horror films

[teamcool]

Hello. Im doing an essay titled 'the development of american horror films since the 1960's'. I am looking for good films to study which show how the genre has developed into what it is today. So far i am thinking of looking at Psycho, Alien/Halloween, Scream, Texas Chainsaw Massacre(remake). Does anyone have any better suggestions of what route I can take or what films to study? Thanks in advance :P

[TEAK36]

The Exorcist, and The Evil Dead.Both outdated, but very scary in their day.

[GarryD39b]

I remember a very scary film from the 60's called Night of the Demon bit of a cult classic and hard to get.Recent ones from Japan the Ring and the Grudge also a bit scary.

[jno]

Night of the Living Dead, and do go for the original Chainsaw Massacre if you can - remakes never prove anything except that Hollywood has run out of ideas. I guess Friday 13th as well. 

You could plot them against American fears over the period - promiscuous teenagers punished in films like Halloween, greater self-consciousness about this sort of thing in the Scream movies, lingering fears about what nuclear mutation might make of us in films like Living Dead (this earlier contributed to the creature features of the 1950s - The Thing and so on and probably added to effect of The Birds as well). More recent movies have been remakes of oriental films (Ring, Grudge) or films that have a quietly spooky feel rather than gory shocks: Sixth Sense, The Others.

[rja211077]

The Blair Witch Project. Not everyone's cup of tea, but undoubtedly innovative in its fake documentary style and its internet-based "marketing" campaign

[KebabMeister]

The Omen trilogy (scary as hell for its day)

Poltergeist (a very mainstream but good horror)

The Burning (once banned - many films were banned after coming onto video in the late 70s/early 80s - definitely worth mentioning, there are websites about them)

Nightmare on Elm Street (kind of reinvented horror)

I Know What You Did Last Summer (demonstrating what horrors have come to)

Then films based on Stephen King, Wes Craven stories and ones directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, The Thing etc).

[LiverpoolLou]

The film I'm going to suggest is not American, but I think this film has got to be one of the most scariest I've seen, and one of the oldest.

It's called NOSFERATU, and was made in 1922. It was based on Bram Stokers "Dracula".

Max Schreck played "Dracula", and from what I've heard, he made this film and was never seen again, people beleived that this "Unknown" actor was really "Dracula". Not sure if that's true though, it's only what I heard. As I said, I know it's not part of the American Horror Films, but I think it stands on it's own as being one of the first scariest movies. That film is 83 years old, and that guy still scares the hell out of me.

[jno]

There was a US film a couple of years ago called Shadow of the Vampire; it was about the making of Nosferatu, and the idea was that Max Schreck really was a vampire. Not very scary, though. Only other vampire movie I can think of in recent years that's more or less worked is Martin. I did think The Little Vampire was great - it's more a kids' spoof, but you could use it to demonstrate how ideas that were once thought horrific for adults have now become fantasy for children, like The Count in Sesame Street teaching kids how to count. 

[Dark Angel]

The Shining (1980) with Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. 

Torrance gets a job as a caretaker at the deserted Overlook Hotel in the mountains of Colorado. He goes over there with his wife and son Danny. The Overlook is haunted as Danny discovers, and the spirits drive Torrance Snr mad.

[Artful]

And you mustn't forget Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" (1972). It may have lost much of its impact in 30 years but nonetheless it is an historic turn in the history of (slasher/gore) horror movies and nobody worried about marketing surveys or if the film was politically correct...

[londondave]

http://www.unrated.co.uk/

check this site out for some amzing horror releases

[butter1]

american werewolf in london

body snatchers

Hellraiser

[camille79]

I'm not going to suggest any particular films but it could be good to group them and focus on the changing influence of horror as a kind of timeline. 

ie. space/supernatural horror (the thing, the exorcist, night of the living dead etc); slasher horror (friday 13th, halloween, evil dead); special effect based horror (alien, predator); literary horror (interview with the vampire, etc); no-budget horror (blair witch, my little eye); spoof horror (the scream saga), national/international remakes (ring, the grudge, psycho, chain saw massacre, etc)

I think if you take the films listed in these answers, group and date them then you might be able to have a nice essay relating to the changing tastes and influences of films. 

[teamcool]

cheers for your help people, you've been great. The reason i thought about looking at the remake of texas chainsaw massacre is mainly to show what the genre has turned into. thanks again for all the answers :p

[seal!]

I think you need to also look at how cinematography is used to create atmosphere in the different films and what impact theses movies have on their audiences.

[criispindry]

Yep, Psycho is good place to start. Hammer films for suspense. Original Chainsaw Massacre and Exorcist for the 70�s. TCM is perhaps a reflection of american society turned sour by cold war, industrialisation, alienation etc. Also around then Last House on the Left and I Spit on your Grave are good indicators of pushing the taste barriers back. A Nightmare on Elm Street rise of audiences liking the monster, our love of the anti-hero begins.. Halloween and Friday the 13th are precursor to this.The Shining for how a horror film should be filmed. The cinematography shows you how much impact a horror film should make.You can look at crap films from 80�s like Trick or Treat, From Beyond, etc for the way they jumped on the bandwagon of horror films popularity back then. The rise of the teen horror flick (Scream, I know what..., Craft, Jeepers Creepers...we�re back to seeing beautiful people being butchered). Don�t forget foreign ones like Suspiria, The Ring, Audition.and maybe something that crosses genres like Silence of the Lambs.And if you want to see the worst film ever, rent The Stuff.