Horror Movie evolution

Over the course of a century, film horror has gone through many peaks and troughs, leading us into
the somewhat contentious period we find ourselves in today. The origins of horror as a film genre
begin with—as with many things in cinema history—the works of George Mellies. Just a few years
after the first filmmakers emerged in the mid-1890s, Mellies created what is widely believed to be the
first horror movie in 1898, complete with cauldrons, animated skeletons, ghosts, transforming bats,
and, ultimately, an incarnation of the Devil. While not intended to be scary—more wondrous, as was
Mellies’ MO—it was the first example of a film (only just rediscovered in 1977) to include the
supernatural and set a precedent for what was to come. Where the genre will go over the next
hundred years is anyone’s guess, but sometimes it’s good to look back on the long road we’ve
traveled to get to this point.
Widely considered to be the finest era of the genre, the two decades between the 1920s and 30s
saw many classics being produced and can be neatly divided down the middle to create a
separation between the silent classics and the talkies.

On the silent side of the line, you’ve got monumental titles such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
and Nosferatu (1922), the first movies to really make an attempt to unsettle their audience. The latter
title is one of Rotten Tomatoes’ best horror movies of all time and cements just about every surviving
vampire cliché in the book.

Once the silent era gave way to the technological process, we had a glut of incredible movies that
paved the way for generations [email protected] to come, particularly in the field of monster
movies – think the second iteration of Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932) and the first color
adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931).

The 30s also marked the first time that the word “horror” was used to describe the
genre—previously, it was really just romance melodrama with a dark element—and it also saw the
first horror “stars” being born. Bella Lugosi (of Dracula fame) was arguably the first to specialize
solely in the genre.

And as well as unnerving its viewers, the genre was starting to worry the general public at this point,
with heavy censoring and public outcry becoming common with each release. Freaks (1932) is a
good example of a movie that was so shocking at the time it got cut extensively, with the original
version now nowhere to be found. Director Tod Browning—who had previously created the
aforementioned and wildly successful Dracula—saw his career flounder at the hands of the
controversy.

The shock value of Freaks is one of the few that has aged well up until the present day and is still a
highly disturbing watch.