Ghost and Possession – Throughout the Years

1930s – 1960s:

The earliest record of Possession films dates back to the 1960’s, where ghost based films began to evolve. Religion has always been a huge part of daily life for many centuries, particularly after Henry VIII introduced the Church of England back in the 1530s during his break with Rome and Catherine of Aragon. For this reason, many film directors and script writers objected to making films about possession, which often relate to the bringing back of spirits and the devil, due to the controversial issues related to religion.

1960s:

It is believed that many of these ghost story based films were a reaction against the creature feature films popular in the previous decade. They became particularly popular due to the advances in technology, allowing editors to carry out special effects that would make the viewer believe in a ghoulish or demonic figure.

·         Carnival of Souls (1962) –

Ø       This film is based on a woman who survives a traumatic incident, which involved her car crashing into the river, and later finds herself drawn to a mysterious carnival full of ghostly figures.

Ø  The ghoulish figures in this film were portrayed as pale-white and human looking characters with the iconic blackness around the eye. This was a famous icon for the 60s in terms of ghosts as the harsh contrast between black and white and the greyish streaks found on their faces are similar to those which are found on fresh corpses, thus representing death.

Ø  Fear is inspired to the viewers due to this as one of the most common fears instilled in people is the fear of death, which these corpse-like characters clearly symbolise.

·         The Haunting (1963) –

Ø  The plot for this movie consists of a paranormal investigator who wishes to study a supposedly haunted house, which had been passed down through generations by which the females of the family seemingly die.

Ø  Many of the ghost-like scenes in this film are symbolised rather than ghostly characters physically being shown. To do this, paranormal occurrences were portrayed by way of a moving door, dropping of temperature or a collapsing staircase.

Ø  These effects were still considered scary as it is known that people fear the unknown, the unseen and the unexpected, so if they cannot see what or know what is about the happen, they become more on edge and afraid for the pending scene.

1970s:

                During this decade, ghost and possession films really began to come into popularity, as one of the most famous possession films of all time was introduced in this decade: The Exorcist. Many of the horror movies of this decade were created to reflect the grim mood of the decade, what with various events causing public upset. Some events include the split of the Beatles, oil strikes, sexual/cultural revolutions and some even consider the moon landings to be negative due to the conspiracy theories related to them. One of the greatest fears of this decade was children and childbirth.

·         The Exorcist (1973) –

Ø  This film has been voted the scariest horror movie of all time, with the special effects considered ‘dazzling’ even to this day.

Ø   The film is based upon book inspired by the exorcism of Roland Doe, by which a mother is desperate to save her 12 year old daughter who has been possessed by a demonic presence.

 Ø  One of the main reasons for the production of The Exorcist was due to the fact that screenwriter, William Peter Blatty, wanted a best-seller which would shock people and encourage them to test their faith.

 Ø  Compared to the previous decade, possession is portrayed in the 70s, particularly in this film, to be related to that of the Devil’s work. Due to Biblical beliefs, many people say that demonic creatures condemned to hell are corpse-like, inhuman and decomposing, explaining the scratched up and demonic looking character in the Exorcist.

Ø  Although this film shows the possessed girl levitating, spinning her head and demonic scratch marks appearing on nearby characters, it has been said that many real life exorcisms performed by the Vatican churches have no such behaviour but rather just display emotional distress by the parties involved.

1980s:

                The special effects and animatronics really skyrocketed during this decade, allowing for more adventurous and horrifying characters and ideas. For example, the advances in technology and animation allowed video editors to distort the human figure, creating more terrifying possessed characters or ghost figures in the movies. This decade was all about materialism; people wanted bigger, better and scarier things. As explored earlier, the greatest fear people experience is fear of the unknown; for this reason, many of the films of this time were about evil entities and poltergeists, rather physically seeing ghostly figures.

·         The Shining (1980) –

Ø  In this film, a family travels to an isolated hotel for a winter break where they soon discover an evil entity lives. After a while, the father of the family begins to become more violent due to the presence whereas his psychic son starts to see horrific premonitions from the past.

Ø  In this movie, the supernatural presence is rarely seen but rather experiences out of the normal are witnessed and the father appears to be influenced by the entity to kill his own wife and son.

Ø  The film is considered one of the scariest and greatest horror movies of all time. One of the reasons behind this is the psychological spin on the story; the fact that the viewer sees the changes in to family’s behaviour and the strange occurrences in the hotel rather than ghostly figures or possessed characters, such as in The Exorcist, plays with their mind, making them wonder whether it was a trick of the imagination and thus scaring them more.

1990s:

                During this decade, filmmakers had lost their ability to scare their audiences; viewers were finding the gore and the horror in scenes to be more funny than scary. On the other hand, each decade has its fears and the majority of films produced in this age were based on serial killers. The ghost and possession based films turned to the remakes and the reinventions of older classics, attempting to deepen the previously told stories and bring back old fears.

·         The Exorcist III (1990) –

Ø  This number in the series is based around the philosophical Lieutenant William F. Kinderman from the original Exorcist film in the early 70s.

 Ø  In this film, he investigates a series of murders that all appear to have similar traits – they are all linked to the deceased Gemini serial killer and Kinderman believes there is a satanic motive behind the killings.

 Ø  Due to the current film trend of this decade (serial killers), this number of the Exorcist film series were highly based around mass murders, however, the serial killer was dead… This combination was highly frightful in this decade for that reason.

 Ø  Despite the sequel the first film not being very successful, this film was considered to be ‘flawed yet scary’.

Ø  However many people consider the first Exorcist to be the mother of all horror movies, there were even ideas at remaking a more recent version of it but Blatty (the director) has not explored the idea further. 

2000s:

                With the 2000s came the global devastation known as 9/11 which greatly impacted the world of film. Any filmmaker with intent to make a horror film for the next 4 years would be shot down, some people even went to the lengths to try and have the horror genre banned. However, by the time 2005 rolled around, the horror genre was as popular as ever. In terms of possession films, the late 2000’s found the ‘Found Footage’ style of film to be the popular idea of horror films.

·         Paranormal Activity (2007) –

Ø  Since the release of the first film, there have been many more additions to the Paranormal Activity family and others said to be made.

Ø  The films are based around demonic or supernatural presences which haunt and follow families, killing them and other witnesses off. This first film is based around a young couple who are terrorised by a demonic creature who the young female, Katie, believes has followed her around since she was young.

Ø  With the many advances in technology, this film is highly realistic, with the basis being poltergeist action and even possession towards the end few scenes, where in many scenes there are doors closing, hand prints appearing on the floor and even the female protagonist being dragged across the hallway.

Ø  In this film, we do not see an actual ghost figure but are rather scared of the unknown and realism of the film. The realism is conveyed more so by the used of camcorders, security cameras and hand held cameras to give the feel of found footage. This is scarier for many people as they believe that it could be real and occur in real life rather than made up like many other horror films.

Ø  The Paranormal films are extremely popular in this century as the films all inter-link and relate to each other and the special effects used today are rather effective and appear realistic.

Present:

                Horror films continue to develop and grow as a genre in present day, with many older classics being reinvented into new and improved versions. The Paranormal Activity film series continue to grow with the next instalment due later this year (2015) and even new Exorcist films are being spoken of. The trend for this sub-genre seems to be a mixture of poltergeist activity and possession. One of the most popular trends is ‘in the past’, where these supernatural horror movies are made present day but set back in time by 40 or 50 years.

·         The Conjuring (2013) –

Ø  This film is based in the 1970s, where a family with 5 girls move into an old farmhouse and begin to notice strange paranormal things happening to them.

Ø  They then call in paranormal investigators, who discover a number of evil entities present in the house. In an attempt to prove to the priest of the presence in order to carry out an exorcism, the mother of the family is possessed by the evil entity, who tries to make her murder the youngest daughter.

Ø  In the beginning of the film, the story of Annabelle is told, a doll who is possessed and torments two young nurses. This story was later expanded into the newly released horror film: Annabelle.

Ø  The film uses top range special effects, which makes the movie seem extremely realistic, particularly in the exorcism of the mother scene.

·         Ouija (2014) –

Ø  After a teenager plays with an old Ouija board she finds in her attic alone, she is possessed by an evil spirit and hangs herself.

Ø  Mourning the death of her friend, a teenage girl, along with the help of her friends, finds the Ouija board and begins to ask it questions in the hope to answer her questions regarding the death of her friend, Debbie.

Ø  After playing with the board, each of her friends begins to be possessed by the evil spirit and made to kill themselves. 

Ø  As a result, the girl seeks out the sister of the spirit and must follow the steps she is given in order to save herself and her sister from being possessed also.

Ø  In this film, there are mixtures of both poltergeist activity and the visual presence of spirits. The special effects used create realistic images of the said spirits, increasing the fear for the viewers watching the film.

Ø  Although initially the film was considered to receive negative reviews, it was a success in terms of Box Office and there is a sequel set to be released October 2016.