{"id":91638,"date":"2020-10-20T08:57:24","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T12:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//?p=91638"},"modified":"2022-03-24T14:22:06","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T18:22:06","slug":"true-story-behind-horror-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//true-story-behind-horror-movies/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//","title":{"rendered":"The True Story Behind Horror Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gary Rhodes is an associate professor in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s Nicholson School of Communication and Media and assistant director of the film and mass media program who is best known for his work on horror cinema./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

When he was 15, Rhodes says he started writing for a film magazine called Filmfax, and he/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s been analyzing movies ever since./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

He isn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t entirely sure of the number of horror movies he has seen over the years /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 probably a few thousand /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 and he says he needs to invest in a 14th bookcase for his DVD collection (which he stacks two deep to a shelf)./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

He is an author and/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638//or editor of 20 books on film history and theory, and his most recent book, The Birth of the American Horror Film, was published in 2018./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

Rhodes talks through the origin of the genre, a Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ film legacy and what to watch this Halloween./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cHorror/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d didn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t have its genre coined until 1931, and as a result, Dracula was originally billed as a love story.
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/nNo one would have said /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201chorror film/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d before 1931, even though in retrospect, there were movies that would have classified as horror. Instead, people would use adjectives and speak more specifically about a movie, like: /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cThere/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s a new ghost film./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d Sometimes they would use the terms /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cweird/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d or /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cfantasy/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d or /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cbizarre./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cUncanny/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d was a popular adjective at the time. At the turn of the 20th century, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cmysterious/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d was a term that was used a lot. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cTrick picture/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d was often what they were called before 1915 because they were very brief and very reliant on special effects. Almost like a magic show with magic you couldn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t do on a stage./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

What happened in 1931 was the film Dracula was released in February of that year. And they didn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t have a clear way to label it, and they were scared as to whether audiences would like it or would be too frightened by it. So, they released it around Valentine/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s Day, and they called it /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cthe strangest love story the world has ever known./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d It was actually audience members across the nation who chose the term /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201chorror./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d Films played over months back then as they made their way from the biggest cities to the smallest towns. As the weeks went on, the critics and the theaters began picking up on the term that the audiences had bestowed upon not only Dracula but then Frankenstein, which was the initial follow-up. It was not a marketing person in Hollywood or a particular movie poster. It was audiences that decided these other terms didn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t fit./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

Nearly every horror movie theme was covered by 1915.
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/nIn researching my book The Birth of the American Horror Film, I looked at hundreds and hundreds of films made before 1915. I think people today don/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t even imagine there were horror films back then. Not only were there hundreds of them, but every single topic you could imagine, from the killer with the knife to the vampire to ghosts to devils to witches to voodoo /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 every kind of horror we could think of /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 there are films of those types made before 1915. And yet, the horror film has been unbelievably consistent in its popularity from 1895 which was the year the very first horror film was made./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

There once was a theatergoer who was /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cscared to death./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/nAround 1905, there was a little boy who came out of a screening of some of these early horror films and died. And the doctor, according to press accounts at the time, said he had been literally scared to death. I find that story fascinating /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 how powerful these early films were. It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s impossible for us to think about because cinema has been around for as long as we/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019ve existed. But the impact of the very first films on the first moviegoers, some of these people had fought in the Civil War /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2014 they wouldn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t have seen movies ever before and they certainly hadn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t seen TV. Some people were scared of all films regardless of the image or story because it was overwhelming at the sheer size of the screen. The power the films held then was even greater than a new Halloween film could have over us now./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

American horror stories follow two patterns.
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/nAs I spent time researching the earliest horror films, I reviewed horror-related poetry, literature, paintings and photographs in America before films were invented. There seems to be an emphasis of two types of horror. One is the Scooby Doo-thing: You see ghosts or you see goblins throughout the film, but then they are unmasked at the end. The supernatural isn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t really happening as it seemed to be./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

The other major thread is the supernatural isn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t even at play at all. It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s just Jack-the-Ripper-type murderers, which is what Michael Myers from Halloween is. Freddy Krueger was just another slasher killer but supernatural was added just to make him different from Jason and Michael Myers. There are exceptions, but for every exception, I could list hundreds of films that follow one of these threads./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n

And yet, despite the repetition, hit films like Get Out find a way to bring new life to the genre.
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/nThere have been moments throughout history where all of a sudden, somebody comes up with something quite new. We can mention The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween in the 1970s as an example where somebody comes up with something so new that it becomes imitated quite a bit. We can say the same thing of The Exorcist. I think what/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s interesting is that in recent years, films like Get Out or The Conjuring or Hereditary are attracting more talented and creative writers, directors and famous actors who years ago would have said, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201cI/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019m not going to be in a horror movie. Even if I need the money, I won/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019t do horror./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u201d I think that/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019s the great thing of the recent films like Get Out. Not only are they introducing something new, but they/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/u2019re also just simply, extraordinarily well-made films by very talented people. The horror genre is reaching a point of greater respect in popular culture and academia./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/91638/n