History of Horror

The first horror film on record is Le Manoir du Diable (1896), created by one of film's earliest visionaries, Georges Méliès.

The film, a brief pantomimed sketch in the style of a theatrical comic fantasy, tells the story of an encounter with the Devil and various attendant phantoms. It is intended to evoke amusement and wonder from its audiences, rather than fear. However, because of its themes and characters, it can technically be considered the first horror film (and, because it includes a transformation involving a bat, it has even been called the first vampire film). The film is also innovative in length - its running time of over three minutes was ambitious for its era.

 This film was considered scary to anyone watching it in the 1900's as the thought of someone turning into a bat was witchcraft and seeing ghosts was terrifying. These kinds of things were widely feared by everyone of this time. For this reason it is seen as the first horror film.

If you would like to watch the film yourself:

How horror has developed:

Horror Movies have since served both purposes of delivering thrills and scares as well as telling stories about the dark, mysterious, terrifying side of life and death. Often cautious tales for grownups. Not only this but horror films also provide a reflection of the anxieties of the time period the film comes from.

Nosferatu (1922) is not just a simple story of vampires, but offers heart-rending images of a town beleaguered by premature and random deaths, and shows reflections of the Great War and the Great Flu Epidemic fatalities. At the other end of the century Blade (1998) is not just a tale of vampires either, but reflects a fear of the powerful yet irresponsible elements in society, a lawless elite, sounds down the corridor of the growing invincibility of those at the top (the most powerful people).

So overall horror movies have been about all kinds of mythical things such as vampires, witches, werewolves, monsters (e.g. Frankenstein's monster) essentially anything out of the ordinary.

Horror movies of the early 21st century often looked upon global concerns of contagion ( An example of such would be 28 Days Later), or sound reactionary warning notes about the dangers of leaving moral absolutism behind (like The Last Exorcism or The Conjuring). Horror movies provide a unique space for free discussion about the moral, political and societal shifts in our communal patterns.