Genre - Horror

Horror is intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. It is created to invoke our hidden worst fears in often a shocking and terrifying finale. Horror films center on the dark side of life, the forbidden and strange events which can occur.
Horror films go as far back as 100 years and were often created as very gothic in style this could be better known as the gothic/horror genre, this was usually set in spooky old castles and mansions. Their main characters were generally supernatural creatures ranging from creatures such as zombies, vampires, devils, mad scientists for example 'Frankenstein', evil spirits and many more. It was in the early 1930s that American film producers particuarly Universal Pictures that popularized the horror film bringing to the screen the likes of 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein', some of these blended together science fiction with gothic horror, these films were simply designed to thrill. Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with the film 'The Wolfman', this wasn't the first werewold film but was agreed to be the most influential. Throughout this decade Universal continued to produce more sequals to the Frankstein series. However in the 1950s-1960s the advances in technology that had occured the tone of the horror films had shifted from the gothic genre towards what people saw as more relevant to the current time era, a stream of productions featured humanity overcoming threats from 'outside' such as alien invasions and deadly mutations to people.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, production companies focused on producing horror films, including the British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer enjoyed a vast amount of success from full-blooded technicolor films involving classic horror characters in films such as 'The curse of Frankenstein', 'Dracula' and 'The mummy' and many other sequels. During the 1960s Ghosts and Monsters still remained popular, however in 1968 the film 'Night of the living dead' which featured Zombies was deemed as being cultural, historically or aesthetically significant. Blending the psychological insights with gore moved the genre even further away from the gothic horror trends which were first brought about with horror, this therefore brought horror into everyday life. Gore-shock films were also very popular such as 'Blood feast' which featured splattering bloody and bodily disemberment.
With the financial success of the gore films from previous years the 1970s started referencing the occult this often featured gory horror films with sexual overtones. This led to films such as the 'Exorcist', many similar films contained a Devil who represented the supernatural evil which was often done by inpregnating women or possessing young children. Evil children and reincarnation became very popular subjects, also Satan became the villian in many horror films however with a postmodern style. Also in the 1970s the horror author Stephen King debuted on the film scene as many of his books were adapted for the screen, Stephen Speilberg also shot to fame in 1975 with his creation of the deadly shark 'JAWS' this film kicked off a wave of killer animal stories. 'JAWS' is often credited as being one of the first films to use elements such as horror and mild gore in a big-budget Hollywood film.
The 1980s were marked by the growing popularity of horror movie sequels, for example in 1892 'Poltergeist' was followed by two sequels and a television sequel. The successful supernatural slasher 'A Nightmare on Elm street' was seen as the popular face for horror films in that era. Another trend which begun in the 1980s was the involvement of comedy elements, many of which were 'one-liner' punchlines, such films which included this were 'An American werewolf in London' and 'Fright night'. Despite the huge demand for horror films there were many which were seen as extremely controversial such as the film 'Nekromantik' which was a disturbing film about the life and death of a necrophiliac, also the growth in home video led to growing public awareness of horror films and the concern of the availability of such material to children. Many films were branded as "video nasties" and banned an example would be 'Silent night' and 'Deadly night' which was was withdrawn and failed at the theatres as the subject was about a killer Santa Claus.
In the first half of the 1990s, the genre from the '80s continued. Sequels from the 'Chucky-Childs play' had some commercial success however was also very controversial as it was linked to the murder of the young child James Bulger, the ten year old boy's who had killed James had apparently previously viewed these sequels and caused the certificate of the film to increase to age 15 certificate. Among the popular English-language horror films of the late 1990s, only late 1999s surprise independent hit 'The Blair Witch Project' attempted staight-ahead scares.
The start of the 2000s was a quiet period for the genre. The re-stored version of the 'Exorcist' was a success even though it had been available on home video for years. 'Final Destination' marked a successful revival of clever, teen-centered horror and spawned three sequels. A new trend had been set which first appeared in 'The others' which had required psychology to scare the audiences instead of gore. One of the larger trends was the return of extreme, graphic violence. An extension of this trend was the emergence of a type of horror with emphasis on depictions of torture, suffering and violent deaths with films such as 'Saw' and 'Hostel'. Remakes of the late 1970s horror films became routine in the 2000s, such as the 2003's remake of 'The texas Chainsaw massacre', in 2007 Rob Zombie wrote and directed a remake of John Carpenter's 'Halloween'.
Therefore we can see in each decade there has been specific trends and significant changes in the horror genre.

Sources used www.wikipedia.com