The horror genre was kick-started in the 1920’s after the First World War with German expressionism. Most of these films had no dialogue, such as Nosferatu. To portray the dialogue, they would film the speaker with their lips moving and over-exaggerated body language, then the scene was cut to a picture of their dialogue. This works well as it helps the audience put emotion to the dialogue without hearing it. The dominant props seemed relatively normal, but in the background the scene is distorted, ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ portrays this point beautifully. The film makers used this idea to portray that, although we look the same and do the same things, the world we live in is mad and needs to change. The expressionism era was mainly confined to Germany due to Germany becoming separate during WW1, also, the German Government banned any foreign films to be screened within Germany.. At the time, Germans were attending cinemas more freely as the inflation was rising (their money was worth less). The demand for films was increasing rapidly and films could only be produced within Germany, which led from 25 films being made in 1914 to 130 films being produced in 1918.
Monsters and Mad scientists (1930 – 1940)
Sound was introduced into films, and these films were produced mainly within America, but were influenced by European Filmmakers as they left Germany because of World War Two. These new films involve monsters and mad scientists. These portray the fears at the time, Mad Scientists portrayed Hitler, as he had created madness and horror himself. The monsters represented as Hitler’s creation; Grotesque, human-like but dangerous.
Warewolves and Cat People (1940 – 1950)
No advances were made in the filming process itself. However, at this time the Horror genre was based on WW2. The Americans looked at themselves as “safe”, whereas everything else, particularly anything from Europe was dangerous. However, they couldn’t keep themselves separate and were eventually pulled into World War Two. This was shown in horror films at the time in the form of mankind going backwards and acting like primal animals fighting against each other for survival.
Mutant Creatures and Alien Invaders (1950 – 1960)
The monster movies stem from the fears generated by the atom bomb. The audience was typically teenagers so the quality in movies dropped dramatically (Mainly using stop motion, models and miniaturised sets). America had to deal with the after effect of using nuclear weapons, and also the fear of another war happening again. Monster movies offered a way to make humans represent goodness, and made the audience fear the world ending from something else, not themselves, thereby making the audience escape the realities of the recent war.
Ghosts, Zombies, Satanism and Your Family (1960 -1970)
This period of films went the opposite direction of the last ten years. The quality of films was a lot better, and the perception of scary was no longer an animal or an alien, but instead, normal people were used as game pieces. This showed the audience that anyone could be perceived as a villain, including themselves. For example, in ‘Psycho’, the villain is only shown as a villain in the last segment of the film, only then can we see just how dangerous we can be.
Hammer Horror
Hammer Films was founded in 1934 and is based in the United Kingdom. During 1950-1970, Hammer Films made a series of horror films, known as Hammer Horror. Hammer films ceased production in the mid 1980’s and resumed in 2007 after being acquired by another company.
Slasher Movies and Body Horror (1980-1990)
The perception of scary had, by this point, changed to the human anatomy becoming mutilated. This became a lot easier to film as stage makeup had advanced into liquid latex and fake blood. Therefore, no bars were held against the amount of gore shown on screen. For example, In Alien, an alien bursts through a man’s abdominal area etc.
‘Gore-nography’/Torture-Porn’ (2000 – Present)
Horror films had started to aim themselves to please the audience. Film makers had filled the movies with gore because we enjoy watching other people become mutilated, these movies have had little to no plot but make up for this with the amount of gore on-screen. A classic example of ‘gore-nography’ would be the Saw series. These movies have one villain who has disguised himself through the use of a puppet and forces his victims to mutilate themselves in order to survive. The movies have little plot other than a lot of gore on-screen.
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