AS MEDIA RESEARCH

HORROR FILMS

By Damian Zlotorzynski

The History of Horror

The Early forms of horror films where ‘Gothic’ in style, evolved around spooky old castles and featured creatures such as vampires, zombies,evil spirits,ghosts and demons as the creatures which would terrify the audience .The genre developed from ancient novels, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories and folktales which over time developed to silent horror films were the films were very short and had no sound.

The First Ever Horror Film

Le Manoir Du Diable (1896) was one of the first horror films ever, produced by french film maker Georges Méliès. Le Manoir Du Diable was a silent film that lasted roughly 03:19. The film included things such as the devil and bats to create a scary horror atmosphere.

screenshot of the film

Georges Méliès 1885-1913

The 1930s

In 1930s Horror films started to bring in sound which started a new chapter for the horror film industry. Films moved on from being a silent film and began a new franchise that featured sound.

Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) were the first two horror films with sound. They both lasted over 70 minutes so it was a lot longer than some of the other films in 1920s films.

The 1940’s

The 1940s were a quiet year for horror movies, they were banned in the United Kingdom. Although the 1940’s still managed to produce two big film titles that came out, one of them was ‘Cat People’ (1942) and the other one was ‘The Wolf man’ (1941). They both have a very good story line and both been remade up to this date.

The 1950’s The First Coloured Horror Film

Early in the 1950’s Horror film procedures stepped their game up by trying to bring colour to their fast growing industry.The scene was at the hollywood spotlight at the time and stars were becoming celebrities. The first coloured horror film to be released in theatres was ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ (1957) which was based on the novel of Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley. The film was a huge success and has been remade a numerous amount of times up to this day.

Terence Fisher- The director of The curse of Frankenstein

Alfred Hitchcock and the 1960s

Alfred Hitchcock revolutionised the 1960 horror scene by bringing psychology to the theatre, he showed that you don’t need a monster for it to be a horror film and that an everyday human can sometimes be the monster. Psycho (1960) was one of the first horror films to bring the psychological aspect to the genre, the film featured mentally sick humans which would be murderess.

Alfred Hitchcock then directed another film in the 1963 The birds (1963) which was another huge success.

Alfred Hitchcock

The 1970sSociety was going downhill during the 1970s, although everyone didn’t look on the bad side of it; horror used this to their advantage by creating new ideas and expanding the popularity of the horror scene. In comparison, the 1970s were based around the problems that society was suffering from, whereas the 1960s was sexually orientated. In 1973 The Exorcist was created, this was said to be the ‘scariest movie of all time’.

William Friedkin, director of the exorcist

The 1980s

The 1980 introduced special visual effects and animations to the horror scene, liquid and foam latex was also being used meaning proper props and make-up could be used. This made the audience want more, after seeing what the scene was capable of doing. 'The shining' (1980) was one of the biggest horror films of its time, it took around a year to film. The film was based on the story of Stephen King’s book based around a haunted hotel, the shining was a huge seller and still is a very well popular horror film up to this day.

The 1990s

The 1990s was a hard time to make horror films as everyone had already seen everything, all of the films were now more technical than the early 90s so trying to impress the audience was becoming difficult. The audience expectations were increasing as they had seen so much. One of the most popular films made in the 1990s was The Silence of The Lambs directed by Jonathan Demme.

The 2000s

The 21st century was a very successful period of time for the horror film industry. The Final Destination franchise revolutionised the century, releasing five different series to it between 2000 and 2011. The story line for these films where a lot different, there was no murderer, it come down to fate to who was gonna die. The story line was always strong and had a good narrative. These films were also offered in 3D offering the audience an incredible experience at the theatre.