Horror films are designed to frighten and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films feature a wide range of styles, from the earliest silent Nosferatu classic, to today's CGI monsters and deranged humans. They are often combined with
science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The
fantasy and
supernatural film genres are not usually synonymous with the horror genre. There are many sub-genres of horror: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. See this site's
Scariest Film Moments and Scenes collection - illustrated.
The horror film genre is the most popular film genre of my target audiecne which is teenagers.
Horror films are
movies that strive to elicit the emotions of
fear,
horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of
death, the
supernatural or
mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central
villain.
Early horror movies are largely based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre, such as
Dracula,
Frankenstein,
The Phantom of the Opera and
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
More recent horror films, in contrast, often draw inspiration from the insecurities of life after
World War II, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, sub-genres: the
horror-of-personality Psycho film, the horror-of-armageddon
Invasion of the Body Snatchers film, and the
horror-of-the-demonic The Exorcist film.
The last sub-genre may be seen as a modernized transition from the earliest horror films, expanding on their emphasis on supernatural agents that bring horror to the world.
[1]Horror films have been dismissed as violent, low budget
B movies and
exploitation films. Nonetheless, all the major studios and many respected
directors, including
Alfred Hitchcock,
Roman Polanski,
Stanley Kubrick,
John Carpenter,
William Friedkin,
Sam Raimi,
Richard Donner, and
Francis Ford Coppola have made forays into the genre. Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of
genre theory and the
auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of other genres such as
science fiction,
fantasy,
mockumentary,
black comedy, and
thrillers.
In the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the themes from the 1980s. Sequels from the
Child's Play and
Leprechaun series enjoyed some commercial success. The slasher films
A Nightmare on Elm Street,
Friday the 13th, and
Halloween all saw sequels in the 1990s, most of which met with varied amounts of success at the box office, but all were panned by fans and critics, with the exception of Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
New Nightmare, with
In the Mouth of Madness,
The Dark Half, and
Candyman, were part of a mini-movement of self-reflexive or
metafictional horror films. Each film touched upon the relationship between fictional horror and real-world horror. Candyman, for example, examined the link between an invented urban legend and the realistic horror of the racism that produced its villain. In the Mouth of Madness took a more literal approach, as its protagonist actually hopped from the real world into a novel created by the madman he was hired to track down. This reflective style became more overt and ironic with the arrival of
Scream.
In 1994's
Interview with the Vampire, the "Theatre de Vampires" (and the film itself, to some degree) invoked the
Grand Guignol style, perhaps to further remove the undead performers from humanity, morality and class. The horror movie soon continued its search for new and effective frights. In 1985's novel
The Vampire Lestat by author
Anne Rice (who penned Interview...'s screenplay and the 1976 novel of the same name) suggests that its antihero Lestat inspired and nurtured the
Grand Guignol style and theatre.
Two main problems pushed horror backward during this period: firstly, the horror genre wore itself out with the proliferation of nonstop slasher and gore films in the eighties. Secondly, the adolescent audience which feasted on the blood and morbidity of the previous decade grew up, and the replacement audience for films of an imaginative nature were being captured instead by the explosion of
science-fiction and fantasy, courtesy of the special effects possibilities with
computer-generated imagery.
[16]To re-connect with its audience, horror became more self-mockingly
ironic and outright
parodic, especially in the latter half of the 1990s. Peter Jackson's
Braindead (1992) (known as Dead Alive in the USA) took the
splatter film to ridiculous excesses for comic effect. Wes Craven's
Scream (written by
Kevin Williamson) movies, starting in 1996, featured teenagers who were fully aware of, and often made reference to, the history of horror movies, and mixed ironic humour with the shocks. Along with
I Know What You Did Last Summer (written by
Kevin Williamson as well) and
Urban Legend, they re-ignited the dormant
slasher film genre.
Among the popular English-language horror films of the late 1990s, only 1999's surprise independent hit
The Blair Witch Project attempted straight-ahead scares. But even then, the horror was accomplished in the context of a
mockumentary, or mock-documentary.
Japanese horror films, such as
Hideo Nakata's
Ringu in 1998, also found success internationally with a similar formula.
The start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre.[
citation needed] The re-release of a restored version of
The Exorcist in September 2000 was successful despite the film having been available on home video for years. Franchise films such as
Freddy vs. Jason also made a stand in theaters.
Final Destination (2000) marked a successful revival of clever, teen-centered horror and spawned three sequels.
Some notable trends have marked horror films in the 2000s. A French horror film
Brotherhood of the Wolf became the second-highest-grossing
French-language film in the
United States in the last two decades.
The Others (2001) was a successful horror film of that year. That film was the first horror in the decade to rely on psychology to scare audiences, rather than gore. A minimalist approach which was equal parts Val Lewton's theory of "less is more" (usually employing low-budget techniques seen on 1999's
The Blair Witch Project) has been evident,[
citation needed] particularly in the emergence of Asian horror movies which have been remade into successful Americanized versions, such as
The Ring (2002), and
The Grudge (2004). In March 2008, China banned the movies from its Market
[17].
There has been a major return to the zombie genre in horror movies made after 2000.
[18][
citation needed] The
Resident Evil video game franchise was adapted into a
film released in March 2002. Three sequels have followed. The
British film
28 Days Later (2002) featured an update on the genre with
The Return of the Living Dead (1985) style of aggressive zombie. The film later spawned a sequel:
28 Weeks Later. An
updated remake of
Dawn of the Dead (2004) soon appeared as well as the
zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). This resurgence lead
George A. Romero to return to his
Living Dead series with
Land of the Dead (2005),
Diary of the Dead (2007) and
Survival of the Dead 2009.
A larger trend is a return to the extreme, graphic violence that characterized much of the type of low-budget, exploitation horror from the Seventies and the post-Vietnam years.[
citation needed] Films like
Audition (1999),
Wrong Turn (2003), and the
Australian film Wolf Creek (2005), took their cues from
The Last House on the Left (1972),[
citation needed]
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974),[
citation needed] and
The Hills Have Eyes (1977).[
citation needed] An extension of this trend was the emergence of a type of horror with emphasis on depictions of torture, suffering and violent deaths, (variously referred to as "horror porn", "
torture porn", Splatterporn, and even "gore-nography") with films such as
FeardotCom, and
Captivity, and more recently
Saw and
Hostel and their respective sequels in particular being frequently singled out as examples of emergence of this sub-genre
[19].
Remakes of late 1970s horror movies became routine in the 2000s. In addition to 2004's remake of
Dawn of the Dead and 2003's remake of
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in 2007,
Rob Zombie wrote and directed
a remake of John Carpenter's
Halloween[20]. The film focused more on Michael's backstory than the original did, devoting the first half of the film to Michael's childhood. It was critically panned by most,
[21][22] but was a success in its theatrical run. This success lead to the remakes, or "reimaginings" of other popular horror franchises with films such as
Friday the 13th,
[23] A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010),
[24] Hellraiser,
[25] and
Children of the Corn.
[26] Other remakes include
The Hills Have Eyes (2006),
The Last House on the Left (2009), and
The Wolfman (2010)
[27].
The Blair Witch Project.
