A Brief insight into the history of Horror movies.

Horror movies have always been unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and disgust from the viewers. They mainly focus on twisting people’s worst fears, nightmares and terror from the unknown. The plots often are written with the illustration of an evil force, event, a personage (often of supernatural origin) in the everyday world. Ghosts, gore, werewolves, curses, vampires, torture, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies, an outbreak of disease and masked serial killers often portray as the basic themes and elements in horror films.Horror movies are some times based on urban myths that people are scared of such as, the boogey man, evil clowns etc.The first horrors were originally based on classic gothic literature, such as, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The latest horrors still exploit the monsters of literature.

Lon Chaney, Sr. has been noted to be one of the first American horror movie star, know for his grotesque characters in them.

Horrors started becoming particularly popular in the 1930’s with such releases and Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.In the 1950’s, due to technological advances, horror films started to branch out from the gothic literature, these become such as alien invasions and mutations.In the 1970’s more types of horror films started to come out, some such as supernatural ones (The Exorcist). These films were based around the Devil, which represents evil, in which often possess a person. Satanic films also became a popular theme after The Oman. As Horror films progressed they became more realistic, such using urban legends. The 2000’s it saw a massive return of Zombie

films with films such as 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Another thing to come back in the 2000’s is a lot of gore, such as

Saw. A lot of recent horror films tend to be remakes of classic horror movies.Lately Horror films have became more about the gore than the actual story line.

Horror has expanded from its original genre as it was originally plain and simple scares, now it has now developed into sub-genres such as spoof horror, thriller, psychological horror etc.

Nosferatu(1922) – This was the first vampire although it slightly plagiaries Dracula taking a lot of its ideas. (Dracula was realeased 1931, 9 years after nosferatu)

The mummy (1932) – Although horror had moved on from vampires, they were still based on mythic creatures. This film scared a lot of people as the Tutankhamen Exhibition toured the world in the 1920s and 1930s and the though of this coming true gave many people a fright.

The wolf man (1941) – This film is a concoction of several wolf legends with a few added ingredients to make it more terrifying. Universal followed this up with Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man in 1943.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) – This film is based on a short story called ‘the foghorn’. The slogan for this movie was "they couldn't escape the terror and neither will you". This film was about a the accidental awakening of a "King Kong with fins" (a rhedosaurus) by atomic testing in the Arctic.

Physco (1960) – This is when film stopped being about mythical creatures and more about killers. The screeching soundtrack and the flashing of the knife blade in the shower scene seem condemned to perpetual rerunning in horror films to this day.

The exorcist (1973) – This very well known film was the start of the very popular sub genre supernatural horror. It is based around a young girl who is possessed by a demon.

Childs play (1988) – When Charles Lee Ray needs to get quick escape from cop, Mike Norris, he takes his soul and buries it into playful, seemingly good guy doll Chucky. Little does he know a little boy by the name of Andy Barclay will be the new owner of him soon-to-come. Charles confides in Andy while he

commits numerous murders. Once the adults catch up to Andy's story as truth, it's too late.

Se7en (1995) – This hybrid film (film noir and horror) is about 2 cops, a older cop (who will retire in 7 days) and a young hot headed cop. These two charaters clash but are brought together by a common goal.

Final destination (2000) – these film portrays the way horrors have changed to a lot of gore but still kept some of the original aspects (mythic creatures, demons) but they have more complex storylines.