Horror movies first began to arrive in the 1920's as silent movies designed to evoke fear into their audiences. These silent movies could not afford to let out on visuals, as they were the only means to for-fill the objective of terrifying their viewers, due to a total lack of sound in all forms. Whilst visuals were a key focus in the movies, visual affects were almost none existent at the time, and technologies available today that could be used in order to adjust lighting in an area and give off shadow affects simply had not been invented yet. As a result of this, most horrors of the time would have had to have been filmed in broad daylight, having the potential to greatly reduce the fear factor of these films for modern day movie goers. Despite the limitations of these films, early, silent film, horrors placed down the foundations and the conventions of the horrors that we see today. For example, the grizzly beasts that we see in today's horror flick spawned from their use within early horrors. An example of an early 20's horror film would be the cabinet of doctor Caligari.
The film had more of an eerie feel as opposed to one of absolute horror, giving a tale of exploration through the mind of a man stricken with insanity. This film is a good example of how visuals were used to a great extent at the time in order to give off both the narrative of the movie, and to install a necessary sense of fear into the viewer, due to sound not being present at the time. Lighting and shadows were used to great extents to allow for characterization to be constructed, with the binary opposites of dark and light working together to show the narratives of the different characters present. However, it is never truly clear which character is indeed the "hero" and which the "villain".
Carrying on into the 1930's horror movies changed dramatically with the addition of sound and with more realistic imagery. Sound added a vast new dimension to the horror genre, now with music able to greatly increase suspense in certain scenes, and dialogue which could give the film more representation, allowing for movies to have understandably less cryptic visuals designed to show characterization among other things. Costume was also put into greater emphasis during the 1930's period of horror, with actors often having exaggerated make up and outfits, despite the addition of dialogue which could have given less dramatic characterization. Like the 20's horror counterparts, color was still not prevalent within the films, meaning that the binary opposites of light and dark were still used heavily. A classic example of a horror from the 30's is Dracula.
Conventions of horror
Sub-genres of horror
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