The first selection of Marriot’s book focuses on the German silent era, specifically on Murnau’s film Nosferatu.  Marriot observed how the German film industry, unlike any other nation’s film industry, seemed to have taken off on supernatural films such as Nosferatu.  The focus on supernatural films following the First World War may have been due to the frustration experienced in the ensuing years after the end of the war, while having to care for the increased number of physically and psychologically wounded war victims.  Germany’s deep heritage of demonic folklore and black Romanticism may have also helped spark the rise of the expressionist movement.  Through expressionism, filmmakers were able to stylistically externalize their inner emotional struggle.  While Murnau was considered an expressionist director, he employed many characteristics that broke away from the traditional expressionist style.  Murnau would often focus on off-screen space rather than blending it into the action, allowing audiences to broaden the scope of the presented narrative.  Faust, for example, was shot entirely within a studio giving Murnau the ability to more efficiently manipulate the scene to his liking.  Later in the book, Marriott focuses on the modern Hollywood film Rosemary’s Baby.  Murnau’s work on Faust is noted as an influential pre-curser, as its theme of the devil’s pact has obviously not lost interest within the horror film genre.           

Marriott, James. Horror films. London: Virgin, 2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H6 M323 2004

The Exorcist succeeded in large part due to the hype surrounding the film. In fact, there was just as much controversy within the filmmaking process as there was about the film. In the section titled “The Exorcist”, James Marriot provides details behind the making of the film, from inception to the post-release reactions. In it, it is revealed that the film may well have been a product of the director, William Friedkin, rather than that of William Peter Blatty.

Blatty initially wanted to write a factual case history, based on an article he had read in the Washington Post in 1949, but the family had no interest. Producer Paul Monash offered Blatty $400,000 for a six-month option to film his novel, who then sold the option to Warner Brothers for a reported $641,000. After Monash was cut from the project, Blatty wanted an agnostic director but ended up with William Friedkin, a Jewish director who forced Blatty to create a second draft of the script in order to work with him.

Friedkin was a difficult director; having no connections to Iraq, he had to make additional promises to Iraqi filmmakers in order to shoot the opening scenes there. He opted to have all mechanical effects and little optical effects – for the exorcism sequence, the entire room was enclosed and refrigerated. Blatty criticized many of Friedkin’s techniques, such as the spinning head sequence which he deemed unnecessary, saying that “supernatural doesn’t mean impossible” (qtd. in 132). There were additional dangers on the set: a rig that was attached to a mold that had been made for Linda Blair came loose during shooting, requiring back treatment. Friedkin used these difficulties to show journalists and the public that the movie was cursed, increasing the buildup of attention around the film.

After the film’s release, which opened in only 30 cinemas, the term “cinematic neurosis” became popular, when psychiatric problems were exposed from disturbing films in people with no history of mental illness. The movie was blamed for criminal and suicidal acts, including one incident in the UK in October 1974, when a 14-year-old boy blamed for the movie for his murder of a 9-year-old girl. The MPAA changed the rating from R to 17 certificate from increasing public pressure, and the UK gave it an X rating. The public was so caught up in the hype that the movie became the highest grossing horror movie internationally. In this section, Marriott explains the creation and perpetuation of that hype that would dispel any oddities surrounding the movie.