Context of Horror- Study Task 2

-Horror cinema has its roots in English Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th Centuries, such as Frankenstein, Dracula etc.
-The very first horror films were based off these novels. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was first produced in 1908.
- German Expressionist cinema- The cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) Nosferatu (1922)
-Horror began largely as silent films in the 1920s - villain almost always supernatural in early films
-Sci fi horror became popular in the 1950s
-Evolution of the villain in the 1960s - human and psychologically real- villains in Psycho and Peeping Tom. These killers seemed normal on the surface but were driven to commit murder-mostly against sexually transgressive women
- The Exorcist (1973) demonic possession horror explored
- the Shining (1980) haunted house conventions used to explore real life horrors - alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence.
- The 90s brought about more creative, charismatic serial killer horrors- Se7en, Silence of the Lambs