History of Horror

History Of Horror

Horror is a film genre aimed to scare or shock the audience with gruesome or creepy scenes, playing on the audiences primal fears. There are lots of different themes to horror films; Fantasy, supernatural, thriller or gruesome. Horror films often are based to play on the viewers nightmares, hidden fears and horror of unknown.

1890s-1920s

The first appearance of a horror film in the 1890’s was created by Georges Melies , The best known being Le Manoir du diable, Another leading horror film was The Cave of the Unholy One, while Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, which was thought lost for many years. In the 1920’s the horror scene started to come alive as films such as The hunchback of Notre Dame and The Monster were produced.

1930s-1940s

During the early period of the 1930s , the American movie studio Universal Pictures began a very successful Gothic horror film series. They produced films such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the old dark house, some of these films mixed sci-fi with Gothic horror, such as The invisible man. Other Film studios such as MGM followed Universals success by producing Freaks and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

1950s-1960s

As technology advanced throughout the years and a steam of productions featured humanity overcoming threats from ‘outside’; aliens and mutations to people , plans and insects. Movies such a Godzilla were produced, featuring the effects of nuclear radiation. During the late 1950s , Great Britain emerged into the production of horror films. The Hammer Films produced a rang of horror films such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula both followed by many sequels. Ghosts and monsters still remained a main genre for horror but many films used the supernatural theme such as The Innocents or The Haunting.

1970s-1980s

Throughout the 1970s the theme of Evil children and reincarnation became popular subjects , films such as Audrey Rose and Alice, Sweet Alice are example of this theme . The ideas of the 1060s began to influence horror films as The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were produced. Slasher films also became quite popular when John Carpenter created Halloween and Sean Cunningham mad Friday the 13^th, these films became very violent  while also becoming increasingly successful. Killer animal movies eased into the film scene with Jaws and orca.

1900s

As the first appearance of Slasher Films arose in the 1970s, the trend continued throughout the 90s as sequels for Halloween and Child play ere produced, which met great success. However as the 90s progressed, Slasher Films were produces in their hundreds and eventually wore itself out as nonstop gore and blood films were produced. This event saw a rise in Science-Fiction and Fantasy Horror Films such as The Haunting, Deep Rising and Anaconda. Comic Horror Films also made it onto the scene as films like Scream and I know what you did last summer were produced. The 90’s saw a dramatic change in horror films that effected the 2000s.

2000s

The start of this period of time saw a rise of lots of new films which would smash the box office such as Final Destination and The Jeepers Creepers series. Video game adaptation movies also became popular such as Doom and Silent Hill. The zombie genre saw a huge rise after producing I Am Legend, Zombieland and 28 Days Later , while a large trend of extreme, graphic violence movies came into the light , including Audition and Wrong turn.

Overall , throughout the year the Horror movie genre changed a serious amount as different styles became popular and others decreased in popularity. This saw genres such as Zombie, Slasher, Sci-fi and Fantasy, which made Horror Films are what they are today!