Horror is one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema. The
term "horror film" was coined in 1931 between the premiere of
Dracula and the release of Frankenstein, but monsters, ghosts,
demons, and supernatural and horrific themes have been popular with
American audiences since the emergence of novelty kinematographic
attractions in the late 1890s. A Place of Darkness illuminates the
prehistory of the horror genre by tracing the way horrific elements
and stories were portrayed in films prior to the introduction of
the term "horror film." Using a rhetorical approach that examines
not only early films but also the promotional materials for them
and critical responses to them, Kendall R. Phillips argues that the
portrayal of horrific elements was enmeshed in broader social
tensions around the emergence of American identity and, in turn,
American cinema. He shows how early cinema linked monsters, ghosts,
witches, and magicians with Old World superstitions and beliefs, in
contrast to an American way of thinking that was pragmatic,
reasonable, scientific, and progressive. Throughout the teens and
twenties, Phillips finds, supernatural elements were almost always
explained away as some hysterical mistake, humorous prank, or
nefarious plot. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however,
constituted a substantial upheaval in the system of American
certainty and opened a space for the reemergence of Old World
gothic within American popular discourse in the form of the horror
genre, which has terrified and thrilled fans ever since.
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