The horror genre is a fictional genre that has the ability to frighten, scare, disgust or startle the viewers of it . It is made to induce feelings of terror and stimulate a persons fight or flight experience.
Horror is a strange genre as many people who like to watch them are intrigued by the adrenaline feeling you get after watching the film, its almost 'a rite of passage' with people assuming that if they watch it they have conquered their fears. It is a very strange genre to understand why people enjoy them.
1920's - 1930's
The 20's and 30's were the first major time that films were shown to sca
re audiences. This time period saw many re-makes of classic books and novels such as Bram Stokers Dracula. However many other films were made such as Nosferatu, Frankenstein, and The Mummy.The films during this time period were made to explore older more popular novels and extend them to the film industry.
1940's
During this time many film genres saw a steep decline mainly due to world war two taking place. The cinema was not really used for film and was changed for people to start viewing news on the war effort and keep spirits high. Many people were not interested in horror especially when during the time of war anything seemed real.However the industry continued and saw many 'classics' come out during this decade such as Wolf Man and the house of Dracula
1950's
With the war finished, many people returned to the calm before the war and returned to luxuries of a normal life such as cinema, however rather than the gothic horror many films drew the consequences of the atomic bombs dropped and explored on personal fears thus creating films such as Godzilla, Beast from 20,000 fathoms and attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Many films around the 40's and 50's explored on the supernatural almost creating a sub genre to the horror idea and creating terrifying monsters out of a situation.1960's
The 60's brought a new aspect to the horror genre that opened many doors to allow for newer younger producers to come forward and create ideas. This lead to the bloom of Alfred Hitchcock and his critically acclaimed film Psycho. These were very different as the film would be explored by the director before the actual film this would create a sense of calm and the thrill of horror when something would happen, this would really create a sense of emersion as the director would be there talking to you at a personal level. 1970's
This decade saw a huge spike in the horror genre with a large surge of horror type films coming out into production. This was due to many films reflecting of depressing/dark times and the 70's were seen to be a much more depressing compared to the 60's due to
many strikes and problems with politics and strikes around that era. In Britain especially with the miner strikes, closing of the mines and IRA bombings, this paired with many changes during this decade such as rapid fashion changes and many social economic classes changing around this time such as better wages this was seen as a development into modern society and the film industry managed to capture the horrors of this as many people wanted to know the worst of what could happen. During this time many films such as Jaws, The exorcist and Texas chainsaw massacre were released. The human race felt that this all could happen on there travels and the threat to horror was felt to be much more real.1980's
The 80's brought more aspects to the horror movie genre this also helped to adapt the genre and create subgenres such as psychological such as Nightmare On Elm Street and Hellraiser. This was helped by new technologies allowing for better costumes and better graphics. This also allowed for gory horror to be created without it seeming cheesy or slightly comedic such as The prowler which is also a slasher type horror too. This was also the year that lead to the development of Sci-fi horror such as the classic alien which included CGI, graphic horror.1990's-2000's
This was the start of the movement of meta fictional horror and the movement to self reflective horror. This then lad to urban horror such as serial killers on streets, However this was a sort of step back in the 90's as the horror genre was worn out and with the proliferation of 80's slashers and gore the horror industry was loosing effects as younger generations saw it as a social norm. However better computer generated imagery allowed for better quality and more imaginative films to be born such as Silence of the Lambs and candy man. This birth was lead by the cliché of vampire and zombie films becoming no longer 'scary' thus wanting a new craze that were psychopaths.
This added more believable twists to films and killings happening on ordinary people. The 2000's then lead to the birth of teen horror which were more romantic horrors which were closely linked to slasher films. Some were also based on fate such as the critically acclaimed Final destination films. This appealed to younger audiences as they needed a sense for realism.
2005+
During this time have seen the development of graphics and the addition of better production practices thats has allowed for the horror genre to improve graphically and storyline wise. This area of time has seen many steps into the teen horror genre aswell as more super natural horrors such as the changeling, and other teen horrors such as the twilight series.
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