magazine cover analysis

Fangoria is the title of this magazine and is a good use of blend words that would advertise to the "fans" of "gore" therefor advertising to a a certain type of people who are interested into the horror genre. This is aiming at the niche audience of horror fans predominantly male aged between the ages of 15 and 25. The title and main feature heading is written in red which connotes blood which is in keeping with the theme horror/ gore. the mast head is positioned in the conventional place which is easy to read for the audience. the main image for this magazine is very disturbing is obviously a horror film there for drawing attraction from their audience.

magazine cover analysis

This is an existing film magazine which is similar to which I would like to create. This film magazine has an image of the main characters of the film which is advertising and promoting the film. I would like to have a close up image of my main 'monster/ character' but use a different image than the one I will use for my poster. We can kind of tell the genre of the film due to the text of the title and the image itself. The 'Hellboy' magazine cover has overlapping images with the title. I would like an image for my magazine which overlaps the title because I think that it gives the magazine a professional-look. Empire magazine is a mainstream magazines which is best for promoting a film.

Audience of horror films

Horror definition:  overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; as shuddering feeling.

Why do people choose to watch horror films?

Horror films have an added element of entertainment and excitement; audiences chose to watch horror films mainly because they have the “thrill factor.” Compared with other film genres such as comedy; which are designed to be humorous. Or action films which entertain people in a different way. As there are many types of horror films and sub-genres people visit the cinema to enjoy different experiences. For example, a paranormal horror film is designed for the purpose of creating mystery and suspense.

Target audience for horror film-

A typical viewer of the horror genre is more likely to be Male and within the age range of 15-24the reason for this is that it’s the largest group of cinema goers are people aged between 15 and 24 and males because they tend to seek thrill and action within films whereas females typically prefer genres such as come comedy and romance because it is lighter entertainment. However recent figures show that females watching horror has exceeded male viewers for the first time

final destination 5- poster analysis

Final Destination 5 is a 2011 American supernatural horror film written by Eric Heisserer and directed by Steven Quale. It is the fifth installment in the Final Destination film franchise. It stars Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, and Tony Todd

i have chosen to analyse this movie poster because i like the three dimensional effect that it creates as has an impact and a remember-able impression on the audience. the audience will easily be able to tell that this is a horror film from the picture of the skull. Also to help scare the audience and lure them into seeing the movie they have written the scary quote "Death has never been closer." in most horror film posters the colour scheme is red, black and white which this poster has followed the convention.

• the title for the poster is different to most as the number 5 is more dominate i think that they have done this to attract the audience the film franchise has already gathered.

• the movie poster displays the distributors, director, producer and actors

The Uninvited- Poster analysis

this is the official movie poster for the film "The Uninvited." this  is a 2009 American remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters.

the reason i have chosen to analyse this poster in particular is because it's a very simple image but has a lot of impact. i think the reason for this is because yo cant see the girls face through the window which is scary anyway as you cant seen her identity or emotions. the old fashioned window and the Forrest background paired with dark wintery night is a creepy setting which adds to the scary element, and is a typical horror scenery. Another reason why i like this image is because of the window and how it frames the whole picture. this image follows the rule of thirds as the character is in the middle as is the mention of distributor and directer. 

• the masthead is in an unconventional position as its in the bottom right hand corner with not a lot attention drawn to it. 
• the movie poster displays the distributors, director, producer and actors  

Shutter- Poster analysis

this is the official movie poster for Shutter. it was released in 2008 and is an American remake of the 2004 Thai horror film of the same name. The remake was directed by Masayuki Ochiai.

the reason i have chose to analyse this photo is because i find it really scary and i think that it is a really good representation of a horror film product as its easy to tell it is a horror. i think that this is because of the distorted face in the middle of the poster with blacked eyes which has taken away the characters identity and the dis formed mouth which seems to be smothered in blood. Another reason why i like this film is because of the montage of images that make up the main image as its very artistic an interesting which will draw the audiences attention to the poster.

• the masthead is in a very unconventional position as its in the right hand corner but still draws a lot of attention as it stands out from the background and is the only bit of text. 
• at the top of the poster it mentions other films that the producer has made hoping to bring a larger audience to the screening.
• it has a quote just above the title that says "the most terrifying images are the ones that aren't real" this inflicts terror on the audience as its a very open statement. 
• the producers, directors, distributor and actors are mentioned at the bottom of the poster 

horror genre representation essay

Laure Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. Her theory was called male gaze. The concept of male gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented on their screens. For feminists it can be thought of in three ways-
·         how men look at women
·         how women look at themselves
·         how women look at other women

Laura Mulvey coined the term Male Gaze in 1975. She believes that in film audiences have to view characters from the prospective of a heterosexual male. The features of the male gaze include, the camera and how it lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a mans reaction.  It also relegates women to the status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.
A perfect example for this theory is House of wax and the death of Paris Hiltons character. In this scene we see Paris Hiltons character and her boyfriend in a sexual situation as she is in her under ware, we see her boyfriend get killed for about 5 seconds where as we get to see Paris Hilton run around in her under ware for about 5 minutes and then get to see her brutal death.

Carol Clover is an American professor of film studies. Her theory was called the final girl theory. The final girl is a figure of speech in thriller and horror films, particularly slasher films that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films.  Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film. The final girl theory is a common plot line in many horror films, particularly prior to the 1990s. In which a series of victims is killed one by one by a killer amid increasing terror, culminating in a climax in which the last surviving member of the group, a girl or woman, either vanquishes the killer or gets away. According to Clover, the final girl in many of these works shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, avoiding the vices of the victims, sex, illegal drug use, alcohol. She sometimes has a unisex name (e.g., Teddy, Billie, Georgie, Sidney). Occasionally the final girl will have a shared history with the killer. The final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film, moving the narrative forward and as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and vigilance.

A perfect example for this theory is Nightmare on Elm Street.  The main hero in this film was a girl called Nancy who was on Freddy’s to kill list as she attended this preschool. She was the final girl of this movie as she figured out how to kill him and that it was something to with sleep. She also figured out that it was something to do with their past and tried to worn her fellow peers.

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist. Levi-Strauss looked at the narrative structure of media texts. An example would be good and evil- we understand the concept of good as being opposite of evil. Levi-Strauss was not interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes, for example if we look at science fiction films we can identify a series of binary oppositions which are created by the narrative...

·         earth/ space
·         good/ evil
·         humans/ aliens
·         past/ present
·         normal/ strange
·         known/ unknown

A perfect example for this theory is Alien, 1979. Which follow the conventions of the science fiction genre which is shown above.

Propp & Todorov
·         Propp- is a Russian critic who examined 100s of examples of folk tales to see if they shared any narrative structures. He then wrote a book on his discoveries- “Morphology of the folk tale” this was first published in 1928. When looking at 100s of folk tales he identified 8 different characters and 31 different narrative functions.
1.       The villain
2.       The hero
3.       The donor- who provides an object with a magic property
4.       The helper who aids the hero
5.       The princess/ damsel in distress- reward for hero and object for villain’s schemes.
6.       Her father- who rewards the hero
7.       The dispatcher- who sends the hero on his way
8.       The false hero
The character roles and the functions identified by Propp can be applied to all kinds of narrative.

 ·         Todorov – is Bulgarian structuralist linguist and published a lot of influential work on narrative from the 1960’s onwards. Todorov suggests that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potential opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction. An equilibrium is set up which is then disrupted, causing disequilibrium, which is resolved into a new equilibrium by the end of the tale.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total. Nispel also directed the 2003 remake of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre- 1974, while Shannon and Swift wrote the screenplay for the 2003 crossover Freddy vs. Jason. Friday the 13th follows Clay Miller played by Jared Padalecki as he searches for his missing sister, Whitney played by Amanda Righetti, who while camping in the woods at Crystal Lake is taken by Jason Voorhees- Derek Mears. This 2009 film was distributed by paramount.

On June 13, 2009, a young Jason Voorhees witnesses his mother being beheaded by a camp counselor, who was trying to escape Mrs. Voorhees's murderous rampage around Camp Crystal Lake. Approximately 30 years later, a group of vacationing friends—Wade, Richie, Mike, Whitney  and Amanda arrive at Crystal Lake on a camping trip to find some marijuana that was planted in the woods. As Mike and Whitney explore the abandoned Crystal Lake camp, an adult Jason, with a hockey mask on his face to conceal it, begins to kill the rest of the group one by one. Jason also kills Mike, but decides to spare Whitney and abducts her because she resembles his mother at a young age.

Six weeks later, Trent along with his girlfriend Jenna and their friends Chelsea, Bree, Chewie, Nolan and Lawrence arrive at Trent's summer cabin on the shore of Crystal Lake. The group is unaware of the events that occurred a few weeks prior. Clay Miller arrives in town to search Crystal Lake for Whitney, his sister. Clay eventually makes his way to Trent's cabin, where Jenna agrees to help him look for his sister on the other side of the lake. As Clay and Jenna search for clues, Jason kills Chelsea and Nolan, who are wakeboarding on the lake. Clay and Jenna reach the old Crystal Lake campgrounds, where they witness Jason hauling a dead body into one of the abandoned camp houses.

The pair run back to warn the others about Jason, who soon arrives and cuts the power to the cabin. After killing Chewie and Lawrence, who ventured outside the house, Jason sneaks inside the cabin and kills Bree. Trent, Clay, and Jenna escape the house, but Trent is killed when he reaches the main road. Jason then chases Clay and Jenna back to the campgrounds, where Clay discovers Jason's lair and finds his sister chained to the wall. Clay frees Whitney, and all three attempt to escape as Jason arrives. The trio finds an exit, but Jenna is killed before she can get out. Jason comes after Clay and Whitney, but Whitney, by pretending to be Mrs. Voorhees, uses Jason's love and memory of his mother to distract him long enough to stab him in the chest with his own machete. Afterward, Clay dumps Jason's lifeless body into the lake. Before he and Whitney can leave, Jason bursts through the wooden dock and grabs Whitney...

This movie challenges Todorov’s theory as everything seems normal and that the situations are running smoothly .This equilibrium is then disrupted by the murderer Jason as he seeks his victims. The new equilibrium is resolved as the final girl character we are lead to believe is safe and is on her way back to earth, which does follow Todorov but at the very end of the movie  Jason pulls Whitney into the water still leaving a disequilibrium.  

When it comes to audience expectation for Slasher movies it is almost entirely made up of adolescents. There has been much speculation on why many teenagers are drawn to the genre. Critics of the genre argue that it is the frequent violence, nudity and sex that attract a teenage audience. Other theorists argue that it’s a deeper logic, into adolescent psychology. Because violent films are frowned upon by cinema critics and authority figures, the teenagers desire to rebel and view these movies is what drives the audience to watch violent films. As Friday the 13^th 2009 version is a remake of the original film Friday the 13^th 1989. This is a very famous film with a very iconic villain, Jason Voorhees. Because this film was such a success a lot of the general public have seen the movie so will know what to expect from the remake.  There is a cliff hanger at the end of this movie ready for a sequel, which were made after the original film. 

To create a good horror film, there needs to be good setting, light, music and characters to get the full potential of scaring the audience. In this film the setting is an abandoned lake with an isolated wood cabin. By making this setting into a horror film is a good idea because the audience don’t expect what’s to come and it defeats the conventions of a peaceful relaxing holiday. In this film as the murders are committed at night time. Natural night lit sky is common for horror films as this is when people feel most vulnerable. The music is usually what makes the movie very tense as it’s usually eerie and is a very subtle indicator that something is going to happen.  Because this movie has been out for a while the general public have learnt Jason as a house hold name as he is such a big character in the horror genre, making this film very popular.  
As this movie is a slasher film, it fits in the 1980s category of horror history. As the original film was brought out in the 1980s it’s no surprise that it followed this trend of slasher as this kind of genre was the best rating at the time as it was most popular.
Jason is the main character in this film as he is the villain therefore the whole story line is based around him and why he became a serial killer. I think that Jason was so famous because of his iconic hockey mask that he always wore to cover up his deformed face. You could tell who had been killed by him as they were always brutally murdered in different ways one of the most famous ways Jason killed someone is by an arrow through their eye. The main hero in this film was a girl called Whitney who was one of the girls who was on the camping holiday. She was the final girl of this movie as she figured out how to understand his frame of mind and his love for his mother.
In conclusion I would say that this is a very successful movie because of the interesting story line and how it is almost like a murder mystery, apart from all the brutal murders which make it a slasher horror movie. Jason is a true iconic character for horror, renowned for interesting ways of killing and also the props as part of his iconography. It follows all the techniques of a horror, slow paced at the begging, getting to know the characters and narrative with a huge climax at the end along with a final girl character/ final girl.

Alien

Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extra-terrestrial creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. The film was produced through Brandywine Productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

The commercial towing spaceship Nostromo is on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineral ore, and carrying its seven-member crew. Upon receiving a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer awakens the crew. Acting on standing orders from their corporate employers, the crew detaches the Nostromo from the refinery and lands on the planetoid, resulting in some damage to the ship. Captain Dallas, Executive Officer Kane and Navigator Lambert set out to investigate the signal's source while Warrant Officer Ripley, Science Officer Ash and Engineers Brett and Parker stay behind to monitor their progress and make repairs to the damaged ship.

Dallas, Kane, and Lambert discover that the signal is coming from a derelict alien spacecraft. Inside it they find the remains of a large alien creature. Meanwhile, the Nostromo's computer partially deciphers the signal transmission, which Ripley determines to be some type of warning. Kane discovers a vast chamber containing numerous eggs, one of which releases a creature that attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo, where Ash allows them inside against Ripley's orders to follow the ship's quarantine protocol. They unsuccessfully attempt to remove the creature from Kane's face, discovering that its blood is an extremely corrosive acid. Eventually the creature detaches on its own and is found dead. With the ship repaired, the crew resume their trip back to Earth. Kane awakens seemingly unharmed, but during a meal before re-entering stasis he begins to choke and convulse until an alien creature bursts from his chest, killing him and escaping into the ship. Lacking conventional weapons, the crew attempt to locate and capture the creature- now-fully-grown Alien Dallas enters the shafts intending to force the Alien into an airlock where it can be expelled into space. Lambert implores the remaining crew members to escape in the ship's shuttle, but Ripley, now in command, explains that the shuttle will not support four people.

Accessing the ship's computer, Ripley discovers that Ash has been ordered to return the Alien to the Nostromo's corporate employers even at the expense of the crew's lives. Ash attacks her, but Parker intervenes and decapitates him with a blow from a fire extinguisher, revealing Ash to be an android. The remaining three crew members plan to arm the Nostromo's self-destruct mechanism and escape in the shuttle, but Parker and Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering the necessary supplies. Ripley then initiates the self-destruct sequence and heads for the shuttle with her cat.
As she prepares to enter stasis, Ripley discovers that the Alien is aboard the shuttle. She puts on a space suit and opens the hatch, causing explosive decompression which forces the Alien to the open doorway. She shoots it with a gun which propels it out, but the gun is yanked from her hands and catches in the closing door, tethering the Alien to the shuttle. It attempts to crawl into one of the engines, but Ripley activates them and blasts the Alien into space. She then puts herself and the cat into stasis for the return trip to Earth.

This movie follows Todorov’s theory as everything seems normal and that the situations are running smoothly as the crew have finished their mission they were commanded to do and are returning home. This equilibrium is then disrupted by the discovery of the extra-terrestrial. The crew then solve the problems and issues that occur whist on the ship unfortunately with a loss of lives but then a new equilibrium is resolved as the final girl character we are lead to believe is safe and is on her way back to earth.

 

Nightmare On Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2010 American slasher film directed by Samuel Bayer, and written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. The film stars Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz. This film is a remake of Wes Craven's 1984 film of the same name and is the ninth Nightmare film in total. Produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, it is designed to reboot the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. This film had two distributors, Warner Bros and New Line Cinema.

At the begging of the film Kris Fowles goes to the Springwood Diner to meet with her boyfriend, Dean Russell who falls asleep at the table and in his nightmare meets a man covered in burn scars, wearing a red and green sweater, a fedora and a clawed glove on his hand. The burned man cuts Dean's throat in the dream, but in reality it appears that Dean is cutting his own throat. At deans funeral Kris discovers a photo when the two were younger but cannot remember ever meeting him before. She had then told her friend Nancy (final girl of the movie) of this discovery she then discovers that there was a preschool that all the teenagers that are being affected by these dreams attended and were all in the same year group. Nancy’s mother then reveals to Nancy that this man in their dreams “Freddy Kruger”  use to be the caretaker at their preschool and use to love the children a little too much. He use to take each child one by one down to his basement which the school use to let him live in. He would touch the children in an inappropriate way and would cut them with gardening utensil such as a trowel.  The parents found out about this behaviour and wanted there revenge so they burnt him alive one evening. Many years had passed and all the children are now teenagers when Freddy decided to get his own revenge to kill his ex-students.  He is a serial-killer who wields a glove with four blades embedded in the fingers and kills the students in their dreams, resulting in their real death in reality. Nancy decides to stand up to Freddy and kills him in his dream world. Thinking that it’s a happy ending Nancy no longer has these dreams but in the last scene of the movie Freddy turns his anger to the parents and now starts to kill them in their sleep.

This movie challenges Todorov’s theory as the beginning scene is someone getting murdered in their dream.  The film never really has an equilibrium as it’s a sequence of different murder’s all committed by the serial killer Freddy Kruger. The only time that it slightly follows Todorov’s theory is when the movie has a flash back to their childhood and everything is fine until it reveals that Freddy molesters the children.

When it comes to audience expectation for Slasher movies it is almost entirely made up of adolescents. There has been much speculation on why many teenagers are drawn to the genre. Critics of the genre argue that it is the frequent violence, nudity and sex that attract a teenage audience. Other theorists argue that it’s a deeper logic, into adolescent psychology. Because violent films are frowned upon by cinema critics and authority figures, the teenagers desire to rebel and view these movies is what drives the audience to watch violent films. As nightmare on elm street 2010 version is a remake of the original film Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984. This is a very famous film with a very iconic villain, Freddy Kruger. Because this film was such a success a lot of the general public have seen the movie so will know what to expect from the remake.  There is a cliff hanger at the end of this movie ready for a sequel, which were made after the 1984 film.  

To create a good horror film, there needs to be good setting, light, music and characters to get the full potential of scaring the audience. In this film the setting is a suburban town with perfect houses and people; the perfect American life style. By making this setting into a horror film is a good idea because the audience don’t expect what’s to come and it defeats the conventions of a suburban lifestyle. In this film as the murders are committed in their dreams it is always generally night time. Natural night lit sky is common for horror films as this is when people feel most vulnerable. The music is usually what makes the movie very tense as it’s usually eerie and is a very subtle indicator that something is going to happen.  Because this movie has been out for a while the general public have learnt Freddy Kruger as a house hold name as he is such a big character in the horror genre, making this film very popular.

As this movie is a slasher film, it fits in the 1980s category of horror history. As the original film was brought out in the 1980s it’s no surprise that it followed this trend of slasher as this kind of genre was the best rating at the time as it was most popular.

Freddy Kruger is the main character in this film as he is the villain and the whole story line is based around him and why he became a serial killer. I think that Kruger was so famous because of his iconic glove that he always wore, attached to the glove were 4 long sharp blades. You could tell who had been killed by him as this was the only weapon he would use and would leave the blade marks on the body. Another way to recognise Freddy is because of his red and green stripped jumper that was a part of his iconography.  The main hero in this film was a girl called Nancy who was on Freddy’s to kill list as she attended this preschool. She was the final girl of this movie as she figured out how to kill him and that it was something to with sleep. She also figured out that it was something to do with their past and tried to worn her fellow peers.

In conclusion I would say that this is a very successful movie because of the interesting story line and how it is almost like a murder mystery, apart from all the brutal murders which make it a slasher horror movie. Freddy Kruger is a true iconic character for horror, renowned for interesting way of killing and also the props as part of his iconography. It follows all the techniques of a horror, slow paced at the begging, getting to know the characters and narrative with a huge climax at the end along with a final girl character.

analysis of trailer- House Of Wax

analysis of trailer- sixth sense

analysis of trailer-The Apperation

HISTORY OF A HORROR CHARACTER

PINHEAD

Pinhead is a fictional character from the Hellraiser series. Created by Clive Barker and portrayed by Doug Bradley, Pinhead is a prominent figure in the series, mostly featured as the main antagonist. Pinhead is the leader of the Cenobites, formerly human creatures from an extradimensional realm who travel to Earth through the Lament Configuration, and harvest human souls. Depicted as intelligent and articulate, the character was deliberately presented as a departure from the mute or wise-cracking 1980s horror movie villains who preceded him, being based more on Count Dracula.



german expression

German Expressionism is a term used to represent the number of creative movements that began in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as architecture, painting and cinema. The German Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during WWI.

Various European cultures of the 1920s embraced an ethic of change, and a willingness to look to the future by experimenting with bold, new ideas and artistic styles. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal. These are all subject topics that people of this time era can relate to as a lot people suffered with these problems during the 1920’s when WWII was commencing.

The extreme realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only after a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery and light to enhance the mood of a film. This genre of film making was brought to the United States when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood. These German directors found U.S. movie studios willing to embrace them, and several German directors and cameramen flourished there, producing a repertoire of Hollywood films that had a profound effect on the film industry.

Two genres that were especially influenced by the German Expressionism are horror film and film noir. German silent cinema was far ahead of cinema in Hollywood. As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood, developments in style and technique which were developed through Expressionism in Germany impressed contemporary film makers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known emigrants from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. His most famous films are the ground breaking ‘Metropolis’ which was the world's most expensive silent film at the time of it’s release. He also produced M, made before he moved to the United States, his iconic precursor to the film noir genre.

Early in his career, after the move from Austria to the Decla Company in Berlin in 1917, Lang worked out how studio sets and lighting could be used to create an atmosphere that would ensnare the audience in a world of fantasy. His writing was brief, as Lang soon started to work as a director at a German film studio, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building.

 

history of horror

Hammer Horror

Launched in 1934, Hammer's first production was “The Public Life of Henry the Ninth” and, following a period of inactivity during WW2, the first picture from the newly incorporated Hammer Film Productions Ltd. was 1949's “Dr. Morelle: The Case of the Missing Heiress.” The new company's first colour film was “The Men of Sherwood Forest” in 1954, and in 1955 the success of “The Quatermass Xperiment” led to Hammer's move into horror films including “The Curse of Frankenstein” in 1957 and “Dracula” in 1958.

A hugely successful run of Gothic monster movies cemented the company's reputation as 'Hammer House of Horror', and deals with Universal Studios and Columbia kept the production base at Bray Studios busy with an incredible volume of films produced during this period.

 Half-way through the 1960s deals were struck with Seven Arts and Twentieth Century Fox, which led to further horror classics including “The Plague Of The Zombies”, “Quatermass And The Pit”, and “The Devil Rides Out” in addition to successful adventure films including One Million Years B.C. The 1960s also saw Hammer's first move into television production with Journey to the Unknown and in 1968 the company received the Queen's Award for Industry. The 1970s saw a clutch of vampire movies and some lucrative movie spin-offs from British sitcoms. To The Devil a Daughter was the last Hammer horror feature in 1976, but production continued into the 1980s with two influential and well-loved TV anthology series: Hammer House of Horror and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

"Video nasty"

"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982[1] which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse, and various religious organizations. While violence in films released to cinemas had received attention from an official body, the British Board of Film Censorship, for many years, the lack of a regulatory system for video sales combined with the claim that any film could fall into children's hands led to public debate. Many of these "video nasties" were low-budget horror films produced in Italy and the United States. The furore created by the response to video nasties led to the introduction of the Video Recordings Act 1984 which imposed a stricter code of censorship on videos than was required for cinema release. Several major studio productions ended up being banned on video, falling within the scope of legislation designed to control the distribution of video nasties.