Horror Film:
Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror from viewers. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres. Horrors also frequently overlap with the thriller genre.
Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Al;though a good deal of it is about the supernatural, if some films contain a plot about morbidity, serial killers, a diseases/virus outbreak and surrealism, they may be termed "horror".
Plots written within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Themes or elements often prevalent in typical horror films include ghosts, torture, gore, werewolves, ancient curses, satanism, demons, vicious animals, vampires, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies and masked serial killers. Conversely, stories of the supernatural are not necessarily always a horror movies as well.
What is considered to be a horror film has varied from decade to decade. Films that were once called horror, would now be categorized as thrillers. These days, the term "horror" is applied to films which display more explicit gore, jump scenes/scares or supernatural content.
History:
1890s-1920s:
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Melies in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Another of his horror projects was 1898s La Caverne maudite.
Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898. In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first bone chilling film version of Frankenstein; thought lost for many years, film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.
Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Al;though a good deal of it is about the supernatural, if some films contain a plot about morbidity, serial killers, a diseases/virus outbreak and surrealism, they may be termed "horror".
Plots written within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Themes or elements often prevalent in typical horror films include ghosts, torture, gore, werewolves, ancient curses, satanism, demons, vicious animals, vampires, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies and masked serial killers. Conversely, stories of the supernatural are not necessarily always a horror movies as well.
What is considered to be a horror film has varied from decade to decade. Films that were once called horror, would now be categorized as thrillers. These days, the term "horror" is applied to films which display more explicit gore, jump scenes/scares or supernatural content.
History:
1890s-1920s:
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Melies in the late 1890s, the most notable being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. Another of his horror projects was 1898s La Caverne maudite.Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898. In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first bone chilling film version of Frankenstein; thought lost for many years, film collector Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr. found a copy and had a 1993 rerelease.