Horror movies, since their rise to popularity in the 40’s with the Universal Monsters like Frankenstien and Dracula, have been a passtime for many during the early fall months. From poltergeists and exorcisms to crazed killers in hockey masks, extra-terrestrial monsters, and everything in between; as a result of iconography and popularity, their impact on culture as a whole is generally underestimated. They have far stronger ties to the social attitude and climate of America than many realize.
From the beginning, horror as a genre has held a (albeit twisted and disfigured) mirror to American society as a whole. Universal’s original monster movies from the 30’s and 40’s had a fantasy, storybook element to them (partly because a lot of their biggest characters like Dracula and Frankenstein came from novels.)
These films that were less horror and more romance and tragedy became escapes from a world stuck in a war and an America just barely getting out of a depression. The “American dream” was still very much alive, and with it was the more theatrical and fantastical horror films.
As American society shifted away from idealism so did horror films. Social issues like civil rights became ever more prevalent and discussed in America, and with the Cold War breathing down everyone’s necks, the general attitude in America shifted to a more paranoid and untrusting one.
Films like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” from 1960, the story of a woman on the run finding herself in a sketchy motel with a murderous and (dare I say) *psychotic* innkeeper, reflected this paranoid feeling. More directly, George A. Romero’s “Night Of The Living Dead”, released in 1968, was not only the first zombie film but also the first horror film interpreted to be a criticism of American society.
While Romero claims any criticisms or comparisons to the 1960’s American social climate present in his low budget zombie film were unintentional, viewers saw many within the movie’s writing. The film follows a black man named Ben trapped in a farmhouse with other survivors, all white, as they attempt to defend themselves from the undead threat.
Like a lot of zombie media that followed it, the real threat is the infighting that takes place amongst the survivors. Not only did viewers draw comparisons of the mistrust of the survivors to Cold War era politics, but the isolation of Ben, who is shot by a white sheriff at the end of the film, led to much speculation despite Romero famously saying that he never intended for Ben’s character to be black.
In 1969, Charles Manson, leader of the Manson family cult, orchestrated multiple murders including that of famous actress Sharon Tate. This, the growing tensions in America over things like Vietnam, and the era of serial killers that started in the 70’s sparked a new fear in American movie-goers that filmmakers were quick to exploit: Themselves.
While “Psycho” was the first critically acclaimed “slasher”, the subgenre didn’t really start coming into its own until the 70’s and 80’s. In 1974, director Tobe Hooper invited viewers to witness “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, a film about a family of cannibals torturing a group of young teenagers that wander upon their house of horrors.
The first popular film that saw the killer coming to the victims rather than the inverse was John Carpenter’s “Halloween”, featuring the now infamous Micheal Myers stalking and attacking a group of young women. At the time, it was typical for the protagonist to discover the horrific plot. A lost girl finds Dracula’s castle tucked deep in the woods, a criminal finds herself in a motel 6 with a less-than-friendly manager, or a group of kids stumble upon a run down farm of cannibals in Texas. “Halloween” was the first film to have horror come to the characters.
These films, along with other less popular examples like “Black Christmas”, “Last House On The Left”, and “The Hills Have Eyes” releases coinciding with the rise of infamous murderers like The Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy is no coincidence. As Americans started to learn not to trust strangers, leave their doors unlocked, or go walking alone at night, horror films gave moviegoers first hand knowledge of what would happen if they did.
In the 80’s, America started to get a bit of its spunk back, and so came the era of the goofy, the strange, and the celebrity for horror films. Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kreuger became household names in this era, and in a pop culture that was ruled by Micheal Jackson and Madonna, the popularity of their raunchy, gorey, and outright ridiculous films is not surprising.
That being said, horror continued to reflect the fears of people that had always been there. Ghost stories that came out in the 70’s like “The Exorcist” were followed by “Poltergeist” and “The Evil Dead” in the 80’s, and more serious films about the crazy and deranged that might lurk in the shadows like “The Shining” continued to give people reason to check their closets before bed.
As the 90’s came around, rock and roll died, and counterculture became everyone’s culture. Horror became a satire of itself as the goofy and far-too-popular characters of the 80’s fell out of public favor, and the best example of this is 1996’s “Scream.” Directed by Wes Craven, ironically also the director of “The Nightmare On Elm Street” and creator of Freddy Krueger.
“Scream” acts as a satire of what the horror genre had become. While pointing out the cliches and the ridiculousness of horror movies passed, it still managed to be scary by subverting the typical expectations people grew to have of scary movies. Most prominently, movie-goers became used to the trope of the “final girl”, the innocent and naive main character who always ended up being the final survivor. Drew Berrymore was all over the advertising for “Scream”, did interviews, and many assumed she would be the typical “final girl” until her character was killed not 10 minutes into the film.
This, and (spoiler warning) the revelation that the killer was not one, but two people, Stu Macher and Billy Loomis, who had been close to the main protagonist Sydney Prescott the entire film went against the typical notions of what a horror film was, and rejuvenated the genre in a pop-culture that was tired of all the tacky glamor of the 80’s.
Throughout the 2000’s the over-the-top gore of the 80’s and the gritty realism of the 90’s merged into a twisted and strange era for films. Amongst the remakes of the classics like Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” and Micheal Bay’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” upping the ante, there were films like “Saw” which seemed focused solely on the shock of gore.
However, in the 2010’s and now 2020’s, with the shift of Americans’ attitude towards mental health and social issues, horror has shifted in that regard too. Psychological horror is much more common now with the rise of A24 and their films like “Pearl” exploring isolation and abandonment and how it can twist one’s outlook on the world, and “Hereditary” with its plot centered around grief and how it can hurt a family.
As well, the work of Jordan Peele on films like “Us”, “Get Out”, and “Nope” coincide with the rise of the BLM movement and changes in American social climate by representing African Americans struggles in his horror.
The ties that horror has to American culture are often underestimated because of the goofy, slapped together, casual reputation that horror films have garnered. While many horror movies are that way, horror is just as connected to the social pulse of the world as any other film or art.