When, and in what dark place, was the horror film born? And why do we love being terrified? David Thomson explains how one Hollywood studio defined a genre
The studio system has gone, even if some of the old names remain in use. No one would dream of a sophisticated romance coming out of Paramount any more, or a musical from MGM. Yet one ghost lives. At Universal, there is still the memory that this is the studio that created Lon Chaney and the working models of Dracula and Frankenstein. Now the beast stirs again, with Universal reviving one of its original horror properties with The Wolfman.
It seems obvious now that one of the inherent functions or opportunities that always faced the movies was scaring the living daylights out of us. When the train came into the station in the Lumiere brothers' early film programme, some in the audience...
The studio system has gone, even if some of the old names remain in use. No one would dream of a sophisticated romance coming out of Paramount any more, or a musical from MGM. Yet one ghost lives. At Universal, there is still the memory that this is the studio that created Lon Chaney and the working models of Dracula and Frankenstein. Now the beast stirs again, with Universal reviving one of its original horror properties with The Wolfman.
It seems obvious now that one of the inherent functions or opportunities that always faced the movies was scaring the living daylights out of us. When the train came into the station in the Lumiere brothers' early film programme, some in the audience...
- 2/4/2010
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
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