1. The Evolution and
Conventions of
HORROR
By Luke Thomas

2. Introduction to Horror
Since the dawn of thinking, Ghost stories and myths would often
be told to strike fear into the heart of the listener. Horror as a
genre though originated maturely in literature and the arts in
around the 1600’s, with Gothic Horror being one of the most
popular genres with the public, despite the critics and scholars
of the time demoting the genre as sensationalist nonsense,
particularly due to the books and the plays content being very
sexual and blasphemous by the times standards. This creates
parallels with Horror films in the modern day, being very popular
with the public but never really becoming critically acclaimed
(except in a few rare circumstances) by any of the critics and the
bourgeoisie thinkers behind them. It could be that in 200 years
films like Nightmare on Elm Street may have an elitist spot
alongside Shakespeare's Hamlet.

3. Early Horror
Horror in films originated mainly in the
1920s with silent films, notably
Nosferatu, based on Bram Stokers horror
novel Dracula, and The Hunchback of
Notre Dame. By the advent of Sound in
cinema in the 30s, audiences were
particularly interested in the classic
Universal Monsters series. This series
includes Frankenstein, Dracula, The
Wolfman, Creature from the Black
Lagoon, The Mummy and The Invisible
Man. These, whilst tame by todays
standards, were contextually terrifying for a
30s audience and are now considered
genuinely iconic to the Horror Industry.

4. Hammer Horror
Over in Britain, Hammer Horrors were capturing the publics
imagination. Made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s, these
often sensationalized the original Universal Monster series, but
with a lower budget and more gore and blood. Typical staples
of the Hammer Series were Peter Cushing, who appeared
mainly as the hero and who made further appearances outside
this series as General Moff Tarkin in the first Star Wars film,
and Christopher Lee, who appeared as several villains and is
known outside this series for his work as Count Dooku in the
Star Wars franchise, Saruman in the Lord of the Rings
franchise and various appearances in Tim Burtons films. The
Hammer Horror series started in 1957 with the film The Curse
of Frankenstein. Critics claimed the film was “Depressing and
degrading for anyone who loves the cinema” but despite these
negative reviews the film was popular with the public. This film
then started a run of sequels and similar films, all of which
garnered public acclaim but were never taken seriously by
reviewers. This series ended in 1974, when Tobe Hopers
seminal American slasher film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
which broke conventions by being ultra violent for a horror film
at the time. Hammer horrors just couldn’t compete, and despite
an increase in sex and gore in their films, they quickly went out
of fashion. The final Hammer horror of this era was The
Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, which met little to no critical
or public notice. Hammer has recently made a resurgence in
lower budget modern horror films, notable works being Woman
in Black and Let Me In.

5. Slasher Films and their
Conventions
Slasher Films came along in the 1970s, in the new wave of violent horror films after
the quite campy and cheesy Universal and Hammer Horrors. A Slasher Film is a
subgenre of the typical horror film, involving an often psychopathic and mysterious
killer who often has a supernatural background. There are other characters in the film,
but more often than not, particularly in a franchise, these are just pawns in the series
that are built up just to be killed by the antihero villain. The deaths in the series are
often very violent, but are that unrealistic and over the top that they become
humorous to a modern audience. The cliché characters in slasher’s is a group of
teenagers, comprising of the archetypical jock, clown, courtesan, scholar and the
virgin. Out of all of these, the virgin is often the one left alive at the end of the film
(Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday 13th, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street,
Halloween etc.). These cliché characters and roles are often parodied in various
formats, particularly in the cartoon series Scooby Doo, which contains most of these
stock characters, and recent Horror film Cabin in the Woods, which plays on all these
stock characters as part of a government conspiracy that these characters must be
sacrificed through horror film clichés to keep an angry God dormant.
Cliché settings are often a mysterious cabin or house belonging to one of the
characters rich uncle/ relative (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scream, Cabin in the
Woods, Last House on the Left remake etc.) or a normally safe area, like a normal
house or street or town, which the murderer invades (Saw, Scream, Nightmare on
Elm Street etc.)

6. Notable Slasher Horror Films
 Psycho (1960) (1974)  Childs Play
(1988)
 Peeping Tom  Halloween
(1960) (1978)  Scream (1996)
 The Last House  Friday the 13th  I Know What You
on the Left (1980) Did Last Summer
(1972) (1997)
 Prom Night
 The Texas (1980)  Freddy Vs. Jason
Chainsaw (2003)
Massacre (1974)  Nightmare on
Elm Street
 Black Christmas (1984)

7. Psycho
“We all go a little crazy sometimes”
Norman Bates
Psycho could be counted as one of the first
Slasher films before the exploitive cinema of the
1970s. It was directed by the acclaimed director
Alfred Hitchcock, and was widely released in
1960. Famous for the classic murder scene of
Janet Leigh (The mother of Jamie Lee Curtis, a
horror staple of the 1970s in Halloween) in the
shower scene, which has entered popular
culture as an iconic standard for Horrors to
match up to.
Conventions- Psychopathic killer (Norman
Bates), femme fatale (Janet Leigh), a
mysterious house setting (Bates Motel) and
several poorly received sequels.

8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
“Get her Grandpa, Get her!”
The Hitchhiker
If Psycho originated the “Slasher” genre, this
certainly started the long line of exploitive
slasher horrors, particularly popular in the
1970s and 80s. This also started the
masked murderer cliché, with one of the
major antagonists wearing Human skin. It
was banned for years and because of this
gained infamy for the violence involved.
Conventions- Masked murderer
(Leatherface), hillbillies, torture, graphic
depictions of violence, backwards location
and a house belonging to one of the main
characters. Also, this is one of the first that
used the tagline “based on a true story”. It
also, like most popular horror films, had a
long streak of bad sequels

9. Nightmare on Elm Street
“Welcome to prime time, bitch”
Freddy Krueger
This film (and subsequent sequels) were the first to
combine very violent slashers with black comedy. This
also started the idea of the villain acting as an anti hero
with his unique look and quotable humour. The gimmick
within this series is that the murders happen within the
dream world, allowing some very vibrant and surreal
death sequences, such as pulling all the veins out of one
of his victims and using him as a marionette puppet and
until he throws him off a large building. This is one of the
first films by the famous Horror director Wes Craven, who
went on to direct The Last House on The Left, The Hills
Have Eyes and The Scream series. He also directed
Wes Cravens New Nightmare, which had the enigmatic
Freddy Krueger coming after the actors from the first
Nightmare on Elm Street film, including Robert
Englund, who plays Freddy.
Conventions- Iconic Anti-hero Murderer (Freddy
Krueger), Usually calm setting holding something
evil, teenage heroes, virgin survives, graphic depictions
of violence and the poorly received sequels and remake

10. Scream
“What’s your favourite Scary Movie?”
Ghostface
Scream was one of the first significant slasher films for
around 10 years. One of the reasons for its vast popularity is
its self deprecating humour, mocking itself and the slasher
genre as a whole, and how the cast and setting plays out to
stereotypes, like an episode of Scooby Doo. We have the
stock characters, the virgin, the clown, the creep, the nerd,
the whore and then the useless cop and the teens
backstory. One thing that differentiates this from other
slashers is the fact that the audience is always guessing as
to who the murderer is, as Randy says in the film
“Everyone’s a Suspect”. The gimmick of this murderer is that
he murders his victims using a game based on Horror film
trivia. The murderer also murders his victims following “The
rules” of horror films, e.g. the virgin surviving
Conventions- Masked murderer (Ghostface), teenage
heroes, Mysterious house in the middle of nowhere
belonging to one of the characters, The horror film rules,
graphic depictions of violence

11. Psychological Horrors and its
Conventions
Psychological horror is one of the most popular Horror sub-
genres. Unlike slashers and Hammer Horrors, it is harder to
classify a Psychological as to when it originated and when its
popularity rose or fell. Psychological Horror has actually
remained nearly consistently popular with audiences and critics
alike. Often Psychological horrors are listed as thrillers as well.
Conventions of a Psychological horror are a lot broader and
harder to categorize than a Hammer or Slasher, which have
typical conventions to work to. But there is often an unstable or
psychotic main character, who may give us as the audience a
warped sense of what is really happening or make us question
our own morality. A good Psychological horror should get inside
your head and make you question every angle that the film is
making. Locations often include a hospital/ mental hospital or a
prison. These settings make to have interesting character
studies of insane characters.

12. Silence of the Lambs
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some
fava beans and a nice chianti.”
Hannibal Lecter
By the 90’s the over the top Slasher films of the 80’s were going
out of fashion, the public didn’t want exploitation but instead
wanted a riveting story. The Hannibal books, by the writer
Thomas Harris, had previously attempted to be translated to
film with the film Manhunter, but this gathered very little profit at
the box office and failed to capture the audiences imagination.
So in 1992 Silence of the Lambs was released with Anthony
Hopkins as the enigmatic anti-hero Hannibal Lecter. This hit
audiences hard, a masked murderer like a typical slasher villain,
but with humanity and genuine method in his madness.
Somehow the audience can connect with him despite him being
truly evil. This is possibly the true horror in this film, that he can
get inside your head as he gets inside Clarice’s. This is also
interesting as it has 2 villains; Lecter and the cross dressing
psychopath Buffalo Bill.
Conventions- Masked Murderer, clever storyline, virginal
woman lead, sequels, setting- mental hospital, Buffalo Bills
torture house, Polices involvement

13. Saw
“Hello Michael, I want to play a game…”
Jigsaw
After watching the penultimate scene in Mad Max,
where Max chains a murderer to a car that is leaking
petrol, and says “To cut through your chains will take 20
minutes, to cut through your arm will take 10 minutes,
the car will explode in 15 minutes. Your choice” James
Wan and Leigh Whannell decided that this idea could be
expanded into a whole film. And so one of the most
popular franchises of the 21st Century was born. It plays
out a lot like a play, with only one major setting, a
dilapidated bathroom. Two strangers are chained to
either side of the bathroom, and are asked to do the
impossible; to cut through their own feet or kill each
other to escape the room. This film was and still is brutal
for it’s pessimistic portrayal of violence and themes of
voyeurism, and the idea that you may have to do the
impossible and destroy yourself to live.
Conventions- Murderer with a stylistic puppet and iconic
character as the face of the murders, psychological
torture, graphic depictions of violence and self
mutilation, themes of self destruction and voyeurism and
a string of poorly received sequels

14. Shutter Island
“Which would be worse - to live as a
monster? Or to die as a good man?”
Teddy Daniels
Shutter Island is a good example of a
Psychological Horror that is hard to classify
as to whether it is a Horror or Thriller, as it
contains conventions from both. It details a
detectives investigation of the shady
Shutter Island, an island for the insane, as
his realization due to his investigation of
the Islands files that there is a patient
missing.
Conventions- Insane central character,
hospital setting, Clever storyline, twist
ending, police involvement

15. The Modern Horrors
Conventions
As with all films, horror has evolved from early Hammer Monster horror and
slashers. Particularly popular horror films now are “Real footage” films.
These are usually cheaper to make and contain a more realistic shock
value, and play on the idea of safe environments becoming dangerous
(Such as Paranormal Activity, a nice house becoming haunted). There
seems to be an air of voyeurism in modern films, so instead of being
explicitly violent we as the audience get the chance to view the murders in
real time, as if we are watching real murders happening on screen.
Because of this we have a Stanislavskian feel towards the product; it
creates such a feeling of verisimilitude that we are absorbed into the action
and convince ourselves that it is real.
The most popular horror films currently are psychological horrors and ghost
films. Notable popular horror films made recently include the Paranormal
Activity franchise, Insidious, Sinister and The Pact. The reasoning for these
types of films becoming popular could be due to a rise in technology since
the 80’s, exploitive and over the top cinema has gone out of fashion and
more sinister and suspenseful films have taken over the public imagination.
Unfortunately now there is a lot less humour in Horror Films, and survivors
are now very rare.