Since Halloween is approaching, why not talk about the history of Horror Films?
The first horror ever was The House of the Devil (1896), a short film by movie pioneer Georges Méliès. It was produced by Star Film Company, run by Méliès himself. In 1917 the company was sold by his nephew.
During the 1920s German Expressionist filmmakers produced remarkable horrors like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922).
This genre became then quite popular thanks to the horror films produced by Universal Pictures: Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931). The horrors created by this company were so in vogue that they started to be labelled as “Universal Monsters”.
After the 30s Universal Pictures lost the monopoly of horror films. Even before then other great horrors were produced by other companies as well, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) by MGM, but those by Universal had a slightly bigger impact on both filmmakers and audiences.
Nowadays horror films are still quite popular, especially around celebrations such as Halloween. Some of them are remakes produced by indie and smaller companies.
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