The Horror Movies they make us tremble, dig our nails into our arms, scream, sweat. This range of emotions, hardly evoked by any other genre, is at the heart of the fascination they cause us. But, in addition, the best horror films greatly influence the culture, coming to make his monsters sneak into our dreams (or, rather, into our nightmares).
Precisely those creatures that have become recognizable icons in practically any corner of the planet are the ones that form the skeleton of when monsters are born (Lunwerg, 2022). The volume, written by the journalist specialized in cinema Alberto Gil , collects 25 legendary films, each accompanied by a extraordinary illustrated interpretation of the renowned cartoonist Ferdinand Vincent.
We have made a selection of well known horror movies , covering a very varied range of themes, archetypes, origins and moments different from its premiere”, explains the author to Traveler.
“The first movie is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, from 1920, and the last one is Sleepy Hollow, from 1999. In almost a century, there have been genre classics (Dr. Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Werewolf…); movies about psychological Horror, as psychosis; stories of zombies (The night of the Living Dead), dystopias (A clockwork orange and 1984); diabolical possessions (The exorcist); dangerous animals (Shark); alien threats (Alien, The Thing), masked psychopaths (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and unclassifiable but very disturbing plots, such as The Shining or The Sixth Sense. All of them point to a facet of fear, and have the peculiarity of having left some universal, recognizable and lasting imprint”.
Perhaps for this reason, the tentacles of this kind of anthology do not reach the 21st century, since there does not seem to be enough time distance to discern what works will become legendary, which will find their place in the fascinating history of horror movies.
ALL FOR THE FEAR
“I am very impressed by the passion and dedication that some performers have put into their work. Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), for example, underwent daily make-up sessions of up to four hours to embody their characters”, recalls Gil.
“And the dubbing of Linda Blair, the girl in The Exorcist, meant for the actress Mercedes McCambridge straining the throat by smoking, eating raw eggs and drinking whiskey, something doubly dangerous because she had had problems with alcohol. She even got to tie a rag around the neck to get that inhuman voice that made her portrayal of the devil-possessed girl so compelling,” he adds.
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That spirit of total dedication -which Tim Burton reflected so well in Ed Wood- to manage to recreate with conviction the most gruesome atmospheres possible It is just one of the aspects that Gil collects and captures concisely and attractively in When Monsters Are Born.
The author also investigates the origin of these films -the true story of a serial killer, a historical episode, a scientific discovery, a mythological belief, a cursed building...-, about their artistic influences, about their cultural legacy and about the incidents, mysterious and bloody on many occasions, they suffered some of the shoots. These are the ones that have contributed to enlarging, even more, the dark aura of these unique films.
THE 10 SCARY MOVIES YOU HAVE TO SEE
“It will not stop being a subjective selection, but here are my ten”, announces Gil when we ask him to offer us a list of those horror films that any lover of cinema, and of adrenaline, should see before dying:
- The cabinet of doctor Caligari
- doctor frankenstein
- Doctor Jekill and Mr. Hyde (in the Rouben Mamoulian version)
- Psychosis
- The seed of the devil
- The Exorcist
- Alien
- The glow
- The thing
- The silence of the lambs
All of them, and many more, are part of the bible of horror movie myths when monsters are born. How many do you have left to enjoy?
