HISTORY OF HORROR GENRE

Mohamed Bushra

Horror in the 1900’s to 2000’s

▪ The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Melies in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du Diable, which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film.

▪ In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of Frankenstein, which was thought lost for many years. In 1928 the first horror film with sound was released (The Terror)

▪ These early films were considered dark "melodramas", the word "horror" to describe the film genre would not be used until the next decade after Universal Pictures released Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931).

▪ Horror films in the 30's are categorized as "exotic fairy tales" as they tended to include characters dressed in costumes in far- away lands, often fictional and made-up, talking in strange accents.

▪ Audiences seemed even more enthusiastic in the 30's than in the 20's and rushed to cinemas to be scared by large monsters who wreak havoc in fantasy worlds, events that helped them escape from the reality of depression and war.

▪ Between the 1940-1950's, the idea of monsters changed incredibly.Directors focused more on the character's becoming animals, but the 50's introduced a face onto the evil.

▪ During the 50's horror films were targeted at more teenagers than anybody else in this era. Horror films in the 50's left their audiences in suspension and disbelief of the film created.

▪ The aim of horror films was to thrill the audience rather than terrify the audience and leave them feeling grotesque about what they have just watched.

▪ 1960’s aka the ‘Slasher’ Era. Horror films were created outside of the mainstream studios, often given low budgets.

▪ 60's offered an opportunity to explore new ways of violence and sex. Teenage audiences were maturing as film was too and they were becoming wiser to common conventions used in typical horror films.

▪ The 70’s released the most talked about horror films e.g. ’Dawn of the Dead’ 1978, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ 1974 & ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ 1977.

▪ Next was the start of modern horror films, which are 90’s-2000’s.

▪ In these years there was no extra development in the horror genre, however the films were created to cut the boredom by the fans of horror genre. Films such as ‘Silence of the Lambs’ [1992] targeted the audience who were bored of the repetitive horror films over the years. Later, the 2000’s was quiet time for horror genre as only a couple films were released.

▪ However, there have been parody films about horror in the 2000’s such as Scary Movie, which combined comedy and horror elements together to take the mic of the classical genre.