History of Horror

Horror is a film genre which relies on effecting negative emotional reaction from its audience as it portrays to them their worst fears and nightmares, to leave them feeling nervous, scared and anticipating the worst. It all started from horror novels in english literature. However, as technology evolved, the creation of films started. Using peoples worst fears and nightmares throughout many centuries e.g.  ghosts, monsters, supernatural, witches, demons, zombies etc.

            Films were first created in the 1890s-1920s. This was the era when ‘silent shorts’ were created by George Méliés. They were black and white short clips which were played in silence, due to technology of sound not being advanced. Instead, they would have a live orchestra play while the clip was being showed. However, in the 1930s-1940s Universal Studios became more involved with the German creation of horror. The made a large impact of the public during this time, due to the Great Depression the country was going through. They were the first company to use simple techniques, such as camera angles, to improve their horror films. For example, using a low tilted camera angle to increase shadows etc. Universal also created unforgettable characters such as Frankenstein and Dracula, who's movie trailers are still the most popular to this day. They also created the ‘Mad Scientists’ which were mainly based on Hitlers theories as he came into power. 

                During the 1950s and 1960s there was a vast increase in technology which introduced sound to films. As well as introducing Mutants, Monsters and Aliens. The ideas of different horror stories increased rapidly as a result of the end of World War 2, including horror, gore and nuclear weapons. However, this did have a negative effective on film making as they had to be low budget movies, as the war cost both America and Great Britain a lot of money. The late 1960s also created Zombies as well as more realistic themes of horror e.g blood, gore, shock and unpredictable movements. All inspired by the war, which had a mixture of positive and negative effects on the audience as for ex army soldiers who suffered horrendous injuries physically and mentally, the films could be interpreted as a mockery.

              The low budget movie making meant that during the 19702/80s future films would only become more excellent and ensured that films would still be made in the future. As technology evolved uncontrollably, horror films became more twisted. For example, supernatural horror was formed as well as possessing of children, such as ‘Audrey Rose’. This type of horror had a huge impact on audience because it was becoming more realistic and dwelled on the unknown. Horrors that were focused on “Evil Children” became more popular as children are alive in reality, which makes films exceed their horror factor due to the realism. However, in the early 2000s torture was a predominantly common theme in horror, which a New York critic, David Edelstein, called ‘torture-porn’ referring to the overly graphic detail used in Hostel as well as other films such as Saw.The curse of Chucky (a ‘torture-porn’ film) led to giving two young children horrific idea which led to a toddlers disturbing murder, leading to films being banned from the UK. However, more recently films have be replenished back into the UK once certain clips have been extracted.