The document discusses the history and genres of horror fiction in cinema. It covers the origins of horror stories in 18th century gothic novels, the classic horror films of the 1930s-1940s produced by Universal Studios, the rise of Hammer Films and Vincent Price films in Britain in the 1950s-1960s, and the emergence of more graphic horror subgenres like slashers and zombies following the end of censorship codes in 1964. It also notes the commercialization of horror in the 1990s that reduced gore and violence, but hopes independent films may help revive daring and innovative horror in the future.

1. The genres of cinema: horror
by
Marco Renzelli

2. What is horror fiction?
• The main aim of Horror fiction is to scare, to drive strong
emotions in the audience.
• There are many ways to scare, using features of fantasy,
science fiction or thriller fiction.
• This sometimes create confusion, however the aim of
horror fiction is to scare, all the other things are only
means to an end.

3. Why fear?
• Fear is the strongest of all emotion, only love can compare.
• This is the reason why there are only two genres based on emotion:
horror and love stories.
• Fear is the oldest of all emotions, even reptiles or frogs are fearful.
• Fear is so important that many psychiatrists and psychoanalist think
that personality type is linked with existential fears and ways of fear
management.
• Paul Ekman published in 1957 the first of a series of revolutionary
works that proved that fear is one of the few emotion, like anger and
happiness, that is the same on the faces of people from all countries
of the world.

4. • The first modern horror fiction stories arose during the eighteenth
century, with the gothic fiction tradition melding horror and romance.
• The Castle of Otranto, Vathek, The Monk, The Mysteries of
Udolpho introduced many troupes of the genre, like ghosts,
haunted manors, damsels in distress.
• During the nineteenth century were written many of the most famous
horror stories: Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula.
• Other great authors of the time were Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Allan
Poe and, in the early twentieth century, H.P.Lovecraft.

5. What are the sub-genres of horror?
• Action horror: horror & guns
• Body horror: monstrous transformation of the body.
• Comedy horror: horror & comedy
• Gothic horror:horror with victorian themes.
• Natural horror: the monsters are normal animals.
• Psychological horror:character-centered horrors.
• Science fiction horror: horror in space.
• Slasher films: bad guys with knives.
• Splatter films: horror centered on gore and blood.
• Zombie films: who need an explanation?

6. The first big hit of horror
cinema-Nosferatu

7. The first star of horror cinema-
Lon Chaney

8. The first American age of
horror:’30-’40
• Universal studios produced many of the classic of the
genre, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf
Man, made by the duo Karloff-Lugosi
• The other companies, especially MGM, tried to pursuit
Universal’ successes with Freaks, Dr. Jekill and Mr.
Hyde, The Island of Lost Souls, The Mysteries of the
Wax Museum.

10. Tod Browning’s Freaks

11. The British age of horror: the ’50
up until 1964
• Hammer films was the leading movie company of the time for horror
films, making new colour version of Universal’s Dracula,
Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman, made by the duo Peter
Cushing-Christopher Lee.
• This films influenced the other side of Atlantic, with the American
International Pictures’ Poe-themed films starring Vincent Price.
• The great british director Alfred Hitchcock made two of the most
earning horror films of the time: Psycho and The Birds.

12. Hammer Films

13. American International Pictures

14. Hitchcock

15. The second American age: from 1964
up to the nineties
• 1964 was the year of the great change: the end of the Motion Picture
Production Code, moral guidelines for the movie industry, spurred a new
wave of violent, blood filled, esoteric-themed films, previously not allowed.
• We have the beginning of the splatter and zombie genre with Night of the
Living Dead, the beginning of body and demonic horror with Rosemary’s
baby.
• With the seventies the genre explode with The Exorcist, The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, The Shining, Jaws , Alien, Dawn
of the Dead in the eighties with A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Thing,
The Evil Dead, Friday the 13 th, Halloween, up to the nineties with Bram
Stocker’s Dracula, In the Mouth of Madness and Interview with the
Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles

19. The decay of the horror genre
• In the nineties the production of films became a giant,
well-oiled industry, with SFX companies and specialized
directors for every genre; however the rising costs of
films drove the need to avoid problems with public
opinion, eliminating from mainstream movies gore, sex,
violence and social criticism. The search for ever-
increasing audiences had the outcome that modern
«horror» movies are rarely forbidden to the youngs!

20. Hope for the future
• As for other art, like music or videogames, innovation and daring
now are the province only of small to medium developers, using
internet as the medium of choice; the first of this new wave of works
was The Blair Witch Project.
• There has been a renaissance of the violent, gore films, with a wave
of remake of classics of the seventies. The good results at the box
office is encouraging some to begin anew to produce horror films.
Only time will tell if is a fad or a true trend.