Research into existing products- Horror

In 1974 Christian Metz wrote a book entitled language and cinema. Contextually his book stated that every genre goes through four stages: experimental, classic, parody and deconstruction.

The experimental phase is the innovation of the genre, where the rules and conventions are devised. In the horror genre these are films like The Cabinet Of Dr Calagari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922) which was the first screen play of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. These are both examples of German Expressionist films. This movement was a period of art and films that were dark, shadowy and atmospheric to signify the trauma felt, especially in Europe, from WWI. The trauma of the great war on film makers inspired them to explore dark themes and devise the horror genre.

The classic phase of a genre is when there are solid rules and conventions which it follows and the genre is at it’s most popular and successful. For horror this was in the early 1930’s. By this time the dark themes of the German expressionist films had made it across the Atlantic to Hollywood. This allowed horror films to be made with A list casts and big budgets making them more appealing to a global audience. Examples of classic horrors from this time include Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Both these films were made by Universal studios which is stereotypically considered as a horror studio.

The parody phase would create films that mimicked horrors with comedic elements. This came about because Universal in particular had lots of exhausted horror franchises such as The Wolfman. To overcome this they introduced the comedy duo Abbot and Costello to the horror storylines and the Parody was born. This has continued since most notably with Carry On Screaming (1969) and Scary Movie (1999).

In the 1950’s Hollywood entered a period of austerity subsequent to the invention of television.  This allowed British studios like Hammer studios to prosper and make films Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959). These films kept the horror genre going through the austerity period of Hollywood.

The deconstruction phase takes the generic elements of a horror film but adds sub genres. An example of this is the psychological horror Se7en (1995). The film incorporates classic horror conventions like murder and mystery. But you don’t see any of the murders occur, all the action is in your head. There are many other sub genres that have been added into horror films such as skatterpunk horrors like Hostel (2005) and religious cult horrors like The Exorcist (1973).