Today on TCM, one of the films on the lineup is Mad Love, directed and photographed by acclaimed cinematographer Karl Freund. Well, actually, Chester Lyons and Gregg Toland photographed it under Freund’s supervision. The film has an amazing visual quality to it and like many of the films photographed by Tolland and Freund, is filled with shadows and flickering light. That’s no surprise and not because Tolland and Freund were such great talents, although obviously that’s a part of it, but because the horror genre itself has produced some of the best cinematography in the history of cinema. Think of the most visually famous movies of the twenties and it’s a sure bet The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu will pop into your head almost immediately. Oddly, though, if you look at the Oscar winners for Best Cinematography, you’ll have a hard time finding a horror movie anywhere at the winner’s table.
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Gregg Tolland and Karl Freund both went on to win Academy Awards, but not for horror. In fact, if you want to know how many horror movies have won the Oscar for cinematography, you’ll need only one beast with five fingers to count them. There’s one: Phantom of the Opera, the 1943 version. That’s it. Oh, there have been a couple of fantasy (Pan’s Labyrinth) and sci-fi (Avatar), but for horror, just that one. Keep in mind that for a little over 25 years, the Oscars handed out two Oscars for cinematography each year, one for color and one for black and white, and they still only managed to give one to a horror movie! It’s a shame because some of the best looking movies I have ever seen have been horror movies. My favorites, as in “best looking,” follow. For the sake of brevity, I have stopped at the end of the seventies and, even within those limitations, restricted myself to only a relative handful of carefully selected titles, twenty, to be specific. In other words, this is by no means an all inclusive list or even the absolute best so, please, no “I can’t believe you left off ____.” I didn’t, it’s for you to add. In fact, feel free to add hundreds more.
Frankenstein, 1931, Director of Photography (DP), Arthur Edeson. Edeson also did Mutiny on the Bounty, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. Despite how great, and how great looking, those three movies are, Edeson never photographed a movie better than he did with Frankenstein. Far more than Dracula in the same year, Frankenstein set the look for gothic horror for decades to come.
The Ghoul, 1933, DP, Gunther Krampf. Krampf brings the techniques he’d learned working with Murnau and Wiene to Britain.
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Cat People, 1942, DP, Nicholas Musuraca. The pool scene is justly celebrated, for both what you see and don’t see, but what about that walk along the road? All shadow, footsteps, and and an unseen presence following close behind. And the pet shop, the restaurant, the tracking shot back to the cage. Cinematography that shows you everything by showing you almost nothing.
The Uninvited, 1944 DP, Charles Lang. It holds its greatest delights for the staircase. Whether it’s Ray Milland looking over the railing wondering what that noise is, at the beginning, or staring up at that beautifully done ghostly figure at the end and telling it where to go, this film defined how ghost stories looked and felt.
Isle of the Dead, 1945, DP, Jack MacKenzie. The remote island, shrouded in fog, makes for one of the most hauntingly shot horror movies of the decade.
The Thing from Another World, 1951, DP, Russell Harlan. Claustrophobia, done right. It ain’t easy shooting in tight spaces but Harlan doesn’t miss a step and showed everyone that followed, straight up through Alien, how to make it work.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956, DP, Ellsworth Fredericks. Strong foreground played against strong background, long before Brian De Palma discovered the split diopter.
Curse of Frankenstein, 1957, DP, Jack Asher. This is it. This is where the modern, technicolor horror look really begins. Jack Asher gave Hammer its look.
Black Sunday, 1960, DP, Mario Bava, Ubaldo Terzano. Bava and camera operator Terzano brought the crypt to life in a way Universal’s Dracula could only dream of. The torches in the woods, the witch burning at the stake, and that final kiss, completely surrounded by blackness. Simply gorgeous.
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City of the Dead, 1960, DP, Desmond Dickinson. Dickinson started in the silents and this movie could be silent if need be. There is barely a hint of daylight in the entire film. Everything is fog, night, and shadows. And interiors. And tunnels leading to sacrificial altars. And all of it shot perfectly.
Psycho, 1960, DP, John L. Russell. Russell made history by bringing his utilitarian television techniques to the cinema. Psycho was filmed in an utterly ordinary manner, lots of closeups and center framing. And then Russell puts his camera behind the invisible back wall of the shower, looking out, as a figure enters the bathroom and slowly approaches. Suddenly, the ordinary becomes terrifying.
The Pit and the Pendulum, 1961, DP, Floyd Crosby. Widescreen, stagy horror. Every exterior actually an interior set. The splendor of Corman.
The Innocents, 1961, DP, Freddie Francis. Francis has to be on this list somewhere and this is the one I’m choosing. As beautifully shot a film as there ever will be.
Kwaidan, 1964, DP, Yoshio Miyajima. Take what I just said about The Innocents and it applies here as well. A horror film that one could take apart, still by still, and produce one of the most gorgeous picture books ever produced.
Night of the Living Dead, 1968, DP, George Romero. Horror told with the look of a hand held camera bought in a thrift store. No, that’s not a put down.
The Exorcist, 1973, DP, Owen Roizman. This movie took the urban look of the seventies “New American Cinema” and transplanted it to horror. No gothic mansions, no crypts. Hospitals, and dorm rooms, and Georgetown town homes. And a bedroom with a little girl. Roizman’s lighting made it look like it may as well be happening in your home. Horror that wasn’t disconnected.
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Don’t Look Now, 1973, DP, Anthony B. Richmond. Maybe I’m just a sucker for this movie (I am, it’s a personal favorite) but dampness has never been more effective. Everything in the movie is covered in, and surrounded by, water. There’s a heavy mist that seems to even make it indoors where Donald Sutherland restores crumbling architecture. The whole idea of water, so integral to the psychological underpinnings of the movie, has never been more effectively integrated into a story by a cinematographer.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974, DP, Daniel Pearl. The low budget movie that defined how low budget movies viewed horror: grimy, dirty, filthy, with closeups on the eyes.
Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1977, DP, William Fraker. This movie wasn’t well received at all when it was released. That’s a shame because, damn, does this movie look good! Fraker does hallucination like nobody’s business.
Halloween, 1978, DP, Dean Cundy. As we close out this list I can’t leave off the movie whose visual design all but supplied a blueprint to almost all slasher horror that followed. The POV shots alone were a masterstroke.
From the top of the post, you already know that only one horror film ever won the Cinematography Oscar but surely all twenty of these were nominated, right? Ahahahahaa! Good one. Three were: The Uninvited, Psycho, and The Exorcist. That’s it. Horror, the genre responsible for some of the best cinematography in the history of cinema, has almost never been honored for it. Oh well. The ultimate honor is longevity and these movies, and many more, made their mark and will continue to be revered for their look long after most nominees and winners of that cinematography Oscar have been forgotten.