Horror Genre

Gothic Horror.

Gothic Horror is based around Literature and combines the elements of Romance and Horror together.

It was first established by Horace Walpole in 1764.

In the early 19th century, the stories of Dracula and Frankenstein were written.

The settings and buildings of this style of horror were gothic architecture, such as castles and caverns etc.

The first ever horror film made was in 1896 and it was 3 minutes long.

It was "Le manior du Diable" - The house of the devil.

3 new silent gothic horror movies were then filmed between 1910 and 1915, where were ALL adaptations of novels.

These were: "Frankenstein", which ran for approximately 16 minutes and was filmed in 3 days,

"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" which ran for round about 26 minutes,

and "The Golem", which lasted just over an hour.

It wasn't until the 1930s that Dracula made it to the screens. In 1931, it finally came, and cost £355,000 to make lasting 75 minutes. The movie sold around 50,000 tickets in 48 hours, which began a new era in the horror world.

Ghosts, zombies, satanism and your family.

This horror genre came about in the 60s and 70s.

It brought with it extreme gore, nudity, and a different representation of the women of the time.

This era of horror dodged scrutiny and censorship due to its brash and horrifically blunt nature.

Due to its subject matter, it was more believable and more realistic as it was based on issues we could potentially face in real life, it scared audiences like never before.

Examples of the type of content were things such as the devil impregnating women or possessing children. The most well known and terrifying movie of all time would be "The Exorcist" (1973). In this era, satan became the villain in many horror films.

Slasher Movies.

Based around the 1980s, slasher movies involved Body horror, weapons and plenty of blood.

It was all about the psychological mind and how could turn people into psychopathic killers. It was very graphically violent.

Movies that fall into this category are films such as Scream, Texas chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and Halloween.

Usually the killer turns out the way he is because of some horrific event he was involved in or witnessed when he was a young child.

And his reasons for what happens in the movie usually follow a similar pattern:

- Returns to the site of the event

- Stalks Teens

- "Final girl" defeats villain (The film usually revolves around this ONE girl)

This genre also falls into the uncanny category of horror. They are realistic problems, largely exaggerated.