costello Meet The Killer, Balaguero, Jaume 245
Animal horror 175
Boris Karloff 191 Balderston, John L. 86
Aniston, Jennifer 211
Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy Ballard, J.G. 178
Antonioni, Michelangelo 182
199 Balme, Timothy 63, 64
The Ape 192
Abbott, Bruce 135, 136 Balsam, Martin 133, 134
Aquino, Kris 239
The Abominable Dr Phibes 204 Arachnophobia 175 Bancroft, Anne 192
The Abominable Snowman 152, 180 Archibald, William 105 Band, Charles 45
Academy Awards 21, 23, 25, 38, 48, 59, Argentina 220-221 Band, Richard 135, 136
71, 73, 74, 92, 110, 142, 148, 151, Banderas, Antonio 10
171, 187, 190, 198, 201, 202, 205, Argento, Dario 25, 40, 41, 42, 81, 82,
130, 152-153, 165-167, 186, 207, Barbareschi, Luca 71
214 Barker, Clive 9, 45, 179
226, 233
Ackerman, Forrest J. 34 Barrett, Edith 106, 107
Arkoff, Samuel Z. 174
Agutter, Jenny 59 Barrymore, Drew 142, 143
Armstrong, Michael 228
Ahlberg, Mac 135 Barrymore, John 18
Arnold, Jack 170
AIDS 43, 45, 112, 147, 177 Barrymore, Lionel 170, 191
Arquette, David 142, 143
Ainsworth, William Harrison 8 Basic Instinct 48
Asher, Jack 79, 87
AIP 37, 111, 130, 158, 174 The Asian boom 51 Basil, Salvatore 71
Aja, Alexandre 51, 155, 156, 226 Assault On Precinct 73 171, 200 Bassett, Ronald 161
Alcott, John 144 Aswang (The Unearthing) 241 The Bat 71, 72
Aldrich, Robert 35 Asylums 69 Bates, Kathy 74, 206
Alemdar, Mehmet 248 Ataman, E. Kutlug 248 Bava, Eugenio 167
Alexandre, Maxime 155 Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes 195 Bava, Lamberto 166, 168
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour 187 Audley, Maxine 125 Bava, Mario 31, 35, 59, 62, 118, 153,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents 187 Auric, George 104 165, 167-168, 208, 233, 243, 256, 259
Alien 39, 167, 171 Austen, Jane 5 Bava, Roy 168
Allen, Lewis 159, 160 Austin Powers movies 168 Baxter, Les 130, 131
Allen, Nancy 73 Australia 222 The Beast With Five Fingers 28
Allied Artists 191 Avalos, Enrique Tovar 183 Bedlam 70, 191, 197
267
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES: INDEX
Bekmambetov, Timur 243 Books and magazines 256-263 Campbell, Neve 142, 143
Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla 198 Borowczyk, Walerian 241 Campbell, Ramsey 9, 259
Belgium 223-224 Bose, Miguel 152 Candyman 50, 139
Bell, Wayne 156 Bottin, Rob 59 Cannes 89, 189, 242
Bellamy, Ralph 140, 141 Boulton, Davis 102 Cannibal Holocaust 7 1 - 7 2 , 233
Mrs Belloc Lowndes 9 Bourke, Terry 222 Cantinflas 235
Beltrami, Marco 142 Boyle, Danny 52 Capote, Truman 105, 150
Ben 195 Boyle, Peter 185 Carbone, Antony 130, 131
Bennett, Charles 116 Brach, Gerard 138 The Card Player 167, 168
Bennett, Joan 152, 153 Braindead 50, 6 3 - 6 6 , 190, 215 Cardona, Rene 26, 41, 236, 237
Bergman, Ingmar 175, 176, 243 Bernard, Bram Stoker's Dracula 48 Carewe, Edmund 75, 128
James 79, 87, 132 Brambell, Wilfrid 160 Carlos, Wendy 144
Bernstein, Charles 113 Branagh, Kenneth 48, 185, 186 Carnarvon, Lord 199
Bernstein, Elmer 59 Brasseur, Pierre 94, 95 Carnival Of Souls 38
Bertolucci, Bernardo 165 Bray Studios 80, 132, 180 Carpenter, John 40, 101, 111, 153,
Besson, Luc 155 Brazil 224-225 170-172, 186, 200
The Bible 3 The Bride Of Frankenstein 21, 66-68, Carradine, David 183
Big Trouble In Little China 171, 172 Bi- 110, 185, 191, 214 Carradine, John 25, 183, 204
gelow, Kathryn 45, 112, 113 Bridenbecker, Milton 128 Carre, Ben 128
Bill Haley & His Comets 32 Broekman, David 96 Carreras, Enrique 180
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage 40, Bronte, Charlotte 4, 107 Carrie 45, 7 3 - 7 5 , 144, 181
42, 153, 165, 233 Browning, Tod 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 84, 85, Carry On Screaming 38
The Birds 110, 175, 186 86, 98, 99, 100, 122, 169-170, 172, Carson, John 132, 133
Bisclavaret 3 173, 183, 198 Carter, Ann 197
The Black Cat 21, 25, 37, 191, 198 Black Brussels International Festival Of Carter, Howard 199
Park 80 Fantastic Film 254 Casani, Stefania 152
Black Sabbath 168, 192 Bucci, Flavio 152 Cassavetes, John 140
Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio) A Bucket Of Blood 34 Castle Of Frankenstein 259
35, 6 1 - 6 3 , 118, 167 Buechler, John Carl 210 Castle, Nick 172, 200
The Blackbird 170 Bug 175 Castle, William 30, 94, 101, 123, 140,
Blackburn, John 195 Bunston, Herbert 84, 86 151, 202, 204, 252
Blackmer, Sidney 140, 141 Bunuel, Luis 10, 94 The Cat And The Canary 19-20, 23, 39,
Blacula 39 Burke And Hare 7 70, 7 5 - 7 7 , 86, 122, 159
The Blair Witch Project 50, 51, 72 Burke, William 8, 10 The Cat O'Nine Tails 165
Blair, Linda 41, 92, 144 Burns, Marilyn 156, 157, 188 Cat People 25, 7 7 - 7 9 , 106, 196, 208
Blakley, Ronee 113, 114 Burroughs, William 178 Chan, Jackie 229
Blanks, Jamie 102 Burstyn, Ellen 92 Chandler, Helen 84, 86
Blasco, J o e 147 Burton, Tim 10, 62, 198, 204, 226 Chaney, Lon 18. 19, 20, 98, 122, 128,
Blatty, William Peter 92 Bustamante, Adolfo Fernandez 26 170, 172-173, 258
Bloch, Robert 10, 258 Bustillo Oro, Juan 23 Chaney Jr, Lon 25, 26, 61, 183, 185,
Blood 86 Butler, Bill 108 195, 199, 212
Blood And Black Lace 152, 167 Blood Byron, Lord 66, 185 Charlemagne 195
For Dracula 186, 202 Chase, Chevy 171
Blood From The Mummy's Tomb 170, Checohi, Andrea 61
199
Blood Feast 262
C Chester, Hal E. 116
Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering
Bloom, Claire 103 Caan, James 74 211
Blyth, David 238 Cabinet Of Dr Caligari The (Das Kabinett Chiller Theatre 255
The Body Snatcher 7, 191, 197, 102 des Dr Caligari) 16, 17, 6 9 - 7 1 , 1 1 9 , A Chinese Ghost Story 229
Bogdanovich, Peter 175, 192 Bohm, 227 Christensen, Benjamin 17, 19, 20, 244
Carl 125, 127 Cagney, James 172 Christine 172
Boileau, Pierre 83, 95 Caine, Michael 181, 182 A Christmas Carol 5, 8
Bond, Lilian 122 Campbell, Bruce 89, 9 1 , 91, 205 The church 38
The Boogeyman 139, 206 Campbell, Eddie 10 Ciardi, Francesa 71
268
Cinefantastique (CFQ) 259, 262 Cruise, Tom 10 de la Iglesia, Alex 246

Cinemuerte 255 Cruz, Alejandro 199 de Leon, Gerardo 239
Clare, Diane 132, 133 Cul-de-sac 202 Deilamorte dellamore (Cemetery Man)
Clarke, Mae 96, 98 Cummins, Peggy 115 50
Clayton, Jack 104, 105 Cundrey, Dean 101 Delrich, Hal 89, 91
Clive, Colin 66, 96, 97, 213 Cunningham, Sean S. 45, 176, 210 Del Ruth, Roy 19
A Clockwork Orange 144 The Curse Of Frankenstein 32, 7 9 - 8 1 , del Toro, Guillermo 47
Clooney, George 211 87, 152, 168, 179, 180, 184, 195, Demme, Jonathan 48, 148, 149, 150,
Clouzot, Henri-Georges 83, 84, 226 258 175
Clouzot, Vera 83 The Curse Of The Werewolf 184, 212 Deneuve, Catherine 137, 138
Cobb, Lee J. 92 Cursed 177, 212 Denham, Maurice 115
Cocteau, Jean 94 Curtis, Jamie Lee 1 0 1 , 101, 102, 143, De Niro, Robert 142, 181, 185, 186
The Coen brothers 91, 205 155, 166, 200, 222 Deodato, Ruggero 71, 72
Cohen, Larry 40 Curtis, Kelly 166 de Ossorio, Amando 245
Collette, Toni 150, 151 Curtis, Tony 101, 134 De Palma, Brian 10, 44, 75, 156,
Collins, Joan 5 Cushing, Peter 10, 35, 37, 79, 80, 81, 181-182
Collins, Wilkie 8 87, 88, 1 7 9 - 1 8 1 , 195, 204, 214, Depp, Johnny 7, 10, 113, 114, 202, 211
Combs, Jeffrey 135, 136 229, 261 De Quincey, Thomas 154
Conan Doyle, Arthur 8, 15, 195 Cyphers, Charles 101 de Rossi, Giovanni 155
Concorde/New Horizons 175 The Czech Republic 226 De Santis, Eliana 10
Condon, Bill 214 The Devil 142
Confessions Of An Opium Eater 154 The Devil Rides Out 142, 184, 185, 195
Conventions 255-256
Conway, Jack 173
D The Devils 42
Diabolique (Les Diaboliques) 33, 8 3 - 8 4 ,
Conway, Tom 77, 78, 106, 107 Dade, Frances 84, 86 226, 251
Copperfield, David 211 Dagored 251 Dickens, Charles 4, 5, 8
Coppola, Francis Ford 31, 48, 119, Dagover, Lil 69, 71 Dickinson, Angie 182
175, 181 Dance Of The Vampires 37, 139, 202 Diffring, Anton 204
Coquillion, John 160 Dante Alighieri 10 Disney, Walt 154
Corman, Roger 22, 34, 37, 130, 131, Dante, J o e 59, 60, 61, 78, 259 Djalil, H. Tjut 232
148, 174-175, 191, 204, 239, 253, Danziger, Allen 156, 157 Do You Like Hitchcock? 167
259 Dark Eyes Of London 198, 199 Dobes, Marek 226
Corri, Nici 113, 114 The Dark Half 74, 207 Doederlein, Fred 146, 147
Corridor Of Mirrors 194 The Dark Side 259, 260 D'Offizi, Sergio 71
Corruption 181, 204 Darkman 91, 206, 251 Dolores Claiborne 74
Cosgrove, John 222 Dascent, Peter 63 Dominici, Arturo 61
Cox, Brian 148 Davies, Rupert 160, 161 Donaggio, Dino 73
Cox, Courteney 142, 143 Davis, Bette 35 Donner, Richard 39, 144
Crampton, Barbara 135, 136 Dawley, J. Searle 15, 17, 185 Don't Look Now 42
Craven, Wes 40, 47, 113, 114, 115, Dawn Of The Dead (1978) 41, 8 1 - 8 2 , Douglas, Melvyn 122
142, 143, 144, 155, 158, 176-177, 166, 206, 207 Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 15, 16, 17, 18,
193, 243 Dawn Of The Dead (2004) 51, 52, 82, 21, 23, 25, 198, 207
Crawford, David 81 207 Dracula 25, 26, 79, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89,
Crawford, Joan 35, 170 Day Of The Dead 81, 207 182-183, 193, 194, 195, 198, 204,
Creature From The Haunted Sea 158, Dead Calm 222 247
174 Dead Ringers 178 Dracula (1931) 21, 8 4 - 8 7 , 96, 170, 172,
Crisp, Donald 159 The Dead Zone 74, 178 183, 198, 212, 215, 257
Criterion 251 de Bont, Jan 104 Dracula (1958) 33, 8 7 - 8 9 , 180, 183,
Crocodile 189 Decla Film Company 69 184,
Cronenberg, David 40, 74, 146, 147, Dee, Frances 106, 107 195
148, 1 7 7 - 1 7 9 Deformity and disfigurement 122 Dracula (the novel) 8, 86, 87, 113, 119,
Cronos 47 De France, Cecile 155 182
Crosby, Floyd 130 de France, Marie 3, 212 Dracula's Daughter 183, 214
Crothers, Scatman 144 de Fuentes, Fernando 23 Drake, Larry 204
269
Drakula Istanbul'da (Dracula In Istanbul) Exorcist: The Beginning 94 Fraker, William A. 140
247 Eyes Without A Face (Les Yeux Sans France 226
Dressed To Kill 44 Visage) 33, 9 4 - 9 6 , 226 Francis, Freddie 104, 105, 106, 180
Dreyer, Carl Theodor 23, 244 Franco, J e s s 35, 245
Dreyfuss, Richard 108, 109 Franju, Georges 94
Frankenstein (1931) 21, 66, 80, 9 6 - 9 8 ,
du Maurier, Daphne 175, 186
Du Welz, Fabrice 224
F 122, 123, 150, 213, 214, 215
Dudgeon, Elspeth 122 The Fall Of The House Of Usher 37, 130, Frankenstein (1910) 14, 17
Dunne, Griffin 59 174, 204 Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell
Durand, Chris 200 Famous for fifteen minutes 186 184, 185
Durbin, Deanna 5 Famous Monsters Of Filmland 259 Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man 111,
Dust Devil 50 Fangoria 251, 259, 260, 261 185, 198, 212
Duvall, Shelley 144, 145, 146 Fantasia International Film Festival 254 The Frankenstein Monster 5, 17, 25, 26,
DVDs 46, 251 Fantasporto: Oporto International Film 67, 68, 80, 81, 96, 98, 110, 185-186,
Dwyer, Hilary 160, 161 Festival 254 191, 193, 198, 213
The Fantastic Factory 53 Frankenstein Unbound 175, 185
Fanzines 262 Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus
5, 185
E Farrow, Mia 140-142
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner 227 Franklin, Pamela 104, 105
Earles, Harry 98, 99, 173 Fatal Attraction 48 Franklin, Richard 222
Easdale, Brian 125 Fawcett, John 212 Fraser, Helen 137
Eastman, Marilyn 117, 118 Feher, Friedrioh 69 Fraser, John 137, 138
EC Comics 34, 37, 158, 206, 207 Feldman, Corey 210 Freaks 9 8 - 1 0 0 , 122, 170, 257
Ed Wood 198 Fellini, Federico 63, 175 Freda, Riccardo 32, 34, 38, 167, 168,
Edeson, Arthur 96, 122 Femme Fatale 182 208, 233, 256
Edison, Thomas 185 Femme Fatales 260 Freddy Vs Jason 52, 193, 194, 210
Edward Scissorhands 204 Ferrara, Abel 42 Freud, Sigmund 6, 182
Edwards, Snitz 128 Ferris, Paul 160 Freund, Karl 17, 84, 86, 87, 199, 227
Ek, Anders 200 The Festival Of Fantastic Films 255 Friday The 13th 42, 43, 45, 143, 158,
Ellison, James 106, 107 Field, Shirley Anne 127 168, 176, 210, 211
Emerson, Keith 167 Fiennes, Ralph 178 Friday The 13th Part II210
Emge, David 81 The Fifth Element 155 Friday The 13th Pari 3: 3-D 210
Endore, Guy 212 Film festivals 253-255 Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives 210
Englund, Robert 113, 177, 188, 189, 193 Filmfax 259, 260 Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood
The Epic Of Gilgamesh 3 Final Destination 54 210
Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith 194 Finley, William 10 Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes
Erksan, Metin 247 Finto, Andrei 155 Manhattan 210
Esper, Dwain 100 Fisher, Terence 33, 36, 79, 80, 87, 88, Friday The 13th: A New Beginning 210
Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadaver 225 133, 180, 183-185, 212 Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter 210
Estella, Ramon 234 Flemying, Robert 204 Friedkin, William 39, 92, 111
Eudes, Frangois 155 Flesh 186 FrightFest 255
European Federation of Fantastic Film The Flesh And The Fiends 10, 181 From Dusk Till Dawn 47
Festivals 253 Florey, Robert 24 From Hell 10
Events 253-256 The Fly 178, 204 Fruet, William 155
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn 91, 205 Foam, John 168 Frye, Dwight 66, 84, 86, 96, 97
Evil Dead Regeneration 206 Fog 168 Fujimoto, Tak 148, 150
The Evil Dead 44, 51, 8 9 - 9 1 , 205, 206, The Fog 101, 171 Fulci, Lucio 4 1 , 233
238 Fonda, Peter 175 The Funny Man 194
Ford, Derek 181 Furneaux, Yvonne 137, 138
The Evil Eye 38, 233
Ewers, Hanns Heinz 9 Ford, Donald 181
Executive Films 180 Ford, Wallace 98
Exorcist II: The Heretic 94
The Exorcist 39, 41, 50, 59, 9 2 - 9 4 , 110,
Foree, Ken 81, 82
Foster, Jodie 148, 149
G
111, 144, 150, 168, 247 Foster, Preston 204 Galaga, Peque 240, 241
The Exorcist III 94 Fox, Michael J. 190 Gale, David 135, 136
270
Galeen, Henrik 119, 120 Halloween 40, 42, 43, 47, 101-102, Henriksen, Lance 112
Gambon, Michael 10 111, 143, 171, 172, 200 Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer 45
Garrani, Ivo 61 Halloween 11101 Henson, Nicky 160, 161
Gary, Lorraine 108 Halloween III: Season Of The Witch 102, Hepburn, Katherine 150
Gaunt, Valerie 79, 87 171, 200 Herrmann, Bernard 110, 130, 134, 136,
Gautama Putra, Sisworo 232 Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers 181, 187
Gavin, John 133, 134 200 Herz, Juraj 226
Germany 227-228 Halloween H20 101 Herzog, Werner 119
Gerstad, Merritt B. 98 Hameister, Willy 69 Hexen bis aufs Blut gequaelt (Mark Of
Ghost 151 Hamilton, Chico 137 The Devil) 228
The Ghost Breakers 28 Hamilton, Linda 155 Hickox, Douglas 205
The Ghoul 181, 191 Hamilton, Murray 108, 109 The Hills Have Eyes 177
Giger, H.R. 242 Hammer 26, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, The Hills Have Eyes I1177
Gilling, John 10, 132, 133 40, 80, 87, 89, 102, 110, 113, 115, Hinds, William 180
Gillis, Jamie 183 123, 130, 132, 133, 138, 158, 168, Hitchcock, Alfred 17, 20, 25, 35, 36,
Gimmick, gimmick, gimmick 31 170, 179,180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 74, 76, 83, 102, 102, 105, 109, 110,
Ginnane, Anthony I, 222 194, 199, 202, 212, 215, 229, 234, 116, 133,
Giovanni, Paul 111 235, 258, 259, 261, 264
134, 135, 137, 138, 167, 175, 1 8 6 -
Glenn, Scott 148 Hampton, Paul 146, 147 187, 202, 206
Glover, Brian 59 Hampton, Robert 168 Hobson, Valerie 66, 68
Goblin 110, 165 The Hand That Rocks The Cradle 48 Hodder, Kane 210
Gogol, Nikolai 6, 62 Hanks, Tom 193, 211 Hoffman, E.T.A. 6
Goldstein, Jenette 112 Hannibal 150 Hoffman, Philip Seymour 211
Gordon Lewis, Herschell 36, 158 Hansen, Gunnar 156, 157 Holden, Gloria 183
Gordon, Christine 106, 107 Hardman, Karl 117, 118 Homicidal 30
Gordon, Gavin 66 Hardy, Robin 195 Hong Kong 229-230
Gordon, Keith 172 Hare, William 8 Hooper, Tobe 40, 121, 156, 157, 158,
Gordon, Ruth 140, 141, 142 Harford-Davis, Robert 181
Gordon, Stuart 135, 136 188-189
Harlin, Renny 193
Gornick, Michael 81 Hope, Bob 77
Harper, Jessica 10, 152, 153
Goss, Luke 185 Hope, Lady Esther 6
Harris, Julie 102, 103, 104
Hopkins, Anthony 48, 148, 150
Gothic novel 4-5 Harris, Marilyn 96
Hopkins, Stephen 193
Gough, Michael 87, 88, 204 Harris, Michael 148
Hopper, Dennis 188
Granach, Alexander 119, 120 Harry Potter series 80
Horror soundtracks 110
Grant, Arthur 132 Harryhausen, Ray 64
Horrors Of The Black Museum 34
Graveyards 118 Has, Wojciech 241, 242
The Hound Of The Baskervilles 15, 23,
Green, Pamela 127, 128 Hatton, Rondo 122
Greenberg, Adam 112 Haunted and old dark houses 104 133, 180, 184
Griffith, Charles B. 175 The Haunting Of Hill House 102, 145 House Of Frankenstein 191, 212
Griffith, D.W. 15, 17, 19, 170 The Haunting 102-104, 145, 159, 197 House Of Wax 29
The Grudge 206 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 6, 19 House On Haunted Hill 104, 204
The Grudge 2 206 Hayashi, Hikaru 123 The Howling 59, 212
Guerin Hill, Claudio 246 Hayashi, Ichiro 139 Hughes, Albert 10
Guerin, Frangois 94 Hayward, Louis 180 Hughes, Allen 10
Guy, Alice 15 Haze, Jonathan 175 Hull, Henry 212
Gwynne, Fred 185 Heald, Anthony 148 The Hunchback Of Notre Dame 18, 20,
Heavenly Creatures 190 21, 122, 172, 206, 215
Hedden, Rob 210 Hung, Sammo 229
H Hedren, Tippi 186
Heggie, O.P. 67
Hunt, Roy J. 106
Hunter, Holly 206
Hackford, Taylor 74 Heller, Otto 125 Hussey, Ruth 159
Haitkin, Jacques 113 Hellraiser 45 Huysmans, J-K 8
Hale, Creighton 75 Hendry, Ian 137, 138 Hyams, Leila 98
Haller, Daniel 131 Henkel, Kim 188 Hyams, Peter 144
27!
John Carpenter's Vampires 171 Kumel, Harry 233

I Johnson, Diane 145 Kuroda, Kiyomi 123
Ibanez Serrador, Narciso 37, 245 Johnson, Richard 102, 103 Kurosawa, Akira 123
India 231-232 Jones, Darby 107 Kyrou, Ado 10
Indonesia 232 Jones, Duane 117
Inferno 154, 166, 167, 168 Jordan, Neil 10
The Innocents 104-106
Insomnia 244
Julian, Rupert 20, 128
Jurassic Park 48
L
Interview With The Vampire 10 La campana del infierno (The Bell Of
The Intruder 174, 206 Heir) 246
Irons, Jeremy 178
Irving, Amy 73
K La horripilante bestia human (Night Of
The Bloody Apes) 237
Irving, Washington 6, 7, 10 Kaptan, Atif 247 La venganza del sexo (The Curious Dr
Irwin, Mark 142 Karloff, Boris 21, 25, 26, 66, 80, 96, Humpp) 220
Isaac, Jim 210, 211 102, 122, 150, 168, 175, 185, 1 9 1 - Lady Frankenstein 175, 185
The Island Of Dr Moreau 15, 23 192, 197, 198, 203, 204, 213, 214 Laemmle, Carl 128
Island Of Lost Souls 23, 198, 212 Katt, William 73 Lanchester, Elsa 66, 67, 214
Isle Of The Dead 191, 197 Kawai, Kenji 139 Land Of The Dead 81, 207
Italy 233 Keith, Carlos 197 Landan, Michael 34
/ Vampiri (Lust Of The Vampire, aka The Kelly, Gene 5 Landau, Martin 198
Devil's Commandment) 32, 167, 168, Kelly, Grace 187 Landis, Bill 262
233 Kendall, Brenda 63 Landis, John 59
/ Walked With A Zombie 106-108, 132, Kennedy, Jamie 143 Landon, Michael 32
196, 215, 208 Kenton, Erie C. 24 Lang, Charles 159
/ Was A Teenage Werewolf 32, 34, 195, Kerman, Robert 66, 68 Lang, Fritz 17, 70, 137
212 Kerr, Deborah 104, 105 Langenkamp, Heather 113, 114, 177
Kerr, John 130, 131 Lansbury, Angela 25
Kerry, Norman 128, 170 LaPlante, Laura 75, 77
Izuno, Orie 139 Kertesz, Mihaly 17 Laranas, Yam 241
Khalfoun, Franck 155 Larquey, Pierre 83
Kier, Udo 152, 183, 186, 242 Larsen, Viggo 15
J King Kong 190, 192
King of horror 74
77ie Last House On The Left 40, 243,
113, 155, 158, 176, 243
Jack the Ripper 9,10, 20, 42, 168, 186 King, George 10 Laughlin, Michael 238
Jackson, Peter 50, 63, 64, 65, 66, King, Stephen 9, 73, 75, 89, 102, 121, Laughton, Charles 122
1 8 9 - 1 9 1 , 238 139, 144, 145, 172, 178, 188, 189, Laurie, Piper 73
Jackson, Shirley 102, 145 207, 256 Le Fanu, J. Sheridan 8
James, Henry 8, 104, 105, 106 Kingston, Kiwi 185 Leakey, Phil 80
James, M.R. 9, 107, 115, 116 Kinoshita, Keisuke 26, 233 Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Jane Eyre 107 Kinski, Klaus 183, 227 III 157
Janowitz, Hans 69, 70, 71 Kiss Of The Vampire 80, 132 Lee, Anna 197
Japan 233 Kleist, Heinrich von 6 Lee, Christopher 25, 37, 39, 79, 80, 81,
Jarre, Maurice 94 Kneale, Nigel 102, 180, 200, 201 87, 88, 111, 167, 168, 180, 183, 185,
Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday 210 Knight, Esmond 125 194-195, 199, 203, 204, 227
Jason X 179, 210, 211 Koerner, Charles 106 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 6
Jaws 39, 1 0 8 - 1 1 1 , 175 Komeda, Krzysztof 140
Jaws - The Revenge 111 Leigh, Janet 101, 102, 133, 134, 135,
Kotcheff, Ted 222 186, 200
Jaws 2 111
Krauss, Werner 69, 70 Leni, Paul 17, 19, 20, 75, 77
Jaws 3-D 111
Krueger, Freddy 48, 115, 139, 144, 177, Leone, Sergio 165
Jeepers Creepers 54
188, 192-194, 210 The Leopard Man 196, 208, 209
Jenkins, Megs 104, 105
Kubrick, Stanley 44, 74, 138, 144, 145, Leroux, Gaston 9, 15, 128, 129, 181
Jessop, Clytie 105
146 Les Besco, Maiwenn 155
Jodorowsky, Alejandro 236, 237
Jodorowsky, Axel 236 Kumar Kohli, Raj 231 Levasseur, Gregory 155
Johann, Zita 199 Kumar, Ashok 231 Leviathen 3
John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars 171
272
Levin, Ira 140, 141, 202 The Man In The Iron Mask 214 Migicovsky, Allan 146
Levine, Ted 148, 149 The Man Of A Thousand Faces 172 Miike, Takashi 50, 51, 234
Lewin, Albert 28 Man With Nine Lives 204 Miles, Vera 133, 134
Lewis, David 213 Manchu, Fu 26 Milland, Ray 159
Lewis, M.G. 5, 10 Mann, Michael 148, 149 Millennium Pictures 175
Lewton, Val 25, 26, 50, 77, 78, 101, Manners, David 84, 86 Miller, David 193
102, 106, 107, 108, 115, 124, 159, March, Fredric 21 Miller, Jason 92
160, 191, 196-197, 208, 209 Marcus, Adam 210 Miller, Virgil 128
Lillard, Matthew 143 Margheriti, Antonio 186 Milne, Murray 63
Lindgren, Mikael 200 Maria Martin, or Murder In The Red Miner, Steve 200, 210
Linow, Ivan 173 Barn 6 Miracle Films 200
Lion, Mickey 168 Mark Of The Vampire 170 Miramax 143
Lisa And The Devil 142, 168 Mariowe, Christopher 4 Mirrors 139
The Little Shop Of Horrors 174, 175 Marryat, Frederick 6 Mizoguchi, Kenji 33, 123, 233
Little Shoppe Of Horrors 259, 260 Marsh, Carol 87 Le moine (The Monk) 10
Littlefield, Lucien 75 Martin 207, 208 Mojica Marins, J o s e 224
Lloyd Webber, Andrew 130 Martin, Wrye 241 Monkeys 192
Lloyd, Danny 144, 145 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 48, 185, Monster mash 195
The Lodger 20 186 The Monster Times 259
LoDuca, Joseph 89 Massey, Anna 125 Moody, Elizabeth 63, 64
Lommel, Ulli 227 Massey, Raymond 122 Moore, Alan 10
London After Midnight 19, 85, 170, 172 Matsushima, Nanako 139, 140 Moore, Eva 122
London Film Festival 200 Matthew of Paris 4 Moore, Kieron 204
Longford, Raymond 222 Maturin, Charles 5 Morell, Andre 132, 133
Loomis, Nancy 101 Maxwell, Lois 102, 103 Morley, Robert 205
Lopez Moctezuma, Juan 236 Mayall, Rik 59 Morricone, Ennio 110
Lord Of The Rings series 64, 189, 190, Mayer, Carl 69, 70, 71 Morrieson, Ronald Hugh 238
194 Mayniel, Juliette 94 Morrissey, Paul 186
Loree, Brad 200 McCarron, Bob 66 Most Dangerous Game (aka The
Lorre, Peter 2 2 , 22, 227 McClosky, Leigh 167 Hounds of Zaroff) 24
The Lost Boys 112 McConaughey, Matthew 211 The Mummy Returns 199
Lovecraft, H.P. 9, 135, 136, 171 McDonough, Jimmy 262 The Mummy (1932) 21, 138, 180, 184,
Lowry, Lynn 146, 147 McDormand, Frances 206 191, 199
Lucas, George 181 Mclntire, John 133, 134 The Mummy (1999) 199
Lugosi, Bela 21, 22, 23, 25, 84, 85, 87, McKellen, Ian 74, 214 The Mummy's Ghost 199
170, 180, 183, 185, 191, 197-199, McLoughlin, Tom 210 The Mummy's Hand 199
204, 212, 214, 235 McMinn, Teri 156, 157 The Mummy's Shroud 199
Lumiere, Louis and Auguste 13 McRae, Henry 212 Murders In The Rue Morgue 21, 192,
Luppi, Federico 47 Meet The Feebles 64, 190, 191 198
Lustig, Bill 155 Melford, George 23, 183 Murnau, F.W. 17, 86, 119, 120, 198
Lytton, Edward Bulwer 8 Melies, Georges 14 Musuraca, Nick 77
Memorabilia and merchandise 251-253, The Mutations 122
256 My Boyfriend's Back 211
M Mendez, Fernando 235
Menjou, Adolphe 142
Myers, Michael 40, 200
Mysterious islands 239
M 22 Merhige, E. Elias 119
Maas, Dick 237 Mescall, John 66, 68
Macardle, Dorothy 159
Macbeth 4, 202
Metropolis 70, 199
Meurisse, Paul 83
N
MacGinniss, Neil 115 Mexico 235-237 Nahon, Philippe 155
Mad Doctor Of Blood Island 240 Meyrick, Gustav 9 Nakagawa, Nobuo 33, 124, 233
Magnet 111 MGM 28, 43, 98, 100, 196, 208 Nakata, Hideo 50, 51, 139, 140, 233
Malaysia and Singapore, 234 Midi-Minuit Fantastique 226, 259 Nakatani, Miki 139
Mamoulian, Rouben 23 Midnight Marquee 261 Nalder, Reggie 121
273
Narcejac, Thomas 83, 95 Philbin, Mary 128

Naschy, Paul 37, 183, 185, 199, 212,
O The Pianist 202
245 O'Bannon, Dan 171 Picasso, Paloma 241
Naughton, David 59 O'Dea, Judith 117 The Picture Of Dorian Gray 15, 25, 28
The Odyssey 3 Pierce, Jack 68, 80, 96, 185, 215
Neal, Edwin 156, 157 Ogilvy, Ian 160, 161
Pillsbury, Sam 238
Wear Dark 45, 1 1 2 - 1 1 3 Ogle, Charles 185
Pinewood Studios 80, 180
Neeson, Liam 206 The Old Dark House 21, 122-123, 214
Old, John 168 Piranha 63, 175
Neill, Roy William 111
Oldfield, Mike 111 Pirkanen, Perry 71
Nelson, Barry 144 Oldman, Gary 183 The Pit And The Pendulum 37, 63,
Nero, Frances 10 The Omen 38, 39, 144, 152 1 3 0 - 1 3 2 , 174
The Netherlands 237-238 Onibaba (The Hole) 37, 123-125, 140, Pitt, Brad 10
233
Neuchatel International Fantastic Film The Plague Of The Zombies 132-133,
Ordong, Wyott 174
Festival 255 215
Ortalani, Riz 71
Neumann, Kurt 178 Osment, Haley Joel 150, 151 Planet Of The Vampires 167, 168
The Others 54, 246 Pleasenoe, Donald 10, 101, 200
Neville, Edgar 245
Otis Skinner, Cornelia 159 Poe, Edgar Allan 6, 9, 15, 16, 37, 70,
New Line Cinema 210 Otowa, Nobuko 123, 124, 125 85, 130, 131, 132, 167, 174, 192, 204,
New World Pictures 175 Ottman, John 102 207, 220, 226, 227, 236
New York City Horror Film Festival 255 Pointer, Priscilla 144
New Zealand 238-239 Polanski, Roman 36, 137, 138, 140, 141,
Newton Howard, James 150 P-Q 142, 2 0 0 - 2 0 2 , 206, 241
Nicholson, Jack 142, 144, 145, 146, Pakistan 232 Polidori, John 185
175, 212 Palmer, Betsy 210 Poland 241-242
Panic Theatre group 236 Poltermann, Barry 241
Nicholson, James H. 174
Paramount 42, 159, 160, 172, 210 Pommer, Erich 69
Nicolodi, Dario 153 Parke, Clifton 115 Poster taglines 152
Nicolosi, Roberto 61 Partain, Paul A. 156, 157 Potente, Franka 228
Nielsen, Leslie 183 Pasdar, Adrian 112
Powell, Eddie 199
Patrick 222
Night Of The Demon (aka Curse Of The Paxton, Bill 112 Powell, Michael 125, 127, 128, 137
Demon) 115-116, 197, 208 Paynter, Robert 59 Prest, Thomas Preskett 6
Night Of The Uving Dead 36, 38, 81, Pearce, Jacqueline 132, 133 Price, Vincent 22, 25, 29, 30, 130, 131,
Pearl, Daniel 156 160, 175, 202, 202-205, 214, 258
117-118, 132, 147, 171, 206, 207, 215
Peeping Tom 34, 26, 125-128, 251 Priestley, J . B . 122
Night Watch 54
Pegg, Simon 215 Prom Night 101, 143
A Nightmare On Elm Street 43, 113-115, Pellea, Oana 155
Psycho 10, 40, 48, 83, 86, 101, 102,
142, 176, 177, 193, 210, 211 The Penalty 172
104, 109, 110, 133-135, 136, 138,
Penalver, Diane 63, 64
Nispel, Marcus 159, 189 157, 180, 181, 182, 186, 200
Penderecki, Krzysztof 111
Nitzsche, Jack 92, 111 Perez, Antonio J o s e 240 Psychotronic 259, 261
Nocturno 251 Perkins, Anthony 133, 134, 135 Puchon International Fantastic Film
Nocturno 259, 261 The Phantom Of The Opera (1925) 18, Festival 254
21, 25, 128-130, 172 The Quatermass Experiment (film) 32, 80,
Nosferatu - eine Symphonie des Grauens
The Phantom Of The Opera (1962) 180, 167, 180
(Nosferatu - A Symphony of Terror) 17, 184
Quatermass 261
86, 1 1 9 - 1 2 1 , 183, 227 The Phantom Of The Opera (1998) 167
Phantom Of The Paradise 10, 181 The Quatermass Experiment (television)
No Shame 251
Phenomena 166, 192 102
Novak, Kim 187 The Philippines 239-241 Quigley, Linnea 5
Noyce, Philip 222 Philo, Tim 89
274
R Roemheld, Heinz 122

Roger of Wendover 4
Scary Movie 143
Schaffer, Anthony 195
Radcliffe, Ann 4, 5 Rohrig, Walter 70 Scheider, Roy 108, 109
Raimi, Sam 44, 89, 91, 2 0 5 - 2 0 6 Roizman, Owen 92 Schifrin, Lalo 111
Rains, Claude 25, 214 Rollin, Jean 37, 226, 259, 262 Schlingensief, Christoph 50, 227
Rajaa, Bharatha 231 Romero, Eddie 239 Schlock 60, 152
The Ramsay Brothers 231 Romero, George A. 36, 38, 41, 52, Schnell, G.H. 119
Randolph, Jane 77, 78 81, 82, Schon, Kyra 117, 118
Rank Organisation 61, 62, 63, 194 117, 118, 132, 147, 166, 189, Schreck, Max 119, 120
Rao, Balkrishna Narayan 234 206-208, Schroder, Greta 119, 120
Rathbone, Basil 23 215 Schufftan, Eugen 94
Ratner, Brett 150 Roodt, Darrell 244 Schumacher, Joel 45, 112, 130
Ratu ilmu hitam (The Queen Of Black Rose, George 10 Scob, Edith 94, 95
Magic) 232 Rosemary's Baby 30, 37, 38, 140-142, Scorsese, Martin 175, 181
The Raven 21, 22 152, 202, 241 Scott, Ridley 39, 150, 167
Ravenna Nightmare Film Fest 255 Ross, Gaylen 81 Scream 47,142-144, 176, 177, 189, 212
Re-Animator 9, 45, 53, 1 3 5 - 1 3 6 Rossellini, Roberto 167 Scream 2 144
Red Dragon 148, 150 Rue Morgue 259, 261 Scream 3 144
Red, Eric 112 Russell, Chuck 193 Scream And Scream Again 204
Redgrave, Michael 26, 104, 105 Russell, Elizabeth 77 Seabrook, William B. 215
Redon, Jean 95 Russell, Gail 159, 160 Searle, Humphrey 102
Reeves, Michael 37, 160, 161 Russell, John L. 133 Seasons griefings 5
Reiman, Walter 70 Russell, Kurt 171 Sedgwick, Edward 128
Reiner, Rob 74 Russell, Robert 160, 161 Selig, William 16
Reiniger, Scott H. 81, 82 Russia 242-243 Selznick, David O. 196
Reinl, Harald 227 Ruzowitsky, Stefan 228 Seyler, Athlene 115
Rymer, J.M. 6 Seytan (Satan) 247
Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (The
Saragossa Manuscript) 242 Shakespeare, William 4, 182
Renfro, Brad 74 Shallow Grave 48
Repulsion 36, 137-138, 201, 241
Return Of The Killer Tomatoes 211
S Shanks, Don 200
Sharman, Jim 222
Return Of The Living Dead series 215 Salazar, Abel 235 Sharp, Don 132
Return Of The Texas Chainsaw Salter, Hans J. 111 Shaun Of The Dead 52, 215, 226
Massacre 157, 211 Sampson, Robert 135, 136 Shaw, Robert 108, 109
Revelation of St John 3 Sanada, Hiroyuki 139 The Shawshank Redemption 74
Reyes, Lore 240, 241 Sandweiss, Ellen 89, 91 Shearer, Moira 125
Reynolds, Scott 238, 239 Sangre de Virgenes (Blood Of The Sheen, Martin 74
Ricci, Christina 8 Virgins) 220 Shelley, Mary 5, 15, 17, 33, 66, 68, 80,
Rice, Anne 7, 8, 112 Sangster, Jimmy 80, 87 97, 185, 213, 214
Richardson, John 61 Santa Sangre 237 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 185
Richardson, Miranda 8 Santi, Lionello 167 Shepherd's Bush Studios 184
Ring 2: Spiral 140 Santiago, Cirio H. 239 Shepperton Studios 195
Ringu (The Ring) 50, 139-140, 234 Santo 37, 236 Sherlock Holmes 15, 23, 6, 168, 180
Ringu 0 140 Satan 3 Sherlock Holmes And The Deadly
Ringu 2 140 Sato, Hitomi 139 Necklace 184, 195
The Ring Virus 140 Sato, Kei 123, 124 Shindo, Kaneto 123, 124, 125, 140
Rise 206 Savalas, Telly 142 TheShining4A, 74, 111, 138,144-146,
RKO 25, 77, 106, 159, 196, 197, 208 Savini, Tom 41, 45, 81, 82, 207, 229 206
Robbins, Clarence Aaron 98, 99 Saw 54 Shinshaku Yotsuya kaidan (The Ghost Of
Robles, German 235 Saxon, John 113, 114 Yoysuya - New Version) 28, 233
Robson, Mark 191, 196, 197 Scaife, Red 115 Shivers (aka The Parasite Murders/They
The Rocky Horror Picture Show 42, Scandinavia 243-244 Came From Within) 40, 146-148, 177
122, 195, 222, 246 Scarf ace 182, 191 Shivers (magazine) 259, 261
Rodgers and Hammerstein 68, 110 Scarlet Street 259, 261 Sholder, Jack 193
275
Shore, Howard 148 242 Thirl 3en Ghosts 51

Shyamalan, M. Night 50, 150, 151 Stivaletti, Sergio 166 Thirard, Armand 83
Siegel, Don 147 Stoker, Bram 8, 9, 17, 21, 86, 87, 113, The Three Stooges 206
Signoret, Simone, 83 119, 120, 182, 183, 195, 199, 247 Tolkien, J.R.R. 190, 243
The Silence Of The Lambs 48, 148-150, Stone, Sharon 84 Tonoyama, Taiji 123
207 Stormare, Peter 142 The Toolbox Murders 188, 189
Silver, J o e 146 The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Topper series 159
Simon, Simone 77, 78, 197 Hyde 7 Toso, Mario 73
Sinclair, Stephen 64 The Strange World Of Coffin Joe 225 Tourneur, Jacques 22, 77, 106, 107, 108,
Singapore 234 Strange, Glenn 185 115, 116, 196, 2 0 8 - 2 0 9
Singer, Bryan 74 Streiner, Russ 117 Tourneur, Maurice 15, 77, 208
Siodmak, Carl 212 Stribling, Melissa 87, 88 Tovolo, Luciano 152
Siodmak, Robert 25 Stuart, Gloria 122 The Tower Of London 175, 203
Sitges: Festival Internacional de Cinema Sudjio, Liliek 234 The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus 3
de Catlunya 254 Sullivan, Rick and Rosemary 262 Transylvania 246
The Sixth Sense 150-151 Summers, Walter 199 Travolta, John 73, 183
Sjostrom, Victor 17 Suspiria 43, 110, 152-154, 166, 233 Trieste 253
Slater, Christian 10 Sutherland, Donald 211 Troma 43
Slaughter, Tod 10 Suzuki, Koji 139 Trust me, I'm a doctor 204
Sleepless 167 Suzzanna 232 Tsui, Hark 229
Sleepy Hollow 6, 7, 10, 62, 194 Svankmajer, Jan 226 Turkey 247-248
Sluizer, George 237, 238 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Twins Of Evil 39, 80, 180
Smith, Dick 41, 94 Fleet Street 6, 10 Two Evil Eyes 166, 207
Smith, George Albert 14-15 Switchblade Romance 51, 150,155-156 Tyler, Tom 199
Smith, Kent 77, 78, 197
Snyder, Zack 82
Soavi, Michele 166
Soles, P.J. 101 T U-V
Sommers, Stephen 185 Takeuchi, Yuko 139 The Ugly 239
Son Of Dracula 183, 195 Talalay, Rachel 193 The Unholy Three (1925) 99, 172
South Africa 244 The Tale Of The Hook 101,102 The Unholy Three (1930) 20, 99, 172,
Spacek, Sissy 73, 74 Tales From The Crypt 5, 181 173
Spain 245-246 Tally, Ted 148 The Uninvited 25, 104, 159-160
Spence, Ralph 192 Tamblyn, Russ 102, 103 Universal 21, 25, 26, 29, 43, 66, 67,
Spiderman 206 Tangerine Dream 112, 113 76, 80, 84, 86, 96, 98, 111, 122, 128,
Spiderman 2 206 Tapert, Robert 89, 206 132, 159, 170, 172, 180, 183, 185,
Spielberg, Steven 39, 108, 109, 110, Tarantino, Quentin 47, 153 190, 191, 196, 199, 203, 206, 209,
181, 188 Targets 175, 192 212, 213, 214, 215, 234, 235, 247,
Spoorloos (The Vanishing) 238 Tate, Sharon 202 259, 264
Standring, Glenn 238 Taylor, Elizabeth 8 Uno, Jukichi 123, 125
Stanley, Forrest 75, 77 Taylor, Gilbert 137 Urban Legands: Final Cut 102
Star debuts in shockers 211 Taylor, Richard 66 Urban Legend 102
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The The Tenant 138, 202 Urquhart, Robert 79, 80
Clones 194 Teptsov, Oleg 243 Vail, William 156, 157
Steele, Barbara 38, 61, 63, 130, 131, The Terror Of Dr Hichcock 38 Valli, Alida 94, 95
146, The Terror 175, 192 Vampyr 23
148 Terror Train 101, 211 Vanel, Charles 83, 84
Stein, Ronald 111 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I1157, van Enger, Charles 128
Steinmann, Danny 210 188, 189 Van Eyssen, John 87
Stendhal, Marie-Henri Beyle 70 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 40, 51, Van Helsing 53, 53, 185
Stephen King's Thinner 74 86, 91, 156-159, 188, 189 Van Helsing's Journal 261
Stephens, Martin 104, 105 That's exploitation 158 Van Parys, Georges 83
Stereo 177 Theatre Of Blood 204, 205 Van Sloan, Edward 84, 86, 96, 98
Stevenson, Robert Louis 8, 15, 23, 191, Thesiger, Ernest 66, 122, 123 Veidt, Conrad 69, 70
276
Venice Film Festival 100, 190, 233 Waxman, Franz 66, 68, 110 Wise, Robert 102, 103, 191, 196, 197
Verbinski, Gore 139 Waxworks 20 Witchcraft Through The Ages 20
Verhoeven, Paul 237 Weaver, Sigourney 155 Witchfinder General (aka The Conquerer
Vernon, Howard 183 Webb, Roy 77, 106 Worm) 37, 160-162, 204
Vertigo 181, 186 Webling, Peggy 97 Wolf Creek 54
Victor, Henry 98, 99 Websites 263-264 The Wolf Man 26, 61, 111, 168, 212
Video nasties 44 Wegener, Paul 16, 17, 119 Woo, John 229
Video Watchdog 259, 261 Weir, Peter 222 Wood, Ed 198
Videodrome 177, 179 Wells, H.G. 7, 15, 23 Woods, James 179
Vieyra, Emilio 220 The Werewolf 211-212 Woodvine, John 59
The Vij 62 The Werewolf (1913) 212 Woodward, Edward 195
Villarias, Carlos 23, 183, 235 The Werewolf (1956) 212 The World Horror Convention 256
Villaronga, Agustin 45, 246 Wes Craven's New Nightmare 142, Worsley, Wallace 20
Villiers de I'lsle-Adam 8 177, 193 Wray, Fay 22, 24
Viva las divas 35 West Of Zanzibar 98, 172
Wright, Edgar 215
von Stroheim, Erich 25 Whale, James 21, 24, 66, 68, 80,
Wright, Jenny 112
von Sydow, Max 92 96, 122, 123, 164, 180, 191, 206,
Wymark, Patrick 137, 138
von Twardowski, Hans Heinz 69 212-214
Wyngarde, Peter 105
von Wangenheim, Gustav 119, 120 Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? 35
Wyss, Amanda 113, 114
Voorhees, Jason 43, 2 1 0 - 2 1 1 Wheatley, Dennis 185
When A Stranger Calls 102, 143
Where East Is East 170
W The Whip And The Body 167, 195 XYZ
White Zombie 22, 132, 198, 214
Wagner, Fritz Arno 119 The Wicker Man 111, 195 Yin Yang Lu (Troublesome Night) 230
Wahlberg, Donnie 150, 151 Wicking, Chris 259 York, Sarah 89, 91
Walken, Christopher 74 Wiene, Robert 69, 70, 71, 86 Yorke, Gabriel 71, 72
Walker, Pete 40 Wilbur, George 200 Yoshimura, Jitsuko 123, 124
Wallace, Inez 106 Wilde, Oscar 8, 15 Young, Christopher 111
Wallace, Tommy Lee 172 Willard, John 75, 76, 175 Young, Victor 159
Walpole, Horace 4 Williams, Brook 132,133 Yu, Ronny 194, 210, 229
Walsh, Fran 64, 190 Williams, John 108, 110 Yufit, Yevgeny 243
Ward Baker, Roy 229 Williams, Olivia 150, 151 Yun-Fat, Chow 229
Warhol, Andy 186 Williams, Paul 10 Yuzna, Brian 53, 135, 136
Warlock, Dick 200 Williamson, Kevin 47, 143 Zellweger, Renee 211
Warm, Hermann 70 Willis, Bruce 150, 151 Zinda laash (The Living Corpse) 231
Warner Bros 19, 43, 92, 203 Wills, Brember 123 Zito, Joseph 210
Warrenton, Gilbert 75 Wilton, Penelope 215 Zombie Flesh-Eaters 155, 215, 233
Watkin, Ian 63, 64 Winkler, Henry 142, 143 The Zombie 214-215
Watts, Naomi 211 Winslet, Kate 190 Zulawski, Andrzej 242
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The Rough Guide To Horror Movies - Alan Jones

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THE ROUGH GUIDE TO

Editor: Daniel Crewe Series editor: Mark Ellingham

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO

An American Werewolf In London 59 Dracula (1931) 84

Near Dark 112 Ringu 139

The Global Picture:

picture credits 265

INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES

INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIESI

and the age we live in, and even on our gender.

INTRODUCTION: T H E ROUGH GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES

FOR DIEGO HERNAN CAVALLARO

Frontispiece from an 1831 edition of Mary

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

THE ORIGINS: HORROR LITERATURE

Le moine (The Monk) From Hell

Drew Barrymore in the self-reflexive

a puff of smoke. With this two-minute short,

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1919), a classic work of German Expressionism

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S

grotesque villains. Exercises in disturbing and

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

scenes set by Conrad Nagel and the effects of the Waxworks

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

Only when Universal found that the medium-

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

Fay Wray (1907-2004)

Peter Loire (1904-1964)

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

The Most Dangerous Game (aka The

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

A few horror productions with big stars,

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

William Castle (1914-1977)

An ad block for Homicidal (1961), for cinemas to use in local papers

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED Y E A R S

Gimmick gimmick gimmick

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

by using the letter of the rating in the title - and

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

Viva las divas

T H E HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS

produced - the star was usually Barbara Steele

THE HISTORY: OVER A HUNDRED YEARS