In 1922 the first horror film was made, this film was called “Nosferatu” and was made off the story of Dracula, this film was shot in blank and white and featured no sound, all dialogue was put in it own separate slide featured after the characters had spoken. This removes some of the immersion into the film as we cant really see the emotions and feeling being expressed by the character’s. For its time though this film was revolutionary.
In the 1930’s film adaptions of Frankenstein and Dracula were made but there fame was limited as they fell to rip offs and were banded during the duration of world war 2.These films however were the first to featured sound so that you could hear the characters speak and the noises in the background, this added a whole new level of immersion to horror. With sound implemented atmosphere and tension is upped dramatically and became essential in not just horror but in movies in general. This meant also that title cards were made obsolete as they were no longer needed to understand what the characters were saying, with the removal of title cards it meant directors could make more fast paced scenes and not detract from the film its self. However the use of sound was not fully utilized until later years in the horror genre.
In 1956 a new style of horror was created, this film was the invasion of the body snatchers and began the a new genre of horror film called sci fi horror which introduced aliens into the horror genre as well as science fiction such as space travel and extraterrestrial invasions.With this new theme added it gave horror director's a lot more freedom and creativity in there idea's for films, it also helped break away from the gothic feel that horror had up until this point.
1960 dawned one of horror movie's classic’s “psycho”. This film began the crazy of slasher films and created it as another horror sub genre. This film was one of the first to have an atmospheric sound track accompanying the film and helping set the mood, to this day still contains an iconic movie horror scenes and it one of the many staples of great horror. What this film also included and made iconic in horror is mental instability as the motive for the killer. Since this used this mental illness has been used as a killers motive in countless horror films and shows no sign of stopping.
During 1973 the film “the exorcist” was released, this film began the involvement of possession's and religion into the horror movie genre, once this was released possessions and demons began to be one of the most popular type of horror movies to exist, The "The exorcist" was revolutionary as it was also one of the first films to play on the innocence of a child and make them the monster in the film as before this film horror and children were a combination that were rarely touched and if they were the child was always sheltered and protected.By making the child the monster it created much more fear and venerability for the audience as it shows how no one was safe in this movie.
John Carpenter’s “Halloween” breathed new life into the slasher genre. This gave birth to a craze slasher’s throughout the 80’s.This soon died out however as it was milked until it’s success faded away and people began to get bored of the new horror craze only for it to be revived later on.This was one of the first films to give slashers a more in depth and deeper motive rather than being just mindless killing with no real reason.
Another revolutionary horror film for the 80’s would be “the thing". This film made the most effective uses of practical effects in films till this day, it was also considered disturbing by critics due to the nature of the creature in the film and how closely the creature was to the uncanny valley.This film also built upon the sic-fi horror genre making it more twisted and sinister.The films visuals were one of the most shocking for its time and were soon adapted into many films after as a certain and effective way to create horror. One of the key concept of this film which again was later adopted into other films is that the monster could be anyone.
Teen slasher’s exploded back onto the scene during the late 80's and 90’s with “Scream” leading them. This film took into account all horror movie codes and conventions and even made homage to many well know horror’s. These horrors like other in this list brought new life to the slasher genre keeping it fresh and interesting with new concepts and motives for there killer's. Most notable however would be the change in audience these slashers had compared to previous slashers. This new wave of slashers focused on a teenage audience, it did this by portraying a teenage age cast who would generally be friends carrying out "typical" teen activities such as going out into isolated area's to drink and party.Because of the age group these films were aimed at its understandable how they manged to find there way into pop culture and became staples of the horror genre.
The latest craze to hit horror’s would be the “found footage” craze. This style is considered the cheapest way of filming, as it tries to impersonate home camera footage so skimps money when coming to camera equipment and special effects. The most successful of the found footage films would be the paranormal activity franchise and is considered one of the scariest franchises ever made due to how relatable and real the film looks.The first film to use this style was the film “the blair witch project” in 1999.