Research: History of horror, 1990-2012

1996

The start of the 90's saw new serial killers enter the frame as becoming the scariest thing in a horror movie, Wes Craven's 'Scream' was released in 1996 and with thrilling special effects made viewers think that the murders were actually happening. Scream is about a killer known as "ghost face", he begins killing off teenagers, and as the body count begins rising, one girl and her friends find themselves contemplating the "Rules" of horror films as they find themselves living in a real-life one.  

 

2002
The start of the new millennium saw another huge rise in horror movies, making horror movies the most popular movies to watch in the cinema at the time. One of the most popular films released in 2002 was 'The Ring', The Ring is about a young journalist who investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it

2007
In 2007, a slightly different concept of horror was released under the name of 28 weeks later. Horror is usually known to contain gory scenes of blood and brutal murder, instead 28 weeks later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo created his movie based on a virus called 'rage' which turned people into zombies around the outskirts of London.

2010
In 2010, the rise of 3D films become a must in movies, but hadn't really entered the horror scene, the film Saw had been one of the scariest and brutal horror movies out however director Kevin Greutert believed it could get scarier, by going into 3D. Saw 3D was released o the 28th October 2010 and follows on from the previous Saw movie. As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw's brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror.

2012

Horror enters 2012 in a more gruesome fashion, the movie 'Sinister' has followed previous horror films in creating their film around a demon or a possessed being. The plot is about

Found footage helps a true-crime author realize how and why a family was murdered in his new home, though his discoveries put his entire family in the path of a supernatural entity.  The rise of scarier horror movies is just beginning.

Research: History of horror, 1960-1980

The following films are the most popular horror films during the 1960's to the 1980's..


1960

The 1960's brought a new wave of horror movies, the movie 'Phycho' by Alfred Hitchcock was one of the first slasher movies ever, 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,

1963

With Alfred Hitchcock on the verge of becoming the most popular producer in the 1960's, he released his new film 'The Birds' 3 years later, although different to Phycho, Hitchcock added to his collection of blood-thirsty films which scared most of the audiences. The Birds is loosely based on the 1952 story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few days.


1973


The building popularity of horror films had grew significantly and with new budding horror producers on the scene, the films were bound to become much more scarier than the previous films. An example of this is the Exorcist directed by William Friedkin, Exorcist was a massive success an made over $400 million in the box office.




1977

Following on from recent 'extreme' horror movies, Wes Craven released his movie called 'The Hills Have Eyes'. The plot is about a family on a road trip stranded in the Nevada desert who become hunted by a clan of deformed cannibals in the surrounding hills

Research: History of Horror, 1930-1950

The following films are the most popular horror films during the 1930's to the 1950's...

1931

One of the most popular Horror movies of all time, Dracula, was first produced on Feb 12th 1931 by Tod Browning. Dracula was also one of the first films produced by Universal Studios who are now one of the most popular film producers in the world. The plot is about the ancient vampire count Dracula who arrives in England and begins to prey upon a young lady called Mina.





1932

Another ancient Horror film is 'The Mummy' directed by Karl Freund, In 1921 a field expedition in Egypt discovers the mummy of ancient Egyptian prince Im-Ho-Tep, who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. Also found in the tomb is the Scroll of Thoth, which can bring the dead back to life. One night a young member of the expedition reads the Scroll out loud, and then goes insane, realizing that he has brought Im-Ho-Tep back to life. Ten years later, disguised as a modern Egyptian, the mummy attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated into a beautiful young woman.




1943

I Walked With A Zombie was released on March 17th 1943 and was directed by Jacques Tourneur. A young Canadian nurse (Betsy) comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager (Paul Holland). Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants

Research: History of Horror, 1890-1925

Here are the most popular horror movies from 1890 to 1925...

1890

The first Horror movies was created all the way back in 1890, one of the first directors was by the name of Georges Méliès, Georges was a french director who created one of the first horror movies by the name of 'The Haunted Castle' which is a silent and only 3 minutes long however it shown viewers the first glimpse of Horror in action. Another horror made by Georges was called La Caverne Maudite in 1898, which was also silent however was slightly longer.

1910

The first horror novel, Frankenstein, was made as a film in 1910 by 'Edison Studios', Edison studios was an american film company owned by the inventor, Thomas Edison which made up to 1,200 films. Their version of Frankenstein was mysteriously lost and was never found in any of their archives.







1923

The start of the Hollywood generation began with Wallace Worsleys 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. The film made over $3 million making it the most popular horror movie of all time. This was the first film of the Hunchback of Notre Dame sega, another film was released in 1939 and then in 1996.  In fifteenth century Paris, the brother of the archdeacon plots with the gypsy king to foment a peasant revolt. Meanwhile, a freakish hunchback falls in love with the gypsy queen. 





1925


The first 'Phantom of the Opera' movie was created in 1925 by Rupert Julien, The movie is silent and is 107 minutes long. The plot is about a  deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force the management to make the woman he loves a star.

Research: Roots of the Horror genre

So, where did Horror start?

Horror was thought to of started with the Egyptians as they enscripted weird images into stone all around Egypt however Horrors first known existance was in the Gothic era. The Gothic era was full of new, upcoming writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe writing on behalf of their supernatural beliefs.

During the 19th century, some of the most famous books had came from the gothic writers which led up to the first greaty horror classic made, Frankenstein. Frankenstein was written in 1818 by a women called Mary Shelley. Mary was brought up throughout the gothic era and had learnt most of the skills which a 'gothic' writer would need, these skills were to be supernatural and especially scary, her book generated thousands of new gothic/horror writers to come out and start the Horror genre..

The Novel 'Frankenstein' generated huge intested in the 'new' Horror genre.

                                                                     

Research: What is teen horror?

Teen Horror is a type of genre which is aimed at teenagers. Most teen horrors include characters which are also similiar to the target audience, which in this case are teenagers. Most teen horrors are rated 15-18 BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) which means the movies include scenes which cannot be shown to anybody under the age of 15.

 

The most popular Teen Horror movie is the 1978 movie 'Halloween'. Halloween is about a teenage babysitter looking after her Neighbours baby. The Neighbour is being stalked by a masked maniac known as Mike Myers, who later in the story is found to be the neigbhours long lost brother. Halloween was just the start of several decades of teen horrors.

The first Horror movie recorded was called 'The Haunted Castle (1896) directed by Georges Méliès. The Haunted Castle is a french film which is just 3 minutes long and is a silent movie. The film starts off with a large bat flying into a medieval castle. Once in, the bat circles slowly while flapping its monstrous wings before suddenly changing into Mephistopheles (Georges Méliès). After preparing a cauldron, the demon produces skeletons, ghosts, and witches from its bubbling contents before one of the summoned underworld cavaliers holds up a crucifix and Satan vanishes in a blast of smoke.

Preliminary task evaluation

Complete Preliminary Task

Prelim task: Editing the video

To edit our Movie, we used a specialized mac software called iMovie, I will now guide you through the steps I took to edit my movie...

Step 1

I opened iMovie and created a new event by clicking on File > New Event, creating a new event allows me to import all my videos I need to create my video.

Step 2

I then right clicked on the New event tab which I created, I then had the choice of 'importing Movies..' 

When the upload box comes up find the clips you want to use in the video and press upload, you will find that the selected videos will have shown up in the bottom box of iMovie.

Step 3

I now am able to watch all the different clips, crop the clips so the pieces you don't want in the film can be deleted and put all the clips together so you can watch your completed edit, you are also able to edit the movie so you can add sound and credits to your final piece. 

Preliminary task - Location

Here are some pictures we have took for our location planning, we chose 2 locations and in the end we chose to film in location 2 as it was brighter and more spacious for us to film in.

Location 1

This location is English room 1, we chose this as one of our contenders as it has the ideal props (desk, computer etc) however as you can see in the second picture there's a large bright light which could effect our filming.

 Location 2

Our second location is English room 2, we chose this our final choice as the brightness of the room was just right and we had all the possible props we needed.

Preliminary task: Casting

For our Preliminary task, we were looking for two characters to play in our short script, We wanted both characters to create a serious and 'mysterious' personality for both characters. The two characters which needed acting were 'The Boss' and 'The Hitman', after much debate on who to choose we asked Man Lok Lee to be the Boss and Taylor Wilson to be the Hitman as they ticked all our boxes and one with previous knowledge of acting as he chose Drama as a subject. We are pleased with the decision we have made and can now prepare to film our short movie.