The document traces the history and evolution of horror films from the late 19th century through the 2000s. Some of the earliest films depicting supernatural events were created in the 1890s. In the early 20th century, German expressionist films of the 1910s-1920s significantly influenced later Hollywood films. Universal Studios popularized the genre in the 1930s with films like Dracula and Frankenstein. Hammer Film Productions enjoyed success in the 1950s-60s adapting classic horror characters. Subgenres like slashers and body horror emerged in the 1970s-80s. The genre struggled in the early 1990s but was reinvigorated by self-aware, ironic films like Scream in the late 1990s. A res

2.  The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several
of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges
Méliès in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le
Manoir du diable (aka "The House of the Devil") which is
sometimes credited as being the first horror
 In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of
Frankenstein; thought lost for many years, film collector Alois
Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.
 The early 20th century brought more milestones for the
horror genre including the first monster to appear in a full-
length horror film, Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-
Dame who had appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, "Notre-
Dame de Paris" published in 1831.
 Many of the earliest feature length 'horror films' were created
by German film makers in 1910s and 1920s, during the era of
German Expressionist films. Many of these films would
significantly influence later Hollywood films.
 Paul Wegener's The Golem (1915) was seminal; in 1920 Robert
Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its Expressionist
style, would influence film-makers from Orson Welles to Tim
Burton and many more for decades.
 The era also produced the first vampire-themed feature, F. W.
Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of
Bram Stoker's Dracula.

3.  It was in the early 1930s that American film producers,
particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the
horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful
Gothic features including Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein
(1931), some of which blended science fiction films with
Gothic horror, such as The Invisible Man
 Tod Browning, director of Dracula, also made the
extremely controversial Freaks based on Spurs by Ted
Robbins. Browning's film about a band of circus freaks was
so controversial the studio burned about 30 minutes and
disowned it. These films, while designed to thrill, also
incorporated more serious elements, and were influenced
by the German expressionist films of the 1920s.
 Other studios of the day had less spectacular films, but
Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Michael
Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax were both important horror
films.
 Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with The
Wolf Man 1941, not the first werewolf film, but certainly
the most influential.
 Throughout the decade Universal also continued to
produce more sequels in the Frankenstein series, as well as
a number of films teaming up several of their monsters.

4.  With advances in technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted from the gothic toward
concerns that some saw as being more relevant to the late-Century audience. The horror film was seen to fall
into two sub-genres: the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film.
 A stream of low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats from "outside": alien invasions and
deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects, most notably in films imported from Japan, whose society had
first-hand knowledge of the effects of nuclear radiation.
 Filmmakers continued to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. One of the
most notable films of the era was 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man, from Richard Matheson's existentialist
novel. While more of a "science-fiction" story, the film conveyed the fears of living in the "Atomic Age" and the
terror of social alienation.
 During the late 1950s and early 1960s, production companies focused on producing horror films, including the
British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer enjoyed huge international success from full-blooded
technicolor films involving classic horror characters, often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, such as
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) and many sequels. Hammer, and
director Terence Fisher, are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the modern horror movie.
 Other companies also contributed to a boom in horror film production in Britain in the 1960s and '70s, including
Tigon-British and Amicus, the latter best known for their anthology films like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
(1965).

5.  "Evil children" and reincarnation became popular subjects (as in Robert Wise's 1977 film
Audrey Rose, which dealt with a man who claims his daughter is the reincarnation of
another dead person). Another popular Satanic horror movie was The Omen (1976),
where a man realizes his five year old adopted son is the Antichrist.
 The ideas of the 1960s began to influence horror films, as the youth involved in the
counterculture began exploring the media. Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) recalled the Vietnam war; George Romero satirised
the consumer society in his 1978 zombie sequel, Dawn of the Dead; 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
 In 1975, Steven Spielberg began his ascension to fame with Jaws. The film kicked off a
wave of killer animal stories such as Orca (1977), and Up From The Depths. Jaws is often
credited as being one of the first films to use traditionally B movie elements such as
horror and mild gore in a big-budget Hollywood film.
 1979's Alien combined the naturalistic acting and graphic violence of the 1970s with the
monster movie plots of earlier decades, and used science fiction. The film was extremely
successful at both box office and critical reception, being called "Jaws in space," and a
landmark film for the science fiction genre.

6.  In the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the
themes from the 1980s. Sequels from the Child's Play and
Leprechaun 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.
 Two main problems pushed horror backward during this
period: firstly, the horror genre wore itself out with the
proliferation of nonstop slasher and gore films in the eighties.
Secondly, the adolescent audience which feasted on the blood
and morbidity of the previous decade grew up, and the
replacement audience for films of an imaginative nature were
being captured instead by the explosion of science-fiction and
fantasy, courtesy of the special effects possibilities with
computer-generated imagery.
 To re-connect with its audience, horror became more self-
mockingly ironic and outright parodic, especially in the latter
half of the 1990s. Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) (known as
Dead Alive in the USA) took the splatter film to ridiculous
excesses for comic effect.
 Wes Craven's Scream movies, starting in 1996, featured
teenagers who were fully aware of, and often made reference to,
the history of horror movies, and mixed ironic humour with the
shocks. Along with I Know What You Did Last Summer and
Urban Legend, they re-ignited the dormant slasher film genre.

7.  The start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre. The
re-release of a restored 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 four sequels. As well as the Jeepers Creepers series.
Also, films like Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, House of 1000
Corpses, and the previous mentions helped bring the genre
back to Restricted ratings in cinemas pleasing many
hardcore horror fans.
 There has been a major return to the zombie genre in horror
movies made after 2000. The Resident Evil video game
franchise was adapted into a film released in March 2002.
Three sequels have followed. The British film 28 Days Later
(2002) featured an update on the genre with The Return of
the Living Dead (1985) style of aggressive zombie. The film
later spawned a sequel: 28 Weeks Later. An updated remake
of Dawn of the Dead (2004) soon appeared as well as the
zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). This resurgence
lead George A. Romero to return to his Living Dead series
with Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007) and
Survival of the Dead 2010.
 Finally with the arrival of Paranormal Activity (2009), which
had very good reviews and an excellent reception at the box
office, minimal thought started by The Blair Witch Project
was reaffirmed and is expected to be continued successfully
in other low-budget productions. And In 2008 there is
Martyrs, a psychology, thriller and horror film.