Influential.

[icebluenothing]

Over in horror_films, vegandreamboat wrote:

in your opinion what are the horror films that changed the genre..not necessarily your favorites but the ones that reinvited horror.

To which I responded:

---

Oooh, what a good question. I'd go with:

The Haunting (1963) -- the haunted-house movie that all haunted-house movies pay homage to, whether they know it or not. (Stephen King especially has a thing for this story.) Pay no attention to the 90's remake. None.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) -- How many movies manage to invent a monster? Zombies as we know them come from this movie, and have been done to death a million times since. (Pun not intended.) This film has heavily influenced not just horror films, but pop culture.

The Exorcist (1973) -- Something else that filtered into pop culture, and something else that invented a genre -- the supernatural religious thriller.

Friday the 13th (1980) -- Sure, I know Black Christmas may have beaten it to the punch by years, I know Halloween may be a strong contender for the slasher-genre crown, but come on . . . this is the one that's stayed in everyone's mind. If you mention "Michael Myers" to the man on the street, he'll think you mean the comedian, but everyone knows that "Jason" means a hockey mask, a butcher knife, and an unstoppable body count.

An American Werewolf in London (1981) -- This one raised the bar on make-up/special effects technology, blurring the line between the two beautifully and creating a new look for horror. Often imitated, never equalled in terms of sheer impact.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) -- Many horror films since have used dream logic, but never with so much style. Freddy is one of the icons of the genre.

Near Dark (1987) -- This is the movie that saved vampires from being just foofy gothy ponces in velvet capes, and gave us vampires that were thoroughly modern, urban, dirty, and dangerous.

Scream (1996) -- The movie that, for good or ill, revived the horror genre by reinventing it as hip, clever, and self-aware.

This is fun. Any others?

Comments

I differ on this...

[wire-mother.livejournal.com]

The Exorcist (1973) -- Something else that filtered into pop culture, and something else that invented a genre -- the supernatural religious thriller.

actually, that genre was reinvented for cinema (from fictional antecedents such as the Black Magic series of books by Dennis Wheatley) by Rosemary's Baby.

i'd add: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. this film made use of a semi-documentary style, contributing greatly to its level of horror, and inspiring countless other films, ranging from the slashers to The Blair Witch Project.

The Wolf Man. for all intents, this movie created the werewolf as it is now known. silver, the transmission of the "disease" by a scratch or wound from a werewolf, wolfsbane, the pentagram - all of these were invented from whole cloth for this movie.

The Mummy (1932). like Night of the Living Dead and The Wolf Man, this one invented a new monster, which the sequels reduced to a shambling, bandage-wrapped zombie. this original, though, is beautiful and atmospheric.

Godzilla. again with the inventing a new type of monster, this movie developed the idea of the horror of something large and elemental, in the face of which humans are as motes of dust to be swept aside. very Lovecraftian, in that way. Mothra proceeded to add a strange Freudian-feeling twist to the formula that was to prove compelling.

King Kong (1933). subverted the idea that horror impinges on the protagonists. in the end, the horror of this movie is in what the protagonists have done, unthinking.