History of the horror genre

The horror films main aim is to scare us the audience, weather we are screaming crying or are too shocked to say anything it usually means the film has met it means for scaring us. Within the genre of horror there are many sub genres giving us all different types of films to enjoy and suit everyone’s taste. But where did the horror film establish from and what made the directors and writers come up with all this different sub genres.
Starting back at the very beginning before there was cinema, there were stories and as long as the stories were there so were the ones about the “unknown” and “other” a lot of these stories  were based around religious type views and monsters “of the night” myths and tails that were used to entertain people in a scary way.

Some of the earliest films were The Golem (1915) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) These films were based on the idea of monsters although it was unclear to see What kind of monster it was, but as it was something and audience had not seen before it gave people a scare but also some did not know what to think.
Nosferatu (1922) was one of the first vampire movies it was described as an actual vampire movie that believes in vampires, this was because the audience found it extremely realistic unlike what films they had seen before. The film was Shorty released after a massive flu epidemic where 70 million people had died and a lot of people were reminded of this horrific time by the film. They came to this assumption form the pale face of the monster and the diseased look upon his face.

At the start of the 1930’s the horror movie was reborn with the creation of sound which change cinema altogether, adding more terror and fright the audience only previously saw in picture motion. This also made peoples imagination go wild with the ideas of what kind of films they could create.  Universal studios made it name with horror films during this time, and this was the decade when two character actors (Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff) became lucky at landing lead roles for two of memorable monster of all time Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s creation the monster. After these two films it opened up all these ideas about monsters and all the different types than can be created for example the mummy (1932) and King Kong (1933). The mummy had a lot influence from the ancient Egyptians and the way they use to mummify people and this ancient tradition was turnt into a way of scary audiences of the 1930’s. The original King Kong has also played a very big part in influencing Many films such as Jurassic Park, Jason & the argonaunts to hundreds of “creature features” of the 1950’s.

Wartime movies of the 1940’s were purely an American product, as they were banned in Britain. They were solely to amuse the domestic audience, The studios stuck with the ideas that had been tried and tested, even if they took the risk of suggesting that they weren’t coming up with any new ideas, the 1940’s was not an age of innovation.  By the time the 1950’s had come around new ideas were developing and we were seeing a slightly different side to the horror film, and the human face was becoming much more related to the horror that was caused in the film. The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead and millions more were exposed to the full spectrum of man’s inhumanity to man. Shorty after this the cold war started which left people living in fear of a war happening but it was the technology That scared people, in 1947 there was the first UFO sighting shortly followed by the famous Roswell incident, This gave writer and directors and whole lot of new  ideas to play with. By the 1960’s influences were coming from everywhere  and we saw the start  of the Slasher genre With the Film Physco (1960) and this is where we saw a man kill a women he was close to in such horrific ways and it was usually the man’s mum or girlfriend being killed. This opened up all different types of new ways to kill someone and this is where the Slasher films we see today get there influence from.  Carol Clover came up with the Final girl theory which was mostly present in horror films, this is usually where the female Lead has some sort of close relationship with the killer and most of the time is a virgin (pure) and there is nearly always a promiscuous Friend that is killed during or after sexual acts.  Clover suggests that the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the lead girl part way through the film.  During the 1960’s We also saw the start of the Zombie film, With night Of the Living Dead which was the beginning of the influence for a lot of today’s films, but this was nothing compared to the sex that was scene in horrors and the message it put across was if you have sex you will die, this was good at scary people as it reminded them of deadly diseases and so on.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s We saw the beginning of children being involved with horrors and them becoming the killers for example The omen (1976) When little cute Damien is the devil but as the audience we don’t feel sorry for him as he is causing so much horrific pain to these people but most people can’t look at him and think that is just a child because he is not as he is being portrayed as this creation of pure evil and this is something that cinema had not seen before. Shortly before The Omen was released The Exorcist (1973) was but this was slightly different although it was starring a child acting in a possessive nature we actually felt some compassion for the young girl as we knew that was not her normal state.  But the Films kept coming during the 1980’s With such films as Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Halloween, Childs Play, Chuckie and The Shining all stared children as the victims or the killers and this was a great attraction for teenagers as they were able to relate to the films.

For horror films Location means everything and to make something seem authentic and like the film was actually filmed there, a lot of money goes into set design but the director also has to remember that is had to give of the idea that he is trapping someone and sometimes even creating the feeling of claustrophobia. Also shooting in a well known city or place is good because the audience can relate to this. Over the years horrors films have improved ever so much and it comes down to these things where it is set, costume, make-up and special effects. And with technology improving we are create more epic and disgusting horrors but we would not have been able to do these without great ideas and films that were made within the last hundred years, which shows that the history of the horror film plays a immense part in today’s cinema as we are constantly finding influence’s from them or we are making remakes of films that might have been made in the 1980’s for example Halloween which has been remade around 8 times.