Horror Genre History

 Horror movies were first created in the 1890’s by film pioneer Georges Méliès, who created a series of short silent films – the haunted castle is best known – which brought the horror genre into the world. Soon after, Japan got onto the horror scene with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.

Nosferatu's Shadow - 1922

1930’s - 1940’s are when the genre really took off in a big way. It was then that universal pictures created the films Dracula and Frankenstein, which birthed the gothic horror sub-genre. Frankenstein generated a large fan base, ending up in the films bride of Frankenstein and son of Frankenstein. Some of the films created blended genres, such as the gothic/sci-fi horror the invisible man.

1950’s – 1960’s are when technological advances began to be apparent in the film industry, which caused the tone of horror films to shift from the gothic towards contemporary concerns. Two sub-genres began to emerge: the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film. They did this as to appeal to issues that people were genuinely afraid of at that time, things like alien invasions and deadly mutations from harmful radiation.

1970's - 1980's are when 'evil children' and reincarnation came onto the horror scene, with black magics and satanism. Films such as the omen appeared in this time and was very popular. Sean Cunningham made the original Friday the 13th in 1980 (remade in 2009) which was a big hit with the evil child / undead theme of horror, this film is particularly relevant as it is similar to the film we are making for our project.


1990's are when slasher films were first mass produced with films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloween and Saw series, most of which met with varied amounts of success at the box office.


2000's are when the horror production started to get quite sick and twisted with films like Hostel and Gnaw, a German take on Hannibal Lectre's cannibalistic habits. this is because of incredible CGI and major advances in technology. Also people weren't being scared as easily as before so the horror producers had to get creative and created even more gruesome films such as the human centipede, which was originally banned in the UK.

The Human Centipede (banned in UK)