The Oldest Horror Films?
So, I am a literature scholar who loves horror. I write horror. I edit horror. I publish horror. I study horror. I even run a horror tabletop game every two weeks. But...I can't stand watching horror. This "can't stand" is very specific. Gore doesn't bother me too much (unless we're entering Saw or Human Centipede territory). Creepy things don't bother me. It's mostly just two things: suspense and cruelty. Regarding the first thing, I hate the walk up the hall with the music silent, knowing there's something right around the corner. You're just waiting for the "beat to drop." And that scares the shit out of me. I always hated jack-in-the-boxes too. Fuck those things. Regarding the second thing, I hate Quentin Tarantino. Even the famed Inglorious Basterds. I hated the jovial laughter of killing people, even the Nazis. I hated the smiles and jokes of being cruel to someone, even if they "deserve it." Some horror films are super strong with this, like Texas Chainsaw or the 90s or 00s House on Haunted Hill. Most aren't that bad for me on this front actually.
Anyway, I realize the biggest cause of these issues is that I can't separate reality from fiction when it comes to film. I suspend disbelief and just buy everything that I'm seeing as real. So it hurts me on an emotional level to see some of these things, and it triggers every bit of my anxiety. I can write stuff way worse than Saw and Tarantino combined and be fine: I can separate reality from fiction. But when it comes to film, I can't do it.
So, I decided (with Absinthe) to try to curate a list of major horror films from the 1890s to now. Our spreadsheet is organized by year, and we've gotten started! My logic was that if I start from the beginning of horror film, I can think through the technique, think in terms of film tropes, and possibly gain that critical distance.
As I watch, I'll post my "findings" here!
To start, the 1890s!
Here is the list of films from the decade we watched (and small evaluative notes):
The Execution of Mary Stuart 1895
Super short. Odd.
Le Manoir du Diable 1896
First vampire in film? Weird how slapstick this was. Seemed more like a large vaudeville act.
Le Squelette Joyeaux 1897
Aw, that's cute.
The X-Ray 1897
More vaudeville.
The Cavalier's Dream 1898
And yet more vaudeville.
So back then, films were still super short. None of these were longer than a couple minutes. George Melies' Manoir du Diable was probably my favorite. None of these were scary, of course. But it was interesting seeing how horror film was not a genre for a while. It was more like vaudeville acts that dealt with something creepy, like transformation, bats, or ghosts. I will say the stop trick in Cavalier's Dream was fun, just the series of ghosts that randomly appear around a bed reminded me of 21st century ghost-witch films. Fun stuff. I don't have a whole lot to say just because these movies together were less than ten minutes. It felt like seeing the sketches for what horror might become in the next few years.
If I had to recommend any of these as my favorite, it'd be Manoir du Diable. It had the funnest story and special effects happening for the time.
Absinthe recommends The X-Ray. He enjoyed the technique of the actual x-ray, a special kind of stop trick.
Next post will be the 1900s!
Anyway, I realize the biggest cause of these issues is that I can't separate reality from fiction when it comes to film. I suspend disbelief and just buy everything that I'm seeing as real. So it hurts me on an emotional level to see some of these things, and it triggers every bit of my anxiety. I can write stuff way worse than Saw and Tarantino combined and be fine: I can separate reality from fiction. But when it comes to film, I can't do it.
So, I decided (with Absinthe) to try to curate a list of major horror films from the 1890s to now. Our spreadsheet is organized by year, and we've gotten started! My logic was that if I start from the beginning of horror film, I can think through the technique, think in terms of film tropes, and possibly gain that critical distance.
As I watch, I'll post my "findings" here!
To start, the 1890s!
Here is the list of films from the decade we watched (and small evaluative notes):
The Execution of Mary Stuart 1895
Super short. Odd.
Le Manoir du Diable 1896
First vampire in film? Weird how slapstick this was. Seemed more like a large vaudeville act.
Le Squelette Joyeaux 1897
Aw, that's cute.
The X-Ray 1897
More vaudeville.
The Cavalier's Dream 1898
And yet more vaudeville.
So back then, films were still super short. None of these were longer than a couple minutes. George Melies' Manoir du Diable was probably my favorite. None of these were scary, of course. But it was interesting seeing how horror film was not a genre for a while. It was more like vaudeville acts that dealt with something creepy, like transformation, bats, or ghosts. I will say the stop trick in Cavalier's Dream was fun, just the series of ghosts that randomly appear around a bed reminded me of 21st century ghost-witch films. Fun stuff. I don't have a whole lot to say just because these movies together were less than ten minutes. It felt like seeing the sketches for what horror might become in the next few years.
If I had to recommend any of these as my favorite, it'd be Manoir du Diable. It had the funnest story and special effects happening for the time.
Absinthe recommends The X-Ray. He enjoyed the technique of the actual x-ray, a special kind of stop trick.
Next post will be the 1900s!
To be fair, it's worth remembering that vaudeville was the only artform even remotely similar to cinema at the time these were made. It's also almost forty years before anything like codified genres were invented, so films of this period tended to be much more, uhm, unrestricted in terms of what they could be.
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