History of Horror

  • 1890s to 1920s

    Horror films first really started in the late 19th century with the film ‘The Devil’s Castle’ which was made by Mr Georges Méliès who was an illusionist and this film only lasted for around three minutes and was seen as the proper horror film.
    Then in the early 20th century the first monster appeared in films and it was called Quasimodo and he was the hunchback of Notre-Dame who was in films like Esmeralda (1906), The Hunchback (1909), The Love of a Hunchback (1910) and then finally Notre-Dame d
  • Period: to

    Horror History

  • 1930s to 1940s

    These were all in the silent era of the film industry and then when they got to the early period of the talking pictures were the American movie studio Universal Studio started to do a gothic horror film series with Tod Browings Dracula (1931) followed by the film Frankenstein (1931). These films were created to give the audience the thrill of their lives while watching these films. The film Frankenstein was the first of many Frankenstein films these were films such as The Bride of Frankenstein
  • 1950s to 1960s

    When we got to the 50s the advances in the technology made the films scarier. One of the most popular horror films came during this era and this was Godzilla (1954) and the sequels of this because of the ideas of mutation from nuclear radiation. During the 50s and 60s Great Britain came out as the main produces of the horror films with such films as Peeping Tom (1960) which involves a serial killer who combines his profession as a photographer with the moments before murdering his victims.
  • 1950s to 1960s Part 2

    The Hammer Company was one of the first studios to show horror films in colour. The most influential American horror film from this period was the Night of the Living Dead (1968) which was made and produced on a budget of $114,000 when it made $12 million at the US box office and the a further $18 million internationally.
  • 1970s to 1980s

    During this era of the horror history the production code of America was ended and the financial successes of the low budgets gore films grew. The popular success of Rosemary’s Baby led to the release of more films with the same themes. The first of which was The Exorcist (1973) which was followed by other films with the same theme.
  • 1990s

    In this era new films carried on many of the themes that came from the 80s era, the slasher films A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Childs Play all saw sequels in this era which all saw large amounts of the success at the national and international box offices. Sci-fi and Fantasy started to replace horror films in the box office because of the introduction of CGI and other new technologies.