The document discusses the history and evolution of horror movies from their roots in 19th century Gothic literature through the present day. It describes how early silent films from Germany in the 1920s helped establish the genre. The 1930s saw a rise in mad scientist and monster movies influenced by books like Frankenstein. The 1950s brought mutant creatures and alien invasion films capitalizing on nuclear fears. Slashers and graphic body horror became popular in the 1980s. Modern horror continues to play on real-world fears and update classic films with new scare techniques.

1. THE HISTORY OF
HORROR MOVIES
R O B B I E B E N N E T T

2. ROOTS IN CLASSIC LITERATURE –
GOTHIC HORROR
• A lot of the horror we have today grew from gothic horror
literature written in the 19th century.
• The 3 biggest storys that were used as inspiration through the
years even influencing some horror today are Frankenstein,
Dracula and Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. Frankenstein is the classic
creating a monster horror film, Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde similar to
Frankenstein is also influences monster films. Its also influenced
1930s of monsters and mad scientists.

3. THE HORROR OF THE SILENT ERA
• In the 1920s german expressionism made its way into the world of movies with the silent
movies era, this was the birth of movies like The cabinet of Dr Caligari and Nosferatu.
• This movies were created using props and stop motion to create animations in the
movie and because the films were silent and in black and white they used the elements
of german expression of over the top faces to tell the audience the actors emotions, and
using lighting to set the mood.
• They would also use musical scores to add suspense to the movies.

4. MONSTERS AND MAD SCIENTISTS
1930
• In the 1930’s Horror was once again reborn and the
monsters and mad scientists overtook the popularity on
the imagery of floating ghosts in the silent era of the
1920s. Because of this horror movement the mad
scientist character was created, depicted as the power
hungry and insane scientist creating a creature creating
the plot of the movie. Because of this movement of
films it also gave scientists a bad rep and audiences
began to not take them so seriously and laughed at the
character.
• This was also the first time sound was added to movies
giving the horror genre another dimension of fear at the
time.

5. THE PRIMAL ANIMAL WITHIN;
WEREWOLVES AND CAT WOMEN 1940S
• During the beginning on the 1940s World War 2 was
in full force and this made an impact on the film
industry. At the time horror was also banned in Britain
and because of this it was up to America to take over
the movie business. Because of the war Hitler was
depicted as a werewolf to be used as propaganda and
because of this werewolves were used as an icon of
evil in horror films.
• Cat women- Because all the men were at war women
were doing all of their jobs, because of this and how
women were treated at the time men needed a way to
make women look scary but still sexy. Thus cat
women were born.

6. MUTANT CREATURES AND ALIEN
INVADERS 1950S
• In the 1950s people began to fear nuclear weapons because
of the War and nuclear arms race because of this horror film
makers took advantage of these fears to play on the
audiences minds. The idea of the films came form the idea of
mutant monsters and humans destroying the world and
humans having to unite together to over come the monster
and save the human race.
• Movies around this time were also based around aliens
invading earth and these ideas came from the space race that
was going on at the time, movie makers though if we can get
to the moon then aliens can get to us
All of the movies during this time used low budget effects due
to the lack of money because of the war and were often called
B-movies

7. GHOSTS, ZOMBIES, SATANISM AND
YOUR FAMILY 1960S
• The 1960s was another rebirth of the horror genre with the
idea that horror could happen to anyone, it could even be
someone you know in your everyday life. This is because
audiences were getting bored of the same old horror
stories, and movie makers needed a new spin on the genre.
• Some of the classic examples of 1960s horror are Night of
the living dead, known as the most popularized movie of
the zombie genre. 13 Ghosts a highly anticipated film at the
time, the audience had to wear glasses to apparently ‘see
ghosts come at you’ to get the full effect of the film.
• Dark events during the 70s such as Ted Bundy and the
Manson family had an effect on horror at the time too,
Horror movies began to use suburban areas as the movies
location suggestion that horror can even be where you live.
A well known example of this is Halloween.

8. SLASHER MOVIES AND BODY
HORROR/GORE IN THE 80S
During the 80s horror audiences became obsessed with the human
body. One of the reasons this emerged was the fascination with
‘what was inside’ a stream of films that were released during the 80s
where the main focus was on the mutilation and modification if the
human form.
• This birthed the slasher genre, using the same ideas of the
suburban horror location, and the fear that horror could be
around any corner. This was also because of the success of
previous horror slasher films like Halloween spawning similar
slashers like Friday the 13th
• Some also important information that cased body horror to be so
successful in the 80s was the vast improvements in animatronics
and liquid and foam latex meant movie makers could distort the
human body in a new dimension never seen before. An example
of this is a
scene(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFLQS12z8K4) from

9. VIDEO NASTIES IN THE 1980S
• During the 1980s lots of horror films were easily assessable due to the ‘straight to
video’ where instead of films being shown at a cinema they were sent straight to video.
Because of this children could get hold of horror films with no effort.
• Because of this movies deemed too sick were banned because of the effect they had
on children, and that they were too horrible and sick to be watched by anyone. If you
watched them now however you would wonder what the fuss was about.

10. THE IRONIC HORROR – 1990S THE
SELF-REFERENTIAL HORROR FILMS
• By the end of the 1990s horror had been done to
death, everything had been done with multiple sequels
and horror became some what of a genre no one
really cared about and instead of audiences being in
fear they laughed.
• Films like scream would reference other horror films
with in its own, making the ‘baddie’ of the movie
someone who has been influenced by previous horror
films creating an ironic plot
Horror audiences got bored of predictable horror, this is
were movie makers took advantage of the situation and
made comedy horrors, horror films with the intention of
joking around and taking the piss out of the horror
genre. Films like the ‘scary movie’ films are a prime
example of taking the horror genre and making a joke
out of it

11. GORE RETURNS WITH A VENGEANCE –
“GORE-NOGRAPHY” IN THE 2000S
• The term gore-nography comes form Edelstein's idea that the audience watching
the film for a physical reaction rather than an emotional one.
• In the 2000s many horror movies were released containing a large amount of
torture and gore elements. Some of these films included but are not limited too,
Hostel, The saw movies and captivity. Although gore-nography wasn’t a new genre
with films like Childs play being blamed to causing the case of James Bulger
because of the advances of technology since then the acts desolated were much
more real having a stronger effect of the audience.
• Some information that is note worthy was the poster for captivity was banned in
some places because it was deemed ‘too graphic’.

12. THE REAL WORLD IS FRIGHTENING -
2000-PRESENT HORROR• In current times horror films take elements from a lot of
the previous methods used to scare audiences offering
escapism and using small things that play on our minds to
create horror movies that has a large effect on our fears.
• An example of this is the fear of the dark being used to
create the film that’s going out don’t breath. Playing on
our fears of the dark.
• Lots of horror that come out now are also remakes of old
horror films adding more fear and new elements to the
movies that at the time couldn’t be possible, like the new
blair witch.