Horror as a genre dates back to the times of Ancient Greece and Rome, detailing and exploring tragedies of death, stories of demons and the afterlife. These horror stories typically lead to tragic endings for the characters, and aim to instill fear and dread into the audience, whether by the plot or simply, the atmosphere. Gothic literature such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) are prevalent in today's society.

 

Yet nowadays, the genre of horror has expanded, becoming more than just fantastical stories of ghosts told around campfires, but psychological stories, putting our ways of life into question. Despite all this, horror is one of the most popular and evolutionary genres of literature and film to date. So why is this the case?

 

Typical concepts and tropes that take place in horror films include haunted families and houses, and slasher films of serial killers, all tropes aimed to scare the audience. Critics across the globe discuss the reason why people enjoy watching tragedies, but the main consensus is that people watch these for emotional release, catharsis.

Watching violent scenes on the big screen allows us to set ourselves apart from those characters, and immerse ourselves in a world of fantasy. Movies like these are so gripping, so terrifying, that people are paralysed and cannot bear to look away from them. They help us escape our own lives, our own experiences, and live through fictional characters. This form of escapism is something that many forms of media provide, but not in the same way as horror can. Slasher films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho, capture the gore element of horror, but there are more aspects to consider, particularly moving into the new era of media.

 

More modern horror films incorporating the same gore elements have been proven to be highly successful. A good example of these movies would be Ti West’s trilogy: Pearl (2022), X (2022) and MaXXXine (coming soon). These horror films explore the dichotomous nature of young girls striving for fame they see in their own media, a fame that they will kill to get, when their wishes and their reality oppose.

A tragic main character is a crucial part of tragedy conventions, so horror and tragedy can often interlink. It explores the psychology and reasoning for the actions of the characters, making them much more complex than typically portrayed. This trilogy is not particularly a horror because of its gore, as the films themselves do not contain an excessive amount as opposed to other films, but because of the uncomfortability it creates. In these films, the character is presented as someone to slightly sympathise with for her humanity, but not her brutality. The violent elements are still prevalent in modern interpretations of horror to this date, but are built in with much more depth to the characters and their stories.

 

When the world in literature starts to imitate our current reality, the lines can become more blurred. When horror films steer away from ghosts and demons, they lean towards more realistic threats, or worse, unknown threats. In horror, our experiences and lives can be represented so perfectly, that it creates the horror in our own minds, a type of psychological warafre.

The prominent horror author Stephen King states himself that ‘Monsters and ghosts are real. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.’

The internalised nature of horror is what makes the genre so important and frightening, because it is not always about what we see or read, but about what we imagine. This genre is more than monsters, ghosts and dark cinematography, and the award-winning 2019 film ‘Midsommar’ is a prime example.

 

With bright cinematography and lighting throughout the entirety of the film, doused in flowers and nature, it opposes the underlying cult nature of the film, drawing not only the main character into its clasp, but the audience also. It is portrayed as though there is a happy ending, despite the immense pain and torture displayed on the screen.

A film such as Midsommar is such a unique horror film, due to its lack of jumpscares and overly frightening scenes. You can’t look away from it. It is filled with events to make the audience incredibly uncomfortable and confused, enough to writhe in your seat in disdain but question its intentions, and overall, leave satisfied until you think about it for longer, to realise its true darker meaning.

 

Opposing this, if the true art of horror is evolving, classic horror novels and films should not be as much of a staple as they are today. For example ‘The Shining’, ‘Frankenstein’, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, ‘It’ and many more. Many of these classics are studied in higher education, analysed for their deeper meaning and purpose. This expands the meaning of horror into not just escapes from reality, but reflections of it, showing the societal norms, and criticising them over discourses such as science versus religion and mental health in their respective eras. Despite the genre’s evolution, pieces of media such as these have truly shaped it over the course of time. 

 

Horror over time has not only taken the form of novels, films and plays, but has advanced into video games, TV shows, comics and more, simulating horrifying experiences providing a similar, if not amplified feeling of fear. Art styles can be used to provide the same levels of gore and disgust, similar to in film, some popular manga artists being Junji Ito and Sui Ishida, for works of Uzumaki and Tokyo Ghoul.

 

As well as this, during the popular festival of Halloween, horror is able to fuel the atmosphere of mysteriousness. Having this as a dedicated genre for the season is not only good for art forms, but good for promotion of selling points in modern day shopping establishments, making it all the more appealing. 

 

If all of these are taken into account, what truly defines the current meaning of horror?

 

Film as an art form transports the audience into another dimension, and despite the emotional release that it gives us, it can be undoubtedly frightening, in a genre such as horror, made with the intention of amplifying or imitating reality, through the use of tragic events such as murders and death.

 

This genre is stepping further away from slashers and damsels in distress, and transitioning more into the internal psychology of characters, which can be a more fulfilling experience for an audience, rather than something that can be seen as more predictable. The evolution of the horror genre will no doubt continue over the course of time, and this art form will expand.

 

 

The respect that this genre has acquired over its course is deserved, and should be recognised by many, not only by campfire stories and tales of witches, but by its longstanding legacy.