Reprinted from Horror magazine #7, 1996

In 1910, what was arguably the first horror film - a one-reel (about 10 minutes) version of Frankenstein - was produced by the Edison company. It hadn’t been quite 15 years since the Lumiere brothers had held the first public exhibition of a moving picture in Paris, and D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, the screen’s first true epic, was still five years off. Edison’s Frankenstein featured actor Charles Ogle in an extensive makeup, all ratted hair and wild eyes; unfortunately the film itself has been lost, but surviving stills tell the story of the effects involved in the transformation of actor into monster. And so was born the long - and often uneasy - relationship between the horror film and special effects.

Now, the better part of a century later, the art of both film and its attendant effects have come so far that we can only speculate upon how Thomas Edison or Georges Melies, the father of optical effects, would have reacted upon seeing any second- or third-rate effect, let alone a top-quality one. But have the stories the effects supposedly serve kept up with the technology? Could the plot of any Friday the 13^th film - or even this summer’s The Frighteners - be compressed easily into a one-reeler? Would Edison and Melies gasp in astonishment - or walk out in disgust? Have special effects, in short, killed horror?

We already know that special effects were present from the very beginnings of the horror film; given that, then perhaps the first question to ask is, Why didn’t effects in the early days of the horror film take precedence over the story? Or did they?

By the time the talkies took over at the end of the 20’s, special effects had already become an established art, having progressed hugely from Melies’ relatively primitive double-exposures and dissolves. Lon Chaney Sr.’s Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and dozens of others had sent audiences screaming with their makeup creations, and Willis O’Brien established the art of stop-motion with the likes of The Lost World and, in 1933, King Kong. With the introduction of sound, dialogue extended the possibilities of storytelling; is it any surprise then, that given the mutual advances of sound and effects, the early 30’s remain unparalleled in the quality of the horror films that appeared? James Whale’s Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, Island of Lost Souls, The Black Cat, Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, The Old Dark House and more spilled out of studios like tannis leaves from a tomb. The 40’s became the province of sequel and remake, the inevitable downside to any successful cycle, and the 50’s gave way to atomic and Communist paranoia, fusing horror and science fiction in such films as Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, The Blob and an army of killer-bug flicks.

Then, a rebirth in the 60’s, once again due to several interesting steps forward in cinema. One was the widespread introduction of color and wider screens - television was popular now, and the movies needed a way to compete for the audiences. One way was color; another was the serious addition of sex and violence. To say nothing of the fact that the old studio system, which had ruled the entire cinematic world with an ironclad reel for decades, was crumbling, giving rise to torrents of new independents.

One was Britain’s Hammer Films.

Another was an American named Roger Corman.

Although both Hammer and Corman actually started in the late 50’s, both achieved true prominence in the 60’s. Hammer’s route initially was to coopt the classics, producing such films as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Horror of Dracula. Hammer’s formula consisted of one part never-before-seen gore, one part sex, one part well-crafted script and two parts (Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing) fine British actors. The formula worked, and Hammer went on to produce some of the best horror of the 60’s: The Devil Rides Out, Plague of the Zombies, The Skull.

In America, Roger Corman followed Hammer’s example by plundering the works of Edgar Allan Poe and invariably casting Vincent Price. The films had atmospheric sets, scores and photography, and delivered on the chills: House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death. Later, of course, Corman became additionally famous as the one man in Hollywood who gave early breaks to more soon-to-be-icons than anyone else.

One other factor that made these 60’s films work so well: The screenplays were often written by the likes of Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch. Keep this in mind when we move into the 80’s…

In 1969, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby was released, and in many ways was the true first horror film of the 70’s. It veered sharply away from Corman’s and Hammer’s work in its contemporary, urban setting, youthful cast and auteur approach; while not a landmark effects film, it laid the basis for what was to come -

- which come it did, in 1973. The Exorcist changed the landscape of both horror and effects forever. Its combination of state-of-the-art effects and director William Friedkin’s documentary-like style created a worldwide sensation. While such special makeup effects as bladder work (Linda Blair’s inflating throat) had been used before, never had they been seen in what was, in every sense, an "A" film. The Exorcist soared into the Top 10 money-earners, garnered a holy host of Oscar nominations, and made horror a hot commodity all over again.

The 70’s were, possibly, second only to the 30’s in the quality of horror cinema produced. In the wake of The Exorcist, young makeup effects artists anxious to follow in Exorcist wizard Dick Smith’s gigantic footsteps were plentiful, and by 1977 Star Wars had done for optical effects what The Exorcist did for makeup. In the 70’s we saw Alien, Taxi Driver (argue me on this one if you will - its themes of urban paranoia and loss of identity, coupled with its growing sense of true dread, make it a classic horror film), Carrie, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, Dawn of the Dead. Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jaws and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The films seemed to be at the frontwave of a new era of horror, an era of sophisticated effects overseen by talented young filmmakers, including Tobe Hooper, George Romero, and Brian DePalma.

What happened?

There’s one 70’s classic you may have noticed missing from the above list, and there’s a reason for that. It’s the one film that changed everything that has come since. And not for the better, despite the film’s own considerable merits.

The film is Halloween.

Released in 1978, Halloween went on to become the most wildly-successful independent film in history. Its story was simple - psychotic slasher versus resourceful babysitter on the scariest day of the year - but it was told with undeniably compelling style and tension (thanks to John Carpenter).

It also featured virtually no significant effects.

And yet, within a year of Halloween’s release, cinematic horror attained new levels of bloodshed with Alien and Dawn of the Dead. Now, let’s factor in one more happening: The Rise of Demographics.

With the wild success of such films as Star Wars and Jaws, a new breed of executive was muscling his way into the studios. This new mogul saw only dollars; art was not only not a consideration, it was in fact to be avoided at all costs. Studios existed only to supply fodder to that section of audience their Marketing Departments told them went to movies: Young males.

It was probably unavoidable that they’d want to copy Halloween.

Since, as we’ve already established, the new regimes were operating in a shortage of taste, they saw only the killer-on-the-loose-and-young-sexually-active-teenagers aspects of Halloween. In lieu of plot, they opted for the heavy gore effects of those other hits Alien and Dawn of the Dead, and in 1980 Paramount Pictures released Friday the 13^th.

Sound the death knell.

This was the first time that what was a low-grade B film was released by a major. Backed by a gigantic publicity campaign, the film’s plotless 95 minutes of hack-and-slash slaughtered the box-office competition. Young moviegoers ate it up (I’ll leave the psychology of young males who seemed to identify with the killer for another writer).

And yet there was a change in what audiences were experiencing, what they were taking away with them. The question was no longer, "Did it scare you?," but "Did it gross you out?" Horror was now equated not with that which truly horrifies, or frightens, or disturbs us, but with how much our stomachs could stand. In the finest demographics tradition of following suit, every company in Hollywood churned out goreflicks over the next ten years, which essentially became the Decade of the Slasher (despite the occasional bright spot here and then, notably David Cronenberg’s The Fly or Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark). No more were we interested in Richard Matheson’s or Robert Bloch’s script; the new heroes were Tom Savini and John Buechler and Screaming Mad George and the other purveyors of various decapitations, disembowlings and dismemberments.

Now, let’s look at what this did to horror literature.

Up until The Exorcist, most horror films had been based on literary properties, either classic works of Poe, Shelley and Stoker, or recent bestsellers by William Peter Blatty and Ira Levin. After The Exorcist, horror novels went through that 70’s period when it seemed obligatory that they each have a two-word title beginning with The: The Shining, The Stand, The Fury, The Wolfen, The Howling, etc. This was also the decade when we first knew of Stephen King; by the mid-80’s he alone was responsible for nearly 5% of all the world’s hardback sales.

It should have been a golden era for horror literature. And yet…

Let’s not forget what was happening in Hollywood.

Blood. Gore. Mutilation.

It took time - and one more writer - for the publishers to catch on. Then, in 1986, a young Englishman name of Clive Barker took Hollywood gore to the printed page in high style with his Books of Blood, and the splatterpunk genre was born.

Just as had happened with Halloween, the market was suddenly awash with imitators, ripoffs, bastard children. Narrative and craft were now secondary to the question, "How far can we push it?" As if to prove the demographers right, the authors were almost all young white males, all striving to outdo each other in a fierce competition of bodily disfigurements. By the end of the 80’s, the market seemed limitless…

…and then it crashed.

It was simply glutted with too much bad writing. Readers, finally bored with the 47^th eye-gouging or brain-ripping, began to turn away in droves. Suspenseful, well-written mysteries gained in popularity again. Small press magazines folded right and left. Major publishers outdid Freddy or Jason as they slashed their horror lists.

Which brings us up to 1996.

Name the last great horror film you saw.

The Silence of the Lambs? The makers of that film want us desperately to believe it is not a horror film, and although they are wrong, we can understand their reasons.

The Frighteners? Does anyone remember the plot? I saw it last week and can’t. It’s not because the writer/director lacks talent - this is, after all, the same Peter Jackson who made the utterly brilliant Heavenly Creatures, and the blackly-comic Dead Alive. But this was Jackson’s first feature with one of the American behemoths, and so it was a triumph of special effects (what they believe will make money) over plot (which they continue to believe won’t).

And what about horror novels? One of the few original voices to arise in the last few years, Kathe Koja, is no longer marketed as horror but as cutting-edge mainstream fiction. Horror is often thought of in publishing circles as "the ghetto". And don’t forget, we’re still at the tail-end of the splatterpunk trail of blood.

So - have special effects killed horror?

Yes. Along with demographics and good old-fashioned greed.

But, true to its nature, horror will resurrect. There are a few lights already gleaming on the horizon. Television, where gore must by necessity be somewhat more restrained (as well as effects, which tv hasn’t the budget for), has produced the most interesting filmed horror of the last two years. Twin Peaks turned a dark light on small towns, The X-Files and Nowhere Man have finally made horror political, Forever Knight has turned the tired vampire tale into a fresh contemplation of the human condition, The Outer Limits and Tales From the Crypt have carried on the anthology legacy, and in the coming season shows such as The Burning Zone and Dark Skies promise to explore other fears.

In the literary arena, perhaps the most interesting hope for horror’s future is arriving in the form of a new wave of female writers. After all, it was a woman (Mary Shelley) who created the horror novel, and women are traditionally more sensitive to strong emotions. Poppy Brite, Lucy Taylor and Roberta Lannes, to name a few, are all producing fine work which promises to wrest the genre back from the splatterpunk boys, reintroducing the elements of character and fear (not disgust) which are the basis of good horror literature.

Still, they’ll have to fight against the latest demon to assail the cinematic end of the genre: Computer-generated effects. Ideally computers have the potential to create, in two-dimensional reality, anything we can dream; the technology, however, is still expensive and will doubtless remain the sole property of the studios for a few years, so don’t expect to see fresh new independent voices taking the image of horror into the future via computers.

And literature will, to some extent, no doubt continue to follow the trends set by cinema, so let’s keep our fingers (provided we still have some) crossed and hope for a return to the glory days of the 1970’s or 30’s. Have you watched the 1931 Frankenstein lately? Check it out sometime - it’s still a fine film, 65 years later. Which, unfortunately, is a far longer lifespan than any of our recent "classics" are likely to enjoy.