The first horror film was made in France in 1896. It was only 18 seconds long. Some of the very first horrors, where silent and the first American horror film was Frankenstein , this was made in 1910. This horror film portrayed the character as a monster and is seen as the best made up character of all time. Prior to this, the character is still used today.
Hollywood Horror films in the early 1930s, American Universal Studios began a successful Gothic horror film company. This included titles Such as Frankenstein ,The Mummy and Dracula. These films where designed to thrill and fear the viewers and these quickly became popular films in the genre.
In the 1950s as horror films became more popular and with technology becoming more advanced. Two sub-genres began to arrise, to which played a part and created the horror of 'Armageddon film', also 'the horror of the demonic film'. The majority of the films including these two, where low budgeted in the 1950's and the majority, included story lines such as: Alien invasions , deadly mutations to people, plants, insects(films such as Godzillawhich originated from Japan).
History of Horror 2000s +The 21st century has quiet a era for the horror genre due to the increase in technology, acess to realistic makeup artists and more skillfull directors and actors. There was a successful franchise such as 'Final Destination' and 'SAW'. Alot of Asian horror movies which have been re made into American versions such as 'The Ring' and 'The Grudge'. Furthermore, there was an increase in the Zombie horror such as: Dawn of the Dead, Resident evil and a lzombie comedy Shaun of the Dead.
History of a popular Horror film in depth : The first ever horror movie was made by a author called Mary Shelley. She was firstly inspired by art due back in the 1700’s. This movie was called frankenstien. Since then people have used intersexuality to re create modern versions of this film. When Frankenstein was first distributed the quality was black and white and there was no special effects and it wasn't’t considered a “jumpy” film. Frankenstein creation was represented as a strong masculine, ugly male inhumane character. The typography used in the trailer is associated with the horror genre in modern society now. Every time something bad was to happen, there would be gun explosions to show this, this may have been due to the fact it was the first horror genre movie out and they didn't’t want to spook people to much. In 1994, when it was re-created there was colour, freaky music and the genre of love and romance was portrayed with a inhuman twist. There was a lot of special effects and camera work(such as close ups to show emotions).
Research into iconic genre directors: James Wan he’s made three amazing examples of movie macabre--Saw, The Conjuring, and Insidiousand ended up jumpstarting three new fright franchises. The horror saw, was a hit and due to the success, four more saw films were created. Tobe Hopper was the director of tex chain saw, who has made numerous rewards for how effective his films have been in the genre 'horror'. Tobe is truly a master of horror and before becoming a filmmaker, he spent the1960s as a college teacher and documentary cameraman. He then organized a small cast of teachers and students and made The texas chain saw massacre. Mitchell Altieri started his film career at the age of 19 when he wrote and directed the short film 'King's River,' this earned him a Bay Area Cable Excellence Award. From then on, he went on to produce national print ads with such clients as Levi's, Verizon Wireless, Kodak, Pringles, and Zenith TV. Alfred Hitchcock directed 'Psycho' and he is known as one of the best film directors ever. He has a distinctive way of directing the films that he does.
Oren Peli: Oren peli’s first real deal was called, Photon Paint. Paranormal activity was first inspired by peli moving into his first house on his own away from his family. Peli heard cracks and knocks in the night firsthand during the night. This gave him the idea of a family based film trying to work out extraordinary beings in the house. Since the success of paranormal activity peli has worked along side of James Wan and Leigh Whannell to create Insidious. Peli also produced and wrote the script for the 2012 horror film, Chernobyl Diaries, based on the Chernobyl disaster and on his story The Diary of Lawson Oxford. The film based on a group of friends on a adventure.
Certificate Ratings: What is the BBFC? The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), before 1985 known as British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organization, founded by the film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom.
Horror certificates: If you were to watch a 15 rated film, you are most likely to see strong violence, frequent strong language strong violence, sexual scenes, aggressive behavior and lastly, discriminating behavior as well as drugs and alchol strongly exposed.
Conclusion: When it is a 15 certificated film, it is most likely to preform aggressive behavior, with sexual violence and vulgar language. The reason behind this with 15 rated film, is because when you reach the age of 15, you're a teenager and are surrounded in things like what are shown on the TV and can deal with it maturely, unlike 12 year olds, who are more mature and vulnerable.
Certificate rate continued:
Horror certificate: Films rated 18 are for adults. No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy / rent an 18 rated video. With films rated 18, there will be frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and \or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’) With 18 rated films, the films seem to portray strong acts of sexual activity, sciences of sexual violence(which can be very emotional i.e. rape), Strong gory horror scenes which make you’re skin crawl in a complete different way to a rated 15 film, a lot of blood and gore(an example would be saw), real sex in some circumstances and lastly, discriminatory langue and behavior.
Conclusion: When films rated 18, this means that the content will be strong with gore and sexual scenes, to which can offended and upset some views. With films rated 18, this means that the scenswiill be very gory if it was horror. Extra conclusion: With film ratings, there is more than just 18 and 15. There is a twelve rating to. With the 12 rating, there won't be many horror aspects to 12 rated films. Their may be scenes of a violent nature but they would be minimal. In 12 rating films, there also wouldn't be sexual scenes or vulgar language.
Audience Expectations for Horror: Different camera angle shots/work- different angles to show emotions and feelings(closeups), also different shots to make it interesting, else audience would loose interest.
Tense atmosphere’s- expect realistic settings, to make the scene/shot look tense and believable.
Dark, gloomy lighting- expect different lighting to connotate the genre.
Flickering effects- effects to build up suspense and distress(discomfort)
Jumpy scenes- to fit the genre
Something to think about for the audience to relate
Good acting to make it believable.
Scary characters- fit the genre
Gratifications
Different costumes/makeup- to make it realistic and unique characters
Realistic props- to make it look scary and real
Good script- need to flow, so the storyline is watchable.
Extraordinary events
Characters which the audience can relate to
Change of character perspective- to make people feel fooled and coned into believing the character was what they first pot rayed themselves to be.
A storyline which parallel real life situations- make the audience feel like they are been related to.
Continuity in editing
High quality- so its bare able to watch.
Sub-genre Horror Genre: Supernatural: can include ghosts, monsters, dark forces, zombies, or pretty much any creepy thing that can’t be found in the real world.
Dark Fantasy: contains fantasy elements with a horror twist, or horror with a distinctly fantastical setting, like Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.
Sci-fi Horror: mash-up of science fiction and horror, usually where the Sci-Fi aspects (aliens, robots, space travel) are used to precipitate the overriding horror. Like in the movie Alien.
Psychological Horror: driven by characters’ fears and focused more on psychological dread than on murder, mutilation, and gore. Could be supernatural, but is more often associated with those twists where the protagonist turns out to be insane.
Lovecraftian Horror: yeah, Lovecraft is so awesome he gets his own genre. Includes stories of a distinct aesthetic involving either Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythology or similar ideas and situations: i.e., ancient secrets, giant monsters/aliens in the bowels of the earth, and a profoundly unsympathetic universe. Could also be called cosmic or atheistic horror.
Gothic: involves psychological terror in historically romantic settings, usually including mysteries, ghosts, castles, decay, madness, hereditary curses, and death. Pretty much dominated by Edgar Allan Poe.
Splatterpunk: the horror extreme, with graphic and gory violence intended to gross you out. Includes cinema’s torture porn category, in movies like Hostel. Sub-genre Horror Genre CONTINUED Satanic/Religious/Occult: horror derived from certain belief systems and the evil aspects that they fight against. Usually involves demonic possessions, exorcisms, or explorations of the darker side of pagan religions and the use of “left hand” magic. The Exorcist is a stand-out example.
Erotic Horror/Paranormal Romance: for some reason that I can’t fathom, sex and horror seem to go hand in hand. There’s plenty of erotica involving horrifying situations/the supernatural, and (unfortunately) paranormal romance (which I’m not even going to consider a genre of horror, because it’s NOT) has gotten huge among the tweenieboppers with the unfortunate success of drivel like Twilight.
Suspense/Thriller: does not involve any supernatural or otherworldly aspects, instead relying on real-life situations to generate horror through serial killers, deadly situations, natural disasters, and psychopaths. Good film examples are Se7en and Jaws (even though it’s pretty unrealistic that a shark gets so hung up on eating people).
Impact of special effects, funding, narratives and sub genres:
Firstly, the reason behind more funding, has had a huge impact throughout the years of the development on Horrors. With, less funding's back in the 1950's, the quality of the horror films produced, were at a lower level of: realism- things looked obviously fake, quality- a lot of the films produced, lacked a lot of HD to which we have now a days and lastly, the costume and props- looked very fake, and cheap. Due to the higher increase of budget and money been put into the horror films, more companies and production companies are extremely successful when promoting and releasing horrors.
With the higher money, and more knowledge of what looks real and what looks face, it has improved, special effects which go into making horrors. Due to new technology, products and costume quality improvements along side it, have become better and more satisfying when creating a horror film.
Lastly, with horrors been created since the 1896 and ongoing, it has given producers chance to create and make different types. These different types are known as 'sub genres'. With sub-genres(listed above), it gives a wider range of produced films, for different types of audiences. This allows all audience needs, to be fulfilled in different ways.
Overall, with everything been improved and invested in, better than horrors, back in the day, audience expect and want to see different things. Audiences now want horrors to look extremely good when coming to visual effects and props, very scary and a realistic narrative. Now a days, if horrors do not fulfill these aspects, the film will be very unsuccessful and evidently, loose out of revenue and success.