How Genres Work and Why The Horror Musical | Page 4

THE HORROR FILM

Horror films seek to conjure negative reactions from their
viewers. They deal with nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and
terror of the unknown.

Production of horror films
started right away with the invention of the film camera. Georges
Melies, who included ghosts and
monsters in his earliest film tests.
The most significant influence on
later horror films would be German Expressionism in the 20s and
30s. Their dark themes and dramatic studio cinematography can
be seen infused into every contemporary horror film made since.
30s - Universal pictures begins a suc-

cessful Gothic horror film series with
Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein
(1935)

50s - Advances in technology helped
move to contemporary content. Films
focused on outside threats such as
aliens, mutants, plants and insects.

60s - Hitchcock releases Psycho

(1960) and The Birds (1963), a great
take on the natural horror of insanity.
Polanski releases Rosemary’s
Baby (1968). Romaro makes Night of
the Living Dead (1968) on a $114k
budget. It grosses $12 million in US

and $30 million internationally. Low
budget gore-shock films emerge.

70s-80s - Success of Rosemary’s baby
leads to a big focus on the occult, satan, evil children, and reicarnation.
Comedy-Horror emerges with the release of Rocky Horror Picture Show
(1975). Many Stephen King books are
adapted to film, and a wave of B movie
horror films were released with little
success, later becoming cult classics.

90s - Horrors wore themselves out in

this decade. The old audiences grew
up, and younger audiences were more
interested in sci-fi and fantasy genres
that emerged with the invention of
high quality computer generated imagery. Horror made its come back by
becoming more ironic and parodic
with films like Braindead (1992) and
the Scream series.

2000s - Franchise films take over with

Jason X (2001) and Freddy vs Jason
(2003). We see the revival of teen cenetered horrors with Final Destination
(2000). Later comes a major return to
the zombie genre and extreme graphic
violence, followed by an oversaturation of older remakes such as Dawn
of the Dead (2004) and Halloween
(2007).