It’s no secret that we are going through a new golden age of horror films. Horror movies have for the most part been critical and financial darlings. With some ending up on the top 10 lists across respectable publications covering a plethora of different concepts and topics from cult leaders to religious hysteria, aliens killing toddlers, demons killing toddles, toddlers killing parents. But What is horror? Is it fearing things that bump in the night? Is it the mourned howls of the dead that come with the wind. These have haunted the human consciousness as far back as we developed something called consciousness. The last two episode we tackled two topics that seem to predate written history: the unwelcome return of something beyond our senses. There is a theory that I have ascribed to. That everything we have achieved and have not achieved stems from the threat of death. The terror of death. From religion to sexual desire. The urge of facing death or cheating death seems to be as primal.

Does the fear of death drive us? The depiction of death in art has been around since the start of cave paintings to the movie screens. But did that constitute as horror?

Horror, as a term first appears in early 14th century, which means “feeling of disgust or sordid and vulgar”. And once Gothic Romanticism appeared in the late 18th century, the word horror showed up in prose. Where the term would get more of its modern meaning. In Robert Southey’s poem To Horror where he echoes his love to the eerie, Nathan Drake used the word interchangeably with disgust.

How did this word become associated with fear and how Horror movies for the most part have been shaped by our changes in society, culture, politics and technology but to understand the evolution of horror movies and monsters we are going to have to go back to the origins of the horror genre in films. on tonight’s episode we will be looking at horror films, how they highlighted and manifested our greatest fears.
Notes:-
How The Horror Genre Reflects Societal Fears Throughout Time
http://scribe.usc.edu/how-the-horror-genre-reflects-societal-fears-throughout-time/
HISTORICISM IN “THE SHINING” – BY FREDRIC JAMESON
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/historicism-in-the-shining/
100 Years of Horror: Culture Shock: The Influence of History on Horror
https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/20853/100-years-of-horror-culture-shock-the-influence-of-history-on-horror/
Why the 1980s Is the Best Decade for Horror
https://www.thefilmagazine.com/why-1980s-horror-is-the-best/
How Horror Reflects Societal Fears
https://www.thereviewgeek.com/howhorrorreflectssocietalfears-article/

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