A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (2010)

A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (2010)
Dirs. John Das (2 eps) | Rachel Jardine (1 ep)  |  3 episodes, approx 60 mins each.

A three-part TV documentary in which author/actor Mark Gatiss explores the evolution of horror in cinema from a biased perspective.

I don't mean that in a poisonous way; he's upfront about the focus, admitting that it's "unashamedly selective." I can relate to that.

I found myself agreeing with his choices the majority of the time, but was personally disappointed that the German Expressionist movement was completely overlooked.

There's only one film featured that I'd not seen, so I had to skip past it because there's MASSIVE spoilers every time, mostly by showing the ending of each film. If you're comfortable with that, however, then there's much to enjoy.
Click below for info on each individual episode:

Part I: Universal Studios

The golden era of American horror, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, et al. The 'Universal Monsters', as they've come to be collectively known, reflected society's needs at the time.

It examines the stories in a social context, exploring why scares that stopped when credits rolled were both thrilling and calming for different reasons. The episode contains mini-biopics of each actor, interviews with surviving cast members or their descendants, and an occasional rummage through the archives and props of the day.

Part II: Horror Europa

Episode two crosses the waters to focus primarily on the British horror industry, of which Hammer Productions were the most prolific.

After Universal had run their Monsters into the ground with increasingly weakening sequels and diminishing returns they allowed Hammer to have a go, expecting them to fail just as hard. But Hammer dug up the sleeping corpses and gave them new life in glorious Technicolor. It was within that revived framework that Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing emerged as genre greats.

The BBFC's 1951 X Certificate promised danger and cleavage, so Hammer delivered. For a time, at least. The same waning of interest happened to them years later, but they carved out a well-deserved place in film history right alongside Universal.

Part III: New Wave USA

It then returns to the States for a look at films by the likes of George Romero, Tobe Hooper and John Carpenter, men who pushed the genre further than ever before into realms of dubious acceptability.

It gives the Independent films the credit that I would argue they deserve, while acknowledging that the major studios were also doing their bit to herald genre evolution and/or change with films like The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) hitting mainstream theatres.

Much of what falls under the New Wave banner was significantly different to what came before it, but it nevertheless owes as much of a debt to its two previous eras as Hammer did to its immediate predecessor, continuing a legacy that's measured by the conventions it chose to keep and the ones that it chose to abandon.