Horror Hub: How 80s Horror Shaped the Horror Scene

Hey y'all let's see what's up today! I apologize that this did not get posted on Friday, I scheduled a post and for some reason it didn't save and I didn't notice until this morning. For this week's Horror Hub I wanted to discuss how 80s horror really shaped the horror scene. While these films may not be scary by modern standards, they really set the bar for horror and even some action movies at the time. This post is going to be one of the longer ones so if this is not going to be something that interests you feel free to take this as a warning.

Why the 80s?

While the Creature Features of the 1920s and 1930s helped to kick start horror's migration to the big screen and the 1950s held the audience's interest with its own share of eerie films and TV shows, we hold the slashers of the late 1970s,1980s, and early 1990s as some of the most iconic films of the genre. This is the era in which horror really had its growth spurt so to speak. These films were openly filled with, at the time, shocking amounts of gore and special effects that laid the groundwork for modern day effects artists. They also introduced new types of horror such as camp, slasher, and body horror films.

These films also brought to light heavy metal and rock music, which were still considered fairly controversial at the time due to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Putting this music in films that were almost instant cult classics highlighted new artists, and painted an entirely different picture of metal culture than other media did at the time. This is because horror has, since its debut, been a very polarizing media genre. Horror, while popular among fans, is often looked down upon and not regarded very highly by the media industry.

Practical Effects

I have, since I started reviewing films and discussing horror on this blog, praised the use of practical effects. This isn't something that I am keen on changing my stance about either, I absolutely adore them. Practical effects have been used in horror or horror-related films since 1896 in Georges Méliès La Mainor du Diable. However, the gore revolution of the 1980s is really where artists and engineers alike were able to showcase their skills, allowing for realistic and gruesome deaths to be shown on screen instead of off camera like they had been in decades past.

These early practical effects played with makeup, sculpting, painting, and even light tricks to create some real movie magic. However as we drifted into the 1980s we began to see the shift into more advanced systems like body casting and advanced puppetry. Horror and fantasy films alike were often used to experiment and really push the envelope of what could be done with the technology that was available at the time. A perfect example of this is Little Shop of Horrors. The Audrey 2 puppet had a much smoother motion if it was filmed slowly and then sped up. As such actor Rick Moranis lip synced his lines in slow motion when working with the Audrey 2 puppet. The footage was then brought to normal speed of 24 frames per second to create a more natural motion for the sentient venus flytrap, and this is just one example of many!

Because 1980s horror films came around before the existence of advanced CGI, they relied on these practical effects to make the magic happen when it came to kill scenes and even some of the killers themselves. The effects used could range from advanced special effects makeup like Freddy Krueger's iconic burnt look, to state of the art puppetry like the mechanics used to bring Chucky and Tiffany to life.

Story Telling

Thanks to the advancements made in special effects, this allowed filmmakers to create deeper storylines and more complicated scenes. As such we got some rather iconic films from the era like Ghostbusters, Alien, Child's Play, and later additions to the Friday the 13th franchise. This storytelling has proceeded to inspire horror shows, reboots, prequels and sequels that we're seeing come to light in more recent years. It was a time in which the sky was the limit for storytellers, and we have continued to see how this approach to storytelling created these larger than life stories that have united fans for generations.

The Gore Revolution

Prior to the 1980s, gore was considered pretty taboo in the film industry. Before slasher movies made their debut starting in 1974 with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and continuing with Halloween in 1978, heavy gore had only been shown in one 1963 film titled Blood Feast by Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. Gore was considered too intense for audiences at the time, causing an uproar and even some fainting in cinemas across the globe when it was featured, as it hadn't really been done on a wide scale previously.

The 1980s were renowned for their intricate special effects as I mentioned above; with the addition of the budding body horror and slasher subgenres it allowed teams to experiment with story telling and, of course, the gore. Horror film makers at the time were really focused on drawing in diverse audiences and pushing the envelope with how creative they could make their gore scenes. This has since set the stage for directors like Damien Leone, who also features intense special effects in his Terrifer franchise, to bring that same level of creativity and exploration to modern screens. 

The Creation of the "Final Girl"

The term "final girl" was coined in 1987 by Carol J. Clover, who had done an article on gender in the slasher scene. Slasher films of the 80s are known to have a final girl, a girl that typically doesn't party, do drugs, or engage in what could be considered "immoral" behavior. She's responsible, resourceful, and often very level headed like Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) from the Halloween franchise. This girl is often the only one left of a group by the end of the film, and the one that has to face off with the killer. These girls were often seen to have a sort of privilege or advantage from their supposed moral superiority compared to that of their peers. 

Because of the final girl's apparent moral high ground, the slasher films of the 80s got surprisingly popular with some parents due to their apparent return to traditional values. However, this simply wasn't the purpose of the films. The directors of these films, as beloved as the killers are, were more often than not on the side of the victims in these early slasher films. The killers themselves were meant to represent opressive forces by which the final girl would have to give up some of that moral standing to defeat them.

Closing

That's all that I have for you guys right now, if you have anything you'd like to add to this please feel free to do so in the comments I'd love to hear from you! Stay tuned for the monthly rewind and the monthly issue as we recap what we've done for March and prepare for April. f you want to see more from me feel free to click the link below where you can find my other socials. Y'all take care, and thanks for stopping by! 

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