What is horrorHorror films are a movie genre seeking to elicit a

negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of

macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres. Horror also

frequently overlap with the thriller genre.

1890s-1920s

The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du diable.

In the early 20th century horror movies started using monsters in there movie. These movies are Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1920), The Phantom Carriage (Sweden, 1920) The Lost World (1925), The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)

1930s-1940s

During the early period of talking pictures the American movie studio universal pictures began a successful gothic horror film series with films such as Dracula(1931),Frankenstein (also in 1931) and The wolf man (1941).

By now, some actors were beginning to build entire careers in such films, most especially Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Karloff appeared in three of producer Val Lewton’s atmospheric B-pictures for RKO pictures in the mid-1940s, including the body snatcher(1945), which also featured Lugosi. The titles of these films were often imposed on Lewton by the studio, but cat people (1942), I walked with a zombie (1943) rise above this limitation.

1950s-1960sWith advances in technology, the tone of horror films shifted from the gothic towards contemporary concerns. Two sub-genres began to emerge: the horror-of -Armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic horror.

A stream of usually low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats from 'outside': alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. In the case of some horror films from Japan, such as Godzilla (1954) and its sequels, mutation from the effects of nuclear radiation

During the later 1950s, Great Britain emerged as a producer of horror films. Peeping Tom (1960), directed by Michael Powell, concerns a serial killer who combines his profession as a photographer with the moments before murdering his victims. The British Hammer company focused on the genre for the first time, enjoying huge international success from films involving classic horror characters which were shown in color for the first time. Often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and drawing on Universal's precedent, these films include The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and Dracula (1958), both followed by many sequels, with director Terence Fisher being responsible for many of the best films. Other British companies contributed to a boom in horror film production in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s, including Tigon-British and Amicus, the latter best known for their anthology films like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965).

1970s-1980s

Evil children' and reincarnation became popular subjects. Robert Wise's film Audrey Rose (1977) for example, deals with a man who claims his daughter is the reincarnation of another dead person. Alice, Sweet Alice (1977), is another Catholic themed horror slasher about a little girl's murder and her sister being the prime suspect. Another popular Satanic horror movie was The Omen (1976), where a man realizes his five year old adopted son is the Antichrist. Invincible to human intervention, Satan became the villain in many horror films with a postmodern style and a dystopian worldview.

The ideas of the 1960s began to influence horror films, as the youth involved in the counterculture began exploring the medium. Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)[16] recalled the Vietnam war; George A. Romero satirised the consumer society in his zombie sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978); Canadian director David Cronenberg featured the "mad scientist" movie subgenre by exploring contemporary fears about technology and society, and reinventing "body horror", starting with Shivers (1975).

1990-2000in the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the themes from the 1980s. Sequels from the Child's Play (1988) and Leprechaun (1993) series enjoyed some commercial success. The slasher films A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween all saw sequels in the 1990s, most of which met with varied amounts of success at the box office, but all were panned by fans and critics, with the exception of Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and the hugely successful Silence of the Lambs (1991).

The start of the 2000s saw a quiet period for the genre. The release of an extended version of The Exorcist in September 2000 was successful despite the film having been available on home video for years. Franchise films such as Freddy vs. Jason also made a stand in theaters. Final Destination (2000) marked a successful revival of teen-centered horror and spawned five sequels. The Jeepers Creepers series was also successful. Films like Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, House of 1000 Corpses, and the previous mentions helped bring the genre back to Restricted ratings in theaters.