Gothic horror

'Gothic' is recognised for its obsession with anything and everything dark, mysterious, unknown or the unexplored side of reality and human experience. It is driven by anxiety and fascination, underpinned by the inevitability of death. Should we be scared of death? or what lays before us post mortem? This is what gothic highlights and aims to discover

Origins

Gothic horror is a sub genre of horror based on novels from the 1800's the most iconic in this genre are stories like Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker. These were then later turned into films in the 19th century. They were also influenced by Gothic architecture at the time. Gothic literature sought to reconnect people to the darker side of life, it occurred alongside intellectuals who showed that superstition was a thing of the past so people then rushed out to buy chilling novels to put fear back into their lives. 

Gothic combined horror with romance. They were tales of spine chilling mystery intended to create an emotional response rather
than a moral one and have a strong supernatural influence.
The first Gothic horror film is a short film called 'Le Manoir du Diable' (1896) by George Méliès. The film is only 3 minutes long but this was considered ambitious at the time. It featured the devil and other supernatural beings as well as a flying bat meaning that, by some, its considered as the first vampire movie as well. It is likely the be the very first film to deliberately use special effects to frighten its viewers.

Typical conventions of Gothic horror:

• Desolate/wild landscapes like graveyards and woods
• Low key lighting - dark look
• Gothic architecture - castles and abbeys with secret passages, winding stair cases etc.
• Doom and gloom
• Monsters, witches and ghosts
• Hero's and heroines in danger

The setting of a gothic horror has some kind of duality. This is where a character will go from dark to light. For example walking in a house to going down into the dark cellar and the character will go on a journey from light to dark.

Hammer Horror films

 A series of gothic horror movies made by British film company Hammer film productions from the 1950's - 1970's. The movies were adapted from earlier 30s and 40's movies like Dracula, Frankenstein and his Monster, The Werewolf and The Mummy. These  included putting them into colour and some new plot twists. Hammer horror was also known for using the same actors over and over again some even appearing in every movie. Hammer had assembled a collection of actors that audiences were willing to engage with, no matter the premise or genre of the film. Audiences came to see, among others, respected and revered actors such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Ingrid Pitt. The studio’s first major horror hit was The Curse Of Frankenstein, released in 1957. Directed by Hammer Films starring soon-to-be Hammer regulars Cushing and Lee, the film was a monumental update on not only the Mary Shelley novel, but also the original film from Universal Studio (this was lucky as universal threatened to sue hammer if the story was too similar)

Hammer realised that viewers wanted horror movies different to what universal had produced before, they wanted dark and gothic movies. 1958's 'Dracula' was a huge success starring Cushing and Lee. Lee's performance as Dracula is thought of as one of the best vampiric portrayals ever. He turned a character who was typically aristrocratic and stuffy into a monster dripping with sexuality. The vampire was scary because he was seductive relating to Noel Carroll's attraction/repulsion theory

Tim Burton

He is known for his dark and gothic films such as Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, Dark Shadows and more recently Miss Peregrines home for peculiar children as well as animated movies like Corpse Bride, frankenweenie and Coraline.

Burton is described as having a gothic sensibility which is shown in all of the stories he writes all of which are incredibly unique and individual to him - showing his fascination with stories that counter mundane realism. HIs films promote the beauty of the unusual and strange.








'Vincent' (1982)

A short film created by Tim Burton while he was at Disney. Based on a young boy who lives an ordinary life but internally, is obsessed with Vincent Price and Edgar Allen Poe and appears to fall further and further into his fantasy world until his mother attempts to drag him back out. Disney wanted Burton to recreate a happier ending but Tim believed that this would make the short darker saying " It felt more beautiful and more like what was in his mind, which is what the thing was about. It was about somebody’s spirit, and to make it literal was, I felt, making it darker" Vincent deals with the struggle between imagination and reality or the classic gothic trope of the light contrasting the dark.

'Corpse Bride'
This uses all the classic tropes of a classic gothic film. Firstly starts in black and white, Victorian costume and big dark houses and streets. Closely followed by the classic dark woods, huge trees, screeching crows and of course a hand rising from the grave.

Tim Burtons characters are the epitome of the ideologies of the gothic subculture. Gothic is made to disrupt reality and explore the unexplored, there is a huge fascination with death in comparison to life. In terms of Burton, The Maitlands in Beetlejuice live a typically ordinary life but when they die the afterlife is crazy and fun.