1. What is horror
Horror films are a movie genre seeking to elicit a negative
emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s most
primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer
through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus
frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres.
Horror also frequently overlap with the thriller genre.

2. 1890s-1920s
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of
the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in
the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du diable.
In the early 20th century horror movies started using monsters in
there movie. These movies are Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde
(1920), The Phantom Carriage (Sweden, 1920) The Lost World
(1925), The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)

3. 1930s-1940s
During the early period of talking pictures the American
movie studio universal pictures began a successful gothic
horror film series with films such as
Dracula(1931),Frankenstein (also in 1931) and The wolf
man (1941).
By now, some actors were beginning to build entire
careers in such films, most especially Boris Karloff and
Bela Lugosi. Karloff appeared in three of producer Val
Lewton’s atmospheric B-pictures for RKO pictures in
the mid-1940s, including the body snatcher(1945), which
also featured Lugosi. The titles of these films were often
imposed on Lewton by the studio, but cat people (1942), I
walked with a zombie (1943) rise above this limitation.

4. 1950s-1960s
With advances in technology, the tone of horror films shifted from the gothic towards
contemporary concerns. Two sub-genres began to emerge: the horror-of -
Armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic horror.
A stream of usually low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats
from 'outside': alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. In
the case of some horror films from Japan, such as Godzilla (1954) and its sequels,
mutation from the effects of nuclear radiation
During the later 1950s, Great Britain emerged as a producer of horror films. Peeping
Tom (1960), directed by Michael Powell, concerns a serial killer who combines his
profession as a photographer with the moments before murdering his victims. The
British Hammer company focused on the genre for the first time, enjoying huge
international success from films involving classic horror characters which were shown
in color for the first time. Often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and
drawing on Universal's precedent, these films include The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957), and Dracula (1958), both followed by many sequels, with director Terence
Fisher being responsible for many of the best films. Other British companies
contributed to a boom in horror film production in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s,
including Tigon-British and Amicus, the latter best known for their anthology films like
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965).

5. 1970s-1980s
Evil children' and reincarnation became popular subjects. Robert
Wise's film Audrey Rose (1977) for example, deals with a man who
claims his daughter is the reincarnation of another dead person.
Alice, Sweet Alice (1977), is another Catholic themed horror
slasher about a little girl's murder and her sister being the prime
suspect. Another popular Satanic horror movie was The Omen
(1976), where a man realizes his five year old adopted son is the
Antichrist. Invincible to human intervention, Satan became the
villain in many horror films with a postmodern style and a
dystopian worldview.
The ideas of the 1960s began to influence horror films, as the youth
involved in the counterculture began exploring the medium. Wes
Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas
Chain Saw Massacre (1974)[16] recalled the Vietnam war; George
A. Romero satirised the consumer society in his zombie
sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978); Canadian director David
Cronenberg featured the "mad scientist" movie subgenre by
exploring contemporary fears about technology and society, and
reinventing "body horror", starting with Shivers (1975).

6. 1990-2000
in the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the
themes from the 1980s. Sequels from the Child's Play (1988)
and Leprechaun (1993) series enjoyed some commercial
success. The slasher films A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday
the 13th, and Halloween all saw sequels in the 1990s, most of
which met with varied amounts of success at the box office, but
all were panned by fans and critics, with the exception of Wes
Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and the hugely successful
Silence of the Lambs (1991).
The start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre. The release of
an extended version of The Exorcist in September 2000 was successful
despite the film having been available on home video for years.
Franchise films such as Freddy vs. Jason also made a stand in
theaters. Final Destination (2000) marked a successful revival of teen-
centered horror and spawned five sequels. The Jeepers Creepers
series was also successful. Films like Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, House
of 1000 Corpses, and the previous mentions helped bring the genre
back to Restricted ratings in theaters.