The horror genre always seems to be evolving.
Some of these changes happen slowly.
But occasionally a single movie rocks the foundation of horror to such a degree that
the genre is never the same.
Here are some of the scare-fests that redefined the horror genre.
And our nightmares.
"Ha ha!"
A Nightmare on Elm Street
For a long time, horror movies were relatively straightforward with a monster or, like, a
crazy person.
Then came A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film that blurred the line between reality and
fantasy, creating a teen slasher with a supernatural twist.
In many ways, it was pretty much the first of its kind.
What makes this concept so genius is that, since Freddy Krueger played an otherworldly
role in the film, it left room to keep bringing him back for sequels — lots of them, actually
— to wreak havoc on teens in insane ways that actually fit the story.
Other franchises attempted the same supernatural slant, but they just ended up creating a bunch
of crazy guys with super-strength who never seem to die, no matter how many times you
shoot them.
It really wasn't until Child's Play stuck the soul of a psychopath into a doll's
body, that another film successfully blurred the lines between reality and the supernatural.
But the knife-fingered man of our nightmares went on to become an icon in the horror world,
showing it’s not easy to make a freaky psycho that can endure for decades.
Jaws
You might think Jaws isn't really a true horror film.
To that we say: go watch the beginning and come back.
Go ahead, we’ll wait.
"AHHHH!"
Terrifying, right?
The creature is basically unstoppable and, with no rhyme or reason, starts slaying everyone
in its path.
Jaws popularized the "giant monsters eating people" genre for a new age.
If it weren't for Jaws, that genre either wouldn't exist or, at the very least wouldn't
be nearly as vibrant as it is today.
While it wasn't the first film to do so, the way that Jaws portrayed the terrifying creature
— almost always in shadows, seeming more a malevolent force than anything that you
could actually defeat — would influence movies for years to come.
After Jaws, came dozens of copies that were basically just Jaws with a different animal.
A bunch of them were amazingly bad.
Remember Anaconda?
Sorry — you do now.
Some were great, like Lake Placid, and some of them were even made by Spielberg.
But none of them would've existed if not for that pesky, man-eating shark.
The Blair Witch Project
When The Blair Witch Project hit theaters in 1999, many moviegoers didn't know what
to make of the horrifyingly realistic film.
The movie's shaky camera work, documentary-style production, and nose dripping close-ups were
elements no one had seen before.
Plenty of people left theaters thinking the footage was real.
After Blair Witch popularized the found-footage genre, many aspiring filmmakers applied the
idea to their own projects.
Thanks to the relatively low budget needed for filming, newcomers proved that practically
anyone could make a movie using this technique — though making a good one still proved
to be a challenge.
"Ahhhhh!"
As technology evolves so does this genre — smartphones, GoPros, and security cameras allow found-footage
to provide different viewpoints, like what we see in movies like Paranormal Activity
and Cloverfield.
Even the last season of American Horror Story used found footage, setting up a house with
hidden cameras and locking people up with just a smartphone so they could record their
own slayings.
The Shining
Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel showed that you didn't need cheap scare
tactics and obnoxious music to make the audience jump.
Instead, hotel scenes were kept well-lit, and the ghosts were hallucinations caused
by Jack Torrance's cabin fever and creeping insanity.
Using savvy camera angles and intelligent dialogue, The Shining redefined what it meant
to be a horror movie.
The hotel's creepy sense of isolation is emphasized by the shockingly small number of scenes that
feature all three members of Jack's family together.
Also, unlike horror movies before The Shining, most of what could be classified as the scary
stuff doesn't occur until the end of the movie, while the rest is portrayed in a space blurred
between reality and fantasy.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The movie where we first met Leatherface and his favorite toy is notable for being one
of the most realistic depictions of what it's like to live in Texas.
No, not the crazy parts.
But some parts of Texas are terrifying all on their own: those big empty wastes where
there's nothing around but fields, and then a small house off in the distance.
It’s on roads like these that the heroes of this film wander, finding horror as they
pick up a stray hitchhiker, only to realize he's dangerously mad … and he's the nicest
member of his family.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre was amazing for its time.
It was one of the most brutal films ever made when it came out.
And it defined what slashers would come to be — savage, horrifying, and sometimes just
a tiny bit inspired by real-life.
Despite a slew of successors, none have come close to matching the ferocious horror let
loose by Leatherface who, oh yeah, is wearing a mask made out of people's skin.
The first time you see him slaughter, and the body twitches in detail?
That’s an image that'll stick with you, whether you like it or not.
Alien
There had been sci-fi movies with giant monsters before, but never a straight-up horror film
about them.
Then, Alien came along.
Not only did it bring about a renewal in body horror across all science fiction, but it
also created the modern concept of science-fiction horror films.
If it weren't for Alien, we would never have gotten films like Event Horizon or Pandorum.
But, being the excellent film it is, Alien wasn't content with simply creating a genre
— it also redefined how horror films operated.
Before this, final girls — the girls who lasted until the end of the movie and occasionally
won — were already a thing.
But with Alien came a bold new era of girls who were as fearsome as the monsters themselves,
changing how horror film protagonists worked forever after.
Scream
This Wes Craven classic brought horror fans back into theaters, after many had grown tired
of watching the never-ending sequels of '80s slasher flicks.
Just how many times could Jason and Michael Myers could possibly die?
Scream introduced a fresh, post-modern take on the genre, completely changing the formula
for teen horror films.
Craven made sure his characters were familiar with the tropes of those movies, too — knowledge
that would be useful when their phones rang.
"For instance, number one.
You can never have sex."
"Booo!"
Scream all but invented the self-referential, self-aware horror movie.
Even the villain took time out of his bloody rampage to make horror movie references, as
he asks his victims trivia in order to decide whether they live or die.
In order to stay alive, the teens think they can use what they know from slasher films,
creating a set of rules to follow like not having sex, not doing drugs, and absolutely
never saying:
"I'll be right back!"
Paranormal Activity
When it comes to Paranormal Activity, you either love it, or hate it.
It was filmed with a handheld camera that almost anyone could afford, in someone's house,
with almost no special effects.
There's almost no plot, no professional actors, and no real big scares to be seen.
It's either a pretty great film, or the worst film ever made, depending on who you talk
to.
No matter what you think about it, though, there's one undeniable fact — it helped
usher in a huge surge of new found-footage horror movies.
It wasn't the first, obviously, but with the success of Paranormal Activity — a movie
made for next to no money — it showed movie studios that people would gobble up found-footage.
It even helped keep the subgenere alive long enough for a Blair Witch reboot.
Thank Paranormal Activity — even if a whole lotta people thought it was boring, it gave
us a ton of movies that weren't.
Night of the Living Dead
One of the best movies ever made, Night of the Living Dead completely free to watch because
George Romero didn't copyright it.
It's not his fault though — he wasn't an experienced filmmaker at the time.
The movie was his first, and it was basically made with couch cushion change.
Despite that , it became one of the most influential horror films in history.
Not only did it bring about a renaissance in independent filmmaking, it introduced the
world to a classic horror staple: the slow, flesh-eating zombies.
Before Night of the Living Dead, most zombies were magically controlled beings, finding
their roots in Western ideas of voodoo.
But, Romero changed all of that.
He introduced creatures that rose from the dead, not due to any magic, but because of
science.
While it's not explicitly said what exactly caused the creatures to rise, all of the theories
concern NASA probes and viruses.
That's all stuff that exists in the real world, turning zombies from fantasy monsters to science-fiction
horror.
The Amityville Horror
When it was first released in 1979, was released in 1979, The Amityville Horror was already
familiar to the world thanks to the real-life crimes that inspired the story.
The film fleshed things out, giving viewers more details about the infamous house — whether
the details were all true or not.
And it revolutionized the idea that a horror film could be based on real-life events.
While other horror films have certainly claimed to be based on true events, they're usually
so loosely based that the film hardly deserves that subtitle.
The Amityville Horror, however, used news reports about the events, interviewed police
who reported to the scene of the actual crimes, and depicted the experiences of the Lutz family
as close as they could during filming.
The success of the movie inspired several other paranormal movies like Poltergeist,
and demonstrated how audiences are suckers for horror flicks based on a true story, even
if it may not actually be all that true.
Saw and Hostel
Yeah, we're cheating and putting two movies together, but it's only because they came
out at around the same time.
Before Saw and Hostel came out, horror movies were very gore-filled, and very scary — but
there were also typically plots and ideas.
They were, you know, actual movies, not just celebrations of gore.
It wasn't until Saw and Hostel came around that the idea of "torture-based horror" became
an actual thing.
It led to a slew of horror movies that don't care about much outside of shock and awe — no
plot, no point, nothing but blood, guts, gore, and torture.
If it weren't for these films, horror movies wouldn't be anywhere nearly as overtly brutal
and graphic.
And what kind of world would that be?
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