Media task 1 Horror

How is horror defined? Horror is a genre of film that creates a sense of fear in people. The different genres of horror rely on different tropes and ideas to elicit fear. For example psychological horror uses mainly ideas and music to create tension, whereas a monster film would use creatures and gore horrors use blood and gore in order to disgust and horrify.

When was the horror genre first introduced. The horror genre had been around in novels for many years, the start of this genre in the uk is accredited to the rise of gothic horror in novels in the Victorian era and the supernatural extra-terrestrial rise in the 1900’s through novelists such as H.P. Lovecraft. The horror genre first appeared in the late 1800’s with the appearance of films like Le Manoir du Diable in France and Bake Jizo in japan.

Sub genres There are many different sub genres of the horror genre Action horrors Slasher horrors Disaster Natural Gore Science fiction Comedy horror Paranormal horror

Key changes over time 1889–1900s 1910s–1920s 1930’s-1940’s Horror films were just being introduced, through film makers like Georges Mellies, most horror films were extremely short and adaptations of novels 1910s–1920s This decade saw the development of the first vampire film, Nosferatu. The decade’s horror films were still mainly based off of literature, but they were longer. There were many contributions to the horror genre from other European countries 1930’s-1940’s The 1930’s saw the rise of universal as producer of horror/monster films. For example, they produced both Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. Moreover, with the production of The Mummy in 1932, universal had introduced the theme of Egyptology into the horror genre. In the western world, universal continued to be the main producers of horror films well into the late 40’s. With the production of what is considered to be the most influential werewolf film “The Wolf Man” in 1942 1950’s-1960’s The development of many new genre’s and filming style arose during this era thanks to the development of new technologies. We saw the introduction of apocalyptic films, such as the invasion of the body snatchers, the introduction of Kaiju films, such as Godzilla in 1954, slasher films with the release of Peeping Tom and Psycho in 1960, Natural horrors with Hitchcock's The Birds, Psychological horrors like Rosemary’s baby and the introduction of the first apocalyptic zombie film night of the living dead in 1969

1970’s-1980’s During the 70’s we saw a resurge in the number of paranormal films, particularly those featuring children being possessed by, or being the reincarnation of demons/the devil. This can be seen in Films such as The Exorcist, Audrey Rose and The Omen. Moreover in the 70’s and 80’s we saw a rise in the Slasher genre, with films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the late 70’s, Halloween in 1978, Friday the 13th in 1980 and The Nightmare of elm street in 1984. Following the release of Jaws in 1974 we also saw a resurgence of the natural horror genre, with films such as Orca in 1977 and Up From The Depths in 1979. Moreover the 80’s became known for the horror movies, so bad they’re good. These films are films with such terrible effects and editing that they have developed a cult following, for example The Evil Dead films. 1990’s-2000’s The slasher surge in films continued into the 1990’s with the introduction of sequels to the intensely popular slashers of the 80’s. Film’s like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm street and Halloween all received the sequel treatment. However, audiences began to become bored with the generic slasher film and horror producers found their numbers dropping substantially. During the late 90’s there was a surge of horror comedy films in order to attempt to get people into horror again, with the production of braindead in 1992 and scream in 1994. In the late 2000’s