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When you get together with you friends for a slumber party, or you want to watch a movie where the girl next to you will bury their face in your shoulder (or if you're the girl and you want to bury your face in the shoulder of the cute guy sitting next to you), you go watch a horror movie. A horror movie will do one of about three things: One, you will be scared of being alone, or being in the dark or something of that sort for a few days up to a few months, Two, you won't care for it at all, or Three, You'll receive a cheap thrill for a while, think it was a decent use of time, and forget about it the next day. But how did this whole genre begin? Horror began in the late 1890s with silent films released by Georges Mlis and other so called film pioneers, who created films such as 'The House of the Devil'. So basically, the horror genre began with silent films. Horror began a long time ago. Most of the time, horror films were adaptations of cultural horror stories and myths such as Dracula, and a lot were adaptations of horror novels such as Frankenstein. Some of the earliest horror films, which are considered classic horror films, were 'Frankenstein', 'The Phantom of the Opera' (Not the musical, based on the book), 'Notre dame de paris' (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), 'Dracula', 'The Mummy', etc. Every decade had its own horror fad. For instance, the 1930s, monsters and mad scientists was the most popular. In the 1990s, Psychological killers were in almost ever horror film/novel. However, as we entered into the Twentieth Century, the fad turned into cheap gore thrills, and ghost stories (Mostly Japanese remakes). Planet Terror, Resident Evil, Saw, the Grudge, the Ring, Shutter, etc.

So how has this genre changed? Each decade specialized in one field of horror, but how has this genre evolved? Depending on the person one asks, one will get a different answer. However, most people will agree that the value of horror has gone down over the years. There are about two reasons for this: 1, It is too common compared to the scarcity of horror in the decades before, and 2, the intention behind most of the horror films aren't to make the audience scared, but just to make money. Even in the last two decades, the value has gone down. Let's take Saw for example. Saw is probably one of the best horror series made in the past ten years. However, the gore in this movie is over the top. Many people watch this movie because of the gore. However, take the Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, made in 1980. There is little to no gore in this movie, no ghosts, none of that...it is purely psychological, and the technique Kubrick used with the music choice made this horror film one of the classics of all time. His intention behind this film was merely to disturb the audience, and give them a great horror film. See the difference? So how has the value of horror evolved in the past few decades? You decide.

Learn more about this author, Tim S. Lim.
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