HORROR EATS ITSELF – 1940-50

Wartime horror movies were purely an American product. Banned in Britain, with film production curbed throughout the theatre of war in Europe, horror movies were made in Hollywood purely in response to the domestic audience. No risks could be taken, so the studios stuck with tried and tested ideas. This was not an age of innovation

If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. The Americans looked at themselves as “safe”, whereas everything else, particularly anything hailing from that frightening, chaotic, unreasonable and uncontrolled place known as Europe was dangerous. Yet, try as they might, the Americans could not keep themselves separate and pure, their basic European roots kept peeking through, their links with the lands of their ancestors eventually pulling them into World War Two. In the same way, many horror films of this period deal with roots peeking through – in the form of men or women who were subject to the emergence of a primal animal identity. It's interesting to see this device in Disney's Pinocchio (1940) as the bad boys are turned into donkeys. What does it all mean...?

Wolfmen

Hitler was frequently portrayed by cartoonists of this period as the Big Bad Wolf, and The Wolf Man (1941) (Universal) launched a new monster onto the screen whose behaviour registered strongly in the American public's consciousness. Set in Wales (where no one has ever heard of the war), the story follows Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) who returns to his ancestral home from America, only to become infected by a bite from a gypsy named Bela (Lugosi). With a starry cast including Claude Raines, and spectacular makeup and special effects, the picture was a big hit. Never one to miss a trick, Universal followed this up with Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man in 1943. This sees a revived Wolfman (he was shot in the end of the first film) seeking the help of Dr Frankenstein to cure his lycanthropy. The good doctor has passed on, but Talbot instead runs into the frozen Monster (played this time, rather confusingly, by Bela Lugosi. It's even more confusing when you remember that Lon Chaney Jr played the monster in Ghost of Frankenstein 1942). There's a battle to the death between the Monster & the Wolfman – all good clean fun. It was a hit, and Universal really milked the sacred cow dry with House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945).

 

 

"Even a man who is pure in heart, And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms And the Autumn moon is bright."

- The Wolf Man (1941)

House of Frankenstein spins the casting merry-go-round another couple of turns with Boris Karloff playing a mad scientist vowing to emulate Dr Frankenstein, cure Larry Talbot and reactivate the monster. He murders a carnival freak-show host, and then uses one of his horrors (Count Dracula) to try and murder his enemies – unfortunately Drac is zapped by the first rays of the sun. yes, they all die at the end, only to be revived for House of Dracula, which involves the Count and the Wolfman desiring to be cured of their foibles. They go & ask a kindly mad scientist, who inadvertently revives the Monster to complete the unholy triumvirate. They all die in the end, apart from the Wolfman, who, apparently cured, rides off into the sunset.

The increasingly desperate (and ridiculous) combinations of monsters effectively killed this phase of the horror film. From lovingly-crafted masterpieces like Bride of Frankenstein”, the genre had totally devoured itself within a decade. It was only left to Abbott & Costello, in their series of horror parodies (Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) to hammer the final nails into the coffin. The Universal Monsters (Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Monster) who had cast such terrifying shadows on their debut, would never be frightening again.

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Feline Alternatives

 

While Universal was sliding further and further towards the bottom of the barrel, over at RKO, they were trying something new. Cat People (1942) follows the story of Irena, a young woman who carries with her the belief that she is cursed, and will turn into a large, dangerous cat if she consummates her marriage. A mainly psychological thriller, much is made of what lurks in the shadows (particularly in the famous swimming pool scene), and the audience is left to make up their own mind (unlike in the 1982 remake). It was a great success, earning $4M (3,500% profit) and was followed by The Curse of the Cat People in 1944. Other RKO pictures concentrated on this theme of psychological terror rather than lumbering, copyrighted monsters. One real gem is The Body Snatcher (1945), a non-Universal pairing of Karloff & Lugosi. Billed as “The Screen's Last Word in Shock Sensation”, it is a measured exercise in psychological horror where the monsters are merely human. The RKO movies pointed in the right direction, and have much in common with some of the horror thriller s of the 1990s. But it is the bloated, creaking, and well-flogged corpse of the Universal monster pictures that truly represents the ending of this first horror movie cycle.

However, as any student of the supernatural will tell you, if a thing looks dead, that's the time to be most afraid, as you never know what might come shooting out from beneath the tombstone....

 

 

1930-1940

 

 

1950s:Part 1