The history of the horror genre

The Gothic Horror sub-genre was one of the first to emerge in early films.This is because there were many horror stories, told by parents to scare their children and other parents in the 1800's and earlier, featuring settings and locations such as castles, large houses, dungeons and such. Many of these gothic horror stories featured ghosts, demons and vampires, such as 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein'. in fact, many of these were actually originally famous books, scaring readers with their own imaginations before they could be frightened by something on a screen.
The first horror film was made as early as 1896- the manor of the devil. this film shows us now, how popular the horror genre was back then, and how much people enjoyed being scared.
Horror films were still being explored in the 1900's, with the first adaptation of 'Frankenstein' by Edison studios in 1910. this shows that the horror genre was still popular and still going strong. However, the genre didn't really start to take off until the end of the first world war, where German expressionism used the genre to create beautifully exaggerated sets and costumes with basic, but still beautiful in my opinion, story lines. In 1920, the great grandfather of all horror films was created. 'The cabinet of Dr.Caligari' is seen to be the beginning of the modern horror film, in it's narrative, where the whole story is sexually influenced. The monster loves the woman so wants to kill her, is the basis of most modern horror films, give or take a few sadistic sexual desires.
in the late 1920's, sound for films was introduced. the horror film genre was most influenced by this- it allowed more jump scares and louder sounds to scare the audience even further. Low budget horror films were then created in the 1940's with 'Cat People', an early psychological horror film that would change the use of shadows, lighting and sound within the horror genre.
The 1950's saw the creation of science fiction horror, with films such as 'The day the earth stood still' and 'The thing', as fear of invasion in america was one that Hollywood could play on to create popular, B-movie horror films. The mid 50's also saw the creation of horror at a more serious level and not so, with films such as 'Psycho' and lots and lots of 'Frankenstein' films. The idea that sexual desire could fuel violence in horror films was also shown in full in the 50's, where half naked women being lusted after by monsters and serial killers was shown on the big screen. These ideas led to the sexually fueled undertones of most horror films today.
Lauren.