The historical link between horror fi lms and the gory, sensationalist popular theatre of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has often been noted. Dave Beech and John Roberts, for instance, suggest that 'the Hollywood horror movie is no doubt the true descendant of Grand Guignol.' 1 Similarly, Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson in their defi nitive study of the French theatre of horror assert 'that the Grand-Guignol greatly infl uenced subsequent horror fi lms.' 2 In the same vein, drama historian Michael R. Booth sees in the Gothic stage melodrama of the 1800s 'an early equivalent of the modern horror fi lm.' 3 Filmmakers have often evoked the theatrical genealogy of horror cinema. Although there have been few actual fi lm adaptations of Grand Guignol plays-Vernon Sewell's Latin Quarter (1946) based on Pierre Mille and C. de Vylars's L'Angoisse (1908; in English by José Levy as The Medium, 1912) 4 is a rare surviving example-many horror movies explicitly refer to the stage as the originator of screen terror and the privileged site of cinematic fear. These references to the theatre of horror do not merely pay lip service to a revered predecessor. Rather, the fi lms that acknowledge the theatre of gore do so to refl ect on the nature of horror on screen. Looking at a number of horror fi lms that identify explicitly the theatre as the locus horribilis par excellence, from the early Peter Lorre vehicle Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935) to Douglas Hickox's cult classic Theatre of Blood (1973) and the straight-to-video thriller Acts of Death (Jeff Burton, 2007,), I will argue that such works use theatricality to foreground certain character types, expose structural paradoxes, and highlight modes of performance common to the cinematic tale of terror. The fi lms discussed here overtly conceive of the theatre as the antecedent of fi lmic horror, as the mayhem that affl icts the characters often
Trying to defeat a monster, the wicked problem par excellence, implies the demonstration of some degree of leadership. As the monster threatens normality, the “normal” must take action to defeat the menace. In recent years, zombie narratives have become especially conducive to the exploration of issues of leadership, as epidemics of flesh‐eating ghouls compel the Living to come together and adopt various forms of leadership to respond to attacks from the Undead. But while zombie films are the most obvious example of leadership in horror cinema, the current article argues that most types of scary movies are also preoccupied with leadership. Whether it is the “Final Girl” resisting attacks from a masked killer, paranormal investigators battling demonic entities, or a poor fool forced to confront a giant beast to save himself, his family and perhaps the world, the horror film explores extreme scenarios that prompt the audience to respond to, evaluate, and reject or accept, various leadership modes, ranging from autocratic and hierarchical to collaborative, emotional and abject.
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