The historical dictionaries present essential information on a broad range of subjects,

including American and world history, art, business, cities, countries, cultures, customs,
film, global conflicts, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, religion,
sports, and theater. Written by experts, all contain highly informative introductory essays
on the topic and detailed chronologies that, in some cases, cover vast historical time
periods but still manage to heavily feature more recent events.
Brief A–Z entries describe the main people, events, politics, social issues, institutions,
and policies that make the topic unique, and entries are cross-referenced for ease of
browsing. Extensive bibliographies are divided into several general subject areas, provid-
ing excellent access points for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more.
Additionally, maps, photographs, and appendixes of supplemental information aid high
school and college students doing term papers or introductory research projects. In short,
the historical dictionaries are the perfect starting point for anyone looking to research in
these fields.
 HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF
LITERATURE AND THE ARTS

Jon Woronoff, Series Editor

American Radio Soap Operas, by Jim Cox, 2005.

Fantasy Literature, by Brian Stableford, 2005.
Australian and New Zealand Cinema, by Albert Moran and Errol Vieth, 2006.
Lesbian Literature, by Meredith Miller, 2006.
Scandinavian Literature and Theater, by Jan Sjåvik, 2006.
Hong Kong Cinema, by Lisa Odham Stokes, 2007.
French Cinema, by Dayna Oscherwitz and MaryEllen Higgins, 2007.
Irish Cinema, by Roderick Flynn and Pat Brereton, 2007.
Australian Radio and Television, by Albert Moran and Chris Keating, 2007.
Polish Cinema, by Marek Haltof, 2007.
Old Time Radio, by Robert C. Reinehr and Jon D. Swartz, 2008.
German Cinema, by Robert C. Reimer and Carol J. Reimer, 2008.
Cinema, by Paul Varner, 2008.
Chinese Theater, by Tan Ye, 2008.
Italian Cinema, by Gino Moliterno, 2008.
African American Theater, by Anthony D. Hill, 2009.
Postwar German Literature, by William Grange, 2009.
Modern Japanese Literature and Theater, by J. Scott Miller, 2009.
Animation and Cartoons, by Nichola Dobson, 2009.
Modern Chinese Literature, by Li-hua Ying, 2010.
Middle Eastern Cinema, by Terri Ginsberg and Chris Lippard, 2010.
Spanish Cinema, by Alberto Mira, 2010.
Film Noir, by Andrew Spicer, 2010.
French Theater, by Edward Forman, 2010.
Choral Music, by Melvin P. Unger, 2010.
Westerns in Literature, by Paul Varner, 2010.
Baroque Art and Architecture, by Lilian H. Zirpolo, 2010.
Surrealism, by Keith Aspley, 2010.
Science Fiction Cinema, by M. Keith Booker, 2010.
Children’s Literature, by Emer O’Sullivan, 2010.
Latin American Literature and Theater, by Richard A. Young and Odile Cisneros, 2011.
German Literature to 1945, by William Grange, 2011.
Neoclassical Art and Architecture, by Allison Lee Palmer, 2011.
American Cinema, by M. Keith Booker, 2011.
American Theater: Contemporary, by James Fisher, 2011.
English Music: ca. 1400–1958, by Charles Edward McGuire and Steven E. Plank, 2011.
Rococo Art, by Jennifer D. Milam, 2011.
Romantic Art and Architecture, by Allison Lee Palmer, 2011.
Japanese Cinema, by Jasper Sharp, 2011.
Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, by Nicole V. Gagné, 2012.
Russian Music, by Daniel Jaffé, 2012.
Music of the Classical Period, by Bertil van Boer, 2012.
Holocaust Cinema, by Robert C. Reimer and Carol J. Reimer, 2012.
Asian American Literature and Theater, by Wenjing Xu, 2012.
Beat Movement, by Paul Varner, 2012.
Jazz, by John S. Davis, 2012.
Crime Films, by Geoff Mayer, 2013.
Scandinavian Cinema, by John Sundholm, Isak Thorsen, Lars Gustaf Andersson, Olof
Hedling, Gunnar Iversen, and Birgir Thor Møller, 2013.
Chinese Cinema, by Tan Ye and Yun Zhu, 2013.
Taiwan Cinema, by Daw-Ming Lee, 2013.
Russian Literature, by Jonathan Stone, 2013.
Gothic Literature, by William Hughes, 2013.
French Literature, by John Flower, 2013.
Baroque Music, by Joseph P. Swain, 2013.
Opera, by Scott L. Balthazar, 2013.
British Cinema, by Alan Burton and Steve Chibnall, 2013.
Romantic Music, by John Michael Cooper with Randy Kinnett, 2013.
British Theatre: Early Period, by Darryll Grantley, 2013.
South American Cinema, by Peter H. Rist, 2014.
African American Television, Second Edition, by Kathleen Fearn-Banks and Anne Bur-
ford-Johnson, 2014.
Japanese Traditional Theatre, Second Edition, by Samuel L. Leiter, 2014.
Science Fiction in Literature, by M. Keith Booker, 2015.
Romanticism in Literature, by Paul Varner, 2015.
American Theater: Beginnings, by James Fisher, 2016.
African American Cinema, Second Edition, by S. Torriano Berry and Venise Berry, 2015.
British Radio, Second Edition, by Seán Street, 2015.
German Theater, Second Edition, by William Grange, 2015.
Russian Theater, Second Edition, by Laurence Senelick, 2015.
Broadway Musical, Second Edition, by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, 2016.
British Spy Fiction, by Alan Burton, 2016.
Russian and Soviet Cinema, Second Edition, by Peter Rollberg, 2016.
Architecture, Second Edition, by Allison Lee Palmer, 2016.
Renaissance Art, Second Edition, by Lilian H. Zirpolo, 2016.
Sacred Music, Second Edition, by Joseph P. Swain, 2016.
U.S. Latino Literature, by Francisco A. Lomelí, Donaldo W. Urioste, and María Joaquina
Villaseñor, 2017.
Postmodernist Literature and Theater, Second Edition, by Fran Mason, 2017.
Contemporary Art, by Ann Lee Morgan, 2017.
Popular Music, by Norman Abjorensen, 2017.
American Theater: Modernism, Second Edition, by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison
Londré, 2017.
Horror Cinema, Second Edition, by Peter Hutchings, 2018.
Historical Dictionary
of Horror Cinema

Second Edition

Peter Hutchings

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright © 2018 by Peter Hutchings

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hutchings, Peter, author.

Title: Historical dictionary of horror cinema / Peter Hutchings.
Description: Second edition. | Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. | Series: Historical
Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017024548 (print) | LCCN 2017040530 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538102442 (elec-
tronic) | ISBN 9781538102435 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Horror films—Dictionaries.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.H6 (ebook) | LCC PN1995.9.H6 H836 2017 (print) | DDC 791.43/
6164—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017024548

TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America.

 Contents

Editor’s Foreword ix

Preface xi

Reader’s Notes xiii

Chronology xv

Introduction 1

THE DICTIONARY 11

Appendix 1: Horror and the Oscars 363

Appendix 2: The Saturn Awards 371

Bibliography 373

About the Author 407

vii
 Editor’s Foreword

If you rate movies by their aesthetic or intellectual content, horror films will
most likely not appear at the top of your list. But if you rate movies by their
popular appeal or box office returns, some of them will quickly rise to the
top. Ever since the beginning of cinema, there have been horror films. Today,
there is sure to be one showing at a neighborhood theater and on late-night
television. So this latest volume in the Historical Dictionaries of Literature
and the Arts caters to an extremely large clientele, including many whose
passion for the genre is unbounded and who want nothing more than to be
frightened out of their wits. They might prefer the likes of Dracula and
Frankenstein or more sophisticated fare, such as The Omen or The Exorcist.
And their tastes have been satisfied and refined by some of the finest—and a
few of the worst—actors, directors, and producers in the business.
This Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema examines the genre, starting
with a chronology reaching back to its origins and continuing to the present
day. An introduction provides a general overview, while the dictionary pro-
vides information on individual actors, directors, and producers; authors of
horror books that inspired horror films; major themes and categories; and
notable films. It contains entries on American, British, and Chinese horror, as
well as comedy and family horror. Appendices provide lists of Oscar-win-
ning and -nominated films, actors, directors, and producers and Saturn
Award winners, and a bibliography offers sources for further research.
This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema was writ-
ten by the same author as the first, Peter Hutchings, who is both a specialist
on and a fan of horror films. In the first capacity, he teaches at Northumbria
University, where he is professor of film studies. He teaches courses on the
horror film and cinema and television. Over the years Dr. Hutchings has
published a series of articles, papers, and books on topics such as Hammer
Films, Terence Fisher, and Dracula. As an academic, he has watched literally
hundreds (more likely thousands) of horror films, and as a fan, he has en-
joyed the experience even if his judgments on some are less than flattering.
This book will inform and entertain both fans and serious students of this
gory genre.

Jon Woronoff
Series Editor

ix
 Preface

Welcome to the second edition of Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema.

It is always pleasing when one’s work is deemed sufficiently successful to
merit a second expanded edition. That is especially the case here because the
subject of horror cinema is so important to me. I have spent much of the past
three decades researching and writing about the horror genre, and I still find
it inexhaustibly fascinating. At the same time, I am acutely aware how much
has changed in this period, not just in terms of the kinds of horror film
produced but also in the way that we think about them. Back in the 20th
century, academics and critics writing about horror would often preface their
work with apologies for dealing with a subject that seemed either trivial or
inappropriate. Thankfully, no such apologies are required anymore.
Horror is now widely recognized as a significant cultural form that is more
than worthy of our attention. Indeed, one might argue that this has become
even more evident since the first appearance of this dictionary back in 2008.
Since its emergence as a distinctive genre in the early 1930s, horror cinema
has consistently maintained a basic level of popularity, more so than most
other film genres. In the past few years, however, horror has experienced a
remarkable growth in its box office power. In creative terms, it is also dis-
playing a high level of inventiveness. Talented independent filmmakers have
embraced horror conventions and approaches in upmarket productions such
as It Follows (2014), The Witch (2016), and Under the Shadow (2016). Even
horror’s erstwhile and critically unloved reliance on sequels has generated
some surprisingly complex cycles offering innovative relations between
films, including parallel sequels, prequels, and hidden prequels (and if you
want to know what a hidden prequel is, read the dictionary entry on the Final
Destination films).
This, then, is the context within which this second edition has been devel-
oped, a context of generic liveliness, unpredictability, and commercial suc-
cess. Horror has clearly moved on in significant ways in the past few years,
and this book seeks to capture that. Partly, this has been done through adding
new entries on key creative personnel who have recently come to the fore,
including talented directors such as Jaume Balagueró (REC), James Wan
(Insidious, The Conjuring), and Ti West (The House of the Devil) and pro-
ducers such as the influential Jason Blum (Get Out). There are also new
entries on horror film cycles that had either only just begun at the time of the
first edition or where their significance or importance had not become appar-
ent, among them the Final Destination, REC, Resident Evil, and Saw films.
xi
xii • PREFACE
In addition, a large number of entries that were present in the first edition
have been revised and updated to reflect all that has happened in the horror
genre since then. There is more to horror than its present-day forms, howev-
er, for it also has a rich and varied history. Because of this, I have taken the
opportunity to include entries on historically important films and filmmakers
that I was unable to include in the first edition because of constraints of
space.
My aim through all of this has been to give a clear account of the horror
genre in terms of its historical development, its international range, its inno-
vation and inventiveness, and the critical issues that it raises. For those of
you interested in reading more, I have updated the bibliography at the end of
the book so that it incorporates some of the new critical literature that has
appeared over the past few years. New appendices give a sense of the relation
between the horror genre and various film awards.
Researching and writing this book has been far from a solitary experience.
I am fortunate to work at a university where I am surrounded by colleagues
who share my passion for the horror genre and who have patiently and very
helpfully fielded my often arcane queries about various aspects of horror. So
thanks to Russ Hunter, Jamie Sexton, and Johnny Walker. I would also like
to express my personal appreciation to the Abertoir Horror Festival, which
takes place in the beautiful town of Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast and
which I have been visiting for some years. Here, under the genial rule of
festival director and horror host Gaz Bailey, horror fans congregate to view
new and vintage horror films and meet horror filmmakers (some of whom
feature in this book). It has been a privilege to be present at such events.
Sometimes being an academic can limit your perspectives, but Abertoir has
opened mine to the ways in which horror lives on the enthusiasm of its
audiences, who, contrary to the way that sometimes they have been written
about in the past, are knowledgeable, witty, passionate, good humored, and
great company, especially at Abertoir. If nothing else, I hope that this book
has captured some of the positive spirit and convivial atmosphere of an
Abertoir horror screening.
 Reader’s Notes

The international character of horror film production and distribution often

results in films acquiring more than one title as they move from one market
to another. Reissues can also lead to films being retitled yet again. Conse-
quently, some horror films can have five or six titles. In the interests of
clarity, this dictionary presents the original film title first and then itemizes
significant variants. Where the film in question is not made in English, the
original title is followed by the English-language titles under which it has
been circulated, with the best known of these listed first. In many cases, the
English-language title will offer a loose translation of the original title. Any
significant disparities in translation are discussed in the entries relating to the
films in question.
In order to facilitate the rapid and efficient location of information and to
make this book as useful a reference tool as possible, extensive cross-refer-
ences are provided in the dictionary section. Within individual entries, terms
that have their own entries are in boldface type the first time they appear.
Related terms that do not appear in the text are indicated with see also
references, and see refers to other entries that deal with the topic.

xiii
 Chronology

1764 Great Britain: Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto has come to
be seen by many literary historians as the first major gothic novel.
1818 Great Britain: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published.
1849 United States: Edgar Allan Poe dies. Several of his gothic stories are
later adapted for the screen, among them “The Fall of the House of Usher,”
“Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
1872 Great Britain: J. Sheridan LeFanu’s vampire story Carmilla is pub-
lished. It will provide inspiration for several lesbian vampire films of the
1960s and 1970s.
1886 Great Britain: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is published.
1888 Great Britain: The “Jack the Ripper” killings take place in London.
1891 Great Britain: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is pub-
lished.
1896 Great Britain: H. G. Wells publishes his prototype “mad scientist”
story The Island of Dr. Moreau.
1897 Great Britain: Bram Stoker’s Dracula is published.
1901 Great Britain: Arthur Conan Doyle publishes The Hound of the Bas-
kervilles, the most horror-like of all Sherlock Holmes stories.
1910 United States: The earliest known screen adaptation of Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein is produced.
1915 Germany: An early version of The Golem is released.
1919 Germany: Expressionist cinema begins with the release of Robert
Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).
1920 Germany: More expressionist cinema comes in the form of Paul We-
gener’s Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem) and F. W. Murnau’s
Der Januskopf, an adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that features Bela
Lugosi in a small role. United States: John Barrymore stars in yet another
version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

xv
xvi • CHRONOLOGY
1922 Germany: F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens
(Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror) is an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula.
Denmark: The pseudodocumentary Häxen: Witchcraft through the Ages is
released.
1923 United States: Lon Chaney delivers one of his most celebrated perfor-
mances as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
1924 Germany: Robert Wiene’s Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) and
Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) continue the expression-
ist tradition.
1925 United States: Lon Chaney delivers his most horror-like performance
in The Phantom of the Opera.
1926 Germany: F. W. Murnau’s Faust contains some impressive gothic
imagery, while Paul Wegener’s Der Student von Prag (The Student of
Prague) develops the supernatural doppelgänger theme.
1927 Great Britain: Alfred Hitchcock directs the proto-serial killer thriller
The Lodger. United States: The German director Paul Leni combines ex-
pressionistic imagery with comedy in The Cat and the Canary, an adaptation
of a popular Broadway play. Lon Chaney plays a vampire in Tod Browning’s
London after Midnight, now believed to be a lost film.
1928 France: Jean Epstein’s experimental adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s
work La Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) is
released. United States: Paul Leni’s gothic-themed melodrama The Man
Who Laughs is considered by some critics to be his best film.
1929 France: Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s surrealist Un Chien Andalou
contains some striking horror-like imagery—not least an eye being sliced
open—although it has little immediate impact on popular genre cinema.
1931 Germany: Fritz Lang’s M stars Peter Lorre as a serial child killer.
United States: The successful release of Universal’s Dracula, directed by
Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein, directed by
James Whale and featuring Boris Karloff, kick-starts a boom in horror pro-
duction. Universal also produces a Spanish-language version of Dracula,
considered by some critics to be superior to the English-language version.
Paramount releases Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; its star,
Fredric March, receives an Academy Award for his performance.
1932 Germany: Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr offers a
different, more dream-like take on the vampire story. United States: The
horror boom begins in earnest. Universal releases Karl Freund’s The Mummy
and James Whale’s The Old Dark House, both of which star Boris Karloff,
 CHRONOLOGY • xvii
and Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, which stars Bela Lugosi.
Michael Curtiz directs Doctor X at Warner Brothers, Tod Browning makes
the controversial Freaks at MGM, Fay Wray features in Ernest B. Schoed-
sack and Irving Pichel’s The Most Dangerous Game (The Hounds of Zaroff),
and Lugosi stars in Victor Halperin’s independently produced White Zombie.
1933 Great Britain: The Boris Karloff vehicle The Ghoul is released. Mexi-
co: La llorona (The Crying Woman) combines U.S. horror conventions with
local superstition. United States: James Whale develops his distinctive
brand of comedy-horror with The Invisible Man. Erle C. Kenton directs
Island of Lost Souls, a striking adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel The Island
of Dr. Moreau, while Michael Curtiz directs Mystery of the Wax Museum.
The classic monster movie King Kong is also released, along with Murders in
the Zoo, Secret of the Blue Room, Supernatural, and The Vampire Bat.
1934 Mexico: Dos moinjes (Two Monks) and El fantasma del convento (The
Phantom of the Convent) continue a small Mexican cycle of horror films.
United States: Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat turns out to be one of the
most stylish of all 1930s Universal horrors. In comparison, the independently
produced Maniac is a low-budget curiosity.
1935 Great Britain: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste, which stars Bela
Lugosi, comes from an early version of the Hammer company, a later incar-
nation of which would become a leading horror specialist in the 1950s.
United States: This is a key year for the American horror film with the
release of James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein, Karl Freund’s Mad Love,
and Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire. Other horrors include The Black
Room, The Crime of Dr. Crespi, The Raven, and The Werewolf of London.
1936 France: Julien Duvivier’s Le Golem (The Golem) is a rare French
horror production. Great Britain: Tod Slaughter stars in two horror-themed
melodramas, The Crimes of Stephen Hawke and Sweeney Todd—The Demon
Barber of Fleet Street, while Boris Karloff stars in The Man Who Changed
His Mind. United States: Dracula’s Daughter is an impressive follow-up to
the 1931 Dracula. Other horrors include the mad scientist drama The Invis-
ible Ray, Tod Browning’s The Devil-Doll, Victor Halperin’s Revolt of the
Zombies, and Michael Curtiz’s final horror film, The Walking Dead.
1939 Great Britain: Tod Slaughter returns in The Face at the Window, and
Bela Lugosi stars in Dark Eyes of London. United States: Bob Hope stars in
a version of The Cat and the Canary that increases the comedy element. The
Hound of the Baskervilles inaugurates a series of occasionally horror-themed
Sherlock Holmes stories that feature Basil Rathbone as the great detective.
Charles Laughton generates pathos as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of No-
xviii • CHRONOLOGY
tre Dame, while Boris Karloff is a mad scientist in The Man They Could Not
Hang. Universal’s Son of Frankenstein and Tower of London represent the
company’s return to the horror genre after a three-year break.
1940 United States: The Mummy’s Hand starts a cycle of mummy films. A
busy Boris Karloff stars in The Ape, Before I Hang, and Black Friday, and
Bela Lugosi stars in The Devil Bat. Bob Hope returns to comedy-horror in
Ghost Breakers, and Karloff, Lugosi, and Lorre send themselves up in You’ll
Find Out.
1941 United States: Lon Chaney Junior becomes a horror star through his
role in The Wolf Man and also features in Man Made Monster. Meanwhile,
comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello make their comedy-horror debut
with the haunted house spoof Hold That Ghost.
1942 France: Le Loup des Malveneur (The Wolf of the Malveneurs) is an
unusual—for French cinema at least—horror-like production. United States:
Universal’s The Ghost of Frankenstein and The Mummy’s Tomb demonstrate
the studio’s commitment to the production of sequels. By contrast, producer
Val Lewton, who is based at RKO, offers a more middlebrow version of
horror in Cat People. Other horror-themed entertainments include the come-
dies The Boogie Man Will Get You and I Married a Witch as well as the
innovative werewolf film The Undying Monster.
1943 Denmark: Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vredens dag (Day of Wrath) is a
somber tale of witchcraft. France: La main du diable (The Devil’s Hand) is a
stylish version of the Faustian pact. United States: Universal continues se-
quel production with Son of Dracula and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man,
the first of its multiple monster films. More tasteful is the studio’s production
of The Phantom of the Opera. More ludicrous is Captive Wild Woman, in
which a mad scientist turns an ape into a woman. Val Lewton develops his
artful strain of horror with The Ghost Ship, I Walked with a Zombie, The
Leopard Man, and The Seventh Victim.
1944 United States: More sequels appear from Universal, namely, House of
Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse. Val Lewton
makes a more upmarket sequel in the form of The Curse of the Cat People.
Bela Lugosi plays a Dracula-like vampire in The Return of the Vampire,
while the Sherlock Holmes films The Pearl of Death, The Scarlet Claw, and
Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman all contain horror-related material.
Other horrors include The Climax and the ghost story The Uninvited.
1945 Great Britain: Ealing Studios produces one of the great horror anthol-
ogies, Dead of Night. United States: Universal’s House of Dracula is the
last of its non-comedy multiple monster films. At RKO, Val Lewton pro-
duces the period drama The Body Snatcher and the stylish but morbid Isle of
 CHRONOLOGY • xix
the Dead. Albert Lewin directs a similarly upmarket adaptation of Oscar
Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Robert Siodmak directs the stylish
serial killer drama The Spiral Staircase. More prosaically, Sherlock Holmes
and the House of Fear is another horror-themed adventure for the great
detective.
1946 Great Britain: The indefatigable Tod Slaughter performs in another
overheated horror melodrama, The Curse of the Wraydons, while Vernon
Sewell directs Latin Quarter, a stylish tale of artistic insanity. United States:
Insanity is the theme in Robert Florey’s The Beast with Five Fingers and Val
Lewton’s final horror film, Bedlam. She-Wolf of London turns out to be a
whodunnit rather than a werewolf film.
1948 Great Britain: Tod Slaughter is back in The Greed of William Hart, an
everyday tale of body snatching. United States: Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein is the first and best of a series of comedies in which the duo
encounter classic monsters, in this case Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and
the Wolf Man (although, oddly, not Frankenstein).
1951 Great Britain: The “X” certificate—denoting films for adults only—is
introduced. United States: Howard Hawks’s production of The Thing from
Another World successfully combines science fiction conventions with hor-
ror material. Many other films of its type are subsequently made during the
1950s, although few are as distinguished.
1952 Great Britain: Bela Lugosi shows how far his career has fallen from
grace by appearing in the low-budget comedy-horror Old Mother Riley Meets
the Vampire. United States: Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney return to horror
in the unimpressive The Black Castle.
1953 United States: Vincent Price stars in House of Wax, a color remake of
Michael Curtiz’s 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum. More alien monsters
feature in Invaders from Mars and It Came from Outer Space.
1954 France: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s psychological thriller Les Diabo-
liques is released. It will be an inspiration for many later horror filmmakers.
United States: Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon and Gordon
Douglas’s Them! are horror-like monster movies.
1955 Great Britain: The science fiction/horror film The Quatermass Xperi-
ment (The Creeping Unknown) is the first major success for a small company
by the name of Hammer.
1956 Great Britain: Hammer follows up its success with The Quatermass
Xperiment by releasing another science fiction/horror, X The Unknown. Ita-
ly: Riccardo Freda’s I Vampiri (The Devil’s Commandment) is generally
seen as the first Italian horror film. It is not commercially successful. United
xx • CHRONOLOGY
States: Horror-themed science fiction production continues with Invasion of
the Body Snatchers and It Conquered the World, while The Bad Seed is an
early example of the “monstrous child” film. The Undead is Roger Corman’s
first gothic-themed film. Bela Lugosi dies on 16 August.
1957 Great Britain: The Curse of Frankenstein is Hammer’s first color
gothic horror and is directed by Terence Fisher, who will be responsible for
many of the later Hammer horrors. The film stars Peter Cushing as Franken-
stein and Christopher Lee as the creature and is a substantial commercial
success. Hammer also releases the alien invasion fantasy Quatermass 2 (Ene-
my from Space). Cat Girl and Night of the Demon (Curse of the Demon) are
impressive contemporary-set supernatural thrillers. Mexico: La momia Azte-
ca (Attack of the Aztec Mummy), El vampiro (The Vampire), and El ataud del
vampiro (The Vampire’s Coffin), among others, signal the beginning of a
new Mexican horror cycle. United States: Science fiction/horror films in-
clude The Monster That Challenged the World and two films from Roger
Corman: Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of This Earth. A new emphasis
on teenage horror is apparent in Blood of Dracula, I Was a Teenage Franken-
stein, and I Was a Teenage Werewolf. American serial killer Ed Gein is
arrested in Wisconsin; he will subsequently become an inspiration for such
horrors as Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The
Silence of the Lambs (1991), to name but a few.
1958 Argentina: The television horror show Obras maestras de terror (Mas-
terworks of Horror) is a popular success and runs until 1960. Great Britain:
Hammer consolidates its position as a horror market leader with Dracula
(Horror of Dracula), which stars Christopher Lee as the vampire; it also
releases The Revenge of Frankenstein. Other British horrors include Blood of
the Vampire, Corridors of Blood, Grip of the Strangler, and The Trollenberg
Terror. United States: Teenage horrors include the self-reflexive How to
Make a Monster along with Monster on the Campus, The Return of Dracula,
and Teenage Monster. Vincent Price stars in The Fly, and producer-director
William Castle makes his horror debut with Macabre. The science fiction/
horror It! The Terror from Beyond Space is later cited as an influence on
Alien (1979). Boris Karloff plays Frankenstein for the first time in Franken-
stein—1970 and also hosts the television horror series The Veil.
1959 France: Jean Renoir’s made-for-television Le Testament du Docteur
Cordelier (The Testament of Dr. Cordelier) is an impressive version of the
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, while Georges Franju’s Les yeux sans visage
(Eyes without a Face) is an artful but also gruesome surgical horror. Germa-
ny: Die Nackte und der Satan (A Head for the Devil, The Head) is a rare
German horror production from this period. Great Britain: Hammer re-
leases period horrors The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Man Who Could
 CHRONOLOGY • xxi
Cheat Death, and The Mummy. Other filmmakers enter the market with The
Flesh and the Fiends, Horrors of the Black Museum, and Jack the Ripper.
Philippines: Gerardo de Leon’s Terror Is a Man is an early example of
Filipino horror. United States: Roger Corman directs A Bucket of Blood, one
of the best of all comedy-horrors, while William Castle also keeps his tongue
in his cheek with the gimmicky House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler. Ed
Wood’s cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space, which features the last perfor-
mance from Bela Lugosi, is also released. The sometimes horror-themed
television series The Twilight Zone begins; it runs until 1964.
1960 France: Roger Vadim’s Et Mourir de Plaisir (Blood and Roses) is an
artful version of Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla. Germany: Der Rächer (The
Avenger) is an early entry in a series of Edgar Wallace adaptations that often
incorporate horror-like material and imagery. Great Britain: Hammer’s The
Brides of Dracula and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll continue its production of
gothic horrors. The non-Hammer contemporary-set Circus of Horrors and
Peeping Tom are gaudier affairs, while the science fiction/horror Village of
the Damned develops the theme of monstrous children. City of the Dead
(Horror Hotel) is writer-producer Milton Subotsky’s first horror credit; he
will subsequently become a significant figure in British horror. Italy: Mario
Bava’s stylish witchcraft film La Maschera del demonio (The Mask of Satan,
Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday) begins a cycle of Italian horror and
makes a star out of British actor Barbara Steele. Il Mulino delle Donne di
Pietra (Mill of the Stone Women) is an impressive Italian/French coproduc-
tion. United States: A prolific Roger Corman directs The Wasp Woman and
the comedy-horror The Little Shop of Horrors. More significant is his direc-
tion of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptation House of Usher, which stars Vincent
Price and which leads to a cycle of further Poe films. Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho is an influential serial killer drama. By contrast, William Castle’s
Thirteen Ghosts offers more gimmicks and a silly story.
1961 Germany: Die Toten Augen von London (The Dead Eyes of London) is
one of the best of the horror-themed Edgar Wallace films. Great Britain:
Hammer releases what will be its only werewolf film, The Curse of the
Werewolf, and also begins a cycle of Psycho-like thrillers with Taste of Fear
(Scream of Fear). In contrast, Jack Clayton directs The Innocents, a classy
adaptation of Henry James’s ghost story The Turn of the Screw. Italy: Mario
Bava’s Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World) is one
of several musclemen movies that incorporate horror imagery. Mexico: San-
to contra los zombies (Santo versus the Zombies) is the first of many films in
which masked wrestlers take on horror monsters, including vampires, were-
wolves, and Frankenstein’s monster. United States: Roger Corman’s second
xxii • CHRONOLOGY
Poe film is Pit and the Pendulum, which stars Vincent Price and Barbara
Steele. William Castle maintains the jokier tradition in American horror with
Homicidal and Mr. Sardonicus.
1962 Germany: The horror-themed Edgar Wallace cycle continues with Das
Rätsel der roten Orchidee (The Secret of the Red Orchid) and Die Tür mit
den 7 Schlössern (The Door with Seven Locks). Great Britain: The commer-
cial failure of Hammer’s The Phantom of the Opera temporarily slows down
the company’s gothic horror cycle. From elsewhere, Night of the Eagle
(Burn, Witch, Burn!) is a superior witchcraft film. Italy: Riccardo Freda’s
morbid L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, The
Terrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock) is one of Barbara Steele’s best films. Mean-
while, Mario Bava directs what is often considered to be the first giallo-style
psychological horror, La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew
Too Much, The Evil Eye). Spain: Jesus Franco introduces horror to Spain
with the gory surgery-based drama Gritos en la Noche (The Awful Dr. Orl-
off), although full-scale Spanish horror production does not commence until
later in the 1960s. United States: Roger Corman adds The Premature Burial
and Tales of Terror to the Poe cycle, while the idiosyncratic Carnival of
Souls is a ghost story with a final plot twist that will later be reused by
numerous other ghost stories. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, both in full-on
grotesque mode, star in Robert Aldrich’s grand guignol thriller What Ever
Happened to Baby Jane?
1963 Great Britain: Hammer delivers Don Sharp’s stylish period horror The
Kiss of the Vampire and continues its psychological thriller cycle with Ma-
niac and Paranoiac. Robert Wise’s ghost story The Haunting, shot in Britain
for MGM, is also released. Ireland: Francis Ford Coppola makes his genre
debut with Dementia 13 (The Haunted and the Hunted), shot in Ireland for
Roger Corman. Italy: It is a good year for Italian horror with Mario Bava’s
La Frusta et il corpo (The Whip and the Body) and I tre volti della paura
(Black Sabbath), Riccardo Freda’s Lo spettro (The Ghost), and Antonio Mar-
gheriti’s La Vergine di Norimberga (The Virgin of Nuremberg, Horror Cas-
tle) all released. United States: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is an ambitious
revenge-of-nature horror. Exploitation specialist Herschell Gordon Lewis
introduces an unprecedented level of gore into Blood Feast. Roger Corman
directs The Haunted Palace, which is marketed as a Poe adaptation, although
it is actually based on an H. P. Lovecraft story, and the charming comedy-
horror The Raven. More laughs are provided by Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty
Professor, a comedy version of the Jekyll and Hyde story.
1964 Brazil: Director and actor José Mojica Marins begins his controversial
career in horror with the confrontational À meia-noite levarei sua alma (At
Midnight I Will Take Your Soul). Great Britain: Hammer’s gothic output
 CHRONOLOGY • xxiii
includes the routine The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and The Evil of Fran-
kenstein as well as Terence Fisher’s innovative The Gorgon and the psycho-
logical thriller Nightmare. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is the first of a
series of horror anthologies produced by the Amicus company, Hammer’s
main rival in the British horror market for the next 10 years. American
director Roger Corman makes two of the best films of his Poe cycle in
Britain: The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia. Italy: Horror
specialist Antonio Margheriti directs two of Barbara Steele’s finest films,
Danza macabra (Castle of Blood) and I lunghi capelli della morte (The Long
Hair of Death), while Mario Bava is responsible for the seminal giallo thrill-
er Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace). Japan: The upmarket
ghost stories Kaidan (Kwaidan) and Onibaba make an international impact.
United States: Herschell Gordon Lewis offers more extreme gore in Two
Thousand Maniacs and Robert Aldrich and William Castle more grand guig-
nol in, respectively, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Strait-Jacket. Ray
Steckler’s strikingly titled cult horror The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who
Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is also released.
1965 Great Britain: Hammer releases two of its best horror-themed psycho-
logical thrillers in Fanatic (Die! Die! My Darling!) and The Nanny. Christo-
pher Lee stars as Fu Manchu in The Face of Fu Manchu, the first of a series.
Amicus’s The Skull is a superior contemporary-set horror, while Roman
Polanski’s Repulsion, the director’s first English-language film, is a clinical
and disturbing study of insanity. On a more escapist note, Sherlock Holmes
meets Jack the Ripper for the first time in A Study in Terror. Italy: Mario
Bava’s science fiction/horror Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires)
will be yet another influence on Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien.
1966 Great Britain: Dracula—Prince of Darkness, The Plague of the Zom-
bies, and The Reptile are three of Hammer’s best period horrors; other Ham-
mer releases include Rasputin: The Mad Monk and The Witches. The Amicus
psychological thriller The Psychopath revisits some of the themes from
Psycho. Italy: Mario Bava’s Operazione paura (Kill, Baby . . . Kill!) is an
impressive ghost story, while the young British director Michael Reeves
makes his debut with La sorella di satana (Revenge of the Blood Beast, The
She Beast). Spain: The television horror series Historias para no dormir
(Stories to Keep You Awake) is a popular success and runs until 1968. United
States: Dan Curtis’s daytime television soap Dark Shadows incorporates
horror characters; it runs until 1971. In cinema, Billy the Kid versus Dracula
provides one of the genre’s sillier titles.
1967 Great Britain: It is another impressive year for Hammer period horror
with Frankenstein Created Woman and the science fiction/horror Quater-
mass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth), although The Mummy’s
xxiv • CHRONOLOGY
Shroud is less successful. Roman Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires (The
Fearless Vampire Killers) is a stylish and, in places, disturbing comedy-
horror, while Carry on Screaming offers more vulgar horror-themed laughs.
Michael Reeves builds on the promise shown in his first film with the Lon-
don-set The Sorcerers, and Torture Garden is a superior anthology from
Amicus. Other British horrors include the surgery-based Corruption and the
Lovecraft adaptation The Shuttered Room. United States: Herschell Gordon
Lewis’s The Gruesome Twosome and Jean Yarbrough’s Hillbillys in a
Haunted House make for an undistinguished year for American horror, al-
though Curtis Harrington’s horror-themed psychological thriller Games is
noteworthy.
1968 France: The cult director Jean Rollin makes his genre debut with Le
viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire). Great Britain: Terence Fisher’s
The Devil Rides Out and Michael Reeves’s third and final film, Witchfinder
General, are two of the finest of all British horrors. Less impressive are
Curse of the Crimson Altar and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. Philip-
pines: The mad scientist film Mad Doctor of Blood Island demonstrates that
older forms of horror still retain popularity. Spain: Actor Jacinto Molina,
who often works under the name “Paul Naschy,” makes his genre debut as
werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky in La marca del hombre-lobo (The
Mark of the Werewolf). He goes on to play the part in several sequels as well
as starring in numerous other Spanish horrors. United States: This is a key
year in the development of modern American horror with the release of
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s
Baby, and Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets and the introduction of a film rating
system that formally recognizes the possibility of “adult-only” films.
1969 Great Britain: Terence Fisher’s Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is an
impressive traditional Hammer horror, while Gordon Hessler’s The Oblong
Box and Scream and Scream Again confirm the emergence of new youthful
talent in British horror. Boris Karloff dies on 2 February. Italy: Mario
Bava’s Un hacha para la luna de miel (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) innova-
tively combines a giallo with a ghost story. Spain: La residencia (The Fin-
ishing School, The House That Screamed) is a substantial commercial suc-
cess for Spanish horror.
1970 Germany: Michael Armstrong directs Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält
(Mark of the Devil), a violent and controversial witch-hunter drama. Great
Britain: The youth-friendly Taste the Blood of Dracula and the explicit
female nudity in The Vampire Lovers suggest a change in Hammer’s ap-
proach, although The Horror of Frankenstein and Scars of Dracula are less
successful attempts at innovation. Gordon Hessler’s Cry of the Banshee is a
confident supernatural drama, and Amicus produces another effective horror
 CHRONOLOGY • xxv
anthology, The House That Dripped Blood, along with a weak Jekyll and
Hyde adaptation, I, Monster. Italy: Dario Argento makes his directorial de-
but with the giallo L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage, The Gallery Murders). Initially dubbed the Italian Hitch-
cock, he will go on to become one of Europe’s leading horror directors.
Spain: Christopher Lee stars as a mustachioed Dracula in Jesus Franco’s
indifferent El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula). United States: Count Yorga,
Vampire introduces a Hammer-style vampire into contemporary American
settings, and The Dunwich Horror is a stylish adaptation of an H. P. Love-
craft story.
1971 Belgium: Harry Kumel’s lesbian vampire film Le rouge aux lèvres
(Daughters of Darkness) combines genre conventions with an art house sen-
sibility. Great Britain: New innovations continue to appear in British hor-
ror, including Hammer’s revisionary Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Count-
ess Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and Hands of the Ripper and the
more obviously exploitative lesbian vampire films Lust for a Vampire and
Twins of Evil. From other companies come the tongue-in-cheek The Abomi-
nable Dr. Phibes and Psychomania, along with the disturbing rural horror
Blood on Satan’s Claw (Satan’s Skin) and Ken Russell’s controversial witch-
hunter epic The Devils. Italy: Some impressive Italian giallo films are re-
leased, among them Dario Argento’s Il gatto a nove code (The Cat o’ Nine
Tails) and 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet), Mario
Bava’s Reazione a catena (Ecologia del delitto, Twitch of the Death Nerve,
Bay of Blood), and Lucio Fulci’s Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (A
Lizard in a Woman’s Skin). Spain: Amando de Ossorio’s La noche del terror
ciego (Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Blind Dead) begins a cycle of four films
about undead Knights Templar threatening the modern world. United
States: Modern vampire stories prove popular, with Night of Dark Shadows,
The Omega Man, The Return of Count Yorga, and The Velvet Vampire all
being released. The rural horror Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, the possession
drama The Mephisto Waltz, and the rat story Willard also make an impres-
sion.
1972 Great Britain: The cannibalism film Death Line (Raw Meat) imagina-
tively combines British and American horror themes. Hammer brings Dracu-
la to contemporary London in Dracula A.D. 1972 and offers a critique of the
family in Demons of the Mind, while Amicus comes up with two quality
horror anthologies: Asylum and Tales from the Crypt. Italy: Mario Bava,
now nearly at the end of his career, directs two impressive horrors, Gli orrori
del castello di Nuremberg (Baron Blood) and Lisa e il diavolo (Lisa and the
Devil), and Lucio Fulcio, who is relatively new to the genre, is responsible
for the innovative rural giallo Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture a
Duckling). Spain: Jacinto Molina plays a hunchback in one of his best-
xxvi • CHRONOLOGY
known films, El jorobado de la morgue (Hunchback of the Morgue), while
genre specialist Leόn Klimovsky directs the atmospheric La orgía nocturna
de los vampiros (Vampire’s Night Orgy). Also released is La novia ensan-
grentada (The Blood-Spattered Bride), seen by some critics as a powerful
critique of machismo values. United States: Wes Craven makes his horror
debut with the disturbing rape-revenge drama The Last House on the Left.
More somber horror is provided by The Other and The Possession of Joel
Delaney. Frogs is a relatively serious revenge of nature horror, while Night
of the Lepus—about giant rabbits—is a silly one. John Boorman’s Deliver-
ance is also released; it is not a horror film as such, but it provides a template
for later rural horrors. Slightly more lighthearted are the blaxploitation pro-
duction Blacula and the zombie film Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead
Things. Meanwhile, the vampire story The Night Stalker receives the highest-
ever ratings for a television film.
1973 Germany: Ulli Lommel’s Die zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (The Tenderness
of Wolves) is a disturbing serial killer film that refers back to Fritz Lang’s M
(1931). Great Britain: The period horror cycle is winding down, although
And Now the Screaming Starts! and The Creeping Flesh are creditable late
entries. Amicus offers its two final horror anthologies From Beyond the
Grave and The Vault of Horror, Hammer concludes its Dracula cycle with
The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and British horror sends up its established
formats in Horror Hospital and Theater of Blood. New approaches are also
emerging. The ghost story Don’t Look Now, the pagan-themed thriller The
Wicker Man, and the demonic haunted house drama The Legend of Hell
House all suggest new ways forward for the British version of the genre.
Italy: Former Andy Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey camps up the Fran-
kenstein story in Flesh for Frankenstein. Spain: The eerie psychological
thriller La campana del infierno (The Bell from Hell) and the period horror
Pánico en el Transiberiano (Horror Express) are impressive contributions to
European horror. United States: The main event is the release of the phe-
nomenally successful The Exorcist. Other interesting work is done by George
Romero (The Crazies) and Brian De Palma (Sisters). Blaxploitation horror
continues with Blackenstein, Ganja & Hess, and Scream, Blacula, Scream,
and John Landis makes his directorial debut with Schlock. Television pro-
vides revisionary versions of classic movie monsters in Dracula and Fran-
kenstein: The True Story. Lon Chaney Jr. dies on 12 July.
1974 Australia: Peter Weir incorporates American horror themes into an
Australian landscape in The Cars That Ate Paris. Canada: Bob Clark directs
the proto–slasher film Black Christmas. Great Britain: Hammer’s period
horror cycle finally comes to an end with Captain Kronos—Vampire Hunter,
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (which is also Terence Fisher’s final
film), and the kung fu horror The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. Pete
 CHRONOLOGY • xxvii
Walker’s nihilistic House of Whipcord and Frightmare and Jose Larraz’s
sensual Vampyres offer a type of horror more in keeping with the times.
Italy: Paul Morrissey follows up Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) with the
equally over-the-top Blood for Dracula. L’anticristo (The Antichrist) and Chi
Sei (Beyond the Door, The Devil within Her) are the first of many attempts to
cash in on the success of The Exorcist (1973). Spain: Non si deve profanare
il sonno dei morti (The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue) is a striking
and gruesome zombie film, shot largely in Britain. United States: Larry
Cohen’s It’s Alive! and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre en-
gage with the family horror theme. Deranged is a gory, thinly fictionalized
account of Ed Gein, Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise is a more
playful treatment of horror material, while Abby and Sugar Hill are blaxploi-
tation projects. Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein is an affectionate—and
very funny—tribute to classic horror of the 1930s.
1975 Canada: David Cronenberg makes his horror debut with The Parasite
Murders (They Came from Within, Shivers). Great Britain: By this stage,
the kind of period horror offered by Legend of the Werewolf seems anachron-
istic. Pete Walker’s House of Mortal Sin (The Confessional) is a more con-
vincing expression of the troubled 1970s. I Don’t Want to Be Born (The
Devil within Her) is another Exorcist-influenced possession story, while the
horror musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not initially a success but
later becomes a significant cult phenomenon. Italy: Dario Argento directs
Profondo rosso (Deep Red), which takes his work emphatically into the
horror genre. United States: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws draws on old horror
films for inspiration. In comparison, the more conventional horrors Bug and
The Devil’s Rain seem tame, although Race with the Devil is an effective
combination of horror and road movie.
1976 Great Britain: Hammer releases To the Devil a Daughter, which will
be its last horror film for three decades. Also released are Norman J. War-
ren’s Satan’s Slave and Pete Walker’s Schizo. Italy: Pupi Avati’s La casa
dalle finestre che ridono (The House of the Laughing Windows) is one of the
more unusual giallo films. United States: The key horror films are Brian De
Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie and the apocalyptic thriller The
Omen; both are substantial successes. Less spectacular but in their own more
modest ways intelligent and worthwhile are Burnt Offerings, Communion
(Alice Sweet Alice), God Told Me To (Demon), and Squirm.
1977 Australia: Peter Weir provides a compelling Australian version of
apocalyptic horror with The Last Wave. Canada: Rabid, David Cronenberg’s
second horror film, develops his distinctive vision. Italy: Dario Argento’s
witchcraft drama Suspiria is his biggest international commercial success,
while Mario Bava directs his last horror film, the ghost story Schock (Shock,
xxviii • CHRONOLOGY
Beyond the Door II). Holocaust 2000 is a more routine attempt to emulate the
success of The Omen (1976). United States: Wes Craven’s The Hills Have
Eyes proves more audience friendly than his earlier Last House on the Left
(1972), while George Romero’s Martin is one of the most important of all
modern-day vampire stories, and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive (Death Trap) is
a strange but compelling piece of southern gothic. The misconceived Exor-
cist II: The Heretic is a commercial disaster. By contrast, Robert Wise’s
Audrey Rose is a superior possession drama that offers quiet thrills rather
than the more customary blood and thunder, and Curtis Harrington’s Ruby is
also a modest but effective ghost story. Day of the Animals and The Sentinel
are more conventional.
1978 Australia: A minicycle of Australian horror continues with the re-
venge-of-nature drama The Long Weekend and the telekinesis thriller Pat-
rick. United States: George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead redefines the cine-
matic zombie, and John Carpenter’s Halloween inaugurates the slasher cycle
(as well as making a star out of Jamie Lee Curtis). There is a thoughtful
remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and good sequels to both It’s Alive
(1974) and The Omen (1976). Joe Dante makes his horror debut with Piran-
ha. The low-budget rape-revenge drama I Spit on Your Grave is not much
noticed at the time, but it will become notorious later as part of the British
Video Nasties scare of the early 1980s.
1979 Canada: David Cronenberg creates a horror version of Kramer versus
Kramer with The Brood. Germany: Werner Herzog remakes the 1922 Nos-
feratu as Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre). Great
Britain: Bob Clark turns the Jack the Ripper story into a political conspiracy
and throws in Sherlock Holmes for good measure in Murder by Decree.
Italy: Lucio Fulci directs Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesheaters), an unauthorized
follow-up to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). Numerous gory
zombie films will follow. United States: More revisionary vampires feature
in Dracula, which stars Frank Langella as the Count, Love at First Bite, and
Tobe Hooper’s television production of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. The
Amityville Horror is a successful haunted house story, Alien combines horror
with science fiction, Phantasm is a cult oddity, and When a Stranger Calls is
an early example of urban legend horror.
1980 Great Britain: Hammer, now under new management, produces the
television horror series Hammer House of Horror. Italy: Graphic nastiness
of the zombie and cannibal kind features in Apocalypse domani (Cannibal
Apocalypse), Cannibal Holocaust, and Incubo sulla città contaminata
(Nightmare City). Lucio Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of
the Living Dead) is just as gory but considerably more stylish. In Inferno,
Dario Argento offers a sequel of sorts to Suspiria (1977). Lamberto Bava,
 CHRONOLOGY • xxix
son of Mario, makes his directorial debut with the atmospheric psychological
thriller Macabro (Macabre). United States: Friday the 13th is critically
disliked but very popular with teenage audiences; it inaugurates one of the
major horror franchises of the 1980s. Other slashers include the Jamie Lee
Curtis vehicles Prom Night and Terror Train. These, along with Brian De
Palma’s self-consciously Hitchcockian thriller Dressed to Kill, inspire a pub-
lic debate about violence against women in film. John Carpenter’s The Fog is
an atmospheric ghost story, while Stanley Kubrick’s monumental The Shin-
ing confuses many on its initial release but has since come to be considered
by many as one of the greatest of all horror films.
1981 Canada: David Cronenberg’s Scanners turns out to be a more audi-
ence-friendly affair than his previous grimmer work in the genre. Italy:
L’aldilà (The Beyond) and Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The House by
the Cemetery) are key films from Lucio Fulci, combining gore with an in-
tensely dream-like atmosphere. United States: John Landis’s An American
Werewolf in London and Joe Dante’s The Howling reinvent the cinematic
werewolf and together represent a significant step forward in special effects
technology. Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead joins gory horror with slapstick,
while sequels to Friday the 13th (1980) and Halloween (1978), along with
Hell Night, keep the slasher cycle going. The Final Conflict, the third entry in
the Omen cycle, is also released, as are interesting films from Tobe Hooper
(The Funhouse) and Wes Craven (Deadly Blessing).
1982 Italy: Dario Argento directs Tenebre (Tenebrae), considered by some
to be one of the greatest of all giallo films. United States: John Carpenter’s
impressive The Thing is not a commercial success, although it later becomes
a cult classic. Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist is more popular. Paul Schrader
remakes the 1942 version of Cat People, and George Romero directs Stephen
King’s comic-influenced Creepshow, and there are more sequels to Friday
the 13th and Halloween, along with other slashers, including The House on
Sorority Row and The Slumber Party Massacre. In defiance of market trends,
Larry Cohen makes the eccentric Q—Winged Serpent.
1983 Canada: David Cronenberg directs Videodrome, one of his more chal-
lenging and obscure films. Great Britain: Pete Walker, master of grim Brit-
ish horror, directs his last film, the surprisingly gentle and nostalgic House of
the Long Shadows, which features horror icons John Carradine, Peter Cush-
ing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price. United States: Adaptations of Ste-
phen King novels prove particularly popular, with John Carpenter making
Christine, Lewis Teague directing Cujo, and David Cronenberg responsible
for The Dead Zone. Richard Franklin revives the Psycho story with Psycho
II; more sequels will follow.
xxx • CHRONOLOGY
1984 Great Britain: Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves is an ambitious
and innovative werewolf film drawing on the writings of Angela Carter.
United States: Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is the first in what
will be the most commercially successful horror cycle of the 1980s; it will
generate seven sequels and a remake. Re-animator combines gore and come-
dy in a manner akin to that of the Evil Dead films, while more family-
friendly comedy-horror is offered by Ghostbusters and Joe Dante’s Grem-
lins.
1985 Italy: Lamberto Bava directs and Dario Argento produces the slick
Euro-horror Demoni (Demons); Argento also directs the innovative giallo
Phenomena. United States: George Romero directs Day of the Dead, the
third in his Living Dead series, with less serious zombie fare coming from
Dan O’Bannon’s comedy horror The Return of the Living Dead. More
tongue-in-cheek horror can be found in the vampire film Fright Night and
Larry Cohen’s satirical The Stuff.
1986 United States: James Cameron combines action, science fiction, and
horror in Aliens, and David Cronenberg has one of his biggest commercial
successes with his remake of the 1950s monster movie The Fly. The serial
killer also makes an impact in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, an adaptation of
Thomas Harris’s novel Red Dragon, which introduces the character of Han-
nibal Lecter, and in John Naughton’s grim Henry—Portrait of a Serial Kill-
er.
1987 Germany: Jorg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik is a confrontational, necro-
philia-themed low-budget horror project. Great Britain: Clive Barker makes
his directorial debut with Hellraiser, a striking horror influenced by sadoma-
sochistic iconography. Italy: The talented director Michele Soavi debuts
with Deliria (Stagefright, Bloody Bird), while Dario Argento directs the
equally theatrical Opera (Terror at the Opera). New Zealand: The comedy-
horror Bad Taste is yet another directorial debut, this time from Peter Jack-
son. United States: Idiosyncratic genre fare is provided by Kathryn Big-
elow’s inventive vampire-western film Near Dark, John Carpenter’s Love-
craftian Prince of Darkness, and Joseph Ruben’s family horror The Step-
father, while a more straightforward action/science fiction/horror combina-
tion is offered by the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Predator.
1988 Canada: David Cronenberg continues to develop his own very person-
al type of cinematic horror with the gynecology-themed Dead Ringers. Unit-
ed States: Two minor horror cycles commence with the release of Child’s
Play and Maniac Cop. Wes Craven directs the revisionary voodoo film The
Serpent and the Rainbow.
 CHRONOLOGY • xxxi
1989 Japan: The cyberpunk science fiction/horror Tetsuo contains some
groundbreaking body-horror imagery. United States: The satirical cannibal-
ism drama Parents and the body-horror epic Society provide offbeat genre
thrills, while Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary is a more straightforward Ste-
phen King adaptation. The anthology television horror show Tales from the
Crypt begins; it runs until 1996.
1990 Great Britain: Nightbreed, Clive Barker’s ambitious follow-up to
Hellraiser, is not a success. Italy: Dario Argento and George Romero collab-
orate on the Poe project Due occhi diabolici (Two Evil Eyes). United States:
William Peter Blatty directs The Exorcist III, Tom Savini remakes Night of
the Living Dead, and Roger Corman returns to direction after a long absence
with Frankenstein Unbound.
1991 United States: The Silence of the Lambs is a box office smash and wins
several Academy Awards, including for Jodie Foster, for director Jonathan
Demme, and for Anthony Hopkins as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Hannibal
Lecter. Wes Craven directs the socially critical The People under the Stairs,
one of his best films.
1992 New Zealand: Peter Jackson’s Braindead takes comedy-horror to a
new level of gore. United States: Candyman explores racial politics from
within a horror idiom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer relocates vampires within a
high school setting, and Francis Ford Coppola directs a blockbusting new
version of Dracula featuring Gary Oldman as the Count and Anthony Hop-
kins as Van Helsing. Alien 3 is the grimmest entry to the Alien cycle.
1993 Mexico: Guillermo del Toro makes his directorial debut with Cronos,
an innovative vampire film. United States: Two more Stephen King adapta-
tions appear: Needful Things and George Romero’s The Dark Half. Tim
Burton produces the horror-themed animation The Nightmare before Christ-
mas. The horror-influenced television series The X Files begins; it runs until
2002 and also generates two cinema films and a 2016 television miniseries.
Vincent Price dies on 25 October.
1994 Great Britain: Peter Cushing dies on 11 August. Italy: Michele Soavi
directs his best film, the zombie drama Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery
Man). United States: Big-budget horror includes Neil Jordan’s adaptation of
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, a version of Frankenstein starring
Robert De Niro as the Monster, and the Jack Nicholson werewolf drama
Wolf. Ed Wood is Tim Burton’s tribute to the film director and features an
Academy Award–winning performance from Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.
Wes Craven returns to the Nightmare on Elm Street cycle with the intensely
self-reflexive New Nightmare. The Crow’s offering of morbid gothic is
underlined by the accidental death of its star, Brandon Lee, during filming.
xxxii • CHRONOLOGY
1995 Spain: El día de la bestia (Day of the Beast) is a stylish horror from a
national cinema that has produced little horror since the 1970s. United
States: Dark serial killer films prove popular with the release of Copycat and
Seven. In the Mouth of Madness and Vampire in Brooklyn are the latest from,
respectively, John Carpenter and Wes Craven. Dracula—Dead and Loving It
is a crude Mel Brooks spoof that seeks to recapture the glory of Young
Frankenstein (1974), while Species combines science fiction and horror in
Alien style.
1996 Spain: Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis, which deals with snuff movies, is
an impressive feature debut. United States: Peter Jackson comes to Holly-
wood to make the comedy-horror The Frighteners, Robert Rodriguez com-
bines crime and horror effectively in From Dusk till Dawn, Mary Reilly is an
upmarket revision of the Jekyll and Hyde story, and John Frankenheimer
provides an eccentric version of The Island of Dr. Moreau that stars Marlon
Brando in the title role. However, the main horror film of note is Wes Cra-
ven’s Scream, which cleverly combines slasher conventions with generic in-
jokes. Sequels and other teenage horror films wanting to cash in on its suc-
cess inevitably follow.
1997 United States: I Know What You Did Last Summer is an effective
Scream-like film, while Wes Craven directs Scream 2. Guillermo del Toro
makes his American debut with Mimic, a giant-insect story. Alien: Resurrec-
tion is the next film in the Alien cycle and the final one to date to feature
Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. The horror-themed television series Buffy the
Vampire Slayer begins; it runs until 2003 and also generates a spin-off series,
Angel.
1998 Japan: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is a breakthrough international success
for Japanese horror; it will lead to sequels and remakes and encourage the
development of a broader East Asian horror cinema. United States: A preoc-
cupation with horror’s past becomes apparent. Black horror is triumphantly
revived with the urban vampire drama Blade. Halloween H20: 20 Years
Later is a clever sequel that brings Jamie Lee Curtis back to the cycle, and
Gods and Monsters is a fine biopic dealing with James Whale, director of the
1931 Frankenstein. More eccentric is Gus van Sant’s remake of Psycho. The
Last Broadcast, a mock documentary about a folk legend, is little noticed at
the time, although it does seem to anticipate themes more successfully ad-
dressed by the following year’s Blair Witch Project. Other Scream-like hor-
rors include I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend.
1999 Japan: The development of Japanese horror continues with Ringu 2
and Takashi Miike’s shocking, torture-based Odishon (Audition). Korea:
The release of The Ring Virus, a version of the Ringu story, along with the
evocative ghost story Yeogo goedam II (Memento Mori), highlights the de-
 CHRONOLOGY • xxxiii
velopment of a distinctive South Korean horror cinema. United States: Two
supernatural dramas capture the public attention. The mock documentary The
Blair Witch Project makes highly effective use of Internet marketing, while
The Sixth Sense offers the chills of an old-fashioned ghost story topped by a
much-discussed plot twist. Other ghost stories, including remakes of House
on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Haunting (1963), are less impressive. Ar-
nold Schwarzenegger takes on the Devil in the millennial End of Days,
Stephen Sommers directs the action-horror The Mummy, Antonia Bird is
responsible for the cannibalism horror-western Ravenous, and Tim Burton’s
Sleepy Hollow is a handsome period horror. Roman Polanski’s Span-
ish–French–American production The Ninth Gate offers an altogether more
idiosyncratic take on horror themes.
2000 France: Promenons-nous dans les bois (Deep in the Woods) and the
serial killer drama Les rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers) offer a dis-
tinctively French take on horror conventions. Germany: The surgical horror
Anatomie does something similar for Germany, cleverly relating its narrative
to German history. United States: Wes Craven directs Scream 3, Scary
Movie sends up the Scream films, and Cherry Falls and Final Destination
demonstrate that there is still life in the teenage horror formula. Robert
Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath is an intelligent big-budget ghost story, Lost
Souls a noisy millennial thriller, and Ed Gein a disturbing account of the real-
life serial killer who inspired several horror films. The international copro-
duction Shadow of the Vampire deals with the production of the 1922 Nosfe-
ratu and speculates that the actor who played the vampire was actually a
vampire.
2001 France: Le pacte des loups (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) successfully
combines horror elements with period drama, while Trouble Every Day is an
artier exploration of the cannibalism theme. Great Britain: The World War
II supernatural drama The Bunker is an early sign of a revival of the British
horror film. Spain: The Fantastic Factory company is established to produce
English-language horror films in Spain. Early examples of its products are
Dagon and Faust. Guillermo del Toro directs the ghost story El espinazo del
diablo (The Devil’s Backbone). Tuno negro is a distinctly Spanish version of
the Scream films. United States: Jack the Ripper returns in From Hell,
Hannibal Lecter returns in Hannibal, and Friday the 13th killer Jason is sent
into outer space in Jason X, which, as the title suggests, is the 10th film in the
cycle. Alejandro Amenabar’s international production The Others is a
worthy addition to the fast-developing ghost story cycle, while Jeepers
Creepers is an inventive monster movie.
xxxiv • CHRONOLOGY
2002 China: The Hong Kong–Singapore production Gin gwai (The Eye) is
another international success for East Asian horror. Great Britain: The re-
lease of the World War I horror movie Deathwatch, the werewolf drama Dog
Soldiers, the psychological thriller My Little Eye, the apocalyptic thriller 28
Days Later, and the international coproduction Resident Evil confirm the
renaissance of the British horror film. Japan: Hideo Nakata’s Honogurai
mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) is another successful example of East Asian
horror. United States: The influence of East Asian horror is felt both in the
American remake The Ring and in the Japan-style Internet horror FearDot-
Com. Hannibal Lecter returns for the remake Red Dragon, the comedy-
horror Scooby Doo gets a live-action makeover, and the gruesome low-bud-
get Cabin Fever suggests that a new toughness has entered American horror.
By contrast, Bubba Ho-tep is an enjoyably eccentric affair in which Elvis
Presley takes on a mummy.
2003 France: Alexandre Aja directs Haute Tension (High Tension, Switch-
blade Romance), a slasher that manages to be stylish, gory, and iconoclastic.
Japan: Ju-On: The Grudge is the latest international success to come from
Japanese horror. United States: Freddy vs. Jason brings together the Friday
the 13th and Elm Street cycles. Rock musician Rob Zombie makes his direc-
torial debut with the 1970s-style horror House of 1000 Corpses; more refer-
ences to the 1970s crop up in the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(1974) and the rural horror Wrong Turn.
2004 France: Calvaire (The Ordeal) is an effective rural horror. Great
Britain: The revival of British horror continues with the London Under-
ground–based Creep. Korea: The South Korean production R-Point com-
bines an evocative ghost story with an account of Korean involvement in the
Vietnam War. United States: George Romero’s 1978 production of Dawn of
the Dead is remade, and there is a prequel to The Exorcist in Exorcist: The
Beginning and a remake of the Japanese Ju-on: The Grudge. The horror
musical The Phantom of the Opera and the action blockbuster Van Helsing
also revive old horror conventions. More original is M. Night Shyamalan’s
rural horror The Village. More significant in its inaugurating a major horror
cycle is the torture-based horror Saw.
2005 Australia: Wolf Creek is Australia’s disturbing contribution to the new
emphasis on torture in horror cinema. Great Britain: The subterranean hor-
ror The Descent and the animated horror The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, each
in its own way, testify to the new vitality of British horror. United States:
The Devil’s Rejects and Hostel are America’s contribution to the new “nasty”
horror. George Romero makes a fourth zombie film, Land of the Dead, and
Tim Burton returns to animated horror with Corpse Bride. Remakes include
Dark Water (from the Japanese original) and The Fog (from John Carpen-
 CHRONOLOGY • xxxv
ter’s original). Doom is a computer game adaptation, while Dominion: Pre-
quel to the Exorcist is Paul Schrader’s original prequel, temporarily shelved
by its producer while another film prequel was produced and released. Japa-
nese director Hideo Nakata makes his first American film, The Ring Two.
The horror television anthology series Masters of Horror showcases the
work of many cinema directors.
2006 Great Britain: Severance and Wilderness lead British horror into rural
horror territory. Spain: Guillermo del Toro’s dark fantasy El laberinto del
fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) is considered by many to be his finest film. Sweden:
Frostbiten (Frostbite) is an inventive vampire story that contributes to a
wider resurgence in European horror. United States: This year’s remakes
include The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, and Pulse (the latter from a Japa-
nese original). Slither is a throwback to the alien invasion format, while the
international production Silent Hill is a computer game adaptation and Stay
Alive is a horror film about a deadly computer game.
2007 Australia: Black Water, Rogue, and Storm Warning are effective rural
horror films. Great Britain: 28 Weeks Later is a successful sequel to 28
Days Later. Italy: Dario Argento’s La terza madre (Mother of Tears) belat-
edly concludes the witchcraft trilogy inaugurated by Suspiria (1977) and
Inferno (1980). Spain: The stylish ghost story El orfanato (The Orphanage)
and the grisly zombie film REC signal that a resurgence in Spanish horror is
under way. United States: Remakes of Halloween and The Hitcher appear,
and George Romero adds Diary of the Dead to his cycle of zombie films. The
release of Captivity, Grindhouse, and Hostel Part 2 spark a debate about the
cinematic use of torture and the extent to which such films offer “torture
porn.” Hannibal Rising is the final cinematic outing to date for noted serial
killer and bon viveur Hannibal Lecter, while The Mist, adapted from a Ste-
phen King novella, is a clever throwback to an older type of monster movie,
and, by contrast, 30 Days of Night is a vampire story with enhanced brutality.
2008 Canada: Pontypool is an innovative zombie film in which the zombie
infection is transmitted by language. France: Martyrs is an extremely dis-
turbing torture-based story that combines art cinema and horror conventions.
Great Britain: The monstrous children horrors The Children and Eden Lake,
the grimly realistic Mum and Dad, and the Nazi-themed Outpost demonstrate
the variety evident in British horror production. Sweden: Let the Right One
In is a classy revision of the vampire myth. United States: It is a year of
remakes, including The Eye, Mirrors, and One Missed Call, all of which
rework Asian originals Quarantine (which reworks the 2007 Spanish REC)
and It’s Alive and Prom Night, which take as their inspiration American
xxxvi • CHRONOLOGY
horrors of the 1970s and 1980s. The giant-monster movie Cloverfield, the
carnivorous-plant film The Ruins, and the home invasion story The Strangers
show that original American horror is still available.
2009 Australia: The torture theme evident in international horror cinema
continues, this time with the ironically titled The Loved Ones. Denmark:
Lars von Trier brings an idiosyncratic approach and horror-based imagery to
the disturbing Antichrist. France: La Horde (The Horde) is a French contri-
bution to a burgeoning international cycle of zombie films. Great Britain:
British horror offers the tasteful with Dorian Gray, the socially critical with
Heartless, and the foolish with Lesbian Vampire Killers. Christopher Lee is
knighted. Korea: Thirst is an innovative vampire film played out in a con-
temporary Korean setting. Norway: The cheerfully exploitative and gory
Dead Snow has Nazi zombies as its main selling point. United States: More
remakes appear of both well-known and obscure originals, including Friday
the 13th, The Last House on the Left, My Bloody Valentine, Sorority Row,
and The Uninvited (the latter a remake of the Korean A Tale of Two Sisters).
George Romero adds a sixth film to his cycle of zombie films with Survival
of the Dead, while Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, Joe Dante’s The Hole, Ti
West’s House of the Devil, Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body, and Jaume
Collet-Serra’s Orphan offer more original genre fare. The found footage
horror Paranormal Activity, which was produced in 2007, finally gets a
release and is a substantial commercial success that will go on to generate
several sequels.
2010 Great Britain: Cherry Tree Lane, F (The Expelled), and Outcast all
offer elements of social realism in their treatment of horror themes. Mexico:
Somos lo que hay (We Are What We Are) is a stylish study of a family of
cannibals. Serbia: Srpski film (A Serbian Film) is an unyielding and almost
unwatchable drama dealing with snuff films. United States: Yet more re-
makes appear, including The Crazies, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, I Spit on
Your Grave, Let Me In (based on the Swedish Let the Right One In from
2008), Mother’s Day, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Piranha 3D, and, more
anachronistically, the period horror The Wolfman, which revises material
first introduced into cinema in the 1940s. The psychological thriller Black
Swan contains strong horror elements. The Last Exorcism is an effective
found footage horror, and Stake Land manages to bring something original to
the vampire mythos. The Saw franchise concludes—to date at least—with
Saw: The Final Chapter (although the belated Saw: Legacy appears in 2017).
Uruguay: La casa muda (The Silent House) is an inventive horror that was
allegedly filmed in one long take.
 CHRONOLOGY • xxxvii
2011 Cuba: Zombie cinema finally arrives in Cuba with the enjoyable Juan
de los muertos (Juan of the Dead). Great Britain: The Awakening is a
traditional ghost story, while the crime film Kill List draws heavily on horror
iconography. Spain: La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) is an effective
surgical horror directed by Pedro Almodόvar. United States: A remake of
Fright Night, a prequel to The Thing, and a fourth Scream film all appear. Ti
West’s The Innkeepers, James Wan’s Insidious, and Adam Wingard’s You’re
Next showcase the work of a new generation of horror directors.
2012 Great Britain: Berberian Sound Studio is a fascinating if obscure
reworking of material associated with 1970s Italian cult horror, while Byzan-
tium is an innovative vampire film from Neil Jordan. Hammer’s ghost story
The Woman in Black is a standout commercial hit. United States: Sinister
demonstrates the growing popularity in American cinema of haunted house
movies. The Bay is an effective combination of found footage and revenge of
nature horror while The Cabin in the Woods is an exercise in self-reflexive
horror. Black Rock is a rare example of a female-directed horror film, and
animated features Frankenweenie and Paranorman make extensive use of
horror iconography. Anthology horror returns with V/H/S (along with the
international production The ABCs of Death). Ridley Scott returns to the
Alien franchise with the big-budget prequel Prometheus.
2013 Great Britain: In a quiet year for British horror, The Borderlands is an
unnerving rural horror with one of the more disturbing conclusions to be
found in recent horror cinema. United States: The appearance of remakes
Carrie, Evil Dead, and We Are What We Are, along with sequels to Insidious
and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, provide further evidence of horror’s
recycling of its past successes. The Conjuring, Dark Skies, and The Purge
popularize the home invasion format, with, respectively, ghosts, aliens, and
nasty people providing the threats to domestic security. Horns is an ambi-
tious if tonally awkward adaptation of a horror-themed novel by Joe Hill (the
son of Stephen King), while the Brad Pitt vehicle World War Z is the biggest-
budgeted zombie film ever made. Hannibal Lecter, played this time by Mads
Mikkelsen, makes his television debut with the series Hannibal.
2014 Great Britain: The Woman in Black: Angel of Death is a rare sequel
for contemporary British horror, while The Quiet Ones is another supernatu-
ral drama from the recently revived Hammer company. Spain: The REC
cycle concludes with the appropriately titled REC 4: Apocalypse. United
States: The continued popularity of stories featuring ghosts and demons is
evident in the likes of Annabelle, Deliver Us from Evil, Ouija, Paranormal
Activity: The Marked Ones, and Unfriended, while Count Dracula makes an
xxxviii • CHRONOLOGY
unexpected comeback in Dracula Untold. More impressive are the indepen-
dently produced A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (filmed in the Persian
language but shot in the United States) and the implacable It Follows.
2015 Great Britain: The British/Irish coproduction The Hallow is an im-
pressive example of rural horror. Sir Christopher Lee dies on 7 June. United
States: The leading horror director and innovator Wes Craven dies on 30
August. In cinema, the usual sequels—Sinister 2 and Insidious: Chapter 3—
and remakes—Martyrs and Poltergeist, this time—show up. However, one
also finds examples of period horror in Guillermo del Toro’s handsome
gothic ghost story Crimson Peak and in the revival of the mad scientist in
Victor Frankenstein. Goosebumps and Krampus offer more child-friendly
forms of horror, but the grisly horror-western Bone Tomahawk is strictly for
adults only. Maggie is a low-key zombie drama featuring a surprisingly
effective performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Final Girls is a
self-reflexive horror film, and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit is effective
for those who do not see the climactic plot twist coming. The year’s stand-
out production is The Witch, which is quite unlike any horror film you have
ever experienced.
2016 France/Belgium: Raw, directed by Julia Ducournau, is an unsettling
exploration of cannibalism and a still rare example of a horror film directed
by a woman. Korea: South Korean horror demonstrates its continuing vital-
ity with the action-packed zombie drama Train to Busan and the challenging
and intense demon story The Wailing. Great Britain: The Girl with All the
Gifts is an innovative zombie film. The international coproduction Under the
Shadow—from Britain, Qatar, and Jordan—is a highly original ghost story
set in postrevolutionary Iran. United States: The Conjuring 2 and Ouija:
Origin of Evil are both effective follow-ups to earlier films, while the sequel
Blair Witch is less successful. The Autopsy of Jane Doe, A Cure for Wellness,
and The Neon Demon are all idiosyncratic horror projects.
2017 Italy/United States: The witchcraft drama Suspiria, Luca Guadagni-
no’s remake of Dario Argento’s classic 1977 Italian horror of the same title,
appears. United States: Franchise horror continues unabated with Ridley
Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Annabelle: Creation, God Particle (extending the
Cloverfield franchise), Rings, and Saw: Legacy. Remakes and reboots also
prosper with the likes of Stephen King’s It and another version of The Mum-
my. XX is a horror anthology directed by women, while Get Out is the stand-
out original U.S. horror of the year for its clever mixture of genre shocks and
social insights into contemporary race relations. If nothing else, the range of
productions evident in recent years demonstrates that, for all the trends and
tendencies visible over the years, the horror genre continues to develop and
proliferate in unexpected ways.
 Introduction

The horror genre is one of the more provocative and controversial areas of
mainstream film production. However, it has also retained a remarkable pop-
ularity throughout its history, to the extent that there has been no sustained
period since the 1930s when horror films were not being made somewhere in
the world. Because of this ubiquity, horror cinema has become a familiar part
of our culture. Even if we do not like horror films, we usually have a clear
idea of what a horror film actually is and what kind of experience it will offer
us. Given this familiarity, it is perhaps predictable that horror has frequently
been characterized by its critics—and it has many critics—as a repetitive and
formulaic area of mass culture. However, even a superficial overview of its
history reveals a range of types of film on offer at any point. In addition,
horror’s numerous overlaps with other genres, such as science fiction or the
thriller, make it yet more difficult to assign definitive limits to the genre or
discover some essential core identity to which all horror films can be related.

THE BIRTH OF HORROR

This generic indeterminacy is evident in the origins of horror cinema, which

are complex, multilayered, and open to interpretation. The term “horror film”
itself did not emerge as a distinctive and recognizable classificatory term
until the early 1930s, when it was associated in particular with a series of
films from Universal, beginning with Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein
(1931) (although Dracula was initially marketed as a macabre thriller rather
than as a horror). Before then, one can find an array of narratives that, to
modern eyes at least, exhibit horror-like properties but that were not present-
ed to their original audiences in those terms. In some instances, it is possible
to establish a direct relationship between the pre-horror material and the
horror films that followed, although other connections are more indirect or
obscure and require some teasing out.
One area of culture often invoked as a source for horror cinema is gothic
literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is certainly the case that gothic
novels such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Matthew
Lewis’s The Monk (1796), and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) intro-
duced imagery and themes that would subsequently be detected in horror
films. However, none of the key gothic novels—with the notable exception

1
2 • INTRODUCTION
of Frankenstein, of course—were adapted for the screen during the 1930s
(and very few of them since), and Universal’s 1931 version of Frankenstein
had very little to do with Shelley’s novel. Much the same could be said of the
1931 film version of Dracula, which, although ostensibly based on Bram
Stoker’s 1897 novel, developed its own distinctive story line. Indeed, it could
be argued that horror cinema’s renditions of Frankenstein and Dracula have
so completely supplanted the literary originals in the public imagination that
any contemporary reader of Shelley’s or Stoker’s work would be surprised at
how widely they differ from the common expectations of stories involving
the characters of Frankenstein or Dracula.
This does not mean that one should discount entirely the importance of the
gothic to an understanding of the horror film. The gothic’s emphasis on the
sensational, for example, certainly resonates in the later development of hor-
ror. In addition, some critical accounts of gothic have viewed it not just as a
historically defined movement but also as a more pervasive cultural mode
that incorporates part or all of the horror genre. 1 At the same time, one needs
to acknowledge that early horror’s relation with the historical gothic is, at the
very least, indirect, and other, more contemporaneous factors exerted a more
obvious influence on the genre’s early development.
It is worth noting in this respect that the 1931 versions of both Dracula
and Frankenstein were not, strictly speaking, adaptations of the original nov-
els but instead taken from stage versions. The contribution made by the
theater to the “birth” of the horror film has often been overlooked in histories
of the genre, but it was important in two distinct ways. The numerous stage
versions of Dracula and Frankenstein that appeared, along with similarly
themed macabre tales, throughout the 19th and into the 20th century helped
to develop elements of visual spectacle—often involving the creation or
destruction of the monster—in a manner that readily lent itself to translation
into the cinematic medium (more so than did the often very convoluted plots
of the original novels).
Just as important, such theatrical enterprises demonstrated that there was a
commercial market for this kind of entertainment, even if it did not at this
point go under the name “horror.” From this perspective, the fact that Uni-
versal wanted to produce a screen version of Dracula in the early 1930s had
nothing to do with the intrinsic qualities of Stoker’s novel and everything to
do with the box office success enjoyed by the 1927 Broadway stage adapta-
tion of the novel. The popularity of other macabre-themed plays in the 1920s,
among them The Cat and the Canary and The Gorilla (both of which were
repeatedly adapted for the cinema), further underlined how much the enter-
tainment industry, especially in the United States, was catering to a public
appetite for fictional horror before the term “horror film” ever appeared.
 INTRODUCTION • 3
Historians in search of horror’s roots have also looked to pre-1930s cine-
ma in both Europe and the United States. Of particular significance in this
respect were the German expressionist films produced in the aftermath of
World War I—most notably, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), The Golem
(1920), and Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized Dracula adaptation—and a
series of U.S. productions starring Lon Chaney, the most horror-like of
which were The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the
Opera (1925), and London after Midnight (1927). Again one can find con-
nections to the horror to come. The expressive style associated with Caligari
and Nosferatu found its way into a number of early 1930s U.S. horrors (not
least Dracula, which was photographed by Karl Freund, who had first made
his mark with his work on some German expressionist films and who would
go on to direct the 1932 version of The Mummy), while the lumbering walk
of the monsters in The Golem and Caligari has been seen by many critics as
an influence on Boris Karloff’s famous performance as the Monster in Fran-
kenstein. Similarly, Lon Chaney’s distortion of his own facial features and
body in order to produce a convincing monster established a template for
later horror monsters, while Chaney’s main director, Tod Browning, went on
to direct some of the key 1930s horrors, including Dracula and Freaks
(1932).
As was the case with gothic literature and the theater, however, these
connections cut across significant differences, here to do with national dis-
tinction, cultural location, and generic identity, in a way that undermines any
sense of there being a straightforward cultural continuity between the films
concerned. For example, German expressionist cinema might have been an
influence on horror, but it was also more upmarket culturally than the early
American horrors of the 1930s, to the extent that it constituted a form of
European art cinema, while Chaney’s films were more melodramas, often
expensive and prestigious ones, than they were monster movies.
It seems from this that the work done by horror filmmakers in the forma-
tive period of the 1930s involved, in part at least, a Frankenstein-like stitch-
ing together of elements taken from other genres, other media, other nations,
and other historical periods, with this undertaken in the interests of producing
commercially viable popular entertainments for mass audiences. What these
filmmakers came up with might eventually have taken on a life of its own as
a distinctive cinematic form or forms, but the birthing of horror was a pro-
tracted, chaotic, and rather messy affair. Early horrors, such as Universal’s
Dracula and Frankenstein or its Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), Para-
mount’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Warner Brothers’ Doctor X (1932),
or the independently produced White Zombie (1932), were actually very
different from each other in terms of subject, style, theme, tone, and produc-
tion values, and the borders of the early 1930s version of the horror genre
proved extremely permeable. Films we do not think of now as horror were
4 • INTRODUCTION
marketed as horror, while what seem to us to be classic horrors were mar-
keted in other ways. If nothing else, this overturns one overly neat reading of
the genesis of the horror film, one that views the release of the Universal
Dracula as marking the explosive beginning of a cinematic category that
appeared ready-formed in the market. As is so often the case with the appar-
ently familiar category of horror cinema, the story of the beginnings of the
genre reveals instead an area of our culture that is fragmented, constantly
negotiable, and surprisingly difficult to pin down.

THE LOCATION OF HORROR

Some of the sprawl and fragmentation evident in horror’s unruly “birth” has
been maintained in the genre’s subsequent development. Horror has never
really solidified into a unified object but instead has tended to be character-
ized by dispersal into localized centers of activity that have sometimes con-
nected with each other but have also gone their own distinctive ways. Bear-
ing this in mind, an engagement with the horror genre in terms of the specific
sites of its production and reception—whether this is in terms of particular
cycles of films or in terms of different national versions of horror—seems a
necessary prerequisite to grasping the nature of horror itself.
There was certainly a sprawling quality to horror during the 1930s. Se-
quels—that feature of the genre that has usually been seen as binding it
together more than is the case with other mainstream film genres—were few
and far between in this period, numbering only Bride of Frankenstein (1935),
Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). Each of the
major studios offered its own particular version of horror, while the horror
films from Universal, the main genre producer in the first half of the 1930s,
were considerably more varied than is sometimes supposed, with the high
camp of Bride of Frankenstein sitting uneasily alongside the modernist chic
of The Black Cat (1934) or the somber expressionism that characterized Son
of Frankenstein.
One quality that did underpin most of 1930s cinematic horror, as far as its
production context was concerned, was its Americanness. Throughout the
1930s and the 1940s, the United States was the only significant producer of
horror films in the world. There was a minicycle of horrors from Mexico in
the 1930s and a few British horrors from the same period, with both of these
appropriating Hollywood horror conventions and combining them with local
material. However, such productions were few in number and lacking in
influence, and it was American horror films that captured the public imagina-
tion, not only in the United States but in many other countries as well. Given
the international appeal of these films, it was perhaps fitting that non-
 INTRODUCTION • 5
Americans were involved in their production, sometimes in key roles. James
Whale, director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, was British, as
was Boris Karloff (and, for that matter, most of the cast of Bride of Franken-
stein); both Bela Lugosi and Michael Curtiz, director of Doctor X and Mys-
tery of the Wax Museum (1933), were Hungarian; Robert Florey, director of
Murders in the Rue Morgue, was French; and cinematographer-director Karl
Freund was German (although, ironically, George Melford, the director of
Universal’s Spanish-language Dracula, shot on the same sets as the Lugosi
version and considered by some critics to be a better film, was thoroughly
American and reportedly could not even speak Spanish). Many of these films
were set in Europe and, as noted above, sometimes drew on European culture
for their stories or their visual inspiration. It does not follow that this made
the films less American—they were clearly all made with American audi-
ences in mind—but the presence of non-American sensibilities behind the
scenes and non-American accents in front of the camera often bestowed a
kind of exoticism on the proceedings. If anything could define the generic
sprawl of 1930s horror production, it was probably a sense of foreignness, of
this being a type of fiction that was both fascinating but also distant from the
everyday reality of American lives.
The first wave of American horror production petered out from 1936 on,
with Universal’s 1939 production of Son of Frankenstein, which marked
Karloff’s third and final appearance as the monster, a belated flourish to this
period. When horror returned in the 1940s, it came in a form that was both
more domesticated and more organized. American settings, often contempo-
rary ones, and American characters were more prominent, and the exoticism
associated with 1930s U.S. horror had by this stage been largely dissipated.
While Lugosi and Karloff were still working in the genre, the new Universal
horror star was Lon Chaney Jr., an altogether more American presence.
Meanwhile, the producer Val Lewton was making a series of horror films at
RKO that mixed historical subjects, such as The Body Snatcher (1945) and
Bedlam (1946), with psychological horrors set in a recognizable modern
America, among them Cat People (1942), The Seventh Victim (1943), and
The Curse of the Cat People (1944). The undoubted intelligence and stylistic
accomplishment of these films has rightly earned critical approval over the
years, although in retrospect they seem less important to the subsequent
development of the horror genre than less reputable activities taking place
elsewhere in the industry.
Universal in particular was busy developing branded cycles of horror films
(or what today would be called horror franchises). The Ghost of Frankenstein
(1942) followed on from Son of Frankenstein and was itself quickly followed
by Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), which was also a sequel to the
1941 hit The Wolf Man. The later multiple-monster films House of Franken-
stein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945)—both of which brought together
6 • INTRODUCTION
Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolf Man—confirmed Universal’s
status as a veritable monster factory committed to sequel production. (By
contrast, Lewton’s only sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, purposefully set
out to be as different as possible from the first film, as if disdainful of the
commercialism evident in the very idea of the sequel.) Universal also pro-
duced a 1940s cycle of mummy films—including The Mummy’s Hand
(1942), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), and The
Mummy’s Curse (1944)—that introduced the mummy into contemporary
American settings and displayed a level of ruthlessness in killing off princi-
pal characters that would not be seen again in the genre until Alfred Hitch-
cock’s Psycho (1960). This commercial activity might have been more
downmarket than the middlebrow version of horror purveyed by Lewton, but
its reliance on rapid serial production and franchised monsters established a
pattern for later horror productions. This kind of serialized production has
since acquired a certain critical notoriety for what appears to be its naked
exploitativeness, yet at the same time—if one is willing to keep an open mind
when judging individual horror films—it has provided a context in which
filmmakers have managed to produce lively and innovative work.
This second burst of horror activity came to an end in the late 1940s.
Critics and fans have discovered elements of horror in the monster movies
that were popular during the 1950s—including the science fiction–themed
The Thing from Another World (1951) and Creature from the Black Lagoon
(1954)—but horror was not reformed as a marketable cinematic category in
itself until the mid-1950s. At this point, horror production became more
internationalized than it had been before, with activity in, among other
places, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and Mexico and with horror films continu-
ing to be made in the United States.
A number of factors were involved in this geographical reconfiguration of
the horror genre. The breakup of the classical Hollywood studio system in
the 1950s led to a partial opening of the American market to foreign produc-
ers (with the British company Hammer, which was in many ways a horror
market leader in the latter part of the 1950s, particularly benefiting from
American finance). A relaxation of censorship, especially in Western Eu-
rope, also permitted the development of non-American horror cycles that
were often gorier, more violent, and more sexually explicit than anything
seen before in the genre. This manifested itself in different ways in different
places. In Britain, Hammer offered a color gothic reinvention of the Dracula
and Frankenstein franchises; in Italy, a more dream-like version of gothic
horror prevailed; and in the United States, Roger Corman directed a series of
intensely psychologized period adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories. Vari-
ous versions of contemporary-set psychological horrors were also appearing
in the United States, Britain, Italy, and France, among other places, with
these exploring, often in explicit detail, sexualized psychopathologies.
 INTRODUCTION • 7
From this moment in its history on, horror is not only harder to place but
also harder to present in terms of an overall cohesion, at least without deny-
ing what seems to be an undeniable variety and prolificity in horror produc-
tion. Again there are sequels and cycles, generic fads, and fashions, but the
relations between these different aspects of the horror phenomenon tend to be
very localized. For example, the connection between Japanese forms of hor-
ror and the American horror film from the late 1990s on makes for an inter-
esting case study of cultural exchange, with Japanese films such as Ringu
(Ring) (1998) and Ju-on: The Grudge (2003) being remade as American
productions, Japanese directors such as Hideo Nakata working in the United
States, and a more general interchange of ideas and themes between nations.
But it is a case study that is very particular in terms of its historical specific-
ity, and it is hard to generalize about the genre on the basis of it.
A key issue arising from this concerns the extent to which post-1950s
horror cinema is just the sum total of different national expressions of horror
and the extent to which it is more than this, either in terms of some underly-
ing common features or in terms of the sort of cross-national trading appar-
ent, for example, in the recent Japanese–American horror connections.
Again, it is hard to address this for the genre as a whole. Attempts that have
been made have often ended up excluding sections of the genre or suppress-
ing what others have seen as important differences between films. As noted
above, it is arguably more effective to engage in detail with specific instances
of horror production—particular generic formats or particular moments in a
generic history—and to consider the complexities of national identity and
transnational exchange within circumscribed contexts. Perhaps inevitably,
such an approach leads us back to the notion of horror as a genre that is
constantly remaking itself within different locations.

THE MEANING OF HORROR

The idea that horror is a low cultural form used to be a problem, at least for
those critics who wanted to take it seriously. Some have dealt with this by
relating horror to more reputable areas of culture. 2 Others have considered
horror in terms suggesting that there is some significance or meaning lurking
beneath its vulgar commercial veneer. For example, psychoanalytical critics
have explored the ways in which horror films might be seen as addressing
repressed fears and anxieties, in effect acting as a kind of therapy for unwit-
ting audiences. 3 The ideology of horror is another recurrent preoccupation in
critical writings on the genre. To what extent are horror films, consciously or
inadvertently, expressing values and attitudes in support of particular views
of the world? Working from this perspective, the influential critic Robin
8 • INTRODUCTION
Wood has divided horror into socially progressive and reactionary wings,
according to the extent to which the films concerned adhere to or deviate
from social norms. 4
Others have found misogynistic values embedded in particular sectors of
horror production—with women characters frequently victimized by male
killers or monsters—although yet more critics, sometimes writing about the
same films, have identified what they see as a more ambivalent treatment of
gender. 5 The end result of such interpretive activity has often been a clearer
sense of the ambiguities and tensions within films. To give a specific in-
stance, critics have related Frankenstein’s monster in Universal’s 1930s hor-
ror cycle to, among other things, rampant heterosexuality, gayness, the prole-
tariat, and the plight of African Americans. All of these interpretations are
supportable with evidence from the films, but at the same time, those films
are not contained within or completely explained away by any of the inter-
pretations. It could in fact be argued that the fascination of these films—and
their capacity to generate so many compelling readings—derives from a kind
of persistent ambiguity, as various socially or ideologically meaningful ele-
ments are picked up and put down according to the changing demands of the
films’ narratives. In the case of Frankenstein’s monster, the shifting back and
forth between menace and pathos invokes different representational strate-
gies that do not necessarily cohere with each other, in ideological terms at
least.
Focusing on audiences for horror films, especially fan-based audiences,
rather than on horror films in themselves has in recent years provided an
effective grounding for further critical discussion of some of the ways in
which horror films have been interpreted. In earlier genre criticism, audi-
ences were often presented in terms of passivity, whether this was the passiv-
ity of the mass audience mindlessly soaking up formulaic entertainments or
that of the audience not consciously aware of what was being done to it by
the genre. If nothing else, looking at horror fans as agents in the construction
of meaning reminds us that this particular sector of the audience is defined
through its activity, both in its constructing interpretations and in its circulat-
ing these within communities of like-minded people. Whether the interpreta-
tions thus generated are any more convincing or totalizing than those con-
structed by professional critics is another matter, but the all-too-obvious
presence here of multiple interpretations, debates, and disagreements under-
lines the extent to which the significance and value of horror remains a
contested issue.
It could be argued that the ability of the horror genre to regenerate and
multiply, constantly adapting itself to different social and historical contexts,
has made it difficult to pin it down in critical terms. Nevertheless, some
issues arise out of the critical work on horror that, if systematically addressed
(and some of them are currently being dealt with), have the potential to
 INTRODUCTION • 9
further our understanding of this part of our culture. For example, the empha-
sis on fans in work on horror audiences has certainly been productive, but the
marginalization of the rest of the audience for horror—consisting of people
who do not think of themselves as dedicated fans but like going to see horror
films anyway—potentially limits our awareness of the experiences and inter-
pretations generated by the genre, especially given that its current commer-
cial popularity could be sustained only by its appealing beyond what appears
to be a relatively small active fan base. An associated issue has to do with the
critical emphasis on interpretation. To what extent do audiences, however
one defines them, interpret what they see in a horror film, and to what extent
do they experience it? The critical language for discussing horror as a partic-
ular kind of experiential and sensual event is currently quite limited, but
thinking of the genre in these terms would surely lead us closer to an expla-
nation of why audiences have found and continue to find horror films such
enthralling entertainments. Finally, the idea that horror is inevitably a low
cultural form needs to be challenged rather more than it has been. The genre
has constantly insinuated itself across cultural distinctions and hierarchies.
There are upmarket horrors, downmarket horrors, and middlebrow horrors,
and identifying the relation between these could provide a more nuanced
sense of how the genre has spread itself across certain markets.
It seems unlikely that pursuing any of these lines of inquiry will produce a
more unified understanding of the horror genre, however. What is more
likely to emerge is an enhanced sense of the multiple identities of horror, of
patterns of generic fragmentation and coalescence that define a type of cine-
ma that has the power to surprise, shock, and delight audiences but that
remains, as ever, unpredictable.

NOTES

1. For example, see David Punter, The Literature of Terror: Volume 2—The Modern Goth-
ic, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1996).
2. For example, see S. S. Prawer, Caligari’s Children: The Film as Tale of Terror (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1980).
3. For example, see James B. Twitchell, Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern
Horror (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
4. Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1986).
5. For a relevant discussion of the slasher film, see Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and
Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (London: British Film Institute, 1992).
 A
ABBOTT, BUD (1897–1974), AND COSTELLO, LOU (1906–1959). It
was the fate of most of Universal’s horror monsters of the 1930s and 1940s
to end up in the hands of comedy performers Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
The duo had already encountered horror material in the haunted house spoof
Hold That Ghost (1941), and from the late 1940s on, comedy-horror formed
an important part of their output. These films have not been valued highly by
horror historians, who have tended to view them as the embarrassing last
gasp of Universal horror. However, they do contain some inventive scenes
and also underline the undeniable fact that horror and comedy sit very close
to each other on the cultural spectrum. The best of them was Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). This continued the multiple-monster
format established by Universal in the early 1940s by featuring Dracula, the
Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s monster, and—in a brief cameo—the Invisible
Man (although, oddly, given the film’s title, Frankenstein himself did not
appear). The film is of historic significance inasmuch as it houses final
performances from Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf
Man. It is also a funny film that plays interesting and clever games with
Universal’s horror myths, noting their absurdity when placed in a contempo-
rary American setting while acknowledging their continuing power to fasci-
nate.
Abbott and Costello’s subsequent comedy-horrors offered progressively
less, but they remain essential viewing for horror aficionados. They are Ab-
bott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), Abbott and Costello
Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (1953), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

AJA, ALEXANDRE (1978–). The French director Alexandre Aja made a

striking horror debut with his slasher film Haute Tension (2003), which was
released in the United States as High Tension and in some other markets
under Aja’s preferred English-language title Switchblade Romance. Horror
fans applauded the stylish but hard-edged treatment of a stock horror situa-

11
12 • ALDRICH, ROBERT (1918–1983)
tion in which a resourceful young woman, or Final Girl, was stalked by an
implacable male killer. They were generally less convinced by the film’s
bizarre conclusion, in which it was revealed that much of the narrative has
been the extended fantasy of one of the characters in the film, although this
development could be seen as an audacious and provocative upturning of our
expectations. Aja has expressed his admiration for American horror, so it
was unsurprising that his next film was the 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s
1970s classic The Hills Have Eyes. The ambivalence about violence evident
in the original was replaced in the remake by a survivalist ruthlessness, and
Aja handled both the relentless mayhem and the atmospheric desert setting
with great skill. His next two films were also remakes. The ghost story
Mirrors (2008) was a stylish adaptation of a Korean original, while Piranha
(2010) was a silly if enjoyable reworking of Joe Dante’s Piranha (1978).
Horns (2013) was an ambitious but tonally uneven adaptation of a supernatu-
ral-themed novel by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill, while The 9th Life of
Louis Drax (2016) was a psychological thriller; both seemed to signal an
attempt to move away from more conventional genre projects. Aja also pro-
duced the horror films P2 (2007) and Maniac (2012). See also FRENCH
HORROR.

ALDRICH, ROBERT (1918–1983). The films of American director Robert

Aldrich were often strident and confrontational, and his horror films were no
exception. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush. . . Hush,
Sweet Charlotte (1964) were ostensibly psychological thriller–whodunnit
combinations, but the emphasis throughout was on the grotesque, especially
as manifested in the form of older women of questionable sanity. In What
Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Bette Davis and Joan Crawford played
parodies of their own screen personas; each would go on to make other
horror films, with their performances tinged with a “Baby Jane” grotesquerie.
Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte was an overheated example of southern
gothic that offered yet another histrionic, scene-stealing turn from Davis.
Both films displayed a fascination with the decay of classic Hollywood, its
conventions, and its performers. It was perhaps no coincidence that they
appeared in the wake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), a film that
introduced an altogether more modern outlook into not just the American
horror film but mainstream cinema in general.

ALIEN (1979). Dan O’Bannon’s screenplay for a science fiction/horror

hybrid called Star Beast was originally intended as a low-budget production.
Its eventual transformation into a stylish, expensive, and much-imitated Rid-
ley Scott film titled Alien undoubtedly helped to secure both its international
success and its lasting cult status. The narrative was simple—an alien mon-
 AMENABAR, ALEJANDRO (1972–) • 13
ster stalks the hapless crew of a space freighter—and the film drew heavily
on stock horror conventions. However, these were wrapped around an imagi-
native and detailed vision of a dystopian future, and the creature itself, as
designed by H. R. Giger, was genuinely scary. The alien’s method of repro-
duction—which involved “impregnating” humans through the mouth, with
the resulting baby ripping itself out of the victim’s stomach—was also mem-
orably unpleasant. In addition, Alien helped to introduce the female hero into
the horror genre. As played by Sigourney Weaver, the character of Ellen
Ripley exhibited much of the courageous behavior also being shown in the
late 1970s by the slasher film’s Final Girl, although at the same time Ripley
was constantly defined through her biological nature. Indeed, the convoluted
sexual politics of the film has attracted the attention of film critics and
theorists ever since its release.
Sequels followed, although not as rapidly as was the case elsewhere in
horror cinema, and each sequel was markedly different from what had gone
before in the series, with this reflecting the strong creative personalities of
the directors involved. James Cameron’s militaristic Aliens (1986) in-
creased the number of aliens and turned Ripley into a powerful Amazonian
figure who fought the mother alien one-on-one in the film’s conclusion. By
contrast, David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992) was a moody drama set in a space
prison into which a shaven-headed Ripley crashes. The film had a troubled
production and initially was not well received, although in retrospect its
oppressive atmosphere and its relentlessly grim narrative seem more striking.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) was, to date at least, the final
Ripley film. As stylish as previous entries, it explored the modish subjects of
genetic engineering and cloning and generally seemed more interested in the
Ripley character than it was in the increasingly familiar figures of the aliens.
Paul W. S. Anderson’s AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) was a sidebar to the
series rather than another sequel, offering a brand-new set of characters
taking on alien monsters. It was enthusiastically violent but added little to the
Alien corpus. Much the same could be said for its sequel Alien vs. Predator:
Requiem (2007).
In 2012, Ridley Scott, director of the original Alien, came up with Prome-
theus, the narrative of which explored the origins of the human race and,
more or less in passing, the origins of the aliens as well. The film was
certainly stylish and spectacular, but it lacked the claustrophobic intensity
and clarity of Scott’s original. Alien: Covenant (2017) marked yet another
return by Scott to the world of the xenomorphic aliens.

AMENABAR, ALEJANDRO (1972–). The writer-director (and also film

composer) Alejandro Amenabar was born in Chile but has worked mainly in
Spain. Tesis (1996), his feature debut, was a stylish serial killer film about
the production of snuff movies on a university campus that skillfully com-
14 • AMERICAN HORROR
bined American genre conventions with a European sensibility. After a di-
version into science fiction with Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes) (1997)—
which was subsequently remade as the Tom Cruise vehicle Vanilla Sky
(2001)—he had a notable success with The Others (2001). Starring the Aus-
tralian actor Nicole Kidman, set on the island of Jersey and shot in English
but filmed largely in Spain, this was a truly international production that
contributed to the cinematic revival of the ghost story that took place from
the late 1990s on. Eschewing the updating process undertaken by films such
as Ringu (Ring) (1998) and The Sixth Sense (1999), The Others opted for a
more traditional, literary-based approach, and its stately pacing made the
climactic shocks all the more effective. Amenabar’s next two films—The Sea
Inside (2004) and Agora (2009)—were non-genre projects, but Regression
(2015) was an effective psychological thriller, albeit one that lacked the
power of his earlier work. See also SPANISH HORROR.

AMERICAN HORROR. The version of horror cinema produced in the

United States has proved the most consistently popular and influential of all
national horror cinemas. Other types of horror have occasionally challenged
its supremacy—British horror in the late 1950s, for example—but none of
these challenges have been sustained for any length of time.
Some of the roots of American horror cinema as it developed from the
1930s on were in European cultural history rather than in American culture,
such as in Europe’s gothic literary tradition (which has arguably been more
influential on American horror than America’s own gothic literature) or in
more recent cultural developments, such as surrealism and German expres-
sionism. Indeed, many of the key horror filmmakers in the 1930s, which was
horror cinema’s first decade as a recognizable generic category, were Euro-
pean—including Karl Freund, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Edgar G. Ulm-
er, and James Whale. However, developments within American popular
culture since World War I also anticipated and helped to form the horror to
come. The films of Lon Chaney, for example, were made in an American
idiom, even when they were set abroad. In addition, haunted house spoofs
such as The Bat and The Cat and the Canary were popular onstage and on-
screen and helped to establish another distinctly American approach to hor-
rifying events and experiences. The mixing of different traditions and influ-
ences entailed in the formation of American horror was very apparent in the
film that is usually seen as inaugurating the 1930s horror boom, the Univer-
sal production of Dracula (1931), which was an adaptation of a Broadway
adaptation of an English adaptation of a novel written by an Irish author.
During the 1930s, horror became a staple cinematic category for the first
time. Universal led the way with its Frankenstein and Dracula films, along
with a range of other productions set mainly in Europe, but other studios also
dabbled in horror and offered different approaches. The presence of Michael
 AMERICAN HORROR • 15
Curtiz’s horrors for Warner Brothers, Victor Halperin’s White Zombie
(1932), Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), and King Kong (1933) within the
horror market testified to a generic variety that makes it hard to set definitive
limits on that horror or to generalize about this period. Having noted this, the
emphasis in many of these films was more on fantasy than it was on realism.
Some horror historians have seen this as involving a disavowal of the social
vicissitudes of the American Depression, although the Depression itself was
rarely acknowledged explicitly in 1930s horror cinema.
In any event, horror survived the Depression, albeit without some of its
earlier inventiveness and energy. During the 1940s, Universal became in-
creasingly dependent on horror sequels featuring not just Frankenstein and
Dracula but revised versions of the Wolf Man and the mummy as well, while
at RKO producer Val Lewton eschewed the monster-centered Universal
approach and instead offered a more psychologically complex form of horror
in films such as Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The
Seventh Victim (1943). Other films also contained horror-like material and
imagery—including some of the Sherlock Holmes films that featured Basil
Rathbone as the great detective as well as psychological thrillers, such as
John Brahm’s The Lodger (1944) and Robert Siodmak’s The Spiral Stair-
case (1946). However, this wave of activity faded away from the mid-1940s
on, with the horror parodies featuring comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Co-
stello—most notably Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)—usual-
ly seen as marking the end of this phase in American horror history.
There were some isolated horror projects during the first half of the
1950s—for example, The Black Castle (1952) or House of Wax (1953). But
the monsters in this period were based elsewhere, in a series of science
fiction films that often had horror-like qualities, among them The Thing from
Another World (1951) and Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon
(1954). It was not until the late 1950s that there was a revival in American
horror’s fortunes, and this took place in a very different industrial context
from that which had housed 1930s horror production.
During the 1950s, the old-fashioned American studio system had been
broken up by the U.S. government, and by the late 1950s the film market was
more readily open to independent producers. At the same time, audiences
were declining, and filmmakers were struggling to tempt people away from
television and other domestic comforts through offering entertainments that
were more spectacular—this was the age of Cinemascope and 3D—or more
sensational or exploitative. The producer Herman Cohen’s low-budget hor-
rors for the teenage market—Blood of Dracula (1957), I Was a Teenage
Werewolf (1957), and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)—formed one
early response to the new entertainment market. However, the international
success of period horror films produced by the British company Hammer
from 1957 on, along with a wave of late 1950s Italian horror, paved the
16 • AMERICAN HORROR
way for the next major American horror cycle, which this time was based not
on any particular monster but rather on a long-dead author. Producer-director
Roger Corman’s period adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, which
began with House of Usher (1960) and Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and
which were made for exploitation specialists American International Pic-
tures, helped to establish Vincent Price as a horror star and also brought a
level of ambition to the genre not seen since Lewton’s 1940s work. These
films showed more interest than Hammer ever did in exploring extreme
psychological states, something that was also apparent in the otherwise very
different Psycho (1960), Robert Aldrich’s grotesque What Ever Happened
to Baby Jane? (1962), and a series of macabre thrillers from producer-direc-
tor William Castle, among them The House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The
Tingler (1959). Meanwhile, at the lower end of the industry, grind house
specialist Herschell Gordon Lewis was pioneering the gore or splatter film
with the much-censored Blood Feast (1963) and Two Thousand Maniacs
(1964), while an unclassifiable oddity such as the dream-like Carnival of
Souls (1962) was a reminder that generic variety was again the order of the
day.
The sense of an increasing ruthlessness in 1960s American horror was
confirmed in 1968 with the release of the big-budget Roman Polanski Sa-
tanic thriller Rosemary’s Baby and George Romero’s low-budget zombie
story Night of the Living Dead. Both were self-consciously contemporary as
well as relentlessly grim and paranoid, and both decisively rejected any
prospect of the affirmation of goodness that had climaxed so many previous
horror narratives. However, it was not until the astonishing commercial suc-
cess experienced by The Exorcist (1973) that American filmmakers began
seriously to engage with this new type of horror. Low-budget offerings such
as Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Larry Cohen’s
It’s Alive (1974), Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976), and Wes Craven’s The
Hills Have Eyes (1977), among many others, offered a view of American
society, especially the American family, that was both disturbing and, poten-
tially at least, critical, while the bigger-budgeted apocalyptic horror The
Omen (1976) equally managed to convey a sense that the world was doomed.
As was the case with 1930s horror and the Depression, horror historians have
related the anxiety and distrust of authority evident in 1970s horror to a
troubled social context that involved not just the Vietnam War and its after-
math but also civil rights protests and an international oil crisis.
Times changed, however, and the arrival of the slasher—starting with
John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday
the 13th (1980)—signaled a reengagement with the teenage audience, as
teenage characters were picked off by judgmental serial killers in a series of
low-budget horrors that ran into the early 1980s. At the time, these films
were criticized for their violence against women, although more recently
 AMERICAN HORROR • 17
their introduction of the feisty female hero, or Final Girl, into American
horror has been recognized by critics. The slasher also led to a greater reli-
ance on sequels and cycles than had been apparent in the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s. Halloween and Friday the 13th generated numerous sequels, but the
major horror cycle—or franchise—of the 1980s was initiated by Wes Cra-
ven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). This supernatural reworking of the
slasher format retained a focus on teenagers but added some striking surreal
imagery. Just as sequelized 1940s American horror has been judged inferior
to the 1930s version, so 1980s horror has sometimes been accused of “dumb-
ing down” after the achievements of the 1970s. Such a perspective arguably
overvalues the 1970s and underestimates the innovation and creativity appar-
ent in the 1980s (although, as is the case with every era of horror production,
formulaic films are easy to find).
The 1990s saw a small resurgence in period horror—with Francis Ford
Coppola’s Dracula (1992) and Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire
(1994)—but the emphasis remained on the contemporary with serial killer
films such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and the revival of the slasher
format with Craven’s Scream (1996), the success of which ushered in a new
cycle of very self-conscious teenage horror. The international success expe-
rienced by Japanese horror from the late 1990s on also exerted an influence
on American horror, with this evident not just in remakes of films such as
Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998) and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge
(2003) but also in other films that drew on the slow-burn Japanese style.
Associated with both this and the success of M. Night Shyamalan’s The
Sixth Sense (1999), ghost stories became more of a presence than they had
ever been before in American cinema. Meanwhile, The Blair Witch Project
(1999) discovered the marketing power of the Internet in its playful engage-
ment with American folklore and helped to inaugurate a distinctly American
version of the found footage format, with more recent examples of found
footage horror including Paranormal Activity (2007) and its numerous se-
quels, Cloverfield (2008), The Last Exorcism (2010), V/H/S (2012), The Bay
(2012), and the Internet-based horror Unfriended (2014). Horror filmmakers
also raided the genre’s past, with nostalgic resurrections of classic monsters
in Stephen Sommers’s The Mummy (1999) and Van Helsing (2004) and
remakes of 1970s classics, including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The
Hills Have Eyes, and Dawn of the Dead (1978), along with 1970s-style tough
films, such as Wrong Turn (2003), Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects
(2005), and Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (2002) and Hostel (2005). More recent-
ly, a cycle of haunted house movies—including Insidious (2010), Sinister
(2012), and The Conjuring (2013)—have proved popular, while isolated but
highly original effective films, such as It Follows (2014) and The Witch
(2015), demonstrate that there is more to contemporary American horror than
sequels and cycles.
18 • AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES (AIP)
The closer one gets to the present, the more obviously varied and fractured
American horror production becomes. One can detect trends and minicycles,
but there is always something else going on elsewhere, whether this be an
isolated but interesting project or some innovative work that will possibly
lead to another minicycle of films. American horror has been like this since
the 1930s, and any attempt to periodize or categorize it too neatly risks losing
a sense of the variety that has made it such a distinctive and important sector
of the genre.

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES (AIP). The 1950s was one

of the most important decades for American exploitation cinema, and, for a
while at least, the independent production and distribution company
American International Pictures led the field. Formed in 1954 by producers
Samuel Z. Arkoff and James Nicholson as American Releasing Corpora-
tion and retitled American International Pictures (AIP) in 1956 , the company
specialized in low-budget genre films with lurid titles that were designed
primarily for teenage audiences. Representative AIP horrors from the 1950s
were Bert I. Gordon’s The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and The Spider
(1958) and Herbert L. Strock’s I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and
How to Make a Monster (1958), but the company’s main director was the
prolific Roger Corman, who worked in a variety of genres, both for AIP and
for other companies, throughout the 1950s. His AIP horrors It Conquered the
World (1956) and The Undead (1957) were a cut above the average for this
type of production. It was Corman’s ambition that ultimately led, after some
resistance from Arkoff and Nicholson, to AIP embarking on a series of
Corman-directed Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that had higher production
values than usual and that featured intelligent scripts from the likes of Rich-
ard Matheson and Charles Beaumont and witty performances from Vin-
cent Price. The Poe cycle—which included House of Usher (1960), Pit and
the Pendulum (1961), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964)—capitalized
on the success of the British company Hammer in popularizing period hor-
ror but maintained its own distinctive style and character.
During the 1960s and into the 1970s, AIP continued to churn out low-
budget teenage fare—including a series of Beach Party movies—but it re-
tained its interest in horror. Corman directed X: The Man with X Ray Eyes
(1963), while Francis Ford Coppola made his feature directorial debut with
AIP’s psychological thriller Dementia 13 (The Haunted and the Hunted)
(1963). There was also involvement in British productions, among these the
camp horrors The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and its sequel Dr. Phibes
Rises Again (1972) and the witchcraft drama Cry of the Banshee (1970) as
well as collaborations with Amicus on Scream and Scream Again (1969) and
The Oblong Box (1968) and with Hammer on the lesbian vampire story The
Vampire Lovers (1970). AIP also made some interesting contributions to
 AMICUS • 19
1970s American horror, with its productions including the impressive H. P.
Lovecraft adaptation The Dunwich Horror (1970), the revenge of nature
horror Frogs (1972), the blaxploitation classic Blacula (1972), a version of
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), and the haunted house drama The Amity-
ville Horror (1979), one of the company’s most commercially successful
titles. As the 1970s progressed, themes and material associated with the
exploitation sector entered the mainstream, and AIP itself became a less
distinctive production setup. The company was taken over by Filmways in
1980, but by then its place in horror history was secure.

AMICUS. Amicus is usually seen as British horror’s second company,

after Hammer. It did not seek to emulate the commercially dominant Ham-
mer product but instead, from the mid-1960s on, developed its own distinc-
tive brand of horror. Set up by American producers Max J. Rosenberg and
Milton Subotsky, Amicus’s first films were the pop musicals It’s Trad Dad
(1962) and Just for Fun (1963). It switched to horror in 1964 with Dr.
Terror’s House of Horrors, which was directed by frequent Amicus collabo-
rator Freddie Francis and written by Subotsky himself. This was a horror
anthology that brought together stories about werewolves, vampires, killer
plants, and voodoo. Hammer never used the anthology format, but it became
an Amicus specialty. Dr. Terror also established the company’s preference
for contemporary settings. Amicus would make only two period horror
films—I, Monster (1970) and And Now the Screaming Starts (1973)—and
these would not come until near the end of the company’s existence.
More anthologies followed—Francis’s Torture Garden (1967), Peter Duf-
fell’s The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Roy Ward Baker’s Asylum
(1972), Francis’s Tales from the Crypt (1972), Baker’s Vault of Horror
(1973), and Kevin Connor’s From Beyond the Grave (1973). Many of these
drew on American sources—with Torture Garden and The House That
Dripped Blood adapted by American writer Robert Bloch from his own
stories and Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror adapted from EC horror
comics—and they all exhibited an urbane and often cynical sense of humor,
something that again rendered them quite distinct from the Hammer product.
The twist endings that became an essential feature of the Amicus anthology
quickly became predictable—usually, the characters narrating the stories
within the film were revealed as already dead or as doomed to die—but the
quality of some of the individual stories was remarkable.
Amicus was less successful with its single-narrative features. Francis’s
The Skull (1965) and The Psychopath (1965) contained some impressively
stylish sequences but lacked overall cohesion. Another Francis film, The
Deadly Bees (1966), lacked even the stylish sequences, while Stephen
Weeks’s I, Monster was a dramatically inert rendition of the Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde story. Bill Bain’s What Became of Jack and Jill? (1971) was an
20 • THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)
uninspired psychological thriller; Jim Clark’s Madhouse (1974), a labored
attempt at self-reflexive horror; and Paul Annett’s The Beast Must Die
(1974) an odd, blaxploitation-influenced werewolf film that was marketed in
the United States as Black Werewolf and that featured a gimmicky “werewolf
break” in which the audience was given the opportunity to guess which
character was the werewolf.
Amicus also produced some science fiction/horror hybrids. Both Mont-
gomery Tully’s The Terrornauts (1967) and Francis’s They Came from Be-
yond Space (1967) were conventional alien invasion fantasies. By contrast,
Gordon Hessler’s Scream and Scream Again (1969)—a coproduction with
American International Pictures—was a fascinating if idiosyncratic and
sometimes obscure tale of super-strong androids. Considerably gentler was
Alan Cooke’s The Mind of Mr. Soames (1969), in which Terence Stamp
played a man with the mind of a child, as indeed was Warris Hussein’s A
Touch of Love (1969), an adaptation of Margaret Drabble’s novel The Mill-
stone, which was Amicus’s only non-genre project. As the market for British
horror faded away in the mid-1970s, Amicus—in what turned out to be a
final burst of activity—also produced a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs adap-
tations—The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976), and
The People That Time Forgot (1977)—all of which were directed by Kevin
Connor.

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979). In 1975, George and Kathy Lutz

moved into a house on Long Island, New York, a house in which a man had
previously murdered six members of his own family. Twenty-eight days after
their arrival, the Lutz family left, claiming that the house was haunted. The
Amityville Horror, a book detailing their experiences, became an internation-
al best seller, and it was adapted into a successful film by director Stuart
Rosenberg in 1979. The veracity of the Amityville story has been much
debated, but the film version was a straightforward haunted house story
slightly hampered by an anticlimactic narrative in which eventually the pro-
tagonists just leave the site of danger. The sequels that followed compensat-
ed for this by abandoning whatever factual basis there had been in the origi-
nal and replacing it with some standard ghost story conventions. Amityville
II: The Possession (1982), directed by Damiano Damiani, was a stylish pre-
quel that gave some of the house’s backstory. Amityville 3-D (1983), despite
being directed by veteran Richard Fleischer, was silly and tiresome. Not all
the low-budget follow-ups were official sequels, but in any event none of
them added much of interest to the Amityville cycle; they included Amity-
ville: The Evil Escapes (1989), The Amityville Curse (1990), Amityville
1992: It’s About Time (1992), Amityville: A New Generation (1993), and
Amityville: Dollhouse (1996). The Amityville Horror (2005), directed by An-
drew Douglas, was a remake of the 1979 original that added new material
 ANIMATION • 21
about the source of the haunting in order to provide a more dramatic story
arc. The Amityville house also made a cameo appearance in James Wan’s
The Conjuring 2 (2016). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

ANDERSON, PAUL W. S. (1965–). Paul Anderson is a British-born writer-

director based mainly in the United States who has specialized in horror/
science fiction hybrids. His first major success was Mortal Kombat (1995),
an adaptation of a popular martial arts computer game that contained some
horror imagery. Event Horizon (1997) was a stylish ghost story set on board
a spaceship, while Resident Evil (2002), based on another computer game,
was a horror-action thriller featuring zombies; he also wrote and directed the
sequels Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012),
and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) and wrote and produced Resi-
dent Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007). Ander-
son’s films tend to be slick and fast paced, with the visuals underpinned by
pounding rock music. He also directed the science fiction/western hybrid
Soldier (1998), the supernatural television movie The Sight (2000), the ultra-
high-concept AVP: Alien versus Predator (2004), Death Race (2008), The
Three Musketeers (2011), and Pompeii (2014) as well as coproduced The
Dark (2005) and the horror/science fiction project Pandorum (2009).

ANIMATION. Animation within the American commercial mainstream has

tended to be directed at children and family audiences. Consequently, what
horror-like imagery it has contained—and there has been such imagery—has
usually been presented in an attenuated form or within an unthreatening
context. For example, the witch in Walt Disney’s version of Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs (1937) might have scared generations of children and
possesses some of the qualities of the horror monster, but essentially she is a
figure from the more positive world of fairy tales. By comparison, Japanese
animation, which is often directed at adult audiences, has been more willing
to engage in an explicit way with horror material, as is evident in animated
vampire stories such as Vampaia hantâ D (Vampire Hunter D) (1985) and
Blood—The Last Vampire (2000), gruesome monster films such as Chôjin
densetsu Urotsukidôji (Legend of the Overfiend) (1989), and action/horror
hybrids such as Yôjû toshi (Wicked City) (1987). From the early 1990s on,
both American and British animation has also offered a few feature films that
have located themselves more confidently in relation to the horror genre,
possibly reflecting the growing popularity of horror fiction with younger
audiences. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), Corpse
Bride (2005), and Frankenweenie (2012) contained some surprisingly un-
nerving moments, while Nick Park’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
and Robert Zemeckis’s production of Monster House (2006) managed a
22 • ANKERS, EVELYN (1918–1985)
more consistently comic treatment of horror themes. Other horror-themed
animated features of this kind include Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012),
Hotel Transylvania (2012), and Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015).
Outside of the commercial mainstream, it is easier to find disturbing and
horrifying film animation; one only has to look at the work of the Czech
animator Jan Svankmajer or the American-born, European-based Quay
Brothers. However, experimental or avant-garde films of this kind owe as
much to surrealism as they do to cinematic horror, and arguably they do not
function in any significant way as part of a horror genre that is overwhelm-
ingly defined by its commercial imperatives.

ANKERS, EVELYN (1918–1985). Evelyn Ankers was the leading lady in

numerous 1940s American horror films. More graceful and poised than
some of the more melodrama-prone “scream queens” of the 1930s, such as
Fay Wray, Ankers was well suited to the solid and workman-like B-movie
projects that defined much horror production during the following decade.
Born in Chile to English parents, she moved to the United States in the early
1940s. An early genre credit was the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello come-
dy-horror Hold That Ghost (1941). More substantial roles followed along-
side Lon Chaney Jr. in Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of
Frankenstein (1942), and Son of Dracula (1943) as well as an uncharacteris-
tically sultry turn in the noir-like Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror
(1942). Somehow, she managed to retain her dignity in Captive Wild Woman
(1943), in which mad scientist John Carradine transformed an ape into a
woman (with Ankers playing the romantic female lead, not the ape woman),
and its equally silly sequel Jungle Woman (1944). She was reunited with
Chaney Jr. in Weird Woman (1944) and The Frozen Ghost (1945) and also
starred in the minor The Mad Ghoul (1943) and The Invisible Man’s Re-
venge (1944) as well as returning to the Sherlock Holmes series with The
Pearl of Death (1944). The end of the 1940s low-budget horror boom was
also in effect the end of Ankers’s cinematic career. She worked mainly on
television during the 1950s and retired from acting in 1960. She was married
to the Hollywood actor Richard Denning.

ANTHOLOGIES. The anthology or portmanteau format—in which a num-

ber of shorter films are linked together—has proved sporadically popular in
mainstream cinema. For horror filmmakers, it has facilitated the adaptation
of gothic short stories that would not otherwise lend themselves easily to
translation into the feature format. For example, a series of Edgar Allan
Poe–based anthologies—among them Unheimliche Geschichten (Tales of the
Uncanny) (1932), Tales of Terror (1962), and Histoires extraordinaires
(Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Spirits of the Dead) (1968)—proved
 THE ANTICHRIST • 23
more faithful (although only slightly in some cases) to the brief literary
originals than some feature-length adaptations of Poe’s work, while Twice
Told Tales (1963) tried to do something similar with the writings of Nathan-
iel Hawthorne. The supernatural drama Dead of Night (1945) and Mario
Bava’s I tre volta della paura (Black Sabbath) (1963) also took advantage of
the anthology format to offer a mixture of different types of story, ranging
from the serious to the comic and from period to contemporary, while the
more upmarket production Kaidan (Kwaidan) (1964) showcased the Japa-
nese ghost story tradition. The British company Amicus produced a series of
horror anthologies during the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with Dr. Terror’s
House of Horrors (1964) and including Torture Garden (1967) and Tales
from the Crypt (1972). These displayed both the strengths of the anthology
format—an ability to draw on non-novel-length sources, including the short
stories of Robert Bloch and EC horror comics—and its weaknesses—not-
ably an unevenness of quality from one segment to another and often feeble
linking narratives. Other anthology horrors sharing both these virtues and
faults include The Uncanny (1977), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The
Movie (1983), Cat’s Eye (1985), After Midnight (1989), Due occhi diabolici
(Two Evil Eyes) (1990), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Necro-
nomicon (1994), Quicksilver Highway (1997), Bangkok Haunted (2001),
Cradle of Fear (2001), and Saam gaang yi (Three . . . Extremes) (2004).
More recently, the found footage anthology V/H/S (2012) and its sequels V/
H/S 2 (2013) and V/H/S: Viral (2014) have showcased the work of a new
generation of horror directors, among them Adam Wingard and Ti West,
while the more internationally focused The ABCs of Death (2012) and The
ABCs of Death 2 (2014) feature contributions from numerous countries,
among them France, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, and the United States.

THE ANTICHRIST. The American horror film The Omen (1976) and its
sequels popularized the idea of the Antichrist, the son of the Devil, and in so
doing also drew on apocalyptic prophecies lifted from the Book of Revela-
tions (although the word “antichrist” never actually appears in Revelations).
The blasphemous inversion of the story of Jesus Christ, with the “word” of
the Devil made flesh on Earth, had first been introduced into horror cinema
with Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), in which Rosemary
(played by Mia Farrow) was apparently raped by the Devil and gave birth to
his son. While Polanski offered a darkly comic treatment, The Omen was
both more ponderous and more doom laden. Its vision of a world in which
the rise of the Antichrist is preordained chimed with the cynical mood of the
1970s, and the film was a huge commercial success. The Antichrist returned
in Damien—Omen II (1978) and The Final Conflict (1981) and also featured
in the Omen clone Holocaust 2000 (1977). More recently, the evil one—in
the form of Michael York this time—has sought to bring about the world’s
24 • APES
destruction in The Omega Code (1999) and Meggido: Omega Code 2 (2001),
Ben Chaplin played a potential Antichrist in waiting in Lost Souls (2000),
and The Omen was remade in 2006.
An early comic version of the Antichrist can be found in the Vincente
Minnelli–directed musical Cabin in the Sky (1943), where he goes under the
name of Lucifer Jr.

APES. Apes were stock figures in American horror films from the 1920s
through the 1950s. The giant ape in King Kong (1933, remade in 1976 and
2005) is the most remembered, but the more typical horror ape usually came
in the considerably less impressive form of a man wearing a gorilla suit. The
Edgar Allan Poe adaptation Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) contained a
murderous ape, and the popular murder mystery play The Gorilla was filmed
three times, in 1927, 1930, and 1939. A fascination with evolutionary pro-
gression and regression was evident in Captive Wild Woman (1943), in
which an ape was transformed into a beautiful woman by a mad scientist.
Savage gorillas featured in The Monster and the Girl (1941) and Bride of the
Gorilla (1951); Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) offered a com-
ic treatment of the theme. In 1961, British horror cinema came up with a
belated addition to the ape horror cycle with the ludicrous mad scientist film
Konga, while Schlock (1973), John Landis’s directorial debut, made fun of
the whole ape business.
Since then, modern horror has made little use of the ape-centered horror
narrative, and on the few occasions that apes have featured, they have tended
to be presented in more realistic terms, with real apes deployed and not a
gorilla suit in sight. A razor-wielding chimpanzee showed up in Dario Ar-
gento’s Phenomena (1985), and homicidal monkeys also starred in Richard
Franklin’s Link (1986) and George Romero’s Monkey Shines (1988).

APOCALYPTIC HORROR. In 1930s and 1940s horror films, the monster

was invariably defeated in the end, and there was little or no sense that the
threat posed by the monster could escalate to a point where it became unstop-
pable. From the 1960s on, however, notions of the apocalypse and of scenar-
ios where we are all doomed have become more prevalent in the horror
genre, with this reflecting a greater willingness to question the effectiveness
of social authority and to depict the collapse of social institutions. One area
where this has been evident is in some revenge of nature horrors where
nature threatens to supplant mankind entirely, the most notable examples of
this being Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), the eco-horror Frogs
(1972), and Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977). Other apocalyptic horror
films have deployed the idea of infection and plague in their depictions of the
overthrow of humanity. For example, George Romero’s zombie films—
 ARGENTO, ASIA (1975–) • 25
including Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978)—
presented zombiedom as an incurable and fast-spreading infection, with the
risen dead gradually taking over the world. A host of other zombie-centered
films, including the remake Dawn of the Dead (2004) and World War Z
(2013), offered something similar, while Lamberto Bava’s Demoni (De-
mons) (1985) did a demon-centered version of apocalypse by infection, and
Stakeland (2010) held plague-like vampirism responsible for the downfall of
the world. Grim and pseudoscientific versions of this end-of-the-world sce-
nario were offered by David Cronenberg with The Parasite Murders (They
Came from Within, Shivers) (1975) and Rabid (1977) and Danny Boyle with
28 Days Later (2002) and its sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007). By contrast,
John Carpenter explored the subject in more mystical terms in the H. P.
Lovecraft–influenced Prince of Darkness (1987) and In the Mouth of Mad-
ness (1995), while the Internet-based Japanese horror Kairo (Pulse)
(2001) artfully associated the end of the world with social alienation and
loneliness. Another key type of apocalyptic horror has drawn on biblical and
other religious prophecies in its depiction of the human race’s apparently
preordained passage to Armageddon. For example, The Omen (1976) and its
sequels presented the rise of the Antichrist with some conviction, while
Holocaust 2000 (1977) and The Seventh Sign (1988) dealt with related mate-
rial.

ARGENTO, ASIA (1975–). The daughter of noted Italian film director

Dario Argento and Italian horror star Daria Nicolodi, the actor Asia Ar-
gento has acquired a cult following of her own. Small roles in two films
produced by her father—Demoni 2: L’incubo ritorna (Demons 2) (1986) and
La chiesa (The Church) (1989)—led to starring roles in four films directed
by him—Trauma (1993), La sindrome di Stendhal (The Stendhal Syndrome)
(1996), Il fantasma dell’opera (The Phantom of the Opera) (1998), and La
terza madre (Mother of Tears) (2007) as well as a supporting part in his
version of Dracula (2012). As is the case with Dario Nicolodi’s appearances
in Dario Argento’s work, Asia Argento is repeatedly terrorized in these films
and on one occasion—in La Sindrome di Stendhal—raped as well. However,
the strength of her screen persona often belies her apparent helplessness. The
same could be said for the no-nonsense character she plays in George Rome-
ro’s Land of the Dead (2005).
In addition to her acting career, Asia Argento has also directed and starred
in two non-horror feature films: Scarlet Diva (2000) and The Heart Is De-
ceitful above All Things (2004). Her other genre acting credits include De-
Generazione (1994) and Les Morsures de l’aube (Love Bites) (2001).
26 • ARGENTO, DARIO (1940–)
ARGENTO, DARIO (1940–). As a key European horror auteur, the Italian
director Dario Argento’s films not only have have been commercially suc-
cessful but also have attracted a substantial cult following. Starting out as a
film critic, he quickly graduated to script writing, including a contribution to
Sergio Leone’s classic western C’era una volta il West (Once upon a Time
in the West) (1968), and as an industry insider (his father, Salvatore, was a
film producer) made the transition to film direction more easily than others
might have. His first three films as director (all of which he also scripted)—
L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The
Gallery Murders) (1970), Il gatto a nove code (The Cat o’ Nine Tails)
(1971), and 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet) (1971)—
were giallo thrillers, stylish and convoluted psychological dramas built
around a series of violent set pieces. At the time, Argento was dubbed “the
Italian Alfred Hitchcock,” but after an unsuccessful foray into comedy with
Le cinque giornate (Five Days of Milan) (1973), he emerged as a distinctive
filmmaker in his own right.
Profondo rosso (Deep Red, 1975) was another giallo but much more ambi-
tious, thematically and stylistically, than its predecessors. In essence, the film
was a reworking of material from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up
(1966), with the same actor in both (David Hemmings) trying to solve a
murder. In place of Blow Up’s cerebral meditation on the nature of reality,
Profondo rosso offered a visceral assault on the senses, most obviously man-
ifested in the film’s scenes of shocking violence—with a hatchet murder,
stabbings, a scalding, and two decapitations all presented with a loving atten-
tion to detail.
Suspiria (1977), Argento’s next film, was a supernatural drama in which a
student discovers that her ballet school is the front for a witches’ coven.
“Magic is all around us,” says one character, and Argento’s stylized approach
conveys very powerfully a sense of the witches’ elemental powers. Narrative
development is minimal, and the set pieces are more spectacular than before,
with the deafening music provided by rock group Goblin helping to empha-
size the film’s assaultive qualities. Suspiria’s first 15 minutes—depicting the
heroine’s arrival at the ballet school and an ensuing double murder—remains
one of the most brilliant (and most violent) opening sequences in horror
history. Inferno (1980) was a sequel of sorts to Suspiria, albeit one that
jettisoned that film’s shock tactics in favor of a cooler but still very stylish
invocation of an alchemical worldview. Tenebre (Tenebrae, 1982), by
contrast, marked a return to the giallo format, with a decidedly perverse
narrative in which the detective turns out to be the killer and where the
rationality usually associated with the detective story is comprehensively
overthrown.
 ARMSTRONG, MICHAEL (1944–) • 27
Seen together, Profondo rosso, Suspira, Inferno, and Tenebre make up one
of the most remarkable directorial runs in horror. Perhaps inevitably, Argen-
to’s subsequent films have not always matched the extraordinarily high stan-
dard of this, his best work. Phenomena (1985) is a weird thriller in which
insects communicate telepathically with the heroine, while Opera (Terror at
the Opera) (1987) is an uneven giallo that contains one of Argento’s most
unsettling images—a close-up of the heroine’s eyes with needles placed
under the eyelids so that she is compelled to watch scenes of extreme vio-
lence (an image seized on by some theorists to illustrate the paradoxes of
horror spectatorship). Similarly, Argento’s contribution to Due occhi diaboli-
ci (Two Evil Eyes, 1990)—codirected with George Romero—as well as his
giallo films Trauma (1993), La sindrome di Stendhal (The Stendhal Syn-
drome) (1996), and Nonhosonno (Sleepless) (2001) contain impressive mo-
ments and sequences interspersed with less successfully realized material.
Argento supervised the Italian release of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
(1978) and has produced (and sometimes scripted) horror films for other
directors: Demoni (Demons) (1985) and Demoni 2: L’incubo ritorna (De-
mons 2) (1986) for Lamberto Bava and La chiesa (The Church) (1989) and
La setta (The Sect) (1991) for Michele Soavi. He also oversaw the produc-
tion of Maschera di cera (Wax Mask) (1997).
Other credits include Il fantasma dell’opera (The Phantom of the Opera)
(1998), Il cartaio (The Card Player) (2004), Ti piace Hitchcock? (Do You
Like Hitchcock?) (2005), La terza madre (Mother of Tears) (2007), Giallo
(2009), and Dracula (2012) as well as contributions to the television series
La porta sul buio (Door into Darkness) (1973) and Masters of Horror
(2005–). See also ITALIAN HORROR.

ARKOFF, SAMUEL, Z. (1918–2001). The producer Samuel Z. Arkoff was

a prolific purveyor of low-budget exploitation and horror films from the
1950s through the 1970s. With his business partner James H. Nicholson, he
founded American International Pictures (AIP) in the mid-1950s and
helped to nurture the careers of, among many others, Roger Corman and
Jack Nicholson. After AIP was taken over by Filmways in 1980, Arkoff
formed his own company and acted as executive producer on, among others,
Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) and Larry Cohen’s Q: Winged
Serpent (1982).

ARMSTRONG, MICHAEL (1944–). The British writer-director Michael

Armstrong has had a checkered career. Trained as an actor at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art, he moved into filmmaking in his early 20s with
the short The Image (1967), which featured a then unknown David Bowie in
his acting debut. Armstrong went on to direct two striking but uneven horror
28 • ARNOLD, JACK (1916–1992)
films, both of which had troubled production histories involving conflict
between the director and his producers. The Haunted House of Horror
(1969), which was originally titled The Dark and also known as Horror
House, was a British psychological horror featuring a largely teenage cast
that was, for its time, surprisingly violent. The German-produced period
horror Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the Devil) (1970) took the
violence even further in its graphic depiction of witch-hunters torturing their
victims. This grim film lacked the nuances of Michael Reeves’s similarly
themed Witchfinder General (1968), but it was undeniably powerful. Arm-
strong also scripted the British horror anthology Screamtime (1983) and
Pete Walker’s The House of the Long Shadows (1983). See also GERMAN
HORROR.

ARNOLD, JACK (1916–1992). The 1950s work of American director Jack

Arnold is usually classified as science fiction. However, his eerie use of
landscape—especially in It Came from Outer Space (1953) and Creature
from the Black Lagoon (1954)—has influenced later horror films. He also
developed the idea of the spider as scary movie monster in Tarantula (1955)
and, most memorably, in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).
Other Arnold films of interest to horror aficionados are Revenge of the
Creature (1955) and Monster on the Campus (1958). See also AMERICAN
HORROR.

ART CINEMA. “Art cinema” is a loose term encompassing a wide range of

approaches and styles. It is rarely associated with the horror genre, probably
because the latter is usually seen as a vulgarly commercial enterprise operat-
ing lower down the cultural hierarchy than anything going under the name
“art.” However, these two apparently distinct areas of culture have influ-
enced each other. For example, imagery derived from expressionism recurs
in later horror films, while some of the prestigious work of canonical direc-
tors such as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, and, more recently,
Michael Haneke has drawn on imagery or themes commonly associated with
horror cinema. Even an eminent director such as Federico Fellini offers a fine
Mario Bava–influenced gothic study in “Toby Dammit,” his contribution to
the horror anthology Histoires extraordinares (Spirits of the Dead, Tales of
Mystery and Imagination) (1968). Other reputable directors, among them
Stanley Kubrick (with The Shining in 1980) and Michael Powell (with
Peeping Tom in 1960), have made striking excursions into horror without
fully committing themselves to the genre. There are also a number of films
that hover, provocatively or uneasily, between the realms of art and of horror.
Controversial films such as Georges Franju’s Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes
without a Face) (1959), Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession (1981), Abel Ferra-
 ASHER, JACK (1916–1991) • 29
ra’s The Addiction (1995), Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), and
Lars von Trier’s The Antichrist (2009) have sometimes proved too arty for
the horror crowd and too gory or disturbing for the art house circuit. By
contrast, directors such as Dario Argento and Jean Rollin are more readily
located within a horror mainstream, although even the most superficial study
of their work reveals conventions and strategies more associated with upmar-
ket art films. It seems from this that the border between art and horror is not
always as clear as is sometimes supposed and that exchanges across apparent
cultural divides can provide a valuable source of inspiration for all con-
cerned.

ARTISTS. The mad artist has become a stock figure in the horror genre,
although he (or, more rarely, she) has often been overshadowed by his cou-
sin, the mad scientist. Both share a concern to shape reality according to
their own self-centered vision no matter what the consequences for the peo-
ple around them. In the case of the artist, this usually involves murder as a
means to an artistic end or as an artistic strategy in its own right. The classic
exemplar of the former was provided by the character played by Lionel
Atwill in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), who constructed his wax-
works around the bodies of his victims, an idea further explored in the 1953
remake House of Wax, the early British horror Latin Quarter (1946), the
comedy-horror Carry On Screaming (1966), and the recent House of Wax
(2005). The Phantom in numerous Phantom of the Opera films has often
been figured as a mad composer, while Roger Corman’s Bucket of Blood
(1959), Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Color Me Blood Red (1965), and Pupi
Avati’s La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The House with Laughing Win-
dows) (1976) offered representations of artists compelled to murder for inspi-
ration. Lucio Fulci’s L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981) and John Carpenter’s In
the Mouth of Madness (1995) adopted a different approach in featuring inad-
vertently disruptive artist or writers whose visionary work has opened up
gateways to fearful other dimensions.
Other films have explored the idea of killing itself as a kind of art, with
serial killers in particular expressing themselves through stylish stagings of
violence and gore, with this most evident in some giallo thrillers as well as in
films such as Peeping Tom (1960), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven
(1995), and Scream (1996). Underpinning this is a clear sense of the artist as
a monstrously egotistical and antisocial figure whose art can be achieved
only at the expense of human feeling and emotion.

ASHER, JACK (1916–1991). The British cinematographer Jack Asher was

largely responsible for the distinctive look of the early Hammer horrors. The
garish red of the blood spilled in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and
30 • ASHTON, ROY (1909–1995)
Dracula (The Horror of Dracula) (1958) shocked critics and fascinated audi-
ences, but Asher was also capable of producing more atmospheric effects.
His lighting helped to make the films appear subtler and more expensive than
they actually were. Other Hammer credits include The Revenge of Franken-
stein (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could
Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), and
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960).

ASHTON, ROY (1909–1995). From the 1980s on, horror makeup special-
ists such as Tom Savini or Rob Bottin acquired star status in their own right.
Earlier generations of makeup artists worked in obscurity, however. One
such overlooked figure is the Australian-born Roy Ashton, who was a key
member of the team that made the Hammer horrors. He was responsible for
the look of the monster in The Mummy (1959), the werewolf in The Curse of
the Werewolf (1961), the unnervingly visceral zombies in The Plague of the
Zombies (1966), and the memorable title creature in The Reptile (1966).
Other credits are too numerous to list here. Throughout his career, he re-
mained a busy but unheralded figure.

ATWILL, LIONEL (1885–1946). The British-born character actor Lionel

Atwill appeared in a variety of American films from the end of World War I
on, but he is best remembered for his horror performances, usually in author-
ity roles. His gruff persona could be modulated into the avuncular—in the
stylish Doctor X (1932), for example—or into villainy in films such as Mys-
tery of the Wax Museum (1933) and Murders in the Zoo (1933). During the
1930s, he was also a reliable presence in The Vampire Bat (1933), Secret of
the Blue Room (1933), Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Hound of the Bas-
kervilles (1939), and The Gorilla (1939). However, his most striking perfor-
mance from the decade was as the one-armed police inspector in Universal’s
Son of Frankenstein (1939), who, during a game of darts, absentmindedly
sticks his darts into his wooden arm. In the early 1940s, a Hollywood sex
scandal damaged Atwill’s career, but he continued to show up in low-budget
horror productions such as Man Made Monster (1941), The Mad Doctor of
Market Street (1942), The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942), Night Monster
(1942), and Fog Island (1945). For Universal, he appeared in quick succes-
sion in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
(1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945), playing
different parts each time.

AUSTRALIAN HORROR. Australian horror films have managed to en-

gage in interesting and critical ways with the experience of being Australian,
although this has often involved an appropriation of non-Australian generic
 AVATI, PUPI (1938–) • 31
conventions. A recurrent preoccupation has been with wild and alienating
landscapes into which complacent city dwellers venture at their peril, with
this seeming to reflect anxieties about the relation between modernity and
Australian history. Key to this was director Peter Weir, whose three horror-
themed films—The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock
(1975), and The Last Wave (1977)—made a major contribution to the devel-
opment of Australian cinema during the 1970s both in their international
popularity and in their evocation of a peculiarly Australian sense of the
apocalypse. Colin Eggleston’s Long Weekend (1978) was less well known
internationally, but like Weir’s work it offered a powerful critique of moder-
nity in its depiction of a young couple destroyed by the forces of nature,
while Russell Mulcahy’s stylish Razorback (1984) embodied hostile nature
in the form of a large and vicious killer pig. Other Australian horror films
have borrowed key ideas from American horror cinema but have reinter-
preted these in a distinctive manner. Thirst (1979) and Outback Vampires
(The Wicked) (1987) presented decidedly weird versions of the movie vam-
pire, and Richard Franklin’s psychic thriller Patrick (1978) and serial kill-
er drama Roadgames (1981) also played inventive variations on the formats
established by, respectively, Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) and John
Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). Similarly, Bloodmoon (1990) was an Aus-
tralian slasher film and Body Melt (1993) a striking example of body hor-
ror. More recently, Wolf Creek (2005)—a grueling drama in which some
backpackers are tortured to death by a serial killer—and Storm Warning
(2007) have offered an Australian take on the provocative torture-based
horror associated most of all with American films such as Eli Roth’s Hostel
(2005) and Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005). Revenge of nature
films have also made a modest comeback, with man-eating crocodiles threat-
ening some hapless tourists in Black Water (2007) and Rogue (2007) and
sharks providing the threat in Bait (2012). By comparison, Jennifer Kent’s
psychological horror The Babadook (2014) does not obviously connect with
any Australian horror tradition, but it is one of the most innovative and
powerful horror films of recent years.

AVATI, PUPI (1938–). The work of the Italian writer-director Pupi Avati
has periodically shown a propensity for the gothic and for horror. Early
directorial efforts such as Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (Blood Relations)
(1970) and Thomas e gli indemoniati (Thomas and the Bewitched) (1970)
contained fantastic elements, but it was Avati’s giallo La casa dalle finestre
che ridono (The House with Laughing Windows) (1976) that established him
as a filmmaker with a distinctive vision. This horror thriller made evocative
use of its rural setting and delivered a weird and dream-like story quite
distinct from the more aggressive work of giallo specialists Dario Argento
and Mario Bava. Avati’s supernatural drama Zeder (1983) was comparably
32 • AVATI, PUPI (1938–)
offbeat (although mislabeled a zombie film in some markets), and L’Arcan
incantatore (Arcane Sorcerer, The Mysterious Enchanter) (1996) was a styl-
ish gothic mystery. Avati also cowrote the screenplays for Lucio Fulci’s
comedy-horror Il cavaliere Costante Nicosia demoniaco . . . orrero Dracula
in Brianza (Young Dracula) (1975) and Lamberto Bava’s psychological
thriller Macabro (Macabre) (1980). See also ITALIAN HORROR.
 B
BAKER, RICK (1950–). There has always been a blurring between make-
up and special effects in horror cinema, but from the 1980s on, makeup artist
Rick Baker has developed this in a way that has won him approval from the
industry and attracted a significant fan following. Early work included effec-
tive contributions to low-budget horrors such as John Landis’s comedy-
horror Schlock (1973), Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive! (1974), Jeff Lieberman’s
revenge of nature film Squirm (1976), the science fiction/horror hybrid The
Incredible Melting Man (1977), and Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse (1981).
He was also the man in the ape suit in the expensive 1976 remake of King
Kong (1976) and worked on Star Wars (1977) and Brian De Palma’s teleki-
nesis thriller The Fury (1978). However, it was his werewolf transformation
effects in Landis’s An American Werewolf in London (1981) that brought
him to prominence. Instead of the clumsy fade effects that had been used in
older werewolf films, Baker offered a realistic transformation that appeared
to take place in real time, with the actor’s body experiencing impossible
contortions before an astonished audience’s eyes. It was enough to win Baker
the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup (an award he has won five
times since). He went on to devise some equally impressive bodily transfor-
mations for David Cronenberg’s body horror film Videodrome (1983) and
also designed the horror makeup for Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Thriller”
video. Since then, he has provided a Rondo Hatton–look-alike villain for the
action adventure The Rocketeer (1991), turned the actor Martin Landau into
Bela Lugosi for Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood (1994), created some rela-
tively restrained werewolf effects for the Jack Nicholson film Wolf (1994),
and also fashioned an appropriately frightening monster for Peter Jackson’s
The Frighteners (1996). Less scary Baker creations have included aliens in
Men in Black (1997) and its sequels, fantasy creatures in How the Grinch
Stole Christmas (2000), and a return to apes in Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of
Planet of the Apes as well as the comical transformation of Eddie Murphy in
The Nutty Professor (1996). The rise of computer-generated effects might
have given filmmakers alternative ways of conjuring up their monsters, but
Baker remained in demand, designing some unnerving corpses for The Ring

33
34 • BAKER, ROBERT S. (1916–2009), AND BERMAN, MONTY (1913–2006)
(2002) and The Ring Two (2005) and fantasy creatures for Guillermo del
Toro’s Hellboy (2004) and Maleficent (2014) and for two werewolf films:
Wes Craven’s Cursed (2005) and The Wolfman (2010). In 2015, Baker
announced his retirement.

BAKER, ROBERT S. (1916–2009), AND BERMAN, MONTY

(1913–2006). Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman were British producers
who occasionally dabbled in film direction. Throughout the 1950s, they spe-
cialized in crime thrillers, with John Gilling their main director. However,
when British horror became an eminently marketable category following
the commercial success of the early Hammer horror films, Baker and Ber-
man codirected Jack the Ripper (1958) and The Hellfire Club (1960). Nei-
ther of these was especially innovative or accomplished, and The Hellfire
Club, although drawing on Hammer-like imagery, was more of a historical
melodrama than it was a horror film. However, the fact that they were made
at all underlines the way in which the low-budget sector of the British film
industry was moving away from crime production to horror production in the
late 1950s as a response to changing public tastes. Baker and Berman also
produced Blood of the Vampire (1958), The Trollenberg Terror (1958), The
Flesh and the Fiends (1959), and the comedy-horror What a Carve Up
(1961). Both would go on to have very successful careers as television
producers.

BAKER, ROY WARD (1916–2010). Roy Ward Baker was one of a group
of directors—others included Terence Fisher and John Gilling—who had
worked in a range of genres before becoming British horror specialists. In
Baker’s case, the pre-horror career had been a prestigious one that included a
stint in Hollywood as well as being the director of the Titanic film A Night to
Remember (1958). (He was billed as Roy Baker for this work; “Ward” came
later to distinguish him from a sound editor also named Roy Baker.) If Baker
felt any disappointment over his “relegation” to the low-budget horror sector,
it did not show in the films he made for leading British horror companies
Hammer and Amicus. His first for Hammer was the science fiction/horror
hybrid Quatermass and the Pit (1967), which was the third in the Quatermass
cycle and one of the last of Hammer’s more traditional productions before it
began to experiment with its horror formula. Thereafter, Baker’s solidly
professional direction helped to anchor some of the company’s more outré
projects, including The Anniversary (1968), a bizarre and grotesque comedy
featuring Bette Davis at her most histrionic, and The Vampire Lovers
(1970), Hammer’s first lesbian vampire film and a fine adaptation of J.
Sheridan LeFanu’s story Carmilla. Scars of Dracula (1970) was an uninspir-
ing entry in the Dracula cycle, but Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), which
 BALAGUERÓ, JAUME (1968–) • 35
involved Jekyll transforming into a woman, was a surprisingly inventive
example of late Hammer horror. Subsequently, Baker moved to Amicus,
where he made two horror anthologies—Asylum (1972) and Vault of Horror
(1973)—and an interesting gothic period piece, And Now the Screaming
Starts (1973). The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974), his final
film for Hammer and the company’s last period production, was a kung fu/
horror hybrid, and it helped to confirm Baker’s status as a director of unusual
films. One more horror film, The Monster Club (1980), followed some years
later.

BALAGUERÓ, JAUME (1968–). The director Jaume Balagueró has been a

major contributor to the international popularization of Spanish horror cine-
ma during the 21st century. He is best known in this regard for his work on
the [REC] cycle, which cannily combined international horror conventions
with distinctly Spanish social mores. He codirected, with Paco Plaza, [REC]
(2007) and [REC] 2 (2009); these were found footage horrors depicting the
outbreak of a highly infectious disease in an apartment block that trans-
formed its victims into zombie-like creatures. By the time that Balagueró
returned to the series with [REC] 4: Apocalypse (2014), the found footage
format had been abandoned and the action shifted to a ship, but the director
still managed to create an intense and claustrophobic survivalist horror that
was a satisfactory conclusion to the series.
Even before the [REC] films, international elements were evident in
Balagueró’s work. His feature debut Los sin nombre (The Nameless) (1999),
which dealt with the murderous activities of a cult, might have been filmed in
Spanish but was based on a novel by British horror novelist Ramsey Camp-
bell. His next film, Darkness (2002), another cult-based horror, was shot in
Spain but filmed in English as part of its production company Fantastic
Factory’s strategy for appealing to international horror markets. The ghost
story Fragile (2005) was another English-language release, shot this time
partly in Spain and partly in Great Britain and starring American actor Calis-
ta Flockhart. All of these were stylish affairs but lacked the grounding in
Spanish culture visible in the [REC] films. By contrast, Mientras duermes
(Sleep Tight) (2011), a Spanish-language production dealing with a con-
cierge who stalks the inhabitants of his building, was a supremely creepy
psychological thriller that invested a great deal in its presentation of a
convincing picture of contemporary Spanish life.
Balagueró also contributed to the television horror series Películas para
no dormir (Tales to Keep You Awake) (2007–2009).
36 • BALDERSTON, JOHN L. (1889–1954)
BALDERSTON, JOHN L. (1889–1954). The main claim to horror fame for
American playwright and screenwriter John L. Balderston was that he re-
vised Hamilton Deane’s theatrical adaptation of Dracula for a Broadway
production that starred Bela Lugosi and that formed the basis for the Univer-
sal 1931 film. Thereafter, he made some contributions to other horrors—
most notably The Mummy (1932), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and
Mad Love (1935)—although he was usually just one writer among many, and
it is hard to detect any distinctive authorial style or theme connecting his
work. He also cowrote the early British horror film The Man Who Changed
His Mind (1936). His time travel fantasy play Berkeley Square has been
filmed twice, first as Berkeley Square (1933) and subsequently as The House
in the Square (1951).

BAND, ALBERT (1924–2002). The horror career of American writer-direc-

tor-producer Albert Band began promisingly with the atmospheric low-bud-
get thriller I Bury the Living (1958). Unfortunately, he did not direct another
horror film for 20 years, and when he did, it was the enjoyable but very silly
Dracula’s Dog (Zoltan: Hound of Dracula) (1978). His subsequent directori-
al credits—which included Ghoulies 2 (1987) and Robert Wars (1993)—
were negligible direct-to-video efforts. He produced numerous low-budget
films, often in association with his son Charles Band, with whom he also
codirected Doctor Mordrid (1992). Another son, Richard Band, is a film
composer.

BAND, CHARLES (1951–). The prolific director-producer Charles Band is

the son of producer Albert Band and shares a similar commitment to low-
budget genre cinema. His best film as director is probably the science fiction
thriller Trancers (1985). The horror films he has directed have rarely
transcended their budgetary limitations, although this is often offset by a
weird sense of humor. They include Parasite (1982), The Alchemist (1984),
Dollman versus Demonic Toys (1993), Hideous (1997), The Creeps (1997),
Blood Dolls (1999), Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain (2004), The Gingerdead
Man (2005), Decadent Evil (2005), Doll Graveyard (2005), Evil Bong
(2006), Ooga Booga (2013), and Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (2013).
However, Band is more significant as a producer, first with his Empire Pic-
tures company and then with Full Moon Films. Since the 1970s, he has
produced or executive produced well over 200 films, the majority of which
were for the direct-to-video and subsequently the direct-to-DVD market.

BARKER, CLIVE (1952–). Clive Barker is a British-born writer, director,

and producer whose distinctive form of dark fantasy has proved both popular
and influential. His breakthrough commercial success came with The Books
 BATES, RALPH (1940–1991) • 37
of Blood series of horror stories, which began publication in 1984 and which
eventually formed six volumes. Before then, he had been involved in experi-
mental theater and as one aspect of this activity had made several gothic-
influenced avant-garde short films—including Salome (1972), Jack O Lant
(1972), and The Forbidden (1978). After The Books of Blood, Barker wrote
the screenplays for two underwhelming British horror films: Underworld
(1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986). Unhappy with the results, he made his own
directorial debut with Hellraiser (1987). In its depiction of demons, this
articulate and assured horror film drew on the provocative imagery associat-
ed with sadomasochistic and body-piercing subcultures. At the same time, it
also offered a downbeat domestic realism that made the gory horrors all the
more disturbing when they showed up. During postproduction, some of the
characters in the film were redubbed with American accents to make the film
more palatable to the U.S. market, but it remained a recognizably British
production. Hellraiser generated several sequels, with Barker himself less
involved as each film passed, and the demon Pinhead (played by Barker
associate Doug Bradley)—a minor presence in the first film—went on to
become a significant horror icon in its own right.
Nightbreed (1990), Barker’s second film as director, was an ambitious but
troubled production that underwent extensive revisions before its release.
Barker’s key idea—that the monsters should be more positive figures than
the forces of normality—turned out to be too radical for film executives, and
the resulting compromised film did not do well at the box office, although
some of its perverse imagery was as memorable as anything in Hellraiser.
In the early 1990s, Barker relocated to the United States, where he directed
the psychic thriller Lord of Illusions (1995). Since then, he has concentrated
on novel writing, painting, and acting as a film producer—with his most
notable producer credit being Gods and Monsters (1998), a biopic of horror
director James Whale. In 1992, one of the stories from Barker’s Books of
Blood was adapted as the successful horror film Candyman. Other horror
films based on Barker’s writings include The Midnight Meat Train (2008),
Book of Blood (2009), and Dread (2009).

BATES, RALPH (1940–1991). For a brief period in the early 1970s, the
British actor Ralph Bates was groomed by Hammer as one of its new young
horror stars. His first appearance for Hammer was in Taste the Blood of
Dracula (1970), where his saturnine good looks served him well as the evil
Lord Courtley. Next, he starred as Baron Frankenstein in The Horror of
Frankenstein (1970), Hammer’s unsuccessful attempt to update its Franken-
stein cycle, and he also took on a character role originally intended for Peter
Cushing in Hammer’s lesbian vampire film Lust for a Vampire (1971).
These films were of variable quality, but Bates had undoubted screen pres-
ence in them. His best film was Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), which, as
38 • BATHORY, ELIZABETH (1560–1614)
its title suggested, was Hammer’s transsexual rendition of the Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde story. As Jekyll, Bates ably conveyed a mixture of horror and
fascination as he succumbed to the female side of his character (with the
female side played by Martine Beswick). Bates appeared in one more Ham-
mer film, the psychological thriller Fear in the Night (1972), and two non-
Hammer horrors: Persecution (1974) and the possession thriller I Don’t
Want to Be Born (The Devil within Her) (1975). From the mid-1970s on,
Bates worked mainly for television, in particular starring in the popular
situation comedy Dear John. He died young of pancreatic cancer.

BATHORY, ELIZABETH (1560–1614). The Hungarian countess Eliza-

beth Bathory is reported to have been involved in the murder of several
hundred women and to have bathed in their blood in order to retain her youth.
The extent to which this story has any historical veracity is unclear, although
it does appear that Bathory was accused of serious crimes and spent the last
years of her life imprisoned. Whatever the truth of the case, the legend of the
“Bloody Countess” has proved an attractive one to horror filmmakers not just
for its intrinsic drama but also for the opportunities it affords for displays of
both gore and female nudity. Some treatments have turned Bathory into a
vampire, a female equivalent of Count Dracula. The most notable of these
was Harry Kümel’s eerie modern-day drama Les lèvres rouges (Daughters
of Darkness) (1971). A vampiric countess clearly based on Bathory also took
on the Spanish horror star Jacinto Molina in La Noche de Walpurgis
(Shadow of the Werewolf) (1970) and El Retorno de Walpurgis (The Return
of Walpurgis, Curse of the Devil) (1973), and Bathory herself showed up in
the Molina film El Retorno del Hombre-Lobo (Night of the Werewolf)
(1980). A more history-based approach was offered by Hammer’s Countess
Dracula (1970), in which, despite the film’s title, Ingrid Pitt played a non-
vampiric murderous countess based on Bathory, and by Jorge Grau’s Span-
ish horror Ceremonia sangrienta (Blood Castle) (1973). The Bloody Count-
ess also featured in Necropolis (1970), Walerian Borowczyk’s Contes Im-
moraux (Immoral Tales) (1974), and the modern-day thrillers The Mysteri-
ous Death of Nina Chereau (1988), Eternal (2004), and Tomb of the Were-
wolf (2004). A Bathory-like countess appeared in Terry Gilliam’s The Broth-
ers Grimm (2005), and, most bizarrely, Bathory was a computer
game–based villain in the teenage horror film Stay Alive (2006). Since then,
Elizabeth Bathory has featured as a central character in two historical dra-
mas, Bathory: Countess of Blood (2008) and The Countess (2009), both of
which play down the more horrifying aspects of her story.
 BAVA, MARIO (1914–1980) • 39
BAVA, LAMBERTO (1944–). Lamberto Bava is the son of Italian horror
maestro Mario Bava and began his career as a filmmaker working in minor
capacities on some of his father’s films, culminating in his coscripting Mario
Bava’s final project, Schock (Shock, Beyond the Door II) (1977). His own
directorial debut was the atmospheric psychological thriller Macabro (Ma-
cabre) (1980), which told the disturbing tale of a women who kept her ex-
lover’s severed head in her refrigerator. During the early 1980s, Bava also
acted as assistant director on Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980) and Tenebre
(Tenebrae) (1982), and Argento would later become a significant influence
on his career. La casa con la scala nel buio (A Blade in the Dark) (1983),
Bava’s second film as director, was a highly effective giallo thriller. By
contrast, Shark rosso nell’oceano (Devil Fish, Devouring Waves) (1984) was
a routine Jaws clone for which Bava billed himself as John Old Jr. (a back-
handed tribute to his father, who was sometimes credited as John Old). The
supernatural thriller Demoni (Demons) (1985), in which demons invade a
cinema during the screening of a horror film, was Bava’s biggest internation-
al commercial success. It was produced by Argento and reflected his distinc-
tive themes and style as much as Bava’s, but the director did generate an
intensely claustrophobic atmosphere. Bava also directed the inferior sequel
Demoni 2: L’incubo ritorna (Demons 2) (1986), and a number of his later
films were sometimes marketed as further sequels, although none of them
had anything to do with the Demons films. Since the mid-1980s, Bava has
worked mainly for Italian television, and his cinematic career has become
patchy. Morirai a mezzanotte (The Midnight Killer) (1986), Le Foto di Gioia
(Delirium) (1987), and Body Puzzle (1991) were effective giallo films, albeit
not particularly distinctive, while Una notte al cimitero (Graveyard Distur-
bance) (1987) was a routine zombie film and La maschera del demonio
(Black Sunday) (1989) a very loose remake of his father’s classic witchcraft
film of 1960. Bava has also directed numerous horror and fantasy television
films and series, and he returned to cinematic horror with The Torturer
(2005) and Ghost Son (2006).

BAVA, MARIO (1914–1980). The great Italian horror director and cine-
matographer Mario Bava specialized in morbidity. The subject matter of his
films was varied, but the best of them shared a death-ridden mood. He was
also a supreme stylist with the ability to conjure up beautiful but oppressive
worlds from very limited resources. His first experience of the horror genre
came with Riccardo Freda’s I Vampiri (aka The Devil’s Commandment)
(1956). Initially hired as a cinematographer, he took over as director for a
few days of the production. His first solo directorial credit came with La
Maschera del demonio (The Mask of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire, Black
Sunday) (1960), a witchcraft drama that starred Barbara Steele in her first
major role. Although made to cash in on the international success of Ham-
40 • BAVA, MARIO (1914–1980)
mer horror, the film’s stylish black-and-white photography and its brooding
atmosphere made it a distinctive experience in its own right, and its commer-
cial success generated a cycle of Italian period horror.
Bava’s subsequent career saw him working in various genres, but he al-
ways seemed to be more engaged by psychologically introspective or fanta-
sy-based scenarios. His westerns and comedies were conventional affairs, as
was Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the Haunted World) (1961), the
muscleman epic he made immediately after La Maschera del Demonio, until
its remarkable gothic conclusion, in which Hercules takes on an army of
zombies. La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The
Evil Eye) (1962), a contemporary-set psychological thriller widely consid-
ered the first Italian giallo, was clearly a more amenable project. The who-
dunnit narrative was silly, but, in true giallo style, Bava used it primarily as a
pretext for a depiction of disturbed psychologies and exercises in style.
The horror anthology I tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) (1963) show-
cased the breadth of Bava’s abilities in its combination of a ghost story, a
crime thriller, and an impressive vampire narrative (the latter featuring Boris
Karloff). It was followed by La frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body)
(1963), a psychological thriller masquerading as a period horror that offered
one of Bava’s most compelling representations of perverse desire. Sei donne
per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace) (1964) was another giallo, although
this time more brutal in its violence and more stylish in its fashion house
setting, while Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires) (1965) was a
science fiction/horror hybrid that some critics have seen as an influence on
Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). Both Operazione Paura (Kill, Baby . . . Kill!)
(1966) and the Spanish-Italian coproduction Un hacha para la luna de miel
(Hatchet for the Honeymoon) (1969) were ghost stories, with the former a
particularly chilling example of the genre. Cinque bambole per la luna
d’agosto (Five Dolls for an August Moon) (1970) was yet another giallo, one
in which the Agatha Christie–like narrative was particularly dispensable and
the film’s almost abstract stylization especially prominent. Reazione a catena
(Ecologia del delitto, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Bay of Blood) (1971) min-
gled extreme violence with a sardonic sense of humor in its convoluted story
about a series of murders, all of them committed by different people (many
of whom then become victims themselves). The high body count, the set-
piece killings, and the lakeside setting have led to the film being seen as
inspiration for the American slasher Friday the 13th (1980), although
Bava’s version is a far more sophisticated and classy rendition of mass mur-
der. The ghost story Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga (Baron Blood)
(1972) was followed by the director’s most ambitious project and arguably
his masterpiece: Lisa e il diavolo (Lisa and the Devil) (1972). A daringly
experimental narrative eroded distinctions between reality and dreams; the
result was enigmatic and extraordinarily haunting. Unfortunately, this was
 BEAUMONT, CHARLES (1929–1967) • 41
not what the producers had in mind; the film was shelved for a while, and in
1975, after the phenomenal success of The Exorcist (1973), an alternate
version was released that removed much of the dream-like atmosphere and
replaced it with a clumsy framing narrative in which a priest exorcises the
film’s heroine. The House of Exorcism, as this version was called, was some-
thing of an embarrassment in Bava’s career, although thankfully his original
version was later restored. After the crime thriller Cani arrabbiati (Rabid
Dogs) (1974), Bava’s last film as director was Schock (Shock, Beyond the
Door 2) (1977), a slight but elegant mix of psychological drama and ghost
story.
His son Lamberto Bava is also a director of horror films.

BAXTER, LES (1922–1996). Les Baxter was a prolific composer and re-
cording artist whose film music ranged from lush melodies to dissonant
sounds. He worked on William Castle’s Macabre (1958) and on numerous
Roger Corman films, including House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendu-
lum (1961) (arguably his most evocative score), Tales of Terror (1962), and
The Raven (1963). He also wrote new scores for some Italian horror
films—including Mario Bava’s La Maschera del Demonio (The Mask of
Satan, Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday) (1960) and I tre volti della
paura (Black Sabbath) (1963)—in order to make them more palatable for
American audiences. Other noteworthy scores include The Dunwich Horror
(1970) and Cry of the Banshee (1970). His complete credits are too numerous
to list here.

BEAUMONT, CHARLES (1929–1967). The American writer Charles

Beaumont’s most distinctive horror and fantasy work was done for literature
and television. He published many short stories—including the horror classic
“Miss Gentilbelle”—and made numerous contributions to the fantasy-based
television series One Step Beyond (1959–1961), Thriller (1960–1962), and
The Twilight Zone (1959–1964). Queen of Outer Space (1958), Beaumont’s
screen debut, was an undistinguished piece of science fiction. Considerably
more impressive was the work he did for director Roger Corman, coscript-
ing the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations The Premature Burial (1962) and The
Masque of the Red Death (1964) and receiving sole writing credit for the H.
P. Lovecraft adaptation The Haunted Palace (1963). With fellow writer and
friend Richard Matheson, he also penned the superior British witchcraft
film Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn!) (1962) and by himself wrote the
idiosyncratic fantasy drama 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964). Beaumont died of
Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 38.
42 • BERGMAN, INGMAR (1918–2007)
BERGMAN, INGMAR (1918–2007). Of all the great European film direc-
tors who appeared after World War II, it was Ingmar Bergman who seemed
most attuned to gothic and horror themes and imagery. This did not make
him a horror artist—although a few overly partisan accounts of the horror
genre have claimed him as such—but it does suggest that the boundary
between what is thought of as art cinema and a popular genre cinema is
more permeable than is sometimes supposed. The common understanding of
Bergman as a grim filmmaker is unjustified; in a long career, he made suc-
cessful comedies and other charming dramas. Nevertheless, his classic Det
sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (1957) can be seen as an example of
apocalyptic horror, while the nightmare depicted at the opening of
Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) (1957) remains one of cinema’s most
unnerving sequences. By contrast, Ansiktet (The Magician, The Face) (1958)
made more playful use of some horror conventions. Of greater significance
to an understanding of this aspect of Berman’s art is Persona (1966), a
dream-like psychological drama featuring vampiric imagery, and Vargtim-
men (Hour of the Wolf) (1968), in which an artist’s inner turmoil is external-
ized in the form of what appear to be supernatural beings. The intended effect
of Bergman’s treatment of this material is clearly not meant to be the kind of
frisson delivered by a good horror film. However, the scene in Vargtimmen
in which an old woman casually pulls off her own face indicates that this was
a director more than aware of the power of shock.

BERMAN, MONTY. See BAKER, ROBERT S. (1916–2009), AND BER-

MAN, MONTY (1913–2006).

BERNARD, JAMES (1925–2001). The British composer James Bernard’s

strident and percussive music was a distinctive feature of many Hammer
horror films. Early work for the company included brooding scores for The
Quatermass Xperiment (The Creeping Unknown) (1955), X the Unknown
(1956), and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). However, his first outstand-
ing score was for Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958). His three-note theme
for this was based on the word “Dracula” itself, and it would subsequently
feature in most of Hammer’s Dracula films. He was also capable of produc-
ing a more melodic sound, an example being the delicate main theme for
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970). Bernard rarely composed for anyone
other than Hammer, although he did write some music for the Amicus pro-
duction Torture Garden (1967) and in 1997 recorded a new score for F. W.
Murnau’s classic vampire film Nosferatu (1922). His other scores include
Quatermass 2 (Enemy from Space) (1957), The Hound of the Baskervilles
(1959), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), The Terror of the Tongs (1961),
The Damned (These Are the Damned) (1963), The Kiss of the Vampire
 BISHARA, JOSEPH (1970–) • 43
(1963), The Gorgon (1964), She (1965), The Plague of the Zombies (1966),
Dracula—Prince of Darkness (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967),
The Devil Rides Out (1968), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968),
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Scars of Dracula (1970), Franken-
stein and the Monster from Hell (1974), The Legend of the Seven Golden
Vampires (1974), and Murder Elite (1985).

BESWICK, MARTINE (1941–). The Jamaican-born actor Martine Be-

swick first made an impact as a gypsy in the James Bond film From Russia
with Love (1963) and returned to the series in a different role in Thunderball
(1965). For Hammer, she made decorative appearances in the prehistoric
adventures One Million Years B.C. (1966) and Slave Girls (Prehistoric Wom-
en) (1967). However, her most striking role was as the female side of Ralph
Bates in Hammer’s transsexual Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971); here, she
captured perfectly the character’s sensuality and her perverse desire for ex-
treme sensation. She was also impressive as the Queen of Evil in Oliver
Stone’s American horror Seizure (1974). Since then, she has worked main-
ly for American television, with occasional appearances in low-budget hor-
rors, such as The Offspring (From a Whisper to a Scream) (1987), Evil
Spirits (1990), and Night of the Scarecrow (1995).

BISHARA, JOSEPH (1970–). Joseph Bishara has the unusual distinction of

being both a film composer and a film actor. As a composer, he has worked
mainly in the horror genre and indeed can reasonably be seen as one of
contemporary horror cinema’s leading composers. He has provided scores
for, among others, Night of the Demons (2009), The Conjuring (2013), Dark
Skies (2013), V/H/S Viral (2014), Annabelle (2014), The Vatican Tapes
(2015), and The Conjuring 2 (2016). His most noteworthy score is probably
the one that he provided for James Wan’s Insidious (2010), which in con-
veying a world populated by ghosts and demons inventively combines disso-
nance, atonality, and unconventional instrumentation with deceptively me-
lodic passages. Bishara’s music was integral to that film’s effectiveness, and
he went on to provide equally unnerving sounds for Insidious Chapter 2
(2013) and Insidious Chapter 3 (2015).
Bishara also occasionally shows up in some of these films in the role of the
monster. He is the “lipstick-face” demon in Insidious and Insidious Chapter
3, cross-dresses as the evil witch Bathsheba in The Conjuring, and is a
demon in The Conjuring 2. It is striking how Bishara’s monsters, in all their
manic intensity, align themselves perfectly with the music that he has com-
posed for these films to the extent that his performances can be seen as a
physical expression of the music itself.
44 • BLACK, KAREN (1939–2013)
BLACK, KAREN (1939–2013). The American actor Karen Black was an
iconic figure in American independent cinema of the late 1960s and 1970s,
including appearances in films such as Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces
(1970), and Nashville (1975). For some years, she was an A-list performer as
well in films such as The Great Gatsby (1974), Airport ’75 (1974), Alfred
Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976), and the conspiracy thriller Capricorn One
(1977). However, she was also a presence within the horror genre, with this
part of her career becoming more prominent as her mainstream career faded.
Her first significant genre credit was as the doomed female lead in the Cana-
dian horror film The Pyx (1973). More challenging fare came from director-
producer Dan Curtis, for whom she made the television horror anthology
film Trilogy of Terror (1975) and the cinema release Burnt Offerings (1976).
Black starred in all three segments of Trilogy of Terror, playing a deceptive
femme fatale in one story, a woman suffering from split personality in an-
other, and, in the film’s memorable final tale, a modern sophisticated woman
who regresses to a state of savagery under the malign influence of an evil
doll. By any standards, this was a bravura display of acting skill, with the
emphasis throughout on Black’s ability to transform both psychologically
and physically. Burnt Offerings offered something similar, with Black’s os-
tensibly normal housewife character gradually becoming possessed by the
house in which she and her family are living; her final appearance as a death-
like figure stands as one of 1970s American horror’s most disturbing cli-
maxes. Black also appeared as Faye Greener in John Schlesinger’s adapta-
tion of Nathaneal West’s The Day of the Locust (1975), not a horror film but
sufficiently apocalyptic to bear some connection with the horror genre, and
in Gordon Hessler’s television movie The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oli-
ver (1977), where she played another split-personality character.
Black’s later horror films were generally less distinguished and included
Killer Fish (1979), Tobe Hooper’s science fiction/horror remake Invaders
from Mars (1986), and Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive
(1987), among many others. Her last horror performance of note was as the
monstrously grotesque Mother in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses
(2003).

BLACK HORROR. The representation of black characters in early horror

cinema was far from flattering. Blackness was often associated with a threat-
ening exoticism in films such as White Zombie (1932), King Kong (1933),
King of the Zombies (1941), and I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and black
actors such as Willie Best or Mantan Moreland were usually cast as cow-
ardly sidekicks to white protagonists. Some film historians have since de-
tected positive (or at least ambiguous) elements in some of these films. For
example, the Val Lewton–Jacques Tourneur collaboration I Walked with a
Zombie certainly seems to offer a critique of its white characters, while the
 BLACK HORROR • 45
wisecracking Moreland, who frequently received top billing in black thea-
ters, often highlighted the absurdity of the white characters’ behavior.
Whether these elements registered with audiences of the time, black or white,
remains unclear, however.
As the civil rights movement developed in the United States during the
1950s, representations of this kind faded away, and black characters were
notable for their absence in much American horror of the period. British
horror, by contrast, retained a fascination with black exoticism as late as the
1960s in films such as the Amicus horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of
Horrors (1964) and Hammer’s postimperial The Plague of the Zombies
(1966) and Satanic thriller The Devil Rides Out (1968). Within such a con-
text, George Romero’s now classic American zombie film Night of the
Living Dead (1968) was strikingly innovative in featuring a personable
young black man as its hero. The film’s dialogue made no reference to race,
although the hero’s ultimate fate—shot and burned by a group of redneck
law enforcers—connected in a disturbing way with the ongoing civil rights
struggle. The challenge offered by this provocative piece of casting was not
taken up immediately by filmmakers. However, a 1970s cycle of blaxploita-
tion films included not just crime thrillers like Shaft (1971) and Superfly
(1972) but also horror films, with black characters installed in roles that in
the past had been reserved for white performers. Blacula (1972), Blacken-
stein (1973), the experimental Ganja & Hess (1973), the Exorcist-like Abby
(1974), the voodoo drama Sugar Hill (1974), and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde
(1976) either rendered white characters as villains or marginalized them,
although many of these films were made by white directors. The political
value of blaxploitation and the extent to which the values of a dominant
white society were challenged by such representations remain contentious
issues.
The advent of the American slasher film in the late 1970s tended to
marginalize black characters once again, although there were occasional pro-
ductions that engaged in interesting ways with issues arising out of racial
difference. Wes Craven’s voodoo thriller The Serpent and the Rainbow
(1988) and his comedy-horror Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) revisited tradi-
tional black horror scenarios from a modern, revisionary perspective, while
his The People under the Stairs (1991) intelligently explored black social
exclusion from within a horror idiom. Bernard Rose’s equally distinguished
Candyman (1992) did something similar in its representation of a resurrected
ex-slave transformed into an urban legend and was successful enough to
generate two sequels: Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candy-
man: Day of the Dead (1999). Def by Temptation (1990) was an interesting
attempt to revive blaxploitation horror, but Blade (1998), which starred Wes-
ley Snipes as a heroic vampire hunter who is himself part vampire, was a
more confident and commercially successful treatment of this material;
46 • BLADE (1998)
Blade 2 (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004) followed. More recently, Jordan
Peele’s Get Out (2017) offered a provocative take on black–white relations
from a black perspective.
The racist tenor of much early horror has certainly dissipated over the
years, although the extent to which blackness has become normalized in
horror production is far from clear, with the majority of the genre’s heroes
and heroines still noticeably white.

BLADE (1998). The vampire hunter Blade made his first appearance in the
Marvel comic Tomb of Dracula in 1973. As an assertive black action hero,
he was clearly inspired by blaxploitation cinema of the 1970s. Appearances
in other comic books series followed, but it was not until 1998 that the
character made it into cinema, by which time he had become a human/
vampire hybrid equipped with extraordinary fighting skills. As was increas-
ingly common in vampire fiction from the 1990s on, Stephen Norrington’s
Blade presented vampirism as an alternate hidden society, and the film of-
fered an effective combination of horror imagery and high-intensity action.
(See in particular the Underworld films for a comparable representation of
vampires and their world.) Blade himself was played by Wesley Snipes in a
charismatic performance. The sequel Blade II (2002), which was directed by
Guillermo del Toro, explored vampire society in even more detail and re-
placed Norrington’s hard-edged industrial look with a more obviously gothic
and sumptuous visual style. Rather than focusing on an ongoing and clear-cut
conflict between humans and vampire, both Blade and Blade II dealt instead
with insurrection within the vampire community, with young vampires chal-
lenging the authority of their elders while Blade struggled throughout with
the vampiric side to his character. Blade: Trinity (2004) was directed by
David Goyer, who had written the previous two films. It maintained a con-
cern with the workings of vampire society, and for good measure it also
threw a resurrected Dracula into the mix, but it was generally deemed the
least satisfactory of the trilogy, with Blade himself often marginalized in
favor of younger (and whiter) vampire hunters played by Ryan Reynolds and
Jessica Biel. A short-lived television series, Blade: The Series, appeared in
2006, with Blade this time played by Kirk Jones.

BLAIR, LINDA (1959–). As Regan, the possessed child in The Exorcist

(1973), Linda Blair gave one of the keynote performances in 1970s
American horror and was utterly convincing in what was probably the most
difficult screen role a child has ever been asked to play. Like many child
actors, she subsequently found it difficult to establish herself as an adult
performer. She returned to the part of Regan in the eccentric Exorcist II: The
Heretic (1977), starred in Wes Craven’s effective television horror film
 THE BLIND DEAD • 47
Stranger in Our House (Summer of Fear) (1978), and was a spirited Final
Girl in the slasher Hell Night (1981). Subsequent genre credits—which
included Grotesque (1988), Witchery (1988), The Chilling (1989), and Sor-
ceress (1995)—were underwhelming. Repossessed (1990), in which she co-
starred with Leslie Nielsen, was a belated Exorcist spoof, while her cameo
role in Scream (1996) underlined her status as horror icon.

BLATTY, WILLIAM PETER (1928–2017). Given his association with

one of the most controversial and profitable horror films ever made, it is
surprising to discover that William Peter Blatty started out as a comedy
writer, with one of his early credits being the first Pink Panther sequel, A
Shot in the Dark (1964). His best-selling—and overwhelmingly humorless—
novel The Exorcist changed all that. He wrote and produced the 1973 adap-
tation (and also made a cameo appearance in it), and much of his subsequent
career was played out in the shadow of that remarkable film. His directorial
debut came with the idiosyncratic psychological thriller The Ninth Configu-
ration (1980). Ten years later, he wrote and directed Exorcist III (1990),
which was adapted from his novel Legion. This was a somber, intelligent
affair, albeit one that, perhaps inevitably, lacked the impact of the original.

THE BLIND DEAD. The Blind Dead cycle of films is an important exam-
ple of Spanish horror and an innovative variant on the zombie film. The
Blind Dead themselves are the resurrected eyeless corpses of the Knights
Templar, who can track their victims through sound. The first two films of
the cycle—La noche del terror ciego (Tombs of the Blind Dead, The Blind
Dead) (1971) and El ataque de los muertos sin ojos (Return of the Blind
Dead) (1973)—offered similar narratives in which cosmopolitan modern
characters inadvertently strayed into the realm of the Blind Dead and suf-
fered gruesome fates. Characterizations were minimal, with the films offer-
ing instead nightmarish sequences in which the Blind Dead slowly but inex-
orably advanced on their victims. That these revenants sometimes rode zom-
bie horses added an unusual twist to the zombie formula.
El buque maldito (The Ghost Galleon, Horror of the Zombies, The Blind
Dead 3) (1974), the third film in the cycle, opted for an oceanic setting but,
despite some atmospheric moments, was let down badly by clumsy model
work for the ghostly zombie galleon. The final Blind Dead film, La noche de
las gaviotas (Night of the Seagulls) (1975), was in many ways the most
imaginative of the four and made excellent use of its desolate coastline
setting. However, by this stage the galloping blind zombies had become
overly familiar figures of threat, and no more films followed.
48 • BLOCH, ROBERT (1917–1994)
All four of the Blind Dead films were directed by Amando de Ossorio,
whose few other horror credits were negligible. La cruz del diablo (The
Devil’s Cross) (1975), directed by John Gilling, dealt with similar thematic
material but is not part of the cycle.

BLOCH, ROBERT (1917–1994). The American writer Robert Bloch began

publishing fantasy-based stories in the 1930s, but it was not until the early
1960s that he received any significant recognition. His success was, in part at
least, due to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), an adaptation of Bloch’s
1959 novel of the same title. Bloch had nothing to do with the film itself, but
his association with psychological horror subsequently led to several screen-
writing credits. He worked on the serial killer drama The Couch (1962) and
the eccentric remake The Cabinet of Caligari (1962), with both of these
making extensive use of psychoanalytical terminology. Strait-Jacket (1964)
and The Night Walker (1964), both for producer-director William Castle,
were more straightforward mystery thrillers. An association with British
horror began when the Amicus company adapted his short story “The Skull
of the Marquis de Sade” into The Skull (1965). He went on to write or
cowrite several screenplays for the company. The Deadly Bees (1966) was a
mundane monster movie, but The Psychopath (1965) was an imaginative
reworking of themes first introduced in Psycho and arguably the closest
British cinema ever came to imitating the Italian giallo form of psychologi-
cal thriller. Thereafter, Bloch specialized in the horror anthologies for
which Amicus became well known, in the process often recycling some of
his old short stories. Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood
(1970), and Asylum (1972) turned out to be three of the best of this type of
film, both in the inventiveness of the individual episodes and in the clever-
ness of the framing narratives (often the weak point in Amicus’s produc-
tions).
Bloch also wrote extensively for television, specializing in horror and
crime. His credits include Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962), Thriller
(1960–1962), Journey to the Unknown (1968), and Night Gallery (1970). He
penned some of the more gothic episodes of Star Trek (1966–1969), includ-
ing one featuring Jack the Ripper, as well as two interesting television films
for director Curtis Harrington: The Cat Creature (1973) and The Dead
Don't Die (1975).

BLUM, JASON (1969–). Jason Blum has become one of the most influen-
tial producers in American horror cinema, with an eye for low-budget,
high-concept projects that can generate genre sequels and franchises. He
founded his company Blumhouse Productions in 2000 and experienced his
first notable success in horror with the found footage production Paranor-
 BOLL, UWE (1965–) • 49
mal Activity (2009). Blum was involved in all the sequels to Paranormal
Activity and produced other found footage films, such as The Bay (2012), The
Gallows (2015), and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit (2015). Other Blum-
house successes include James Wan’s Insidious (2011), Sinister (2012), The
Purge (2013), Ouija (2014), and the various sequels and prequels that fol-
lowed these. He has worked with established genre auteurs such as Rob
Zombie with The Lords of Salem (2013) and nurtured the careers of up-and-
coming talents such as Mike Flanagan with Oculus (2014), Ouija: Origin of
Evil (2016), and Hush (2016) and Jordan Peele with Get Out (2017). Blum-
house’s prolific and varied schedule also includes the science fiction/horror
Dark Skies (2013), the Internet-based ghost story Unfriended (2015), and
the idiosyncratic sequel The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014), among
many other, less well known productions. The Academy Award–nominated
Whiplash (2014) was a rare diversion into quality cinema for Blumhouse.
Similarly, while The Gift (2015) might initially have looked like a horror
film, it turned out to be an impressive if low-key psychological thriller.
Blum also produced the found footage television series The River (2012).

BODY HORROR. The term “body horror” has been used by horror critics
to describe a type of horror film that first emerged during the 1970s, one that
offered graphic and sometimes clinical representations of human bodies that
were in some way out of the conscious control of their owners. In a sense,
body horror describes the ultimate alienation—alienation from one’s own
body—but this has often been coupled with a fascination with the possibility
of new identities that might emerge from this. The term is most associated
with the work of Canadian director David Cronenberg, whose early horror
films—among them The Parasite Murders (They Came from Within, Shiv-
ers) (1975), Rabid (1977), and The Brood (1979)—focused on mutation and
other physical transformations; Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986) were
later body horror examples from his remarkable oeuvre. Other horror films
that share a Cronenbergian fascination with fleshy metamorphoses include
Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987),
and Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo (1989). Philip Brophy’s Australian produc-
tion Body Melt (1993) is another example and contains a quintessential body
horror scene in which a man is attacked by an excreted placenta.

BOLL, UWE (1965–). The writer-director Uwe Boll began making films in
his native Germany, including the serial killer drama Amoklauf (1994). He
has since become a specialist in English-language horror with the knack of
attracting well-known actors to what are usually low-budget, self-financed
genre projects. Boll’s films have not always been well received by horror
fans, and in September 2006 he adopted the novel defensive tactic of chal-
50 • BOORMAN, JOHN (1933–)
lenging his fiercest critics to a boxing bout; he took on four and defeated
them all. Boll’s horror credits include House of the Dead (2003), Alone in the
Dark (2005), and BloodRayne (2005).

BOORMAN, JOHN (1933–). The British director John Boorman is rarely

thought of as a horror director, and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), his one
excursion into the genre, was a critical and commercial disaster. However,
Boorman’s Deliverance (1972)—in which a group of complacent urbanites
venture into the countryside, where they are attacked and violated by the
brutal locals—provided a template for later rural horror and rape-revenge
dramas. Films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Hills
Have Eyes (1977), I Spit on Your Grave (1978), and, more recently, Wrong
Turn (2003), Calvaire (The Ordeal) (2004), and Wolf Creek (2005) owe
more than a passing debt to Boorman’s unflinching portrayal of human sav-
agery.

BORLAND, CARROLL (1914–1994). Carroll Borland seems to have be-

come a horror icon on the basis of a supporting role in just one film, Tod
Browning’s Mark of the Vampire (1935) (where she is billed as Carol Bor-
land). She played the apparently vampiric Luna, daughter of the equally
vampiric Count Mora (played by Bela Lugosi), although a final self-reflex-
ive plot twist reveals that both are actors pretending to be vampires. With her
long dark hair, her deathly paleness, and her odd but beautiful facial features,
Borland is certainly memorable in the role and quite different from the more
vapid female leads who populated much of 1930s horror. The fact that this
was her only performance of note perhaps added to her allure. Many years
later, she showed up in small roles in two Fred Olen Ray films: Scalps
(1983) and Biohazard (1985).

BOROWCZYK, WALERIAN (1923–2006). The Polish director Walerian

Borowczyk worked mainly in France, starting out as an animation specialist
but switching to live action in the 1960s. His films ranged from art house
projects, such as Blanche (1971), to mildly pornographic fare, such as Contes
immoraux (Immoral Tales) (1974), which featured Countess Elizabeth Ba-
thory. Borowczyk achieved some notoriety for La Bête (The Beast) (1975),
which contained graphic images of bestiality and rape while still retaining
some of the conventions of art cinema. Other horror-related titles included
Lulu (1980), in which Udo Kier played Jack the Ripper, and Docteur Jekyll
et les femmes (Dr. Jekyll and His Women) (1981), with Kier as Jekyll. Bo-
rowczyk might have ended his career ignominiously with the likes of Emma-
 BOUSMAN, DARREN LYNN (1979–) • 51
nuelle V (1987), but his strange, surreal, sometimes shocking and sometimes
boring films have acquired a substantial cult following for what is seen as
their provocative transgressiveness.

BOTTIN, ROB (1959–). Like fellow makeup artist and mentor Rick Bak-
er, Rob Bottin’s career-making moment came with a werewolf transforma-
tion. With Baker, it was An American Werewolf in London (1981), while
with Bottin, it was Joe Dante’s The Howling (1981). Dante’s film had less of
a budget, but nevertheless Bottin created an impressive on-screen metamor-
phosis. Earlier, he had worked with Dante on Piranha (1978) and with John
Carpenter on The Fog (1980), for which he not only created the ghosts but
also played the lead ghost himself. A further collaboration with Carpenter
produced what was probably his finest achievement, the shape-shifting alien
monster in The Thing (1982). In what was one of the last great showcasing of
physical effects before the rise of computer-generated special effects, Bottin
created a surreal, astonishing, and disturbingly beautiful array of transforma-
tions. Also impressive was Bottin’s spectacular makeup for the Lord of
Darkness in Ridley Scott’s fantasy Legend (1985) and his design for the
cyborg cop in Robocop (1987). Bottin’s other horror credits include Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and Seven (1995),
for which he created some unnervingly realistic dead bodies.

BOUSMAN, DARREN LYNN (1979–). The American director Darren

Lynn Bousman is probably best known for his stewardship of the Saw cycle
during the high point of its popularity; he directed Saw II (2005), Saw III
(2006), and Saw IV (2007). While director James Wan had established the
format and style of the cycle with Saw (2004), Bousman successfully man-
aged the transition to a greater emphasis on the traps set for his victims by the
Jigsaw Killer. He also handled with some skill the increasingly complicated
and twisted overarching plot as it developed in temporally complicated ways
across the films.
Outside of the Saw cycle, the most distinctive feature of Bousman’s work
is his association with horror musicals, which is by no means a common
format in the genre. Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) was based on a stage
musical, while the short film The Devil’s Carnival (2012) and its feature-
length sequel Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2015) were original works.
More conventional was Mother’s Day (2010), a very loose remake of a
1980s original. 11-11-11 (2011) was a religious-themed supernatural thriller,
while The Barrens (2012) was an effective rural horror focusing on the
Jersey Devil folk legend. Bousman also directed the haunted house film
Abattoir (2016) and contributed to the horror anthology Tales of Halloween
(2015).
52 • BRADLEY, DOUG (1954–)
BRADLEY, DOUG (1954–). The British actor Doug Bradley is the demon
Pinhead in the Hellraiser films. The makeup was striking enough, with nails
hammered into the character’s head, but through the makeup Bradley was
also able to instill an impression both of grandeur and of melancholy. In
Hellraiser (1987), he was on-screen for only a few minutes, but his perfor-
mance was so memorable that he took center stage in the later films, which
were Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992),
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellraiser: Hell-
seeker (2002), Hellraiser: Deader (2005), and Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005).
In some of these films, he also played Pinhead’s human alter ego, an army
captain called Eliot Spencer. Earlier in his career, he had worked with Hell-
raiser writer-director Clive Barker both in the theater and on some experi-
mental short films, and he was reunited with him for a character role in
Barker’s Nightbreed (1990). Other horror roles include appearances in Pro-
teus (1995), La lengua asesina (The Killer Tongue) (1996), The Prophecy:
Uprising (2005), The Cottage (2008), Book of Blood (2009), and Exorcismus
(2010). He is also the author of a thoughtful book on acting in horror: Sacred
Monsters: Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor.

BRITISH HORROR. Great Britain has a rich tradition of gothic literature

stretching back to the 18th century. However, horror did not form a signifi-
cant part of British cinema until the mid-1950s. There was some limited
production of American-style horrors during the 1930s—among them the
British-born Boris Karloff vehicle The Ghoul (1933)—as well as a series of
lurid melodramas starring the appropriately named Tod Slaughter that had
some horror-like properties. However, the British censors’ disapproval of
this kind of material ensured its continued marginality. The outbreak of
World War II constrained yet further the possibilities for horror production,
and indeed the import of horror films into Britain was banned during the
conflict, presumably on the grounds that such films would lower morale.
This did not mean that fantasy elements were entirely absent from British
film production—one could find them, for example, in some of the films
directed by Michael Powell or the popular costume melodramas produced by
the Gainsborough company—but they often sat awkwardly with more propa-
gandistic imperatives.
The end of war was greeted by Powell’s extravagant fantasy A Matter of
Life and Death (1946) and Ealing Studios’ anthology of ghost stories, Dead
of Night (1945), but the times were not propitious for the horror genre. The
British censors were still disapproving, and the 1940s American horror
cycle was winding down into Bud Abbott and Lou Costello parodies.
Things had changed by 1957, when a small independent production company
called Hammer released its first color horror film: The Curse of Franken-
stein. Censorship had relaxed, and there was a new adult-only “X” film
 BRITISH HORROR • 53
certificate and also, as Hammer’s success demonstrated, a substantial public
appetite for horror fictions. Hammer capitalized on this through producing a
series of period horrors, including Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958), The
Mummy (1959), and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), many of which were
directed by Terence Fisher and starred new horror icons Peter Cushing and
Christopher Lee. Other companies also moved into this market, and direc-
tors such as Henry Cass, Robert Day, Freddie Francis, John Gilling, and
Sidney Hayers turned out a varied diet of horrors, ranging from Hammer-
like period dramas to contemporary-set films. Even Michael Powell contrib-
uted with his serial killer drama Peeping Tom (1960), the critical notoriety
of which allegedly shortened the director’s British career. From the early
1960s on, the Amicus company became Hammer’s main rival, specializing
in horror anthologies, such as Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) and
Torture Garden (1967). Meanwhile, films such as Jacques Tourneur’s
Night of the Demon (1957) and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), nei-
ther of which really connected with what was going on around them in the
genre but which were nevertheless highly distinguished pieces of work,
brought yet further variety to British horror. Later examples of innovative
British one-offs of this kind included Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now
(1973) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973).
On their initial release, films such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dra-
cula had proved controversial with critics. This shock effect had largely worn
off by the mid-1960s, and British horror had become an accepted part of the
British cinema scene. Things were changing in the horror genre, however. In
America, disturbing horrors, such as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and
Rosemary’s Baby (1968), were beginning to appear, and, in a comparable
British shift, a younger generation of filmmakers with more questioning
attitudes to social norms and institutions entered horror production. Chief
among them was the brilliant writer-director Michael Reeves; others in-
cluded directors Gordon Hessler, Peter Sasdy, Peter Sykes, and screen-
writer Christopher Wicking. Their films often sided with youth and criti-
cized the family unit or patriarchal authority as well as experimenting with
narrative structure. More innovation was taking place elsewhere in the Brit-
ish genre in the first part of the 1970s as filmmakers attempted to update the
old period formats for a changing market. Nudity featured with increasing
frequency; Hammer dabbled in lesbian vampire films as well as a kung fu
vampire film, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974); and a new
company called Tyburn bravely set out to make more period horrors at a time
when this type of horror was proving unpopular, especially in the crucial
American market.
The phenomenal success of the American horror film The Exorcist (1973)
encouraged the development of horrors with contemporary settings, with
period horror now looking decidedly old-fashioned. Although British horror
54 • BRITISH HORROR
had not been entirely wedded to period settings, it nevertheless struggled to
keep up with the American competition. Difficulties in obtaining funding for
British films during the 1970s also made life hard for horror producers.
Hammer made one more horror film, the contemporary-set Satanic thriller To
the Devil a Daughter (1976), before ceasing horror production. In the second
half of the 1970s, a few directors working in the low-budget exploitation
sector—notable among them Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren—made
some tough and violent contemporary horrors that, formally and thematical-
ly, had a lot in common with 1970s American horror, but this activity too
faded away by the end of the decade.
Given the popularity of British horror, it is surprising how few horror films
were made in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. Heritage films such as A
Room with a View (1985) or Howard’s End (1992), as well as gritty state-of-
the-nation films such as My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), caught the attention
of critics and achieved some commercial success, but the serial production of
popular genres such as horror was no longer a feature of British film produc-
tion. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) and Nightbreed (1990) were
American-funded, while Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves (1984) was
an isolated exercise in upmarket fantasy. In the same period, however, the
American production An American Werewolf in London (1981), directed by
John Landis, and Tobe Hooper’s science fiction/horror spectacular Life-
force (1985) made imaginative if highly stylized use of British locations and
characters.
The early 2000s saw a revival in the fortunes of British horror with the
likes of The Bunker (2001), Deathwatch (2002), My Little Eye (2002), 28
Days Later (2002), Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers (2002), the zombie come-
dy Shaun of the Dead (2004), Creep (2004), and Severance (2006), although
none of these films showed much interest in returning to traditional Hammer-
style formats. It was also, perhaps, a sign of the times that, while made by
British directors and deploying British actors, some of these new British
horror films were international coproductions shot wholly or partly outside of
Britain. Other British horrors followed, among them rural horror films,
such as The Children (2008), The Cottage (2008), Doghouse (2009), and The
Borderlands (2013), and more socially realist projects, such as The Disap-
peared (2008), Heartless (2009), F (The Expelled) (2010), and Outcast
(2010). Hammer Films, under new management, resumed production in this
period and had a notable commercial success with The Woman in Black
(2012), a period-set ghost story that starred Daniel Radcliffe. Together with
Dorian Gray (2009), the British-set American production The Wolfman
(2010), and Woman in Black: Angel of Death (2014), The Woman in Black
demonstrated that there was still interest in period horror, although this took
a very different form stylistically and thematically from that purveyed by
Hammer back in the 1950s and 1960s.
 BROWNING, TOD (1880–1962) • 55
BROOKS, MEL (1926–). The American writer-producer-director-perform-
er Mel Brooks has made two comedy horror films. Young Frankenstein
(1974) is a nostalgic tribute to Universal horror of the 1930s and 1940s that
displays a detailed awareness of its source material, reuses some of the origi-
nal props from the 1931 version of Frankenstein, and is shot in beautiful
black and white. It is also very funny. Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995),
which functions largely as a parody of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula
(1992), is a more hit-and-miss affair. However, any Dracula film in which a
character assumes that being nosferatu means that you are Italian does de-
serve some recognition. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

BROWNING, TOD (1880–1962). The American director Tod Browning—

whose real name was Charles Browning—was responsible for Universal’s
production of Dracula (1931), the commercial success of which helped to
establish the horror genre as a distinctive presence within 1930s American
cinema. However, Browning’s critical reputation as a horror pioneer is no-
where near as secure as that of his fellow Universal director, James Whale.
An often repeated criticism of Dracula is that its opening sequences are
impressive, but thereafter it is turgid and theatrical, as opposed to Whale’s
more consistently cinematic approach in Frankenstein (1931). Some have
gone so far as to attribute the quality of Dracula’s opening to the cinematog-
rapher Karl Freund, while others have compared the film with the Spanish-
language version of Dracula that was produced simultaneously on the same
sets and have found the Browning version wanting. Whatever the merits and
demerits of the 1931 Dracula—and it has undoubtedly dated more than the
1931 Frankenstein—it should be noted that it was an untypical project for
the director, whose artistic sensibilities were more evident in other types of
film, both those made before and those made after the distracting success of
Dracula.
Browning began as a director in pre-sound American cinema and worked
regularly with actor Lon Chaney, whose ability to transform his appearance
through an often grueling application of makeup became a key feature of his
stardom. As a young man, Browning had worked in carnivals and freak
shows, and he was probably the ideal director for the weird masochistic
dramas into which Chaney seemed drawn. Together, they made a series of
lurid melodramas, a number of which now seem decidedly horror-like—
notably The Unknown (1927) and London after Midnight (1927)—although
at the time these were not marketed as horror. London after Midnight, all
copies of which are now apparently lost, dealt with vampires, although—
characteristically for Browning, who, despite Dracula, never seemed that
interested in the supernatural—it eventually turned out that these vampires
were really actors in disguise. (Browning remade the film in 1935 as Mark of
the Vampire.) Chaney was the first choice for the part of Dracula, but he died
56 • BUECHLER, JOHN CARL
of cancer before this could come about, and it was Bela Lugosi, with whom
Browning had earlier worked on the mystery thriller The Thirteenth Chair
(1929), who took on the role.
The MGM production Freaks (1932), Browning’s first major post-Dracu-
la film, clearly connected more with his pre-Dracula work, but at the same
time it was remarkably confrontational, and one wonders how it ever got
made at all. Browning used real “freaks,” many of them carnival performers,
in a circus melodrama of the kind he had once directed with Chaney. The
freaks were thoroughly humanized, although the film never shied away from
detailing their unconventional bodies. Given the realism that this entailed, it
is actually hard to think of Freaks as a horror film, such is its difference from
the manufactured monstrosities being generated elsewhere in American cine-
ma at the time. Unsurprisingly, it was a much-banned project, and it remains
today a powerful and disturbing piece of work and arguably represents
Browning’s finest achievement as a filmmaker.
Browning’s subsequent films were more conventional. Mark of the Vam-
pire was another Lugosi vehicle, while The Devil-Doll (1936) was an oddity
about people being shrunk to miniature size. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

BUECHLER, JOHN CARL. The filmmaker John Carl Buechler began as a

special effects makeup artist but has also made occasional forays into film
direction, usually working on very low budget horror projects. These include
Troll (1986), Cellar Dweller (1988), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New
Blood (1988), Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College (1991), Watchers Re-
born (1998), Deep Freeze (2003), Curse of the Forty-Niner (2003), and The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006). Makeup credits include
Ghoulies (1985), From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987), Bride of Re-Animator
(1990), and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).

BURTON, TIM (1958–). The American director Tim Burton has managed
throughout his career to preserve an idiosyncratic approach to his subject
matter while still attracting large budgets. His work has often shown an
affection for classic horror and is also marked visually by the influence of the
gothic and of German expressionism. He began as an animator with two
striking Disney shorts that introduced his key theme—that of the outsider
who defines himself through horror-like behavior; in Vincent (1982), a little
boy wants to be Vincent Price (and Price himself provided the narration),
while in Frankenweenie (1984) another little boy brings his dog back to life
as a Frankenstein-like monster. Burton graduated to live-action direction
with the comedy Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and the comedy-horror
ghost story Beetle Juice (1988), the style of both of which displayed cartoon-
 BUTTGEREIT, JORG (1963–) • 57
like qualities. Batman (1989), his first major production, was more imperson-
al, although it had a distinctive look—which was part German expressionist,
part film noir—and the emphasis on the tortured outsider was retained from
Burton’s earlier work. Edward Scissorhands (1990) reunited the director
with Vincent Price in this story of a scissor-handed “monster” (played by
regular Burton collaborator Johnny Depp) trying to fit into normal society. In
essence, this was another reworking of the Frankenstein story, with the film
firmly identifying with the scientist’s creation rather than with the forces of
normality. This was followed by Batman Returns (1992), which was a more
self-consciously playful take on the superhero than the first film, with one of
the villains named after Max Schreck, the actor who played the vampire in
F. W. Murnau’s classic Nosferatu (1922). Ed Wood (1994) was a loving
biopic of the horror and exploitation director, who was figured here as yet
another romanticized Burtonesque outsider. The film also featured an Acade-
my Award–winning performance from Martin Landau as an aging Bela Lu-
gosi. Mars Attacks! (1996), a gory but comic alien invasion fantasy based on
a series of trading cards, resembled a big-budget version of some of the more
exploitative science fiction/horror hybrids of the 1950s, while Sleepy Hollow
(1999) was a beautifully staged period horror film containing a cameo from
yet another horror icon, this time Christopher Lee (who also showed up in
Burton’s 2005 production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Burton’s
other horror credits include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street (2007), an impressively dark and gory version of Stephen Sondheim’s
stage musical, and Dark Shadows (2012), a comedy vampire story loosely
based on the television series Dark Shadows (1966–1971). His Miss Per-
egrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) also contained some horror-like
elements.
Burton has retained an interest in animation, especially of the darker kind.
He produced the animated feature The Nightmare before Christmas (1993)
as well as codirecting Corpse Bride (2005) and directing a feature-length
remake of Frankenweenie (2012). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

BUTTGEREIT, JORG (1963–). Even by the often specialized standards of

the horror genre, the films of German director Jorg Buttgereit are an acquired
taste. Their relentlessly nasty scenarios combine extremely limited produc-
tion values with convincing representations of violence and atrocity. To his
fans, Buttgereit’s work offers a deeply serious meditation on the darker
aspects of life; to others, it is pretentious, boring, or just unwatchable. The
director’s best-known and most notorious film is Nekromantik (1987), in
which a necrophile couple steal a corpse and have a sexual threesome with it
(with this by no means the film’s most disturbing scene). Other credits in-
clude Der Todesking (The Death King) (1990), Nekromantik 2 (1991), and
Schramm (1993). See also GERMAN HORROR.
 C
CAMERON, JAMES (1954–). The writer-director James Cameron might
now be widely considered the king of action spectaculars, but he started out
working in horror. Early production credits include Galaxy of Terror (1981),
a Roger Corman–produced science fiction/horror hybrid designed to ex-
ploit the success of Alien (1979). Cameron’s directorial debut was the
American/Italian coproduction Piranha II: Flying Killers (also known as
Piranha II: The Spawning) (1981), a less-than-impressive sequel to Joe
Dante’s Piranha (1978). The Terminator (1984) made Cameron’s name as a
director of science fiction/action, although some critics have since noted the
film’s reliance on conventions associated with the slasher, namely, its repre-
sentations of an unstoppable killer and a heroic Final Girl. Aliens (1986),
Cameron’s next project, offered a masterfully choreographed coming togeth-
er of science fiction, action, and horror and remains one of the finest films of
its kind. Since then, Cameron has moved on to more “uplifting” projects. See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

CAMPBELL, BRUCE (1958–). The American actor Bruce Campbell

shows up in numerous low-budget genre films, but his cult reputation rests
largely on his performance as the long-suffering hero Ash in his old high
school friend Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and
Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3 (1992). Campbell brought a manic energy to
the role fully in keeping with the films’ excessive tone and threw himself into
some ultraviolent slapstick with complete abandon. By contrast, his perfor-
mance as an aging Elvis (or an Elvis impersonator; the film is deliberately
vague about this) in Don Coscarelli’s horror-fantasy Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
displayed moments of genuine pathos. Campbell also made cameo appear-
ances in Raimi’s Darkman (1990), Spiderman (2002), Spiderman 2 (2004),
and Spiderman 3 (2007) as well as featuring in, among others, Maniac Cop
(1988), Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Mindwarp (1990), Sundown: The Vampire in
Retreat (1991), Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992), Escape from L.A. (1996),
and From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999). He also directed and
starred in the comedy-horror Man with the Screaming Brain (2005). More

59
60 • CANADIAN HORROR
recently, he has returned to the role of Ash, first as a cameo in the remake
Evil Dead (2013) and then as the star of the television series Ash vs Evil
Dead (2015–).

CANADIAN HORROR. It has often been the fate of Canadian horror cine-
ma to be subsumed into American horror cinema. In part, this reflects the
fact that for economic reasons, American filmmakers have often shot their
films, horror or otherwise, in Canada. Canadian horror productions have also
sometimes played down their Canadian origins in the hope of appealing more
widely to American audiences. Be this as it may, Canadian horror, at least for
some parts of its history, has proved distinctive and has made some signifi-
cant contributions to the international development of the horror genre.
The weird 3D supernatural thriller The Mask (1961) is often seen as the
first Canadian horror film, but there was little sustained horror production in
the country until the 1970s. The most prominent Canadian horror filmmaker
to emerge in this period was David Cronenberg, whose gruesome 1970s
work—which included The Parasite Murders (They Came from Within, Shiv-
ers) (1975), Rabid (1977), and The Brood (1979)—helped to establish body
horror as a distinctive horror format. However, the extent to which this work
or later Cronenberg films, such as Scanners (1981) or Videodrome (1983),
can be seen as expressing a Canadian sensibility or Canadian-specific themes
or ideas is far from clear. Certainly, some critics have located him in a
specifically Canadian context, but others have preferred to treat his work in
more universal terms.
Other 1970s Canadian horrors were often isolated, offbeat affairs, none
more so than Ivan Reitman’s ultra-low-budget horror Cannibal Girls
(1973), which combined surreal humor with narrative obscurity and which
has subsequently attracted a cult following. The satanism thriller The Pyx
(1973) was slicker but less memorable, while the rape-revenge drama Death
Weekend (1976) anticipated material later dealt with by the American horror
I Spit on Your Grave (1978). Rituals (1977) was a rural horror that bor-
rowed some of its themes from John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972) but
that made highly effective use of its Canadian wilderness setting. Perhaps the
most significant 1970s Canadian horror, at least when seen in retrospect, was
Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974). Although not particularly successful
on its initial release, it is now widely seen as the film that establishes many of
the conventions of the slasher film—especially the extensive use of point of
view to characterize the killer—that would prove so popular from the late
1970s on in the likes of Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980).
Canadian film production companies would subsequently contribute directly
to that slasher cycle with the likes of the Jamie Lee Curtis vehicles Terror
Train (1980) and Prom Night (1980), the more upmarket Happy Birthday to
Me (1981), and the more downmarket My Bloody Valentine (1981).
 CANNIBALISM • 61
Canadian horror became a less noticeable genre presence throughout most
of the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1980s, Cronenberg moved away from
horror to more art house–based projects, while films such as the ghost story
The Changeling (1980), Death Ship (1980), and John Hough’s The Incubus
(1982) made little impact. From the late 1990s on, distinctive Canadian work
has appeared, although as before this has tended to take the form of interest-
ing but isolated projects. Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (1997) was an innovative
science fiction/horror hybrid, and Natali would go on to direct the impres-
sive Frankenstein-themed Splice (2009). The idiosyncratic Canadian direc-
tor Guy Maddin offered a ballet version of Dracula in Dracula: Pages from
a Virgin’s Diary (2002), and Pontypool (2008) was an unusual zombie film
in which the vector for infection turns out to be language itself. However, the
most well received Canadian horror film of recent times is probably Ginger
Snaps (2000), which dealt with female werewolves and the success of which
generated both a sequel and a prequel. The edgy and provocative horror
work of Canadian filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska, which includes Dead
Hooker in a Trunk (2009) and American Mary (2012), has also attracted
international attention.

CANNIBALISM. The horror genre has always been attracted to socially

taboo subjects, so it was perhaps inevitable that at some point it would
encounter cannibalism. However, the disturbing nature of the subject ensured
that 1930s and 1940s horror hardly ever went anywhere near it—the mad
scientist film Doctor X (1932) offered a rare and brief passing reference—
while 1950s horror invoked it only subtly and indirectly, notably in Ham-
mer’s The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), in which the monster acquired a
barely mentioned taste for human flesh. Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood
Feast (1963) was more direct and graphic, but it was George Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead (1968) that brought cannibalism to the fore
through the introduction of flesh-eating zombies into the horror genre. A
good deal of Night’s iconoclastic edginess derived from its unflinching por-
trayal of the consumption of human flesh, and subsequently other zombie
films—including work from Romero and a group of Italian zombie films—
explored the gory possibilities of this scenario. Another strain of equally
hard-edged cinematic cannibalism that emerged during the 1970s involved
the presentation of degraded working-class characters as flesh eaters in films
as various as Gary Sherman’s Death Line (Raw Meat) (1972), Tobe Hoop-
er’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Pete Walker’s Frightmare
(1974), Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and Kevin Connor’s
Motel Hell (1980). Both Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and Antonia
Bird’s Ravenous (1999) made reference to the Donner party, a real-life inci-
dent of 19th-century American cannibalism, to underline how civilized be-
havior can collapse when confronted with the wilderness; the horror-western
62 • CARLSON, VERONICA (1944–)
Bone Tomahawk (2015) also offered scenes of cannibalism in a frontier
setting. Italian horror cinema of the 1970s presented a series of mock-
anthropological exposés of jungle-based natives indulging in cannibalism,
among them Ruggero Deodato’s Ultimo mondo cannibale (Cannibal)
(1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980). These are often categorized as hor-
ror, although they have more in common, thematically at least, with the
Italian mondo sensationalist documentary tradition.
All these forms of cannibalism share the sense of it as a primitive activity
occurring in the context of the decline or absence of modern civilization.
Potentially more disturbing are those films in which the cannibals are pre-
sented as apparently “normal” individuals making what in effect is a lifestyle
choice. Notable here are Il profumo della signora in nero (Perfume of the
Lady in Black) (1974), which depicted a cannibal cult operating in contempo-
rary Italy; Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974); the black comedy-horror Eating
Raoul (1982); and Parents (1989). Most significant in this respect is master
serial killer Hannibal Lecter, whose cannibalism in Jonathan Demme’s The
Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001) has become
an expression of a bon viveur’s excellent taste.

CARLSON, VERONICA (1944–). The actor Veronica Carlson was a stat-

uesque blonde presence in British horror cinema from the late 1960s to the
mid-1970s. For Hammer, she was the female lead in Freddie Francis’s
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) and the tragic heroine of Terence
Fisher’s Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969). She was also in Horror of
Frankenstein (1970), writer-director Jimmy Sangster’s unsuccessful at-
tempt to restart Hammer’s Frankenstein cycle with a younger cast. Her later
genre credits include the comedy-horror Vampira (1974) and, for the Tyburn
company, The Ghoul (1974). Two decades later, she showed up in the
American horror film Freakshow (1995).

CARPENTER, JOHN (1948–). John Carpenter has made a significant con-

tribution to American horror cinema not just as a director but also as a
screenwriter and a composer. His first two feature films—the science fiction
comedy Dark Star (1974) and the stylish urban thriller Assault on Precinct
13 (1976)—contained mild horror-like elements, but it was his third film that
established him as a horror auteur. Halloween (1978) is now often seen as
the first slasher film. Its huge commercial success spawned numerous imita-
tions, although very few of these were as effective as Carpenter’s original.
Halloween’s story was deceptively simple. Three young women are terror-
ized by a masked killer on Halloween night. However, Carpenter’s innova-
tive direction generated both suspense and shock, and his characterizations
were more nuanced than is often the case with this type of low-budget horror.
 CARPENTER, JOHN (1948–) • 63
He should also receive some of the credit for popularizing the now standard
horror convention that the monster makes a sudden reappearance just when
everyone thinks it is dead (although the 1967 psychological thriller Wait
until Dark tried this idea out first). Crucial to the film was Carpenter’s
haunting synthesizer-based score, and the director would go on to write
scores for most of his other films.
While 1970s and 1980s American horror films from the likes of Larry
Cohen, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, and George Romero contain ele-
ments of social critique, Carpenter’s work has tended instead to privilege
style and effects (often shock effects). This is certainly the case with Hallo-
ween, in which the idea that the killer is actually the product of the small
town in which the film takes place is gradually supplanted by his presenta-
tion as an unstoppable, quasi-supernatural killing machine. It is also the case
for Carpenter’s directorial follow-up to Halloween, the ghost story The Fog
(1980). Here, ghosts take revenge on a town that was founded on treasure
stolen from them many years before, but again Carpenter is more interested
in conjuring up a sinister atmosphere than he is in exploring some of the
social ramifications of such a story. The Thing (1982), Carpenter’s ambitious
reworking of Howard Hawks’s production The Thing from Another World
(1951), was a claustrophobic and paranoid drama featuring some impressive
special effects from Rob Bottin, although its isolated setting also distanced it
from any sense of social reality.
As far as Carpenter’s other films are concerned, Christine (1983) is one of
the better adaptations of a Stephen King novel, while Prince of Darkness
(1987, written by Carpenter under the name “Martin Quatermass”) and In the
Mouth of Madness (1994) are good examples of apocalyptic horror that
also display the influence of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Car-
penter’s more recent work—including Village of the Damned (1995), Vam-
pires (1998), Ghosts of Mars (2001), and The Ward (2010)—has been un-
even but nevertheless has contained noteworthy sequences. Reflecting his
association with the horror genre, some of Carpenter’s non-horror work has
also referenced horror traditions. Notable here are the futuristic thrillers Es-
cape from New York (1981) and its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996), the
action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the alien invasion fantasy
They Live (1988), and the comedy Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992).
Carpenter also directed for television the psychological thriller Someone’s
Watching Me (1978), coscripted the upmarket slasher The Eyes of Laura
Mars (1978), coscripted and produced Halloween II (1981), produced Hallo-
ween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and directed a segment of the horror
anthology television movie Body Bags (1993) and an episode of the televi-
sion series Masters of Horror (2005–). He has also released two albums of
original compositions: Lost Themes (2015) and Lost Themes II (2016).
64 • CARRADINE, JOHN (1906–1988)
CARRADINE, JOHN (1906–1988). The American actor John Carradine
had a long but not always distinguished career in horror cinema. He was also
a successful stage performer and appeared regularly in other genres, but from
the late 1950s on he became increasingly associated with horror. He had
walk-on parts in The Invisible Man (1933), The Black Cat (1934), and Bride
of Frankenstein (1935), but starring roles did not come until the 1940s,
when he was cast as a mad scientist in some low-budget projects. He turned
an orangutan into a woman in Captive Wild Woman (1943), tried to create
pro-Nazi zombies in Revenge of the Zombies (1943), and sought yet again to
resuscitate the dead in The Face of Marble (1946). He also acted alongside
Bela Lugosi in Monogram cheapies Voodoo Man (1944) and Return of the
Ape Man (1944). Roles for Universal were more upmarket. He was the
mummy’s acolyte in The Mummy's Ghost (1944), and this was followed by
his most memorable 1940s role, that of Dracula in House of Frankenstein
(1944) and House of Dracula (1945). Carradine’s vampire lacked Lugosi’s
exoticism or the brutality of Lon Chaney Jr.’s version in the earlier Son of
Dracula (1943), but he was infinitely more dapper than either and better
suited to the rather decorous world of 1940s Universal horror.
With a few notable exceptions, Carradine’s horror work from the 1950s on
was generally of much lower quality, as he insisted on showing up in inde-
pendently produced films that made Monogram horrors look expensive. His
credits in this period are too numerous to list here, but titles such as Hillbillys
in a Haunted House (1967), The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals
(1969), and Vampire Hookers (1978) are fairly representative. He returned to
the role of Dracula on several occasions, for an American television drama in
1956, and in more exploitative fashion for Billy the Kid versus Dracula
(1966), which, as its title suggested, was a horror-western, and the Mexican
horror Las Vampiras (1968).
There were a few moments of dignity in the latter part of Carradine’s
career, however. He cheerfully parodied his mad scientist persona in the
horror episode of Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know
about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972), was entertaining as an aged were-
wolf in Joe Dante’s The Howling (1981), provided able support in the New
Zealand horror film The Scarecrow (1982), and appeared alongside Peter
Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price in House of the Long Shad-
ows (1983), Pete Walker’s affectionate tribute to classic horror.
Other later credits of interest include The House of Seven Corpses (1974),
The Sentinel (1977), Shock Waves (1977), and The Monster Club (1980).

CARRERAS, JAMES (1909–1990). Sir James Carreras was the British

showman behind Hammer horror during the period of its greatest commer-
cial success. The son of Enrique Carreras, one of Hammer’s founders, he
became managing director of the company in the late 1940s. He oversaw the
 CARRIE (1976) • 65
production of a stream of low-budget thrillers in the first half of the 1950s
and, from the late 1950s on, after the success of The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957), guided Hammer’s transformation into a horror factory. By all ac-
counts, Carreras showed little interest either in the filmmaking process or in
the horror genre but instead concentrated on raising finances for films, often
on the basis of just a title and a poster, and marketing the Hammer product.
He was once quoted as saying “We’re in the business to make money, not to
win Oscars. If the public decided tomorrow that it wanted Strauss waltzes,
we’d be in the Strauss waltz business.” Fortunately for horror fans, the
public never made that switch, and Hammer horror has become an indispens-
able part of horror history. Carreras was knighted in 1970 for his services to
charity. He was the father of writer-producer-director Michael Carreras.
See also BRITISH HORROR.

CARRERAS, MICHAEL (1927–1994). Michael Carreras was the son of

Hammer chief James Carreras and ran the company himself for part of the
1970s. He was involved with Hammer from its beginnings and went on to
become producer or executive producer on some of its major horror films,
including The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (Horror of Dracula)
(1958), The Mummy (1959), and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). He was
also a competent director who made some of Hammer’s more conventional
films—notably Maniac (1963), one of its psychological thrillers, and the
period horror The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)—as well as some of
its oddest—namely, the exotic adventures Slave Girls (Prehistoric Women)
(1967) and The Lost Continent (1968). He finished Blood from the Mummy’s
Tomb (1971) when Seth Holt, the original director, died a week before the
end of production and directed one of Hammer’s final feature films: the
thriller Shatter (1974). In addition, he wrote screenplays, sometimes under
his own name and sometimes under the pseudonyms Henry Younger (The
Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, Slave Girls) and Michael Nash (The Lost
Continent). He occasionally attempted to lead Hammer away from its reli-
ance on period horror, although the results of this were mixed. The prehistor-
ic fantasy One Million Years B.C. (1966), which he wrote and produced,
turned out to be one of Hammer’s most successful productions, while the
science fiction/western Moon Zero Two (1969) was something of a disaster.
See also BRITISH HORROR.

CARRIE (1976). Carrie is an inventive reworking of the “ugly duckling”

theme in which a bullied teenage girl eventually unleashes her awesome
telekinetic powers on her tormentors. It is an important American horror
film for several reasons. It was the first of many screen adaptations of the
work of Stephen King, and, more than most of these, it offered a reasonably
66 • CASTLE, WILLIAM (1914–1977)
accurate rendition of King’s distinctive world. It was the most commercially
successful horror project from director Brian De Palma, whose formal inno-
vations were seamlessly integrated into the narrative. It also made an impor-
tant contribution to the development of teenage horror in its detailed depic-
tion of high school life, although its influence would not be fully evident
until the emergence of slasher films in the late 1970s. Finally, its now
famous shock ending—in which an apparently dead Carrie makes an unex-
pected reappearance—was a major example of the jump scare or startle
effect that would become a key principle in later horrors.
Carrie has also proved a source of fascination for horror critics. In particu-
lar, the association of Carrie’s telekinetic power with menstruation has pro-
voked debate about the film’s sexual politics and the extent to which it might
or might not be seen as misogynist. There is no critical consensus about this.
One thing is certain, however. Sissy Spacek’s performance as Carrie White
renders her one of the most memorable, sympathetic, and affecting of all
horror’s monsters.
Carrie might seem unusual source material for a stage musical, but never-
theless the musical Carrie—with music by Michael Gore and lyrics by Dean
Pitchford—opened first in Britain and then flopped spectacularly on Broad-
way in 1988. The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) was a belated film sequel that, as
directed by Katt Shea, depicted the exploits of Carrie’s half sister but made
little impact at the box office. A television remake of the original Carrie
appeared in 2002, and another remake, this time for the big screen, followed
in 2013, with Chloë Grace Moretz in the role of Carrie.

CASTLE, WILLIAM (1914–1977). The American producer-director

William Castle often seemed more interested in the effects his horror films
would have on audiences than he was in the content of the films themselves.
He was the master of gimmicks during a period when cinema attendance was
in decline and showmanship of his kind was required to entice potential
customers into film theaters. Already established as a director of low-budget
support features, he was apparently inspired by the success in the United
States of the French psychological thriller Les Diaboliques (1955) to try his
own hand at horror thrillers. His first attempt was Macabre (1958). Essential-
ly a crime narrative—in which the protagonist desperately attempts to dis-
cover where his daughter has been buried alive—with a Diaboliques-like
twist ending, it was marketed as a film that was horrifying and fearful. As
part of this marketing, Castle ensured his audiences with Lloyds of London
against dying of fright. (No one did, apparently.) This set the pattern for his
subsequent gimmicks, which combined outrageousness with an ingratiating
jokiness. It is hard to imagine anyone taking them too seriously, but they
were an enjoyable augmentation of the horror experience.
 CATS • 67
Next came House on Haunted Hill (1959), starring Vincent Price. This
was more convincing as a horror film and contained some successful jump
scares or startle effects. However, it tends to be remembered now for its
gimmick, which was known as Emergo. This involved a skeleton on wires
being paraded in front of the screen at a climactic moment in the film. The
Tingler (1959), which also featured Price, was better yet as a film, dealing
this time with a monster that literally feeds on fear. It was filmed in black and
white, although some prints burst into color during a scene of bloodshed. The
major gimmick was much sillier and remains one of Castle’s most famous.
Percepto entailed wiring buzzers into some cinema seats and using these to
give patrons “shocks” during the film. Audiences for 13 Ghosts (1960) could
see the ghosts only if they wore special tinted glasses, the Psycho-inspired
thriller Homicidal (1961) had a fright break in which patrons too scared to
see the ending of the film could go to the box office and get their money
back, while for Mr. Sardonicus (1961) the audience got to vote on which of
two endings they were shown—one in which the villain suffered and another
in which he did not. (Apparently, audiences nearly always chose the conclu-
sion involving suffering.)
This marked the end of Castle’s gimmick period. Subsequent horrors—
which included a remake of the classic James Whale comedy-horror The
Old Dark House (1963) and more Hitchcockian shenanigans in the Joan
Crawford vehicles Strait-Jacket (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965)—
were more straightforward. His career took an unexpected turn when, as the
owner of the screen rights for the novel Rosemary’s Baby, he got to produce
the successful film adaptation, although he had little creative input into a
work that was very much shaped by its director, Roman Polanski. The
subtle combination of horror and humor in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) seemed
a world apart from Castle’s more showman-like approach to the genre. His
final horror credit was as producer of Bug (1975), a revenge of nature film
directed by Jeannot Swarzc that dealt with insects capable of, in Castle’s
words, “belching fire from their behinds.”
The title of Castle’s autobiography sums up his attitude to filmmaking:
Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America—Memoirs of a B-
Movie Mogul. The movie showman featured in Joe Dante’s Matinee (1993)
is, in part at least, a fond re-creation of Castle. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

CATS. Horror filmmakers have regularly exploited the association of our

feline friends with evil and sinister matters. Pathological fear of cats is a plot
element in The Black Cat (1934) and Eye of the Cat (1969), and malign,
vengeful, or downright murderous cats appear in The Cat Creeps (1946),
Shadow of the Cat (1961), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), Torture Garden
(1967), La noche de los mil gatos (Night of 1000 Cats) (1972), Persecution
68 • CENSORSHIP
(1974), The Uncanny (1977), The Kiss (1988), and Due occhi diabolici (Two
Evil Eyes) (1990), while the cat-like mewling of the ghost boy in Ju-On: The
Grudge (2003) is one of contemporary horror’s more unnerving sounds.
However, the cats in Cat People (1942, remade in 1982) and Cat Girl (1957)
turn out to be big jungle cats rather than domestic pussies. Rare representa-
tions of heroic cats are offered by Cat’s Eye (1985) and Sleepwalkers (1992),
and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) features a cat assassin—or
hit-cat—doling out justifiable revenge for crimes against its species. By
contrast, Jones, the spaceship cat in Alien (1979), is something of a coward.

CENSORSHIP. Given the provocative and extreme nature of much horror

imagery, it is perhaps not surprising that conflict with the censors has been a
constant theme in the history of the horror genre, although the nature of that
conflict has changed over the years. The concern with public morality and
the promotion of appropriate social mores that drove censorship during the
1930s has in more recent times been displaced by an effects-based approach
to images of sexuality and violence. Thus, the attitudes behind the decision to
cut the line “Now I know what it’s like to be God” from Universal’s 1931
version of Frankenstein or the 1930s British censors’ attempts to discourage
the production of horror films altogether now seem the product of another
age and another cultural mind-set. However, British censorship has retained a
vaguely paternalistic quality in its decisions about what the general public
should see, while the American approach—especially after the introduction
of the ratings system in the late 1960s—has, to a limited extent, been less
intrusive. In fact, national differences abound in censorship practices, with
horror films being passed uncut in one territory only to be banned altogether
in another. For example, Freaks (1932) and Island of Lost Souls (1932) were
not shown in Britain for many years after their release in the United States,
and other horror classics, such as Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes without a
Face) (1959), Peeping Tom (1960), and Witchfinder General (1968), have
also experienced censorship difficulties in a number of countries. It usually
seems to be the case that censorship becomes an issue when a new type of
horror appears or when new ways of viewing horror are made available—
notably, anxieties about horror on video in the British “video nasties” scare
of the 1980s. Ironically, it is the development of new viewing technologies
that has recently helped to loosen any national censor’s control over what is
seen or not seen in any national cinema, with uncut versions from other
territories now often available to discerning horror fans via Internet DVD
purchasing or downloading.
Censorship has not just had a negative influence on horror, however. Can-
ny filmmakers and distributors have on more than one occasion used the
notoriety deriving from their brushes with censorship as a marketing device.
For example, Hammer titled its science fiction/horror hybrid The Quater-
 CHANEY, LON (1883–1930) • 69
mass Xperiment (1955) in order to exploit the new adults-only X certificate
that had been introduced in Britain in the early 1950s, while the British
horror Creep (2004) used as its advertising slogan the British Board of Film
Classification’s consumer advice “Contains strong bloody violence.” In addi-
tion, DVD releases of previously banned horror films often highlight their
“forbidden” status. This suggests that disreputability is an integral part of the
horror experience and that the censors have had a role to play in this.

CHANEY, LON (1883–1930). The American actor Lon Chaney has often
been thought of as one of the first great horror stars. However, this master of
disguise, dubbed “the man of a thousand faces,” was by no means confined
to horror-like dramas but also made an impression in crime films and melo-
dramas. In fact, even those Chaney films now considered horror—notably
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925),
and London after Midnight (1927)—were seen more as romantic melodramas
or thrillers at the time of their initial release. Notwithstanding this, the pathos
that Chaney was able to endow on physically repellent creatures such as
Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Erik in The Phantom of
the Opera has set a standard for later horror monsters, notably Franken-
stein’s monster in Universal’s 1930s horror cycle. In addition, the pain he
was prepared to inflict on himself in order to achieve a convincing makeup
design has also resonated through horror history, with later horror stars such
as Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee similarly suffering for their art, al-
though perhaps not to the extent that Chaney did. One of Chaney’s special-
ties was limbless characters—in films such as The Penalty (1920) and The
Unknown (1927)—and the self-mutilating quality evident in many of his
performances arguably spoke to a public fascination with broken and crip-
pled bodies that some historians have traced back to the traumatic experience
of World War I.
Chaney frequently collaborated with director Tod Browning, whose inter-
est in the carnival and the grotesque suited him perfectly to the actor. Their
vampire story London after Midnight is frequently cited as one of the horror
genre’s most significant lost films. Given that Browning went on to direct the
Universal Dracula (1931), Chaney would have been the obvious choice to
play the vampire. Sadly, he died of throat cancer before that could happen,
and Bela Lugosi became the first horror star of the sound period instead. The
image of the legless woman that appears at the end of Browning’s Freaks
(1932) can be seen as a testament to Chaney’s perverse but compelling
legacy. Decades later, the biopic The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
offered a somewhat romanticized version of Chaney’s life story and featured
James Cagney as the actor. Chaney’s son Creighton went on to become a
horror star under the name Lon Chaney Jr. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.
70 • CHANEY, LON, JR. (1906–1973)
CHANEY, LON, JR. (1906–1973). Lon Chaney Jr.’s real first name was
Creighton, but he changed it to Lon, after his film star father Lon Chaney, to
help his acting career; some films billed him as Lon Chaney Jr., while others
omitted the Jr.. His first major role was as the hulking simpleton Lenny in Of
Mice and Men (1939), and he continued to perform ably in supporting roles
in a range of genres (he was in High Noon, for example). However, stardom
came with his performances in 1940s American horror cinema. He was the
only actor to play all four of Universal’s main monsters—Dracula, Fran-
kenstein’s monster, the mummy, and the Wolf Man—but it was the role of
werewolf Lawrence Talbot that he made his own.
His first horror film was Universal’s Man Made Monster (1941), in which
he was the victim of a mad scientist’s experiment. He subsequently devel-
oped his ability to generate pathos in The Wolf Man (1941). This was Univer-
sal’s attempt to restart its werewolf cycle after Werewolf of London (1935).
Chaney played the son of the local squire who gets bitten by what he believes
is a wolf and is thereafter doomed to become a werewolf. The actor managed
the transitions from complacent self-control to introspection and terror very
effectively; his later renditions of this character would lack some of the
nuances apparent here.
Chaney next took over from Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster in
The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). Presumably, the rationale behind this
piece of casting was that the pathos of the Wolf Man would in some way be
carried over into the monster, but Chaney looked uncomfortable, with his
performance crudely gestural and with none of the subtleties that Karloff
brought to the part. Much the same could be said of his turn as the mummy in
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), with Chaney again giving the impression of
being ill at ease in a part where he was completely submerged in heavy
makeup (unlike Karloff or Christopher Lee, both of whom could success-
fully emote in such circumstances). At least with the Wolf Man, he remained
in human form most of the time. He was back as Talbot in Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man (1943), the first of Universal’s multimonster films. He
also offered an interesting if not entirely successful performance as Count
Dracula in the misleadingly titled Son of Dracula (1943), a film in which
there is no sign that the vampire is anything other than Dracula himself.
Chaney played him as a charmless but physically imposing bully rather than
the lounge lizard the Count became when John Carradine subsequently
took over the part.
Chaney’s later career was less successful. He was the mummy again in
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (1944) and Talbot
again in House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948); he also starred in a series of weird
mysteries based on the radio series Inner Sanctum—among them the witch-
craft drama Weird Woman (1944). His 1950s horror credits were all minor,
 CHILDREN • 71
including low-budget projects such as Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The Black
Sleep (1956), The Cyclops (1957), and The Alligator People (1959). He also
played Frankenstein’s monster again on television in 1952 as well as hosting
the horror anthology series 13 Demon Street (1959–1960), episodes of
which were cut together for the film The Devil’s Messenger (1961). The
1960s were a little better but not much. He returned to the role of the were-
wolf in the Mexican horror film La casa del terror (The House of Terror)
(1960), parts of which were later cannibalized for Face of the Screaming
Werewolf (1964). More dignified was his supporting role in Roger Cor-
man’s The Haunted Palace (1963) and his performance as a menacing war-
lock in Don Sharp’s stylish British horror Witchcraft (1964). Sadly, his
final credits were not of this quality. They were House of the Black Death
(1965), Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors (1967), Hillbillys in a Haunted
House (1967), the idiosyncratic Spider Baby (1968), and, his final film, Dra-
cula versus Frankenstein (1971).

CHILDREN. The first notable appearance of a child in a horror film is

probably that of the little girl (played by Marilyn Harris) in Frankenstein
(1931) who was accidentally drowned by Frankenstein’s monster (played by
Boris Karloff). This fairly conventional representation of the child as a
threatened innocent has recurred in later horror films—for example, in Val
Lewton’s The Curse of the Cat People (1944), Robert Wise’s Audrey Rose
(1977), Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist
(1982), M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999), Guillermo del
Toro’s El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone) (2001), and Alejan-
dro Amenabar’s The Others (2001).
Horror’s depiction of children as evil or monstrous has proved more
shocking and controversial. There is something to be said for the idea that
such representations have articulated anxieties about perceived failings in
social authority, particularly as they relate to the family. A first hint that
something might be wrong with the family was provided by The Bad Seed
(1956), in which a blonde, pigtailed little girl was revealed as a sociopathic
murderer. Comparably murderous were the powerful alien children in the
science fiction/horror hybrid Village of the Damned (1960), while Mario
Bava’s Operazione paura (Kill, Baby . . . Kill!) (1966) featured a vengeful
ghost in the shape of a young girl. However, what might be termed the
“golden age” of monstrous and rebellious children was inaugurated in 1968
by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, in which the baby Antichrist is
born, and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, in which a zombified
little girl eats her own father’s flesh and stabs her mother to death. A few
years later, The Exorcist (1973) took this to another level with its ground-
breaking representation of a girl transformed into a foul-mouthed, violent
monster. As was the case with Night of the Living Dead, the child in The
72 • CHILDREN’S HORROR
Exorcist was in herself innocent, but, like zombification, demonic possession
afforded an iconoclastic opportunity to depict a young person behaving very
badly indeed. By contrast, The Omen (1976) featured an irredeemably evil
child in Damien, the Antichrist, whose birth signaled the coming end of the
world, while other demonic children show up in the Spanish horror La
endemoniada (The Possessed) (1975) and the American horror Case 39
(2009).
Monstrous babies and dangerous children have also appeared in The
House That Dripped Blood (1970), The Other (1972), Larry Cohen’s It’s
Alive (1974), David Cronenberg’s The Parasite Murders (They Came from
Within, Shivers) (1975) and The Brood (1979), The Child (1977), John Car-
penter’s Halloween (1978), the Stephen King adaptations Children of the
Corn (1984) and Pet Sematary (1989), and the British horror films Nothing
But the Night (1972), I Don’t Want to Be Born (The Devil within Her)
(1975), The Godsend (1980), and The Children (2008) and the Spanish
Quién puede matar a un niño? (Island of the Damned, Would You Kill a
Child?) (1976). However, the evil child in Orphan (2009) turns out to be an
adult masquerading as a child. See also FAMILY HORROR.

CHILDREN’S HORROR. The idea that horror films might be suitable for
audiences of preadolescent children is a relatively new one. Scary or horror-
like elements have featured occasionally in films for children, such as in
some Disney animated features, but this was usually in the context of fairy-
tale narratives where the scariness was limited and firmly dispelled at the
end. Disney dabbled in live-action child-focused horror with John Hough’s
The Watcher in the Woods (1980), but the result was not successful. Two
short animated films made by Tim Burton for Disney were also not widely
distributed at the time of their production: Vincent (1982) featured the voice
of horror star Vincent Price, while Frankenweenie (1984) told of a pet dog
brought back from the dead. More popular were a series of animated features
that from the early 1990s on wholeheartedly embraced horror elements with-
in child- or family-centered viewing contexts. Leading the way was A Night-
mare before Christmas (1993), followed by Corpse Bride (2005), Monster
House (2006), Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012), and a feature-length
remake of Frankenweenie (2012).
Live-action horror for children has proved rarer, perhaps because the dis-
tance from the horror provided by animation’s stylization is not available to
it. However, Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) and its sequel Gremlins 2: The
New Batch (1990), Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad (1987), Nicolas
Roeg’s The Witches (1990), and Goosebumps (2015), which was based on R.
L. Stine’s best-selling children’s horror novel series, are all credible horror
narratives directed at child or family audiences, with any disturbing elements
ameliorated by humor.
 CHINESE HORROR • 73
CHINESE HORROR. Examples of Chinese horror cinema from the prerev-
olutionary era are few and far between. The silent production Yanzhi (1925)
is sometimes cited as the first Chinese horror film, although it seems to be a
lost film. However, the small number of early Chinese horrors that are avail-
able suggest a type of genre cinema that sometimes drew on Western horror
conventions but that had a distinctive folkloric character of its own and relied
on ghosts in a manner that allied it to other Asian horror traditions. Maxu
Weibang’s Ye ban ge sheng (Midnight Song) (1937), a reworking of the
Phantom of the Opera story, has been seen by some historians as the first
major Chinese horror production. The same director made Gu wu xing shi ji
(Tales of a Corpse-Ridden Old House) (1938) and Ma feng nu (Leper Wom-
an) (1939) as well as Ye ban ge sheng xu ji (Midnight Song II) (1941) and the
Hong Kong production Qiong lou hen (The Haunted House, A Maid’s Bitter
Story) (1949). Later Chinese ghost stories, often made in Hong Kong, in-
cluded Yan shi huan hun ji (Beauty Raised from the Dead) (1956), Ching nu
yu hun (The Enchanting Shadow) (1960), and King Hu’s well-regarded inter-
national success Hsia nu (A Touch of Zen) (1969).
Horror films produced within the Hong Kong film industry from the 1970s
to the 1990s were more widely distributed internationally and are conse-
quently better known in the West. They also make greater use of Western
conventions while still retaining an Asian focus on ghosts and demons as the
principal threats. Especially popular were knockabout kung fu–type comedy-
horrors, such as Gui da gui (Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind, Spooky
Encounters) (1980) and Ren xia ren (The Dead and the Deadly) (1982), both
of which starred portly martial arts comedian Sammo Hung. The similarly
themed Geung si sin sang (Mr. Vampire) (1985) and its sequels featured a
hopping cadaver as a source of much slapstick humor. Considerably slicker
were the Tsui Hark–produced Chinese Ghost Story films, beginning with
Sinnui yauwan (A Chinese Ghost Story) (1987). Based on the much filmed
writings of Pu Songling (1640–1715), Sinnui yauwan was a commercially
appealing mix of folkloric material with high-tech special effects. Underlin-
ing the breadth of Hong Kong production, films of this kind mingled both
with the more subtle treatment of ghosts found in Stanley Kwan’s Yin ji kau
(Rouge) (1987) and with Category III “adult-only” films that offered grim-
mer tales of serial killers, such as Gou yeung yi sang (Dr. Lamb) (1992), and
cannibalism, such as Baat sin faan dim ji yan yuk cha siu baau (The Untold
Story) (1993).
However, Chinese horror has played only a minor role in a popular cycle
of East Asian horror that was kick-started in the late 1990s by the interna-
tional success of the Japanese horror Ringu (Ring) (1998). The Hong
Kong–Singapore production The Eye (2002), which was directed by Danny
and Oxide Pang, was a rare example of a Chinese contribution to this cycle,
74 • CHRISTMAS
one that generated two sequels and an American remake. Chinese filmmak-
ers also contributed segments to the Asian horror anthologies Three (2002)
and Three . . . Extremes (2004).
A comprehensive history of Chinese horror cinema remains to be written,
but even a superficial glance at the films that are available reveals a type of
genre product that merits further attention.

CHRISTMAS. One might have thought that Halloween would be the sea-
sonal event most favored by horror filmmakers. However, Christmas has also
proved a popular attraction, partly because of the possibility of creating
dissonance between the ostensible good cheer of the season and the tradition-
al bad feelings associated with horror, but also because of opportunities to
discover pagan rituals lurking beneath a Christian surface. Deranged and
murderous Father Christmases show up in the British horror Tales from the
Crypt (1972), the idiosyncratic Christmas Evil (1980), and Silent Night,
Deadly Night (1984). By contrast, Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), Bob
Clark’s proto-slasher Black Christmas (1974), Joe Dante’s Gremlins
(1984), the animated feature The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), and
Dead End (2003) deploy Christmas as a seasonal backdrop to a series of
horrifying events. The Finnish film Rare Exports (2010) explores the folklor-
ic roots of Santa Claus, eventually revealing him to be a large, demonic,
horned figure buried in the ice, as does the Dutch horror Sint (2010), which
features “Sinterklass” returning from the dead to cause murder and mayhem.
The comedy-horror Krampus (2015) focuses on another figure from Euro-
pean folklore, a kind of anti–Santa Claus who punishes children for their
sins; the film is appropriately mean-spirited throughout in its negative depic-
tion of Christmas. Krampus also shows up in the horror anthology A Christ-
mas Horror Story (2015), which additionally features zombie elves.
In the face of such nastiness, it is worth remembering that Christmas had a
strong cultural association with the supernatural and the ghostly long before
the horror film came along. The most famous expression of this was, of
course, Charles Dickens’s 1843 story A Christmas Carol, the numerous film
versions of which have often featured horror-like elements before the gloom
is dispelled by the inevitable happy ending. This ghostly tradition has been
maintained in the modern period, albeit mainly on television with the British
series A Ghost Story for Christmas, which ran between 1971 and 1978.

CLARK, BOB (1939–2007). The 1970s horror films of director Bob Clark
(who was occasionally billed as Benjamin Clark) revealed a talented and
innovative filmmaker who understood how American horror was changing
in this period. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) was an
atmospheric modern zombie story. The more ambitious Dead of Night (The
 CLEMENS, BRIAN (1931–2015) • 75
Night Walk, Deathdream) (1974) returned to the idea of dead men walking
with a narrative in which a war veteran returns home as a blood-drinking
monster; the film also explored familial tensions in a manner that made it a
prime example of family horror. Black Christmas (1974) anticipated the
slasher films of the late 1970s in its sorority house setting and its extensive
use of point of view technique, although it possessed a bleak atmosphere all
its own. Murder by Decree (1979) set Sherlock Holmes against Jack the
Ripper as well as drawing on the political conspiracy theories about the
Ripper’s identity that became popular during the 1970s. It was a striking
period drama that displayed the antiestablishment attitudes so prevalent else-
where in the genre at this time.
After his success with teenage comedy Porky’s (1982), Clark worked in
genres other than horror.

CLAYTON, JACK (1921–1995). The British filmmaker Jack Clayton made

his name as a director with Room at the Top (1959), a realistic study of
provincial life that inaugurated a cycle of similarly realistic films known as
the British New Wave. However, his other films often possessed a fantastic
or gothic quality, even if this was only implicit. His Academy
Award–winning short film The Bespoke Overcoat (1955) was an adaptation
of a ghost story by Nikolai Gogol, and after the success of Room at the Top
he returned to the supernatural with The Innocents (1961), which was based
on the Henry James ghost story “The Turn of the Screw.” Both of these
offered psychologically complex renditions of hauntings, rendering ambigu-
ous the extent to which the ghosts were real or just projections of the guilt of
the living. Later films The Pumpkin Eater (1964) and Our Mother’s House
(1967) jettisoned the supernatural but retained a brooding sense of psycho-
logical instability. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) was a stylish
version of a Ray Bradbury novel, although Clayton’s characteristically dark
view of things was softened by the studio in an attempt to make the film
more commercial. See also BRITISH HORROR.

CLEMENS, BRIAN (1931–2015). The British writer-producer Brian Cle-

mens was best known for his television work (which includes The Avengers
and the 1970s series Thriller). However, he occasionally strayed into the
horror genre. An early effort was his contribution to the British horror film
The Tell-Tale Heart (1960), an expressionistic treatment of an Edgar Allan
Poe story. Curse of Simba (1965), which he cowrote under the name Tony
O’Grady, was a conventional voodoo drama. And Soon the Darkness (1970)
and Blind Terror (See No Evil) (1971) were effective serial killer thrillers,
with Blind Terror featuring a memorable performance from Mia Farrow as
a terrorized blind heroine. At a time when Hammer was looking for new
76 • CLIVE, COLIN (1900–1937)
ideas to refresh its horror formula, Clemens wrote and produced for the
company Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), a transsexual rendition of the
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story in which the doctor is transformed into a
woman. He then wrote, produced, and directed another late Hammer horror,
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), an underrated film that combined
period horror conventions with action scenes. He also wrote the fantasy
adventure The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and the Disney-produced
horror The Watcher in the Woods (1980) as well as contributing to the televi-
sion series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984).

CLIVE, COLIN (1900–1937). The British actor Colin Clive was the origi-
nal Frankenstein in James Whale’s Universal horror productions Franken-
stein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He had earlier worked with
Whale in the theater, and his film performances are defiantly theatrical with a
manic edge. To modern audiences, the acting styles on display in horror
films of the early 1930s can often seem overwrought, but even by those
standards Clive’s screen persona was especially histrionic. Biographical ac-
counts suggest that Clive was a deeply troubled individual whose anguish
was constantly finding its way onto the screen. His last major genre perfor-
mance was as a tormented pianist who has a murderer’s hands grafted onto
him in Mad Love (1935). He died as a result of alcoholism not long after-
ward. His cry of “It’s alive”—from Frankenstein—remains one of the horror
genre’s best-known lines.

COHEN, HERMAN (1925–2002). The American writer-producer Herman

Cohen had his first brush with the horror genre as associate producer of the
comedy-horror Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952). In the late
1950s, he produced (and sometimes wrote or cowrote as well) a series of
teenage horror films for exploitation specialists American International
Pictures. These included the unforgettably titled I Was a Teenage Werewolf
(1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), both of which were enjoy-
able horror reworkings of Rebel without a Cause (1955), with rebellious
teenagers transformed into monsters. How to Make a Monster (1958) and
Blood of Dracula (1957) offered more of the same, although How to Make a
Monster, which dealt with the exploits of a horror makeup artist, was also an
interesting example of generic self-reflexivity. Subsequently, Cohen was
based mainly in Britain, where his credits include Horrors of the Black
Museum (1959), the very silly giant ape film Konga (1961), the Sherlock
Holmes versus Jack the Ripper story A Study in Terror (1965), and two late
Joan Crawford vehicles: Berserk! (1968) and Trog (1970).
Other credits include The Headless Ghost (1959), Black Zoo (1963), and
Craze (1973).
 COHEN, LARRY (1941–) • 77
COHEN, LARRY (1941–). Of all the directors who made major contribu-
tions to the development of American horror during the 1970s, Larry Co-
hen is probably the least known to the general public. While filmmakers such
as John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Brian De Palma have gone on
to establish significant name recognition for themselves, Cohen has contin-
ued to work quietly and largely unheralded in the low-budget sector. This is a
shame because his horror films at their best are some of the most intelligent
and challenging to be found in the genre.
From the late 1950s on, Cohen was mainly a television writer, with his
numerous credits including the pilots for popular 1960s series Branded and
The Invaders, although he also wrote several screenplays for the cinema. He
turned to film direction in the early 1970s, beginning with ambitious blax-
ploitation thrillers Bone (1972), Black Caesar (1973), and Hell Up in Harlem
(1973). It’s Alive! (1974), his first horror film, was a remarkable revisionary
work that articulated key themes of 1970s horror. The film’s title refers to a
line spoken by Frankenstein in Universal’s 1931 version of Frankenstein
on seeing his creature move for the first time. However, Cohen’s contempo-
rary version of the Frankenstein story threw into disarray some of the moral
certainties of the earlier work. An ordinary American woman gives birth to a
monster that rampages across the city. The father’s reaction to his child is
unusual for the horror genre at this time. Initially rejecting his offspring, he
eventually comes to accept it as his despite its monstrosity and violence. It’s
Alive! concludes with the child’s death and the news that more monstrous
babies have been born elsewhere. The contemporary setting, the child as
monster, the distrust of social institutions and official authority, and the open
ending are elements that can be found elsewhere in 1970s American horror,
but in It’s Alive Cohen weaves them with great clarity and conviction into an
engaging and ultimately moving narrative. God Told Me To (Demon) (1976),
Cohen’s next genre project, was even more daring. Its delirious plot featured
a hermaphrodite alien with Christ-like qualities, a sinister conspiracy, and a
hero who discovers that he too is an alien. The tone was serious, however, as
the film set out a rigorous critique of conventional social and gendered iden-
tities.
Cohen’s later films have rarely recaptured the intensity and focus of It’s
Alive! and God Told Me To, but many of them are distinguished efforts. The
sequel It Lives Again (1978) was a highly effective elaboration on themes
from the first film, while Full Moon High (1981), Q—Winged Serpent
(1982), and The Stuff (1985) were enjoyable comedy horrors that also con-
tained some interesting ideas. It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) and A
Return to Salem’s Lot (1987) continued the Cohen trait of making normality
seem more monstrous than the ostensible monsters. The comedy-horror
Wicked Stepmother (1989) was a rare complete misfire.
78 • COMBS, JEFFREY (1954–)
In a busy career that has included work in a variety of film genres, Cohen
also wrote and produced William Lustig’s Maniac Cop (1988–1993) horror
trilogy, directed The Ambulance (1990), and was credited for the screen story
of Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers (1993). More recently, he wrote the
screenplay for Phone Booth (2002), an urban thriller whose restricted setting
and fascination with unstable identities made it appear more than a little
Cohenesque, and directed an episode of the television series Masters of Hor-
ror (2005–). He also cowrote the controversial torture-based film Captivity
(2007).
He should not be confused with writer-producer Lawrence D. Cohen, who
also has some horror credits to his name.

COMBS, JEFFREY (1954–). The American actor Jeffrey Combs has ap-
peared in many horror films, both in the United States and in Europe, and
specializes in manic or sinister roles. He was the mad scientist Herbert West
in Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), a remarkably gory adaptation of an
H. P. Lovecraft story, and also featured in the sequels Bride of Re-Animator
(1990) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003). He has appeared in other Lovecraft
adaptations, notably From Beyond (1986) and Lurking Fear (1994), and
played Lovecraft himself in the horror anthology Necronomicon (1994). He
was memorable as a neurotic FBI agent in Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners
(1996) and also offered effective support in I Still Know What You Did Last
Summer (1998), House on Haunted Hill (1999), and Feardotcom (2002). His
other credits are too numerous to list here.

COMEDY. Horror films have often teetered on the edge of absurdity, with
their fantastic and extreme narratives easily transformed into something that
is amusing rather than scary. Sometimes this is inadvertent, with an audience
mocking a film’s unsuccessful attempts to be frightening, and sometimes it
has more to with the way in which a horror film is marketed than with the
film itself, with humorous advertising gimmicks proving popular at certain
moments in the genre’s history. In other cases, however, horror filmmakers
have chosen to deploy comedic elements. Most commonly, this has to do
with providing moments of comic relief within an otherwise serious horror
narrative. One thinks here, for example, of witty performances by actors
Mantan Moreland in some 1940s horrors, Miles Malleson in some early
Hammer horrors, or Jamie Kennedy in Scream (1996).
There are also films in which the balance is tilted more to comedy than it is
to horror, with this often taking the form of parodies of horror stories where
any frissons provided by the horror material are safely contained by laughter.
Throughout the 19th century, there had been numerous gothic spoofs and
parodies, and from the late 1920s on the horror genre continued this tradition,
 COMEDY • 79
particularly through a series of comedy horror films set in old and dark and
sometimes haunted houses. John Willard’s Broadway hit The Cat and the
Canary was perhaps the best known of these. First filmed by Paul Leni in
1927, it was remade in 1939 as a Bob Hope vehicle. Other films of this type
included The Gorilla (1927), James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932),
You’ll Find Out (1940), the British production What a Carve Up (1961), and,
more recently, the nostalgic Haunted Honeymoon (1986).
More knockabout comedy was provided by the likes of Ghost Breakers
(1940), another Bob Hope film, and Zombies on Broadway (1945), while
Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre sent themselves up in The Boogie Man Will
Get You (1942). However, it was comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
who most helped to establish a type of comedy horror in which vaudeville
performers encountered horror monsters to humorous effect. Beginning with
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), they starred in a series of
films featuring Universal’s horror monsters at a time when the popularity of
those monsters as fright figures was fading.
Comedy horrors of various types continued to be produced sporadically
after the Abbott and Costello cycle had finished in the mid-1950s. Roger
Corman’s The Raven (1963) spoofed his own Edgar Allan Poe adaptations,
while his earlier A Bucket of Blood (1959) and The Little Shop of Horrors
(1960) turned, respectively, murder and monsters into sources of humor.
Carry On Screaming (1967) parodied Hammer horror in a none-too-subtle
manner. Producer-director Mel Brooks came up with Young Frankenstein
(1974), an affectionate send-up of Universal horror, and Dracula: Dead and
Loving It (1995), a cruder but still amusing parody of Francis Ford Coppo-
la’s 1992 version of Dracula. The cult favorite The Rocky Horror Picture
Show (1975) transformed Frankenstein into an extraterrestrial transsexual,
while Love at First Bite (1979) was another Dracula spoof. Ghostbusters
(1984) and Gremlins (1984) were more original and offered a judicious mix-
ture of comedy, special effects, and thrills designed for a family audience.
The success of the slasher film in the late 1970s and early 1980s encouraged
a few quickly forgotten parodies—among them Student Bodies (1981) and
Pandemonium (1982)—but the subsequent Nightmare on Elm Street films
were so self-consciously humorous that they seemed beyond parody. Howev-
er, the already tongue-in-cheek Scream films did lead to the successful Scary
Movie (2000) and its sequels, which quickly moved on from sending up
Scream to targeting a range of horror and other popular genre films.
There are other films, fewer in number, that have offered a more unsettling
mixture of humor and horror, where comedy seems to accentuate the horror
rather than diminish it. For example, the innuendo and double meaning of
some of the dialogue in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) had a sick comic
effect that in no way softened the film’s disturbing elements but instead
contributed to its nihilism. Something similar occurred in the horror films
80 • COMICS
directed by Roman Polanski, from Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless
Vampire Killers) (1967), a spoof of Hammer horror far more unnerving than
anything ever produced by Hammer, to Satanic thrillers Rosemary’s Baby
(1968) and The Ninth Gate (1999), where a sense of the absurd only served to
underline the helplessness of the films’ main protagonists in the face of evil.
Operating in a different register was Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (1974), in which slapstick moments of physical clumsiness were
presented within scenes of extreme terror, cruelty, and violence in a manner
that rendered the film even more horrible than it would have been if played
straight (as its remake was played relatively straight).
Gory slapstick violence played more obviously for laughs can be found in
Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981), Stuart Gordon’s The Re-animator
(1985), and Peter Jackson’s Braindead (1992), along with the rather less
distinguished product of the Troma company. Disarticulated bodies, reani-
mated body parts, and bodily organs and fluids presented in unremittingly
graphic detail become sources of a sick humor, a quality associated in partic-
ular with body horror. This was a considerably more specialized and in
some instances a more adolescent kind of comedy than the decorous humor
provided by Bob Hope’s The Cat and the Canary or Abbott and Costello’s
films.
It seems from this that the interaction between comedy and horror has
been an important one within the horror genre, although the forms of this
interaction are varied, ranging from the appreciative laughter over a silly
story to tasteless laughter at events and sights that, according to conventional
morality at least, should not be even slightly amusing.

COMICS. Horror comics were a popular if controversial and often censored

form of entertainment during the 1950s. In particular, EC Comics—which
produced titles such as Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and The Haunt
of Fear—offered an inventively amoral type of horror fiction that in terms of
gore and general nastiness went way beyond what was available in horror
cinema at the time. Some EC horror stories were later adapted for film, first
by the British horror company Amicus with Tales from the Crypt (1972)
and Vault of Horror (1973) and subsequently by the American television
series Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996), while the George Rome-
ro–Stephen King collaboration Creepshow (1982) was a nostalgic tribute to
such comics.
More recent comic book characters have also provided inspiration to hor-
ror filmmakers. Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992)
and Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003) were comic superhero stories containing some
horror-like elements, while two Swamp Thing films,Wes Craven’s Swamp
Thing (1982) and The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), were more straightfor-
ward horror adaptations. Other comic-based films, with varying degrees of
 CONDON, BILL (1955–) • 81
horror content, have included The Crow (1994), Spawn (1997), the vampire
story Blade (1998) and its sequels, Virus (1999), the Jack the Ripper story
From Hell (2001), Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The
Golden Army (2008), Constantine (2005), 30 Days of Night (2007), Ghost
Rider (2007) and its sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012), Priest
(2011), and I, Frankenstein (2014). The science fiction/horror hybrid AVP:
Alien versus Predator (2004), by contrast, was based on a comic book series
that itself was based on the original Alien and Predator films.

COMPUTER GAMES. Computer games have often drawn on horror im-

agery, and occasionally the horror genre has returned the compliment by
adapting games for the screen. Zombie films Resident Evil (2002) and
House of the Dead (2003) were successful enough to generate sequels, while
monster movie Doom (2005) was a comparably thick-eared action piece.
More ambitious was Christophe Gans’s Silent Hill (2006), which trans-
formed one of the leading horror-themed games into a bold concoction of
ideas from Japanese horror and Italian horror; a sequel, Silent Hill: Reve-
lation (2012), followed. The narrative structures of games and films are
sufficiently different for all of these adaptations to be decidedly free and
loose, although each film usually seeks to reproduce directly some recogniz-
able aspect of the computer game source. This was most obviously the case
with the extended first-person shooter scene from Doom. The teenage hor-
ror film Stay Alive (2006) took as its subject a computer game that had the
ability to kill off its players, while a number of horror films have toyed with
the idea of potentially lethal virtual reality games—among them Brainscan
(1994) and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999).

CONDON, BILL (1955–). The American writer-director Bill Condon has

not had a sustained career in the horror genre, but his films have often
displayed a sympathy for gothic and horror themes. This was evident in his
early work as a screenwriter on Strange Behaviour (1981) and Strange In-
vaders (1983), science fiction/horror hybrids that knowingly re-created the
world of 1950s monster movies. Sister, Sister (1987), Condon’s directorial
debut, contained elements of southern gothic, while the Condon-directed
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) was a straightforward horror se-
quel. Condon went on to write and direct the critically acclaimed Gods and
Monsters (1998), a partly fictionalized account of the final years of horror
director James Whale (played in the film by Ian McKellen). For this, he
received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Thereafter, Condon moved away from the horror genre with the prestig-
ious drama Kinsey (2004) and the musical Dreamgirls (2006) before return-
ing with the vampire romance films The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—
82 • CONNOR, KEVIN (1937–)
Part 1 (2011) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 2 (2012). The
Twilight films, which were directed primarily to young adult audiences, were
not as well received critically as some of Condon’s earlier work, but they
were huge commercial successes. After the political thriller The Fifth Estate
(2013) and the Sherlock Holmes film Mr. Holmes (2015), Condon stepped
again into a fantasy world containing some mild horror elements with the
live-action version of Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (2017).

CONNOR, KEVIN (1937–). Kevin Connor graduated from film editing to

direction with From Beyond the Grave (1973). This was one of the best of a
series of horror anthologies produced by the Amicus company. Especially
impressive was an episode featuring genre stalwart Donald Pleasence that
was as fine a study of British social mores as one could find in 1970s British
cinema. Connor’s remaining British films were more fantasy oriented and
included adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s monster epics The Land
That Time Forgot (1974) and At The Earth’s Core (1976). In the 1980s, he
moved to the United States, where he has worked mainly for television,
although for the cinema he also directed Motel Hell (1980), a surprisingly
cheerful comedy-horror about cannibalism. See also BRITISH HORROR.

CONWAY, TOM (1904–1967). The actor Tom Conway was the Russian-
born brother of George Sanders. During the 1940s, he was best known as the
Falcon in a series of crime thrillers (he took over the role from his brother),
but he was also impressive in three of producer Val Lewton’s horror films.
He played the creepy psychiatrist Dr. Judd in Cat People (1942), whose
unprofessional treatment of his patient led to his own violent death. Next
came I Walked with a Zombie (1943), where his mournfulness contributed to
the film’s downbeat tone. Finally, Lewton resurrected Conway’s Dr. Judd,
albeit with a more benign persona, for the stylish Satanic thriller The Seventh
Victim (1943). Problems with alcohol meant that the latter part of Conway’s
career was less successful, and he made undignified appearances in low-
budget horrors Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The She-Creature (1956), and
Voodoo Woman (1957).

COOPER, MERIAN C. (1893–1973). Merian C. Cooper’s main claim to

horror fame is his coproduction and codirection—with Ernest B. Schoed-
sack—of King Kong (1933). He started out as a specialist in exotic documen-
taries, such as Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), before moving into the hor-
ror-thriller business through producing The Most Dangerous Game (The
Hounds of Zaroff) (1932). His later horror-related credits as producer were
The Monkey’s Paw (1933), She (1935), and the mad scientist film Dr.
 CORMAN, ROGER (1926–) • 83
Cyclops (1940). In the latter part of his career, he became John Ford’s pro-
ducer on a number of classic westerns, including Rio Grande (1950) and The
Searchers (1956). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

COPPOLA, FRANCIS FORD (1939–). Before becoming one of America’s

leading directors with, among others, The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse
Now (1979), the writer-director Francis Ford Coppola worked occasionally
in the horror genre. He was one of many filmmakers who were given early
career opportunities by producer-director Roger Corman. In Coppola’s
case, this involved making an uncredited contribution to Corman’s The Ter-
ror (1963) before cowriting and directing Dementia 13 (The Haunted and the
Hunted) (1963). This psychological thriller was filmed in Ireland, and while
its narrative was conventional, the young director conjured up some atmos-
pheric sequences. Thereafter, Coppola worked on more prestigious projects
until his return to horror with his big-budget version of Dracula (1992),
which starred Gary Oldman as Dracula and Anthony Hopkins as Van Hels-
ing. Stylistic eclecticism was the order of the day as Coppola borrowed from
German expressionism and Hammer in his extravagant transformation of
the vampire story into a doomed romance. He went on to produce Kenneth
Branagh’s similarly robust reworking of Frankenstein (1994) as well as
acting as executive producer on Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999) and
Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers (2001) and Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003).
More recently, Coppola directed Twixt (2011), which contained some horror-
themed material. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

CORMAN, ROGER (1926–). In the world of low-budget independent film

production, producer-director Roger Corman has become something of a
legend. As a director throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he was capable of
rapidly churning out films from extremely limited resources. As a producer,
he has given early career opportunities to the likes of Peter Bogdanovich,
Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Jack Nicholson,
and Martin Scorsese and has been responsible for more than 300 films. Not
all of these have been very good, but, especially as far as his work as a
director is concerned, there have been more worthwhile projects than one
might have supposed given the hurried circumstances of production.
During the 1950s, he worked mainly for American International Pic-
tures, specializing particularly in the science fiction/horror monster movies
that were popular in this period. His first credit was as the producer of The
Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954). He switched to direction in the fol-
lowing year and went on to make the nuclear apocalypse drama Day the
World Ended (1955) (a subject he returned to in 1960 with Last Woman on
Earth). It Conquered the World (1956) was a cheap and cheerful alien inva-
84 • CORMAN, ROGER (1926–)
sion fantasy. A vampire-like alien also showed up in the horror-like Not of
This Earth (1957), while giant telepathic crabs featured in the atmospheric
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957). The Undead (1957) was an interesting
witchcraft story, and A Bucket of Blood (1959) and The Little Shop of Hor-
rors (1960) were splendid examples of comedy-horror. The Wasp Woman
(1960) and Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) were more conventional
monster movies, although by the time he made them Corman was already
moving onto a cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that would prove his
most successful work both financially and critically.
House of Usher (1960), the first of these films, was a noticeable step up in
ambition for both Corman and American International Pictures. It was based
on a reputable literary source, had an intelligent screenplay by Richard
Matheson and higher production values than before, was in color, and fea-
tured an established star in Vincent Price. Although designed to cash in on
the success of Hammer horror, the film had a more pronounced interest in
exploring weird psychologies than did the Hammer product. As would be the
case with Corman’s subsequent Poe adaptations, a mysterious and sinister
house became a representation of the disturbed mind of its owner. Pit and the
Pendulum (1961), which starred Barbara Steele alongside Price, was even
better both in its oppressive atmospherics and in conveying the neurosis of its
main male character. The Premature Burial (1962) was less successful. It
was not originally intended as part of the Poe series and drew very little of its
narrative from Poe’s writings; Price was replaced by Ray Milland, and the
film was not as well received as Corman’s previous adaptations.
Tales of Terror (1962) connected more obviously to Poe’s work. A horror
anthology film, it contained three episodes—the haunting “Morella,” the
humorous “Black Cat” (which also drew on “The Cask of Amontillado”),
and “The Case of Monsieur Valdemar.” All three starred Price, who was ably
supported by Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone. It was followed by the
comedy-horror The Raven (1963), a delightful send-up of the previous Poe
films that boasted excellent performances from Price, Lorre, and Boris Karl-
off. Although The Haunted Palace (1963) was marketed as part of the Poe
series, it was actually an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Case of
Charles Dexter Ward.” It was a fine film in its own right, but its departure
from Poe, along with the comedy treatments offered by earlier Corman adap-
tations, suggested that the Poe series might be coming to an end. However,
Corman’s final two Poe projects not only proved the best in the series but
arguably marked the high point of the director’s whole career.
Both The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
were filmed in England. As photographed by Nicolas Roeg, The Masque of
the Red Death’s use of color was particularly impressive, while, unusually
for the series, The Tomb of Ligeia made extensive use of location shooting.
Both were richly atmospheric, with fine, nuanced performances from Price,
 COSTELLO, LOU • 85
cruel in the former as a despot protecting himself from the plague and ob-
sessed with the memory of his dead wife in the latter. The Masque of the Red
Death has been accused of pretentiousness, and certainly its references to
Ingmar Bergman’s Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (1957) are all too
obvious, but both it and Ligeia exhibited a level of both ambition and
achievement that was rare in the horror cinema of this period.
Corman retired from film direction in the early 1970s and has since con-
centrated on film production, first for New World and subsequently for New
Horizons, Concorde, Millennium Pictures, and New Concorde. He made a
brief comeback as director with Frankenstein Unbound (1990), an interest-
ing revisionary account of the Frankenstein story, albeit one that lacked the
distinctive style of his best work. He has also made some cameo appearances
in films directed by some of his protégés, including Joe Dante’s The Howling
(1981) and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Corman’s
World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, a documentary about his work, was
released in 2011.
Corman’s other directorial horror credits include Tower of London (1962)
and The Terror (1963). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

COSCARELLI, DON (1954–). The Libyan-born writer-director Don Co-

scarelli is most associated with the Phantasm horror cycle. At a time when
American horror was switching over to teenager-centered slasher films,
Phantasm (1979) went in its own idiosyncratic direction, with a weird narra-
tive involving aliens, grave robbing, monstrous dwarves, and a homicidal
floating metal ball. The film had a pleasingly surreal quality to it, although—
with the exception of the Coscarelli-directed sequels Phantasm II (1988),
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994), Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998), and
the Coscarelli-produced Phantasm: Ravager (2016)—it has had little influ-
ence on other horror films. Coscarelli changed direction again with Bubba
Ho-Tep (2002), the unlikely story of which involved Elvis Presley (played by
genre regular Bruce Campbell) fighting a mummy in an old people’s home.
Perhaps surprisingly given this scenario, the film managed to be both refresh-
ingly original and in places rather moving. Coscarelli also directed the fanta-
sy adventure The Beastmaster (1982) and the surreal horror/science fiction/
comedy hybrid John Dies at the End (2012) and contributed an episode to
the television series Masters of Horror (2005–).

COSTELLO, LOU. See ABBOTT, BUD (1897–1974), AND COSTELLO,

LOU (1906–1959).
86 • COURT, HAZEL (1926–2008)
COURT, HAZEL (1926–2008). The horror career of the British actor Hazel
Court demonstrates what a difference a director can make to a screen perso-
na. Court was a pretty but bland female lead in Vernon Sewell’s Ghost Ship
(1952) and Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The
Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) and made similar appearances in Devil
Girl from Mars (1954) and Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961). However, the three
horror films she did for American director Roger Corman—The Premature
Burial (1962), The Raven (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death
(1964)—presented her as an altogether more assertive sexual presence. In
The Masque of the Red Death in particular, she offered a compelling portray-
al of jealousy and corruption. Much of Court’s later career was spent work-
ing on American television.

COZZI, LUIGI (1947–). The films of Italian writer-director Luigi Cozzi—

who is sometimes billed as Lewis Coates—tend at their best to be lively and
derivative and at their worst dull and derivative. Early in his career, he
worked for Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, gaining story credits on
Argento’s 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey Velvet) (1971) and
Le cinque giornate (Five Days of Milan) (1973) as well as contributing to the
Argento-produced television series Porta sul buio (Doors to Darkness)
(1973). His first horror film as director was the effective giallo L’assassino è
costretto ad uccidere ancora (The Dark Is Death’s Friend) (1975), and his
subsequent, rather uneven directorial career included Contamination (1980),
Il Gatto Nero (The Black Cat) (1989), and Paganini Horror (1989). He was
second unit director on two more Argento films, Due occhi diabolici (Two
Evil Eyes) (1990) and La Sindrome di Stendhal (The Stendhal Syndrome)
(1996), and also directed two documentaries about Argento’s films. His most
recent directorial project is the fantasy Blood on Méliès’ Moon (2016).

CRABTREE, ARTHUR (1900–1975). Formerly a cinematographer, the

British filmmaker Arthur Crabtree made his directorial debut with the over-
wrought Gainsborough melodrama Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945). A
sense of the lurid, combined with a solid professionalism, was also apparent
in Crabtree’s Caravan (1946) and Dear Murderer (1947), although much of
his 1950s work was more low key. However, toward the end of that decade,
he, like many other jobbing filmmakers, was drawn into the commercially
vibrant British horror movement and seemed to rediscover his taste for
excess. Fiend without a Face (1958), which despite its Canadian setting was
a British production, featured a standard science fiction/horror hybrid plot
about an experiment gone wrong but was distinguished by some extraordi-
narily surreal and gory sequences in which disembodied brains attack their
victims. The well-known opening sequence of Crabtree’s Horrors of the
 CRAVEN, WES (1939–2015) • 87
Black Museum (1959) showed a woman being blinded by spikes that
emerged from the binoculars through which she was looking, and the rest of
the film offered a series of equally sadistic murders. Horrors of the Black
Museum might have been overshadowed by Michael Powell’s similarly
themed Peeping Tom (1960), but for all its crudeness it had an energy that
made it memorable. Crabtree retired from filmmaking shortly after its re-
lease.

CRAVEN, WES (1939–2015). Wes Craven was a college teacher before he

became a key director of American horror. This is an unusual background
for someone so firmly associated with the horror genre. However, Craven’s
films often display a distinctive self-consciousness, intelligence, and ambi-
tion that, amidst the violence and gore, could be seen as bestowing a scholar-
ly quality on them. This was apparent in his directorial debut, the controver-
sial rape-revenge drama The Last House on the Left (1972), which, uniquely
for a horror film, was a reworking of an Ingmar Bergman film, The Virgin
Spring (1959). The message of Craven’s grueling remake was clear: we all
have within us the capacity for extreme violence. Two young women are
raped, tortured, and murdered by a gang of lowlifes. Subsequently, the well-
to-do parents of one of the girls discover the crime and carry out an appalling
revenge on the miscreants (involving throat slashing and death by chainsaw),
with the narrative’s escalating, unstoppable violence leading eventually to
the collapse of normality. As Craven himself indicated, it is the kind of film
that would have had a particular resonance in the era of the Vietnam War and
the social unrest that this conflict brought about.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Craven’s next film, was thematically very
similar but also slicker and more palatable for a mainstream audience. An
example of 1970s family horror, it pitted two families against each other.
One of these families was normal in a middle-class and slightly complacent
sort of way, and the other was made up of lower-class predatory cannibals.
While, unsurprisingly, we initially identify with the normal family, their
gradual surrender to violence as they take on the cannibals becomes increas-
ingly disturbing, culminating in another open, disturbing conclusion.
At this point, Craven’s career seemed temporarily to lose direction. Deadly
Blessing (1981) was an effective thriller about a religious sect (the supernatu-
ral conclusion of which was removed from some prints, presumably to make
it appear less like a horror film), but Swamp Thing (1982) was an uninspired
comic book adaptation. Then came A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). As
written and directed by Craven, this was a genuinely innovative variant on
the slasher film that initiated one of the major horror cycles of the 1980s. It
also continued the director’s preoccupation with proletariat assaults on a
complacent middle class, with the undead janitor Freddy Krueger revenging
himself on the teenage children of his murderers. As was the case with
88 • CRAVEN, WES (1939–2015)
Craven’s best work in general, it was constructed around and played varia-
tions on a concept—here the idea that whatever happens to you in your
dreams also happens to you in waking reality.
In the aftermath of Elm Street, Craven struggled to find interesting pro-
jects. The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985) and Deadly Friend (1986) were
professionally done but impersonal. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
was an ambitious attempt to update the voodoo film through an exploration
of voodoo’s anthropological roots, although ultimately it descended into con-
ventional melodrama. Shocker (1989) was more along the lines of A Night-
mare on Elm Street in its depiction of a vengeful ghost who attacks his
victims not through their dreams this time but instead through their televi-
sion sets. The film’s playful games with the medium of television anticipated
the self-reflexivity that would characterize much of Craven’s work in the
1990s, a period that would be more productive for him than the latter half of
the 1980s.
The People under the Stairs (1991) was Craven’s most cohesive film since
A Nightmare on Elm Street. A social parable about the rich exploiting the
poor (and the poor turning the tables on them), it was done with wit and
intelligence, with Craven siding more emphatically with the underprivileged
characters than he had done in his earlier films. This is one of the few 1990s
horror films that can reasonably be described as both politicized and left
wing. It was followed by New Nightmare (1994) (sometimes known as Wes
Craven’s New Nightmare), the seventh film in the Elm Street cycle. Craven
had steered clear of Elm Street since his inaugural film, but now he turned the
established formula on its head in an boldly self-reflexive project in which
actors and other crew members (including Craven) played themselves. Like
Shocker, it was a sign of things to come, but first there was Vampire in
Brooklyn (1995), an underrated vampire vehicle for Eddie Murphy that strug-
gled to make its comedy and horror elements gel with each other.
No such problem was evident in the highly successful Scream (1996).
Working from a screenplay by Kevin Williamson, Craven returned to the
world of the slasher film and teenage horror, refashioning the self-reflexiv-
ity of his earlier films into a knowingness about horror history. He also
showed that he was more than capable of delivering shocks and startles at a
time when such standard generic devices were starting to look very tired.
Craven went on to direct Scream 2 (1997), Scream 3 (2000), and Scream 4
(2011) as well as Cursed (2005), a Williamson-scripted attempt to do for
werewolves what Scream had done for the slasher film, and My Soul to Take
(2010).
The sheer length of Craven’s career in horror makes him worthy of note,
as does his ability to innovate within the genre. To a certain extent, he
became a recognizable genre brand name, with the label “Wes Craven
 CRONENBERG, DAVID (1943–) • 89
Presents” used as part of the marketing for horror films directed by others,
such as Carnival of Souls (1998) and Dracula 2000 (2000). He was also one
of the producers of the 2006 remake of his own The Hills Have Eyes.
His television credits include Stranger in Our House (Summer of Fear)
(1978), Invitation to Hell (1984), Chiller (1985), and Night Visions (1990).
His non-horror cinema credits are the Meryl Streep vehicle Music of the
Heart (1999) and the thriller Red Eye (2005).

CRAWFORD, JOAN (1904–1977). Much like her fellow Hollywood star

Bette Davis, Joan Crawford turned to horror in the latter part of her career.
She starred alongside Davis in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to
Baby Jane? (1962), a film that rendered in grotesque terms the alleged real-
life rivalry between the two women. While in some of her later films Davis
seemed to have embraced this grotesque identity, Crawford opted for more
conventional parts. She was originally cast with Davis in Aldrich’s follow-up
to Baby Jane, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), but withdrew from the
production (her part was eventually played by Olivia de Havilland). Subse-
quently, she played effectively in two William Castle productions, Strait-
Jacket (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965), and then made rather undig-
nified appearances in the British horror films Berserk! (1968) and the irre-
deemably ridiculous Trog (1970). She also starred in the 1969 pilot film for
the television horror anthology series Night Gallery; her segment was di-
rected by Steven Spielberg, who was making his professional debut.

CRONENBERG, DAVID (1943–). The horror films directed by Canadian

filmmaker David Cronenberg have a reputation for being visceral and un-
sparingly gruesome, yet he is also one of the more cerebral talents to have
worked within the genre. Unusually for a horror director, his background was
in avant-garde cinema. Some of his early films—notably Stereo (1969) and
Crimes of the Future (1970)—exhibited a fascination with alienating institu-
tions and dangerously misguided scientific experiments that would be devel-
oped further in his horror work, although the films themselves remained
obscure and hermetic. A desire to connect with a broader public led to Cro-
nenberg writing a script for a low-budget horror called Orgy of the Blood
Parasites. Produced, like most of his other horror films, in his native Canada,
the resulting film was retitled The Parasite Murders (1975) for the Canadian
market, They Came from Within for the United States, and Shivers for every-
where else. It depicted the spread of an experimental slug-like organism—
described in the film as a cross between a parasite and a venereal disease—
through a modern housing complex, transforming the inhabitants into raven-
ing sex maniacs as it went. An updated Frankenstein narrative and an exam-
ple of biological or body horror, The Parasite Murders established Cronen-
90 • CUNNINGHAM, SEAN S. (1941–)
berg as an exciting and innovative new talent in the genre, although the fact
that the production of this most disturbing of horror films had been supported
by the tax-funded Canadian Film Development Corporation caused some
controversy on the film’s release in Canada.
Cronenberg’s next two horror films (he also directed Fast Company, a
racing drama in this period) elaborated on material introduced in The Para-
site Murders. Rabid (1977) was another infection story in which a radical
surgical technique transforms a woman into a plague carrier, while The
Brood (1979) focused on a woman with the ability to externalize her rage in
the form of spontaneously generated monstrous children. The relentlessly
grim atmosphere of both was coupled with a dispassionate examination of
bodies caught up in a process of physiological change and transformation.
The telekinesis drama Scanners (1981) also contained moments of body
horror, this time associated with the male body, although it was also more
action based and less unsettling than the director’s previous horrors. The
controversial Videodrome (1983) was not so much of an audience pleaser,
but it did offer a bold investigation of the interaction between consciousness
and technology in a manner reminiscent of Cronenberg’s earlier avant-garde
work.
The most commercial part of Cronenberg’s career began with The Dead
Zone (1983) and ended with The Fly (1986). At the time of The Dead Zone’s
release, this adaptation of a Stephen King novel seemed untypical of the
director’s sophisticated and cosmopolitan approach, with its rural settings
and naturalistic style (although Cronenberg’s 2005 film A History of Vio-
lence adopted a comparable approach). The Fly was more obviously Cronen-
bergian in its depiction of a scientist’s slow and messy mutation into a
human/fly hybrid, but at the same time it was Cronenberg at his most
straightforward and accessible.
Since The Fly, the director has moved away from the horror genre and
transformed himself into a critically respected international auteur, although
a concern with the body and a reliance on horror-like imagery continue to
inform his films, including Dead Ringers (1988), Naked Lunch (1991),
Crash (1996), eXistenZ (1999), Spider (2002), A History of Violence (2005),
and Maps to the Stars (2014). Cronenberg has also made some appearances
in films. He was an insane psychiatrist in Clive Barker’s Nightbreed (1990)
and a hit man in To Die For (1995) and, less expectedly, also showed up in
the Friday the 13th film Jason X (2001) (although he had earlier directed an
episode for the Friday the 13th television series).

CUNNINGHAM, SEAN S. (1941–). The producer-director Sean S. Cun-

ningham first made an impression as a producer of Wes Craven’s controver-
sial horror film The Last House on the Left (1972). Subsequently, he directed
the horror-themed sex comedy Case of the Full Moon Murders (1974), but
 CURTIS, DAN (1927–2006) • 91
his most significant film as a director came with Friday the 13th (1980), a
slasher designed to exploit the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween
(1978). Cunningham’s treatment of his subject—teenagers being slaughtered
by an unseen assailant while at summer camp—lacked Carpenter’s style and
assurance, but it was efficient enough to make the film a substantial box
office hit that generated numerous sequels. Cunningham’s later credits are
patchy. He directed horror projects A Stranger Is Watching (1982) and Deep
Star Six (1989) and produced some of the later Friday the 13th sequels along
with the haunted house film House (1986) and some of its sequels, and he
was also involved in the remakes of both The Last House on the Left (2009)
and Friday the 13th (2009). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

CURTIS, DAN (1927–2006). During the 1960s and 1970s, the American
writer-producer-director Dan Curtis made a significant contribution to the
development of horror on television, often by placing horror elements within
familiar televisual formats. For example, his daytime soap Dark Shadows
(1966–1971) contained vampire and werewolf characters and was success-
ful enough to generate two Curtis-directed cinema films: House of Dark
Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971). He also produced and
sometimes directed television adaptations of classic gothic novels, including
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), Frankenstein (1973),
Dracula (1973), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973), and The Turn of the
Screw (1974). Of these, Dracula was probably the most influential in its
exploration of the arch-vampire as a historical personage, something that
would be taken up in more detail in later Dracula films. However, Curtis’s
original television horror films, many of which were scripted by Richard
Matheson, were also striking and effective. The best known of these and in
its time the highest-rated television film ever was The Night Stalker (1972),
which was directed by John Llewellyn Moxey. This innovative modern-day
vampire story introduced the character of journalist Carl Kolchak (who later
acquired his own television series) and was an influence on The X-Files
(1993–2002). Curtis himself directed its sequel The Night Strangler (1973)
along with The Norliss Tapes (1973), Scream of the Wolf (1974), and the
horror anthology Trilogy of Terror (1975). His cinema horror film Burnt
Offerings (1976) contained some effective moments but, in both its pacing
and its content, seemed more suited to television. Two more television horror
films followed: the anthology Dead of Night (1977) and Curse of the Black
Widow (1977). Thereafter, Curtis moved away from horror and produced the
blockbusting miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and its sequel War and
Remembrance (1988). In the 1990s, he returned to the genre with a short-
lived revival of Dark Shadows (1990) and another horror anthology: Trilogy
of Terror II (1996). See also AMERICAN HORROR.
92 • CURTIS, JAMIE LEE (1958–)
CURTIS, JAMIE LEE (1958–). Jamie Lee Curtis might be said to have
horror cinema in her blood. The daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh,
she first attracted attention in John Carpenter’s groundbreaking slasher
Halloween (1978), a film in which one of the main characters is named after
a character in Psycho (1960), one of Janet Leigh’s most famous films. Curtis
quickly established an attractive screen personality of her own and for a brief
period became one of horror’s most bankable stars. As Laurie Strode, the
terrorized babysitter in Halloween, she combined vulnerability and strength
as she battled an apparently unstoppable serial killer. She embodied the
Final Girl, the energetic female hero of the slasher film, and her perfor-
mance was much copied although never really equaled. Curtis went on to
play similar characters in Prom Night (1980) and Terror Train (1980) and
more sexually knowing variants in John Carpenter’s ghost story The Fog
(1980) and the Australian horror thriller Roadgames (1981). However, by
the time she reprised the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween II (1981), she
was visibly too old to play a schoolgirl babysitter.
Curtis subsequently developed her career away from horror with notable
performances in the drama Love Letters (1984), the comedy A Fish Called
Wanda (1988), and James Cameron’s action blockbuster True Lies (1994).
Her role as a rookie cop in the urban thriller Blue Steel (1990) drew on horror
iconography as she took on another implacable serial killer, and she played a
villain for the first time in the psychological thriller Mother’s Boys (1994)
as well as starring in the science fiction/horror film Virus (1999). Twenty
years after the success of Halloween, Curtis became Laurie Strode yet again
in the unsurprisingly titled Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). In many
ways, this was a standard teens-in-danger film, but Curtis brought consider-
able maturity and class to the proceedings as she fought and defeated the
same serial killer who had tormented her in 1978 (and who, it was revealed in
Halloween II, was actually Laurie’s brother). She played Strode one more
time in Halloween: Resurrection (2002), albeit to less effect. Her subsequent
role in the horror-themed television series Scream Queens (2015) played
homage to her iconic status.
In 1996, as a result of her husband, the actor-director Christopher Guest,
inheriting a British barony, Curtis became Lady Haden-Guest of Saling; this
was a rare distinction for a horror star.

CURTIZ, MICHAEL (1886–1962). The Hungarian-born director Michael

Curtiz—whose real name was Manó Kertész Kaminer—is most associated
with the lush Hollywood escapism of Warner Brothers productions such as
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) or Casablanca (1942). However, in
the 1930s he also directed some Warner Brothers horror films, instilling in
them the same kind of punchy urban energy evident in the studio’s musicals
and gangster dramas. Doctor X (1932) was for the time an unusually grisly
 CUSHING, PETER (1913–1994) • 93
serial killer story that starred Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. The same actors
were reunited for Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), although on this
occasion Atwill got to play the villain. Unlike 1930s Universal horror, Cur-
tiz’s films were set in the contemporary United States and full of recogniz-
able urban types, although they did share with Universal their expressive
visuals. Later in the 1930s, Curtiz also directed the Boris Karloff vehicle
The Walking Dead (1936), which in true Warner style managed to combine
horror with a gangster narrative as an undead Karloff sought revenge on the
criminal gang who framed him. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

CUSHING, PETER (1913–1994). A major contributor to British horror

cinema from the 1950s to the 1970s, the actor Peter Cushing brought artistry
and dignity to a genre not always associated with such qualities. His early
acting career included a short and not very successful stint in Hollywood
(where he worked with renowned horror director James Whale on the 1939
version of The Man in the Iron Mask). However, by the time he made his
first horror film in 1957, he had become an established star in British televi-
sion drama, with his most notable role that of Winston Smith in a controver-
sial BBC production of George Orwell’s 1984 (1954). It was Cushing him-
self who sought out the role of Baron Frankenstein when he heard that
Hammer Films was planning a new version of the story. The resulting film,
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), was a major international success that
inaugurated a boom in British horror production. While Colin Clive’s perfor-
mance of Frankenstein in Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of
Frankenstein (1935) had been manic and highly emotional, Cushing played
the Baron instead as a ruthless dandy with a sardonic sense of humor. It was
a performance that helped to set the tone for the many Hammer horrors to
follow. In the following year, Cushing secured his status as genre icon
through his memorable rendition of Van Helsing as a stern but kind authority
figure in Hammer’s Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958). As was the case
with many of his films, Cushing was not content to just deliver his lines but
also offered suggestions for new dialogue or new dramatic business. The
film’s famous conclusion—in which Van Helsing leaps athletically off a
table to pull down curtains and allow in the light that will destroy the vam-
pire—arose as a result of one of these suggestions.
Cushing would play Frankenstein five more times and Van Helsing four
more times for Hammer, but his versatility as an actor ranged well beyond
these two signature roles. In Hammer horror’s early days, he was an impres-
sive Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), a role he
later played on television; an appealing hero in The Mummy (1959); and an
obsessive villain in The Gorgon (1964). He also offered a kindlier version of
94 • CUSHING, PETER (1913–1994)
the errant scientist in the non-Hammer production The Flesh and the Fiends
(1959), which dramatized the story of Dr. Knox and grave robbers Burke and
Hare.
From the mid-1960s on, Cushing demonstrated that he was just as capable
of playing in horror films with contemporary settings as he was in period
roles. For the Amicus company, he was the sinister Dr. Schreck in Dr.
Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) and appeared in more sympathetic roles in
The Skull (1965) and Torture Garden (1967). He was Dr. Who in two films
aimed at the family audience, and back in the world of horror he also brought
some much-needed gravitas to Hammer’s lesbian vampire films The Vampire
Lovers (1970) and Twins of Evil (1971) as well as providing an entertaining
portrait of English idiosyncrasy for the Spanish/British coproduction Pánico
en el Transiberiano (Horror Express) (1973). His casting as the evil Moff
Tarkin in George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) introduced his work to a new
generation of filmgoers and confirmed his status as one of the screen’s great
villains. His final horror film was Pete Walker’s nostalgic House of the
Long Shadows (1983), where he appeared alongside fellow horror icons
John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price.
Cushing’s other horror or horror-related credits are The Abominable Snow-
man (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Hellfire Club (1960),
The Brides of Dracula (1960), Captain Clegg (1962), The Evil of Franken-
stein (1964), Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), She (1965), Island of Terror
(1966), Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966), Night of the Big Heat
(1967), Corruption (1967), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), The Blood
Beast Terror (1968), Scream and Scream Again (1969), Frankenstein Must
Be Destroyed (1969), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), One More
Time (1970), I, Monster (1970), Incense for the Damned (Bloodsuckers)
(1970), Nothing But the Night (1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Fear in
the Night (1972), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), Asylum (1972), Dracula
A.D. 1972 (1972), From Beyond the Grave (1973), The Creeping Flesh
(1973), And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973), The Satanic Rites of Dracula
(1973), Madhouse (1974), The Beast Must Die (1974), Frankenstein and the
Monster from Hell (1974), Tendre Dracula (1974), The Legend of the Seven
Golden Vampires (1974), The Ghoul (1974), Legend of the Werewolf (1975),
The Devil's Men (1976), Shock Waves (1977), and The Uncanny (1977).
 D
D’AMATO, JOE. See MASSACCESI, ARISTIDE (1936–1999).

DANTE, JOE (1946–). Joe Dante was a film fan before he was a director,
and his own films are informed by his enthusiasm for and knowledge of
cinema history. Starting out by editing trailers for Roger Corman, his direc-
torial debut—which was codirected with Allan Arkush—was the ultra-low-
budget spoof Hollywood Boulevard (1976). This was followed by Piranha
(1978), which drew on both Jaws (1975) and 1950s monster movies for
inspiration in its depiction of killer piranha attacking the United States but
which displayed a liveliness and level of invention that set it apart from other
more grim horrors of the period. The werewolf drama The Howling (1981)
was even better. Although overshadowed by John Landis’s bigger-budgeted
An American Werewolf in London (1981), Dante’s film had a distinctive
cinephile character all of its own. Fond if ironic references to horror’s past
mingled with some suspenseful sequences and impressive werewolf transfor-
mation effects provided by Rob Bottin. This fascination with American
popular-cultural history continued with his direction of a segment for Twi-
light Zone: The Movie (1983). More successful was Gremlins (1984), a Ste-
ven Spielberg–produced small-town drama with a manic edge. The anarchic
antics of the gremlins displayed the influence of the cartoons of Chuck Jones,
a key influence on Dante, and the film, although a family drama, offered
more disturbing scenes than one might have expected. After an excursion
into science fiction family drama with Explorers (1985), he returned to
comedy-horror with the underrated The ’Burbs (1989). This Tom Hanks
vehicle introduced horror iconography into an apparently peaceful setting in
a Gremlins-like manner but did not manage the transitions between the com-
edy and the horror as skillfully as Gremlins had. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
(1990) upped the manic energy of the first film and also included an appear-
ance by horror icon Christopher Lee, but it too struggled to recapture the
perfectly judged tone of its predecessor. Matinee (1993) was a return to form,
however. The setting of the Cuban missile crisis was juxtaposed with the
gimmicks devised by a flamboyant William Castle–like movie promoter to

95
96 • DAVIS, BETTE (1908–1989)
sell his genre product. Nostalgia for a type of cinema long since passed was
combined with a telling sense of the ways in which films can transform real
social fears into an entertaining experience. Some characteristically knowing
references to old horror films also showed up in Dante’s fantasy adventure
Small Soldiers (1998), while The Hole (2009) was an effective if understated
example of family horror.
Dante has also contributed episodes to fantasy/horror television series The
Twilight Zone (1985–1989), Amazing Stories (1985–1987), Eerie, Indiana
(1991–1992), Night Visions (2001), and Masters of Horror (2005–). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

DAVIS, BETTE (1908–1989). One of the greatest of all Hollywood stars

steered well clear of the horror genre while in her prime. However, in her
latter years Bette Davis did stray into some upmarket horror-related products.
Robert Aldrich’s psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby
Jane? (1962) set the tone for what was to come. Here, Davis’s advanced
years were transformed via her considerable performance skills into a gro-
tesque mask. Comparable grotesquerie was on show in Aldrich’s follow-up,
Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) and in two films Davis did for
Hammer, The Nanny (1965) and The Anniversary (1968), as well as in the
television horror miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978). She
also featured in Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (1976), The Watcher in the
Woods (1980), and the best-forgotten Wicked Stepmother (1989).

DAY, ROBERT (1922–2017). The British director Robert Day is one of a

number of filmmakers who passed through the commercially popular British
horror genre in the 1950s and 1960s and left some interesting films behind
but did not become horror specialists. In Day’s case, he worked his way up
through the industry and made his debut with the black comedy The Green
Man (1956). His 1950s horror films were efficient but lacked the personality
evident in the work of directors such as Terence Fisher or John Gilling.
Grip of the Strangler (1958), which starred Boris Karloff, was an enjoyably
lurid example of period horror. Day’s other Karloff vehicle, Corridors of
Blood (1958), was more somber in its treatment of a story about the develop-
ment of surgical anesthetic and, perhaps because of this, was not released
until the early 1960s. By contrast, Day’s First Man into Space (1959) was an
example of science fiction/horror. Day returned to fantasy in the mid-1960s
with a decorous version of She (1965) for Hammer but concentrated in this
period on comedies and a series of Tarzan films. From the 1970s on, he
worked mainly for American television.
 DE PALMA, BRIAN (1940–) • 97
DE LEON, GERARDO (1913–1981). The first part of the career of Filipino
director Gerardo de Leon was apparently distinguished and reputable, al-
though his non-horror films from this period have not circulated widely
outside of the Philippines. By contrast, the latter part of his career was
mainly spent making thoroughly disreputable low-budget horrors, with many
of these receiving international distribution. He began with the garish but
atmospheric Terror Is a Man (1959), a loose reworking of H. G. Wells’s The
Island of Dr. Moreau, and, after a hiatus, returned to the genre with the
vampire story Kulay dugo ang gabi (The Blood Drinkers) (1966). Subse-
quently, he codirected two horrors with his protégé Eddie Romero, Mad
Doctor of Blood Island (1968) and Brides of Blood (1968), and was solely
responsible for Dugo ng vampira (Blood of the Vampires, Curse of the Vam-
pires) (1971). These films were often better made than other low-budget
horrors, but they never demonstrated the mastery of the cinematic medium
associated with the director’s earlier works. See also FILIPINO HORROR.

DE NIRO, ROBERT (1943–). Robert De Niro’s formidable screen career

has been built out of intense and edgy performances in films such as Taxi
Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). He is not particularly associated with
the horror genre, but enjoyably overblown villainous turns as the Devil in the
voodoo thriller Angel Heart (1987) and as a vengeful psychopathic ex-con-
vict in Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) have proved memorable. He
seemed less comfortable in the role of the Monster in Kenneth Branagh’s
adaptation of Frankenstein (1994), and he has also given workman-like if
rather muted performances in the psychological horror thrillers The Godsend
(2004), Hide and Seek (2005), and Red Lights (2012).

DE PALMA, BRIAN (1940–). Of all the young directors who helped to

transform American cinema in the late 1960s and 1970s, Brian De Palma is
probably the most formally inventive yet also the most enigmatic. This is a
director whose work has sometimes been labeled “feminist” by critics but
whose films have also been accused of misogyny. De Palma’s taciturn public
persona—he is notoriously unrevealing in interviews—has not always helped
to clarify what his aims are in making the films he does. What is clear is that
throughout much of the 1970s and into the 1980s, De Palma’s work focused
on horror or horror-related themes. One reason for this could be that horror
was fashionable in the market at the time. However, the intelligence with
which the director engaged with this material suggests that it was appealing
to him, at least at this stage of his career.
De Palma’s early films, which included Greetings (1968) and Hi Mom!
(1970), were experimental, countercultural pieces that played games with
film form while also offering socially critical elements. While the formal
98 • DE PALMA, BRIAN (1940–)
games continued in the later horror films and thrillers, attempts to engage
with contemporary society were less noticeable. However, an intermittent,
albeit sometimes cryptic, exploration of sexual politics was apparent. Sisters
(1973), his first truly mainstream project, was an extraordinarily stylish
psychological thriller that in its treatment of voyeurism and its Bernard
Herrmann score showed the influence, like other De Palma films, of Alfred
Hitchcock. Some of the film’s disturbing dream-like imagery secured its
status as a horror-like project, and like much of 1970s American horror it
depicted male authority as both monstrous and ineffectual. By contrast,
Phantom of the Paradise (1974) was a dark comedy-horror reworking of The
Phantom of the Opera story, with pop-musical interludes that resurrected
some of the countercultural playfulness of De Palma’s earlier work at a time
when that type of cinematic game was not popular. The film was clever and
beautifully made, but it struggled to find an audience. The overblown
psychological thriller Obsession (1976) was a return to a Hitchcockian
world, although what was fresh in Sisters was starting to look like pastiche.
Carrie (1976) followed. This was one of the biggest commercial successes
of De Palma’s career and one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King
novel. Its high school and prom settings and its teenage characterizations
anticipated the slasher films that would follow a few years later. However,
what was most striking about the film was its presentation of the “monster.”
The telekinetic Carrie White (played by Sissy Spacek) managed to be both
extremely sympathetic and utterly destructive, and it was this ambiguity that
enabled De Palma to create a social world that audiences could either take as
normal or interpret as oppressive (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Carrie is one
of those films that has been accused of misogyny and praised for its insights
into female oppression). The film also contained one of horror cinema’s
greatest shock endings.
Although Carrie was full of slow-motion and split-screen devices, these
were usually subordinated to the demands of narrative and atmosphere. The
Fury (1978), another telekinesis film, was much more extravagant in its
formal pyrotechnics and considerably less interested in the human dynamics
of the story, to the point where some sections became almost abstract. Exten-
sive slow-motion chases punctuated this conspiracy thriller narrative, with
the climax provided by a remarkable Rick Baker–designed scene in which
the villain—played by John Cassavetes—was telekinetically exploded.
Emphasizing form over content got De Palma into trouble with his next
genre project: Dressed to Kill (1980). This horror-thriller appeared in the
middle of the slasher boom (although it was clearly not a slasher film, at least
not in the teenage horror sense of that term) and was caught up in public
protests over what was perceived as the increasing amount of screen violence
directed against women. This led to screenings of the film being picketed by
activists, although subsequently—and perhaps predictably—pro-De Palma
 DEL TORO, GUILLERMO (1964–) • 99
critics made the case for the film as a progressive exploration of gender
issues. As far as the plot of Dressed to Kill is concerned, however, one could
argue that the negative criticisms had a point. Women are persistently threat-
ened and violated in the film, and the killer’s transvestism—which clearly
refers back to Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)—suggests that it is the feminine
side of his character that is responsible for the violence. Having said this, one
could argue that the plot is perhaps not that important and that, as in some of
his previous work, De Palma is more interested in formal matters in the
movement of the camera and the felicitous juxtaposition of shots. Most not-
able in this respect is a lengthy wordless scene in an art gallery (and the
inevitable Hitchcock reference here is to Vertigo) where Angie Dickinson
and an unknown male follow and spy on each other. Clearly, there is a sexual
politics of looking at play here, with Dickinson’s gaze constantly thwarted,
but at the same time there is also considerable pleasure to be had in what is a
bravura display of filmmaking technique. How one values the latter experi-
ence is, of course, up to the spectator, and the extent to which a dubious
representation of women is designed to provoke remains, as it so often does
with De Palma, unclear.
As if saying good-bye to horror, both the political thriller Blow Out (1981)
and the psychological thriller Body Double (1984) made comedic references
to, respectively, the slasher film and the vampire film. Since then, De Palma
has worked mainly in the crime and action genres, although Raising Cain
(1992), Femme Fatale (2002), and Passion (2012) were throwbacks to the
types of films he was making in the 1970s.

DEKKER, FRED (1959–). During the 1980s, the writer-director Fred Dek-
ker was responsible for two lively and engaging comedy-horrors. Night of
the Creeps (1986) combined extraterrestrials with zombies, while The Mon-
ster Squad (1987) pitted children against traditional horror monsters, such as
Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, and the mummy. Dekker
also came up with the original story for the haunted house horror-comedy
House (1986). He went on to direct and cowrite Robocop 3 (1993) and wrote
and directed for the television horror series Tales from the Crypt
(1989–1996). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

DEL TORO, GUILLERMO (1964–). The innovative films of Mexican

writer-director Guillermo del Toro often possess a visionary quality as well
as reflecting his fascination with the state of childhood. Since the early
1990s, he has pursued an international career that has marked him out as one
of the most exciting talents currently working in the horror genre. Del Toro
started out in the Mexican film industry as a makeup and special effects
artist, working for a while with leading American makeup artist Dick Smith.
100 • DEMME, JONATHAN (1944–2017)
Cronos (1993), his directorial debut, was an imaginative reinvention of the
vampire story that showed as much interest in the relationships between
characters as it did in the conventional horror elements. Like many of Del
Toro’s later projects, it managed to be both moving and frightening, adult
and child-like. Mimic (1997), his first American film, was a more straightfor-
ward monster movie about giant insects living under New York, although
Del Toro still managed in places to convey his distinctive vision, notably in
scenes involving a mentally handicapped child who witnesses the monstrous
actions of the insects in the same dispassionate manner in which the little girl
in Cronos watches as her beloved grandfather is gradually transformed into a
monster. A move to Spain led to El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Back-
bone) (2001), another child-centered project, this time a quietly disturbing
ghost story set in the context of the Spanish Civil War. As he had done with
Cronos, Del Toro successfully combined what might be termed art house
conventions with a passionate commitment to the horror genre. Next came
two more mainstream projects, comic book adaptations Blade 2 (2002) and
Hellboy (2004), although, more than he had been able to do with Mimic, Del
Toro made something personal of both, endowing what could have been
simplistic action-based dramas with character nuance and a rich visual style.
El laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) (2006) was Del Toro’s most visu-
ally sumptuous project to date and returned him yet again to an unsentimen-
tally presented but nevertheless affecting fantasy world of a child. Following
the impressive sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008), Del Toro was
slated to direct The Hobbit for producer Peter Jackson, but production diffi-
culties ultimately led to his leaving the project and Jackson taking over as
director. Instead, Del Toro went on to direct the giant-monster movie Pacific
Rim (2013) and the gothic mystery Crimson Peak (2015), the latter of which
returned him to the theme of ghosts and proved as visually stunning and
atmospheric as any of his previous works.
Del Toro has also acted as producer or executive producer on the horror
films El orfanato (The Orphanage) (2007), Splice (2009), Don’t Be Afraid of
the Dark (2010), and Mama (2013) as well as cocreating the vampire-themed
television series The Strain (2014–2017), which was based on a trilogy of
novels that he coauthored with Chuck Hogan.

DEMME, JONATHAN (1944–2017). Jonathan Demme was an odd choice

for director on the serial killer drama The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Although Demme had begun his career with low-budget exploitation films
such as Caged Heat (1974) and Fighting Mad (1976), he was best known by
the late 1980s for character-driven work on the likes of Melvin and Howard
(1980) and Something Wild (1986) and for his concert film Stop Making
Sense (1984). The Last Embrace (1979), his clever Hitchcock pastiche, sug-
gested a director who was comfortable with thriller conventions, but the film
 THE DEVIL • 101
had not made much of an impact. However, Demme did a remarkable job
with Silence, combining Hitchcockian techniques with grand guignol ele-
ments and also finding a dark humor in Anthony Hopkins’s performance as
master serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The film set the pattern for later serial
killer dramas, although Demme himself—who won an Academy Award for
Silence—subsequently steered clear of the horror genre. Beloved (1998), his
ambitious adaptation of a Toni Morrison novel, did contain supernatural
imagery, although this sat uneasily with that film’s high-minded seriousness.

DEODATO, RUGGERO (1939–). The Italian director Ruggero Deodato

has worked in a variety of genres, although he is best known for his often
extremely violent horror films, and on this basis he has attracted a minor cult
following. His most notorious horror was the much-banned Cannibal Holo-
caust (1980), which was comprised in part of mock found footage of tor-
ture, cannibalism, and other forms of human degradation. It offered a grim
and misanthropic experience, although some horror critics and fans have
found transgressive value in its relentlessly extreme imagery. An earlier sim-
ilarly themed horror, Ultimo mondo cannibale (Cannibal) (1977), was re-
strained in comparison. La casa sperduta nel parco (The House on the Edge
of the Park) (1980), Deodato’s follow-up to Cannibal Holocaust, was a
violent thriller in the style of Wes Craven’s rape-revenge drama Last House
on the Left (1972), although it lacked the confrontational intelligence of
Craven’s film. Deodato’s other horror films—which include Camping del
terrore (Body Count) (1987), Un delitto poco comune (Off Balance) (1988),
and Minaccia d’amore (Dial Help) (1988)—are negligible. See also ITAL-
IAN HORROR.

THE DEVIL. Although the horror genre repeatedly deploys various notions
of evil, it has rarely depicted the Devil himself. Perhaps this is because the
Devil is just too monumental a figure to be used regularly. Instead, he has
featured as an occasional special guest star in horror films rather than as a
recurring character. He showed up briefly in traditional horned form in the
Danish Häxen: Witchcraft through the Ages (1922) and Hammer’s The
Devil Rides Out (1968), and Tim Curry’s heavily made-up performance as
the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985) owed more than a
passing visual debt to this conception of the arch-villain. More common is
the cinematic presentation of the Devil in human form. Sometimes explicitly
identified as the Devil and sometimes called Satan or Lucifer (with the theo-
logical distinctions between these not seeming to matter much in horror
cinema), he is usually figured as a character with a taste for the theatrical and
the melodramatic. Emil Jannings took on the role in F. W. Murnau’s Faust
(1926), and the idea of the Faustian pact, of an innocent succumbing to
102 • DIFFRING, ANTON (1916–1989)
Satanic temptations, has underpinned many subsequent Devil stories in hor-
ror cinema. Accordingly, Walter Huston was a charming tempter in William
Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), as was Richard Devon in
Roger Corman’s The Undead (1957). More recently, Robert De Niro in
Angel Heart (1987), Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Gabriel
Byrne in End of Days (1999), Viggo Mortensen in Prophecy (1995), and
Peter Stormare in Constantine (2005) have all offered their own grandstand-
ing versions of the Devil, with the tone ranging from the seductive and witty
to the petulant and bombastic.
Satanic cults have featured in, among others, The Black Cat (1934), The
Seventh Victim (1943), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Psychomania (1971),
Blood on Satan’s Claw (Satan’s Skin) (1971), The Devil’s Rain (1975), Race
with the Devil (1975), The Omen (1976) and its sequels, To the Devil a
Daughter (1976), Bless the Child (2000), and Lost Souls (2000), with some
of these films also exploring the idea of the Antichrist, the son of the Devil.
The Devil’s cinematic life has not been restricted to horror, however.
Comedy Devils have included Laird Cregar in Heaven Can Wait (1943),
Vincent Price in The Story of Mankind (1957), Peter Cook in Bedazzled
(1967), Christopher Lee in the television production Little Devil (1973),
Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Elizabeth Hurley as a
rare female Devil in the remake Bedazzled (2000), and both Harvey Keitel
and Rodney Dangerfield (as Satan and Lucifer, respectively) in Little Nicky
(2000). The Devil has also guested in two gangster films, played by Claude
Rains in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and by Ray Milland in Alias Nick
Beal (1949), and was a cartoon character in the animated feature South Park:
Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999). He has also popped up on television, not-
ably in Brimstone (1998–1999) and Lucifer (2015–).
The Devil, it seems, has many faces.

DIFFRING, ANTON (1916–1989). The German actor Anton Diffring was

frequently cast as a Nazi officer in British and American war films of the
1950s and 1960s, but he also showed up, usually in villainous roles, in some
horror films. He was Baron Frankenstein in the Kurt Siodmak–directed
pilot for Tales of Frankenstein (1958), a planned but never-made American
television series produced under the auspices of the British Hammer compa-
ny. Diffring went on to star as a mad scientist in Hammer’s The Man Who
Could Cheat Death (1959), one of the company’s lesser gothic productions,
and featured in Sidney Hayers’s garish British horror Circus of Horrors
(1960). He returned to horror in the 1970s with some minor continental
European productions, including two giallo thrillers, Riccardo Freda’s
L’Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire) (1971)
and Antonio Margheriti’s La morte negli occhi del gatto (Seven Deaths in
the Cat’s Eye) (1973), as well as the unpleasant Hexen geschändet und zu
 DISEASE • 103
Tode gequält (Mark of the Devil 2) (1973). Sillier but more palatable was the
British werewolf whodunnit The Beast Must Die (1974). One of his last
appearances was in Jesus Franco’s horror Faceless (1988).

DISEASE. Horror’s treatment of disease has often involved situations in

which control—personal or social—is threatened or lost. However, early
horror films usually shied away from the theme of disease, perhaps because it
offered a less containable threat than that posed by traditional monsters, such
as vampires or werewolves. Val Lewton’s production Isle of the Dead
(1945) was a notable exception in its doom-laden treatment of a plague story.
A sense of vampirism as a kind of infection was also apparent in the German
production Nosferatu (1922), although this idea was marginalized in the
1931 Universal Dracula as well as in many of the vampire films that fol-
lowed in the 1940s and 1950s.
From the 1960s on, disease-based scenarios have been more evident in a
horror cinema more willing to entertain notions of physical and social col-
lapse. The Last Man on Earth (1964), an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s
classic vampire novel I Am Legend, dealt with the idea of vampirism as a
species-threatening infection, while Roger Corman’s Masque of the Red
Death (1964) offered a period-set treatment of an unstoppable plague.
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) featured zombieism as
an infection that victims can catch from a zombie bite (something that has
since become an established convention not just in zombie films but in other
films as well, such as the 1995 Italian horror Demoni, in which the bite of a
demon transforms one into a demon). Romero’s The Crazies (1973) and its
2010 remake also dealt with a plague-like infection spreading inexorably
through a small town. The Canadian director David Cronenberg has made a
specialty of stories about disease, with They Came from Within (The Parasite
Murders, Shivers) (1975) and Rabid (1977) depicting a social collapse
brought about by infection, while his more intimate The Brood (1979) and
The Fly (1986) drew on imagery associated with cancer in their representa-
tion of bodies rebelling against their owners. Two further versions of Mathe-
son’s I Am Legend, The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007), empha-
sized the infection-based elements in the story more forcefully than The Last
Man on Earth, and even the late Hammer horror The Satanic Rites of Dracu-
la (1973) showed Dracula about to unleash a plague on the world.
More recently, the thrillers Outbreak (1995) and Contagion (2011) have
articulated comparable anxieties in their depiction of a foreign disease taking
hold in the United States, while the British horror films 28 Days Later
(2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007) offered eerie scenes of London depopulat-
ed by the onset of a highly infectious disease. Some horror critics have also
perceived what they term a “post-AIDS” concern with notions of infection by
blood—most self-consciously in Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracu-
104 • DISEMBODIED HANDS
la (1992)—although the extent to which this represents a radical new devel-
opment in horror or merely a new inflection of something already present is
unclear.

DISEMBODIED HANDS. Disembodied hands are unlikely horror mon-

sters. However, their sporadic appearances in horror cinema have connected
in interesting ways with anxieties about bodily control and integrity. The first
film to explore this was Robert Florey’s The Beast with Five Fingers
(1946), in which the animated hand turned out to be the product of Peter
Lorre’s demented imagination as he sought to disavow his own murderous
acts. The severed hand in Oliver Stone’s The Hand (1981) was similarly
connected with the tortured consciousness of its main male protagonist. In
comparison, the severed hands in two British horror films from the Amicus
company, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) and And Now the Scream-
ing Starts! (1973), along with the American film The Crawling Hand (1963),
were hell-bent on revenge on the people who had wronged their original
owners. “The Body Politic” segment of the television horror anthology film
Quicksilver Highway (1997), adapted from a Clive Barker story, took this
further through its depiction of a massed rebellion of hands intent on liberat-
ing themselves from the bodies to which they were attached. Comedic disem-
bodied hands featured in The Addams Family (1991) and in Sam Raimi’s
The Evil Dead II (1987), where, in an unforgettable moment, the hand gives
its ex-owner the finger.
Horror’s other use for disembodied hands has been to attach them to a
human, invariably with disastrous consequences. Maurice Reynard’s 1920
novel Les mains d’Orlac (The Hands of Orlac)—in which a murderer’s
hands are grafted onto an injured pianist and begin to take him over—was
filmed as Robert Wiene’s Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) (1924), Karl
Freund’s Mad Love (1935), Edmond T. Greville’s The Hands of Orlac
(1961), and Newton Arnold’s Hands of a Stranger (1962).

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been repeatedly adapted for
stage, screen, and television. However, as has also been the case with Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, these adaptations have
tended to be loose and selective. In large part, this has something to do with
the structure of Stevenson’s novel, which, like Frankenstein and Dracula, is
comprised of a series of episodes told in the first person by different charac-
ters. An episodic collage of this kind is ill suited to direct translation into film
or, for that matter, other dramatic media. From early stage adaptations on, the
emphasis has been laid instead on the spectacle of the civilized Jekyll’s
transformation into the animalistic and sensual Hyde, and sexual themes only
 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE • 105
implicit in the original novel have also become increasingly foregrounded. It
was particularly resonant in this respect that the major 1888 London stage
production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde coincided with the Jack the Ripper
killings, with Stevenson’s conceptualization of male duality clearly inform-
ing the way in which the Ripper’s activities were discussed both at the time
and since. In fact, the idea of male sexuality as a Hyde-like uncontrollable
and dangerous force has proved one of the more fascinating and potentially
most pernicious aspects of the Jekyll/Hyde cultural legacy.
There were numerous silent film adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
including Der Januskopf (1920), a now lost film directed by German master
F. W. Murnau. The best-known silent version, however, was the 1920
American production directed by John S. Robertson. This starred John Barry-
more, whose bravura performance of the transformation scene—without the
aid of special effects or special makeup until near the end of the transforma-
tion—demonstrated the possibilities the role of Jekyll/Hyde offered for a
grandstanding style of acting. Fredric March relied more on effects and
makeup in his rendition of the role in the 1931 version directed by Rouben
Mamoulian but nevertheless won an Academy Award for his efforts. Ma-
moulian’s film took advantage of the relatively relaxed censorship of the
early 1930s to explore with a surprising degree of openness the sociosexual
repression that Hyde sought to evade. By contrast, the 1941 version starring
Spencer Tracy and directed by Victor Fleming was more decorous, although
it still retained a stately power.
Later versions of Jekyll/Hyde divorced the character even more decisively
from his original literary context. Jean Renoir’s television film Le Testament
du Docteur Cordelier (The Testament of Dr. Cordelier) (1959) was a quietly
serious treatment of the subject. In comparison, Hammer adopted a gim-
micky approach for The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) by making Hyde a
more physically attractive figure than the hirsute Jekyll and entrapping him
in a gaudily melodramatic plot that had nothing to do with Stevenson’s
novel. In the early 1970s, Hammer took this inventiveness yet further
through having Jekyll transformed into a woman in Dr. Jekyll and Sister
Hyde (1971), which, despite its weird premise, turned out to be one of the
company’s best later films. Even more bizarre was the Spanish horror Dr.
Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo (Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf) (1971), in which a
Dr. Jekyll transforms a werewolf into Mr. Hyde. Blaxploitation horror in the
1970s offered Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976), while Walerian Borowczyk’s
Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (Dr. Jekyll and His Women) (1981) and the
Anthony Perkins vehicle Edge of Sanity (1989) helped to keep the character
alive, if only in exploitative form. Mary Reilly (1996), which recounted the
Jekyll story as told by Jekyll’s maid, was a more serious treatment of the
subject that returned to Stevenson’s original narrative but from a revisionary
106 • DOGS
perspective. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) and Van Hels-
ing (2004), by contrast, used Jekyll/Hyde as an excuse for some expensive
special effects.
Comedy versions of Jekyll and Hyde have included the Tom and Jerry
cartoon Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), Hammer’s The Ugly Duckling (1959), The Nutty
Professor (1963, remade in 1996), Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980), and Dr.
Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995). There have also been numerous television Jek-
ylls, notably Jack Palance in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1968) and Michael Caine in Jekyll and Hyde (1990). The British television
series Jekyll (2007) and Jekyll and Hyde (2015) offered interesting revision-
ary accounts of the story.

DOGS. Horror’s treatment of man’s best friend has been less nuanced than
its treatment of cats. Usually, they are presented as the epitome of savagery
in films such as The Omen (1976), The Pack (1977), Dogs of Hell (1982),
Cujo (1983), Man’s Best Friend (1993), Rottweiler (2004), and The Breed
(2006) and, most of all, in the numerous horror-inflected versions of the
Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles. Dario Argento’s
Suspiria (1977) also offers a memorable scene in which a blind man is
slaughtered by his own guide dog. A remarkably silly vampire dog stars in
Dracula’s Dog (Zoltan: Hound of Dracula) (1978), while a more effectively
scary talking dog is featured in Spike Lee’s serial killer drama Summer of
Sam (1999). By contrast, in both the 1977 and the 2006 version of The Hills
Have Eyes, a dutiful dog by the name of Beast deploys its savagery against
the bad guys in order to protect its owners. On a more fantastic level, dogs
with human heads appear, mercifully briefly, in both The Mephisto Waltz
(1971) and the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

DOLLS. Horror often renders the inanimate as animate, and the genre’s
representation of dolls is a good example of this. Threatening children’s
dolls show up in Dolls (1987), Poltergeist (1982), and, most of all, in Child’s
Play (1988) and its sequels, where the doll in question is possessed by the
spirit of a serial killer. The creepy doll Annabelle that features in the ghost
story The Conjuring (2013) and its spin-off Annabelle (2014) is also demoni-
cally possessed. Murderous puppets are the stars of Puppet Master (1989)
and its sequels, animated murderous toys feature in Asylum (1972), while
dolls that might or might not be alive appear in Dead of Night (1945), Magic
(1978), and The Boy (2016). An affection for dolls has also been used by
filmmakers to identify adult characters who are in various ways still danger-
 DRACULA • 107
ously caught up in childhood fears and anxieties, such as in the psychologi-
cal thrillers Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and The Psychopath (1965) and
the giallo Profondo rosso (Deep Red) (1975).

DOUGLAS, MELVYN (1901–1981). The American actor Melvyn Douglas

had brushes with the horror genre both near the beginning and near the end of
a long and distinguished career that included two Academy Awards. His
down-to-earth skepticism in James Whale’s comedy-horror The Old Dark
House (1932) and the independently produced The Vampire Bat (1933)
helped ground the over-the-top dramas. Four decades later, he did duty as a
character actor in a sinister role in Roman Polanski’s Le Locataire (The
Tenant) (1976) and in more benign parts in The Changeling (1980) and
Ghost Story (1981), the latter of which had the distinction of being Fred
Astaire’s only horror film.

DOURIF, BRAD (1950–). The American character actor Brad Dourif has
appeared in supporting roles in numerous horror films, including Tobe
Hooper’s Spontaneous Combustion (1990), William Peter Blatty’s The Ex-
orcist III (1990), the horror-western Grim Prairie Tales (1990), Dario Ar-
gento’s Trauma (1993), Alien: Resurrection (1997), Urban Legend (1998),
Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween (2007), and Priest (2011), to name but
a few. However, his main contribution to the horror genre is as the voice of
Chucky, the demonic doll in the Child’s Play films, beginning with Child’s
Play (1988). Initially appearing in the cycle as a serial killer whose soul is
transferred into Chucky, Dourif successfully combined menace and humor
through his voice alone.

DRACULA. Vlad Tepes, a 15th-century Romanian warrior prince, used to

sign himself as “Dracula” (which meant “Son of the Dragon”). Four hundred
years later, the author Bram Stoker borrowed both the name and Vlad’s
association with copious bloodletting on the battlefield for his famous vam-
pire novel Dracula (1897). Since then, Dracula has appeared not just in
horror films but also in television shows, advertisements, stage plays, comic
books, ballets, musicals, and novels. However, for all his pervasiveness, he
is an oddly protean figure who, since his 1897 literary debut, has been con-
stantly revised and reinterpreted, and his enduring popularity is undoubtedly
connected with this ability to adapt to the changing shape of our fears and
desires.
Although an obscure 1920 Hungarian film was the first to be called Dra-
cula, the best-known early screen adaptation of the novel is German director
F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Sym-
phony of Terror) (1922). In this, the vampire was played by Max Schreck
108 • DRACULA
(whose surname just happens to be the German word for “terror”) as a truly
repulsive and animalistic figure with protruding rat-like incisor fangs. Unfor-
tunately, Murnau’s film was an unauthorized adaptation, and simply chang-
ing the names of its principal characters—with Count Dracula, for example,
becoming Graf Orlok—did not protect the production company from being
sued by Bram Stoker’s widow. In any event, the film’s vision of a bald,
grotesque vampiric parasite has not proved very influential on later represen-
tations of either Dracula or the vampire in general (although Nosferatu-like
characteristics were displayed by the main vampire villain in Tobe Hooper’s
1979 television film Salem’s Lot as well as featuring in Werner Herzog’s
1979 remake of Murnau’s film).
The version of Dracula that established the norm against which later Dra-
culas defined themselves was the 1931 Universal production directed by
Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the evil Count. Here, Dracula
was presented in an altogether more attractive and civilized form than he was
in Nosferatu, for Lugosi’s vampire was at home in polite social circles and
comfortable in a tuxedo and also had a seductive power over women. The
film was adapted from a successful Broadway play that itself had been
adapted—by John L. Balderston—from an English stage version written by
actor-manager Hamilton Deane. Despite a picturesque opening sequence in
Transylvania (present in Stoker’s original novel but removed from the stage
plays for budgetary reasons), the film never really transcended its theatrical
source, and it has not dated well. By contrast, the Spanish-language version
of Dracula, shot by Universal at the same time as the Browning film and
starring Carlos Villarias as Dracula, displayed considerably more visual flair
but lacked the charismatically exotic Lugosi, whose Hungarian-accented per-
formance was key to his film’s considerable commercial success and its
continuing cult status.
Despite this success, sequels to Dracula were slow to follow. The Count
himself was briefly glimpsed as a corpse in Universal’s first sequel to Dracu-
la, Dracula’s Daughter (1936), but it was not until the 1940s that he was
fully resurrected for the stylish but misleadingly titled Son of Dracula
(1943), in which Dracula—not, as far as one can tell, his son—was played by
Lon Chaney Jr., an altogether more American actor than Lugosi at a time
when the foreign exoticism popular in the 1930s had gone out of fashion. The
film itself was set in contemporary America, and while the spectacle it of-
fered of Dracula driving around in a motorcar might seem odd, this did
maintain the emphasis on the contemporary in Universal’s previous Dracula
films; in an early screenplay for the 1931 Dracula, the Count had fled Eng-
land in a plane, an escape method that was adopted by his daughter five years
later. The gaunt and sinister John Carradine donned the vampire cloak for
Universal’s multiple-monster films House of Frankenstein (1944) and
 DRACULA • 109
House of Dracula (1945), while Lugosi himself returned to the role for the
second and final time in the comedy-horror Abbott and Costello Meet Fran-
kenstein (1948).
As if exhausted by this activity, Dracula disappeared from cinema screens
for the next 10 years, although old Dracula films found a new popularity on
American television during the 1950s. In 1958, however, two new Dracula
films appeared in the cinema: one American, the other British. The Return of
Dracula (1958), a low-budget American production, continued the Lugosi
tradition by having a foreign-accented vampire—played by Czech actor
Francis Lederer—and adopted the contemporary small-town setting earlier
explored by Son of Dracula; it made little impression at the box office. The
British production was more significant. Dracula (The Horror of Dracula)
(1958) was Hammer’s follow-up to The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Di-
rected by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee in his first major
role with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, the film was the first adaptation of
Stoker’s novel since the 1931 Dracula; it was also the first color Dracula
film and the first since Nosferatu to show vampire fangs (although Lee’s
fangs were elegant canine affairs). The emphasis on the vampire’s sensuality
was more explicit than ever before, reflecting a relaxation in film censor-
ship, and the lurid red blood flowed freely. The film was a notable success
and confirmed Hammer’s status as a leading horror producer. Although in-
itially hesitant about repeating the role, Lee eventually went on to star in six
more Dracula films of variable quality for the company—Dracula—Prince
of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the
Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula AD 1972 (1972),
and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)—with the latter two bringing the
vampire to contemporary London. Hammer also found other ways of exploit-
ing Dracula; The Brides of Dracula (1960) bore his name although the Count
himself was absent, and Dracula later featured in a small role in The Legend
of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974), where he was played by John Forbes-
Robertson.
Hammer’s success led to other filmmakers offering their own versions of
Dracula. The results ranged from the silly—Billy the Kid versus Dracula
(1966), for example, in which John Carradine returned to the role of Dracula
after 20 years, or Paul Morrissey’s enjoyably over-the-top Blood for Dracu-
la (1974)—to the somber—with examples here including two further adapta-
tions of Stoker’s novel: Jesus Franco’s Spanish production El Conde Dracu-
la (Count Dracula) (1970), featuring Christopher Lee as a mustachioed
Count, and Dan Curtis’s Dracula (1973), an American television film that
achieved a limited theatrical release and that innovatively explored the idea
of Dracula as a historical figure.
110 • DRACULA
Three films released in 1979 suggested that representations of Dracula
were becoming increasingly self-conscious about the tradition to which they
belonged. The comedy Love at First Bite (1979), which depicted a bewil-
dered Count trying to come to terms with modern America, affectionately
mocked the anachronistic Lugosi version, while Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu:
Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre) (1979), a remake of Nosferatu,
displayed considerably less faith in the power of good over evil than had
Murnau’s film. John Badham’s Dracula, which starred Frank Langella as
Dracula and Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing, also returned to an earlier
source, in this case the Hamilton Deane/John Balderston theatrical adapta-
tion, which had provided the source material for the 1931 Dracula. Reflect-
ing the antiauthority attitudes found in much 1970s horror, Badham’s film
had little confidence in the power of Van Helsing (who, in a novel twist, ends
up being staked to death by Dracula), and its ambiguous conclusion sug-
gested that Dracula lived on despite all the attempts of the forces of good to
destroy him.
At this point, there was another hiatus, and, as he had done before, Dracula
went underground, reemerging spectacularly in 1992 with Francis Ford
Coppola’s Dracula. This was a bravura piece of filmmaking that accentuat-
ed the self-consciousness of the previous wave of Dracula films to a point
where it was hard to find any element of the film that was not referring in
some way to an earlier Dracula film. The prologue showing Dracula as a
historical warrior could be traced back to the Dan Curtis version, the stress
on Dracula as a romantic figure seems to relate to the Badham version, Gary
Oldman’s performance as Dracula owed more than a little to Lugosi, and
Coppola’s style was full of homages to Nosferatu and German expression-
ism in general. In the years since Coppola’s film, Dracula has been relegated
to guest-villain status—in Blade: Trinity (2004) and Van Helsing (2004) and
an episode of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer—or reworked to
such an extent that any connection with previous representations is attenuat-
ed or broken by the extremity of the innovation—for example, Dracula 2000
(2000), in which it is revealed that Dracula is “really” Judas Iscariot. More
recently, Dracula Untold (2014) restored the idea of the vampire as historical
warrior, Dario Argento’s Dracula (2012) was an awkward compilation of
old-fashioned vampire conventions, and the animated features Hotel Transyl-
vania (2012) and Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) featured a comedy Dracula.
The Count also showed up in a short-lived television series: Dracula (2013).
It is hard to say whether Dracula’s current marginal status in horror cine-
ma is a sign that his power to fascinate us is finally waning. The cinematic
history of this figure contains several comparably quiet periods interrupted
by radical new revisions that have brought him back to life. We might be in
one of those quiet periods now. Only the future will tell, but if the past tells
us anything, it is that Dracula returns.
 DREYER, CARL-THEODOR (1889–1968) • 111
DREYER, CARL-THEODOR (1889–1968). The Danish director Carl-
Theodor Dreyer is renowned for a series of austere character-based dramas,
such as La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc) (1928) and
Gertrud (1964), but he also worked effectively with gothic material. Vam-
pyr—Der Traum des Allan Grey (Vampyr) (1932) was an elliptical study of
vampirism that avoided the horror conventions associated with Dracula and
instead offered an unnerving dream-like atmosphere. Its claustrophobic de-
piction of someone being buried alive remains powerful even today. Blade af
Satans bog (Leaves Out of the Book of Satan) (1921), an earlier Dreyer film,
dealt more prosaically with the activities of the Devil as he tempted people
from different historical periods. By contrast, the later Vredens dag (Day of
Wrath) (1943) was an intense study of the psychology of witch-hunting.
 E
ENGLUND, ROBERT (1947–). The American actor Robert Englund found
horror fame as the child-killing Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm
Street films. In the first film in the cycle, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984),
Krueger was a genuinely nasty and cruel figure haunting the dreams of
various hapless teenagers. However, in the seven sequels that followed, Eng-
lund played him as a prankster, exuding manic energy and offering a series of
wisecracks as he slaughtered his teenage victims. Perversely, it was Englund/
Krueger who became the hero of these films rather than the anodyne protago-
nists who represented the forces of good. Englund, in the guise of Krueger,
also hosted the television series Freddy’s Nightmares (1988–1990).
Englund’s other genre credits include Eaten Alive (Death Trap) (1977),
Dead & Buried (1981), Galaxy of Terror (1981), C.H.U.D. II—Bud the Chud
(1989), The Phantom of the Opera (1989), Dance Macabre (1991), Night
Terrors (1993), The Mangler (1995), The Vampyre Wars (1996), The Killer
Tongue (1996), Wishmaster (1997), Urban Legend (1998), Strangeland
(1998), Python (2000), 2001 Maniacs (2005), Hatchet (2006), Jack Brooks:
Monster Slayer (2007), Inkubus (2011), and Strippers vs. Werewolves
(2012). He also directed the horror film 976-Evil (1989) and the comedy-
horror Killer Pad (2008).

THE EXORCIST (1973). Films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960),

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Roman Polanski’s
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) had suggested that changes were taking place in
American horror. However, it was the massive commercial success of The
Exorcist (1973) that encouraged a boom in horror production and established
some of the key themes of 1970s horror—notably the contemporary
American setting, the monstrous child, and the inadequacy of social institu-
tions. As adapted from the best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty (who
was also the film’s producer), the film spared no detail in its depiction of a
girl’s possession by a demon. Vomiting, urination, profanity, and masturba-
tion were all present to an extent never seen before in a mainstream Holly-
wood production, and during the film’s initial release there were reports of

113
114 • THE EXORCIST (1973)
members of the audience passing out in screenings. The director was
William Friedkin, who had just won an Academy Award for The French
Connection (1971) and who brought a graphic realism and a high level of
technical expertise to the proceedings, and the cast included Max von Syd-
ow, Ellen Burstyn, Lee J. Cobb, Jason Miller, and, as the possessed girl,
Linda Blair.
The tone of The Exorcist was unusually somber for horror. The casting of
von Sydow as the main exorcist alluded to the bleak work of Ingmar Berg-
man (with whom the actor was a regular collaborator), and the film had a
loose and in places ambiguous narrative structure that, like many Hollywood
films of this period, drew on European art cinema for some of its inspira-
tion. To a certain extent, the film’s authorship was split between Blatty, for
whom it was clearly a work with religious significance, and Friedkin, who
seemed more concerned with fashioning an extremely well crafted roller-
coaster ride. The overall result was provocative and powerful. Numerous
Academy Award nominations resulted, with Blatty winning for his screen-
play and another awarded for best sound.
The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), which was directed by John Boor-
man, was one of the most eccentric sequels in horror history. Linda Blair
costarred with Richard Burton in a convoluted narrative that sought to be
different from the original but that proved too obscure to connect with a mass
audience. It was a critical and commercial flop that temporarily ended the
series, although it did contain some interesting sequences and featured a fine
score by Ennio Morricone. Blatty returned for The Exorcist III (1990),
which he adapted from his novel Legion and also directed. Perhaps wisely,
the film ignored the events of the previous sequel and referred directly back
to The Exorcist itself, with the Jason Miller character—who had apparently
died in the original—returning in possessed form. The film was stylish and
had some impressive scenes of suspense, but ultimately it was overwhelmed
by its own seriousness and lacked Friedkin’s ability to move the story along.
More than a decade passed before thoughts turned to the possibility of an
Exorcist prequel. Exorcist II had already dealt in flashback with the early
years of the von Sydow character. Now, Paul Schrader was hired to direct
Dominion, the official prequel (replacing the original director John Fran-
kenheimer). The resulting film was considered too tame by the producers,
who promptly shelved it and, in an unprecedented maneuver, hired another
director, Renny Harlin, to make a new prequel, reusing some of the same
cast but with a substantially revised story and considerably more gore and
violence. Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) was certainly a lively
affair, but it lacked the measured and ominous approach of Blatty and Fried-
kin’s original. Schrader’s version, which was eventually released as Domin-
ion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005), was more thoughtful but perhaps too
 EXPRESSIONISM • 115
restrained for its own good. If nothing else, both prequels underlined how
effective Blatty and Friedkin had been in balancing ambitious subject matter
with the demands of popular entertainment.
Confirming that nothing ever really dies in horror, 2016 saw the produc-
tion of a television series titled The Exorcist, which was a loose sequel of
sorts to the original film.

EXPRESSIONISM. The artistic movement that came to be called German

expressionism was firmly established in German art and literature before the
outbreak of World War I. However, its impact on cinema was not fully felt
until the postwar period. The first and most extreme example of expression-
ism in cinema was Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1919), which self-consciously emulated a painterly
look through an extensive use of painted backdrops. Tilted angles and
painted shadows, along with a gestural form of acting, gave a powerful sense
of an unstable social order and tortured individual psychologies, with this
arguably reflecting broader social anxieties evident in the Weimar period.
However, Caligari’s distinctive look was also part of an attempt to acquire a
high-cultural status, with the film marketed more as a work of art than as a
proto-horror project. Wiene tried unsuccessfully to repeat the success of
Caligari with the similarly styled Genuine (1920). Other films now usually
thought of as examples of expressionism were more restrained in their use of
distortion and chiaroscuro lighting—among them Paul Wegener’s Der Go-
lem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem) (1920), F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu,
eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror) (1922), and
Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) (1924). Other German
directors from the Weimar period also displayed the stylistic influence of
expressionism—notably Fritz Lang, who had contributed to Caligari’s
screenplay—in their use of claustrophobic framings or tilted camera angles.
The contribution of expressionism to the development of 1930s American
horror has been noted by a number of horror historians. Some of the German
filmmakers associated with expressionism subsequently worked in Holly-
wood on horror films, notable among them Karl Freund and Paul Leni,
while the influence of performances by Conrad Veidt in The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari and Wegener in The Golem has been detected in Boris Karloff’s
shambling walk as the monster in Universal’s Frankenstein (1931). A more
general propensity for strange camera angles and stylized lighting was also
apparent in a wide range of American horror films from the period, while
Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) lifted many of its plot
elements from Caligari. Similar stylistic devices would later characterize
1940s film noir, although by that time, with a few exceptions, the horror
genre had opted for a more solidly realist approach that has been largely
maintained through to the present day. Stylistic echoes of expressionism can
116 • EYES
still be found, however, in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations
of the early 1960s, for example, or in some of the Italian work of Dario
Argento, Mario Bava, or Lucio Fulci.

EYES. In many ways, the eye is the principal human organ for horror cine-
ma. Directors will frequently use close-ups of the eyes of victims, wide and
helpless, and monsters, narrowed and aggressive, to accentuate the genre’s
sadomasochistic thrills. In addition, injuries to eyes have contributed to some
of the more assaultive moments in horror, invoking as they do an audience’s
sense of vulnerability about this softest and most exposed of organs. The eye
being cut open by a straight razor at the beginning of the surrealist film Un
Chien Andalou (1928) is an early non-horror example of the emotive power
of the eye injury, and horror filmmakers have been reproducing that moment
ever since. Eyes are slashed, stabbed, or mutilated in, among others, Horrors
of the Black Museum (1959), La Maschera del Demonio (The Mask of Satan,
Black Sunday, The Revenge of the Vampire) (1960), The Birds (1963),
Witchfinder General (1968), Hands of the Ripper (1971), Satan’s Slave
(1976), Zombi 2 (Zombie, Zombie Flesh Eaters) (1979), The Fog (1980),
L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981), Dead and Buried (1981), Opera (Terror at the
Opera) (1987), and Odishon (Audition) (1999).
 F
FAMILY HORROR. The term “family horror” is often used by horror’s
critics and historians to describe a type of horror film in which the monster
originates from an ostensibly normal family or where the family itself is
monstrous. There is not much of this in 1930s and 1940s horror, but from the
1950s on there is an increasing sense in the genre of the monster being closer
to home than before, with this most clearly manifested through its familial
nature. The murderous child in The Bad Seed (1956) provided a hint at what
was to come, but it was Psycho (1960) that crystallized this theme through its
representation of an apparently dutiful son who turned out to be a transvestite
serial killer. More murderous children showed up in, among others, Night
of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist (1973), It’s Alive (1974), The
Omen (1976), and Halloween (1978), while dangerous parents (or occasion-
ally stepparents) featured, for example, in British horrors Hands of the
Ripper (1971), Countess Dracula (1971), Demons of the Mind (1972), The
Creeping Flesh (1973), and Frightmare (1974) and American horrors Car-
rie (1976), The Shining (1980), The Stepfather (1987), Parents (1989), Soci-
ety (1989), and The People under the Stairs (1991). Monstrous families have
been a particular feature of rural horror films, such as The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (1974, remade in 2003), The Hills Have Eyes (1977, remade in
2006), and House of 1000 Corpses (2003), where they also often represent a
degraded version of the working class. Dysfunctional families of a gentler,
usually more middle-class kind can also be found in abundance from the
1970s on, with weak parents and rebellious children a recurrent feature in
slasher films and other forms of teenage horror. More positive representa-
tions of the family as it comes under attack from external supernatural forces
show up in The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982) and in
contemporary haunted house films, such as Insidious (2010), Sinister (2012),
and The Conjuring (2013).

FANS. The stereotypical horror fan is someone who is immature, inarticu-

late, socially awkward, and not too bright. The reality of horror fandom is
more complex, of course, and involves an extraordinarily diverse range of

117
118 • FANTASTIC FACTORY
people from different backgrounds. The horror genre has over the years
attracted a significant cult following, possibly because of its low cultural
status and its potentially transgressive qualities, and horror filmmakers have
become increasingly aware of how knowledgeable and demanding horror
fans can be and how much they need to cater to them. The fan magazine
Famous Monsters of Filmland, which first appeared in 1958, encouraged the
development of a horror fan culture. Other publications followed, including
professionally produced magazines and privately produced fanzines. Fans
got to meet each other at horror conventions, while other fans—among them
John Carpenter and Joe Dante—went on to become horror film directors
themselves and brought a fan-based knowledge back into cinema. The advent
of the Internet offered new opportunities for horror fans, and a cursory
search today will quickly find numerous horror-based sites where fans record
and reflect on their enthusiasms and debate new releases. Such enterprises
underline the extent to which horror fans are often active and creative view-
ers who respond in critical ways to the material about which they care so
much. An awareness of fan activity of this kind is a necessary antidote
against those approaches to horror that assume that the horror experience is
essentially undemanding and repetitive and that it requires little of its audi-
ence by way of intelligent reaction.

FANTASTIC FACTORY. The Fantastic Factory production setup was

formed by Julio Fernandez and American writer-director Brian Yuzna under
the auspices of the Spanish company Filmax and produced a cycle of horror
films in the first half of the 2000s. It specialized in English-language films
shot largely by Spanish crews for the international market. The results were
variable. Stuart Gordon’s Dagon (2001) was an atmospheric adaptation of
an H. P. Lovecraft story, while Paco Plaza’s Romasanta (2004) was an
impressive reinvention of the werewolf story. However, Faust: Love of the
Damned (2001), Arachnid (2001), Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Rottweiler
(2004), La Monja (The Nun) (2005), and Beneath Still Waters (2005) were
more conventional genre projects.

FARROW, MIA (1945–). Mia Farrow knows how to suffer. She suffered
magnificently in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), where her
character’s physical frailty and neurotic intensity were indispensable to the
film’s disturbing representation of pregnancy. She suffered again as a blind
woman terrorized by a serial killer in the British-set Blind Terror (See No
Evil) (1971) and as a grieving mother haunted by a dead child in the ghost
story Full Circle (1977). Finally, in a canny piece of casting, it was her turn
to dish out some suffering as the evil nanny in the remake of The Omen
(2006).
 FILIPINO HORROR • 119
FERRARA, ABEL (1951–). The iconoclastic director Abel Ferrara spe-
cializes in edgy urban dramas, and his occasional horror films often reflect
this. The Driller Killer (1979) is a disturbing and graphic representation of
urban alienation; its title, combined with a lurid video box cover, made the
film one of the most notorious of British “video nasties” during the early
1980s. Ms 45 (1981) is an equally unforgiving rape-revenge story. Body
Snatchers (1993), an effective third version of the alien invasion fantasy
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers story, abandoned Ferrara’s customary urban
setting for a military base out in the countryside. The modern vampire film
The Addiction (1995) returned to more familiar territory, with a weird and
unsettling mix of urban bloodletting and dense philosophizing that some
found pretentious and others compelling. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

FERRINI, FRANCO (1944–). Franco Ferrini is an Italian screenwriter who

has collaborated regularly with writer-producer-director Dario Argento on
films such as Phenomena (1985), Demoni (Demons) (1985), Demoni 2:
L’incubo ritorna (Demons 2) (1986), Opera (Terror at the Opera) (1987), La
Chiesa (The Church) (1989), Due occhi diabolici (Two Evil Eyes) (1990),
Trauma (1993), La Sindrome di Stendhal (The Stendhal Syndrome) (1996),
Nonhosonno (Sleepless) (2001), Il cartaio (The Card Player) (2004), and Ti
piace Hitchcock? (Do You Like Hitchcock?) (2005). He has worked on giallo
thrillers for other directors, notably Enigma rosso (1978), Sotto il vestito
niente (Nothing underneath) (1985), and Occhi di cristallo (Eyes of Crystal)
(2004), and also wrote and directed his own giallo: Caramelle da uno sco-
nosciuto (Sweets from a Stranger) (1987).

FILIPINO HORROR. The Philippines has a tradition of supernatural cine-

ma running back to the silent period. Films about witches and ghosts were a
significant feature, although up until the 1950s these rarely circulated outside
the Philippines. However, the success of Terror Is a Man (Creature from
Blood Island) (1959), an unofficial adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of
Dr. Moreau, brought a degree of international visibility to Filipino horror.
There followed a procession of low-budget productions of variable quality
featuring vampires and zombies alongside the more traditional witch films.
Some directors became genre specialists—notably Gerardo de Leon and
Eddie Romero—and, at their best, the horror films had energy and inven-
tiveness that belied their limited production values. More recently, a new
generation of filmmakers has continued the Filipino horror tradition with
films such as the supernatural drama Aswang (1992) and the Shake, Rattle &
Roll comedy-horror anthologies (which at the time of writing have reached
part 15). It is regrettable that little of this work is known internationally.
120 • FINAL DESTINATION (2000)
FINAL DESTINATION (2000). The American horror film Final Destina-
tion (2000) inaugurated a distinctive five-film cycle that managed to be ex-
traordinarily repetitive and surprisingly inventive. The repetition came with
the basic format, which varied little from one film to the next. We begin each
time with the main protagonist having a premonition of a disaster in which he
or she and a number of other people die. Thus warned, the characters in
question are able to save themselves and others only to discover that the
survivors then start dying in bizarre accidents in the order that they would
have died in the initial disaster. Death, it seems, has a design and will not be
denied its victims. The disaster varies—beginning with an exploding airplane
in the first film, followed by a motorway crash in Final Destination 2 (2003),
a roller-coaster ride accident in Final Destination 3 (2006), a racetrack acci-
dent in The Final Destination (2009), and a suspension bridge collapse in
Final Destination 5 (2011)—but its essential function remains the same
throughout the cycle.
Much of the cycle’s inventiveness comes from its extended “accidental”
death scenes, which owed something to the spectacular death sequences in
The Omen (1976) but which also managed to present everyday modern
settings as astonishingly dangerous. No matter what precautions the potential
victims take, malls, cinemas, cars, workplaces, dental surgeries, tanning sa-
lons, and, most of all, domestic households become veritable killing grounds.
Indeed, the fatalism evident in the cycle is striking. Only two characters, in
Final Destination 2, manage to escape Death’s clutches. Everyone else dies
either in the film in which they first appear or in its immediate sequel. Death
itself generally remains an off-screen presence that manifests only as a sinis-
ter shadow and unexpected breeze, although the cycle teases us with the idea
that Tony Todd, who appears as a mortician in the first, second, and fifth
films (and offers a voice-only cameo in the third), might be a personification
of Death. In a final darkly sardonic twist, Final Destination 5 concludes with
the revelation that it is a prequel to the first film, with the cycle’s last
survivor dying in the plane crash with which the cycle commenced.
Like the Scream cycle, the Final Destination films present the prospect of
death as something associated with rules, and they toy with the prospect of
escape and survival. Unlike Scream and its sequels, however, hardly anyone
gets out alive from this particular cycle.
James Wong directed Final Destination and Final Destination 3, David R.
Ellis directed Final Destination 2 and The Final Destination, and Steven
Quale directed Final Destination 5.

THE FINAL GIRL. The term “Final Girl” was coined by academic Carol J.
Clover to describe the female hero of the slasher film. Prior to the advent of
the slasher, it was very rare to find a female protagonist in a horror film who
did not need rescuing by a male. The Final Girl was different, however. She
 FISHER, TERENCE (1904–1980) • 121
was usually distinguished from her teenage compatriots through her watch-
fulness and her aggression, and she often had some masculine qualities as
well—either a male-sounding name or abilities or types of knowledge con-
ventionally associated with men. Most of all, she could not rely on a male
hero to save her but was routinely placed in a situation where she had to save
herself. A key Final Girl was Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) in
John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), but her equivalent can be found in
most slashers of the late 1970s and early 1980s; she can also arguably be
found in Alien (1979), a science fiction/horror film that owed more than a
little to the slasher in its representation of Ripley (played by Sigourney
Weaver). As the 1980s progressed, Final Girls became ever more aggressive
and violent, especially in the Nightmare on Elm Street films, where they
sometimes displayed martial arts abilities, and in The Texas Chainsaw Mas-
sacre 2 (1986), where it was the female protagonist who ultimately got to
wield the chainsaw. More recently, this violence has become yet more ex-
treme and visceral in the likes of P2 (2007) and Adam Wingard’s You’re
Next (2011) and the British horror films The Descent (2005) and Eden Lake
(2008), while the Final Girls in Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance)
(2003) and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) turn out themselves to be
the monsters. By contrast, The Final Girls (2015) offers a gentle and nostal-
gic look back at the original Final Girl.
The fact that it is now common in American horror films to have a
central female character more than capable of looking after herself suggests
that the figure of the Final Girl has become thoroughly institutionalized, a
convention that we all take for granted. It is worth remembering that it was
not always like this.

FISHER, TERENCE (1904–1980). Terence Fisher was the main director at

Hammer Films from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, a period in which the
company established itself as a leading purveyor of British horror cinema.
He included among his credits most of the classic Hammer horrors—includ-
ing The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (The Horror of Dracula,
1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The
Brides of Dracula (1960), and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). A common
critical perception of Fisher is that his films tend to be both formally tradi-
tional and morally conservative. While there is some truth to this view, it
does nevertheless obscure the range of Fisher’s filmmaking activities.
By the time he made his first horror film—The Curse of Frankenstein—
Fisher was already an established figure in the industry. He had worked as an
editor from the mid-1930s on and had been directing films in a variety of
genres since the late 1940s. Many of these pre-horror efforts were low-
budget crime dramas for Hammer, which before its turn to horror specialized
in such B-movie fare (although Fisher also made two science fiction films
122 • FISHER, TERENCE (1904–1980)
for Hammer at this time—Four-Sided Triangle and Spaceways, both in
1953). Thanks to this experience, Fisher was by the mid-1950s fully conver-
sant with the demands of low-budget production and had also become a
prominent member of a Hammer production team that subsequently made the
horror films for which Hammer became famous. While Fisher had little to do
with the occasionally moralistic scripting of these horrors, he was largely
responsible for what at its best was a precise and balanced visual style per-
fectly suited to Hammer’s dramas of bourgeois morality challenged by sexu-
al passion and violence. Memorable moments from this early stage in Fish-
er’s horror career tended to involve monstrous interventions into an ordered
world of social normality. One thinks, for example, of the vampire’s first
appearance in Dracula or the eerie emergence of the undead Kharis from an
English swamp in The Mummy.
After the box office flop of The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Fisher
worked less frequently for Hammer. The German-produced Sherlock
Holmes und das Halsband des Todes (Sherlock Holmes and the Necklace of
Death) (1962) and the comedy-horror The Horror of It All (1964) were
sufficiently uninspiring to suggest that Fisher needed the stable production
context provided by Hammer to flourish. More successful were three low-
budget alien invasion films: The Earth Dies Screaming (1964), Island of
Terror (1966), and Night of the Big Heat (1967). None of these transcended
their budgetary constraints, but in all of them Fisher managed to convey a
sinister rural atmosphere.
However, Fisher’s best work continued to be done for Hammer. Unusually
for the company, The Gorgon (1964) focused on a female monster and,
although let down by some poor special effects, contained some haunting
sequences, while Dracula—Prince of Darkness (1966), Frankenstein Creat-
ed Woman (1967), and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) were all
handsomely mounted and stylish additions to Hammer’s Dracula and Fran-
kenstein cycles. Best of all from this later stage in Fisher’s career was an-
other Hammer project, The Devil Rides Out (1968), an adaptation of a Den-
nis Wheatley novel that benefited from Richard Matheson’s excellent
screenplay and a career-best performance from Christopher Lee. Here,
Fisher took a conventional battle between absolute good and absolute evil
and choreographed it into a series of symmetrical visual patterns and compo-
sitions. Good might win through in the end, as it always does with Fisher, but
one was left with a sense of the ways in which good and evil balanced each
other out and remained inextricably linked.
Fisher’s other genre credits include The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958),
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959),
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), and Frankenstein and the Monster from
Hell (1974).
 FLOREY, ROBERT (1900–1979) • 123
FLANAGAN, MIKE (1978–). The American writer-director Mike Flanagan
is one of the most distinctive filmmakers to emerge from American horror
cinema in the contemporary period. His first film, made shortly after his
student graduation, was the independently produced Ghosts of Hamilton
Street (2003). While still low budget, Absentia (2011), Flanagan’s next fea-
ture, was a more ambitious project. Ostensibly, the film dealt with a mysteri-
ous creature that keeps human beings captive for unspecified reasons, but,
unusually for horror, Flanagan also spent time investigating the troubled
inner workings of the family caught up in this horror. A consequence was
that when, as is inevitable in this kind of narrative, characters fall victim to
the monster, we feel a genuine sense of loss. Oculus (2013), which was based
on a short film made by Flanagan in 2006, was similarly preoccupied with
fractured and difficult familial relationships in a way that brought emotional
depth to an otherwise generically conventional story about a haunted mirror.
Flanagan’s supernatural thriller Before I Wake (2016) was shot during 2013
but had its release delayed because of problems at the production company.
In depicting the experiences of an adopted child whose dreams and night-
mares manifest in reality, the director returned to familial themes, focusing in
this case on an exploration of the possibilities of exploitation and abuse
within a family unit. The psychological thriller Hush (2016) was a more
straightforward suspense drama about a woman being stalked by a psycho-
pathic killer, with the twist provided by the fact that she is deaf and dumb.
However, with Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Flanagan focused again on a
troubled family unit. In this prequel to the hit horror film Ouija (2014), he
captured the complex relations between a mother and her daughters in a
compelling manner while still delivering the generic shocks and suspense
expected of him as a horror filmmaker. The quality of Ouija: Origin of Evil
was clear for all to see, and it is one of the few follow-up horror films to
attract better critical reviews than the original film.

FLOREY, ROBERT (1900–1979). The French director Robert Florey spent

most of his filmmaking career in Hollywood. His first encounter with the
horror genre came when he was hired by Universal to make its film version
of Frankenstein (1931). Although he worked on a screenplay and shot test
footage of Bela Lugosi made up as the Monster, both he and Lugosi eventu-
ally withdrew from the project, to be replaced by director James Whale and
actor Boris Karloff. However, Florey and Lugosi were quickly reunited for
Universal’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). Although ostensibly an ad-
aptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, the film also borrowed ideas and
imagery from the German expressionist film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
(The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1919) as well as featuring a mad scientist
narrative in which the Lugosi character attempted to “cross” humans with
gorillas.
124 • FOUND FOOTAGE
Florey’s other two genre credits were very different: less lurid and more
interested in exploring character psychology. The subject matter of The Face
behind the Mask (1941)—a disfigured criminal seeks revenge on those who
betrayed him—makes it sound like standard horror fare, but Florey instead
offered a sympathetic portrayal of the central character, an immigrant
(played by Peter Lorre) constantly at odds with American society. Because
of its relative gentleness, the film is often not classified as horror, although
its final scenes of revenge remain chilling. The Beast with Five Fingers
(1946) was different again. The disembodied hand of the title turned out to
be the figment of a murderer’s imagination (with Lorre featuring again in a
more disturbed role), and Florey provided some suitably unnerving fantasy
sequences in which the hand came to life. However, the film as a whole was
more conventional than his previous efforts in the genre.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Florey worked mainly for American television,
including episodes for horror-themed series The Twilight Zone (1959–1964),
Thriller (1960–1962), and The Outer Limits (1963–1965). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

FOUND FOOTAGE. In its original usage, the found footage technique

simply referred to a filmmaker’s deployment of footage that he or she had
not produced him- or herself, with this most evident in documentary and
some avant-garde work. Since the phenomenal success of the American
horror film The Blair Witch Project (1999), the found footage label has
increasingly been attached to fiction films that present themselves as made
up of material that is not in itself fictional (although audiences are invariably
aware that what they are watching is fiction). This material can take the form
of what appear to be documentary images, home videos, or surveillance
footage. This particular fictional use of found footage has not been restricted
to the horror genre, but most found footage films are horror films. Indeed,
throughout the 2000s, found footage horror has become an important genre
format, albeit one that has divided critical opinion.
The most controversial early example of what would now be classified as
found footage horror is Ruggero Deodato’s Italian horror Cannibal Holo-
caust (1980), which purported to be comprised of footage of a disastrous
jungle expedition. Other pre–Blair Witch horror “mockumentaries” include
the Belgian serial killer film C’est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog)
(1992) and the American horror The Last Broadcast (1998). In all of these,
the use of apparently “real” footage enhanced the immediacy and the visceral
quality of the horror but also restricted opportunities for the more traditional
emotive and identification-based pleasures of horror. The Blair Witch Project
followed a similar pattern in its depiction of an ill-fated student filming trip
out into the woods, with a slow atmospheric buildup culminating in frenetic
and, for some at least, confusing camera work as the students are chased by
 FOUND FOOTAGE • 125
an unseen supernatural force. Coming out of this is a credibility-related issue
that continues to haunt found footage horror; namely, if you are being at-
tacked by someone or something, why would you film it?
A few found footage horror films followed in the immediate wake of The
Blair Witch Project, but the format did not achieve sustained commercial
success until the release of Paranormal Activity (2007). In this film, a young
couple record apparently supernatural events that are taking place in their
house. An emphasis on cameras left to record events while the characters are
absent, occupied with other tasks, or asleep helped to address the “why
would anyone film this?” issue in a manner that was quickly taken up by
other films, not least the five sequels to Paranormal Activity itself. In addi-
tion, the relatively stable camera work aided character identification and
narrative clarity, while the use of ambient sound rather than music to create
suspense and an oppressive atmosphere also became something of a conven-
tion for this type of horror film.
Other found footage horrors of varying quality quickly appeared from a
range of countries. The Spanish horror [REC] (2007) followed a television
crew as they investigated an outbreak of an infectious disease, while Matt
Reeves’s Cloverfield (2008) depicted a giant-monster attack on New York.
The Last Exorcism (2010) and the Norwegian Trollhunter (2010) were mock
documentaries, while Diary of the Dead (2008), the fifth entry in George
Romero’s Living Dead series of zombie films, adopted the found footage
format as a way of refreshing what by then was very familiar material. V/H/S
(2012) and its sequels were found footage horror anthologies, the British
horror The Borderlands (2013) was an impressive rural horror, and Apollo
18 (2011) demonstrated the flexibility of the form by taking place in outer
space. There are numerous other found footage horror films, usually very
cheaply produced. Indeed, the association of the format with low production
values, shaky camera work, and hard-to-follow narratives has led to a grow-
ing critical and fan impatience with found footage. However, the commercial
success of Unfriended (2014), which takes place entirely on a computer
screen, and the release in 2016 of Adam Wingard’s sequel Blair Witch and
the self-reflexive Found Footage 3D, which is about filmmakers trying to
make a found footage horror film, suggest that there is still some life left in
the format
A few horror films have explored a more transgressive form of factual
cinema, namely, the snuff movie, in which people are really murdered,
among them Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) and David Cronen-
berg’s Videodrome (1983), along with dark thrillers such as Mute Witness
(1994), Tesis (1996), 8MM (1999), and 15 Minutes (2001).
126 • FRANCIS, FREDDIE (1917–2007)
FRANCIS, FREDDIE (1917–2007). The British filmmaker Freddie Francis
had two cinematic careers. He was an eminent cinematographer who won
Academy Awards for Sons and Lovers (1960) and Glory (1989) and was
responsible for the visual style of Jack Clayton’s ghost story The Innocents
(1961) and David Lynch’s Victorian melodrama The Elephant Man (1980).
But from the early 1960s on, Francis was also a director of low-budget
British horror films, a number of which have since acquired a cult follow-
ing. After some uncredited work on The Day of the Triffids (1962) and
adapting Kurt Siodmak’s much-filmed novel Donovan’s Brain as Ven-
geance (The Brain) (1962), he directed regularly for Hammer and Amicus,
the two leading purveyors of British horror during the 1960s and early 1970s.
His films for Hammer proved less distinguished than those he did for Ami-
cus, however. He was the only director, other than Terence Fisher, to work
on Hammer’s Frankenstein and Dracula cycles, but his entries for each
cycle—The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) and Dracula Has Risen from the
Grave (1968)—were slackly plotted affairs enlivened only by the occasional
directorial flourish. Similarly, Paranoiac (1963), Nightmare (1964), and
Hysteria (1965) were slick if fairly anonymous contributions to the psycho-
logical thriller cycle produced by Hammer alongside its gothic horrors.
One only has to compare any of these thrillers with the memorably stylish
and bizarre psychological thriller The Psychopath (1966), directed by Francis
for Amicus, to see how the director benefited from Amicus’s less regimented
production setup. Francis made three of Amicus’s best horror anthologies—
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), Torture Garden (1967), and Tales
from the Crypt (1972)—and successfully brought together traditional horror
effects with the mordant wit that characterized this material and that distin-
guished it from the more somber Hammer product. The Skull (1965), another
Amicus film, contained a surreal and unnerving dream sequence that in itself
rates as one of Francis’s finest achievements as director, while the indepen-
dent production The Creeping Flesh (1973) was an unusually thoughtful
gothic horror.
Francis’s directorial career proved considerably more uneven than his ca-
reer as a cinematographer, combining as it did significant genre achieve-
ments with eccentricities, such as the German-produced vampire comedy
Gebissen wird nur nachts (The Vampire Happening) (1971) or the rarely
seen cult thriller Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1969), and low-grade
embarrassments, such as the Amicus production The Deadly Bees (1966) and
the Joan Crawford vehicle Trog (1970).
Francis stopped directing in the mid-1970s but later returned with The
Doctor and the Devils (1985), a treatment of the Burke and Hare story that
was based on a screenplay by Dylan Thomas. His other horror or fantasy
 FRANCO, JESUS (1930–2013) • 127
films include They Came from Beyond Space (1967), Craze (1973), Tales
That Witness Madness (1973), Son of Dracula (1974), Legend of the Were-
wolf (1975), The Ghoul (1975), and Dark Tower (1987) (as Ken Barnett).

FRANCO, JESUS (1930–2013). The films of Spanish director Jesus Franco

have brought new meaning, complexity, and nuance to the term “uneven.”
Franco has been credited with at least 150 films (figures vary according to
which source is being used) made all over Western Europe and occasionally
farther afield. The majority are low-budget exploitation projects—period and
contemporary horror, exotic and sometimes camp thrillers, women-in-prison
films, soft-core and hard-core pornography, plus a smattering of hard-to-
classify dramas that draw as much on the conventions of art cinema as they
do on popular genres. Over the years, he acquired a substantial cult follow-
ing, although even the most ardent Franco fan will acknowledge that some of
his films are very bad indeed. Franco’s position in the horror genre is far
from clear. He constantly returned to the genre throughout his career, but he
was an idiosyncratic figure who rarely fitted into broader generic patterns or
trends. In addition, much of his working method was based on improvisation
rather than planned in any detail. This could result in an experimental genre-
bending approach, but it could also lead to scenes of extraordinary tedium,
and most Franco films manage to combine the two in varying proportions.
It was in the early part of his directing career that Franco came closest to
being a conventional filmmaker. His Spanish film Gritos en la noche (The
Awful Dr. Orloff) (1962) was a stylish example of the surgical horror made
popular a few years before by, among others, Hammer’s The Curse of Fran-
kenstein (1957). The inevitable sequel, El secreto del Dr. Orloff (The Secret
of Dr. Orloff, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll’s Mistresses) (1964),
offered more of the same, while Miss Muerte (The Diabolical Dr. Z) (1966)
was a superior revenge melodrama featuring death by poisoned fingernails.
Then came Necronomicon (Succubus) (1968), an obscurely plotted dream-
like drama that seemed to have something to do with sadomasochistic fanta-
sies and that contained some striking and beautiful scenes but that did not
make any obvious sense, at least not in terms of the horror genre. Necronomi-
con has often been classified as horror, although this tends to be an approxi-
mate designation given the oddness of the film.
Of Franco’s subsequent work, The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), The Cas-
tle of Fu Manchu (1969), El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula) (1970), Il
trono di fuoco (Night of the Blood Monster, The Bloody Judge ) (1970),
Drácula contra Frankenstein (Dracula vs. Frankenstein) (1972), and Jack
the Ripper (1976) were stolid treatments of familiar genre fare. By contrast,
Paroxismus (Venus in Furs) (1969), Vampyros lesbos (Lesbian vampires)
(1971), and Sie tötete in Ekstase (She Killed in Ecstasy) (1971) operated
more in the experimental manner of Necronomicon, while Female Vampire
128 • FRANJU, GEORGES (1912–1987)
(1973), which starred Franco regular Lina Romay, was an impressive exam-
ple of erotic horror. Other films—and there are many others as Franco went
into overdrive during the 1970s and 1980s, directing four or five films a
year—are considerably more negligible. However, Faceless (1988), which
returned Franco to some of the material he had first covered in Gritos en la
Noche, was seen by many Franco fans as a welcome return to form.
Other Franco horror or horror-related films include Les cauchemars nais-
sent la nuit (Nightmares Come at Night) (1970), Der todesrächer von Soho
(The Corpse Packs His Bags) (1972), Les Démons (The Sex Demons) (1972),
Les expériences érotiques de Frankenstein (The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein)
(1972), La fille de Dracula (Daughter of Dracula) (1972), Los ojos siniestros
del doctor Orloff (The Sinister Eyes of Doctor Orloff) (1973), Christina,
princesse de l’érotisme (A Virgin among the Living Dead) (1973),
L’éventreur de Notre-Dame (Demoniac) (1979), Die Säge des Todes (Bloody
Moon) (1981), El siniestro doctor Orloff (The Sinister Dr. Orloff) (1984),
Sola ante el terror (Alone against Terror) (1986), and Killer Barbys (1996).
This is by no means a complete list of Franco’s horrors, and there were many
films in other genres as well. As befits a filmmaker who is hard to pin down,
Franco has been billed under a variety of pseudonyms, among them Clifford
Brown, A. M. Frank, Jess Frank, Frank Hollman, James P. Johnson, and
Franco Manera.

FRANJU, GEORGES (1912–1987). The French director Georges Franju

merits inclusion in this book for one film, the extraordinary Les yeux sans
visage (Eyes without a Face) (1959), which is a major example of surgical
horror, albeit one that is so artful that it is sometimes not classified as horror
at all. It featured a conventional mad scientist narrative of the sort that might
show up in American horror of the 1930s or 1940s—a surgeon kidnaps
young women so that he can transplant their faces onto the disfigured face of
his daughter. However, the film’s treatment of this story was both serious
and poetic, and the unflinching clinical realism of the scenes of surgery was
unprecedented in the genre and still has the power to shock today. Amid all
the gore, the image of the daughter wearing a mask to cover her disfigure-
ment, with only her eyes visible, remains one of horror’s most haunting
images. Le sang des bêtes (Blood of Beasts) (1949), an earlier Franju docu-
mentary detailing the workings of a slaughterhouse, provides a comparably
horrifying experience, albeit one firmly rooted in reality. See also FRENCH
HORROR.

FRANKENHEIMER, JOHN (1930–2002). The American director John

Frankenheimer was best known for his thrillers and action films, including
The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), and Grand
 FRANKENSTEIN • 129
Prix (1966). However, he did occasionally dabble in more macabre projects.
Seconds (1966), a claustrophobic science fiction drama about a man chang-
ing his identity, featured a truly horrifying conclusion in which the hero is
put to death by surgical means. Prophecy (1979) was more straightforward
horror fare, a well-made but standard revenge of nature film about a mutant
bear. Frankenheimer took over direction of The Island of Dr. Moreau
(1996) after its original director, Richard Stanley, had been fired. Franken-
heimer’s version of the tale was overwrought, but the film remains an inter-
esting adaptation of its literary source. At the time of his death, Franken-
heimer was preparing to direct the prequel to The Exorcist (1973), a project
eventually taken over by Paul Schrader. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

FRANKENSTEIN. The Frankenstein story has proved to be one of the most

enduring of all horror stories. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the
Modern Prometheus (1818) is the only novel from the original gothic period
in literary history to have been adapted repeatedly for stage, screen, radio,
and television and still to retain a significant hold on our imagination. In
comparison, its vampiric counterpart, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, did not appear
until 1897. However, much like Dracula, the postpublication history of
Frankenstein has been one of constant revision, with elements of the original
novel discarded and replaced, then subsequently rediscovered as is deemed
necessary to sustain the interest of the intended audience. To the contempo-
rary spectator, who will almost certainly be more familiar with film versions
of Frankenstein than they are with Shelley’s novel, the fact that in the origi-
nal version there is minimal description of the process by which the creature
is created or of its appearance will be surprising, as will the creature’s verbal
articulacy, so accustomed have we become to cinematic scenes of spectacu-
lar mad science and dumb, menacing monsters. It follows that judging any
Frankenstein film in terms of its adherence to the novel is a futile activity.
The films exist instead in relation to a series of cultural transformations of
various fragments of the Frankenstein story.
Theatrical adaptations of Shelley’s Frankenstein appeared within a few
years of its publication and continued to appear throughout the 19th and into
the 20th century, with Peggy Webling’s 1930 stage version providing the
basis for the famous 1931 Universal film adaptation. These all tended to
emphasize spectacle and action over the convoluted narrative structure and
philosophical monologues of the novel, perhaps necessarily so given the
differing demands of theater and literature. Frankenstein (1910) and Life
without Soul (1915), two American pre-sound film versions of the tale, were
similarly structured around the scenes of the creature’s creation and destruc-
tion.
130 • FRANKENSTEIN
The 1931 Universal version of Frankenstein, the studio’s follow-up to its
successful version of Dracula (1931), was originally to be directed by Rob-
ert Florey with Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein’s creation. For reasons that are
still not entirely clear—although some reports indicate that Lugosi balked at
playing a part without dialogue—Lugosi and Florey left the project and were
replaced by British director James Whale and an unknown British actor by
the name of Boris Karloff. The resulting film was stylish, confident, and
considerably more sustained than the uneven Dracula. Importantly, it formed
the character of Frankenstein into the mad scientist, who would become a
stock figure in 1930s and 1940s horror cinema. It also established an image
of the monster that would supplant all previous theatrical and, indeed, liter-
ary versions and become the norm against which later representations of the
monster would be judged. This was the famous square-headed, bolt-necked
creation designed by makeup artist Jack Pierce. Mute and murderous
(thanks to its abnormal brain, an innovation particularly disliked by Shelley
purists) but also victimized and sympathetic, this monster was a mass of
contradictions, and arguably it was this quality that rendered it such a fasci-
nating figure.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was Whale’s extravagant follow-up. The
film still offered spectacular scenes of creation and destruction, and it also
brought back Karloff’s apparently indestructible monster (who here briefly
acquired some rudimentary verbal abilities). At the same time, Bride of
Frankenstein’s tongue remained firmly in its cheek as it exhibited a type of
humor that, to contemporary audiences at least, can seem decidedly camp.
Playfulness of this kind would generally be absent from later Universal se-
quels, although it would resurface in other film versions. Such differences in
tone are arguably as important to an understanding of the progress of Fran-
kenstein and his various creations through film history as is an awareness of
the more repetitive and formulaic qualities associated with the films.
The sequels that followed maintained, for the most part, a loose chronolo-
gy, but the key element that bound them together into a cycle was the Mon-
ster himself, with narratives often turning on his resurrection and leading
inevitably to his destruction. This was increasingly accompanied by an aug-
mentation of the monster’s brutality and an attenuation of the pathos asso-
ciated with him, especially after Karloff ceased playing the role. Son of
Frankenstein (1939) was next, directed in somber style by Rowland Lee,
with Basil Rathbone as Frankenstein’s son, Lugosi as the broken-necked
Ygor, and, for the last time, Karloff as the Monster. Then came The Ghost of
Frankenstein (1942), which was directed by Erle C. Kenton and which, like
most of Universal’s 1940s horrors, was lower budgeted than the likes of Son
of Frankenstein. Ygor returned, taking the Monster (in a crude performance
by Lon Chaney Jr.) to meet another of Frankenstein’s sons, played by
Cedric Hardwicke. The film concluded with Ygor’s brain transplanted into
 FRANKENSTEIN • 131
the Monster, who for the second and final time in the Universal Frankenstein
cycle spoke, albeit with Ygor’s voice. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
(1943), directed by Roy William Neill, was the first of Universal’s multiple-
monster films, with Chaney as the Wolf Man and, logically given the events
of the previous film, Lugosi as the Monster, a part he had turned down 12
years previously. Baroness Elsa Frankenstein provided the Frankenstein
name, although she took no part in the narrative’s medical experiments.
House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945), both directed by
Kenton, featured no character bearing the name of Frankenstein, apparently
content that all that was now needed was the Monster itself, played this time
by Glenn Strange, although in neither film did the Monster have much to do.
The final flourish of the Universal Frankenstein, if that is the appropriate
term, came with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), which yet
again featured Strange as the Monster and from which any character named
Frankenstein was conspicuously absent.
The science fiction/horror hybrids popular throughout the 1950s featured
their share of mad or misguided scientists. However, Frankenstein and his
creation were not revived until 1957, when the British company Hammer
released The Curse of Frankenstein, which, like the 1931 version, drew in
only a limited way on the original novel. This color production, which was
directed by Terence Fisher, starred Peter Cushing as Frankenstein and a
then unknown actor called Christopher Lee as a savage and animalistic
Creature entirely lacking the pathos apparent in Karloff’s earlier perfor-
mances. Hammer’s Frankenstein was far from being a mad scientist. Al-
though capable of great cruelty and ruthlessness, he was also supremely cool
and rational, an appropriate embodiment of science in a nuclear age. Unlike
the Universal films, the Hammer sequels focused on the scientist himself
rather than his creations, who changed from one film to another. The empha-
sis was always on Frankenstein’s schemes. These were often bold and ambi-
tious, involving activities such as brain or soul transplants, but they usually
ended up compromised or thwarted by his questionable methods and by the
shortsightedness of the society within which he had to work. Fisher’s The
Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) was followed by Freddie Francis’s The
Evil of Frankenstein (1964), with Fisher returning to the cycle with Franken-
stein Created Woman (1967) and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969).
Cushing was replaced by Ralph Bates in The Horror of Frankenstein
(1970), Hammer’s unsuccessful attempt to produce a more youthful version
of the Frankenstein story, but it was business as usual for Frankenstein and
the Monster from Hell (1974), the final film in the Hammer cycle, with
Cushing starring and Fisher directing.
Two American Frankenstein films were released shortly after the success
of The Curse of Frankenstein. I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), which
was part of a late 1950s cycle of teenage horror, transplanted the Franken-
132 • FRANKENSTEIN
stein story to a contemporary university setting, while the main noteworthy
feature of Frankenstein—1970 (1958) was that it starred Karloff as the scien-
tist rather than as the Monster. Neither of these seriously challenged Ham-
mer’s dominance, however, and it was not until the early 1970s, when Ham-
mer’s cycle was visibly running down, that a significant number of alternate
Frankenstein films appeared. Some of these were negligible, among them La
Figlia di Frankenstein (Lady Frankenstein) (1971), Dracula versus Franken-
stein (1971), and the blaxploitation film Blackenstein (1973). Others did
offer an interesting reinterpretation of the Frankenstein story, among them
Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), an intelligent television film that
achieved a theatrical release in some territories; Paul Morrissey’s camp
Flesh for Frankenstein (1973); Mel Brooks’s loving homage to Universal
horror, Young Frankenstein (1974); and the cult favorite The Rocky Horror
Picture Show (1975).
However, all these were isolated projects, and the increasing emphasis in
horror on teenage audiences seemed to lead the genre away from some of its
more traditional monsters. Irresponsible scientists still showed up and were
occasionally described in Frankenstein-like terms (e.g., in George Romero’s
1985 zombie film Day of the Dead), but Frankenstein himself was generally
absent. Frankenweenie (1984), Tim Burton’s charming animated short
about a boy who transforms his dead dog into a Frankenstein-like monster,
exuded nostalgia for the old horror myths, while Roger Corman’s Franken-
stein Unbound (1990) tried to revise the original Frankenstein story but
failed to register with audiences. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), which
was made in the wake of the success of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula
(1992) and which featured Robert De Niro as the Monster, offered itself as a
return to origins, although anyone expecting a faithful rendition of Shelley’s
novel would have been disappointed. As directed by Kenneth Branagh, the
film invented and revised just as much as any previous Frankenstein film, but
its heritage-style high production values did make it stand out to a certain
extent in a field dominated by more exploitative fare. Frankenstein and his
creation were also guest monsters, alongside Dracula and some werewolves,
in Stephen Sommers’s freewheeling horror-fantasy Van Helsing (2004),
which at least did not claim any kind of adherence to literary sources. Simi-
larly, the action adventure I, Frankenstein (2014) projected Frankenstein’s
monster into an Underworld-like world of demons and gargoyles at war with
each other, while Bernard Rose’s Frankenstein (2015) was an interesting if
isolated attempt to locate Mary Shelley’s original story within a contempo-
rary setting.
The current marginality of the Frankenstein story in horror is perhaps
surprising given that we live in a world characterized by apparently ceaseless
scientific and technological changes. Horror certainly engages with these
changes; technophobia of various kinds informs many contemporary horror
 FRANKLIN, RICHARD (1948–2007) • 133
films. However, this tends not to be done in the name of Frankenstein, who is
increasingly seen as a figure from the past, not just a literary past but now a
cinematic past as well. This does not mean that Frankenstein has lost his
significance for us but—for the present, at least—he remains a distant figure.

FRANKLIN, PAMELA (1950–). The British actor Pamela Franklin has the
unusual distinction of appearing in horror films both as a child and as an
adult. Although her career was quite short and by no means restricted to
horror, she has left behind her some memorable genre performances. Her
impressive debut at the age of 11 was as the possibly possessed Flora in Jack
Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), which was an adaptation of Henry James’s
“The Turn of the Screw.” She also delivered effective character studies as an
adolescent in Seth Holt’s psychological thriller for Hammer, The Nanny
(1965), and Clayton’s macabre-themed psychological study Our Mother’s
House (1967). Her first genre appearance as an adult was as a proto-Final
Girl in Brian Clemens’s And Soon the Darkness (1970), in which she was
menaced by a serial killer while traveling through the French countryside.
Next was Bert I. Gordon’s supernatural thriller Necromancy (1972), in
which she starred with Orson Welles. However, her best-known genre credit
is probably John Hough’s The Legend of Hell House (1973), based on a
Richard Matheson novel, in which she played an ill-fated medium. Her
final horror film saw her back with Gordon for the undistinguished The Food
of the Gods (1976). She made numerous appearances on American television
throughout the 1970s, including for the horror-themed series Circle of Fear
(1972) and the fondly remembered television horror movie Satan’s School
for Girls (1973). She retired from acting in the early 1980s.

FRANKLIN, RICHARD (1948–2007). The Australian director Richard

Franklin’s first two horror films offered a distinctly Australian take on
American formats. Patrick (1978) was a telekinesis drama made in the wake
of Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) that also sought to emulate that film’s
shock ending, while Roadgames (1981) was an inventive and self-conscious-
ly Hitchcockian thriller that starred horror icon Jamie Lee Curtis. At the
time, the idea of making a sequel to Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) seemed to
some like cinematic heresy. However, Franklin made a good job of it with
his American debut, Psycho II (1983), successfully turning serial killer Nor-
man Bates into the main protagonist and delivering a compelling mystery
narrative. Franklin also directed Link (1986), a horror film featuring humans
threatened by apes. In the latter part of his career, he worked mainly for
television. See also AUSTRALIAN HORROR.
134 • FREAKS
FREAKS. Forms of physical abnormality or deformity have frequently been
deployed in horror films to denote monstrousness. However, this is usually
achieved via makeup and special effects rather than through the introduction
of real-life deformity, and the term “freak”—once widely associated with
extreme deformity—is rarely used at all unless it is seen to be spoken by an
ignorant character. It seems from this that the effectiveness of horror’s mon-
sters as scare figures is dependent on our knowing that they are not real, that
a recognizable human being lurks under the makeup. Horror films that do
feature genuine deformity are disturbing not just ethically—we worry that
these people are being exploited by the filmmakers—but also because they
challenge horror’s status as fiction. The best-known example of this is Tod
Browning’s Freaks (1932), which presented real “freaks” both in sympathet-
ic terms and, in places, as scary, vengeful figures. The film is too challenging
ever to have received a widespread release, and watching it remains an un-
comfortable experience. More obviously exploitative was the case of actor
Rondo Hatton, sufferer of the disfiguring disease acromegaly, who featured
as the monster in several 1940s horror films and thrillers. Since then, the use
of real-life deformity in horror has generally been perceived as being in
extremely poor taste, and the few examples where it has occurred—notably
in the British horror film The Mutations (The Freakmaker) (1974) and the
satanic thriller The Sentinel (1977)—are often criticized on this count. The
one partial exception appears to be dwarfs, with diminutive actors Michael
Dunn and Skip Martin regularly appearing in horror films of the 1960s and
1970s.

FREDA, RICCARDO (1909–1999). Throughout the 1950s, the Egyptian-

born Italian director Riccardo Freda specialized in historical melodramas and
adventure films. However, he was also responsible for what is often seen as
the first Italian horror film, I Vampiri (The Devil’s Commandment) (1956).
Unfortunately, this beautifully made contemporary vampire story did not
fare well at the box office. However, the international commercial success of
Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) encouraged Freda to return to
the genre. First came the stylish monster movie Caltiki—Il mostro immortale
(Caltiki the Undying Monster, Caltiki, the Immortal Monster) (1959) and the
gothic-themed muscleman epic Maciste all’inferno (Maciste in Hell, The
Witch’s Curse) (1962). These were followed by the two films on which
Freda’s reputation as a horror director has largely rested ever since:
L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, The Ter-
rible Secret of Dr. Hichcock) (1962) and Lo spettro (The Ghost) (1963). Both
of these period-set mysteries starred Barbara Steele and generated a remark-
ably morbid atmosphere, with this most evident in L’orribile segreto del Dr.
Hichcock, which took as its main plot device the subject of necrophilia. In
comparison, Freda’s later genre films were uneven. They included the giallo
 FRENCH HORROR • 135
thrillers L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire)
(1971), Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea
(Tragic Ceremony) (1972), and Follia omicida (Delirium, Murder Syn-
drome) (1981). To a certain extent, Freda’s contribution to Italian horror has
been overshadowed by the more sustained commitment to the genre dis-
played by his sometimes collaborator Mario Bava (who directed sections of
some of Freda’s early horror films), but he remains a distinctive talent in his
own right.

FRENCH HORROR. It is perhaps surprising that a country with the rich

cinematic history of France should have contributed so little to the develop-
ment of the European horror film. However, French horror films are few and
far between. The French-produced surrealist film Un Chien Andalou (1928),
which contains some horrifying imagery, has become a canonical cinematic
text, but Jean Epstein’s gothic-themed and equally experimental project La
Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) (1928) is rarely
seen today. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, when American cinema domi-
nated the market, only a few French filmmakers worked on horror-like pro-
jects, notably Julien Duvivier with the French/Czech coproduction Le Golem
(The Golem) (1936), Guillaume Radot with Le Loup des Malveneur (The
Wolf of the Malveneurs) (1942), and Maurice Tourneur with the Faustian
drama Le main du diable (The Devil’s Hand) (1943). When European horror
became internationally popular during the late 1950s and 1960s, it was Brit-
ain, Italy, and Spain that churned out a stream of lurid horrors and achieved
dominance, while French cinema continued to produce isolated genre works
that were usually upmarket and sometimes very distinguished. Georges
Franju’s controversial and graphic Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes without a
Face) (1959) has become a classic example of surgical horror, and Jean
Renoir’s Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier (The Testament of Dr. Cordeli-
er) (1959), which was made for television, was an interesting treatment of
the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. Roger Vadim directed Et Mourir de
Plaisir (Blood and Roses) (1960), a decorous adaptation of J. Sheridan LeFa-
nu’s vampire story Carmilla, and also, along with fellow French director
Louis Malle, contributed an episode to the Edgar Allan Poe horror antholo-
gy Histoires Extraordinaire (Tales of Mystery, Spirits of the Dead) (1968).
There were also a few coproductions with other countries—for example, the
French/Italian Il Mulino delle Donne di Pietra (Mill of the Stone Women)
(1960)—although these tended to show little connection with French cultural
traditions. More successful as an expression of something that might reason-
ably be described as French horror was a series of erotic vampire films
directed by Jean Rollin from the late 1960s on, beginning with Le Viol du
136 • FREUND, KARL (1890–1969)
Vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) (1967). These combined surreal imagery
with copious nudity and some violence and have since acquired a significant
cult following.
More recently, horror has become more of a presence in French cinema,
albeit still a marginal one. Popular genre films such as Promenons-nous dans
les bois (Deep in the Woods) (2000), Un jeu d’enfants (2001), and Maléfique
(2002) have been joined by slicker and more ambitious projects, such as
Christophe Gans’s period horror-drama Le Pacte des Loups (The Brother-
hood of the Wolf) (2001) and Alexandre Aja’s slasher film Haute Tension
(High Tension, Switchblade Romance) (2003), both of which were clearly
made with an eye on the international market. Mathieu Kassovitz’s serial
killer film Les Rivières Pourpres (The Crimson Rivers) (2000) was similarly
international, and, like Gans and Aja, Kassovitz has gone on to work on
American genre projects. A number of highly controversial French films—
among them Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001), Gaspar Noé’s Irré-
versible (2002), and Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs (2008)—have also offered
images of violence and mutilation that have been deemed by many to be
horrifying, although the extent to which these self-consciously provocative
films should be seen as belonging to the horror genre, as opposed to just
appropriating its imagery, is far from clear.

FREUND, KARL (1890–1969). The cinematographer Karl Freund’s early

career in German cinema included distinguished work on F. W. Murnau’s
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adaptation Der Januskopf (1920) and his Der
Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) (1924), which was renowned for its use of
mobile camera, as well as Paul Wegener’s Der Golem, wie er in die Welt
kam (The Golem) (1920) and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). In the early
1930s, he moved to Hollywood, where he photographed Tod Browning’s
Dracula (1931) and Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932),
both of which exhibited the expressionistic visual qualities that would help to
define Universal horror of the period. Freund also directed the similarly
stylized Universal production The Mummy (1932) and, for MGM, Mad Love
(1935). After serving in a variety of genres as cinematographer, he concluded
his career working on the 1950s television comedy show I Love Lucy.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980). There are 12 Friday the 13th films to date, and
two of them have the word “Final” in their titles. However, such has been the
commercial resilience of this particular horror cycle that it has survived all
attempts to kill it off. Friday the 13th (1980), which was directed by Sean S.
Cunningham, appeared in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween
(1978) and was generally seen by critics as a crude variant on the formula
established by Carpenter’s film. A group of teenagers visit Camp Crystal
 FRIEDKIN, WILLIAM (1935–) • 137
Lake and are killed off by a mysterious assailant who is eventually revealed
to be the crazed mother of a boy who drowned there some years before. It is
an archetypal slasher plot—with teenage victims murdered as they indulge
in premarital sexual activity, a dark secret from the past, extensive use of
point of view and jump scares, and a Final Girl who ultimately defeats the
killer.
Although not liked by critics, Friday the 13th was very popular with
audiences, and the inevitable sequels soon followed. In an innovation that
would define the rest of the cycle, Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) resurrected
the drowned boy—who went by the name of Jason Voorhees—from the first
film and transformed him into a hulking brute intent on homicide. Not much
else changed, initially at least. Teenagers continued to visit Crystal Lake and
continued to die in inventively horrible ways before Jason’s climactic de-
mise. As the cycle progressed, the formula was tweaked slightly through an
increased emphasis on supernatural themes and a greater willingness to
switch locations, but the cozy familiarity of Jason’s world was retained.
Friday the 13th Part III (1982) was followed by Friday the 13th: The
Final Chapter (1984), which led to Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
(1985), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), Friday the 13th Part
VII: The New Blood (1988), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhat-
tan (1989), and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993). Jason X (2001)
took Jason into outer space, while Freddy vs. Jason (2003) brought him back
to earth with a brutal fight to the death with Freddy Krueger from the Night-
mare on Elm Street films. Friday the 13th (2009) sought to reboot the
franchise through combining story elements from the first few films in the
cycle. It remains to be seen whether this marks the end of Jason.
The television series Friday the 13th (1987–1990) had a completely dif-
ferent story line from the Friday the 13th film cycle.

FRIEDKIN, WILLIAM (1935–). The director William Friedkin’s principal

horror credit is The Exorcist (1973). This could so easily have become a
schlock-horror piece, but Friedkin—along with producer-writer William Pe-
ter Blatty—took the whole thing very seriously and in so doing introduced
an unprecedented level of realism into the horror genre. He also managed
with great skill the film’s shifts from art house–like enigma, most evident in
the obscure opening sequence, to barnstorming scenes of gore and violence.
None of the sequels to The Exorcist were able to recapture the qualities he
instilled in the material, although Friedkin himself has since sometimes
struggled to find equally promising subjects. Cruising (1980), his controver-
sial gay serial killer film, retained the urban grittiness of The Exorcist and
his earlier success The French Connection (1971), but his supernatural thrill-
er The Guardian (1990) took him into a rural setting. The story—which dealt
with human sacrifices being made to an animate tree—was fanciful, yet the
138 • FRIZZI, FABIO (1951–)
film, while lacking the resonance of The Exorcist, contained some extremely
well executed sequences. Friedkin’s psychological thriller Bug (2006) also
featured horror imagery. In addition, Friedkin has contributed episodes to the
television horror series The Twilight Zone (1985–1989) and Tales from the
Crypt (1989–1996). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

FRIZZI, FABIO (1951–). The Italian composer Fabio Frizzi made an im-
portant contribution to the horror films directed by Lucio Fulci. His haunting
score for Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie, Zombie Flesheaters) (1979), which oper-
ated largely in counterpoint to the film’s gory violence, offered one of the
most effective uses of a synthesizer in horror music. He was also responsible
for Fulci’s Sette Note in Nero (The Psychic) (1977), Paura nella città dei
morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) (1980), L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981),
Manhattan Baby (Eye of the Evil Dead ) (1982), and Un gatto nel cervello (A
Cat in the Brain) (1990).

FRYE, DWIGHT (1899–1943). Dwight Frye was a versatile and accom-

plished stage actor, but his film career was defined and, indeed, constrained
by his appearances in two key early American horror films. He was Ren-
field in the Universal Dracula (1931). In Bram Stoker’s novel, it was Jona-
than Harker who traveled to Transylvania to meet Dracula, but in the Univer-
sal version Renfield made that journey and had the first historic encounter
with the vampire. Frye’s Renfield was a dapper and somewhat ridiculous
figure who was blithely unaware of the dangers that awaited him. His trans-
formation into a raving madman was rapid and histrionic and accompanied
by one of the most unsettling maniacal laughs in horror history. Frye fol-
lowed this up with the part of Fritz, Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant,
in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). As he had with the mad Renfield,
Frye contorted his body and played every line with a manic intensity. Even
within the context of American horror films of the early 1930s, which often
featured extreme performances—for example, Colin Clive as Franken-
stein—Frye’s expressive and highly physical renditions of insanity stood out.
He reprised his cackling madman role in The Vampire Bat (1933), Bride of
Frankenstein (1935), and The Crime of Dr. Crespi (1935), although there
was also a rare straight performance, albeit in a small uncredited role, in
Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933). By the time he returned to horror in the
1940s, this type of acting was out of fashion, and his brief appearances in The
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
were suitably restrained. However, the poverty row shocker Dead Men Walk
(1943) saw him back in hunchback mode for the last time.
 FULCI, LUCIO (1927–1996) • 139
FUEST, ROBERT (1927–2012). The British director—and also production
designer—Robert Fuest worked on the highly stylized television show The
Avengers during the 1960s. However, his first few films for the cinema,
which included the serial killer drama And Soon the Darkness (1970), opted
for a more downbeat realism. By contrast, The Abominable Dr. Phibes
(1971) and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) were extravagantly over
the top in their plotting and design and in Vincent Price’s melodramatic
performance as the disfigured and vengeful Phibes. Even within the context
of 1970s British horror, where there was a great deal of experimentation
and innovation, these films stood out as distinctive. Next came The Final
Programme (1973), an idiosyncratic science fiction film, and The Devil’s
Rain (1975), an American-produced Satanic thriller that featured John Tra-
volta in a minor role. Thereafter, Fuest worked mainly for television, includ-
ing the television movie Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980).

FULCI, LUCIO (1927–1996). The Italian horror film director Lucio Fulci
has a considerable following among horror fans, but his films have never
attracted the sort of critical respect afforded fellow Italian genre specialists
Mario Bava and Dario Argento. This might have something to do with the
unevenness of his work. Even his admirers will acknowledge that some of his
later films are disappointing, and some of his most accomplished projects,
for all their brilliant moments, will occasionally lapse into crudity and crass-
ness.
Fulci began directing in 1959 and for the first part of his career specialized
mainly in broad comedy. In the late 1960s, he switched to the then popular
giallo thriller with Una sull’altra (One on Top of the Other) (1969), Una
lucertola con la pelle di donna (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) (1971), and
Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture a Duckling) (1972). Although this
change in career direction coincided with the suicide of Fulci’s wife, it is by
no means clear that this was anything other than a commercially minded
filmmaker latching onto a new market trend. In any event, Fulci was clearly
comfortable with the convoluted plotting, emphasis on deviant sexualities,
and foregrounding of extreme style that characterized the giallo. He was also
willing to innovate within the format. This was most clearly demonstrated by
Non si sevizia un paperino, which, unusually for a giallo, had a rural setting.
Here, Fulci offered a thoughtful exploration of the conflict between tradition-
al and modern Italian social mores, took a swipe at the Catholic Church (the
killer turns out to be a priest), and also provided one of his keynote set pieces
with a graphic, unsparing sequence in which a woman is beaten to death with
heavy chains. As one might expect, the sequence is repulsively violent, but it
is also—through its inventive staging and editing—disturbingly beautiful. It
140 • FULCI, LUCIO (1927–1996)
is a provocative moment in what is probably Fulci’s best and most challeng-
ing film. Later Fulci projects would often be arresting but would also lack the
discipline and structure of this particular giallo.
Fulci returned to farce with the comedy-horror Il cavaliere Costante Nico-
sia demoniaco . . . orrero Dracula in Brianza (1975)—which literally trans-
lates as The Demonic Womanizer Costante Nicosia—or Dracula in Brianza,
although the film’s international title was the more manageable Young Dra-
cula—and also directed the effective supernatural thriller Sette note in nero
(The Psychic) (1977). However, it was Zombi 2 (1979) that determined the
shape of the latter part of his career. George Romero’s zombie spectacular
Dawn of the Dead (1978) had been marketed in Italy as Zombi, and Zombi 2
was so titled to cash in on its success, although outside of Italy it was known
as either Zombie or Zombie Flesheaters. The film combined eerie sequences
with narrative longeurs and crude gore effects, notably an unpleasant scene
in which a woman has a large wooden splinter pushed into one of her eyes.
Comparable nasty scenes, which become something of a Fulci trademark,
also featured in the three films on which Fulci’s reputation as a horror artist
(such as it is) largely rests—Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the
Living Dead) (1980), L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981), and Quella villa accanto
al cimitero (The House by the Cemetery) (1981). However, here they contrib-
uted to a much more developed lurid, visionary quality. The films’ narra-
tives, which dealt with gateways being opened to hell or to other dimensions,
did not make a great deal of sense. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Fulci
managed to produce not just a series of remarkable set pieces but also an
extraordinarily oppressive atmosphere. By contrast, Black Cat (1981) and
Manhattan Baby (Eye of the Evil Dead) (1982), which lacked the extreme
gore, were bland, and the relentlessly downbeat Lo squartatore di New York
(The New York Ripper) (1982), which contained the gore and little else, was
just repellent.
The remainder of Fulci’s horror films were made at a time when the boom
in Italian horror production was coming to an end, and they ran the gamut
from mildly interesting to negligible. They included Murderock—Uccide a
passo di danza (Murder Rock—Dancing Death) (1984), Aenigma (1987),
Zombi 3 (on which Fulci was replaced by Bruno Mattei) (1988), Quando
Alice ruppe lo specchio (Touch of Death) (1988), Il fantasma di Sodoma (The
Ghosts of Sodom) (1988), Demonia (1990), Un gatto nel cervello (A Cat in
the Brain, Nightmare Concert) (1990), Urla dal profondo (Voices from Be-
yond) (1991), and Le porte del silenzio (Door to Silence) (1991) as well as
two television films: La dolce casa degli orrori (The Sweet House of Hor-
rors) (1989) and La casa del tempo (The House of Clocks) (1989).
 G
GANS, CHRISTOPHE (1960–). The director Christophe Gans is French,
but his work often has an international character, and he has been responsible
for some of the most stylish horror films of recent years. He directed one of
the segments in the H. P. Lovecraft anthology Necronomicon (1994) and
subsequently made Crying Freeman (1995), an English-language thriller
based on a Japanese comic book series. Le Pacte des Loups (The Brother-
hood of the Wolf) (2001) turned out to be his biggest commercial success to
date. It offered an unusual but exciting combination of French period drama,
martial arts fights, and horror imagery in its depiction of a monster terroriz-
ing prerevolutionary France. Gans’s next project was Silent Hill (2006), an
English-language adaptation of a computer game that featured ghosts in the
manner of Japanese horror but that drew some of its iconography from
Italian horror, especially from the work of Lucio Fulci. More recently, he
directed the fairy-tale adaptation Beauty and the Beast (2014). See also
FRENCH HORROR.

GARRIS, MICK (1951–). The writer-producer-director Mick Garris spe-

cializes in horror for television and is a regular collaborator with Stephen
King. His directorial credits for the cinema include the sequel Critters 2: The
Main Course (1988), the King-scripted Sleepwalkers (1992), and Riding the
Bullet (2004), which was adapted by Garris himself from a King story. He
directed the television films Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) and Quicksil-
ver Highway (1997) as well as the television miniseries adaptations of King’s
The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), and Desperation (2006), and he has
also contributed episodes to Amazing Stories (1985–1987), Freddy’s Night-
mares (1988–1990), Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996), and The Others
(2000). In addition, Garris created and produced the television series Masters
of Horror (2005–) and Fear Itself (2008). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

GATES, TUDOR (1930–2007). The writer Tudor Gates’s pedigree in up-

market fantasy films was considerable. He worked on the screenplays for
both Mario Bava’s Diabolik (1968) and Roger Vadim’s Barbarella (1968)

141
142 • GEIN, ED (1906–1984)
and subsequently introduced some continental exoticism into Hammer hor-
ror by scripting all three of its lesbian vampire films: The Vampire Lovers
(1970), Lust for a Vampire (1971), and Twins of Evil (1971). He also wrote
the British horror Fright (1971), an early example of the babysitter-in-peril
story.

GEIN, ED (1906–1984). The Wisconsin-based serial killer Ed Gein has

provided considerable inspiration for horror filmmakers and has become a
template for a distinctly American version of the psychopath. Gein was a
mother-fixated loner who seemed to have gone over the edge when his moth-
er died. His exploits included murder, digging up corpses that he thought
resembled his mother, decorating his house with and making furniture out of
body parts, and fashioning for himself a “suit” made out of female skin. He
was arrested in 1957 and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. His
crimes were widely reported and became the focus of considerable public
shock and also fascination.
The writer Robert Bloch loosely based the character of Norman Bates, the
killer in his novel Psycho, on Gein. Originally, Bates was presented as mid-
dle aged and overweight. The casting of young and handsome Anthony
Perkins in the role in Alfred Hitchcock’s version of Psycho (1960) dis-
tanced him from the unprepossessing Gein, although the mother fixation and
sexually aberrant behavior were still apparent. Deranged (1974), which was
directed by Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen, was a fictionalized and exception-
ally gruesome version of the Gein story, while William Girdler’s Three on a
Meathook (1972) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(1974) drew some of their details from Gein’s activities. The “skin suit”
worn by Buffalo Bill, one of the serial killers in The Silence of the Lambs
(1991), clearly owes something to Gein, and a biopic, Ed Gein, finally ap-
peared in 2000.

GELLAR, SARAH MICHELLE (1977–). As Buffy Summers, the likable

heroine of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Sarah
Michelle Gellar regularly took on and defeated vampires, demons, and other
supernatural nasties. However, she was considerably more vulnerable in her
early horror film appearances. She put up a good fight against serial killers
in her supporting roles in I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and
Scream 2 (1997) but ended up dead in both. She did get to survive in Taka-
shi Shimizu’s post-Buffy ghost story The Grudge (2004), although the
ghosts finally got her in The Grudge 2 (2006). She was perfectly cast as the
glamorous Daphne in horror spoofs Scooby Doo (2002) and Scooby Doo 2:
Monsters Unleashed (2004) and also starred in the supernatural thriller The
Return (2006).
 GHOSTS • 143
GERMAN HORROR. The noted film historian Lotte Eisner once suggested
that the German soul instinctively preferred twilight. Whether or not this is
actually the case, German cinema of the post–World War I years certainly
contained a strong horror-like section, much of which has subsequently been
labeled expressionism. Films such as Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1919), Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The
Golem) (1920), Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Sym-
phony of Terror) (1922), and Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) (1924)
provided stylistic and thematic inspiration to American horror films of the
1930s. In addition, German filmmakers also went on to work on horror-
related projects outside of Germany, among them Karl Freund, Paul Leni,
Conrad Veidt, and Paul Wegener. However, the rise of the Nazis to power
in the early 1930s brought to an abrupt end the development of a horror
cinema within Germany. Neither did Germany play any significant part in
the revival of European horror that took place in the late 1950s. A popular
1960s series of adaptations of Edgar Wallace stories sometimes contained
horror themes and imagery, notable among these being Der Rächer (The
Avenger) (1960) and Die Toten Augen von London (The Dead Eyes of Lon-
don) (1961). There were occasional horror productions as well, including Die
Nackte und der Satan (A Head for the Devil, The Head) (1959), Der Fluch
der grünen Augen (Night of the Vampires, Cave of the Living Dead) (1964),
Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde (Castle of Bloody Lust) (1968), Die Schlan-
gengrube und das Pendel (The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, Castle of the
Walking Dead) (1967), and the controversial and gory witch-hunter drama
Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the Devil) (1970), but this activity
never cohered into a distinctive horror cycle in the manner of Britain and
Italy in the same period. During the 1970s, a few experimental genre projects
also appeared, among them the vampire story Jonathan (1970), the serial
killer drama Die zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (The Tenderness of Wolves) (1973),
and Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre) (1979), Werner
Herzog’s remake of the 1922 Nosferatu. Subsequent German horror produc-
tion has remained sporadic. The confrontational low-budget work done by
Jörg Buttgereit in the 1980s and 1990s—including Nekromantik (1987)—
has attracted a cult following, while the more commercial surgical horror
film Anatomie (2000) and the serial killer drama Tattoo (2002) drew on
German history for their subject matter but also relied heavily on American
horror conventions.

GHOSTS. Given the preponderance of ghost stories in contemporary horror

cinema, it is perhaps surprising how infrequently ghosts featured in horror’s
formative years. Although ghost stories are a long-established literary genre
and the 1920s haunted house spoof was in certain respects a precursor of
American horror cinema, the key horror monsters of the 1930s and 1940s
144 • GHOSTS
were not ghosts but instead more corporeal creations, such as vampires,
werewolves, the mummy, and Frankenstein’s monster. There were a few
scary cinematic ghost stories in this period, the most distinguished being The
Uninvited (1944) and Val Lewton’s The Curse of the Cat People (1944) as
well as the British horror anthology Dead of Night (1945). However, the
emphasis tended to be more on comic ghosts, with the likes of Topper (1937)
and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and, from Great Britain, Don’t Take It
to Heart (1944) and The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947). As far as
American and British cinema were concerned, horror-like ghost stories con-
tinued to appear sporadically up until the 1990s. Some were distinguished
examples of subtle and suggestive filmmaking, such as Jack Clayton’s The
Innocents (1961), Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), Roger Corman’s
Tomb of Ligeia (1964), Curtis Harrington’s Ruby (1977), and Frank La-
Loggia’s Lady in White (1988). Others, such as William Castle’s 13 Ghosts
(1960), John Hough’s The Legend of Hell House (1973), and John Carpen-
ter’s The Fog (1980), were more robustly populist affairs, while comedy-
horror ghosts featured in the likes of Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters (1984)
and Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996).
Ghosts were more common in Italian horror cinema of the 1960s and
1970s. The leading director Mario Bava made Operazione Paura (Kill,
Baby . . . Kill!) (1966), the giallo-ghost combination Un hacha para la luna
de miel (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) (1970), and Schock (Shock, Beyond the
Door II) (1977), and Italian horror star Barbara Steele showed up in a
number of ghost stories, including Danza Macabra (Castle of Blood) (1964)
and I lunghi capelli della morte (The Long Hair of Death) (1964), both of
which were directed by genre specialist Antonio Margheriti. Kaidan eiga,
or period ghost stories, were also popular in Japanese cinema in the
post–World War II period, although only the most prestigious of these se-
cured an international release, among them Kineto Shindo’s Onibaba (1964)
and Masaki Kobayashi’s epic Kaidan (Kwaidan) (1964).
The popularity of zombies, cannibals, and serial killers as horror mon-
sters during the 1980s and 1990s helped to keep the ghost on the margins of
the genre (although supernatural serial killer Freddy Krueger from the Night-
mare on Elm Street films possessed some ghost-like qualities), and it was
not until the late 1990s that ghost stories became a significant presence. Key
to this was the success of Hideo Nakata’s Japanese ghost story Ringu (Ring)
(1998), which cleverly combined traditional kaidan eiga subject matter, par-
ticularly the vengeful long-haired female ghost, with Western horror conven-
tions and located this within a modern world, with the ghost manifesting
itself through technology. Other similarly themed Asian horror films fol-
lowed—notably Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge (2003)—with some
of these remade as American horror films. At the same time, the impact made
by M. Night Shyamalan’s American ghost story The Sixth Sense (1999)
 GIALLO • 145
encouraged the production of ghost dramas more obviously in a Western
tradition. These included Stir of Echoes (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000),
Guillermo del Toro’s El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone)
(2001), and The Others (2001), while The Blair Witch Project (1999) offered
a ghost rooted firmly in American folklore. Further ghost-based films, such
as House on Haunted Hill (1999), Below (2002), Ghost Ship (2002), Fear-
dotcom (2002), Darkness Falls (2003), Gothika (2003), An American Haunt-
ing (2005), a 2005 remake of The Fog, Stay Alive (2006), Silent Hill (2006),
and the Spanish horror El orfanato (The Orphanage) (2007), firmly estab-
lished the ghost in all of its manifestations in horror’s repertoire of monsters.
More recently, some American haunted house movies—notable among
them James Wan’s Insidious (2011), Insidious Chapter 2 (2013), The Con-
juring (2013), and The Conjuring 2 (2016), along with Sinister (2012) and
Sinister 2 (2015)—have brought together ghosts and demons to chilling ef-
fect and have achieved considerable box office success, while Guillermo del
Toro’s period-set Crimson Peak (2015) has offered instead a more traditional
form of the ghost story. See also JAPANESE HORROR.

GIALLO. Crime novels used to be published in Italy with yellow covers.

Consequently, the word giallo—which is the Italian for “yellow”—has be-
come an Italian shorthand reference for crime fiction. From the 1960s on, it
has also acquired a more specialized cinematic usage, referring to a type of
Italian psychological thriller that has often ended up being classified as
horror. In part, this classification derives from the way in which this kind of
giallo film usually privileges style and spectacle over its murder mystery
plot, with the rationality associated with the traditional detective story either
marginalized or swept aside entirely. This is especially so when it comes to
scenes of violence that are normally presented in a lingering, fetishistic man-
ner that far exceeds any possible narrative motivation. The fact that some of
the key giallo directors, notably Mario Bava and Dario Argento, also di-
rected supernatural horrors further underlines the closeness of this type of
film to the horror genre.
The giallo film is usually seen as beginning with two Bava films: La
ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Evil Eye)
(1962) and Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace) (1964). How-
ever, the boom in giallo production did not take place until the 1970s, a
decade in which, according to some accounts, more than 100 such films were
made. Many of these were international coproductions involving Germany,
France, or Spain that featured stars little known outside of continental Eu-
rope—including, from Uruguay, George Hilton (real name Jorge Hill Acosta
y Lara); from France, Edwige Fenech; and from Spain, Susan Scott (real
name Nieves Navarro). Thematically, they were a disparate group of films,
but certain features recurred. Urban settings dominated, although there were
146 • GIBSON, ALAN (1938–1987)
a few distinguished rural gialli, among them Lucio Fulci’s Non si sevizia un
paperino (Don’t Torture a Duckling) (1972) and Pupi Avati’s La casa dalle
finestre che ridono (The House with Laughing Windows) (1976). There was
also a predilection—possibly influenced by Argento’s work—for featuring
black-gloved killers and having ornate titles that were often shortened for
international distribution. For example, Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue
sul corpo di Jennifer? (1972)—which translates as “Why are those strange
drops of blood on Jennifer’s body?”—became the more mundane The Case
of the Bloody Iris, while I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale
(1973), which means “The bodies show signs of sexual violence,” became
Torso. Music was also important, with obtrusive scores by the likes of Ennio
Morricone, Riz Ortolani, and the rock group Goblin helping to augment the
films’ visual spectacle.
Giallo production as a significant feature of the Italian film industry faded
away during the 1980s, although some directors continued to make them,
notably Argento with films such as Opera (Terror at the Opera) (1987) and
Nonhosonno (Sleepless) (2001). The 1970s giallo has sometimes been seen
as anticipating or influencing the American slasher film of the late 1970s,
although the slasher’s preference for rural or suburban settings and teenage
characters tends to separate it from the more cosmopolitan and adult-centered
giallo. In any event, the giallo has over time acquired a substantial cult
following among horror fans. As another part of what appears to be an
ongoing fascination with the form, some recent films have paid homage to
giallo, among them Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Amer (2009) and The
Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (2013) and Peter Strickland’s Berberian
Sound Studio (2012).
Directors associated with the original giallo cycle, other than those listed
above, include Lamberto Bava, Luciano Ercoli, Franco Ferrini, Aldo
Lado, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti, Sergio Martino, and Emilio
Miraglia. See also ITALIAN HORROR.

GIBSON, ALAN (1938–1987). The director Alan Gibson worked mainly

for British television, but he also directed three films for Hammer during the
1970s. Crescendo (1970), which had originally been intended as a project for
Michael Reeves, was one of the company’s better psychological thrillers.
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), the last
two films in Hammer’s Dracula cycle, were less successful in their updating
of the Dracula story to contemporary London. The portrayal of youth culture
in each was particularly unconvincing as indeed it was in Gibson’s non-
Hammer psychological thriller Goodbye Gemini (1970). Gibson also contrib-
uted episodes to Hammer’s television series Journey to the Unknown (1968)
and Hammer House of Horror (1980). See also BRITISH HORROR.
 GINGER SNAPS (2000) • 147
GIGER, H. R. (1940–2014). The Swiss artist Hans Rudi Giger’s lasting
claim to horror fame is his designs for Alien (1979). He was responsible both
for the alien spaceship—which featured some none-too-subtle references to
female anatomy—and for the alien monster itself. The monster design was
retained for all the sequels and remains one of the scariest genre creations in
its angularity, its reptilian/insect-like qualities, and, most of all, its ferocious
teeth. Unusually for a horror monster, it is just as disturbing in the light of
day as it is lurking in the shadows. Giger’s monster design for Species
(1995), another science fiction/horror hybrid, was effective but lacked the
impact of his earlier work.

GILLING, JOHN (1912–1984). Throughout the 1950s, the British screen-

writer and director John Gilling specialized mainly in crime thrillers. Howev-
er, he also had some early encounters with horror through his screenplays for
Tod Slaughter’s The Greed of William Hart (1948) and Hammer’s Jack
the Ripper thriller Room to Let (1950) and his direction of the horror come-
dy Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), which starred Bela Lugosi.
After the success of Hammer horror in the late 1950s, horror became an
important part of British film production, and Gilling, like many commercial-
ly minded directors of the day, moved more decisively into the genre. His
first major horror project was the handsomely mounted The Flesh and the
Fiends (1959), which told the story of grave robbers Burke and Hare and
featured a dignified performance by Peter Cushing. Shadow of the Cat
(1961) was an eerie thriller that, while not technically a Hammer production,
utilized many Hammer personnel. Gilling never seemed particularly com-
fortable working for Hammer, but he did some of his best work for the
company during the 1960s. He wrote the screenplay for Terence Fisher’s
unusual horror film The Gorgon (1964) and went on to direct what are
sometimes known as Hammer’s Cornish horrors—The Plague of the Zom-
bies (1966) and The Reptile (1966). Shot back-to-back, these were stylish
and atmospheric tales that undermined many of the moral certainties often
associated with Hammer horror and that anticipated the antiauthoritarian
attitudes that would appear in British horror from the late 1960s on. The
Mummy’s Shroud (1967), Gilling’s next Hammer horror, was more conven-
tional, however. La cruz del diablo (The Devil’s Cross) (1975), Gilling’s
final film, was made in Spain, where the director spent his latter years.
His other genre credits include the science fiction/horror films The Gam-
ma People (1956) and The Night Caller (1965).

GINGER SNAPS (2000). Ginger Snaps (2000) is an innovative Canadian

horror film about female werewolves that has attracted significant critical
interest. As directed by John Fawcett and written by Fawcett with Karen
148 • GIRDLER, WILLIAM (1947–1978)
Walton, its distinctiveness lies largely in its focus on distinctive and idiosyn-
cratic female characterizations. The film’s two main protagonists are misfit
sisters Ginger (played by Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (played by Emily
Perkins), who live in a stiflingly conventional Canadian small town. Ginger
is bitten by a werewolf, and the film deals with her slow transformation into a
werewolf and the attempts of Ginger and Brigitte to come to terms with this.
Comedy and horror elements are combined skillfully as the narrative moves
toward a moving conclusion in which Brigitte is forced to kill her werewolf
sister. Given the female-focused story, it is perhaps unsurprising that Ginger
Snaps is so bold in its association of the curse of lycanthropy with the
“curse” of menstruation, but the film actually makes little of that as it pro-
ceeds, and the film’s sequels make nothing of it at all.
Ginger Snaps was successful enough to generate two sequels that were
filmed back-to-back in 2003. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004), which was
directed by Brett Sullivan, followed on directly from the first film and de-
picted Brigitte experiencing her own gradual transformation into a werewolf.
By contrast, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004), which was directed
by Grant Harvey, was an unusual freestanding prequel in which 19th-centu-
ry versions of the two sisters, still played by Isabelle and Perkins, encounter
werewolves in the Canadian wilderness. Both films sought to be different
from the original Ginger Snaps, but, perhaps because of this, they lacked the
impact of the earlier film.

GIRDLER, WILLIAM (1947–1978). The films made by American director

William Girdler were often openly derivative, but at their best they were also
lively and entertaining affairs. Early horror work included Asylum of Satan
(1972) and the memorably titled Three on a Meathook (1972). More main-
stream was the blaxploitation film Abby (1974), sometimes described as a
black version of The Exorcist (1973). Grizzly (1976) looked to Jaws (1975)
for its inspiration, while Day of the Animals (1977) was a by-the-numbers
revenge of nature story. Girdler’s final film, The Manitou (1978), was de-
scribed by the director himself as a cross between The Exorcist and Star
Wars (1977). It was not, but it was fast moving enough to satisfy as exploita-
tion fare. Girdler died in a helicopter crash before the film was released. See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

GOBLIN. The Italian rock group Goblin has been responsible for some
distinctive horror music, especially for director Dario Argento. The group
was founded in the 1970s by Claudio Simonetti and Massimo Morante, al-
though the overall lineup has changed several times over the years. The
group’s fondness for repetitive themes conjoined with weird sounds was
apparent in their debut score for Argento’s giallo Profondo rosso (Deep Red)
 THE GOLEM • 149
(1975), where it perfectly illustrated the fixated world of an obsessed serial
killer, and in their nerve-jangling music (written under the name The Gob-
lins) for Argento’s witchcraft film Suspiria (1977), where it very effectively
conveyed a sense of being trapped in a world full of magic. Billed either as
Goblin or under the names of individual members of the group, they went on
to produce music for Argento’s Tenebre (Tenebrae) (1982), Phenomena
(1985), La Chiesa (The Church) (1989), and Nonhosonno (Sleepless) (2001).
Other Goblin horror scores include Buio Omega (Beyond the Darkness)
(1979), Contamination (1980), and Night of the Zombies (1981), and the
group also provided alternative scores for the Italian releases of George
Romero’s Martin (1977) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) as well as the Aus-
tralian horror Patrick (1978).

GOLDSMITH, JERRY (1929–2004). Jerry Goldsmith was one of the lead-

ing film composers of his generation. He worked successfully in all major
genres, but his interest in experimental and atonal music particularly suited
him to fantasy-based films. His best-known horror score was for The Omen
(1976), for which he deservedly won an Academy Award. The Gregorian-
style chanting he utilized there powerfully conveyed the off-screen presence
of the Devil. Goldsmith developed his score further in sequels Damien—
Omen 2 (1978) and The Final Conflict (1981), and subsequently the use of
choral music in horror became something of a cliché. Dissonance was mixed
with more lyrical passages in his highly effective music for Alien (1979),
Poltergeist (1982), and Psycho 2 (1983).
Goldsmith’s other horror or horror-related scores include The Mephisto
Waltz (1971), The Other (1972), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975),
Magic (1978), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Gremlins (1984), Polter-
geist II: The Other Side (1986), The ’Burbs (1989), Leviathan (1989), War-
lock (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Deep Rising (1998), The
Mummy (1999), and The Haunting (1999).
When sections of his Omen score showed up in the 2006 remake, it felt
like an old friend returning.

THE GOLEM. The figure of the Golem, who is fashioned from clay and
then magically brought to life, came originally from Jewish folklore. As far
as his cinematic existence was concerned, he first appeared in the German
production Der Golem (1915). Paul Wegener codirected this now lost film
(along with Henrik Galeen) and also starred as the Golem. Wegener returned
to the role in the comedy Der Golem und die Tänzerin (The Golem and the
Dancing Girl) (1917), although his character was here only pretending to be
the monster. Considerably more serious was Der Golem, wie er in die Welt
kam (The Golem: How He Came into the World) (1920), with Wegener again
150 • GORDON, BERT I. (1922–)
starring and also codirecting, this time with Carl Boese. This version has
come to be seen as a classic example of expressionism, and its depiction of
an oversize, lumbering monster also seems to have been an influence on
James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). Julien Duvivier directed a French
version, Le Golem, in 1936; Císaruv pekar a pekaruv císar (The Emperor’s
Baker and the Golem) (1951) was a Czech comic version; and the Golem
also showed up in the British horror film It (1966).

GORDON, BERT I. (1922–). The American director Bert I. Gordon spe-

cialized in cheap and cheerful horror movies and was a major contributor to
the lurid exploitation scene of the 1950s. His films often featured enlarged or
magnified monsters to the extent that this became a kind of authorial signa-
ture; as horror fans have pointed out, even his initials spell out the word
“big.” The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), and its se-
quel War of the Colossal Beast (1958) dealt with the transformation of
humans into menacing giants; Beginning of the End (1957) offered giant
grasshoppers and Earth vs. The Spider (The Spider) (1958) a giant spider;
and Attack of the Puppet People (1958) went in another direction by engi-
neering the miniaturization of some of its human characters. Gordon’s treat-
ment of this material was not particularly original, and the special effects—
which were often done by Gordon himself—were basic. However, these
films sometimes have a B-movie energy and, in retrospect, possess a kind of
period innocence that can make them appealing if one is feeling indulgent. In
the latter part of his career, Gordon maintained his interest in magnification
and miniaturization with two fantasy projects, The Magic Sword (1962) and
Village of the Giants (1965), and the horror films Empire of the Ants (1977)
and The Food of the Gods (1976), both of which were extremely loose
adaptations of stories by H. G. Wells. He also directed, with varying degrees
of success, psychological thrillers, namely Tormented (1960) and Picture
Mommy Dead (1966), and the witchcraft dramas Necromancy (1972),
Burned at the Stake (1981), and Satan’s Princess (1990). Some of Gordon’s
films have featured on and been sent up in the cult television series Mystery
Science Theater 3000 (1988–1999). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

GORDON, STUART (1947–). The writer-director Stuart Gordon had an

auspicious start to his career in horror with the H. P. Lovecraft adaptations
Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986). Lovecraft’s stories are often
humorless, but Gordon successfully introduced humor and a substantial
amount of gore without sacrificing a Lovecraftian distinctiveness. From the
atmospheric Dolls (1987) on, he has worked mainly in Europe, where he shot
The Pit and the Pendulum (1990), the television film Daughter of Darkness
(1990), and Castle Freak (1995). Dagon (2001), which was made in Spain
 GORE • 151
for the Fantastic Factory company, marked his return to Lovecraft. It had a
powerful sense of place and some impressive sequences, although it lacked
the overall cohesion of Gordon’s previous Lovecraft films. His other genre
directorial credits include the dark psychological thriller King of the Ants
(2003) and episodes for the television series Masters of Horror (2005) and
Fear Itself (2008). He also contributed to the screenplays for Abel Ferrara’s
Body Snatchers (1993) and for frequent collaborator Brian Yuzna’s The
Dentist (1996) as well as, perhaps surprisingly, working on the story for the
family film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989).

GORE. The horror genre’s reliance on gore—or “splatter,” to use a term

often deployed in horror criticism—has proved one of its more disreputable
features. For some, the graphic display of bodily fluids, mutilation, and evis-
ceration involves an appeal to degraded and base elements in the human
character. For horror theorists and critics, however, the genre’s gore effects
relate more to a fascination with the body and its workings, a fascination that
is marginalized or suppressed in other, more decorous areas of our culture. In
addition, horror fans often seem more interested in appreciating the makeup
techniques that produce the gore effects than they are in just witnessing
moments of nastiness; for these fans, at least there is an aesthetic of gore at
work in horror cinema.
American horror films of the 1930s and 1940s were restrained as far as
gore was concerned, with barely a glimpse of blood, let alone any more
disturbing fluid or body part. However, the general relaxation of censorship
that took place during the 1950s permitted the British horror company
Hammer to introduce considerable amounts of blood, woundings, and muti-
lation into its product, with the effectiveness of such elements underlined by
the fact that the films were being made in color; in particular, the company’s
Frankenstein films contributed to the development of surgical horror,
which would become a significant feature of European horror and a key
location for gore effects. Although controversial on their initial release, Ham-
mer films seem fairly tame now. By contrast, the ultra-low-budget 1960s
work of American director Herschell Gordon Lewis—sometimes dubbed
the “Master of Gore” or the “Father of Gore”—was both cruder and more
confrontational than the conventional Hammer output. Films such as Blood
Feast (1963) or Two Thousand Maniacs (1964) offered, respectively, the
spectacle of a tongue torn from someone’s mouth or a scene in which some-
one is placed in a barrel of spikes that is then rolled down a hill. The special
effects were mercifully unconvincing, but the sense of having seen some-
thing transgressive lingered.
Lewis worked on the margins of commercial cinema, but the gore with
which he had become associated entered the mainstream of horror from the
late 1960s on, reflecting a tougher and more cynical mood within the genre.
152 • GOTHIC
Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) depicted the
eating of flesh, Deranged (1974) had very explicit and protracted mutilation
scenes, The Exorcist (1973) made imaginative use of urine and vomit, and
Italian horror films of the 1970s and 1980s offered a panoply of unnerving
eye injuries and eviscerations. Meanwhile, the innovative Canadian horror
films directed by David Cronenberg—among them The Parasite Murders
(They Came from Within, Shivers) (1975) and The Brood (1979)—helped to
inaugurate what came to be known as body horror, a type of horror in which
the spectacle of bodies that are out of control, cancerous, or mutating be-
comes a source of macabre fascination. The American slasher films of the
late 1970s and early 1980s also contained less cerebral but nevertheless
inventive variations on slashing, stabbing, and bludgeoning.
Since the 1980s, the horror genre has certainly remained gory, with its
gore effects ever more realistic. However, the shock value of such imagery
appears largely to have worn off. Recent American productions such as
Wrong Turn (2003) or the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
are, scene for scene, probably gorier—and more convincingly gory—than
many of their 1970s counterparts, but the way the gore is represented has
become more familiar and conventionalized. It is now only the occasional
horror that breaches the conventional and takes us by surprise. Takashi
Miike’s Odishon (Audition) (1999) is one such film with its unexpected
climactic transformation into an extreme experience of torture, while a new
wave of hard-edged horror in the early 2000s—including The Devil’s Rejects
(2005), Hostel (2005), and Wolf Creek (2005)—signaled its difference from
the glossy teenage horror popular in the 1990s by foregrounding a particu-
larly visceral form of gore. It seems from this that gore has become one of
the many resources from which horror filmmakers can draw, and, like all the
other resources, it can be deployed with greater or less effectiveness and
imagination.

GOTHIC. The term “gothic” has several meanings, although these all tend
to involve notions of wildness, excess, and transgression. Gothic can denote
a particular architectural style. It is also a period in literary history, usually
defined as running from the 1760s to the 1820s (although some literary
historians see it as beginning earlier and ending later), a period in which the
trappings of later horror films—notably castles, dungeons, and sinister aristo-
crats—are first established. Mary Shelley’s famous 1818 novel Franken-
stein is a gothic novel in this sense. However, Frankenstein can potentially
be thought of as gothic in a generic sense inasmuch as it seems to belong to a
cultural category that in various forms runs through to the present day and
that incorporates much, if not all, of horror cinema. From this perspective,
gothic becomes a pervasive cultural mode, one that offers a space within
which conventional notions of realism can be undermined or critiqued.
 GOUGH, MICHAEL (1916–2011) • 153
Gothic has more specialized usages too. Gothic horror usually refers to
horror narratives set in the past, with Hammer horror or Guillermo del
Toro’s ghost story Crimson Peak (2015) good examples of this. More re-
cently, “gothic,” shortened to “goth,” has described a subculture involving
fashion, literature, music, art, and film.
It is hard to make all these usages cohere together and harder still to relate
them in any straightforward way to the horror film. While some horror films
seem devoid of influences that might be described as gothic, others—and not
just the period-set ones—do draw on recognizably gothic conventions. For
example, the figure of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
can be traced back to the sinister but charming villains found in the gothic
novels of Ann Radcliffe. Equally, some horror films might be seen as under-
mining our sense of the real in a gothic manner but by no means all. Matters
are complicated yet further by the fact that the term “gothic” has over the
years acquired some decidedly upmarket connotations (although it was origi-
nally a rather vulgar term), while the term “horror”—which, in the context of
popular fiction production, does not appear as a generic label until the
1930s—retains a certain vulgarity.
It follows that attempts to subsume horror into a broader gothic category
or genre are problematic inasmuch as they can end up oversimplifying both
gothic and horror. At the same time, horror cinema clearly has a relation or,
more particularly, relations with gothic in most of its definitions. One can
argue that the usefulness of concepts of the gothic to an understanding of
horror cinema depends ultimately on the precision of their use and the con-
texts within which they are deployed.

GOUGH, MICHAEL (1916–2011). For Hammer horror, the British char-

acter actor Michael Gough played pompous characters in Dracula (Horror of
Dracula) (1958) and The Phantom of the Opera (1962). Elsewhere, he often
showed up as an outright villain and delivered his performances with some
relish. He was a mad writer in Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), a mad
zookeeper in Black Zoo (1963), and a mad scientist in Konga (1961) and
Horror Hospital (1973). He also had the unusual distinction, for an estab-
lished actor at least, of playing a corpse in The Legend of Hell House (1973),
an interesting challenge for someone whose work often possessed a manic
intensity. In the latter part of his career, he worked with Tim Burton; he was
manservant Alfred in Batman (1989) and also featured in Burton’s homage
to classic horror Sleepy Hollow (1999).
Other horror credits include What a Carve Up (1961), Dr. Terror’s House
of Horrors (1964), The Skull (1965), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968),
Berserk! (1968), The Corpse (1970), Trog (1970), Satan’s Slave (1976), and
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988).
154 • GRANT, ARTHUR (1915–1972)
GRANT, ARTHUR (1915–1972). Although he worked in a variety of gen-
res, the British cinematographer Arthur Grant was most significant as a con-
tributor to Hammer horror. While Jack Asher photographed most of the
classic early Hammer horror productions, Grant did effective black-and-
white work on The Abominable Snowman (1957), The Stranglers of Bombay
(1959), Paranoiac (1963), and The Damned (These Are the Damned) (1963).
He was also responsible for some of the more stylish and visually pleasing
Hammers of the 1960s and 1970s, among them The Curse of the Werewolf
(1961), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), The Reptile (1966), Frankenstein
Created Woman (1967), Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to
Earth) (1967), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Dracula Has Risen from the
Grave (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Taste the Blood of
Dracula (1970), and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971). In addition, he
photographed Roger Corman’s outstanding Edgar Allan Poe adaptation
The Tomb of Ligeia (1964).

GRAU, JORGE (1930–). Throughout the 1960s, the Spanish director Jorge
Grau specialized in documentaries and dramas, although his best-known
films, internationally at least, are the two horrors he made in the early 1970s.
Interviews with Grau suggest that he is not entirely comfortable with being
classified as a horror director, but he did bring something distinctive to the
genre. Ceremonia sangrienta (Blood Castle) (1973) was a thoughtful and
atmospheric version of the story of the notorious medieval serial killer
Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (The
Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue) (1974)—which was filmed in Eng-
land—was a weird zombie film, full of the requisite gore but also containing
moments of surreal dislocation. See also SPANISH HORROR.

GRIFFITH, CHARLES B. (1930–2007). During the 1950s, the screenwrit-

er Charles B. Griffith worked regularly with producer-director Roger Cor-
man on low-budget projects such as Not of This Earth (1957), Attack of the
Crab Monsters (1957), and The Undead (1957). He displayed a flair for
humor in Corman’s comedy-horrors A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Little
Shop of Horrors (1960), and Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) and also
wrote Monte Hellman’s Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). In the mid-1970s,
he cowrote the Corman-produced black comedy Death Race 2000 (1975) and
directed yet another comedy-horror, Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980).
 H
HALLER, DANIEL (1926–). During the late 1950s and first half of the
1960s, Daniel Haller was an art director and/or production designer working
mainly for Roger Corman. Early horror credits include the Corman-directed
Bucket of Blood (1959), Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and The Wasp Wom-
an (1960) and the Corman-produced Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). Corman’s bigger-budgeted adaptations
of Edgar Allan Poe’s writings afforded Haller more of an opportunity to
come up with some striking designs, which accordingly he did for House of
Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962),
Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), and
The Masque of the Red Death (1964). He also designed Corman’s Tower of
London (1962), X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963), and The Terror (1963)
as well as Reginald LeBorg’s Diary of a Madman (1963).
Haller switched to film direction in the mid-1960s. Die, Monster, Die!
(1965), his debut, was a stylish adaptation of a story by H. P. Lovecraft. He
later returned to the genre with a more uneven Lovecraft film: The Dunwich
Horror (1970). Thereafter, he worked mainly for television.

HALLOWEEN (1978). Halloween helped to establish the slasher film as an

important format in American horror cinema and also made Jamie Lee
Curtis a horror star. However, the sequels it generated did not always capi-
talize on its reputation and its achievements. Director John Carpenter’s
original was innovative and atmospheric in its depiction of killer Michael
Myers returning to his hometown and causing mayhem. Halloween II (1981),
which was coscripted and coproduced by Carpenter but directed by Rick
Rosenthal, appeared at a time when many of the conventions introduced by
Carpenter—the emphasis on jump scares and the killer coming back to life
just when everyone thinks he is dead—were fast becoming clichés, and con-
sequently the film did not stand out from its fellow slashers. A Carpenter-
devised plot twist revealing that the Curtis character was the killer’s sister
was potentially interesting, but this idea was not developed until later in the

155
156 • HALPERIN, VICTOR (1895–1983)
cycle. In any event, Curtis looked too old by this stage to play a hapless
babysitter (although the film was meant to take place on the same night as its
predecessor).
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) was an unusual follow-up in
that it abandoned completely the story line and characters established in the
first two films and dealt instead with an evil toy maker planning to murder
children on Halloween night. Based on a story by an uncredited Nigel
Kneale, the film was quirky but not particularly successful, and Michael
Myers (along with his nemesis, the psychiatrist played by Donald Plea-
sence) was resurrected for Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
(1988), Halloween 5 (1989), and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
(1995). By this stage, Carpenter was not involved—although the distinctive
theme music he had composed for the first film was retained—and these
films, in common with the concurrent Friday the 13th cycle, developed the
supernatural aspects of the monster, aspects that had been only hinted at in
Halloween. The success of Scream (1996) encouraged a further revisioning
of the cycle in the light of the new teenage horror. Consequently, Hallo-
ween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) ignored the story line of parts 3 to 6 and
refocused on some Scream-like teenagers. More interestingly, it also brought
the Curtis character back and explored her relationship with her murderous
brother. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) followed.
In 2007, Rob Zombie’s remake of the original Halloween was released.
This generated its own Zombie-directed sequel: the idiosyncratic Halloween
II (2009).

HALPERIN, VICTOR (1895–1983). The director Victor Halperin made

the extraordinary, independently produced horror film White Zombie (1932).
Starring Bela Lugosi as principal villain, this was stylish, atmospheric, and
moody, and it remains one of the great zombie films. The narrative was
engaging, the performances were effective, and the film also featured an
innovative use of spirituals on its sound track. It is all the more surprising
then that Halperin’s subsequent horror films were so indifferent. The posses-
sion drama Supernatural (1933) was effective enough, with a starring role
for Carole Lombard, but it lacked the brilliance of White Zombie, while
Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and Torture Ship (1939) were lackluster pro-
ductions that failed to make any impact. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

HAMMER FILMS. The Hammer company was the main producer of Brit-
ish horror films from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. Hammer was initially
set up in 1934 by William Hinds, a part-time music hall performer whose
stage persona of “Will Hammer” gave the company its name. In partnership
 HAMMER FILMS • 157
with Enrique Carreras, he produced a few films—including a Bela Lugosi
vehicle, The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1935)—before the company
closed down in the late 1930s.
Hammer was reestablished as a production arm of Exclusive, a
Hinds–Carreras-owned distribution company, in 1949. James Carreras, En-
rique’s son, was the managing director, while Anthony Hinds, William’s
son, became its main producer (and Michael Carreras, James Carreras’s
son, also took on some production duties). Initially, Hammer was a distinctly
parochial outfit that specialized in cheap and cheerful adaptations of popular
British radio series, such as Dick Barton and The Adventures of PC 49. As a
result of a distribution deal struck with American producer Robert Lippert in
the early 1950s, the company subsequently switched to more cosmopolitan
although still low-budget thrillers, with many of these featuring fading or
minor American stars. In 1951, it also based itself at Bray Studios, a con-
verted country house in Windsor, which would be its production home for
the next 15 years.
During the first half of the 1950s, Hammer had halfheartedly dabbled in
science fiction with Four Sided Triangle (1953) and Spaceways (1953).
However, the substantial success enjoyed by its science fiction/horror hybrid
The Quatermass Experiment (The Creeping Unknown) (1955) seems to have
taken the company by surprise. Adapted, like so many Hammer projects,
from a preexisting source—in this case Nigel Kneale’s groundbreaking tele-
vision series for the British Broadcasting Corporation—the film offered
higher production values than usual and was slickly directed by Val Guest.
Hammer would subsequently make two Quatermass sequels as well as an-
other science fiction/horror: X—the Unknown (1956).
The idea for a color remake of the Frankenstein story actually came from
the American writer-producer Milton Subotsky (who later would set up his
own British horror company, Amicus), although Subotsky took no active
part in the production of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). As directed by
Terence Fisher, who would become Hammer’s main horror director, the
resulting film was graphic, shocking, and quite unlike anything seen before
either in British cinema or in horror cinema. Its huge international success
encouraged Hammer to develop more color period horrors, starting with
Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958), a film that confirmed Peter Cushing’s
stardom after his performance in The Curse of Frankenstein and that made an
international star out of Christopher Lee. Other producers, in Britain, Italy,
and Spain, also sought to cash in on Hammer’s success to the extent that
Hammer can be seen as partly responsible for the boom in European horror
production that took place from the late 1950s on.
For the next few years, Hammer worked hard to consolidate its horror
formula, which usually involved charismatic male authority figures, buxom
women, and scenarios charged with sensuality and violence. Its rapid serial
158 • HAMMER FILMS
production was aided by the fact that much of the Hammer team—which
included, alongside Fisher, writer Jimmy Sangster, cinematographers Jack
Asher and Arthur Grant, production designer Bernard Robinson, editor
James Needs, and composer James Bernard—was already established be-
fore the company’s turn to horror. In this period, Hammer produced its first
Frankenstein and Dracula sequels with The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
and The Brides of Dracula (1960) (although Dracula himself did not appear
in this). It also revived the werewolf in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) as well
as offering new versions of The Mummy (1959) and The Hound of the
Baskervilles (1959) and the mad scientist drama The Man Who Could Cheat
Death (1959). As if this were not enough, it also initiated a series of psycho-
logical thrillers, beginning with Seth Holt’s Taste of Fear (Scream of Fear)
(1961).
The box office disappointment of The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
brought this frenetic period to an end. For the remainder of the 1960s, Ham-
mer continued to churn out the horrors, and some of its films were inventive
and accomplished, including Don Sharp’s The Kiss of the Vampire (1962),
Fisher’s The Gorgon (1964), John Gilling’s The Plague of the Zombies
(1966) and The Reptile (1966), and Fisher’s The Devil Rides Out (1968). The
Dracula, Frankenstein, and mummy films that appeared were more hit and
miss, although good work was still being done here, especially by Fisher.
Much the same could be said of Hammer’s psychological thrillers, which
mixed the routine with the worthwhile (with Holt’s 1965 film The Nanny a
particularly outstanding piece of work in this area). The company also diver-
sified in this period, successfully with an exotic adventure She (1965) and the
dinosaur film One Million Years B.C. (1966) and disastrously with the sci-
ence fiction/western Moon Zero Two (1969). In 1968, Hammer produced the
television horror series Journey to the Unknown and also received the
Queen’s Award for Industry.
By the 1970s, Hammer’s period horror format was starting to look very
tired, and the company’s attempts to regenerate itself through increasing the
sex, violence, and general sensationalism in its films were not uniformly
successful. The lesbian vampire film The Vampire Lovers (1970) did well at
the box office and generated two sequels: Lust for a Vampire (1971) and
Twins of Evil (1971). Other innovative projects, such as Dr. Jekyll and Sister
Hyde (1971) and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1972) and, most of all,
the kung fu/horror hybrid The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974),
smacked of desperation and did not catch the public’s imagination. Good
work, if not necessarily commercially successful work, was being done in
this period, mainly by the younger directors who had been moving into
British horror since the late 1960s. Three films from Peter Sasdy, Taste the
Blood of Dracula (1970) (the last good Hammer Dracula film), Countess
 HARK, TSUI (1950–) • 159
Dracula (1971), and Hands of the Ripper (1971), along with Robert Young’s
Vampire Circus (1972) and Peter Sykes’s Demons of the Mind (1972), of-
fered incisive critiques of those authority figures who had been so prominent
in the initial cycle of Hammer production back in the late 1950s. Hammer’s
final horror film, Sykes’s Satanic thriller To the Devil a Daughter (1976),
continued this theme as well as attempting to harness itself to the success of
the American horror film The Exorcist (1973). Unfortunately, it was not
enough, and Hammer ceased horror production.
Under a different management regime, Hammer subsequently produced
two more television series: Hammer House of Horror (1980) and Hammer
House of Mystery and Suspense (1984). In the 2000s, under yet another
management regime, the company resumed film production with an eclectic
mix of horror films, including the vampire film Let Me In (2010), Wake
Wood (2011), The Resident (2011), The Woman in Black (2012), The Woman
in Black: Angel of Death (2014), and The Quiet Ones (2014). Among these,
the ghost story The Woman in Black was a stand-out commercial success.
However, despite its period setting, it turned out to be very different from the
Hammer horror films of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, which showed little
interest in ghosts. Indeed, this latest version of Hammer, while keenly aware
of the company’s legacy, has thus far not sought to revive or re-create the old
Hammer horror but instead has followed more contemporary trends in inter-
national horror production.

HARDY, ROBIN (1929–2016). The British director Robin Hardy’s reputa-

tion rests almost entirely on one formidable horror film that also happened to
mark his cinematic directorial debut: The Wicker Man (1973). This study of
the survival of pagan beliefs on a remote Scottish island was both disturbing
and richly textured. The film was not widely appreciated on its initial release
and was cut by its distributor, but a restored version was issued in 2001, and
The Wicker Man is now considered a cult classic. It was remade by Neil
LaBute in 2006. Hardy’s second film was The Fantasist (1986), an account
of a serial killer at work in Dublin that was ambitious but that lacked the
resonances of The Wicker Man. In 2011, Hardy directed The Wicker Tree, a
sequel of sorts to The Wicker Man. See also BRITISH HORROR.

HARK, TSUI (1950–). The Vietnamese-born producer-director Tsui Hark

works mainly in Hong Kong, where he has established a distinctive, much-
imitated style based on rapid editing of action scenes. He specializes in
martial arts thrillers but has occasionally introduced into his films elements
of supernatural horror drawn from Chinese mythology. Die ban (The Butter-
fly Murders) (1979), his directorial debut, combined horror with martial arts,
while his second film, Diyu wu men (Hell Has no Gates, Kung Fu Cannibals)
160 • HARLIN, RENNY (1959–)
(1980), added comedy to the generic mix. The director’s international break-
through came with Suk san: Sun Suk san geen hap (Zu Warriors, Warriors
from the Magic Mountain) (1983), a delirious fantasy featuring martial arts
and demons. More success came with Sinnui yauwan (A Chinese Ghost
Story) (1987), which was directed by Siu-Tung Ching and produced by Hark
for his Film Workshop company. Another period supernatural fantasy, this
contained one of horror’s more unnerving images, that of a monster’s aston-
ishingly large tongue enveloping its victims. Hark went on to produce the
first sequel, Sinnui yauwan II (A Chinese Ghost Story Part II) (1990), and
codirected the second, Sinnui yauwan III: Do do do (A Chinese Ghost Story
III) (1991). Other horror-related credits include Shu shan zheng zhuan (Zu
Warriors) (2001), a remake of Hark’s own Suk san: Sun Suk san geen hap,
and his production The Era of Vampires (Tsui Hark’s Vampire Hunters)
(2002). See also CHINESE HORROR.

HARLIN, RENNY (1959–). The Finnish director Renny Harlin has worked
mainly in the United States, where he has alternated action spectaculars such
as Die Hard 2 (1990) and Cliffhanger (1993) with horror films. His
American debut was Prison (1988), a low-budget ghost story that combined
a formulaic narrative with an impressive sense of atmosphere. Harlin fol-
lowed this with the bigger-budgeted A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The
Dream Master (1988), one of the more stylish entries to this popular cycle.
Having subsequently established himself as a director of blockbusters, he
returned to horror with Deep Blue Sea (1999), an effective horror/action
hybrid about genetically engineered sharks, and the serial killer drama
Mindhunters (2004). When Paul Schrader’s version of the Exorcist prequel
was shelved by its producers, Harlin was hired to direct a different version of
the prequel. Unfortunately, Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) was not well
received. Harlin has also directed the supernatural thriller The Covenant
(2006) and the found footage horror film The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013).
See also AMERICAN HORROR.

HARRINGTON, CURTIS (1926–2007). The director Curtis Harrington be-

gan his career making experimental short films, including an adaptation of
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He moved into more
mainstream production with Night Tide (1961), an eerie Val Lew-
ton–influenced low-budget drama in which a sailor (played by Dennis Hop-
per) becomes obsessed with a mermaid impersonator in a sideshow. Harring-
ton’s next feature was Queen of Blood (1966), a cult science fiction/horror
hybrid in which astronauts encountered an extraterrestrial female vampire.
A move upmarket followed with the disturbing psychological thriller
Games (1967), which starred Simone Signoret and contained early perfor-
 HARTFORD-DAVIS, ROBERT (1923–1977) • 161
mances from James Caan and Katherine Ross; it also inaugurated the direc-
tor’s fondness for casting older women in major roles. Harrington stayed
with psychological horror for his next few films. How Awful about Allan
(1970), which starred Anthony Perkins, was made for American television,
while Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971), a perverse retelling of the Hansel
and Gretel story in which the children turn out to be far from innocent, was
produced in Britain. The enjoyably over-the-top What’s the Matter with Hel-
en? (1971) was clearly intended to repeat the success of Robert Aldrich’s
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) in its casting of two aging
Hollywood female stars, in this case Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds,
but it was more compassionate than Aldrich’s somewhat cruel film. Harring-
ton subsequently made the disturbing psychological thriller The Killing Kind
(1973) as well as some of the best 1970s television horror films, notably The
Cat Creature (1973), Killer Bees (1974), The Dead Don’t Die (1975), and
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978). His experience directing the supernat-
ural possession thriller Ruby (1977) was less happy, however. Piper Laurie
was the aging star this time, and Harrington created some suitably creepy
atmospherics around the drive-in cinema that was the film’s main setting.
Unfortunately, he was replaced by Stephanie Rothman before shooting con-
cluded. Subsequently, Harrington worked mainly for television, although in
2002 he directed and starred in the short film Usher, his second adaptation of
Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

HARTFORD-DAVIS, ROBERT (1923–1977). The British director Robert

Hartford-Davis was an idiosyncratic talent who worked largely in the low-
budget exploitation sector and who made some interestingly perverse British
horror films. The period horror-drama The Black Torment (1964) was one of
his more conventional projects. An obvious attempt to cash in on the success
of Hammer horror, it lacked Hammer’s panache and turned out to be a rather
dull affair. Hartford-Davis returned more profitably to the genre in the 1970s,
a period in which iconoclastic directors such as Pete Walker and Norman J.
Warren were redefining British horror through a new emphasis on contem-
porary subjects and a questioning of social authority. Such elements were
evident in Hartford-Davis’s The Fiend (1971), an intensely claustrophobic
but compelling film in which religious repression was associated with
psychopathic violence. Incense for the Damned (1970) was an ambitious
modern vampire story that also offered a critique of the social establishment.
However, the film was reedited by its producers (and retitled Bloodsuckers
for some markets), and Hartford-Davis removed his name from the credits
and was billed instead as Michael Burrowes. He ended up making blaxploita-
tion films in the United States.
162 • HATTON, RONDO (1894–1946)
HATTON, RONDO (1894–1946). The actor Rondo Hatton appeared regu-
larly in small roles in American cinema from 1930 on, but it was his perfor-
mance as the murderous Creeper in the Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of
Death (1944) that brought him to public attention. Subsequently, he was a
villainous henchman in The Jungle Captive (1945) and The Spider Woman
Strikes Back (1946) and went on to play a horribly deformed villain called
the Creeper—albeit not the Creeper from Pearl of Death—in House of Hor-
rors (Joan Medford Is Missing) (1946) and The Brute Man (1946). Unfortu-
nately for Hatton, the disfigured facial features that so suited him to screen
villainy were not the product of makeup but instead the result of a progres-
sive medical condition called acromegaly. To modern viewers, this smacks
of exploitation, and watching these films in the knowledge of Hatton’s prob-
lems can be a discomforting experience. Whether this was how they were
perceived at the time of their release is not clear, although the fact that they
were in the main commercially successful suggests that there was either a
greater public tolerance of or indifference toward this kind of thing back in
the 1940s. In any event, Hatton’s career offers an extreme case of how far
some filmmakers were prepared to go in order to achieve their effects.

HAYERS, SIDNEY (1921–2000). Like a number of other British directors,

Sidney Hayers serviced the boom in British horror production in the late
1950s and early 1960s without displaying any long-term commitment to the
genre. His two main horror films turned out to be accomplished and striking,
although the fact that they were so different from each other stylistically and
thematically suggested that here was a director who was not particularly
interested in imposing his own personality on his work. Circus of Horrors
(1960) was a gaudy horror melodrama in which an unscrupulous surgeon
carries out his illicit trade under the cover of a circus and ruthlessly murders
anyone who threatens him. It was from the same company that produced
Michael Powell’s similarly gaudy Peeping Tom (1960), and while lacking
that film’s intelligence, it was energetic and inventive (especially in its mur-
der scenes). Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn!) (1962) was more re-
strained but arguably more effective in its depiction of witchcraft in a uni-
versity setting. Thereafter, Hayers worked in other genres, although he brief-
ly became a specialist in dark psychological thrillers with Assault (1971),
Revenge (1971), and Deadly Strangers (1974) before moving to the United
States, where he spent the last part of his career directing for television.

HENENLOTTER, FRANK (1950–). Basket Case (1982), writer-director

Frank Henenlotter’s feature debut, made most other low-budget horror films
look expensive. Despite its miniscule budget, the film was sufficiently inven-
tive in its rendition of the story of separated conjoined twins, one of which is
 HESSLER, GORDON (1925–2014) • 163
horribly deformed, to win the attention and approval of horror fans. Basket
Case 2 (1990) and Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1992) maintained the inven-
tiveness, while Brain Damage (1988) managed to be simultaneously silly
and disturbing and is often considered Henenlotter’s best film. Henenlotter
also directed the memorably titled but morally dubious Frankenhooker
(1990), in which the hero attempts to reconstruct his dead girlfriend using
body parts obtained from prostitutes. His other credits include Bad Biology
(2008) and Chasing Banksy (2015). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

HERRMANN, BERNARD (1911–1975). The screeching violins that ac-

companied the shower murder in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) have
echoed through horror music ever since, with Psycho-like orchestrations
becoming something of a convention. The man responsible was distin-
guished composer Bernard Herrmann. Early in his career, he had written
music suitable for the Devil in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) and had
entered the world of a madman in Hangover Square (1945). His previous
work for Hitchcock—which had included Vertigo (1958) and North by
Northwest (1959)—had utilized the full resources of the orchestra, which
made his strings-only score for Psycho all the more surprising; the composer
later claimed that it was black-and-white music for a black-and-white film.
He also wrote the orchestral score for the dark psychological thriller Cape
Fear (1962)—which was reused for Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake—and
was sound consultant for Hitchcock’s music-less The Birds (1963). For much
of the 1960s, Herrmann’s type of film music was perceived as old-fashioned,
and he was not much in demand, for American films at least. Instead, he
worked for Francois Truffaut on two films and also wrote the music for the
British psychological thriller Twisted Nerve (1968). During the 1970s, a new
generation of filmmakers who were more appreciative of the expressive po-
tential of Herrmann’s music hired him for their films. Brian De Palma used
him for Sisters (1973) and Obsession (1976), and Larry Cohen managed to
get a particularly discordant score for his “monstrous baby on the loose”
drama It’s Alive! (1974). Herrmann’s final score was for Scorsese’s Taxi
Driver (1976), which, in its shocking violence, was also a kind of horror
film.

HESSLER, GORDON (1925–2014). The German-born director Gordon

Hessler contributed to the modernization of British horror that took place
from the late 1960s on. Unlike other filmmakers who at this time were
offering new ideas and approaches—among them directors Michael Reeves
and Peter Sasdy and writer Christopher Wicking—Hessler had already
been in the industry for some years before turning to horror. He had worked
in the United States on the television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents and
164 • HICKOX, ANTHONY (1959–)
had also directed two British thrillers: Catacombs (1965) and The Last Shot
You Hear (1968). The Oblong Box (1969), his first horror film, had originally
been intended as a Michael Reeves project. Like all of Hessler’s British
horror films, it starred Vincent Price and was made for American Interna-
tional Pictures (AIP), which was involved in several coproductions with
British companies in this period. While The Oblong Box was not distinctive
thematically, it did show off a busy visual style—with numerous apparently
unmotivated camera movements—quite different from the more stately ap-
proach adopted by the classic Hammer horrors of the late 1950s and early
1960s. This style evolved further in Hessler’s next two horrors, the science
fiction/horror hybrid Scream and Scream Again (1969) and the period horror
Cry of the Banshee (1970), both of which had fragmented narratives and
displayed what for the time was a fashionable identification with youth and a
disregard for authority figures. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) was an-
other AIP production, although shot in Spain and subject to some reediting
by producers as a result of Hessler’s increasingly experimental approach to
narrative structure. Hessler next made the thriller Embassy (1972) and the
fantasy adventure The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) before returning to
the United States, where he specialized in television direction, including the
television horror film The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977).

HICKOX, ANTHONY (1959–). The British-born son of director Douglas

Hickox and award-winning editor Anne V. Coates, Anthony Hickox has
himself directed some effective if sometimes derivative low-budget horror
films alongside thrillers and action films. His genre debut was Waxwork
(1988), which was followed by Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1991)
and Waxwork 2: Lost in Time (1992). Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
was his most ambitious film to date and successfully managed the transition
of the Hellraiser series from British to American settings, while Warlock:
The Armageddon (1993) was another effective sequel. Since then, Hickox
has worked away from horror, although he returned for the Dolph Lundgren
serial killer drama Jill Rips (2000).

HINDS, ANTHONY (1922–2013). Anthony Hinds was one of the main

producers and writers for Hammer Films. The son of the company’s co-
founder Will Hammer, he was a key figure in the formation of the distinctive
Hammer horror formula, which combined a sensuous style with a fairly rigid
moral framework. He produced many Hammer horrors, including The Curse
of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958), and also
wrote screenplays under the name “John Elder” for, among others, The Curse
of the Werewolf (1961), Kiss of the Vampire (1962), and The Evil of Fran-
kenstein (1964). He worked less often as producer after the mid-1960s but
 HOLLAND, TOM (1943–) • 165
continued his writing with Hammer’s Frankenstein and the Monster from
Hell (1974) and Tyburn’s The Ghoul (1974) and Legend of the Werewolf
(1975). He also wrote an episode for the television series Hammer House of
Horror (1980) and the Sherlock Holmes television film The Masks of Death
(1984), which starred Peter Cushing as Holmes.

HITCHCOCK, ALFRED (1899–1980). Only two of British-born director

Alfred Hitchcock’s 53 feature films are usually thought of as horrors, name-
ly, Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). Yet he remains an influential figure
within the horror genre. In part, this has to do with his contribution to the
development of the psychological thriller, a format that often has horror-
like qualities. The Lodger (1927) is an early example of a serial killer film,
and Hitchcock would elaborate further on the figure of the serial killer in
Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Frenzy (1972), and, not least, Psycho, where the
killer was based loosely on real-life murderer Ed Gein. Even by Hitchcock’s
innovative standards, Psycho was a daring film in its stark black-and-white
appearance, its screeching musical score (provided by Bernard Herrmann),
its relative openness about the representation of deviant sexuality, and its
ruthless killing off of its heroine long before the film’s conclusion. In many
ways, it inaugurated the modern American horror film, although its full
influence was not felt for several years. Hitchcock’s follow-up, The Birds,
was a fine example of open-ended apocalyptic horror, with the attacking
birds pointedly left undefeated at the film’s conclusion. Hitchcock himself
suggested that The Birds offered an attack on the complacency of its charac-
ters, and this idea of the complacent getting their comeuppance has subse-
quently become an important feature of modern horror.
Hitchcock’s long-running television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(1955–1962) mixed crime stories with horror stories, suggesting that Hitch-
cock’s persona encompassed both genres.

HOLLAND, TOM (1943–). The writer-director Tom Holland started out in

horror through scripting the television horror film The Initiation of Sarah
(1978) and followed this up with screenplays for the cult horror The Beast
Within (1982) and the inventive sequel Psycho II (1983). He then got his
chance to direct with the contemporary vampire thriller Fright Night (1985).
This was a witty teenage horror film made in the wake of Wes Craven’s A
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and sharing a similar playfulness. Child’s
Play (1988), which centered on a doll possessed by a serial killer’s soul, was
genuinely suspenseful, although its impact has since been eroded by a series
of increasingly jokey sequels. Subsequently, Holland has directed two Ste-
phen King adaptations: The Langoliers (1995) for television and Thinner
(1996) for the cinema. He has also contributed episodes to the television
166 • HOLT, SETH (1923–1971)
series Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) and Masters of Horror (2005–) as
well as writing and directing the Web series Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales
(2013). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

HOLT, SETH (1923–1971). The British filmmaker Seth Holt started out as
an editor at Ealing Studios and also worked in this capacity on the realist
classic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Although he directed
only six films, he has come to be considered a significant talent whose
promise was never realized. Half of his directorial output was for Hammer.
Taste of Fear (Scream of Fear) (1961) was the first and best of a series of
psychological thrillers designed to complement the company’s period hor-
ror productions. The elaborate, twist-ridden narrative was not very credible,
but Holt created an effective brooding atmosphere. In terms of its plot, the
thriller The Nanny (1965) was more straightforward, but it was one of Bette
Davis’s best later films and also offered a sharp and unsettling exploration of
middle-class social mores. Holt died a week before the end of production on
Hammer’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971), and the film was com-
pleted by Michael Carreras. This loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel
Jewel of the Seven Stars was a daring reinvention of the mummy story and,
like all of Holt’s previous films, was clearly informed by a cinematic sen-
sibility. One only has to compare it with some of the more literal-minded
British horror films of the period to realize why Holt is so highly valued by
critics.

HOMOSEXUALITY. The relation between homosexuality and horror cine-

ma is an ambiguous one. When gay characters are featured in horror films
(and they do not feature very often), they tend to be associated with the
abnormal and the monstrous in a manner that might be construed as homo-
phobic. A good case study here, in all its ambiguities, is the lesbian vampire.
The connection made by horror between lesbianism and predatory vampirism
in films such as Dracula’s Daughter (1936), The Vampire Lovers (1970),
Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness) (1971), or Vampyres (1974) can
be seen as an expression both of male anxieties about female independence
and of an equally masculine voyeurism regarding lesbianism. At the same
time, however, some renditions of the lesbian vampire have been praised by
critics for offering challenging images of powerful women. The association
of male gayness with serial killing in No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), Cruis-
ing (1980), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) has proved more conten-
tious, although even here these figures tend to be located within worlds
characterized by a broader breakdown in sexual identities.
 HOOPER, TOBE (1943–2017) • 167
To complicate matters yet further, some of the key artists involved in the
development of the horror genre were themselves gay, with this arguably
manifesting, usually implicitly, in their work. The most notable examples of
this are F. W. Murnau, whose Nosferatu (1922) placed greater emphasis on
homosocial relationships than most other versions of the Dracula story, and
James Whale, whose Bride of Frankenstein (1935) has come to be regarded
as a classic example of the camp aesthetic. Some critics have also detected
homoerotic elements in apparently “straight” horror films, such as in the
homosociality of many Frankenstein films or in the obscure desires of many
of the genre’s villains. Interestingly, the horror musical The Rocky Horror
Picture Show (1975) has become a major cult success on the strength of its
foregrounding of gayness. The invitation issued by the Rocky Horror phe-
nomenon to its (presumably mainly straight) audience to dress up and partici-
pate in a cross-gendered experience might be seen in this respect as suggest-
ing something about the horror experience more generally, namely, that gen-
der and sexuality within the genre are considerably less fixed than is some-
times supposed and that the genre’s representations of gayness are them-
selves caught up in—and need to be viewed in terms of—this broader uncer-
tainty.

HOOPER, TOBE (1943–2017). For a film with a reputation for being wild
and uncontrolled, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) turns out to be a
remarkably disciplined piece of work. In large part, this is due to the input of
its director, Tobe Hooper (who also coscripted and coproduced the film). His
handling of the slow, measured transition from mildly disturbing scenes to
the climactic terrorization of the film’s Final Girl was confident and effec-
tive and his camera work unobtrusively stylish, and he also managed to inject
humor into the most appalling scenes in a manner that accentuated the terror
rather than dispelling it. It is a testament to his skill that the film appeared far
more violent and gory than it actually was, and it is now deservedly consid-
ered a major work of cinematic horror.
The notoriety of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre led to Hooper, who up
until then had been a little-known Texas-based independent filmmaker, being
typecast as a horror artist, and his subsequent career combined significant
achievements in the genre with some disappointing projects. Eaten Alive
(Death Trap) (1977) was, like Chainsaw, a prime example of southern goth-
ic. Its overwrought narrative, in which a demented hotelier feeds various
guests to his pet crocodile, might not have been to everyone’s taste, and the
film lacked the scary intensity of Chainsaw. However, its bizarre atmos-
phere, which made it quite unlike any other 1970s American horror, under-
lined the originality of Hooper’s approach; the film also featured an early
appearance from horror-star-to-be Robert Englund. Hooper subsequently
directed the television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s vampire
168 • HOPKINS, ANTHONY (1937–)
novel Salem’s Lot (1979), which, although more conventional than his earlier
work, still contained some genuinely unnerving and frightening moments.
The Funhouse (1981) was Hooper’s typically idiosyncratic contribution to
the then popular slasher horror.
At this point in his career. Hooper moved onto bigger-budgeted films, but
the results were not always successful. Poltergeist (1982) did very well at the
box office, although many critics saw its loving rendition of the nuclear
family under threat from malevolent supernatural forces as being more typi-
cal of its producer, Steven Spielberg, than it was of Hooper. Next came three
films for the Cannon company. Lifeforce (1985) was a science fiction/horror
in which a naked female alien/vampire threatens London; some saw the
influence in it of Quatermass writer Nigel Kneale, although Kneale would
probably not have produced anything quite so silly. However, Lifeforce was
more enjoyable than either Invaders from Mars (1986) or The Texas Chain-
saw Massacre 2 (1986), both of which were unbalanced by clumsy moments
of humor.
Throughout the 1990s, Hooper worked on some undistinguished low-bud-
get projects, including Spontaneous Combustion (1990), Night Terrors
(1993), The Mangler (1995), and Crocodile (2000). The year 2004 saw a
welcome return to form with Toolbox Murders, an impressive reworking of a
not-very-good 1970s horror film that demonstrated that Hooper had not lost
the ability to generate claustrophobic scenes of discomfort and terror. Djinn
(2013), which was produced in the United Arab Emirates, was less impres-
sive, however.
From the mid-1980s on, Hooper also directed some films for television—
notably a segment of the horror anthology Body Bags (1993) and I’m Dan-
gerous Tonight (1990)—and contributed to some television series, including
Amazing Stories (1985–1987), Freddy’s Nightmares (1988–1990), Tales
from the Crypt (1989–1996), Dark Skies (1996–1997), Perversions of Sci-
ence (1997), The Others (2000), Night Visions (2001), Taken (2002), and,
appropriately for someone with his status in the horror genre, Masters of
Horror (2005–). He also coproduced the 2003 remake of his own The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre.

HOPKINS, ANTHONY (1937–). One role can define an actor’s screen

persona. In the case of the Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins, that role was
master serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). He
was not the first to play Lecter—that honor went to Brian Cox in Manhunter
(1986)—but it was Hopkins’s remarkable performance, combining menace,
articulacy, and hints of campness, that caught the public’s imagination and
helped to establish the serial killer as a significant presence in horror films
and thrillers. It also won him an Academy Award. Before Lecter, Hopkins
was an accomplished stage actor with a sporadically successful cinema ca-
 HOSTS • 169
reer. He was an anguished father in search of his dead daughter’s spirit in
Robert Wise’s reincarnation drama Audrey Rose (1977) and a psychologi-
cally disturbed ventriloquist in Magic (1978), but other than this he had no
real presence within the horror genre. After Lecter, his performances often
had a larger-than-life quality, as if having to live up to his iconic status, and
he was cast more frequently in horror-related projects, albeit upmarket ones.
He was an enthusiastic Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola’s version of
Dracula (1992) and returned to the part of Lecter, to less effect, in Hannibal
(2001) and Red Dragon (2002). He confronted Death personified in Meet Joe
Black (1998), starred in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s goriest play Titus
(1999), met the Devil in The Devil and Daniel Webster (2001), was a myster-
ious stranger in the Stephen King adaptation Hearts in Atlantis (2001),
turned out to be a werewolf in The Wolfman (2010), and was an exorcist in
The Rite (2011). In 1993, he was awarded a knighthood.

HOSTS. The horror host first came to prominence on American television

during the 1950s and 1960s, when his or her function was to introduce
screenings of old horror films. Key hosts included “Vampira,” “Zacherley,”
and “Ghoulardi.” Their humorous introductions arguably helped to ease the
genre’s passage into a domestic setting for which it had never been intended.
Elsewhere, the hosts found in 1950s EC horror comics—most notoriously
the Crypt Keeper—served a similar function while also helping to set a
sardonic tone for the amoral horror tales in which EC specialized. From the
late 1950s on, horror-themed television series, including The Veil (1958) and
The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), integrated the host into the program format,
again with the figure acting as a bridge between the domestic reality of the
audience and the fantasy worlds offered on-screen.
The horror host has been less of a feature of the horror scene since then.
Attenuated versions of horror hosts show up in some of the Amicus horror
anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s—including two adaptations of EC horror
stories, Tales from the Crypt (1972) and Vault of Horror (1973)—while
anthology television series such as Night Gallery (1970–1973), Freddy’s
Nightmares (1988–1990), and Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) still relied
on introductions addressed directly to the camera. Meanwhile, Elvira, a
Vampira-like figure, made an impact on American television during the
1980s by introducing old horror films in the traditional horror host fashion,
“Dr. Terror” did something similar on British television during the 1990s,
and the film Fright Night (1985) offered a fond representation of a horror
host who has to take on a real vampire.
170 • HOUGH, JOHN (1941–)
HOUGH, JOHN (1941–). John Hough is a British-born director who has
worked in a variety of genres in Great Britain and in the United States and
who has occasionally strayed into the horror genre. His films are often stylish
affairs, although they lack an overall cohesion, suggesting a director with
ability but with no strong affinity with horror. Twins of Evil (1971) was the
final part of Hammer’s lesbian vampire trilogy. It lacked the dreamy lan-
guor of the earlier The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Lust for a Vampire (1971)
and marginalized the lesbianism, but it was a well-paced account of intoler-
ance that owed something thematically to Michael Reeves’s Witchfinder
General (1968). The Legend of Hell House (1973), adapted from a novel by
Richard Matheson and filmed in Britain, was an impressive haunted house
film. The Watcher in the Woods (1980), also filmed in Britain, was an unlike-
ly foray by the Disney company into horror. The need to retain the family
audience led to an uneasy and much-reshot end product, albeit one that was
still interesting. By contrast, The Incubus (1981)—which took as its subject
demonic rape and murder in an American town—was strictly for adults only.
Hough’s other genre credits include Howling IV: The Original Nightmare
(1988), American Gothic (1988), and Bad Karma (2002). He also contrib-
uted to the British television series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense
(1984).

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. Film versions of The Hunchback

of Notre Dame—adapted, usually very loosely, from Victor Hugo’s 1831
novel Notre Dame de Paris—are comparable with Phantom of the Opera
films in that they share horror-like themes and imagery but tend to be located
on the margins of the horror genre. Arguably, this is because the beauty-and-
the-beast scenarios offered by each lend themselves more to tragic romance
than they do to straight horror. The first major adaptation was the silent The
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), starring Lon Chaney as the hideously
deformed hunchback Quasimodo. Although Chaney is now widely regarded
as a horror star, his films are often more melodramas than they are horrors,
and his version of Hunchback is no exception, with its lavish sets and emo-
tive, pathos-ridden narrative. Next came Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in
a 1939 version directed by William Dieterle that again offered itself as a
high-quality historical melodrama with little or no connection to the horror
films that were popular at the time. Much the same can be said for the French
production Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) (1956),
which starred Anthony Quinn as the hunchback. There have also been nu-
merous television adaptations—including a 1982 production that featured a
pre–Hannibal Lecter Anthony Hopkins as Quasimodo—and a Disney car-
toon version in 1996.
 THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME • 171
Notre Dame does not have a monopoly on hunchbacks, however, and
horror films have in the past occasionally deployed this particular bodily
deformity to generate grotesquerie and sometimes pathos as well. Dwight
Frye was Frankenstein’s deranged hunchbacked assistant in Universal’s
Frankenstein (1931), while a more sympathetic hunchbacked female nurse
showed up in House of Dracula (1945). The Spanish actor Jacinto Moli-
na—in the guise of “Paul Naschy”—offered a mix of the horrible and the
mildly sympathetic in El Jorobado de la Morgue (Hunchback of the Morgue)
(1972), while Mel Brooks’s horror spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) con-
tained a comedy hunchback in the form of actor Marty Feldman, whose
hunch moved from one shoulder to another and who, when asked about this,
replied, “What hunch?”
 I
INDIAN HORROR. In terms of its sheer volume of production, Indian
cinema is one of the largest cinemas in the world. Horror is not a major part
of it, however, nor does horror or the gothic feature more widely in Indian
culture (although India does possess a rich tradition of fantasy). A few Indian
horrors appeared during the 1970s, largely as a response to the huge interna-
tional success experienced by The Exorcist (1973), among them Nagina
(1976) and Jadu Tona (1977). More significant were the activities of brothers
Tulsi and Shyam Ramsay, who were the closest thing to horror specialists
that Indian cinema ever had. They began with Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche
(1972) and subsequently churned out a series of low-budget horrors, among
them Darwaza (1978), the disembodied hand thriller Guest House (1980),
Ghunghroo Ki Awaaz (1981), and the ghost story Hotel (1981). Their biggest
success came with Purana Mandir (1984), which dealt with a family curse
and which encouraged other producers to enter the genre. Like most other
Indian films, the Ramsay productions usually inserted songs and dance num-
bers into stories that drew on both Indian mythology and Western horror
conventions. Thus, ghosts, curses, witches, and vampires manifested them-
selves in relation to familiar Indian settings and characterizations. Horror
aficionados have also noted liftings in these films both from the older horror
of Hammer and Mario Bava and from the more contemporary American
horror represented by, for example, the Nightmare on Elm Street films.
The Ramsays’ vampire drama Bandh Darwaza (1989) is often seen as
their best horror film, although its modest performance at the box office
marked the end of the initial Indian horror boom. The association of horror
with productions of low-cultural status, which had largely been established
by the Ramsays, meant that subsequent attempts to move the genre upmarket
or to broaden its appeal did not do well—with the possession drama Raat
(1992) one of the few exceptions. Neither has Indian cinema managed to
produce an internationally exportable mixture of Western and non-Western
horror conventions in the manner, say, of some recent Japanese horror
films. However, Indian horror production has continued with the likes of the
ghost stories Raaz (2002), 1920 (2008), and Horror Story (2013).

173
174 • INSECTS
INSECTS. The horror genre has long been in the habit of using insects both
for general atmospheric purposes and as monsters in their own right. Spiders
in particular have scuttled through many a sinister castle or dungeon from the
Universal Dracula (1931) on, while the Italian horror La Maschera del
Demonio (The Mask of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday)
(1960) offered the unnerving spectacle of scorpions crawling out of the eye
sockets of a dead witch. The American science fiction/horror monster mo-
vies of the 1950s introduced the practice of enlarging insects (or in a few
cases making humans small so that the insects appear large), with this often
connecting with nuclear anxieties and an associated sense that nature was out
of control. Giant ants featured in Them! (1954); giant spiders in Tarantula
(1955), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), and Earth vs. The Spider (The
Spider) (1958); giant locusts in Beginning of the End (1957); a giant praying
mantis in The Deadly Mantis (1957); and a range of magnified insects in The
Black Scorpion (1957). Since the 1950s, giant insects have made only occa-
sional appearances, notably in the 1970s with The Giant Spider Invasion
(1975) and Empire of the Ants (1977). Many of these films were let down by
some unconvincing model work, but more recently state-of-the-art special
effects have produced some convincing giant spiders in Eight Legged Freaks
(2002) and, most of all, in horror-like sequences in fantasy films Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Jackson’s 2005 remake of King
Kong also contained its fair share of large ferocious insects, as did Paul
Verhoeven’s earlier Starship Troopers (1997), while Guillermo del Toro’s
Mimic (1997) featured giant insects that can imitate human beings.
Horror’s other way of transforming insects into something that is menac-
ing is to show large numbers of them massing and swarming, with this
usually announcing a revenge of nature theme. Normal-size ants threatened
humans in The Naked Jungle (1954), Phase IV (1973), Kingdom of the Spi-
ders (1977), and Arachnophobia (1990), while bees did the same in The
Deadly Bees (1966) and The Swarm (1978). Thousands of worms rose to the
surface in Squirm (1976), and a new breed of fire-starting cockroach attacked
a small town in Bug (1975). The horror genre has also occasionally explored
the transformation of humans into insects, most notably in The Fly (1958),
which generated two sequels and a 1986 remake by David Cronenberg that
itself spawned another sequel. The Wasp Woman (1960) and The Blood Beast
Terror (1968) offered low-budget treatments of comparable stories.

THE INTERNET. Given the ubiquity of the Internet, it is perhaps surpris-

ing how little it has featured in contemporary horror films. The visionary
Japanese horror film Kairo (Pulse) (2001) associated the popularity of the
Internet with social alienation and collapse; it was remade as the American
horror Pulse in 2006. On a more mundane level, the American production
 THE INVISIBLE MAN • 175
Feardotcom (2002) featured a vengeful ghost haunting the Internet, while
My Little Eye (2002), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), and Untraceable
(2008) depicted murderous events being broadcast via webcam over the
Internet. More recently, Chatroom (2010) and Unfriended (2014) have ex-
plored the dark and disturbing side of social media.

THE INVISIBLE MAN. The figure of the Invisible Man has lurked on the
margins of the horror genre since his original appearance in H. G. Wells’s
novel The Invisible Man (1897). James Whale’s film version for Universal
in 1933 maintained Wells’s idea of this character as a mad scientist but
changed other plot and character details. It also introduced comic and gro-
tesque elements that were also evident in Whale’s other idiosyncratic horror
films from this period, notably The Old Dark House (1932) and Bride of
Frankenstein (1935). Subsequent versions of the Invisible Man were even
more distant from Wells’s novel and often had little to do with the horror
genre as well. The Invisible Man Returns (1940) featured Vincent Price as
the titular character attempting to prove his innocence of a crime he had not
committed. The next film in the series, The Invisible Woman (1940), was
more of a comedy and crime film than it was a horror. Yet another Invisible
Man, played this time by Jon Hall, fought Nazis in the propagandistic war
film Invisible Agent (1942). The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944) offered a
more horror-based scenario and, perhaps confusingly, starred Jon Hall again,
albeit cast as a different character who turned out to be a much less sympa-
thetic version of the Invisible Man. Vincent Price returned for a cameo in the
role at the conclusion of the horror-comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Fran-
kenstein (1948), while Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
featured Arthur Franz as yet another comedic version of the figure. The
comedy Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) contained an effective pastiche
of Whale’s film, and more comedy-based thrills showed up in John Carpen-
ter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). In comparison, Paul Verhoeven’s
Hollow Man (2000) was darker and more violent, and it captured something
of the spirit of both Wells’s original novel and Whale’s film in its association
of invisibility with megalomaniacal insanity. By contrast, the Invisible Man
who appeared alongside Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dorian Gray, among
others, in the comic book adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentle-
men (2003) was much better behaved.
Television versions of the Invisible Man have tended to present him in the
context of adventure or espionage thrillers, notably in the British series The
Invisible Man (1958–1959) and the American series The Invisible Man
(1975–1976) and The Gemini Man (1976). However, the 1984 BBC adapta-
tion of Wells’s novel turned out to be the most faithful to date.
176 • THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. H. G. Wells’s 1896 novel The Island of
Dr. Moreau is a cautionary tale about scientific research undertaken without
moral constraints that still retains much of its significance today. Dr. Mo-
reau’s attempts to transform animals into humans might have as their aim the
betterment of humanity, but the brutal reality of his experiments leads inevi-
tably to violence and death. Erle C. Kenton’s Island of Lost Souls (1932)
was the first film adaptation. This Paramount production featured highly
effective makeup effects and a flamboyant performance from Charles
Laughton as Moreau, rendering him more of a 1930s mad scientist figure
than he had been in Wells’s original; it also clearly and disturbingly con-
veyed the pain involved in the monstrous experiments. The 1977 version of
The Island of Dr. Moreau, directed by Don Taylor and featuring Burt Lan-
caster as Moreau, was a sober affair, with creature designs from John Cham-
bers, who had also been responsible for Planet of the Apes (1968). By
contrast, the 1996 adaptation, also titled The Island of Dr. Moreau, was more
chaotic in terms of both production—the original director Richard Stanley
was replaced by John Frankenheimer shortly after production had com-
menced—and content, with some interesting ideas coexisting with an un-
evenness in tone. Wells’s novel was also the uncredited inspiration for the
Filipino horror Terror Is a Man (1959).

ITALIAN HORROR. Italian horror cinema has a well-earned reputation for

excess, be this stylistic excess or excessive violence or gore. It has also
sometimes been accused of being imitative of films produced elsewhere.
However, even the most obvious Italian rip-offs of American successes often
have a distinctive identity of their own, and at its best Italian horror has made
a major contribution to the development of the horror genre. In particular, it
has perfected a provocative and assaultive type of horror that has often fallen
foul of censors but that has also attracted a devoted fan following.
Italian horror is usually seen as beginning with Riccardo Freda’s vam-
pire film I Vampiri (The Devil’s Commandment) (1956), although this turned
out to be something of a false start inasmuch as the film was a commercial
failure. It took the international success of the British Hammer horror films
to demonstrate that there was a market for European horror, and Mario
Bava’s witchcraft drama La Maschera del Demonio (The Mask of Satan,
Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday) (1960) was the first successful Ital-
ian entry into this market. Like the Hammer horrors, it had a period setting,
but it also offered a more dream-like and morbid scenario than that associat-
ed with the more solid Hammer product, with hints of necrophilia and a
fascination with powerful women; it also featured the British actor Barbara
Steele, who would become the major star of 1960s Italian horror.
 ITALIAN HORROR • 177
A procession of similarly themed period horrors followed throughout the
1960s, including films from Bava and Freda and from more workman-like
directors, such as Antonio Margheriti. Cast and crew often adopted Eng-
lish-sounding names for international release versions, highlighting the way
in which this type of horror sought to associate itself with Hammer. At the
same time, there was often a stylistic bravura to these films and an ability to
convey extreme emotional states in what might be described as an operatic
manner. The 1960s also saw some weird genre hybrids, including horror/
peplum combinations, such as Bava’s Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules
and the Haunted World) (1961) and Roma contra Roma (War of the Zom-
bies) (1963) (peplum films were period adventure epics, often with Greco-
Roman settings and featuring legendary heroes such as Hercules) and his
science fiction/horror hybrid Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires)
(1965).
By the 1970s, Italian period horror had faded away, and it was the contem-
porary giallo thriller that was in vogue. This distinctly Italian format had
been present during the 1960s, with Bava yet again a significant figure as the
director of several early giallo films. During the 1970s, other directors also
specialized in this area, most notably the brilliant Dario Argento, who also
directed supernatural films, such as Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Oth-
er cycles were more obviously a response to non-Italian sources. For exam-
ple, there was a small cycle of films that drew on the American horror film
The Exorcist (1973) for inspiration, among them L’Anticristo (The Anti-
christ) (1974), Chi Sei? (The Devil within Her) (1974), and L’Ossessa (The
Sexorcist) (1974). Later in the 1970s, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie, Zom-
bie Flesheaters) (1979) offered itself as an unauthorized sequel to George
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), which had been marketed in Italy with
the title Zombi, and other Italian zombie films quickly followed. As imitative
as these films sought to be, their content and style were often markedly
different from the original sources, with a greater emphasis on spectacle and
gore and also an evident willingness on the part of the filmmakers to deploy
unconventional and sometimes downright confusing narrative structures.
There was also a cycle of very graphic cannibalism films, the most notorious
of which was Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980). Although
cannibalism had been a theme in 1970s American horror, the Italian versions
were not imitative of American sources in the manner of the zombie films.
Instead, the pseudoanthropological approach they often adopted allied them
more with the sensationalist documentaries—known as Mondo films after the
first such production, Mondo Cane (A Dog’s Life) (1961)—popular in Italy
throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It could be argued that these were classified
as horror only because of the nastiness of their content and that, in fact, they
belonged elsewhere, at least thematically.
178 • ITALIAN HORROR
Horror ceased to be a significant feature of Italian cinema during the
1990s. Some of the more established directors, among them Argento and
Fulci, continued to produce work, while some of the younger and promising
directors who had appeared during the 1980s, including Lamberto Bava and
Michele Soavi, moved into television. The early 2000s saw a revival of
European horror, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and Spain, but
Italian filmmakers contributed little to this. Nevertheless, the Italian horror
film, in all of its innovative and exploitative forms, remains a key feature of
European genre history.
 J
JACK THE RIPPER. Jack the Ripper’s murky historical origins have
helped to establish him both as a disturbing cultural icon and as the serial
killer par excellence. No one knows who murdered a series of prostitutes in
London in 1888 (although there has been and continues to be much debate as
to the Ripper’s identity), and there is no definitive agreement as to how many
were killed (although the consensus appears to be five victims). It is also not
clear where the name “Jack the Ripper” came from, although some historians
have suggested that it was devised by an enterprising journalist rather than by
the murderer himself (or herself if you believe some of the theories). In any
event, the mystery of the Ripper’s identity has encouraged both speculation
and exploitation, with artists of all kinds returning repeatedly to the scenes of
the Ripper’s crimes and extracting a range of stories from them. In many of
the ensuing representations, the city itself has acquired a Ripper-like hue as a
location that is fascinating but dangerous (especially dangerous for women).
Early cinematic appearances for the Ripper or Ripper-like killers included
two German films: Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks)
(1924), in which the killer was billed as “Springheel Jack” but was presented
more as a Ripper figure, and G. W. Pabst’s Die Büchse der Pandora (Pando-
ra’s Box) (1929), in which it was the Ripper who killed the film’s unfortu-
nate heroine. Alfred Hitchcock’s British production The Lodger (1927) was
an adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes’s Ripper novel, although in Hitch-
cock’s version the mysterious lodger, played by Ivor Novello, turned out to
be innocent rather than the novel’s killer. The Lodger was remade three
times: The Lodger (1932), directed by Maurice Elvey, featured Novello again
as the unjustly accused innocent, while both John Brahm’s The Lodger
(1944) and Hugo Fregonese’s Man in the Attic (1954) restored the lodger’s
serial killer status, with Laird Cregar and Jack Palance, respectively, play-
ing the Ripper. Hammer’s Room to Let (1950) also dealt with similar materi-
al.
British horror cinema in the 1950s and ’60s came up with two Ripper
films, both of which rejected the psychologizing of the killer found in the
various versions of The Lodger and instead offered atmospheric whodunnits

179
180 • JACK THE RIPPER
that drew on some of the traditional suspects for the killings (e.g., mad
doctors, aristocrats). In Jack the Ripper (1958), an American policeman
helped to track down the killer, who was revealed to be a doctor avenging the
death of his son, while A Study in Terror (1965) pitted Sherlock Holmes
against the Ripper, revealed this time as an aristocrat. In the 1970s, Hammer
added to the Ripper canon Roy Ward Baker’s Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde
(1971), in which the title character turned out to be Jack the Ripper as well.
This was not as ridiculous a plot twist as might be imagined; at the time of
the original killings, newspapers had made references to Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, and an actor playing the role of Jekyll on-stage in London had appar-
ently become a Ripper suspect, albeit briefly. (The 1989 Anthony Perkins
film Edge of Sanity would also make a connection between Jekyll and the
Ripper.) More successful was Peter Sasdy’s Hammer film Hands of the
Ripper (1971), which dealt with the Ripper’s daughter seeking to escape
from her father’s influence and which was a rare example of a horror film
engaging, if only tentatively, with the sexual politics of the Ripper story.
Jesus Franco’s German production Jack the Ripper (1976) lacked this
kind of ambition, but it was stylish in places and also remarkably gory. Bob
Clark’s Murder by Decree (1979) was another Holmes-versus-the-Ripper
narrative, although in a characteristically 1970s antiestablishment maneuver,
the killings were shown as part of a political conspiracy involving the Royal
Family (a theory that was becoming increasing popular with “Ripperolo-
gists” at the time). In a more fantastic vein, Time After Time (1979) had the
Ripper escaping from Victorian London to the contemporary United States in
H. G. Wells’s time machine, a plot development that underlined the extent to
which the Ripper could be moved from one context to another. The most
recent Ripper outing is From Hell (2001), which was based on the acclaimed
comic book series by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, starred Johnny Depp
as Inspector Abberline, and was directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. From
Hell resurrected the political conspiracy narrative found in Murder by Decree
and also offered an impressive visualization of Victorian London, although
other than this it added little of substance to Ripper cinema. In addition, the
Ripper has made cameo appearances in Waxwork 2: Lost in Time (1992) and
Deadly Advice (1993).
The name “Jack the Ripper” has also become a shorthand term denoting
serial killings of women, often involving mutilation of the bodies, both in
real life (most notoriously the British serial killer the Yorkshire Ripper) and
in fiction. Films that have referenced the Ripper in this way without actually
representing him include the German thriller Das Ungeheuer von London
City (The Monster of London City) (1964), the Spanish production Jack el
destripador de Londres (Jack the Mangler of London) (1971), Lucio Fulci’s
Lo squartatore di New York (The New York Ripper) (1982), Jack’s Back
 JACKSON, PETER (1961–) • 181
(1988), and the gender-bending Jill Rips (2000). In addition, characters who
believe that they are the Ripper show up in The Ruling Class (1972), The
Ripper (1985), Ripper Man (1994), and Bad Karma (2002).
The Ripper has had two television films devoted to him, the British-
produced Jack the Ripper (1988) and the American-produced The Ripper
(1997), and has also appeared as guest villain (often of the alien or time-
traveling sort) in numerous television series, including The Veil (1958),
Thriller (1960–1962), The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), Star Trek
(1966–1969), Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975), Fantasy Island
(1978–1984), and Babylon 5 (1994–1998).
Given that the Ripper story is almost by definition a story of male violence
against women, it is disappointing how rarely this has featured as an issue in
any of the films cited above. Instead, the emphasis has been either on the
tortuous psychology of the killer or on the idea of the Ripper as the epitome
of evil. The increasingly tiresome attempts to identify him have also become
something of a distraction.

JACKSON, PETER (1961–). The writer-director Peter Jackson began his

filmmaking career in his native New Zealand with the comedy-horror feature
Bad Taste (1987), in which he also starred. An over-the-top alien invasion
fantasy, this started out as an amateur film but managed to secure a theatrical
release and became a cult favorite. After the weird comedy-musical Meet the
Feebles (1989), Jackson returned to horror with the zombie film Braindead
(1992), which retained the gore and humor evident in Bad Taste but was also
a slicker work that demonstrated the director’s growing discipline as a film-
maker. His next project, Heavenly Creatures (1994), was a new departure.
This beautifully made account of a real-life murder case was an international
hit with audiences who were probably unaware of Jackson’s less reputable
earlier films, although the film’s disturbing content and its fantasy scenes
demonstrated the director’s continuing ability to provide unnerving thrills.
Next came a move to Hollywood and the ghost story The Frighteners (1996),
which contained some scary sequences and impressive visuals but did not
match its comedy to its horror as effectively as had Braindead. The film was
not a great commercial success, and Jackson was obliged—temporarily at
least—to shelve his plans for a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong.
Instead, he labored for several years on the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy
(2001–2003), with his experience in horror very evident in the depiction of
various villains and monsters. After the phenomenal box office returns en-
joyed by the trilogy, Jackson finally got to remake King Kong in 2005 in a
version that again displayed strong horror elements, notably in its graphic
depiction of the dangers awaiting humans on Skull Island. Horror-like ele-
ments also featured in Jackson’s supernatural drama The Lovely Bones
(2009) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014).
182 • JAPANESE HORROR
JAPANESE HORROR. For a Western viewer, the world of Japanese horror
can sometimes seem an unfamiliar terrain organized around some strange-
sounding subgeneric categories, such as bakenoko mono (cat ghost stories)
or diakaiyu eiga (giant-monster films). One of the most consistently popular
Japanese horror formats has proved to be kaidan eiga, or ghost stories, which
draw on Japanese literary, theatrical, and religious traditions. Such films are
often set in the past and feature vengeful female ghosts. Perhaps the best-
known example in the West of this type of supernatural period drama is
Masaki Kobayashi’s Kaidan (Kwaidan) (1964), although this was not very
popular in Japan. Other upmarket ghost stories were provided by Kaneto
Shindo with Onibaba (1964) and Yabu no naka no kuroneko (Kuroneko)
(1968), while films such as Nobuo Nakagawa’s Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan
(Ghost Story of Yotsuya) (1959) and Kazuo Haso’s Kaidan zankoku monoga-
tari (Cruel Ghost Legend, Curse of the Blood) (1968), among many others,
were more mainstream entertainments.
Also popular from the mid-1950s on were a series of giant-monster films.
The best known of these was Ishiro Honda’s Gojira (Godzilla) (1954), an
international success that generated numerous sequels. Critics have detected
a nuclear subtext in the repeated destruction of Tokyo in these films, al-
though more juvenile comic book elements became increasingly evident as
the series progressed. By contrast, Daimajiin (Majiin) (1966) had a period
setting and featured a giant animated statue as its monster; two sequels fol-
lowed in quick succession.
Japanese horror also has a more challenging and transgressive sector in-
volving films that push back the limits of what is acceptable in cinema
entertainment. Explicit representations of torture occur in, among others,
Teruo Ishii’s Tokugawa onna kaibatsu-shi (The Joys of Torture) (1968) and
Akira Inoue’s Hiroku onna ro (Secret Report from a Woman’s Prison)
(1968). More recently, directors such as Takashi Miike with Odishon (Audi-
tion) (1999) and Shinya Tsukamoto with Tetsuo (1989) and Tetsuo II: Body
Hammer (1992) have taken the body horror film to a new level of grim
spectacle above anything offered by Western mainstream horror.
The relation of Japanese horror cinema to Western genre traditions is
complex. Some Japanese genre types—notably the period ghost stories—
seem designed primarily for domestic consumption, while others—particu-
larly the Gojira/Godzilla films—seem to have an eye on Western markets as
well. Occasionally, Japanese horror has sought to incorporate Western con-
ventions, not always with success. For example, Nakagawa’s Onna kyuketsu-
ki (The Woman Vampire) (1959) and Michio Yamamoto’s vampire films
from the 1970s struggled to make sense of Western forms of vampirism
within a cultural context ill suited to understanding the Christian ideology
underpinning the vampire myth. The cycle of contemporary ghost stories
initiated by the international commercial success of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu
 JUMP SCARES • 183
(Ring) (1998) offered a more confident mixing of Japanese and Western
horror traditions, however. The long-haired female ghost familiar from nu-
merous kaidan eiga was here aligned with modern technologies in a Japan
clearly in the thrall of Western influence, while references were made to
American horrors such as The Omen (1976). Nakata’s Ringu 2 (Ring 2)
(1999) and Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) (2002) and Takashi
Shimizu’s Ju-on: The Grudge (2003) further helped to establish the interna-
tional character of Japanese horror, and, perhaps inevitably, American re-
makes were also released, sometimes by the original Japanese directors. This
boom in Japanese horror production seems now to have come to an end,
although luminaries such as Nakata and Shimizu have continued to work in
the genre, and other Japanese directors contributed segments to the interna-
tional horror anthology The ABCs of Death (2012).

JORDAN, NEIL (1950–). Neil Jordan is an Irish writer-director who has

made films both in his home country and internationally and whose work has
sometimes engaged with horror or gothic material. His ability to conjure up
sequences that are both visually striking and eerie was apparent in The Com-
pany of Wolves (1984), an upmarket werewolf story, and in Interview with
the Vampire (1994), an adaptation of Anne Rice’s best-selling novel that
featured Tom Cruise in one of his more challenging roles. The Butcher Boy
(1997) was a low-key psychological drama that nevertheless contained some
intense and disturbing moments. The American psychological thriller In
Dreams (1999) was more conventional as far as its narrative was concerned,
but it did offer some haunting set pieces. By contrast, Byzantium (2012) was
an original and highly effective return to the subject of vampires that es-
chewed traditional gothic imagery in favor of a more realistic approach.

JUMP SCARES. Sudden noises or unexpected movements can make us

jump, and when horror films set out to startle us, they will use that knowl-
edge of human vulnerabilities. The jump scare or startle effect is probably the
crudest sensation that horror can invoke inasmuch as it involves an automatic
physiological response from the spectator. However, this has not stopped
horror filmmakers from resorting to it with increasing frequency as the genre
has developed. Probably the first horror jump can be found in the Val Lew-
ton–produced Cat People (1942), where, at the climax of a suspenseful se-
quence, the heroine—and the audience—jumps as a bus unexpectedly drives
into view from the side of the frame. Lewton placed several comparable
moments in his later horror films, referring to them as “buses.” In the 1960s,
Roger Corman was not averse to having the occasional bus, jump, or startle
in his horror work, while Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) concluded with
what was probably the most effective jump scare in horror history. However,
184 • JUMP SCARES
it was the slasher film of the late 1970s and early 1980s that turned the jump
scare into a key horror convention. Repeatedly, characters wandered into
dark and dangerous places where, inevitably, someone or something leapt out
at them, with this moment often accompanied by a deafening crash of music.
The extent to which this kind of overuse has diminished the effectiveness of
the jump scare is not clear. Wes Craven’s Scream films demonstrated that
jaded horror audiences can still be made to jump to order. Other horrors that
are less dependent on the jump scare are still using it, albeit sparingly, with
some success, such as the ghost stories The Sixth Sense (1999) and The
Others (2001) as well as numerous examples of Japanese horror. This kind
of effect is also important to contemporary haunted house stories, such as
Paranormal Activity (2007), Insidious (2010), Sinister (2012), and The Con-
juring (2013). As crude as it might be, it seems that the jump scare will
remain in horror’s repertoire of devices.
 K
KARLOFF, BORIS (1887–1969). Although one of horror’s most enduring
stars, Boris Karloff did not appear in a horror film until he was in his mid-
40s. His real name was William Henry Pratt, and he was born in Camberwell,
London. His father and brothers worked in the Indian consular service, but
the young William Pratt decided against a diplomatic career and emigrated to
Canada in May 1909. Acquiring the stage name “Boris Karloff,” he spent the
next decade touring both Canada and the United States in stock theatrical
companies. From 1919, he also appeared in movies, usually in small parts.
His first major film role was also the role that helped to define not just his
subsequent career but also the horror genre itself. The director James Whale
cast him as Frankenstein’s monster (a part originally intended for Bela
Lugosi), mainly because of his gaunt appearance. Despite the handicaps of
cumbersome makeup and having no dialogue, Karloff’s performance in
Frankenstein (1931) was remarkable, managing to convey the essential hu-
manity of the monster through gesture and facial expression alone. Karloff
returned to the role in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)—in which the monster
temporarily acquired the ability to speak—and Son of Frankenstein (1939)
and each time added nuance and depth to his characterization. It is a mark of
his success that none of the actors—among them Bela Lugosi and Lon Cha-
ney Jr.—who later took on the role of the Monster ever matched Karloff’s
quality.
Karloff was a versatile actor capable of playing a range of types, but his
sinister physical appearance and his slight lisp suited him particularly well to
horror cinema. The 1930s was probably his most successful decade. While
some of his horror roles were purely menacing—the mute butler in The Old
Dark House (1932) and the sadistic villains in The Mask of Fu Manchu
(1932) and The Black Cat (1934)—most of his 1930s performances con-
tained elements of pathos reminiscent of his rendition of Frankenstein’s mon-
ster. These included the animated corpses he played in The Mummy (1932),
The Ghoul (1933), and The Walking Dead (1936); the victimized servant in
The Raven (1935); and demented scientists in both The Invisible Ray (1936)
and The Man They Could Not Hang (1939). Demonstrating his dramatic

185
186 • KARLOFF, BORIS (1887–1969)
range, he also successfully played twin brothers, one good and one evil, in
the period piece The Black Room (1935). In the 1940s, Karloff reprised
several times the role of the mad or misunderstood scientist—notably in The
Man with Nine Lives (1940), Before I Hang (1940), The Ape (1940), The
Devil Commands (1941), and House of Frankenstein (1944)—and displayed
his comedic ability in horror farces You’ll Find Out (1940), The Boogie Man
Will Get You (1942), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
(1949). However, his finest 1940s work was done for horror producer Val
Lewton, with disturbing studies of obsession and cruelty in The Body
Snatcher (1945), Isle of the Dead (1945), and Bedlam (1946).
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the melodramatic style of horror with
which Karloff had become associated went out of fashion, and he worked
less in the genre, although his status as horror icon led to his presenting two
horror-themed television shows: The Veil (1958) and Thriller (1960–1962).
The last few years of his life did see a revival in his fortunes, however.
Although suffering from ill health, he managed a spirited comedy turn in
director Roger Corman’s reworking of The Raven (1963), played a particu-
larly sinister vampire in Mario Bava’s Il tre volti della paura (Black Sab-
bath) (1963), and went on to produce two of his best performances since the
1930s in Michael Reeves’s The Sorcerers (1967) and Pete Bogdanovich’s
Targets (1968). In The Sorcerers, he returned yet again to the role of the
misunderstood scientist, while in Targets he played an aging horror star
confronted by the modern horror of a motiveless sniper. Both Reeves and
Bogdanovich used Karloff’s all-too-obvious physical frailty to comment ele-
giacally on the passing of an old horror cinema in a harsh, modern world;
Karloff conducted himself with great dignity throughout.
Boris Karloff died on 2 February 1969 in Sussex, England. Some Mexican
horror films in which he appeared were released in the two years following
his death. His other horror or horror-related credits are Behind the Mask
(1932), Juggernaut (1936), The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936), Tower
of London (1939), Black Friday (1940), The Climax (1944), The Strange
Door (1951), The Black Castle (1952), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde (1953), Voodoo Island (1957), Grip of the Strangler (1958),
Frankenstein—1970 (1958), Corridors of Blood (1958), The Terror (1963),
The Comedy of Terrors (1964), Die, Monster, Die! (1965), Ghost in the
Invisible Bikini (1966), Serenata macabra (House of Evil) (1968), La camera
del terror (The Fear Chamber) (1968), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), El
coleccionista de cadavere (The Corpse Collector, Cauldron of Blood)
(1970), La muerte viviente (Isle of the Snake People) (1971), and La invasión
siniestra (The Incredible Invasion) (1971).
 KELLJAN, BOB (1930–1982) • 187
KEIR, ANDREW (1926–1997). The Scottish actor Andrew Keir played in a
variety of genres, but he is best known for his performances in two Hammer
horror films. In Terence Fisher’s Dracula—Prince of Darkness (1966), he
made the monk Father Sandor a more approachable and worldly hero than
the ascetic vampire hunter played by Peter Cushing in Fisher’s previous
Dracula films. Similarly, in Roy Ward Baker’s Quatermass and the Pit
(1967), he offered a kinder and more avuncular rendition of the scientist-hero
than that offered by Brian Donlevy in Hammer’s other Quatermass films
(and in 1996 he would play the part of Quatermass again, on radio this time
in The Quatermass Memoirs). In 1971, he appeared in his third Hammer
horror, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, replacing at very short notice Cush-
ing, who had withdrawn from the production because of his wife’s death.

KEITH, SHEILA (1920–2004). By all accounts, Sheila Keith was a sweet

Scottish lady, and most of her roles in film and on television reflected this.
However, she also played some of the most vile and evil women in British
cinema history. This was almost entirely due to the efforts of British director
Pete Walker, for whom Keith worked regularly during the 1970s. She began
in Walker’s House of Whipcord (1974), where her supporting role as a sadis-
tic prison warden stole the film. Frightmare (1974), her next for Walker, was
tailored with her in mind. In a ferocious and terrifying performance, she
played an apparently innocuous character who was actually addicted to can-
nibalism and was also not averse to attacking her victims with a red-hot
poker or a pitchfork. The ecstatic expression on her blood-bespattered face as
she drives a power drill into someone’s head remains one of British cinema’s
more unsettling moments. By contrast, her performances in Walker’s House
of Mortal Sin (The Confessional) (1975), The Comeback (1978), and House
of the Long Shadows (1983) were quieter, more decorous affairs, although
she maintained a sinister aura throughout. Her cameo appearance in the
pastiche horror television series Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible (2001)
underlined her status as a minor icon of British horror.

KELLJAN, BOB (1930–1982). The American horror films of writer-di-

rector Bob Kelljan contributed to the updating of the vampire myth that took
place in the 1970s. In Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and its sequel The
Return of Count Yorga (1971), the aristocratic vampire—played by Robert
Quarry—moved comfortably among the citizens of modern America, and
both films had the open endings that at the time were becoming something of
a generic convention. Kelljan also directed Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973),
a similarly themed vampire story, and the sequel to the blaxploitation hit,
Blacula (1972).
188 • KENDALL, SUZY (1944–)
KENDALL, SUZY (1944–). The British actor Suzy Kendall was for a few
years one of the faces of Italian horror. She was part of a small group of
British performers—others included Catriona MacColl, Ian McCulloch,
Richard Johnson, and David Warbeck—who showed up in the internation-
ally eclectic casts populating many Italian horrors of the 1970s and 1980s. In
Kendall’s case, this involved working with some of the premier directors of
the period. She was the female lead in Dario Argento’s first film, L’uccello
dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Gallery
Murders) (1970), and Sergio Martino’s giallo thriller I corpi presentano
tracce di violenza carnale (Torso, 1973) and Umberto Lenzi’s Spasmo
(1974), and she brought considerable style, presence, and beauty to all of
them. During this period, she occasionally returned to Britain for appear-
ances in the giallo-like thriller Assault (1970), the anthology horror Tales
That Witness Madness (1973), and Craze (1974), the last two of which were
directed by British horror stalwart Freddie Francis. Kendall retired from
acting in the late 1970s but returned in the off-screen role of “special guest
screamer” in Berberian Sound Studio (2012), Peter Strickland’s homage to
Italian horror of the 1970s.

KENTON, ERLE, C. (1896–1980). Like most of the directors working in

American horror of the 1930s and 1940s, Erle C. Kenton was not a horror
specialist but instead moved between genres. In Kenton’s case, he had started
out working for comedy producer Mack Sennett. However, his first horror
film was far from humorous. The Paramount production Island of Lost Souls
(1932) was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau. It
starred Charles Laughton as Moreau and also featured Bela Lugosi in a
supporting role. In this early example of surgical horror, Kenton conveyed
the pain and suffering involved in Moreau’s inhuman experiments more
effectively than did the decorous surgical goings-on in Universal’s produc-
tion of Frankenstein (1931). Kenton’s next horror outings were for Univer-
sal in the 1940s, when he directed The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) and two
of the studio’s multiple monster films: House of Frankenstein (1944) and
House of Dracula (1945). These were solidly made, but, perhaps inevitably
given the source material, they lacked the perverse flair of Island of Lost
Souls. Kenton also directed The Cat Creeps (1946). The latter part of his
career was spent mainly in television.

KIER, UDO (1944–). The German actor Udo Kier’s credits include work for
distinguished directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog,
Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier, and Wim Wenders. However, he has also
appeared in numerous horror films, usually in sinister, soft-spoken parts. He
had a strong supporting role in the controversial witch-hunter drama Hexen
 KING, STEPHEN (1947–) • 189
bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the Devil) (1970) but came to genre promi-
nence with his performances as Frankenstein and Dracula in Paul Morris-
sey’s Euro-camp extravaganzas Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for
Dracula (1974). He further established his horror credentials by playing
Jack the Ripper and Doctor Jekyll in two Walerian Borowczyk films: Lulu
(1980) and Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (Dr. Jekyll and His Women) (1981).
Kier’s other European horror credits include a leading role in the British
psychological thriller Exposé (1976), a cameo in Dario Argento’s Suspiria
(1977), and appearances in Das Deutsche Kettensägen Massaker (literally
The German Chainsaw Massacre but sold overseas as Blackest Heart)
(1991), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), and Argento’s La terza madre
(Mother of Tears) (2008). From the late 1990s on, he has also appeared with
increasing frequency in American films, usually in villainous roles. He
showed up in the vampire movie Blade (1998), the Satanic thriller End of
Days (1999), the apocalyptic drama Revelation (2001), and the ghost story
Feardotcom (2002) as well as in lower-budgeted productions, such as Head-
space (2005) and BloodRayne (2005). However, perhaps his most striking
genre performance was done for Danish television. He was the principal
villain in Lars von Trier’s horror-themed miniseries Riget (The Kingdom)
(1994) and also played a deformed baby in its sequel Riget 2 (The Kingdom
2) (1997).

KING, STEPHEN (1947–). Stephen King is the most commercially suc-

cessful horror writer ever. His many novels and short stories tend to be
located within contemporary America, and his ability to capture the mundane
habits and social interactions of ordinary Americans remains one of his fic-
tion’s most distinctive features. However, King’s association with horror, an
often disreputable genre, along with the fact that he has been remarkably
prolific, has meant that his work has not always received the critical attention
it merits. There have been numerous cinematic and television adaptations of
King’s fictions, with some of these adapted by King himself. These have
varied widely in terms both of quality and of their degree of faithfulness to
the original stories. In any event, few adaptations, including the ones penned
by King, have successfully captured the conversational tone of much of his
prose, although their ubiquity has ensured that King’s name has remained a
powerful presence in the horror market.
Early cinematic adaptations included Brian De Palma’s telekinesis drama
Carrie (1976) and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). Both of these
were impressive films in their own right that retained King’s perennial inter-
est in dysfunctional families but that also showcased the cinematic sensibil-
ities of their directors. This was particularly the case with The Shining, which
was not well received on its initial release but which is now widely consid-
ered one of the great horror films (although King has expressed his dislike of
190 • KING, STEPHEN (1947–)
it, perhaps because its cool approach to the story was so different from
King’s own emotive approach). Other adaptations of King’s horror novels
quickly followed, beginning with John Carpenter’s Christine (1983) and
continuing with David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone (1983), Cujo (1983),
Firestarter (1984), the King-scripted Pet Sematary (1989), Misery (1990),
George Romero’s The Dark Half (1993), Needful Things (1993), Dream-
catcher (2003), the remake of Carrie (2013), and It (2017). In addition,
Children of the Corn (1984), Silver Bullet (1985), Graveyard Shift (1990),
Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler (1995), The Night Flier (1997), Apt Pupil
(1998), Secret Window (2004), and Riding the Bullet (2004), as well as the
horror anthologies Cat’s Eye (1985) and Tales from the Darkside—The Mo-
vie (1990), were all based on King’s short stories or novellas. King adapted
his own short stories for Romero’s anthology Creepshow (1982), while Ro-
mero adapted more King stories for the sequel Creepshow 2 (1987). There
was also two adaptations of novels written by King under the name Richard
Bachman: The Running Man (1987)—a very loose translation of King’s
dystopian fantasy into an Arnold Schwarzenegger action story—and Thinner
(1996). (The 1992 film The Lawnmower Man, although billed as a King
adaptation, turned out to have very little to do with the King short story of the
same name.) King himself wrote the original screenplay for Mick Garris’s
Sleepwalkers (1992).
King’s fiction has occasionally moved away from traditional horror fare
and explored other genres and subjects, and some of the more critically
successful King adaptations have been based on this work. Most notable here
are the coming-of-age drama Stand by Me (1986) and the prison drama The
Shawshank Redemption (1994), both of which were based on short novels.
Dolores Claiborne (1995), The Green Mile (1999), and Hearts in Atlantis
(2001) have also drawn on the non-horror King.
The sprawling nature of King’s often lengthy novels has lent itself particu-
larly well to adaptation as television miniseries. The best of these was the
first, Tobe Hooper’s atmospheric and genuinely scary version of the vam-
pire story Salem’s Lot (1979), which was remade as a Rob Lowe vehicle in
2004. Other miniseries of this kind have included It (1990), The Tommyk-
nockers (1993), The Langoliers (1995, adapted from a novella), and King’s
own adaptations of The Stand (1994), The Shining (1997), and Desperation
(2006). King has also written original television scripts. Perhaps the best of
these was the miniseries Storm of the Century (1999), a disturbing piece in
which, unusually both for King and for American television, evil triumphed
unequivocally. Other credits include episodes for the series Tales from the
Darkside (1984–1988) and The X Files (1993–2002) and the miniseries
Golden Years (1991) and Rose Red (2002) as well as King’s reworking of
Lars von Trier’s Danish series Riget (Kingdom) (1994) into the miniseries
Kingdom Hospital (2004). King’s short stories have been adapted by others
 KINSKI, KLAUS (1926–1991) • 191
as the television films Sometimes They Come Back (1991), Quicksilver High-
way (1997), and Trucks (1997) and as episodes in the television series The
Twilight Zone (1985–1989), Monsters (1988–1990), The Outer Limits
(1995–2002), and the miniseries Nightmares and Dreamscapes (2006). His
novel The Dead Zone, already filmed by Cronenberg, inspired the television
series The Dead Zone (2002–2007), while the television series Under the
Dome (2013–2015) and Haven (2010–2015) were also based on King’s nov-
els. Aside from its 2013 remake, Carrie was filmed again as a television film
in 2002 and also turned into a musical.
As if this were not enough, King also wrote and directed Maximum Over-
drive (1986), an apocalyptic horror film in which machines turn on man-
kind. It was not very good, but the fact that he found time to do it was
noteworthy in itself. He has also made numerous cameo appearances in films
and television programs, the most significant of which was his performance
in Romero’s Creepshow.

KINSKI, KLAUS (1926–1991). The German actor Klaus Kinski is best

known for the films he made with director Werner Herzog. Among these was
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre) (1979), a remake of
F. W. Murnau’s 1922 original, with Kinski taking the role of the vampire
originally played by Max Schreck. This bald-headed and animalistic charac-
ter was well suited to Kinski’s gestural and often extreme style of acting.
Elsewhere, the actor’s slightly unnerving appearance had already tended to
restrict him to menacing roles. He was a regular sinister presence in a popular
1960s German series of Edgar Wallace adaptations that often contained ele-
ments of horror, among them Der Rächer (The Avenger) (1960), Die Toten
Augen von London (Dead Eyes of London) (1961), Das Rätsel der roten
Orchidee (The Puzzle of the Red Orchid) (1962), and Die Tür mit den 7
Schlössern (The Door with Seven Locks) (1962). He also played the insane
Renfield in Jesus Franco’s lethargic El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula)
(1970). His other genre credits are minor; they include La Bestia uccide a
sangue freddo (The Beast Kills in Cold Blood, Slaughter Hotel) (1971), a
performance as Edgar Allan Poe in Nella stretta morsa del ragno (In the
Grip of the Spider) (1971), La morte ha sorriso all’assassino (Death Smiles
on a Murderer) (1973), La mano che nutre la morte (The Hand That Feeds
the Dead) (1974), Le amanti del mostro (Lover of the Monster) (1974), Jack
the Ripper (1976), Creature (1985), Crawlspace (1986), and the bizarre
Nosferatu in Venice (1988). To see Kinski at his extravagant best, look to his
Herzog films.
192 • KLIMOVSKY, LEON (1906–1996)
KLIMOVSKY, LEON (1906–1996). The Argentinian Leon Klimovsky
worked mainly in Spain on a variety of genre productions but specialized in
horror, bringing pace and energy to conventional horror plots without ever
developing a recognizable personal style. He worked regularly with Spanish
horror star Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy), with their films together includ-
ing La Noche de Walpurgis (Shadow of the Werewolf) (1970), Dr. Jekyll y el
Hombre Lobo (Doctor Jekyll and the Werewolf ) (1971), La Rebelión de las
muertas (Vengeance of the Zombies) (1972), Una Libélula para cada muerto
(A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, Red Killer) (1973), El Mariscal del infierno
(Devil’s Possessed) (1974), and Tres días de noviembre (1976). Away from
Molina, he directed three atmospheric vampire films, La Saga de los
Drácula (The Dracula Saga) (1972), La orgía nocturna de los vampiros
(Vampire’s Night Orgy) (1972), and Extraño amor de los vampiros (Night of
the Walking Dead) (1975), as well as the science fiction/horror hybrids Odio
mi cuerpo (I Hate My Body) (1973) and Último deseo (Planeta Ciego)
(1975). Klimovsky’s final genre film was the giallo-like thriller El violación
fatal (Trauma) (1977).

KNEALE, NIGEL (1922–2006). The British writer Nigel Kneale worked

mainly for television, but he also had some film credits, and his innovative
and ambitious scripts have been influential on horror artists such as John
Carpenter, Chris Carter (creator of The X-Files), Stephen King, and Dan
O’Bannon. Kneale’s horror and fantasy stories relied far more on subtle
chills than they did on shock and gore, and they often showed an interest in
folklore and ritual. He first achieved prominence with the three alien inva-
sion series that he wrote for the BBC during the 1950s: The Quatermass
Experiment (1953), Quatermass II (1955), and Quatermass and the Pit
(1958–1959). These were later adapted for the big screen by Hammer, al-
though Kneale worked on the screenplays for only the second and third:
Quatermass 2 (Enemy from Space) (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (Five
Million Years to Earth) (1967). He also adapted his own 1955 television play
The Creature into Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman (1957). This was
not entirely successful, although, like the Quatermass films, it was a more
intelligent treatment of the monster than was generally apparent in the horror
genre at the time. Similarly compromised was Kneale’s The Witches (1966),
a Hammer witchcraft drama. Indeed, all of Kneale’s best work in the 1960s
and 1970s was done for television, notably the Peter Sasdy–directed ghost
story The Stone Tape (1972) and the anthology series Beasts (1976).
In 1979, Kneale wrote the fourth Quatermass television series, which was
titled simply Quatermass; a cut-down version of this was released theatrical-
ly in some markets at The Quatermass Conclusion. He also worked on the
screenplay for Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), although ultimate-
ly he withdrew from the project.
 KOREAN HORROR • 193
KOMEDA, KRZYSZTOF (1931–1969). The Polish jazz musician and
composer Krzysztof Komeda—who was sometimes billed as Christopher
Komeda—wrote two of the most haunting of all horror scores, both of them
for director Roman Polanski. The Fearless Vampire Killers (Dance of the
Vampires) (1967) was a British-made spoof of vampire films, although Ko-
meda’s music was far from comic and accentuated the underlying serious-
ness of the project. He eschewed traditional horror music again with Rose-
mary’s Baby (1968), where a simple lullaby—sung by the film’s star, Mia
Farrow—provided an unnerving counterpoint to the film’s depiction of the
birth of the Antichrist.

KOREAN HORROR. Early Korean horror cinema—or, to be more precise,

South Korean horror cinema—from the 1960s on tended to focus on melo-
dramas featuring vengeful ghosts or spirits, with occasional diversions into
giant-monster movies, notably Taegoesoo Yonggari (Yongary, Monster from
the Deep) (1967), designed to emulate the success of the Japanese Godzilla
films. A more confidently internationalized version of Korean horror cinema
developed in the wake of the international success of Japanese horror films
such as Ringu (Ring) (1998). Some of these Korean horrors are decidedly
Japanese-like in their focus on vengeful female ghosts attacking their victims
through modern technology, such as The Ring Virus (1999), an adaptation of
the same novel that inspired Ringu, and Pon (Phone) (2002). However, other
productions have been more willing to engage with aspects of Korean society
and history. Ghost stories Yeogo goedam (Whispering Corridors) (1998) and
Yeogo goedam II (Memento Mori) (1999) provided a compelling portrayal of
Korea’s notoriously tough educational system, while Janghwa, Hongryeon
(A Tale of Two Sisters) (2003) drew on Korean folklore for inspiration. R-
Point (2004) also used a ghost story format to explore Korean involvement in
the Vietnam War, while the serial killer drama Salinui chueok (Memories of
Murder) (2003) and the giant-monster movie Gwoemul (The Host) (2006),
both of which were directed by Joon-Ho Bong, transformed Western generic
conventions through playing them out in Korean settings. A comparably
fascinating examination of Korean social mores via horror-like imagery can
be found in the violent vengeance films directed by Chan-wook Park, name-
ly, Boksuneun naui geot (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) (2002), Oldboy
(2003), and Chinjeolhan geumjassi (Lady Vengeance) (2005), as well as in
the full-blooded horror story he contributed to the horror anthology Saam
gaang yi (Three Extremes) (2004) and his vampire story Bakjwi (Thirst)
(2009).
Surprisingly, the totalitarian North Korean regime has also dabbled briefly
in horror with the Godzilla-like monster movie Pulgasari (1985), the director
of which had been kidnapped from South Korea in order that his filmmaking
194 • KUMEL, HARRY (1940–)
expertise might serve North Korean cinema. The film has been circulated in
the West, but it seems likely that the South Korean brand of insidious ghostly
horror will have the more lasting impact.

KUMEL, HARRY (1940–). The Belgian director Harry Kumel is respon-

sible for one extraordinary horror film: Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of
Darkness) (1971). This modern-day lesbian vampire film, which featured a
haunting performance from Delphine Seyrig as Elizabeth Bathory, success-
fully combined a slow, dream-like narrative with some more conventional
vampiric action. Kumel did not return to the genre again, although his Mal-
pertuis (1972), in which figures from Greek mythology move through the
contemporary world, contained some horror-like elements.
 L
LANCHESTER, ELSA (1902–1986). The British actor Elsa Lanchester—
who was the wife of Charles Laughton—played both Mary Shelley and the
female monster in James Whale’s Universal horror classic Bride of Fran-
kenstein (1935). As Shelley, she was witty and self-deprecating, and as the
monster she was an extraordinary shrouded figure with a Nefertiti-like hair-
style and an unnerving hiss. Although she appears only briefly in this guise at
the film’s conclusion, the image of Lanchester in full monstrous makeup has
since acquired iconic status. She was often cast as eccentric characters. Her
genre credits include the comedy The Ghost Goes West (1935), the psycho-
logical thriller The Spiral Staircase (1946), and roles in the more modern
horrors Willard (1971) and Terror in the Wax Museum (1973).

LANDERS, LEW (1901–1962). In a prolific career, the director Lew Land-

ers, who was occasionally billed under his real name of Louis Friedlander,
worked in a variety of genres yet managed to make some solidly professional
horror films along the way. The Raven (1935) was more stylistically re-
strained than some of the other Universal 1930s horrors, but Landers show-
cased entertaining performances from Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi at the
height of their horror fame. The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942), which
reunited Landers with Karloff, was a superior comedy-horror, while The
Return of the Vampire (1944) was an inventive modern-day vampire story
featuring Lugosi as a Dracula-like villain. Although his horror credits were
few, Landers made a sufficient impression to be immortalized as a character
name in Joe Dante’s The Howling (1981), in which nearly all the characters
are named after horror directors. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

LANDIS, JOHN (1950–). The American director John Landis has special-
ized mainly in comedy—his hits include National Lampoon’s Animal House
(1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), and Trading Places (1983)—and his
occasional excursions into horror have often had humorous content. Schlock
(1973), his directorial debut, was a rather juvenile horror spoof. By contrast,
An American Werewolf in London (1981) was a superior comedy-horror film

195
196 • LARRAZ, JOSÉ (1929–2013)
that displayed a genuine affection for the horror genre and that also featured
some groundbreaking werewolf transformation effects from Rick Baker.
Landis also directed one of the episodes in the horror anthology Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983) and unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the magic
of American Werewolf with the vampire film Innocent Blood (1992). His
other horror feature is Burke and Hare (2010).
However, his best-known horror credit is not for the cinema at all. He
directed the hugely successful horror-themed video for Michael Jackson’s
“Thriller” (1983), which featured zombies, werewolves, and the voice of
Vincent Price. He also contributed to the television series Masters of Horror
(2005–). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

LARRAZ, JOSÉ (1929–2013). After working as a comic strip writer and a

photographer, the Spanish director José Larraz made a series of low-budget
horror films characterized by a fascination with perverse sexual behavior:
Whirlpool (She Died with Her Boots On) (1969), Deviation (1971),
Scream . . . and Die! (The House That Vanished, Psycho Sex Fiend) (1973),
La muerte incierta (1973), and Emma, puertas oscuras (1974). The first three
of these were filmed wholly or partly in Great Britain, where Larraz re-
mained for the two horrors on which his reputation as a horror auteur largely
rests. Symptoms (1974) was an obscure mood piece about a woman’s mental
breakdown, while the more obviously commercial Vampyres (1974) depicted
the murderous activities of two lesbian vampires. Both made evocative use
of their country house settings, and Vampyres in particular offered a more
sensual (and also more explicit) treatment of vampirism than the lesbian
vampire films produced by Hammer earlier in the decade. Later in the
1970s, Larraz returned to Spanish cinema, where he made comedies and a
few horrors although none as impressive as his British work. They included
Estigma (Stigma) (1982), Los ritos sexuales del diablo (Black Candles)
(1982), Descanse en piezas (Rest in Pieces) (1987), Al filo del hacha (Edge
of the Axe) (1988), and Deadly Manor (1990).

LAUGHTON, CHARLES (1899–1962). In a career that managed to be

both distinguished and uneven, the English actor Charles Laughton featured
with varying degrees of effectiveness in a number of horror films. He ably
mixed gruffness with pathos in his portrayal of the self-made businessman in
James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), while his Dr. Moreau in Erle
C. Kenton’s Island of Lost Souls (1932) was a melodramatic rendition of the
mad scientist figure. His performance under heavy makeup as Quasimodo
in the glossy, big-budget The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) has turned
out to be the most pathos-laden version of this much-played role, but he
appeared to less effect in the supernatural comedy The Canterville Ghost
 LEE, CHRISTOPHER (1922–2015) • 197
(1944) and, alongside Boris Karloff, in the low-budget horror The Strange
Door (1951). Night of the Hunter (1955), Laughton’s sole directorial credit,
was generally overlooked on its initial release but is now considered some-
thing of a classic and has its place, albeit a marginal one, in the horror canon.
The story of a psychotic preacher, it brilliantly intertwined fairy tale–like
elements with gothic and nightmarish imagery.

LEBORG, REGINALD (1902–1989). The American director Reginald Le-

Borg made more than 60 films, with the few horrors in that group solidly but
impersonally done. In the 1940s, he directed three Lon Chaney Jr. films,
Calling Dr. Death (1943), the witchcraft drama Weird Woman (1944), and
Dead Man’s Eyes (1944), all for the “Inner Sanctum” B-movie series. He
was also responsible for Jungle Woman (1944), a sequel to Captive Wild
Woman (1943) that dealt with the further exploits of a gorilla who had been
transformed into a woman, and The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), which reunited
him with Chaney. During the 1950s, LeBorg made a Hammer film (a melo-
drama rather than horror), The Flanagan Boy (Bad Blonde) (1953), and two
weak horror films showcasing aging horror stars, such as Boris Karloff,
Bela Lugosi, and Chaney: The Black Sleep (1956) and Voodoo Island
(1957). Diary of a Madman, an adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story that
starred Vincent Price, was better. LeBorg also directed the psychological
thriller So Evil, My Sister (Psycho Sisters) (1974). See also AMERICAN
HORROR.

LEE, CHRISTOPHER (1922–2015). Although Christopher Frank Carandi-

ni Lee was born and educated in Great Britain, he was descended on his
mother’s side from Italian nobility. It was therefore fitting that he achieved
worldwide fame through his portrayal of an aristocrat, albeit an evil and
vampiric one. His early acting career was not particularly distinguished. He
appeared in minor roles and to little effect in more than 30 British films from
the late 1940s on, and when his big break finally came, it had more to do with
his height—he was six feet five inches tall—than with his acting ability.
Hammer needed a tall man to play the creature in The Curse of Franken-
stein (1957), its first color horror film, and Lee was given the part. The
Hammer filmmakers were not permitted to use Universal’s distinctive mon-
ster design so opted instead for makeup that made Frankenstein’s creation
resemble, in Lee’s own words, a road accident victim. Lee played the crea-
ture as savage and animalistic, eschewing the pathos offered by Boris Karl-
off in his 1930s portrayal of the role, and the film was a considerable interna-
tional success. It was Lee’s next project for Hammer that made him a star.
Peter Cushing received top billing for Dracula (Horror of Dracula) (1958),
but it was Lee’s rendition of Count Dracula as a sensual, charismatic figure
198 • LEE, CHRISTOPHER (1922–2015)
that caught the public’s imagination. Lee himself remained wary of Dracula,
however. He played the part six more times for Hammer in films of varying
quality and also starred as the Count in Jesus Franco’s Spanish production
El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula) (1970), but at the same time he constant-
ly sought to broaden his range as an actor. For Hammer, he donned mon-
strous makeup again for the physically demanding role of Kharis in The
Mummy (1959) and, by way of a contrast, was the young Henry Baskerville
in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).
Later, he would become the only actor to play both Sherlock Holmes—in
Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes (Sherlock Holmes and the
Necklace of Death) (1962)—and his brother Mycroft—in Billy Wilder’s The
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970). He was Fu Manchu five times, an
aged professor in The Gorgon (1964), and, in one of Lee’s favorite perfor-
mances, Rasputin in Hammer’s Rasputin—The Mad Monk (1966). Unlike
Peter Cushing, his good friend and frequent costar, Lee often worked
abroad, especially in Italy, where he made, among others, two films for cult
genre director Mario Bava: Ercole al centro della terra (Hercules in the
Haunted World) (1961) and La frusta et il corpo (The Whip and the Body)
(1963).
There was a solemnity to many of Lee’s performances that could manifest
itself as pomposity—for example, in the self-importance of the art critic he
plays in Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964)—or, in the case of the many
villains he portrayed, as aloof authority. In what are arguably his two most
distinguished roles, this quality is inflected in different ways. In Hammer’s
satanic thriller The Devil Rides Out (1968), Lee is utterly convincing as the
benevolent and wise Duc de Richleau, while in the cult favorite The Wicker
Man (1973), he is equally convincing as the pagan Lord Summerisle, who
joyously sings, “Summer is a coming in” as an innocent victim is sacrificed
to the old gods.
Lee’s reputation as screen villain might have been formed within the hor-
ror genre but was not restricted to it. He was the evil Rochefort in The Three
Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974) and the assassin Scara-
manga in the James Bond adventure The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
In the early 2000s, at an age when many actors might have considered retire-
ment, Lee achieved the greatest box office success of his long career with
scene-stealing villainous turns in George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode II: At-
tack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
(2005) and in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) trilogy.
Lee’s other horror or horror-related credits are Corridors of Blood (1958),
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), Tempi duri per I vampiri (Hard
Times for Vampires, Hard Times for Dracula, Uncle Was a Vampire) (1959),
The City of the Dead (Horror Hotel) (1960), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
(1960), The Terror of the Tongs (1961), The Hands of Orlac (1961), Taste of
 LEIGH, JANET (1927–2004) • 199
Fear (Scream of Fear) (1961), La Vergine di Norimberga (The Virgin of
Nuremberg, Horror Castle, The Castle of Terror) (1963), La cripta e
l’incubo (Crypt of Horror, Terror in the Crypt) (1963), Katarsis (1963), Il
castello dei morti vivi (Castle of the Living Dead) (1964), The Skull (1965),
The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), She (1965), Dracula—Prince of Darkness
(1966), The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), Theatre of Death (1966), Five
Golden Dragons (1967), Night of the Big Heat (1967), The Vengeance of Fu
Manchu (1967), Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (Castle of the Walking
Dead, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum) (1967), Curse of the Crimson Altar
(1968), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), The Blood of Fu Manchu
(1968), The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969), The Oblong Box (1969), Scream
and Scream Again (1969), The Magic Christian (1969), Taste the Blood of
Dracula (1970), Il trono di fuoco (The Bloody Judge, Night of the Blood
Monster) (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), The House That Dripped Blood
(1970), I, Monster (1970), Death Line (Raw Meat) (1972), Nothing But the
Night (1972), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Pánico
en el Transiberiano (Horror Express) (1973), Dark Places (1973), The Sa-
tanic Rites of Dracula (1973), To the Devil a Daughter (1976), The Keeper
(1976), Dracula père et fils (1976), Meatcleaver Massacre (1977), House of
the Long Shadows (1983), Howling 2 (1985), Gremlins 2—The New Batch
(1990), Curse III: Blood Sacrifice (1993), Funny Man (1994), Tale of the
Mummy (Talos the Mummy) (1998), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Burke and Hare
(2010), The Resident (2011), The Wicker Tree (2011), and Dark Shadows
(2012).
Lee was knighted in 2009.

LEE, ROWLAND (1891–1975). The director Rowland Lee brought a state-

ly quality to Son of Frankenstein (1939), the third film in the Universal
Frankenstein series. James Whale had instilled a nervous, expressive energy
into the previous two films: Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein
(1935). By contrast, Lee’s direction, while still containing expressive mo-
ments, was more balanced and controlled. He adopted a similar approach for
the historical horror Tower of London (1939), which, like Son of Franken-
stein, starred Boris Karloff. Earlier in his career, Lee had directed the proto-
horror projects The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929) and The Return of Dr.
Fu Manchu (1930). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

LEIGH, JANET (1927–2004). Janet Leigh was first terrorized in a motel in

Orson Welles’s film noir Touch of Evil (1959), but it was her visit to the
Bates Motel in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that earned her a place in
horror history. As the sacrificial victim of the famous shower murder scene,
she became a symbol of the new ruthlessness seeping into horror at the time.
200 • LENI, PAUL (1885–1929)
Even by contemporary generic standards, the idea of killing off the leading
lady long before the film’s conclusion still registers as a considerable provo-
cation. Leigh’s other horror roles are negligible. She fought giant killer rab-
bits in the silly Night of the Lepus (1972) and acted alongside her daughter
Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
(1998).

LENI, PAUL (1885–1929). Das wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) (1924),

the first major film from German designer-turned-director Paul Leni, was a
prime example of expressionism. This anthology, which included Jack the
Ripper as one of its characters, clearly demonstrated Leni’s ability to convey
oppressive and claustrophobic moods and atmospheres through inventive
visual means. This quality was also evident in Leni’s American films, where
it was often combined with a sense of humor, with both The Cat and the
Canary (1927) and haunted theater drama The Last Warning (1929) success-
fully walking the difficult line between being scary and being funny. The
Man Who Laughs (1928) was a more serious historical horror starring fellow
German Conrad Veidt in the title role, but it was still visually impressive.
Leni’s premature death from blood poisoning curtailed a very promising
career.

LENZI, UMBERTO (1931–). The Italian director Umberto Lenzi began his
career in the 1960s with swashbucklers and thrillers before becoming one of
the leading makers of giallo thrillers from the late 1960s on. Orgasmo
(1969), Cosi dolce . . . cosi perversa (So Sweet . . . So Perverse) (1969), and
Paranoia (A Quiet Place to Kill) (1970), all of which starred the American
actor Carroll Baker, offered the convoluted plots, colorful locations, and
violent murders associated with the giallo format. Although never in the
Dario Argento league of achievement, Lenzi’s later gialli clearly demon-
strated his understanding of and commitment to this type of thriller. Un posto
ideale per uccidere (Oasis of Fear) (1971) was followed by Sette orchidee
macchiate di rosso (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) (1972), Il coltello di ghi-
accio (Knife of Ice, Silent Horror) (1972), Spasmo (1974), and Gatti rossi in
un labirinto di vetro (Eyeball) (1975).
Lenzi’s later career in horror took him away from the giallo into lower-
budgeted areas of exploitation horror. He had earlier directed one of the first
Italian cannibal films, Il paese del sesso selvaggio (Deep River Savages,
Sacrifice!) (1972), and returned to this notoriously gory subcycle in the
1980s with Mangiati vivi (Eaten Alive) (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981).
He also made the silly zombie film Incubo sulla città contaminata (Night-
mare City) (1980), the main innovation of which involved replacing the
standard slow-moving zombies with more athletic running ones. Later horror
 LEWIS, HERSCHELL GORDON (1926–2016) • 201
credits have been minor, including Nightmare Beach (1988), La Casa 3
(Ghosthouse) (1988), Le porte dell’inferno (Gate of Hell) (1989), Paura nel
buio (Hitcher in the Dark) (1989), and Demoni 3 (Black Demons) (1991), as
well as television films La casa del sortilegio (House of Witchcraft) (1989)
and La casa delle anime erranti (House of Lost Souls) (1989). See also
ITALIAN HORROR.

LEWIS, HERSCHELL GORDON (1926–2016). Before he became a film

director, Herschell Gordon Lewis was a college lecturer and worked in ad-
vertising. Neither of these activities seems to have influenced the types of
films he made, however, for Lewis is now considered the father of the gore
movie. He started out in the early 1960s making nudie/sexploitation films but
quickly moved into horror with Blood Feast (1963), a low-budget project
that set the pattern for what was to come. A lurid story—in this case involv-
ing a caterer assembling various body parts for a “blood feast” that will
resurrect an ancient goddess—was conveyed via poor acting, minimal pro-
duction values, a mainly static camera, and, most of all, gore, with the film’s
highlight a scene in which a woman’s tongue was torn out. While the special
effects involved in this were crude to the point of risibility, its relentlessness
somehow rendered it disturbing. Lewis followed Blood Feast with Two
Thousand Maniacs! (1964), a horror version of Brigadoon in which the
ghostly inhabitants of a town in the Deep South terrorize and kill some
visiting northerners. While the film was comparable with Blood Feast in
terms of its gore scenes, it had slightly higher production values, and Lewis’s
direction was more fluent. It is generally considered his best work and is also
an important example of rural horror.
More Lewis gore films followed: Color Me Blood Red (1965), The Grue-
some Twosome (1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970), and The Gore Gore Girls
(1972). All were uneven, disgusting, and offensive in places and amusing in
others, with their principal virtue as a group of films probably their rough-
hewn naïveté. By contrast, A Taste of Blood (1967) was a more conventional
vampire film and Something Weird (1967) a goreless fantasy thriller.
Throughout the 1960s, Lewis also continued with the production of other
exploitation subjects, among them biker movies and sex melodramas, as well
as making an unsuccessful excursion into family entertainment with Jimmy,
the Boy Wonder (1966).
The market for Lewis’s kind of exploitation fare began to disappear in the
late 1960s as mainstream cinema itself acquired a new explicitness as far as
the representation of sex and violence was concerned. Lewis withdrew from
filmmaking and began a successful career in advertising and marketing. He
returned to the director’s chair for the sequel Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
(2002). His Two Thousand Maniacs! was later remade by Tim Sullivan as
2001 Maniacs (2005). See also AMERICAN HORROR.
202 • LEWTON, VAL (1904–1951)
LEWTON, VAL (1904–1951). The Russian-born producer Val Lewton
(whose real name was Vladimir Ivan Leventon) has become a critically
lauded figure in horror history because of the nine films he produced—and
occasionally wrote under the name “Carlos Keith”—at RKO during the
1940s. Before then, he had first been a writer and publicist and then an
assistant to producer David O. Selznick on such blockbuster projects as A
Tale of Two Cities (1935) and Gone with the Wind (1939). By contrast, RKO
offered him low budgets and often lurid titles in an attempt to cash in on a
1940s American horror revival that was driven largely by Universal. Lew-
ton’s sensibilities as a filmmaker were considerably more ambitious than
this, resulting in some remarkable films but also in tensions with studio
executives who sometimes found Lewton’s work puzzling or pretentious.
Lewton’s distinctive approach was evident in his first RKO horror produc-
tion, Cat People (1942), which was brilliantly directed by regular Lewton
collaborator Jacques Tourneur. In place of Universal’s vulgar but energetic
monster melodramas, Lewton offered a somber adult drama set in the con-
temporary United States that dealt subtly with a woman who believed that
she would transform into a panther if sexually aroused. The film shied away
from the by then conventional representations of movie monsters, preferring
instead a more ambiguous treatment of its heroine’s situation (although the
studio insisted that footage of a killer cat was inserted into the finished film).
Cat People also contained what was probably the horror genre’s first jump
scare or startle effect, when in an atmospheric nighttime sequence a potential
female victim of the cat is startled—along with the audience—as a bus unex-
pectedly pulls into frame; Lewton himself subsequently called this kind of
effect a “bus” and included it in a number of his other horror films.
Lewton’s next two horrors were I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The
Leopard Man (1943), both of which were again directed by Tourneur. These
confirmed Lewton’s status as a generic innovator capable of throwing into
disarray some of the moral certainties and platitudes found in other horrors of
the period. I Walked with a Zombie discarded the traditional zombie scenario
and instead found inspiration for its eerie and disturbing story in Jane Eyre,
while The Leopard Man was a stylish and in places intensely suspenseful
serial killer thriller that, in terms of its subject matter at least, was arguably
years ahead of its time.
Lewton’s later films were directed by young up-and-coming directors,
such as Mark Robson and Robert Wise. The producer’s penchant for insert-
ing references to high culture in his films and for exploring decidedly down-
beat themes was increasingly evident, with this sometimes weighing down
the films themselves. The Satanic thriller The Seventh Victim (1943) and the
ghost story The Curse of the Cat People (1944) were highlights, with the
oppressive and deathly atmosphere of the former and the child’s fantasy
gently represented in the latter indicating Lewton’s range as a filmmaker. Isle
 LITTLE, DWIGHT H. (1956–) • 203
of the Dead (1945), one of the three Lewton films that starred Boris Karloff,
was also an impressive meditation on death, although its sustained serious-
ness teetered on the edge of absurdity. Of lesser consequence was The Ghost
Ship (1943), a low-key psychological thriller, while Lewton’s final two
horrors, The Body Snatcher (1945) and Bedlam (1946), both of which fea-
tured Karloff, were well-made but conventional period melodramas lacking
the inventiveness and intensity of his earlier work. As the 1940s horror boom
faded, Lewton moved on briefly to other genres. Although his western
Apache Drums (1951) contained a horror-like sequence in which Indians
besiege a church, none of Lewton’s later films proved as distinctive as his
horror projects. Long suffering from ill health, he died of a heart attack in
1951.
Lewton’s horror films have come to symbolize a type of horror based on
suggestion, ambiguity, and artistic intelligence. Sometimes, they have been
used by critics to lambast a more mainstream monster-centered horror, al-
though such an approach unjustly underrates the achievements of filmmakers
working within the more explicit horror tradition. As far as later horror
production is concerned, Lewton’s influence is hard to detect, outside of two
rather obvious Lewton-style horrors from directors who had earlier worked
with the producer: Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon (Curse of the
Demon) (1957) and Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963). However, the em-
phasis on ambiguity and indirection in many cinematic ghost stories from the
late 1990s on might reasonably be described as “Lewtonesque.”

LIEBERMAN, JEFF (1947–). The American director Jeff Lieberman made

an impression with his first two horror films: Squirm (1976) and Blue Sun-
shine (1977). In terms of its plot, Squirm was a straightforward revenge of
nature film in which thousands of worms invade a small town, but, like
Lieberman’s later work, it had a winning sense of humor that helped it
overcome some of the absurdities of its story. Blue Sunshine’s engaging
premise was that some people who took experimental LSD back in the 1960s
lose all their hair in the 1970s and are transformed into homicidal maniacs;
never has the idea of 1960s values going sour in the 1970s been set out so
clearly. Lieberman returned to the genre with the above-average backwoods
slasher Just before Dawn (1981) and also made the science fiction/horror
comedy Remote Control (1987). More recently, he introduced some dark
humor into the serial killer drama Satan’s Little Helper (2004). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

LITTLE, DWIGHT H. (1956–). The director Dwight H. Little’s first horror

credit was Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). It was hardly
a promising genre debut, but Little’s treatment of the story was slick and
204 • LOM, HERBERT (1917–2012)
contained some effective frissons. He followed this with a serviceable ver-
sion of The Phantom of the Opera (1989) that starred 1980s horror icon
Robert Englund in the title role. Little’s subsequent cinematic credits were
mainly in the thriller genre. However, he also contributed episodes to several
horror-themed television series, including Freddy’s Nightmares
(1988–1990), The X Files (1993–2002), Millennium (1996–1999), Wolf Lake
(2001–2002), From Dusk till Dawn (2014–2015), and Sleepy Hollow
(2013–2017), and he returned to cinematic horror with Anacondas: The Hunt
for the Blood Orchid (2004). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

LOM, HERBERT (1917–2012). The Czech actor Herbert Lom is best

known for his role as the hapless Chief Inspector Dreyfus in several Pink
Panther comedies. However, he has also provided effective support in a
number of European horror films, often bringing a cosmopolitan savoir faire
to the proceedings. He was a subdued Phantom in Hammer’s The Phantom
of the Opera (1962) and Van Helsing in Jesus Franco’s El Conde Dracula
(Count Dracula) (1970), and he provided some much-needed dignity amidst
the carnage in the German horror Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the
Devil) (1970) and the female nudity in Dorian Gray (1970). A group of
relatively sedate British horror films—including Murders in the Rue
Morgue (1971), Dark Places (1973), and two Amicus productions, Asylum
(1972) and And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)—concluded this part of
his horror career. In the 1980s, he had a small but effective role in David
Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone (1983) and later showed up in an uninspired
version of Masque of the Red Death (1990) and in Michele Soavi’s accom-
plished supernatural mystery La Setta (The Sect) (1991).

LOMMEL, ULLI (1944–). The filmmaking career of the German actor-

turned-director Ulli Lommel began auspiciously with Die Zärtlichkeit der
Wölfe (The Tenderness of Wolves) (1973), a disturbing account of real-life
serial killer Fritz Haarmann that also managed to include references to Ger-
man expressionism. The film was produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
for whom Lommel had acted, and displayed his influence in its emphasis on
destructive gay sexuality and its awareness of German history. Lommel’s
later horror films were mainly made in the United States and lacked the
resonances of his genre debut. The ghost story The Boogeyman (1980) was
successful enough to generate two sequels, but Lommel’s other horrors were
mainly direct-to-video affairs. They included Brain Waves (1983), The De-
vonsville Terror (1983), Bloodsuckers (1998), and Zombie Nation (2004).
 LOVECRAFT, H. P. (1890–1937) • 205
LORRE, PETER (1904–1964). The Hungarian actor Peter Lorre’s first star-
ring role was as a serial killer of children in Fritz Lang’s German film M
(1931). His remarkable performance anticipated later representations of seri-
al killers in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Michael Powell’s Peep-
ing Tom (1960) in its humanizing of the murderer as someone incapable of
resisting their homicidal urges. In Lorre’s case, he managed to convey
through bodily contortions his inner struggle and his ultimate surrender to the
desire to kill. He left Germany as Hitler came to power, worked with Hitch-
cock on two of his British films (The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934 and
Secret Agent in 1936), and eventually ended up in the United States, where,
partly because of his association with M and partly because of his own
unusual appearance, he was usually cast in sinister but charming roles, not
least in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942) (although, rather
bizarrely, he also played the Japanese detective Mr. Moto in a series of
films). He was splendid as the mad doctor in Karl Freund’s American
horror Mad Love (1935), was an M-like killer in the proto–film noir Strang-
er on the Third Floor (1940), and was both sympathetic and quietly menac-
ing as the disfigured antihero in Robert Florey’s The Face behind the Mask
(1941); he worked with Florey again on the disembodied hand thriller The
Beast with Five Fingers (1946). He also revealed a talent for comedy in the
comedy-horrors You’ll Find Out (1940), in which he starred with Boris
Karloff and Bela Lugosi; The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942), which again
featured Karloff; and Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). Through-
out the 1950s, he worked mainly for television—including a performance as
the villain in an early adaptation of the James Bond story Casino Royale in
1954. In the last few years of his life, he returned to comedy-horror and,
unlike some other aging horror stars, including the likes of Lon Chaney Jr.
and John Carradine, retained his dignity with enjoyable performances in
Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1962) and The Raven (1963) and Jacques
Tourneur’s The Comedy of Terrors (1964), the last two of which reunited
him with Karloff.

LOVECRAFT, H. P. (1890–1937). The American writer Howard Phillips

Lovecraft—who is better known as H. P. Lovecraft—is an important figure
in the development of modern horror literature, with many other key horror
writers expressing admiration for his work. His impact on horror cinema has
been less significant, however, perhaps because the visionary and allusive
quality of his fiction does not lend itself readily to being filmed. Although
Lovecraft died in 1937, the first screen adaptations of his work did not appear
until the 1960s, with none of them very faithful to their literary originals.
Roger Corman’s The Haunted Palace (1963), which was based on “The
Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” was actually marketed as a Edgar
Allan Poe adaptation. It was followed by Die, Monster, Die! (1965), The
206 • LUBIN, ARTHUR (1898–1995)
Shuttered Room (1967), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), and The Dun-
wich Horror (1970), the latter two of which used psychedelic imagery as a
way of conveying Lovecraft’s otherworldly themes.
The next wave of Lovecraft adaptations began in the mid-1980s with Re-
Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986), both directed by Stuart Gordon,
which introduced gore and humor into stories that had originally been entire-
ly lacking in such elements. Subsequent adaptations have tended to be low-
budget monster movies often released direct onto video or DVD, although a
few have proved more substantial, including Gordon’s Castle Freak (1995)
and Dagon (2001) and the bizarre anthology Lovecracked (2006). Further
loose adaptations have included The Unnamable (1988), Dan O’Bannon’s
The Resurrected (1992), Necronomicon (1994), and Bleeders (1997). Love-
craft himself was played by Jeffrey Combs in Necronomicon and by Nick
Basile in Lovecracked.
Other films that seem to have a Lovecraftian quality in their visionary
depiction of the old Gods breaking through into our world include Lucio
Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) (1980)
and L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981), John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness
(1987) and In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Ivan Reitman’s comedy
Ghostbusters (1984), Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy (2004), and Drew God-
dard’s The Cabin in the Woods (2012).

LUBIN, ARTHUR (1898–1995). Director Arthur Lubin’s best-known hor-

ror film is the 1943 Universal version of The Phantom of the Opera, which
starred Claude Rains in the title role. This was a more upmarket production
than most of the other Universal horrors from the period, with Lubin tasteful-
ly emphasizing the romantic elements of the story over the more gothic ones.
Earlier, however, he had directed the considerably more downmarket horror/
gangster hybrid Black Friday (1940), which starred Boris Karloff and Bela
Lugosi, and the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy-horror Hold That
Ghost (1941). His final horror credit was The Spider Woman Strikes Back
(1946). From the 1950s on, he worked for television and also made several
films featuring Francis, the talking mule. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

LUGOSI, BELA (1882–1956). Bela Lugosi’s performance as Count Dracu-

la in the 1931 Universal production of Dracula made him an instant horror
star, although subsequent typecasting limited his career more than was the
case with other actors associated with the genre. Born Bela Blasko in Lugos,
Hungary, he later took the stage name of Lugosi from his hometown. From
1902 on, he was a theater actor in Hungary and also appeared in supporting
roles in Hungarian and German films, most notably as the butler in Der
Januskopf (1920), F. W. Murnau’s version of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
 LUGOSI, BELA (1882–1956) • 207
story. He emigrated to the United States in 1921, where he continued to mix
theatrical and film work, including a featured role in Tod Browning’s film
thriller The Thirteenth Chair (1929). (Browning would later direct him in
Dracula.) His big break came with a starring role in a stage adaptation of
Dracula that opened on Broadway in 1927 and later toured the country.
Lugosi was not the first choice for the film version, with Universal preferring
a more established star in the role, but he secured the role in the end. For
modern horror audiences, Lugosi’s performance as Dracula can seem man-
nered and archaic, reliant as it is on theatrical gestures and pregnant pauses in
the dialogue. However, this was an acceptable performance style in cinema’s
early sound period, and for cinema audiences of the 1930s, Lugosi’s East
European vampire was a fascinating and exotic figure.
Lugosi was considered for the role of the monster in Frankenstein (1931),
Universal’s follow-up to Dracula, but the part eventually went to Boris
Karloff. (Reportedly, Lugosi was unhappy about the role’s muteness.) De-
spite this, the first half of the 1930s turned out to be the most productive and
successful period in Lugosi’s career. He played charismatic villains in Uni-
versal’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Raven (1935) and the
independently produced White Zombie (1932), was almost unrecognizable
under heavy makeup in the controversial Island of Lost Souls (1932), and
assayed a rare heroic role in Edgar G. Ulmer’s stylish The Black Cat (1934).
He was also a Dracula-like vampire in Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire
(1935), although here a plot twist revealed that Lugosi’s character was only
pretending to be one of the undead.
By the late 1930s, the exoticism associated with Lugosi, who never lost his
thick Hungarian accent, was out of fashion. When Universal resurrected
Dracula in the 1940s, the role was recast in the more obviously American
form of Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine, and Lugosi himself was
increasingly relegated to low-budget work or to small character parts in
bigger films, aside from a star turn as the vampiric Count Tesla in Colum-
bia’s Return of the Vampire (1944). Some of his supporting roles were im-
pressively done; his Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of
Frankenstein (1942) was a genuinely touching creation, and he provided
effective local color in The Wolf Man (1941) and the Val Lewton–produced
The Body Snatcher (1945). He was also willing to parody himself in come-
dy-horrors such as The Gorilla (1939), You’ll Find Out (1940), Spooks Run
Wild (1941), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), in which
Lugosi appeared on-screen as Dracula for the second and final time in his
career. He was less comfortable as Frankenstein’s monster (a part he had
turned down in the early 1930s) in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943),
and the ultra-low-budget tattiness of The Corpse Vanishes (1942), one of
several films he made for the poverty row studio Monogram, only served to
underline how far Lugosi had fallen from his earlier stardom. An addiction to
208 • LUSTIG, WILLIAM (1955–)
drugs led to further decline during the 1950s, and Lugosi ended his career
making films for cult director Ed Wood. His final screen role was a brief
appearance in Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), which was not
released until three years after Lugosi’s death and which has since been
voted “worst film of all time.” As a final macabre touch, Lugosi was buried
wearing a Dracula-style cloak.
The depressing sadness of Lugosi’s latter years—eloquently portrayed in
Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood (1994), with Martin Landau delivering an
Oscar-winning performance as Lugosi—has sometimes eclipsed his achieve-
ments as an actor. In particular, his portrayal of Dracula might be much
parodied, but it still possesses a kind of power, and one can find echoes of it
in more recent versions of the Count, notably performances by Frank Langel-
la in Dracula (1979) and Gary Oldman in Dracula (1992).
Lugosi’s other horror credits include The Mystery of the Mary Celeste
(1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), The Dark Eyes of London (1940), Black
Friday (1940), The Devil Bat (1940), The Black Cat (1941), The Invisible
Ghost (1941), Night Monster (1942), Bowery at Midnight (1942), The Ape
Man (1943), Ghosts on the Loose (1943), Voodoo Man (1944), Return of the
Ape Man (1944), Zombies on Broadway (1945), Scared to Death (1947), Old
Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn
Gorilla (1952), Bride of the Monster (1955), and The Black Sleep (1956). See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

LUSTIG, WILLIAM (1955–). The American producer-director William

Lustig seems to have specialized in making horror films with the word “ma-
niac” in the title. He began with Maniac (1980), a gruesome serial killer
drama that gave early opportunities to makeup experts Rob Bottin and Tom
Savini. Then came the slightly more palatable Maniac Cop (1988), the title
of which more or less explained the story. Although scripted by Larry Co-
hen, the film lacked the elements of social critique associated with his work
and was instead more standard B-movie fare. However, Lustig made the
most of the New York settings in his depiction of the activities of the appar-
ently indestructible evil cop and also made two effective sequels: Maniac
Cop 2 (1990) and Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993). Uncle Sam
(1997), another collaboration with Cohen about an undead Gulf War veteran,
was less successful. Since then, Lustig has set up Blue Underground, a com-
pany specializing in the distribution of cult classics. See also AMERICAN
HORROR.
 M
MACCOLL, CATRIONA (1954–). Catriona MacColl was part of a band of
English actors—others included Suzy Kendall and David Warbeck—who
featured in an internationally eclectic Italian horror cinema during the
1970s and 1980s. In MacColl’s case, this involved starring appearances in
three films by horror maestro Lucio Fulci for which she was billed variously
as Catriona MacColl, Katriona MacColl, and Katherine MacColl. She played
traumatized innocents in both Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the
Living Dead) (1980) and L’aldilà (The Beyond) (1981), with scenes of her
suffering providing a focus for the films’ often very gory effects. Amidst all
the gore, images of her bleeding eyes in City of the Living Dead and her
blind, whited-over eyes at the conclusion of The Beyond were both disturbing
and hauntingly beautiful. By contrast, Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The
House by the Cemetery) (1981) was more conventional fare, at least by
Fulci’s standards, with MacColl’s performance less stylized and more down-
to-earth. She also appeared in the British sword-and-sorcery production
Hawk the Slayer (1980), the anthology horror The Theatre Bizarre (2011),
and the vampire film Chimères (2013).

THE MAD SCIENTIST. The mad scientist was a stock figure in 1930s and
1940s horror cinema, most notably in the form of Frankenstein and Dr.
Jekyll (although earlier cinematic versions of this figure can be found, for
example, in Rex Ingram’s The Magician in 1926 or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
in 1927). The “madness” involved here tended not to be psychological,
although deranged behavior was often in evidence (in the 1933 production of
The Invisible Man, for example). Instead, it related to the intensely antisocial
nature of the scientist’s activities. Either his objectives were not socially
useful—for example, turning apes or other animals into humans in Island of
Lost Souls (1932) or Captive Wild Woman (1943)—or his methods were
unacceptable—for example, murdering people to obtain body parts in vari-
ous Frankenstein films or Doctor X (1932). Even though there was some-
thing potentially heroic about such figures as they sought to break through

209
210 • MADNESS
normality’s constraints and obtain “forbidden” knowledge, most 1930s and
1940s horrors exhibited a mild conservatism by siding with the forces of
normality against the mad scientist.
Science itself was often shown by these films as a strange practice that was
separate from social normality, with a visual emphasis on bizarre pieces of
scientific equipment, the precise function of which was rarely explained.
However, in this prenuclear era, the idea that science itself might be danger-
ous was not foregrounded. Instead, it was usually the scientist who was
solely responsible for the trouble, and his death (or occasional rehabilitation)
resolved any problems associated with science.
This started to change after World War II, reflecting not just the advent of
nuclear power but also the increasing integration of science into the fabric of
everyday life. Antisocial scientists still existed, especially in the 1950s and
1960s, such as in Hammer’s Frankenstein films or American teenage hor-
ror films, including I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) or Blood of Dra-
cula (1957). However, the sense of there being a clear framework of social
normality against which these renegades could be defined as “mad” was
fading. By the 1970s, irresponsible scientists were often not visibly separate
from society, with science itself as much of a problem as the individual
practicing it. In the films of David Cronenberg, for example, irresponsible
scientists were rarely the outright villains they once were but, rather, appar-
ently reasonable people who were just unable to see the disastrous conse-
quences of their experiments, as in Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), and The
Fly (1986). Within such a context, the traditional version of the mad scientist
has become something of an anachronism, as evidenced by the humorous
treatment of this figure in the likes of Everything You Wanted to Know about
Sex but Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), Young
Frankenstein (1974), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and Re-Animator
(1985).

MADNESS. Insanity has been a key theme in the horror genre from the
1960s on. Before then, representations of madness showed up sporadically—
with asylums featuring, for example, in the proto-horror Das Cabinet des Dr.
Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1919), Dracula (1931), and Bedlam
(1946). Mad scientists were also present in the 1930s and 1940s, although
their madness usually derived more from their intensely antisocial activities
than it did from any clinical form of insanity. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960) changed this through introducing the idea of the monster as psycho-
logical case study, with the scariness of the film’s serial killer Norman Bates
residing not in any supernatural quality but rather in his disturbed mind. An
increasing focus on the psychological formed part of a broader shift in the
genre during the 1960s toward monsters that were much closer to home than
the more obviously fantasy-based monsters of the 1930s. In Italy, the giallo
 MAKEUP • 211
thriller frequently relied on madness for its killers’ motivation, as did some
British psychological horrors, including Paranoiac (1963) and The Psycho-
path (1965), while in the United States William Castle also churned out a
series of Psycho look-alikes, most notably Homicidal (1961). The popularity
of the cinematic serial killer from the 1970s on yet further demonstrated
horror’s interest in disturbed psychologies. While slasher films such as Hal-
loween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) offered the insane killer as a
disturbingly emotionless killing machine, other films explored the realm of
the psychological in much more detail, among them Brian De Palma’s
Sisters (1973), Deranged (1974), Pete Walker’s Frightmare (1974), Santa
Sangre (1989), and Ed Gein (2000). Horror’s most successful madman, how-
ever, remains Hannibal Lecter, also known as Hannibal the Cannibal, who
through five films—Manhunter (1986), The Silence of the Lambs (1991),
Hannibal (2001), Red Dragon (2002), and Hannibal Rising (2007)—has
combined immense articulacy and charm with deranged violence. That he
has become a kind of cult hero suggests that an audience’s relation with
images of insanity is driven not just by repulsion but by fascination as well.

MAKEUP. The fact that horror is the only area of cinema in which makeup
artists have acquired the kudos usually associated with stars and directors
underlines the centrality of makeup effects to the genre. Proto-horror star
Lon Chaney was renowned for creating his own makeup transformations in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera
(1925), but subsequently it was full-time makeup artists who assumed re-
sponsibility for the creation of monsters. Jack Pierce created Franken-
stein’s monster as well as werewolves and vampires at Universal during the
1930s and 1940s, and in so doing he helped to define the essence of the
horror films produced at that studio. Later, Phil Leakey and Roy Ashton
bestowed a visceral physicality on Hammer’s monsters in a way that set the
films apart from their competitors. In the 1970s, Dick Smith transformed a
sweet little girl into a foulmouthed abject spectacle in The Exorcist (1973),
while, among others, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Tom Savini, and Stan Wins-
ton have acquired cult followings for their ability to produce unnerving
bodily transformations, metamorphoses, and disarticulations.
Some of the techniques used by horror makeup artists have changed over
the years. However, the continued prominence of such figures within the
genre reminds us of how horror’s monstrous effects have always been cen-
tered on the human body itself. If makeup specialists are to be thought of as
artists, it is this body that provides their main canvas.
212 • MALLESON, MILES (1888–1969)
MALLESON, MILES (1888–1969). Miles Malleson was a successful Brit-
ish playwright and screenwriter, but he was also a busy character actor who
specialized in bumbling roles, often stealing the scenes in which he appeared.
He did a memorable turn as the sinister hearse driver in Ealing Studios’
ghost story Dead of Night (1945). Later, he appeared in several Hammer
horrors: as an undertaker in Dracula (The Horror of Dracula) (1958), a
bishop in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), a doctor in The Brides of
Dracula (1960), and a hansom cab driver in The Phantom of the Opera
(1962). He even brought charm to the rather seedy role of the gentleman
purchasing pornographic “views” in Michael Powell’s controversial Peeping
Tom (1960). Malleson’s last horror credit was in Freddie Francis’s Ven-
geance (The Brain) (1962), where, true to form, he played a bumbling doc-
tor.

MALONE, WILLIAM (1953–). The American director William Malone

began with two cheap and cheerful monster films: Scared to Death (1981)
and Creature (Titan Find) (1985). House on Haunted Hill (1999) was glossi-
er and more stylish, with Malone successfully combining humor and horror
in this remake of a William Castle film. The supernatural thriller Feardot-
com (2002) was more uneven, however. Owing something to Japanese hor-
ror in its combination of ghosts with modern technologies—in this case the
Internet—it contained effective sequences but struggled to maintain a coher-
ent narrative. Malone also directed Parasomnia (2008) and contributed to the
television horror series Freddy’s Nightmares (1988–1990), Tales from the
Crypt (1989–1996), The Others (2000), and Masters of Horror (2005–). See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

MANN, MICHAEL (1943–). The writer-director Michael Mann tends to be

associated with cool urban dramas and thrillers, such as Heat (1995) and
Collateral (2004). However, he also brought the master serial killer Hanni-
bal Lecter to the cinema screen for the first time in Manhunter (1986), an
adaptation of Thomas Harris’s novel Red Dragon. While the later The Si-
lence of the Lambs (1991), directed by Jonathan Demme, adopted a dank,
dark look and featured Anthony Hopkins’s grandstanding performance as
Lecter, Mann opted instead for a cool, modernistic style and a more low-key
Lecter from actor Brian Cox. The result was not as commercially successful
as Demme’s version, but it did offer a different and equally disturbing way of
representing the serial killer as modern monster. Mann had earlier dabbled in
horror with The Keep (1983). This World War II drama, in which a group of
German soldiers confront a powerful supernatural entity, was uneven, but it
was also very stylish and featured one of horror cinema’s more impressive
monster designs.
 MARGHERITI, ANTONIO (1930–2002) • 213
MANNERS, DAVID (1900–1998). The actor David Manners was the pleas-
ant but bland male romantic lead in Universal horror films Dracula (1931),
The Mummy (1932), and The Black Cat (1934) as well as featuring in the
gothic-themed Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935). His amiable ordinariness set
off the more dramatic performances given by the likes of Bela Lugosi and
Boris Karloff. He also worked with celebrated horror director James Whale
on the World War I drama Journey’s End (1930). However, he subsequently
showed little interest in his horror films and claimed never to have seen
Dracula.

MARCH, FREDRIC (1897–1975). Fredric March was the first actor to win
an Academy Award for a leading performance in a horror film, in his case for
his remarkable rendition of the lead role(s) in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1931). This remained the only horror film in a distinguished career, al-
though he did play Death in the romantic comedy Death Takes a Holiday
(1934) and also showed up in the supernatural comedy I Married a Witch
(1942). The horror genre would have to wait until The Silence of the Lambs
(1991) before it saw more Oscars for leading performances, in this case for
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.

MARGHERITI, ANTONIO (1930–2002). In a career lasting nearly 40

years, the Italian director Antonio Margheriti—who was sometimes billed as
Anthony M. Dawson—contributed to most of the formats popular in Italian
horror cinema, never offering much that was original but often providing
interesting variations on established conventions. He brought considerable
visual élan to his first three gothic horrors, La vergine di Norimberga (The
Virgin of Nuremberg, Horror Castle, The Castle of Terror) (1963), I lunghi
capelli della morte (The Long Hair of Death) (1964), and Danza macabre
(The Castle of Terror, Castle of Blood) (1964), with the last two of these
representing some of the best work done by horror star Barbara Steele. He
also showed himself adept at making giallo thrillers with Nude . . . si muore
(School Girl Killer) (1968), Contronatura (Screams in the Night) (1969), and
the gothic giallo La morte negli occhi del gatto (Seven Deaths in the Cat’s
Eye) (1973). His other horror films were uneven, however. Nella strata mor-
sa del ragno (In the Grip of the Spider) (1971) was a crude remake of his
own Danza Macabre, and Killer Fish (1979) was a clumsy piranha-on-the-
loose story. Apocalypse domani (Cannibal Apocalypse) (1980), Margheriti’s
contribution to the Italian cannibalism cycle, was more restrained than some
of its competitors and consequently more watchable, although his final genre
credit, the science fiction/horror Alien degli abissi (Alien from the Deep)
214 • MARINS, JOSÉ MOJICA (1936–)
(1989), was negligible. He has sometimes been credited with the direction of
Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), although his
input into both seems to have been minimal.

MARINS, JOSÉ MOJICA (1936–). The horror films made by the Brazilian
director and actor José Mojica Marins are often provocative and confronta-
tional, relying as they do on misanthropic themes, representations of sexual
violence, and disturbing hallucinatory imagery. His first major success was À
Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma (At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul) (1964), in
which he played the role that would become his alter ego in several later
films: the sadistic grave digger Zé do Caixão (known in English-language
versions as Coffin Joe). This character’s hunt for the perfect woman to bear
his child led to much violence as well as some casual blasphemy. The sequel
Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (This Night I Will Possess Your
Corpse) (1967) offered more of the same. Marins next directed an episode of
the horror anthology Trilogia de Terror (Trilogy of Terror) (1968) and all
three episodes of another anthology: O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão
(The Strange World of Coffin Joe) (1968). O Despertar da Besta (O Ritual
dos Sádicos, Awakening of the Beast) (1970) combined horror material with
a story about drug addiction but was heavily censored, like Marins’s earlier
work, by the Brazilian authorities. The full version is rated highly by fans of
Marins, although to the uninitiated it is a difficult film to get through. Ma-
rins’s subsequent horror films, while sometimes unpleasant, have lacked the
intensity associated with his best work. They include O Exorcismo Negro
(Black Exorcism of Coffin Joe) (1974), Inferno Carnal (Hellish Flesh)
(1977), Delírios de um Anormal (Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind)
(1978), Estupro (Perversion) (1979), and Encarnação do Demônio (Embodi-
ment of Evil) (2008).

MARSHALL, NEIL (1970–). The British writer-director Neil Marshall

made an auspicious horror debut with Dog Soldiers (2002), in which some
soldiers on a training mission take on a band of werewolves. This mixture of
suspense, violence, gore, and humor occasionally lost its way, but the film
had an energy and level of invention that separated it out from the rest of the
horror pack. Marshall’s next film was the even more accomplished The De-
scent (2005), which pitted a group of female potholers against predatory
subhuman cave dwellers. Unsparingly violent and generating an intense
claustrophobic atmosphere, the film ruthlessly put its deftly characterized
protagonists through hell and also demonstrated a confidence in cinematic
storytelling not always apparent in the horror genre. Subsequently, Marshall
moved away from horror with the futuristic thriller Doomsday (2008) and the
 MARTINO, SERGIO (1938–) • 215
historical action film Centurion (2010), although his work on television se-
ries Game of Thrones (2011–) and Hannibal (2013–2015) has involved some
horror elements. See also BRITISH HORROR.

MARSHALL, WILLIAM (1924–2003). The African American actor

William Marshall’s most prominent horror role was as the vampire Mamu-
walde, who also went by the name Blacula, in Blacula (1972) and Bob
Kelljan’s Scream Blacula Scream (1973). The Blacula films were part of a
1970s blaxploitation horror cycle that saw black actors taking on key roles
previously held by white actors. Within such a context, Marshall was an
unusually dignified presence, tall with a deep, sonorous voice whose perfor-
mance managed to find some nuance and sympathy in what might otherwise
have been a silly rendition of the vampire. His only other horror performance
of note was in William Girdler’s Abby (1974), a possession-themed drama
that sought to cash in on the success of The Exorcist (1973) (and that was
marketed as “The Black Exorcist”), where again he brought some much-
needed gravitas to the proceedings.

MARTIN, EUGENIO (1925–). Spanish director Eugenio Martin’s Una vela

para el Diablo (A Candle for the Devil, It Happened at Nightmare Inn)
(1970) provided a powerful account of generational difference in Spain with
its story of middle-aged innkeepers preying murderously on members of the
new “permissive” generation. Martin—who was sometimes billed as Gene
Martin—followed this with a giallo thriller La última señora Anderson
(Death at the Deep End of the Swimming Pool, The Fourth Victim) (1971)
and the period horror Pánico en el Transiberiano (Horror Express) (1973).
The latter, which featured excellent performances from Peter Cushing and
Christopher Lee, effectively combined the best of British horror with an
ornate Spanish visual style in its story of an alien monster being resurrected
within the claustrophobic confines of a train. Pánico en el Transiberiano has
been overlooked in most histories of 1970s horror, but it was one of the most
striking horror films from that decade. Martin’s other genre credits include
Aquella casa en las afueras (That House in the Outskirts) (1980) and Sobre-
natural (Supernatural) (1981). See also SPANISH HORROR.

MARTINO, SERGIO (1938–). The writer-director Sergio Martino was re-

sponsible for some of the more memorable Italian giallo thrillers of the
1970s. He often worked with actors Edwige Fenech and George Hilton, both
of whom were stalwarts of this type of film, and usually managed to bring
some style, along with a certain amount of idiosyncrasy, to the proceedings.
Even by the giallo’s outré standards, the plots of Martino’s Lo strano vizio
della Signora Wardh (Blade of the Ripper) (1971), La coda dello scorpione
216 • MASKS
(Case of the Scorpion’s Tail) (1971), Tutti i colori del buio (All the Colors of
the Dark) (1972), and Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la
chiave (known variously as Excite Me, Eye of the Black Cat, Gently before
She Dies, and Your Vice Is a Closed Room and Only I Have the Key) (1972)
were often bizarre and incongruous. His best-known giallo, I corpi presenta-
no tracce di violenza carnale (1973), was more straightforward, although its
enthusiastic depiction of a series of young women being terrorized, slaugh-
tered, and mutilated by a mysterious assailant sat uncomfortably with the
undeniable beauty of the film’s setting and photography. The title translates
as “The Bodies Show Signs of Carnal Violence,” but the film was released
internationally as Torso.
When the giallo market faded, Martino, like a number of other directors,
switched to different types of horror. La montagna del dio cannibale (Prison-
er of the Cannibal God, Slave of the Cannibal God) (1978) was his contribu-
tion to the Italian cannibalism cycle, although it contained more elements of
adventure than was usual for this kind of gory horror. L’isola degli uomini
pesce (Island of Mutations, Screamers) (1979) was a stylish reworking of
themes from The Island of Dr. Moreau, but the equally watery Il fiume del
grande caimano (Alligators, Big Alligator River) (1979) was a weak attempt,
one of many in Italian cinema, to emulate the success of Jaws (1975). Marti-
no’s Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (Murders in an Etruscan Cemetery)
(1982) also contained some horror material within its crime narrative. Since
then, he has worked in genres other than horror. See also ITALIAN HOR-
ROR.

MASKS. Masks of various kinds have long formed an important part of

horror film imagery. At the most basic level, characters wear masks to con-
ceal disfigurement, with that disfigurement eventually revealed for all to see
at the conclusions of the films concerned. The classic example here are the
Phantom of the Opera films, but one can also add Michael Curtiz’s Mystery
of the Wax Museum (1933), at the end of which Fay Wray smashes the wax
mask of psychopathic killer Lionel Atwill to uncover the horrible scars that
lie beneath. This sense of the mask acting as a cover for something unpleas-
ant is evident in many other horror films. For example, the mask worn by
Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films or the hockey mask
sported by Jason in most of the Friday the 13th films are an expression, in
part at least, of those characters’ discomfort with their own physical appear-
ance. In a macabre twist, the spiked mask hammered into Barbara Steele’s
face at the beginning of Mario Bava’s La Maschera del Demonio (The Mask
of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday) (1960) serves not only to
hide her wounds but also to cause them.
 MASSACCESI, ARISTIDE (1936–1999) • 217
However, masks in horror films can possess a yet more disturbing signifi-
cance. In particular, they can be associated with a loss of identity or an
absence of identity. In Halloween (1978), the blankness of Michael Myer’s
white mask—which was actually just a Captain Kirk mask painted white—
denotes the absence of human feelings or personality traits. When the mask is
removed briefly at the film’s conclusion, the expression on Myers’s face is
just as blank as that on the mask itself. Similarly, the masks worn by the
murderous home invaders in The Strangers (2008) and The Purge (2013)
give an impersonality to their violence that renders them yet more threaten-
ing and merciless. More poetically, the mask worn by the female protagonist
of Georges Franju’s Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes without a Face) (1960)
conceals facial disfigurement but also renders that character enigmatic and
hauntingly beautiful. By contrast, masks in the Canadian horror The Mask
(1961) and the Japanese horror Onibaba (1964) strip away the identities of
those who wear them. The animal masks worn by villains in the Saw films
and Adam Wingard’s You’re Next (2011) and the muzzle that covers Hanni-
bal Lecter’s face in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) all convey a sense of a
willing surrender to bestial impulses and behavior.
Finally, masks in horror can function as part of an instantly recognizable
signature costume for killers, including the likes of Michael Myers, Jason
Vorhees, Leatherface, and the killers in Wes Craven’s Scream films. Not to
put too fine a point on it, but being attacked in a horror film seems scarier
when the assailant is wearing a mask.

MASSACCESI, ARISTIDE (1936–1999). The Italian producer-director

Aristide Massaccesi was a prolific exploitation specialist who often worked
under the name Joe D’Amato. As a cinematographer, he photographed the
horrors Cosa avete fatto a Solange? (What Have They Done to Solange?)
(1972) and L’anticristo (The Antichrist) (1974). As a director, he started out
making westerns but switched to horror with Le morte ha sorriso
all’assassino (Death Smiles on a Murderer) (1973), although he spent most
of the 1970s directing sex films, including two porn/horror crossovers: Ema-
nuelle e gli ultimi cannibali (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) (1977) and
Papaya dei Caraibi (Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals) (1978). Mas-
saccesi returned to “straight” horror with the extremely gory and much-
censored Buio Omega (Blue Holocaust, Beyond the Darkness) (1979) and
Anthropophagus (Anthropophagous, Grim Reaper) (1980). The former fo-
cused on necrophilia, the latter on cannibalism, and both films have since
attracted a cult following because of their hard-edged, unforgiving nature.
Massaccesi then made Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi (Erotic Nights of the
Living Dead) (1980), another porn/horror hybrid, and Rosso sangue (1981), a
follow-up to Anthropophagus that was sometimes marketed as Anthropopha-
gus 2 or Grim Reaper 2, before resuming his career as a producer of soft-core
218 • MATHESON, RICHARD (1926–2013)
and hard-core porn films. Sangue negli abissi (Deep Blood) (1989) and Con-
tamination .7 (The Crawlers, Troll 3) (1990) were the only other horrors he
directed; both were undistinguished. However, Massaccesi also produced
horror films for other directors, most notably Michele Soavi’s auspicious
debut Deliria (Stagefright, Bloody Bird) (1987). See also ITALIAN HOR-
ROR.

MATHESON, RICHARD (1926–2013). The American writer Richard

Matheson had a long and distinguished career in horror and fantasy, special-
izing in contemporary-set stories that explored troubled male psychologies.
His classic modern vampire novel I Am Legend (1954) has been filmed three
times, as The Last Man on Earth (1964), as the Charlton Heston vehicle The
Omega Man (1971), and, finally, as I Am Legend (2007), starring Will Smith.
However, none of the film versions captured the disturbing power of the
literary original, even though the first was based on a screenplay written by
Matheson himself for a 1950s Hammer production that was subsequently
abandoned because of censorship pressure. The screenplay was later re-
worked by others into The Last Man on Earth, and Matheson, unhappy with
the changes, had himself credited under the pseudonym Logan Swanson.
More successful as an adaptation of a Matheson novel was Jack Arnold’s
Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), which again was scripted by Matheson.
The haunted house drama The Legend of Hell House (1973) and the time
travel fantasy Somewhere in Time (1980) also involved Matheson adapting
his own novels, while other writers did the adaptations for What Dreams May
Come (1998) and the ghost story Stir of Echoes (1999). The Box (2009) and
the science fiction film Real Steel (2011) were also based, albeit loosely, on
Matheson’s short stories.
In addition, Matheson was adept at adapting the work of other writers.
Working with Charles Beaumont, he turned Fritz Leiber’s witchcraft novel
Conjure Wife into the superior British horror film Night of the Eagle (Burn,
Witch, Burn!) (1962). For Hammer, he adapted an Anne Blaisdell novel as
the psychological thriller Fanatic (Die! Die! My Darling!) and also pro-
duced a superb screenplay for the Dennis Wheatley Satanic thriller The
Devil Rides Out (1968), helping to make this one of the company’s best
films. However, his best-known adaptation work was done for Roger Cor-
man’s Edgar Allan Poe films of the early 1960s, including screenplays for
House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendulum (1961), the comedy-horror
The Raven (1963), and the horror anthology Tales of Terror (1962). Given
that the original Poe material did not feature much plot, Matheson’s screen-
plays were adaptations only in the loosest of senses, and they gave him the
opportunity to develop his own version of psychological horror and aliena-
tion, one that made the films in question, for all their period settings, seem
very modern in their outlook.
 MCGILLIVRAY, DAVID (1947–) • 219
Given how prolific he was, it is perhaps surprising how few original
screenplays Matheson wrote for the big screen. There is Jacques Tour-
neur’s comedy-horror The Comedy of Terrors (1964) and a contribution to
the less-than-distinguished Jaws 3-D (1983). Even his considerable televi-
sion credits—often in collaboration with producer-director Dan Curtis—
frequently involved him adapting his own short stories or the work of others.
For Curtis, he did an innovative and intelligent adaptation of Dracula (1973)
as well as the modern vampire story The Night Stalker (1972), again from a
story by another writer. The latter, along with the Matheson-scripted sequel
The Night Strangler (1973), led to the cult television series Kolchak: The
Night Stalker (1974–1975). Other television horror credits for Curtis include
Scream of the Wolf (1974), Trilogy of Terror (1975), Dead of Night (1977),
and Trilogy of Terror II (1996). Matheson also wrote Steven Spielberg’s
breakthrough film Duel (1971). Based on his own story, this was a classic
Matheson setup involving an everyman figure confronting an alienating
modernity in the shape of an implacable truck that for no apparent reason
wants to kill the man. Further television film credits were Ghost Story
(1972), which was directed by Night Stalker director John Llewellyn Mox-
ey; the science fiction/horror story The Stranger Within (1974); and Gordon
Hessler’s The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977).
Matheson also wrote numerous episodes for the television series The Twi-
light Zone, both in its original 1959–1964 version and in the 1985–1989
version, as well as contributing to the Spielberg-produced film Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983). Other television series benefiting from Matheson’s
input were Thriller (1960–1962), Night Gallery (1970–1973), Amazing Sto-
ries (1985–1987), and The Outer Limits (1995–2002).

MCGILLIVRAY, DAVID (1947–). The critic-turned-screenwriter David

McGillivray was an important contributor to the tough contemporary horror
cinema that appeared in Great Britain during the 1970s as the more escapist
Hammer horror faded away. He wrote producer-director Pete Walker’s
three best films, House of Whipcord (1974), Frightmare (1974), and House
of Mortal Sin (The Confessional) (1976), using some sly humor to offset the
essential grimness of the narratives. His work on the screenplays for Nor-
man J. Warren’s Satan’s Slave (1976) and for Walker’s Schizo (1976)
lacked that kind of intensity, but Terror (1978), for Warren, was an enjoy-
ably self-reflexive affair that did not shy away from the absurdity of its story
about a witch’s curse. Since the 1970s, McGillivray has worked mainly as a
critic. See also BRITISH HORROR.
220 • MELFORD, GEORGE (1877–1961)
MELFORD, GEORGE (1877–1961). The American director George Mel-
ford’s main claim to horror fame was that he directed for Universal the
Spanish-language version of Dracula (1931), which was shot on the same
sets as the Bela Lugosi–Tod Browning version. (Melford’s best-known
credit before this was the Rudolph Valentino vehicle The Sheik in 1921.)
Although Carlos Villarías’s vampire lacked Lugosi’s charisma, the film it-
self was arguably much more stylish than its English-language counterpart.
In particular, Melford staged Dracula’s famous appearance on the castle
staircase with considerably more cinematic élan than was evident in the more
theatrical version offered by Browning. Although he apparently spoke no
Spanish, Melford directed several other Hollywood-based Spanish-language
productions, most notably La voluntad del muerto (1930), which was based
on the popular success The Cat and the Canary. This practice of shooting
alternative versions of films faded away quickly, and Melford’s later directo-
rial credits are inconsequential. He spent his latter years as an actor appearing
in small parts in numerous Hollywood films. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

MEXICAN HORROR. During the 1930s, Mexico was one of the few coun-
tries other than the United States to develop its own cycle of horror produc-
tion, albeit a small one. These films, like later Mexican horrors, often idio-
syncratically mixed traditional Mexican elements with conventions taken
from American horror. For example, both El baúl macabro (The Macabre
Trunk) (1936) and La herencia macabra (The Macabre Legacy) (1939) bor-
rowed their villainous mad scientists from U.S. productions, whereas La
llorona (The Crying Woman) (1933) centered on a figure from Mexican
folklore: a ghostly woman who weeps for the children that she has mur-
dered. Other 1930s Mexican horrors included Dos moinjes (Two Monks)
(1934) and El fantasma del convento (The Phantom of the Convent) (1934).
Mexican horror production tailed away during the 1940s and early 1950s,
but there was a significant revival in the late 1950s. At their best, the result-
ing films were inventive and stylish, although the high volume of production
throughout the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s meant that their quality
was not always consistent. The impressive El vampiro (The Vampire) (1957)
and its sequel El ataud del vampiro (The Vampire’s Coffin) (1957) intro-
duced vampires into Mexican cinema; they would later become stock villains
in numerous Mexican films, among them El mundo de los vampires (World
of the Vampires) (1960), La invasión de los vampiros (The Invasion of the
Vampires) (1961), and El imperio de Dracula (The Empire of Dracula)
(1966). More specifically Mexican were the Aztec mummies that featured in
such titles as La momia azteca (Attack of the Aztec Mummy) (1957), La
maldición de la momia azteca (The Curse of the Aztec Mummy) (1957), and
Las luchadoras contra la momia (The Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mum-
 MILLER, DICK (1928–) • 221
my) (1964) and also the many other films that pitted traditional horror mon-
sters, such as vampires or werewolves, against Mexican masked wrestlers, of
whom the most famous and prolific was Santo. La llorona made a comeback
in La maldición de la llorona (The Curse of the Crying Woman) (1961) and
took on Santo in La venganza de la llorona (Vengeance of the Crying Wom-
an) (1974), while witches featured in El espejo de la bruja (The Witch’s
Mirror) (1960) and the Santo vehicle Atacan las brujas (The Witches Attack)
(1965).
This cycle of Mexican horror production faded away in the mid-1970s.
Since then, the only Mexican horror films of note have been Guillermo del
Toro’s vampire film Cronos (1993); Kilometer 31 (KM31) (2006), which
resurrected the figure of La llorona; and the cannibalism movie Somos lo que
hay (We Are What We Are) (2010).

MIIKE, TAKASHI (1960–). The iconoclastic Japanese director Takashi

Miike is best known for his crime thrillers, but his work has often featured
horror-like imagery. For example, Odishon (Audition) (1999), a deceptively
understated study of relations between men and women in contemporary
Japan, concludes with a protracted and very graphic torture scene in which a
woman pushes needles into a man’s eyes and saws off one of his feet. Bijitâ
Q (Visitor Q) (2001), Koroshiya 1 (Ichi the Killer) (2001), and Katakuri-ke
no kôfuku (The Happiness of the Katakuris) (2001) are more difficult to
classify, although all contain disturbing scenes of violence and horror. By
contrast, Chakushin ari (One Missed Call) (2003) is a more conventional
Japanese ghost story in the manner of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998). Miike
also contributed an episode to the horror anthology film Saam gaang yi
(Three . . . Extreme) (2004). See also JAPANESE HORROR.

MIKELS, TED (1929–2016). Like Herschell Gordon Lewis, Andy Milli-

gan, and Ray Steckler, the director Ted Mikels came out of 1960s American
exploitation cinema. The garish titles of his ultracheap horror films promised
more than the films themselves delivered, although Mikels does offer occa-
sional bursts of self-deprecating humor. His horror films include The Astro-
Zombies (1968), The Corpse Grinders (1972)—in which cats acquire a taste
for human flesh—and Blood Orgy of the She Devils (1972); he also produced
The Worm Eaters (1977). Mikels returned to horror in the early 2000s with
The Corpse Grinders 2 (2000), Mark of the Astro-Zombies (2002), and Caul-
dron: Baptism of Blood (2004), among others.

MILLER, DICK (1928–). The actor Dick Miller was a regular in Roger
Corman’s films of the 1950s and 1960s, including It Conquered the World
(1956), Not of This Earth (1957), The Undead (1957), The Little Shop of
222 • MILLIGAN, ANDY (1929–1991)
Horrors (1960), The Premature Burial (1962), The Terror (1963), and X:
The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), usually in comic or eccentric roles. His
performance as Walter Paisley, a downtrodden artist-turned-murderer, in
Corman’s comedy-horror A Bucket of Blood (1959) clearly made an impres-
sion, as on several occasions he has since been cast as a character called
Walter Paisley—for example, in three of Joe Dante’s films, Hollywood
Boulevard (1976), The Howling (1981), and Twilight Zone: The Movie
(1983), as well as in Jim Wynorski’s Chopping Mall (1986). Other horror-
related credits include, for Dante, Piranha (1978), Gremlins (1984), The
’Burbs (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Matinee (1993), and a
cameo in The Hole (2009) and, for other directors, Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype
(1980), Night of the Creeps (1986), Evil Toons (1992), Amityville 1992: It’s
About Time (1992), Demon Knight (1995), and Route 666 (2001).

MILLIGAN, ANDY (1929–1991). The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves

Are Here! (1972) is one of horror’s great titles. Sadly, neither the film it
graced nor any of the other horror films directed by American exploitation
specialist Andy Milligan lived up to its promise. Milligan made a career of
sorts out of the production of films that were cheap to the point of almost
being home movies, and he has since acquired the sort of cult following that
values films that are “so bad they’re good.” After churning out titles such as
The Naked Witch (1964) and The Ghastly Ones (1968) in the United States,
Milligan moved for a while to Great Britain, where his films included Blood-
thirsty Butchers (1970), The Body Beneath (1970), and the aforementioned
The Rats Are Coming! Other Milligan horror-related titles are Torture Dun-
geon (1970), Guru the Mad Monk (1970), The Man with Two Heads (1972),
Blood (1974), Legacy of Blood (1978), Carnage (1984), The Weirdo (1989),
Monstrosity (1989), and Surgikill (1990).

MINER, STEVE (1951–). Steve Miner is the only director to have contrib-
uted more than once to the Friday the 13th cycle; he did Friday the 13th Part
2 (1981) and Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982). He also directed House (1986)
and Warlock (1989), both of which were successful enough to generate se-
quels (albeit not with Miner on board). He subsequently added the superior
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) to the Halloween cycle, while his
Lake Placid (1999) was a likable comedy-horror about the discovery of a
giant alligator in an American lake. After Day of the Dead (2008), a loose
remake of George Romero’s original film of that title, Miner’s credits have
been mainly for television. See also AMERICAN HORROR.
 MOLINA, JACINTO (1934–2009) • 223
MIRANDA, SOLEDAD (1943–1970). Soledad Miranda—who sometimes
worked under the name Susan Korda—was a Spanish actor of extraordinary
and haunting beauty who acquired minor cult status following her tragic
death in a car accident. She was associated in particular with the prolific
director Jesus Franco, with whom she made the horror or horror-related
films Les cauchemars naissent la nuit (Nightmares Come at Night) (1970),
El Conde Dracula (Count Dracula) (1970), Vampyros lesbos (Lesbian Vam-
pires) (1971), and Sie tötete in Ekstase (She Killed in Ecstasy) (1971).

MOLINA, JACINTO (1934–2009). As “Paul Naschy,” ex-weightlifter-

turned-actor Jacinto Molina was the major star of Spanish horror. His many
films—some of which he has written and directed—vary wildly in terms of
quality and usually mix scenes of pathos and sentiment with copious vio-
lence, gore, and nudity. They are not to everyone’s taste, and some of them
have been accused of misogyny in their representation of women as victims.
However, the best of them are inventive and atmospheric, with some genu-
inely eerie moments.
Molina’s signature role is the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky, a part
he played a dozen times, beginning with La marca del hombre lobo (1968)—
which means The Mark of the Werewolf, although the film was misleadingly
retitled Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror for its American release. The Danin-
sky sequels Las noches del hombre lobo (The Nights of the Wolf Man)
(1968), Los monstruous del Terror (Assignment Terror, Dracula versus
Frankenstein) (1969), La furia del hombre lobo (The Fury of the Wolf Man,
The Wolf Man Never Sleeps) (1970), and La noche de walpurgis (Shadow of
the Werewolf) (1970) followed in quick succession. Later Daninsky films
became increasingly outré in their plotting. In Dr. Jekyll y el hombre lobo
(Dr. Jekyll versus the Werewolf) (1971), Daninsky meets Dr. Jekyll and in a
weird double transformation becomes the first werewolf to be changed into
Mr. Hyde. El retorno de walpurgis (The Return of Walpurgis, The Curse of
the Devil) (1973) was comparatively straightforward, but the werewolf’s
encounter with the Yeti in La maldición de la bestia (Night of the Howling
Beast, The Werewolf and the Yeti) (1975) took the series to new heights of
absurdity. He fought with Countess Elizabeth Bathory in El retorno del
hombre lobo (Night of the Werewolf) (1980) before appearing in the Japa-
nese–Spanish coproduction La bestia y la espada mágica (The Beast and the
Magic Sword) (1983) as well as in La aullido del diablo (Howl of the Devil)
(1987), Licántropo: El asesino de la luna llena (Lycanthropus: The Moon-
light Murders) (1996), and Fred Olen Ray’s American production Tomb of
the Werewolf (2004).
Away from the world of werewolves, Molina/Naschy’s best-known role is
as the hunchback in El jorobado de la morgue (Hunchback of the Morgue)
(1972), although he also played a burly Dracula in El gran amor del conde
224 • MORELAND, MANTAN (1902–1973)
Dracula (Count Dracula’s Great Love) (1972), where, uniquely in the Dra-
cula canon, he deliberately drives a stake through himself at the film’s con-
clusion. He was the mummy in La venganza de la momia (The Mummy’s
Revenge, The Vengeance of the Mummy) (1973), played both the hero and
the villain in El espanto surge de la tumba (Horror Rises from the Tomb)
(1972), and encountered zombies in La rebelión de las muertas (Vengeance
of the Zombies) (1972) and La orgía de los muertos (Hanging Woman, Ter-
ror of the Living Dead) (1973). His many other credits include both period
horrors and contemporary-set psychological thrillers.

MORELAND, MANTAN (1902–1973). The comedy performances given

by black American actor Mantan Moreland during the 1930s and 1940s have
come to be seen as potentially demeaning in the apparent support they offer
to racist stereotypes of blackness. In the context of the civil rights movement
in the United States, this discomfort with Moreland (along with fellow actors
Willie Best and Stepin Fetchit) was perfectly understandable. However,
Moreland’s streetwise performances can also be taken as offering resistance
to the white characters’ perspectives on the dramas in which he features. This
is particularly the case in Moreland’s horror films, in which, unlike most of
the white characters, he sensibly seeks to remove himself from the site of
danger and often seems to understand more clearly than anyone else that he
is trapped in a horror narrative. He shows up in King of the Zombies (1941),
The Strange Love of Doctor RX (1942), and Revenge of the Zombies (1943)
and is considered by many horror fans to be the best thing in all of these. He
was also a regular in Monogram’s Charlie Chan films, which occasionally
contained horror-like thrills. After some years in the wilderness, he returned
to horror in 1964 with the weird Spider Baby, which was not released until
1968. See also BLACK HORROR.

MORRICONE, ENNIO (1928–). The Italian composer Ennio Morricone is

most celebrated for the scores he has written for westerns. However, he has
also made an important contribution to horror music. His first horror score,
for the Barbara Steele film Gli amanti d’oltretomba (Nightmare Castle)
(1965), was, by Morricone’s standards, unobtrusive. The music he wrote for
the giallo thrillers that became popular during the 1970s was more striking,
combining beautiful melodies with harsh, dissonant sounds to illustrate the
giallo’s exploration of dangerous modernity. The distinctiveness of Dario
Argento’s first three films—L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with
the Crystal Plumage, The Gallery Murders) (1970), Il gatto a nove code (Cat
o’ Nine Tails) (1971), and 4 mosche di velluto grigio (Four Flies on Grey
Velvet) (1971)—was significantly enhanced by Morricone’s music; the com-
poser would work again with Argento 25 years later on La sindrome di
 MOXEY, JOHN LLEWELLYN (1925–) • 225
Stendhal (The Stendhal Syndrome) (1996) and Il fantasma dell’opera (The
Phantom of the Opera) (1998). Other giallo films that benefited from Morri-
cone’s input included Le foto proibite di una signora per bene (Forbidden
Photos of a Lady above Suspicion) (1970), Gli occhi freddi della paura (Cold
Eyes of Fear) (1971), Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (A Lizard in a
Woman’s Skin) (1971), La tarantola dal ventre nero (Black Belly of the
Tarantula) (1971), Giornata nera per l’ariete (The Fifth Cord) (1971), Mala-
strana (Short Night of the Glass Dolls) (1971), Chi l’ha vista morire? (Who
Saw Her Die?) (1972), Mio caro assassino (My Dear Killer) (1972), Cosa
avete fatto a Solange? (What Have You Done to Solange?) (1972), Spasmo
(1974), and Macchie solari (Autopsy) (1975). Versatile as well as prolific,
Morricone could also do supernatural horror, often using choral sounds to
illustrate the presence of unearthly forces in films such as L’anticristo (The
Antichrist) (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), and Holocaust 2000
(1977). By contrast, his music for John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) was
unexpectedly minimalist but all the more effective because of that. Morri-
cone’s other horror credits include the obscure Blood Link (1982) and the
Jack Nicholson werewolf drama Wolf (1994).
In 2015, cues from Morricone’s scores for Exorcist II: The Heretic and
The Thing showed up, to impressive effect, in the Quentin Tarantino western
The Hateful Eight.

MORRISSEY, PAUL (1938–). Director Paul Morrissey’s association with

Andy Warhol led to such underground classics as Flesh (1968), Lonesome
Cowboys (1969), and Trash (1970). Morrissey subsequently went to Italy to
make the eccentric Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula
(1974), both of which camped up the traditional horror stories to an outra-
geous extent while also offering what was for the time a surprising amount of
gore. Morrissey’s version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), which
featured the British comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, was a
less successful attempt at comedy-horror.

MOXEY, JOHN LLEWELLYN (1925–). The career of director John Lle-

wellyn Moxey—who is sometimes billed as just John Moxey—falls in two
sections, with horror having a part to play in each. From the mid-1950s to the
end of the 1960s, he worked in British cinema and television, specializing in
thrillers but with occasional diversions into horror or horror-related projects.
In fact, his most remarkable film from this period was a horror film: the
Milton Subotsky–produced The City of the Dead (Horror Hotel) (1960).
Although this witchcraft drama was set in the United States, it was made in
Great Britain with a mainly British cast. The black-and-white expressionistic
approach adopted by Moxey was unlike anything else in British horror, and
226 • THE MUMMY
the killing off of the heroine long before the conclusion was done just as
ruthlessly as in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), which had been released
only a few months before. Circus of Fear (1966), another of Moxey’s British
films, was sometimes marketed as a horror film, but it was more of a straight-
forward crime thriller.
From 1970 on, Moxey worked mainly for American television, again with
occasional horror titles to his credit. Most notably, he directed the contempo-
rary-set vampire story The Night Stalker (1972), which at the time received
the highest-ever audience ratings for a television film and which spawned the
television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975).

THE MUMMY. The Universal production of The Mummy (1932), which

starred Boris Karloff and was directed by Karl Freund, was cinema’s first
major mummy narrative. There had been a few earlier films and literary tales
featuring Egyptian mummies, and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in
the early 1920s had generated significant public interest in the subject of
mummies. However, it was the Universal version that set the pattern for later
films, with its invoking of the cloth-wrapped monster (although Karloff was
only glimpsed in this guise in the film’s opening sequence) and its focusing
on the theme of reincarnation.
Universal did not return to the mummy until the 1940s, when it produced
The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s
Ghost (1944), and The Mummy’s Curse (1944). These dispensed with the
subtleties of the 1932 version, instead offering a shambling, slow-moving
mummy—played by Tom Tyler in the first film and by Lon Chaney Jr. in
the rest—out to avenge some slight to Egyptian gods. The films displayed a
rudimentary level of invention and contained some effective moments, but
their repetitive quality limited the cycle’s development.
Much the same can be said of the British company Hammer’s first three
mummy films. Terence Fisher’s The Mummy (1959), which featured Chris-
topher Lee in the title role, was a stately retelling of the by then familiar
mummy narrative, but the follow-ups Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)
and The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) reduced the mummy to a not particularly
threatening automaton. By contrast, Hammer’s Blood from the Mummy’s
Tomb (1971), as directed by Seth Holt, was an innovative adaptation of
Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars that dispensed almost entirely with
the cloth-wrapped monster, focusing instead on the theme of possession. It
remains one of the most distinguished of all mummy films.
Mexican horror offered its own variant with a series of Aztec mummy
films, beginning with La momia azteca (The Aztec Mummy) (1957) and
including La momia azteca contra el robot humano (Aztec Mummy vs. the
Human Robot) (1958), Las luchadoras contra la momia (Wrestling Women
vs. the Aztec Mummy) (1964), and La venganza de la momia (Santo and the
 MUSIC • 227
Vengeance of the Mummy) (1970), while Jacinto Molina played the mummy
in a Spanish horror production also called La venganza de la momia (The
Mummy’s Revenge) (1973). Later mummy films were sporadic and isolated
affairs; they included The Awakening (1980) (which was another adaptation
of Jewel of the Seven Stars), The Tomb (1986), the comedy-horror The
Monster Squad (1987), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), and Tale
of the Mummy (Talos the Mummy) (1998). By the end of the 1990s, one
might have been forgiven for thinking that the mummy had had its day as a
movie monster. However, Stephen Sommers’s big-budget horror-action ex-
travaganza The Mummy (1999) successfully reinvented the cloth-wrapped
fiend for a modern audience; the sequels The Mummy Returns (2001) and
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) followed, while the Tom
Cruise vehicle The Mummy (2017) offered yet another action-themed reboot.

MURNAU, F. W. (1888–1931). The German director Friedrich Wilhelm

Murnau died in a car crash in the same year that saw the release of Univer-
sal’s Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Murnau himself never made
a horror film as such—the term did not emerge until after his death—but
some of his films did engage with material that would later be associated
with the horror genre (and those films have sometimes been retrospectively
reclassified as horror). Most notable here, of course, is the vampire film
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror)
(1922), an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that offered an
unnerving version of the vampire as an animalistic creature. Murnau’s monu-
mental production of Faust (1926) also contained some startling supernatural
imagery. Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin (The Hunchback and the Dancer)
(1920) and Der Januskopf (The Janus Head) (1920), two earlier Murnau
films now believed lost, appear to have dealt with horror themes as well, with
the latter a version of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story that featured Bela
Lugosi in a supporting role. See also GERMAN HORROR.

MUSIC. It is hard to think of horror cinema without music. Early sound

horrors, such as the Universal Dracula (1931), often featured snatches of
classical music, but it was not long before specially commissioned musical
scores became the order of the day. Noted composers who have worked
intermittently in horror in the context of distinguished careers generally lo-
cated in other genres include Max Steiner (who composed the score for King
Kong in 1933), Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone,
and John Williams. Other composers have made a more regular contribution
to horror, among them James Bernard at Hammer, John Carpenter (who
228 • MUSICALS
is also, of course, a noted director), the Italian rock group Goblin and the
Italian composer Fabio Frizzi, and Roy Webb for Val Lewton’s RKO hor-
rors.
Music serves several functions in horror. It can contribute to the creation
of a suitable atmosphere, often compensating for the limitations of low-
budget set design. More particularly, music can evoke a sense of realms
beyond the visible, whether this be the supernatural realms conjured up by,
for example, Humphrey Searle’s score for The Haunting (1963) or Gold-
smith’s choral-based score for The Omen (1976) or the off-screen space
occupied by the killer that Carpenter’s music for Halloween (1978) so effec-
tively denotes. Apparently innocent music can also accentuate brooding at-
mospherics when juxtaposed with sinister images, with the charming chil-
dren choruses used to introduce The Amityville Horror (1979) and Polter-
geist (1982) good examples of this. In addition, music itself has the power to
shock, with the nerve-jangling dissonance of Herrmann’s all-string score for
Psycho (1960), Wayne Bell’s experimental music for The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (1974), or Joseph Bishara’s dissonant score for Insidious (2010)
integral to those films’ power and effectiveness. From the 1970s on, horror
filmmakers have also regularly deployed loud crashes of music to emphasize
their jump scares or startle effects.
Orchestral music has proved to be the mainstay of horror composition,
although composers have also explored possibilities offered by choral, elec-
tronic, and experimental music. Since the 1980s, rock music of various kinds
has become a regular feature in horror films, ranging from the Nightmare on
Elm Street films to Dario Argento’s Phenomena (1985), with this presum-
ably designed to appeal to the predominantly teenage audience for this type
of cinema. Some rock musicians have gone on to compose especially for
horror films. An early example of this was Goblin, which during the 1970s
and 1980s was responsible for distinctive scores for several Argento films.
Since then, Marilyn Manson has worked on the score for Resident Evil
(2002), while Rob Zombie not only wrote the music for House of 1000
Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005) but scripted and directed
them as well.

MUSICALS. One does not associate horror cinema with musicals, the life-
affirming qualities of the musical usually seen as being at odds with the
darker world of horror. Certainly, some horror films have used musical thea-
ter as a backdrop against which to counterpoint horrific happenings, with the
various cinematic versions of The Phantom of the Opera stories a clear
example of this. However, there are a small number of horror-themed musi-
cal films as well. The more mainstream of these turn out to be adaptations of
stage musicals in which the horror elements have been marginalized in order
to make the story palatable to a non-horror audience. Notable here is The
 MUSICALS • 229
Phantom of the Opera (2004), which was based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
stage version and in which the romantic qualities of the story are fore-
grounded. Similarly, Little Shop of Horrors (1986) was adapted from a stage
musical that itself was based on Roger Corman’s original horror comedy
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The De-
mon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), which featured Johnny Depp as Todd,
was also taken from a stage musical, this time the celebrated work by Ste-
phen Sondheim, but unusually it retained horrific imagery in its explicit
depiction of throat slittings and the consumption of human flesh.
Other horror musicals tend to be more niche or cult oriented, the best-
known example being yet another adaptation of a stage work: The Rocky
Horror Picture Show (1975). Other horror musicals of this ilk include Fred-
die Francis’s little-seen curiosity Son of Dracula (1974), Brian De Palma’s
Phantom of the Paradise (1974), and Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical
(1993).
The 1988 stage musical version of horror story Carrie turned out to be one
of musical theater’s most notorious flops, suggesting that the passage be-
tween horror and musicals is not always an easy one.
 N
NAKATA, HIDEO (1961–). The director Hideo Nakata has been one of the
major figures overseeing the translation of Japanese horror themes into
westernized formats. Like many Japanese filmmakers, Nakata has special-
ized in ghost stories, but he has developed innovative ways of locating these
stories within a recognizable modern world. Joyû-rei (Don’t Look Up)
(1996) was such a ghost story, although it was little seen outside of Japan.
Nakata’s next film made his name internationally, however. Ringu (Ring)
(1998) dealt with a cursed videotape that, if viewed, led to a ghastly death for
the viewer. The Japanese tradition of the vengeful female ghost was here
intertwined with modern technology in a manner that made the technology
itself appear ghostly and alienating. Nakata’s approach was to establish a
mundane reality that in the course of the film was gradually—and at first
almost imperceptibly—invaded by the supernatural. At the same time, the
director did not shy away from shock moments—notably the climactic ap-
pearance of the ghost—and Ringu also contained some conventions that
would have been familiar to Western audiences. For example, the distorted
photographs of those doomed to die were comparable with the photographs
of doom in the Satanic thriller The Omen (1976).
After making the thriller Kaosu (Chaos) (1999), Nakata returned to the
Ringu series with the sequel Ringu 2 (1999). The narrative this time was
slighter and less suspenseful. The ghostly set pieces were still impressive,
however, although they lacked the shock impact of the previous film and
operated in a more abstract way. Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water)
(2002), which like Ringu was adapted from a novel by Koji Suzuki, benefited
from a tighter narrative structure. As he had done with Ringu, Nakata fo-
cused on a fatherless family unit; in both cases, the strained relationship
between mother and child represented a wider sense of social dislocation.
Again the film’s buildup was slow, patiently establishing a sense of place and
character, but the climax—in which the mother makes a most awful sacri-
fice—was powerful and bleak, while the coda managed to be both moving
and quietly chilling.

231
232 • NALDER, REGGIE (1907–1991)
Given that both Ringu and Honogurai mizu no soko kara were successful-
ly remade as American films—as The Ring (2002) and Dark Water (2005),
respectively—it is perhaps not surprising that Nakata was himself invited to
the United States and that his American debut should be The Ring Two
(2005). This stylish sequel was not a remake of his own Ringu 2, but it did
share that film’s extensive water imagery and also demonstrated that Nakata
could function well within the American horror idiom. Since then, howev-
er, he has worked mainly in Japan, directing supernatural-themed films such
as Kaidan (2007), Death Note: L Change the World (2008), Inshite miru: 7-
kakan no desu gêmu (The Incite Mill) (2010), Kuroyuri danchi (The Com-
plex) (2013), Monsterz (2014), and Gekijô rei (Ghost Theater) (2015) as well
as the British thriller Chatroom (2010).

NALDER, REGGIE (1907–1991). The actor Reggie Nalder—whose real

name was Alfred Reginald Natzler—was something of a mystery. He was
born in Vienna in 1907, 1911, or 1922, and the precise cause of the facial
scars that suited him to menacing roles remains unclear. Nalder worked
mainly in French cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, although he did gain some
international recognition for his performance as a villain in Alfred Hitch-
cock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). His horror debut came with
Dario Argento’s L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crys-
tal Plumage, The Gallery Murders) (1970), where, true to type, he played a
sinister assassin. More nasty roles followed in the controversial German
horror films Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the Devil) (1970) and
Hexen geschändet und zu Tode gequält (Mark of the Devil 2) (1973) and in
the tamer Dracula’s Dog (Zoltan: Hound of Dracula) (1978) and the come-
dy-horror The Devil and Max Devlin (1981). However, his most memorable
horror performance was as a Max Schreck–like vampire in Tobe Hooper’s
television adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem's Lot (1979).

NASCHY, PAUL. See MOLINA, JACINTO (1934–2009).

NEILL, ROY WILLIAM (1887–1946). The prolific director Roy William

Neill made more than 100 films, beginning his career in the silent period.
Early horror-themed work included the horror-whodunnit The Ninth Guest
(1934), the voodoo drama Black Moon (1934), and the Boris Karloff period
horror The Black Room (1935). During the 1940s, Neill directed and pro-
duced 11 out of Universal’s 12 Sherlock Holmes films, bringing horror
imagery to a number of these, notably Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943),
The Scarlet Claw (1944), and The Pearl of Death (1944). He was also re-
 NICOLODI, DARIA (1950–) • 233
sponsible for Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), the first occasion on
which Universal brought some of its monsters together in one film. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

NEWBROOK, PETER (1920–2009). The cinematographer-producer Peter

Newbrook was an associate of British exploitation specialist Robert Hart-
ford-Davis, for whom he photographed the period horror The Black Torment
(1964) and the surgical horror Corruption (1967). He also produced Cor-
ruption along with Hartford-Davis’s Incense for the Damned (Bloodsuckers)
(1970) as well as photographing and producing Ted Hooker’s Crucible of
Terror (1971). Newbrook directed only one film himself, but it was suffi-
ciently distinctive to cause regret that he did not do more. The Asphyx (1973)
was a literate period horror that eschewed traditional horror monsters in favor
of a drama involving mysterious unseen spirits and the quest for immortality.
See also BRITISH HORROR.

NICHOLSON, JACK (1937–). Some of the actor Jack Nicholson’s earliest

screen roles were in horror films directed by Roger Corman. He was a
masochistic dental patient in the comedy-horror The Little Shop of Horrors
(1960) and a bland juvenile lead in The Raven (1963) and The Terror (1963).
In the late 1970s, after having become one of the leading actors of his
generation with films such as Chinatown (1974) and One Flew over the
Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Nicholson returned to the horror genre with a grand-
standing performance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). His portray-
al of a writer losing his mind in a haunted hotel teetered on the edge of
parody but was all the more striking because of this. Later appearances in
horror films were similarly larger than life and over the top—as the Devil in
The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and as a lycanthropic publishing executive in
Wolf (1994).

NICHOLSON, JAMES H. (1916–1972). Along with his business partner

Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson established American Internation-
al Pictures in the 1950s and went on to produce numerous exploitation and
horror titles, most notably Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.

NICOLODI, DARIA (1950–). The Italian actor Daria Nicolodi is a striking

presence in a number of Italian horror films, especially for the director
Dario Argento (with whom she had a daughter: the actor Asia Argento). As
a journalist in the Argento giallo Profondo rosso (Deep Red) (1975), she was
for the time an unusually independent heroine who saved the hero more than
he saved her. Her role in Mario Bava’s Schock (Shock, Beyond the Door 2)
(1977)—as a widow terrorized by her husband’s spirit—was more conven-
234 • NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
tional, although Nicolodi performed it with intensity and conviction. She had
a more decorative function in two further Argento films, Inferno (1980) and
Tenebre (Tenebrae) (1982), but was an impressive villain in Argento’s Phe-
nomena (1985), where she suffered one of horror’s most unusual demises—
slashed to death by a razor-wielding chimpanzee. She suffered again in Ar-
gento’s Opera (Terror at the Opera) (1987), where, in one of that film’s
many set-piece death scenes, she was shot through the eye.
Nicolodi’s other claim to fame for horror fans was that she coscripted
Dario Argento’s most successful horror film: the witchcraft drama Suspira
(1977). Her other genre credits include Le foto di gioia (Delirium) (1987),
Paganini Horror (1989), and Dario Argento’s La terza madre (Mother of
Tears) (2007).

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). Night of the Living Dead is often
seen as a key film in the development of modern American horror because
of its emphasis on contemporary American settings, its realism (especially in
scenes of gore), and its radical reinterpretation of the zombie. For all intents
and purposes, the Living Dead cycle that it generated belongs to the director
George Romero, who was responsible for Night of the Living Dead (1968)
and the sequels Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of
the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), and Survival of the Dead (2009)
and who developed the socially critical approach for which the cycle is
known. Mention should be made, however, of two remakes: Tom Savini’s
Night of the Living Dead (1990) and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead
(2004). Both are interesting variations on the original, with Savini introduc-
ing a Final Girl figure and Snyder diminishing the social critique in favor of
intense action. Two further remakes of Night of the Living Dead, one from
2006 and the other from 2014, are of considerably less interest, to put it
mildly. Dan O’Bannon’s comedy-horror Return of the Living Dead (1985)
had no formal connection with the cycle, but it did make humorous reference
to it.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984). The Elm Street films formed

one of the major American horror cycles of the 1980s. In the first film, A
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), writer-director Wes Craven updated the by
then exhausted “teens-in-peril” slasher format by injecting into it supernatu-
ral elements. The central idea was simple but compelling. Teenagers dream
of an assailant with razors attached to his fingers, and if this assailant suc-
ceeds in killing them in their dreams, then the teenagers also die in reality. It
turns out that the killer, a long-dead janitor by the name of Freddy Krueger,
was a child-murderer who was himself killed by the teenagers’ parents and is
now seeking revenge from beyond the grave. Thematically, the film looked
 A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) • 235
back to the 1970s—when Craven began working in horror—with its focus on
repressive families and a rebellious underclass, but its surreal dream imagery
also suggested a movement away from the social engagement that had char-
acterized much 1970s American horror.
Indeed, the seven sequels, only one of which was directed by Craven,
jettisoned the somber qualities apparent in the first film in favor of a more
playful approach. Far from being the fearful monster, Freddy Krueger (as
played by Robert Englund) became a master of ceremonies wittily presiding
over the deaths of numerous teenagers. The extent to which Freddy’s endur-
ing popularity with teenage audiences was an expression of their masochism
or their sick sense of humor is not clear, but Freddy successfully wisecracked
his way through A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985,
directed by Jack Sholder), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
(1987, Chuck Russell), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
(1988, Renny Harlin), and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
(1989, Stephen Hopkins). Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991, Ra-
chel Talahay), which was partially filmed in 3D, brought the cycle to a
temporary halt. However, as was the case with the other key 1980s horror
cycle, the Friday the 13th films (in which “The Final Chapter” was promptly
followed by “A New Beginning”), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare appeared
in 1994. As its title indicated, this marked the return of Craven as director,
and the resulting film turned out to be one of the more unusual horror se-
quels. An intensely self-reflexive affair in which some of the cast and crew of
the original film played themselves as they were stalked by the “real” Fred-
dy, New Nightmare was perhaps too strange to catch on with audiences, and
Craven would have to wait until the Scream films before finding a more
profitable vein of generic self-reflexivity. Nine years passed before the next
in the cycle. In a weird throwback to Universal’s multiple-monster movies
of the 1940s, Ronny Yu’s Freddy vs. Jason (2003) pitted Freddy against
Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th cycle, with predictably bloody and
violent results. This was followed in 2010 by a remake titled, perhaps unsur-
prisingly, A Nightmare on Elm Street, with Jackie Earle Haley in the role of
Freddy Krueger. Freddy’s Nightmares, a television series hosted by Robert
Englund’s version of Freddy Krueger, also ran from 1988 to 1990.
 O
O’BANNON, DAN (1946–2009). The American writer (and occasional di-
rector) Dan O’Bannon cowrote and acted in John Carpenter’s directorial
debut, Dark Star (1974). This was a charming science fiction/comedy, a
subplot of which involved an alien lurking in a spaceship. O’Bannon would
return to this idea for a screenplay originally titled Star Beast—developed
with his regular collaborator Ronald Shusett—and envisaged as a low-budget
science fiction/horror project. However, the budget grew, Ridley Scott was
hired as director, and the project became Alien (1979), arguably the most
successful of all science fiction/horror hybrids. Like many of O’Bannon’s
narratives, the overall story of Alien was generically conventional, but ele-
ments within that narrative—notably the bizarre way in which the alien re-
produces itself—were innovative, quirky, and distinctive.
Next came coauthorship of the screenplay for Gary Sherman’s Dead &
Buried (1981), a contemporary-set zombie film that again offered an original
take on a well-established horror theme, and a contribution to the horror-
themed animated feature Heavy Metal (1981). After writing duties on the
futuristic action thriller Blue Thunder (1983), O’Bannon made his directorial
debut with The Return of the Living Dead (1985), which he also scripted.
This had no formal connection with George Romero’s Night of the Living
Dead (1968) but instead was a lively comedy-horror about an industrial
accident that causes the dead to rise and eat the brains of the living. The film
was successful enough to generate four sequels. None of these involved
O’Bannon, who returned to script writing with two alien invasion films for
Tobe Hooper: the enjoyable but silly Lifeforce (1985) and the jokey Invad-
ers from Mars (1986). His other genre credits include two Philip K. Dick
adaptations, the big-budget Total Recall (1990) and the considerably smaller-
budget Screamers (1995), as well as two H. P. Lovecraft adaptations: The
Resurrected (1992), which O’Bannon directed but did not write, and Bleed-
ers (1997), which he cowrote but did not direct. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

237
238 • OGILVY, IAN (1943–)
OGILVY, IAN (1943–). The actor Ian Ogilvy was an intense presence in
British horror cinema of the late 1960s, largely through an association with
his friend, the director Michael Reeves. He played the deeply troubled main
protagonists in all three of Reeves’s feature films, the Italian-produced La
sorella di satana (Revenge of the Blood Beast, The She Beast) (1966), and
the British-produced The Sorcerers (1967) and Witchfinder General (1968).
Reeves’s early death terminated this interesting part of Ogilvy’s career, al-
though he subsequently made effective appearances in two further British
horrors: From Beyond the Grave (1973) and And Now the Screaming Starts!
(1973). In the late 1970s, he found fame as a television star with The Return
of the Saint. More recently, he has become a novelist. He can be seen in
supporting roles in the comedy-horror Death Becomes Her (1992) and Pup-
pet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994).

THE OMEN (1976). The 1970s American horror film The Omen (1976),
which was directed by Richard Donner, has long been overshadowed by the
taboo-breaking The Exorcist (1973) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(1974), perhaps because it is so polished and well crafted in comparison with
the rawer appeal of these other films, perhaps because it is set in Europe
rather than the United States. However, it is arguably just as important to an
understanding of the genre in this period. It is a key example of apocalyptic
horror and, even by the cynical standards of 1970s horror, unusually bleak,
with the forces of good left comprehensively defeated. Its deployment of
biblical prophecies, which was unusual within a horror genre that rarely
engaged explicitly with Christianity, underlined the extent to which this de-
feat was preordained and unavoidable. Not even an established star such as
Gregory Peck was able to save the day. Also striking was the film’s portrayal
of a child as the monster; this was not an uncommon theme in 1970s horror,
but here it was done with real conviction. While the girl in The Exorcist was
only possessed and could be rescued, Damien Thorn in The Omen was the
Antichrist, fathered by the Devil and born of a jackal and therefore intrinsi-
cally and irredeemably evil.
The film’s other key innovation was the spectacular death sequences it
offered, including one of horror cinema’s most awe-inspiring decapitations.
On the one hand, these deaths—which were usually accompanied by Jerry
Goldsmith’s evocative choral score—demonstrated the power of the Devil
(although this figure never appeared), but they were also perversely witty and
entertaining in the way they transformed peaceful spaces into merciless kill-
ing grounds.
The substantial commercial success enjoyed by The Omen inevitably led
to a sequel: Damien—Omen II (1978). Directed by Don Taylor, this shifted
the action to the United States and offered elements of social critique in its
depiction of a teenage Damien slowly coming to terms with his destiny in a
 ORMSBY, ALAN (1943–) • 239
world of social privilege, wealth, and power. The film also increased the
number of death sequences (including an extraordinary scene depicting death
by lift cable). As before, good—this time in the form of old-time Hollywood
star William Holden—was defeated, and evil prevailed.
Damien was finally defeated in The Final Conflict (1981), which, as di-
rected by Graham Baker, returned to Great Britain and featured Sam Neill as
the adult Antichrist. By this stage, much of the energy of the Omen cycle had
dissipated. The death scenes were less in number and less inventive, and,
considering his awesome power in the first two films, Damien’s defeat (he is
stabbed) proved something of an anticlimax. Omen IV: The Awakening
(1991), codirected by Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard and
featuring the exploits of Damien’s daughter, was a negligible afterthought to
the series and was not widely distributed.
The Omen (2006), a remake of the original directed by John Moore,
stayed close to its source material. However, it had less impact, perhaps
because the elaborate death scenes developed by the earlier Omen films had
subsequently been taken to a new level by Final Destination (2000) and its
sequels and perhaps because the sense of doom that pervaded the original
film was less a feature of the culture into which the remake was released. In
2016, Damien Thorn, this time played by Bradley James, made an unex-
pected comeback in the television series Damien.

ORMSBY, ALAN (1943–). Not only did Alan Ormsby do the garish make-
up effects for Bob Clark’s zombie film Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead
Things (1972), but he also contributed to the film’s screenplay and starred as
the obnoxious theater director who ill-advisedly raises the dead. Subsequent-
ly, he wrote and did the makeup effects for Clark’s Dead of Night (Night
Walk, Deathdream) (1974), a more socially critical zombie film in which an
undead war veteran terrorizes his hometown. Deranged (1974), which Orms-
by codirected with Jeff Gillen, remains his only directorial credit to date.
Loosely based on the exploits of real-life serial killer Ed Gein, it was a
gruesome but inventive horror unfortunately overshadowed by Tobe Hoop-
er’s similarly themed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Ormsby also
did makeup effects for Shock Waves (1977) and wrote the screenplay for
Paul Schrader’s remake Cat People (1982). He was hired to write and
direct the horror Popcorn (1991) but left the project during shooting, with the
film credited to another director; Ormsby received a screenplay credit under
the name Tod Hackett.
 P
PALANCE, JACK (1919–2006). Although a versatile actor, Jack Palance
was best known as a leading screen heavy capable of exuding considerable
menace. This aspect of his persona suited him well to starring roles in the
Jack the Ripper film Man in the Attic (1954) and in two television horror
stories, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968) and Dracula
(1973), the latter of which was released theatrically in some countries. As
directed by Dan Curtis, Dracula was an innovative exploration of the histor-
ical roots of the vampire narrative, and Palance played the part of the vam-
pire-warrior with great presence and dignity. He also did a memorable turn as
a neurotic collector of Edgar Allan Poe memorabilia in the British horror
anthology Torture Garden (1967). His few other horror credits—which in-
clude Craze (1973), Without Warning (1980), and Alone in the Dark
(1982)—are minor.
His daughter Holly Palance played the nanny who hanged herself in The
Omen (1976).

PANG, DANNY AND OXIDE (1965–). The Chinese twin brothers Danny
and Oxide Pang usually cowrite, coproduce, and codirect their films and
often work in Thailand. Their first film together was the thriller Bangkok
Dangerous (1999), but it was the ghost story Gin gwai (The Eye) (2002) that
brought them significant recognition. This told the story of a woman who has
disturbing visions after receiving a cornea transplant and sets out to discover
the identity of the cornea donor, and it made an important contribution—
along with the likes of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (Ring) (1998) and Takashi
Shimizu’s Ju-on: The Grudge (2003)—to the international popularity of East
Asian horror. Since then, the Pang brothers have made two sequels, Gin gwai
2 (The Eye 2) (2004) and Gin gwai 10 (The Eye: Infinity) (2005), as well as
the fantasy Gwai wik (Re-cycle) (2006) and the horror film Tung ngaan (The
Child’s Eye) (2010) alongside several thrillers. Oxide Pang also codirected
the horror anthology Bangkok Haunted (2001) with Pisut Praesangeam. In
2007, they released their first American horror film: The Messengers.

241
242 • PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007)
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007). The Paranormal Activity films formed
one of the most durable horror cycles of the 2000s and were a key vehicle for
the popularization of the found footage format in the horror genre. Paranor-
mal Activity, the first film in the cycle, was an independent production writ-
ten and directed by Oren Peli in 2007 but not widely distributed at that time.
Essentially a kind of mock home movie, the film depicted a young couple,
Micah and Katie, using cameras to record a series of apparently supernatural
events taking place in their house. In this original version, neither Micah nor
Katie survives the haunting. Subsequently, the film was bought by Para-
mount Pictures, and a new ending was added in which a demonically pos-
sessed Katie does live on (thus paving the way for the sequels that followed).
Paranormal Activity received a wide release in 2009 and was a substantial
commercial success.
The sequels and prequels that followed—all of which were produced
under the auspices of Jason Blum’s Blumhouse company—pushed to the
limits what could be done within the found footage approach and in so doing
also highlighted some of the approach’s limitations. Deploying a mix of
surveillance footage and handheld camera work, the films managed to pro-
ject a sense of immediacy and delivered effective shock moments, but the
“shaky cam” that often showed up in their conclusions sometimes obscured
what was going on in the narrative. They also regularly confronted their
audiences with a perennial issue associated with found footage horror more
generally, namely, why a character would bother filming something that is
potentially dangerous to him or her when a more sensible response would be
to run away.
There was more to the Paranormal Activity films than found footage,
however. Like other postmillennial horror cycles, such as the Insidious films,
they revived the theme of demonic possession. As one aspect of this, the
cycle developed the idea of a sinister female cult, known as the Midwives,
that was intent on aiding a demon to take human form. The master narrative
associated with this was never completely clear or coherent, not even by the
end of the cycle, but it did provide a focus for the various hauntings, posses-
sions, and attacks that littered the films.
Also like other horror cycles of this period, the Paranormal Activity cycle
offered what were, for the horror genre at least, unusually complex temporal
relations between the films. Thus, Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), which was
directed by Kip Williams, was in part a prequel and in part a sequel to the
first film, while Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), directed by Henry Joost and
Ariel Schulman, was another prequel, albeit one that went back farther in
time. Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), also directed by Joost and Schulman,
was the first straightforward sequel in the cycle in its depiction of the further
demonic exploits of Katie. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014),
directed by Christopher B. Landon, introduced a time travel element and had
 THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA • 243
its main character return to events that took place in the first Paranormal
Activity film. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), directed by
Gregory Plotkin, sought to bring to a conclusion the cycle’s overarching
narrative through depicting the human incarnation of the demon that had
been causing all the problems throughout the previous five films. By this
stage, however, the cycle was struggling to find anything new to do with
found footage, and this final film proved something of an anticlimax.

PERKINS, ANTHONY (1932–1992). Anthony Perkins’s remarkable per-

formance as serial killer Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960) both defined and limited his later career. So convincing was his
portrayal of Bates as the gauche boy next door and so unnerving was his
eventual transformation into a smiling murderer that a certain neurotic inten-
sity became permanently imprinted on his screen persona. A number of his
pre-Psycho appearances had possessed a nervous quality, but after Psycho
this element was often foregrounded. For much of the 1960s, as if to get
away from Norman Bates, Perkins worked mainly in Europe. On his return to
the United States, he found himself cast as a mentally disturbed murderer in
Pretty Poison (1968) and as another disturbed character in Curtis Harring-
ton’s television film How Awful about Allan (1970). Even his non-horror
performances in this period had a Norman Bates–like jumpiness to them,
notably in Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Mahogany (1975).
In 1983, he bowed to the inevitable and returned to the Bates Motel in
Richard Franklin’s Psycho II. He was fine in the film, rendering the part yet
more sympathetic than it had been in Hitchcock’s hands. He returned again
in Psycho III (1986)—which he also directed—and, finally, in Mick Gar-
ris’s television film Psycho IV: The Beginning. By contrast, his performance
as a mad preacher in Ken Russell’s erotic thriller Crimes of Passion (1984)
was clearly a parody of the Bates character. In the latter part of his career, he
also starred in Edge of Sanity (1989), a version of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde story, and featured in some horror-themed television films, among
them Stuart Gordon’s Daughter of Darkness (1990) and Tobe Hooper’s
I’m Dangerous Tonight (1990).

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Gaston Leroux’s novel Le fantôme de

l’opéra (The Phantom of the Opera) was first published in 1910. A dark
romance set in the Paris Opera, it has been adapted many times, with varying
degrees of faithfulness, for cinema, the stage, and television, including a
Chinese film version in 1937. To a certain extent, the story has always sat on
the edge of the horror genre, with the central love story ameliorating the
nastiness of the Phantom himself and enabling the adaptation to be marketed
to a broader audience than that normally associated with horror.
244 • THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
The first film adaptation of Leroux’s novel appears to have been the now
lost German production Das Phantom der Oper (1916). More significant was
the lavish Universal production The Phantom of the Opera (1925), which
featured Lon Chaney at the height of his powers as the Phantom. Chaney’s
skull-like makeup is impressive even by the standards of today’s sophisticat-
ed special effects, and the film had an operatic sweep that later versions
would never quite match. Although it has come to be considered a horror
classic, the term horror film did not exist—at least in the way we understand
it now—at the time of its initial release, and the film was perceived then
more as a vehicle for Chaney’s extraordinary talents. By the time of Phantom
of the Opera (1943), the next Leroux adaptation, horror was an established
generic category in American cinema. However, this Universal film—which
was directed by Arthur Lubin and featured Claude Rains as the Phantom—
offered itself as more upmarket, in both production values and subject mat-
ter, than the lurid horror fare also being produced by Universal during the
1940s (e.g., Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man). It introduced the idea of the
Phantom being scarred through an accident (rather than being naturally dis-
figured), but otherwise it remained a tame affair, with the Phantom’s un-
masking something of an anticlimax. Much the same could be said of Ham-
mer’s The Phantom of the Opera (1962), which, as directed by Terence
Fisher, was intended as a more family-oriented form of horror and therefore
suppressed elements of gore and violence that had been so prevalent in
earlier Hammer horrors. The film’s commercial failure brought the first
phase of Hammer horror production to an end.
Brian De Palma’s musical-comedy-horror Phantom of the Paradise
(1974) was a cheeky mix of the Phantom of the Opera narrative with the
Faust story, with references to The Picture of Dorian Gray thrown in for
good measure. It was perhaps too self-consciously clever for its own good,
although it remains one of the more unusual Phantom films. By contrast,
both Dwight Little’s The Phantom of the Opera (1989) and Dario Argen-
to’s Il fantasma dell’opera (The Phantom of the Opera) (1998) were straight-
forward attempts to claim the story for the full-blooded horror approach. The
Little version featured Nightmare on Elm Street star Robert Englund as a
wisecracking, intensely violent Phantom in a story that took very little from
the Leroux original. Unfortunately, Argento’s film was one of his lesser
efforts. He seems uncomfortable with the period setting, although the idea of
the Phantom as someone who was not actually scarred but just full of self-
loathing was at least innovative.
However, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical stage version that
caught the public’s imagination and went on to become one of the most
successful musicals of all time. Here, the horror elements became decorative
rather than central, and the original novel’s tragic romance was returned to
 PIERCE, JACK (1889–1968) • 245
the foreground. In 2004, Joel Schumacher directed The Phantom of the Op-
era, an adaptation of Webber’s musical that underlined the extent to which
the story of the Phantom had been secured for the family audience.

PICHEL, IRVING (1891–1954). Unusually for Hollywood, Irving Pichel

managed to combine acting and directing throughout his career. His directo-
rial debut—codirected with Ernest B. Schoedsack—was The Most Danger-
ous Game (The Hounds of Zaroff) (1932), which mixed adventure with hor-
ror elements in its story of a mad hunter tracking down human prey. He also
codirected—with Lansing C. Holden this time—the fantasy adventure She
(1935). As an actor, he was the vampire’s sidekick in Dracula’s Daughter
(1936) and also showed up in Victor Halperin’s Torture Ship (1939). See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891),

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, told of a hedonistic young man whose many sins
are recorded in a painting of him rather on the sinner himself. Its emphasis on
duality linked it thematically with another Victorian horror, Robert Louis
Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), although
it has not had the impact on horror cinema that Stevenson’s work has. There
were several silent film adaptations of Wilde’s story, including Vsevolod
Meyerhold’s Portret Doryana Greya (1915) and Az Élet királya (1918), a
Hungarian version featuring Bela Lugosi in a supporting role. However, the
main screen version was Albert Lewin’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945),
a tastefully mounted black-and-white American adaptation that starred Hurd
Hatfield in the title role and that burst into color whenever Gray’s portrait
was shown. The British production Dorian Gray (2009), featuring Ben
Barnes as Gray, was also a respectable literary adaptation. By contrast, Do-
rian Gray (1970), which starred Helmut Berger and had a contemporary
setting, was considerably sleazier.
Dan Curtis produced a television version in 1973, while another televi-
sion production, The Sins of Dorian Gray (1983), turned Dorian Gray into a
female character. Other versions appeared in 2004 and 2006. Dorian Gray
also showed up in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) and as a
recurring character in the series Penny Dreadful (2014–2016).

PIERCE, JACK (1889–1968). If any one person could be considered the

maker of monsters in American horror cinema, that person would probably
be makeup artist Jack Pierce. He worked for Universal throughout its 1930s
and 1940s horror cycles and was a key contributor to the distinctive visuals
of its films. It was he who turned Boris Karloff into a monster for Franken-
stein (1931) and its two sequels and into an undead cloth-wrapped corpse for
246 • PITT, INGRID (1937–2010)
The Mummy (1932). He also transformed Bela Lugosi into the broken-
necked Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein
(1942) and into Frankenstein’s monster for Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
(1943) and made Lon Chaney Junior into a werewolf in The Wolf Man
(1941) and its sequels and into the mummy for The Mummy’s Tomb (1942),
The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), and The Mummy’s Curse (1944). In addition to
this, he came up with one of the few memorable female monsters from this
period: the Nefertiti-like Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Pierce’s makeup designs have subsequently proved very influential, even if
only as a norm from which later filmmakers have attempted to differentiate
their own work.
Pierce’s later makeup credits, which were mainly for low-budget indepen-
dent productions, were considerably less distinguished. They included The
Brain from Planet Arous (1957), Teenage Monster (1958), and The Amazing
Transparent Man (1960).

PITT, INGRID (1937–2010). Ingrid Pitt was a charismatic presence in

1970s British horror. This Polish-born actor had earlier appeared in sup-
porting roles in the Spanish horror film El Sonido prehistórico (1964) and
the big-budget war thriller Where Eagles Dare (1968). Hammer cast her as
the female lead in its lesbian vampire film The Vampire Lovers (1970), and
she delivered an imposing and sultry performance. More than Hammer’s
previous female vampires, Pitt was able to convey both the seductiveness and
the melancholy of the undead. She was also a suitably imperious villain in
Hammer’s Countess Dracula (1971), where she played a fictionalized ver-
sion of the real-life mass murderer Elizabeth Bathory. Away from Hammer,
there were effective supporting roles in the Amicus horror anthology The
House That Dripped Blood (1970) and in Robin Hardy’s cult classic The
Wicker Man (1973). The shutting down of much British horror production in
the mid-1970s regrettably curtailed the development of her horror stardom,
although she did feature in the Clive Barker–scripted horror Underworld
(1985), The Asylum (2000), and Beyond the Rave (2008), among others, and
appeared regularly at horror conventions to meet her devoted fans. She also
wrote several novels and other horror-related books.

PIVAR, BEN (1901–1963). The British-born, American-based producer

Ben Pivar was responsible for some of Universal’s more lurid 1940s horror
titles, including Horror Island (1941), The Mad Ghoul (1943), and Captive
Wild Woman (1943), in the latter of which a gorilla was turned into a young
woman by a mad scientist. In yet more questionable taste were Pivar’s
House of Horrors (1946) and The Brute Man (1946), both of which featured
as their monster Rondo Hatton, who was deformed in real life. Pivar also
 PLEASENCE, DONALD (1919–1995) • 247
produced all four films in Universal’s 1940s mummy cycle, The Mummy’s
Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), and
The Mummy’s Curse (1944), and worked on the Inner Sanctum series of
horror-themed B movies, with the witchcraft drama Weird Woman (1944)
his most notable credit here. Pivar’s other horror credits were She-Wolf of
London (1946)—which was more of a murder mystery than it was a were-
wolf film—and The Creeper (1948). As a producer of 1940s horror, Pivar
has been completely overshadowed by the more ambitious and creative Val
Lewton. However, Pivar’s focus on horror sequels and series has arguably
proved more influential in the development of American horror than any-
thing done by Lewton.

PLEASENCE, DONALD (1919–1995). The British actor Donald Plea-

sence’s association with horror ran from the late 1950s until his death. He
acted in a variety of genres, but there was something about his screen perso-
na, which could switch rapidly from quiet menace to wide-eyed madness,
that particularly suited him to horror. He provided able support in the British
horror films The Flesh and the Fiends (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960),
among others, but came into his own with a leading role in Gary Sherman’s
cannibalism story Death Line (Raw Meat) (1972). As a policeman investi-
gating mysterious disappearances on the London Underground, he subtly
combined truculence with a sense of loneliness, thereby giving the film its
emotional center. His supporting role in the Amicus horror anthology From
Beyond the Grave (1973) was more caricatural, although this fitted well with
Amicus’s cynical view of human nature (and it also gave Pleasence the
opportunity to act alongside his daughter, Angela Pleasence). Most of his
other 1970s credits—which included The Mutations (The Freakmaker)
(1973), Tales That Witness Madness (1973), I Don’t Want to Be Born (The
Devil within Her) (1975), and The Devil’s Men (1976)—were negligible.
However, his role in John Carpenter’s low-budget American slasher film
Halloween (1978) finally made him a horror star. He played Dr. Sam Loomis
(named after a character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho), a psychiatrist who,
contrary to the usual representation of such a figure, carries a gun because he
is convinced that an escaped serial killer is the embodiment of pure evil and
probably not even human. Without overplaying, Pleasence effectively con-
veyed Loomis’s manic and disturbed qualities.
Halloween was a substantial commercial success, and Pleasence went on
to reprise the part of Loomis in Halloween 2 (1981), Halloween 4: The
Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5 (1989), and Halloween: The
Curse of Michael Myers (1995). None of these were particularly impressive,
and generally Pleasence, who always seemed to behave more as a jobbing
actor than as a genre star, showed up in more undistinguished horrors during
the 1980s than was perhaps good for his reputation. There were highlights,
248 • POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809–1849)
however. He was memorable as an ineffectual asylum keeper in Dracula
(1979), played another psychiatrist in the minor but lively maniacs-on-the-
loose drama Alone in the Dark (1982), worked with Dario Argento on the
giallo Phenomena (1985), and was reunited with Carpenter for the supernat-
ural thriller Prince of Darkness (1987), in which he played a priest called
Father Loomis.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809–1849). Filmmakers have regularly raided

Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic fiction for ideas and images, although the intense
nature of his short stories has never lent itself well to transcription into the
feature film format. Accordingly, one tends to find allusions to and quota-
tions from Poe’s work in films rather than direct adaptations. There were
several such treatments of Poe’s stories in the silent period, the most notable
of which was Jean Epstein’s experimental La chute de la maison Usher (The
Fall of the House of Usher) (1928). Robert Florey’s Murders in the Rue
Morgue (1932) borrowed as much from German expressionism as it did
from Poe, while The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935) took their titles
from Poe but little else. Producer-director Roger Corman’s 1960s cycle of
Poe adaptations—which included House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendu-
lum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven
(1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia
(1964)—managed to evoke some of Poe’s morbidity, although the story lines
usually had little or nothing to do with the stories or poems from which they
were allegedly adapted; Corman’s The Haunted Palace (1963) was marketed
as a Poe film, although it was actually an adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft
story. Histoires extraordinaires (Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Spirits of
the Dead) (1968) was a more upmarket European horror anthology based on
Poe’s stories that gathered together short films from Federico Fellini, Louis
Malle, and Roger Vadim. However, it was equally free with its sources, with
Fellini’s contribution proving the only one of note. Since then, Poe has been
repeatedly credited as a source in films too numerous to list here, although in
most cases one struggles to find anything of Poe’s original work in them. An
undead Poe shows up as a character in the Amicus anthology Torture Gar-
den (1967) and looks suitably fed up. Poe also features as a character in
Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt (2011) and in the serial killer film The
Raven (2012).

POINT OF VIEW. In cinema, point-of-view shots are those shots designat-

ed as offering what a character within the film in question is actually seeing.
Such shots are usually preceded or followed by shots of that character in the
act of looking, with this confirming that what we have just seen or are about
 POLANSKI, ROMAN (1933–) • 249
to see is through the character’s eyes. Point-of-view shots of this kind are
present in a wide range of films, including horror. However, the horror genre
also has a more specialized use for point of view.
The widely held belief in film criticism that the point-of-view technique
helps to establish an audience’s identification with the character who is look-
ing is thrown into some disarray when confronted with horror’s practice of
assigning point-of-view shots to its monsters or killers. This particular de-
ployment of point of view first became apparent during the 1950s, when
many science fiction/horror movies featured the point of view of the alien or
monster as it advanced on its (usually female) victim. More controversial
was the reliance of the American slasher film of the late 1970s and early
1980s on showing the killer’s point of view as he stalked and assaulted his
(again usually female) victim. On their initial release, some critics claimed
that these films were inviting audiences—and, by implication, mainly male
audiences—to identify with the killer’s sadism, with the slashers thus ren-
dered an expression of misogyny.
Other critics have since questioned whether the point-of-view technique in
itself can lead to character identification, especially in horror, where the
villains are often so repellent and ugly. As if to underline the obstacles placed
in the way of any simple identification, the point of view of monsters in
horror films is itself often made strange or alienating. In 1950s films, distort-
ing lenses were sometimes used to denote the alien identity of the monster,
while the slasher’s point-of-view shots frequently deployed an obtrusive
shaky camera. The fact that the slasher rarely showed the killer until the end
of the film also potentially destabilized any straightforward audience identifi-
cation with such a figure. The extent to which horror spectators are some-
times invited to enjoy acts of sadistic violence, regardless of who is perpe-
trating them, remains debatable. However, an influential strand in horror
criticism argues that horror offers as much a masochistic experience as it
does a sadistic one. In this instance, the killer’s point of view can provide a
good vantage point on the victim, who, in her or his fear and terror, can
become the main figure of identification.

POLANSKI, ROMAN (1933–). The films of Polish director Roman Polan-

ski have frequently engaged with horror themes, albeit from an idiosyncratic
perspective. He has shown himself adept at the psychological thriller, from
his Polish feature debut Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water) (1962) to the
British-set Cul-de-sac (1966) and the more recent Bitter Moon (1992) and
Death and the Maiden (1994). Repulsion (1965), his first English-language
film, was an intense study of psychological breakdown in which a young
French woman (played by Catherine Deneuve) based in London goes mad
for no apparent reason. Here, Polanski puts us inside the distorted subjectiv-
ity of this character as she fantasizes about walls splitting open and arms
250 • POSSESSION
reaching out to grab her. Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless Vampire
Killers) (1967) was ostensibly a more cheerful affair, although in its own
way it turned out to be just as dark as Repulsion. The film affectionately
spoofed Hammer-style period horror while at the same time containing
some chilling sequences, not least the vampire dance itself. The film’s con-
clusion—in which vampirism is let loose on the world—was one of the
darkest to a horror film from this period and anticipated later despairing
finishes not just from Polanski but from other directors as well.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Polanski’s first Hollywood production, dealt
with a woman discovering that she had apparently been impregnated by the
Devil and has given birth to the Antichrist; the film’s ambiguous ending
showed Rosemary seeming to accept the baby as her own. Along with
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), Rosemary’s Baby has
been seen as inaugurating the modern American horror film. However, it
was very different in style and tone from Romero’s work—glossy and slyly
humorous as opposed to Night’s relentlessly apocalyptic approach.
More than most directors, Polanski’s biography has often been invoked to
explain the peculiar character of his work. He certainly suffered traumatic
experiences during World War II as a Jewish child in German-occupied
Poland. More trauma came after the release of Rosemary’s Baby, when Shar-
on Tate, Polanski’s pregnant wife, was murdered by followers of Charles
Manson. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), which
marked Polanski’s return to direction after this appalling incident, was one of
the most despairing cinematic renditions of Shakespeare’s tale and brimmed
with violent horror imagery. Subsequently, Polanski made what many critics
consider to be his masterpiece: the period crime drama Chinatown (1974).
Shortly thereafter, he was convicted of the statutory rape of an underage girl
and fled the United States. The European-based films that followed included
well-crafted literary adaptations Tess (1979) and Oliver Twist (2005) as well
as The Pianist (2002), an adaptation of a novel about Poland during World
War II. However, there were also two effective fantasy films. Le Locataire
(The Tenant) (1976) was a fine study of urban alienation that can be linked
thematically with Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby and that featured an excel-
lent performance from Polanski himself (who since childhood has had an
intermittent second career as a screen actor). The Ninth Gate (1999) was a
more playful supernatural thriller, albeit one that lacked some of the more
disturbing elements that had characterized much of Polanski’s earlier work.

POSSESSION. Until recently, possession by demons or spirits has not been

a major theme in horror cinema, which has tended to have a preference for
more visible and solid monsters. Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) (1924),
Supernatural (1933), The Innocents (1961), Diary of a Madman (1963), and
Roger Corman’s The Haunted Palace (1963) were isolated examples of
 POWELL, MICHAEL (1905–1990) • 251
horrors that explored fearful scenarios in which characters had their bodies
and/or minds taken over by an external force or personality, with the empha-
sis primarily on the psychological. In the early 1970s, Hammer also engaged
with the subject from a psychological perspective with the innovative Blood
from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971) and Hands of the Ripper (1971), in which
Jack the Ripper’s daughter found herself possessed by the spirit of her
father. The American production The Mephisto Waltz (1971) offered a wild
narrative involving the transmigration of souls, while the more ambitious The
Possession of Joel Delaney (1972) deployed elements of social critique in a
drama involving rich white people being possessed by a spirit emanating
from the ethnic underclass.
The phenomenally successful The Exorcist (1973) introduced a new vis-
ceral quality into its dramatization of a young girl possessed by a demon and
focused more on the business of exorcism than it did on psychological mat-
ters. Inevitably, other similarly themed films quickly appeared, including the
blaxploitation horror Abby (1974), from Italy L’Anticristo (The Antichrist)
(1974) and Chi Sei (Beyond the Door, The Devil within Her) (1974), and
from Spain La endemoniada (Demon Witch Child, The Possessed) (1975)
and Exorcismo (Exorcism) (1975). The Exorcist itself generated several se-
quels, while Curtis Harrington’s Ruby (1977) and Robert Wise’s Audrey
Rose (1977) dealt in a quieter, less gory way with stories involving posses-
sion by ghosts. After this flurry of activity, possession receded as a horror
theme. Demonic possession featured in John Carpenter’s Prince of Dark-
ness (1987), Fallen (1998), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), and Re-
quiem (2006), while more comic versions were offered by Sam Raimi’s Evil
Dead films and Ghostbusters (1984). However, a series of recent horror films
have reengaged enthusiastically with the idea of demonic and spectral pos-
session, often via the haunted house and found footage formats. Examples
include Paranormal Activity (2007) and its sequels, Insidious (2010), The
Last Exorcism (2010), The Rite (2011), Sinister (2012), The Devil Inside
(2012), The Conjuring (2013), Deliver Us from Evil (2014), and The Vatican
Tapes (2015).
A significant generic subcategory has been formed by science fiction/
horror hybrids in which humans are possessed by aliens. Such films have
included the various versions of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers story,
Invaders from Mars (1953), Quatermass II (Enemy from Space) (1957), Qua-
termass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth) (1967), Tobe Hooper’s
Lifeforce (1985) and Invaders from Mars (1986), The Faculty (1998), and
The Astronaut’s Wife (1999).

POWELL, MICHAEL (1905–1990). There was a rich vein of fantasy run-

ning through the 1940s and 1950s films that British director Michael Powell
made in collaboration with the writer Emeric Pressburger. The wartime pro-
252 • PREQUELS
duction A Canterbury Tale (1944) featured the sinister Glueman, a mysteri-
ous figure who sneaked up on women in the dark and poured glue into their
hair. His motivation for such behavior turned out to be reasonable, at least
within the film’s terms, although in retrospect he looked like an early version
of the serial killer who would show up in a later Powell film. A Matter of
Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Red Shoes (1948) all
contained stylized representations of mental disturbance, while The Tales of
Hoffman (1951) offered a more playful treatment of fantasy themes. Howev-
er, it was a film made by Powell without the input of Pressburger that took
him unambiguously into horror territory. Peeping Tom (1960) was a psycho-
logical thriller about a serial killer who, with the aid of a combination of
camera and mirror, filmed his female victims as they watched themselves
die. There are some obvious parallels with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960) inasmuch as the young serial killers in both are presented with a
degree of sympathy. But the self-reflexivity apparent in Powell’s film, with
numerous references to cameras and the act of looking, arguably rendered it a
more confrontational and provocative experience. In any event, its release in
Great Britain was greeted with critical outrage. It is now widely considered
by critics to be one of the greatest British films ever made. See also BRITISH
HORROR.

PREQUELS. Until the turn of the millennium, prequels were an unusual

thing in horror cinema. Perhaps the oddest was the British production The
Nightcomers (1971), which was a prequel not to any film but rather to Henry
James’s famous ghost story “The Turn of the Screw” (1898), which had been
filmed as The Innocents (1961) by Jack Clayton. Because The Nightcomers
depicted the characters who were ghosts in the original at a time when they
were still alive, it ceased to be a ghost story and indeed located itself more
generally on the margins of the horror genre. Amityville II: The Possession
(1982), which gave part of the backstory of the haunted Amityville house,
was a more conventional prequel. So were the television movie Psycho IV:
The Beginning (1990), and Ring O (2000), both of which depicted the early
lives of, respectively, serial killer Norman Bates and ghost-to-be Sadako
(while from 2013 on, the television series Bates Motel offered yet more of
the young Norman Bates). Such projects illustrated both the advantages and
the limitations of the prequel format. On the one hand, suspense is often
attenuated in a prequel because we generally know how the stories are going
to turn out—no one will escape the Amityville house, Norman Bates will kill
his mother, and Sadako will die and become a ghost. At the same time,
events can acquire an awful inevitability precisely because we do know what
is going to happen before the characters themselves do.
 PRICE, DENNIS (1915–1973) • 253
Throughout the 2000s, horror prequels became more common, possibly
reflecting the increasingly complex temporal structures evident in new horror
cycles and franchises. The Exorcist (1973) generated two prequels, Exorcist:
The Beginning (2004) and Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (2005), while
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) managed three: Red Dragon (2002), Hanni-
bal Rising (2007), and the television series Hannibal (2013–2015). Else-
where, prequels were sometimes dropped into ongoing horror cycles as a
way of providing elements of variation and surprise, such as with Ginger
Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The
Beginning (2006), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), Paranormal Ac-
tivity 3 (2011), and Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015). Final Destination 5 (2011)
was slightly different inasmuch as the fact that the film was a prequel was
concealed until the conclusion, where it was revealed as a plot twist, while
Annabelle (2014) was more of a sidebar to The Conjuring (2013), which had
introduced the possessed doll Annabelle, than it was a prequel to it. Confus-
ingly, The Thing (2011) had the same title as the film to which it was a
prequel, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and was generally seen as a
belated and unnecessary addition to the original.

PRICE, DENNIS (1915–1973). The British actor Dennis Price started out
with some impressive credits, including the ghost story A Place of One’s
Own (1945), Michael Powell’s A Canterbury Tale (1944), and the Ealing
comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in most cases playing supercil-
ious roles. From the 1950s on, however, his career was in gradual decline,
with his increasing reliance on supporting appearances in low-budget horror
films a sign of this. He worked on two of Terence Fisher’s lesser films: the
comedy-horror The Horror of It All (1964) and the alien invasion fantasy The
Earth Dies Screaming (1964). He also showed up, in fairly insignificant
parts, in the voodoo thriller Curse of Simba (1965); Michael Armstrong’s
The Haunted House of Horror (1969); two Hammer horrors, The Horror of
Frankenstein (1970) and Twins of Evil (1971); and the rural horror Tower
of Evil (1972). Theater of Blood (1973) and Horror Hospital (1973) gave
him the opportunity to ham it up in an enjoyable manner. Less entertaining
were the films he made with exploitation specialist Jesus Franco, in which
he seemed a lost and depressed figure. These included Vampyros lesbos
(Lesbian Vampires) (1971), Les expériences érotiques de Frankenstein (The
Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, The Curse of Frankenstein) (1972), and
Drácula contra Frankenstein (Dracula vs. Dr. Frankenstein) (1972). His
final film was Freddie Francis’s bizarre horror-musical Son of Dracula
(1974).
254 • PRICE, VINCENT (1911–1993)
PRICE, VINCENT (1911–1993). Some horror stars achieve their stardom
through a key iconic role (e.g., Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster or
Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee as Dracula), but Vincent Price’s associa-
tion with the horror genre developed more gradually. Early in his screen
career, he appeared in the horror-themed historical drama Tower of London
(1939) and also starred as the Invisible Man in The Invisible Man Returns
(1940) as well as offering an uncredited cameo in the same role for Abbott &
Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). His first major role in a horror film was
as the scarred sculptor in House of Wax (1953), but neither this nor a similar
part in The Mad Magician (1954), nor even an appearance as the Devil in The
Story of Mankind (1957), led to his being typecast as a horror actor, and Price
continued to work in a variety of genres. In fact, it was not until the late
1950s that Price became firmly associated with the genre, beginning with
The Fly (1958) and its sequel Return of the Fly (1959) and two films for
producer-director William Castle: House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The
Tingler (1959). Price’s performance style, which to modern eyes can seem
theatrical, arch, and sometimes slightly camp, was particularly suited to Cas-
tle’s jokey, gimmick-ridden horror films, and it also translated well into a
series of films the actor then made with director Roger Corman, films that
would finally secure his status as a horror star.
Price’s overwrought performance as the neurotic Roderick Usher in House
of Usher (1960), Corman’s adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story, perfect-
ly expressed that film’s sense of morbid masculine psychology. Subsequent
starring roles in further Corman–Poe projects—including Pit and the Pendu-
lum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962, in which Price played three roles), The
Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963, actually an H. P. Lovecraft adap-
tation with a few references to Poe thrown in for good measure), The Masque
of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)—afforded Price
opportunities to refine and develop this persona, modulating it into outright
madness in Pit and the Pendulum and into sadistic villainy in The Masque of
the Red Death while playing it for laughs in the comedy-horror The Raven.
Other Price roles during the first half of the 1960s—for example, his turns in
Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962), Tower of London (1962, a remake of
the film in which Price himself had appeared in the late 1930s), Diary of a
Madman (1963), Twice-Told Tales (1963), and The Comedy of Terrors
(1963)—were comparably mannered and occasionally self-parodic. It was
not until the late 1960s that Price assayed a more serious role as the witch
finder Matthew Hopkins in director Michael Reeves’s British production
Witchfinder General (1968). Apparently, there was some tension on set be-
tween the young director and his star about how the role was to be played,
with Reeves preferring a more realistic performance than Price was accus-
tomed to delivering. Despite Price’s reservations, the resulting film is one of
his finest and displays his qualities as an actor more than any of his later
 PSYCHO (1960) • 255
films would. In these, he tended to revert to the theatrical acting style with
which he was clearly more comfortable. His best role of this type was one for
which such an approach was wholly appropriate, namely, the murderous
actor Edward Lionheart in the witty British horror Theater of Blood (1973).
He was also impressive, albeit under heavy makeup, as the similarly over-
the-top Dr. Phibes in the stylish The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and its
sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972).
Price’s later horror films were undistinguished, although he did find a new
youthful audience through his narration of director Tim Burton’s animated
short Vincent (1982), through a brief cameo appearance in Burton’s Edward
Scissorhands (1990), and, most of all, through providing a voice-over for the
Michael Jackson hit song “Thriller” in 1983.
Price’s other credits include The Bat (1959), Master of the World (1961),
The Last Man on Earth (1964), The City under the Sea (1965), Scream and
Scream Again (1969), The Oblong Box (1969), Cry of the Banshee (1970),
Madhouse (1974), The Monster Club (1980), House of the Long Shadows
(1983), Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984), The Offspring (From a
Whisper to a Scream ) (1987), and Dead Heat (1988).

PSYCHO (1960). Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a key film in the develop-

ment of modern American horror. Its representation of psychosexual horror
played out within recognizably modern settings would be developed further
in numerous American horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. Its now famous
killing off of its heroine well before the conclusion also anticipated the
genre’s later reliance on shock effects (although few filmmakers went as far
as Hitchcock). Psycho was based on a novel by Robert Bloch that in turn
had been inspired by the exploits of real-life serial killer Ed Gein. While
Bloch’s work often had a tongue-in-cheek quality, Hitchcock’s Psycho of-
fered a more provocative sly humor in its depiction of the transvestite serial
killer Norman Bates—played, in a career-defining performance, by Anthony
Perkins—as well as one of horror’s great set pieces in the much-analyzed
and much-imitated shower murder. In addition, Bernard Herrmann’s inno-
vative strings-only score for the film has also proved influential on subse-
quent horror music.
For all of Psycho’s success, a sequel was a long time coming, perhaps
because Hitchcock’s canonical status as “The Master of Suspense” was so
intimidating to later filmmakers. When it did finally appear, Psycho 2 (1983),
which was directed by Richard Franklin, was a much better film than many
critics had predicted. It depicted Norman Bates—still played by Perkins—
being released from an asylum and returning to the now notorious Bates
Motel. The narrative was full of inventive touches and twists, but it also
offered a sympathetic portrayal of Bates as someone ill suited to life outside
of a mental institution. Hitchcock’s Psycho had also presented this character
256 • PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
with a degree of sympathy, but Psycho 2 transformed him into a sensitive,
misunderstood hero whose violence became acts of defense against people
who were out to get him. Psycho 3 (1986) contained more of the same,
although the direction, this time by Perkins himself, was assured and had
some effective Hitchcockian moments.
Both of the next two Psycho films were made for television. Richard
Rothstein’s Bates Motel (1987) was a pilot for a never-made series that, as its
title indicated, took place in the Bates Motel but did not feature Norman
Bates. This was rectified for Mick Garris’s Psycho IV: The Beginning
(1990), a kind of prequel in which Perkins/Bates reminisces about his early
days. Odder still was a 1998 remake of the original Psycho that was directed
by Gus Van Sant and that featured Vince Vaughan as Norman Bates and
Anne Heche as the shower murder victim Marion Crane. Remaking a “clas-
sic” is always fraught with danger, and Van Sant’s film—which is not the
shot-for-shot copy that some have claimed it to be—was not well received by
critics. More successful critically was the television series Bates Motel
(2013–), another prequel dramatizing the relationship between a young Nor-
man Bates (played by Freddie Highmore) and his mother (played by Vera
Farmiga).

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER. The label “psychological thriller” has

been applied, often loosely or vaguely, to different types of film. It usually
refers to narratives with domesticated settings in which action is suppressed
and where the thrills are provided instead via investigations of the psycholo-
gies of principal characters. There is nothing intrinsically horror-like about
the psychological thriller. However, post-1950s horror cinema has increas-
ingly deployed psychological concepts and scenarios, and consequently there
is a category of psychological thriller that sits, sometimes uncomfortably,
between the genres of crime and horror. The extent to which any thriller is
one thing or another depends on a number of factors. If there is an emphasis
on especially morbid or sick psychologies, if there is a lot of violence or gore
in the narrative, or if the intended effect on the audience involves a signifi-
cant dimension of fear or shock, then the film in question is more likely to be
considered a horror film. The marketing of particular films and the ways in
which they are received by audiences can also have an effect on generic
designations, and sometimes there might not be a consensus about where a
film belongs. For example, the serial killer drama The Silence of the Lambs
(1991) was initially marketed more as a dark thriller than as a horror (pre-
sumably to differentiate it from the teenage horror films that were popular
at the time). However, horror fans have frequently claimed the film as horror
on their websites and in their fanzines.
 PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER • 257
It was the commercial success of two films in particular that arguably
helped to push horror toward the psychological: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s
French thriller Les Diaboliques (1954) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960). Both generated an intensely morbid and claustrophobic atmosphere,
and both also contained supreme moments of shock-horror, namely, the ap-
parent resurrection of a corpse in Les Diaboliques and the shower murder in
Psycho. Although Les Diaboliques is rarely thought of as a horror film in its
own right, American producer-director William Castle was inspired by it to
create his own series of psychological thrillers that were insistently marketed
as horror, including Macabre (1958) and the later Psycho-influenced Homi-
cidal (1961). Similarly, the British Hammer company inaugurated its own
series of psychological thrillers that usually had Psycho-like titles and twisty
Diaboliques-style plot and that were designed to complement its period hor-
rors (and that often featured on double bills with those period horrors); these
included A Taste of Fear (Scream of Fear) (1961), Maniac (1963), Para-
noiac (1963), Hysteria (1965), and Fanatic (Die! Die! My Darling!) (1965).
The Italian giallo horror-thrillers also put great emphasis on the psychologi-
cal in their convoluted and violent invocations of disturbed minds. Even
some 1960s period horrors, notably the adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s
writings by Roger Corman, focused more on extreme psychological states
than they did on traditional horror monsters to the extent that they too might
be considered psychological thrillers.
The apocalyptic and socially critical elements prevalent in 1970s
American horror cinema tended to lead it away from such psychological
thrills, although isolated psychological horrors, such as The Other (1972) and
Communion (Alice, Sweet Alice) (1976), did appear, and giallo films contin-
ued to proliferate in Europe. The American slasher films of the late 1970s
and 1980s did not have much time for the psychological, but later serial killer
films—such as The Silence of the Lambs, Seven (1995), and Copycat
(1995)—have powerfully reinstated a sense of psychological dysfunctional-
ity as a source of fear and terror. As noted above, the extent to which such
films are viewed as belonging to the horror genre is largely dependent on the
person actually viewing them. However, the importance of the psychological
to the modern horror film is undeniable.
 Q
QUARRY, ROBERT (1925–2009). For a brief period during the 1970s, the
American Robert Quarry became a horror star. Throughout the 1950s and
1960s, he was a jobbing character actor who worked mainly on American
television. However, he was then cast in the titular role of American Inter-
national Pictures’ modern-day vampire film Count Yorga Vampire (1970).
Quarry’s height and his aristocratic demeanor suited him perfectly to the
European vampire transplanted to a California setting, and he conveyed with
relish the necessary villainous smugness and arrogance. The film’s sequel,
The Return of Count Yorga (1971), offered more of the same on a slightly
larger budget. Subsequently, American International Pictures, keen to pro-
mote Quarry as its new star, cast him in two of its British productions, the
sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) and Madhouse (1974), in both of
which he featured alongside established horror stalwarts Peter Cushing and
Vincent Price. Quarry also appeared to some effect as a vampiric cult leader
in the hippie horror The Deathmaster (1972) and as a mobster in the blax-
ploitation horror Sugar Hill (1974).
For all his considerable screen presence and charisma, Quarry’s main-
stream horror career was over by the mid-1970s. He spent his later years
appearing in some ultra-low-budget independent productions, many of them
horror themed and directed by Fred Olen Ray.

259
 R
RAIMI, SAM (1959–). The American writer-producer-director Sam Raimi’s
horror debut was the audacious The Evil Dead (1981). A classic example of
rural horror, its narrative featured some young people heading out into the
woods, where they inadvertently summon up some demons. Based on Within
the Woods, a short film shot by Raimi on Super 8, the film combined extreme
violence and gore with images of demonic possession and gross-out slap-
stick humor; its narrative also included references to the work of horror
writer H. P. Lovecraft. Inventive camera work and staging, along with a
grandstanding performance from Bruce Campbell, helped to disguise the
film’s ultracheapness and separated it clearly from the more restrained horror
being offered elsewhere under the slasher label. It might have seemed imma-
ture in comparison with some of the ambitious and weighty horrors produced
in the United States during the 1970s, but, despite a certain unevenness, The
Evil Dead was energetic and original. It eventually became a considerable
commercial success, although it ran into serious difficulties with British cen-
sorship authorities during the “video nasties” scare of the early 1980s.
Crimewave (1985), Raimi’s next film, was a disappointing thriller, but the
director bounced back with Evil Dead II (1987), which was part a sequel to
and part a remake of the original Evil Dead. This time, the set pieces were
more spectacular, and the humor was a more prominent feature, and while
some of the edginess of the original was lacking, Evil Dead II was a confi-
dent reworking of the material that successfully maintained the right balance
between the comedy and the horror. Darkman (1990), a horror-themed
superhero story, was more effective than Crimewave but less effective than
either of the Evil Dead films, suggesting that Raimi could really function
fully as a director only within a narrow range of material. When Army of
Darkness—Evil Dead 3 (1992) turned out to be the weakest film in the Evil
Dead cycle, it seemed as if Raimi’s career might be in trouble.
As if to demonstrate that this was not the case, Raimi spent the next few
years working away from the horror genre, with his films including a west-
ern (The Quick and the Dead) (1995), a thriller (A Simple Plan) (1998), and
a baseball film (For Love of the Game) (1999). When he returned to horror

261
262 • RAINS, CLAUDE (1889–1967)
with The Gift (2000), he had become a very different type of filmmaker, less
frantic and more measured in the way he created atmosphere and told a story.
The narrative of The Gift was not particularly original—a woman with me-
diumistic powers becomes involved in a murder investigation—but the film
was evocative and beautifully made.
Since then, Raimi has acquired A-list status through his direction of Spi-
derman (2002), Spiderman 2 (2004), Spiderman 3 (2007), and Oz the Great
and Powerful (2013), and he returned again to horror with the highly effec-
tive Drag Me to Hell (2009). He has also been active as a producer, with his
credits including Takashi Shimizu’s The Grudge (2004), The Boogeyman
(2005), The Grudge 2 (2005), The Messengers (2007), 30 Days of Night
(2007), The Possession (2012), and the remakes Evil Dead (2013) and Pol-
tergeist (2015) as well as two sequels to Darkman and the television series
Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015–), for which he also directed an episode. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

RAINS, CLAUDE (1889–1967). The British actor Claude Rains’s first ma-
jor screen role was as the title character in James Whale’s The Invisible
Man (1933). Although he was glimpsed at the end of the film, his perfor-
mance was necessarily conveyed almost entirely through his rich, melliflu-
ous voice. It was the beginning of a distinguished Hollywood career, high-
lights of which included Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Now Voyag-
er (1942), Casablanca (1942), and Notorious (1946). However, Rains did
return occasionally to the genre that had made him a star, albeit usually in its
more upmarket version. He was a psychic in the British production The
Clairvoyant (1934), John Jasper in Universal’s gothic adaptation of Charles
Dickens’s Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935), and Lon Chaney Jr.’s father in
The Wolf Man (1941). He also played the Phantom in Arthur Lubin’s taste-
ful Phantom of the Opera (1943) and the Devil in the gangster/horror hybrid
Angel on My Shoulder (1946). Toward the end of his career, Rains was
directed by Italian horror specialist Antonio Margheriti in the low-budget
alien invasion fantasy Il pianeta degli uomini spenti (Battle of the Worlds)
(1961).

RATHBONE, BASIL (1892–1967). The actor Basil Rathbone was often

cast as a villain, but he was also cinema’s definitive Sherlock Holmes.
Gaunt and authoritative, he appeared on-screen 14 times in the role, and a
number of these films utilized horror conventions. Most notable in this re-
spect was Rathbone’s debut, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), along
with The Scarlet Claw (1944), The Pearl of Death (1944), and Sherlock
Holmes and the House of Fear (1945). Rathbone was also Wolf Franken-
stein in Rowland Lee’s Son of Frankenstein (1939), the third film in Uni-
 [REC] (2007) • 263
versal’s Frankenstein cycle, and featured in the historical horror Tower of
London (1939) for the same director as well as showing up in the horror
spoof The Black Cat (1941). Later appearances in horror films were not quite
so dignified. In The Black Sleep (1956), he was cast alongside horror stal-
warts John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., and Bela Lugosi, but the resulting
film was a listless affair. Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1962) and
Jacques Tourneur’s The Comedy of Terrors (1964) were better, with Rath-
bone delivering a fine comic performance in the latter. He appeared only
briefly in Curtis Harrington’s science fiction/horror oddity Queen of Blood
(1966). His last three films—the comedy-horror The Ghost in the Invisible
Bikini (1966), Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967), and the Mexican hor-
ror film Autopsia de un fantasma (Autopsy of a Ghost) (1968)—are best
forgotten.

RAVEN, MIKE (1924–1997). Mike Raven, a British disc jockey turned

actor, aspired to horror stardom. He certainly looked sufficiently sinister and
had a suitably chilling name (i.e., once he had changed it from his real name
of Austin Churton Fairman); apparently, he even had a real-life interest in
occult matters. Sadly, he did not have much screen presence. Supporting
roles in I, Monster (1970) and Lust for a Vampire (1971) failed to make an
impact. Crucible of Terror (1971) and Disciple of Death (1972), the two
films in which he starred (and which he helped to finance), were not finan-
cially successful, and Raven’s horror career, such as it was, came to an
abrupt end.

RAY, FRED OLEN (1954–). The indefatigable American writer-producer-

director Fred Olen Ray is a low-budget exploitation specialist who has
dipped regularly into the horror genre. There is a certain inventiveness appar-
ent in some of his titles—Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) is surely a
kind of exploitation classic—but the formula is usually predictable, involv-
ing scenes of horror combined with female nudity and self-deprecating hu-
mor. His directorial credits include The Brain Leeches (1977), Alien Dead
(1980), Scalps (1983), Biohazard (1985), The Phantom Empire (1986), The
Tomb (1986), Beverly Hills Vamp (1988), Scream Queen Hot Tub Party
(1991), Spirits (1991), Haunting Fear (1991), Evil Toons (1992), Witch
Academy (1993), Possessed by the Night (1994), Night Shade (1997), Side-
show (2000), Venomous (2002), Haunting Desires (2004), Tomb of the
Werewolf (2004), and Dire Wolf (2009). He has produced numerous others.

[REC] (2007). The [REC] cycle of films are an important example of con-
temporary Spanish horror cinema. Like much post-2000 European horror,
these films combine internationally recognizable formats and situations that
264 • [REC] (2007)
aid marketability outside Spain with nationally distinctive qualities that help
to distinguish the films from other products in an international horror market.
As directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, [REC] (2007) is a slick
found footage horror that also draws on zombie movie conventions. It de-
picts the events that take place one night in an apartment block in Barcelona
as seen through the camera wielded by a news crew shadowing a team of
firefighters. In a classic proliferating infection scenario, a rabies-like disease
is transforming the inhabitants into ferocious zombie-like creatures who rap-
idly infect others around them. The authorities seal off the building, and the
characters trapped inside have to fight their way to safety. Balagueró and
Plaza successfully generate sequences of intense claustrophobia and sus-
pense and avoid most of the pitfalls associated with found footage. In partic-
ular, they find credible reasons for characters continuing to film at moments
of extreme danger and do not allow the shaking of the handheld camera to
become too distracting. The late introduction of a religious theme—with the
disease apparently emanating from an experiment conducted under the aus-
pices of the Catholic Church—orients the film, for all its international qual-
ities, to Spanish horror traditions.
The sequel [REC] 2 (2009), also directed by Balagueró and Plaza, follows
on directly from the events in the first film and offers much the same in terms
of atmosphere, suspense, and jump scares. It reinforced the religious theme
through showing the main female protagonist from the first film possessed
by a demonic force and, as the film ends, about to escape from the sealed
apartment building. [REC] 3: Génesis (2012), directed by Plaza alone, was a
surprising departure, however. Although it begins in found footage style, this
approach is abandoned not long into the narrative, and the film resorts to
more conventional third-person storytelling. Set at a wedding that experi-
ences an outbreak of the disease, it is eventually revealed that the events are
taking place concurrently with the events of the first and second films. For all
the changes in setting and mode, the film offered much the same manic
zombie activity, survivalist drama, and religious backstory that was evident
earlier in the cycle; perhaps because of this, it was generally deemed less
impactful. The final film in the cycle, [REC] 4: Apocalypse (2014), directed
by Balagueró alone, returned to the main story line developed in the first two
films, maintained the abandonment of the found footage approach, and was
set mainly on a boat where an investigation into the outbreak is being con-
ducted. By this stage, there were very few surprises left in the cycle, but the
film is an efficient and stylish thriller that conjures a satisfying conclusion to
the cycle as a whole.
[REC] was remade as the American horror Quarantine (2008) by John
Erick Dowdle. This was a reasonably faithful transcription of the original,
although it jettisoned the religious themes. The remake was successful
 REEVES, MICHAEL (1943–1969) • 265
enough to generate its own sequel, Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011), directed
by John Pogue. This had no connection with any of the Spanish [REC] films
or indeed with the American film to which it was a sequel.

REED, OLIVER (1938–1999). It was the Hammer company that gave the
British actor Oliver Reed some of his earliest screen parts. After a small role
in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), he was the tormented lycanthrope in
Curse of the Werewolf (1961) and a menacing thug in The Damned (These
Are the Damned) (1963) and Paranoiac (1963). Thereafter, he worked less
frequently in horror but did return occasionally in films of varying quality.
He was back in menacing form in the H. P. Lovecraft adaptation The Shut-
tered Room (1967), played a suffering priest in Ken Russell’s controversial
The Devils (1971), was cast against type as an ordinary family man in Dan
Curtis’s haunted house drama Burnt Offerings (1976), and was suitably
brooding as a misguided scientist in David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).
His later genre credits were less significant, reflecting a career that was in
trouble throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s until his triumphant come-
back in his final film: Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). He was jolly in the
comedy-horror Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980), but Venom (1981), Spasms
(1983), The House of Usher (1988), and The Pit and the Pendulum (1990)
did not make great demands of him.

REEVES, MICHAEL (1943–1969). Critical reactions to the horror films

directed by the British director Michael Reeves have often been colored by
his tragic death at the age of 25 from an accidental drug overdose. In
retrospect, his small but remarkably accomplished body of work appears
grimmer than it probably did on its first release, and the delight in cinema
that seemed to have driven Reeves is not always apparent. While still in
school, he made short films—including some featuring the actor Ian Ogilvy,
who would go on to star in all three of Reeves’s feature films—and in the
early 1960s worked briefly in Hollywood for one of his cinematic idols: the
director Don Siegel. Returning to Britain, he was a runner on a number of
films produced by Irving Allen before heading off to Italy, where he worked
as an assistant on the horror film Il castello dei morti vivi (Castle of the
Living Dead) (1964). Subsequently, he made his own feature directorial de-
but in Italy with the witchcraft drama La sorella di satana (Revenge of the
Blood Beast, The She Beast) (1966), for which he also wrote the screenplay
under the name Michael Byron. Although suffering from severe budgetary
restrictions, the film contained some striking sequences, notably the killing
of the witch Vardella, and featured an appearance from horror icon Barbara
Steele. Both of Reeves’s next two films were shot in Great Britain. In The
Sorcerers (1967), a scientist (played by Boris Karloff) and his wife hypnoti-
266 • REITMAN, IVAN (1946–)
cally take over a young man (played by Ian Ogilvy) and experience all his
physical sensations. Here, Reeves captured perfectly the rootless youth cul-
ture of the late 1960s and how a desire for new experiences could escalate
into something murderous. A similar descent into madness was apparent in
Witchfinder General (1968), which is often considered Reeves’s master-
piece. Ostensibly an account of witch-hunting in England during the 17th
century, the film was actually a powerful revenge drama that owed more than
a little to the American western in terms of its narrative and also made
remarkably effective use of the English rural landscape. In one of horror
cinema’s most disturbing conclusions, the film’s hero (again played by Ian
Ogilvy) beats the witch finder (played by Vincent Price) to death with an ax
while the hero’s violated and tortured wife screams in the background. There
is no sense of justice here but instead an intense portrayal of the destructive-
ness of violence for both the victim and the victimizer.
Largely ignored by critics while alive, Reeves is now recognized as a key
figure in the development of British horror in the late 1960s. He introduced
a more questioning approach to social authority than had been apparent be-
fore in the British horror cycle, while his best work is also imaginative,
stylish, and alive to all the possibilities of cinema.

REITMAN, IVAN (1946–). The producer-director Ivan Reitman has been a

big-budget comedy specialist ever since his success with Ghostbusters
(1984). However, he began his filmmaking career in Canada working on
low-budget horror. His directorial debut was Cannibal Girls (1973), a horror
with strong elements of comedy. He then went on to produce two of David
Cronenberg’s early films, The Parasite Murders (They Came from Within,
Shivers) (1975) and Rabid (1977), along with the rape revenge drama Death
Weekend (1976) and the horror-themed animated feature Heavy Metal
(1981). Ghostbusters itself clearly contained horror elements, with some crit-
ics detecting in it the influence of H. P. Lovecraft. Reitman also directed
Ghostbusters II (1989) and the science fiction/comedy Evolution (2001).

RELIGION. Horror films have often drawn on Christian imagery and

themes. Note, for example, the use made of the crucifix in numerous vam-
pire films; the invoking of biblical concepts in the likes of Rosemary’s Baby
(1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976); or the appearance of
angels in The Prophecy (1995) and Constantine (2005). The extent to which
this renders these and other films as religious texts is far from clear, however.
Horror filmmakers have invested a lot of energy in conjuring up forces
antithetical to Christianity. Satanists have figured in, among many others,
The Seventh Victim (1943), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Race with the Devil
(1975), End of Days (1999), Bless the Child (2000), and Lost Souls (2000),
 REMAKES • 267
while pagans have gone about their sacrificial business in Blood on Satan’s
Claw (Satan’s Skin) (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973), among others. Yet
the representatives of goodness are usually figured as a secular group, with
the priests who do show up—in The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror (1979),
Stigmata (1999), The Sin-Eater (2003), and The Rite (2011)—deeply trou-
bled figures. The American horror The Conjuring (2013) is a rare example
of a film in which the protagonists’ Christian beliefs are presented as a
normal, integral part of their characters and a source of strength for them.
The period drama The Witch (2015) is more typical in that its characters’
religious convictions do not protect them from disaster. It might be argued
from this that horror films have tended to play out in a thoroughly secular-
ized world in which religious belief still possesses a residual power but
where it is nevertheless marginal. Certainly, the struggle between good and
evil in the horror genre has customarily been presented—on the side of good
at least—in thoroughly human terms, with little explicit appeal to Christian
beliefs and little or no hope of divine intervention. In fact, on the rare occa-
sion in horror where there is divine intervention—such as in the third Omen
film, The Final Conflict (1981)—it has usually been perceived, by fans and
critics, as something of a cop-out. It seems that if we are to be saved in
horror, we are required to do it ourselves.
Critics writing about the East Asian horror film have often detected refer-
ences to non-Christian religious belief systems, and in part the strangeness of
some of these films to Western eyes might well derive from this unfamiliar
framework. However, as is the case with Western horror, these Asian horrors
have not offered themselves as being explicitly religious.

REMAKES. The development of the horror genre has been more reliant on
sequels than it has been on remakes (as long as one discounts the various
film adaptations of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
which are more returns to literary originals than they are remakes of previous
films). Some silent horrors of the 1920s were remade as sound films in the
1930s—notably The Unholy Three (1925) under the same title in 1930, Lon-
don after Midnight (1927) as Mark of the Vampire (1935) (with both directed
by Tod Browning, who also directed the original version of The Unholy
Three), the horror spoof The Cat and the Canary (1927) as Le voluntad del
muerto (a Hollywood-produced Spanish-language version also known as The
Cat Creeps) (1930) and The Cat and the Canary (1939) (and remade again in
1978), and The Gorilla (1927), another horror spoof, remade in 1930 and
1939 with the same title both times. There was also a small cluster of appar-
ent remakes in the early 1960s, although these turned out to have very little to
do with their illustrious originals as far as either content or style were con-
cerned. They included What a Carve Up! (1961) (from the 1933 British
268 • REMAKES
horror film The Ghoul), The Cabinet of Caligari (1962) (from the 1919
masterpiece of German expressionism Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari), and
The Old Dark House (1963) (from James Whale’s 1932 original).
One has to wait until the late 1970s for a more purposeful set of remakes to
appear, remakes that engaged with the originals in a provocative and revi-
sionary manner. Key examples were Werner Herzog’s German production
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampyre) (1979) from F. W.
Murnau’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony
of Terror) (1922), John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) from Howard
Hawks’s version of The Thing from Another World (1951), and David Cro-
nenberg’s The Fly (1986) from the 1958 original. In all of these, old-fash-
ioned moral certainties were replaced by modern doubts and anxieties, with
classic horror myths reworked to such an extent that they threatened to be-
come redundant.
Other contemporary horror remakes, especially in American cinema, have
offered more straightforward updatings of original material, often as a way of
retelling stories to audiences not old enough to have seen them on their initial
cinematic release. Tom Savini’s 1990 remake of George Romero’s Night of
the Living Dead (1968) is an early example. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
(1978) was also remade in 2004, as was Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain-
saw Massacre (1974) in 2003, John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) in 2005,
and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) in 2006. For most of these,
the creators of the originals were involved in their production, with this
helping to explain the respectful attitude adopted by the remakes to their
source material. Production values tended to be higher and the films glossier,
with the edginess of the originals sometimes lost in the process of revision.
Less respectful were looser remakes of William Castle’s The House on
Haunted Hill (1959) in 1999 and 13 Ghosts (1960) in 2001 or Tobe Hooper’s
2004 retelling of the obscure The Toolbox Murders (1978), while a series of
remakes that dared to take on established horror classics, notably The Haunt-
ing (1999), The Wicker Man (2006), and, most of all, Psycho (1998), re-
ceived little commercial success or critical love.
Other remakes of American or Canadian originals that vary in both their
adherence to the originals and their quality include The Amityville Horror
(2005), It’s Alive (2005), Black Christmas (2006), When a Stranger Calls
(2006), Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007), Prom Night (2008), Friday the
13th (2009), Last House on the Left (2009), The Crazies (2010), Don’t Be
Afraid of the Dark (2010), Mother’s Day (2010), A Nightmare on Elm Street
(2010), Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D (2010), Fright Night (2011), Evil Dead
(2013), Carrie (2013), and Poltergeist (2015). The recent acceleration in the
number of remakes within the genre suggests that a new generation of film-
makers is appropriating some of the horror films with which they grew up.
 RESIDENT EVIL (2002) • 269
In a different way, contemporary American remakes of Japanese horror
films, such as Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (Ring) (1998) as The Ring (2002) and
Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) (2002) as Dark Water (2005)
and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) as The Grudge (2004),
have appropriated them for Western use, although this process is complicated
by the involvement of the original filmmakers in the remakes—with Shimizu
directing the remake of his own original and Nakata directing the American
sequel The Ring 2 (2005). These and other remakes of Asian horror films—
including Pulse (2006), The Eye (2008), Mirrors (2008), One Missed Call
(2008), and The Uninvited (2009)—have arguably refreshed the American
version of the genre through the introduction into it of new iconography and
subject matter, while the remakes themselves are often sufficiently different
from the originals to be rated as films in their own right. Much the same can
be said of American remakes of other non-English-speaking horror films,
notably Quarantine (2008) from the Spanish horror [REC] (2007), Let Me
In (2010) from the Scandinavian horror Låt den rätte komma in (Let the
Right One In) (2008), We Are What We Are (2013) from the Mexican horror
Somos lo que hay (2010), and Martyrs (2016) from the 2008 French horror
film of the same name. In any event, in a genre that is as commercially driven
as horror, one can reasonably expect that remakes and sequels will continue
to be the order of the day.

RESIDENT EVIL (2002). The Resident Evil films have proved the most
consistently successful of all computer game adaptations. The original Japa-
nese game first appeared in 1996 and has gone through many versions since
then. It offers scenarios based around zombie outbreaks and genetic muta-
tions brought about by the sinister Umbrella corporation. The first film in the
cycle, Resident Evil (2002), maintained this focus in its depiction of a viral
outbreak within a top-secret subterranean Umbrella research facility. In what
would become a common pattern for the series, the main protagonist, Alice
(played in all the films by Milla Jovovich), fights her way through high-tech
traps and bands of zombies while accompanied by some usually dispensable
assistants. As written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, the film offered
a slick package of action, science fiction, and zombie-based horror.
The other Resident Evil films do not deviate noticeably from the formula
established by the first film, but they do make more effort than is usual in
generic film cycles of this kind to distinguish the films from each other and
to elaborate on the formula, often in bizarre and idiosyncratic ways. Thus,
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), directed by Alexander Witt, ranges across
an entire city infested with zombies, while Resident Evil: Extinction (2007),
directed by Russell Mulcahy, depicts the apocalyptic collapse of society on a
global scale. The films also develop the theme of cloning, which permits the
existence throughout the remainder of the series of multiple versions of the
270 • REVENGE OF NATURE
same character and enables characters who die in one film to return later on.
Appropriately, Resident Evil: Extinction concludes with a veritable army of
Alices about to launch an all-out attack on Umbrella.
Anderson, who was writer-producer on both Resident Evil: Apocalypse
and Resident Evil: Extinction, returned as director for the remaining films in
the cycle—Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012),
and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)—and throughout maintained
the kinetic energy that had become the cycle’s signature tone. Like other
21st-century horror cycles, the Resident Evil films’ overarching temporal and
narrative structures became increasingly complicated, with the films them-
selves frequently doubling back to elements, characters, and locations intro-
duced earlier in the cycle. The increasingly arcane plotting does not seem to
have put off audiences, however, for the films remained popular at the box
office right through to the last one. Indeed, one suspects that, as elsewhere in
the horror genre, the presence of a film with “Final Chapter” does not mean
that the cycle has ceased permanently.

REVENGE OF NATURE. The idea of nature turning on humanity first

came to the fore in some 1950s monster movies that combined science fic-
tion with horror. Giant radioactive ants threatened in Them! (1954), and a
giant spider, the result of a misguided experiment, attacked in Tarantula
(1955), while other giant prehistoric insects were accidentally unleashed in
the likes of The Monster That Challenged the World (1957), The Deadly
Mantis (1957), and The Black Scorpion (1957). Alfred Hitchcock stripped
away the science fiction elements in his innovative The Birds (1963), instead
focusing on the complacency of his characters in assuming that they had
control over the world in which they lived. This kind of thematic preoccupa-
tion fitted well into the fears of social collapse that were apparent during the
1970s, and during that decade a cycle of revenge of nature horrors mixed
apocalyptic despair with an emerging environmental awareness. Titles in-
cluded the mock documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971), Frogs
(1972), Night of the Lepus (1972), Phase IV (1973), Bug (1975), The Food of
the Gods (1976), Squirm (1976), Day of the Animals (1977), Kingdom of the
Spiders (1977), and Prophecy (1979). The horror genre has returned sporadi-
cally to this theme with the likes of the American horror film The Bay
(2012) and the Korean horror The Host (2006), both of which deal with
mutation caused by pollution, and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening
(2008), in which plants turn on the human race. The idea of revenge of nature
has had a particular resonance in Australian horror, where films have often
projected a powerful sense of the wilderness overwhelming humanity, not-
ably with the apocalyptic horrors The Last Wave (1977) and The Long Week-
end (1978) and a series of films about crocodile and shark attacks, among
them Black Water (2007), Rogue (2007), and Bait (2012).
 RINGU (RING) (1998) • 271
RICE, ANNE (1941–). The American novelist Anne Rice has made a major
contribution to the cultural reshaping of vampires into heroic and sensitive
figures through The Vampire Chronicles, her best-selling series of novels
that began publication in 1976. Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire
(1994) was adapted by Rice herself from the first novel in the series. Unsur-
prisingly, it was faithful to Rice’s original, and even the provocative casting
of Tom Cruise as one of the vampires worked to the film’s benefit. Queen of
the Damned (2002), which was directed by Michael Rymer and combined
plot elements from the second and third books in The Vampire Chronicles,
was lively but much less faithful to the dreamy and sensual atmosphere
conjured up by Rice’s fiction.

RINGU (RING) (1998). The Japanese horror film Ringu (Ring) is a ghost
story in which anyone who watches a mysterious videotape dies shortly
thereafter. As directed by Hideo Nakata, Ringu cleverly combined Asian
horror motifs—such as the vengeful long-haired female ghost—with more
Western horror themes and visuals, and it proved an international break-
through hit that inspired a slew of similar productions in both East Asia and
the United States. The film was based on a 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki that
had already been adapted as the Japanese television series Ringu: Kanzen-
ban (1995), and the subsequent proliferation of Ringu films would include
further reworkings of the source material.
Joji Iida’s Rasen (Spiral) (1998), which was based on Suzuki’s own se-
quel to his novel, was made at about the same time as Ringu but proved less
popular with audiences, perhaps because its move into science fiction
themes did not sit well with the emphasis on horror in its predecessor. The
response of the producers was to come up with what in effect was a replace-
ment sequel that, as directed by Nakata, followed on directly from Ringu and
ignored the fact that Rasen had ever existed. Ringu 2 (Ring 2) (1999) lacked
the clearly defined narrative of Ringu, but what it lacked in clarity it made up
for in atmosphere, and it secured Nakata’s reputation as a master of the
modern Japanese ghost story.
The year 1999 saw two Ring-themed series on Japanese television, Ringu:
Saishûshô and Rasen, the latter based on the same novel that had inspired the
“forgotten sequel” of the same title. A third version of Suzuki’s original
novel also appeared—this time titled The Ring Virus (1999) and directed in
South Korea by Dong-bin Kim. Back in Japan, Norio Tsuruta’s Ringu 0:
Bâsudei (Ring 0) (2000) was a stylish prequel that depicted the early days of
the woman who would go on to become the fearsome and relentless ghost in
Ringu.
Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002) redeployed the original’s Japanese ele-
ments in an American context and was the first major American remake of a
Japanese horror film. Higher production values, more logical plotting, and
272 • RIPPER, MICHAEL (1913–2000)
some slick computer-generated special effects separated the film from the
lower-budgeted Japanese version but arguably diminished the story’s shock
effects. However, the film was a substantial commercial success, and The
Ring Two (2005) followed. This was not a remake of Ringu 2, but it did share
the same director, with Hideo Nakata making his American debut, and was a
similar triumph of style over substance.
After all this activity, one might have expected that the story of the ghost
Sadako would have been thoroughly exhausted, especially given her reliance
on the now nearly defunct technology of videotape. However, in 1998, Koji
Suzuki published Loop, a third novel in the Ring series, while more recently
the Japanese production Sadako vs. Kayako (2016) offered a monster mash-
up of the villainesses from the Ringu and Ju-On films. In addition, the
American horror Rings (2017) was a belated sequel to the previous American
Ring films. In true horror style, it seems that this particular monster could be
making a surprise comeback.

RIPPER, MICHAEL (1913–2000). The British actor Michael Ripper ap-

peared in more Hammer films than any other performer, specializing in
working-class characters, among them pub landlords, army sergeants, police
constables, and taxi drivers. These roles were usually small, but he was often
able to fashion nuanced characterizations out of them. Occasionally, he was
given the opportunity to do something more than this. For example, his
performance as the long-suffering private secretary Longbarrow in The
Mummy’s Shroud (1967) is one of British cinema’s finest studies of self-
abnegation. Selected British horror credits include X: The Unknown (1956),
Quatermass 2 (Enemy from Space) (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein
(1958), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), The Curse of the
Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Curse of the
Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Reptile (1966), The Plague of the Zombies
(1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Scars of Dracula (1970),
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Legend of
the Werewolf (1975), and Revenge of Billy the Kid (1991).

ROBINSON, BERNARD (1912–1970). The production designer Bernard

Robinson was a key member of the team that made the Hammer horror films
from the late 1950s on. His first genre credit was the science fiction/horror
film Quatermass II (Enemy from Space) (1957), but he came into his own
with the color gothic horrors for which Hammer became famous, among
them The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (Horror of Dracula)
(1958), Curse of the Werewolf (1961), and The Devil Rides Out (1968).
Operating on minimal resources, he designed castles, dungeons, and sitting
rooms that had a solidity about them, with this quality becoming one of
 ROEG, NICOLAS (1928–) • 273
Hammer’s defining visual characteristics. For reasons of economy, he also
reused props and sets, carefully disguising this from the casual viewer (al-
though dedicated Hammer fans would later take great pleasure from con-
stantly encountering familiar bits and pieces of set design).

ROBINSON, GEORGE (1890–1958). George Robinson was the main cine-

matographer for Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s. He began
auspiciously with some atmospheric photography for Universal’s Spanish-
language Dracula (1931)—shot on the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version
but considered by many to be a better film—and La voluntad del muerto
(1930), a version of The Cat and the Canary. His most visually striking work
after this was on Dracula’s Daughter (1936), Son of Frankenstein (1939),
and Son of Dracula (1943), but he also photographed The Invisible Ray
(1936), Tower of London (1939), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Captive Wild Woman (1943), the horror-themed
Sherlock Holmes mystery The Scarlet Claw (1944), House of Frankenstein
(1944), House of Dracula (1945), and The Cat Creeps (1946). After the
Universal horror boom was over, he brought his genre expertise to the come-
dy-horrors Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and
Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), Abbott and Costello Meet the
Mummy (1955), and Francis in the Haunted House (1956).

ROBSON, MARK (1913–1978). The editor-turned-director Mark Robson

was part of horror producer Val Lewton’s team at RKO during the 1940s. He
edited Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Leopard
Man (1943), all of which were directed by Jacques Tourneur. His own
horror films as director were uneven. The Satanic thriller The Seventh Victim
(1943) was one of Lewton’s best and contained a shower sequence that might
have been an influence on Alfred Hitchcock in preparing Psycho (1960).
Similarly, Isle of the Dead (1945), in which various characters are trapped on
an island by the spread of a plague, demonstrated a mastery of atmosphere.
In comparison, the psychological thriller The Ghost Ship (1943) was inter-
esting but lacked drama, and the historical horror Bedlam (1946) was a well-
made but uninvolving affair. After Bedlam, Robson left horror behind and
never returned. Later films included the solidly commercial Peyton Place
(1958), The Inn of Sixth Happiness (1958), Von Ryan’s Express (1965), and
Earthquake (1974). See also AMERICAN HORROR.

ROEG, NICOLAS (1928–). The British cinematographer-turned-director

Nicolas Roeg had his first brush with horror photographing Roger Cor-
man’s stylish Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Masque of the Red Death
(1964). As a director, Roeg’s work has often been characterized by fractured
274 • ROLLIN, JEAN (1938–2010)
narratives and disturbing themes. His film Don’t Look Now (1973), which
made memorable use of its Venetian settings, is one of cinema’s great ghost
stories. An allusive drama involving grief-stricken parents mourning the loss
of their child, it generated an extraordinary doom-laden atmosphere. By
contrast, The Witches (1990), based on a Roald Dahl story, was family-
centered entertainment, albeit of the mildly scary kind.

ROLLIN, JEAN (1938–2010). The low-budget horror films of French di-

rector Jean Rollin combine exploitation staples, such as sex, nudity, and
violence, with experimental and surreal elements, often at the expense of
narrative coherence. His work can be very striking in visual terms, although
its weirdness has sometimes precluded commercial success. Rollin began
promisingly with the avant-garde Le viol du vampire (Queen of the Vam-
pires, The Rape of the Vampire) (1968). This disjointed black-and-white
piece was expanded from a short (which explains why characters killed off
halfway through miraculously returned for the latter part of the film) and
performed surprisingly well at the box office. It was followed by a series of
what came to be known as “sex vampire” films, namely, La vampire nue
(The Nude Vampire) (1969), Le frisson des vampires (Sex and the Vampire)
(1970), and Requiem pour un vampire (Requiem for a Vampire, Caged Vir-
gins) (1972). These were slightly more conventional than Le viol du vampire
but still obscure in narrative terms, with, in particular, Le frisson des vam-
pires taking an unexpected climactic diversion into science fiction.
Rollin’s later films were increasingly uneven. Les démoniaques (Demo-
niacs, Curse of the Living Dead) (1974), Lèvres de sang (Lips of Blood)
(1975), Fascination (1979), and La morte vivante (The Living Dead Girl)
(1983) were, for all their flaws, distinctive enough to sustain the view of
Rollin as a horror auteur. By contrast, the zombie films Les raisins de la
mort (The Grapes of Death) (1978) and Le lac des morts vivants (Zombie
Lake, The Lake of the Living Dead) (1980) were tawdry and uninspired,
suggesting that the director needed the sexually alluring figure of the female
vampire to stimulate his imagination, while the sex-horror project Phantas-
mes (Once upon a Virgin) (1975) remains little seen. After a period away
from the horror genre, Rollin, who has also directed porn films under the
names Michel Gentil and Robert Xavier and thrillers under his own name,
made Les deux orphelines vampires (Two Orphan Vampires) (1997) and La
fiancée de Dracula (2002), neither of which has had the impact of some of
his earlier work. See also FRENCH HORROR.

ROMERO, EDDIE (1924–2013). The Filipino filmmaker Eddie Romero

made his horror debut acting as producer on his friend and mentor Gerardo
de Leon’s mad scientist drama Terror Is a Man (1959). He later codirected
 ROMERO, GEORGE (1940–2017) • 275
with de Leon Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968) and Brides of Blood
(1968), both of which were garish monster movies. Romero went on to be
sole director for the similarly themed and styled Beast of the Yellow Night
(1971), Beast of Blood (1971), The Twilight People (1973), and Beyond
Atlantis (1973). His horror films have acquired a cult following outside of the
Philippines, but he is most revered in his homeland for his work in other,
more culturally reputable genres. In 2003, he was awarded the prestigious
title of “National Artist of the Philippines,” albeit probably not for his horror
films. See also FILIPINO HORROR.

ROMERO, GEORGE (1940–2017). The American writer-director George

Romero throughout his career generally avoided involvement with the major
studios. One consequence of this is that he did not work as regularly as he
might have, with long gaps between some of his films. Another consequence
is that his independently produced films can be daring and innovative in
ways that mainstream horrors often are not. His debut film turned out to be
one of his most significant projects. Night of the Living Dead (1968) rein-
vented the zombie story by relocating it to the contemporary United States
and transforming the zombies into flesh-eating ghouls. Romero was inspired
by Richard Matheson’s vampire novel I Am Legend, but the film also
shows the influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) in its depiction
of characters trapped inside a claustrophobic house by marauding monsters.
The ruthless nihilism was provided by Romero, however, as he confounded
audience expectations by mercilessly killing off all of his good characters,
including the hero. Although the film made no explicit reference to the social
unrest taking place in the United States during the late 1960s, a sense of
social dysfunctionality was palpable.
There’s Always Vanilla (1972) and Jack’s Wife (1972) took Romero away
from horror, although distributors retitled Jack’s Wife as Hungry Wives and
Season of the Witch in an unsuccessful attempt to lure horror audiences into
the cinema. Like Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies (1973)—in which an
entire community goes mad—was an apocalyptic horror film, but it lacked
the sustained intensity of the earlier film. Martin (1977), by contrast, was a
hugely impressive updating of the vampire myth and a key work in 1970s
horror. Here, Romero successfully critiqued traditional horror conventions
through the tale of a young man who believes that he is a vampire but has to
use a hypodermic syringe to extract blood from his victims.
Romero’s next film is considered by many to be his genre masterpiece.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) was the first and best of five sequels to Night of the
Living Dead. It boldly drew parallels between the zombies and its living
characters, made evocative use of its shopping mall setting, and, unlike
276 • ROSE, BERNARD (1960–)
Night, managed to conjure up an affirmative ending. Thanks to makeup
artist Tom Savini (who also worked on Martin), the film also introduced
some unprecedentedly graphic gore into the horror genre.
Knightriders (1981) was another of Romero’s experimental non-horror
projects that was not widely seen, while Creepshow (1982) was a more
conventional, Stephen King–scripted re-creation of the world of horror
comics. Day of the Dead (1985) returned the director yet again to the world
of zombies. Apparently cut down at the scripting stage from a much more
ambitious project, the film remained a fascinating examination of militarism
at a time when other horror films were resolutely avoiding any kind of
serious issues.
The psychological thriller Monkey Shines (1988), a collaboration with
Dario Argento on the codirected Due occhi diabolici (Two Evil Eyes)
(1990), and The Dark Half (1993) were all slick but anonymous affairs, and
one got a sense that during this part of his career Romero was treading water.
However, Land of the Dead (2005), his fourth zombie film, was as full of
ideas as the previous three instalments. The focus this time was on class
division, with the zombies represented as an underclass excluded from the
attractive parts of the city by the wealthy. Two more zombie films followed.
Diary of the Dead (2007) offered an interesting use of the found footage
technique as a way of refreshing the by now very familiar zombie-based
narrative, but Survival of the Dead (2009) was less well received. Despite
this, the energy and invention evident in various levels across all of the
“Dead” films suggests that, for all Romero’s attempts to develop in new
directions, it is the zombie that has brought out the best in him as a filmmak-
er. His iconic status as elder statesman in American horror cinema means
that he was around long enough to see several of his films remade by young-
er film directors, among them Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead,
and The Crazies.
Romero was also executive producer for the television series Tales from
the Darkside (1984–1988).

ROSE, BERNARD (1960–). The British writer-director Bernard Rose has

worked in a variety of genres but shows a particular affinity for horror-
related subjects, which he tends to treat with a seriousness that is unusual in
the contemporary horror mainstream. His cinematic debut was Paperhouse
(1988), in which a young girl enters into a scary dreamworld. Thematically,
the film had a lot in common with the then popular and equally dream-
oriented Nightmare on Elm Street films, but Paperhouse was much less
interested in pandering to a teenage audience. After the unsuccessful but
interesting thriller Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (1990), Rose moved to the
United States, where he adapted a Clive Barker short story into Candyman
(1992), one of the best American horror films of the 1990s. Since then,
 ROTH, ELI (1972–) • 277
Rose has steered clear of the horror genre, although he recently returned with
Snuff Movie (2005) and, most notably, Frankenstein (2015), an impressive
updating of Mary Shelley’s original novel that relocated the story to the
contemporary United States.

ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968). Along with George Romero’s Night of the

Living Dead (1968), Rosemary’s Baby has been seen as inaugurating the
modern American horror film. Based on a best-selling novel by Ira Levin,
its transgressive elements are all too obvious from its narrative. A newlywed
couple move into an apartment, where the wife begins to suspect that her
neighbors are Satanists. She dreams that she has been raped by a beastly
creature and, after becoming pregnant, fears that the Satanists have designs
on her unborn baby. On giving birth, she discovers that the baby is—or so the
Satanists claim—the son of the Devil, and the narrative concludes ambigu-
ously with her apparent agreement to act as mother to the child regardless of
its parentage. Put another way, this is a film where evil secures a comprehen-
sive victory.
As directed by Roman Polanski, the film is certainly disturbing, but it is
also more playful than the above account of the narrative suggests. Apparent-
ly, Polanski did not take the supernatural elements in the original novel too
seriously (his other supernatural films The Tenant and The Ninth Gate are
similarly tongue in cheek), and he has carefully structured Rosemary’s Baby
so that the Satanic conspiracy might in reality be the delusion of a group of
sad old people rather than an accomplished supernatural fact. As for the
appearance of the Devil, it does take place in a dream, and production stills
show that, for some of the shots at least, this figure was played by John
Cassavetes, the actor who portrayed Rosemary’s husband. While Night of the
Living Dead purveyed a low-budget gritty realism that made its horrors all
too believable, the high-budget gloss of Rosemary’s Baby offered a cooler
approach perfectly suited to the slow-burn narrative. The film’s main
theme—of an older generation corrupting and destroying the young—would
become important in 1970s American horror, and its dark and disturbing
ending would also become a model for horrors to come.
The television film Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (1976)
was an unnecessary sequel that added nothing to its illustrious predecessor.
In 2014, Rosemary’s Baby was also filmed as a television miniseries, with
Zoe Saldana cast as Rosemary and the action shifted from New York to
Paris.

ROTH, ELI (1972–). The American writer-director Eli Roth made an im-
pact with his first horror feature, Cabin Fever (2002). This low-budget com-
bination of biological horror with rural horror was uneven in tone but had a
278 • RURAL HORROR
gory ferocity about it that was distinctive. Roth followed it up with Hostel
(2005), a torture-based narrative set in eastern Europe that maintained the
hard-edged qualities of Cabin Fever but that was a much more disciplined
and focused affair. Hostel: Part 2 (2007) offered more of the same, although
it was slightly more nuanced than its predecessor. In the publicity for these
controversial films, Roth offered himself as a lucid spokesperson for and
defender of more aggressive and confrontational forms of horror cinema. The
cannibalism horror The Green Inferno (2013) and the psychological thriller
Knock Knock (2015) maintained the nastiness although at the same time
seemed less distinctive. Roth has also acted as producer on a number of
horror films from other directors, among them 2001 Maniacs (2005), The
Last Exorcism (2010), and Ti West’s Sacrament (2013), and on the horror-
themed television series Hemlock Grove (2013–2015) and South of Hell
(2015–). In addition, he has maintained a sporadic career as an actor, notably
in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).

RURAL HORROR. The idea that something bad happens to you if you
leave the city and head off into the countryside has proved a potent one in
horror cinema. Sometimes, the threat emanates from nature itself. More of-
ten, it comes from rural inhabitants, who tend to be presented in this kind of
horror as primitive, inbred, and animalistic—as, in short, a subhuman projec-
tion of nature itself. Notions of social class difference clearly play their part
here, with city dwellers in rural horror films often presented as well-off and
middle class, while the country folk are by contrast depicted as a monstrous
and degraded underclass. Townies are also frequently depicted as compla-
cent and smug, with the rural assault on them a kind of punishment for their
shortcomings.
There are intimations of rural horror in James Whale’s comedy-horror
film The Old Dark House (1932), in which travelers are stranded with a
disturbingly idiosyncratic rural family, and a more developed version can be
found in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) when the townie played by
Janet Leigh stumbles into the countryside motel from hell. However, it was
the 1970s that saw this type of horror beginning to take hold, especially in
American cinema. A key film in this respect, albeit one not widely seen as
horror, was John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), a grueling drama in which
a group of urban males come into violent conflict with the locals in back-
woods America. More obviously horror-based treatments of this theme were
provided by Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and
Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977), both of which presented barbaric
families who have resorted to cannibalism and who relentlessly terrorize
some unsuspecting townies. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), the Satanic
thriller Race with the Devil (1975), Hooper’s Eaten Alive (Death Trap)
(1977), and the controversial rape-revenge dramas I Spit on Your Grave
 RURAL HORROR • 279
(1978) and Death Weekend (1976) all fit this pattern, and many of them
shared with Chainsaw and Hills scenes where the violated townies fight
back, often deploying violence as savage as that issuing from the rural dwell-
ers. Going to the countryside, it seemed, enabled you to discover the beast
within yourself (as long as you weren’t killed and eaten first).
Some 1980s American slashers also contained elements of rural horror,
with arrogant teenagers getting their comeuppance from rural serial killers
in the likes of the Friday the 13th films or The Burning (1981) or Just before
Dawn (1981), among many others. More recently, a number of films have
sought to recapture the edginess of 1970s American horror through revisit-
ing the rural horror format as developed by Hooper and Craven. Most obvi-
ously, this includes the remakes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and
The Hills Have Eyes (2006), but there is also Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (2002),
Wrong Turn (2003), Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003), House of
Wax (2005), and Vacancy (2007). Supernatural versions of rural horror in-
clude Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films and The Skeleton Key (2005), while The
Last Broadcast (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and the period drama
An American Haunting (2005), as well as numerous episodes of the televi-
sion series The X Files (1993–2002, 2015) and Supernatural (2005–), have
explored American folklore within rural settings.
Rural horror is not restricted to American cinema. British cinema, for
example, has produced some rural horror films, including Hammer’s The
Witches (1966), the period horror Blood on Satan’s Claw (Satan’s Skin)
(1971), Tower of Evil (1972), Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973), Neil
Marshall’s Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), Christopher
Smith’s Severance (2006), The Cottage (2008), Jake West’s Doghouse
(2009), and the supernatural drama The Borderlands (2013). From Belgium,
there has been Calvaire (The Ordeal) (2004), from Australia Wolf Creek
(2005) and Storm Warning (2007), and from Spain the Blind Dead films and,
among others, Leon Klimovsky’s La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (The
Vampires Night Orgy) (1973) and Stuart Gordon’s Dagon (2001). A small
number of American films have also depicted town dwellers coming to grief
at the hands of foreign country folk, with these including Sam Peckinpah’s
Straw Dogs (1971), John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London
(1981), and Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005).
The pervasiveness of the rural horror format suggests a widespread and
deep distrust of the agrarian and the premodern, although this has often been
coupled with doubts about the efficacy of the forces of rational modernity, as
helpless townies continue to suffer at the hands of those poorer and consider-
ably less sophisticated than themselves. See also REVENGE OF NATURE.
280 • RUSSELL, CHUCK (1952–)
RUSSELL, CHUCK (1952–). Chuck Russell—who is occasionally billed as
Charles Russell—is often associated with big-budget films, such as the Jim
Carrey comedy The Mask (1994) or the Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller
Eraser (1996). However, early in his career, he also directed A Nightmare
on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), a key film in the Elm Street cycle
that very much set the narrative and tonal pattern for subsequent sequels, and
The Blob (1988), a remake of a very ordinary 1958 monster movie that
generated some genuine suspense as well as some inventive plot twists. After
his breakthrough into A-list productions, he returned to horror with Bless the
Child (2000), a slick Satanic thriller that starred Kim Basinger.

RUSSELL, KEN (1927–2011). The brash, iconoclastic British director Ken

Russell established his reputation through his television dramatizations of
the lives of the great composers and through cinema films as diverse as
Women in Love (1969) and Tommy (1975). The Devils (1971), his controver-
sial study of witch trials in France, contained some horrifying imagery, but
ultimately it was more of a political thriller than it was a horror film. The
American-produced Altered States (1980) and Crimes of Passion (1984) also
featured some horror-like elements, notably Anthony Perkins’s mad preach-
er in the latter. However, it was the British films Gothic (1986) and The Lair
of the White Worm (1988) that finally delivered Russell into horror. Gothic
was a lively if sometimes overwrought heritage piece that explored the
circumstances within which Mary Shelley devised the Frankenstein story.
(Roger Corman’s 1990 film Frankenstein Unbound would later address the
same subject matter.) By contrast, The Lair of the White Worm, an adaptation
of a Bram Stoker novel, was a bizarre horror parody that featured an early
and somewhat bemused performance from Hugh Grant. Russell continued in
the horror-parodic vein with the ultra-low-budget The Fall of the Louse of
Usher (2002). See also BRITISH HORROR.

RUSSELL, RAY (1924–1999). During the first half of the 1960s, the
screenwriter Ray Russell worked for horror specialists William Castle and
Roger Corman, with his two most memorable credits involving spectacular
images of male mutilation. For Castle, he wrote Mr. Sardonicus (1961), in
which the central character spent most of the film with a ghastly, disfiguring
smile fixed on his face, and for Corman he came up with X: The Man with
the X-Ray Eyes (1963), with the hero here gouging out his own troublesome
eyes in the film’s shocking conclusion. Other Russell credits include the
Castle film Zotz! (1962), the Corman-directed The Premature Burial (1962),
Terence Fisher’s comedy-horror The Horror of It All (1964), and Chamber
of Horrors (1966). His supernatural novel The Incubus was filmed by John
Hough in 1981.
 S
SACCHETTI, DARDANO (1944–). The remarkably prolific screenwriter
Dardano Sacchetti—who is sometimes billed as David Parker Jr.—has
worked with most major Italian horror directors, usually in collaboration
with other screenwriters. His very first screen credit was for Dario Argen-
to’s Il gatto a nove code (The Cat o’ Nine Tails) (1971), and he has also
written for Mario Bava—Reazione a catena (Bay of Blood, Twitch of the
Death Nerve) (1971) and Schock (Shock, Beyond the Door II) (1977); Anto-
nio Margheriti—Apocalypse domani (Cannibal Apocalypse) (1980); Sergio
Martino—Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery)
(1982); and Ruggero Deodato—Camping del terrore (Body Count) (1987).
However, his most sustained working relationships have been first with Lu-
cio Fulci and subsequently with Lamberto Bava. He contributed to most of
the key Fulci horror films, including Sette note in nero (The Psychic) (1977),
Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) (1980), L’aldilà
(The Beyond) (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The House by the
Cemetery) (1981), Lo squartatore di New York (New York Ripper) (1982),
and Manhattan Baby (Eye of the Evil Dead) (1982); he also did some uncred-
ited work on Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie, Zombie Flesh Eaters) (1979). For
Lamberto Bava, his credits include the giallo La casa con la scala nel buio
(A Blade in the Dark) (1983), Shark rosso nell’oceano (Devil Fish, Devour-
ing Waves) (1984), Demoni (Demons) (1985), Morirai a mezzanotte (The
Midnight Killer) (1986), and Demoni 2 (Demons 2: L’incubo ritorna) (1986),
as well as some of the television horror films directed by Bava during the
second half of the 1980s. Other Sacchetti horror credits are Spettri (Specters)
(1987), Quella villa in fondo al parco (Ratman, Terror House) (1988), Killer
Crocodile (1989), and Killer Crocodile II (1990). He continues to write for
cinema and for television, although not on horror projects.

SANGSTER, JIMMY (1927–2011). The title of British writer-producer-

director Jimmy Sangster’s autobiography—Do You Want It Good or Tues-
day?—underlines the no-nonsense professionalism and practicality of some-
one who spent most of his career working in the low-budget sector. He joined

281
282 • SANTO (1917–1984)
Hammer in the late 1940s and by the mid-1950s had become a production
manager there. His screenplay for the Hammer short A Man on the Beach
(1955) was followed by his first feature credit as writer: the science fiction/
horror X—The Unknown (1956). He went on to write many of Hammer’s
early period horrors, including The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula
(The Horror of Dracula) (1958), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The
Mummy (1959), and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959). He also
contributed to The Brides of Dracula (1960) and, under the name “John
Sansom,” to Dracula—Prince of Darkness (1966) as well as providing
scripts for non-Hammer productions The Trollenberg Terror (1958), Blood
of the Vampire (1958), Jack the Ripper (1959), and The Hellfire Club
(1961). At their best, Sangster’s screenplays were brisk and tightly plotted,
with Dracula probably his most outstanding work from this period.
In the early 1960s, he inaugurated Hammer’s cycle of psychological
thrillers with Taste of Fear (Scream of Fear) (1961), which he wrote and
produced. The film combined a sinister atmosphere with what for the time
were genuinely surprising plot twists. Hammer’s follow-ups, written and
sometimes produced by Sangster, were more hit or miss, with Paranoiac
(1963), The Nanny (1965), and Crescendo (1970) standing out from the more
ordinary Maniac (1963), Nightmare (1964), and Hysteria (1965). The three
films Sangster directed for Hammer in the 1970s were also uneven. The
Horror of Frankenstein (1970) was an unsuccessful attempt to revive the
Frankenstein cycle. The lesbian vampire film Lust for a Vampire (1971) was
better, although it suffered from the pointless inclusion of a contemporary
pop song, while Fear in the Night (1972) was another psychological thriller
made at a time when the formula was looking very worn. Sangster also wrote
and produced one of Hammer’s oddest films, the Bette Davis vehicle The
Anniversary (1968), and cowrote and produced the Curtis Harrington hor-
ror Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971). Throughout the 1970s, he wrote
mainly for American television, including contributions to the horror series
Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975) and the television horror films
Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973) and Good against Evil (1977). He also worked
on the screenplays for the British horror film The Legacy (1978) and John
Huston’s psychological thriller Phobia (1980).

SANTO (1917–1984). The masked wrestler Santo—real name Rodolfo Guz-

man Huerta—starred in a series of popular Mexican films from the early
1960s to the early 1980s as a crime-fighting superhero. He regularly took on
supernatural foes such as vampires, werewolves, witches, and zombies as
well as figures such as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, either by him-
self or in collaboration with another masked wrestler: Blue Demon. The
films were cheap and crudely made, but at their best they were also energetic,
and they have since acquired a cult following. Indicative horror-related titles
 SASDY, PETER (1935–) • 283
from Santo’s oeuvre of more than 50 films include Santo contra los zombies
(Invasion of the Zombies) (1961), Santo contra las mujeres vampiro (Santo
versus the Vampire Women) (1962), Santo en el museo de cera (Santo in the
Wax Museum) (1963), El hacha diabólica (Santo vs. the Diabolical Hatchet)
(1964), Atacan las brujas (Santo in the Witches Attack) (1964), El Barón
Brakola (Santo vs. Baron Brakola) (1965), Santo en El tesoro de Drácula
(Santo and Dracula’s Treasure) (1968), Santo y Blue Demon contra los
monstruos (Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters) (1969), La venganza de
las mujeres vampiro (The Vengeance of the Vampire Women) (1970), La
venganza de la momia (Santo and the Vengeance of the Mummy) (1970), Las
momias de Guanajuato (The Mummies of Guanajuato) (1970), Santo vs. la
hija de Frankenstein (Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter) (1971), Santo y
Blue Demon contra Drácula y el hombre lobo (Santo and Blue Demon vs.
Dracula & the Wolfman) (1972), Santo contra la magia negra (Santo vs.
Black Magic) (1972), Santo vs. las lobas (Santos vs. The She-Wolves) (1972),
Santo y Blue Demon contra el doctor Frankenstein (Santo and Blue Demon
vs. Doctor Frankenstein) (1973), La venganza de la llorona (Vengeance of
the Crying Woman) (1974), and Chanoc y el hijo del Santo contra los vampi-
ros asesinos (Chanoc and the Son of Santo vs. the Killer Vampires) (1981).
See also MEXICAN HORROR.

SASDY, PETER (1935–). The Hungarian-born, British-based director Peter

Sasdy was part of a wave of filmmakers who reenergized British horror
cinema during the late 1960s and early 1970s, often introducing socially
critical attitudes into their work. After directing for Hammer’s television
series Journey to the Unknown (1968), Sasdy went on to make three feature
films for the company. Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) was an accom-
plished account of repressed youths rebelling against their fathers, although,
like most of Hammer’s Dracula films, it struggled to find interesting things
for the vampire to do. Countess Dracula (1971) featured another monstrous
parent: a bloodthirsty countess memorably played by Ingrid Pitt (and loose-
ly based on the historical figure Countess Elizabeth Bathory). Similarly,
Hands of the Ripper (1971) dealt with Jack the Ripper’s daughter strug-
gling to rid herself of her father’s malign influence. In all cases, Sasdy sided
unequivocally with young against old, although the bleakness of the films
suggested that the forces of repression were indeed powerful. Away from
Hammer, Sasdy returned to this theme with the contemporary-set horror
Nothing But the Night (1972), in which older people sought to transplant
their identities into the bodies of children, although an overly busy plot
distracted from the film’s theme. Doomwatch (1972) was a straightforward
adaptation of a popular television series, while the post-Exorcist I Don’t
Want to Be Born (The Devil within Her) (1975) was an undistinguished
possession drama. Sasdy also directed Nigel Kneale’s acclaimed television
284 • SAVINI, TOM (1946–)
ghost story The Stone Tape (1972) and contributed episodes to the television
horror series Supernatural (1977), Hammer House of Horror (1980), and
Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1984).

SAVINI, TOM (1946–). The American makeup artist Tom Savini’s self-
acknowledged key influences were his love for old horror films and his
experience as a combat cameraman in the Vietnam War, where he saw many
dead and mutilated bodies. From the 1970s on, he helped to introduce a
graphic realism to the horror genre with his exceptionally gory and visceral
makeup effects. Early credits include Deranged (1974), Bob Clark’s Dead
of Night (The Night Walk, Deathdream) (1974), and George Romero’s mod-
ern-day vampire story Martin (1977), but his first major work was on Rome-
ro’s groundbreaking zombie epic Dawn of the Dead (1978). Walking
corpses, spectacular wounds, blood spatter, and the eating of human flesh—
all were presented in unsparing detail, and the film consequently acquired
notoriety as a cutting-edge gore film. Savini followed this with work on the
slasher films Friday the 13th (1980) and The Burning (1981) and the contro-
versial serial killer film Maniac (1980), where he expertly conjured up
stabbings, slashings, mutilations, and shootings. In so doing, he began to
acquire a cult following among horror fans, becoming for them as much a
star as any of the actors appearing in his films. He continued to work with
Romero on projects such as Day of the Dead (1985) and Monkey Shines
(1988) and on the Romero–Dario Argento collaboration Due occhi diabolici
(Two Evil Eyes) (1990) as well as providing gore effects for Argento’s Trau-
ma (1993), among many others.
Savini has also proved himself a capable character actor, appearing in
small roles in numerous films, including Martin, Dawn of the Dead (and its
2004 remake), and From Dusk till Dawn (1996). He has written a book about
his craft, Grand Illusions, and in 1990 directed an effective remake of Ro-
mero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

SAW (2004). Saw and its sequels make up one of the major horror cycles of
21st-century horror cinema. Controversial from its inception because of its
association with “torture porn,” the cycle created a dark urban world in
which the Jigsaw Killer/John Kramer (played by Tobin Bell), who is dying
from cancer, seeks perverse redemption through placing a series of charac-
ters in torture-based traps or games in order to demonstrate the value of life
and survival. In Saw (2004), directed by James Wan and the first film in the
cycle, Kramer remained an enigmatic figure whose identity was revealed
only at the conclusion, and the film itself functioned as a mystery crime
thriller as much as it did a horror film. It did contain a number of the cycle’s
signature “traps,” however, most notably a reverse bear trap device placed on
 SCANDINAVIAN HORROR • 285
the face of an unsuspecting victim. In this case, the victim was a character
called Amanda, who, establishing a pattern for the cycle as a whole, would
return in later films as one of Kramer’s acolytes.
Darren Lynn Bousman took over as director for Saw II (2005), Saw III
(2006), and Saw IV (2007), which introduced new elements into the cycle
that helped ensure its continued vitality. Kramer himself became a more
central character; we learn about his background, and he is able to set out his
reasons for doing what he does. There is also a new emphasis on Kramer’s
helpers supporting him in his work; in the first film, Kramer suborns people
into assisting him, but from Saw II on the helpers are much more willing. The
traps themselves become more numerous and more elaborate in design. Also,
the cycle’s overarching narrative becomes increasingly complicated, with
regular flashbacks, returns to sequences from earlier films, and temporal
experiments in which events we thought were happening simultaneously are
actually happening sequentially (or vice versa). Saw III concludes with the
death of John Kramer, but the existence of acolytes committed to maintain-
ing his work and the cycle’s flashback-friendly structure meant that Kramer’s
influence carried on in the later films.
Saw V (2008), directed by David Hackl; Saw VI (2009), directed by Kevin
Greutert; and Saw 3D (2010) (also known as Saw: The Final Chapter and
Saw VII), also directed by Greutert, maintained the elaborate plotting and the
gruesome deaths. However, critics who had never been very positive about
the cycle generally felt that what inventiveness the Saw films had possessed
was by this stage fading away. The disappointing box office returns for Saw
VI meant that Saw 3D was offered as the concluding film in the cycle, and to
this end the film brought back one of the surviving characters from the first
film to reenact the concluding act of that film, thus, so to speak, closing the
cycle. However, respecting the horror tradition that any film with the term
“Final Chapter” in their title turns out not to be the final chapter, Saw:
Legacy, directed by Peter and Michael Spierig, was released in 2017.

SCANDINAVIAN HORROR. None of the Scandinavian countries—Den-

mark, Norway, and Sweden—have traditions of horror film production, al-
though isolated Scandinavian films have occasionally offered horror-like
qualities. For example, Victor Sjöström’s supernatural drama The Phantom
Carriage (1921) is a classic of silent Swedish cinema. It is also often consid-
ered an influence on the work of later Swedish director Ingmar Bergman,
some of whose films also drew on horror imagery, not least Persona (1966)
and Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf) (1968). Similarly, some of the films by
Danish director Carl-Theodor Dreyer exhibit distinctive gothic or horror
elements, among them the vampire film Vampyr—Der Traum des Allan
Grey (Vampyr) (1932) and the witchcraft drama Vredens dag (Day of
286 • SCHOEDSACK, ERNEST B. (1893–1979)
Wrath) (1943). Staying with the witchcraft theme, Häxan (1922) was an
idiosyncratic documentary-style Swedish–Danish film written and directed
by Benjamin Christensen that explored witch hunts through the ages.
Since 2000, there has been a resurgence in European horror production,
with different European countries taking internationally recognized horror
formats and templates and reworking these in the context of their own na-
tional cultures. Of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway have
engaged most successfully in this process, with, in particular, the distinctive
Scandinavian landscape, climate, and mythology helping to distinguish their
versions of horror from other versions available in an international market-
place. Thus, Sweden has produced some vampire films, most notably the
critically acclaimed Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) (2008)
and the less well known Frostbiten (Frostbite) (2006), both of which locate
familiar vampire stories in unfamiliar settings: Stockholm in the early 1980s
for Låt den rätte komma in and northern Sweden during polar night in Frost-
biten. Similarly, Norwegian filmmakers have transplanted elements of the
slasher and rural horror formats into the Jotunheimen region for Fritt Vilt
(Cold Prey) (2006) and its sequel Fritt Vilt II (Cold Prey 2) (2008), while
Nazi zombies emerge from the Norwegian mountains in Død snø (Dead
Snow) (2009) and Død Snø 2 (Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead) (2014). Trolljeg-
eren (Trollhunter) (2012) uses the found footage format to explore aspects
of Norwegian folklore, while Thale (2012) deploys rural horror elements as a
framework for its engagement with folkloric monsters.
Denmark has been less visible in the contemporary revival of European
horror cinema, although Dick Maas’s De Lift (The Lift) (1983) was a rare
example of pre-2000 Scandinavian horror, while Lars von Trier’s art-horror
project Antichrist (2009) contains horror imagery that is more intense than
that offered by any other film mentioned here.

SCHOEDSACK, ERNEST B. (1893–1979). Ernest B. Schoedsack started

out making ethnographic documentaries Grass (1925) and Chang (1927)
before switching to fiction with his direction of The Four Feathers (1929).
He subsequently teamed up with Merian C. Cooper, his collaborator on
Grass and Chang, to make The Most Dangerous Game (The Hounds of
Zaroff) (1932), a jungle horror film that Schoedsack codirected with Irving
Pichel and that Cooper produced. This was followed by the classic monster
movie King Kong (1933), which Schoedsack and Cooper codirected. Schoed-
sack directed the sequel Son of Kong (1933) all by himself but codirected
with Wesley Ruggles the Cooper-produced The Monkey’s Paw (1933), an
adaptation of W. W. Jacobs’s well-known horror story that, despite its title,
had nothing to do with King Kong. Schoedsack’s last horror credit was the
 SCIENCE FICTION • 287
mad scientist film Dr. Cyclops (1940), although he subsequently returned to
the world of apes with the adventure story Mighty Joe Young (1949). See
also AMERICAN HORROR.

SCHRADER, PAUL (1946–). The distinguished American writer-director

Paul Schrader—best known for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver
(1976) and Raging Bull (1980)—has had two less-than-successful encounters
with the horror genre. He directed Cat People (1982), a remake of the Val
Lewton–Jacques Tourneur 1942 original that replaced that film’s subtleties
with explicit scenes of sex and violence. Schrader’s version contained inter-
esting ideas but was marred by shifts in tone and moments of silliness.
Dominion—Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) was an intelligent but altogether
more somber affair. In fact, it proved too somber for its producers, who
shelved the film and hired Renny Harlin to direct a new, more gory and
horror-like version of the prequel that was released as Exorcist—The Begin-
ning (2004). Schrader’s version was subsequently released as well. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

SCHRECK, MAX (1879–1936). The German actor Max Schreck secured a

kind of immortality for himself by starring in F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu,
eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror) (1922). He
appeared in many other films, but his performance as the grotesquely fanged,
bald-headed vampire Orlok is all that is remembered of him today, mainly
because it differs so much from the more presentable and dapper vampire
popularized by the likes of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Klaus Kinski
re-created the animalistic Schreck-vampire look for Werner Herzog’s Nosfe-
ratu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu the Vampire) (1979), as did actor Reg-
gie Nalder in Tobe Hooper’s television adaptation of Stephen King’s Sa-
lem’s Lot (1979). In a bit of in-joke casting in Tim Burton’s expressionism-
influenced Batman Returns (1992), Christopher Walken played a character
called Max Shreck, while Willem Dafoe portrayed Schreck as an actual
vampire in Shadow of the Vampire (2000). Fortuitously for the actor’s repu-
tation as a horror icon, “Schreck” just happens to be the German word for
“terror.”

SCIENCE FICTION. The boundaries between horror and other genres have
often proved permeable, with this particularly the case for science fiction.
Horror and science fiction certainly share some origins, with Mary Shelley’s
1818 novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus a key text for both.
Later attempts by genre scholars to differentiate the two, often through ar-
guing that horror sets out to frighten and thrill while science fiction focuses
on more intellectual matters, have tended to be overly reliant on abstract and
288 • SCREAM QUEENS
ideal notions of each genre. As ever in the realm of popular entertainment,
the reality is considerably messier and more compromised than these critical
accounts have sometimes suggested, with films marketed as science fiction
or horror depending on what was currently popular in the market at the time
of their release.
The numerous mad scientist films of the 1930s and 1940s—notably the
Universal Frankenstein series—displayed an anxiety about science, al-
though the over-the-top gothic and expressionistic qualities of these movies
usually saw them classified fully as horror. By comparison, 1950s monster
movies and alien invasion fantasies often evoked a more realistic world, one
in which elements associated with science fiction—aliens, new technology,
and speculations about the future—were harder to separate from horror’s
characteristic focus on the fearful and the frightful. Films such as The Thing
from Another World (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), Creature from the
Black Lagoon (1954), Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956), It! The Terror
from Beyond Space (1958), and, from Great Britain, The Quatermass Xperi-
ment (The Creeping Unknown) (1955) generated a nuclear-age atmosphere of
paranoia and anxiety, with science itself as much a part of the problem as it
was a solution.
Later science fiction/horror hybrids have tended to center on representa-
tions of the monstrous, whether this be extraterrestrial or scientific in origin,
with this usually resulting in their being marketed as horror. A key film here
is Alien (1979) and its sequels, but to this could be added, among many
others, The Thing (1982), Lifeforce (1985), Predator (1987), Hardware
(1990), Species (1995), Starship Troopers (1997), The Astronaut’s Wife
(1999), Virus (1999), Doom (2005), and Slither (2006). In comparison, the
Canadian director David Cronenberg has offered a series of more challeng-
ing genre hybrids—among them Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), and Video-
drome (1983)—in which science fiction conceits about technology and con-
sciousness are combined with a full-blooded body horror.

SCREAM QUEENS. The term “scream queen” has long been used to refer
to female protagonists in horror cinema and obviously denotes a distinctive
function for them, namely, to scream and to be victimized and terrorized.
This sense of the woman as a generically defined victim is most evident in
horror from the 1930s to the 1960s, when the role of the heroine is often to be
rescued by a male suitor. One thinks here of Fay Wray, arguably the most
celebrated of the classic scream queens in Mystery of the Wax Museum
(1933) and King Kong (1933), but images of women screaming in terror
recur throughout the history of horror. The advent of the Final Girl figure in
slasher films from the late 1970s on complicates matters somewhat. Scream-
ing is still evident, but it is usually accompanied by physical resistance to
assault emanating from the woman herself, with male rescuers rarer than they
 SELF-REFLEXIVITY • 289
used to be. Some critics and filmmakers have suggested that it is easier in our
culture to produce the sort of fear that horror films want to inculcate in the
audiences, male and female, via the figure of the woman on the screen.
Whether or not this is the case, the term “scream queen” still has some
resonance for horror.
“Scream queens” can also refer to women performers who have become
associated with the horror genre over the years, either because of a small
number of distinctive performances or because of a more general commit-
ment to the genre. Pre–Final Girl examples include Fay Wray, Evelyn Ank-
ers, Barbara Steele, Barbara Shelley, Veronica Carlson, Ingrid Pitt,
Suzy Kendall, Karen Black, and Marilyn Burns—the latter for only one
performance, in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
Examples from the Final Girl era include Jamie Lee Curtis, who also stars
in the television horror series Scream Queens (2015–), as well as Catriona
MacColl, Neve Campbell, Danielle Harris, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sheri
Moon Zombie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Although often associated
with performers in their teens or 20s, the term has become increasingly
elastic, incorporating performers such as Vera Farmiga, who began her asso-
ciation with horror with Orphan (2009) when she was in her mid-30s before
going on to become an iconic presence in The Conjuring (2013), The Conjur-
ing 2 (2016), and the television series Bates Motel (2013–). Yet more strik-
ingly, Lin Shaye appeared in a few horror films at the beginning of her acting
career but did not become a recognizable genre presence until she appeared
at the age of 67 as the medium Elise Rainier in Insidious (2010) and its
follow-ups along with a range of other horror films.
The skill, intelligence, and strength displayed by these performers in a
wide range of horror films indicates that there is a lot more to being a scream
queen than just screaming and that the contribution made to horror by female
performers is more complex and nuanced than sometimes supposed.

SELF-REFLEXIVITY. There are two distinct types of self-reflexivity ap-

parent in horror cinema, each of which has its own functions and effects.
Scream (1996) is a well-known example of one of these types inasmuch as it
is a horror film in which the characters talk incessantly about horror films,
especially the slashers, of which Scream itself is an extension. In other
words, this is a self-reflexivity that operates in terms of subject matter. Other
horror films that in some way or another have taken horror fiction as their
subject include How to Make a Monster (1958), The House of Seven Corpses
(1974), Madhouse (1974), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), John
Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Alejandro Amenabar’s Te-
sis (1996), Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), Shadow of the Vampire
(2000), The Last Horror Movie (2003), and The Final Girls (2015). Scream
is slightly different from some of these in that it does not deal directly with
290 • SELF-REFLEXIVITY
the filmmaking process (although Scream 3 does get around to this) and
seeks rather more to ingratiate itself with audiences through appealing to
their knowledge of recent horror history. However, like the other films of this
particular self-reflexive type, its narrative structure is conventional. The
characters might talk about films—just as characters in some of the other
films cited above engage in film production—but that activity does not dis-
rupt the film in which it features (i.e., no character in Scream ever turns to
the camera to analyze Scream, nor do we ever see the crew of Scream at
work).
There is another type of cinematic self-reflexivity, one that is both more
confrontational and potentially more disturbing for audiences. It involves
foregrounding some of the techniques deployed by horror filmmakers in such
a way that the horror spectator’s own position becomes uncomfortable. A
key film here is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960). As this deals with a
serial killer who works in a film studio and who uses a movie camera as part
of his killing technique, it could be seen as self-reflexive in a Scream-like
manner. However, Powell seeks to make the spectator aware of his or her
voyeuristic complicity in the crimes, especially in the opening sequence,
where we witness the murder of a prostitute through the killer’s camera and
where, unnervingly, the victim looks directly out at us as she is murdered.
Something similar occurs in Alfred Hitchcock’s apocalyptic horror film
The Birds (1963) when someone accusing the female protagonist of causing
the bird attacks looks directly at the camera (the shot is the protagonist’s
point of view), thereby accusing the audience as well. In a different way, the
scene in Dario Argento’s Opera (Terror at the Opera) (1987) where a
woman has needles taped under her eyelids so that she is unable to close her
eyes and is then compelled to watch violent murders also has the potential to
shock an audience into an awareness of its own gaze at the screen, which this
time is a reactive gaze rather than the sadistic gaze invoked by Peeping Tom
and The Birds. Equally uncomfortable is the moment in the grueling serial
killer drama Henry—Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) when we realize that
the murder we are seeing on the screen is actually a video recording of a
murder being watched by the killers. As the camera pulls back to reveal this,
our own complicity with their murderous spectatorship becomes unavoid-
able.
It is interesting that those horror films that seek to implicate their specta-
tors in the horrifying events on-screen have often experienced difficulties
with the critics or the censors and that they have since acquired a reputation
for being hard-edged genre products. It seems that the knowing wink offered
by Scream and its ilk is considerably less disturbing than the unforgiving
glares presented by the likes of Peeping Tom and Opera.
 SEQUELS • 291
The popularity of found footage horror since The Blair Witch Project
(1999) offers variants on both types of self-reflexivity. Many found footage
films, ranging from The Blair Witch Project itself and The Last Exorcism
(2010) to Found Footage 3D (2016), take as their subject matter filmmakers
making films. At the same time, the emphasis in found footage on degraded
or distorted images has the potential to disrupt an audience’s engagement
with what is happening on-screen, drawing its attention to the materiality of
the image in a manner more akin to experimental forms of cinema. It is one
of the more bizarre features of contemporary horror cinema that, for all their
genre credentials, a number of these found footage horror films could pass, at
least in some of their sequences, as avant-garde.

SEQUELS. To a certain extent, the horror genre is bound together by se-

quels. This is particularly the case for its major monsters, most of whom tend
to be deemed as major precisely because they have appeared in more than
one film. This reliance on sequels has often led to horror being viewed as a
formulaic and repetitive area of culture. However, it can be argued that
horror is no more formulaic than other film genres and that the role of the
sequel in horror history is more complex and nuanced than is sometimes
supposed.
The first horror sequels took a while to appear. There was a four-year gap
between Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) and the first horror sequel, Bride
of Frankenstein (1935), and another four years passed before Son of Fran-
kenstein (1939). Similarly, Dracula (1931) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
were separated by five years. By the 1940s, Universal had switched emphati-
cally to serial B-movie horror production, and “sequelitis” had set in with
The Wolf Man (1941) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), leading to a
joint sequel, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), followed by House of
Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945). Universal also produced
in quick succession three sequels to The Mummy’s Hand (1940): The Mum-
my’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), and The Mummy’s Curse
(1944). (To complicate matters, The Mummy’s Hand was neither a sequel to
nor a remake of Universal’s 1932 production The Mummy but instead a
brand-new story, albeit one that recycled footage from the older film.) There
was also a Universal series of Invisible Man films and another Dracula film,
Son of Dracula (1943), with Dracula featuring as well in House of Franken-
stein and House of Dracula. Even the considerably more upmarket Val Lew-
ton at RKO made a sequel to his Cat People (1942) with The Curse of the
Cat People (1944).
The Universal sequels set a pattern. They were based on monsters rather
than on heroes, and, as sequel followed sequel, they gradually formed into
series or cycles. However, the relationship between the films could vary
considerably. Some sequels followed on directly from preceding films, al-
292 • SEQUELS
though there were often odd gaps in the chronology. Other sequels were
more loosely connected—or, in some instances, barely connected at all—to
what had gone before. Some might argue that such films were not actually
sequels, but horror cinema from Universal on has constantly blurred the
distinction between sequel and series production. For example, the trajectory
of Frankenstein’s monster through 1930s and 1940s Universal horror main-
tained a fairly consistent chronology, but, by contrast, Dracula wandered in
and out of his films with little sense of progression from one to the other.
It is worth pointing out that while certain types of scenes recurred in these
sequels—a laboratory scene in Frankenstein sequels, for example, or a trans-
formation scene in the Wolf Man films—the films were also noticeably
different from each other, constantly revising and refreshing stock narrative
situations and placing surprising new twists alongside some of the more
established conventions. Much the same could be said for the next major set
of horror sequels, which came from the British company Hammer between
the late 1950s and 1970s. Its Frankenstein and Dracula films (with seven
titles in each) were clearly in the Universal mold in their combination of
familiar scenes with innovative elements. Jacinto Molina’s Spanish horror
werewolf series, which began with La marca del hombre lobo (The Mark of
the Werewolf) (1968), also fitted this pattern.
American horror in the 1980s saw the development of a phenomenon
that, perhaps more than anything else, gave the sequel a bad name, and that
was the practice of numbering sequels. The naked exploitativeness of titles
such as Halloween 2 (1981) or Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) or A Night-
mare on Elm Street Part 2 (1985) was only partly ameliorated by the occa-
sional inclusion of a subtitle (e.g., for the second Elm Street, Freddy’s Re-
venge), particularly when you got up to part 6 or part 7. Since the 1980s, it is
a rare successful American horror film that does not generate a sequel or two
(or more). However, the belief expressed by some cultural commentators that
sequels of this kind merely repeat, with decreasing returns, what was distinc-
tive about the first film does need to be challenged. One can easily find
substantial changes in emphasis within cycles—for example, the growing
importance of the supernatural in both the Halloween and the Friday the 13th
sequels or the increasing promotion of Freddy Krueger as a jokester in the
Nightmare on Elm Street films—as well as qualitative distinctions. To put it
bluntly, some sequels are more imaginative and a lot better made than others.
More recently, changes in the way that cycles of horror films operate are
starting to become evident. In particular, there seems to be a greater willing-
ness to develop stories across sequels rather than presenting each sequel as a
separate entity in its own right. Examples of this include the Insidious, Para-
normal Activity, and Saw cycles of horror films, in which complex chronolo-
gies—including sequels taking place in the same time frame as earlier films
in the cycle as well as prequels—are the order of the day. Any viewer of
 SERIAL KILLERS • 293
these sequels or prequels with no prior knowledge of the previous films in
the cycles is likely to be completely baffled by what are, for the horror genre,
unusually complicated, unfolding stories.
It would be hard to understand how horror has developed over time with-
out taking horror sequels seriously. The sequel certainly has an economic
function, but it has also offered a site where filmmakers have been able to
innovate within and around familiar scenes and situations and to develop
new ways of engaging with audiences.

SERIAL KILLERS. The serial killer is a major monster in contemporary

horror cinema, having successfully supplanted more traditional horror mon-
sters, such as the vampire and the werewolf. Unlike these fantasy-based
creatures, serial killers do exist in reality (although the cinematic versions are
often very different from their real-life counterparts), and their popularity can
be seen as relating to broad anxieties about human identity in an increasingly
atomized and individualistic society. The term “serial killer” was not coined
until the 1970s—by the Behavioral Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI)—but such figures, defined through their repetitive and
obsessive homicides, were visible in cinema before then, even if we did not
have a neat label for them.
American horror of the 1930s and 1940s foregrounded supernatural or
quasi-scientific monsters and villains, and when it did feature human killers,
these usually turned out to be mad scientists or their assistants. In this
period, villains in the serial killer mold tended to be located more in crime-
based narratives, such as Alfred Hitchcock’s British production The Lodger
(1927) (which drew on a key serial killer template, namely, the Jack the
Ripper murders of 1888), the Val Lewton–Jacques Tourneur film The
Leopard Man (1943), the 1944 remake of The Lodger, and Robert Siod-
mak’s The Spiral Staircase (1946). In fact, the subsequent development of
this figure would take place within and largely help to define an increasingly
significant overlap between crime fiction and the horror genre.
A more detailed and recognizably modern engagement with the psychopa-
thology of obsessive killers was evident in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), with a relaxation in censorship per-
mitting a greater emphasis on sexual deviance here than was possible before.
This was also apparent in some Jack the Ripper films, including Jack the
Ripper (1958) and A Study in Terror (1965), as well as in Richard Fleischer’s
realistic accounts of real-life serial killers in The Boston Strangler (1968) and
Ten Rillington Place (1970) and in Jack Smight’s more flamboyant No Way
to Treat a Lady (1968). Meanwhile, Mario Bava’s seminal Italian giallo Sei
donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace) (1964) opted for a different
approach, with his serial killer—or, as it turned out, two killers—presented
as an impersonal, blank-faced killing machine (although ultimately these
294 • SERIAL KILLERS
killers were revealed to have rational motives). Throughout the 1970s and the
first part of the 1980s, it was this killer-as-bogeyman persona that prevailed
in horror, both in numerous giallo films and in the American slashers that
were popular from the late 1970s on. Serial murderers such as Michael
Myers in the Halloween films or Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th
films were not psychological case studies and possessed only the most rudi-
mentary motivations. Instead, they were presented as effective and ruthless
killers, with the masks they frequently wore denoting a lack of personality or
psychological depth.
In the mid-1980s, two films signaled a change in the fortunes of the serial
killer. John McNaughton’s Henry—Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) was a
grimly realistic case study, albeit one where the killer himself remained
enigmatic, while Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986) was a stylish adapta-
tion of Thomas Harris’s best-selling novel Red Dragon, which introduced
master serial killer Hannibal Lecter to the big screen. Neither was very suc-
cessful in commercial terms, but they did pave the way for the breakthrough
film The Silence of the Lambs (1991), which was also based on a Harris
novel and featured Anthony Hopkins in an Academy Award–winning per-
formance as Lecter. The idea of the serial killer as an articulate and charis-
matic individual capable of offering disturbing but truthful insights into the
human condition was underlined through the fact that Lecter himself was a
psychiatrist, and the Lecter films also introduced the idea of the disturbed
hero-profiler who in some way has to open him- or herself up to the killer-
therapist in order to solve the case. The case study approach embodied by the
inarticulate, working-class Henry in Henry—Portrait of a Serial Killer was
also present in the form of the secondary serial killers—the Tooth Fairy in
Manhunter and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs—being hunted by
the FBI.
More master serial killers followed in films such as Seven (1995), Copycat
(1995), and The Bone Collector (1999), which were usually marketed as
thrillers but which offered horror-like levels of violence and gore. At the
same time, masked serial killers of the psychologically shallow kind were
populating a new wave of slashers inaugurated by Wes Craven’s Scream
(1996) and developed by the likes of I Know What You Did Last Summer
(1997) and Urban Legend (1998). Character studies of real-life serial killers
made a modest comeback with Monster (2003), based on the story of Aileen
Wuornos, and the more downmarket Ed Gein (2000) and Ted Bundy (2002),
while master serial killer Hannibal Lecter returned in Ridley Scott’s Hanni-
bal (2001), Hannibal Rising (2007), and the television series Hannibal
(2013–2015). Other television series, such as the long-running crime profil-
ing drama Criminal Minds (2005–) and Kevin Williamson’s The Following
(2013–2015), also relied heavily on serial killers as their key villains.
 SHARP, DON (1921–2011) • 295
Clearly, the figure of the serial killer has been and continues to be inter-
preted in different ways at different times, and arguably its proliferation in
popular culture is, in part at least, a product of this versatility. Much the same
can be said of all long-lived horror monsters who have survived only to the
extent that they have periodically been reinvented. Of course, the serial killer
is distinctive in that he or she is human. In a post-1960 horror cinema that has
increasingly located evil within the psychological rather than in the supernat-
ural, it is this quality that has made this particular monster so compelling and
so useful for horror artists.

SEWELL, VERNON (1903–2001). The British director Vernon Sewell di-

rected two low-budget thrillers for Hammer—The Dark Light (1951) and
The Black Widow (1951)—but never worked on any of the company’s horror
films. Instead, amid films made in a range of genres, he specialized in the
ghost story. The eerie thriller Latin Quarter (1946) combined spiritualistic
elements with the actions of a murderer who conceals his victims within his
sculptural work, a story line with which Sewell had already engaged in the
short film The Medium (1934). His later ghost stories Ghost Ship (1952) and
House of Mystery (1961) reworked some of these ideas yet again although
this time with ghosts more obviously present. By contrast, The Ghosts of
Berkeley Square (1947) was a jovial comedy romp. The thriller The Man in
the Back Seat (1960) did not have any supernatural elements, but its claustro-
phobic representation of the attempts of two men to get rid of a corpse was
for the time sinister and disturbing. Sewell’s later horror films were much
cruder affairs. The Blood Beast Terror (1968), a period horror in which a
giant moth stalks the British countryside, contained one of British horror’s
silliest monsters. Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) was more interesting
both for its cast—which included Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, and Bar-
bara Steele—and for its now very dated psychedelic scenes. Burke and Hare
(1972), Sewell’s final film, was one of British cinema’s more exploitative
treatments of these famous body snatchers, and it marked an undignified
conclusion to what had been an intermittently impressive career.

SHARP, DON (1921–2011). The Australian director Don Sharp arrived at

Hammer at a time when the company was reaching out for new talent and
immediately showed himself to be an accomplished stylist. From its remark-
able opening sequence on—in which a shovel is driven through a coffin lid
during a funeral, destroying the vampire in the coffin—Kiss of the Vampire
(1962), his British horror debut, was fresh and dynamic, and it brought to
life what on paper was a fairly conventional Hammer story. Sharp also made
the pirate film The Devil Ship Pirates (1964) and Rasputin—The Mad Monk
(1966) for the company. The Rasputin film contains some felicitous directo-
296 • SHELLEY, BARBARA (1932–)
rial touches and also boasted a fine performance by Christopher Lee in the
title role, but, perhaps because of budgetary limitations, it was not as sus-
tained as Kiss of the Vampire. Away from Hammer, Sharp directed the Lon
Chaney Jr. vehicle Witchcraft (1964), another triumph of style over content,
although his subsequent Curse of the Fly (1965) was less successful. For The
Face of Fu Manchu (1965) and The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966), both of
which starred Christopher Lee as the villain, Sharp’s precise and matter-of-
fact direction was the perfect counterpoint to some extravagant and lurid
plotting. He also directed the psychological thriller Taste of Excitement
(1969) and the weird and wonderful supernatural horror Psychomania
(1971), in which a gang of bikers come back from the dead, only to be turned
to stone. In comparison, the haunted house film Dark Places (1973) was a
sedate, understated affair. Sharp also contributed to the television series
Hammer House of Horror (1980) and directed What Waits Below (1984).

SHELLEY, BARBARA (1932–). Roles for women in Hammer horror

films of the 1950s and 1960s tended to be limited, but the British actor
Barbara Shelley managed to bring depth and subtlety to her Hammer charac-
terizations, perhaps because she was older and more imposing than Ham-
mer’s normal ingénues. She had worked for Hammer in its pre-horror days
on the Terence Fisher–directed thriller Mantrap (1953) (where she was
billed as Barbara Kowin, her real name). Her initial British horror credits
were not for Hammer, however. She starred as the tormented protagonist of
Cat Girl (1957), a stylish reworking of themes from the Val Lewton produc-
tion Cat People (1942), and played virtuous female leads in the period hor-
ror-drama Blood of the Vampire (1958) and the contemporary chiller Shadow
of the Cat (1961), a film that utilized many Hammer personnel. She also had
a supporting role in the disturbing alien invasion fantasy Village of the
Damned (1960). By this time, she had appeared in a second Hammer film,
the prisoner-of-war drama The Camp on Blood Island (1958), but her debut
in Hammer horror did not come until The Gorgon (1964), in which she
played a woman haunted by the thought that she might be possessed by a
supernatural entity. This was one of Hammer’s bleakest films, and Shelley
credibly conveyed the requisite vulnerability and fear. Her next role for the
company was probably her best. She played the prissy Helen in Dracula—
Prince of Darkness (1966), whose transformation into a sensual and animal-
istic vampire was done with absolute conviction. The scene where a snarling
Shelley is held down by a gang of monks and staked to death remains one of
Hammer’s most memorable sequences. Shelley was also effective in Ham-
mer’s Rasputin—The Mad Monk (1966) and Quatermass and the Pit (Five
Million Years to Earth) (1967) and had a small role in Stephen Weeks’s
horror film Ghost Story (1974).
 SHIMIZU, TAKASHI (1972–) • 297
SHERLOCK HOLMES. Arch-detective Sherlock Holmes, the famous fic-
tional creation of Arthur Conan Doyle, is the embodiment of rationality, but
he has on occasion been plunged into gothic or horror-like mysteries. This is
most notably the case with the story The Hound of the Baskervilles, with both
the 1939 screen adaptation starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Ham-
mer’s 1959 version with Peter Cushing as the detective exploiting the pos-
sibilities for horrifying thrills before the arrival of a boringly rational conclu-
sion. As directed by Roy William Neill, some of Rathbone’s later Holmes
films also played, in part at least, as horrors, among them The Scarlet Claw
(1944), The Pearl of Death (1944), and The House of Fear (1945). Detached
completely from his original literary context, Holmes went on to confront
Jack the Ripper in the full-blooded horror films A Study in Terror (1965)
and Bob Clark’s Murder by Decree (1979). More recent versions of
Holmes—among them the Robert Downey Jr. vehicle Sherlock Holmes
(2009) and the British television series Sherlock (2010–)—have also toyed
with gothic themes.

SHERMAN, GARY (1945–). The American director Gary Sherman made a

stunning genre debut with the British horror film Death Line (Raw Meat)
(1972). A cannibalism story set on the London Underground, it managed
successfully to combine American-style socially critical horror with a strong
sense of British social and class mores. His next horror was made in the
United States. Dead & Buried (1981) was an ambitious, Dan
O’Bannon–scripted film that attempted to do something new with the idea
of the zombie. The film was suitably atmospheric, inventive, and nasty, but it
was not as sustained or as intense as Death Line. Subsequently, Sherman
directed Poltergeist III (1988) and the psychological thriller Lisa (1989).

SHIMIZU, TAKASHI (1972–). Like fellow Japanese filmmaker Hideo

Nakata, the director Takashi Shimizu has specialized in ghost stories com-
bining Japanese horror traditions with American horror conventions. As
with Nakata and the Ringu films, Shimizu has become associated with a
series, in his case a number of films all focusing on a haunted house. The
story setup here is simple: anyone who goes into a house where a man earlier
murdered his family dies. However, Shimizu complicates matters through
adopting convoluted, nonchronological narrative structures and also demon-
strates a considerable talent for conjuring terrifying moments out of the most
mundane domestic settings. The dysfunctionality of the family unit—appar-
ent in the origin of the haunting itself—is a theme as much for Shimizu as it
is for Nakata, suggesting that such a subject has a broader social relevance
for Japan.
298 • THE SHINING (1980)
Shimizu first visited his haunted house in two low-budget productions: the
direct-to-video Ju-On (2000) and the part sequel, part remake Ju-On 2
(2000). He was back for more in Ju-On: The Grudge (2003), the first of the
series to achieve international success, and Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)
followed almost immediately. In 2004, Shimizu directed The Grudge, a Sam
Raimi–produced American remake of Ju-On: The Grudge. Instead of relo-
cating its story to the United States, this took the bold step of bringing
American characters—among them Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah
Michelle Gellar—to Japan and generated some interesting culture shocks
out of the ensuing drama. The fearful frissons were still effective in them-
selves, although anyone familiar with earlier entries in the series might have
been experiencing a certain déjà vu by now. However, the 2006 release of
The Grudge 2—an original story rather than a remake of Ju-On: The Grudge
2—suggested that this series was far from over. Indeed, The Grudge 3
(2009), Ju-On: White Ghost (2009), and Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009) all fol-
lowed, although Shimizu only produced these rather than directing them.
His other horror credits include Tomie: Re-birth (2001), Marebito (2004),
Rinne (2005), The Shock Labyrinth (2009), Tormented (2011), and Flight
7500 (2014).

THE SHINING (1980). The Shining was Stanley Kubrick’s monumental

horror film. Adapted from Stephen King’s third published novel, it told the
story of a caretaker in an apparently haunted hotel who gradually loses his
sanity and ends up threatening his wife and son with an ax. Kubrick es-
chewed the traditional trappings of the genre, with many of his film’s most
unnerving scenes taking place in brightly lit settings rather than in sinister
shadow. The director also foregrounded darkly comic elements of the story
in a manner that amplified the horror rather than dispelling it. In this, he was
aided by remarkable performances from both Jack Nicholson and Shelley
Duvall, performances that managed to be simultaneously controlled and
completely over the top. Finally, The Shining made an impressive use of the
Steadicam, which enabled ultrasmooth camera movement, in evoking the
eeriness of the hotel.
The Shining was not particularly well received on its first release, and
Kubrick subsequently removed about 25 minutes of footage for some mar-
kets (the original version runs approximately 145 minutes). However, the
film’s reputation has since risen considerably, and in a recent poll it was
voted one of the best horror films of all time.
Stephen King was apparently left unimpressed by Kubrick’s decidedly
loose adaptation of his novel, and in 1997 he penned a television miniseries
that was directed by Mick Garris. The resulting work was effective enough
in its own terms, but it is Kubrick’s masterful film that continues to capture
the public’s imagination.
 SIODMAK, KURT (1902–2000) • 299
SHYAMALAN, M. NIGHT (1970–). The success of The Sixth Sense
(1999) contributed to the burgeoning popularity of ghost stories in horror
cinema and also established the young Indian-born writer-director M. Night
Shyamalan (whose real name is Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan) as a talent to
watch. The film’s brooding and melancholic qualities separated it out from
other horror films, and its now famous twist ending became a public talking
point. The superhero story Unbreakable (2000) and the alien invasion fanta-
sy Signs (2002) were followed by another horror-themed project: The Village
(2004). This was an intriguing and visually stunning account of a village
sealed off from the outside world and apparently surrounded by monsters. Its
denouement disappointed some, although it was a logical outcome of what
seemed to be a desire to retreat from reality. Shyamalan’s next film, Lady in
the Water (2006), moved ever farther away from quotidian reality in its story
of mysterious, fairy tale–like beings. By contrast, The Happening (2008) was
a more down-to-earth revenge of nature story in which plants turn against
humans. After the science fiction/fantasy blockbusters The Last Airbender
(2010) and After Earth (2013), the director then returned to something both
more stripped down and more effective with the psychological thrillers The
Visit (2015) and Split (2016). Shyamalan also produced and wrote the origi-
nal story for Devil (2010), a study in claustrophobia in which the Devil
threatens a group of people trapped inside an elevator, as well as producing
the fantasy-themed television series Wayward Pines (2015–). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

SIODMAK, KURT (1902–2000). Kurt Siodmak—who was often billed as

Curt Siodmak—wrote screenplays on a variety of subjects while in his native
Germany. He left after the Nazis came to power, and, after working in the
French and British film industries, he ended up in Hollywood, where he
became a horror specialist. His first genre credit was The Invisible Man
Returns (1940), and he followed this with two Boris Karloff vehicles, Black
Friday (1940) and The Ape (1940), and the comedy The Invisible Woman
(1940). His screenplay for The Wolf Man (1941) revised Universal’s concept
of the werewolf by emphasizing the victim status of the lycanthrope, a theme
he developed further in the sequel Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
He also provided the story for his brother Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula
(1943) and, away from Universal, wrote the superior voodoo film I Walked
with a Zombie (1943) for producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tour-
neur. In addition, he wrote Invisible Agent (1942) and The Climax (1944) as
well as producing the story for House of Frankenstein (1944). His last un-
equivocally impressive horror screenplay was Robert Florey’s disembodied
hand thriller The Beast with Five Fingers (1946).
300 • SIODMAK, ROBERT (1900–1973)
In the 1950s, Siodmak directed some less-than-impressive low-budget
monster movies, including Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The Magnetic Mon-
ster (1953), and Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956), and contributed to the
screenplays for Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) and Earth vs. the Flying
Saucers (1956). He also wrote and directed episodes for the obscure televi-
sion horror series 13 Demon Street (1959–1960), which featured Wolf Man
star Lon Chaney Jr., as well as directing the abortive pilot for the never-
made series Tales of Frankenstein (1958), which was designed to cash in on
the success of Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). His final signif-
icant genre credit was for Terence Fisher’s German production Sherlock
Holmes und das Halsband des Todes (Sherlock Holmes and the Necklace of
Death) (1962).
Siodmak’s 1942 novel Donovan’s Brain, which dealt with a disembodied
brain exerting a malign influence on the people around it, has been filmed
several times—as The Lady and the Monster (1944), as Donovan’s Brain
(1953), and as a television production also titled Donovan’s Brain (1955),
and as Freddie Francis’s Vengeance (The Brain) (1962)—although Siod-
mak was not involved in any of these.

SIODMAK, ROBERT (1900–1973). Like his brother, the writer Kurt

Siodmak, the director Robert Siodmak began making films in his native
Germany, moved to France after the rise of the Nazis, and during the 1940s
established himself in Hollywood as a film noir specialist. Son of Dracula
(1943), his only supernatural horror film, was a distinguished contribution to
the Universal Dracula cycle that brought the vampire to the contemporary
United States for the first time and contained some eerie nighttime se-
quences. While drawing on noir conventions, his psychological thriller The
Spiral Staircase (1946) also utilized point of view techniques in a manner
that would feature in later slasher and serial killer films. A later German
film, Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam (Nights When the Devil Came, The Devil
Strikes at Night) (1957), was another serial killer drama.

SLADE, DAVID (1969–). The British director David Slade has worked
mainly in American horror, and his work—with one notable and surprising
exception—is characterized by an edgy and disturbing brutality. His feature
debut was Hard Candy (2005), an intense torture-themed horror thriller in
which a young woman (played by Ellen Page) torments a man she believes
guilty of rape and murder. This was followed by 30 Days of Night (2007). Set
during polar night in an Alaskan town besieged by vampires, the film es-
chewed the idea of the sympathetic vampire that was becoming increasingly
popular at the time and instead rendered its blood drinkers as both animalistic
and sadistic. As was the case with Hard Candy, Slade choreographed the
 THE SLASHER • 301
associated nastiness with remarkable conviction. It was all the more surpris-
ing, then, when he was hired to direct Eclipse (2010), the third film in The
Twilight Saga. The world of vampire romance offered by the Twilight films
might well have been a world away from the carnage on show in 30 Days of
Night. However, Slade handled the story with conviction and managed to
endow the horror elements in the story with some menace without dispelling
the aura of romance that surrounded at least some of the film’s vampires.
Since Eclipse, Slade has worked mainly for American television, includ-
ing contributions to the horror series Hannibal (2013–2015).

THE SLASHER. There is some disagreement in horror criticism about the

origins of the slasher film. Does it begin with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960)? Or is it influenced by the Italian giallo or Bob Clark’s striking
serial killer drama Black Christmas (1974) or Tobe Hooper’s groundbreak-
ing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)? One thing is clear, however.
The term “slasher” emerges in the late 1970s and refers primarily to a cycle
of American horror films commencing with John Carpenter’s Halloween
(1978) and continuing with the likes of Friday the 13th (1980), Terror Train
(1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1980), Prom Night (1980), The Burning
(1981), Hell Night (1981), and The House on Sorority Row (1982). These
films featured teenage protagonists being stalked and killed by psychopathic
and sometimes disfigured serial killers, with the killings often filmed via the
point of view of the killer (hence trade magazine Variety’s alternative label
of “teenie-kill-pic”). The films were also very reliant on jump scares or
startle effects that had in the past been used sparingly within horror cinema.
Although Halloween received some positive reviews, this type of horror was
not generally liked by critics who tended to find it crudely formulaic, sadis-
tic, reactionary, and—given the emphasis on the victimization of women—
misogynist.
The initial slasher cycle faded away in the early 1980s. However, some of
the slasher conventions lived on in the post-1982 Friday the 13th and Hallo-
ween sequels and, most of all, in the Nightmare on Elm Street films that
commenced in 1984. The original slashers had avoided or marginalized
supernatural elements, but these later films, while maintaining an emphasis
on the teenage experience, were more willing to entertain the idea of their
characters returning from the dead. A further twist in the slasher story oc-
curred in the mid-1990s, by which time the supernatural slasher cycle was
winding down. Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) returned to the nonsupernatu-
ral format, albeit equipped with an acutely self-conscious awareness of hor-
ror history and numerous knowing jokes about and references to the original
slashers. Many of the films that followed—including I Know What You Did
Last Summer (1997), Urban Legend (1998), Cherry Falls (2000), Valentine
(2001), and, in a rare diversion back into the supernatural, Final Destination
302 • SLAUGHTER, TOD (1885–1956)
(2000)—lacked that kind of self-consciousness but still deployed victimized
teenagers, point of view techniques, and jump scares. More recently, The
Final Girls (2015) and the television series Scream (2015–) and Slasher
(2016–) have exuded nostalgia for the older forms of the slasher format.
For all the disreputability of the original slasher, its legacy is clearly a
long-lived and potent one. Perhaps most significant is an innovation that was
not widely noticed at the time of the cycle’s initial popularity, namely, its
introduction of the active female hero into the genre. Again and again in
these films—and this is a convention maintained in most of the later varia-
tions on the slasher formula—it is not a male hero but rather a woman,
known by horror historians as the Final Girl, who defeats the killer. This
does not necessarily make these films progressive, but perhaps it makes them
more complex and challenging than has sometimes been supposed.

SLAUGHTER, TOD (1885–1956). The term “barnstorming” seems wholly

appropriate for the screen performances of British actor Tod Slaughter (real
name Norman Slaughter). He toured Great Britain with lurid stage melodra-
mas from 1905 on, and when he turned to cinema in the 1930s—invariably as
the villain—his performance style maintained its flamboyant theatricality.
Horror production in Britain was generally suppressed by the powerful cen-
sorship authorities during this period, but Slaughter’s films managed to
avoid any censorial sanctions, perhaps because of their theatrical origins. In
any event, they represented a peculiarly British type of horror, one that
combined morality tales about good overcoming evil with lip-smacking por-
trayals of melodramatic nastiness. Slaughter’s most horror-like films in-
cluded Sweeney Todd—The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), The
Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936), The Face at the Window (1939), The
Curse of the Wraydons (1946), and The Greed of William Hart (1948). See
also BRITISH HORROR.

SMITH, CHRISTOPHER (1972–). The British writer-director Christopher

Smith was a key figure in the revival of British horror cinema that took
place in the early 2000s. This new type of horror abandoned the gothic
approach associated with Hammer horror and offered instead modern-day
settings and confrontational narratives. Creep (2004), Smith’s feature debut,
was a perfect example of this in its depiction of a woman (played by Franke
Potente) trapped on the London Underground by a psychopathic killer. In-
ventive and stylish but also brutally violent, the film mixed international
horror conventions—including that of the Final Girl—with distinctly British
elements in a manner found elsewhere in British horror of this period. Sever-
ance (2006), Smith’s next film, offered more of the same although this time
opting for a rural horror format as its main characters, English coworkers
 SNUFF • 303
on a team-building expedition to Hungary, find themselves besieged by de-
ranged soldiers. The film offered more humor this time as a way of offsetting
the inevitable gore and violence.
Smith then changed direction with Triangle (2009), a complicated time-
loop story, and Black Death (2010), a medieval adventure story with some
horror elements. Thereafter, he has worked for television and on non-horror
projects.

SMITH, DICK (1922–2014). The makeup artist Dick Smith is probably

most celebrated for his work on The Exorcist (1973). His transformation of
child actor Linda Blair into an abject creature still has the power to startle.
Equally impressive although more understated was his aging of Max von
Sydow in the role of Father Merrin. Smith had previously aged Dustin Hoff-
man and Marlon Brando in, respectively, Little Big Man (1970) and The
Godfather (1972), but Sydow’s makeup—the actor was only 44 when the
film was released—was probably the most convincing of these. Other than an
early credit for The Alligator People (1959) and work on television shows
Dark Shadows (1966–1971) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (1968), Smith had had little to do with horror prior to The Exorcist.
After The Exorcist, he became more of a genre specialist while still continu-
ing to work in other areas of cinema—for example, he won an Academy
Award for Amadeus (1984). His horror credits include work on The Sentinel
(1977), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Scanners (1981), The Fan (1981),
Ghost Story (1981), The Hunger (1983), Spasms (1983), Poltergeist III
(1988), Tales from the Darkside—The Movie (1990), and House on Haunted
Hill (1999).

SNUFF. A snuff movie is a film in which someone is really killed. If such

films actually exist (and this is far from certain), they are so far beyond the
bounds of fictional horror that they would not merit inclusion in a reference
work of this kind. However, snuff has occasionally featured as a subject
within horror, offering a particularly disturbing version of self-reflexivity.
An early and very controversial example was Michael Powell’s Peeping
Tom (1960), the notoriety of which helped to shorten the director’s career in
Great Britain (although the film has since been revalued as one of the finest
of all British productions). By comparison, Snuff (1976) was a tawdry low-
budget piece of work that teased its audiences with the possibility that it
might be showing a real murder but very obviously did not. Cannibal Holo-
caust (1980) also presented itself, albeit more effectively, as a found footage
mock documentary in which people “really” died, as did the more stylized
Belgian serial killer drama C’est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog)
(1992). Other horrors have used the practice of snuff both as a plot device
304 • SOAVI, MICHELE (1957–)
and as a fairly obvious signifier of depravity. As a sign of the times, video
and digital technologies now figure just as much as old-fashioned celluloid.
Films of note in this respect include Benny’s Video (1992), Mute Witness
(1994), Strange Days (1995), Tesis (1996), 8MM (1999), and My Little Eye
(2002).

SOAVI, MICHELE (1957–). The Italian director (and occasional actor)

Michele Soavi is often seen as one of Dario Argento’s protégées, although
Soavi’s films are distinctive in their own right. His earliest horror credit was
as an actor in Lucio Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the
Living Dead) (1980). Subsequently, he worked as an assistant to Argento on
giallo thrillers Tenebre (Tenebrae) (1982) and Opera (Terror at the Opera)
(1987) and also assisted Lamberto Bava on his giallo La casa con la scala
nel buio (A Blade in the Dark) (1983) and his supernatural thriller Demoni
(Demons) (1985); in addition, he took small acting roles in all of these. His
directorial debut was the low-budget giallo Deliria (Stagefright, Bloody
Bird) (1987). The premise for this was utterly conventional—an escaped
lunatic threatens some actors trapped inside a theater—but the director’s
treatment of such unpromising material was imaginative and displayed a
taste for the surreal and odd that would feature in later Soavi films. This was
most evident in the presentation of the killer, who spends most of the film
dressed as a giant bird. This should have been a ridiculous device, but it
turned out instead to be very unsettling if only because it was so bizarre. La
Chiesa (The Church) (1989) and La Setta (The Sect) (1991), Soavi’s next two
films as director, were produced by Argento. La Chiesa, which dealt with a
haunted church, was efficiently but impersonally made. La Setta was more
idiosyncratic in its depiction of a heroine menaced by a mysterious group of
cultists, and it offered some dream-like imagery more characteristic of Soavi
than it was of Argento. Dellamorte dellamore (Cemetery Man) (1994), not
made for Argento, showed Soavi at his best. Ostensibly a story, based on a
comic strip, of a cemetery caretaker who, for no apparent reason, finds him-
self combating zombies, it mixed dark romance, scenes of violence and gore,
and slapstick comedy and also featured a weird, cryptic conclusion. Al-
though it was recognizably in the Italian horror tradition, it was also an
unusually ambitious and challenging horror film. Since Dellamorte della-
more, Soavi has worked mainly for television on non-horror projects, al-
though in 2005 he was an assistant director on Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers
Grimm.

SOLE, ALFRED (1943–). The writer-director Alfred Sole was responsible

for the American horror film Communion (Alice Sweet Alice) (1976). While
most American horrors of the 1970s opted for a contemporary setting, Com-
 SOMMERS, STEPHEN (1962–) • 305
munion was set in the early 1960s—in one scene a character walks part a
poster advertising the release of Psycho (1960)—and was a powerful study
of familial and religious repression. In its depiction of a masked killer terror-
izing a New Jersey neighborhood, it also had an evocative sense of place and
period. Sole’s next horror credit, the horror spoof Pandemonium (1982), was
less successful, and since then he has worked as a production designer,
mainly for American television.

SOMMER, ELKE (1940–). From the late 1950s on, the German actor Elke
Sommer appeared regularly in films made in France, Germany, and Italy
with occasional excursions to Great Britain and the United States. One of her
early credits, the Italian musical Urlatori alla sbarra (Howlers of the Dock)
(1960), was directed by Lucio Fulci, later an Italian horror specialist, but
perhaps her best-known role was as the female lead in the Pink Panther film
A Shot in the Dark (1964) (which, incidentally, was cowritten by William
Peter Blatty, who would later write The Exorcist). She is included here
because of the two horror films she made with Italian director Mario Bava.
In Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga (Baron Blood) (1972), she was a
decorative European presence who, perhaps because she was older than the
usual horror ingénue, added some weight to the material. In the more impor-
tant Lisa e il diavolo (Lisa and the Devil) (1972), considered by many to be
Bava’s masterpiece, she was sympathetic as the tormented Lisa but also
projected a cold reserve that was an indispensable feature of the film’s
dream-like narrative. The nuances of her performance were largely lost in
The House of Exorcism, a recut version of the film that sought to exploit the
success of The Exorcist (1973). Thankfully, Bava’s original version—and
Sommer’s performance in it—has since been restored.

SOMMERS, STEPHEN (1962–). The writer-director Stephen Sommers has

translated some of American horror cinema’s classic monsters into villains
in blockbusting action spectaculars. His early films—which included The
Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) and The Jungle Book (1994)—were respect-
able literary adaptations. However, Deep Rising (1998), a nautical horror
film featuring some particularly unpleasant sea monsters, was lively exploi-
tation fare and demonstrated Sommer’s propensity for joining horror with
action. The Mummy (1999) and its sequel The Mummy Returns (2001) took
this yet further, with an Indiana Jones–like hero and some impressive state-
of-the-art special effects, although Sommers’s screenplays also displayed
knowledge of and affection for the Universal mummy films of the 1930s and
1940s. Van Helsing (2004) was even more of an homage to Universal horror.
Dracula, Frankenstein and his creation, and some werewolves were all
306 • SOUTHERN GOTHIC
present, and the film began with a black-and-white re-creation of a classic
horror scene. Perhaps some of the later spectacle overwhelmed the narrative,
but the nostalgia for an older form of genre cinema was palpable.

SOUTHERN GOTHIC. The term “southern gothic” generally refers to

gothic fictions set in the American South and is associated with the work of
20th-century writers such as William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Flan-
nery O’Connor. It is not a subgenre of horror, yet in its engagement with
various aspects of southern American history it often features horror-like
elements, such as themes of insanity, the supernatural, the grotesque, and
violence. Horror films that have attracted the label southern gothic include
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Angel Heart (1987),
and The Skeleton Key (2005). However, perhaps more credibly, southern
gothic also encompasses films that exist on the margins of the horror genre,
combining horror conventions with material drawn from other genres, such
as melodrama and the psychological thriller. These include Robert Al-
drich’s Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), the Clint Eastwood vehicle
The Beguiled (1971), John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), Richard Fleis-
cher’s Mandingo (1975), and Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort (1981). Hor-
ror-themed television series that incorporate southern gothic elements in-
clude American Gothic (1995–1996), the first season of True Detective
(2014), and Outcast (2016–). See also RURAL HORROR.

SPANISH HORROR. Spain has been one of the major contributors to the
development of European horror cinema. However, it was a late entrant to
the genre. While Britain and Italy were churning out horrors from the late
1950s on, Spain did not begin large-scale horror production until much later
in the 1960s. Before then, Jesus Franco directed some idiosyncratic Spanish
horrors, including the surgical horror film Gritos en la noche (The Awful
Dr. Orloff) (1962) and its sequel El secreto del Dr. Orloff (The Secret of Dr.
Orloff, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll’s Mistresses) (1964), but he
remained an isolated figure who would later leave Spain and embark on an
itinerant filmmaking career. More significant, in commercial terms at least,
was the emergence of actor Jacinto Molina (working under the name Paul
Naschy) as a Spanish horror star with the likes of La marca del hombre-lobo
(Mark of the Werewolf, Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror) (1968) and La noche
de walpurgis (Shadow of the Werewolf) (1970) and the success of the
psychological horror film La residencia (The Finishing School, The House
That Screamed) (1969).
The horror boom that followed during the 1970s and the more fragmented
horror production that took place in the 1980s encompassed both traditional
period horrors and contemporary-set giallo-like thrillers. Directors who spe-
 SPIELBERG, STEVEN (1946–) • 307
cialized in the genre included Leόn Klimovsky, Amando de Ossorio, and
Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, while other directors—among them Vicente Aran-
da, Eloy de la Iglesia, and Bigas Luna—passed through horror on their way
from or to other, often more reputable types of filmmaking. Because of this
unusual mix of directorial talent, some film historians have argued that, in
the first half of the 1970s in particular, Spanish horror offered covert cri-
tiques of society under General Franco’s repressive rule. It is certainly the
case that films such as Arenda’s La novia ensangrentada (The Blood-Spat-
tered Bride) (1972) and Claudio Guerín’s La campana del infierno (The Bell
from Hell) (1973) seemed to attack codes of machismo behavior and social
conformity, although whether this was how they were perceived in Spain or
elsewhere is far from clear. Alongside this potentially serious thread in Span-
ish horror ran the more lunatic charms of Molina’s gory but often sentimental
werewolf stories as well as conventionally plotted but atmospheric horrors,
such as de Ossorio’s Blind Dead films (1971–1975) or Klimovksy’s La
orgía nocturna de los vampiros (The Vampires Night Orgy) (1972).
From the mid-1990s on, there has been a revival in the fortunes of Spanish
horror, especially with films made explicitly with an international market in
mind. These have included Alex de la Iglesia’s El día de la bestia (Day of the
Beast) (1995), Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis (1996) and The Others (2001),
the Scream-like thriller Tuno negro (2001), Jaume Balagueró’s Los sin
nombre (The Nameless) (1999) and Darkness (2002), Guillermo del Toro’s
El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone) (2001) and El laberinto del
fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) (2006), and Juan Antonio Bayona’s El orfanato
(The Orphanage). From 2001 to 2006, the Fantastic Factory company, set
up by Julio Fernández and Brian Yuzna, also produced a series of horror and
fantasy films utilizing Spanish cast and crew but filmed in English to aid
international distribution. However, Spanish horror’s most successful fran-
chise since the 1970s has turned out to be the [REC] films, beginning with
the found footage zombie drama [REC] (2007) and continuing through three
sequels.

SPIELBERG, STEVEN (1946–). Steven Spielberg’s most commercially

successful films have tended to be escapist fantasies. However, there is a
darkness also apparent in some of his work that has occasionally led him into
horror themes and imagery. This is apparent in both his Indiana Jones and
Jurassic Park films, with this particularly the case for the graphic scenes of
human sacrifice depicted in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
Spielberg’s professional debut as director was on the pilot for the televi-
sion horror show Night Gallery (1969). The television film Something Evil
(1972) was a ghost story, while Duel (1971), also made for television and
ostensibly a thriller, had some rural horror resonances in its Richard
Matheson–scripted story of a man being terrorized by a large truck. As a
308 • THE SPLAT PACK
number of critics have pointed out, Jaws (1975), Spielberg’s breakthrough
film, owed more than a little to Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black
Lagoon (1954). Spielberg went on to direct one of the segments in Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983) and produced Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982)
and Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984). He also executive produced the television
series Amazing Stories (1985–1987), which contained some horror material.
See also AMERICAN HORROR.

THE SPLAT PACK. Journalist Alan Jones coined the term “splat pack” in
the early 2000s. It described a group of young filmmakers whose work was
confrontational, taboo breaking, and explicitly violent and who often ideal-
ized 1970s horror as a source of inspiration. Their films offered grungy, low-
budget aesthetics that kicked against the more visually appealing likes of
Scream (1996) and its many teenage horror imitators that dominated the
horror market at the time. The directors involved were an internationally
eclectic bunch that included Alexandre Aja, Darren Lynn Bousman, Greg
McLean, Neil Marshall, Eli Roth, James Wan, and Rob Zombie. Wan,
Roth, and Zombie, in particular, were associated with the controversial “tor-
ture porn” horror cycle, although Wan would subsequently move away into
more upmarket ghost stories with Insidious (2011) and The Conjuring
(2013). Indeed, the work of these directors generally turned out to be quite
distinct from each other, with the “splat pack” label arguably functioning
more as a provocation than as a description of an actual group. In any event,
while the directors concerned have generally maintained a connection with
the horror genre since the early 2000s, most of them have moved into other
areas of horror.

STANLEY, RICHARD (1966–). The director Richard Stanley has had a

much-interrupted but still interesting career in horror. He began in the genre
with the British production Hardware (1990), a science fiction/horror hybrid
about a killer robot let loose in the heroine’s apartment. The plot might have
been derivative, but the film was stylish and suitably claustrophobic in a
manner that belied its low budget. Dust Devil (1992) was both more ambi-
tious and harder to classify. Filmed in part in Stanley’s native South Africa, it
offered an ambiguous and self-consciously mystical treatment of a story in
which a demon stalked the lonely and the unhappy. Dust Devil suffered
severe cuts by its distributors, although a Stanley-approved version did even-
tually become available. He was next hired to direct The Island of Dr.
Moreau (1996), which starred Marlon Brando, but was fired by the produc-
ers shortly after filming began and replaced by John Frankenheimer. Since
then, he has worked mainly in documentary.
 STEELE, BARBARA (1937–) • 309
STECKLER, RAY (1938–2009). An exploitation director is always looking
for a memorably lurid title, and Ray Steckler found his with The Incredibly
Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
(1964). The film itself was negligible, although screenings of it were occa-
sionally enlivened by people dressed as zombies lurching through the cine-
ma. Steckler also directed The Thrill Killers (The Maniacs Are Loose)
(1964), although, as was usually the case with Steckler’s work, production
values were so nonexistent that at best the film fell into the “so bad it’s good”
category. Later Steckler horrors often contained pornographic elements:
these included Sinthia, the Devil’s Doll (1968), The Mad Love Life of a Hot
Vampire (1971), The Horny Vampire (1971), and Sexorcist Devil (1974).
More straightforward horror fare, albeit of a low-budget and not particularly
memorable kind, was provided by Blood Shack (1971), The Hollywood
Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher (1979), and Las Vegas Serial Killer
(1986). Steckler sometimes appeared in his own films under the name Cash
Flagg and also directed under several names, including Sven Christian and
Wolfgang Schmidt. His most likable film is probably the superhero spoof Rat
Pfink a Boo Boo (1966), where, for once, the ultralow budget seemed to work
in the film’s favor. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

STEELE, BARBARA (1937–). Birkenhead, England, might seem an unusu-

al point of origin for a major horror icon, but this is where the actor Barbara
Steele was born. Although she appeared in minor roles in some British films
during the late 1950s, her career in horror began in Italy with Mario Bava’s
La maschera del demonio (The Mask of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire,
Black Sunday) (1960). Steele played both the heroine and the villainess in a
manner that suggested that the two were not clearly separable. Her unusual
large-eyed beauty suited her particularly well to the role of Asa the witch,
whose pale, wounded face is one of the horror genre’s most haunting images.
She next appeared in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptation Pit and
the Pendulum (1961), but it was her subsequent films in Italy that developed
her distinctive fetishistic screen persona. The best of these were L’orribile
segreto del Dr. Hichcock (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, The Terrible Secret of
Dr. Hichcock) (1962) and Lo spettro (The Ghost) (1963), both of which were
directed by Riccardo Freda. Other Steele vehicles tended to be more con-
ventional, although she remained a remarkable presence in them. An appear-
ance in Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963) widened her range as a performer, but
such opportunities were rare in her career. She temporarily stopped making
horror films in the late 1960s, returning to the genre a few years later with
David Cronenberg’s The Parasite Murders (They Came from Within, Shiv-
ers) (1975), Joe Dante’s Piranha (1978), and Silent Scream (1980).
Throughout the 1980s, she worked as a producer for American television
310 • STEVENSON, ROBERT (1905–1986)
before returning yet again to the horror genre with a role in Dan Curtis’s
revival of his vampire-themed show Dark Shadows (1990). She retains a
significant cult following among horror fans.
Steele’s other horror or horror-themed films are I lunghi capelli della
morte (The Long Hair of Death) (1964), Danza macabra (Castle of Blood)
(1964), 5 tombe per un medium (Cemetery of the Living Dead) (1965), Gli
amanti d’oltretomba (Nightmare Castle) (1965), La sorella di satana (Re-
venge of the Blood Beast, The She-Beast) (1966), Un angelo per satana (An
Angel for Satan) (1966), and Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968). See also
ITALIAN HORROR.

STEVENSON, ROBERT (1905–1986). It might be hard to believe, but the

man who directed the much-loved Disney classics Mary Poppins (1964), The
Love Bug (1968), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) also had one Brit-
ish horror film to his credit. In fact, the British director Robert Stevenson
worked in a variety of genres before arriving at Disney and in 1936 came up
with The Man Who Changed His Mind. This mad scientist drama was one of
the best American-style horrors to emerge from British cinema during the
1930s. It starred Boris Karloff as the scientist, and seasoned American hor-
ror writer John L. Balderston worked on the screenplay. Stevenson’s
American-produced version of Jane Eyre (1944) also has a brooding, gothic
atmosphere.

STONE, OLIVER (1946–). The American writer-director Oliver Stone is

now generally thought of as a director of politicized films such as Platoon
(1986), JFK (1991), and Natural Born Killers (1994). However, he started
out in horror. Seizure (1974) and The Hand (1981) offered themselves osten-
sibly as supernatural dramas, although Stone was clearly more interested in
exploring the tortured psychologies of his male protagonists. Thematically,
they can be related to his later films, but they lack the flair and the energy of
his best work. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

STROCK, HERBERT L. (1918–2005). Herbert L. Strock was one of a

group of American directors (others included Roger Corman and Bert I.
Gordon) who contributed to the 1950s boom in low-budget horror produc-
tion. After some uncredited work on The Magnetic Monster (1953) and cred-
ited direction of the science fiction drama Gog (1954), Strock made three
teenage horror films in rapid succession: I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
(1957), Blood of Dracula (1957), and How to Make a Monster (1958). All of
these offered conservative narratives in which troubled teenagers were turned
into monsters under the baleful influence of predatory adults. Juvenile delin-
quency was thus figured as something dangerous that had to be contained for
 SUBOTSKY, MILTON (1921–1991) • 311
the good of the community. How to Make a Monster additionally exhibited
self-reflexive elements in its depiction of a horror film makeup artist taking
revenge on his enemies. Strock also directed some episodes of the television
horror series The Veil (1958) and supervised the assembling of episodes from
the series 13 Demon Street (1959–1960) into the feature film The Devil’s
Messenger (1961). His final significant horror credit was The Crawling Hand
(1963), a lurid disembodied hand science fiction/horror hybrid. His later
uncredited work on Monster (1979) was undistinguished. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

STUART, GLORIA (1910–2010). A picture of blonde elegance, the actor

Gloria Stuart graced two of James Whale’s classic horror films, The Old
Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), as well as the more
obscure Secret of the Blue Room (1933), and that was it as far as her horror
career was concerned. She is still remembered by horror fans, however.
Many years later, she showed up as the older version of Kate Winslet’s
character in James Cameron’s Titanic (1997).

SUBOTSKY, MILTON (1921–1991). If one man can be credited with in-

itiating the British horror cycle that began in the late 1950s, that man is the
American writer-producer Milton Subotsky. It was he who first approached
Associated Artists Productions with the idea of doing an updated Franken-
stein film. Associated Artists passed the idea to the British company Ham-
mer. Subotsky had written a Frankenstein screenplay, but the Hammer pro-
ducers went with their own version, and the success of The Curse of Fran-
kenstein (1957) reshaped the company into an internationally renowned hor-
ror factory.
Subotsky moved to Great Britain to produce the horror film The City of the
Dead (Horror Hotel) (1960). With his business partner Max J. Rosenberg, he
subsequently set up Amicus, a company that would become Hammer’s lead-
ing rival in British horror production (although Hammer constantly out-pro-
duced it in terms of sheer number of films released). Subotsky’s innovations
included focusing on contemporary settings, introducing more humor than
was apparent in Hammer horror, and popularizing the horror anthology for-
mat. His wrote the screenplays for Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965),
The Skull (1965), I, Monster (1970), Tales from the Crypt (1972), and Vault
of Horror (1973), but his main contribution was as producer. After Amicus
closed down in the mid-1970s, he produced a few more horror-related titles,
including Dominique (1978) and The Monster Club (1980).
312 • SURGICAL HORROR
SURGICAL HORROR. Horror cinema of the 1930s and 1940s often dealt
with medical matters, usually via the mad scientist format, but generally this
did not involve explicit displays of bodies surgically opened up for our
inspection. This changed in the late 1950s, when surgical horror became an
important generic element, especially in European horror. Although Ham-
mer’s Frankenstein films—beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)—might seem tame today,
the images they offered of severed body parts and blood-spattered operating
gowns were shocking enough at the time and helped to distinguish this new
iconoclastic horror from what had gone before in the genre. Yet more explicit
was Georges Franju’s Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes without a Face) (1959),
which featured a unsparingly graphic but also perversely beautiful scene in
which a surgeon slowly peeled away the skin from a woman’s face. From
Spain, Jesus Franco’s Gritos en la noche (The Awful Dr. Orloff) (1962)
delivered more of the same, albeit in a less elegant form, and went on to
generate several sequels, while British horror cinema saw the production of
more Frankenstein films throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, alongside
such surgery-based films as Corridors of Blood (1958), Corruption (1967),
and Scream and Scream Again (1969).
The fearfulness of the isolated and unscrupulous surgeon appeared to have
become diminished by the 1970s, possibly because of the way in which
highly publicized advances in transplant surgery had helped to demystify
surgical procedures. A fascination with the objectification of human bodies
within medical contexts continued—for example, in the work of David Cro-
nenberg or in the medical conspiracy thriller Coma (1978)—but the surgeon
himself was less central to this. More recently, the German production Anat-
omie (2000) revived surgical horror themes in its exploration of Germany’s
fascist past, while the controversial Dutch production The Human Centipede
(First Sequence) (2009) reintroduced the figure of the mad surgeon. Jen and
Sylvia Soska’s Canadian horror American Mary (2012) explored the dis-
turbing world of extreme body modification, while Pedro Almodόvar’s La
piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) (2011) offered a more poetic and stylized
treatment of surgical themes. By contrast, the Austrian production Ich seh,
Ich seh (Goodnight Mommy) (2014) returned us to some of the visceral
medical imagery first glimpsed in the earlier Les Yeux sans Visage.

SURREALISM. The surrealist movement emerged during the 1920s and

generated a series of experimental film projects, the most notable of which
was Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien andalou (1928). The film’s
opening sequence—which showed in a graphic close-up an eye being sliced
open by a razor—had an assaultive quality that the horror genre would later
explore and exploit in various ways. Similarly, the breakdown in narrative
logic offered by Un Chien andalou has also been a strategy adopted by
 SYKES, PETER (1939–2006) • 313
subsequent horror productions as they have sought to construct a nightmarish
remodeling of reality. However, it is hard to find many direct connections
between these two areas of culture, which rather seem to exist in parallel with
each other, often engaging with similar material but within very different
contexts. (One might compare this with the more obviously influential Ger-
man expressionism, where creative personnel and films circulated between
Germany and the United States.) Directors such as David Lynch, Roman
Polanski, and Jan Svankmajer can be aligned with the surrealist tradition,
but the self-conscious artfulness of their work has tended to elevate them
above the horror genre in which they have occasionally found themselves.
Most horror filmmakers clearly operate independently of any surrealist ideas
or practices, yet, perhaps paradoxically, horror films often seem surrealistic
in their invoking of unconscious states and dream-like worlds.

SUTHERLAND, DONALD (1935–). Some of the Canadian actor Donald

Sutherland’s earliest screen credits are in European horror films. He played
several parts in the low-budget Italian horror Il castello dei morti vivi
(Castle of the Living Dead) (1964), including a grotesque witch. In Britain,
he was a more straightforward leading man in the vampire segment of the
Amicus horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) but reverted
to grotesquerie as the simpleton gardener in Hammer’s psychological thrill-
er Fanatic (Die! Die! My Darling!) (1965). Subsequently, he became an
international star in films such as MASH (1970) and Klute (1971), and his
return to horror was as the grieving father in Nicolas Roeg’s ambitious and
thought-provoking ghost story Don’t Look Now (1973). He also starred in
the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and played a Victorian
medium in Bob Clark’s Jack the Ripper film Murder by Decree (1979).
Sporadic character roles followed. He trained Buffy in Buffy the Vampire
Slayer (1992), the film that inspired the television series of the same name,
and also featured in The Puppet Masters (1994), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999),
and An American Haunting (2005). On television, he was a vampire’s aco-
lyte in Salem’s Lot (2004) and Captain Walton in the miniseries Franken-
stein (2004).

SYKES, PETER (1939–2006). The Australian-born director Peter Sykes

was one of a group of filmmakers—others included Gordon Hessler, Mi-
chael Reeves, Peter Sasdy, and Christopher Wicking—who started work-
ing in British horror during the late 1960s and early 1970s and who threw
into question some of the more conservative attitudes prevalent in the genre
at the time. In Sykes’s case, he had already made The Committee (1968), a
countercultural film with a Pink Floyd score, before turning to genre cinema
with Venom (1971), a dark thriller filmed in Germany. Two horror films
314 • SYKES, PETER (1939–2006)
followed for Hammer. Demons of the Mind (1972) was a moody period
piece that reproduced some of the countercultural criticisms of the institution
of the family that were circulating in this period. To the Devil a Daughter
(1976), Hammer’s final horror film of the 1970s, was a more straightforward
but still stylish Satanic thriller. Away from Hammer, Sykes also made the
comedy-horror The House in Nightmare Park (1973).
Perhaps surprisingly for someone with this kind of cinematic pedigree,
Sykes later worked on the widely seen biopic Jesus (1979).
 T
TEENAGE HORROR. Teenagers have formed a major part of the audience
for horror films since the 1950s, but not all post–World War II horrors have
featured teenagers. The first wave of teenage horror appeared in the late
1950s in a series of films in which teenage protagonists were often presented
as troubled delinquents in the manner of Rebel without a Cause (1955). If
teenagers were thus framed as a social problem, identification with them was
aided by the way in which they were frequently victimized by predatory
adults in unscrupulous experiments. Examples included I Was a Teenage
Frankenstein (1957), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), Blood of Dracula
(1957), How to Make a Monster (1958), and Teenage Zombies (1959).
Something similar, albeit in a more chilling and somber form, was offered by
Hammer’s The Damned (These Are the Damned) (1963), in which delin-
quents were paralleled with deadly radioactive children.
Subsequently, teenagers did not have much of a part to play in the genre
until the late 1960s, when the theme of generational division again became
significant, with this arguably reflecting broader social tensions of the time.
Monstrous prepubertal children were the main focus of this in films such as
Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen
(1976), but teenagers too suffered at the hands of both adults and their own
peers in the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Carrie
(1976). The real and lasting turn to the teenage experience began in the late
1970s with the rise of the American slasher film—also dubbed, by trade
magazine Variety, the “teenie-kill-pic.” Halloween (1978) and Friday the
13th (1980) and their many sequels and imitators focused almost entirely on
the lives (and violent deaths) of teenage characters, with parents and other
adults thoroughly marginalized. It has often been suggested that this type of
horror offered a judgmental treatment of teenage sexual mores, with virginity
a necessary prerequisite for survival. If this was the case, it is hard to under-
stand why teenagers flocked to the slashers for entertainment. A more likely
explanation involves the presence in many slashers of a theme found else-
where in post-1960s horror, namely, an intolerance of complacency and an

315
316 • TELEVISION
emphasis on the need to be alert. Sex did not get you killed in the slasher;
rather, what did was not paying enough attention to what was going on
around you.
Since the slasher, the horror genre has maintained and developed its inter-
est in teenagers. The Nightmare on Elm Street series presented a veritable
parade of troubled teenage heroes and heroines, with the knife-fingered killer
Freddy Krueger functioning as a monstrous parent who had to be repeatedly
defeated. Scream (1996) and its sequels and imitators introduced yet more
elaborate soap-opera dramatics and a self-reflexive awareness of horror his-
tory into the teenage-horror formula. In recent years, horror cinema has
slightly extended its range of protagonists into their 20s, reflecting no doubt
the gradual aging of the horror audience. Nevertheless, recent films, such as
Cabin Fever (2002), Cry Wolf (2005), Hostel (2005), Pulse (2006), Stay
Alive (2006), and Wilderness (2006), continue to underline a point that the
horror genre has been making since the 1950s, namely, that bad things hap-
pen to you when you are young.

TELEVISION. The association of television with domesticity and family

viewing would seem to render it an unsuitable site for horror, which is a type
of fiction not often connected with entertainment for the family. Yet from the
1950s on, television has, sporadically at least, provided a home for horror
stories. This began in the late 1950s, when horror films made during the
1930s and 1940s were first shown on American television. These were often
presented by horror hosts—among them Vampira, Criswell, and Tarantula
Ghoul—whose jocular prefaces helped to make the films appear nonthreaten-
ing and thereby rendered them more suitable for domestic viewing. Such
screenings introduced these old horrors to new audiences and established that
there was still a market for the genre, arguably a factor in the development of
new forms of horror in the late 1950s. Some of the anthology shows popular
on American television in the 1950s and 1960s also offered a few horror-
themed episodes, again with these usually framed by a friendly host. The
most notable series in this respect were Alfred Hitchcock Presents
(1955–1962), The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), The Outer Limits
(1963–1965), and, most horror-like of all, One Step Beyond (1959–1961) and
two series hosted by Boris Karloff: The Veil (1958) and Thriller
(1960–1962).
During the 1960s, horror themes and images showed up in other family-
friendly televisual formats. The Addams Family (1964–1966) and The Mun-
sters (1964–1966) were situation comedies in which a focus on decidedly
gothic families inverted some of the standard sitcom conventions to humor-
ous effect, while producer-director Dan Curtis introduced a vampire and a
werewolf into the cast of his soap opera Dark Shadows (1966–1971). Curtis
would later be responsible for a series of television horror films, which
 TELEVISION • 317
together probably represented the most sustained attempt, in the 1970s at
least, to emulate cinematic horror. The most successful of these was the
modern vampire story The Night Stalker (1972, directed by John Llewellyn
Moxey), which inspired the television horror series Kolchak: The Night
Stalker (1974–1975). In turn, this series was one of the inspirations for the
hugely popular science fiction/horror series The X Files (1993–2002). Other
series would also make occasional diversions into the genre—for example,
horror monster Jack the Ripper featured in the science fiction shows Star
Trek (1966–1969) and Babylon Five (1994–1998)—but very few developed
a sustained investment in horror. In fact, this seemed generally the fate of
horror on television, constantly to be framed by more televisual formats and
conventions but rarely embraced fully for what it was.
Anthology shows continued to be a key format for horror on television,
with, among others, Night Gallery (1970–1973), Darkroom (1981–1982),
Tales from the Darkside (1984–1988), Amazing Stories (1985–1987), Fred-
dy’s Nightmares (1988–1990), and Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996). The
series Millennium (1996–1999), Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996–1999), Brim-
stone (1998–1999), and The Others (2000) were more reliant on cinematic
conventions and consequently darker and more disturbing, while miniseries
adaptations of Stephen King’s novels—among them Salem’s Lot (1979) and
The Stand (1994)—formed a horror television subgenre all of their own.
However, the television market for horror during the 1990s and beyond
became increasingly focused on a teenage demographic. This was evident in
the success of shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003),
Charmed (1998–2006), Angel (1999–2004), Supernatural (2005–), and The
Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), all of which offered a cheerful mix of attrac-
tive young leads acting out traditional horror scenarios against a background
of modern rock music. It seemed that some of horror’s conventions had
finally become a normalized part of television entertainment and were no
longer relegated to late-night adult-only time slots.
More recently, however, horror series produced for cable—notably Carni-
vale (2003–2005) and the Masters of Horror anthology show (2005–)—
benefited from a more relaxed attitude to censorship and began to generate
images and stories as hard edged and disturbing as anything available in
horror cinema. This tendency has continued with the gory likes of American
Horror Story (2011–), the serial killer drama Hannibal (2013–2015), the
gothic horror Penny Dreadful (2014–2016), The Strain (2014–), and the
zombie drama The Walking Dead (2010–). Other series have started to look
back nostalgically at the horror genre’s past, notably the Psycho prequel
Bates Motel (2013–2017), the slasher-oriented Scream Queens (2015–2016)
and Slasher (2016), the self-explanatory Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015–), and the
Omen-inspired Damien (2016).
318 • THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)
Other countries have also developed their own televisual horrors. During
the late 1950s and 1960s, both Argentina and Spain had their own popular
horror anthology shows with, respectively, Obras maestras de terror (Mas-
terworks of Horror) (1958–1960) and Historias para no dormir (Stories to
Keep You Awake) (1966–1968), while novelist Koji Suzuki’s much-adapted
novel Ringu was first adapted for Japanese television as Ringu: Kanzen-Ban
(1995). More recently, France produced an effective story about what hap-
pens when the dead return with Les revenants (The Returned) (2012–2015).
Perhaps most notable in this respect is Great Britain, where Nigel
Kneale’s 1950s Quatermass stories proved potent science fiction/horror hy-
brids (later filmed by Hammer), and the cult children’s series Doctor Who
(1963–1989, 2005–) regularly deployed scary and horrifying story elements.
Kneale would go on to write for television the unnerving ghost story The
Stone Tape (1972) and the anthology series Beasts (1976). The British horror
company Hammer produced three television anthology series—Journey to
the Unknown (1968), Hammer House of Horror (1980), and Hammer House
of Mystery and Suspense (1984)—while the BBC offered anthologies such as
Out of the Unknown (1965–1971), Late Night Horror (1968), and Supernatu-
ral (1977). In addition, upmarket adaptations of classic ghost stories by
Charles Dickens and M. R. James have proved a perennially popular aspect
of British television programming, especially at Christmas. In the 1990s, the
BBC also came up with the character of Dr. Terror, who introduced in
humorous fashion a series of horror films. If nothing else, this belated revival
of the horror host suggested that no televisual horror convention was safe
from resurrection. Since then, British television has dabbled in horror-
themed productions, most recently with the retro-likes of Jekyll and Hyde
(2015) and the period ghost story The Living and the Dead (2016).
It is worth mentioning that horror cinema itself has occasionally found
sinister uses for televisions, usually as part of a technophobic agenda. Mon-
sters attack their hapless victims via the television in Poltergeist (1982),
Demoni 2 (Demons 2) (1986), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warri-
ors (1987), Ringu (1998), and The Ring (2002), while the television in David
Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) is an unsettling presence.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). Tobe Hooper’s The Texas

Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most important of all 1970s American
horror films. This is partly because it presented in a particularly clear form
characteristic horror themes of the period, especially in its focus on the
monstrous family and its general sense of American society being in a state
of dysfunction. More significant is its quality as a film, for it manages to be
both artful and utterly relentless, thereby setting a tone rarely seen before in
horror cinema. In fact, it delivers a genuinely nightmarish rural horror
experience as its central characters, unsuspecting young people out for a
 3D • 319
drive in the countryside, are stalked and killed by a degenerate family of
ex–slaughterhouse workers, the most memorable of which turns out to be an
overweight, mask-wearing, chainsaw-wielding psychopath who goes by the
name of Leatherface. The lengthy scene in which the last surviving woman is
tormented by the family during a grotesque dinner party is almost unbearably
horrible, although, like much of the rest of the film, it also contains moment
of very dark humor.
These qualities gave The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a unique character,
and to his credit Hooper did not try to recapture this when he made the
sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). Instead, he opted for a much
gorier treatment that combined some disturbing sequences with moments of
broad comedy. The result was a grotesque curiosity that resembled Hooper’s
own bizarre Eaten Alive (Death Trap) (1977) more than it did his earlier
Chainsaw film. Jeff Burr’s Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
(1990) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), directed
by Kim Henkel, who had cowritten the original Chainsaw film, were more
conventional in their depiction of young innocents stumbling into Leather-
face’s world. Probably their main point of interest was that both featured
early appearances from young actors who would go on to star in considerably
more reputable projects, namely, Viggo Mortensen in Leatherface and Mat-
thew McConaughey and Renee Zellwegger in Next Generation.
A remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre appeared in 2003. As di-
rected by Marcus Nispel, it was slick and atmospheric, but, perhaps inevita-
bly, it lacked the intensity of the original. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
The Beginning (2006), a prequel to the remake, was directed by Jonathan
Liebesman. Texas Chainsaw (also known as Texas Chainsaw 3D) followed
in 2013.

THESIGER, ERNEST (1879–1961). The British actor Ernest Thesiger is

best known for the roles he played for his friend, director James Whale. He
was the lugubrious Horace Femm in Whale’s comedy-horror The Old Dark
House (1932) and stole every scene in which he appeared in Bride of Fran-
kenstein (1935) as the sinister but enjoyably camp Dr. Pretorious, whose
toast of “To a world of gods and monsters” remains one of horror’s most
resonant lines. Thesiger’s British credits include The Ghoul (1933), the dark
psychological thriller They Drive by Night (1938), and the ghost stories A
Place of One’s Own (1945) and The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947).

3D. Used skillfully, 3D can offer an enhanced immersive experience to cine-

ma audiences. It can also function, especially in the case of the horror genre,
as a gimmick, a way of generating cheap shocks and startles and of refresh-
ing tired horror formats. The pattern for horror’s use of 3D became evident
320 • 3D
during the first 3D boom of the 1950s, with the likes of William Cameron
Menzies’s The Maze (1953), Jack Arnold’s Creature from the Black Lagoon
(1954) and its sequel Revenge of the Creature (1955), and the Vincent Price
vehicles House of Wax (1953) and The Mad Magician (1954). In all of these,
3D supported atmospheric qualities but also afforded opportunities for ob-
jects to be projected or fired out toward the audience. In later and gorier
horror films, such objects turned out with increasing frequency to be sharp
objects or body parts in a veritable assault on the hitherto safe space of the
cinema auditorium.
3D was not a significant feature of 1960s and 1970s horror production.
The Canadian horror film The Mask (1961) and Pete Walker’s British
horror The Flesh and Blood Show (1972) were only partly in 3D. By
contrast, Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) made full use of
3D mainly through gleefully dangling human organs and entrails in the audi-
ence’s face, but the film did not initiate a trend. 3D cinema made something
of a comeback in the 1980s, however, and horror responded by deploying it
within established horror cycles. Thus, the third films in both the Friday the
13th and the Amityville Horror cycle, the imaginatively titled Friday the
13th Part III (1982) and Amityville 3-D (1983), became 3D projects. Charles
Band’s Parasite (1982) also jumped on what turned out to be a short-lived
bandwagon, while the sixth Nightmare on Elm Street installment Freddy’s
Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), which was only partly in 3D, was a
belated addition to 3D horror. The quality of the 3D in these low-budget
productions was often unimpressive, and the emphasis was generally on
shock effects.
Following the commercial success of James Cameron’s 3D science fic-
tion film Avatar (2009), 3D became a more standardized part of the cinema-
going experience, and this was reflected in the horror genre, with horror
films, like many non-horror films, often released in both 3D and 2D versions.
Examples included the remakes My Bloody Valentine (2009), Piranha 3D
(2010), Fright Night (2011), Poltergeist (2015), Saw 3D (2010; also known
as Saw: The Final Chapter), the sequels Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) and
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), and Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D (2013). In
many cases, the 3D was more unobtrusive than before, albeit still with some
“in your face” assaultive moments. The final two Final Destination films,
The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011), and the last
three Resident Evil films, Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil:
Retribution (2012), and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), offered a
more consistently imaginative use of 3D to enhance their dramas. However,
these too were not averse to the occasional cheap shot, notably in Final
Destination 5 when an unfortunate victim’s disembodied eye rolls toward us.
 TORTURE • 321
TODD, TONY (1954–). The imposing American actor Tony Todd starred in
the 1990 remake of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and also
featured in The Crow (1994). However, his most significant horror role is as
the undead Daniel Robitaille, also known as Candyman, in three films, be-
ginning with Candyman (1992) and followed by Candyman: Farewell to the
Flesh (1995) and Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999). Although the films
varied in terms of quality, Todd’s performance consistently combined a
sense of nobility with menace. As the sinister Bludworth in Final Destina-
tion (2000), Final Destination 2 (2003), and Final Destination 5 (2011), he
gave hapless teenagers clues as to how they were going to die, and he made a
cameo appearance in Wishmaster (1997) and showed up in the slasher films
Hatchet (2006) and Hatchet II (2010). In addition, he has featured in numer-
ous direct-to-video horror releases.

TORTURE. There is something especially disturbing about cinematic

scenes of torture given that these can so nakedly invoke sadistic elements.
Such scenes were rare in 1930s and 1940s horror, with the most memorable
exception being Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934), in which Bela
Lugosi skins Boris Karloff alive (albeit off-screen). Other moments of tor-
ture showed up in Lew Landers’s The Raven (1935) and Karl Freund’s
Mad Love (1935). Later torture scenes, such as in Roger Corman’s Pit and
the Pendulum (1961) and the Italian horror Il boia scarlatto (Bloody Pit of
Horror) (1965), were more lurid, but it was not until the late 1960s that
representations of torture began to exhibit a genuinely disturbing intensity.
Distinguished examples of this included Michael Reeves’s British horror
Witchfinder General (1968), an intelligent but unsettling account of a witch
finder as he tormented his innocent victims, and Wes Craven’s controversial
rape-revenge drama The Last House on the Left (1972), which offered a
similarly challenging experience played out this time in a contemporary
American setting. Unfortunately, other films purveyed an altogether more
exploitative treatment of torture, such as in the notoriously violent German
witch-finder film Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (Mark of the Devil) (1970).
Torture scenes appeared periodically in horror films from the 1970s on,
sometimes attracting the attention of the censors but not really registering as
an issue of specific concern.
More recently, a small number of horror films have foregrounded torture
in a manner that has provoked adverse comment. Dubbed by some critics
“torture porn,” films such as Takashi Miike’s Odishon (Audition) (1999),
Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects
(2005), James Wan’s Saw (2004) and its sequels, Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005)
and Hostel Part 2 (2007), Greg McLean’s Australian horror Wolf Creek
(2005), Pascal Laugier’s art horror Martyrs (2008), and The Collector
(2009) and The Tortured (2010), to name but a few, have unflinchingly
322 • TOURNEUR, JACQUES (1904–1977)
portrayed scenes of protracted and appalling suffering. While these scenes
clearly involve sadism on the part of the torturers, the extent to which they
also invoke sadism from the films’ audiences—the main source of concern
for critics—remains unclear. One might argue that such films tend to elicit as
much a masochistic response as they do a sadistic one, with audiences en-
couraged to identify with the terrorized victims rather than with the repellent
torturers. This does not necessarily render these films positive in any way,
but it does suggest that if, as some critics have maintained, they are “sick,”
then their sickness is complex, challenging, and worthy of a more open-
minded discussion than it has so far received.

TOURNEUR, JACQUES (1904–1977). The director Jacques Tourneur—

son of another director, Maurice Tourneur—was born in France but spent
most of his career based in the United States. His first major directorial
credits were at RKO, where he was arguably the best of the directors who
worked on a series of upmarket horror films produced by Val Lewton.
Tourneur’s Cat People (1942), which inaugurated the series, was a superbly
staged noir-like horror that transformed its potentially silly story—a woman
fears that she will turn into a panther if sexually aroused—into something
that was both stylish and unsettling, with some highly effective scenes of
suspense and shock. As became customary for Lewton, the emphasis was on
suggestion, with the panther only briefly glimpsed. The voodoo-based drama
I Walked with a Zombie (1943) was, if anything, even better. A very loose
reworking of Jane Eyre, it offered what for the time was an unusually intelli-
gent exploration of racial difference, and the atmospheric sequence in which
the heroine walks through the fields to a voodoo ceremony is now considered
by many horror aficionados to be one of the genre’s classic scenes. The
Leopard Man (1943), Tourneur’s final film for Lewton, lacked the reso-
nances of his earlier work, but it was an effective serial killer narrative that,
as before, featured some impressive suspense set pieces.
Throughout the remainder of the 1940s and 1950s, Tourneur worked in a
variety of genres, including film noir (namely, the 1947 noir classic Out of
the Past), westerns, and swashbucklers. The British-produced supernatural
drama Night of the Demon (Curse of the Demon) (1957), an adaptation of the
M. R. James story “The Casting of the Runes,” marked his return to horror.
As was the case with the films Tourneur made for Lewton, this combined
suspense with intelligence and was one of the most distinguished British
horror films of the 1950s. Initially, Tourneur planned to show only glimpses
of the demon, in the manner of Lewton, but the producers insisted on greater
explicitness, with the demon depicted clearly in the film’s opening sequence.
The result was not the disaster that some critics have made it out to be,
however. The demon is an impressive creation, and, in any event, its initial
appearance bestowed a sense of dread on the rest of the narrative. Tourneur’s
 TROMA • 323
final horror credit was the enjoyable but slight comedy-horror The Comedy
of Terrors (1964), which starred genre luminaries Boris Karloff, Peter
Lorre, Vincent Price, and Basil Rathbone. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

TOWERS, HARRY ALAN (1920–2009). The writer-producer Harry Alan

Towers—who sometimes used the name Peter Welbeck—worked regularly
in British cinema throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s, but he never
contributed directly to the British horror movement. However, he did pro-
duce the period adventure films The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Brides
of Fu Manchu (1966), and The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967), all of which
starred Christopher Lee and featured horror-like elements. Later in the
1960s, he relocated to continental Europe and made several horror films with
Jesus Franco, namely, the Christopher Lee vehicles El Conde Dracula
(Count Dracula) (1970), Il trono di fuoco (Night of the Blood Monster, The
Bloody Judge) (1970), and two more Fu Manchu films: The Blood of Fu
Manchu (1968) and The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969). Towers’s other notable
horror credit from this period was an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian
Gray titled simply Dorian Gray (1970). Thereafter, he produced Howling IV:
The Original Nightmare (1988); Edgar Allan Poe adaptations The House of
Usher (1988), Masque of the Red Death (1990), and Buried Alive (1990); the
Jekyll and Hyde film Edge of Sanity (1989); a version of The Phantom of
the Opera (1989) starring Robert Englund; The Mummy Lives (1993); and
two Tobe Hooper–directed films: Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler
(1995).

TROMA. The Troma production setup was formed by Lloyd Kaufman and
Michael Herz in 1974. Initially, it specialized in comedies but switched to
horror with The Toxic Avenger in 1985. This low-budget effort combined
gore, violence, over-the-top acting, and self-parodying humor in a manner
that seemed designed to win it cult status. Three sequels followed, along
with the similarly cheap, gory, and cheerful Class of Nuke ’Em High (1986),
which also generated two sequels as well as numerous other exploitation
projects combining action with comedy. Troma has also distributed films
from other sources, among them the Belgian-produced Les mémés canni-
bales (1988), retitled as the more marketable Rabid Grannies, and Stuff
Stephanie in the Incinerator (1989). The company has acquired a devoted
fan following, although, as is so often the case with cult attractions, the
appeal of its product can seem baffling to the uninitiated.
324 • THE TWILIGHT SAGA
THE TWILIGHT SAGA. The Twilight Saga consists of five films: Twilight
(2008), directed by Catherine Hardwicke; The Twilight Saga: New Moon
(2009), directed by Chris Weitz; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), directed
by David Slade; and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1 (2011) and
Part 2 (2012), both of which were directed by Bill Condon. All were based
on and were generally very faithful to Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling series
of vampire romance novels for young adults. In certain respects, Meyer’s
work was the logical culmination of the increasingly sympathetic treatment
afforded vampires in horror fiction since Anne Rice’s novel Interview with
the Vampire (1976). However, Meyer’s emphasis on a traditional romance
narrative and her representation of vampirism as a potentially normal and
acceptable lifestyle arguably moved the vampire story decisively away from
the world of horror, even though generic elements—among them were-
wolves and villainous vampires—remained. For this reason, the novels and
their film adaptations were often not well received by either horror fans or
critics. Yet they proved hugely popular with the young adult audiences for
which they were intended.
The series’ overarching narrative deals with its young protagonist Bella
Swan (played in the films by Kristen Stewart) falling in love with the vam-
pire Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson). Over five films, the tribu-
lations of their courtship, marriage, and parenthood, along with Bella herself
becoming a vampire, are entwined with broader narratives involving con-
flicts between vampire clans and between vampires and werewolves. It is in
these other narratives, which support the main romance story, that the Twi-
light Saga approaches horror in its representation of violent death and intense
threat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the series’ darker elements are most evident in
the films from directors with previous experience in horror, notably Slade’s
Eclipse and Condon’s two Breaking Dawn films. Breaking Dawn—Part 1
also contains what for the series was a rare moment of generic self-reflexiv-
ity when the vampire Edward attends a first-run screening of James Whale’s
Bride of Frankenstein (1935). However, for all this generic playfulness, the
series proceeds to that most un-horror-like conclusion: a happy ending.
 U
ULMER, EDGAR, G. (1904–1972). Edgar Ulmer was born in Moravia, but
most of his early filmmaking experience was acquired in Germany, where he
worked as a production designer for both Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau and
also collaborated with Kurt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, and
Fred Zinnemann on the charming semidocumentary Menschen am Sontag
(People on Sunday) (1930). His Hollywood career proved less distinguished
than this, although since his death some of his American films have attracted
a significant cult following. His only mainstream horror film was the extraor-
dinary The Black Cat (1934), which was one of the most perverse of all
Universal’s 1930s horrors. The film’s intimations of necrophilia and the
scene in which Boris Karloff is skinned alive by Bela Lugosi have earned it
a certain notoriety, but its striking Bauhaus-influenced visual style and mor-
dant sense of humor also made it distinct from anything else being produced
by Universal at the time. Unfortunately, it marked the high point of a career
that—apparently as a result of Ulmer’s eloping with the wife of a Universal
executive—would subsequently be played out largely in the low-budget ex-
ploitation sector. Horror titles Bluebeard (1944) and The Man from Planet X
(1951) contained effective moments, but Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) proved less rewarding. Ulmer’s repu-
tation, such as it is, seems to rest more on The Black Cat, along with the
crime drama Detour (1945) and the melodrama Ruthless (1948), than it does
on his other horror work. See also AMERICAN HORROR.

UNDERWORLD (2003). Underworld (2003), directed by Len Wiseman,

was one of a number of 21st-century horror films that sought to explore
vampirism as a viable alternative society (with the Blade films doing some-
thing similar). In an unsubtle representation of class conflict, the vampires in
Underworld lead an aristocratic and privileged life and are in conflict with
werewolves who are figured here as a proletariat force rebelling against their
erstwhile masters. The film’s main protagonist is Selene (played by Kate
Beckinsale), a vampire warrior who eventually rejects her own kind in favor
of a vampire/werewolf hybrid with whom she has fallen in love. The empha-

325
326 • UNIVERSAL
sis throughout is on action-based violence, with machine guns, swords, and
explosives displacing the traditional imagery of vampiric threat. The sequel
Underworld: Evolution (2006), also directed by Wiseman, picked up where
the original had finished and generally offered more of the same. By contrast,
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), directed by Patrick Tatopoulos, was
a prequel and a period piece that depicted the initial outbreak of war be-
tween vampires and werewolves. Stylish in itself, it was hampered by the
fact that the story it told had been set out in some detail in the first film in the
series. Underworld: Awakening (2012), directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn
Stein, and Underworld: Blood Wars (2016), directed by Anna Foerster, saw
the return of Selene and focused on the fate of her hybrid daughter. While
certainly energetic, neither film added much to the franchise.

UNIVERSAL. Universal was one of the smaller Hollywood studios, but it

was the most important as far as the development of the American horror
film during the 1930s and 1940s was concerned. The company had achieved
some success in the 1920s with the Lon Chaney vehicles The Hunchback of
Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and the comedy-
thriller The Cat and the Canary (1927), all of which are now usually thought
of as horror but which were not marketed as such at the time of their initial
release. The cycle of horror production inaugurated by Universal’s Dracula
and Frankenstein in 1931 was much more focused on gothic thrills and
suspense than those earlier silent productions. It helped to establish many of
the key themes and conventions for the horrors that were to come, from
Universal and from elsewhere, as well as discovering two horror stars: Bela
Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Apparently, studio founder Carl Laemmle dis-
liked this type of film, and it was his son Julius Laemmle, also known as Carl
Laemmle Jr., who was the driving force behind the stream of horror or
horror-themed films that emerged after the commercial success of Dracula
and Frankenstein, among them The Mummy (1932), Murders in the Rue
Morgue (1932), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The
Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), Werewolf of London (1935), Bride of
Frankenstein (1935), and Dracula’s Daughter (1936). Although all of these
were marketed as Universal horror, they made up a diverse group in terms of
setting, tone, and quality, with James Whale’s tongue-in-cheek fantasies
The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein existing alongside Edgar G.
Ulmer’s modernist-styled The Black Cat as well as the more stolid The
Raven and Werewolf of London.
After Dracula’s Daughter, there was a short hiatus in Universal horror
production, broken by the handsomely staged Son of Frankenstein (1939).
The films that followed tended to be lower budgeted, and a reliance on
sequels was also more evident than it had been in the 1930s. Universal was
in fact the first studio to perfect what would later be known as the horror
 UNIVERSAL • 327
franchise, churning out series of films based on a returning character. Fran-
kenstein’s monster returned in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Dracula
was back in Son of Dracula (1943), The Mummy's Hand (1940) generated
three sequels, and The Wolf Man (1941) introduced a werewolf who would
subsequently confront other Universal horror monsters in Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of
Dracula (1945); there was also another version of The Phantom of the Opera
(1943). The non-American Lugosi and Karloff had been Universal’s main
1930s stars, but it was the solidly American Lon Chaney Jr. who filled that
role in the 1940s, playing the Wolf Man, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster,
and the mummy, and the tone of these films also shifted away from the
exoticism often apparent in the 1930s work and acquired a more prosaic
quality. A certain garishness was also evident, not least in what might seem
to contemporary audiences to be the very questionable casting of disfigured
actor Rondo Hatton as a monster in House of Horrors (1946).
The critical reputation of 1930s Universal horror now seems unassailable.
It undoubtedly led the way in establishing much of what we now think of as
the horror genre. The status of 1940s Universal horror is less clear. It has
often been unfavorably compared with the more mature horror work being
done by producer Val Lewton at RKO, and its sequelized nature has not
endeared it with those who associate sequels with a crass commercialism.
Matters are not helped by the way in which, from the late 1940s on, Univer-
sal delivered its monsters into the none-too-respectful hands of comedy duo
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in a series of films, the first and best of which
was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). However, these later
Universal horrors still possess a degree of inventiveness, and their sheer
vulgarity is also sometimes a welcome relief after the more tasteful pleasures
offered by the films of Val Lewton.
 V
VADIM, ROGER (1928–2000). The French director Roger Vadim was best
known internationally for Et Dieu . . . créa la femme (And God Created
Woman) (1956) and Barbarella (1968) and was not widely regarded as a
horror specialist. However, he did have two significant genre credits. The
most important of these was Et mourir de plaisir (Blood and Roses) (1960), a
stylish adaptation of J. Sheridan LeFanu’s lesbian vampire story Carmilla.
Vadim also contributed an episode to the Edgar Allan Poe anthology His-
toires extraordinaires (Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Spirits of the
Dead) (1968), although his and Louis Malle’s stories were overshadowed by
Federico Fellini’s brilliant “Toby Dammit.” See also FRENCH HORROR.

VAMPIRES. Folklore and literature have given us many different types of

vampire. However, as far as the early history of the horror film is concerned,
there was only one, and his name was Count Dracula. Bram Stoker’s 1897
novel Dracula was successfully adapted first on the stage and then in the
cinema with Universal’s Dracula (1931), and there were only a few chal-
lenges to his dominance. (For a discussion of the many screen versions of
Dracula, see the entry devoted to the Count.) Notable among these was Lon
Chaney’s turn as someone suspected of being a vampire in the now pre-
sumed lost film London after Midnight (1927), Carl Theodor Dreyer’s
dream-like Vampyr (1931), Universal’s lesbian-tinged Dracula’s Daughter
(1936), and the independent productions The Vampire Bat (1933) and Dead
Men Walk (1943). From the early 1930s to the 1960s, however, vampires
other than Dracula often resembled the Count in their superficial charm, their
sexual motivations, and their aristocratic demeanor. Bela Lugosi, the origi-
nal screen Dracula, played the Dracula-like vampire Count Mora in Mark of
the Vampire (1935) and the equally Dracula-like Count Tesla in The Return
of the Vampire (1944), while the vampiric Count Lavud caused mayhem in
the Mexican horror El vampiro (The Vampire) (1957). As for 1960s Ham-
mer horror, Baron Meinster stood in for Dracula in The Brides of Dracula
(1960), the evil Dr. Ravna took on the role in Kiss of the Vampire (1962), and
the female vampire Lady Durward was the villain in Captain Kronos—Vam-

329
330 • VAMPIRES
pire Hunter (1974), while Count von Krolock was the main vampire in
Roman Polanski’s comedy horror Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless
Vampire Killers) (1967). Even when contemporary vampire stories were in
vogue in the 1970s, aristocratic vampires survived in the form of Count
Yorga in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and The Return of Count Yorga
(1971) and Prince Mamuwalde in Blacula (1972) and Scream, Blacula,
Scream (1973).
Alternative forms of vampirism began to appear in significant numbers
from the 1950s on, with this development arguably a reflection of the grow-
ing internationalization of horror production in the period. A relaxation in
censorship also permitted a more explicit and sensational engagement with
the sexuality of the vampire. Given this, it was perhaps no coincidence that
female vampires, of the clothed and unclothed kind, became more prominent
than before in the genre, especially with European filmmakers who drew on
both J. Sheridan LeFanu’s novel Carmilla and the antics of medieval mass
murderer Countess Elizabeth Bathory for inspiration. Films included Ric-
cardo Freda’s I vampiri (The Devil’s Commandment) (1956), Mario Bava’s
La maschera del demonio (The Mask of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire,
Black Sunday) (1960), Roger Vadim’s Et mourir de plaisir (Blood and
Roses) (1960), Harry Kumel’s Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness)
(1971), and, from the United States, Stephanie Rothman’s The Velvet Vam-
pire (1971). In France, Jean Rollin made a series of such films, beginning
with Le viol de vampire (Queen of the Vampires) (1968), while Hammer
explored the world of nude lesbian vampires in The Vampire Lovers (1970)
and Lust for a Vampire (1971), and Jose Larraz offered yet more explicit-
ness in Vampyres (1974). Meanwhile, vampires of both sexes featured as
stock villains in Mexican and Spanish horror, the director Michio Yama-
moto offered an idiosyncratic Japanese take on vampirism with three horrors
from the early 1970s, and a series of Chinese horror films showcased hop-
ping vampires.
Vampirism as a disease was explored by the American horror The Vam-
pire (1957) and by The Last Man on Earth (1964), one of three adaptations of
Richard Matheson’s groundbreaking vampire novel I Am Legend, although
the theme of infection was developed more successfully by George Romero
in his revisionary zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968). Romero
was also responsible for the revisionary vampire film Martin (1977), which
effectively deconstructed the classic vampire myth through its depiction of a
boy who believes that he is a vampire but has to resort to using a hypodermic
needle in order to obtain blood from his victims.
The rise of the slasher film in the late 1970s temporarily marginalized
traditional horror monsters such as the vampire, although Fright Night
(1985), Fright Night—Part 2 (1988), and The Lost Boys (1987), along with
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) and the television series it generated, re-
 VAN SLOAN, EDWARD (1882–1964) • 331
introduced vampires into the world of teenage horror. Other vampire films
began to explore vampirism as a kind of lifestyle choice that, in certain
respects at least, had some attractive features. Key to this were the vampire
novels of Anne Rice, adapted for the screen as Interview with the Vampire
(1994) and Queen of the Damned (2002), and the television series Angel
(1999–2004), which featured a vampire as its hero. Kathryn Bigelow offered
Near Dark (1987), an innovative horror-western about an outlaw vampire
family, Robert Rodriguez revived the Mexican vampire in From Dusk till
Dawn (1996), David Slade’s 30 Days of Night (2007) played up the savagery
of the vampire world, while the idea of vampires having an alternative but
viable society was developed further by Blade (1998), Blade 2 (2002),
Blade: Trinity (2004), Underworld (2003) and its sequels, and Daybreakers
(2009). Most of all, the theme of the attractiveness of vampires was central to
the enormously successful Twilight cycle of films that began with Twilight
(2008). In turn, this cycle inspired the perhaps inevitable vampire parody
Vampires Suck (2010).
While the non-Dracula vampire persists in popular culture—for example,
with recent outings in the Swedish production Frostbiten (Frostbite) (2006),
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), the remake Fright Night (2011),
and Tim Burton’s comedy Dark Shadows (2012)—he or she has also con-
tinued to be a focus of interest in some more upmarket productions. Exam-
ples here include Guillermo del Toro’s Mexican horror Cronos (1993),
Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction (1995), the Swedish horror Låt den rätte
komma in (Let the Right One In) (2008) and its remake Let Me In (2010), and
Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Along at Night (2014).
The film vampire might once have been a strange, exotic creature, but over
the years he or she has become much more familiar—still threatening, per-
haps, but also capable of near normality. The barrier between the monster
and us has, in this instance at least, become decidedly permeable.

VAN SLOAN, EDWARD (1882–1964). The American actor Edward Van

Sloan first played the role of vampire hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing in
the 1927 Broadway stage production of Dracula that featured Bela Lugosi
as the vampire. He went on to repeat the part in Universal’s Dracula (1931)
and its sequel Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and also featured as a scientist in
Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932). Often bespectacled, he pro-
jected a quiet and decent authority that contrasted with some of the more
histrionic performances apparent in these films. He also appeared in the
Boris Karloff vehicles The Black Room (1935) and Before I Hang (1940), in
both cases predictably cast as a doctor.
332 • VEIDT, CONRAD (1893–1943)
VEIDT, CONRAD (1893–1943). The German actor Conrad Veidt found
worldwide fame during the 1930s in a series of starring and supporting roles
in American and British cinema, including the villainous Major Strasser in
Casablanca (1942). However, before he quit Germany in the early 1930s—
he was a fervent anti-Nazi—he had appeared in a number of horror-like
productions, many of them influenced by German expressionism. The most
influential of these was Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari) (1919), in which he played the somnambulist Cesare in an expres-
sive manner that arguably influenced Boris Karloff’s performance as the
Monster in Frankenstein (1931). He also starred in Der Januskopf (1920), F.
W. Murnau’s now presumed lost version of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
story (which featured an early appearance from Bela Lugosi), and the surgi-
cal horror story Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) (1924), which would
later be remade as the Peter Lorre vehicle Mad Love (1935). The disturbing
grin fixed permanently on his face in the American production The Man Who
Laughs (1928), which was directed by fellow German Paul Leni, apparently
provided the inspiration for the character of the Joker in the Batman comics.
In addition, he featured in the horror-themed Unheimliche Geschichten (Ee-
rie Tales) (1919), Nachtgestalten (Figures of the Night) (1920), Der Graf
von Cagliostro (The Count of Cagliostro) (1921), Das Wachsfigurenkabinett
(Waxworks) (1924), and a remake of the 1913 Paul Wegener classic Der
Student von Prag (The Student of Prague) (1926) as well as starring in and
directing Wahnsinn (Madness) (1919).

VERNON, HOWARD (1914–1996). The screen career of Swiss-born actor

Howard Vernon—real name Mario Lippert—began auspiciously with ap-
pearances in films by such luminaries as Jean-Luc Godard, Fritz Lang, and
Jean-Pierre Melville. However, his increasing association with low-budget
exploitation and horror led to roles that made little of his talents, and he never
made the transition to horror stardom. Vernon was a regular in the films of
exploitation specialist Jesus Franco. He was the villainous Dr. Orloff in
Gritos en la noche (The Awful Dr. Orloff) (1962), a part he would play on
several more occasions for other directors. He was an unmemorable Dracula
in Franco’s Drácula contra Frankenstein (Dracula vs. Frankenstein)
(1972), and he also worked with Jean Rollin on the inferior Le lac des morts
vivants (Zombie Lake) (1981) and Walerian Borowczyk on Docteur Jekyll
et les femmes (Dr. Jekyll and His Women) (1981). Other credits are too
numerous to list here. Sadly, few of them are at all distinguished.

VOLK, STEPHEN (1954–). Over the past 30 years, the British screenwriter
and novelist Stephen Volk has made some significant contributions to horror
in the cinema and particularly on television. As far as film is concerned, he
 VON SYDOW, MAX (1929–) • 333
wrote the screenplay for Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986), which depicted in
Russell’s characteristically feverish fashion the meeting between Mary and
Percy Shelley and Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland that in-
spired the writing of the novel Frankenstein. The Kiss (1988) was a more
modest American horror production about a family curse, albeit with some
genuinely creepy moments. By contrast, The Guardian (1990), as directed by
William Friedkin, was a sometimes stylish but also silly story about a nanny
sacrificing children to a tree demon in contemporary California. Apparently,
it was a troubled production with many script rewrites, but it does have its
moments, and it presents some interesting folk horror elements. Volk’s other
screen credits include the dark thriller Octane (2003) and the superior ghost
story The Awakening (2011).
Volk’s most impactful horror-related work has been for British television,
however. Most notable in this regard is his script for the notorious Ghost-
watch (1992), a mock documentary about a haunted house that was made for
the BBC and that apparently traumatized those members of the audience
incapable of recognizing what the program manifestly was, namely, a fiction.
Such was the controversy generated by Ghostwatch that it has never been
reshown on British television (although it was eventually released on DVD).
Volk also created and wrote most of the episodes for the television series
Afterlife (2005–2006), which dealt with the exploits of a medium, and
adapted for television Phil Rickman’s exorcism-themed novel Midwinter of
the Spirit (2015). His moving novel Whitstable (2013) was a fictionalization
of the last years of horror star Peter Cushing’s life.

VON SYDOW, MAX (1929–). The distinguished Swedish actor Max von
Sydow has received critical plaudits for the films he made with director
Ingmar Bergman. Some of these dealt with horror-like material—notably
Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (1957), Ansiktet (The Magician, The
Face) (1958), and Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf) (1968)—while the rape-
revenge drama Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) (1960) was remade by
Wes Craven as the American horror film The Last House on the Left
(1972). However, it was von Sydow’s performance as Father Merrin in The
Exorcist (1973) that represents his major contribution to the horror genre. He
was only in his mid-40s at the time of production but successfully conveyed
both the physical frailty and the moral strength of this aged character. In the
midst of the narrative’s increasingly lurid and shocking events, he provided
some much-needed gravitas. He reprised the role in Exorcist II—The Heretic
(1977) and later switched sides to play the devilish Leland Gaunt in the
Stephen King adaptation Needful Things (1993). He was also a police in-
spector in Dario Argento’s giallo thriller Nonhosonno (Sleepless) (2001)
and showed up in small roles in the supernatural action film Solomon Kane
(2009) and in the director’s cut of The Wolfman (2010).
334 • VOODOO
VOODOO. Horror cinema has shown little interest in the historical origins
of the voodoo religion. Instead, voodoo in horror is usually associated with
zombies, although after Night of the Living Dead (1968) this association has
become less evident, in zombie films at least. Those nonzombie horrors that
represent voodoo or voodoo-like practices as a threat emanating from black
or minority ethnic communities inevitably flirt with racism, although they
can also provide compelling portrayals of white complacency. Such ambigu-
ous films include Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), The Possession of
Joel Delaney (1972), The Believers (1987), Angel Heart (1987), and The
Skeleton Key (2005). Some of the trappings of voodoo, such as voodoo dolls,
show up in, among others, Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn!) (1962),
The Witches (1966), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), and Child’s
Play (1988), although this tends to be more in the context of stories of
witchcraft and magic.
 W
WAGGNER, GEORGE (1894–1984). During the 1940s, the American pro-
ducer-director George Waggner, who had earlier specialized in westerns,
made a series of well-crafted horror films for Universal. He started by direct-
ing Man Made Monster (1941)—a mad scientist story featuring Lon Cha-
ney Jr. in his first horror role—and Horror Island (1941). Next came his
best-known film: The Wolf Man (1941). This was a fresh start for Universal’s
werewolf cycle after Werewolf of London (1935), and it established Chaney
as the Wolf Man, a part he would repeat on several occasions. Waggner’s
direction for all of these films was unfussy and generally eschewed the
expressionistic devices that had characterized much 1930s American horror
production. Subsequently, he acted as producer on The Ghost of Franken-
stein (1942), Phantom of the Opera (1943), and Frankenstein Meets the
Wolf Man (1943) before returning to direction with the Boris Karloff vehicle
The Climax (1944). From the 1950s on, he worked mainly for television and
directed some episodes of the Karloff-hosted series The Veil (1958).

WALKER, PETE (1939–). The producer-director Pete Walker was an im-

portant figure in 1970s British horror. At a time when the escapist fare
offered by Hammer horror was becoming exhausted, Walker introduced a
contemporary edge and a rawness into the genre. With a background in low-
budget exploitation cinema (he specialized in sex films before turning to
horror), he was well suited to the more explicit and exploitative sector of
horror production. However, his horror films at their best also possessed an
inventiveness and an integrity that lifted them above work by other directors
from this period.
Walker’s Die Screaming, Marianne (1971) might have sounded like it was
a horror film but was actually a fairly straightforward thriller. The Flesh and
Blood Show (1972), by contrast, combined a whodunnit structure with suffi-
cient violence, gore, and grotesquerie for it to be thought of as horror. Its
narrative—in which an old, psychotic actor terrorizes some helpless young

335
336 • WALLACE, TOMMY LEE (1949–)
people—also introduced what would become a key theme in Walker’s later
horror work, namely, the attack on youth culture and lifestyles by an older
generation.
The three films for which Walker is best known followed in the mid-
1970s. In House of Whipcord (1974), young women are kidnapped and con-
fined to a brutal private prison where they are punished for their “sins”; in
Frightmare (1974), a cannibalistic old lady kills the young and eats their
flesh; and in House of Mortal Sin (The Confessional) (1975), a corrupt priest
ruthlessly murders anyone who threatens to uncover his crimes. These are all
relentlessly gory and grim narratives, and good rarely prevails in them. One
of the attractive heroines of House of Whipcord is eventually hanged, while
in the conclusions of Frightmare and House of Mortal Sin, the murderers are
left free and triumphant.
The nihilism apparent here is comparable with that found in some 1970s
American horror films and can similarly be seen as a response to the social
unrest that characterized this period. At the same time, Walker’s films seem
very British in their sense of place, in their precise attention to social and
class divisions and etiquette, and in a dry sense of humor that occasionally
surfaces amidst all the horror.
The psychological thrillers Schizo (1976) and The Comeback (1978) were
more conventional and lacked the intense focus of Walker’s earlier work
(although the presence of middle-of the-road crooner Jack Jones in The
Comeback gives it a certain curiosity value). House of the Long Shadows
(1983), Walker’s final film, was different from anything he had done before.
A loose adaptation of the hoary 1913 novel Seven Keys to Baldpate, this
haunted house mystery exuded nostalgia for an older type of horror cinema.
The presence in it of august horror stars Peter Cushing, John Carradine,
Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price helped with the marketing, but the film
never found an audience, perhaps because it was so out of step with a horror
cinema that in the early 1980s was becoming increasingly focused on teenag-
ers.
In the mid-1980s, Walker withdrew from the film industry and became a
successful property developer.

WALLACE, TOMMY LEE (1949–). The early part of Tommy Lee Wal-
lace’s career in cinema involved his working for John Carpenter. He was
art director on Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974) and Assault on Precinct 13
(1976) and then became production designer and editor for the director’s
Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980). It was perhaps not surprising, then,
that his directorial debut was the Carpenter-produced Halloween III: Season
of the Witch (1982), for which he also received a screenplay credit (as a result
of Nigel Kneale, the original writer, having his own name removed from the
credits); in the same year, he also wrote the screenplay for another sequel:
 WAN, JAMES (1977–) • 337
Amityville II: The Possession (1982). More sequels followed, with Wallace
writing and directing two vampire films: Fright Night Part 2 (1988) and the
Carpenter-produced Vampires: Los Muertos (2002). Wallace also cowrote
and directed the Stephen King television miniseries It (1990). Most of his
other non-horror credits have been for television. See also AMERICAN
HORROR.

WALTON, FRED. When a Stranger Calls (1979), writer-director Fred Wal-

ton’s feature debut, is the classic screen rendition of the urban legend in
which a babysitter discovers that a series of menacing phone calls are being
made from inside the house in which she is babysitting. Walton handled the
suspense well and then took the story in an unexpected direction by explor-
ing the motivations of the killer. His next horror, April Fool’s Day (1986),
was an effective late entry into the slasher cycle. Walton’s last genre credit
to date was the made-for-television sequel When a Stranger Calls Back
(1993). His original version was remade by Simon West in 2006, although
the remake lacked the impact of the original. See also AMERICAN HOR-
ROR.

WAN, JAMES (1977–). The Malaysian-born, Australian director and pro-

ducer James Wan made his directorial debut with the little-seen Australian
horror film Stygian (2000). His next film as director was considerably more
successful. The American horror Saw (2004) has to date generated seven
sequels and acquired notoriety as a prime example of “torture porn,” a type
of horror that foregrounds explicit acts of torture. Later films in the Saw
cycle focused increasingly on the torture traps created by the Jigsaw killer
and his many acolytes, but Wan’s original was also an effective mystery
thriller that exuded a low-budget intensity generally lacking in the films that
followed.
Wan’s next film was also a horror project, albeit a very different one.
Dead Silence (2007) was a supernatural tale in which a vengeful ghost pos-
sesses a series of ventriloquist dolls. The film was not commercially success-
ful, but elements that would characterize Wan’s later work in the genre were
evident within it, notably a fascination with eerie dolls and toys and frequent
recourse to jump scares. After a detour into the crime genre with the revenge
drama Death Sentence (2007), Wan returned to horror with Insidious (2010),
which cleverly combined haunted house and possession themes and which
contributed to a wider reinvigoration of the ghost story in American horror.
He offered more of the same with The Conjuring (2013), allegedly based on
a real-life case of haunting and possession, and the sequel Insidious: Chapter
2 (2013). In all of these productions, Wan demonstrated an ability to create
extended sequences of suspense and terror that were interspersed with inven-
338 • WARBECK, DAVID (1941–1997)
tively staged jump scares. The inclusion of idiosyncratic elements in the
Insidious films—the playing around with temporal narrative structures and
the fondness of the villainous red-faced demon for the music of Tiny Tim—
further enlivened what in other respects were conventional generic stories.
By contrast, The Conjuring was statelier in tone and displayed what for the
genre was an unusual degree of respect for its protagonists’ Christian beliefs.
After directing the franchise blockbuster Fast & Furious 7 (2015), Wan
returned yet again to horror with The Conjuring 2 (2016). While not particu-
larly original as a ghost/possession drama, the film demonstrated again
Wan’s ability to generate immersive sequences of suspense and shock within
realistically presented domestic settings.
Wan has also acted as producer or executive producer on all the Saw
sequels, Annabelle (2014) (which was a spin-off from The Conjuring), De-
monic (2015), Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), and Lights Out (2016).

WARBECK, DAVID (1941–1997). The New Zealand–born British model-

turned-actor David Warbeck was a personable presence in both British hor-
ror and Italian horror and indeed one of the few actors to cross over
between the two (with the other notable example of this being Suzy Ken-
dall). His British horror films were not particularly distinguished, with the
best of them proving to be John Hough’s Twins of Evil (1971), which was
the third part of Hammer’s Carmilla trilogy. By contrast, the Joan Craw-
ford vehicle Trog (1970) and Craze (1974) arguably marked the nadir of
their director Freddie Francis’s career and did not do Warbeck’s career
much good either (although both films have since acquired minor cult fol-
lowings). Considerably better were the two films he made for Italian director
Lucio Fulci. Gatto Nero (The Black Cat) (1981), while not one of Fulci’s
major works, was a stylish version of an Edgar Allan Poe tale. L’aldilà (The
Beyond) (1981) was a more significant achievement and indeed marks one of
the high points of Italian horror cinema. It is a visionary horror that makes
little sense in conventional narrative terms but that offers instead extraordi-
nary and unsettling imagery of reality slowly transformed into a hellish
world. Warbeck’s vital contribution, along with his British costar Catriona
MacColl, was to help to ground this in something recognizably human and
familiar, with his downbeat charm effectively offsetting the film’s more out-
ré delights.
Warbeck’s later screen credits were more mundane, including Panic
(1982), Miami Golem (1985), Rat Man (1988), and, his final film, Jake
West’s Razor Blade Smile (1998).
 WEEKS, STEPHEN (1948–) • 339
WARREN, NORMAN, J. (1942–). Like fellow British filmmaker Pete
Walker, the director Norman J. Warren began by making sex films before
switching to horror in the 1970s. His career was not as sustained as Walker’s,
however, and his films have not since attracted the substantial cult following
generated by Walker’s best. Satan’s Slave (1976), Warren’s horror debut,
was a brisk but minor Satanic thriller. Prey (1977) was better. This bizarre
tale of alien invasion and cannibalism, which featured a lesbian couple as its
main protagonists and a scene in which the male alien cross-dresses, could
have easily become a piece of camp nonsense, but Warren treated the materi-
al with sustained seriousness and managed to generate a doom-filled atmos-
phere. Terror (1978) offered a comparably slight story, this time dealing with
a witch’s curse, but here Warren was in a more playful mood, with some
effective humor and self-reflexive moments.
Warren’s subsequent films are all minor, although the Alien-inspired sci-
ence fiction/horror Inseminoid (1980) merits a mention if only because of
the way in which it manages to be both very nasty and very silly.
Warren’s other credits include Outer Touch (1979), Gunpowder (1984),
and Bloody New Year (1986). See also BRITISH HORROR.

WAXWORKS. Horror films have regularly exploited the sinister blurring of

the animate and inanimate found in waxwork museums. An early example of
this was provided by Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks)
(1924), but the most influential wax horror was Mystery of the Wax Museum
(1933), in which mad sculptor Lionel Atwill constructed his wax statues
around the bodies of real people; it was remade as House of Wax (1953).
Other waxwork-based horror was provided by The Frozen Ghost (1945), La
casa del terror (House of Terror) (1960), Santo en el museo de cera (Santo
in the Wax Museum) (1963), Chamber of Horrors (1966), Nightmare in Wax
(1969), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Terror in the Wax Museum
(1973), Tourist Trap (1979), Waxwork (1988), and Maschera di cera (Wax
Mask) (1997). The melting of wax figures in Mystery of the Wax Museum,
with all its disturbing connotations of bodily disfigurement, was given an
innovative turn in the recent House of Wax (2005), in which the wax museum
itself was made of wax and melted spectacularly.

WEEKS, STEPHEN (1948–). The British director Stephen Weeks was one
of a number of young filmmakers who came to the fore in British horror of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, Weeks’s career never really took
flight. I, Monster (1970), his feature debut, was a potentially interesting
version of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story made for Amicus, although it
was hampered by an unimaginative screenplay and a 3D shooting process
that was abandoned during production. Next came the fantasy adventure
340 • WEIR, PETER (1944–)
Gawain and the Green Knight (1973), which was followed by the atmospher-
ic period supernatural drama Ghost Story (1974). Weeks did not make an-
other film for 10 years; the resulting production was an unsuccessful remake
of his own Gawain and the Green Knight titled Sword of the Valiant (1984).
Since then, Weeks has worked mainly as a restorer of historic buildings.

WEIR, PETER (1944–). While the Australian director Peter Weir is not
generally considered a horror director, some of his early films did draw on
horror-like subjects and imagery in their depiction of an alienating Australian
landscape. The narrative of The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)—in which the
inhabitants of a small town deliberately lure outsiders into staged car
crashes—was pure rural horror, although Weir’s comic treatment softened
the disturbing elements. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Australian cinema’s
first major international success, was a haunting study of the disappearance
of some adolescent girls while on a school trip. Ostensibly a period drama, its
refusal to give any explanation for the disappearance, along with its oneiric
atmosphere, bestowed an aura of dark fantasy on the proceedings. The Last
Wave (1977) was equally doom laden and a more obvious example of apoca-
lyptic horror, as a lawyer investigating a murder discovers ominous signs of
a forthcoming natural disaster. As with Picnic, Weir blurs distinctions be-
tween reality and fantasy and creates an intense and unnerving atmosphere.
Since the 1970s, he has worked mainly in the United States. See also AUS-
TRALIAN HORROR.

WEREWOLVES. Unlike Dracula or Frankenstein, the werewolf in horror

cinema lacks any major literary antecedents on which it can draw. Its roots
lie instead primarily in folklore, although, with a few exceptions, horror films
have made little use of folkloric beliefs, preferring instead to conjure up their
own origins. An American film titled The Werewolf was released in 1913,
but the first major cinematic treatment of the werewolf was Universal’s
Werewolf of London (1935), which was directed by Stuart Walker. In effect,
this was a reworking of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, with its principal
lycanthrope a respectable older man who periodically becomes, in true Hyde
style, a ravening beast (although the sexual dimension of Hyde is marginal-
ized).
When Universal returned to the werewolf in The Wolf Man (1942)—solid-
ly directed by George Waggner from a Kurt Siodmak script—it opted for
an approach that stressed the helplessness and pathos of the lycanthrope.
Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr. in a career-defining role) is bitten by a
werewolf and becomes subject to terrifying transformations. His response is
one of maudlin despair, and he spends the remainder of the film and the
sequels Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and House of Frankenstein
 WEREWOLVES • 341
(1944) working out how to die. He succeeds in the latter, although miracu-
lously he is back in House of Dracula (1945), where, equally miraculously,
he is cured in what for him is an unprecedented happy ending. Sadly, howev-
er, Talbot/Chaney returns to cursed mode for his final appearance in the
comedy-horror Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). The Wolf
Man and its sequels established a particular image of the werewolf far more
successfully than had The Werewolf of London to the extent that, like other
classic Universal monster designs, it provided a baseline for later revisions of
the monster‘s appearance. Makeup artist Jack Pierce, who worked on both
films, fashioned a hirsute look for Chaney, with hair covering the face,
hands, and feet, although this version of the monster remained recognizably a
man. This look was also adopted for the werewolf in Columbia’s The Return
of the Vampire (1944) and in the 1960s would form the basis for British and
Spanish versions of the werewolf. By contrast, non-Universal werewolf pro-
jects—Twentieth Century-Fox’s The Undying Monster (1942) and Colum-
bia’s Cry of the Werewolf (1944), the latter featuring a female werewolf—
tried to differentiate themselves from the Universal approach, while Univer-
sal’s She-Wolf of London (1946) turned out not to be a werewolf film at all.
However, it was Chaney’s self-pitying hairy monster that caught the public’s
imagination.
Since the Universal Wolf Man films, there has been only one other sub-
stantial werewolf cycle. The actor Jacinto Molina, who worked under the
name Paul Naschy, starred as the lycanthrope Count Waldemar Daninsky in
a series of Spanish horror films, beginning with La marca del hombre-lobo
(The Mark of the Werewolf) (1968). Daninsky was very much in the Lon
Chaney mold, albeit more brooding and surrounded by much more explicit
representations of both sex and violence. Other than these films, werewolf
dramas were few and far between from the 1950s into the 1970s. The
American productions The Werewolf (1956) and I Was a Teenage Werewolf
(1957) both featured the werewolf as a victim of a mad scientist, while
Chaney donned his wolf makeup again for the indifferent Mexican horror
film La casa del terror (The House of Terror) (1960). British horror also
engaged only sporadically with the werewolf in this period. Hammer’s The
Curse of the Werewolf (1961), its sole werewolf film, dealt more explicitly
than ever before with the sexual dimension of lycanthropy, with one of the
werewolf’s transformations taking place in a brothel. Amicus, another Brit-
ish horror company, also dabbled in the subject, with a werewolf story in its
horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) as well as the fea-
ture The Beast Must Die (1974), although in both cases the whodunnit-like
emphasis was on trying to guess who the werewolf was from a series of
possible suspects, while the Tyburn company offered a belated British period
342 • WEST, JAKE (1972–)
horror treatment in Legend of the Werewolf (1975). American horror cine-
ma of the 1970s had little use for the werewolf, although a lycanthrope did
enter the White House in the comedy-horror Werewolf of Washington (1973).
The 1980s saw a modest revival in cinematic lycanthropy. John Landis’s
An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Joe Dante’s The Howling
(1981) wittily updated the werewolf story both through humorous references
to classic werewolf films and through groundbreaking transformation scenes
engineered by, respectively, Rick Baker and Rob Bottin. Gone were the
obtrusive fades from one stage of makeup to another that had characterized
the Chaney films; instead, transitions from the human form to something
more animalistic than the Wolf Man seemed to take place before our aston-
ished eyes. Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves (1984) opted for a more
fairy tale–like approach in its exploration of connections between lycanthro-
py and male sexuality. As had I Was a Teenage Werewolf before them, the
comedies Full Moon High (1981) and Teen-Wolf (1985) also discovered
resonances between the transformations of lycanthropy and those of male
adolescence.
Since the 1980s, the situation has become yet more fragmented. There
have been several sequels to The Howling, while An American Werewolf in
London also generated one rather belated follow-up: An American Werewolf
in Paris (1997). The Canadian Ginger Snaps trilogy (2000–2004) explored
the theme of the female werewolf. Wolf (1994), as directed by Mike Nichols
and starring Jack Nicholson, was a relatively somber treatment of the were-
wolf theme. More playfully, the werewolf was also a guest monster in Ste-
phen Sommers’s Van Helsing (2004) and Michael Dougherty’s anthology
Trick ’r Treat (2007), and Wes Craven offered a werewolf-based whodunnit
in Cursed (2005). A romanticized and sympathetically presented version of
the werewolf played an important role in the last four films in the Twilight
series and in Blood and Chocolate (2007). Most recently, The Wolfman
(2010) was a sumptuously staged remake of the 1941 The Wolf Man that,
while not making much of an impact at the box office, was an intelligent
updating of what was by then a very familiar story. However, perhaps the
most original recent version of the werewolf story is the compelling Spanish
production Romasanta (2004), which, as directed by Paco Plaza, deals with a
serial killer who believes that he is a werewolf. Unlike most werewolf
fictions, it is based on a true story.

WEST, JAKE (1972–). The British writer-director Jake West is one of a

group of filmmakers who reanimated British horror cinema from the late
1990s on, with others including Neil Marshall and Christopher Smith.
Much like his compatriot directors, West’s films combine an international
eclecticism as far as their generic influences are concerned with parochial
British elements, although his work tends to be lower budgeted and more
 WEST, TI (1980–) • 343
comedic in tone. His feature debut was Razor Blade Smile (1998), an ultra-
low-budget vampire film. This was followed by Evil Aliens (2005), an ener-
getic alien abduction film that offered more knockabout horror thrills. West’s
best film to date is Doghouse (2009), in which a group of men on a day out in
the country wander into a British village infested by female zombies. It was
not subtle, but a quality cast brought some surprising depth and pathos to the
drama. West has also forged a career as a documentary filmmaker, specializ-
ing in work on cinema. Particularly impressive is his documentary Video
Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010).

WEST, TI (1980–). The American writer-director Ti West is a specialist in

what might be termed “slow burn” horror. He works with scenarios in which,
initially at least, dramatic incidents and events are rare, with the director
gradually and incrementally building suspense toward intense and horrifying
conclusions. For some audiences, his films have proved a little too lacking in
incident to be interesting. However, for others this approach renders the
eventual descent into horror especially disturbing in comparison with more
conventional horror formats. Early features The Roost (2005) and Trigger
Man (2007) were not widely distributed, and the director disowned the se-
quel Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009). The first West film to make an
impression, therefore, was the Satanic thriller The House of the Devil (2009),
which he also scripted. Set in the 1980s, the film was a remarkably assured
portrayal of a female student taking on some babysitting at an isolated house
only to be drawn inexorably into a cultist conspiracy, and it built up to a
genuinely disturbing conclusion. West followed it with the ghost story The
Innkeepers (2011), which was set in a largely deserted and haunted hotel. It
was perhaps less intense than The House of the Devil, but like that film it
maintained an ominous atmosphere all the way through to a conclusion that
managed to be both predictable and upsetting. The Sacrament (2013), West’s
next feature project, was a found footage horror detailing a journalistic
investigation of a sinister cult. The film clearly drew at least some of its
inspiration from the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 in which more than 900
people died, although West’s emphasis was more on suspense and horror
than it was on seeking to explain how such an awful event could have come
about.
West also contributed segments to the horror anthologies V/H/S (2012)
and The ABCs of Death (2012) and directed episodes for the television series
Scream (2015–), South of Hell (2015), and Wayward Pines (2015–2016). In
2016, he moved away from the horror genre to direct a western: In a Valley
of Violence.
344 • WESTERNS
WESTERNS. It is well known that the horror genre shares themes and
imagery with both the science fiction and the crime genres. Its connection
with the western is more surprising given that the western is usually seen as a
robustly outdoors-based format in comparison with horror’s claustrophobic
nature. However, a number of horror films have operated as degraded west-
erns, exploring places or historical moments where the pioneering ideals
embodied in the western have become introverted to the point of insanity.
One thinks here of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and Antonia
Bird’s Ravenous (1999), both of which reference the real-life Donner Party
incident from the 1840s, in which a party of American settlers resorted to
cannibalism. The western Bone Tomahawk (2015) also invoked cannibalism
in its depiction of the American wilderness. By contrast, Kathryn Bigelow’s
Near Dark (1987) used western conventions in its depiction of the modern-
day exploits of a vampire band of outlaws. More conventional, if bizarre,
generic hybridity was provided by Billy the Kid versus Dracula (1966) and
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966). Vampires also showed
up in Curse of the Undead (1959) and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat
(1991), while Grim Prairie Tales (1990) was a western-based horror anthol-
ogy. Operating from within the western idiom, some of Clint Eastwood’s
films have contained supernatural or gothic elements, notably Beguiled
(1971), High Plains Drifter (1973), and Pale Rider (1985).

WHALE, JAMES (1889–1957). The director James Whale is often seen as

one of the founding fathers of American horror cinema, although he made
only four films that could be described as horror, and two of those were
marginal cases. He was born in England and, after military service in World
War I, worked in the British theater. His breakthrough success came in the
late 1920s with his direction of the war play Journey’s End. Subsequently, he
brought the play to Broadway and, in 1930, directed the film version in
Hollywood for Universal, following this with the superior tearjerker Water-
loo Bridge (1931).
Frankenstein (1931), Universal’s follow-up to Tod Browning’s Dracula
(1931), was originally due to be directed by Robert Florey and to star Bela
Lugosi, but both withdrew from the project, and Whale took over. As he
would with all his horror films, he looked to British actors, casting Journey’s
End star Colin Clive as Frankenstein and an obscure bit-part actor by the
name of Boris Karloff as the Monster. The resulting film was far more
consistent than Dracula had been and still retains a good deal of its dramatic
power today. Like many 1930s American horror films, it drew on German
expressionism both in its style—especially its shadowy lighting and its tilted
camera angles—and in its iconography. Its laboratory creation scene owed
something to Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece Metropolis (1927),
and its conceptualization of the Monster was equally indebted to Conrad
 WHALE, JAMES (1889–1957) • 345
Veidt’s somnambulist in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari) (1919) and Paul Wegener’s Golem in Der Golem, wie er in die
Welt kam (The Golem) (1920). But Whale also made the Monster an intense-
ly sympathetic figure whose monstrous acts—he does kill people in the
course of the film—were marginalized, with the emphasis instead on the way
in which the society through which the Monster moved misunderstood him.
Some horror historians have related this to the 1930s American Depression,
arguing that the Monster’s powerlessness, along with the fact that he dressed
like a hobo, made him a potent identificatory figure for socially disempow-
ered audiences. Other critics have pointed to Whale’s gayness as a potential
explanation for the focus on the Monster’s social exclusion. However, no
single explanation seems adequate to the complex and resonant drama fash-
ioned by Whale and his collaborators.
Both The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), Whale’s
next two genre films, are often classified as horror, although this seems to
have more to do with Whale’s association with the genre, Karloff’s presence
in The Old Dark House, and the mad scientist elements in The Invisible Man
than it has with the actual content of the films themselves. The Old Dark
House, adapted from a J. B. Priestley novel and set in Great Britain, saw
Whale delighting in the eccentric Femm household, into which some cosmo-
politan travelers are driven by a storm. It is in certain respects an early
example of rural horror, but the stress throughout is on comedy, with the
few chilling elements—notably Karloff’s brooding performance as the mute
butler and the discovery of the homicidal maniac locked away in the house—
all the more effective for their isolation. The Invisible Man, from H. G.
Wells’s novel and also set in Britain, also offered humorous encounters with
rural eccentrics. The main narrative—a Frankenstein-like affair in which a
scientist (played by Claude Rains) is driven insane by an unwise experi-
ment—was rather conventional. The joy of the film was in its stylized depic-
tion of British village life along with what, for the time, were state-of-the-art
special effects.
Although Whale was initially reluctant to return to horror, his final work in
the genre is now widely considered the greatest of all 1930s American horror
films. Bride of Frankenstein (1935), the first horror sequel, revisited the
creation scenes and Monster pathos of the first film but added the emphasis
on eccentricity from The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man. Its combi-
nation of humor and horror was both remarkably inventive and well judged.
It cheerfully paralleled the sufferings of the Monster with the sufferings of
Jesus Christ and also played up what—to modern eyes at least—seems a
potentially homoerotic relationship between Frankenstein and his mentor: the
decidedly camp Dr. Pretorious (with critics also detecting similar overtones
in the forest idyll that the Monster shares with a blind hermit). Finally, it
346 • WHANNELL, LEIGH (1977–)
offered one of the most memorable of all female monsters in Elsa Lanches-
ter’s hissing bride (with, in a canny piece of casting, Lanchester also playing
Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, in the film’s prologue).
Whale subsequently had a commercial hit with the musical Showboat
(1936), but the World War I drama The Road Back (1937) was not well
received. Of his other non-horror credits, the murder mystery Remember Last
Night (1935) and the swashbuckler The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) are
well worth seeing, although Whale never again attained the creative heights
of his horror work. He retired from cinema in the 1940s and by all accounts
lived a quiet, private life thereafter. He was found dead in his swimming pool
in 1957. His death was for many years considered mysterious, although a
long-suppressed suicide note was finally disclosed in the 1980s.
Bill Condon’s biopic Gods and Monsters (1998) was a loving, partly
fictionalized account of Whale’s later years, with Ian McKellen in the role of
the director.

WHANNELL, LEIGH (1977–). Leigh Whannell is an Australian writer,

director, producer, and actor working mainly in American horror cinema.
Much of his work has been in collaboration with the director James Wan.
While critics tend to favor the director’s contribution over that made by the
writer, Whannell is clearly a significant figure in the creation of two impor-
tant horror franchises. He and Wan together came up with the story for Saw
(2004), with Whannell writing the screenplay and starring in the film as one
of the Jigsaw Killer’s unfortunate victims. Whannell went on to contribute to
the screenplay for the sequels Saw II (2005) and Saw III (2006) and acted as
an executive producer for these and subsequent Saw films. He also wrote for
Wan the ghost stories Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2010), and Insidious:
Chapter 2 and wrote and directed Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015). As if this
were not enough, Whannell also found time to appear in the Insidious films
as the psychical investigator Specs whose comedy double act with Angus
Sampson’s Tucker offsets some of the films’ more intense moments.
In addition, Whannell contributed to the screenplay for the comedy-horror
Cooties (2014).

WHEATLEY, DENNIS (1897–1977). From the 1930s to the 1970s, the

British writer Dennis Wheatley was one of the world’s leading horror novel-
ists. He specialized in thrillers and historical romances featuring the occult,
and although his work is now deeply unfashionable and largely out of print,
Hammer did adapt three of his novels for the big screen. The Lost Continent
(1968) was a bizarre adventure story. The Devil Rides Out (1968) remains
one of the genre’s best Satanic thrillers, however. As directed by Terence
Fisher and scripted by Richard Matheson, it was faithful to Wheatley’s plot
 WILLIAMS, JOHN (1932–) • 347
but removed his somewhat bombastic dialogue and reactionary attitudes. To
the Devil a Daughter (1976), adapted by Christopher Wicking for director
Peter Sykes, was interesting in its own right but took only a few ideas from
Wheatley’s original story.

WICKING, CHRISTOPHER (1943–2008). From the late 1960s on, a new

generation of filmmakers revived the British horror cycle, introducing new
ideas and new approaches to the genre. The screenwriter Christopher Wick-
ing was one of those filmmakers. In comparison with the norm provided by
Hammer horror, his scripts were often provocatively fragmented, critical of
those authority figures privileged by earlier Hammer horrors, and firmly on
the side of the young. He worked several times with director Gordon Hess-
ler, first on the fairly conventional The Oblong Box (1969) and subsequently
on the considerably more daring Scream and Scream Again (1969), Cry of
the Banshee (1970), and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971). He also wrote
for Hammer during its final years as a horror film producer, a period in which
the company was also attempting to reinvent itself. Blood from the Mummy’s
Tomb (1971), for maverick director Seth Holt, was an inventive and daring
reinterpretation of the mummy story, while Demons of the Mind (1972), for
director Peter Sykes, explicitly critiqued paternal authority. Also for Sykes,
Wicking coscripted what would turn out to be Hammer’s final horror film of
the 1970s: the Dennis Wheatley adaptation To the Devil a Daughter (1976).
Here, he successfully translated a decidedly old-fashioned novel into the
modern horror idiom, although it turned out to be a troubled production. His
other genre credits include Venom (1971)—for Sykes again—and Dream
Demon (1988). Wicking, who was also a film critic, managed to find time to
cowrite a well-received book on American television: The American Vein.

WIENE, ROBERT (1873–1938). It is perhaps paradoxical that German

director Robert Wiene’s best-known credit is the classic example of expres-
sionism Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1919),
as this is a film that seemed more dependent for its distinctiveness on the
production designers than it did on the director, with the camera largely static
throughout. Wiene’s Genuine (1920) was Caligari-like in style, although it
lacked that film’s impact. Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) (1924), the
first of several adaptations of Maurice Renard’s novel, was more convention-
al but nevertheless a stylish horror thriller. See also GERMAN HORROR.

WILLIAMS, JOHN (1932–). The composer John Williams has written the
music for some of the most commercially successful films of all time, in-
cluding the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series. His horror scores are few
and far between—perhaps because low-budget horror films usually cannot
348 • WILLIAMSON, KEVIN (1965–)
afford such a distinguished figure—but they are all impressive. The most
famous is, of course, his score for Steven Spielberg’s monster movie Jaws
(1975), the main theme of which has become an instantly recognizable part
of contemporary popular culture. Less well known but just as effective are
his scores for Brian De Palma’s telekinesis thriller The Fury (1978) and
John Badham’s Dracula (1979). In both cases, Williams’s lush orchestra-
tions bestow grandeur and a romantic intensity wholly appropriate to the
subject matter.

WILLIAMSON, KEVIN (1965–). The experienced horror director Wes

Craven might have brought the suspense and shocks to the enormously
successful Scream franchise, but it was screenwriter Kevin Williamson who
made the teenage characters credible and likable. His screenplay for Scream
(1996)—which he had originally titled Scary Movie—rejuvenated tired
slasher conventions through giving more space to the interactions between
the teenagers as well as providing a clever whodunnit narrative structure. His
subsequent work on I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Scream 2
(1997), and The Faculty (1998) maintained this focus on teenagers, although
the werewolf film Cursed (2005), which reunited him with Craven, was less
successful. His directorial debut, the black comedy Teaching Mrs. Tingle
(1999), was also not well received. Williams was involved in Scream 3
(2000) only as a producer, but he wrote the screenplay for Scream 4 (2011)
and was also one of the producers on Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
and Scream 2. For television, he created the popular teenage drama series
Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003), The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), the
witchcraft drama The Secret Circle (2011–2012), the serial killer drama
The Following (2013–2015), Stalker (2014–2015), and the short-lived Jack
the Ripper series Time After Time (2017).

WINGARD, ADAM (1982–). The American writer-director Adam Wingard

comes out of American independent cinema, and his films often display
qualities associated with that kind of filmmaking, notably offbeat character-
izations, unpredictable narratives, and unconventional attitudes. At the same
time, he has the ability to wed an “indie” approach to mainstream horror
conventions in a manner that does not disrupt or attenuate generic effective-
ness. He began with ultra-low-budget features Home Sick (2007), Pop Skull
(2007), A Horrible Way to Die (2010), Autoerotic (2011), and What Fun We
Were Having (2011), many of which contained horror elements. The home
invasion horror You’re Next (2011) was the first of Wingard’s films to re-
ceive wide distribution, and it benefited from a substantially increased bud-
get and higher production values. In its depiction of a family celebration
disrupted by brutally violent outsiders, Wingard demonstrated an impressive
 WISE, ROBERT (1914–2005) • 349
ability to create suspense and shock but also delivered a convincing portrayal
of what turns out to be an extraordinarily dysfunctional family. In the film’s
survivalist heroine, Wingard also provides us with one of the most proactive-
ly violent Final Girls in horror history. The Guest (2014), his next feature
film, was in effect another home invasion movie. Although more a thriller
than a horror film, its depiction of a charming but also threatening house-
guest insinuating his way into a family home endowed that figure with mon-
strous qualities, and, like You’re Next, the film ended up with the destruction
of the family. Wingard’s next was Blair Witch (2016), a sequel to The Blair
Witch Project (1999) that sought to reenergize the found footage horror
format and gave the witch herself, briefly glimpsed in some scenes, the
ability to manipulate time and space. For all its liveliness, however, it was
not well received.
Wingard also contributed episodes to the horror anthologies The ABCs of
Death (2012), V/H/S (2012), and V/H/S 2 (2013).

WINSTON, STAN (1946–2008). The makeup, special effects, and creature

designer Stan Winston is best known for his work on James Cameron’s The
Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the science
fiction/horror/action hybrid Predator (1987) as well as for his contribution to
Jurassic Park (1993). However, he also has a substantial pedigree in horror,
where his credits include The Bat People (1974), Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde
(1976), Mansion of the Doomed (1976), Dracula’s Dog (Zoltan: Hound of
Dracula) (1978), The Entity (1981), The Hand (1981), Dead and Buried
(1981), Aliens (1986), The Monster Squad (1987), Leviathan (1989), Inter-
view with the Vampire (1994), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Lake
Placid (1999), End of Days (1999), Darkness Falls (2003), Wrong Turn
(2003), and Constantine (2005). Winston acted as producer for some made-
for-cable science fiction/horror films—including Earth vs. the Spider (2001),
How to Make a Monster (2001), The Day the World Ended (2001), and She
Creature (2001)—as well as for the rural horror Wrong Turn. He also
directed the superior monster movie Pumpkinhead (1989) and the horror-
themed Michael Jackson musical short Ghosts (1997).

WISE, ROBERT (1914–2005). The American director Robert Wise experi-

enced considerable success with the blockbusting musicals West Side Story
(1961) and The Sound of Music (1965). However, in a busy career that also
included thrillers, war dramas, science fiction, and historical epics, he also
made a few highly effective horror films. It was noted horror producer Val
Lewton who gave Wise his first opportunity to direct with The Curse of the
Cat People (1944). Although Wise had to share codirector credit with Gunth-
er von Fritsch, the resulting film was an impressive ghost story, and Wise
350 • WITCHCRAFT
went on to direct another Lewton project, The Body Snatcher (1945), a subtle
adaptation of a Robert Louis Stevenson story. Both of Wise’s later horror
films displayed the influence of Lewton in their reliance on suggestion and in
their evocative use of sound. The Haunting (1963) remains one of the most
striking of all cinematic ghost stories and is notable for never showing its
audience a ghost. Audrey Rose (1977) was an underrated possession story
that was made in the era of The Exorcist (1973) but that avoided a melodra-
matic blood-and-thunder approach in favor of a quieter treatment of its sub-
ject. It was an old-fashioned film in the good sense of that term. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

WITCHCRAFT. Witches have appeared only sporadically in horror cine-

ma, but those appearances have often been memorable. The Danish pseudo-
documentary Häxen (Witchcraft through the Ages) (1922) was an early
witchcraft film, but in the 1930s the most widely seen cinematic witches
were the fairy tale villains from the Walt Disney animated feature Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the Judy Garland vehicle The Wizard
of Oz (1939). By contrast, Weird Woman (1944), a campus-based tale of
witches, was a tame horror adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife.
Horror-based witches did not really come into their own until the 1960s.
Mario Bava’s classic Italian horror La maschera del demonio (The Mask
of Satan, Revenge of the Vampire, Black Sunday) (1960) featured a powerful
vampire-witch in the form of Barbara Steele, while the British horror
production Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn!) (1962) was a highly
effective second version of Leiber’s Conjure Wife. Other British witchcraft
films included Don Sharp’s atmospheric Witchcraft (1964), Hammer’s
staid The Witches (1966), and the more exploitative Virgin Witch (1970). At
about the same time, Mexican horror offered the spectacle of masked wres-
tler Santo taking on witches in Atacan las brujas (The Witches Attack)
(1965). The Italian director Dario Argento later portrayed some awesomely
powerful witches in the ultrastylish Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), and
Sigourney Weaver delivered a grandstanding performance as a fairy-tale
witch in the revisionary Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997).
In all these cases, the figure of the powerful woman was rendered as
monstrous and evil in a manner that could readily be construed as misogy-
nist, although this was often accompanied by a fascination with the witch and
her supernatural abilities. A few horror or horror-related films—among them
George Romero’s Jack’s Wife (1972), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and
the teenage horror The Craft (1996)—have taken this further through an
exploration of the possibilities offered by witchcraft for female bonding and
a resistance to male authority.
 WOMEN DIRECTORS • 351
Michael Reeves’s British horror Witchfinder General (1968) contained no
witches, but it did dwell in disturbing detail on the twisted male psychologies
of the witch-hunters. The German productions Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält
(Mark of the Devil) (1970) and Hexen geschändet und zu Tode gequält (Mark
of the Devil 2) (1973) did something similar, although they were consider-
ably cruder and nastier than Reeves’s intelligent work. More recently, folk-
loric American witches featured in The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The
Witch (2015), with the wilderness settings of both these films providing an
appropriate location for their precivilized antagonists. However, the threat of
folkloric witchery in An American Haunting (2005)—which was based
loosely on the alleged real-life story of the Bell Witch—turned out to be
something of a red herring, while the witch in The Conjuring (2013) turned
out to be more of a vengeful ghost.
Comedy witches have shown up in I Married a Witch (1942), Bell, Book
and Candle (1958), Hocus Pocus (1993), and The Witches (1990) and the
television series Bewitched (1964–1972) and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
(1996–2003).

WOMEN DIRECTORS. Having a separate entry for women directors in a

book of this kind might be seen as entailing an unfortunate ghettoization.
However, the fact remains that, to date at least, very few women directors
have had a sustained career in the horror genre. To a certain extent, this
reflects a broader situation in the film industry, where, from its very begin-
nings, very few women got a chance to direct and where even today the
majority of directors are male. The question of whether horror itself is an
area of culture that is in some way intrinsically masculine and therefore best
suited to male filmmakers is far from straightforward. As authors and per-
formers, women have made very substantial contributions to the develop-
ment of horror both in literature and in film, and evidence suggests that
women also form an important part of the horror audience.
This entry lists the small number of women who have had the opportunity
to direct horror feature films. Some of their films are very distinguished, but
they are also so varied in subject and tone that it is hard to detect any general
underlying qualities deriving from the fact that all of them were made by
women. Many of the filmmakers involved here seem to have passed through
horror in the context of careers grounded in other areas of culture, in other
genres, or on television. Examples include Gabrielle Beaumont with The
Godsend (1980), Kathryn Bigelow with the vampire film Near Dark (1987)
and the psychological horror Blue Steel (1990), Antonia Bird with the canni-
balism film Ravenous (1999), Claire Denis with Trouble Every Day (2001),
Mary Harron with American Psycho (2000), Amy Jones with The Slumber
Party Massacre (1982), Barbara Peeters with Humanoids from the Deep
(1980), and Rachel Talalay with Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
352 • WOOD, EDWARD, D. (1924–1978)
(1991) and Ghost in the Machine (1993). By contrast, Genevieve Joliffe has,
to date at least, directed only one film, Urban Ghost Story (1998), and Fran
Robel Kuzui has directed nothing since Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992).
Stephanie Rothman directed the interesting vampire film The Velvet Vampire
(1971) and some other exploitation projects but stopped directing in the mid-
1970s, while Katt Shea’s directorial credits include the vampire film Dance
of the Damned (1988) and Carrie 2: The Rage (1999), her last cinema release
to date. Mary Lambert has had a more sustained career with Pet Sematary
(1989), Pet Sematary II (1992), and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005),
although the last two of these were not widely released. Jennifer Lynch
directed the horror-themed Boxing Helena (1993) and Surveillance (2008),
and Karyn Kusama was responsible for the self-consciously female-centered
Jennifer’s Body (2009) and The Invitation (2015). More recently, Catherine
Hardwicke inaugurated the immensely successful Twilight Saga series of
vampire films with Twilight (2008) and directed the werewolf drama Red
Riding Hood (2011). Jennifer Kent’s directorial debut the Australian horror
The Babadook (2014), Ana Lily Amirpour’s vampire film A Girl Walks
Home Alone at Night (2014), and Julie Ducournau’s cannibalism drama Raw
(2016) have received high critical acclaim for their innovative approaches to
horror. The work of sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska, which includes Dead
Hooker in a Trunk (2009) and the surgical horror American Mary (2012),
has also generated a significant cult following. The release in 2017 of XX, a
horror anthology in which women direct all the episodes, arguably reflects
the increasing prominence of women filmmakers in the production of horror-
themed short films. The extent to which this activity will lead to greater
opportunities for women directors in mainstream feature film production
remains to be seen, however.
As things stand, Roberta Findlay has probably directed more horror films
than any other woman—among them the notorious and extremely low-bud-
get Snuff (1976) as well as Blood Sisters (1987), Prime Evil (1988), and
Lurkers (1988)—but none of these have received any significant critical or
fan praise.

WOOD, EDWARD, D. (1924–1978). It seems unfair that Ed Wood has so

often been described as “the worst film director ever” given that there are so
many other directors who are just as bad. However, his posthumous claim to
fame undoubtedly lies in the sheer awfulness of his films. Some have argued
that they are so bad that they magically become enchanting. In actuality,
watching his horror titles Bride of the Monster (1955), Night of the Ghouls
(1959), and the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) is a dispiriting
experience, especially so for Bride of the Monster and Plan 9, both of which
feature an aged and visibly ill Bela Lugosi in his final roles.
 WRIGHT, EDGAR (1974–) • 353
In 1994, Tim Burton directed the biopic Ed Wood, a fond but romanti-
cized account of the director that featured Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin
Landau in an Academy Award–winning performance as Lugosi. See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

WOODBRIDGE, GEORGE (1907–1973). The burly British actor George

Woodbridge appeared in several Hammer horror films and was an integral
part of their cozy familiarity. He was an innkeeper in Dracula (Horror of
Dracula) (1958) and Dracula—Prince of Darkness (1966) (although it was
not clear whether it was meant to be the same innkeeper in both films) as
well as a bemused policeman in The Mummy (1959) and a surly peasant in
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). He was also a memorably sadistic janitor
in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), where he mercilessly beats Franken-
stein’s creation. In 1968—perhaps in homage to his Hammer innkeeping
experience—he was cast as a hotelier in Jonathan Miller’s now classic televi-
sion adaptation of M. R. James’s ghost story Whistle and I’ll Come to You.
His other genre credits include for Hammer The Reptile (1966) and for
other companies The Queen of Spades (1949), Jack the Ripper (1958), The
Flesh and the Fiends (1959), What a Carve Up (1962), and Doomwatch
(1972).

WRAY, FAY (1907–2004). Fay Wray was the first of horror cinema’s
“scream queens.” Her most spectacular screams are to be found in Merian
C. Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack’s King Kong (1933), but she also
screamed effectively in The Most Dangerous Game (The Hounds of Zaroff)
(1932), which was directed by Irving Pichel and Schoedsack, and in two
films for director Michael Curtiz, Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax
Museum (1933), as well as in The Vampire Bat (1933); she also featured in
the voodoo film Black Moon (1934). However, as is the case generally with
scream queens, she was far from being a passive victim. In all of her horror
films, Wray might have been victimized by men—and ultimately saved by
men as well—but she was also inquisitive, articulate, charismatic, and, on
occasion, more than capable of fighting back herself, such as in Mystery of
the Wax Museum, where she manages to smash in the wax mask of her
assailant. She did not reside in the horror genre for long. There was a final
performance in the British supernatural thriller The Clairvoyant (1934), and
then she was off into the more wholesome world provided by comedies,
musicals, and crime thrillers. Yet she still remains an enduring genre icon.

WRIGHT, EDGAR (1974–). The British writer-director Edgar Wright has

offered some idiosyncratic contributions to British horror while also forg-
ing an international career. He first made his mark with the television come-
354 • WRIGHT, EDGAR (1974–)
dy series Spaced (1999–2001), which featured some horror elements and
which starred regular later collaborator Simon Pegg. Wright went on to direct
the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004), which, like much contempo-
rary British horror, combined international influences—in this case,
American and Italian zombie films—with a distinctly British sensibility in its
depiction of a London-based zombie apocalypse. For all its horror elements,
the film managed to offer a credible romantic-comedy narrative. Wright’s
next film Hot Fuzz (2007) drew mainly on American action films for inspira-
tion, but it also contained rural horror elements in its depiction of a British
small town with a dark secret. The World’s End (2013) was the third part in
what has come to be seen as Wright’s Cornetto trilogy (referencing a brand
of ice cream mentioned in all three films). It was an apocalyptic science
fiction/horror/comedy about a British new town invaded by aliens, and it
concluded, appropriately given the film’s title, with the world as we know it
ending.
Wright was also responsible for the fake trailer for the imaginary horror
film Don’t that featured in the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez project
Grindhouse (2007); this is probably the most straightforwardly horror-like
thing that he has directed. His non-horror projects are Scott Pilgrim vs. the
World (2010) and Baby Driver (2017).
 Y
YAGHER, KEVIN (1962–). The makeup effects specialist Kevin Yagher
began his cinematic career working on various installments of the Friday the
13th and Nightmare on Elm Street horror cycles. He went on to design the
murderous doll Chucky for Child’s Play (1988). Other horror makeup credits
include Retribution (1987), The Hidden (1987), The Seventh Sign (1988),
The Phantom of the Opera (1989), Man’s Best Friend (1993), Dr. Jekyll and
Ms. Hyde (1995), Bordello of Blood (1996), Rumpelstiltskin (1996), and The
Astronaut’s Wife (1996). Yagher directed Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) but
disowned the final version and was billed as “Alan Smithee,” the name
customarily adopted in such circumstances. He also received a credit for the
screen story of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999), a project that at one
point he was slated to direct, and worked on the Tales from the Crypt
(1989–1996) television series. More recently, he has focused on makeup
effects for non-horror projects, such as Mission Impossible II (2000) and
Aeon Flux (2005).

YAMAMOTO, MICHIO (1933–2004). The director Michio Yamamoto

had a brief but interesting career in Japanese horror with a trilogy of vam-
pire films that sought to transpose Western horror conventions into a Japa-
nese context and that also provided an early example of the 1970s tendency
of locating vampires in modern-day settings. Yureiyashiki no Kyofu: Chi O
Suu Ningyoo (The Fear of the Ghost House: Bloodsucking Doll, Night of the
Vampire, Legacy of Dracula, The Vampire Doll) (1970) was a fascinating
attempt to psychologize the state of vampirism. By contrast, Noroi no yaka-
ta: Chi o sû me (Bloodsucking Eyes, Bloodthirsty Eyes, Lake of Dracula)
(1971) and Chi o suu bara (Bloodsucking Rose, The Bloodthirsty Roses, Evil
of Dracula) (1974) featured more traditional vampire villains and offered a
more awkward mix of Western and Japanese elements. Yamamoto also di-
rected the horror film Akuma ga yondeiru (Terror in the Streets) (1970).

355
356 • YARBROUGH, JEAN (1900–1975)
YARBROUGH, JEAN (1900–1975). The director Jean Yarbrough—who is
sometimes referred to as Jean Yarborough—made some interesting contribu-
tions to 1940s American horror cinema. His first genre credit was The Devil
Bat (1940), a silly but enjoyable low-budget vehicle for Bela Lugosi in
which bats are trained to attack people wearing a particular brand of after-
shave. This was followed by King of the Zombies (1941), an indifferent
zombie film enlivened by some comic interludes provided by Manton
Moreland. Both House of Horrors (1946) and The Brute Man (1946) fea-
tured Rondo Hatton as the “Creeper.” Hatton suffered in real life from a
disfiguring condition, and his casting as a monster was, to put it mildly, in
questionable taste. If one can put this aside, Yarbrough’s direction of House
of Horrors is stylish and creates a brooding atmosphere, although The Brute
Man, which sets out the origins of the Creeper, is less successful in this
respect. Both of Yarbrough’s other two 1940s horrors show the influence of
horror producer Val Lewton. Despite its title, She-Wolf of London (1946) is
not actually a werewolf film but instead a murder mystery in which the
female lead believes that she can turn into a wolf. There are clear parallels
here with Lewton’s Cat People (1942), although Yarbrough’s film lacks the
originality or atmosphere of Lewton’s film. Similarly, The Creeper (1948)—
which has nothing to do with Rondo Hatton—plays like a downmarket ver-
sion of a Lewton shocker. Yarbrough returned to the genre in the 1960s with
Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967), which featured horror stalwarts John
Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., and Basil Rathbone, although, sadly, none of
them were at their best.

YU, RONNY (1950–). The Hong Kong–based work of Chinese director

Ronny Yu often contained supernatural or horror-like elements, with this
evident in films such as Jui gwai chat hung (The Trail) (1981), Ling qi po ren
(The Occupant) (1984), Meng gui fo tiao qiang (Bless This House) (1988),
and the period fantasy drama Bai fa mo nu zhuan (The Bride with White
Hair) (1993) and its sequel Bai fa mo nu zhuan II (The Bride with White Hair
II) (1993). Like a number of other Chinese directors and actors, Yu moved to
the United States during the 1990s and contributed films to three American
horror franchises. Both Bride of Chucky (1998), the fourth in the Child’s
Play cycle, and Freddy vs. Jason (2003), which brought together the Night-
mare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th cycles, were slick and violent
crowd-pleasers that demonstrated Yu’s ability to work within the American
horror idiom. Subsequently, Yu returned to Chinese subject matter with the
Jet Li martial arts drama Huo Yuan Jia (Fearless) (2006). See also CHINESE
HORROR.
 YUZNA, BRIAN (1949–) • 357
YUZNA, BRIAN (1949–). The first part of Philippines-born Brian Yuzna’s
career as a prolific writer-director-producer was spent working in the United
States on a range of low-budget genre films, often in association with direc-
tor Stuart Gordon. Among others, he produced Re-Animator (1984) and
From Beyond (1985), Gordon’s gory comedy-horror adaptations of stories
by H. P. Lovecraft, as well as Dolls (1987), another Gordon horror; Warlock
(1989); Infested (1993); and the Lovecraftian horror anthology Necromoni-
con (1994). During this period, he also started directing. His auspicious debut
was the body horror film Society (1989), which combined an astonishing
level of gore with elements of social critique and some none-too-subtle hu-
mor. This was followed by Bride of Re-Animator (1990); Return of the
Living Dead III (1993); a contribution to Necronomicon (1994); The Dentist
(1996); Progeny (1998); and The Dentist 2 (1998), with many of these offer-
ing a similar mix of extreme body-related imagery softened by humor. He
also found time to cowrite and coproduce the family fantasy entertainment
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989).
In 1999, Yuzna relocated to Spain, where he helped to set up Fantastic
Factory, a Spanish company producing English-language horror films, some
of which were directed by Yuzna himself. These included Faust (2001),
Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Rottweiler (2004), and Beneath Still Waters
(2005). None of these matched the inventiveness or achievement of the best
of Yuzna’s American work. However, Yuzna also produced some of the
most outstanding Fantastic Factory films, namely, Stuart Gordon’s stylish
Lovecraft adaptation Dagon (2001), Darkness (2002), and the werewolf dra-
ma Romasanta (2004). See also AMERICAN HORROR; SPANISH HOR-
ROR.
 Z
ZOMBIE, ROB (1965–). Rob Zombie’s rock music has graced many films,
including Urban Legend (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998), and End of Days
(1999). He made the transition from musician to director with House of 1000
Corpses (2003), a gory example of rural horror that, while uneven in tone,
demonstrated Zombie’s affection for the genre (as does the fact that he
changed his name to Rob Zombie from Robert Cummings). His direction of
The Devil’s Rejects (2005), a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, was more
assured and consequently more disturbing in its depiction of appalling human
behavior. Zombie’s films are not easy to watch, especially for anyone not
accustomed to horror, but they are distinctive and intelligent. In 2007, Zom-
bie released a remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and followed
this with the sequel Halloween 2 (2009) and two more horror films: the
witchcraft drama The Lords of Salem (2012) and 31 (2016). See also
AMERICAN HORROR.

ZOMBIES. The disturbing notion that the dead might return and threaten us
has underpinned a range of horror monsters, including vampires, the mum-
my, and ghosts. The zombie represents the most brutish form of this; physi-
cally repellent and usually mindless, it offers a spectacle of death unmitigat-
ed by the attractiveness or charisma possessed by some other monsters.
The idea of the zombie is derived from voodoo-related religious practices,
especially those associated with Haiti. It was W. H. Seabrook’s best-selling
pop-anthropology study The Magic Island (1929) that introduced voodoo and
the zombie to a wider public, and Victor Halperin’s White Zombie (1932)
was the first film to exploit the book’s success. White Zombie presented a
scenario in which white characters abroad encounter strange native customs
and are either overwhelmed by these or—in the case of the film’s villain
(played by Bela Lugosi)—exploit them for nefarious ends. The zombies
themselves were, in essence, slaves, with their climactic assault on their
white master functioning as a coded social rebellion. The racial dimension of
this was never far from the surface, but the foreign location helped to dis-
avow any connection with contemporary reality. Other American zombie

359
360 • ZOMBIES
films of the 1930s and 1940s followed a similar pattern in their emphasis on
a white-centered touristic or colonial experience of non-American cultures.
The level of achievement ranged from the crude—for example, Halperin’s
boring Revolt of the Zombies (1936), Jean Yarbrough’s King of the Zombies
(1941), and Revenge of the Zombies (1943)—to the sophisticated and innova-
tive, notably the Val Lewton–Jacques Tourneur production I Walked with
a Zombie (1943). Despite the quality of Tourneur’s film, the zombie re-
mained a minor horror monster throughout this period, relegated mainly to
the lower end of the genre.
The 1960s saw a limited upward movement in the zombie’s status. This
was first hinted at in Hammer’s The Plague of the Zombies (1966), in which
zombies were figured again as voodoo-created slave labor but where they
were also presented as more visceral and aggressive than they had ever been
before. However, it was George Romero’s seminal American horror film
Night of the Living Dead (1968) that redefined and modernized the zombie,
jettisoning its connection with voodoo and foreign lands and relocating it
within contemporary American society. For Romero, zombieism became a
transmissible infection or disease, an idea that would go on to inform many
later zombie productions. Crucially, the director also made his zombies can-
nibalistic, and he spared no detail in depicting their consumption of human
flesh. Romero went on to make five sequels to Night and, amidst the taboo-
breaking gore, explored with great intelligence the social significance of the
zombie and the way in which it could be used to comment critically on the
state of our world. From Romero’s perspective, the zombie became an ex-
pression of normality itself, of whom we were or could become.
Many of the zombie films produced in the wake of Romero’s success were
less ambitious in scope. During the 1970s, British filmmakers returned to
zombiedom with the remarkably silly Psychomania (1972), in which bikers
returned from the dead, and one of the episodes in the Amicus anthology
Tales from the Crypt (1972). In the United States, Bob Clark offered Chil-
dren Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973), and the blaxploitation horror
Sugar Hill (1974) engaged in a crude way with the racial politics of voodoo
and the zombie. Spanish filmmaker Jorge Grau directed the grim and graph-
ic Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (The Living Dead at the Man-
chester Morgue) (1974), while the stylish Spanish Blind Dead cycle, also
from the 1970s, featured the Knights Templar rising from their graves in
modern Spain.
From the late 1970s on, a series of Italian zombie films—including Lucio
Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie, Zombie Flesheaters) (1979) and Umberto Lenzi’s
Incubo sulla città contaminata (Nightmare City) (1980)—took the gore and
cannibalism to a yet more graphic level, but they also reduced elements of
social critique to a point where they were sometimes hard to detect at all.
Other treatments of the zombie since then have included Gary Sherman’s
 ZOMBIES • 361
Dead and Buried (1981); Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow
(1988), which returned the zombie to its Haitian voodoo context; the Ste-
phen King adaptation Pet Sematary (1989); and Michele Soavi’s Della-
morte dellamore (Cemetery Man) (1994), an altogether more poetic although
still gory rendition of a zombie story. Comedy zombies showed up in Dan
O’Bannon’s The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Peter Jackson’s
Braindead (1992). By contrast, Paul Anderson’s Resident Evil (2002) and
its numerous sequels and Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead (2003) were adapta-
tions of computer games that combined Romero-like zombies with frenetic
action sequences.
Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead (1978) was remade in 2004 by director
Zack Snyder in a version that significantly diminished the original’s social
commentary and that further distinguished its walking dead from Romero’s
shambling version by having its zombies run after their prey, an idea first
seen in the Italian Incubo sulla città contaminata. The commercial success of
Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead seems to have encouraged the production of
numerous low-budget zombie films to the extent that, for a while, the zombie
became the international horror monster par excellence. New comedic zom-
bies featured in the Norwegian Nazi-zombie film Dead Snow (2009) and its
sequel Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead (2014), the Cuban Juan de los Muertos
(Juan of the Dead) (2011), the British Cockneys vs. Zombies (2012), and the
American productions Zombieland (2009) and Scouts Guide to the Zombie
Apocalypse (2015). An unlikely conjunction of zombies, romance, and com-
edy showed up in the British Shaun of the Dead (2006) and the American
Warm Bodies (2013). Altogether more serious treatments of the zombie in-
cluded the French horror La Horde (The Horde) (2009), the African-set The
Dead (2010), the American indie production The Battery (2012), and the
Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Maggie (2015). More spectacular, quite lit-
erally, was the blockbuster World War Z (2013), which starred Brad Pitt and
was by some measure the most expensive zombie film ever made. An effec-
tive combination of an international disease-based scenario with scenes of
claustrophobic confinement and zombie gore and action, it was in effect a
summation of the modern zombie film.
Other contemporary horror films have blurred the definition of what a
zombie actually is by incorporating characters that look and act as zombies
but that instead turn out just to be infected by disease rather than being
walking corpses. These have includes 28 Days Later (2002), 28 Weeks Later
(2007), and the Spanish horror [REC] (2007) and its sequels. The most
innovative of these is probably the Canadian production Pontypool (2008), in
which zombieism is transmitted through language rather than through the
more customary physical forms of infection.
362 • ZUCCO, GEORGE (1886–1960)
Zombies have also made their way into other media forms, including
television—with the most notable success here being the series The Walking
Dead (2010–), which offered a movie-like level of gore and violence—along
with comic books and computer games. Shared thematic preoccupations to
do with the fragility and vulnerability of modern life cut across all of these,
and these can, in various ways, be traced back to George Romero’s influen-
tial 1960s and 1970s version of the zombie.

ZUCCO, GEORGE (1886–1960). The British character actor George Zuc-

co appeared in several British films in the early 1930s—including an adapta-
tion of the H. G. Wells story The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936)—
before relocating to the United States, where he worked in a variety of genres
but increasingly specialized in sinister roles in crime and horror films. He
was Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), re-
turned as another villain in Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), and also
appeared in sinister support in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and
The Cat and the Canary (1939). He was a villainous high priest in Univer-
sal’s The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), and The
Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and played a succession of mad scientist roles in
The Monster and the Girl (1941), The Mad Monster (1942), Dr. Renault’s
Secret (1942), The Mad Ghoul (1943), and The Flying Serpent (1946). The
films were of variable quality, but Zucco was a reliable heavy who became
an integral part of the 1940s American horror scene. Other genre credits
include Dead Men Walk (1943), Voodoo Man (1944), House of Franken-
stein (1944), Fog Island (1945), Scared to Death (1947), and the comedy-
horror Who Killed Doc Robbin? (1948).
 Appendix 1

Horror and the Oscars

The Academy Awards—or “Oscars”—presented by the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences have become the best-known film awards in the
world. It is sometimes assumed that a genre as disreputable as horror does
not prosper in such an area. However, occasional films have scored multiple
Oscar successes, notably The Exorcist and The Silence of the Lambs, while
horror or horror-related films have attracted a surprising number of nomina-
tions. These have often been for makeup and visual effects, with some acting
performances also receiving an approving nod. If nothing else, this list of
Oscar awards and nominations suggests that horror is not always as disrepu-
table as it is sometimes made out to be.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Best Actor: Fredric March
Also nominated for
Best Adapted Screenplay: Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath
Best Cinematography: Karl Struss

Dr. Cyclops (1940)

Nominated for Best Special Effects: Farciot Edouart, Gordon Jennings

The Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Best Color Art Direction: Russell A. Gausman, Ira S. Webb, John B.
Goodman, Alexander Golitzen
Best Color Cinematography: W. Howard Greene, Hal Mohr
Also nominated for
Best Score, Musical: Edward Ward
Best Sound: Bernard B. Brown

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Best Black and White Cinematography: Harry Stradling
Also nominated for
363
364 • APPENDIX 1
Best Black and White Art Direction: Edwin B. Willis, Hugh Hunt, Hans
Peters, Cedric Gibbons
Best Supporting Actress: Angela Lansbury

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Ethel Barrymore

Them! (1954)
Nominated for Best Special Effects (no names cited in nomination)

The Bad Seed (1956)

Nominated for
Best Actress: Nancy Kelly
Best Black and White Cinematography: Harold Hal Rosson
Best Supporting Actress: Eileen Heckert, Patty McCormack

Psycho (1960)
Nominated for
Best Black and White Art Direction: George Milo, Robert Clatworthy,
Joseph Hurley
Best Black and White Cinematography: John L. Russell
Best Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Best Supporting Actress: Janet Leigh

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Best Black and White Costume Design: Norma Koch
Also nominated for
Best Actress: Bette Davis
Best Black and White Cinematography: Ernest Haller
Best Sound: Joseph Kelly
Best Supporting Actor: Victor Buono

The Birds (1963)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects: Ub Iwerks
 APPENDIX 1 • 365
Kwaidan (1964)
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film

Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965)

Nominated for
Best Black and White Art Direction: Raphael Bretton, William Glasgow
Best Black and White Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Best Black and White Costume Design: Norma Koch
Best Editing: Michael Luciano
Best Original Score: Frank de Vol
Best Song: Mack David
Best Supporting Actress: Agnes Moorehead

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Best Supporting Actor: Ruth Gordon
Also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay: Roman Polanski

The Exorcist (1973)

Best Adapted Screenplay: William Peter Blatty
Best Sound: Robert Knudson, Chris Newman
Also nominated for
Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn
Best Art Direction: William Malley, Jerry Wunderlich
Best Cinematography: Owen Roizman
Best Director: William Friedkin
Best Editing: Bud Smith, Evan Lottman, Norman Gay, John C. Broderick
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor: Jason Miller
Best Supporting Actress: Linda Blair

Jaws (1975)
Best Editing: Verna Fields
Best Original Score: John Williams
Best Sound: Robert L. Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery, John R. Carter
Also nominated for Best Picture
366 • APPENDIX 1
The Omen (1976)
Best Original Score: Jerry Goldsmith
Also nominated for Best Original Song: Jerry Goldsmith

Carrie (1977)
Nominated for
Best Actress: Sissy Spacek
Best Supporting Actress: Piper Laurie

Alien (1979)
Best Visual Effects: H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick
Allder
Also nominated for Best Art Direction: Michael Seymour, Roger Chris-
tian, Ian Whittaker

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Best Makeup: Rick Baker

Poltergeist (1982)
Nominated for
Best Original Score: Jerry Goldsmith
Best Sound Effects: Stephen Flick, Richard L. Anderson
Best Visual Effects: Richard Edlund, Michael Wood, Bruce Nicholson

Aliens (1986)
Best Sound Effects: Don Sharpe
Best Visual Effects: Stan Winston, John Richardson, Suzanne Benson,
Bob Skotak
Also nominated for
Best Actress: Sigourney Weaver
Best Art Direction: Crispian Sallis, Peter Lamont
Best Editing: Ray Lovejoy
Best Score: James Horner
Best Sound: Nicolas Le Messurier, Michael Carter, Roy Charman, Gra-
ham Hartstone
 APPENDIX 1 • 367
The Fly (1986)
Best Makeup: Stephan Dupuis, Chris Walas

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Nominated for
Best Song: Alan Menken, Howard Ashman
Best Visual Effects: Bran Ferren, Martin Gutteridge, Lyle Conway

Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects: John Bruno, Garry Waller, Bill Neil,
Richard Edlund

Predator (1987)
Nominated for Best Visual Effects: Joel Hynek, Robert M. Greenberg,
Richard Greenberg, Stan Winston

Beetlejuice (1988)
Best Makeup: Ve Neill, Steve LaPorte, Robert Short

Misery (1990)
Best Actress: Kathy Baker

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Best Picture
Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins
Best Actress: Jodie Foster
Best Adapted Screenplay: Ted Tally
Best Director: Jonathan Demme
Also nominated for
Best Editing: Craig McKay
Best Sound: Tom Fleischman, Christopher Newman

Alien 3 (1992)
Nominated for Best Visual Effects: Richard Edlund, Alec Gillis, Tom
Woodruff Jr., George Gibbs
368 • APPENDIX 1
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Best Costume Design: Eiko Ishioka
Best Makeup: Greg Cannom, Michele Burke, Matthew Mungle
Best Sound Effects: Tom C. McCarthy, David E. Stone
Also nominated for Best Art Direction: Garrett Lewis, Thomas Sanders

The Nightmare before Christmas (1993)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects: Eric Leighton, Ariel Velasco Shaw,
Gordon Baker, Pete Kozachik

Ed Wood (1994)
Best Makeup: Rick Baker, Ve Neill, Yolanda Toussieng
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

Nominated for Best Makeup: Daniel Parker, Paul Engelen, Carol Hem-
ming

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Bill Condon
Also nominated for
Best Actor: Ian McKellen
Best Supporting Actress: Lynn Redgrave

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Nominated for
Best Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Best Editing: Andrew Mondshein
Best Original Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor: Haley Joel Osment
Best Supporting Actress: Toni Collette

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Best Art Direction: Rick Heinrichs, Peter Young
Also nominated for
 APPENDIX 1 • 369
Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood

Hollow Man (2000)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects: Scott E. Anderson, Craig Hayes, Scott
Stokdyk, Stan Parks

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Nominated for
Best Makeup: Anni Buchanan, Amber Sibley
Best Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Best Art Direction: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta
Best Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro
Best Makeup: David Marti, Montse Ribe
Also nominated for
Best Foreign Film
Best Music Score: Javier Navarrete
Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Best Art Direction: Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo
Also nominated for
Best Actor: Johnny Depp
Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood

The Wolfman (2010)

Best Makeup: Rick Baker, Dave Elsey
 Appendix 2

The Saturn Awards

The Saturn Awards are presented annually by the Academy of Science Fic-
tion, Fantasy, and Horror Films. They are probably the longest-running gen-
re-specific awards. The Saturn Award for Best Horror Film was first present-
ed in 1973 (for films released during 1972). For 2010–2012, it became Best
Horror or Thriller Award before reverting back to the original Best Horror
Film.
1972 Blacula
1973 The Exorcist
1974/ Young Frankenstein
1975
1976 Burnt Offerings
1977 The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
1978 The Wicker Man (presumably a re-release of this 1973 film)
1979 Dracula
1980 The Howling
1981 An American Werewolf in London
1982 Poltergeist
1983 The Dead Zone
1984 Gremlins
1985 Fright Night
1986 The Fly
1987 The Lost Boys
1988 Beetlejuice
1989/ Arachnophobia
1990
1991 The Silence of the Lambs
1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula
1993 Army of Darkness
371
372 • APPENDIX 2
1994 Interview with the Vampire
1995 From Dusk ’til Dawn
1996 Scream
1997 The Devil’s Advocate
1998 Apt Pupil
1999 The Sixth Sense
2000 Final Destination
2001 The Others
2002 The Ring
2003 28 Days Later
2004 Shaun of the Dead
2005 The Exorcism of Emily Rose
2006 The Descent
2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2008 Hellboy 2 The Golden Army
2009 Drag Me to Hell
2010 Let Me In
2011 Awarded to non-horror film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2012 The Cabin in the Woods
2013 The Conjuring
2014 Dracula Untold
2015 Crimson Peak
 Bibliography

CONTENTS

Introduction 373
General Studies of the Horror Film 376
Anthologies of Horror Film Criticism 377
Thematic Studies of the Horror Film 378
Cross-Media Horror Studies (Literature, Television, and Other Media) 384
National Horror Cinemas 385
Great Britain 385
Italy 387
Spain 388
United States of America 388
Other National Horror Cinemas 396
Personnel 397
Actors 397
Composers 398
Directors 399
Makeup Artists 404
Producers 404
Writers 404
Reference Works 405
Journals 405

INTRODUCTION

The critical literature dealing with the horror film is as varied as the genre
itself. Approaches have ranged from the appreciative and devoted to the
coolly analytical and the downright hostile. Critics have sought to explain the
peculiar pleasures of horror—and indeed this is one of the few popular gen-
res where pleasure has become a crucial issue—and have also explored spe-
cific horror cycles and different horror styles, locating both in historical and
national contexts. They have probed beneath the surface of apparently
straightforward horror narratives to uncover all sorts of unsettling subtexts
and transgressive values, and they have also offered up paeans of praise to
the distinctive and disturbing visions of particular horror artists.

373
374 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
This critical activity has been characterized by a fluidity that makes it
difficult to divide it up into neat categories. However, certain trends are
evident, and this was already clear in some of the key early texts of horror
criticism. “Early” here means the 1960s and 1970s. The horror film has
existed as a distinct generic category since the early 1930s, but there was
little sustained critical writing on it for a long time. There were certainly
investigations and celebrations by journalists and by fans—not least Forrest
J. Ackerman, whose magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland introduced the
genre to younger fans from the late 1950s on—but these existed as fragments
rather than as something more organized or purposeful. There had also been
some writing on various aspects of what would later come to be thought of as
horror’s prehistory—notably on German expressionist cinema—but these
tended to ignore or downplay the contribution of these films to horror cine-
ma.
It was the absence of any substantial historical survey of horror cinema
that made Carlos Clarens’s 1967 book An Illustrated History of the Horror
Film (later republished as Horror Movies: An Illustrated Survey) so impor-
tant. Its obvious intelligence and seriousness helped to elevate the horror
genre to a kind of cultural reputability that, for many other critics, it singular-
ly lacked. Equally serious was A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic
Cinema 1946–1972, David Pirie’s fine 1973 study of a particular national
style of horror, which convincingly placed British horror within both its
social and its cultural context. Finally, the writings on the genre by British-
born, Canadian-based critic Robin Wood that appeared in the 1977 collection
The American Nightmare explored horror cinema in ideological terms. For
Wood, the genre provided a cultural space in which relationships between
normative and oppositional values were played out, with this having the
potential for both politically progressive and conservative inflections.
The focus of much subsequent historical writing on horror has been on
English-speaking horror, especially in its American and British variants.
More recently, however, an interest in national cinemas has broadened out to
include not only national horror traditions from a wide range of other coun-
tries but also the constantly shifting relations between these. One outcome of
this “internationalized” approach has been the gradual fragmentation of an
earlier synoptic model of horror history that saw the genre’s development in
terms of a linear movement from one neatly defined cycle of production to
another. The more recent work presents instead a complex but arguably more
credible picture of both national endeavor and transnational interaction.
Critics and theorists have also—in the manner of Robin Wood—continued
to explore what might be termed the representational politics of horror. The
main focus here has been the representation of gender, perhaps understand-
ably given that women have often been figured as victims in horror cinema.
Here again, there has been a general movement from a simplistic rejection of
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 375
horror to an engagement with some of its complexities and particularly the
way in which the genre seems to offer a space within which conventional
gender identities are thrown into disarray. A good example of this is provided
by the changing critical status of the American slasher film of the late 1970s
and early 1980s. Initially criticized for its apparent misogyny, this unloved
horror format was reinterpreted in Carol Clover’s groundbreaking book Men,
Women and Chainsaws as offering a more convoluted mixture of both sadis-
tic and masochistic impulses, and later critics have developed Clover’s ideas
not just in relation to the slasher but to other types of horror cinema as well.
In comparison, discussions of racial and class difference have been some-
what overshadowed, although impressive work has been done on both these
subjects, such as in Rhona J. Berenstein’s book Attack of the Leading Ladies.
At the same time, the way in which horror films have an effect on their
audiences has proved a lively area for critical endeavor. Here, as is the case
elsewhere in writings on horror, the psychoanalytical method has been espe-
cially influential. The emphasis in much psychoanalytical writing on discov-
ering things that are not immediately obvious can be very alienating for the
uninitiated, but nevertheless it has proved productive; both Wood and
Clover, for example, have drawn extensively on psychoanalytical concepts in
their writing. So far as an understanding of horror’s effects are concerned,
psychoanalytical approaches have sometimes presented horror as a therapeu-
tic experience in which an audience can confront its fears but have also seen
the genre as offering subtler, more open-ended engagements with issues to
do with identity. By contrast, approaches rooted more in an audience’s cog-
nitive abilities have suggested that we are far more conscious of what we are
doing when we buy a ticket for a horror film and that the experience is, in
certain respects at least, more akin to a roller-coaster ride than it is to a dream
or nightmare: Noel Carroll’s book The Philosophy of Horror remains the
clearest and most developed statement of this approach. Critical work that
involves actually talking to horror audiences and, in particular, considering
the activities of horror fans has helped to develop further this area through
giving a sense of how audiences themselves interpret the horror experience in
relation to their own lives. It is perhaps a sign of the changing times that
critics and theorists writing about horror now frequently acknowledge their
own fandom and their own personal commitment to the horror genre.
In the face of such variety, this bibliography is designed to help the reader
find the type of critical literature for which he or she is looking. If you prefer
American horror, have a taste for the British or Italian version, or indeed
have yet more exotic tastes, go to the National Horror Cinemas section,
where you might find that horror is even more international than you thought
it was. If you believe instead that the most valuable thing about horror cine-
ma is its directors (and you are certainly not alone in believing that), then
head for the Personnel section, where you will find books on such genre
376 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
luminaries as Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronen-
berg, Terence Fisher, and James Whale, along with publications on some
filmmakers whom you have probably never heard of before—and not just
directors either. If vampires, werewolves, and zombies are more your thing
(and again you are not alone), then the section dealing with thematic studies
of horror will be the one for you, and while there, you might find items that
are both unexpected but also interesting—for example, Joan Hawkins’s fas-
cinating study Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde or
Isabel Cristina Pinedo’s stimulating Recreational Terror: Women and the
Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing. Reference books are also listed for those
of you who require the reassurance of solid facts, and there is also a listing of
anthologies that brings together the wide range of critical writings that has
been generated in response to the horror film. You could end up reading
material here that fascinates you, baffles you, and annoys you (and perhaps
all three at once). Your ideas about horror could be challenged and upturned,
and your whole view of the genre could be changed forever. Or you could
return to the horror films you love secure in the knowledge that they are in
fact the best of the lot.
If nothing else, the sheer variety of books and articles listed here suggests
a horror genre that is a long way from being formulaic. Critics, historians,
and theorists operating from radically different perspectives have all found
things in horror that merit discussion and argument. There might not be much
of a consensus about what horror actually is or what it does, but there is a
shared sense of its capacity for provocation and fascination. Given this, it is
perhaps appropriate that this bibliography is so open ended. There is more
than one way into it and more than one way through it. Needless to say, what
route you choose is up to you. But beware. As is the case with most horror
films, there may be a few surprises along the way.

GENERAL STUDIES OF THE HORROR FILM

Cherry, Brigid. Horror. London: Routledge, 2009.

Clarens, Carlos. An Illustrated History of the Horror Film. New York: Put-
nam, 1967.
Gifford, Denis. A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. London: Hamlyn,
1973.
Hutchings, Peter. The Horror Film. Harlow: Pearson, 2004.
Marriott, James. Horror Films. London: Virgin Books, 2004.
Marriott, James, and Kim Newman. Horror: The Complete Guide to the
Cinema of Fear. London: Andre Deutsch, 2006.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 377
Tudor, Andrew. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the
Horror Film. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Wells, Paul. The Horror Genre: From Beelzebub to Blair Witch. London:
Wallflower, 2000.
Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.

ANTHOLOGIES OF HORROR FILM CRITICISM

Benshoff, Harry, ed. A Companion to the Horror Film. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley,
2014.
Conrich, Ian, ed. Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary
Horror Cinema. London: I. B. Tauris, 2010.
DeGiglio-Bellemare, Mario, Charlie Ellbé , and Kristopher Woofter, eds. Re-
covering 1940s Horror Cinema: Traces of a Lost Decade. Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books, 2014.
Gelder, Ken, ed. The Horror Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.
Grant, Barry K., ed. The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
———, ed. Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Huss, Roy, and T. J. Ross, eds. Focus on the Horror Film. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972.
Jancovich, Mark, ed. Horror: The Film Reader. London: Routledge, 2002.
Miller, Sam J., and Aviva Briefel, eds. Horror after 9/11: World of Fear,
Cinema of Terror. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012.
Newman, Kim, ed. Science Fiction/Horror Reader: A Sight and Sound Read-
er. London: British Film Institute, 2002.
Prince, Stephen, ed. The Horror Film. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 2004.
Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. Fear without Frontiers: Horror Cinema across
the Globe. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003.
———, ed. Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud’s Worst Nightmare.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Schneider, Steven Jay, and Daniel Shaw, eds. Dark Thoughts: Philosophic
Reflections on Cinematic Horror. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Schneider, Steven Jay, and Tony Williams, eds. Horror International. De-
troit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.
Silver, Alain, and James Ursini, eds. Horror Film Reader. New York: Lime-
light, 2000.
378 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
THEMATIC STUDIES OF THE HORROR FILM

Abbott, Stacey. Celluloid Vampires: Life after Death in the Modern World.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
Arnzen, Michael A. “Who’s Laughing Now? The Postmodern Splatter
Film.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 21, no. 4 (1994): 176–88.
Aston, James, and John Walliss, eds. To See the Saw Movies: Essays on
Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013.
Baird, Robert. “The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and
Media Theory.” Film Quarterly 53, no. 3 (2000): 12–24.
Barker, Martin, Ernest Mathijs, and Xavier Mendik. “Menstrual Monsters:
The Reception of the Ginger Snaps Cult Horror Franchise.” Film Interna-
tional 4, no. 3 (2006): 68–77.
Benshoff, Harry. Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror
Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.
Bernard, Mark. Selling the Splat Pack: The DVD Revolution and the
American Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Black, Andy. “Crawling Chaos: H. P. Lovecraft in Cinema.” In Necronomi-
con, Book One, edited by Andy Black, 109–22. London: Creation Books,
1996.
Blake, Linnie. The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma
and National Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008.
Boss, Pete. “Vile Bodies and Bad Medicine.” Screen 27, no. 1 (1986): 14–24.
Briefel, Aviva. “Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification
in the Horror Film.” Film Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2005): 16–27.
Brophy, Philip. “Horrality—The Textuality of Contemporary Horror Films.”
Screen 27, no. 1 (1986): 2–13.
Browning, John Edgar, and Caroline Joan Picart, eds. Draculas, Vampires,
and Other Undead Forms: Essays on Gender, Race, and Culture. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Bunnell, Charlene. “The Gothic: A Literary Genre’s Transition to Film.” In
Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant,
79–100. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. Lon-
don: Routledge, 1990.
Chaudhuri, S. “Visit of the Body Snatchers: Alien Invasion Themes in Vam-
pire Narratives.” Camera Obscura 40/41 (1997): 180–99.
Cherry, Bridget. “Refusing to Refuse to Look: Female Viewers of the Horror
Film.” In Identifying Hollywood’s Audiences: Cultural Identity and the
Movies, edited by Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby, 187–203. London:
British Film Institute, 1999.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 379
Crane, Jonathan Lake. Terror and Everyday Life: Singular Moments in the
History of the Horror Film. London: Sage, 1994.
Creed, Barbara. “Dark Desires: Male Masochism in the Horror Film.” In
Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema, edited
by Steve Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, 118–133. London: Routledge, 1993.
———. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Lon-
don: Routledge, 1993.
———. Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny. Melbourne:
Melbourne University Press, 2005.
Dadoun, Roger. “Fetishism and the Horror Film.” In Fantasy and the Cine-
ma, edited by James Donald, 39–62. London: British Film Institute, 1989.
Derry, Charles. Dark Dreams: A Psychological History of the Modern Hor-
ror Film. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1977.
Dickstein, Morris. “The Aesthetics of Fright.” In Planks of Reason: Essays
on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 65–78. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Donald, James. “The Fantastic, the Sublime and the Popular: Or, What’s at
Stake in Vampire Films?” In Fantasy and the Cinema, edited by James
Donald, 233–52. London: British Film Institute, 1989.
Dudenhoeffer, Larrie. Embodiment and Horror Cinema. New York: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2014.
Dyer, Richard. Lethal Repetition: Serial Killing in European Cinema. Lon-
don: British Film Institute, 2015.
Dyson, Jeremy. Bright Darkness: The Lost Art of the Supernatural Horror
Film. London: Cassell, 1997.
Evans, Walter. “Monster Movies: A Sexual Theory.” In Planks of Reason:
Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 53–64. Metuchen,
NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Fahy, Thomas, ed. The Philosophy of Horror. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2010.
Frayling, Christopher. Mad, Bad and Dangerous? The Scientist and the Cin-
ema. London: Reaktion, 2006.
Freeland, Cynthia. “Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films.” In Post-Theo-
ry: Reconstructing Film Studies, edited by David Bordwell and Noel Car-
roll, 195–214. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
———. The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 2000.
———. “Realist Horror.” In Philosophy and Film, edited by Cynthia Free-
land and Thomas Wartenberg, 126–42. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Friedman, Lester D. “‘Canyons of Nightmare’: The Jewish Horror Film.” In
Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant,
126–52. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Gifford, Denis. Movie Monsters. London: Studio Vista, 1969.
380 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
Giles, Dennis. “Conditions of Pleasure in Horror Cinema.” In Planks of
Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 38–52.
Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Glut, Donald F. Classic Movie Monsters. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press,
1978.
———. The Dracula Book. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975.
———. The Frankenstein Legend. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1973.
Gregersdotter, Katarina, Johan Anders Hö glund, and Nicklas Hå llé n, eds.
Animal Horror Cinema: Genre, History and Criticism. Basingstoke: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2015.
Guerrero, Ed. “AIDS as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema.”
Journal of Popular Film and Television 18, no. 3 (1990): 86–93.
Hand, Richard J., and Jay McRoy, eds. Monstrous Adaptations: Generic and
Thematic Mutations in Horror Film. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2007.
Hantke, Steffen, ed. Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Hawkins, Joan. Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
Hayward, Philip, ed. Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema. Lon-
don: Equinox, 2009.
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra. Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the
Appearance of Reality. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014.
Hogan, David. Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 1986.
Hunt, Leon, Sharon Lockyer, and Milly Williamson, eds. Screening the Un-
dead: Vampires and Zombies in Film and Television. London: I. B. Tauris,
2014.
Hutchings, Peter. “Masculinity and the Horror Film.” In You Tarzan: Mascu-
linity, Movies and Men, edited by Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim, 84–94.
London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993.
———. “Tearing Your Soul Apart: Horror’s New Monsters.” In Modern
Gothic: A Reader, edited by Vic Sage and Allan Lloyd-Smith, 89–103.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.
Jackson, Kimberly. Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-
First Century Horror. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Jancovich, Mark. “‘A Real Shocker’: Authenticity, Genre, and the Struggle
for Distinction.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 14,
no. 1 (2000): 23–35.
Janisse, Kier-La. House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topogra-
phy of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films. Godalming:
FAB Press, 2012.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 381
Jones, Steve. Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw. Basingstoke: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2013.
Kermode, Mark. “I Was a Teenage Horror Fan: or ‘How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love Linda Blair.’” In Ill Effects: The Media/Violence De-
bate, edited by Martin Barker and Julian Petley, 57–66. London: Rout-
ledge, 1997.
Kinder, Marsha, and Beverle Houston. “Seeing Is Believing: The Exorcist
and Don’t Look Now.” Cinema 34 (1974): 22–33.
Krzywinska, Tanya. A Skin for Dancing In: Possession, Witchcraft and Voo-
doo in Film. Trowbridge: Flicks Books, 2000.
Leeder, Murray, ed. Cinematic Ghosts: Haunting and Spectrality from Silent
Cinema to the Digital Era. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Lerner, Neil, ed. Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear. New York:
Routledge, 2010.
Lowenstein, Adam. Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National
Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film. New York: Columbia Press, 2005.
Mank, Gregory William. It’s Alive! The Classic Cinema Saga of Franken-
stein. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1981.
McCarty, John. Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen.
New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984.
McIntosh, Shawn, and Marc Leverette, eds. Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the
Living Dead. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Meikle, Denis. Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies. London: Re-
ynolds and Hearn, 2002.
———. The Ring Companion. London: Titan Books, 2005.
Modleski, Tania. “The Terror of Pleasure.” In Studies in Entertainment:
Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, edited by Tania Modleski, 155–67.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Ndalianis, Angela. The Horror Sensorium: Media and the Senses. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland, 2012.
Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies. London: Bloomsbury, 1988.
Nowell, Richard, ed. The Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror
Cinema. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Olney, Ian. “The Problem Body Politic, or ‘These Hands Have a Mind All
Their Own!’: Figuring Disability in the Horror Film Adaptations of Re-
nard’s Les mains d’Orlac.” Literature Film Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2007):
294–302.
Pattison, Barrie. The Seal of Dracula. London: Lorrimer, 1975.
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1997.
Pirie, David. The Vampire Cinema. London: Quarto, 1977.
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Powell, Anna. Deleuze and Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2005.
Priest, Hannah, ed. She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.
Prawer, S. S. Caligari’s Children: The Film as Tale of Terror. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1980.
Reed, Joseph. “Subgenres in Horror Pictures: The Pentagram, Faust and
Philoctetes.” In Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by
Barry K. Grant, 101–12. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Reyes, Xavier Aldana, and Linnie Blake, eds. Digital Horror: Haunted Tech-
nologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon. London: I.
B. Tauris, 2015.
Rockett, W. H. “The Door Ajar: Structure and Convention in Horror Films
That Would Terrify.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 10, no. 3
(1982): 130–36.
———. “Landscape and Manscape: Reflection and Distortion in Horror
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Rhodes, Gary D., ed. Horror at the Drive-In: Essays in Popular Americana.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
Roth, Lane. “Film, Society and Ideas: Nosferatu and Horror of Dracula.” In
Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant,
245–54. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Russell, Jamie. Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema.
Guildford: FAB Press, 2005.
Russell, Sharon. “The Witch in Film: Myth and Reality.” In Planks of Rea-
son: Essays on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 113–25. Metu-
chen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Sanjek, David. “Fans Notes: The Horror Film Fanzine.” Literature Film
Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1990): 150–60.
Schneider, Steven. “Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and
the Representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror.” In Horror Film
Reader, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini, 167–91. New York:
Limelight, 2000.
———, ed. 100 European Horror Films. London: British Film Institute,
2007.
Schreck, Nikolas. The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in
Cinema. London: Creation Books, 2001.
Sconce, Jeffrey. “Spectacles of Death: Identification, Reflexivity, and Con-
temporary Horror.” In Film Theory Goes to the Movies, edited by Jim
Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins, 103–19. London: Rout-
ledge, 1993.
———. “‘Trashing the Academy’: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics
of Cinematic Style.” Screen 36, no. 4 (1995): 371–93.
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Sharrett, Christopher. “The Horror Film in Neoconservative Culture.” In The
Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith
Grant, 253–76. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Short, Sue. Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage. Lon-
don: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Skal, David J. Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture. New
York: Norton, 1999.
Smith, Angela, A. Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Hor-
ror Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
Sobchack, Vivian. “Bringing It All Back Home: Family Economy and Ge-
neric Exchange.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror
Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 143–62. Austin: University of Texas
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Spadoni, Robert. Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Ori-
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Telotte, J. P. “Faith and Idolatry in the Horror Film.” Literature Film Quar-
terly 8 (1980): 143–55.
———. “Through a Pumpkin’s Eye: The Reflexive Nature of Horror.” Liter-
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Tudor, Andrew. “From Paranoia to Postmodernism: The Horror Movie in
Late Modern Society.” In Genre and Contemporary Hollywood, edited by
Steve Neale, 105–16. London: British Film Institute, 2002.
———. “Why Horror? The Peculiar Pleasures of a Popular Genre.” Cultural
Studies 11, no. 3 (1997): 443–63.
Twitchell, James. Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror. Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Ursini, James, and Alain Silver. The Vampire Film. New York: A. S. Barnes,
1975.
Weinstock, Jeffrey. The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema. New York: Wall-
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Westfahl, Gary, and George Slusser, eds. Nursery Realms: Children in the
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Georgia Press, 1999.
Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” In Film Genre
Reader 2, edited by Barry K. Grant, 140–58. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1995.
———. “When the Woman Looks.” In Revision: Essays in Feminist Film
Criticism, edited by Mary Ann Doane et al., 83–99. Frederick, MD: Uni-
versity Publications of America, 1984.
Wood, Robin. “Burying the Undead: The Use and Obsolescence of Count
Dracula.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited
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Zimmerman, Bonnie. “Daughters of Darkness: The Lesbian Vampire in
Film.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by
Barry Keith Grant, 379–87. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

CROSS-MEDIA HORROR STUDIES (LITERATURE, TELEVISION,

AND OTHER MEDIA)

Aaron, Michele, ed. The Body’s Perilous Pleasures: Dangerous Desires and
Contemporary Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995.
Bann, Stephen, ed. Frankenstein, Creation and Monstrosity. London: Reak-
tion, 1994.
Bishop, Kyle William. How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The
Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century. Jefferson, NC: McFar-
land, 2015.
Botting, Fred. Making Monstrous: Frankenstein, Criticism, Theory. Man-
chester: Manchester University Press, 1991.
Brown, Jennifer. Cannibalism in Literature and Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013.
Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. London: Routledge, 1994.
Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Mon-
sters. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
Hills, Matt. The Pleasures of Horror. London: Continuum, 2005.
Jancovich, Mark. Horror. London: Batsford, 1992.
———. Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester: Man-
chester University Press, 1996.
Jones, Daryl. Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film. London:
Arnold, 2002.
Levine, George, and U. C. Knoepflmacher, eds. The Endurance of Franken-
stein: Essays on Mary Shelley’s Novel. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1979.
Littau, Karen. “Adaptation, Teleportation and Mutation from Langelaan’s to
Cronenberg’s The Fly.” In Alien Identities: Exploring Differences in Film
and Fiction, edited by Deborah Cartmell et al., 141–55. London: Pluto
Press, 1999.
Luckhurst, Roger. Zombies: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion Books,
2015.
Morgan, Jack. The Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film. Carbon-
dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 385
O’Flinn, Paul. “‘Leaving the West and Entering the East’: Refiguring the
Alien from Stoker to Coppola.” In Alien Identities: Exploring Differences
in Film and Fiction, edited by Deborah Cartmell et al., 66–86. London:
Pluto Press, 1999.
———. “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein.” In Pop-
ular Fictions: Essays in Literature and History, edited by P. Humm et al.,
196–221. London: Methuen, 1986.
Och, Dana, and Kirsten Strayer, eds. Transnational Horror across Visual
Media: Fragmented Bodies. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis, 2013.
Punter, David. The Literature of Terror: Volume 1—The Gothic Tradition.
2nd ed. London: Longman, 1996.
———. The Literature of Terror: Volume 2—The Modern Gothic. 2nd ed.
London: Longman, 1996.
Silver, Alain, and James Ursini. More Things Than Are Dreamt Of: Master-
pieces of Supernatural Horror—from Mary Shelley to Stephen King—in
Literature and Film. New York: Limelight, 1994.
Skal, David. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. London:
Plexus, 1993.
Waller, Gregory A. The Living and the Undead: From Stoker’s Dracula to
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Williamson, Milly. The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom
from Bram Stoker to Buffy. London: Wallflower, 2005.

NATIONAL HORROR CINEMAS

Great Britain

Barker, Martin, ed. The Video Nasties. London: Pluto Press, 1984.
Boot, Andy. Fragments of Fear: An Illustrated History of British Horror
Films. London: Creation, 1996.
Chibnall, Steve, and Julian Petley, eds. British Horror Cinema. London:
Routledge, 2002.
Conolly, Jez, and David Owain Bates. Dead of Night. Leighton Buzzard:
Auteur Press, 2015.
Conrich, Ian. “Traditions of the British Horror Film.” In The British Cinema
Book, 2nd ed., edited by Robert Murphy, 226–32. London: British Film
Institute, 2001.
Cooper, Ian. Witchfinder General. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2011.
Earnshaw, Tony. Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon.
Sheffield: Tomahawk Press, 2005.
386 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fenton, Harvey, and Dave Flint, eds. Ten Years of Terror: British Horror
Films of the 1970s. Godalming: FAB Press, 2001.
Freeman, Nick. “London Kills Me: The English Metropolis in British Horror
Films of the 1970s.” In Shocking Cinema of the Seventies, edited by Xavi-
er Mendik, 193–210. Hereford: Noir Publishing, 2002.
Harmes, Marcus K. The Curse of Frankenstein. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur
Press, 2015.
Hearn, Marcus, and Alan Barnes. The Hammer Story. London: Titan, 1997.
Hunt, Leon. British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. Lon-
don: Routledge, 1998.
Hunter, I. Q. “Hammer Goes East: A Second Glance at The Legend of the 7
Golden Vampires.” In Shocking Cinema of the Seventies, edited by Xavier
Mendik, 138–46. Hereford: Noir Publishing, 2002.
Hutchings, Peter. Dracula. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.
———. Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film. Manchester: Man-
chester University Press, 1993.
Kinsey, Wayne. Hammer Films—The Bray Studio Years. London: Reynolds
and Hearn, 2002.
———. Hammer Films—The Elstree Studio Years. Sheffield: Tomahawk
Press, 2007.
Lowenstein, Adam. “‘Under-the-Skin Horrors’: Social Realism and Class-
lessness in Peeping Tom and the British New Wave.” In British Cinema,
Past and Present, edited by Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson, 221–32.
London: Routledge, 2000.
Marriott, James. The Descent. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2013.
Meikle, Denis. A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of
Hammer. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Murphy, Robert. Sixties British Cinema. London: British Film Institute,
1992.
Newman, Kim. Quatermass and the Pit. London: British Film Institute,
2014.
Petley, Julian. “The Lost Continent.” In All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of
British Cinema, edited by Charles Barr, 98–119. London: British Film
Institute, 1986.
Pirie, David. A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946–1972.
London: Gordon Fraser, 1973.
Porter, Vincent. “The Context of Creativity: Ealing Studios and Hammer
Films.” In British Cinema History, edited by Vincent Porter and James
Curran, 179–207. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983.
Rigby, Jonathan. English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema. London:
Reynolds and Hearn, 2000.
Sanderson, Mark. Don’t Look Now. London: British Film Institute, 2012.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 387
Smith, Gary A. Uneasy Dreams: The Golden Age of British Horror Films,
1956–1976. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000.
Walker, Johnny. Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and
Society. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Wright, Peter. “The British Post-Alien Intrusion Film.” In British Science
Fiction Cinema, edited by I. Q. Hunter, 138–52. London: Routledge, 1999.

Italy

Baschiera, Stefano, and Russ Hunter, eds. Italian Horror Cinema. Edin-
burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Conterio, Martyn. Black Sunday. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2015.
Curti, Roberto. Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2015.
Del Valle, David. “The Cosmic Mill of Wolfgang Preiss: Giorgio Ferroni’s
Mill of the Stone Women.” In Fear without Frontiers: Horror Cinema
across the Globe, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, 105–10. Godalming:
FAB Press, 2003.
Erickson, Glenn. “Women on the Verge of a Gothic Breakdown: Sex, Drugs
and Corpses in The Horrible Dr. Hichcock.” In Horror Film Reader, edit-
ed by Alain Silver and James Ursini, 269–80. New York: Limelight, 2000.
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra. Suspiria. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2015.
Howarth, Troy. So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films—
Volume 1, 1963–1973. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press, 2015.
Hunt, Leon. “Burning Oil and Baby Oil: Bloody Pit of Horror.” In Alterna-
tive Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema since 1945, edited by
Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik, 172–80. London: Wallflower, 2004.
———. “A (Sadistic) Night at the Opera: Notes on the Italian Horror Film.”
In The Horror Reader, edited by Ken Gelder, 324–35. London: Routledge,
2000.
Koven, Mikel J. La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo
Film. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 2006.
Mendik, Xavier. “Detection and Transgression: The Investigative Drive of
the Giallo.” In Necronomicon, Book One, edited by Andy Black, 35–54.
London: Creation Books, 1996.
———. Tenebre/Tenebrae. Trowbridge: Flicks Books, 2000.
Needham, Gary. “Playing with Genre: Defining the Italian Giallo.” In Fear
without Frontiers: Horror Cinema across the Globe, edited by Steven Jay
Schneider, 135–44. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003.
Slater, Jay, ed. Eaten Alive! Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies. London:
Plexus, 2002.
388 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tohill, Cathal, and Pete Tombs. Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in
Europe 1956–1964. London: Primitive Press, 1994.
Totoro, Donato. “The Italian Zombie Film: From Derivation to Invention.”
In Fear without Frontiers: Horror Cinema across the Globe, edited by
Steven Jay Schneider, 161–73. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003.

Spain

Lázaro-Reboll, Antonio. Spanish Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-

versity Press, 2012.
Schlegel, Nicholas G. Sex, Sadism, Spain, and Cinema: The Spanish Horror
Film. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Tohill, Cathal, and Pete Tombs. Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in
Europe 1956–1964. London: Primitive Press, 1994.
Willis, Andrew. “From the Margins to the Mainstream: Trends in Recent
Spanish Horror Cinema.” In Spanish Popular Cinema, edited by Antonio
Lázaro Reboll and Andrew Willis, 237–50. Manchester: Manchester Uni-
versity Press, 2004.
———. “The Spanish Horror Film as Subversive Text: Eloy de la Iglesia’s
La semana del asesino.” In Horror International, edited by Steven Jay
Schneider and Tony Williams, 163–79. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 2005.
———. “Spanish Horror and the Flight from ‘Art’ Cinema, 1967–73.” In
Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste, edited
by Mark Jancovich, Antonio Lazaro Reboll, Julian Stringer, and Andy
Willis, 71–83. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.

United States of America

Asselle, Giovanna, and Behroze Gandhy. “Dressed to Kill.” Screen 23, no.
3–4 (1982): 137–43.
Babington, Bruce. “Twice a Victim: Carrie Meets the BFI.” Screen 24, no. 3
(1983): 4–18.
Benshoff, Harry. “Blaxploitation Horror Films: Generic Reappropriation or
Reinscription.” Cinema Journal 39, no. 2 (2000): 31–50.
Berenstein, Rhona J. Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and
Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996.
———. “Mommie Dearest: Aliens, Rosemary’s Baby, and Mothering.” Jour-
nal of Popular Culture 24, no. 2 (1990): 55–73.
Berks, John. “What Alice Does: Looking Otherwise at the Cat People.”
Cinema Journal 32, no. 1 (1992): 26–42.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 389
Billson, Anne. The Thing. London: British Film Institute, 1997.
Bishop, Kyle. American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the
Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.
Bracke, Peter M. Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday
the 13th. London: Titan, 2006.
Briefel, Aviva, and Sianne Ngai. “Candyman: Urban Space, Fear, and Enti-
tlement.” In Horror Film Reader, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini,
281–304. New York: Limelight, 2000.
Britton, Andrew. “The Exorcist.” Movie 25 (1977/1978): 16–20.
Brookover, Linda, and Alain Silver. “What Rough Beast? Insect Politics and
The Fly.” In Horror Film Reader, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini,
237–46. New York: Limelight, 2000.
Brottman, Mikita. “Fecal Phantoms: Oral and Anal Tensions in The Tingler.”
In Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, edited by Deborah
Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye, and Imelda Whelehan, 103–17. Lon-
don: Pluto Press, 2004.
———. “Once upon a Time in Texas: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as
Inverted Fairytale.” In Necronomicon, Book One, edited by Andy Black,
7–21. London: Creation Books, 1996.
Brunas, Michael, John Brunas, and Tom Weaver. Universal Horrors: The
Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1991.
Bundtzen, Linda K. “Monstrous Mothers: Medusa, Grendel, and Now Ali-
en.” Film Quarterly 40, no. 3 (1987): 11–17.
Carroll, Noel. “King Kong: Ape and Essence.” In Planks of Reason: Essays
on the Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 215–44. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Clayton, Wickham, ed. Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film. Ba-
singstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror
Film. London: British Film Institute, 1992.
Conlon, James. “Silencing Lambs and Educating Women.” Post Script 12,
no. 1 (1992): 3–12.
Conolly, Jez. The Thing. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2013.
Conrich, Ian. “Before Sound: Universal, Silent Cinema, and the Last of the
Horror Spectaculars.” In The Horror Film, edited by Stephen Prince,
40–47. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
———. “The Friday the 13th Films and the Cultural Function of a Modern
Grand Guignol.” In Cauchemars Americains: Fantastique et Horreur dans
le Cinema Moderne, edited by Frank Lafond, 103–18. Lihge: Les Editions
du CEFAL, 2003.
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———. “Seducing the Subject: Freddy Krueger, Popular Culture and the
Nightmare on Elm Street Films.” In Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and
its Audience, edited by Deborah Cartmell, I. Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye, and
Imelda Whelehan, 118–31. London: Pluto Press, 2004.
Constable, Catherine. “Becoming the Monster’s Mother: Morphologies of
Identity in the Alien series.” In Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science
Fiction Cinema, edited by Annette Kuhn, 173–202. London: Verso, 1999.
Derry, Charles. “More Dark Dreams: Some Notes on the Recent Horror
Film.” In American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror
Film, edited by Gregory Waller, 162–74. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1987.
Dika, Vera. “From Dracula—with Love.” In The Dread of Difference: Gen-
der and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 388–400. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1996.
———. Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the
Stalker Cycle. London: Associated University Presses, 1990.
Dillard, R. H. W. “Night of the Living Dead: It’s Not Just Like a Wind That’s
Passing Through.” In American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American
Horror Film, edited by Gregory Waller, 14–29. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1987.
Doherty, Thomas. “Genre, Gender and the Aliens Trilogy.” In The Dread of
Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant,
181–99. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
———. Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in
the 1950s. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
Dyer, Richard. Seven. London: British Film Institute, 1999.
Erb, Cynthia. “Have You Ever Seen the Inside of One of Those Places?
Psycho, Foucault, and the Postwar Context of Madness.” Cinema Journal
45, no. 4 (2006): 45–63.
———. Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1998.
Erens, Patricia Brett. “The Stepfather: Father as Monster in the Contempo-
rary Horror Film.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror
Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 352–63. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1996.
Fischer, Lucy. “Birth Trauma: Parturition and Horror in Rosemary’s Baby.”
Cinema Journal 31, no. 3 (1992): 3–18.
Fischer, Lucy, and Marcia Landy. “Eyes of Laura Mars: A Binocular Cri-
tique.” Screen 23, no. 3–4 (1982): 4–19.
Forshaw, Barry. The Silence of the Lambs. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press,
2013.
Francis, James, Jr. Remaking horror: Hollywood’s New Reliance on Scares
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Garrett, Gregg. “Objecting to Objectification: Re-viewing the Feminine in
The Silence of the Lambs.” Journal of Popular Culture 27, no. 4 (1994):
1–12.
Grant, Barry Keith. “Rich and Strange: The Yuppie Horror Film.” Journal of
Film and Video 48, no. 1–2 (1996): 4–16.
Greenberg, Harvey Roy. “King Kong: The Beast in the Boudoir—or ‘You
Can’t Marry That Girl, You’re a Gorilla!’” In The Dread of Difference:
Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, 338–51. Aus-
tin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Grove, David. Making Friday the 13th: The Legend of Camp Blood. Go-
dalming: FAB Press, 2005.
Hantke, Steffen, ed. American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the
Millennium. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Harris, Martin. “You Can’t Kill the Boogeyman: Halloween III and the Mod-
ern Horror Franchise.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 32, no. 3
(2004): 98–109.
Heba, G. “Everyday Nightmares: The Rhetoric of Social Horror in the Night-
mare on Elm Street Series.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 23,
no. 3 (1995): 106–15.
Heffernan, Kevin. Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the
American Movie Business, 1953–1968. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2004.
Hendershot, Cyndy. “The Cold War Horror Film: Taboo and Transgression
in The Bad Seed, The Fly, and Psycho.” Journal of Popular Film and
Television 29, no. 1 (2001): 20–31.
———. I Was a Cold War Monster: Horror Films, Eroticism and the Cold
War Imagination. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 2001.
Hollinger, Karen. “The Monster as Woman: Two Generations of Cat Peo-
ple.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by
Barry Keith Grant, 296–308. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Hoxter, Julian. “The Evil Dead: From Slapstick to Splatshtick.” In Necro-
nomicon, Book One, edited by Andy Black, 71–83. London: Creation
Books, 1996.
Humphries, Reynolds. The American Horror Film: An Introduction. Edin-
burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
———. The Hollywood Horror Film, 1931–1941: Madness in a Social
Landscape. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 2006.
Jenks, Carol. “The Bride of Frankenstein: Sexual Polarity and Subjugation.”
In Necronomicon, Book One, edited by Andy Black, 158–62. London:
Creation Books, 1996.
Jones, Martin. “Head Cheese: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre beyond Leath-
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Jordan, J. J. “Vampire Cyborgs and Scientific Imperialism: A Reading of the
Science-Mysticism Polemic in Blade.” Journal of Popular Film and Tele-
vision 27, no. 2 (1999): 4–15.
Kavanagh, James H. “Feminism, Humanism and Science in Alien.” In Alien
Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, edited
by Annette Kuhn, 73–81. London: Verso, 1990.
Kawin, Bruce. “The Funhouse and The Howling.” In American Horrors:
Essays on the Modern American Horror Film, edited by Gregory Waller,
102–13. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
———. “The Mummy’s Pool.” In Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror
Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 3–20. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press,
1984.
Keesey, Pam. “The Haunting and the Power of Suggestion: Why Robert
Wise’s Film Continues to ‘Deliver the Goods’ to Modern Audiences.” In
Horror Film Reader, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini, 305–15.
New York: Limelight, 2000.
Kermode, Mark. The Exorcist. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute, 2003.
Leeder, Murray. Halloween. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2014.
Linderman, Deborah. “Cinematic Abreaction: Tourneur’s Cat People.” In
Psychoanalysis and Cinema, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, 73–97. London:
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Reinventing Film Studies, edited by Christine Gledhill and Linda
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———. “Neglected Nightmares.” In Horror Film Reader, edited by Alain
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Toronto Film Festival, 1979.
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War Propaganda, 1942 to 1945.” Cinema Journal 37 (1997): 47–65.
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———. “Here Comes the Bride: Wedding Gender and Race in Bride of
Frankenstein.” In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film,
edited by Barry Keith Grant, 309–37. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1996.
Zinoman, Jason. Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us
Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror. Lon-
don: Duckworth Overlook, 2012.

Other National Horror Cinemas

Allmer, Patricia, Emily Brick, and David Huxley, eds. European Night-
mares: Horror Cinema in Europe since 1945. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2012.
Austin, Guy. “Vampirism, Gender Wars and the ‘Final Girl’: French Fantasy
Film in the Early Seventies.” French Cultural Studies 7, no. 3 (1996),
321–32.
Billson, Anne. Let the Right One In. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2011.
Choi, Jinhee, and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, eds. Horror to the Extreme:
Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univer-
sity Press, 2009.
Halle, Randall. “Unification Horror: Queer Desire and Uncanny Vision.” In
Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective, edited by Randall
Halle and Margaret McCarthy, 281–303. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 2003.
Jenks, Carol. “Daughters of Darkness: A Lesbian Vampire Art Film.” In
Necronomicon, Book One, edited by Andy Black, 22–34. London: Crea-
tion Books, 1996.
McRoy, Jay, ed. Japanese Horror Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2005.
McRoy, Jay. Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema.
Amsterdam: New York: Rodopi, 2008.
Massaccesi, Cristina. Nosferatu. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Press, 2015.
Mathijs, Ernest, ed. The Cinema of the Low Countries. London: Wallflower,
2004. Includes essays on horrors Daughters of Darkness, Man Bites Dog,
and The Vanishing.
Olney, Ian. Euro Horror: Classic European Horror Cinema in Contempo-
rary American Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
Peirse, Alison, and Daniel Martin, eds. Korean Horror Cinema. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2013.
Rudkin, David. Vampyr. London: British Film Institute, 2013.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 397
Schneider, Steven Jay. Fear without Frontiers: Horror Cinema across the
Globe. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003. Contains essays on horror films
from Austria, Brazil, China, Cuba, France, Germany, India, Indonesia,
Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, and Turkey.
Schneider, Steven, ed. 100 European Horror Films. London: British Film
Institute, 2007.
Schneider, Steven Jay, and Tony Williams, eds. Horror International. De-
troit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. Contains essays on horror films
from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Egypt, Germany, Holland, Ire-
land, Japan, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, and Thailand.
Tohill, Cathal, and Pete Tombs. Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in
Europe 1956–1964. London: Primitive Press, 1994. Contains essays on
German cinema (41–52) and French cinema (53–61).
Tsutsui, William Minoru. Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of
Monsters. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Vatnsdal, Caelum. They Came from Within: A History of Canadian Horror
Cinema. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2004.

PERSONNEL

Actors

Beck, Calvin Thomas. Heroes of the Horrors. New York: Collier Books,
1975.
———. Scream Queens. New York: Collier Books, 1978.
Bojarski, Richard, and Kenneth Beals. The Films of Boris Karloff. Secaucus,
NJ: Citadel Press, 1974.
Bradley, Doug. Sacred Monsters: Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor.
London: Titan, 1996.
Campbell, Bruce. If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.
Cushing, Peter. Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years. London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.
———. Peter Cushing: An Autobiography. London: Weidenfeld and Nicol-
son, 1986.
Gemünden, Gerd. “From ‘Mr. M’ to ‘Mr. Murder’: Peter Lorre and the Actor
in Exile.” In Light Motives: German Popular Film in Perspective, edited
by Randall Halle and Margaret McCarthy, 85–107. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 2003.
398 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jenks, Carol. “The Other Face of Death: Barbara Steele and La Maschera del
Demonio.” In Popular European Cinema, edited by Richard Dyer and
Ginette Vincendeau, 149–62. London: Routledge, 1993.
Jensen, Paul M. Boris Karloff and His Films. London: Tantivy Press, 1974.
Lee, Christopher. Tall, Dark and Gruesome: An Autobiography. London:
Granada, 1977.
Mank, Gregory William. Women in Horror Films, 1930s. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 1999.
———. Women in Horror Films, 1940s. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999.
Meikle, Denis. Vincent Price: The Art of Fear. London: Reynolds and Hearn,
2006.
Miller, David. The Peter Cushing Companion. London: Reynolds and Hearn,
2000.
Naschy, Paul. Memoirs of a Wolfman. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press,
2009.
Pitt, Ingrid. Darkness before Dawn. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press,
2008.
Richards, Jeffrey. “Tod Slaughter and the Cinema of Excess.” In The Un-
known 1930s: An Alternative History of the British Cinema, 1929–1939,
edited by Jeffrey Richards, 139–59. London: I. B. Tauris, 1998.
Rigby, Jonathan. Christopher Lee: The Authorized Screen History. London:
Reynolds and Hearn, 2003.
Tjersland, Todd. “Cinema of the Doomed: The Tragic Horror of Paul Nas-
chy.” In Fear without Frontiers: Horror Cinema across the Globe, edited
by Steven Jay Schneider, 69–80. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003.
Underwood, Peter. Horror Man: The Life of Boris Karloff. London: Frewin,
1972.
Williams, Lucy Chase. The Complete Films of Vincent Price. Secaucus, NJ:
Citadel Press, 1998.

Composers

Huckvale, David. James Bernard, Composer to Count Dracula: A Critical

Biography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.
Larson, Randall, D. Music from the House of Hammer 1950–1980. Metu-
chen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
———. Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic Cine-
ma. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1985.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 399
Directors

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Beard, William. The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.
Bird, Daniel. “Fascination—Jean Rollin: Cinematic Poet.” In Necronomicon,
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Blake, Linnie. “Another One for the Fire: George A. Romero’s American
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1945, edited by Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik, 191–202. London:
Wallflower, 2004.
Bliss, Michael. Brian De Palma. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983.
Brottman, Mikita. “Herschell Gordon Lewis: Compulsive Tales and Canni-
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Campbell, Mary B. “Biological Alchemy and the Films of David Cronen-
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Castle, William. Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants off America:
Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul. New York: Pharos Books, 1976.
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Grant, Michael. “Fulci’s Waste Land: Cinema, Horror, and the Dreams of
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———. Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films. Baltimore: Midnight
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———. “Authorship and British Cinema: The Case of Roy Ward Baker.” In
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———. Terence Fisher. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.
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Europe 1956–1964. London: Primitive Press, 1994. Contains chapters on
Walerian Borowczyk, Jesus Franco, Jose Larraz, and Jean Rollin.
Welsch, Janice R., and Syndy M. Conger. “The Comic and the Grotesque in
James Whale’s Frankenstein Films.” In Planks of Reason: Essays on the
Horror Film, edited by Barry K. Grant, 290–306. Metuchen, NJ: Scare-
crow Press, 1984.
Willemen, Paul, and Claire Johnston, eds. Jacques Tourneur. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh Film Festival, 1975.
Willemen, Paul, David Pirie, David Will, and Lynda Myles, eds. Roger Cor-
man. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film Festival, 1970.
Williams, Tony. The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living
Dead. London: Wallflower, 2003.
———. Larry Cohen: The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.
Winter, Douglas. Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic. London: HarperCollins,
2001.
Wood, Robin. “The Shadow World of Jacques Tourneur.” Film Comment 8,
no. 2 (1972): 64–70.
Wu, Harmony, H. “Trading in Horror, Cult and Matricide: Peter Jackson’s
Phenomenal Bad Taste and New Zealand Fantasies of Inter/National Cine-
matic Success.” In Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Opposi-
404 • BIBLIOGRAPHY
tional Taste, edited by Mark Jancovich, Antonio Lazaro Reboll, Julian
Stringer, and Andy Willis, 84–108. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2003.

Makeup Artists

Sachs, Bruce, and Russell Wall. Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Mon-
sters of Roy Ashton. Sheffield: Tomahawk Press, 1999.
Savini, Tom. Grand Illusions: A Learn-by-Example Guide to the Art and
Technique of Special Make-Up Effects from the Films of Tom Savini. Phil-
adelphia: Imagine, 1983.

Producers

Hamilton, John. Beasts in the Cellar: The Exploitation Film Career of Tony
Tenser. Godalming: FAB Press, 2005.
Nochimson, M. P. “Val Lewton at RKO: The Social Dimensions of Horror.”
Cineaste 31, no. 4 (2006): 9–17.
Siegel, Joel. Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror. London: Secker and War-
burg, 1972.
Telotte, J. P. Dreams of Darkness: Fantasy and the Films of Val Lewton.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Thompson, John O. “Cat Personae: Lewton, Sequelhood, Superimposition.”
In Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment, edited by Duncan Petrie,
85–97. London: British Film Institute, 1993.

Writers

Murray, Andy. Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale. Lon-
don: Headpress, 2006.
Sangster, Jimmy. Do You Want It Good or Tuesday: From Hammer Films to
Hollywood—A Life in Movies. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee, 1997.
Wells, Paul. “Apocalypse Then!: The Ultimate Monstrosity and Strange
Things on the Coast . . . an Interview with Nigel Kneale.” In British
Science Fiction Cinema, edited by I. Q. Hunter, 48–56. London: Rout-
ledge, 1999.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 405
REFERENCE WORKS

Hardy, Phil, ed. The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror. London: Aurum
Press, 1985.
Newman, Kim, ed. The BFI Companion to Horror. London: British Film
Institute, 1996.
Skal, David, J. V Is for Vampire: The A–Z Guide to Everything Undead.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.
Sullivan, Jack, ed. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatu-
ral. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986.
Willis, Donald C. Horror and Science Fiction Films: A Checklist. Metuchen,
NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1972.

JOURNALS

The following journals contain critical material that will be of interest to

horror scholars and genre aficionados.

Gothic Studies (published by Manchester University Press).

Horror Studies (published by Intellect).
The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (which can be found online
at http://irishgothichorror.wordpress.com).
 About the Author

Peter Hutchings was born in England and earned a BA in film and literature
from Warwick University and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He
is a professor of film studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon
Tyne, Great Britain. His doctoral thesis was on the British horror film, and he
has continued to undertake research on both British cinema and horror films
as well as developing broader interests in film genres and transnational cine-
ma. He is the author of four monographs: Hammer and Beyond: The British
Horror Film (1993), Terence Fisher (2002), Dracula (2003), and The Horror
Film (2004). He coedited (with Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich) The
Film Studies Reader (2000) and contributed essays to numerous books, in-
cluding British Science Fiction Cinema (ed. Ian Hunter, 1999), British Cine-
ma—Past and Present (ed. Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson, 2000), British
Horror Cinema (ed. Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley, 2001), The British
Cinema Book, 2nd edition (ed. Robert Murphy, 2002), and Defining Cult
Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste (ed. Julian Stringer et
al., 2003). He has also contributed to Kim Newman’s The BFI Companion to
Horror (1996), Brian McFarlane’s The Encyclopedia of British Film (2003),
and Robert Murphy’s Directors in British and Irish Film Cinema: A Refer-
ence Guide (2006).

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