Details of my chosen genre

Definition of Horror- noun 1) an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. 2) a thing causing such a feeling. 3) intense dismay. 4) informal a bad or mischievous person, especially a child. 

Origin- Latin, from horrere ‘shudder, (of hair) stand on end’.                             

(Oxford English Dictionary)

The first horror films were produced during the late 19th century, and were based mainly on gothic literature. Monster movies and zombie films, which were first produced during the early 20th century, were popular as well. Examples include Night of the Living Dead, The Mummy and Frankenstein. 

Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain. There are lots of different forms of media that will use the genre. Books and comics were the original forms of media that had created the horror genre, while the horror television programmes and movies are a lot more recent. In the modern day, most people would prefer to watch a movie or television with a horror genre then read a book.

A horror film conventionally known for scaring the audience and creating suspense throughout. Diagetic and Non-diagetic sounds can create the thrilling suspense. In the early years of the genre, the films had no sound, but due to technology the modern films have much better ways in which they can scare the audience with sound.Camera angles and techniques have been able to increase over the decades, which creates a more wide variety ways in which to film. For Example, The Blair Witch Project (1999) The entire movie is filmed through a hand-held camera, to add to the feel of this being a true story. The filming through the hand-held camera adds to the scariness of the film, especially at night when it is hard to tell what is going on, and you must rely on sound to let you know what is happening.

In the modern horror movie, the forms of horror that are used consist of gore, jump scenes or the supernatural. Such as The Saw franchise, The Ring, Paranormal Activity, Resident Evil, Cloverfield, 28 Weeks Later etc.

The start of the horror genre in film started in the late 1980s. These were short silent films that were created by film pioneers such as Georges Melies. The first noted horror film was called Le Manoir du diable (The House of the Devil) . In the early 1920s, the horror genre had grew and started to create feature length films. Such as Nosferatu (1922), The Monster (1925) and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920). 

During the 1930s – 1940s The horror genre had become a lot more popular. This was due to American film producers, the genre had become popular. The Gothic horror genre was still dominant with films like Dracula (1931) and also The Invisible Man(1933) this film blended science fiction with Gothic horror.As the technology had advanced in the 1950s-1960s, the tones horror had moved from gothic to a more late-century tone of films. The horror had split into two sub-genres: the horror-of-Armageddon and the horror-of-the-demonic. Science fiction was quite popular in the 1950s, for example: The Incredible Shrinking Man.  In the late 50s and early 60s, a British company called Hammer Films Production became an international name. The films were know for being rather gory and have been thought to be one of the main focus for the modern horror genre. Hammer Films Production made films such as the well known Dracula (1958)

In the 1960s, supernatural themes became more popular with films like The innocent (1961) and The Haunting (1963). The Armageddon theme of horror was also popular with films like The Birds (1963) and one of the most influential zombie horror films of all time, Night Of The Living Dead (1968). The theme of occult and evil children became popular in the 70s with films such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976). Also the slasher film sub- genre had emerged with films like Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980).

In the 2000, psychological horror films were created. Films such as, The Grudge (2004) The Ring (2002) and The Others (2001). The zombie genre had become a major return in the 00s with films like 28 Days Later (2002) and, Land of the Dead (2005). By that time, The horror genre had developed sub genres such as nudity, torture and sadism. These are some examples of this sub-genre of film: Hostel (2005), Saw (2004).