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On the “closer to straight science fiction” front comes this year’s monumental adaptation of H.G. Many different styles of special effects would be used to bring such creatures to life over the course of the next decade, but few retain the charm of Harryhausen’s intricately detailed models and miniatures. This fascination with nuclear weaponry as an instigating factor or scapegoat would be used to endless length in the creature feature revival of the 1950s, as giant reptiles or insects took on the physical role of embodying the existential fear of an epoch. Audiences had been primed for the tale by the 1952 theatrical re-release of King Kong, with special effects from Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien, but The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is notable for the way its rampaging monster, a fictional “ Rhedosaurus” dinosaur, is explicitly stated to have been released from polar ice via atom bomb testing.
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In particular, the “giant atomic monster” movie gets its start here in the form of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, featuring the unleashed stop-motion animation talents of Ray Harryhausen. Via both its fusion with science fiction, and the evolution of classical horror into the Technicolor era-simultaneously an era of brand new gimmicks and styles of presentation-the genre managed to introduce itself to a new generation of filmgoers.ġ953 proves to be a highly influential year for a number of sub-genres.
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You can see the full list in the master document, which will collect each year’s individual film entry as it is posted.įinally, after nearly a six-year gap since 1947, we have a year where the horror genre feels like it’s been fully reanimated.
Earning an impressive (by 1953 standards) $4.3 million at the box office, the movie sparked an explosion of similar 3-D thrillers, including The Mad Magician (1954), also starring Price.This post is part of Paste’s Century of Terror project, a countdown of the 100 best horror films of the last 100 years, culminating on Halloween. It also jump-started the career of Charles Buchinsky, who played the supporting role of Jarrod’s mute servant he would go on to achieve international fame as Charles Bronson, star of innumerable action movies. The House of Wax launched Price on his long and successful career as a star of horror movies.
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The 3-D process proved especially effective during the film’s climactic chase scene, in which the cloaked killer pursues Kirk’s character through a series of gas-lit streets and alleyways, with the viewer following along behind them. The lenses were specially tinted so that the viewer would see the right- and left-eye images only with the eyes for which they were intended. Moviegoers had to view The House of Wax through special stereoscopic glasses to see its full 3-D effect. Images from the two cameras were then projected simultaneously onto the screen.
The 3-D filming process involved using two cameras, or a single twin-lensed camera, to represent both the right and the left eye of the human viewer. The film’s heroine, played by Phyllis Kirk, eventually discovers that Jarrod himself is the killer, and that the museum’s “sculptures” are all the wax-covered bodies of his victims. Jarrod survives the fire and later opens his own wax museum, featuring an exhibit immortalizing crimes past and present, including the murder of his ex-partner by a mysterious disfigured killer. The film told the story of Henry Jarrod (Price), a sculptor who goes insane after his partner burns their wax museum to the ground in order to collect the insurance payout. Released by Warner Brothers, it was the first movie from a major motion-picture studio to be shot using the three-dimensional, or stereoscopic, film process and one of the first horror films to be shot in color.ĭirected by Andre De Toth, The House of Wax was a remake of 1933’s Mystery in the Wax Museum. On April 10, 1953, the horror film The House of Wax, starring Vincent Price, opens at New York’s Paramount Theater.
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