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I feel that the horror genre is one of the only few to have sustained interest over the years. Sure there will be times where the genre is less popular than others; however a large interest is always apparent. Horror has managed to keep its interest through frequently changing with the times, and constantly progressing and expanding as a genre.

If you look at the genre in the early seventies for instance it can be seen that films such as William Friedkin's 'The Exorcist' were greatly popular in the genre. Released in 1973; here there was no killer, but instead a manifestation of evil itself in the form of devil possession. Countless others took note of this and over the next few years paved the way for a large array of copycat films drawing on the same idea of evil itself forming the basis for the horror aspect of the movie. Of course; this form of horror got stale and change had to be made in order to reinvent the flailing genre and to reinsert interest.

It was well timed then that in 1978 John Carpenter should emerge with the slasher hit 'Halloween' featuring the ever chilling murderous 'Michael Myers' as its killer. The slasher genre gained in popularity and saw the birth of several other horror characters still popular to this day such as 'Jason Voorhees' of 'Friday the 13th' fame, and 'Freddy Kreuger' of the great 1984 film 'A Nightmare On Elm Street'. Once again the genre did of course with time become rather stale and require reinventing, however it was in 1996 that Wes Craven once again brought popularity to the slasher genre of horror with 'Scream'. Popular for directing 'A Nightmare On Elm Street'; Wes Craven was no stranger to the slasher genre and showed that old news can once again become 'the new'. The reinvention of the slasher genre in the mid 90's just goes to show how the genre goes in cycles and this goes some way to describing the factor of renewed interest in horror movies. Interest in horror movies will only become renewed once a sub-genre that has been done to death is replaced and a different form of film is popularised.

We see times when slasher films will possess great popularity, and other times when the horror films being released are more psychological. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to scare however as with time people are becoming more and more desensitised. There is therefore now a greater reliance on digital enhancement of films in order to shock and to scare us. Numerous films are also being given remakes in order

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