Mest 2

The History of Horror

Horror movies are films which bring out the emotions of fear, panic and terror from the viewing audience. Plots of horror films regularly include the ideas of death, supernatural beings and mental illness. The Majority of Horror films also include a main villain.

Early horror movies were mostly based on classic literature of the Gothic/Horror genre, these include: Dracula, Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera. The first ever depictions of supernatural events appeared in silent short films by the French film maker Georges Méliès (famous for his ground breaking use of special effects)

In the early 20^th century more developments took place for the horror genre for example, the first monster was introduced in a full-length horror film ‘Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame’ based on the 1831 novel by Victor Hugo. Many of the first horror films were made by German film makers these were called ‘Expressionist films’ which would later influence Hollywood films.

American Film makers began to make horror films more popular with successful gothic feature films such as Dracula and James Whale’s Invisible Man. These films we’re created to thrill but also included serious elements.

With advances in technology taking place during the 1950s, horror films moved away from the Gothic trend and started to fall into three sub-genres: the horror of personality, the horror of Armageddon and the horror of the demonic. From the 1950s to the 1960s films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’(1963) which depicted nature gone mad began to emerge. Ghosts and Monsters still remained popular, these films expressed horror of the demonic.

From the 1970s occultist films began to surface (occult basically means knowledge of the unknown, involving the characteristics of magic witchcraft or supernatural occurrence). An example of a film which follows this genre is ‘The Exorcist’ (1973) by William Friedkin in which the devil is represented as supernatural evil often by impregnating women and possessing children. ‘Evil Children’ and Reincarnation then became popular subjects which were then featured in films such as ‘The Omen’ (1976) were an man realises his five year old adopted son is the Antichrist. Satan then became the villain in many horror films there after.

The 1990s saw the popularity that horror films had decrease. This was due to the non-stop slasher films from the 1980s and the younger audiences has grown up. Horror had to find a new way to recapture its reputation. This saw the introduction of ironic and sometimes parodic films such as Wes Cravens ‘Scream’ (1996) were teenagers were aware of the history and conventions of horror. Other films such as I know what you did last summer and Urban legend helped to regain the popularity of slasher films.

The 21^st saw the return of the Zombie theme in Horror movies films such as: Resident evil (2000) [based on the game after which 3 sequels followed], the British film ‘28 Days Later’, re-make of Dawn of the dead then made into a comedy ‘Shaun of the dead’. Re-makes became common in the 2000s such as 2003s ‘Texas chainsaw massacre’ and ‘Halloween’.