1. HORROR
• noun 1) an intense feeling of fear, shock,
or disgust. 2) a thing causing such a
feeling. 3) intense dismay. 4) informal a bad
or mischievous person, especially a child.
— ORIGIN Latin, from horrere ‘shudder, (of
hair) stand on end’.

2. German Expressionism
● The first horror films were seen as
very unnatural and disturbing
pieces, which are said to have
took some inspiration from
expressionist painters and in part
to spirit photography of the
1860s. The narrative style was
also inspired by the stories
played out by the Grand Guignol
Theatre Company coming from Gothic
literature. They draw upon the
folklore and legends of Europe,
monsters etc.

3. ● They had to overcome the limits set
by technology and tell a story
powerful enough to make the Movie
effective and scary. They were mad
on the basis of darkness and
shadows, are such important
features of modern horror, were
impossible to accomplish with the
budgets and technology of films at
the time. So some scenes, for
example in Nosferatu, where you see
a vampire leaping amongst
gravestones in what appears to be
broad daylight, not what you would
expect today.

4. ● Nosferatu is the most
recognised and famous
film from this era, it
was so successful
because it was the very
first vampire movie,
that allowed the
audience to escape in
this different belief
and total world outside
of their own. It
brutally showed the
conventions of the
legend, making the film
only recently allowed
to be viewed by the
public.

5. Gothic Horror
● The term 'horror' was first
introduced in a play on Horace
Walpole's 1764 novel, The Castle
of Otranto, it was said to be full
of supernatural shocks and
mysterious melodrama. It was a
rather odd tale but it started a
craze, starting a wave of many
imitators in what we today call
the gothic mode of writing.

6. ● The first great gothic horror
classic was Frankenstein 1818, and
many more films even today pay
tribute too the Gothic era.
Charles Dickens, used some
conventions of the gothic era in
'A Christmas Carol'.

7. ● The gothic era was based on very
simple fears but exploited them
very well, it kick started horror.
It was simple yet creepy, creating
some absolute classics, a lot of
where the modern day horror
conventions come from.

8. Monsters and Mad Scientists
● Horror movies were reborn in the
1930s. The introduction of sound, as
well as changing the whole of cinema
had a massive effect on the horror
genre. The imagery from the 1920s,
was fantastic and give an amazing
representation of visual horror but
they missed the other aspects of
horror. Instead of just visuals
there were monsters that grunted and
growled and sounds that built
suspense, making horror even more
believable.

9. ● The horror films of the
1930s were exotic fairy
tales, set in some far-off
land and characters in
period costume speaking in
strange accents. Horror
was still looking in the
past, as they were looking
upon the literary classics
of the 19th century for
their inspiration.
However, this did result
in one of the most famous
horror even to this day,
Dracula.

10. ● There are many other great films
that came from this era, some of
which are extremely famous today.
The like of 'The Mummy' (1932) and
King Kong (1933) are just a couple
of the Blockbuster big names that
came from this era.

11. The Primal Animal Within
● Wolves posed the main global threat at
the outset of the 1940s. Hitler himself
strongly identified with the
iconography and legends of the wolf.
The name 'Adolf' means "noble wolf" in
Old German. Propagandists of the period
habitually depicted him as the Big Bad
Wolf of fairy tales. It's therefore no
surprise that Universal, home of the
iconic monsters of the 1930s, picked
the Wolf as the figure of menace for
the late 1930s and early 1940s.

12. ● "The werewolf is neither man nor
wolf but a satanic creature with
the worst qualities of both." A
quote from the film 'Werewolf of
London' (1935). This was the film
that kick started the Werewolf
character, leading on to movies
such as 'The Wolf Man' (1941), and
when imaginations started to
wonder, spin-off films were made,
ones that showed the same style
such as 'Cat People' (1942).

13. Mutant creatures and alien
invaders
● Between the 1940's and 1950's there
were some drastic changes in the
horror genre, horror was beginning
to expand on the though of life
such as creatures that had human
faces, aliens and extremely large
insects etc. It was all about
mutations, alterations and
differentiation on the norm.
Creating monsters, mutant creatures
and alien invaders.

14. ● Here are just some of the
examples of the horror
movies that came out the
era. This era began when
soldiers had come home from
the WWII and their
imagination had run wild
with stories due to the
real life horror they saw
everyday at war. As
technology grew this
allowed these ideas of
mutated creatures to become
possible and fund this
trend.

15. ● Great example of this era is 'The
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' (1953),
it was said to be the 'King Kong'
(1933) with fins. It is based on a
beast that heads for New York, a
dinosaur a Rhedosaurus. A massive
dinosaur created by atomic
testing, a story line that very
much simulates King Kong just with
more advanced technology.

16. Ghosts, zombies, Satanism
and your family/Hammer
● The sexual revolution with Psycho in
1960 and the Manson Family murders
in 1969, the 1960s were a great
change in what the public perceived
as horror. The social stability
post-war years was gone by the end
of the decade due to huge change in
the way the audience perceived
sexuality. This was a counter
culture opportunity to explore new
ways of seeing sex and violence.

17. ● This era was well and truly spawned
from Psycho (1960). Psycho presented
us with Norman Bates, the monster so
close to normal it was only in the
final section of the film that he
revealed how monstrous a man could
be. Based on the real- life story of
Ed Gein, which has since proved
fruitful for movies as diverse as
Silence of The Lambs and The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho has become
iconic in a way few other movies
have ever become.

18. ● This sexual and violent turn has
created a whole new set if
conventions for modern day horror,
lots of which are heavily involved
in horror today. For instance the
Male Gaze Theory which makes the
camera a male, resulting in sexual
objectification making the men
empowered. Another theory is the
Final Girl Theory which is if a
girl is into drugs, drink, sex
etc, they die. If they are a
middle class girl, who works hard
and studies etc, they survive.
They often have a unisex name.

19. ● The films were all about the family,
most of the films contained
members of a family, or a single
member of the family that is the
main character It's your Mum
(Shivers). Your Dad (The Shining).
Your brother (Halloween). Your
sister (Alice Sweet Alice). Your
husband (The Stepford Wives). Your
little boy (The Omen). Your
daughter (The Exorcist). It's the
people you see so often you don't
really see them any more (Carrie).

20. Slasher movies and body
horror/gore
● Horror movies of the 1980s (which
probably began the era in 1979 with
Alien) exist at the glorious
watershed when special visual
effects finally caught up with the
gory imaginings of horror fans and
movie makers. This was more a fan
base inspired part of horror, due
to the many years and generations
of horror causing a wider and more
developed imagination of horror.

21. ● 'The Thing' is a
very good example
of the types of
films that came
out of this time
period. The tag
line is "Man is
the warmest place
to hide",
optimising the
body horror, being
all about the
human body and the
horror of that can
come from it.

22. ● The horror films of the early 1980s show
a new energy and delight in the genre,
as special effects creators fell over
each other to create sequences that
had never been attempted on film
before. However, the effect of gory
images could easily be made over the
top and sadly towards the end of the
decade that is how it went. Special
Effects Creators started to pile too
many on top of each other so they lost
their meaning, and their power to
shock. The best films controlled this
gore rather than being over the top
with it.

23. Format fears and moral
panics
● By the end of the 1980s horror had
become so reliant on gross-out gore and
buckets of liquid latex that it seemed
to lose its power to scare people so by
the 1990's horror began to take a
slightly different approach. They begin
to make as what they called "horror for
grown-ups", the 1990s presented
monsters that were far more mundane.
They involved more serial killers and
more paranoia and mind games.

24. ● These are some of the films that came
pout of this era, showing the change
in styles from previous generations
of horror films.

25. ● This was the generation where horror
started to become smarter, the
directors became better at getting
into the audiences mind with a
combination of different
conventions through all of the
years of different styles of
horror. All of the different styles
of horror allowed the horrors to
become more effective to the
audience because after all of the
years of horror people almost
started to become immune to the
fear of them.

26. Gore returns with a
vengeance
● By 2005, the horror genre was as popular
as ever. Horror films often topped the
box office, with an above-average gross
on below-average costs. Audiences
wanted a good, group scare as a form of
escapism, just as their great-grandparents
chose Universal horror
offerings to escape the miseries of the
Depression and encroaching world war in
the 1930s.

27. ● The monsters have had to
change, however. Gone were
the lone psychopaths of the
1990s, far too similar of
media portrayals of bin
Laden. As the shock of
twenty first century warfare
spread across TV screens,
cinematic horror had to
offer an alternative, whilst
still tapping into the
current cultural mood.
Inspiring films such as the
Final Destinations'.

28. ● This era is all about the difference
in culture compared to all of the
other generations of horror. The
horror that is presented to us now
has the best of all of the
conventions of horror over the
years, allowing there to be a lot
more diverse amount of horrors
films that range in styles and
genres. Generally, they are more
about building suspense and
getting in to the mind of the
viewer rather than to just show
them something that looks scary.

29. The End.