Horror movies all started off in 1896 when the film The Devils Castle was released. This movie had revolutionised the genre of movies all over the world, bringing a new aspect of media to the people. In this early time, The Devils castle had no colour and there was no way of recording voices for dialogue, although there was piano music playing in the background to create a sense of atmosphere. With the limited resources so early on they were only able to record the movie for just over 3 minutes. Overall the movie did not really portray any fear in my opinion, but it may have to people 100 years ago.
1910s
In 1910 the first version of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' was made, this movie also continued some of the aspects found in The Devils Castle including it having no character voice audio and piano music being played in the background to further help the viewer understand the mood. although in 1910 they made up for no character voice by adding a frame after every scene briefly explaining the events that have took place in that the scene corresponding to it. They also managed to add an orange tint throughout the film, but this trend did not last long. The short film was made 4 times longer than in 1900, but still did not give me any fear. This clear shows that our generation has a different view of what was believed to be scary.
1920s
In 1920s became a lot more popular as several movies were created, in 1922 a popular movie named Nosferatu was made and it shared almost all the aspects from the 1910s, such as the frame explaining the story and no character voice, but they did not use colour, this may have been to create an effect and better set the mood of the movie. This movie was able to run for an amazing hour and a half, and in my opinion was the scariest out of the films so far as the story was a bit more explained and the bad character looked out of the norm.
1930s
The 1930s was a big year for horror as never forgotten classics were made such as several versions and sequels of Frankenstein were made, Dracula, The Mummy, King Kong and many more. For this example of how horror movies were like in the 1930s I will use another version of Frankenstein to compare. In 1931 was when it was made and this year introduced character voice to movies, which really changed how people would view movies, although the movie was still in black in white it was still self-explanatory in terms of explaining the story to the audience, this helped provide a better understanding of the film which increased the chance of someone experiencing fear as they now know what is going on.
1940s
In the 1940s movies were like the previous decade I terms of film production (no colour voice and audio). A popular movie made in 1944 was the mummy's curse which was more focused on the supernatural and gave more fear to people, as they were not used to it, and it is known that you are more afraid of the things you don't know. In the 1940's movies really started to progress to show something scary.
1950s
In the 1950s horror movies showed a lot of villains that were out of the norm, such as the blob, a creature from a lagoon and demons. This continues on from the 1940s aspect of giving the audience fear. in 1953 a film called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was made and its main character was a Godzilla like creature that would cause havoc across a city, this movie was not really a horror compared the examples in the 50 years before them, but for all we know the audience then may have found it terrifying, if that was the case, it really shows how horror has changes over the years.
1960s
The 1960s made the drastic change in horror films as they were now more focused on killing people and mortifying the characters within the movie with supernatural, creatures that are inhumane and a psycho. In 1968 a movie called Night of the Living Dead was made and it involved a lot of killing by the un-dead (zombies), this also involves the common incidents we see today in horror movies such as, running around the house instead of out, and investigating a strange noise.
1970s
In the 1970s colour was introduced to horror movies and completely changed how people view them, this gave producers more to do with the movie, such as make it graphic with blood and use different colour lighting for effect. In 1973 a phenomenon named The Exorcist, this movie changed the whole aspect of how horror movies were represented and brought the idea of possessed people, items and other along with it, this really revolutionised horror movies for our generation now.
1980s
The 1980s extended the trend of the 1970 whilst taking it to a whole new level by adding more deaths, more graphic brutality and more supernatural things to the horror content. This became extremely popular and quickly became a very favoured genre. In 1981, the movie The Evils Dead was released and it expressed the characteristics of the un-dead and supernatural more than ever before. This very similarly maintained the theme of horror movies from the 1970's and made them even more terrifying.
1990s
In the 1990s horror movies took a big leap to our generation of scary films, this included the feature of people running around the house and not escaping, being cornered and exploring an odd sound. In 1996 another major blockbuster named Scream was made and it was identical to the formula used in the previous decade, this theme of how horror movies were set out and made was very popular and quickly became the most common technique in horror movies.
2000s
The 2000s brought a refined collection of all the aspects that made horror movies from the past century, including intense music, imminent death, lighting for effect and monsters out of the norm. Along with this, one of the most useful skills in horror history, the jump scare. This ability gave producers to take scaring people to another level. A movie called Paranormal Activity was made in 2007 and it involved a lot strange noises/sightings, darkness and most of all jump scares. Although in 2004 a movie named Saw was released and its intention was purely to show gruesome deaths which were very graphic. Both of these titles became exceedingly popular and made several squeals.
2010s
The 2010s brought back a lot of the possessed people and objects but were more focused on the audience being scared than the characters being slaughtered. this year also brought the idea of making some horror movies to be from a true story and for some people was more terrifying than the movie itself knowing that it actually happened, some viewers get a sense of them being in danger with this aspect involved, in 2013, The Conjuring was made and involved a lot of possessed family members and dolls with happy faces, which are seen as more scary as they used to seem to innocent. This movie also showed a lot of jump scares within paranormal events and was able to give more fear to the audience.
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