An Illustrated History of the Horror Film

by Carlos Clarens

An illustrated history of the Horror Film through 1968

Genres: Horror, Film, Nonfiction, Art, Reference

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Carlos Clarens was born in Havana, Cuba as Carlos Figueredo. He was an actor, film critic, film historian and cinematographer. He was an acclaimed (but not very prolific) film critic in the United States, whose books on horror and crime films are still widely read. During his lifetime he was a regular contributor to the magazines Sight and Sound and Film Comment. He also wrote a book-length study of the films of George Cukor entitled George Cukor. In New York, he ran (with Mary Corliss) a photo-agency specializing in stills from old movies, which provided illustrations for many magazine articles and film books.He passed away from a heart attack. He resided in New York City at the time of his death. Upon his death, tributes were held at New York's Little Theatre at the Public Theater, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Paris.

Reviews

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!” Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

This vintage book sat on our bookshelves for years before I got a chance to read it. It is a classic film book dealing with horror films made from 1895 to 1967. The author, Carlos Clarens was a respected film historian and critic who spoke five languages. Is it dated? Yes. But still a fun read especially if you like the old black and white horror films especially the Universal Studios monsters like I do.

He writes about the appeal of watching horror movies as a way we fear and confront death including loss of a loved one or personal identity. They reflect the culture we live in. I enjoyed reading about the adaptation of Mary Shelly's Gothic novel “Frankenstein” into a silent film in 1910, which unfortunately was a box office failure. In the 1923, Lon Chaney, who was America's first horror movie star, made “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” The German expressionist films of the 1920's were also outstanding like “Nosferatu” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

The author explains in his book, that after WWl soldiers came back without limbs and then the Great Depression made many people feel like “outsiders.” Monsters were outsiders. Then as Hollywood developed, many of the film heads were immigrants from Europe and they brought some of the scary folk tales from the old country like “Dracula."

Universal Studios produced “Dracula”, then decided to re-make “Frankenstein” in 1931. What made this film so thrilling to audiences was this other side of life with an evil outsider lurking beneath. Universal continued to make many horror films. including: The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Wolf Man (1941); and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

Just where “the evil” is located and the misguided human tendency to be suspicious of the “outsider” is at the heart of most horror films. When World War ll broke out, the studios released “King Kong” which was reported as Adolf Hitler's favorite movie that year. “The Black Cat” starring Bella Lugoisi and Boris Karloff was a huge hit in 1934 and paired two of the greatest horror movie actors together. In the 1940's, we felt terror in the “Wolf Man” and even Disney movies like when Mickey turns into a donkey.

Looking back at the 1950's, the world was becoming aware of the atomic bomb and nuclear destruction. The studios produced a lot of Gothic romances but also sci-fiction where the giant monsters or plants were exposed to radiation.

Later in the sixties, the author writes about Hitchcock's “Psycho” which was considered a “kid movie” because all horror movies were kids movies. It was the movie that made the audience realize that nothing was off limits anymore. That movie honestly scared this reader more than any movie when I first saw it. I walked around for a week checking over my shoulder. I also became a serious Hitchcock fan then. But I will be honest I don't care for most modern horror films, there is just too much violence. Movies in the sixties started pushing the limits and I became very selective in my choices of what to watch.

I enjoyed every page of this movie book and if your are an early horror movie fan than check it out. Four stars.

[Debra]

Stephen King recommended book in the Footnote in King's 1983 Berkeley paperback edition of Danse Macabre.

[James McSweeney]

A well-researched overview of horror cinema and ominous sci-fi films. Clarens starts off with a chapter on Georges Méliès (since the sets, costumes, makeup and camera tricks in his films laid down the groundwork for all fantastical/grotesque cinema) and ends with a chapter that discusses some of the more intelligent horror and sci-fi films of the 1960s (i.e., The Damned [1963], The Birds, La Jetee, Alphaville, and Fahrenheit 451 [1966]).

Throughout the book, Clarens persuasively defends horror from its naysayers, analyzes what makes the genre so enduring, provides bits of important film history, reviews numerous landmark horror and sci-fi films, and gives attention to a lot of interesting obscure films from all over the world. You'll walk away with tons of recommendations, and to make hunting down particular films as easy as possible, the book includes an extensive index and an appendix that lists off the credits of every film mentioned by Clarens.

The one criticism I have is some of Clarens's evaluations are questionable. Like many critics of the 1960s, he prudishly dismisses Hammer's Gothic horror films for their violence and sexuality. Also, he is surprisingly harsh towards Nosferatu, The Innocents, and many other classics. Nonetheless, Clarens is always mature and understandable.

If you're a huge fan of pre-1967 horror cinema and want to learn about the history of the genre and/or get some lesser-known recommendations, I highly recommend this book.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great cover but its content is a bit dated. The book was published in 1967 and there were many more horrors to come. Inside you'll start at the very beginning with mystery, terror and fantasy, a silent conspiracy of terror, children of the night, the dead next door, horror as the soul to the plot, keep watching the sky, horrors around the world. Interesting and good to read but nothing too extraordinary. Recommended for those with a broad focus on early horror!

[Gary Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am rereading this book once again for an essay on Carl Dreyer's film Vampyr, which was based on Sheridan Le Fanu't In a Glass Darkly.