Art horror
Art horror (or art house horror) is a sub-genre of both horror films and art-films. It explores and experiments with the artistic uses of horror.
Art-horror films tend to rely on atmosphere building, psychological character development, cinematic style and philosophical themes for effect - rather than straightforward scares. They are almost always created by an auteur. Like horror films, Art-Horror films attempt to evoke fear, terror or revulsion; but like art-films, they tend to be cerebral, contemplative, and inventive in terms of both content and form.
Art-horror films have been described as "a fascinating byproduct of the collision of art and commerce, of genre convention and personal vision".[1] Historically, the genre was loosely related to J-horror and Italian Giallo.
Notable films
- Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)
- Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
- Eyes without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
- Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
- Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
- Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
- Images (Robert Altman, 1972)
- The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
- Don't Look Now (Nicloas Roeg, 1973)
- The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
- Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
- Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
- Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979)
- The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
- Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)
- The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
- Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
- Begotten (E. Elias Merhige, 1989)
- Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
- Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)
- Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)
- Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
- Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
- A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-woon, 2003)
- Let the Right One In (Tomas Alferdson, 2008)
- Christmas on Mars (Wayne Coyne, 2008)
- Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009)
- Thirst (Park Chan-wook, 2009)
- The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
- Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
- Stoker (Park Chan-wook, 2013)
- Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
- Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
- Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
- The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014),
- Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
- The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)
- Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari, 2016)
- The Wailing (Na Hong-jin, 2016)
- Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
- Mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)
- Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018)
- Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018)
- The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018)
- Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
- Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
- The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)
- Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)
Notable directors
Further reading
- Hawkins, J. (2000) Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
- Hanscomb, S. (2010) "Existentialism and Art-Horror", Sartre Studies International 16:1, pp. 1-23
External links
References
- "Under the Skin, Only Lovers Left Alive, and a Brief History of the Art-Horror Film". Vulture. Retrieved 2020-06-29.