Horror at the Oscars (Part Two)

 

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

Part Two: The Decades of Shameful Snubs (1950s-1970s)

 

Only four genre films in the 1950s were nominated for awards, and of those films, only two were awarded. The War of the Worlds (1953) received an honorary award for special effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Recording and Best Editing, as well. Them! (1954), one of the signature 50’s monster movies, was only nominated for Best Special Effects, and didn’t win. Although primarily considered a science fiction film, Forbidden Planet (1956) stands out as being something of a proto-sci-fi-horror-thriller, and it was nominated for Best Special Effects, but lost to The Ten Commandments.

Moving into the 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock, who had been nominated for Best Director four times and lost every time, came back swinging with another thriller, but this one was the first that could honestly be categorized as a horror movie. An earlier film, Rear Window, infused mystery with the suspense, and had a pretty stressful climax. The one he made after, Vertigo, was even more intense, though that film was famously snubbed at the Oscars, only getting a couple technical nominations. Psycho (1960) got Hitchcock a nom for Best Director again, and he lost, yet again, this time to Billy Wilder for The Apartment. Janet Leigh was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and it got two more technical nods, for Art Direction and Cinematography. His next film, The Birds (1963), was a very different kind of horror film, notable for being the first natural horror film to get an Oscar nomination. It competed for Best Special Effects, but lost to Cleopatra. In 1968, the Master of Suspense was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award; he famously said in his acceptance speech, and I'll quote the whole thing: “Thank you... very much indeed” and that was it! I don’t blame him for those bitter feelings toward the Academy. Though his body of work is characterized primarily for why he earned that moniker, he made two very influential and significant contributions to the horror genre during this decade.

The year before Hitchcock was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, Robert Wise received the same one. This dude got his start in horror with The Curse of the Cat People and The Body Snatcher, but diversified into all manner of genres and themes, from the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still to remarkable musicals like West Side Story and The Sound of Music. But, it was his work on The Haunting (1963) that left an indelible impression on horror fans. Based on the book by Shirley Jackson, it is still as creepy and psychologically terrorizing as anything Hitchcock made. On the topic of unlikely connections to horror, Audry Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress for her role as a blind victim in Wait Until Dark (1967). The last notable film to be nominated in the 60’s also ended up being a winner. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) received a nominated for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Roman Polanski wrote his screenplay based on the novel by Ira Levin, and with it being his first American film, he made a very strictly faithful script, but the category Rosemary’s Baby ended up winning in was Best Supporting Actress, for Ruth Gordon. “Hail Satan!”

Though there were a couple important wins in the 60’s, it was still marked by snubs, and it got even worse in the 70’s, with easily the biggest snub of all.  I’ll start with the 44^th Academy Awards and its collection of honourable mentions for horror-adjacent films. A Clockwork Orange, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and The Andromeda Strain all got nominated for varying awards, and Clockwork even got Best Picture & Best Director noms for Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick hit all the major genres throughout his career, and The Shining, his one pure horror film, was completely snubbed by the Academy when it came out a decade later. A Clockwork Orange is incredibly disturbing, but like some of Hitchcock’s work, not precisely in the horror genre. Andromeda Strain, like Forbidden Planet, is kind of a sci-fi-thriller, and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is an ahistorical adventure flick, but it has some scary dinosaurs and other monstrous creatures.

The 70’s was the full-on snub fest. There are a couple early examples of movies I don’t think are great enough for losing to be that hurtful. Ben (1972), the sequel to Willard, was nominated for Best Original Song—yes, that Michael Jackson song of the same name was nominated for an Oscar, because of this movie, and by default made this the second killer animal film to be acknowledged by the Academy. Deliverance (1972) was nominated for Best Picture & Director (John Boorman), as well as Best Editing. it is more an action-thriller on the whole, but the “squeal like a pig” scene is pure horror, especially because, as Quentin Tarantino said in his book Cinema Speculation, audiences did not expect it.

I’ll get to the one you know I’m building up to in a minute, but let me get some other snubs out of the way first. There was Carrie (1976), which got both a Best Actress nomination for Sissy Spacek and Best Supporting Actress nomination for Piper Laurie. To date, it’s one of only a handful of Stephen King adaptations to be considered for any awards. Continuing with acting, Marathon Man (1976) got a Best Supporting Actor nod for Laurence Olivier. Though this film is identified as a thriller, it is also identified as being very scary, with the dental torture sequence in particular highlighted as one of the scariest parts. 

The rest of the nominations that didn’t materialize into wins were all technical categories—The Amityville Horror (1979) for Best Original Score, The Swarm (1978) for Best Costume Design (amazing considering the film got an overwhelmingly negative response), and the remake of King Kong (1976), for Best Sound and Cinematography. Though Kong ’76 lost in both those categories, it did win a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects, shared with the team behind Logan’s Run. It’s crazy to me that the original had no awards attention, but this utterly inferior remake did. The practical effects and Kong suit worn by Rick Baker are impressive in their own way, but still not nearly as groundbreaking as the original’s special effects techniques. 

At the 47^th Awards, an Academy Honorary Award was given to Howard Hawks, who had a long and storied career, but gets mentioned here because he was the producer of one of the most important horror movies of the 1950s: The Thing from Another World. There are a few other 70’s winners to talk about, too, but now we’re also getting to the real snubbing—the ones that really hurt. Alien (1979) came out at the end of a decade of boundary-pushing, genre-twisting terror, to give us the ultimate star beast in what has often been described as a haunted house in space. The movie holds up as truly suspenseful, revolting, and gripping to this day, and Sigourney Weaver’s breakout performance as Ellen Ripley is what ended up turning it into a huge franchise. Alien didn’t get considered for Best Director for Ridley Scott, or Best Actress for Weaver, or Best Picture, but it did get nominated for Best Art Direction, and won Best Visual Effects.

An even bigger winner, and inarguably bigger deal of a film, was Jaws (1975). Unlike Alien’s clear combination of science-fiction and horror, Jaws is often mislabelled as solely a “thriller,” but what it really is it is the ultimate killer animal horror film, in addition to being a thriller/adventure film. This movie put Steven Spielberg on the map, it made an entire generation afraid to go in the water, and it is one of the great classics of 1970s cinema. It won for Best Sound, Best Editing, and most important of all, Best Original Score, for John Williams—only his second win in what ended up being a long and award-filled career. The Jaws theme is one of the most iconic pieces of music from any movie, and this win is only a little overshadowed by the fact that it was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. It’s a tough comparison, but I know which movie I would’ve voted for, and probably what movie most people think of first nowadays. But, that’s not how the Academy Awards works, is it?

Jaws is still considered one of the scariest movies of all time, but the actual scariest movie of all time, according to many, even outclasses Jaws for its reputation of being more upsetting, gutting, and traumatic. The Exorcist (1973) was nominated for all major awards, because despite scarring so many who saw it (and even sending some to therapy afterwards), it stood out as an exceptional piece of filmmaking. Director William Friedkin had won two years earlier for The French Connection, and this was even more groundbreaking. Despite ten nominations, all it walked away with was Best Sound & Best Adapted Screenplay—the latter of which is, admittedly, very significant, as author William Peter Blatty adapted his own novel for Friedkin to direct, and having read the book, he did an award-worthy job. Not nearly as many people think back on the film that won instead, The Sting, as being anywhere close to the significance of The Exorcist now, but horror would have its day at the Oscars yet.  

 

Part One: