Lecture One
What is a "horror film"? The importance of defintition - it determines what is and what is not covered in the area. Genres are kinds of film, but what determines the genre? Is the text? The subtext? something about the way it is filmed? Some films makers feel that the concept of genre is irelevant except as a marketing problem. Since some people like certain genres and not others, genre seems to have some relevence to audiences.
In some ways a word defines both what is included and what is excluded. Things excluded are contained in definitions of other words - some things that are not cats are dogs!
There are several kinds of defintion (a) usage (b) technical and (c) operational. A usage definition is the kind one finds in a dictionary. It indicates the meaning of the owrd in popular usage. A technical defintion is one which has been specifically and consciously made by some group that had an interest in the area. An operational definition is a defintion which is a kind of "working" defintition while trying to finalizea technical one. Defintions are not God given nor are they carved in stone, Words change meaning over time (remember the changes in "dress" from to make straight (dress ranks, dress timber), to prepare for use (window dressing), to prepare one's self for use - or te be seen by the public (to get dressed) and then for general clothing (The national dress of a group) and finally a specific garment worn by women (a dress). Because of the changes over time technical definitions become significant.
Sometimes technical defintions are in opposition to usage ones. "Myth" typically in usage means an untrue story, whereas in folkloric studies it is technically defined as "A story believed to be true and sacred".
The importance of the defintion is to define a set of data which allows people to make some statement about the group.
Horror films are films which are rooted in generating fright. Other terms which are often close in meaning to "horror" are "terror" and "thriller". In some instances some film makers have made distinctions between those. Val Lewton for example said he was interested in making "terror" films (films to terrify) rather than "horror films" (films set to "horrify" which he felt were being made by Universal Studios).
Horror films have many sub genres contained within it. Supernatural films are one kind of horror film - at least as long as the supernatural element is frightening. When it isn't there is a tendency for the film to be called "fantasy". So films with frightening ghosts may be called "horror films", but films with well behaved or friendly supernaturals are called "fantasy".
Other sub genres may be psychological horror (e.g. Psycho, Dressed to Kill etc.). In these films the subtext is often described as "the eruption of the repressed" Although this may not hold for other sun genres.
Monster films, supernatural films (with a subdivision of haunted house films)
One of the earliest (if not the earliest) "horror film" comes from Méliès whose "trick photography" made objects appear and disappear and hence made it very useful for supernaural horror. His Le manoir du diable (The House of the Devil) (1896) is full of sudden appearances and disappearances and some attempts at transformation. These will have an impact on many future films in which supernatual things appear. This happens in supernatural comedies - an example of mixing genres and a common cross. Both comedy and horror require some kind of release (screams, laughter) and both often deal with tabued topics (death, illness etc.) Transformations (bat into devil here) will repeat itself in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula and The Wolfman among others.
Thomas Edison's 1910 Frankenstein initiates the psychological kind of horror in that the monster is somehow related to something in Frankstein's brain. Even in the more famous 1931 Frankenstein, there are complex subtextual aspects of the film which have psychological and religious overtones.
Murnau's Nosferatu (very) loosely based on Bram Stoker's Dracula establishes the idea that the horrific element is related to "The Other" - some sort of outsider.
In this, there is a strong tie to Science fiction in which typically aliens are "the other". Murnau's film links the vampire with the oursider and disease. It uses special effects like changes in film speed to alter motion allow for the idea of the supernatural. The film also sets up opposotions between light and dark for good and evil. Also intangible aspects of people (e.g. the soul or intrinsic nature) are represented by either reflections or shadows (especially at the end). The relationship between love/sex and redemption through love somewhat common in vampire films is also established here.
Other interesting relationships with horror films are those of "noir" where the main character is the victim. In horror films it is possible to at least hold that the title refers to the monsterous main character (Creature from the Black Lagoon, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde etc.) Although using the title is not useful with films like Frankenstein where the doctor himself is not doomed, but the monster is. The monster is not Frankenstein howeverm although some analysis equate them. In addition, there are horror films in which the title does not involve a character like House of Wax, The Maze, The Shining etc. Titles of noir films generally do not operate like this. Noir, known for it fatalism also often deals with elaborate flashbacks. In horror this is only occasionally the case and Nosferatu is one of them, which seems to have a kind of unknown narrator. This may reflect more, the orignal source material, which is in the form of diary entries.
In terms cinematography,the shots often are filled with shadows, often odd angles and so on. Although the films so far have not had synchronized sound, music, sound design - especially off screen sounds are imporant.