Over the years, as cinema has advanced and changed, so has the movie genre of horror.In the past these movies were designed to scare and terrify the audience with characters like Dracula and Frankenstein.But in recent years it is graphic violence and gore that has been on the agenda with directors all finding ways to push the boundaries finding more and different ways of inflicting pain, producing the very successful Saw and Hostel movies.Horror movies began way back at the beginning of film itself with silent shorts. Georges Melies led the way in the late 1890s with Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil).While other movies followed in the early part of the 1900s, mainly be German filmmakers, it wasn't until the early 1930s that this genre of film really became popular.Universal Pictures Co. Inc screened a series of successful horror movies including Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, and The Mummy in 1932. These films not only popularised the genre but made stars of the like of Boris Karloff, who made a career in this genre of film, and Bela Lugossi.
Horror movies changed during the 1950s as technology advanced, the movies moved from adaptations of literary characters and gothic surroundings to sci-fi.
Hollywood capitalised on everyone's fear of aliens and the unknown of space with The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing from Another World all being released at this time.
With this new found film technology studios and directors returned to the classic horror characters of Frankenstein and Dracula to give them a revamp. The Hammer Film Production became pioneers of the modern horror movies as well as launching the career of Christopher Lee.
The 1960s saw the godfather of horror Alfred Hitchcock release Psycho. The film didn't look at monsters, the supernatural or things that may lurk in the darkest corners of space Hitchcock instead looked at the evil within an everyday human being.
The shower scene was to become one of the most frightening and iconic moments in the history of horror cinema.
By the seventies colour cinema was in full swing and with it brought some of the most popular horror movies.
In 1973 The Exorcist, in which the devil possessed a young child, was a box office smash. The possession of the devil became of the rage with Audrey Rose and The Omen all covering the same idea.
1974 saw the birth of Leatherface as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came to the big screen for the first time. It was heavily criticised at the time for its graphic violence, an element that would go on to influence many movies in the years to come.
The 1970s also gave birth to another icon of the horror movie genre Mike Myers as Halloween was released in 1978.
Into the 1980s and Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund, made it to the big screen for the first time in Nightmare on Elm Street.
But now in modern day cinema gone are the icon's like Freddy Krueger and Mike Myers, character that made this genre great, and in its place is what has affectionately been come to be known as gore porn.
Movies like Saw and Hostel have all pushed the boundaries trying to find new ways to hurt and mutilate their victims, and all this stems back to the graphic violence in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
As well as trying to repulse the audience instead of scare them re-makes are also on the agenda.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, The Omen as well as Japanese classics such as The Ring and The Grudge have all been given the 21st Century treatment.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw