The terrifying timeline of the Horror genre!!

Dear reader... I must warn you that there is no yellow brick road  to guide you through this horrific history of the Horror genre. If you dare to know more , you have to follow me on the twisted winding road into the unknown. Be weary that this is no easy journey and that you must encounter the pitfalls of the subgenres and the mysterious motivations behind the creepy creations.

Let's begin...

• 1896-  'The Devil's Castle' is considered the first horror film ever made. The French silent film included scenes of bats (hinting at the Vampire genre), skeletons, phantoms and the devil itself. The images were influenced by the Gothic Horror writing of authors such; Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker. There stories had already scared the minds of the people but with the advent of film the audience could see these horror stories turn into real life! Made over a hundred years ago, we still see the same images in the horror films which are made today!

• In 1920-1922- 'The cabinet of Dr Caligari' ,'Noferstatu' are accepted by most people to be the real first horror films. The iconic German expressionist films which were influenced by the takeover of WW1. The movement was emphasising an expression of reality and the reality of this period was the war. The films were the first horror films to express and reflect the fears of the times, with the films having tones reflecting the socio-political climate and the idea of identity and self-reflexivity.  The topics such as insanity and madness in the films represented experiences of WW1.

From here, we see more and more film reflecting triggering experiences in the society at the time it happened...

• 'Frankenstein' 1931 and  'Werewolf of London' 1935 were the first horror films which introduced noise and sound to the production. This was a huge step in the production of films,  film makers, now had a new way to scare audiences. 1935- saw the production of 'Bride of Frankenstein', and being the sequel to 'Frankenstein' there is a correlation between events of the time, in the years during and up to the war and the audience's fears. For example, the relation of the monster 'Frankenstein' and 'a superior race' ideal of Nazi Germany and Hitler demonstates that society had a real fear of creating something evil. Similarly, the nuclear bombs in Japan, threated society with the impacts of the bomb. They became scared of mutations and the effects of the people hit by the bomb, they didn't truly know what could happen to society.

• 1956, 'Godzilla' the fears of society had changed, with the rise of space missions the people were becoming more and more anxious of an outside threat or invasion. The films tapped into the experiences of the cold war and ee see more horrific and graphic scenes of an unknown creature destroying life as we know.

• 1960's  was a time where the Horror film was gaining more follower and began to grow in popularity. The films placed emphasis on the fear of others, familiar people and played on the psychology of the audience. 'Psycho', presents a rapid change in society. This was a huge step away from the radioactive monsters that were on the screen in previous years, this was because the horror films were depicting reality.  The film seems to portray that society can longer trust each other and that their is evil and danger in everyday life. The film psycho shows that the exterior of a person can be normal but the mind is far from that.  It also shows that our 'sins' and personal histories can build up into something dreadful and that in cases there is no hope which is represented with the *SPOILER* death of the protagonist half way through the film.

• 1970s- This is a period where horror films concentrate their storylines of the supernatural and the devil. 'Rosmary's Baby' and 'The exorcist', presented the fear of 'evil inside ourselves' and that we could be the monster and threat to society. The ideas of possessions could be analysed that we should fear the evil inside us. The film plays on the fact that evil is hard to escape from and that there is an inevitable evil all around us.

• Late 70s and 1980's- an absolute blood bath!!! The sub-genre 'slasher' was the type of horror films being created. We seen low budget films constantly churned out by film makers. 'Halloween', 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', 'The Shining', 'The Texas Chainsaw Mascare' and so many more iconic slasher films were created in this period. These film were very low budget but depicted a lot of raw violence and gore. These films were popular amongst teens.  The films were based on true events but sometimes played on the psychology of the audience. In all, there is just a lot of blood.

• 1990's- By this time, the Slasher had pretty much wilted and with advancments in film technology slasher films were being parodied. 'Scream' is a perfect example of the parodied film, it contains a lot of gore and violence but the film has moments of comedy where the characters relate their events to famous horror films. But this time, the directors were playing on the fear of the real. The 'Scream' films were happening to 'real' people in the film even though they accknowleged the fiction of the films they had seen. The audience could relate to this but scream depicted that even though the films are still fiction the events could happen to normal people. 'The Blair With project' was a big change in the horror genre. The marketing of the film, made audiences believe the film was a documentary and that it was real. The public watching these films were no longer scared of monsters or vampires but they were scared of reality.

• 2000s + Now- The present day has seen many remakes of the classics and it almost seems as though we are running of ideas... Have audiences become decensorised? The 2000s etc saw more paranormal/ gorey films with the 'Saw' franchise and the 'Paranormal activity' franchise we now see more ghosts than ever. We see more masked and unfamiliar looking antagonists. This may be because as an audience we have a combined fear of the unknown, We don't know what horrible event will happen next, we don't really know who we can trust in society and everything we thought we knew about horror has become unclear and unfamiliar.

Well done, if you've made it this far. This was a brief history of the horror genre but I am yet to divulge all I know...

The Women in the mask- Preliminary Task

This is the Preliminary task that my group and I produced. It tells the story of a girl being tormented by mysterious masked women. Will she survive the day...

What went well?:
I believe that the editing such as the rewind effect, video camera frame and slow-motion editing effects were very successful in this task. This is because many horror films use these editing techniques to create their films and I feel that in the preliminary task we were able to create images and frames that are typical to the genre. Without these effects, the task would not have the same effect on the audience as we wanted to create a feeling of distortion and confusion, this way the audience would relate to the fears of the protagonist. Although some of the cuts didn't seem very good such as in the bathroom scene, they fitted with the idea of confusion and the thoughts the character might be feeling such as 'did I just see that?!!!'

As well as the editing, I think that the camera work was very good too. We were able to use pans to create a sense that someone was watching the protagonist which would make the audience already sense danger, within the opening shot. Again, in the bathroom we managed to film the reflection, whilst using an over the shoulder shot. This gave the same effect as the pan i.e. that someone was watching her.

The mise-en-scene such as the setting were quite successful, especially the scene in the dark room where the protagonist is captured. I think that it was a good location as it created a scene of a small space and would be scary to quite a few viewers who suffer from claustrophobia where they would be fearful of compact, tight places.

What could be improved?:
In my opinion, he sound aspect o the film really did not work very well with images. As a group, we did find it difficult to find a soundtrack that created the atmosphere we wanted. In the end, we had to choose a soundtrack that we thought was the creepiest, event though we knew it didn't work. Therefore for my final task, I will try to find an appropriate soundtrack or even create it myself. In my film I would also like to use speech, as through some film research I believe that certain scenes with dialogue in can create a horrifying atmosphere.

The props were also quite poor, of course we must take into account that we were in a school and that some props would breach health and safety. For example, the chase scene was not exactly effective because we had to use child scissors which do not look threatening at all. Next time I will be sure to use effective props.

The setting was okay because I liked the idea that danger could be in familiar places but for my film I would like to film it in more unique places so that the audience don't feel like they're watching a student film. Also, as we were in a school there was a lot of people walking in the hall or looking at the camera and this made it feel less effective.

We did not story board or really do much depth of planning when filming this, so for my final piece I think it would be best if I went through the whole process of creating a horror film.

In conclusion, I think that there was a successful story line which was effectively told but certain aspects such as sound and mise-en-scene should be improved as in some points of the film  they did not 'fit in' and spoiled the atmosphere of the horror film. I would also like to develop more costumes and props which fit in with the film.