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The first movie
Before any genre of movie came out, someone had to first invent the movie. On June 6, 1887 photographer, Eadweard Muybridge took multiple shots of a jockey riding on a horse; the piece was called "The Galloping Horse." He was able to project his photos on a screen and play them back and forth to show the horse running on the track—this was the first-ever documented movie. Muybridge created many other films like this that included men, women, children and of course more animals! -
The first movie continued
"The Galloping Horse" was created using a few different medias. Muybridge first had to go out and take the pictures; he used 24 different cameras with shutter speeds of 1/2000. After, he developed his pictures onto a card-like material. He then invented the zoopraxiscope which allowed him to automatically flip his cards making it look like the horse was running. The film may not have been filmed using the movie camera (invented by Edison) but is considered the first-ever film (Patrick, 2016). -
The Film Camera and Thomas Edison
Inspired by the work done by Muybridge, Thomas Edison ended up creating the Kinotograph—also known as the first film camera. This was able to create and film movies that would then be shown on a screen to a mass audience. This was a game-changer in creating the films we know and love today and more specifically, the horror movie (History Editors, 2021). -
The Haunted Castle
French Filmmaker, Georges Méliès, is credited for creating the first horror movie known as both "The Haunted Castle" and "The House of the Devil". With themes of bats and devils, this movie was the first of its kind to make people shake in their boots. The film may have only been 3 minutes but in the 1890s getting that much of a movie was revolutionary. Although this was the only way movies were made, the silence and black and white elements made the film even scarier (Soloman, 2020). -
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The 1910s
During the 1910s, people were still just dabbling in the art of horror movie making so they were creating movies based on classic gothic horror novels. In 1910 the first and not so well known adaptation of "Frankenstein" was released. Like "Frankenstein", most films from this era flopped. But one huge movie and media moment that came out of the 1910s was the 10 episode series, "Les Vampires "(Soloman). -
Les Vampires starts airing
"Les Vampire" was a horror movie media milestone because it wasn't considered a movie, at first; created by Louis Feuillade, "Les Vampire" was the first thriller series. The 10 episodes of the series were eventually just considered one giant movie with a run time of over seven hours; no one really knows why but it is still considered the first of many horror/crime/thriller series (Rice 2015). -
Les Vampires ends
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The Universal Monster Movie Series
From 1930 to the middle of the 1950s, Universal was determined on making monster movies and boy did they deliver. Although we talked about the "first" horror films/series, this period of time created some of the most recognizable movie monsters in history. This is where normal people started to notice this genre of horror through film as opposed to "weirdos" watching underground pieces like "Les Vampire" and "The Haunted Castle" (Slager, 2016). -
Dracula
In 1931 Dracula made his first screen appearance sucking women's blood and turning them into vampires. He also had many spin-off/sequel movies like "Dracula's Daughter," "Son of Dracula" and "House of Dracula." -
Frankenstein
Dracula was not the only movie monster to hit it big in 1931. Frankenstein's Monster took the world by storm and also had many other movies like, "Son of Frankenstein," "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man." -
The Bride of Frankenstein
Everyone is deserving of love right...even a monster? Universal obviously thought so and created the first even female monster, The Bride of Frankenstein's monster. This is MY personal favorite because I think she is just absolutely gorgeous and the actress, Elsa Manchester, presented her in such as elegant way (for being a monster that is). Although The Bride is one of the most well-known and iconic movie monsters, she only gets a solid 3 minutes of screentime throughout the movie. -
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Creature of the Black Lagoon was one of the scariest movie monsters during this time because without cell phones and colored TV all people did was go to beaches and lakes. There could be an abundance of creatures in any body of water if you really think about it... -
A new way to watch a movie; The Drive-Thru: 1950s+1960s
Although the drive-thru theater first came around in the 1920s, it didn't gain popularity until the 50s and 60s. The first few years were more geared for family fun but after the invention of the VCR (1956), fewer people wanted to go out to see a movie. Drive-thrus resorted to playing horror/slasher films and more adult content to make up for the lost audience. This was now a place for teens to go on dates and a place for horror and B movies to thrive (Rare Historical Photos, 2021). -
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Talk about a milestone! Alfred Hitchcock was the rebel of the movie world during this time period. Viewing "Psycho" in the year 2021, it doesn't seem like anything too special; a cheesy shower murder, a toilet flushing, the normal things you can see in any other movies. But back when "Psycho" came out the idea of putting a flushing toilet in a movie was scarier than the film itself! And showing a woman's bare shoulder...SCANDAL! "Psycho" was a new type of horror nobody was ready for. -
Manos: The Hands of Fate continued
One of the many reasons why this movie is known for being just horrible is that the way it was taped and edited. The whole movie was taped on a hand-held camera that only shot in 32-sec increments so you can see the seems every 32 seconds. Warren also didn't have the technology to tape with sound so all the lines were dubbed after filming. The plot, acting and visuals are just God awful, but seeing all the modern technology we have today makes you think about what Manos could be now (IMDbTV). -
Manos: The Hands of Fate
After "Psycho" came out, every average joe thought that they could write, film and produce a horror film; one of those men being Harold P. Warren. Warren wrote and directed the historically bad horror movie, "Manos: The Hands of Fate." Warren made the movie just to show that making a movie was something anyone could do and let's just say he doesn't have very good evidence to back up that theory. -
Night of The Living Dead
"Night of The Living Dead" paved the way for all the zombie movies that we have seen throughout the years. It was the first zombie movie and is seen as being the transition from classic to modern horror; it left the movie monsters behind and created something else scary. George A. Romaro chased his dreams of creating a film but had no idea his $114,000 budget project would have the effect it did on the world of horror with zombie movies being one of the most popular sub-genres (Towlson, 2018). -
The Exorcist
"The Exorcist" is considered one of the greatest horror movies in history. Manos was a movie that lacked the technology and that was one of the many reasons it was so bad, but in "The Exorcist", the reason it was as big as it was was because of the advanced technology it used for the time. People waited in line all day just to see actress Linda Blair crab walk up the stairs and to watch her little head do a full 360 (Vanderbilt, 2015). -
The Exorcist continued
It might seem cheesy to us now, but the special effects in this movie are what made it go down in horror history. People were so scared of this movie that people in movie theaters all around the globe were throwing up and passing out because they were so scared. After "The Exorcist," technology still may not have been perfect but was slowly starting to advance even more. If people were fainting because of this little possessed girl, wait until they saw the iconic slasher films of the '80s! -
Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein
"Young Frankenstein" made its mark in horror by being one of the first horror movie parodies. A parody is a media that is making fun of something else; "Young Frankenstein" is an obvious parody of the monster movie, "Frankenstein." The movie is full of witty one-liners, slapstick humor, hilarious puns and sexual innuendos. This movie was the first of its kind to take something that was supposed to scare someone and make fun of it and make it into a version that made people laugh. -
The invention of the VHS tape
Although the VCR made its debut in the 50s, the actual VHS tapes with movies on them didn't come to North American until the late 70s and didn't boom until the 80s. Other than catching it on TV, this was the only way of home entertainment; it also allowed you to own the movies and watch them over and over. This wasn't just a media milestone for horror films but for all types of movies. The movie renting craze went all the way to 2006 when the last VHS tape was made (Burr, 2020). -
The invention of the Laserdisc
Unlike the other types of technology featured in this timeline, the Laserdisc was almost a step back as opposed to a step forward. Laserdiscs were in the middle eras of VHS and DVD but were a type of disc that was played by lasers. These discs were expensive and couldn't record other things like a VHS could; only the biggest film nerds bought Laserdisc while everyone else was perfectly fine watching things on a VHS ( Gizmo Highway, 2020). -
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Slasher Films
The 80s was the decade of slasher movies. Just like The Univeral Monster Movies, 80s slasher flicks all kinda fell under a similar category of some scary being killing people, mostly horny teens, in some plot for revenge. Eventually, people started to forget about their favorite movie monsters and started to developed their favorite movie killers. These movies were a huge media development because these slashers were based on sex, boobs and blood; movie taboos from past decades. -
Halloween
One of the first slasher films was John Carpender's "Halloween." This is the story of horror icon, Micheal Myers, who escaped the mental institution where he has been for the last 15 years for brutally murdering his sister. He is out to kill again and targets a young Jamie Lee Curtis on Halloween night (Movie House Memories, 2019). -
Friday The 13th
The original "Friday The 13th" movie takes place at Camp Crystal Lake where a group of concealers are getting killed off one by one. Although the original "Friday The 13th" movie has a different killer, this franchise's main killer is Jason Voorhees who is known for walking around in a hockey mask and a machete (Koehler, 2019). It may be a bit confusing at times but Voorhees is the main killer for most of the series and is the slasher associated with these films. -
The Shining
Main character, Jack Torrence, is considered a slasher but "The Shining" was a step above a slasher flick. Director, Stanley Kubrick, perfected this timeless horror movie by adding small, creepy details throughout the movie and left the audience to interpret the ending for themselves as he had done in other movies, none of them being horror though. Kubrick used lots of unusual camera angles to create a horror movie like no other; Kubrick is known for camera work in all his movies (Kapur, 2019). -
Nightmare on Elm Street
Wes Craven's 1984 movie, "Nightmare on Elm Street" was a whole new type of slasher. Killer, Freddy Krugger, didn't kill in plain sight like many other movie killers—he snuck into his victim's heads and killed them in their dreams. Opposed to having a weapon of choice, Krugger is mostly identified by his hand of knives that he uses to get the job done. -
Childs Play
Although the other slasher movies are important, for the sake of looking at the history of the medium of horror and technology, "Child's Play" is VERY important. The reason this movie holds importance is that the killer isn't just any old person—it is a doll named Chucky. Today we would have used types of CGI to create the doll but in 1988, they had 11 different people controlling the animatronic puppet. It took over 27 takes to make him do the simple task of hitting a button (Fiduccia, 2019). -
Silence of the Lambs
Throughout the 80s, there were many slasher characters that kept children, teens and adults up throughout the night, but most of those characters were just figments of the screenwriter's imagination and held no true aspects. "The Silence of the Lambs" on the other hand was loosely based on serial killers Ted Bundy and Ed Gein. This was a new type of horror movie; it was a suspenseful true-crime movie that could happen in real life about an FBI agent tracking down a serial killer (Cormier, 2016). -
The DVD player/DVD hit the market
In the middle of the 90s, DVDs changed the way that people watched movies. Unlike the VHS, you didn't have to rewind the film when you were done which was HUGE, and unlike the Laserdisc, it was smaller and had better quality (Roemer, 2020). I could not find the exact first horror movie released on DVD but I looked at some dates and my guess is that some of the firsts in the U.S were "Cube," "Scream," and "I Know What you Did Last Summer;" but don't quote me on that! -
The Blair Witch Project
Okay...so I hate this movie but it is very important to the world of horror technology. "The Blair Witch Project" gained popularity because it is known as the first movie to tape in a documentary-type way. There was a movie in the 80s that did this ("Cannibal Holocaust") but that movie was so gruesome it was banned all over the world, therefore was not very popular. Blair Witch, on the other hand, was done the same way but wasn't banned so it gained the title of the first movie taped like this. -
The Blair Witch Project continued
"The Blair Witch Project" was taped on a handheld camera to give it that home movie feel. The whole idea of the movie is that it is footage taped by three kids who went hunting for the Blair Witch but never came back. The three college kids who stared, wrote and filmed the movie made it this way because they knew it was going to be a cheap way to make a movie and that because it had a real feel to it, it would evoke more fear in the audience (MCS Staff, 2020). -
The Ring
"The Ring" didn't have any groundbreaking media that made it stick out while filming, but the movie itself is all about technology. The movie is about a VHS tape and if you watch it, you die in seven days. Throughout the movie, it shows how the tape was crafted, how it was copied and other crazy technology featured processes that add importance to the plot of the film. It is a very interesting movie that highlights the advancements of technology by using them as a force of evil. -
The invention of the Blu-Ray
Just like a DVD, the Blu-Ray was a disk that you didn't have to rewind and played movies, tv shows and bonus features onto your TV. The Blu-Ray was invented though because movie companies wanted to make their movies loud and sound just like they did in the theaters but a DVD didn't have the capacity to hold all that good HD picture AND HD sound (Campbell, 2010). -
The invention of the Blu-Ray continued
The Blu-Ray was developed by Shuji Nakamura who was a professor at the College of Engineering at UCSB. The reason it is called a Blu-Ray is because of the blue laser used to read the disc as opposed to the red lasers used to read normal DVDs (Campbell). The Blu-Ray was really important to movie media because it gave audiences the movie theater experience right in their own homes. It was important to horror movies because it made the gore and guts look better and the screams sound even louder! -
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Streaming Services
Streaming services are one of the biggest mass communication advancements for movies over the last 10 years! They have made watching any type of show or movies right at your fingertips for costs way cheaper than theaters and buying all your favorite movies on DVD. Although people love these services, I am old school and personally like owning/renting all my DVDs. -
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A24: A new type of horror
Horror is something so classic and there are many certain formulas for creating a good horror movie. Then in 2012, the film company A24 come around and messed all of that up. For me, it feels like they messed everything up but a lot of people really like the movies that A24 produces...I think they are trash. The reason that this made it on the timeline though is that this company really twisted up the whole idea of a classic horror movie and SOME say revolutionized the horror movie mass media. -
Shudder: The horror streaming service
Although you can catch certain horror films on streaming networks like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, good horror movies are always in high demand. In 2015, TV station AMC introduced a streaming service called Shudder which is a horror exclusive streaming site. The site includes classic horror and AMC originals; as of 2020, the service has over one million subscribers (Callaham, 2021). Shudder has made it easy for the horror audience to get easy access to their favorite films. -
Hereditary
A24 had done a good chunk of movies before "Hereditary" but that is the movie that really pushed A24 into the mainstream of movies. The reasoning being that this was director, Ari Aster's horror debut and people really liked his movie and wanted more. The movie is strange and hard to follow but Aster stated in an interview that he was going for a real emotional feel as opposed to something based on real experiences (Kohn, 2018). -
Midsommar
Another film by Ari Aster uses emotions and psychological horror to get inside the viewer's heads. This is a movie that I think was big for horror and its media because even though I didn't like it, I think that the use of Aster's psychological horror was something quite interesting. In movies like "Seven" and "The Sixth Scene," there is a kind of mind game being played but it is nothing even close to the hoops Aster makes you jump through in one of his A24 movies. -
Horror and the Coronavirus
The last year seemed like a horror movie itself with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Not just horror but all film companies have struggled through the pandemic; without theaters, these companies have gone to releasing movies right onto DVD or onto streaming sites. Sounds like a good solution but in reality, companies hit harder. Because companies were just trying to make a profit they were releasing as many crap films as they could and after the first few people caught on and stopped watching. -
Conclusion on horror and the advancements of technology/mass communication
Movies and movie theaters have been forms of mass communication since the late 1800s but the genre of horror is its own type of communication. Some films communicate true fear, others rebellion and the destruction of old taboos, some comedy and some even psychological trauma. No matter what they are communicating, the advancement of technology has pushed this loved genre to new levels and perfected the mass communication of the horror movie for audiences everywhere.
