Post by rra on Feb 27, 2008 4:07:58 GMT -5
(NOTE: Appanrently, FRANKENSTEIN (1910) isn't the first "horror movie" after all. Sorry for my mistake, and kudos to those for pointing it out to me.)
Forced to sit through History at High School, you might remember Thomas Edison. You know, the inventor of the light bulb, phonograph, DC Battery, the horror movie.
No, you read that last one right. Around the turn of the 20th century, Edison was involved in the burgeoning motion picture business, or 10-20 minute shorts. In fact, he tried to monopolize the field by buying up all the film companies of that time.
How did the "independents" escape? They moved their productions from the East Coast to southern California.
Anyway, Edison Studios were making abridged adaptations of the literary classics, and they fatefully picked Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN, and thus the first "horror movie" was shot in the year of 1910.
Sadly, like the large percentage of films/shorts produced during the "Silent Era," this was feared lost to history. But it was discovered in a private collection, and indeed Edison's most underrated invention is here for us movie historians.
But most of all, you horror nerds have your heritage and legacy saved.
While this version of FRANKENSTEIN is purely primitive, as the very film vocabulary and grammar are being discovered, certain traits of the Horror Genre are already present: Abnormal terrible "monster" stalks his victims, and a woman fleeing from the threat.
What impressed me the most though was two shots. You have Dr. Frankenstein cooking his organic chemical soup, in which we witness arguably the first "Gore" shot of both the genre, and of cinema, where we watch the layers of detailed cumilation of flesh coming together.....
Second, a scene with a mirror....very damn clever and ahead of its time, I must say, in using an object to create "split-screen" visual storytelling. Certainly like horror movies of decades to come, including today, you have teh audience see the creature creep up behind his "father," while the latter doesn't.
Now what's weird is the ending. You have the Creature looking at the same mirror, then disapearing....leaving behind only his reflection. The hero sees it, and the Creature dissolves.
Ehh, what?
Anyway, check out the "first horror movie," all 16 silent minutes of it.
Part 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKs5FknCVI
Part 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCf7FAnh7t4&feature=related
Forced to sit through History at High School, you might remember Thomas Edison. You know, the inventor of the light bulb, phonograph, DC Battery, the horror movie.
No, you read that last one right. Around the turn of the 20th century, Edison was involved in the burgeoning motion picture business, or 10-20 minute shorts. In fact, he tried to monopolize the field by buying up all the film companies of that time.
How did the "independents" escape? They moved their productions from the East Coast to southern California.
Anyway, Edison Studios were making abridged adaptations of the literary classics, and they fatefully picked Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN, and thus the first "horror movie" was shot in the year of 1910.
Sadly, like the large percentage of films/shorts produced during the "Silent Era," this was feared lost to history. But it was discovered in a private collection, and indeed Edison's most underrated invention is here for us movie historians.
But most of all, you horror nerds have your heritage and legacy saved.
While this version of FRANKENSTEIN is purely primitive, as the very film vocabulary and grammar are being discovered, certain traits of the Horror Genre are already present: Abnormal terrible "monster" stalks his victims, and a woman fleeing from the threat.
What impressed me the most though was two shots. You have Dr. Frankenstein cooking his organic chemical soup, in which we witness arguably the first "Gore" shot of both the genre, and of cinema, where we watch the layers of detailed cumilation of flesh coming together.....
Second, a scene with a mirror....very damn clever and ahead of its time, I must say, in using an object to create "split-screen" visual storytelling. Certainly like horror movies of decades to come, including today, you have teh audience see the creature creep up behind his "father," while the latter doesn't.
Now what's weird is the ending. You have the Creature looking at the same mirror, then disapearing....leaving behind only his reflection. The hero sees it, and the Creature dissolves.
Ehh, what?
Anyway, check out the "first horror movie," all 16 silent minutes of it.
Part 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKs5FknCVI
Part 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCf7FAnh7t4&feature=related
