Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What was the first ever horror movie?
The first depictions of the supernatural on screen appear in several of the short silent films created by the French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès in the late 1890s. The best known of these supernatural-based works is the 3-minute short film "Le Manoir du Diable" (1896), also known in English as "The Haunted Castle" or "The House of the Devil". The film is sometimes credited as being the first ever horror film. In "The Haunted Castle", a mischievous devil appears inside a medieval castle and harasses the visitors. Méliès' other popular horror film is "La Caverne maudite" (1898), which translates literally to "the accursed cave". The film, also known for its English title "The Cave of the Demons", tells the story of a woman stumbling over a cave that is populated by the spirits and skeletons of people who died there. Méliès would also make other short films that historians consider now as horror-comedies. "Une nuit terrible" (1896), which translates to "A Terrible Night", tells a story of a man who tries to get a good night's sleep but ends up wrestling a giant spider. His other film, "L'auberge ensorcelée" (1897), or "The Bewitched Inn", features a story of a hotel guest getting pranked and tormented by an unseen presence. 
In 1897, the accomplished American photographer-turned director George Albert Smith created "The X-Ray Fiend" (1897), a horror-comedy that came out a mere two years after x-rays were invented. The film shows a couple of skeletons courting each other. An audience full of people unaccustomed to the idea would have found it frightening and otherworldly. The next year, Smith created the short film "Photographing a Ghost" (1898), consisdered a precursor to the paranormal investigation subgenre. The film portrays three men attempting to photograph a ghost, only to fail time and again as the ghost eludes them and throws chairs.
Japan also made early forays into the horror genre. In 1898, Japanese film company Konishi Honten released two horror films both written by Ejiro Hatta; "Shinin No Sosei" (Resurrection of a Corpse), and "Bake Jizo" (Jizo the Spook) "Shinin No Sosei" told the story of a dead man who comes back to life after having fallen from a coffin that two men were carrying. (the writer Hatta played the dead man, while the coffin-bearers were played by Konishi employees.) Though there are no records of the cast, crew, or plot of "Bake Jizo", it was likely based on the Japanese legend of Jizo statues, believed to provide safety and protection to children. The presence of the word bake—which can be translated to "spook," "ghost," or "phantom"—may imply a haunted or possessed statue. (In Japan, Jizō, or respectfully as "Ojizō-sama", is a beloved divinity who is seen as the guardian of children, and in particular, children who died before their parents. He has been worshipped as the guardian of the souls of "mizuko", the souls of stillborn, miscarried, or aborted fetuses.)
Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón is regarded as the most significant Spanish silent film director in an international context. He was popular for his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions, an innovation that contributed heavily to the popularity of trick films in the period. His famous works include "Satán se divierte" (1907), which translates to "Satan Having Fun", or "Satan at Play"; "La casa hechizada" (1908), or "The House of Ghosts", considered to be one of the earliest cinematic depictions of a haunted house premise; and "Le spectre rouge" (1907) or "The Red Spectre", a collaboration film with French director Ferdinand Zecca about a demonic magician who attempts to perform his act in a mysterious grotto.
His first book, "A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946 – 1972" (1973), the first book-length survey of the British horror film, has according to Kim Newman in 'Sight and Sound' "long been regarded as a trail-blazing classic" and is described by SFX as among the small category of essential books on horror cinema. In it he analyses the films of Hammer and Amicus, and other British horror phenomena, including the works of Michael Reeves and what Pirie referred to as Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadean Trilogy", beginning with "Horrors of the Black Museum" in 1959. An updated version of Pirie's book, entitled "A New Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema" was published in 2008. Film-maker Martin Scorsese described it as "the best study of British horror movies and an important contribution to the study of British cinema as a whole". Pirie's other film related works include "The Vampire Cinema" (1975) and "Anatomy of the Movies" (1981, as editor).
Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess. In 1957, Screen Gems released a syndicated package of 52 horror movies, mostly from Universal Pictures, under the program title "Shock Theater". Independent stations in major cities all over the U.S. began showing these films, adding their own ghoulish host or hostess (including Vampira II and other lookalikes) to attract more viewers.
Michaels' first documentary was "Vampira: The Movie", which profiled Maila Nurmi, the first horror host. The film featured testimonials by Sid Haig, Julie Strain, Kevin Eastman, Forrest Ackerman, Debbie Rochon, John Zacherle, Lloyd Kaufman, Bill Moseley, Cassandra Peterson, Jami Deadly, Jerry Only and horror historian David J. Skal. The score was written and performed by Ari Lehman, the first Jason Voorhies of Friday The 13th. Premiering in October 2006, "Vampira: The Movie" was released on DVD in September 2007 by Alpha Video, and won a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award in 2008 for Best Independent Production.
The original three-hour-long version of the film, titled "The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell", was screened in 1973, and purportedly caused theater riots in New York City and Chicago. It was claimed that the theater in Chicago was burned down. The following year, the film had a brief release under the title "The Fun House". In 1977, it was released yet again, through Cinematic Releasing Corporation, under its most widely known title, "Last House on Dead End Street", a play on the title of the Wes Craven film "The Last House on the Left" (1972). Both of these later releases of the film were significantly shorter, running 78 minutes, as opposed to the original 175 minutes.
Though not exactly labeled as such, there were early precedents for "television movies", such as "Talk Faster, Mister", which aired on WABD (now WNYW) in New York City on December 18, 1944, and was produced by RKO Pictures, or the 1957 "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", based on the poem by Robert Browning, and starring Van Johnson, one of the first filmed "family musicals" made directly for television. That film was made in Technicolor, a first for television, which ordinarily used color processes originated by specific networks (most "family musicals" of the time, such as "Peter Pan", were not filmed but broadcast live and preserved on kinescope, a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor – and the only (relatively inexpensive) method of recording a television program until the invention of videotape).
The script for "Scream" (1996), then known as "Scary Movie" was released for sale on a Friday and by 8 a.m. the following Monday had become involved in a significant bidding war from several studios, including Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and Morgan Creek, with producer Cathy Konrad bringing it to the attention of Bob Weinstein. The bidding eventually rose to an amount that the choice ultimately came down to Oliver Stone, who was at the time working with Cinergi Pictures, and Weinstein under Miramax. Williamson agreed to terms with Miramax for $400,000 plus a contract for two sequels and a third, unrelated film, believing their label, Dimension Films, would produce "Scream" immediately and without significant restriction. Wes Craven was approached early on to helm the film but he was occupied with remaking "The Haunting" and so other directors including Robert Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, George Romero and Sam Raimi were approached. Concerns were raised by Williamson and Weinstein when many of the approached directors, having read the script, believed the film to be a comedy, making them reluctant to hire those particular directors, believing they "didn't get it". Craven was approached and passed on the film several times, wanting to move away from the genre, but was enticed once Drew Barrymore became involved, reasoning that it may be different from his previous works if an actress of her recognition was involved. Ultimately the production of "The Haunting", at that time, fell through and Craven was able to take over directing duties on the film. Close to the end of the film's production, the Weinstein brothers had the film's title changed from "Scary Movie" to "Scream" inspired by the Michael Jackson song of the same name as Bob Weinstein felt "Scary Movie" was not suitable when the film also contained elements of satire and comedy. The change was immediately disliked by both Williamson and Craven who considered it "stupid" but would later remark that it was a positive change.
A Nightmare on Elm Street refers to installments in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" film series, an American horror franchise beginning with the 1984 film, "A Nightmare on Elm Street", and based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, who stalks teenagers in their dreams and kills them. Most media within the franchise include the phrase, "A Nightmare on Elm Street", as part of their title.
"The Nightmare Before Christmas" originated in a poem written by Burton in 1982 while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation. With the success of "Vincent" in the same year, Burton began to consider developing "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as either a short film or 30-minute television special to no avail. Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, he made a development deal with Walt Disney Studios. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco; Disney released the film through Touchstone Pictures because the studio believed the film would be "too dark and scary for kids".
Science fiction films appeared very early in the silent film era. The initial attempts were short films of typically 1 to 2 minutes in duration, shot in black and white, but sometimes with colour tinting. These usually had a technological theme, and were often intended to be humorous. "Le Voyage dans la Lune", created by Georges Méliès in 1902 is often considered to be the first science fiction film. It drew upon Jules Verne and H. G. Wells in its depiction of a spacecraft being launched to the moon in a large cannon. Its ground-breaking special effects pioneered the way for future science-fiction films, and it became largely popular after its release.
"A Nightmare on Elm Street" contains many biographical elements from director Wes Craven's childhood. The basis of the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the "Los Angeles Times" in the 1970s about Southeast Asian refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States because of war and genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, suffered disturbing nightmares and refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition afflicted men between the ages of 19 and 57 and was believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome or Brugada syndrome or both. The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to jump off from, but a synthesizer riff for the movie soundtrack. Craven has also stated that he drew some inspiration for the film from Eastern religions.
Inspired by the real-life case of the Gainesville Ripper, "Scream" was influenced by Williamson's passion for horror films, especially "Halloween" (1978). The script, originally titled "Scary Movie", was bought by Dimension Films and was retitled by the Weinstein Brothers just before filming was complete. The production faced censorship issues with the Motion Picture Association of America and obstacles from locals while filming on location. The film received positive reviews and was a financial success, earning $173 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing slasher film until the release of "Halloween" (2018). It still remains the highest-grossing slasher film in adjusted dollars. It received several awards and award nominations. The soundtrack by Marco Beltrami was also acclaimed, and was cited as "[one] of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years". It has since earned "cult status". "Scream" marked a change in the genre as it cast already-established and successful actors, which was considered to have helped it find a wider audience, including a significant female viewership.
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital HD in both rated and unrated versions on October 1, 2013. The rated version runs 31 seconds shorter, with 5 cuts of explicit gore and nudity from the scene in which Gerri lures a local woman into her lair. The DVD and Blu-ray feature identical extras: an audio commentary with director Eduardo Rodriguez and producers Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta, "Fright Night" webisodes and a "Dracula Revealed" featurette which includes interviews with principal cast and crew members.
The Last House on the Left is a 1972 American exploitation horror film written, edited, and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. The film stars Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David A. Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, and Marc Sheffler. The plot revolves around two teenage girls who are taken into the woods and tortured by a gang of murderous thugs. The story is inspired by the 1960 Swedish film "The Virgin Spring", directed by Ingmar Bergman, which in turn is based on a Swedish ballad, "Töres döttrar i Wänge".
Filmed in 1972 with a cast and crew of theater students working under pseudonyms, the movie was released in 1974 under the title "The Fun House" before being re-released under its more widely recognized title in 1977. The film's title is derived from the controversial Wes Craven film "The Last House on the Left".
By the time Leroux published "The Phantom of the Opera", he had already gained credibility as a crime mystery author in both French and English speaking countries. He had written six novels prior, two of which had garnered substantial popularity within their first year of publication called "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady in Black". Although previous commentators have asserted that "The Phantom of the Opera" did not attain as much success as these previous novels, being particularly unpopular in France where it was first published, recent research into the novel's early reception and sales has indicated the contrary. One book review from the New York Times expressed a disappointment in the way the phantom was portrayed, saying that the feeling of suspense and horror is lost once it is found out that the phantom is just a man and not a real ghost. The majority of the notability that the novel acquired early on was due to its publication in a series of installments in French, American, and English newspapers. This serialized version of the story became important when it was read and sought out by Universal Pictures to be adapted into a movie in 1925.
The film was released on August 2, 1985 and grossed $24.9 million at the box office. Since its release, it has received positive reviews from critics and has become a cult classic. The film was followed by a sequel, "Fright Night Part 2", in 1988, and a remake in 2011, which was in turn followed by "" in 2013. In 1989, a Bollywood remake was produced in Hindi entitled "Wohi Bhayakar Raat" (वही भंयकर रात), starring Kiran Kumar as the vampire.
Blaxploitation is a mix of the words black and exploitation. It makes a point to enforce stereotypes that have been afflicted on African Americans by the so-called white media. The first movie to be considered blaxploitation was "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" (1971). Melvin Van Peebles directed, produced, and took the lead role of this hyper sexual film. It is about a male prostitute who is out to fight "[the man]" (white oppression). It spanned a new type of film genre that evolved all the way to what is now the urban blaxploitation horror films of the 21st century.
Screenwriter Robert Florey wrote a treatment entitled "The New Adventures of Frankenstein — The Monster Lives!", but it was rejected without comment early in 1932. Universal staff writer Tom Reed wrote a treatment under the title "The Return of Frankenstein", a title retained until filming began. Following its acceptance in 1933, Reed wrote a full script that was submitted to the Hays office for review. The script passed its review, but Whale, who by then had been contracted to direct, complained that "it stinks to heaven". L. G. Blochman and Philip MacDonald were the next writers assigned, but Whale also found their work unsatisfactory. In 1934, Whale set John L. Balderston to work on yet another version, and it was he who returned to an incident from the novel in which the creature demands a mate. In the novel Frankenstein creates a mate, but destroys it without bringing it to life. Balderston also created the Mary Shelley prologue. After several months Whale was still not satisfied with Balderston's work and handed the project to playwright William J. Hurlbut and Edmund Pearson. The final script, combining elements of a number of these versions, was submitted for Hays office review in November 1934. Kim Newman reports that Whale planned to make Elizabeth the heart donor for the bride, but film historian Scott MacQueen states that Whale never had such an intention.
The score for the "Scream" series was provided by Marco Beltrami, starting with "Scream" in what was his feature film debut. Beltrami was brought onto the production of "Scream" after Craven's assistant Julie Plec requested input on the now defunct site "Hollywood Cafe", asking for opinions on was "new", "fresh" and "wonderful" and was provided with Beltrami's name by several people. Craven sent for samples of Beltrami's work and was impressed by what he heard, bringing him to the set to view the first thirteen minutes of the film featuring the introduction and murder of the character Casey Becker. Craven had Beltrami produce music based on this scene and then demonstrate it, impressing Craven enough to hire him. For "Scream" (1996), the decision was made to intentionally use music to raise the tension in scenes where it was unnecessary when the characters were entering a situation where the audience may expect a killer to suddenly appear, only to not deliver on that expectation, part of the film's theme of playing with horror conventions. Craven and editor Patrick Lussier provided Beltrami with advice on how best to deliver the music during scary and tense scenes as Beltrami had no prior experience in developing a horror score. Beltrami intentionally avoided conventional horror score styles and approached the film as a western, taking influence from Ennio Morricone, prolific composer of many western films, in the creation of "Scream"'s music. When scoring a theme for the character of Dewey, Beltrami approached him as a sheriff but also as a "quirky" character, using a Morricone-style guitar accompaniment to maintain the Western approach. An acoustic cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" plays softly in the background to Sidney and Billy's discussion of their relationship, which analyst Jeff Smith describes as
Following years of struggling to find a distributor and various re-shoots, Zombie confirmed that his film "House of 1000 Corpses" would finally be released through Lions Gate Entertainment. The film was released theatrically on April 11, 2003. The film received a generally negative reception from critics, though grossed over $16 million worldwide. The film was criticized for being too "grotesque" and "violent", but has since garnered a cult following. Despite vastly negative reviews, the film garnered a warmer reception in later years, and is frequently listed as one of the "best horror films ever made". Zombie worked with Scott Humphrey on the majority of the film's soundtrack, which was released on March 25, 2003. The release features original songs from Zombie such as "Pussy Liquor" and "Little Piggy", as well as Zombie's own rendition of the Commodores hit single "Brick House" (1977), re-titled "Brick House 2003". The soundtrack peaked at number fifty-three on the "Billboard" 200, and number four on the Top Soundtracks chart.
The 1980s saw a wave of gory "B movie" horror films – although most of them were poorly reviewed by critics, many became cult classics and later saw success with critics. A significant example is Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" movies, which were low-budget gorefests but had a very original plotline which was later praised by critics. In the Philippines, the first "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (1984) was released. The horror anthology film became a behemoth franchise in the country in the next decade.
This period saw the popularity of horror films in India increasing, with a number of popular titles. "Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche" (released in 1972 and directed by the Ramsay brothers) proved successful, laying the foundation for horror films in the following years. 1976 saw Bollywood's first-ever combination of horror and fantasy in Rajkumar Kohli's "Nagin". The star-studded film proved a major box-office hit. Two years later, Kohli gave Bollywood one of its biggest hits in "Jaani Dushman". It is considered to be the biggest horror movies to have come out from Indian film industry to date by many experts. The film proved to be a cult one and gave inspiration to the upcoming horror movies. Other horror movies released at this time were "Darwaza" (1978), "Jadu Tona" (1977), "Aur Kaun?" (1979) "Saboot", "Gehrayee", "Red Rose", "Guest House", "Dahshat" and "Sannata" (all 1980). "Gehrayee" (inspired by "The Exorcist") saw Padmini Kolhapure playing a young girl (Linda Blair's character in "The Exorcist"), while Rajesh Khanna played a psychotic killer in "Red Rose".
The first feature-length films to include what are regarded as monsters were often classed as horror or science fiction films. The 1915 German silent film "The Golem", directed by Paul Wegener, is one of the earliest examples of film to include a creature. The German Expressionist "Nosferatu" in 1922, and the depiction of a dragon in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen in 1924, followed tradition. In the 1930s, American movie studios began to produce more successful films of this type, usually based on gothic tales such as "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" in 1931, both heavily influenced by German Expressionism, followed by "The Mummy" (1932) and "The Invisible Man" (1933). Classified as Horror films, they included iconic monsters.
It was at the Mar del Plata Film Festival where Parés met Filipe Melo, creator of the first-ever Portuguese horror short "I'll See You In My Dreams". After meeting the Plaga Zombie crew, Melo invited Parés to his home in Mouraz, Portugal to collaborate on a film script. The two wrote a first draft of what would become "The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy" in 15 days.