History of the Horror Genre

• The roots of horror as a film genre originate from Gothic Horror literature which started in the late 18th century. It was developed by writers in the UK and US, and the Gothic part refers to the medieval buildings these stories would take place in.
• It wasn’t until the 1930s that the term horror was used in film.
• However, the first horror film was The Haunted Castle by Georges Méliès in 1897.
• Experiments in film relating to horror took part mainly after WWI but some were before that such as the first Frankenstein adapted by Thomas Edison’s studios in 1910.
• German expressionism is defined as 'an artistic genre that originated in Europe in the 1920s, and is the rejection of Western conventions, and the depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect.'
• The production company UFA decided to paint the shadows on a set rather than create then naturally with their restricted electricity. This technique combined with the sharp angles and bizarre perspective distortion created an unforgettable look that established German Expressionism both artistically and as a commercially popular style of cinema.
• From the 1960s onwards, the horror genre gained massively in popularity and there were many new styles and cycles of it created after the restrictive censorship of the Production Code was abandoned in 1964.