Online seminar
From Val Lewton to the slow path towards gore.
Unit 1: The 40s and the arrival of Val Lewton’s horror. The silent revolution of Cat People or
when monstrosity becomes sounds and shadows. The productions that forever changed horror
with masterpieces such as I Walked with a Zombie and The Seventh Victim. Other cases of
40s American Horror.
Unit 2: Hammer Films and the reinterpretation of classic monsters. The unavoidable figure of
Terence Fisher and the rise of a new star system. The explosion of Vincent Price as an
essential star of the genre and an acting style, personal and unforgettable, at the hands of
Roger Corman productions.
Unit 3: A parenthesis for Science Fiction. The resurgence of genre during the 50s and its
association with both classic horror and the paranoias of that time. From the cinema of Jack
Arnold, passing through Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and arriving to the
Quatermass saga.
Unit 4: The arrival of gore with David Friedman’s productions directed by Herschel Gordon
Lewis. Cheap productions with a scarce aesthetical sense that caused a curious revolution
within the genre and exploitation cinemas. The possibilities and the risks of playing with
explicitness for too long.
