ABSTRACT
Film's dual capacity for both sensational effects and interiority had implications for representations of evil. In the first half of the twentieth century, evil in film could be monstrous, psychological, or both. This chapter considers representations of evil in film, both high and low, that range from the sensational to the psychological. In early twentieth-century film there emerges two basic expressions of evil: evil portrayed as coming from without – the spectacle of otherworldly monstrosity – and evil that comes from within, hidden in the human psyche. Perhaps the most famous evil character in early twentieth-century film is the vampire. Gothic literature provided a host of material for early film. The monsters and monstrosity in works like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula embodied nineteenth-century anxieties around science and capitalism. Fritz Lang's M, released in 1931, presents a thoroughly human evil thriving in the serial killer Hans Beckert.
