The Devil Rides Out

The Devil Rides Out is a Hammer film production released on 20th June 1968, this was a time when society started challenging the stereotypical ways and begin rebelling and experimented with new things. The film features many special effects which we see form quite early on the film. Surprisingly the film is very well lit for most of the beginning, it's not until the middle of the film that we see low key lighting used often.

 The opening credits are a clear indicator of what the film is going to be like. There are images of satanic symbols and bright technicolour with the dramatic music in the background. The music is very high pitched violin type music, it makes you feel tense. Although the film was made in 1968, it is set in the past around the 1930's and is directed by Terence Fisher. This film stars Christopher Lee, a big star at this time and a well known horror actor.

 The first scene features an airplane which indicates a fairly big budget and also the characters wealth. It then cuts to a scene of the two men in the car, it uses green screen for the back window. Whilst they are in the car they discuss not seeing someone for 3 months, they go to find the man. They turn up at his house and he is shocked to see them, they are all old friends, this man is having what looks like a party, but as they walk around and over hear conversations they realize it's not a normal party. It seems to be some sort of cult, they become worried, the host of the party becomes aware and asks them to leave. Just before the two men leave one of them, Nicholas, asks to see the hosts observatory. Simon, the host looks worried and chases them up the stairs, the music becomes more tense and he opens the door the room seems normal, apart from the strange satanic symbol on the floor, Simon brushes it off as just decretive but Nicholas knows something is going on, they hear a noise coming from the cupboard and Nicholas opens it to find two chickens in a basket. Rex, their friend, is very confused at this point, but they knock Simon unconscious and take him back to Nicholas's house. Their nicholas explains that Simon is messing with black magic and that he is in huge danger. Nicholas hypnotizes Simon and sends him to bed wearing a silver cross on a chain around his neck for protection.



It then cuts to Simon asleep in bed, then suddenly his eyes open, music accompanies the mood, his hand reaches up to the necklace and starts to tighten it around his neck. We can see that Simon is possessed by someone or something as his other hand tries to reach out for the bell and call for help, the butler comes into his room and is shocked at what he sees. Nicholas and Rex, unaware of what is happening are in the other room chatting when the butler bursts in and tells them what's happened. They run to Simon's room but he is gone.

They go to Simon's house and go up to the observatory. While they walk up the stairs the tension music kicks in again, they open the doors expecting to find something there but it empty. They look around the room, they find the chickens still their and are relieved, then as they continue to look around, the room becomes colder, the the lights dim out, this is the first real low key lighting that is used in the film. Then smoke rises from the satanic symbol on the floor and a man appears. Nicholas tells Rex not to look into his eyes, the mans eyes glow red, he stares at them, music becomes more and more intense until Nicholas does a chant and throws the silver cross onto the man, he disappears in a puff of smoke and the room goes back to normal. Rex is stunned at what he has just seen as he was skeptical at first.

Rex is sent to collect Tannith, a girl who is in the cult, this is when the multi strand narrative becomes apparent, with Tannith and Rex having chemistry between them. Rex drives her to his sisters house in the country, as the are driving along Tannith looks into the mirror, Rex's voice fades out and music fades in, a mans voice comes into her head, hypnotizing her, his eyes appear in the mirror, then it goes but we can tell she is no longer herself. Rex is unaware that this has happened and so carries on to his sisters house. When he arrives at his sisters and gets out of the car, Tannith immediately drives off, Rex gets into a car and chases her, stunt drivers would have been used for this car chase as they go at high speeds around windy roads. High tension background music plays as the chase continues, eventually Rex crashes and Tannith gets away, soon after this, as Rex is waling down the road a lady from the party at the beginning drives past. He follows her, here he finds the whole group of them, including Simon. They manage to get Simon and Tannith back to the house and have them rest there.

Nicholas then has to go away for the day and tells Rex's sister to not leave Tannith or Simon for a minute alone. Whilst Nicholas is gone the leader of the cult arrives at the door, Rex's sister is weary but agrees to talk to him, he tries to persuade her that he isn't a bad person but she asks him to leave. He then stares her in the eye and hypnotizes her, he tells her she will obey him and asks her where Tannith and Simon are. As this happens, the same music that came on when Tannith was being hypnotized came on and his bright beady blue eyes stared into the camera, making the audience feel like he is looking right at you. Her daughter bursts in and the man leaves, simon and Tannith are unaware that they had both tried to murder the people watching them as they were all under the leaders command. In panic and fear Tannith asks Rex to leave with her as she is afraid of hurting someone, so they leave and stay in a barn.Nicholas gets informed when he gets back and he knows bad things are going to happen so he draws up and protection circle on the floor, they all stand inside the circle back to back, holding hands.

The lighting dims out and the room becomes cold, meanwhile Tannith becomes hypnotized and is being used as a medium. The angel of death comes for someone and wont leave with out anyone, Nicholas makes it leave by using a chant and then Rex's sisters daughter walks in, a giant tarantula scuttles around them and they scream in fear, it crawls towards the little girl, Nicholas manages to kill it, but the little girl is gone. Rex then appears holding Tannith in his arms, she was taken by the angel of death. Nicholas uses Rex's sister to talk to Tannith and find out where her daughter is. They find out that she has been taken as a sacrifice for the devil. They rush over to where the ceremony is taking place and first get Simon to go in and tell them he is back so they can give the child back now, the refuse so Nicholas and the rest go in. They bring the daughter out and lye her on the table, they are about to cut her throat, the tension builds, the music becomes more intense then suddenly, Tannith's voice comes through Rex's sister. She walks across the room to the child and releases her from the curse she was under, she then banishes everyone from the room, special effects are used here, smoke and lighting fill the room, and then everything is gone. The next scene is just the same as it was before, they are back in the room where Nicholas was talking to Tannith through Rex's sister, Tannith and Rex aren't their, then they appear from the same place they did before, this time Tannith is walking next to Rex and not dead in his arms. It is a happy ending as they have saved the child and Tannith and the leader of the cult was taken by the angel of death.

Frankenstein 1931 essay

At the very beginning of Frankenstein, the first scene we see is a man stood in front of a curtain, like we see in a theatre. He then gives a warning to the viewers on what they are about to watch, he says it will terrify them. He plays a strong role in this film even though he doesn't appear in it after that as he sets the scene, he gets the audience apprehensive and on the edge of their seats even before it begins. Also the film has quite a theatrical feel to it, the set up in many scenes is very similar to one you would see in a play.

The opening credits then appear on screen with background music that is very dramatic and orchestral. The  first scene is a funeral scene, the lighting is very low and the only background noise is the church bells ringing and the family sobbing. This gives a very eery feel to the film already, a graveyard is a typical horror related location to see in a film, as we associate, death, ghosts and sadness with it.

As sound in film had only been around since 1927 and Frankenstein was produced in 1931, giving it little time to evolve and improve much, the sound is sometimes a little crackly and the speech can sound a little echoey at times. There is also a lot of candles used to create atmosphere in scenes to create a dim light, leaving a lot of area dark and leaving much to the imagination as to what could be in the dark. The lighting in this film helps create a lot of atmosphere in each scene, when Henry Frankenstein and his assistant are working on creating Frankenstein, low key lighting is used. For example, in the first scene that we see them, they are digging out a body from a graveyard, the same body we have just seen being buried, the lighting is very low and it is set in the evening.

When Frankenstein was being filmed, the cameras and equipment were very heavy and difficult to maneuver, so most of the shots in this film are still. There are the occasional zooming shots and panning shots but not the huge variety we see in film today. This is interesting as the Spanish version that they filmed in the evenings included a much greater range of shots. In the scene where Henry Frankensteins fiance and friend visit his laboratory there is a long shot of the building from a low angle, making the building look daunting and evil. The mise en scene helps to create this atmosphere also, there is rain lashing down and thunder booming from the sky. Also like before there is low key lighting used and this scene is shot at night. Inside the laboratory there is lots of technical looking equipment, the room looks set up as it would be if this transformation would happen. The realistic mise en scene makes the audience believe it more, it makes them think that this could happen, therefor making the fear more intense.

They use cut aways to move the narrative on in the film, this is necessary as it is a multi strand narrative. The main story line being, Frankenstein being created, but also Henry and his fiance, will they marry? Or will Frankenstein come between them? Henry's fiance manages to persuade him that Frankenstein is coming between them and that they should marry soon.

The day of the wedding starts very cheerfully, it is daytime and lots of lighting is used. There is sounds of the church bells ringing and people laughing and cheering joyously, else where things aren't so joyous. Frankenstein escaped from the laboratory and was loose in the community. He stumbled across a young girl playing by a lake, the girl is not scared when she sees him, instead she asks him to play with her. She picks some flowers and throws them into the water, showing him how they float, he does the same only when he runs out of flowers he makes a huge mistake. He picks up the young girl and throws her into the river, he is distressed when she doesn't float and runs away leaving her to drown. This scene was such a controversial scene at the time, it was seen as too violent to be shown to the public and was taken out of the film for some time.

It then cuts back to the party in the village for the wedding, the joyful cheering turns to shock as the father of the girl carries her into the crowd and tells them she has been killed. They instantly know it was Frankenstein and set off in search for him. When they are searching for him they use low key lighting once again, also it is set at night giving the same spooky and scary atmosphere. Henry finds Frankenstein  and calls for help but nobody hears him, Frankenstein beats and strangles Henry, it is fairly quiet when he is doing this, there is no screams from Henry. Frankenstein then carries Henry to the windmill, and takes him up to the top, the search party run up to the windmill, the noise becomes intense as they gather round the windmill, the hounds are yelping and the people are all shouting. Henry and Frankenstein struggle inside the windmill until Henry falls to the ground outside the windmill, he is quickly seen to. The rest of the search party then se fire to the base of the windmill and as the flames blare up, Frankenstein cry's and moans in fear. This fire scene is quite advanced for the time, pyrotechnics were not commonly used, this along with the amazing make up of Frankenstein was shockingly realistic for a film of the era.

As they did through out the film the scenes cut a lot to move the narrative on, the final scene is Henry home safe and his father toasting to the house of Frankenstein, a happy ending to a very distressing film.  Frankenstein is made to look like the bad character in this film, like a monster, but Henry created him and then didn't take the blame for Frankensteins actions, I think this is a typical scenario for an early horror film. Also as the end credits roll, the actor who plays Frankenstein is only then revealed, the reason being that they didn't want the actor to be revealed before the film is watched so people would believe him to be a real monster, so they weren't just seeing an actor and this happens in most films today.

Films: the horror genre

The horror genre has been around for almost 100 years, making it a hugely popular genre of film. The horror genre has moved forward in many ways through the years of it's success. The Phantom of the Opera was one the first horror films made. Lon Chaney starred in this silent film, it was a huge success, partly due to Chaney's great performance and make up, which he he did all himself. He had a cast done of his own face made which he would practice different make up techniques on, he even wore a glass eye, which was incredibly uncomfortable for him. Universal studios is renowned for the production of horror films, this includes Phantom of the opera which they produced back in 1925.

Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera (with and with out make-up)

Actors would specialize in a certain genre, so there would be a certain group of actors that would be associated with horror, Lon Chaney being one of them. Also Bela Lugosi, who played Dracula in 1931, is an iconic actor of that time due to his role in this film.


(Bela Lugosi as Dracula)












In these older films, imagination had to be used a lot more due to the lack of technology. You wouldn't always see things the way that we can see things now, this is also due to the Hays office. The Hays office was in change of censoring films and would regulate the amount of gore, violence and sex in the films, they were extremely strict about what was shown. James Whale pushed the boundaries of the Hays office by producing a scene in Frankenstein where a child was killed on screen.














The son of Frankenstein was the first British horror film to be filmed in colour, the technology in horror films was moving forward, as were the shocking scenes. In this film was a scene where Frankenstein was shot in the eye, which was extremely gory at that time, the gushing red blood that followed was even more shocking for viewers as they hadn't seen gore like this in film before. Hammer Productions decided to re film Dracula after having such success with the re make of Frankenstein. This Dracula had also moved forward though, much to some peoples disapproval, it had a much more sexual nature to it, which was frowned upon. There was a particular scene in this film which was the Hays office did not like, this was a scene in which a lady is lay waiting for Dracula on her bed in a rather seductive manor, then Dracula walks over to her and kisses her face before biting into her neck as she falls to the bed. As much as this was seen as too sexual and not acceptable Hammer Productions disagreed and did not remove the scene from the film.

(Dracula with victim)
 

As the horror industry was modernising increasingly quickly, so was the technology. The film Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde screened a revolutionary scene in which a transition from male to female happens in one single shot. This is done by using different filters on the film as the male turns into female and it is a remarkable scene for the time.