The Body Parts of a Good Horror Movie.
In 1945, Ealing studios released a film that would make a lasting impression on the Horror movie genre. Not only was, ‘Dead of Night’ a frighteningly good movie to watch, but it also pioneered the anthology idea. Showcasing five separate tales within one main storyline really was a stroke of genius. And not only did it appeal to cinemagoers… but also to many up and coming filmmakers.
A few more anthology Horrors would appear over the next two decades, but it wasn’t until Amicus films arrived on the scene that things really took off. Suddenly, the anthology formula was the hottest formula of all when you were putting together a creepy flick. Needless to say, a long list of these movies quickly came about; ‘Dr Terror’s House of Horrors’, ‘Torture Garden’, ‘The House That Dripped Blood’, ‘Vault of Horror’, ‘Tales From the Crypt’… And these all proved to be enormously popular.
Over time however, the Horror film industry has latched onto other ideas and moved a long way away from the anthology blueprint… There have of course been a few fleeting returns to this tried and tested formula (most notably, ‘Creepshow'and ‘The Monster Club’), but little else has happened with the ‘collected creepy tales'thing for quite some time…
Hopefully, at some point, the film industry will remember just how successful the anthology idea was. And then they will send some of their finest directors to pull it back out from behind the biodiesel storage tanks in the yard, dust it down and drag it back (screaming) into the daylight. Things may now be far more high tech when it comes to Horror films, but the anthology idea would still work a treat. Twenty-first century bells and whistles are all well and good… but they are a whole lot more effective when attached to a top-notch idea!
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