{"id":29970,"date":"2023-10-30T09:23:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T08:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=247075"},"modified":"2023-10-30T13:11:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T12:11:39","slug":"ninety-years-of-horror-nine-films-that-reflect-societys-changing-anxieties","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/ninety-years-of-horror-nine-films-that-reflect-societys-changing-anxieties\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninety years of horror: nine films that reflect society\u2019s changing anxieties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roger Lockhurst explores how a selection of groundbreaking horror films reflected cultural trends in successive eras \u2013 and what ghouls, vampires, zombies and other nightmarish beings tell us about society\u2019s real fears <\/p>

By Roger Luckhurst\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 30 October 2023 at 08:23 AM<\/p>

\n\n

1. Frankenstein<\/h2>\n

(1931, dir: James Whale)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a wonderful exploration of how society declares a being to be a monster, who is then hounded to his death. But it also resonates with the experiences of German exiles coming to Hollywood<\/a> in the early 1930s, fleeing persecution in their homeland: it has a sense of a dreadful doom pursuing you to the ends of the Earth.<\/p>\n

A lot of films from this period seem to be influenced by the political backdrop at the time \u2013 the rise of fascism in Europe, with exiles arriving in the US. These social forces all came together to produce this weird hybrid of European folk tales and Gothic novels<\/a>, using the latest technology.<\/p>\n

2. Cat People<\/h2>\n

(1942, dir: Jacques Tourneur)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Cat People (1942), directed by Jacques Tourneur. (Photo by Moviestore Collection Ltd\/Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Directed by \u00e9migr\u00e9 Frenchman Jacques Tourneur, this film [about a fashion illustrator fixated on the idea she has the ability to become a panther when aroused] has an extraordinary visual style, cleverly using shadows to evoke a sense of melancholia, of mourning for exile from Europe. It also features a very explicit Freudian narrative about sexual anxiety and sexual repression.<\/p>\n

The following year, Tourneur made another amazing film called I Walked with a Zombie<\/em> \u2013 which sounds incredibly melodramatic and silly, but is actually a poetic evocation of the last days of the colonial era in the Caribbean. It was made less than a decade after the end of the US occupation of Haiti, home of the zombie trope.<\/p>\n

3. Godzilla, King of the Monsters!<\/h2>\n

(1956, dir: Terry O Morse and Ishir\u014d Honda)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Japanese film was made in the aftermath of the Second World War<\/a>: in the wake of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more than six years of American occupation [which ended in 1952].<\/p>\n

In one sense it\u2019s a really stupid film, with a man in a rubber monster suit jumping up and down on what\u2019s clearly a model of Tokyo. But it\u2019s also hugely evocative of the postwar trauma of Japan \u2013 of people who\u2019ve just had the atom bomb dropped on them and who\u2019ve been occupied by foreign forces.<\/p>\n

Of course you\u2019re going to have a giant lizard rise up and stamp all over you \u2013 it\u2019s a perfect expression of that angst.<\/p>\n

4. Psycho<\/h2>\n

(1960, dir: Alfred Hitchcock)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Pyscho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. (Photo by Archive Photos\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This film has an amazing reputation for its explicit, violent imagery, but it\u2019s also a powerful evocation of a moment in US history. There\u2019s a sense of constraint, repression and conformity explored in some of the most famous horror imagery of the period.<\/p>\n

The explanation of Norman Bates\u2019 motive for his serial murders is so extraordinary, and so explicit in its investigation of sexual trauma and perversity, that it marked a threshold moment in mainstream cinema.<\/p>\n

Horror films are always pushing the envelope. Sometimes they overstep the mark, and sometimes moral panic ensues; sometimes it\u2019s about breaking taboos and reaching a new level of representation.<\/p>\n

5. Night of the Living Dead<\/h2>\n

(1968, dir: George Romero)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Night\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Night of the Living Dead (1968) directed by George Romero.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This famously gory film transformed zombies from subservient, slave-like stumblers into ravening hordes driven to devour human flesh. It was released during one of the most extraordinary political moments in postwar US history: the era of civil rights, of student revolution, and of Vietnam War<\/a> protests.<\/p>\n

And it was radical in so many ways, not only because the main character is played by a black actor who, in one amazing scene, takes command of the last surviving humans, dominating the white male patriarchy.<\/p>\n

The film was picked up immediately by black cinemas, which showed it alongside slave B-movies, but it was also shown in loftier cultural contexts, including being screened by the Museum of Modern Art.<\/p>\n

The closing titles roll over a series of black-and-white stills. clearly echoing the lynchings of the 1910s and 1920s. Director George Romero was deliberately picking up on that kind of iconography, indicating how explosively political his film was.<\/p>\n

6. Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/h2>\n

(1968; dir: Roman Polanski)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Rosemary\u2019s Baby (1968) directed by Roman Polanski and starring Mia Farrow. (Photo by Pictorial Press Ltd\/Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This film is important for breaching the old Hollywood Hays Code, which had restricted representations of sex and violence since the 1930s. As a mainstream studio-produced film, it therefore marked an important cultural breakthrough for horror movies.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also a film about patriarchy, the restrictions placed on women in the 1960s, and the sense of a conspiracy against them, at a time when so-called Second Wave Feminism<\/a> was burgeoning.<\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Pro-choice campaigners march on Washington DC, 1970. Concerns about women\u2019s agency over their own lives and bodies are explored in a number of the era\u2019s horror films. (Photo by Leif Skoogfors\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Mia Farrow plays the titular Rosemary, a heavily pregnant woman who has been caught in a patriarchal web. It\u2019s a film that effectively produces horror out of social fears and restrictions placed on women.<\/p>\n

7. The Exorcist<\/h2>\n

(1973, dir: William Friedkin)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
The Exorcist (1973), directed by William Friedkin, starring Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair. (Photo by Warner Bros.\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This film provoked a major sensation for its extreme, grisly representation of the demonic possession of an adolescent girl. Adapted from a book by an author from a conservative background, it depicts the Catholic church\u2019s confrontation with a demon, questioning whether faith can win out over evil.<\/p>\n

But it should also be understood in relation to the 1970s crisis around abortion, and women\u2019s right to control their own bodies. This was the year of Roe v Wade<\/a>, when feminism was becoming mainstream, when abortion was a major political issue.<\/p>\n

A whole raft of films were made around then that reflected anxieties around pregnancy and young girls\u2019 agency. In addition, The Exorcist starts with an acrimonious divorce, and the horror that follows seems to echo the monstrosity of the trauma of that separation for the young daughter.<\/p>\n

8. The Evil Dead<\/h2>\n

(1981, dir: Sam Raimi)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
The Evil Dead (1981) directed by Sam Raimi. (Photo by Allstar Picture Library Limited\/Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Now viewed as an uproariously funny horror classic, on its release this film [which sees a group of college students beset by demonic forces in a remote cabin] was reviled by conservative commentators as an utterly depraved movie.<\/p>\n

It was one of the first of the so-called \u2018video nasties\u2019 that sparked a moral panic in the early 1980s. Around that time, video players became widely affordable, and a loophole in UK law meant that films released direct to video weren\u2019t classified by the British Board of Film Censors, so anyone could watch them.<\/p>\n

That sparked a big moral panic, and the Director of Public Prosecutions banned dozens of films. It was part of what we would now call a \u2018culture war\u2019 between conservative and progressive forces in society.<\/p>\n

Then, in the 1980s, the Video Recordings Act imposed a strict code of censorship, and the moment was over. There\u2019s nothing in that banned list we wouldn\u2019t watch now; some films, such as The Evil Dead<\/em>, are celebrated as classics, while others are seen as art-house triumphs. So it was purely a cultural moment of panic rather than a reflection on the films themselves.<\/p>\n

9. Get Out<\/h2>\n

(2017, dir: Jordan Peele)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Get Out (2017) directed by Jordan Peele and starring Daniel Kaluuya. (Photo by BFA\/Alamy)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

This was released in 2017, at the start of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s presidency. It reflects the sense in which the politics of race in the US could be tackled through satire and the tropes of the horror film. It\u2019s a kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em> updated for the present.<\/p>\n

Black American writer-director Jordan Peele explored a popular and ridiculous horror clich\u00e9 \u2013 that the black guy always dies first \u2013 but also made a brilliant rewrite and reversal of The Stepford Wives<\/em> (1975).<\/p>\n

In the original, a nice white suburb is revealed to host a conspiracy of men replacing their wives with subservient robots. In Get Out<\/em>, a black guy from the city meets his white girlfriend\u2019s parents \u2013 and discovers a conspiracy where the elite white one per cent are stealing the bodies of black men. It\u2019s an amazing satirical exploration of white privilege, Black Lives Matter and so on.<\/p>\n

This article was first published in the December 2023 issue of BBC History Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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