Watched a documentary the other night with Tom called 'A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss'. Being a lover of horror since childhood the documentary consists of some of Mark's personal favourite horror films. This week's show was based on what he believed to be the era when horror really began. To Gatiss horror began with the airing of the 1925 silent version of 'The Phantom of the Opera'. He mentioned Lon Chaney also known as 'The Man With Many Faces', the Phantom from the film and a famous actor in the 1920's and how he is considered the god father of horror. He is also famous for his self taught makeup skills. With creating the Phantom's appearance he even used a piece of thin metal wire to pin his nose back to make it looks as if it wasn't there.
Another two famous films Gatiss talks about are Dracula, which stared Bela Lugosi, who also later worked in Ed Wood's films. He also talks about Frankenstein and how although brilliant for its time also pushed Horror boundaries too far. In one scene the monster is playing with a little girl and ends up throwing her into the water, therefore resulting in her drowning. This scene was cut out from other versions and wasn't put back in until 50 years later.
by 1950's horror films were almost becoming extinct, however as Gatiss says 'but of course its just like when you think the monster's dead it comes back...stronger'
It was a great doc - and I too had the book on horror films Gatiss got all nostalgic about!
ReplyDeleteThat books looks really interesting. Might have to go search for it :)
ReplyDeleteGatiss is all over the BBC these days, but his particular brand of adolescent posturing does us no favours: http://bit.ly/dofrOn
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