When film was still in its infancy – a curiosity shown at sideshows and travelling fairs – film-makers across the globe were capitalising on the spooky side of cinematography. The Lumière brothers were animating dancing skeletons in France in 1895 (Le Squelette joyeux), while unknown film-makers in Japan were creating shorts such as Shinin no sosei (Resurrection of a Corpse, 1898). Magician-turned-film-maker Georges Méliès is thought to have created the first horror film in 1896, with the short Le manoir du Diable (The Devil’s Manor), which features a bat-transformation, spectres and an incarnation of the devil in just over three minutes. That’s almost a higher rate of subterfuge than the Trump campaign trail.
Sartorial obsessions are an undercurrent in many horror films, from the decadent European aristocracy of many vampire movies to American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman (Mary Harron, 2000) and Buffalo Bill’s desire to create a “woman suit” from the skin of his victims in The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991). Here are 11 films that define scream style.
Read more here
