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The Timeline of Horror - From NOSFERATU to REMAKES

When we say 'horror', we think of crazies, mutants/cannibals, sadistic killers, serial killers, blood n' guts everywhere, etc. A lot of us never really think of curses, satanism, demons, haunted houses, etc.

This is almost like a written documentary of horror films from early 1900's and up until now, and maybe how some horror changed our lives. Horror films from the early 1900's are not really horror to us. For us that is comedy due to it's lack of 'gore' and 'suspense', but back then that's what was scary. Find out about horror when it first started leading up to how horror technology changed and also see what horror film changed our life.

The Horror Begins Some of the first horror films that were made are 'lent movies'; which means that they didn't talk in the films. But then how did they make a movie?

Well they did everything through movements and expresons.NOSFERATU (1922) is the very first vampire movie ever made. Some of the first horror films have German titles. NOSFERATU's full title is Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, which means 'A Symphony of Horror'.

NOSFERATU (1922) is an example of a horror lent movie.



Isn't that unnerving? A tub full of lurid red blood right in the middle of a black and white film! How unusual, yet clever.

In the 1950's extra terrestrials entered the world of horror. "On 24 June 1947, "bunessman-pilot" Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine strange, reflective objects as he flew his plane over Mt Rainier one clear summer evening (coining the term "flying saucer")." After this, horror had a new treat for us.

Later on in the future, extra terrestrials decided to take a bigger leap in horror. This is when INVAON OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1959) came along. Instead of us seeing UFO's hovering in the sky, the filmmakers took aliens to the next step, having aliens taking over humans... well more like getting inde of us. 'THEY have taken over. THEY look just like you. THEY have total control. THEY want to take you over now, and THEY are coming to get you.'

It's A Real Chiller Horror films and thrillers had intertwined when Old Dark House (1932) and Cat People (1942) were made. Back in the 1950's the director's that were interested in thrillers had to concentrate on producing glossy, stylish, film-noir stories with no taint of the supernatural.

One ngle man, Alfred Hitchcock entered the horror genre. PSYCHO (1960) and THE BIRDS (1963) can truly be described as horror films. This is where the crazy people start to come in...

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PSYCHO presents us Norman Bates, a guy who runs a motel and lives up in that eerie manon that overlooks the Bates Motel. Who we didn't know at first was MOTHER! Throughout this film you think Norman Bates is this nice, yet awkward man, but in the end we find out how big of a monster a man like this could really could be.

I guess you could say that PSYCHO started the slasher craze, with that being this film is base on the murders done by Ed Gein, knowing how gruesome he was and this film based on his murders, that would pretty much do it all right. After PSYCHO, slasher movies were starting to be made. BLOOD FEAST (1963), just looking at the cover of that films makes it look gruesome for the 60's.

"They're Coming To Get You" Nearly hitting rock bottom with monsters, what else could there posbly be? Let's try zombies. George A. Romero gathered a crew together and a working title called MONSTER FLICK and x months later they produced NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). This film contained a tight performance, excellent make-up and special effects, and yes, those terrifying moments that keep you screaming.



The narrative follows Barbara, and her brother Johnny, who have gone to vit their father's grave. They are interrupted by the first of the Living Dead, a recently deceased corpse reanimated by a strange space virus. The rest of the story is mple - Johnny gets his and Barbara manages to hole up in a house with x other refugees, trying to battle the marauding zombies who want to suck on their brains.

After NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, zombie movies became more popular. George A. Romero made future sequels, DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and DAY OF THE DEAD (1985). More sequels were then made: LAND OF THE DEAD (2005), DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007), and SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (2009).

Horror Grabs Children Horror movies of the 1970s reflect the grim mood of the decade. With all of the monsters done in the past, it's time to do something different.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) really told us that children can be very scary, even if they're unwanted or even do bad things to their parent. In the 1970's the family became a focal point in fear. This time it isn't aliens from another planet. This time the enemy can be found in your very own home!

It could be your Mum (SHIVERS). Your Dad (THE SHINING). Your brother (HALLOWEEN). Your husband (THE STEPFORD WIVES). Your little boy (THE OMEN). Your daughter (The EXORCIST), or even a person that you see everyday that you don't really see them anymore (CARRIE). You can find a little bit of humor in horror from the 70's.

New Line of Horror The 70's started creating the gore-fest. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) was pretty graphic for a film made in the 70's. This film flashed pictures of of decompong flesh. What was even more intense was that there's a killer in this film that wears a mask that is made out of human skin that he stitched together, and at the dinner table the family eats flesh.



This film is like A Scooby-Doo episode gone bad. Instead of solving a mystery, they become the mystery. A van full of kids drive down to Texas to investigate a grave robbery of one of the kids' family members. Along their trip they come across a deranged hitchhiker who is crazy to the bone. That's where they made their first mistake. Their second is when they trespass on the property of a decaying house.

The kids are trespassers soon to become the victims of the Sawyer redent. This family is grotesque in so many ways. This family contains the gibbering hitchhiker, a half-decayed Grandfather, and the slobbering cook who wears masks of skin, Leatherface. This family is to smash their hammers into skulls for dinner.

During the 70's horror was getting more creative and more graphic. Horror in the 70's wasn't all gore, there were movies that brought us more suspense than gore. Let's look at one of Steven Spielbergs films, JAWS (1975). JAWS is more suspense than gore. You don't see a whole lot of blood that you would see in your typical everyday horror flick. JAWS keeps us guesng on will might happen. There are some parts of the film that you may or may not expect. The killer shark could be in one scene and pop out of nowhere in the next, but what keeps us guesng? Whenever you see that shark, you hear that 'so mple' theme that you remember for the rest of your life, but when the shark disappears, you hear nothing until the shark comes flying out of the water to attack those who are invading its territory.

HALLOWEEN Meets Horror Halloween, what fun little holiday for kids, but not so fun for Laurie Strode and her friends. This low budget film took all the suspense of PSYCHO and put in colour, and added teenagers. Even though this film was credited as spawning the slash and gore pics of the 1980s, this film contains very little blood and a build-up of suspense. The story of HALLOWEEN (1978) is quite mple: a teenage babytter trying to escape a rampaging killer, but the shadows and the score of the film made is horrifying.

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It's hard to believe that such a mple mask could frighten someone. Michael Myer's face of Halloween is a $2 William Shatner mask that was painted white by the production degner Tommy Lee Wallace.

John Carpenter took the story, which was originally titled The Babytter Murders from Irwin Yablans, and wrote the script in 10 days with the help of Debra Hills. The film has a nice quiet setting of the small town of Haddonfield, Illinios, but isn't so quite when Michael Myers comes home to kill.

One...Two, Horror Changed So...Soon As Time progresses, horror films are getting more creative, whether if it would be the story lines or the killers, but in this case the killers. Stepping ade the zombies and aliens, the 80's gave us a great deal for horror. Wes Craven, a former college professor that is responble for two of the most darkest horror films from the 70's, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) and THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977) unleashed a nightmare about a hideously scarred Freddy Krueger. Wes Craven gave us a killer that no one has ever thought to put on the big screen. I guess you could say that Freddy Krueger was a freshly baked good at the time. Freddy Krueger represents a blend of horror and humor, a killer who doesn't lently hide behind a hockey mask. Freddy pulls out one-liners as he prepares his infamous razor fingered glove; preparing himself to kill. He also relishes ck jokes. Bedes his jokes and his trademark glove, what also makes Freddy unique? He's a shape shifter. Freddy became one of the most popular horror icons out there. This icon sold many t-shirts, board-games, coffee cups, lunch boxes, snow globes, etc. The whole merchandise line of Freddy continues to grow to this very day.



So now that we have a dream a stalker on our hands lets see what more stuff the 80's gave us. Well, it seems that filmmakers gave us another smart-mouthed killer, Chucky. CHILD'S PLAY (1988) is what made killer dolls popular. This successful horror flick spawned four sequels. Chucky also became a popular horror icon as well as Freddy.

Blood, Latex, Action By the end of the 80's, latex and buckets of blood became more popular to use for special effects. The use of blood is very self-explanatory, but the latex is usually used for make-up effects. You can use to make false burns, scarring, gashes, etc. And with a little touch of blood and the hands of a make-up artist, you got yourself one kick-ass victim or a deranged killer.

A New Nightmare Throughout the years sequels were made to add on the original movie, but sometimes the later sequels become unnecessary. Let's look at one of our famous horror icons, Freddy Krueger. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) was fine with it just being that one film. Then they made a second one which in a way took the story to a different level. The third one was made and that one was the second best sequel out of them all. The only reason why it made it good was because it brought back Nancy(Heather Langenkamp) to return. What makes a good sequel is to have an original character to return, other than the killer. After the years sequels become more trashy, either they're so fake in so many levels, or they just don't follow the original anymore. At the end of every sequel, they just had to leave the doors open for another one. There's only one man who could put a stop to all this nonsense and put Freddy back where he blongs, Wes Craven. Wes Craven took Freddy and put him in our world. He had Heather Langenkamp return once more to fight Freddy because she was the only who could fight him, and to have him dead and gone.

What SCREAM Did For Us. SCREAM (1996) was one of the most popular horror films of the 90's. It was a clasc and had a mind of it's own.

What makes SCREAM to be it's own? This film parodies all sorts of different horror clichés. If you don't follow the certain horror film 'rules' you will more than likely be killed. The characters make constant alluons to Freddy, Michael and Jason throughout the film. What made the end of the film interesting is that in the background, HALLOWEEN is being played on the TV for act three.

Not very often does one horror film persuade you to do or to get anything. In the 90's, not may people had caller ID yet, so this gave SCREAM a big advantage. The killer is able to call people without the victim knowing who was calling them because they couldn't see who it is. But, the killer was always a step or two ahead of them, with the help of cloning other peoples cell phones and ung a voice changing device. After the release of SCREAM, this influenced a lot of people to use caller ID, because what makes you so sure that this couldn't happen to you?

Reboots and Remakes The 2000's are here and filmmakers are running out of ideas to make an original horror film. So what to they do? They find an original horror film and remake it, giving it their own story, making changes to make it their own, etc. So many of our beloved horror films are being remade every year. Some remakes are good and some are not so good. One thing that gets people to hate a lot of these remakes is that quite a few of them don't have the same storyline as the original, it would be completely different. Usually when that happens is that the filmmakers are unable to own the rights to certain characters, leaving them to do a completely different idea. A good example is FRIDAY THE 13th(1980, 2009)-

Now that filmmakers have stopped doing remakes for a little while, some of them have been concentrating on making reboots by adding a fresh idea to the series. A lot of people out there think that reboots and remakes are the same but they're not. A movie remake is when a movie is being remade, usually into something different. A movie reboot continues a story, but starting out with a fresh idea. They're are not that many reboot out their that start from scratch. One really good horror reboot is SCREAM 4 (2011). http://youtu.be/UlaZfOiGaCU

Sources: Horrorfilmhistory, IMDB, Wikepedia, YouTube

pretty condensed, but pretty good stuff here!