Animal horror

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The genre term animal horror describes horror films in which animals play a central role. In the English-speaking world, animal horror films are mostly summarized under the broader terms “natural horror” or “eco-horror”. The subgenre flourished in the 1950s and subsequently spawned a number of thriller and horror film classics, but also numerous B-movies . In the new millennium, the productions are mainly limited to a comedy and parody-like adaptation of the subject as well as contributions to the trash genre .

history

The first productions with animal horror motifs were film adaptations of literary originals such as Arthur Conan Doyle's Der Hund von Baskerville (first published in 1914 by Rudolf Meinert or the particularly well-known version Der Hund von Baskerville (1939) with Basil Rathbone ) or HG Wells Die Insel des Dr. Moreau , such as The Island of Lost Souls ( The Iceland of the Lost Souls , 1932). In the fifties, with Formicula ( Them!, 1954) and Tarantula (1955), insects and spiders, respectively, first began to populate horror films. They formed the starting point for a branch of animal horror that has continued to be successful to this day, producing well-known casts such as Der tödliche Schwarm (1978), Arachnophobia (1990), Anaconda (1997), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Octalus - Der Tod the Depth (1998) and Arac Attack (2002).

Alfred Hitchcock's Die Vögel ( The Birds , 1963) was formative and style-setting for many later animal horror films , although the film cannot be reduced to the horror genre. The audience success of the film was overwhelming. Saul Bass treated the subject of a relentlessly retreating nature in his science fiction film Phase IV (1974) with a similarly subtle approach .

At least since Steven Spielberg's film The Jaws ( Jaws , 1974), which was later continued three times , a veritable flood of animal horror films has been established, the protagonists of which are at home in the water. The success of Jaws attracted imitators as Tintorera! Sea monsters attack (1977) or The Last Jaws (1980), which continue to this day, including Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002), Jaws in Venice (2008), Deep Blue Sea (1999 ) and The Reef (2010).

In addition to sharks and other fish such as piranhas (e.g. Joe Dante's piranhas appeared four years later and the later homage from 2010, Piranha 3D ), reptiles such as crocodiles and sea snakes or giant octopuses were and are often seen on the screen. The Anaconda series of films, beginning in 1997, put giant snakes at the center of the plot. Various films followed this trend, such as Killer Kobra from 1998 or Python - Death from 2000 comes silently . In 2004, Boa vs. Python unleashed two giant snakes on each other.

Alligators were also chosen as movie monsters. Earlier examples are the American production The Horror Alligator from 1980, The Sacred Beast of the Kumas , which appeared in the same year, and other films produced in Italy such as The Killer Alligator (1989). In most of the films, normal alligators mutate into beasts due to man-made pollution. A later descendant of this development is the US Lake Placid film series.

Flying insects and other winged animals have also been stylized as threats in corresponding horror films. In 1966, the British horror thriller The Deadly Bees was created , which is based on a literary template. Some productions also crossed the borders of genres such as trash and science fiction. In 1973, for example, the film Invasion of the Bee Maid was made , in which a scientist conducts experiments with a queen bee and uses men as drones. A straggler is the German production Die Bienen - Tödliche Threathung from 2008. Another example are films in which bats are the focus. In 1999 Louis Morneau directed the horror film Bats - Flying Devils . In 2007 this was followed by a late sequel with Bats 2: Bloody Harvest . In the 2001 film Bat Attack , genetically engineered bats are at the center of the story.

In general, numerous inexpensive B-movie and trash films have been and are being produced in the animal horror genre . In 2008, the cheap production Birdemic: Shock and Terror was even given the dubious honor of being described by various film critics as perhaps the worst film of all time. The film production company The Asylum released Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus made his first own animal horror film, which was followed by a whole wave of other releases. These films are all produced for the DVD market and are aimed almost exclusively at genre and trash film fans. Often two different, monster-like animals compete against each other. In 2010, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus filmed a sequel to the former. Roger Corman joined this development with some productions and in 2010 had the film Dinoshark shot . In the same year, Sharktopus , which is a hybrid of a shark and an octopus , was created under his production . In 2011 Jim Wynorski shot the B-films Piranhaconda and Camel Spiders for Corman - Attack of the Monster Spiders , in which different animals were crossed or mutated.

Motifs

In his book Horror History and Mythology of Horror Films, the German film critic Georg Seeßlen divides animal horror films into two main themes. The first is the transformation of a person into an animal or vice versa. This includes the numerous well-established in the horror genre animal people like monkey and cat people, werewolves or the famous shed beings from Creature from the Black Lagoon ( Creature from the Black Lagoon , 1954) with one. The motif of metamorphosis through human influences such as scientific experiments, environmental pollution, atomic radiation and so on overlaps with other film genres such as science fiction .

The second main motif is the animal threatening humans. The threat is usually presented as directly or indirectly provoked by humans. The animal becomes particularly aggressive and dangerous through magic, experiments or other human influences, nature strikes back. Seeßlen also states that “this highly moral message is seldom more than a nice pretext to give our old nightmares a new cinematographic look”.

Seeßlen again distinguishes the threat posed by an animal into two different types: horror at close range and at a distance. This means that the animal either looks or is dangerous and frightening because it begins to behave like a human, or because the animal embodies the insensitive, ruthless and pitiless nature through the complete absence of any human characteristics.

Animal horror films (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barry Langford: Film genre. Hollywood and beyond. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2005, ISBN 0-7486-1903-8 , p. 169.
  2. ↑ Seeßlen, Jung: Horror. 2006, p. 587.
  3. ↑ Seeßlen, Jung: Horror. 2006, p. 596.
  4. ↑ Denise Jeitziner: Unspeakably bad film fills American cinema halls. In: Tages-Anzeiger , from April 13, 2010. At www.tagesanzeiger.ch.
  5. ↑ Michael Bee: Horror film "Birdemic". Trash fans celebrate the bizarre Hitchcock blend. April 9, 2010. At www.welt.de.
  6. ↑ Fernand Jung, Claudius Weil, Georg Seeßlen: The horror film. Directors, stars, authors, specialists, topics and films from A - Z (= encyclopedia of popular films. Volume 2). Roloff and Seesslen, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-88144-122-0 .
  7. ↑ Just as the alien in science fiction can cause a horror because it is too similar to humans or because it is too distant from humans, so nature running amok in animal horror can become too human […] or simply too "natural" h is (sic). Seeßlen, Jung: Horror. 2006, p. 614.