Comparing Horror movies from the 70’s to Today’s Horror Movies
“Cinematography is a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather then the simple recording of a physical event.“ (Hora pg1) When you think of horror movies from 2000 and up, and how disgusting, and terrifying they have become. There is a certain era you can thank for that. The 1970’s, they had some of the biggest impact of today’s day, with the slasher flick being created with some of the movies like “Halloween“, “Friday the 13th“, and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre“. The gore and blood factor being created in this era created how gruesome, mind boggling, and disgusting movies can get now. So the influence and creating of the films of the 70’s led to what great creations we see now.
When the 1970s were hit, the viewing public were not ready for some of the movies they were going to see. The birth of the slasher flick was born. The first major slasher flick was “The Exorcist” which was about religion and the belief that devils exist. Now the movie in all was not about the child possessed but more about the inner battles with the father of the church. Now I think the most terrorrifying part of the whole movie was when the little girl was being controlled by the demon and her head spinning around. Now no one has ever seen such a thing done in the movies, so with how big religion was at this time and the belief of the devil, this had a major impact on the viewing public, and I think that scene alone was one of the reasons this is one of the best horror movies to date. The next major motion picture that did very well was the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
The creators of this film did not know how much of a impact that this movie would have even to today’s day. With very little budget they had to find new ways of frightening people, which they did with using your mind. Some of the old ways that they weren’t able to use because of budget like, special effects, expensive props, and weapons. “The way the budget is drawn up has an impact too, For professionals the details of the budget make it clear to funders where exactly is going to be spent.” (Ascher, Pincus pg. 534) The sound did quite a way of frightening people. Two things that were made from this movie was the fake out, and the pop out scares. Which basically every horror movies uses today. The pop out scare is basically when something is happening is going really slow, and no music is playing. Your following someone very closely and then BOOM something pops out and makes you jump. The fake out is basically the same thing listed as before but when you expect something to happen it doesn’t, then suddenly something jumps out moments later, after they fake you out.
The last horror movie I will use as an example would be the “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” type franchises, that just used good old plain gore to bring the audiences in. “Halloween, which in turn helped spawn the slasher cycle” (as said by Cook in Lost) They didn’t need to use sweet special effects, or parts that made you think, they just used the most basic way of entertainment, just plain old killing. Basically Jason, Michael Meyers, Freddie, or whoever just goes around stabs, slices, destroys everything in his path. I like look further into it in the next section.
The bringing of the slasher flick, is the most common type of horror movie, where basically some person had either died a horrible way and come back alive and kill everyone that wronged him, or he was just born a killer. This was the easiest way to make a movie because they don’t need a plot, they just need a cool way of killing people, and some creative idea for a giant beast of a killer. You wouldn’t think people would continue to watch these, with no plot thickness or any really good acting in it, but they somehow have made at least 15 Halloween movies, like 9 Jason movies, and 6 Freddie movies. I think the main reason people keep going to see these is for one of two reasons. One they like to go and see how creative or bloody the movies can get, and two people just like getting scared. Now for reason number one back in the early 70’s people just basically got stabbed and bled a lot and they died, but after movies kept doing this, someone decided to upgrade and become more and more creative on the deaths. Like as the Halloween movies progressed, Michael would start using objects in his environment to kill people, I remember in one scene, while two people were having sex in a bed. Michael would walk up to the bed, and fold the bed in half, and crush both people in half, causing lot’s of blood and gore in that bed.
In the 80’s you had pinhead from the “Hellraiser” series, who would take chains and connect them to every part of a persons body and would pull them apart. In the 90’s you had the “scream” series, while not the most creative ways of death but they would throw him in more creative environments and make him jump out at people and kill them. Another reason why the “Scream: series was so successful was because of how they poked fun at the horror genre. Often in all three of the movies they had references or exact quotes from past horror movie. That added a fun factor in my mind because if you’re a fan of the genre, you now have something to search for while watching. Now finally in 2000’s you have the most creative ways in the world with the ever popular saw series. Here is where you see the technology start coming into play. “Digital technology began to infiltrate the professional production environment.” (Grotticelli pg. 1) Where a man named “Jigsaw” captures people who don’t live their lives to the fullest and makes them go through a game, where they sacrifice a part of there body that they abuse in order to survive.
For example a snitch is captured and he is put into a trap where he has a thing attached around his neck that will close on him in 60 seconds and send many nails through his face unless in that 60 seconds he finds the key to unlock it, which happens to be located under his eye, in which he has a scalpel to get it out. So if he does get it out, he will sacrifice his vision in his eye which is a valuable part of his life since he’s a snitch.Now in today’s day we see more and more creativity in horror movies (The film's energy is fueled by fast-paced editing, overblown dialogue ("Oh, yes, there will be blood"), the multilayered guessing game (will anybody solve the riddle of how to get out of that house?) and the truly disgusting (hey, let's toss this ex-druggie woman into a big pile of used needles and syringes). (Longino), and I’m looking forward to see how they improve this in the future years.
Now the second situation I said for why people constantly go to horror movies is they keep coming back to get scared. Horror movies create a common audience, “the presence of an audience, which is an absolutely essential part of an event” (Wilson pg. 18) that in a way plays a roll in the film, because of the fact that they sometimes feel that they are really in the movie, which gets them into it. Now I am a big fan of horror movies and I think just the fear factor alone is something that not many people get to experience in their life. Like me I have bungee jumped, and jumped off a bluff before, all because to get the feeling of adrenaline something that most people get. The most common way of getting it is by being scared. You get that feeling of you heart constantly thumping, your legs and hands shaking, and just your body in over drive. That’s a feeling that some people love to get.
Plus another reason is, that its something that everyone can relate to. Now I’m not saying that everyone wants to get chased by a crazy killer with a chainsaw, but everyone wants that chance to become a hero, a chance to be that leader, or a chance to be the man that saves everyone. Plus everyone really gets into horror movies, your always telling yourself that if you were in that situation don’t run up the stairs, don’t go to that window because you know that something’s about to happen. And you just imagine what you would do if you were in that situation. Horror movies do that really well, they can always find a way to make us think of what we would do in certain situations. Now you can do that in action movies, or romance movies, but we usually chose to put ourselves in horror movies. Why, no one really knows why but I think its just that factor of getting chased, that certain fear factor we have come to know and love.
One of the most common things we do see in horror movies in these days that was widely influenced by the 70’s are remakes. Some of the greatest horror movie remakes were from the 70’s. Lets take “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” for instance it was originally released in the early 70’s, then come in the late 70’s they made a second one by two totally new producers, and overall it was quite poor. Now lets flash forward 30 years a man thinks of an idea, hey lets remake “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and put a today’s spin on it, and there you go you have a movie now. Which then branches off into making a prequel of the movie to see how leather face really came out. Right thee two major money making movies that was influenced by the original release in the 70’s. This was done by many more companies to make an extra few thousand dollars. The Halloween franchise was redone with a few more movies, same with the Friday the 13th franchise. Now a new idea was created a few years ago, that idea was combining two different movies into one, that way you can bring in two different kinds of groups, one group that liked the one movie, and the group that liked the other movie. This movie was Freddy vs. Jason. Which brought the two most dominant forces in the horror movie franchise, which you would think would make a lot of money but overall it didn’t do quite good. However with the right production and ideas you can bring two different kinds of horror movies, and make it into a good movie. You just need the right crew.
So in the end, you have seen that horror movies in the 1970’s have had a major influence in the ways horror movies today are made. While not all the ideas from the 70’s have helped but with the constant upgrade of technology, you really can’t control that aspect of it. However with the creativeness of the movies from the 1970’s helping to make movies like “saw” and “Scream.” Only time will tell what kind of movies we will see ten years from now, or even five years from now. All I’m going to say is I’m going to sit back and relax as I watch the massacres begin to become more extreme.
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