Thursday, 19 September 2013

The History of Horror

1890's - 1920's


The first horror genre films were beginning to be made around this time. The three minute long french film by Georges Méliès, 'Le Manoir du diable' (The Haunted Castle) is known to be the first ever horror and vampire film made. The film contains many elements similar to a pantomime along with similar elements which were intended to amuse people rather than frighten them.


Shortly after the first 'monster', Quasimodo was shown on screen,  and the first film with this character in was released in 1906, however three more films featuring this monster followed in 1909, 1910 and 1911.



German Expressionist film makers strongly influenced the horror genre. This in effect sprouted the release of the film 'Nosferate' made in 1922. In effect this was an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula. It took time for people to connect with this genre, however by 1923 Hollywood had recognized the genre, creating versions of 'The Monster' in 1925 and 'London After Midnight' in 1927.

1930's - 1940's

Universal studios had caught onto the new genre in the early 1930's and began to make there own horror films like Frankenstein, The Mummy and Dracula. Universals horror film making continued into the 1940's when they produced The Wolf Man in 1942, and this film was seen as the most influential werewolf film, however it was not the first to be released. Around this time actors like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi began to be recognized as well know for appearing in horror genre films.


1950's - 1960's

Two sub-genres of horror were allowed to become more apparent in this time period due to advances in technology, these were the horror-of-Armageddon and the horror-of-the-demonic films. Great Britain began producing horror films during the late 1950's, where actors like Alfred Hitchcock created the first slasher film called 'Psycho' in the 1960's. 'Night of The Living Dead' was another highly influential horror film of the late 1960's and managed to make $30 million internationally.


1970's - 1990's

Paranormal horror films began a rise in popularity with the public around this time. In 1973 the Exorcist was released and was followed by many films in which the Devil represented the antagonist/supernatural evil, further more factors such as reincarnation became popular followed by evil children which also became a popular theme during this time. 



The Omen in 1976 was also incredibly popular. Through the 1980’s more violent and slasher horror movies were made including Friday the 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street.

The slasher theme was carried through the first half of the 1990’s with sequels being made for A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Child’s Play and Halloween. Candy man and The Dark Half became part of a mini-movement described as meta fictional horror films. These types of films mixed fictional horror with real life horror, however horror took a down turn during this time due the reels and reels of slasher movies that were being made in the 1980's. It was found that the teen audience who enjoyed these movies so much had now grown up and moved on and to reconnect with this audience horror became more ironic and to some extent even parodic in the mid 1990's. The Scream movies began being released in 1996.


2000 - 2013


 Psychological horror became popular in the early 2000's with the likes of The Ring in 2002 and The Grudge in 2004 being released. The most popular sub-genre of the 2000's however was by far, zombie themed films, where the likes of 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead both did extremely well at the box office. A return to graphic violence came around in 2000's with the Saw franchise being the most famous. Updated remakes of older horror films have also proven worthy with today’s horror audience with Friday the 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street remakes doing well.








No comments:

Post a Comment