The History of Horror

The genre of horror has an extensive history of over 100 years and continues to be very popular to this day. From its roots in literature to the modern gore and video nasties, the genre has managed to reinvent itself multiple times to keep up to date with the evolution of technology and the almost limitless boundaries of its audience to which it has become one of the most classic and well favoured genres of all time.

The starting point of the horror genre was horror literature and the 3 main 19th century classic tales of ‘Frankenstein’, ‘Dracula’ and ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. Although these three are the most popular of the gothic movement, the first gothic novel was 'The Castle of Otranto' by Horace Walpole which was written in 1764. Towards the end of the 18th century, codes and conventions started to form for the horror genre as more writers started to form their stories in a similar fashion which reflected in the early 19th century as strong emotions were reflected in them. During this early time of the genre, horror was marketed a predominantly female audience and reflected this by using female protagonists although these often expressed masculine traits with also seen in the modern horror films. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, who was married to Percy Shelley, an early romantic poet published the story anonymously in London in 1818. 5 years later, Shelley released the second edition of the story in France where she was credited after the success of the stage play by Richard Brinsley Peake and was adapted into a film in 1910.

Due to creation of artificial life by Dr Frankenstein, the tale raised controversy within the Religion vs.  Science argument as it was seen by many as Dr Frankenstein ‘playing God’, especially in many Christian dominated countries. One of the scenes in the film adaption caused outrage with parents as Frankenstein’s monster throws a girl in the lake while playing to which she drowned. This scene was particularly controversial and some states in the US censored it from the film. Dracula was written by Bram Stoker in 1897 and has since been adapted into many film adaptations such as ‘The Wife of Dracula’ and ‘Son of Dracula’. The novel is told through letters and diary entries by the protagonist and tells the story of a solicitor travelling to Transylvania to provide legal support for Dracula and soon realises he has become a prisoner in the castle by Count Dracula. This story scared its audience as the vampires were used to distance the audience from reality however, as they could transform into bats made it more realistic and relatable for the viewers. The last of the three iconic stories, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and was published in 1886 and is often referred to the shorter name ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. The story told is of Gabriel John Utterson, a London lawyer who investigates his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the strange occurrences with the evil Edward Hyde. With the case of Dr Jekyyl, he has a good and an evil personality which has influenced the phrase of 'Jekyyl and Hyde’ which means someone who has two vastly different personalities from one situation to the next.

An iconic still from Nosferatu

This later developed into the Silent Era and German Expressionism in the 1910's and 1920's which explored both action and comedy although the film makers also explored darker themes with the supernatural and psychology while experimenting with the new technology and photographic trickery. The audience at the time was extremely interested in ghosts and magic lantern shows which could be shown through the development on cameras and various filming equipment to tell interesting and bizarre tales which would thrill their audience that had never been done before. One of the first silent horrors was 'Le Manoir du Diable' in 1896 by Georges Méliès, who was to become one of the leading filmmakers of his generation and combining the use of magic and illusion into his work. This supernatural clip saw the introduction of the horror iconography by including bats, caldrons, ghosts and trolls. German expressionism was an arts movement of film, painting and architecture during the 1920’s which later expanding to Europe and one of its most famous films from this movement was ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ by Robert Wiene.

After a two decades of silent movies, sound started to become very popular in the horror genre and had a huge impact on the genre and how it uses sound to suit the mood of the film. As this was a new concept to the film makers at the time, many of them struggled to adapt to the new technology to add sound which could build up the tension or magnify a certain sound for the audience. During this period, the films had developed into fairy tales and had very dreamlike effects to add another dimension to the literary classics that they was basing them on, however this had a significant impact as horror films became more popular and mainstream to the wider public which reflected in the figures. To escape the reality of a fore coming war and the Depression, 80 million people visited the cinema on a weekly basis that lead to an increase in the amount of horror films being made at the time. Films such as James Whale’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Tod Browning’s ‘Dracula’ were extremely popular as they combined serious elements along with excitement to thrill the audience as well as some films combining horror with the sci-fi genre such as ‘The Invisible Man’.

Through the 1940’s, Britain along with many other countries were feeling the effects of World War 2 which was effectively used within the film industry with animals such as wolves and cats. Hitler and his ideologies were portrayed through wolves as Adolf Hitler was a translation of ‘noble wolf’ is Old German and many of the Nazi Party HQ’s were named after several wolves. ‘The Wolf Man’ was a very popular film at the time as not only did it include wolves to signify the Nazi’s, the screenwriters own issues were reflected in the film through the characters fleeing America. Later on, cats representing frustrated women who had lost their jobs to the men who and returned from the war became dominate which an example of this is ‘Cat People’ released in 1942.

During the 1950’s sci-fi films had become a popular trend which included monsters, aliens and mutant creatures. As there had been another development in technology by blue screens, this made it easier for film makers to create mutant creatures that would scare and shock the audience which is also when blockbusters had started to appear in the film industry. The monsters were a clear evil side to the human good side and the films often shown destruction and chaos caused by the monsters in films such as ‘The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ and ‘The Blob’ which both had a reference to communism as it was seen as an evil force which would take other the world.

Christopher Lee as Dracula

Another genre that was popular in the 1950’s which also expanding into the next decade is Hammer horror which were low budget films that used brightly lit, garish colours and suggested sexuality and violence as a shock technique which would surprise the audience as up until then, horrors had been very dark and dull to scare the audiences. One of the most popular and well known films of the genre is the ‘Horror of Dracula’ starring Christopher Lee released in 1958 and led to him becoming one of the most iconic Draculas which he later starred in another 6 Dracula films in this genre. Although they had small budgets, these films were very successful in the cinemas and made a large profit as the movement went worldwide however this soon stopped as the production stopped during the 1980’s.

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s; ghosts, zombies, Satanism and families became a hit as these films dealt with contemporary society issues and psychological fears such as children and childbirth through big budget movies. One of the most popular films of all time, ‘The Exorcist’ featured both children and Satanism as the movement wanted to suggested that the enemy is a lot closer to home than what was portrayed in the past as well as the existence of the Devil. Ghost stories had also become quite popular as it leads the main character through the unclear line of sanity and insanity with the paranormal.

A still of the killer from Halloween

With the advancement of special effects, the 80’s had become the home for Slasher movies and the extremities of body horror. In contrast to past horror movements, these films were mainly about the visual aspects and how far you could push the audience through extreme close ups of the distorted human body and realistic special effects such as liquid and foam latex. As most of the attention was brought to gory side, the films storylines were influenced and in some cases copied films that had been released decades before them. The creatures used often had a supernatural connection or unknown origins but some did incorporate creatures that and generated through human form like vampires and zombies, which were especially popular due to films like ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Evil Dead II’. Slasher and splatter films are often linked together but the two genres have very different components – splatter films tend to feature a large amount of blood and flesh alongside violent scene whereas slasher films have a more clear and unique set of conventions which are followed such as psychotic killers in films like ‘Halloween’. These often had many remakes as they were very popular with audiences at the time.

With the popularity of VHS tapes, videos nasties became popular in the 1980’s as they could be released straight to tape instead of being shown in the cinemas due to the low budget of these types of films.  It could be said they caused controversy as they didn’t have any regulations on them and could be watched by anyone in the home and often did not have a age certificate set by BBFC that lead to panic in the media of what children and teenagers were watching. A total of 39 films were banned in the UK and were named ‘Video nasties’ as in 1984, the government passed the Videos Recording Act that meant they had to regulate the films released and sold but this soon directed to a more underground film industry. These controversial films such as ‘Child’s Play 3’ have often been connected with real life cases, such as the murder of James Bulger.

Within recent decades, horror has transformed with its audience to show more gore and more action as people have become more attracted to the extreme, horrifying films which have seen the rise in ‘gore-nography’ or torture porn in the 2000’s. These films such as Hostel and Saw primarily focus on the actions and visual reaction which is why they have been given the nickname linking to pornography as it works on the same principles. As very little is left to the imagination of the audience, the effects used are very realistic and tend to happen like they could in real life. These types of films have seen to take an unpopular turn over recent years as you can tell by recent film schedules that feature a lot of supernatural elements rather than torture and gore.