Horror film

Horror Film

As a group we have decided we would be mainly focusing on the horror genre, therefore we need some background information on this genre.

Common features of horror films would be that suspense is a key feature that is used to create the common emotions of emotions that they want the audience to feel. Fear and terror. For example for suspense they useful trick they would use would be to create a dramatic pause by cutting of all sounds for a moment before a scene or gore etc.

Characteristics of horror would be mainly gore and violence using themes like zombies, death, psychological, cannibalism , vampires , monsters , mental illnesses etc which are some elements are group would consider for making a horror movie.

Many of the best horror films have been based on Gothic literature which had started back all the way in the 1700's with the novel "The castle of Otranto" which is seen as the first real Gothic novel. Many famous Gothic literature novel's that have been turned in to successful horror films are Dracula , Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde and Frankenstein.

In recent time other genre's have been incorparated in to films, for example science fiction, fantasy, comedy and thrillers which is something our group may want to consider.

Horror films through the ages

Horror films have developed over the ages so we will study the changes and alterations of the films over periods of time.

1890's: "The house of the devil" was produced by Georges Meles was seen to have been the first real horror movie to be made.

1930's - 1940's: Universal Studios began to promote horror films bringing in successful films like Dracula, Frankenstein .

The indian film industry created a film Mahal which was the first film to use reincarnation which has also become a common characteristic on the horror genre.

1950's - 1960's: Three sub genres emerged.

"Horror of personality" In these characters are perfectly human rather than them being supernatural however the posses horrific personalities.

"Horror of Armageddon" In these films natural events plays a big role ie. A comet so big that it will destroy the whole of earth.

and "Horror of demonic film" This genre includes more evil

spiritual roles for example demons or witches.

1970's - 1980's: Steven Spielburgs "Jaws" was one of the biggest grossing films to be made in the 1970's and was one of the first horror movies to be a big budget hollywood film.

Comedy and sexual overtones began to emerge in to horror films.

Horror films in the 1980's were called "Splatterpunk" as they were often gory and violent with no limitations on how graphic they were.

1990's: They're began a decrease in the market for horror films as the 1980's as they're were many slasher films that had been released in the late 80's and early 90's so the originality had started to wear off by this point. The films that were being produced were more ironic and parodic.

2000's: At the start of the 2000's the was little horror being released how ever a few films like Final Destination were successful. Horror films in this decade tended to be more based on Zombies and Psychological.

Sophie Grayling