Everything starts somewhere. These five horror films each spanned a legion of remakes, recreations and other movies that tried to resurrect their originality, but these were the first.

‘Dracula’Year: 1931Directed by: Tod BrowningStarring: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler and Edward Van Sloan

Without Lugosi, who knows what Dracula would look like. It’s Lugosi’s likeness that is copied in every other vampire movie – and featured on America’s Halloween decorations. Lugosi’s Dracula bares a resemblance to the undead count from Bram Stoker’s source novel, ‘Dracula.’ Lugosi established the basic premise of the film vampire: afraid of crosses, can’t come out during the day, preys solely on women and has the basic look of black hair with a widow’s peak and sexually menacing. And not only did this film (and Lugosi) establish vampires in film, it also jump-started Universal Pictures’ domination of the horror-film industry for two decades.

‘The Curse of Frankenstein’Year: 1957Directed by: Terence FisherStarring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court

Horror had lacked something until this film – color. Suddenly, horror films became more realistic and gorier. This was Hammer Film Production’s first horror picture with its soon-to-be legendary horror team, Cushing and Lee. Strictly as films come and go, Cushing and Lee had better outings than ‘The Curse of Frankenstein,’ but this movie set the standards – blood in vibrant red instead of just appearing black on screen, monsters with better makeup, laboratories where incandescent liquids bubbled, boiled and spurted. Horror had never looked this good or colorful.

‘The Night of the Living Dead’Year: 1968Directed by: George A. RomeroStarring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman

Before Romero’s low-budget thriller, zombies seemed to be just slow, lumbering, stupid and not that hungry for human flesh. They also seemed to be solitary creatures who didn’t want any company. Romero – and future filmmakers – gave viewers more: Lots of very hungry zombies, who would not stop until they had tracked down their evening meal. But Romero’s film also proved to be a great suspense thriller, layering the tension on the viewer. The best zombie films that came later took note from not only how scary thousands of zombies could be, but also Romero’s fantastic direction.

‘Halloween’Year: 1978Directed by: John CarpenterStarring: Donald Pleasence, Jaimee Lee Curtis, Tony Moran

Michael Myers (Moran) will probably never rest in peace. In ‘Halloween,’ Carpenter established the slasher genre that dominated horror films in the 1980s. Basic premise: A not very well explained creature or killer, lots of hot women, sex and murder. Sounds like your typical night out, eh? The best slasher films tend to be the first of their series, when things still seemed fresh. ‘Halloween’ spawned an atrocious amount of sequels and even two recent remakes. With its slasher-style concept, it also paved the way for other films like ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Friday the 13th.’

‘The Ring’Year: 2002Directed by: Gore VerbinskiStarring: Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Daveigh Chase

This film terrifies on many different levels. By keeping it PG-13, Verbinski allowed anybody to see his movie and go home terrified. He took notes from past greats, realizing he didn’t need to throw buckets of blood and body parts across the screen to scare the living daylights out of people. The film’s mystery builds slowly but effectively and barrages the viewer with a series of disturbing images. Horror films today rely too much on carnage and the lenient Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system. ‘The Ring’ has little direct violence. More importantly, it opened America up for a whole wave of Japanese-inspired and imported horror films.

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on October 28, 2009 at 12:00 pm