Films I have heard of in the horror genre include:
* ones which I have seen
Psycho*
Alien
The Shining*
Aliens
Zombieland
The Thing
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein*
Frankenstein
Rosemary’s Baby
Let The Right One In
The Exorcist (and sequels)
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Night Of The Living Dead
Dawn Of The Dead
Shaun Of The Dead*
The Birds
Grindhouse
Evil Dead
Halloween (Both versions)
Halloween 2
Peeping Tom
Freaks
The Hound Of The Baskervilles
Misery
The Haunting
The Wicker Man (Both Versions)
The Phantom Of The Opera (Both Versions)
Dr Jekyla And Mr. Hyde
Predator
The Others*
Metropolis
I Walked With A Zombie
House Of Wax
Village Of The Damned (Both Versions)
Children Of The Damned
Quatermass And The Pit
Witchfinder General
Count Dracula
Black Christmas
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Both Versions)
Jaws
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Carrie
The Omen (Both Versions)
The Hills Have Eyes (Both Versions)
Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes!
The Amityville Horror
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Salem’s Lot
The Fog
Friday The 13th
An American Werewolf In London
Creepshow*(Not Seen Sequels)
Poltergeist (and sequels)
Children Of The Corn (and sequels)
Gremlins (and sequels)
A Nightmare On Elm Street (and sequels)
Re-Animator
The Fly
The Hitcher
Little Shop Of Horrors
Hellraiser
The Lost Boys
The Blob
Child’s Play
Fright Night
Pumpkinhead
It*
Tremors
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle*
The Lawnmower Man
Leprechaun
The Tommyknockers
Graveyard Shift
The Craft
From Dusk Till Dawn
The Frighteners
Scream
Anaconda
Event Horizon
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Mimic
The Relic
Urban Legend
The Blair Witch Project
Deep Blue Sea
End Of Day
Lake Placid
The Mummy*
The Ninth Gate
Sleepy Hollow*
Stir Of Echoes
Dracula 2000
Final Destination*(and sequels)
Hollow Man
Ghosts Of Mars
Jeepers Creepers
Thirteen Ghosts
28 Days Later
Cabin Fever
Deathwatch
Dog Soldiers
Eight Legged Freaks
The Eye
FeardotCom
Ghost Ship
Jason X
Queen Of The Damned
Resident Evil* (not seen sequels)
The Ring
Darkness Falls*
Freddy vs. Jason
House Of 1000 Corpses
Ju-on: The Grudge
Underworld
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
Creep
Godsend
Saw (and sequels)
Boogeyman
The Cave
The Descent
The Devil’s Rejects
Doom
Hostel
Land Of The Dead
White Noise
Wolf Creek
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane
An American Haunting
Black Sheep*
The Host
Severance
Silent Hill
Snakes On A Plane
1408
28 Weeks Later
30 Days Of Night
Alien vs. Predator* (not seen sequel)
Grim Reaper
Hannibal (and sequels)
Hatchet
I Am Legend*
The Invasion
The Reaping
Shrooms
The Mist
Teeth
Cloverfield*
The Cottage
Diary Of The Dead
House*
Let The Right One In
The Number 23
Drag Me To Hell
Jennifer’s Body
My Bloody Valentine
Orphan
Pandorum
Sorority Row
Triangle
Beetlejuice*
Common similarities between horror films include:
Ø A haunted house (e.g. The Others, House) or graveyard setting (e.g. The Omen, Graveyard Shift)
Ø A main central villain (e.g. Frank Cotton, portrayed by Sean Chapman/Oliver Smith in Hellraiser, and Freddy Krueger played by Robert Englund in A Nightmare On Elm Street.)
Ø A terrifying, lengthy finale (e.g, like the one in The Blair Witch Project).
Ø Horror films are sometimes combined with science fiction (e.g, in Alien, and Quartermass And The Pit).
Ø Thriller films can also be combined with horror films (e.g. 28 Days Later, and Cabin Fever).
Ø Some horror films rely primarily on special/visual effects (e.g. Final Destination, and Cloverfield).
Ø Other horror films have loud, over-emphasised soundtracks for additional effect (e.g, Alien, and Psycho).
Ø Most horror films provide scary situations and taboos, which are out of the ordinary for an audience (e.g, the graphic, violent scenes of Saw and Hostel).
Ø Over time, people have grown used to horror movies and some have become hard to impress. Films such as Black Sheep, a horror comedy, and The Blair Witch Project, a horror film shown from a hand held camera, demonstrate novelty value or plenty of comedy to satisfy the viewer.
How The Genre Has Changed Over Time
The genre has changed over time from its beginnings in 1890, to present day. The most notable first horror film was Le Manoir du diable (or The House Of The Devil), in 1896. This was brief at only 2 minutes long. The early 20th century introduced monsters into horror films for the first time. The first monster ever to be introduced to the genre was Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, in films such as Esmeralda (1906), and The Hunchback (1909).
Some of the earliest lengthy horror films were created by German filmmakers in the 1910s and 1920s. 1922 even brought around Nosferatu, the first vampire themed film ever and an unauthorised version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dramas also borrowed aspects from the horror genre, including The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1923, and The Phantom Of The Opera in 1925.
The 1930’s brought American Producers, who subsequently popularised the genre and introduced gothic horrors such as Dracula and The Mummy. Freaks, a 1934 horror film offered a different kind of horror, and portrayed circus sideshow performers as monsters instead. The film M, was also slightly different as it involved a serial killer instead of a normal monster. Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde was also a classic important film of the genre.
The 1940s brought The Wolf Man, which wasn’t the first werewolf film, but the first major, influential one. Several B Movies including I Walked With A Zombie, and The Body Snatcher were also created in this time period. The first horror movie produced by an Indian film industry was Mahal, in 1949, which was also one of the first films to deal with reincarnation.
In the 1950s, the genre was divided into three subgenres:
The Horror Of Personality (films which do not contain monsters or supernatural beings, but ordinary villains who possess horrific personalities). Examples of these films include Psycho (1960), and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962).
The Horror Of Armageddon (The horror concerning the end of the world). Examples of these films include 28 Days Later (2002) and I Am Legend (2007).
The Horror Of The Demonic World. Examples of these films include The Exorcist (1973), and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (1999).
Also around this time, the themes of alien invasion and mutation were brought in by the Japanese in the form of low budget films. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) also incorporated the paranoia of the cold war into horror films. Science fiction elements were also weaved into horror films round about this time. During the 50’s and 60’s production companies also focused on horror films including the famous Hammer Film Productions. These films included The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959).
Around this time, American National Pictures made a series of Edgar Allen Poe themed films starring famous actor Vincent Price. Teaming up with Tigon British Film Productions, the company would produce the film Witchfinder General. More horror of personality films followed with Peeping Tom (1960), and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) being the main ones, plus The Birds, a horror of Armageddon film about nature gone mad came about in 1963.
In 1968, Night Of The Living Dead pushed the boundaries of the genre further than ever before. Blending gore with psychological insights, it succeeded in bringing horror into everyday life and rebelling against the earlier gothic horror trends. Most gory films at the time were low budget and include Blood Feast (1963), and Two Thousand Maniacs (1964).
The Production Code Of America (censorship guideline company) ended in 1964, and the 1970s subsequently gave way to A movies, gory horror movies with sexual undertones, mixed with the occult (latin- knowledge of the hidden). The success of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 encouraged the success of many 70s A movies including The Exorcist (1973), and other films which portrayed the devil as the main source of evil.
Evil children and reincarnation also became popular themes in films including The Omen (1976) and Alice, Sweet Alice (1977). Satan also became the villain in some horror films round about this time. Horror movies which were influenced by the 1960s such as The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), related to the Vietnam war of that period.
Famous horror writer Steven King also allowed films to be made of his books at this time, starting with Carrie in 1976. Slasher films also became quite popular with Black Christmas (1974), Halloween (1978) and Friday The 13th (1980). The success of Jaws in 1975 spurred off other marine based horror films in the 70s including Orca and Up From The Depths. Jaws used a considerable amount of B-movie elements and mixed them with a big budget to successful results.
1979s Alien combined horror with science fiction effectively to become one of the greatest horror films ever made. Foreign horror films dubbed into English also came about round this time.
The 80s were well known for producing a number of horror sequels, some starting in that time with films such as Poltergeist (1982), and A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). Comedy elements were also added to horror films at this time including American Werewolf In London (1981) and Fright Night (1985).
Horror films also became popular on video, especially the gory ones. It was also a growing fact that it had become easier and easier over the years for children to get hold of and watch unsuitable horror material. More sequels followed in the 90s, including films, which linked between fictional and real life horror. Scream, a film which mixed horror and tongue in cheek humour to new grounds in the slasher genre.
In 1994, Interview With The Vampire combined theatre like styles with horror. By this time, the genre was exhausted due to a large number of slasher and gory films in the 80s, and fans of these movies grew up to like fantasy or science fiction movies instead, which incorporated computer graphic imagery.
To revive itself, the genre turned to self mocking ironic films, often using parody, especially in the late 1990s. Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend helped to re-ignite the slasher genre. The Blair Witch Project was also successful in 1999, as it was original and new at the time.
The early 2000s did not produce many horror films. Among the most successful were Final Destination (2000) and The Others (2001). The Others was also different, as it relied on psychology rather than gore to scare it’s audience. The zombie genre also increased in popularity after the 2000s and several films (Dawn Of The Dead, 28 Days Later etc.) were created. Extreme graphic violence as depicted in films such as Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) was also popular around this period.
Film remakes such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004), The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Halloween (2007) also dominated the 2000s.
How Changes In Technology Have Influenced The Genre
There have been obvious changes in technology since horror movies first began and a fair majority of modern horror films rely on computer graphic imagery. Some of these films may focus too much on the computer graphics and the plot becomes weak or nearly non-existent and everything else is second best to the imagery.
Although older horror movies did not incorporate effects of the same quality, most of them did possess a certain quality unmatched by effects of any kind. Some modern horror films are quality, but an equal amount follow the technology mentioned above.
Patrick Johnson 11S1
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