History of the Horror Genre

History of the Horror

German Expressionism

The German Expressionism started in the 1900’s as a result to WW1. At this time Germany found itself stuck due to the high demand of creating its own films because the government had banned foreign films from being watched in the nation.

‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ (1919)

By 1922 the German film industry was becoming more known with international audiences. The original banning of foreign films 1916 was lifted and German cinema became a part of the international film industry. The plots to most German expressionist horror movies were mostly about madness, insanity, betrayal and other topics that were opposite to the typical ‘rom-com’ and ‘action’ movie plots. The outrageous set design complimented the topics perfectly and made the silent horror movies very popular with their audiences in the 1900’s.

The German expressionism period in the horror film industry was starting to die out after its popular few years. However even the short lived period was over its extremely popular topics and movies had influenced film and theatre for years to come it was used a lot in 1920’s and 1930’s to add crazy artistic imagery to the film to set a certain type of mood throughout the film.

When the Nazi’s took over Germany a lot of German film-makers moved to Hollywood and brought there dark, moody filmmaking techniques to the USA and a lot of German filmmakers found themselves also producing their own Hollywood films. The German expressionism influenced to main genres of film in the US horror film and film noir. During the silent era Universal Studios made

themselves very known by creating some of the most famous and popular horror films during the time such as Lon Chaney’s ‘The Phantom of The Opera’

‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (1925)

In the 1940’s film makers such as Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock bought expressionism into the film they produced. This shows that vast extremity of impact the German expressionism had on the film industry and also it has inspired some of the best filmmakers.

Horror in Classic Literature

Gothic horror is a genre that combines both romance and horror. A classic example of this is ‘Frankenstein’ the novel written by Mary Shelley in 1818, Frankenstein is a story about a science experiment gone wrong that results in the creation of a monster. The story combines horror, romance and science fiction.

Dracula is another classic gothic horror novel written by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897. The novel follows of Dracula who is trying to move from Transylvania to England and the obstacles he faces against a group of men and woman led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. It’s been famous for introducing the well know Count Dracula and has been assigned to many literary and horror genres such as vampire literature, gothic horror, horror fiction and invasion literature.

Horror Films 1860 – 2000

1860 – 1920’s

The first documentation of horror was in the 19th century a three minuet movie called ‘Le Manoir du Diable’ made by George Melies in 1869. The movie was completely silent and incorporated many pantomime elements for entertainment of the audience. In the 1860’s there were many images of ghosts and other nightmarish creatures and shadowy figures in clips created by double exposure camera shots. This ghostly entertainment led to audiences and people believe in such myths.

The silent era for horror movies continued into 1910 and 20’s with films such as ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ which was about an evil doctor who puts an ordinary man into an asylum. Furthermore ‘Nosferatu’ was thought to be first vampire of this time and overall he first for the gothic/vampire horror genre.

1930’s

In the 1930’s the horror genre changed and revolutionised through the entrance of sound which changed the face of cinema. This allowed film studios to play with more special effects due to the increase in funding which resulted in more supernatural films to be released. Films such as ‘Dracula’ and the adaptation of Mry Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ written and directed by J. Searle Dawley which lasted 16 minutes and was the first motion to be adapted from a film. Both these films were extremely well received by audiences and reviewed well by critics too.

1940’s

In the 1940’s horror films came to a standstill as it was during WW2 in which in many countries and especially Britt=ain horror films were banned or hard to release. However they were being produced a lot of the time in America. There were two majors films in the 1940’s that did well which were ‘The Wolfman’ and ‘Cat People’, however both these films did not reach the type of success that films reached in the 1930’s.

1950’s

The 1950’s was a decade of experimentation and saw an increase in 3D movies due to the significant advances in technology. This was known as the golden era’ and released 3D horror films such as ‘House of Wax’. The 50’s showed a lot more monstrous creatures being shown in the cinema screens and more films being produced of this type. In this decade the studios were continually trying to keep up with television audiences. The main popularity of horror genre in the 50’s was amongst teenagers who kept this interest going.During this decade two sub genres were created amongst the horror genre itself. These were the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of the-demonic films. The gothic theme of horror films was starting to fade and horror became more about modern day fears and concerns such as deadly mutation of people and animals that created a monstrous threat to society. This was evident in films such as ‘Godzilla’ and ‘The Fly’. These deadly creatures were created by stop motion and models. These monstrous creatures also led to introduction of sci-fi horror in which audiences were introduced to fear such as ‘other kinds’ taking over our society, in particular aliens. An example of this is the film ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ made in 1956 which was popular amongst audiences and critics.

1960’s

The 1960’s was a time of real horror, this is when there horror film were introducing a lot more gore into the movies and a lot of money was being invested in them looking good and entertaining. The 50s monstrous creatures and alien were becoming extinct and more unrealistic to the audiences. Sex and violence was becoming a main theme that was being explored in horror movies which audiences seem to enjoy. The 60’s was a time dominated by the great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s who blew the room of horror cinema with then and sill not iconic films ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Birds’ which are still known as the horror film that are true masterpieces.

1970’s

The 70’s was a completely different era to others it took on different themes in horror. The film budgets were increasing, making the storyline more believable and entertaining as well as people views on what society believed horror was. The era was very dominated by the idea of ‘devil children’ which was popular amongst audiences. The most successful horror film in this decade evoking this theme of a devil child was ‘The Exorcist’ which made $441m at the box office. Other films such as ‘Carrie’ 1976 and The Omen 197 were also amongst the popular films in this decade. Furthermore there also came films with thrilling story line and much more gore such as ‘Jaws’ 1975 and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974.

1980’s

As they decades went on technology became more advanced and budgets were getting bigger for horror films. This was also the case in the 80’s, an example of a successful sci-fi horror was ‘Alien’ 1986 by Ridley Scott which was a masterpiece of this decade. Another critically acclaimed film was the adaptation of Stephen Kings ‘The Shining’ which became one of most successful and still best horror films off all time. The film showed that you did not just need gore to be a horror movie but a gripping plot with many twist and turns is also as entertaining and horrifying. This era led to many m=horror films becoming cult classics such as ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Childs Play’ which created a huge controversial uproar as it was banned due to the influence on kids.

1990’s

The 90’s era of horror films showed a turning from the splatter genre, blood and gore of films and adapted to the psychological thriller and theme with very much disturbing plot lines and characters. This is shown in films such as ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Candyman’. Although slasher films were becoming less recognisable in the 90’s they were still running with films such as ‘Scream’ and ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’.

2000’s

The 2000’s show many varied themes in the horror genre. It represented the cult classics of eras before in movies such as ’28 Days Later’ 2002 which was received well by both audiences and critics. The 2000’s has become very popular in horror sequel movies such as ‘Scary Movie’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ which have become super successful with audiences. However there has also been some negative attitudes as the decade has bought a remade many cult classics such as ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Evil Dead’ and the horror genre has been accused for not being able to create unique an innovative new horror films therefore resulting in remakes of classics. This decade has also allowed the rise

in popularity of Japanese horror which became a pinnacle for movies such as ‘The Grudge’ 2004 and

‘Ringu’ 2002 globally.