by Devin Dyspepsia

Created on: February 07, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

There's nothing like sitting among a big crowd on a Friday night as the girl looks behind the door and under the bed but doesn't think to check the closet, where, of course, a bad guy is waiting to demolish her. Horror movies are spectacular. They make you feel nerve-wracked but exited at the same time.

The first horror film ever created was in 1896, a 3-minute long French film which title translates to, "The Devil's Castle". Basically, here was the story line: A bat appears and transforms into the Devil, and makes skeletons, ghosts, and witches come from a cauldron. This movie was not to scare people, rather to entertain. As the 20th century was being born, many more movies were to release in the horror genre, many of which had rthe character of Quasimodo (from Hunchback of Notre Dame). Moving into the 1920's most horror movies were centered around the idea of vampires. A lot of these movies were the basic idea of a drama, with some horror elements.

It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, especially Universal Pictures, popularized the horror film, bringing a series of successful Gothic themes, like Dracula (1931) and The Mummy (1932), many which incorporated science fiction themes as well, such as Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933).

After many changes of technology in the 50's, most horror movies weighed on the science fiction side, which many low budget movies about mutation, aliens, and U.F.O's. Some famous ones include The Thing From Another World (1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

In the 60's, these movies did not only have elements of science fiction and Gothic. Production companies realized that not all scary things had to be monstrous. A good example of this is the classic Psycho (1960). It has a human explanation. Movie makers also started tampering with nature, bringing flicks like The Birds (1963) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).

In the 1970s, horror author Stephen King, a child of the 1960s, first arrived on the film scene. The first movie to be made from his books was Carrie (1976), which was even nominated for an Academy Award. Halloween (1978) was also a popular film at the time, starting the modern "slasher film". In 1975, Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, a film which at the time had amazing visuals. Another horror film made was The Exorcist (1973), which won an Academy Award and has many famous movie scenes. In 1979, Alien combined the naturalistic acting and graphic violence of the 1970s with the monster movie plots of earlier decades, and re-acquainted horror with science fiction. It was very successful, and was like the icing on the cake of horror movies. At this point in time other countries in the world were starting to take some share in this global success.

Visual effects really started to bump up in the 80's. Also, many of the horror films created had multiple sequels, Poltergeist (1982), Friday the 13th (1980), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). A lot of the flicks involved mass killings and gore. Many famous serial killers were born out of these movies, such as Jason, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers.

The 90's had very little growth in horror films. A lot had to do with unsettling themes and urban legends, rather than gore, such as the Sixth Sense (1999) and Candyman (1992).

At this point, Horror Movies are pretty incredible, with successful releases such as Saw, The Ring, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Horror flicks have become very psychological, such as the Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Messengers. Even so, horror films have evolved much in the past hundred years...so have a good scare!

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