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| Blogs > ROBBIEW_1971 > World of the Psychopath... |
Welcome to the World of a Psychopath...
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Welcome to the World of a Psychopath... Who would have thought there would be so many people fascinated by the horrific world of the Psychopath or Serial Killer, but fascinated they are; living amongst these "Monsters" is where you'll find me, stalking the streets of Whitechapel with "Jack the Ripper", or locked in the basement in H.H. Holmes' Murder Castle and having lunch with Odd Eddie Gein. Many of you have asked if you can join this terrifying world that I reside, by reading the horrific things that I write, so here you go, we'll start at the beginning and head to Plainfield, Wisconsin where we'll find Odd Eddie Gein... ODD YET HARMLESS - CHAPTER ONE Throughout the 1950’s, the genres of horror and science fiction fought an engaging battle of wills, a fight for supremacy, a bitter struggle for the hearts and minds, not to mention pockets, of thousands of cinema goers across the world; Universal’s original “Monsters” were literally dead in the water, with incarnations of Abbott and Costello meeting the Invisible Man, tangling with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and attempting to “unravel” the mysterious case of the Mummy. Universal’s last “real” monster movie would come in the shape of “Creature from the Black Lagoon”, in 1954, directed by Jack Arnold and featuring Richard Carlson and Julie Adams; from thereon, for what had been a “golden” generation of horror and science fiction films, Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Universal’s “World of Monsters” simply dried up. It’s also quite reasonable to suggest that the actors behind the “masks”, most notably Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, Jr., were well past their “sell by date”, indeed, Universal would ultimately flood the market with “Monster Matinees”, bringing their famous concoctions together in one “house”, however, by 1955, these too were diminished entities, reduced to penurious caricatures of their former selves, an undignified end, I think you’ll agree. Throughout the late 1940’s and 1950’s, science fiction films were in the midst of a “classic era”, the “monster” movie had reinvented itself, gone were the dark, crumbling castles and mummified tombs; the laboratories of a “diseased mind” had literally been confined to cinematic history. The 1950’s felt different, looked different, and this is hardly surprising given the fact World War Two, a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, was fresh in the memory of patriots around the world; this would be a theme that movie makers and studios would replicate, drawing on the concerns of a frightened public, terrified of a would-be invasion and a real fear of nuclear weapons. Many of the filmmakers of the day, Robert Wise, Christian Nyby, Jack Arnold, Val Guest, Roger Corman and Byron Haskin would centralise these “concerns” into what were often low budget comic book style pictures, formulaic in nature and gimmicky at best; these films were often targeted at a teenage audience and carried a variety of threats to humanity in one way or another. Films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing from Another World (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) all demonstrated this “threat” to humanity, whether that be in the form of humanoid alien visitors, malevolent, plant based aliens, martians intending to destroy the world, alien organisms, plant spores or devious extra-terrestrials planning to build weapons of “mass destruction”, this threat remained the same, in that the earth as we know it simply must be destroyed. Many of the previously aforementioned films went on to win Academy Awards and Golden Globes and are now “preserved” within the National Film Registry. During the later stages of the 1950’s, another genre, that of “fantasy”, which was fully established within the universe of horror and science fiction, re-emerged from the shadows of Walt Disney’s “toons”, with films such as Nathan Hertz Juran’s The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (195  , driven by Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion animation technique, “Dynamation”, which at the time was revolutionary. During this “classic era”, science fiction and fantasy films thrived, often playing to sell-out theatres and drive-ins, such was the demand for entertainment. However, for the horror movie, it was an entirely different story, as the genre found itself somewhat stagnated and floundering, with the only notable release being André de Toth’s House of Wax (1953), featuring Vincent Price in the role of Professor Henry Jarrod, a disfigured sculptor who murders people and uses their wax-coated corpses as displays; filmed in 3-D, House of Wax was a resounding success for distributer and studio giant Warner Brothers Pictures, becoming one of the biggest box office hits of 1953, taking an estimated $5.5 million in rentals alone, revitalising the careers of both Vincent Price and Carolyn Jones. Following the success of House of Wax, the expected onslaught of horror movies simply failed to materialise, however, in 1957, the landscape of the horror genre would be changed dramatically, with the reintroduction of Universal’s “Monsters”, albeit through a British studio, Hammer Films, who released The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (195 and The Mummy (1959) onto an unsuspecting audience; just as André de Toth’s House of Wax had made a household name of Vincent Price, so too did Hammer’s films, thrusting Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, both relatively unknown at this point, into the horror limelight, with both actors going on to have distinguished and wholesome careers in the industry. The late 1950’s was something of a revolution for the horror genre, placing it alongside that of science fiction and fantasy, as studios became more daring and adventurous, often pushing the boundaries of what would be regarded as “acceptable”, this would be a theme that would continue into the 1960’s and beyond; films such as Night of the Demon (1957), House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Tingler (1959) were playing to sell-out audiences across the United States, whilst in the United Kingdom, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy were going from strength to strength, the resurgence of the horror film had arrived. In 1957, just as the horror film was re-emerging from the shadows of science fiction and fantasy, a tale of real-life horror was beginning to unfold in the village of Plainfield, Wisconsin, in the County of Waushara, United States, where Edward Theodore Gein, a local farmer and general handyman, was arrested for the murders of tavern owner Mary Hogan and hardware store owner Bernice Worden...... Drop by soon for more horrific musings Yours faithfully... ROBBIE  |
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