Horror film
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Films from the horror genre are designed to elicit fright, fear, terror, disgust or horror from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world. Horror film characters include vampires, zombies, monsters, serial killers, and a range of other fear-inspiring characters. Early horror films often drew inspiration from characters and stories from classic literature, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Later horror films, in contrast, often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life since World War Two, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, subgenres of the horror-of-personality film, the horror-of-Armageddon film, and the horror-of-the-demonic film. The last subgenre may be seen as a modernized transition from the earlier horror films, expanding on the earlier emphasis on supernatural agents that bring horror to the world.
Horror films have been criticized for their graphic violence and dismissed as low budget B-movies and exploitation films. Nonetheless, some major studios and respected directors have made forays into the genre, and more serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre theory and the auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction, fantasy, black comedy, and thrillers. [1] [Apr 2007]
