By Mary Lawson

Horror film is a genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic, alarm, and dread for the audience. These films are often unsettling and rely on scaring the audience through a portrayal of their worst fears and nightmares. Horror films usually center on the arrival of an evil force, person, or event. Many Horror films include mythical creatures such as ghosts, vampires, and zombies. Traditionally, Horror films incorporate a large amount of violence and gore into the plot. Though it has its own style, Horror film often overlaps into Fantasy, Thriller, and Science-Fiction genres. In this powerpoint I will take you through a time line of horror films throughout the years.

Body horror Comedy Gothic Psychological Sci-Fi Slasher Supernatural Zombie Action

In 1896 the first horror movie was made, it was a 3 minute long french film called “The house of the devil”. It was created by George Mêlé and the 3 minute long film was completely silent, it included clever camera tricks, bats, skeletons and a lot of stabbing. The film had only 2 cast members, one of which was George Mele himself! The creation of this film was due to the vast amounts of horror and gothic literature which was very popular during this era. After around the 1900’s silent films became scarce as audio technologies modernised.

This time period may be known as the silent era as all of the following films made during this time had no sound. 1896: The house of the Devil 1910: Frankenstien 1913: The Student of Prague 1920: Cabinet of DR. Caligari 1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1922: Haxan 1922: Nosfertu 1923: The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1924: The Hands of Orlac 1924: Waxworks 1925: The monster 1925: The phantom of the opera 1926: Faust 1927: The cat and the canary 1930: Dracula

1951: The thing from another world 1952: My son the vampire 1953: The maze 1954: Godzilla 1955: Tarantula! 1956: X the unknown 1957: From hell it came 1958: The revenge of Frankenstein 1959: The mummy

The 1950s was the era of change, media technologies had developed and become similar to the technologies we have now in modern day. Due to the new development in audio, many films were recreated with sound and to a higher quality. Many of these iconic films are still being adapted to this day.

Psycho was the breakthrough in modern day horror films. The release of Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s is arguably one of the best horror films, if not the most famous of all time. This slasher horror reached controversial levels of violence, many people saw the films as too graphic however the film was far too popular as it was the first of its kind.

• 1960: Psycho• 1961: The innocents • 1962: Peeping Tom• 1963: The birds• 1964: Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte • 1965: Repulsion• 1966: Seconds• 1967: Wait until dark• 1968: Night of the living dead• 1969: Spirits of the dead

By the 1970’s horrors were becoming more of a norm and audiences enjoyed watching them rather than finding them controversial. The themes of sex, war, religion and violence were more common in the 70’s as zombie and cannibal movies were most popular. Due to the unique and shocking films produced, this decade is seen have produced some of the highest rated horror movies of all time.

1971: The devils 1972: The last house on the left 1973: The exorsist 1974: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1975: Jaws 1976: Carrie 1977: The deep 1978: Halloween 1979: Alien

Popular genres during the 1980’s began with slasher films in the early decade, through to comic genres as we get to the 90’s. Stalker thrillers were also more common throughout the 80’s. As horror was so popular film producers would need to find ways to make their films stand out, this was why the horror genre began to dig deeper into different sub categories.

1980: The Shining 1981: Halloween 2 1982: Poltergeist 1983: The evil dead 1984: A Nightmare on Elm Street 1985: Teen wolf 1986: Aliens 1987: The lost boys 1988: Beetlejuice 1989: Pet semetry

As horror had become so popular, studios began funding large scale horror projects, this lead to some of the biggest horror blockbuster successes. A wider target audience was found during this era which made for more money for distributors.

1990: IT 1991: Silence of The Lambs 1992: Buffy the vampire slayer 1993: Leprechaun 1994: The crow 1995: Species 1996: The craft 1997: The devils advocate 1998: Godzilla 1999: The sixth sense

Remakes of iconic horror films are the prominent theme of modern day horror films, usually adapted with a modern twist. This incorporates old and new audiences for a higher box office revenue. The sub-genre of psychological horrors are mainly used with modern films, getting inside the audiences’ head and leaving an impression well after audiences leave the cinema.

2001: Hannibal 2002: The ring 2003: underworld 2004: saw 2005: Constantine 2006: silent hill 2007: pans labyrinth 2008: cloverfield 2009: orphan 2010: the lovely bones 2011: insidious 2012: The cabin in the woods 2013: would you rather 2014: The babadook 2015: Unfriended 2016: The boy

In modern day media, supernatural themes are very popular, focusing on psychological aspects rather than gore and violence, like you would find in slasher movies. TV shows are also catching onto this craze, aiming towards young teens.

1962: Burn witch, burn 1968: Rosemarys baby 1971: The blood on satans claw 1977: Suspiria 1991: Warlock 1996: The Craft 2006: The woods 2010: Black death 2012: The lords of salem 2013: American Horror Story: Coven