Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in the film Psycho. In Public Domain.
The World Was Already Frightening
We could blame the whole thing on Hollywood. That would, however, be too easy. Filmmakers certainly took the lead in inventing new ways to scare us, but defining a monster is much like defining beauty — it’s cultural. A monster is whatever the public believes it to be. A century ago, life in America was simpler on the surface, yet emotionally heavier. People looked outward at a vast, unpredictable world and wondered why wars, famines, and diseases happened — and especially why they happened to them. The world itself felt dangerous, and imagining fantastical monsters bringing more fear and death required very little effort.
A Nation Surrounded by Death
Early 20th‑century Americans were melancholy, uncertain about their future, and surrounded by reminders of mortality. The reasons were endless. Two devastating wars — the Civil War and World War I — had taken an unbearable number of young lives. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed nearly 100 million people worldwide, including at least a million Americans. One out of three babies died before reaching age three. Cities were filled with immigrants who knew they might never see their families again. Death was not an abstraction; it was a constant companion.
Spiritualism and the Birth of Film
The birth of the film industry arrived just as America’s fascination with spiritualism remained strong. Spiritualism was treated as science, philosophy, and religion all at once. Followers believed they could communicate with dead loved ones, and some sources suggest that as many as twenty‑five percent of American adults claimed to have experienced a ghostly encounter. Silent films such as The Cat and the Canary (1927) and One Glorious Day (1922) built their plots around spiritualism — haunted houses, lingering spirits, and the aching desire to say goodbye one more time. Spiritualism was rooted in grief, and filmmakers understood that its emotional lure was irresistible.
Motion pictures became an immediate success because Americans needed something more in their lives. They had family, church, and endless work, but they still longed for a brief escape from sadness. Movies offered exactly that.
Monsters Take Center Stage
Filmmakers experimented with genres, but supernatural stories packed theaters. Audiences loved ghosts, monsters, and tales of the dead returning to life. Dark houses and graveyards became familiar settings, but the dominant theme was always death — a subject Americans understood intimately. They were ripe for entertainment and easy prey for the influence of dark fantasy.
By the 1920s, filmmakers realized that monsters and ghosts were their safest bet. The average adult moviegoer had a fourth‑grade education or less, and complicated plots risked empty seats. The industry was fragile, so studios catered to the public mood.
In 1922, the first vampire film appeared: Nosferatu, based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It became one of the decade’s top‑grossing films. Universal Pictures quickly followed with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. These fantasies echoed the core tenet of spiritualism — the idea that the dead could cross back into the living world. Audiences were captivated by that possibility.
Soon Hollywood had a full monster lineup: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, and countless variations. These creatures thrived because audiences felt little control over their own lives. Real horrors — war, disease, premature death — were far more frightening than imaginary ones. Escaping into a world where monsters chased someone else was, in its own way, comforting.
A Postwar Shift in Fear
After World War II, Americans felt different. Victory overseas brought confidence, opportunity, and optimism. Education expanded, health care improved, and housing became more accessible. People expected more from life.
By the 1950s, television reshaped American culture. The once‑naive moviegoer was no longer afraid of Dracula or Frankenstein. World War II had hardened society, and filmmakers faced new challenges. Monsters would no longer be supernatural creatures but humans who behaved monstrously. Murderers, rapists, and sexual deviants became the new nightmare. Under this lens, filmmakers explored psychopaths, sociopaths, sadists, and other disturbing psychological profiles. Horror had entered a new reality.
The Birth of the Slasher
In 1960, Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho opened the door to the slasher genre that dominated the rest of the century. Audiences were fascinated by the psychology of killers and their twisted fetishes — voyeurism, necrophilia, delusion. Peeping Tom featured a murderer who filmed his victims’ terror. Psycho introduced Norman Bates, a voyeur who dressed in his dead mother’s clothes and lived inside a fantasy steeped in death.
The Real Monster Behind Norman Bates
Norman Bates was inspired by a real monster: Ed Gein, a shy Wisconsin farmer obsessed with his mother. After her death, Gein dug up corpses of women who resembled her and fashioned grotesque trophies from their remains. He admitted to murdering two women and likely killed his brother Henry. His crimes horrified the nation, and audiences immediately connected Norman Bates to Ed Gein.
Human monsters are far more unsettling than the supernatural creations of early cinema. The Richard Specks, Jeffrey Dahmers, and Ed Geins of the world are terrifying precisely because they are real. Yet we remain fascinated. Modern audiences look inward, identifying with characters and even exploring the killer’s emotions and motives. Horror films now ask viewers to distinguish the normal from the abnormal — and to confront the uncomfortable truth that the abnormal still sits on the table, waiting to be examined.
The Monster We Recognize
One writer argues that Norman Bates is “an extension of ourselves,” that every person carries the potential for good or evil. Do human‑monster films create new human monsters? Maybe. But Norman Bates himself might have the final word. Just before he murdered Marion Crane in the shower, he told her:
“We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?”
And perhaps that is the unsettling legacy of horror: not that monsters chase us, but that they remind us how thin the line is between the world we fear and the world we inhabit — and how easily that line can blur.
About the Author
