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222-454: The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema , when Georges Méliès ' A Trip to the Moon (1902) employed trick photography effects. The next major example (first in feature-length in the genre) was the film Metropolis (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies . After Stanley Kubrick 's landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),

444-445: A 16 fps projection of the same reel would take 16 minutes and 40 seconds, or 304 millimetres (12.0 in) per second. In the 1950s, many telecine conversions of silent films at grossly incorrect frame rates for broadcast television may have alienated viewers. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of restored films , such as

666-512: A British cinema and media theorist and cultural critic: Science fiction film is a film genre which emphasizes actual, extrapolative, or 2.0 speculative science and the empirical method , interacting in a social context with the lesser emphasized, but still present, transcendentalism of magic and religion , in an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown. This definition suggests a continuum between (real-world) empiricism and ( supernatural ) transcendentalism , with science fiction films on

888-801: A British erotic horror film series is Hellraiser . Alien features heavy erotic imagery, with the design of the Xenomorph by H. R. Giger featuring both phallic and vaginal imagery, intended to symbolize patriarchal guilt as well as sex, rape, and pregnancy. Folk horror uses elements of folklore or other religious and cultural beliefs to instil fear in audiences. Folk horror films have featured rural settings and themes of isolation, religion and nature. Frequently cited examples are Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), The Wicker Man (1973), The Witch (2015), and Midsommar (2019). Local folklore and beliefs have been noted as being prevalent in horror films from

1110-524: A Friend for the End of the World ( 2012 ), Safety Not Guaranteed ( 2013 ), and Pixels (2015), romance films such as Her (2013), Monsters (2010), and Ex Machina (2015), heist films including Inception (2010) and action films including Real Steel (2011), Total Recall (2012), Edge of Tomorrow ( 2014 ), Pacific Rim (2013), Chappie (2015), Tomorrowland (2015), and Ghost in

1332-474: A civilization's level of technological advancement into types. Due to its exponential nature, sci-fi civilizations usually only attain Type I (harnessing all the energy attainable from a single planet), and strictly speaking often not even that. The concept of life, particularly intelligent life, having an extraterrestrial origin is a popular staple of science fiction films. Early films often used alien life forms as

1554-443: A co-production with Australia and Death Warmed Up (1984) a single production. Early features such as Melanie Read 's Trial Run (1984) where a mother is sent to remote cottage to photograph penguins and finds it habitat to haunted spirits, and Gaylene Preston's Mr. Wrong (1984) purchases a car that is haunted by its previous owner. Other films imitate American slasher and splatter films with Bridge to Nowhere (1986), and

1776-423: A crime from the past committed (an accidental drowning, infidelity, a scorned lover) and a ready made group of victims (camp counselors, students, wedding parties). The genre was derided by several contemporary film critics of the era such as Ebert, and often were highly profitable in the box office. The release of Scream (1996), led to a brief revival of the slasher films for the 1990s. Other countries imitated

1998-434: A dislike for dissonance. Skin conductance responses (SCRs), heart rate (HR), and electromyographic (EMG) responses vary in response to emotional stimuli, showing higher for negative emotions in what is known as the "negative bias." When applied to dissonant music, HR decreases (as a bodily form of adaptation to harsh stimulation), SCR increases, and EMG responses in the face are higher. The typical reactions go through

2220-428: A good film." Shelley called these films derivative of "American films and presenting generic American material". These films included the horror film productions of Antony I. Ginnane . While Australia would have success with international films between the mid-1980s and the 2000s, less than five horror films were produced in the country between 1993 and 2000. It was only after the success of Wolf Creek (2005) that

2442-506: A jump scare in a mirror can further build tension. Tight framing and close-ups are also commonly used; these can build tension and induce anxiety by not allowing the viewer to see beyond what is around the protagonist . The interaction between horror films and their audiences is another significant aspect discussed by Rhodes. He notes that horror films often serve as a safe space for viewers to confront and process their fears. This cathartic experience can provide psychological relief and

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2664-413: A key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Inter-titles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) "often were graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decorations that commented on the action". Showings of silent films almost always featured live music starting with the first public projection of movies by

2886-408: A known environment turned eerily alien, such as an empty city The Omega Man (1971). While science is a major element of this genre, many movie studios take significant liberties with scientific knowledge. Such liberties can be most readily observed in films that show spacecraft maneuvering in outer space . The vacuum should preclude the transmission of sound or maneuvers employing wings, yet

3108-401: A long tradition of movies featuring monster attacks. These differ from similar films in the horror or fantasy genres because science fiction films typically rely on a scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific) rationale for the monster's existence, rather than a supernatural or magical reason. Often, the science fiction film monster is created, awakened, or "evolves" because of the machinations of

3330-417: A low budget salute to sentimental silent comedies, particularly Charlie Chaplin 's The Kid . The German film Tuvalu (1999) is mostly silent; the small amount of dialog is an odd mix of European languages, increasing the film's universality. Guy Maddin won awards for his homage to Soviet-era silent films with his short The Heart of the World after which he made a feature-length silent, Brand Upon

3552-422: A lower phonation frequency range). Another study by Baliatsas et al. observed that there is a correlation between exposure to infrasound and low-frequency noises and sleep-related problems. Though most horror films keep the audio around 20–30 Hz, the noise can still be unsettling in long durations. Another technique used in horror films to provoke a response from the audience is cognitive dissonance , which

3774-533: A mad scientist, a nuclear accident, or a scientific experiment gone awry. Typical examples include The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Jurassic Park films, Cloverfield , Pacific Rim , the King Kong films, and the Godzilla franchise or the many films involving Frankenstein's monster . The core mental aspects of what makes us human has been a staple of science fiction films, particularly since

3996-462: A moderate success. The strongest contributors to the genre during the second half of the 1980s were James Cameron and Paul Verhoeven with The Terminator and RoboCop entries. Robert Zemeckis ' film Back to the Future ( 1985 ) and its sequels were critically praised and became box office successes, not to mention international phenomena. James Cameron's sequel to Alien , Aliens ( 1986 ),

4218-410: A modern setting and made other horror material which pushed the erotic content of their vampire films that was initiated by Black Sunday . In the 1980s, the older horror characters of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster rarely appeared, with vampire themed films continued often in the tradition of authors like Anne Rice where vampirism becomes a lifestyle choice rather than plague or curse. Following

4440-645: A much longer time for color to be adopted by the industry and an effective process to be developed. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious atmosphere. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia -toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be striking. Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894), from Edison Studios . In it, Annabelle Whitford ,

4662-450: A music-only soundtrack in place of dialogue. The term silent film is a retronym —a term created to retroactively distinguish something from later developments. Early sound films, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were variously referred to as the "talkies", "sound films", or "talking pictures" . The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is older than film (it was suggested almost immediately after Edison introduced

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4884-520: A new generation of filmmakers would continuously make horror genre films in Australia that continued into the 2010s. By 2005, New Zealand has produced around 190 feature films, with about 88% of them being made after 1976. New Zealand horror film history was described by Philip Matthews of Stuff as making "po-faced gothic and now we do horror for laughs." Among the earliest known New Zealand horror films productions are Strange Behavior (1981),

5106-475: A new genre nature taking revenge on humanity with The Birds (1963) that was expanded into a trend into the 1970s. Following the success of Willard (1971), a film about killer rats, 1972 had similar films with Stanley (1972) and an official sequel Ben (1972). Other films followed in suit such as Night of the Lepus (1972), Frogs (1972), Bug (1975), Squirm (1976) and what Muir described as

5328-530: A number of science fiction comic strips were adapted as serials , notably Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers , both starring Buster Crabbe . These serials, and the comic strips they were based on, were very popular with the general public. Other notable science fiction films of the 1930s include Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Doctor X (1932), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), F.P.1 (1932), Island of Lost Souls (1932), Deluge (1933), The Invisible Man (1933), Master of

5550-499: A particular concern of the writer by serving as a vehicle of warning against a type of activity, including technological research. In the case of alien invasion films, the creatures can provide as a stand-in for a feared foreign power. Films that fit into the Disaster film typically also fall into the following general categories: While monster films do not usually depict danger on a global or epic scale, science fiction film also has

5772-483: A person relates to that specific cultural from then on in their life. The history of horror films was described by author Siegbert Solomon Prawer as difficult to read as a linear historical path, with the genre changing throughout the decades, based on the state of cinema , audience tastes and contemporary world events . Films prior to the 1930s , such as early German expressionist cinema and trick films , have been retrospectively described as horror films as

5994-565: A popular staple of science fiction film and science fiction television series. Time travel usually involves the use of some type of advanced technology, such as H. G. Wells' classic The Time Machine , the commercially successful 1980s-era Back to the Future trilogy, the Bill & Ted trilogy, the Terminator series, Déjà Vu (2006), Source Code (2011), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and Predestination (2014). Other movies, such as

6216-503: A race to design, implement, and market several rival sound-on-disc and sound-on-film sound formats, such as Photokinema (1921), Phonofilm (1923), Vitaphone (1926), Fox Movietone (1927) and RCA Photophone (1928). Warner Bros. was the first studio to accept sound as an element in film production and utilize the Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc technology, to do so. The studio then released The Jazz Singer in 1927, which marked

6438-522: A sense of empowerment as viewers face and overcome their anxieties in a controlled environment. The communal experience of watching horror films in theaters or discussing them in fan communities also plays a crucial role in the genre's impact and popularity.[6] Music is a key component of horror films. In Music in the Horror Film (2010), Lerner writes "music in horror film frequently makes us feel threatened and uncomfortable" and intends to intensify

6660-498: A special effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation used a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color. With the development of sound-on-film technology and

6882-657: A special metal called unobtainium. That same year, Terminator Salvation was released and garnered only moderate success. The 2010s saw new entries in several classic science fiction franchises, including Predators ( 2010 ), Tron: Legacy (2010), a resurgence of the Star Wars series, and entries into the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla franchises. Several more cross-genre films have also been produced, including comedies such as Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), Seeking

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7104-445: A split-second before their demise, and then use their bodies for spare parts. Silent cinema A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue ). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of inter- title cards . The term "silent film"

7326-533: A threat or peril to the human race, where the invaders were frequently fictional representations of actual military or political threats on Earth as observed in films such as Mars Attacks! , Starship Troopers , the Alien series, the Predator series, and The Chronicles of Riddick series. Some aliens were represented as benign and even beneficial in nature in such films as Escape to Witch Mountain , E.T.

7548-814: A whole was a style like film noir and not bound to certain cinematic elements like the Western or science fiction film . The term "gothic" is frequently used to describe a stylized approach to showcasing location, desire, and action in film. Contemporary views of the genre associate it with imagery of castles at hilltops and labyrinth like ancestral mansions that are in various states of disrepair. Narratives in these films often focus on an audience's fear and attraction to social change and rebellion. The genre can be applied to films as early as The Haunted Castle (1896), Frankenstein (1910) as well as to more complex iterations such as Park Chan-wook 's Stoker (2013) and Jordan Peele 's Get Out (2017). The gothic style

7770-523: A young audience featuring teenage monsters grew popular in the 1950s with several productions from American International Pictures (AIP) and productions of Herman Cohen with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957). This led to later productions like Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and Frankenstein's Daughter (1958). Teen horror cycle in the 1980s often showcased explicit gore and nudity, with John Kenneth Muir described as cautionary conservative tales where most of

7992-494: A young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. This technique was designed to capture the effect of the live performances of Loie Fuller , beginning in 1891, in which stage lights with colored gels turned her white flowing dresses and sleeves into artistic movement. Hand coloring was often used in the early "trick" and fantasy films of Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès . Méliès began hand-tinting his work as early as 1897 and

8214-491: Is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes . Broad elements include monsters , apocalyptic events , and religious or folk beliefs. Horror films have existed for more than a century . Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore , religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and

8436-497: Is a "widespread and engrained acceptance of supernatural forces" in many Asian cultures, and suggests this is related to animist , pantheist and karmic religious traditions, as in Buddhism and Shintoism . Although Chinese , Japanese , Thai and Korean horror has arguably received the most international attention, horror also makes up a considerable proportion of Cambodian and Malaysian cinema. Ian Olney described

8658-521: Is a film subgenre that emerged in the 1970s with films such as Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) and Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), which were soon followed by the influential Black Christmas (1974). Defining the Christmas horror genre has been described as challenging, as it has generally been regarded as a sub-genre of the slasher film . Adam Rockoff, in Rue Morgue , noted that

8880-499: Is a horror film trope , where an abrupt change in image accompanied with a loud sound intends to surprise the viewer. This can also be subverted to create tension, where an audience may feel more unease and discomfort by anticipating a jump scare. Mirrors are often used in horror films to create visual depth and build tension. Shelton argues mirrors have been used so frequently in horror films that audiences have been conditioned to fear them, and subverting audience expectations of

9102-595: Is a popular scientific element in films as depicted in Jurassic Park (cloning of extinct species), The Island (cloning of humans), and ( genetic modification ) in some superhero movies and in the Alien series. Cybernetics and holographic projections as depicted in RoboCop and I, Robot are also popularized. Interstellar travel and teleportation is a popular theme in the Star Trek series that

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9324-699: Is a popular theme in Independence Day while invisibility is also popular in Star Trek . Arc reactor technology, featured in Iron Man , is similar to a cold fusion device. Miniaturization technology where people are shrunk to microscopic sizes is featured in films like Fantastic Voyage (1966), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), and Marvel's Ant-Man (2015). The late Arthur C. Clarke 's third law states that "any sufficiently advanced technology

9546-483: Is a subgenre of horror fiction that blends sensual and sexual imagery with horrific themes for the sake of sexual arousal . Erotic horror has had influences on French and American horror cinema. The works of Jean Rollin , such as Le Viol du Vampire and Fascination , are considered quintessential erotic horror films, blending deeply sexual imagery with gore. American cinema has also featured notable erotic horror film franchises, such as Candyman . An example of

9768-463: Is a subgenre of horror film whose common themes are based on religion and focus heavily on supernatural beings, often with demons as the main antagonists that bring a sense of threat. Such films commonly use religious elements, including the crucifix or cross, holy water, the Bible, the rosary, the sign of the cross, the church, and prayer, which are forms of religious symbols and rituals used to depict

9990-564: Is achieved through warp drives and transporters while intergalactic travel is popular in films such as Stargate and Star Wars that is achieved through hyperspace or wormholes . Nanotechnology is also featured in the Star Trek series in the form of replicators (utopia), in The Day the Earth Stood Still in the form of grey goo (dystopia), and in Iron Man 3 in the form of extremis (nanotubes) . Force fields

10212-813: Is an exception. The first depiction of a sophisticated robot in a United States film was Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still . Robots in films are often sentient and sometimes sentimental, and they have filled a range of roles in science fiction films. Robots have been supporting characters, such as Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet , Huey, Dewey and Louie in Silent Running , Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation , sidekicks (e.g., C-3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars , JARVIS from Iron Man ), and extras, visible in

10434-428: Is applied to several films throughout the history of the horror film. This includes Universal Pictures' horror films of the 1930s, the revival of gothic horror in the 1950s and 1960s with films from Hammer, Roger Corman 's Poe-cycle, and several Italian productions. By the 1970s American and British productions often had vampire films set in a contemporary setting, such as Hammer Films had their Dracula stories set in

10656-403: Is easier to view films as cycles opposed to genres, suggesting the slasher film viewed as a cycle would place it in terms of how the film industry was economically and production wise, the personnel involved in their respective eras, and how the films were marketed exhibited and distributed. Mark Jancovich in an essay, declared that "there is no simple 'collective belief' as to what constitutes

10878-699: Is featured in Minority Report as well as in The Matrix saga (in which precognition is achieved by knowing the artificial world). Robots have been a part of science fiction since the Czech playwright Karel Čapek coined the word in 1921. In early films, robots were usually played by a human actor in a boxy metal suit, as in The Phantom Empire , although the female robot in Metropolis

11100-506: Is indistinguishable from magic". Past science fiction films have depicted "fictional" ("magical") technologies that became present reality. For example, the Personal Access Display Device from Star Trek was a precursor of smartphones and tablet computers . Gesture recognition in the movie Minority Report is part of current game consoles . Human-level artificial intelligence is also fast approaching with

11322-562: Is particularly prominent in the cinema of Japan , Korea , and Thailand , among other countries. Despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success , influenced society and spawned several popular culture icons . The Dictionary of Film Studies defines the horror film as representing "disturbing and dark subject matter, seeking to elicit responses of fear , terror , disgust , shock, suspense , and, of course, horror from their viewers." In

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11544-439: Is regarded as one of the best movies of the period, Planet of the Apes (1968) and Fahrenheit 451 ( 1966 ), which provided social commentary, and the campy Barbarella (1968), which explored the comical side of earlier science fiction. Jean-Luc Godard 's French "new wave" film Alphaville (1965) posited a futuristic Paris commanded by an artificial intelligence which has outlawed all emotion. The era of crewed trips to

11766-539: Is remote telepresence via androids as depicted in Surrogates and Iron Man 3 . As artificial intelligence becomes smarter due to increasing computer power , some sci-fi dreams have already been realized. For example, the computer Deep Blue beat the world chess champion in 1997 and a documentary film, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine , was released in 2003. Another famous computer called Watson defeated

11988-451: Is silent during its middle third, complete with intertitles; Stanley Tucci 's The Impostors has an opening silent sequence in the style of early silent comedies. Brazilian filmmaker Renato Falcão's Margarette's Feast (2003) is silent. Writer/director Michael Pleckaitis puts his own twist on the genre with Silent (2007). While not silent, the Mr. Bean television series and movies have used

12210-424: Is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era, which existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist , theater organist —or even, in larger cities, an orchestra —would play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music , or improvisation . Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for

12432-466: Is when someone experiences tension in themselves and is urged to relieve that tension. Dissonance is the clashing of unpleasant or harsh sounds. A study by Prete et al. identified that the ability to recognize dissonance relied on the left hemisphere of the brain, while consonance relied on the right half. There is a stronger preference for consonance; this difference is noticeable even in early stages of life. Previous musical experience also can influence

12654-525: Is whether robots will someday replace humans, a question raised in the film adaptation of Isaac Asimov 's I, Robot (in jobs) and in the film Real Steel (in sports), or whether intelligent robots could develop a conscience and a motivation to protect, take over, or destroy the human race (as depicted in The Terminator , Transformers , and in Avengers: Age of Ultron ). Another theme

12876-608: The A Nightmare on Elm Street series, while others disassociate themselves from characters and series and focusing on genre auteur directors like Dario Argento , while others fans would deem Argento's films as too mainstream, having preferences more underground films . Andrew Tudor wrote in Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie suggested that "Genre is what we collectively believe it to be" In addition to these perspectives, Rhodes emphasizes

13098-442: The Planet of the Apes series, Timeline (2003) and The Last Mimzy (2007), explained their depictions of time travel by drawing on physics concepts such as the special relativity phenomenon of time dilation (which could occur if a spaceship was travelling near the speed of light) and wormholes . Some films show time travel not being attained from advanced technology, but rather from an inner source or personal power, such as

13320-565: The Power Rangers (2017) reboot was greatly improved as compared to the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995). While "size does matter", a famous tagline of the movie Godzilla , incredibly small robots, called nanobots , do matter as well (e.g. Borg nanoprobes in Star Trek and nanites in I, Robot ). The concept of time travel —travelling backwards and forwards through time—has always been

13542-457: The Star Wars prequel trilogy , or the huge robot probes seen in Monsters vs. Aliens ). In some cases, robots have even been the leading characters in science fiction films; in the film Blade Runner (1982), many of the characters are bioengineered android " replicants ". This is also present in the animated films WALL-E (2008), Astro Boy (2009), Big Hero 6 (2014), Ghost in

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13764-544: The benshi , a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan. Conversely, as benshi -narrated films often lacked intertitles, modern-day audiences may sometimes find it difficult to follow

13986-500: The Australian Film Commission to change its focus to being a more commercial operation. This closed in 1980 as its funding was abused by investors using them as tax avoiding measures. A new development known as the 10BA tax shelter scheme was developed ushering a slew of productions, leading to what Peter Shelley, author of Australian Horror Films , suggested meant "making a profit was more important than making

14208-582: The Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe , Bram Stoker , and Mary Shelley . From origins in silent films and German Expressionism , horror only became a codified genre after the release of Dracula (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror , comedy horror , erotic horror , slasher films , splatter films , supernatural horror and psychological horror . The genre has been produced worldwide, varying in content and style between regions. Horror

14430-503: The Southeast Asia region, including Thailand and Indonesia . The found footage horror film "technique" gives the audience a first person view of the events on screen, and presents the footage as being discovered after. Horror films which are framed as being made up of "found-footage" merge the experiences of the audience and characters, which may induce suspense, shock, and bafflement. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas noted that

14652-466: The Star Wars prequel trilogy began with the release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace , which eventually grossed over one billion dollars. As the decade progressed, computers played an increasingly important role in both the addition of special effects (thanks to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park ) and the production of films. As software developed in sophistication it

14874-616: The Washington Monument . Cultural theorist Scott Bukatman has proposed that science fiction film allows contemporary culture to witness an expression of the sublime , be it through exaggerated scale, apocalypse or transcendence. Science fiction films appeared early in the silent film era, typically as short films shot in black and white, sometimes with colour tinting. They usually had a technological theme and were often intended to be humorous. In 1902 , Georges Méliès released Le Voyage dans la Lune , generally considered

15096-421: The audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy . The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. Vaudeville was an especially popular origin for many American silent film actors. The pervading presence of stage actors in film

15318-469: The cyberpunk genre spawned several movies on the theme of the computer-human interface, such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day ( 1991 ), Total Recall ( 1990 ), The Lawnmower Man ( 1992 ), and The Matrix ( 1999 ). Other themes included disaster films (e.g., Armageddon and Deep Impact , both 1998 ), alien invasion (e.g., Independence Day ( 1996 )) and genetic experimentation (e.g., Jurassic Park ( 1993 ) and Gattaca ( 1997 )). Also,

15540-511: The novel , play and the film's story relying on the supernatural . Newman discussed the genre in British Film Institute 's Companion to Horror where he noted that Horror films in the 1930s were easy to identify, but following that decade, "the more blurred distinctions become, and horror becomes less like a discrete genre than an effect which can be deployed within any number of narrative settings or narrative patterns". In

15762-565: The phonograph in 1877), and some early experiments had the projectionist manually adjusting the frame rate to fit the sound, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system. Within a decade, the widespread production of silent films for popular entertainment had ceased, and

15984-452: The virtual reality world became a real-world prison for humanity, managed by intelligent machines. In movies such as eXistenZ , The Thirteenth Floor , and Inception , the nature of reality and virtual reality become intermixed with no clear distinguishing boundary. Telekinesis and telepathy are featured in movies like Star Wars , The Last Mimzy , Race to Witch Mountain , Chronicle , and Lucy while precognition

16206-827: The young adult dystopian fiction subgenre, popular in the early part of the decade. These include the Hunger Games film series , based on the trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins , The Divergent Series based on Veronica Roth 's Divergent trilogy , and the Maze Runner series , based on James Dashner 's The Maze Runner novels . Several adult adaptations have also been produced, including The Martian (2015), based on Andy Weir 's 2011 novel , Cloud Atlas (2012), based on David Mitchell 's 2004 novel , World War Z , based on Max Brooks ' 2006 novel , and Ready Player One (2018), based on Ernest Cline 's 2011 novel . Independent productions also increased in

16428-412: The " mad scientist " transferring the human mind to another body is as old as Frankenstein while the idea of corporations behind mind transfer technologies is observed in later films such as Gamer , Avatar , and Surrogates . Films such as Total Recall have popularized a thread of films that explore the concept of reprogramming the human mind. The theme of brainwashing in several films of

16650-462: The "Fear of the Demonic" features graphic accounts of satanic rites , witchcraft , exorcisms outside traditional forms of worship, as seen in films like The Exorcist (1973) or The Omen (1976). Some critics have suggested horror films can be a vessel for exploring contemporary cultural, political and social trends. Jeanne Hall, a film theorist, agrees with the use of horror films in easing

16872-413: The "turning point" in the genre with Jaws (1975), which became the highest-grossing film at that point and moved the animal attacks genres "towards a less-fantastic route" with less giant animals and more real-life creatures such as Grizzly (1976) and Night Creature (1977), Orca (1977), and Jaws 2 (1978). The film is linked with the environmental movements that became more mainstream in

17094-526: The 1899 Cendrillion (Cinderella) and 1900 Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) provide early examples of hand-tinted films in which the color was a critical part of the scenography or mise-en-scène ; such precise tinting used the workshop of Elisabeth Thuillier in Paris, with teams of female artists adding layers of color to each frame by hand rather than using a more common (and less expensive) process of stenciling. A newly restored version of Méliès' A Trip to

17316-527: The 1940s, the horror film was viewed in different terms. Critic Siegfried Kracauer included The Lost Weekend among films described as "terror films" along with Shadow of a Doubt , The Dark Corner (1946), Gaslight (1944), Shock (1946), The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Stranger (1946) Spellbound (1945) while two years earlier, the New York Times described a new cycle of "horror" productions included Gaslight , The Woman in

17538-621: The 1950s, Ray Harryhausen , protege of master King Kong animator Willis O'Brien, used stop-motion animation to create special effects for the following notable science fiction films: It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). The most successful monster movies were Japanese film studio Toho 's kaiju films directed by Ishirō Honda and featuring special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya . The 1954 film Godzilla , with

17760-626: The 1960s and 1970s for horror films from Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain, as well as co-productions between these countries. Several productions, such as those in Italy, were co-productions due to the lack of international stars within the country. European horror films began developing strong cult following since the late 1990s. It is unknown when Australia's cinema first horror title may have been, with thoughts ranging from The Strangler's Grip (1912) to The Face at

17982-476: The 1960s, but some of the films transformed science fiction cinema. Stanley Kubrick 's 2001: A Space Odyssey ( 1968 ) brought new realism to the genre, with its groundbreaking visual effects and realistic portrayal of space travel and influenced the genre with its epic story and transcendent philosophical scope. Other 1960s films included Planet of the Vampires (1965) by Italian filmmaker Mario Bava , that

18204-484: The 1970s and early 1980s such vegetarianism , animal rights movements , and organizations such as Greenpeace . Following Jaws , sharks became the most popular animal of the genre, ranging from similar such as Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976) and Great White (1981) to the Sharknado film series. James Marriott found that the genre had "lost momentum" since the 1970s while the films would still be made towards

18426-482: The 1970s included Woody Allen 's Sleeper ( 1973 ), and John Carpenter 's Dark Star ( 1974 ). The sports science fiction genre can be seen in films such as Rollerball (1975). Star Wars ( 1977 ) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind ( 1977 ) were box-office hits that brought about a huge increase in science fiction films. In 1979 , Star Trek: The Motion Picture brought the television series to

18648-408: The 1980s. Ridley Scott 's Blade Runner (1982), an adaptation of Philip K. Dick 's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , examined what made an organic-creation a human, while the RoboCop series saw an android mechanism fitted with the brain and reprogrammed mind of a human to create a cyborg . The idea of brain transfer was not entirely new to science fiction film, as the concept of

18870-479: The 1990s teen horror cycle, Alexandra West described the general trend of these films is often looked down upon by critics, journals, and fans as being too glossy, trendy, and sleek to be considered worthwhile horror films. Horror films in Asia have been noted as being inspired by national, cultural or religious folklore , particularly beliefs in ghosts or spirits. In Asian Horror , Andy Richards writes that there

19092-443: The 2000s-era films Donnie Darko , Mr. Nobody , The Butterfly Effect , and X-Men: Days of Future Past . More conventional time travel movies use technology to bring the past to life in the present, or in a present that lies in our future. The film Iceman (1984) told the story of the reanimation of a frozen Neanderthal . The film Freejack (1992) shows time travel used to pull victims of horrible deaths forward in time

19314-579: The 2010s, with the rise of digital filmmaking making it easier for filmmakers to produce movies on a smaller budget. These films include Attack the Block (2011), Source Code (2011), Looper (2012), Upstream Color (2013), Ex Machina (2015), and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017). In 2016, Ex Machina won the Academy Award for Visual Effects in a surprising upset over

19536-610: The American slasher film revival, such as South Korea's early 2000s cycle with Bloody Beach (2000), Nightmare (2000) and The Record (2000). Supernatural horror films integrate supernatural elements , such as the afterlife , spirit possession and religion into the horror genre. Teen horror is a horror subgenre that victimizes teenagers while usually promoting strong, anti-conformity teenage leads, appealing to young generations. This subgenre often depicts themes of sex, under-aged drinking, and gore. Horror films aimed

19758-519: The Brain! (2006), incorporating live Foley artists , narration and orchestra at select showings. Shadow of the Vampire (2000) is a highly fictionalized depiction of the filming of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau 's classic silent vampire movie Nosferatu (1922). Werner Herzog honored the same film in his own version, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979). Some films draw a direct contrast between

19980-646: The Devil (1927). Israel has worked mainly in silent comedy, scoring the films of Harold Lloyd , Buster Keaton , Charley Chase , and others. Timothy Brock has restored many of Charlie Chaplin 's scores, in addition to composing new scores. Contemporary music ensembles are helping to introduce classic silent films to a wider audience through a broad range of musical styles and approaches. Some performers create new compositions using traditional musical instruments, while others add electronic sounds, modern harmonies, rhythms, improvisation, and sound design elements to enhance

20202-568: The Earth Stood Still , and The Watch , the aliens were nearly human in physical appearance, and communicated in a common earth language. However, the aliens in Stargate and Prometheus were human in physical appearance but communicated in an alien language. A few films have tried to represent intelligent aliens as something utterly different from the usual humanoid shape (e.g. An intelligent life form surrounding an entire planet in Solaris ,

20424-772: The Extra-Terrestrial , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , The Fifth Element , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Avatar , Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , and the Men in Black series. In order to provide subject matter to which audiences can relate, the large majority of intelligent alien races presented in films have an anthropomorphic nature, possessing human emotions and motivations. In films like Cocoon , My Stepmother Is an Alien , Species , Contact , The Box , Knowing , The Day

20646-563: The Latin-American market employing Mexican actors, Mexican horror films were produced throughout the 1930s and 1940s, often reflecting on the overarching theme of science vs. religion conflict . Ushered by the release of El vampiro , the Mexploitation horror film era started in 1957, with films characterised by their low production values and camp appeal, often featuring vampires, wrestlers, and Aztec mummies. A key figure in

20868-501: The Living Dead led to an increase of violence and erotic scenes within the genre. The 1970s would expand on these themes with films that would delve into gorier pictures, as well as films that were near or straight pornographic hybrids. Genre cycles in this era include the natural horror film , and the rise of slasher films which would expand in the early 1980s . Towards the 1990s, postmodernism entered horror, while some of

21090-698: The Lumière brothers on December 28, 1895, in Paris. This was furthered in 1896 by the first motion-picture exhibition in the United States at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. At this event, Edison set the precedent that all exhibitions should be accompanied by an orchestra. From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing atmosphere, and giving the audience vital emotional cues. Musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons. However, depending on

21312-547: The Mexican horror scene (particularly in Germán Robles -starred vampire films) was producer Abel Salazar . The late 1960s saw the advent of the prominence of Carlos Enrique Taboada as an standout Mexican horror filmmaker, with films such as Hasta el viento tiene miedo (1967), El libro de piedra (1968), Más negro que la noche (1975) or Veneno para las hadas (1984). Mexican horror cinema has been noted for

21534-489: The Moon , originally released in 1902, shows an exuberant use of color designed to add texture and interest to the image. Comments by an American distributor in a 1908 film-supply catalog further underscore France's continuing dominance in the field of hand-coloring films during the early silent era. The distributor offers for sale at varying prices "High-Class" motion pictures by Pathé , Urban-Eclipse , Gaumont , Kalem , Itala Film , Ambrosio Film , and Selig . Several of

21756-738: The Moon in 1969 and the 1970s saw a resurgence of interest in the science fiction film. Andrei Tarkovsky 's Solaris ( 1972 ) and Stalker ( 1979 ) are two widely acclaimed examples of the renewed interest of film auteurs in science fiction. Science fiction films from the early 1970s explored the theme of paranoia, in which humanity is depicted as under threat from sociological, ecological or technological adversaries of its own creation, such as George Lucas 's directional debut THX 1138 ( 1971 ), The Andromeda Strain ( 1971 ), Silent Running ( 1972 ), Soylent Green ( 1973 ), Westworld ( 1973 ) and its sequel Futureworld ( 1976 ), and Logan's Run ( 1976 ). The science fiction comedies of

21978-583: The Pole (1912), Himmelskibet (1918; which with its runtime of 97 minutes generally is considered the first feature-length science fiction film in history), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Mechanical Man (1921), Paris Qui Dort (1923), Aelita (1924), Luch Smerti (1925), and The Lost World (1925). In the 1930s, there were several big budget science fiction films, notably Just Imagine (1930), King Kong (1933), Things to Come (1936), and Lost Horizon (1937). Starting in 1936,

22200-515: The Sahara desert and a British cricket pitch. War scenes were shot on the plains of Grasmere, Staten Island . The Perils of Pauline and its even more popular sequel The Exploits of Elaine were filmed largely on the island. So was the 1906 blockbuster Life of a Cowboy , by Edwin S. Porter Company , and filming moved to the West Coast around 1912. The following are American films from

22422-502: The Sea ( 1916 ) is a film based on Jules Verne ’s famous novel of a wondrous submarine and its vengeful captain. In the 1920s, European filmmakers tended to use science fiction for prediction and social commentary, as can be seen in German films such as Metropolis ( 1927 ) and Frau im Mond ( 1929 ). Other notable science fiction films of the silent era include The Impossible Voyage (1904), The Motorist (1906), The Conquest of

22644-530: The Shell (2017) and in Next Gen (2018). Films like Bicentennial Man , A.I. Artificial Intelligence , Chappie , and Ex Machina depicted the emotional fallouts of robots that are self-aware. Other films like The Animatrix (The Second Renaissance) present the consequences of mass-producing self-aware androids as humanity succumbs to their robot overlords. One popular theme in science fiction film

22866-1076: The Shell (2017). The superhero film boom has also continued, into films such as Iron Man 2 (2010) and Iron Man 3 (2013), several entries into the X-Men film series , and The Avengers (2012), which became the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time. New franchises such as Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy also began in this decade. Further into the decade, more realistic science fiction epic films also become prevalent, including Battleship (2012), Gravity (2013), Elysium (2013), Interstellar ( 2014 ), Mad Max: Fury Road ( 2015 ), The Martian ( 2015 ), Arrival ( 2016 ), Passengers (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 ( 2017 ). Many of these films have gained widespread accolades, including several Academy Award wins and nominations. These films have addressed recent matters of scientific interest, including space travel, climate change, and artificial intelligence. Alongside these original films, many adaptations were produced, especially within

23088-474: The US have been lost, though these estimates are inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data. Film projection mostly evolved from magic lantern shows, in which images from handpainted glass slides were projected onto a wall or screen. After the advent of photography in the 19th century, still photographs were sometimes used. Narration of the showman was important in spectacular entertainment screenings and vital in

23310-455: The United States. In view of the enormous amount of labor involved which calls for individual hand painting of every one of sixteen pictures to the foot or 16,000 separate pictures for each 1,000 feet of film very few American colorists will undertake the work at any price. As film coloring has progressed much more rapidly in France than in any other country, all of our coloring is done for us by

23532-580: The Window (1919) while stories featuring ghosts would appear in Guyra Ghost Mystery (1921). By 1913, the more prolific era of Australian cinema ended with production not returning with heavy input of government finance in the 1970s. It took until the 1970s for Australia to develop sound film with television films that eventually received theatrical release with Dead Easy (1970) and Night of Fear (1973). The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

23754-603: The Window (1944), Dark Waters (1944), Laura and Phantom Lady (1944). Mark Jancovich wrote in The Shifting Definitions of Genre: Essays on Labeling Films, Television Shows and Media (2008) that the term was virtually synonymous with mystery as a generic term, not being limited to films concerned with the strange, eerie and uncanny. Various writings on genre from Altman, Lawrence Alloway ( Violent America: The Movies 1946-1964 (1971)) and Peter Hutchings ( Approaches to Popular Film (1995)) implied it

23976-697: The World (1934), Mad Love (1935), Trans-Atlantic Tunnel (1935), The Devil-Doll (1936), The Invisible Ray (1936), The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936), The Walking Dead (1936), Non-Stop New York (1937), and The Return of Doctor X (1939). The 1940s brought us Before I Hang (1940), Black Friday (1940), Dr. Cyclops (1940), The Devil Commands (1941), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), Man Made Monster (1941), It Happened Tomorrow (1944), It Happens Every Spring (1949), and The Perfect Woman (1949). The release of Destination Moon (1950) and Rocketship X-M (1950) brought us to what many people consider "the golden age of

24198-776: The Worlds (1953), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), This Island Earth (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) and On the Beach (1959). There is often a close connection between films in the science fiction genre and the so-called " monster movie ". Examples of this are Them! (1954), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and The Blob (1958). During

24420-547: The action—particularly for comedies and action films. Slow projection of a cellulose nitrate base film carried a risk of fire, as each frame was exposed for a longer time to the intense heat of the projection lamp; but there were other reasons to project a film at a greater pace. Often projectionists received general instructions from the distributors on the musical director's cue sheet as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, cue sheets produced specifically for

24642-687: The actual song being performed. Films in this category include Griffith's Lady of the Pavements with Lupe Vélez , Edwin Carewe 's Evangeline with Dolores del Río , and Rupert Julian 's The Phantom of the Opera with Mary Philbin and Virginia Pearson . The Silent Film Sound and Music Archive digitizes music and cue sheets written for silent films and makes them available for use by performers, scholars, and enthusiasts. Silent-film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that

24864-412: The adoption of sound-on-film technology. Traditional film colorization, all of which involved the use of dyes in some form, interfered with the high resolution required for built-in recorded sound, and were therefore abandoned. The innovative three-strip technicolor process introduced in the mid-1930s was costly and fraught with limitations, and color would not have the same prevalence in film as it did in

25086-534: The advent of smartphone A.I. while a working cloaking device / material is the main goal of stealth technology . Autonomous cars (e.g. KITT from the Knight Rider series) and quantum computers , like in the movie Stealth and Transcendence , also will be available eventually. Furthermore, although Clarke's laws do not classify "sufficiently advanced" technologies , the Kardashev scale measures

25308-427: The atmosphere created in imagery and themes. Dissonance , atonality and experiments with timbre are typical characteristics used by composers in horror film music. In the book Dark Dreams , author Charles Derry conceived horror films as focusing on three broad themes : the horror of personality , horror of Armageddon and the horror of the demonic . The horror of personality derives from monsters being at

25530-415: The audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema prior to the invention of synchronized sound, but it also applies to such sound-era films as City Lights , Modern Times and Silent Movie which are accompanied by

25752-576: The background to create a futuristic setting (e.g., Back to the Future Part II (1989), Total Recall (2012), RoboCop (2014)). As well, robots have been formidable movie villains or monsters (e.g., the robot Box in the film Logan's Run (1976), HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey , ARIIA in Eagle Eye , robot Sentinels in X-Men: Days of Future Past , the battle droids in

25974-691: The ball shaped creature in Dark Star , microbial-like creatures in The Invasion , shape-shifting creatures in Evolution ). Recent trends in films involve building-size alien creatures like in the movie Pacific Rim where the CGI has tremendously improved over the previous decades as compared in previous films such as Godzilla . A frequent theme among science fiction films is that of impending or actual disaster on an epic scale. These often address

26196-562: The beginning of film and 1928. The following list includes only films produced in the sound era with the specific artistic intention of being silent. Several filmmakers have paid homage to the comedies of the silent era, including Charlie Chaplin , with Modern Times (1936), Orson Welles with Too Much Johnson (1938), Jacques Tati with Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Pierre Etaix with The Suitor (1962), and Mel Brooks with Silent Movie (1976). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien 's acclaimed drama Three Times (2005)

26418-458: The best coloring establishment in Paris and we have found that we obtain better quality, cheaper prices and quicker deliveries, even in coloring American made films, than if the work were done elsewhere. By the beginning of the 1910s, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was used as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music. The director D. W. Griffith displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting as

26640-572: The biblical account of the Massacre of the Innocents and more recently in works such as E. T. A. Hoffmann's " The Nutcracker and the Mouse King " (1816) and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). Although ghosts have largely been replaced by serial killers, Christmas horror creates an outlet through which to explore "a modern reinvention of the Christmas ghost story". Erotic horror

26862-708: The big screen for the first time. It was also in this period that the Walt Disney Company released many science fiction films for family audiences such as The Black Hole , Flight of the Navigator , and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids . The sequels to Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back ( 1980 ) and Return of the Jedi ( 1983 ), also saw worldwide box office success. Ridley Scott 's films, such as Alien ( 1979 ) and Blade Runner ( 1982 ), along with James Cameron 's The Terminator ( 1984 ), presented

27084-560: The biggest hits of the decade included films from Japan with the success of Ring (1998). Horror is a malleable genre and often can be altered to accommodate other genre types such as science fiction , making some films difficult to categorize. A genre that emerged in the 1970s, body horror films focus on the process of a bodily transformation. In these films, the body is either engulfed by some larger process or heading towards fragmentation and collapse. The focus can be on apocalyptic implication of an entire society being overtaken, but

27306-476: The biggest-budgeted films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores. However, the first designated full-blown scores had in fact been composed in 1908, by Camille Saint-Saëns for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise , and by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov for Stenka Razin . When organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add improvisational flourishes to heighten

27528-461: The case of the 2002 restoration of Metropolis . With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues to signal a mood or represent a time of day. Hand tinting dates back to 1895 in the United States with Edison's release of selected hand-tinted prints of Butterfly Dance . Additionally, experiments in color film started as early as in 1909, although it took

27750-524: The centre of the plot, such Frankenstein's monster whose psychology makes them perform unspeakable horrific acts ranging from rapes , mutilations and sadistic killings. Other key works of this form are Alfred Hitchcock 's Psycho , which feature psychotic murderers without the make-up of a monster. The second 'Armageddon' group delves on the fear of large-scale destruction , which ranges from science fiction works but also of natural events , such as Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). The last group of

27972-502: The chapter "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s" from Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (2002), film critic Robin Wood declared that the commonality between horror films is that "normality is threatened by the monster." This was further expanded upon by The Philosophy of Horror, or Parodoxes of the Heart by Noël Carroll who added that "repulsion must be pleasurable, as evidenced by

28194-498: The crucial differences between stage and screen acting. Directors such as Albert Capellani and Maurice Tourneur began to insist on naturalism in their films. By the mid-1920s many American silent films had adopted a more naturalistic acting style, though not all actors and directors accepted naturalistic, low-key acting straight away; as late as 1927, films featuring expressionistic acting styles, such as Metropolis , were still being released. Greta Garbo , whose first American film

28416-459: The development of motion picture cameras, projectors and transparent celluloid film. Although Thomas Edison was keen to develop a film system that would be synchronised with his phonograph , he eventually introduced the kinetoscope as a silent motion picture viewer in 1893 and later "kinetophone" versions remained unsuccessful. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" ( 1894 in film – 1929 in film ). The height of

28638-401: The drama on screen. Even when special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect such as "galloping horses", it would be used during scenes of dramatic horseback chases. At the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians, at least in the United States. However,

28860-563: The early films of Peter Jackson who combined splatter films with comedy with Bad Taste (1988) and Braindead (1992) which has the largest following of the mentioned films. Film producer Ant Timpson had an influence curating New Zealand horror films, creating the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in the 1990s and producing his own horror films over the 2010s including The ABCs of Death (2012), Deathgasm (2015), and Housebound (2014). Timpson noted

29082-410: The emergence of sub-genres like splatter films and torture porn. In a study by Jacob Shelton, the many ways that audience members are manipulated through horror films was investigated in detail. Negative space is one such method that can play a part in inducing a reaction, causing one's eyes to remotely rest on anything in the frame – a wall, or the empty black void in the shadows. The jump scare

29304-433: The environment reminds them of particular scenes. A 2021 study suggested horror films that explore grief can provide psychological benefits to the bereaved, with the genre well suited to representing grief through its genre conventions. In a study by Medes et al., prolonged exposure to infrasound and low-frequency noise (<500 Hz) in long durations has an effect on vocal range (i.e. longer exposure tends to form

29526-536: The evolution of the horror genre through various cultural and historical contexts. He discusses the impact of socio-political factors on the genre , such as the influence of World War I and II, the Great Depression , and the Cold War , which shaped the themes and narratives of horror films. For instance, the anxieties of the post-war era manifested in horror films as fears of invasion , contamination, and

29748-555: The famous " Mighty Wurlitzer " could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals, and sound effects ranging from "train and boat whistles [to] car horns and bird whistles; ... some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses' hooves, smashing pottery, [and] thunder and rain". Musical scores for early silent films were either improvised or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full features became commonplace, however, music

29970-462: The film carries a profound message - that the evolution of a species toward technological perfection (in this case exemplified by the disappeared alien civilization called the "Krell") does not ensure the loss of primitive and dangerous urges. In the film, this part of the primitive mind manifests itself as monstrous destructive force emanating from the Freudian subconscious, or "Id". Some films blur

30192-589: The films stated if you partook in such vices such as drugs or sex, your punishment of death would be handed out. Prior to Scream , there were no popular teen horror films in the early 1990s. After the financial success of Scream , teen horror films became increasingly reflexive and self-aware until the end of the 1990s with films like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and non-slasher The Faculty (1998). The genre lost prominence as teen films dealt with threats with more realism in films like Donnie Darko (2001) and Crazy/Beautiful (2001). In her book on

30414-563: The films were often well-photographed in colour ... and their dismal dialogue was delivered in well-designed and well-lit sets." With the Space Race between the USSR and the US going on, documentaries and illustrations of actual events, pioneers and technology were plenty. Any movie featuring realistic space travel was at risk of being obsolete at its time of release, rather fossil than fiction. There were relatively few science fiction films in

30636-481: The first film serial , The Million Dollar Mystery , released in 1914. The first westerns were filmed at Fred Scott 's Movie Ranch in South Beach, Staten Island. Actors costumed as cowboys and Native Americans galloped across Scott's movie ranch set, which had a frontier main street, a wide selection of stagecoaches and a 56-foot stockade. The island provided a serviceable stand-in for locations as varied as

30858-411: The first commercially successful sound film , but silent films were still the majority of features released in both 1927 and 1928, along with so-called goat-glanded films: silents with a subsection of sound film inserted. Thus the modern sound film era may be regarded as coming to dominance beginning in 1929. For a listing of notable silent era films, see List of years in film for the years between

31080-439: The first science fiction film, and a film that used early trick photography to depict a spacecraft's journey to the Moon. Several early films merged the science fiction and horror genres. Examples of this are Frankenstein ( 1910 ), a film adaptation of Mary Shelley 's novel, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), based on the psychological tale by Robert Louis Stevenson . Taking a more adventurous tack, 20,000 Leagues Under

31302-613: The focus is generally upon an individual and their sense of identity, primarily them watching their own body change. The earliest appearance of the sub-genre was the work of director David Cronenberg , specifically with early films like Shivers (1975). Mark Jancovich of the University of Manchester declared that the transformation scenes in the genre provoke fear and repulsion, but also pleasure and excitement such as in The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986). Christmas horror

31524-648: The formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The "Edison Trust", as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison , Biograph , Essanay Studios , Kalem Company , George Kleine Productions , Lubin Studios , Georges Méliès , Pathé , Selig Studios , and Vitagraph Studios , and dominated distribution through the General Film Company . This company dominated

31746-885: The future as dark, dirty and chaotic, and depicted aliens and androids as hostile and dangerous. In contrast, Steven Spielberg 's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ( 1982 ), one of the most successful films of the 1980s, presented aliens as benign and friendly, a theme already present in Spielberg's own Close Encounters of the Third Kind . James Bond also entered the science fiction genre in 1979 with Moonraker . The big budget adaptations of Frank Herbert 's Dune and Alex Raymond 's Flash Gordon , as well as Peter Hyams 's sequel to 2001 , 2010: The Year We Make Contact (based on 2001 author Arthur C. Clarke 's sequel novel 2010: Odyssey Two ), were box office failures that dissuaded producers from investing in science fiction literary properties. Disney's Tron ( 1982 ) turned out to be

31968-521: The genre among viewers (ahead of South Korea), according to a 2016 research. In a study done by Uri Hasson et al., brain waves were observed via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This study used the inter-subject correlation analysis (ISC) method of determining results. It was shown that audience members tend to focus on certain facets in a particular scene simultaneously and tend to sit as still as possible while watching horror films. In another study done by John Greene & Glenn Sparks, it

32190-431: The genre continuously evolves, incorporating elements from other genres and responding to contemporary societal fears and anxieties. This adaptability is evident in the various sub-genres that have emerged over the years, such as psychological horror, body horror, and found footage horror, each addressing different aspects of human fear and the unknown. Rhodes also explores the role of censorship and regulation in shaping

32412-597: The genre did not become a codified genre until the release of Dracula (1931). Dracula was a box office success, leading to Universal and several other American film studios to develop and popularise horror films well into the 1940s . By the 1950s , horror would often be made with science fiction themes, and towards the end of the decade horror was a more common genre of international productions. The 1960s saw further developments, with material based on contemporary works instead of classical literature. The release of films like Psycho , Black Sunday and Night of

32634-579: The genre's popularity." Prior to the release of Dracula (1931), historian Gary Don Rhodes explained that the idea and terminology of horror film did not exist yet as a codified genre , although critics used the term "horror" to describe films in reviews prior to Dracula ' s release. "Horror" was a term used to describe a variety of meanings. In 1913, Moving Picture World defined "horrors" as showcasing "striped convicts, murderous Indians, grinning 'black-handers', homicidal drunkards" Some titles that suggest horror such as The Hand of Horror (1914)

32856-420: The genre. In the monster films of the 1950s, the scientist often played a heroic role as the only person who could provide a technological fix for some impending doom. Reflecting the distrust of government that began in the 1960s in the United States, the brilliant but rebellious scientist became a common theme, often serving a Cassandra -like role during an impending disaster. Biotechnology (e.g., cloning )

33078-500: The horror film have feelings similar to happiness or joy felt with friends, but intensified. Alternatively, audience members with negative feedback regarding the film would typically feel emotions they would normally associate with negative experiences in their life. Only about 10% of the American population enjoy the physiological rush felt immediately after watching horror films. The population that does not enjoy horror films could experience emotional fallout similar to that of PTSD if

33300-485: The horror films of Europe were often more erotic and "just plain stranger" than their British and American counter-parts. European horror films (generally referred to as Euro Horror) draw from distinctly European cultural sources, including surrealism , romanticism , decadent tradition , early 20th century pulp-literature , film serials , and erotic comics . In comparison to the narrative logic in American genre films, these films focused on imagery, excessiveness, and

33522-515: The horror genre" between both fans and critics of the genre. Jancovich found that disagreements existed from audiences who wanted to distinguish themselves. This ranged from fans of different genres who may view a film like Alien (1979) as belonging to science fiction , and horror fan bases dismissing it as being inauthentic to either genre. Further debates exist among fans of the genre with personal definitions of "true" horror films, such as fans who embrace cult figures like Freddy Kruger of

33744-521: The horror genre. The enforcement of the Hays Code in the 1930s and subsequent rating systems influenced the depiction of violence and sexuality in horror films. This regulation often pushed filmmakers to find creative ways to imply horror elements without explicit content, leading to a focus on atmosphere, suggestion, and psychological horror. The relaxation of censorship in the late 20th century allowed for more graphic and explicit horror, contributing to

33966-411: The human experience, they remain bound to the conditions and understanding of the audience and thereby contain prosaic aspects, rather than being completely alien or abstract. Genre films such as westerns or war movies are bound to a particular area or time period. This is not true of the science fiction film. However, there are several common visual elements that are evocative of the genre. These include

34188-464: The idea of reprogrammable reality and memory. The idea that a human could be entirely represented as a program in a computer was a core element of the film Tron . This would be further explored in the film version of The Lawnmower Man , Transcendence , and Ready Player One and the idea reversed in Virtuosity as computer programs sought to become real persons. In The Matrix series,

34410-465: The image to flicker , and images with low rates of flicker are very unpleasant to watch. Early studies by Thomas Edison for his Kinetoscope machine determined that any rate below 46 images per second "will strain the eye". and this holds true for projected images under normal cinema conditions also. The solution adopted for the Kinetoscope was to run the film at over 40 frames/sec, but this

34632-416: The images we are viewing, fantasy film instead attempts to suspend our disbelief. The science fiction film displays the unfamiliar and alien in the context of the familiar. Despite the alien nature of the scenes and science fictional elements of the setting, the imagery of the film is related back to humankind and how we relate to our surroundings. While the science fiction film strives to push the boundaries of

34854-715: The industry as both a vertical and horizontal monopoly and is a contributing factor in studios' migration to the West Coast. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and were dissolved. The Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York , in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser . The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, including

35076-535: The industry had moved fully into the sound era , in which movies were accompanied by synchronized sound recordings of spoken dialogue, music and sound effects . Most early motion pictures are considered lost owing to their physical decay, as the nitrate filmstock used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Additionally, many films were deliberately destroyed, because they had negligible remaining immediate financial value in that era. It has often been claimed that around 75 percent of silent films produced in

35298-860: The industry's acceptance of it, tinting was abandoned altogether, because the dyes used in the tinting process interfered with the soundtracks present on film strips. The early studios were located in the New York City area . Edison Studios were first in West Orange, New Jersey (1892), they were moved to the Bronx, New York (1907). Fox (1909) and Biograph (1906) started in Manhattan , with studios in St George, Staten Island . Other films were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey . In December 1908, Edison led

35520-532: The introduction of sound with its 24 frame/sec standard speed 2-bladed shutters have become the norm for 35 mm cinema projectors, though three-bladed shutters have remained standard on 16 mm and 8 mm projectors, which are frequently used to project amateur footage shot at 16 or 18 frames/sec. A 35 mm film frame rate of 24 fps translates to a film speed of 456 millimetres (18.0 in) per second. One 1,000-foot (300 m) reel requires 11 minutes and 7 seconds to be projected at 24 fps, while

35742-412: The introduction of talkies, coupled with the roughly simultaneous onset of the Great Depression , was devastating to many musicians. A number of countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil , for example, featured fitas cantatas (singing films), filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan , films had not only live music but also

35964-490: The irrational. Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s, European horror films emerged from countries like Italy, Spain and France, and were shown in the United States predominantly at drive-in theatre and grindhouse theaters. As producers and distributors all over the world were interested in horror films, regardless of their origin, changes started occurring in European low-budget filmmaking that allowed for productions in

36186-494: The latter horror entries from New Zealand are all humorous films like What We Do in the Shadows (2014) with Jonathan King , director of Black Sheep (2006) and The Tattooist (2007) stating "I'd love to see a genuinely scary New Zealand film but I don't know if New Zealand audiences – or the funding bodies – are keen." After the 1931 release of a US-produced Spanish-language version of Dracula by George Melford for

36408-615: The lecturing circuit. The principle of stroboscopic animation was well-known since the introduction of the phenakistiscope in 1833, a popular optical toy , but the development of cinematography was hampered by long exposure times for photographic emulsions , until Eadweard Muybridge managed to record a chronophotographic sequence in 1878. After others had animated his pictures in zoetropes , Muybridge started lecturing with his own zoopraxiscope animation projector in 1880. The work of other pioneering chronophotographers, including Étienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschütz , furthered

36630-710: The line between the genres, such as films where the protagonist gains the extraordinary powers of the superhero . These films usually employ quasi-plausible reason for the hero gaining these powers. Not all science fiction themes are equally suitable for movies. Science fiction horror is most common. Often enough, these films could just as well pass as Westerns or World War II films if the science fiction props were removed. Common motifs also include voyages and expeditions to other planets, and dystopias , while utopias are rare. Film theorist Vivian Sobchack argues that science fiction films differ from fantasy films in that while science fiction film seeks to achieve our belief in

36852-426: The longer, more prestigious films in the catalog are offered in both standard black-and-white "plain stock" as well as in "hand-painted" color. A plain-stock copy, for example, of the 1907 release Ben Hur is offered for $ 120 ($ 4,069 USD today), while a colored version of the same 1000-foot, 15-minute film costs $ 270 ($ 9,156) including the extra $ 150 coloring charge, which amounted to 15 cents more per foot. Although

37074-406: The mashup of classic gothic and romantic themes and characters with autochthonous features of the Mexican culture such as the Ranchería setting, the colonial past or the myth of La Llorona (shared with other Hispanic-American nations). Horror has proven to be a dependable genre at the Mexican box office in the 21st-century, with Mexico ranking as having the world's largest relative popularity of

37296-401: The mid-1910s, as the differences between stage and screen became apparent. Due to the work of directors such as D. W. Griffith , cinematography became less stage-like, and the development of the close up allowed for understated and realistic acting. Lillian Gish has been called film's "first true actress" for her work in the period, as she pioneered new film performing techniques, recognizing

37518-458: The much higher-budget Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Science fiction films are often speculative in nature, and often include key supporting elements of science and technology. However, as often as not the "science" in a Hollywood science fiction movie can be considered pseudo-science, relying primarily on atmosphere and quasi-scientific artistic fancy than facts and conventional scientific theory. The definition can also vary depending on

37740-520: The new "talkies" around the mid-1930s. The visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the 1920s—was often high, but there remains a widely held misconception that these films were primitive, or are barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception comes from the general public's unfamiliarity with the medium, as well as from carelessness on the part of the industry. Most silent films are poorly preserved, leading to their deterioration, and well-preserved films are often played back at

37962-450: The plots without specialised subtitling or additional commentary. Few film scores survived intact from the silent period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions when they attempt to precisely reconstruct those that remain. Scores used in current reissues or screenings of silent films may be complete reconstructions of compositions, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or improvised on

38184-427: The popularity of sites like YouTube in 2006 sparked a taste for amateur media, leading to the production of further films in the found footage horror genre later in the 2000s including the particularly financially successful Paranormal Activity (2007). In their book Gothic film , Richard J. McRoy and Richard J. Hand stated that "Gothic" can be argued as a very loose subgenre of horror, but argued that "Gothic" as

38406-439: The process of understanding issues by making use of their optical elements. The use of horror films can help audiences understand international prior historical events occurs, for example, to depict the horrors of the Vietnam War , the Holocaust , the worldwide AIDS epidemic or post-9/11 pessimism. In many occurrences, the manipulation of horror presents cultural definitions that are not accurate, yet set an example to which

38628-438: The projectionist provided a detailed guide to presenting the film. Theaters also—to maximize profit—sometimes varied projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film, or to fit a film into a prescribed time slot. All motion-picture film projectors require a moving shutter to block the light whilst the film is moving, otherwise the image is smeared in the direction of the movement. However this shutter causes

38850-424: The reasons for the cited extra charge were likely obvious to customers, the distributor explains why his catalog's colored films command such significantly higher prices and require more time for delivery. His explanation also provides insight into the general state of film-coloring services in the United States by 1908: The coloring of moving picture films is a line of work which cannot be satisfactorily performed in

39072-420: The release of Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), both of which resulted in worldwide box office success. In 2009, James Cameron 's Avatar garnered worldwide box office success, and would later become the highest-grossing movie of all time. This movie was also an example of political commentary. It depicted humans destroying the environment on another planet by mining for

39294-437: The release of D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). In 1999, the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki produced Juha in black and white, which captures the style of a silent film, using intertitles in place of spoken dialogue. Special release prints with titles in several different languages were produced for international distribution. In India, the film Pushpak (1988), starring Kamal Haasan ,

39516-430: The release of Francis Ford Coppola 's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a small wave of high-budgeted gothic horror romance films were released in the 1990s. Also described as "eco-horror", the natural horror film is a subgenre "featuring nature running amok in the form of mutated beasts, carnivorous insects, and normally harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers." In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock defined

39738-407: The repetitions of the Korova Milkbar make the alien decor seem more familiar. As well, familiar images become alien, as in the films Repo Man and Liquid Sky . For example, in Dr. Strangelove , the distortion of the humans make the familiar images seem more alien. Finally, alien images are juxtaposed with the familiar, as in The Deadly Mantis , when a giant praying mantis is shown climbing

39960-691: The science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audiences after the success of Star Wars (1977) and paved the way for the blockbuster hits of subsequent decades. Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies science fiction films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters’ taxonomy , stating that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action , crime , fantasy , horror , romance , slice of life , sports , thriller , war , and western . According to Vivian Sobchack ,

40182-403: The science fiction film". In the 1950s, public interest in space travel and new technologies was great. While many 1950s science fiction films were low-budget B movies , there were several successful films with larger budgets and impressive special effects. These include The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing from Another World (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), The War of

40404-415: The scientist has varied considerably in the science fiction film genre, depending on the public perception of science and advanced technology. Starting with Dr. Frankenstein , the mad scientist became a stock character who posed a dire threat to society and perhaps even civilization. Certain portrayals of the "mad scientist", such as Peter Sellers 's performance in Dr. Strangelove , have become iconic to

40626-437: The side of empiricism, and happy films and sad films on the side of transcendentalism. However, there are numerous well-known examples of science fiction horror films, epitomized by such pictures as Frankenstein and Alien . The visual style of science fiction film is characterized by a clash between alien and familiar images. This clash is implemented when alien images become familiar, as in A Clockwork Orange , when

40848-440: The silent era (from the early 1910s in film to the late 1920s) was a particularly fruitful period, full of artistic innovation. The film movements of Classical Hollywood as well as French Impressionism , German Expressionism , and Soviet Montage began in this period. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style and genre of film-making of the 20th and 21st centuries has its artistic roots in

41070-470: The silent era. The silent era was also a pioneering one from a technical point of view. Three-point lighting, the close-up , long shot , panning , and continuity editing all became prevalent long before silent films were replaced by " talking pictures " or "talkies" in the late 1920s. Some scholars claim that the artistic quality of cinema decreased for several years, during the early 1930s, until film directors , actors, and production staff adapted fully to

41292-416: The silent film era and the era of talkies. Sunset Boulevard shows the disconnect between the two eras in the character of Norma Desmond , played by silent film star Gloria Swanson , and Singin' in the Rain deals with Hollywood artists adjusting to the talkies. Peter Bogdanovich 's 1976 film Nickelodeon deals with the turmoil of silent filmmaking in Hollywood during the early 1910s, leading up to

41514-430: The silent film era that had earned the highest gross income as of 1932. The amounts given are gross rentals (the distributor's share of the box-office) as opposed to exhibition gross. Although attempts to create sync-sound motion pictures go back to the Edison lab in 1896, only from the early 1920s were the basic technologies such as vacuum tube amplifiers and high-quality loudspeakers available. The next few years saw

41736-427: The silents for nearly four decades. As motion pictures gradually increased in running time, a replacement was needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film to the audience. Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen inter-titles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the audience. The title writer became

41958-409: The silver screen. The animated film Fantasia (1940), which is eight different animation sequences set to music, can be considered a silent film, with only one short scene involving dialogue. The espionage film The Thief (1952) has music and sound effects, but no dialogue, as do Thierry Zéno 's 1974 Vase de Noces and Patrick Bokanowski 's 1982 The Angel . Horror film Horror

42180-437: The sixties and seventies including A Clockwork Orange and The Manchurian Candidate coincided with secret real-life government experimentation during Project MKULTRA . Voluntary erasure of memory is further explored as themes of the films Paycheck and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . Some films like Limitless explore the concept of mind enhancement. The anime series Serial Experiments Lain also explores

42402-438: The size of the exhibition site, musical accompaniment could drastically change in scale. Small-town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist . Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of musicians. Massive theatre organs , which were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra, had a wide range of special effects. Theatrical organs such as

42624-586: The soundtrack is filled with inappropriate flying noises and changes in flight path resembling an aircraft banking. The filmmakers, unfamiliar with the specifics of space travel , focus instead on providing acoustical atmosphere and the more familiar maneuvers of the aircraft. Similar instances of ignoring science in favor of art can be seen when movies present environmental effects as portrayed in Star Wars and Star Trek . Entire planets are destroyed in titanic explosions requiring mere seconds, whereas an actual event of this nature takes many hours. The role of

42846-403: The spacecraft or space station, alien worlds or creatures, robots, and futuristic gadgets. Examples include movies like Lost in Space , Serenity , Avatar , Prometheus , Tomorrowland , Passengers , and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets . More subtle visual clues can appear with changes of the human form through modifications in appearance, size, or behavior, or by means

43068-438: The spot in the manner of the silent-era theater musician. Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of

43290-413: The standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films between 1926 and 1930, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or " frame rates ") anywhere from 12 to 40 fps, depending on the year and studio. "Standard silent film speed" is often said to be 16 fps as a result of the Lumière brothers' Cinématographe , but industry practice varied considerably; there

43512-481: The sub-genre sits within a trend of holiday-themed slasher films, alongside films such as My Bloody Valentine (1981) and April Fool's Day (1986). Others take a broader view that Christmas horror is not limited to the slasher genre, noting how it evolved from the English Christmas tradition of telling ghost stories. Christmas in literature has historically included elements of "darkness"—fright, misery, death and decay—tracing its literary antecedents as far back as

43734-433: The time. Since around 1980, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores (either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or the composition of appropriate original scores). An early effort of this kind was Kevin Brownlow 's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance 's Napoléon (1927), featuring a score by Carl Davis . A slightly re-edited and sped-up version of Brownlow's restoration

43956-435: The title character's non-talkative nature to create a similar style of humor. A lesser-known example is Jérôme Savary 's La fille du garde-barrière (1975), an homage to silent-era films that uses intertitles and blends comedy, drama, and explicit sex scenes (which led to it being refused a cinema certificate by the British Board of Film Classification ). In 1990, Charles Lane directed and starred in Sidewalk Stories ,

44178-640: The title monster attacking Tokyo, gained immense popularity, spawned multiple sequels, led to other kaiju films like Rodan , and created one of the most recognizable monsters in cinema history. Japanese science fiction films, particularly the tokusatsu and kaiju genres, were known for their extensive use of special effects , and gained worldwide popularity in the 1950s. Kaiju and tokusatsu films, notably Warning from Space (1956), sparked Stanley Kubrick 's interest in science fiction films and influenced 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). According to his biographer John Baxter , despite their "clumsy model sequences,

44400-629: The traditional approach include organists such as Dennis James and pianists such as Neil Brand , Günter Buchwald, Philip C. Carli, Ben Model , and William P. Perry . Other contemporary pianists, such as Stephen Horne and Gabriel Thibaudeau, have often taken a more modern approach to scoring. Orchestral conductors such as Carl Davis and Robert Israel have written and compiled scores for numerous silent films; many of these have been featured in showings on Turner Classic Movies or have been released on DVD. Davis has composed new scores for classic silent dramas such as The Big Parade (1925) and Flesh and

44622-424: The turn of the millennium. Bill Gibron of PopMatters declared a mixed definition of the psychological horror film, ranging from definitions of anything that created a sense of disquiet or apprehension to a film where an audience's mind makes up what was not directly displayed visually. Gibron concluded it as a "clouded gray area between all out splatter and a trip through a cinematic dark ride." Religious horror

44844-402: The two best human Jeopardy (game show) players in 2011 and a NOVA documentary film, Smartest Machine on Earth , was released in the same year. Building-size robots are also becoming a popular theme in movies as featured in Pacific Rim . Future live action films may include an adaptation of popular television series like Voltron and Robotech . The CGI robots of Pacific Rim and

45066-402: The unknown, reflecting the collective psyche of the time. Rhodes also highlights the significance of technological advancements, such as the advent of sound in cinema, which revolutionized the horror genre by enhancing its ability to evoke fear and suspense through auditory effects. Moreover, the horror genre's flexibility and adaptability are crucial to its enduring popularity. As Rhodes notes,

45288-584: The use of faith to defeat evil. The slasher film is a horror subgenre which involves a killer murdering a group of people (often teenagers), usually by use of bladed tools. In his book on the genre, author Adam Rockoff wrote that these villains represented a "rogue genre" of films that are "tough, problematic, and fiercely individualistic." Following the financial success of Friday the 13th (1980), at least 20 other slasher films appeared in 1980 alone. These films usually revolved around three properties: unique social settings (campgrounds, schools, holidays) and

45510-411: The viewing experience. Among the contemporary ensembles in this category are Un Drame Musical Instantané , Alloy Orchestra , Club Foot Orchestra , Silent Orchestra , Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Minima and the Caspervek Trio, RPM Orchestra . Donald Sosin and his wife Joanna Seaton specialize in adding vocals to silent films, particularly where there is onscreen singing that benefits from hearing

45732-442: The viewpoint of the observer. Many science fiction films include elements of mysticism, occult , magic, or the supernatural , considered by some to be more properly elements of fantasy or the occult (or religious) film. This transforms the movie genre into a science fantasy with a religious or quasi-religious philosophy serving as the driving motivation. The movie Forbidden Planet employs many common science fiction elements, but

45954-409: The wrong speed or suffer from censorship cuts and missing frames and scenes, giving the appearance of poor editing. Many silent films exist only in second- or third-generation copies, often made from already damaged and neglected film stock. Many early screening were plagued by flicker on the screen, when the stroboscopic interruptions between frames lay below the critical flicker frequency . This

46176-622: Was a black comedy entirely devoid of dialog. The Australian film Doctor Plonk (2007), was a silent comedy directed by Rolf de Heer . Stage plays have drawn upon silent film styles and sources. Actor/writers Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore staged their Off-Broadway slapstick comedy Silent Laughter as a live action tribute to the silent screen era. Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford created and starred in All Wear Bowlers (2004), which started as an homage to Laurel and Hardy then evolved to incorporate life-sized silent film sequences of Sobelle and Lyford who jump back and forth between live action and

46398-418: Was a melodrama about a thief who steals from his own sister. During the silent era, the term horror was used to describe everything from "battle scenes" in war films to tales of drug addiction. Rhodes concluded that the term "horror film" or "horror movie" was not used in early cinema. The mystery film genre was in vogue and early information on Dracula being promoted as a mystery film was common, despite

46620-415: Was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for. Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), it became relatively common for

46842-420: Was completed (although it was later continued, but at the time it was not intended to be) with the darkly themed Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith . Science-fiction also returned as a tool for political commentary in films such as A.I. Artificial Intelligence , Minority Report , Sunshine , District 9 , Children of Men , Serenity , Sleep Dealer , and Pandorum . The 2000s also saw

47064-478: Was controversial, the door had been opened for a new approach to the presentation of classic silent films. Today, a large number of soloists, music ensembles, and orchestras perform traditional and contemporary scores for silent films internationally. The legendary theater organist Gaylord Carter continued to perform and record his original silent film scores until shortly before his death in 2000; some of those scores are available on DVD reissues. Other purveyors of

47286-451: Was expensive for film. However, by using projectors with dual- and triple-blade shutters the flicker rate is multiplied two or three times higher than the number of film frames — each frame being flashed two or three times on screen. A three-blade shutter projecting a 16 fps film will slightly surpass Edison's figure, giving the audience 48 images per second. During the silent era projectors were commonly fitted with 3-bladed shutters. Since

47508-445: Was found that the audience tends to experience the excitation transfer process (ETP) which causes a physiological arousal in audience members. The ETP refers to the feelings experienced immediately after an emotion-arousing experience, such as watching a horror film. In this case, audience members' heart rate, blood pressure and respiration all increased while watching films with violence. Audience members with positive feedback regarding

47730-403: Was later distributed in the United States by Francis Ford Coppola , with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola . In 1984, an edited restoration of Metropolis (1927) was released with a new rock music score by producer-composer Giorgio Moroder . Although the contemporary score, which included pop songs by Freddie Mercury , Pat Benatar , and Jon Anderson of Yes ,

47952-514: Was no actual standard. William Kennedy Laury Dickson , an Edison employee, settled on the astonishingly fast 40 frames per second. Additionally, cameramen of the era insisted that their cranking technique was exactly 16 fps, but modern examination of the films shows this to be in error, and that they often cranked faster. Unless carefully shown at their intended speeds silent films can appear unnaturally fast or slow. However, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting to accelerate

48174-510: Was released in 1926, would become known for her naturalistic acting. According to Anton Kaes, a silent film scholar from the University of California, Berkeley, American silent cinema began to see a shift in acting techniques between 1913 and 1921, influenced by techniques found in German silent film. This is mainly attributed to the influx of emigrants from the Weimar Republic , "including film directors, producers, cameramen, lighting and stage technicians, as well as actors and actresses". Until

48396-575: Was solved with the introduction of a three-bladed shutter (since 1902), causing two more interruptions per frame. Another widely held misconception is that silent films lacked color. In fact, color was far more prevalent in silent films than in the first few decades of sound films. By the early 1920s, 80 percent of movies could be seen in some sort of color, usually in the form of film tinting or toning or even hand coloring, but also with fairly natural two-color processes such as Kinemacolor and Technicolor . Traditional colorization processes ceased with

48618-454: Was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen. Silent films became less vaudevillian in

48840-424: Was the first Australian horror production made for theatrical release. 1970s Australian art cinema was funded by state film corporations, who considered them more culturally acceptable than local exploitation films ( Ozploitation ), which was part of the Australian phenomenon called the cultural cringe . The greater success of genre films like Mad Max (1979), The Last Wave (1977) and Patrick (1978) led to

49062-403: Was used to produce more complicated effects. It also enabled filmmakers to enhance the visual quality of animation, resulting in films such as Ghost in the Shell (1995) from Japan, and The Iron Giant (1999) from the United States. During the first decade of the 2000s, superhero films abounded, as did earthbound science fiction such as the Matrix trilogy. In 2005 , the Star Wars saga

49284-408: Was very different from the original film, falling more into the action/science fiction genre, it was both a critical and commercial success and Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards . The Japanese cyberpunk anime film Akira ( 1988 ) also had a big influence outside Japan when released. In the 1990s, the emergence of the World Wide Web and

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