The History of Horror

Horror's roots in classic literature was present throughout the 19th century, it was made apparent in films such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. 
Through the 20's the silent era started to make itself known. Due to the silent nature of these films it paved way for musical experiment, developing the art of building tension. This led to more expressive settings and creating the sense of mysteriousness.
In the 1930's the era of monsters and mad scientists was introduced, as well as the first horror movie to feature sound. The film Frankenstein was the main horror movie of this era but caused a lot of controversy, as there was a scene that saw the Frankenstein monster throw a little girl into the river, resulting in her drowning. 
As we moved to the 40's this is where the more animal based horrors started to make a strong appearance. Films such as The Wolfman and Cat People were the biggest hits to come out of the animal horror era. 
Into the 50's era the attention was on the mutant creature and alien invasion movies, with films like The Wasp Woman, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and It Came from Outer Space. This era's obsession with this genre of film stems from the co-existence of the atom bomb. The Blob was another film of this era and was a big movie of the time, it related to communism and aimed to use this fear to attract the audience. 
Ghosts, zombies and possession was brought in throughout the 60's and 70's with films such as Psycho, Carnival of Souls, The Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In this era external threats were less relevant which is why the horror genre shifted to villains that were closer to home, as the audience weren't as vulnerable as they were.
Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th were all hits in the 1980's when slasher and body horror films really came about. The advancements in special fx made it possible to create the gruesome scenes, which made these films different to all of those in the previous years. Tom Savini was the highly recognised as being apart of the development and was a part of many of the most successful movies of the time. Video nasties also came about around this time and were highly criticised for the scenes being too violent.
When the 2000's came we were brought gorenography and torture porn that was unlike anything that was out there already, we were brought films such as saw and final destination that both did extremely well and led onto many sequels.