Blogpost 3: Classical horror

Oh classical horror. This is what started it all. From the first ever horror film by George Mellies in the late 1980's, the Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) and to the others like Japan's Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898, and also Frankenstein, all of which created the starting point of Horror.

I like discussing about classical horror since it gives us an overview of how horror came to be, how it evolved through time. Aesthetics has played a big role in this changes. Most basically because of the advancement in technology which resulted to better animation and setting. But yeah, credits to classical horror which started the idea. And now we are left with a question, what influenced these changes? Well in fact, it all originated from cliches in a movie. Here is something from an article entitled "Influence of Hitchcock's Psycho on Culture and the Movie Industry" written by L.Vincent Poupard in the site "voices.yahoo.com"

"Psycho, at it's basis, inspired many of the serial killer and slasher movies that we see today.

Many people have considered this to be one of the most influential horror movies ever made, if not one of the most influential movies of all time. The influence of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been mutated into some of the most common horror movie clichés of all time. Since Hitchcock's concept of Horror mostly show gore, violence, and sexual content, the culture adapted this concept and is now using it as a common horror basis and a nightmare to many people.

While Psycho was undergoing supremacy (sh*t, i don't care heh-heh-heh-) another classical horror enters my mind and creates a new outlook. It was a man's adventure to hell. Oh yes, Dante's Inferno. The perfect interpretation of HORROR.

Dante's Inferno best known as The Divine Comedy is a great classic of the west. It is about the venturing of Dante and Virgil to the 9 vestibules of Hell experiencing the lamenting tortures and eternal suffering in flames especially the to the centre of hell, the lair of Satan.

What intrigues me the most is how they interpreted this masterpiece. I was able to scan through an article entitled "Classical Horror in Dante's inferno, Cantos XIII and XX" by M.G in Digital Dante. Here is what I found:

When we speak about the nature of horror in literature and art, we may imagine horrid ghouls and demons ripping apart helpless mortals, blood and gore in prodigious amounts, and eye-popping special effects that would terrify all but the most staunch movie- goer.

The article talks about the techniques in creating horror by using evoking techniques. They used the visual of hell to terrify the audience. Just imagine those demons and monsters surrounding a particular are and torturing everything. I never realized any of these until I had the guts to really research about Dante's inferno.

According to the article, in Canto XIII, we see Dante himself emerging from the valley of Phletgethon only to arrive in the Woods of Suicides. The statements are so strong themselves that you don't really have to exert much effort to imagine everything being brought up. We have different interpretations of the imagery used so we have different perspectives of the work. If only each and every person could paint want they have imagined, then we can have different manifestations of horror art.

That's why Dante's inferno would be a perfect example to generate the classical idea of art in Horror. And to picture everything that the article mentioned here is the map of Hell.

Original image can be found here

Classical horror has become a basis for modern horror today. It has a wide variety of concepts and modern writers, poets, directors have derived ideas from. Horror is something that started since the beginning of time. It's up to the person on how he/she would interpret.