What is Gothic Horror

It’s a genre of literature that combines romance and horror. Its believed to have been originally invented by author Horace Walpole, in 1764. The novel itself tells a supernatural tale in which Manfred, the gloomy Prince of Otranto, develops an irresistible passion for the beautiful young woman who was to have married his son and heir. The novel opens memorably with this son being crushed to death by the huge helmet from a statue of a previous Prince of Otranto, and throughout the novel the very fabric of the castle comes to supernatural life until villainy is defeated. Walpole, who made his own house at Strawberry Hill into a mock-Gothic building, had discovered a fictional territory that has been exploited ever since. Gothic involves the supernatural (or the promise of the supernatural), it often involves the discovery of mysterious elements of antiquity, and it usually takes its protagonists into strange or frightening old buildings.It started to be adapted into films in the 19th century, with such films as Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. Gothic literature is associated with gothic architecture of the same era.The first great gothic horror classic, was by Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in 1818 and later a very well-known Dracula (1922). 

Frankenstein: 1900-1910
The first adaption of Mary Shelley’s novel ‘Frankenstein’ was in 1910, when a 16 minute film was based on the novel. This was directed by J. Searle Dawley, and was filmed in 3 days, at the Edison studios. The plot follows the studies of a student, who has the desire to create a monster, and therefore does, although it is not a thing of grace and beauty as desired. 
The most famous shot of the 1910 Frankenstein film.

Dracula
Adapted into a film in 1931, and based on the novel by Bram Stoker. The film had a budget of $355,000, and was a 75 minute film. When the film premiered, members of the audience were shocked at the horror on show, and within 48 hours of it being released, it had sold 50,000 tickets.

Post Gothic era
It wasn’t until the early 1940’s that horror started to go in a direction other than gothic adaptations, by this era films where more to do with body horror with such films as “The wolf man” and “Cat people”. That was not to say gothic horror was no longer revisited there would always be adaptations of these films and the likely scenario is that there always will be.
Its is unlikely that the use of gothic horror is ever likely to disappear. 

Gothic elements include the following:

• An atmosphere of mystery and suspense
• An ancient prophecy
• Omens, portents, visions
• Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
• High, even overwrought emotion
• Women in distress
• Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male
• The metonymy of gloom and horror
• The vocabulary of the gothic

The Victorian Supernatural

Pamphlet about table-moving, A spiritualist craze
from the Victorian Period 1853 

The 19th century is routinely thought about as the era of secularisation, a period when the disciplines and institutions of modern science were founded and cultural authority shifted from traditional authority of religion to explanation through the scientific exposition of natural laws. The sociologist Max Weber spoke about this process as the disenchantment of the world. The Victorian period is also of course a period of deep and sustained religious revival. There was an evangelical revival in the Christian church but also a host of dissenting, heterodox and millenarian cults. 

It was a golden age of belief in supernatural forces and energies, ghost stories, weird transmissions and spooky phenomena. For a long time historians ignored these beliefs as embarrassing errors or eccentricities, signs of the perturbations produced by the speed of cultural change.

21st Century Gothic Horror Films 

Dracula Untold (2014) 

As his kingdom is being threatened by the Turks, young prince Vlad Tepes must become a monster feared by his own people in order to obtain the power needed to protect his own family, and the families of his kingdom. Genre- action, drama, fantasy, horror, war.

http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/movies/
Dracula_Untold/DraculaUntold.jpg

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, AKA Sweeney Todd, who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the hit Broadway musical. Genre- drama, horror, musical, thriller.

http://www.sondheimguide.com/graphics/sweeneyfilm.jpg

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Hansel & Gretel are bounty hunters who track and kill witches all over the world. As the fabled Blood Moon approaches, the siblings encounter a new form of evil that might hold a secret to their past. Genre- action, fantasy, horror.

http://api.comingsoon.net//images//2013/Hansel___
Gretel:_Witch_Hunters_5.jpg-large

Dracula (1992) 

The vampire comes to England to seduce a visitor's fiancée and inflict havoc in the foreign land. Genre- Horror, romance. Genre- Horror, thriller.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Dracpos.jpg

Frankenstein (1994)
When Victor Frankenstein rejects the artificial man he just created, the monster escapes and later swears revenge.Genre- Drama, horror, romance, Sci-fi. 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-Zq1pnpAL.jpg

Dark Shadows (2012)

An imprisoned vampire, Barnabas Collins, is set free and returns to his ancestral home, where his dysfunctional descendants are in need of his protection. Genre- Comedy Horror. 

http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/
2012/03/johnny-depp-new-dark-shadows-posters.jpg

Information Sources-

http://www.imdb.com/search/title?genres=horror&keywords=gothic&sort=moviemeter

http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-victorian-supernatural

http://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm