Movies have been made for many years and horror movies have as well. When looking at the horror movie it is best to look at the horror literature that influenced it first. By understand that it is possible to understand the movies that were made from them.

Horror films would not have been as prominent if not for the horror literature. Horror literature is what made the horror film what it is today. It was in the 1764 book by Horace Walpole called The Castle of Otranto the term horror was first mentioned. Other great writers like Edgar Allan Poe helped this genre with timeless classics like The Raven. These old horror tales are what many iconic horror films are based on. Some of them will include the classics from the 1800’s like Dracula and Frankenstein.

The supernatural was the main theme of the horror movie when they first came about. Short silent films were the first place horror films were found in the 1890’s. In 1896 the short silent film Le Manior du diable is thought to be the first horror film. At the same time as Georges Melies made this film the Japanese also made horror films Shinin no Sosei and Bake Jizo.

A film adaptation of the hunchback of Notre-Dame is the first known full length horror film. German film makers were the creators of many of these early movies as this was the time of the German expressionist film. These German films have been cited as influencing film makers for decades. Hollywood started making horror films in the 1920’s and created the first American horror star.

Hollywood started to popularize the horror film in the 1930’s. In this time the classic Gothic movies Frankenstein and Dracula were created. Other films mixed Gothic horror with the supernatural at this time as well. The iconic werewolf movie The Wolf Man was created in 1941 by Universal studios. It should be noted that this was not the first werewolf film but has become the most influential. B pictures like The Body Snatchers were made in 1945 as well.

In the 1950’s there had been many innovations in the technology used to make films. Additionally in this time the horror film was divided into two categories being Armageddon films and demonic films. During this time social ideas and fears were placed into movies but in such a way that it was not direct exploitation.

There were many iconic movies created in the 1960’s that changed the genre. The Birds made by Hitchcock was one of the first American Armageddon horror films set in modern times. Night of the Living Dead is one of the most iconic zombie films. This movie changed how people viewed zombies and changed horror films altogether.

Tracing the history of horror movies will take you back to the start of movie making. It is possible to see how movies changed from Gothic horror to what we see today.

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