The history of horror

1. The History of Horror
Abi Jackson

2. Where Did Horror Come From?
The roots of horror films were made as an extension of
literature and began in the late 1700’s.These horror films
were ‘gothic horror’ and were developed by both UK and
US writers.The reason they were called ‘gothic’ horror
films was because they referred to the medieval
buildings that they took place in such as ancient castles,
abandoned dungeons and forests during thunder storms.

3. Horror Films Developing.
When films began to have sound in the late 1920’s, this transformed
films completely – especially horror films. Without sound, horror films
would not have anywhere near the same impact as they do nowadays.
From the 1960’s, there began a huge explosion of different styles in
the genre of horror as it began to become a lot more popular.The film
‘Psycho’ was released in the 1960’s and shocked audiences as nothing
like this had ever been released into the film industry before then.
Eventually, became the rise of independent horror films as well as
conglomerate.

4. Modern Day Horror
In the modern day, horror films now use more CGI effects to
create scares. Psychological Horror andThriller have
remained popular throughout the 90’s and 2000’s but there
are also more modern versions of horror films.
Desensitisation has now occurred whereby people are
becoming more used to the gore of horror films and
therefore are not as affected by it as they would’ve been in
the past. Because of this, horror films are using a lot more
violence.

5. Then vs Now
1960’s horror film - Psycho
2016 horror film –The Conjuring 2
When the film Psycho was released, people
were shocked and struggled to watch the
film. However, nowadays due to
desensitisation, people would not be
anywhere near as affected by it because
they are far more used to its content as
brutal killing is often used in horror films.
If people in the 1960’s were exposed to
the content of The Conjuring 2 then
they would not be able to watch it
because they would be far to disturbed
and frightened by it.