1. Case Study: Horror Films
History of Horror Films
Horror films are a film genre that is made to make viewers have an emotional
reaction to them; they do this by basing their story lines on these things:
Nightmares (a scary dream)
Hidden fears
Revulsions ( a sense of disgust)
Terror of the unknown
Horror films also have prevalent elements:
Ghosts
Aliens
Vampires
Werewolves
Curses
Satanism
Demons
Vicious animals
Zombies
Serial killers
These are elements that horror movies are based on or include at least one of
these features.
Timeline of Horror films
Date Evolving of horror
1890’s-1920’s The first horror film the Haunted
Castle was made in 1896, the film was
created by George Melies. When I

2. watched the clips of the film I actually
realised how much horror films have
expanded over the years.
1930’s-1940’s This is when Universal pictures
The advance in technology moved
1950’s-1960’s horror films from Gothic to
contemporary concerns, this then
created 2 sub-genres, these are
horror-of-Armageddon and horror-of-
the-demonic.
1970’s-1980’s The film “Rosemary’s Baby” made an
evolution of more horror films
released with occult films in the
1970’s, this is also when the feature
evil children was introduced.
1990’s This when the relationship of fictional
horror and real world horror was
introduced but this was also a bad
century for horror movies this is
because they movies became
predictable and the audiences were
getting bored of them.
2000’s Parodies came in
Involvement of stars
Bruce Campbell is a film and television actor, director, writer, producer and
author. Bruce Campbell is a cult actor; he is most famous for his role as Ashley
J. "Ash" Williams in the Evil Dead series of films, I personally think that Dyer’s
Star theory doesn’t apply to Bruce Campbell this is because even though he is
very successful he isn’t used for

3. Jamie Lee Curtis is known as scream queen because of her starring roles in
horror films earlier on in her career
Robert Barton Englund
Dee Wallace
Why audiences enjoy horror
Audiences enjoy watching horror films because of a range of things, the main
reason why they watch them are to be scared and to see if the movies can
actually scare them, some people actually crave the negative feelings horror
movies give them. Catharsis theory claims that we enjoy being scared.
Another reason is they feel an addiction, most audiences that watch horror
films are pre-registered audiences. For an example the movie Paranormal
Activity 3 (2011) received arecord-setting numbers at their box office (its $54
million was the most ever for a horror film) pre-registered audience were just
waiting for the latest Hollywood bouquet of blood, sweat, and tears, so they
may not realise that they become addicts.
Audiences would watch horror films for entertainment because the excitement
and adrenaline they feel will give them a real thrill. Middle aged and older
adults tend to not watch horror films because of the adrenaline and heart
racing scenes they may not be able to handle it.
Audiences may watch horror films to feel a sense of escapism, Dyers theory of
utopian pleasure backs this up.
Dyer believes that we like to be entertained so we can escape our mundane
lives, I believe that audiences who enjoy watching horror films support this
theory but in an opposite view they escape their lives by watching horror films
that are totally different from their real lives.
Audiences may also watch horror films to get a break from normal narratives
that have predictable endings and similar storylines.
How the genre has developed

4. Horror films have developed plenty, since the first ever horror film Haunted
Castle (1896) created by Georges Melies is a 3 minute short film, which
contained classic pantomime elements and was purposely meant to amuse
people, instead of frightening them, but it is still considered as the first horror
film. If that film was to come out today it would probably be classed as a PG
but back then it was really scary to the audience that’s because of all the
techniques that are used now that has made horror films develop so much.
The first memorable horror film is, Nosferatu (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau,
based on the story of Dracula this film had much more scarier elements than
Haunted Castle this is because Noserfatu came out many year after Haunted
Castle so they were able to add more elements to make the
movie more scary due to the advance in technology.
Horror films seem to adapt to new generations;
Launch of Russian Satellite Resulted in movies about A famous clip from Nosferatu
Sputnik alien invasions
Discovery of nuclear power Lead to films about mutated
animal insects and people
Acceptance of deviant human Allowed the sub-genre
psychology (“Psycho”) thrillers about psychotic
killers to be launched
Horror films still seem to keep the same elements ghosts, monsters, madmen
and demons but they present them in new innovative ways.