History of Horror

Horror movies are suspenseful films which intend to create fear and trepidation in the audience through undesirable situations (Murders, Sadistic torture), supernatural events (Ghosts, Possession) and grotesque monsters such as zombies or vampires. The first successful horror film was Nosferatu in 1922, a classic monster based story inspired by Dracula. Early horror is usually inspired by other books involving monsters such as Frankenstein and Faust. The introduction of sound and dialogue into film greatly improved the horror industry because scenes could be more atmospheric through music and sound effects which could include monster or ghost noises. Alfred Hitchcock revolutionised the Horror industries in the 1950's with Vertigo, Rear Window and The Birds, which culminated with his most successful piece in 1960, "Psycho" which to this day is considered a Horror classic.

Then in the 70's, the Horror genre saw a huge surge in popularity after the proliferation of good horror films such as The Exorcist, The Omen, Halloween, The Wicker-man, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien and Dawn of the Dead, with The Shining and Friday 13th Marking the end of this Golden Age in 1980, after this, Horror films had an unsuccessful period for the next two decades with the exception of Nightmare on Elm Street and Silence of the Lambs. This bad period lead to spoof and non-serious films such as Scream and Scary Movie.

Horror was revived somewhat in the late 90's and early 2000's with films such as Saw, The Blair Witch Project and Ring, and this period of decent Horror films has continued over the last decade with successful films such as Cloverfield, The Conjuring, Insidious and Silent Hill. This was due to advances in technology, being able to make more realistic monsters or ghosts and better script ideas which were more unorthodox and less predictable. Blair Witch project encouraged a large genre of found footage films within the Horror genre such as REC and Paranormal Activity. Horror films in modern times are generally hit-and-miss in terms of box office success with 2014 film Annabelle doing poorly but 2015 film It Follows doing well.