Horror genre poster

1. The first display of supernatural events were in a lot of the silent shorts by George Melies in the late 1890’s. The most recognisable of these was La Manoir du diable , which means the ‘House of the devil’ which some people say is the first horror film.   The American Universal Studios began a successful Gothic horror film series which included titles such as Frankenstein, The Mummy and Dracula. These were the first films which were designed to thrill and frighten the viewer and quickly became popular in the film industry.   The 60’s claimed some of the best horror movies and during the social revolution the movies were more edgy, featuring controversial levels of violence and sexuality. British born actor Alfred Hitchcock was responsible for the first ‘Slasher’ movie which was ‘Psycho’  

2. A slasher film is a subgenre of horror film, and at times thriller, typically involving a mysterious psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims usually in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie involving graphic acts of murder, the slasher as a genre has its own set of characteristics which set it apart from related genres like the splatter film. Contents A supernatural movie is a subgenre of horror film, this genre of horror revolves around supernatural creatures such as Ghosts and zombies. The aim of a supernatural film is to frighten the viewer like in all horror films (excluding comedy horror) Ghosts are often used in supernatural horror movies as a large ratio of people believe in ghosts and therefore thoroughly enjoy films about ghosts. Zombies are also used in the supernatural genre, however zombies are often used in the horror-comedy genre aswell . Horror comedy, is a literary and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. The genre almost always inevitably crosses over with the black comedy genre; and in some respects could be considered a subset of it. The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving is cited as "the first great comedy-horror story". The story made readers "laugh one moment and scream the next" and its premise was based on mischief typically found during the holiday Halloween.

3. The target audience of a horror movie is usually teenagers who are mostly curious and daring. This is because most horror films involve unknowing, naive teenagers as the main protagonists, which are normally the target of serial killers or psychopaths. Women are also a target audience. Males are commonly the target audience for the horror genre because they are seen as being braver and also because girls believe that horror films are ‘too scary’ and they believe they will look masculine if they watch a horror film.