The 15 Most Underrated Horror Films of the 1920s
Horror has been a part of the human storytelling psyche for as long as humans have told stories, but the modern genre as we know it arrived on the back of World War One. The first stirrings of the modern horror genre showed up during the late 1800s, but it was post-WWI that a true existential reckoning forced a new widespread fascination with the macabre. With millions, millions of human beings dead, the global community sought new forms of self-expression to make sense of the real-world horror they faced. This coincided with the explosion of popularity in the new entertainment medium of film, and created an epic age of horror fiction that inspected humanity’s greatest fears and nightmares.
The 1920s were, by and large, still the era of silent films (though “talkies” were pushing in by the end of the decade in a massive way). Silent horror films, therefore, aren’t going to elicit quite the same movie-going experience that you’re used to if you enjoy modern horror and thriller experiences.
In a sense, these silent films are more participatory: they require you to focus on them and allow yourself to be immersed. That said, if you sink into them, they can be just as twisted and surprising as anything made today, and the early techniques found in these films can still startle and unsettle in surprising ways.
They are also fascinating from a historical standpoint. As we face our own modern horrors, with mass death from plague and climate change, it can help to look at how our societies a few generations back coped with similar crisis and pain. Horror is more than “shock value,” after all: horror is a way of understanding who we really are, and proving the deepest problems of the world around us at the same time.
The Netflix age
Once upon a time, Netflix’s DVD library hosted well over 100,000 titles and sent out roughly 12 million DVDs per week. Now, with the advent of easy-to-use streaming services, the amount of content viewers have available has shrunk to the low thousands. Look up any list of “films to watch” and you’ll find a tiny selection of movies, usually curated by people all reading the same lists and commenting on the exact same hot new show or film.
But, is that all there is? With over a hundred years of incredible filmmaking on the planet, isn’t there something missed when we only pay attention to the latest and greatest films? This series is dedicated to answering that question and to exploring a small handful of the unsung films from decades past. I’ll examine each decade in turn, all the way back to the earliest days of film, and I’ll be exploring every genre of film there is! From science fiction, to drama, to romance, to comedy—I’m going to cover the entirety of film history for you, bringing out the golden nuggets for you to enjoy.
As always, with these articles, I love hearing your feedback in the comments section, or on Twitter @indubitablyodin. Let me know what your favorite films of the decade were, which ones you think I should have included, and which you hope I’ll mention in one of my next decades!