History of Horror

How horror has changed over time?

The genre of horror was first released on our screens in the late 1800's, to be precise the first horror film was released in 1896. This film was made by a Frenchman named Georges Mieles and he made the first horror film called Le Manoir Du Diable which is translated 'The Haunted Castle' only last approximately 3 minutes. Not only was it the first horror film to be made it was also the first film with no sound.

In 1920 another silent horror movie hit the screens it went on to be a very popular film at the time. The Golem : How he came into the world was a German film which was directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese. This film had an extraordinary increase length compared to the first ever horror film,The Golem has a run time of 85 minutes so therefore you can see the first stages of development of horror.

In 1931 saw probably the biggest change in horror, the film 'Dracula' was released. At this time people said that horror 'began to scream'. This film was the first of a significant change to the horror genre. Dracula was the first horror movie with sound, this maybe why the film was one of big films at this time. The introduction of sound to horror really changed the way people saw horror as without the sound the couldn't feel the anticipation like you can nowadays.  

1974 saw the release of  'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. This film portrays a typical gore, guts and slasher film. The film includes a group of vulnerable teenagers who are in an isolated place and are hunted down and terrorized continuously by a chain-saw killer. At this time the film became the record seller making over $30,000,000 in box office sales. The release of this film saw a new style of horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was described as a slasher film and was a movie that scared the audience furthermore also making them feel disgusted by the gore 

                                                                                         

Just a year later, In 1975 saw the release of one of the most popular horror films to date.'Jaws' was one of the most popular horrors due to the story line of the movie and also the sound effects that are used throughout the film. We can see how big a movie Jaws was through the amount received from the box office, it was recorded that approximately $470.7 million. The release of Jaws improved the stature of the horror genre. It also saw the longest horror film up to this time lasting a duration of 124 minutes. 

In 1980, the film 'The shining' was released to our screens. The shining has been voted in top 5 horror films of all time, however despite this didn't make as much money from the box office sales as much as films like Jaws had done just 5 years before. In fact ' The Shining' made just $44.4 million dollars. The shining was one of the few horror films at this point to have the film setting in an isolated hotel in the middle of no where. The Shining may just have one of the most famous lines in horror history with "Here's Johnny". 

In the 1990's we had reached the modern era and in 1996 saw the release of Scream. Scream was a movie that started off the era of horror movies that were made to scare the audience. This was done in this film by the certain sound effects that were used in this movie. The release of Scream has believed to have been the saviour of horror because up until this point horror was considered almost dead. Scream was movie that made its audience feel tension and anxiety

By the time we had reached the 2000's, the horror genre had become less popular but then came the release of the first of many SAW movies. It took off from day one release in 2004 and has gone on to be one of  the most successful horror films of all time. SAW can be categorized into the 'slasher' sub-genre, the release of the films have really helped the horror genre's stature.

 Now to some of the most recent ideas for horror. 'Paranormal Activity' is a new idea for the horror genre and can be also be known in the 'found footage' sub-genre. This means that this is a film where there are believed to be presences in homes, hostels etc. Paranormal Activity has had a different effect on its audiences compared to the normal horror film you see. Given the fact that this has been filmed in a house and depending on the audience of the film it can make them feel extremely scared as they can think that this may happen to them. Since its first release in 2007, paranormal activity has been named the most profitable film ever made. This could be recognised as a psychological horror.

As time has gone by the horror genre has massively changed and in fact is still changing now. From the release of the first horror film to now we have seen a major change, for example the first horror movie ever made was only 2 minutes long and without sound where as compare that to horror movies nowadays they last a duration of between 1 hour 30 minutes and 2 hours minutes this as you can see is one of the drastic changes in horror.Horror has not just only been big as a movie genre it has also now become very popular in the video games and TV series industry. The horror genre has become so big in the latest era because more people are wanting to watch horrors to be scared and thrilled compared to when the first horror films were made to make people laugh. 


We can compare how sound changes films compared to having no sounds at all: