by Lillyana Knox
Scary movies have been around longer than you have. For over 130 years horror has evolved since 19th century gothic literature and the Silent Era. The first ever horror film was in 1896 and it was by Georges Melies. The film was called Le Manoir du Diable also known as The House of the Devil. Georges’s film is considered the first ever horror film whilst featuring blood, bats, skeletons, and the devil by utilizing early stop-trick photography. Surprisingly, people weren’t actually scared of scary movies in the beginning. When The House of the Devil was released people instead felt amused by the film and its jump scares. The spookiness of the movie was viewed more as a magic trick than something to actually instill fear in people. It’s been concluded that people felt this way because of the fact that cinema was so new that people couldn’t help but feel fascinated rather than scared.
But that all quickly changed in 1910 when Edison Studios released a short adaptation of Frankenstein. The public was horrified by the film and some even felt insulted by the grotesque monster on their screen. Because this genre of film was so new and film making abilities were limited, seeing this film made people terrified and there were stories of people shrieking and collapsing out of pure shock and fear whilst watching the film. Newspapers described the film as “too ghastly,” and that it would apparently leave “women trembling” and “men exhausted”. The idea of a grave robber stitching body parts together was utterly horrifying and disgusting. Thanks to these films however, the genre of horror perseveres and we since have a plethora of scary movies to choose from. Do you like scary movies?
