How has the evolution of film techniques used to create horror films changed over time?
Horror movies have certainly changed since the days of the great German Expressionists like F.W. Murnau (“Nosteratu”, 1922) and Robert Wiene (“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, 1920). Great advances in film and sound technology have obviously made a huge difference. In early films, what the audience saw on the screen had to have been filmed on the stage, often at great discomfort and even risk to the performers. In Murnau’s masterful 1926 film of “Faust”, actress Camilla Horn (Gretchen) came very close to genuine immolation when Murnau burned her at the stake – something that would never be filmed today and surely conveying a depth of horror beyond anything a computer generated image could convey. It was not just in such graphic scenes that earlier films and filmmakers displayed technique that can not be replaced by big budgets, digital images and Dolby surround-sound. Made head of the horror B-film unit at RKO, Val Lewton was charged with producing short horror films with budgets of under
