#gore experts please chip in if I'm off-base here. I'm just an armchair fan

[fullcolorfright]

Reveal any secrets you may know about the history of gore in old horror movies?

I’m not an expert but I’ll give you what I’ve got!

(^from the Wikipedia article on splatter films)

Blood Feast (1963) is generally considered to be the first splatter film, due to both the graphic onscreen gore in its kill scenes and the high frequency which these occur through the movie (rather than just having one shocking scene, which would be more common). Blood Feast was inspired by the lack of onscreen gore in blockbuster horror at the time (specifically in Psycho).

Still, there was a variety of pre-Blood Feast horror that didn’t mind flouting the censors (especially in mad scientist films- in the pre-slasher era, surgical gore was more common). When Hammer studios received an X rating for a 1955 film of theirs, they changed the name to “The Quatermass Xperiment” to capitalize on the rating. Two years later, critics were outraged by the blood in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), with studio head James Carreras quoted as saying, “blood doesn’t look like anything unless it’s good and red.” Eyes Without a Face (1960) has an on-screen surgery scene that still shocks, despite concerns of censorship during production. And then there’s the 50s low-budget drive-in type films, which capitalized on mutilation and sometimes showed its effects (I’m thinking of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) specifically).

The Hays Code’s enforcement from the mid-30s to the 60s definitely put a damper on gore in American films- though its focus was more on nudity, “brutal killings should not be presented in detail” was one of its points.

In any case, most pre-code films tended to use a tell-not-show method for gore; Dr. X (1932), for instance, mentions cannibalism and serial killing as the driving forces of its plot, but artfully hides any victims from the camera. On-screen gore was possible (for example, in 1936’s short film The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar) but uncommon.

If we go back far enough, the influence of the French Grand Guignol theater becomes apparent in the type of onscreen gore presented. It’s very pulpy and theatrical- featuring mad doctors, mysterious slayings, and executions- and often in the service of non-horror genre films (These shots are from Good Night, Nurse! (1918) (comedy), Les Vampires Episode 1: The Severed Head (1915) (crime), and The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) (history)).

Basically- gore in film has always been around, it just took until the 60s to really become accepted!