A History of Horror is a 2010 three-part documentary series made for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 by British writer and actor Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....

. It is a personal exploration of the history of horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

, inspired by Gatiss' lifelong enthusiasm for the genre.

The documentary was directed by John Das (episodes one and three) and Rachel Jardine (episode two); series consultant was actor and film historian Jonathan Rigby

Jonathan Rigby

Jonathan Rigby is an English film critic and actor who has written the following books - English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema , Christopher Lee: The Authorised Screen History , Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning , American Gothic: Sixty Years of Horror Cinema and Studies in Terror: Landmarks of...

. The series was initially broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

 in October 2010. Each of the three episodes lasted 60 minutes.

It received strong reviews from the British press, the Irish press and independent review sites.

Frankenstein Goes To Hollywood

In the first episode, Gatiss explores the Golden Age of Hollywood horror

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

, or the Universal

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 era, the 1920s

1920s

File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...

 to 1940s

1940s

File:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...

. He looks at the silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...

(1925), starring Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney

Chaney is an American surname of French origin, and may refer to:* Charles "Bubba" Chaney , Louisiana politician* Chris Chaney, US musician* Darrel Chaney, US baseball player* Don Chaney, US basketballer* Esty Chaney , US baseballer...

, the first great horror talkie Dracula

Dracula (1931 film)

Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L...

(1931), starring Béla Lugosi

Béla Lugosi

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

, and the later release of James Whale

James Whale

James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his work in the horror film genre, having directed such classics as Frankenstein , The Old Dark House , The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein...

's Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931 film)

Frankenstein is a 1931 Pre-Code Horror Monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley. The film stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff, and features...

(1931), featuring Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff

William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...

. He focuses in particular on Son of Frankenstein

Son of Frankenstein

Son of Frankenstein is the third film in Universal Studios' Frankenstein series and the last to feature Boris Karloff as the Monster as well as the first to feature Béla Lugosi as Ygor. It is a sequel to Bride of Frankenstein....

(1939), a personal favourite which he feels has been neglected.

The episode includes interviews with John Carpenter

John Carpenter

John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...

, Sara Karloff, Gloria Stuart

Gloria Stuart

Gloria Frances Stuart was an American actress, activist, painter, bonsai artist and fine printer. Over a Hollywood career which spanned, with a long break in the middle, from 1932 until 2004, she appeared on stage, television, and film, for which she was best-known...

, Carla Laemmle

Carla Laemmle

Rebecca Isabelle "Carla" Laemmle is an American actress and the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle. She was a movie actress in the 1920s and 1930s, and is, along with Lupita Tovar, one of the very few surviving actors of the silent film era.-Career:Laemmle entered films in 1925...

, Donnie Dunagan

Donnie Dunagan

Donald "Donnie" Roan Dunagan is a semi-retired American former child actor and United States Marine Corps drill instructor. He was a voice actor in the Bambi film, providing the voice of Young Bambi. A 28-page interview, his first after decades as a "lost Hollywood player," can be found in the...

, and Sheila Wynn (Lugosi's co-star in a 1951 Dracula tour).

Home Counties Horror

The second episode focuses on the British Hammer Films of the 1950s

1950s

The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...

 and 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

, which inspired Gatiss' childhood passion for horror. He meets key figures from Hammer to discuss the series of Frankenstein and Dracula

Dracula (1958 film)

Dracula, also known as Horror of Dracula in the United States, is a 1958 British horror film. It is the first in the series of Hammer Horror films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Carol Marsh, Melissa Stribling and...

 films which made stars of Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

 and Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

, both of whom Gatiss argues are underrated talents. He also identifies a short-lived sub-genre of British "folk horror", drawing on paganism and folklore, including Witchfinder General

Witchfinder General (film)

Witchfinder General is a 1968 British horror film directed by Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, and Hilary Dwyer. The screenplay was by Reeves and Tom Baker based on Ronald Bassett's novel of the same name. Made on a low budget of under £100,000, the movie was coproduced by...

(1968), his personal favourite Blood on Satan's Claw

Blood on Satan's Claw

Blood on Satan's Claw is a 1970 British horror film made by Tigon British Film Productions and directed by Piers Haggard. The film was written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, with additions by Piers Haggard, and stars Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden and Barry Andrews...

(1970), and The Wicker Man (1973).

This episode includes interviews with writer-producer Anthony Hinds

Anthony Hinds

Anthony Hinds , aka Tony Hinds, aka John Elder, is a British screenwriter and producer. He is the son of the founder of Hammer Film Productions, William Hinds.-Early life:Tony Hinds was educated at St Paul's School...

, writer-director Jimmy Sangster

Jimmy Sangster

James Henry Kinmel Sangster was an English screenwriter and director, known for his work for horror film producers Hammer Film Productions, including scripts for The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula .Sangster originally worked as a production assistant at...

, director Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker

Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...

, Barbara Steele

Barbara Steele

Barbara Steele is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday , now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr...

, star of Black Sunday (1960), director-producer Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

, director Piers Haggard

Piers Haggard

Piers Inigo Haggard is a British film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter medium.He is the great grandnephew of H...

, John Carpenter again, and actors Barbara Shelley

Barbara Shelley

Barbara Shelley is an English film and television actress.She is now retired, but was at her busiest in the late 1950s and 1960s when she became Hammer Horror's number one female star, with The Gorgon , Dracula, Prince of Darkness , Rasputin, the Mad Monk , andQuatermass and the Pit among her...

 and David Warner

David Warner (actor)

David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...

. Also included are archive interviews with Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

 and Vincent Price

Vincent Price

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

.

The American Scream

In the third and final episode, Gatiss looks at American horror movies of the late 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 and 1970s

1970s

File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

, including Night Of The Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent black-and-white zombie film and cult film directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman. It premiered on October 1, 1968, and was completed on a USD$114,000 budget. After decades of cinematic re-releases, it...

(1968) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...

(1974). As well as the emergence of slasher films, Gatiss examines the other great horror film trend of the era, the theme of Satanism

Satanism

Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...

 and demonic possession in films such as Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby (film)

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...

(1968), The Exorcist

The Exorcist (film)

The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...

(1973) and The Omen

The Omen

An original score for the film, including the movie's theme song Ave Satani, was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for which he received the only Oscar of his long career. The score features a strong choral segment, with a foreboding Latin chant...

(1976).

This episode includes interviews with writer David Seltzer

David Seltzer

David Seltzer is an American screenwriter, producer and director, perhaps best known for writing The Omen , and Bird on a Wire , starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn...

 and directors Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the horror film genre. His works include the cult classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , along with its first sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ; the three-time Emmy-nominated Stephen King film adaptation...

 and George A. Romero

George A. Romero

George Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...

, who also made Martin

Martin (film)

Martin is a 1978 American horror film written and directed by George A. Romero.Romero claims that Martin is the favorite of all his films...

(1978), another personal favourite which Gatiss considers neglected. Gatiss meets David Warner, Barbara Steele and John Carpenter again, accompanying Carpenter on a tour of the set locations for Halloween

Halloween (1978 film)

Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...

(1978). He also visits the Bates Motel, the set location for Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

's Psycho (1960).