HISTORY OF HORROR

Stuart Wells

1890S-1920S
he horror genre started in around the1890s, the film credited as being the first
horror was Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil).

n 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein,

following the 1908 film adaptation of the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The
Magician (1926) contains one of the first examples of a "mad doctor" and is said
to have had a large influence on James Whale's version of Frankenstein.

n the 1920s, films were about supernatural monsters in largely fantastical worlds,
completely different to the everyday realities of Depression and approaching war.

1930S-1940S
niversal Pictures began a successful Gothic horror film series. Tod
Browning's Dracula (1931), followed by James Whale's Frankenstein
(1931) and The Old Dark House (1932). Some of these films blended
science fiction with Gothic horror.

ound tracks became a big role in films in the 1930s, which also saw the
end to silent horror movies.

he films supported the idea that science was dangerous.

1950S-1960S

W
ith advances in technology, the tone of horror films shifted from the Gothic towards
contemporary concerns. Two subgenres began to emerge: the Doomsday film,
relating to the last day of the worlds existence, and the Demonic film,, relating to
demons and/or evil spirits.

F
ilms represented what was happening in the world at that time. Humanity
overcoming threats such as alien invasions (Apollo 11 landing on the moon) and
deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. Japan's experience with Hiroshima
and Nagasaki bore the well-known Godzilla (1954) and its sequels, featuring
mutation from the effects of nuclear radiation.

P
eeping Tom (1960) was the first "slasher, Alfred Hitchcock cemented the
subgenre with Psycho (1960).

1970S-1980S
Evil children" and reincarnation became popular subjects

any critics and viewers had negative feedback towards The Shining.
However the film became more and more popular and is now known as
one of Hollywood's most classic horror films.

Jaws (1975) is often credited as being one of the first films to use
traditionally B movie elements such as horror and mild gore in a bigbudget Hollywood film.

1990S
n the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the themes from
the 1980s.

ilms touched upon the relationship between fictional horror and real-world
horror. Candyman, for example, examined the link between an invented
urban legend and the realistic horror of the racism that produced its villain.

o re-connect with its audience, horror became more self-mockingly ironic

and parodic, meaning it had deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

2000S
he start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre.

newer trend was the emergence of psychology to scare audiences, rather than
gore.

There was a major return to the zombie genre in horror movies made after 2000.

larger trend is a return to the extreme, graphic violence with emphasis on

depictions of torture, suffering and violent deaths. Some example of this are Saw,
Hostel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Midnight Meat Train.