Silent Halloween

Horror films weren’t called horror films until the 1930s — when critics applied that label to Universal’s Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) — but the seeds of the genre were already sprouting in the silent era. In fact, these early scary films set the template for modern horror, from the expressionist shadows of German films such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920), to the theatrical grotesques played by Lon ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ Chaney in Hollywood. 

You’ll find silent adaptations not just of Dracula, but Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, folk legends and the stories of Edgar Allen Poe; vampires, golems, witches, demons and ghosts. What’s wonderful is that, because these movies aren’t self-consciously sticking to a set of genre conventions, they’re often enjoyably, terrifyingly strange.

With Halloween upon us tomorrow — and bearing in mind my Spectator colleagues’ spooky recommendations from previous years, here