The Difference - Horror Movies in the 60s.

A number of ghost stories hit the screen in the early 1960s that still have the power to startle today, transcending their black and white photography and minimal special effects. These films can be seen as a reaction against the elaborate creature features of the late 1950s. They are simple stories that only require the audience to suspend disbelief in increments, and often, as in The Haunting (1963) operate from a position of skepticism. The characters do not believe that they are being affected by supernatural forces until too late (if at all) and the horror lies in the journey the protagonist takes between sanity and psychosis. Can the hero believe what he/she (it's usually a woman) is seeing? Reality unravels in textbook (Freudian) style, as familiar, safe mise en scène disintegrate, revealing aspects of another dimension. When the protagonist resists or complains, the causes of her terror can be explained away by a (it's usually a man) kindly doctor or other authority figure in Act Two, but the forces of madness – whether internal or external – always triumph by the end. These screen stories reflect a preoccupation with change, with women on the frontlines, the first (and often the only ones) to be destroyed by the erosion of the old order. Were these movies subliminal warnings to women, an exhortation to behave, or suffer the consequences? These ghost stories depend on more than an ambiguous spectral presence for their thrills; they throb with psychosexual tension, and take a sadistic satisfaction (Hitchcock made it fashionable) in the suffering of the beautiful heroine. The protagonist is a final sacrifice rather than a Final Girl.

The Difference - Horror Movies in the 50s.

The 1950s are the era when horror films get relegated well and truly to the B-movie category. The studios were too busy incorporating technical changes such as widespread colour production and trying to meet the challenge posed by TV to have much truck with making quality horror pictures. Big stars were reserved for epics and musicals while the Universal era icons were either dead, dead-in-the-water (Lugosi was reduced to an impoverished caricature of his former self) or moved on (Karloff had diversified into TV & theatre and was still working). The main audiences for horror movies were teenagers, who ensured that the genre remained very profitable. They flocked to the drive-ins in hordes, not caring too much about character development, plot integrity or production values. Some of these B-movies are, frankly, ludicrous, in the way they require the audience to suspend disbelief. The aim of the game was thrills, thrills and more thrills, and these monsters, whilst perhaps more terrifying in conception than execution, never fail to deliver on the action front. Nonetheless, they are highly entertaining, and provide a crude, technicolour snapshot of the way America desperately didn't want itself to be. This is to show the difference between the films from the past, and the films from now.

Evaluation Part 3

I have finished my Evaluation like I said, during the free days left, and have uploaded it onto my Evaluation page.

Evaluation Part 2

I have spent my time after school trying to continue on with my Evaluation. Since I have spent a lot of time on it, I haven't been able to finish it. Therefore, I will continue on with it during the weekend, and have it fully finished and given in by Tuesday 7th.

Evaluation

I am halfway through my Evaluation, and hoping to finish it by the end of today.