Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The History Of Horror Movies

By Adriana Noton

Horror movies are a type of film that can be traced back to the beginning of film making. To better understand the horror movie it will be best to start with horror literature. When you understand the literature it is possible to have a better idea of where the movies come from.

Horror in literature left a legacy that helped to propel this genre into films. If there had not been such a legacy of literary works then we may not have the same movies we do now. The term horror was first coined in 1764 in a book by Horace Walpole's called The Castle of Otranto which was full of the supernatural. In the following centuries literary giants like Edgar Allan Poe championed this genre with great works like The Raven. Some of the great horror movies of today are based on old horror stories like Frankenstein and Dracula which were both written in the 1800's.

The supernatural were often the main theme of the early horror movie. At the beginning of movie making there were short silent films made including ones in the horror genre. Georges Melies, a French movie maker, is credited with the first horror film made in 1896 entitled Le Manior du diable. The Japanese also made some horror films at this time called Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei.

The full length horror film was first seen as a version of the hunchback of Notre-Dame. In the early 1900's the German expressionist film was at its peak meaning most of the first horror films were made by Germans. These German films have acted as influential works for many modern film makers like Tim Burton. The 1920's brought about the first Hollywood dabbling in the genre and the first American horror star in Lon Chaney Sr.

The Hollywood popularization of these movies came about in the 1930's. At this point movies like Dracula and Frankenstein were made as well as other gothic horror and supernatural mixture movies. The Wolf Man is an iconic movie about werewolves made in 1941 by Universal studios. You should keep in mind that this was by no means the first werewolf film but it is known as the most influential. The 1945 movie The Body Snatcher and other B pictures also came about at this time.

In the 1950's there had been many innovations in the technology used to make films. Additionally in this time the horror film was divided into two categories being Armageddon films and demonic films. During this time social ideas and fears were placed into movies but in such a way that it was not direct exploitation.

It was during the 1960's that many other iconic films were made including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This movie is one of the first American Armageddon movies set in a modern backdrop. Zombies were made into what they are today in the movie Night of the Living Dead made at this time. This movie also changed the look of horror films into what we know them as today.

The history of horror movies goes back to the beginning of movies. The long history shows how they changed from Gothic classics to what we know today. - 40727

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