Contrapuntal Aurality: Exceptional Sound in Hollywood Monster Horror Films during the Early Sound Era

Abstract

ABSTRACT:At the dawn of the early sound-film era, Eisenstein worried about the prospect of sound merely duplicating images, and such concern was realized during the early years of the talkies. One exception, however, was the use of disembodied sound in Hollywood monster horror films. This aspect of early classical horror cinema has been curiously neglected or understated by critics, including Eisenstein himself. The aim of this article is to foster a renewed appreciation of this aural technique by showing that contrapuntal use of off-screen sound was present in key scenes of essentially all Hollywood monster horror films in the early 1930s.