Director: The film Psycho, which was released in 1960, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Actors: Anthony Perkins, John Gavin and Virginia Gregg acted in this famous film, with Janet Leigh playing as the star, Marion Crane.
Plot: Marion Crane is a working girl from Phoenix, who is fed up with having to sneak away during lunch breaks to meet her lover, Sam Loomis, who cannot get married because most of his money goes towards alimony. One Friday, Marion leaves town with the money that her employer gave to her to bank. She is determined to start a new life with Sam in California. As night falls and a torrential rain obscures the road ahead of her, Marion turns off the main highway. She then decides to spend the night at the desolate Bates Motel. The motel is run by Norman Bates, a peculiar young man dominated by his invalid mother. After Norman fixes her a light dinner, Marion goes back to her room for a shower….
Friday, 6 November 2009
The History of Horror Films
Horror movies date back to the late 1890’s; from here they developed into one of the most popular types of films which trigger viewer’s emotions such as fear and terror. Horror movies usually consist of an evil villain who incorporates death, supernatural abilities, mental illness and maybe sometimes a variety of them into their work. Some horror films also include elements of other genres such as fantasy, thrillers, black comedy and science fiction.
The first horror movie and the first vampire flick was directed by Georges Mèliès in 1896 and called Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil.) It was a silent movie which only lasted two minutes but the audience loved it.
German filmmakers created the first horror-themed feature films in the early 1900’s The most enduring of the German horror films was F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), the first feature-length vampire movie, which was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Lon Chaney was the first American horror film movie star. He appeared in early Hollywood horror films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923,) The Monster (1925,) and Lon Chaney’s most famous role was in The Phantom of the Opera in 1925.
The modern horror film genre was created in the early 1930’s by Universal Studios which brought to the screen a series of successful movies such as Dracula, Frankenstein (both 1931) and The Mummy (1932,) all of them generated numerous amounts of sequels. No other studio had as much success with the genre compared to Universal Studios.
In the 1950’s aliens took over the cinema and many movies in this decade contained these creatures. Two of the most popular films of the period were The Thing from Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Horror movies became a lot gorier towards the late Fifties as the technical side of cinematography became easier and cheaper. Also during this era studios started to center exclusively on horror movies.
Director Steven Spielberg in 1975 directed the film Jaws which became the highest grossing film ever. From this the genre fractured in the late 1970's, with independent filmmakers coming up with disturbing and explicit gore-fests such as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Disaster movies such as The Towering Inferno were focused on by mainstream Hollywood. The Exorcist (1973) broke all records for a horror film, and led to the commercial success of The Omen.
In the 1980’s a new horror movie theme was introduced, this was teens-threatened-by-superhuman-evil. This was first used in John Carpenter's Halloween and copied in dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the decade including the long running Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street series.
During the 1990’s came a surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project which attempted regular scares compared to the first half of the 1990’s which horror films still continued to use themes from the 1980’s and the later half of this decade others turned to self-mocking irony and downright parody.
The start of the 21st century saw a quiet time for this genre, but saw a start of the sequels of the films Final Destination that marked a successful revival of clever, teen-centered horror. A major return to the zombie genre lead to The Resident Evil video game franchise being adapted into a film which was released in March 2002. Also remakes of old horror films started to be released such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Halloween (2007).
The first horror movie and the first vampire flick was directed by Georges Mèliès in 1896 and called Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil.) It was a silent movie which only lasted two minutes but the audience loved it.
German filmmakers created the first horror-themed feature films in the early 1900’s The most enduring of the German horror films was F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), the first feature-length vampire movie, which was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Lon Chaney was the first American horror film movie star. He appeared in early Hollywood horror films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923,) The Monster (1925,) and Lon Chaney’s most famous role was in The Phantom of the Opera in 1925.
The modern horror film genre was created in the early 1930’s by Universal Studios which brought to the screen a series of successful movies such as Dracula, Frankenstein (both 1931) and The Mummy (1932,) all of them generated numerous amounts of sequels. No other studio had as much success with the genre compared to Universal Studios.
In the 1950’s aliens took over the cinema and many movies in this decade contained these creatures. Two of the most popular films of the period were The Thing from Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Horror movies became a lot gorier towards the late Fifties as the technical side of cinematography became easier and cheaper. Also during this era studios started to center exclusively on horror movies.
Director Steven Spielberg in 1975 directed the film Jaws which became the highest grossing film ever. From this the genre fractured in the late 1970's, with independent filmmakers coming up with disturbing and explicit gore-fests such as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Disaster movies such as The Towering Inferno were focused on by mainstream Hollywood. The Exorcist (1973) broke all records for a horror film, and led to the commercial success of The Omen.
In the 1980’s a new horror movie theme was introduced, this was teens-threatened-by-superhuman-evil. This was first used in John Carpenter's Halloween and copied in dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the decade including the long running Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street series.
During the 1990’s came a surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project which attempted regular scares compared to the first half of the 1990’s which horror films still continued to use themes from the 1980’s and the later half of this decade others turned to self-mocking irony and downright parody.
The start of the 21st century saw a quiet time for this genre, but saw a start of the sequels of the films Final Destination that marked a successful revival of clever, teen-centered horror. A major return to the zombie genre lead to The Resident Evil video game franchise being adapted into a film which was released in March 2002. Also remakes of old horror films started to be released such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Halloween (2007).
Thursday, 8 October 2009
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