By Cerys Kirby-Thirlwell

THE HISTORY OF THE HORROR THRILLER GENRE-

• The 20’s and 30’s were the first decades to really show films that were intended to scare the audience. Generally this decade saw remakes of classic stories such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. However there were many other films

made in this decades and these are a few-• Nosferatu directed by F. W. Murnau

• Frankenstein directed by James Whale• Bride of Frankenstein also directed by James Whale

• The Mummy directed by Karl Freund

1920-1930

• The 1940’s saw a decline in the horror thriller movie industry and this was mainly due to the fact of World War

II happening at the time. But even though this was happening there was still a few classic horror thrillers

made including-• Wolf man directed by George Waggner• Cat People directed by Paul Schrader• House Of Dracula by Erle C. Kenton• House of Frankenstein Erle C. Kenton

1940’S

• Now the war had finished people returned to the luxurious things in life such as the cinema. Rather than a

return of the classic ‘gothic’ horror scene, the 50’s brought ‘Mutants’ which featured gross, oversized

mutants that would reek havoc across the city. Other horror thrillers made in the 50’s included-

• The Wasp Women directed by Roger Corman and Jack Hill.

• The Beast from 20,000 fathoms directed by Eugène Lourié

• It came from Beneath the Sea directed by Robert Gordon.

1950’S

• The 60’s brought a new aspect to the horror thriller genre and most of the horror thrillers were properly seen in this decade. This mainly came from Alfred Hitchcock’s

“Psycho”. Other movies made were-• The Birds also directed by Alfred Hitchcock• Carnival of Souls directed by Herk Harvey

• Blood Feast directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis• Night of the Living Dead directed by Duane Jones.In the 1970’s went to represent the grim mood of the

decade. A lot of famous people died in this decade but when society goes bad, horror films get good and the 1970’s

marked big budget horror films addressing genuine psychological fears.

1960’S-1970’S

In the 1980’s gory horror films as well as slasher movies became very popular and their decent into postmodern parody

such as ‘Scream’ written by Wes Craven. The television series of ‘Hammer House Of Horrors’ also started in the 1980’s which was created by David Lloyd, David Fisher and Anthony Read. Slasher horror is a subgenre of horror and at times a thriller that mainly involves psychopathic killers, in a lot of slashers ‘final girl theory’ becomes present, this means that there is a

last girl left to confront the killer, usually the ‘good’ girl who is left to tell the story, for example- Sid from Scream who is in the

sequel and lives to tell her story. The general plot for these types of films is that the state of equilibrium which is then affected by an event that upsets it, this event is usually the

killing of loads of people leaving the ‘final girl’ alive and alone. Clover suggests that in these films that in these films the viewer

begins by having the similar perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl pathway.

1980’S

In the 1990’s horrors became more psychological and the plot was more like a thriller. The first psychological thriller we saw was ‘The Silence Of The Lambs 1991’ directed by Jonathan Demme. This was very successful, the film was

about a man called Hannibal Lecter who messes with peoples minds to make them think and do certain things, a

young FBI student is set a task to try and undermine Hannibal.

A horror thriller made in 1995 was ‘Se7en’ directed by David Fincher and was a very popular thriller. The film is about two police officers, played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, that clash but a brought together by a shared

goal.

1990’S

From 2000 onwards there have been a lot of horror-thrillers and now they have become even more imaginative and we see films such as ‘28 Days Later’ and ‘28 Weeks Later’ in 2002 and 2007,

these are films about zombies. We also see ‘Freddy V Jason’ in 2003 where we see two famous serial killers which battle against each other. In 2005 we see a very gory horror-thriller called ‘Hostel’ which is about some American teens going to Amsterdam where

there are hostels where people pay to torture and kill people however they want. We also see comedy horrors such as ‘Shaun Of The Dead 2004’ which is a remake of ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ a zombie film, but this film makes fun of it. More legendary films made are-

• Saw (2004 onwards)• The Ring (2002)

• Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

2000 ONWARDS-