Horror films and World War Two

The boom period of Universal horror films took place during World War Two as people, tired of the realities of the difficult war, were starving for escapist entertainment. This is the reason why comedies and horror films here hugely popular during the 1940's.

This was a huge boom for horror films which were hugely popular in the 1930's until the British Horror Ban barred horror films in the UK. The result of this was that Universal ended its horror output after the HUGE success of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. (Poor Bela Lugousi, the British horror ban ended his career)

With World War Two, all this would change as horror movies would come back in a HUGE way....

Continued
World Stage and Pop Culture

Does Horror Mean Offensive?

There becomes an important question as to whether or not horror films need to be offensive in order to be effective. Well, offensive is a difficult word to define as what might offend one person is positively dull to another person.

But, it is not uncommon for horror films that are devoid of gore to be successful particularly if they work on a psychological level. HALLOWEEN was such a film although lesser known examples such as THE ASPHYX and THE SHOUT rely more on psychological scares as opposed to violence. These films, however, failed at the box office so as PG rated horror movies were generally not successful except for rare exceptions up until the last five years.
World Stage and Pop Culture