The History Of Horror Movies

Horror is a genre of film and literature that is used to create fear in its audience. Within film, the horror genre was "created" in the 1930's with the release of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", both released in 1931 by Universal Studios. 


One of the earliest forms of horror were those about vampires and other unholy creatures, making the first popular subgenre religious/gothic horror, which dominated the 1930’s and 1940’s with films like The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bodysnatcher (1945). 


In continuance, the 1950’s and 1960’s were divided by demonic horror and “horror of Armageddon”, or the fear of the end of the world. Because that was a common fear, films like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Psycho (1960) were very popular, as was the 1968 release Rosemary’s Baby, which was one of the first films to give the Devil a human form. The 1970’s sustained the occult themes in horror with films like The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976) playing with one of the biggest taboos in horror - children and the Devil. 


The interest in the occult dwindled after this and the late 1970’s and early 1980’s spawned the beginnings of iconic franchises, such as John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). 


Though these movies were an introduction to the slasher subgenre, the 1990’s saw a decline in interest of the horror genre because of so much gore being shown in the previous decade. The genre was salvaged in 1996 when Wes Craven directed the first of the Scream movies. Along with films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, slasher and “teen horror” movies became more popular and its target audience was drawn in with franchises like the Final Destination series during the 2000’s. 


Many Asian horror movies like The Ring and The Grudge were remade, or “Americanised”,  during this time, though a noticeable trend during the 2000’s was the return of the zombie subgenre with films like 28 Days Later (2004) and a remake of Dawn Of The Dead (2004) becoming prevalent. In the later part of the decade, extreme slasher films, now referred to as “horror porn” or “torture porn” due to the emphasis of the infliction of pain on victims, has become most popular with the Saw franchise currently holding the record for highest grossing horror franchise in history.