History of the Horror genre.

The first horror movie, only about two minutes long, was made by the French filmmaker Georges Melies, titled The Devil's Castle/The Haunted Castle containing familiar elements of later horror and vampire films. They included bats, castles etc. The first ever horror movies all contained the typical monster convention e.g. ‘The Vampire (1913). The first genuine vampire picture was also produced by a European filmmaker director F. W. Murnau's feature-length Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922) was an unauthorized film adaptation of Stoker's Dracula with Max Schreck as the screen's first vampire , a mysterious aristocrat named Count Graf Orlok living in the late 1830s in the German town of Bremen. Because of copyright problems, the vampire was named Nosferatu rather than Dracula, and the action was moved from Transylvania to Bremen.’

By the 1940s, American horror movies were the hit. The use of monsters were still the main convention of the movies e.g. The wolf man and cat people. Cat people become one of the first to use the convention of suggestion in the genre, a technique which is widely used and is very effective to this day. In most of these movies we see the use of the male gaze. The Woman is usually viewed as an object, where in cat people, we see the woman as the villain. The use of the villain being interpreted as a feline connotes an animalistic vision, quite seductive and beautiful. Where the use of the villain in wold man is strong and brave, also connoted as brutal where a feline is wise. (binary opposites.)

In the 1950s the main horror movie was called ‘The blob’. These were much more developed movies e.g. Frankenstein. The blob carried on the classical convention of a monster villain who was unusual and unpredictable. They was very successful movies at the era, mostly aimed at teenagers.

In the 1960s to 70’s, possibly one of the main genres of the era Is horror, and one of the most popular horror movies was ‘psycho’ which is known as one of the greatest slasher sub-genres. The villain changes rapidly from being solely monster based to murderers. The use of psycho made the audience believe if they committed any wrong doings the may have to deal with the consequences by being hunted down. The hypothermic needle theory could be adapted to this.

Movies like ‘the Amityville horror’ was published in the late 70s, these movies were apparently based on true events with the genre of paranormal horror. These were some of the first paranormal horrors of the era. It related to the audiences as these are actual events which occurred possibly in some peoples areas which produces fear for the audience.

The 80s was a big time for horror as some of the most influential horrors was produced. For example great movies like ‘Nightmare on elm street’. This is because this was the era where great technology was introduced in movie techniques and were much more realistic. The uses of weapons were also mostly household objects, e.g. knifes, chainsaws etc. These movies were extremely gory and full of blood and guts. This made the audience fear their everyday routines e.g. sleeping, compared to the 50’s, wasn't really an issue.

From the 90’s to the 2000’s, horrors popularity increased dramatically, but they became predictable. Movies like the ‘Saw’ franchise became very popular throughout the years. This is because of the idea that they are intelligent movies, not predictable at all. Throughout the years it has became obvious that the sub-genres of horror have changed rapidly from monsters to psychological horrors.

Sources- Wikipedia.