History Of Horror Films

1890's


The first depictions of the supernatural in films were in several silent short films by Georges Méliès in the late 1890's - the most famous being 'Le Manoir du diable' also known as the 'Haunted Castle' (1896). This silent short film, is sometimes credited as the first horror film. 
In 1910, Edison studios made the first film version of 'Frankenstein' - however this film was thought to have been lost for many years. The print for this film was bought in the 50's and it's rarity was not realised until the mid-70's.  
In the early 20's the first monster appeared in a horror film - which was 'Quasimodo' 
During the early period of talking pictures Universal Pictures began a film series of Gothic horror films such as Tod Browning's 'Dracula' (1931) and James Whale's 'Frankenstein' (1931). Some Gothic horror was blended with science fiction such as 'The invisible man' (1933). Universal Pictures continued their success with the horror genre into the 40's - which included films such as 'The wolf man' - which although it is not the first film to feature a werewolf it is the most influential.


1920's
German expressionist film makers in the early 20's significantly influenced later films. Paul Wegener's 'The Golum' (1920) and Robert Wiene's 'The cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1920) particularly had an impact.


1930's - 1940's

Other studios then followed Universal's lead, Tod Browning made Freaks (1932) for MGM, however this film was very controversial due to it being about about a band of circus 'freaks'. The studio then disowned film once it was completed - after cutting about 30 minutes from the film; it was also unreleased in the UK for 30 yrs. In 1931 Paramount released Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which used colour filters to create Jekyll's transformation in front of the camera. Mystery of the Wax Museum released by Warner Brothers in 1933 and Island of Lost Souls by Paramount in 1932 are all important horror films. 


1950's - 1960's
As technology advanced the popular genre of Gothic horror was switched to two new sub-genres of the horror-of-Armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film. A trend of (mostly) low budget films featuring humanity overcoming threats from aliens, mutations, plants and insects became popular. During the late 50's Great Britain started to produce many horror films such as 'Peeping Tom' (1960) which contained a serial killer who combined his profession as a photographer with the moments before he murdered his victims. The Hammer company focused on the horror genre for the first time and received success from films such as 'The curse of frankenstein' (1957) and 'Dracula' (1958), which were both followed by any sequels, for showing classic horror characters in colour for the first time. The director for many of these films was Terence Fisher. In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock made the first slasher film with 'Psycho' and also produced a film showing nature gone mad in 1963 with 'The Birds'. Throughout this period ghosts and monsters remained a popular feature - although many of these films preferred to express these themes through the 'horror of the demonic' sub-genre. Films of this sub-genre include 'The innocents' (1961) and 'The haunting' (1963). However it was in 'Rosemary's Baby' (Roman Polanski, 1968) that the devil made flesh for the first time. A particularly influential horror film from this period was George A. Romero's 'Night of the living dead' (1968) as this 'Horror-of-Armageddon film about zombies combines the psychological with gore - which as a result of this moved horror further away from the earlier Gothic horror trend and brought horror into everyday life. Low budget gore-shock films such as 'Blood feast' (1963) and 'Two thousand maniacs!' (1964) also appeared.          



1970's - 1980's

With the success of low-budget gore films and 'Rosemary's Baby' led to the release of films such as 'The Exorcist' (1973) which has significant commercial success and so was then followed by many films showing the devil representing supernatural evil - often by impregnating women or by possessing children. Another popular Satanic horror movie from this period was 'The Omen' (1976) in which a man realises his 5yr old son that he adopted is the Antichrist. During this period gory horror film with sexual themes were then made as 'A-movies' (as opposed to B-movies which were low budget commercial motion pictures). Many of the ideas from the youth counterculture in the 60's influenced horror in the 70's for example Wes Craven's 'The hills have eyes' (1977) and Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas  chain saw massacre' (1974) both recalled the Vietnam war. George A. Romero satirised the consumer society in his sequel about zombies 'Dawn of the dead' (1978) and David Cronenberg featured the mad scientist sub-genre and explored fears about technology and society as well as reinventing 'body horror' with films such as 'shivers' (1975). The 70's/80's also saw many of the horror author Stephen King's books adapted for film beginning with Brian De Palma's 'Carrie' (1976) followed by 'The Shining' in in 1980 which started off slow at the box office but later became considered a classic. During these decade's the slasher films became increasingly popular with the arrival of John Carpenter's 'Halloween' (1978), Sean Cunningham's 'Friday the 13th' (1980), Wes Craven's 'A nightmare on elm street' (1984) and Bob Clark's 'Black Christmas' (1974). The 70's also saw a rise of the killer animal stories starting with Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws (1975) which was then followed by 'Orca' (1977) and 'Up from the depths'. Jaws is often said to be one of the first big-budget Hollywood films to use traditionally B-movie elements such as horror and mild gore. 'Alien' in (1979) combined naturalistic acting, graphic violence, monster movie plot from previous decades and science fiction. This film was extremely successful and is considered a land mark for the sci-fi genre and was even referred to a being like Jaws but in space. John Carpenter also mixed horror and sci-fi with 'The Thing' (1982) but this wasn't an instant hit and instead 20yrs after its release it was praised for its use of ahead-of-its-time special effects and use of paranoia. Another significant film is Sam Raimi's 'Evil dead' films which despite being low budget productions and followed a very original plot were later praised by critics. In the 80's there was a wave of popularity for 'B-movies' - although the majority were initially criticised many later became cult classics. Some examples of some cult classics from the 80's include 'Fright night' (1985) and 'The lost boys' (1987).          

1990's
To start of with the 90's largely continued many of the horror film themes from the 80's. Slasher films from the 80's such as 'A nightmare on elm street', 'Friday the 13th', 'Halloween' and 'Child's play' all had sequels in this decade - but were not very successful with critics. However, films such as Wes Craven's 'New nightmare' (1994) and 'Silence of the lambs' (1991) were successful and praised by critics. 'New nightmare', 'In the mouth of madness' (1995), 'The dark half' (1993) and 'Candyman' (1992) were all metafictional horror film - which were films where fictional horror was combined with real-world horror. For example 'Candyman' linked an urban legend and racism that produced the villain. This reflective style then became overt and ironic when 'Screm' was released in 1996. There were however two main problems that held the genre back during the 90's; the genre had worn itself out in the 80's with the nonstop slasher and gore films in the 80's and secondly the teenage audience that had been interested in the blood and morbid themes from the decade previously had grown up and had been replaced with an audience that were more interested in the sci-fi and fantasy genre thanks to the advance in CGI (computer-generated imagery) and more special effects that could be created. In an attempt to re-connect with its audience the genre became self-mockingly ironic and parodic - especially towards the end of this decade. Some examples of where this can be seen is Peter Jackson's 'Braindead (1992) which was a comedic take on a splatter film due to the ridiculous excess it went to in the film, Wes Craven's 'Scream' series stating in 1996 which are films that often make reference to the history of horror and contains ironic humour, and 'I know what you did last summer' and 'Urban legend' which re-ignited the slasher genre. 


2000's


The start of this decade was another quiet period for the horror genre. An extended version of the 70's film 'The exorcist' was released in September 2000. 'Valentine' (2001) had some success but was criticised for being too formulaic and relying to much on the past horror conventions. 'Final destination' (2000) was a successful revival of teen-centred horror and then went on to produce four sequels. The 'Jeepers creepers' series was also a success. It was films such as 'Orphan', 'Wrong turn', 'Cabin fever' and 'House of 1000 corpses' that helped to bring horror back to Restricted ratings in the cinemas. A trend during this time was the emergence of psychology in order to scare the audience - rather than just make them feel squeamish by including lots of gore. An example of one of these psychological horrors is 'The others' (2001) which used a successful minimalist approach - which proved Val Lewton's theory of 'less is more' (which is usually done by including low-budget techniques). There was also a return to the zombie genre with films such as 'Resident evil' (2002) which was followed by four sequels, '28 days later' (2002) which featured an updated version of the genre with 'return of the living dead' style more aggressive zombies - this film also had a sequel with '28 weeks later'. This comeback of the zombie horror led to George A Romero to return to his living dead series with 'Land of the dead' (2005), 'Diary of the dead (2007) and 'Survival of the dead' (2010). A larger trend of extreme, graphic violence also returned. Films such as 'Audition' (1999), 'Wrong turn' (2003) and 'Wolf creek' (2005) all took inspiration from 'The last house on the left' (1972), 'Texas chainsaw massacre' (1974) and 'The hills have eyes' (1977). An extension of the extreme and graphic horror was the emergence of films depicting torture, suffering and violent deaths (this is often referred to as horror porn, torture porn, splatterporn or even gore-nography). Examples of these types of films include (The collector), 'The tourtured', 'Saw' and 'Hostel' - all of these films also had sequels. The 'Saw' series hold the Guinness world record for the highest grossing horror franchise in history. 'Paranormal activity' (2009) was well received by critics and did very well at the box office - this film carried on with the minimal thought that was started by 'The Blair witch project'. Ramaks of earlier horror films became very common during the 2000's for example 'Dawn of the dead' (2004), '2001 Maniacs', 'Texas chainsaw massacre' and 2007's 'Halloween'. The 'Halloween' remake was not well received but however it was successful in the cinemas and had a sequel. It also helped to start the 'reimaging' of other popular horrors and so other films were remade such as 'Friday the 13th' (2009), 'A nightmare on elm street' (2010), 'Children of the corn' (2009), 'Prom night' (2008), 'My bloody valentine' (2009) and 'The wolfman' (2010).