Horror at the Oscars (Part One)

 

Oscar-Worthy Horror: Every Single Horror Film to be Nominated for (& Win) Academy Awards

 

Recently, I explored every Best Picture winner from 1930 all the way up to last year to find the best decade for Best Picture winners. In my exploration, I found only two notable examples of nominees in the genre of horror, and only one of them ended up winning. It got me thinking, though: just how many horror movies have been nominated for awards by the Academy, anyway? I’m looking at not only Best Picture here, but any and all categories, with acting and special effects being two of the most noteworthy.

There’s another reason I’m gathering up all the examples of horror that did not get the typical cold shoulder from the Academy. One of the nominees in multiple major categories this year is The Substance, and as a horror movie fan, I cannot think of a more insane, disgusting, shocking, sickening movie to be recognized as among the year’s best by an organization that normally wouldn’t give a movie of this nature the time of day. It’s not that I disagree with the nominations, but The Substance is certainly an anomaly, and a look back in time will bring greater clarity as to why.

I discovered many surprises in my research (including films I never even knew were nominated!) but decided to leave out the majority of psychological thrillers, unless they have particular ties to horror fandom/history, but I tried to include as many relevant special achievement awards as I could, too. To my tremendous surprise, there were way, way more award-nominated movies to cover, collectively, than I had expected—so many, in fact, I have to split this into multiple parts. There are a few ways I could come at this. I could split it in half, starting with just nominations and then look at actual winners, but unfortunately, the second half would be pretty short. I could go through each major category and look at the technical noms/wins collectively, but then I’d be repeating myself a bunch, so I think the best way is to just go chronologically and examine the full history of horror at the Oscars!

 

Part One: The B&W Early Years (1930s-1950s)

 

The first horror movie to ever be nominated for any kind of Academy Award was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), and it got more than one nomination. Most surprising is not that a film based on the classic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson about a man whose experiments bring out his evil, animalistic side had already been made before (this one received a Best Adaptation nomination), nor that it received multiple nominations (for Cinematography, as well), but it had been remade multiple times before this award-winning version. It won for Best Actor—except Frederic March actually co-won with Wallace Beery for the sports drama The Champ, so this first horror winner had to share the victory. I think it’s fitting that acting was the first category to be recognized in this case, given Jekyll and Hyde are two sides of the same coin, which March did a great job of portraying under some effective makeup effects. Though I wouldn’t say it’s the best performance in any horror film from the era, this win epitomizes some of the greatest horror characters/actors of the 1930s and 1940s, like Karloff, Lugosi, and Chaney/Chaney Jr.

After March’s history-making shared victory, there were some other notable nominations throughout the 30’s and 40’s, but not many wins. The technical awards are what make up most of the noms throughout this time, and it makes sense, given so many genre pictures utilized innovate visual effects. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) didn’t get recognized for the now-iconic design of both the original Frankenstein’s monster and the Bride herself, but it did get a Best Sound Recording nod. One Million B.C. (1940) was considered for Best Original Score, as well as Photographic & Sound Effects. Dr. Cyclops (1940) also got an effects nomination, but the series of films to garner the most awards consideration in this category was The Invisible Man franchise from Universal Studios. The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), and Invisible Agent (1942) were all nominated for Best Effects, but all of them lost.

So, the original Academy Award-winning horror movie was technically a remake, and then it was remade again—and nominated again! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) was included for Best Scoring, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Editing. A couple other films were nominated throughout the 1940s—King of the Zombies (1941) for Best Music and The Climax (1944) for Best Art Direction in Colour—but two others actually won something. Phantom of the Opera (1943), like Jekyll & Hyde, was also based on a book, and had been famously adapted in the 1920s, with Lon Chaney in the lead role, but it had come out before the Oscars even existed. This remake was nominated for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture and Best Sound Recording, and won for both Best Art Direction in Colour and Best Colour Cinematography.

On a technical level, Phantom of the Opera was certainly deserving for its time, and remarkably, it is the only Universal horror film to ever win any statues. The other 40’s winner was The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Angela Lansbury, Best Black-and-White Art Direction, and Black-and-White Cinematography. It won for Best Cinematography, and maintains the trend of horror films based on famous literary works winning awards.

I think the last two awards to wrap up this first part are a clear indicator of what the Academy has thought of genre filmmaking since the very beginning. When Worlds Collide (1951) is decidedly more science-fiction than horror, but it’s perfectly in line with themes that would come to define this decade: preying upon atomic scares and otherworldly invaders taking over the planet. This film received the Honorary Award for Best Special Effects, and in the years to come, the Academy would create more specific technical award categories; “Best Visual Effects” and “Best Makeup” as we now know them didn’t exist back then. Finally, at the 25^th Academy Awards, an honorary Oscar was awarded to Merian C. Cooper, "for his many innovations and contributions to the art of motion pictures." Merian C. Cooper is the mastermind behind the film King Kong (1933), and no, I didn’t forget to include it earlier, because it was never even nominated for a single thing…

That’s right: King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World, the pinnacle of monster movies, one of the most innovative and technically impressive films ever made, was never even considered for an Oscar. It just goes to show that true greatness is often overlooked initially because it’s too much to comprehend, but I think another big factor in this case could be the Academy was just such a new organization that they were much more focused on traditional elements of motion pictures. I’m not going to really give them much of a break on this one, though. Movies would not be what they are today without filmmakers like Merian C. Cooper making such audacious and ferociously entertaining films as King Kong, and while I’m glad he was eventually given one of those pity trophies many years later, ignoring one of the greatest films ever upon release was one of the first big mistakes the Oscars ever made.