History of psychological horror through time - Bailey May

History of psychological horror through time.

1930s	N/A
1940s	Hungry like the wolf man: Based on the Adolf Hitler as propaganda and represented the ‘wolf’ like predators lurking in public consciousness
1950s	N/A
1960s	Psycho: Alfred Hitchcock depicted through the monster of norm bates how monstrous and terrifying a man and his man could be. It took upon presenting this psychological horridness though the killing of people and through gore to really emphasis the abomination a man can turn into.
1970s	N/A
1980s	The Shining: Reflected the grim mood of the decade after the flourish in the 60s. It addressed the genuine psychological fears of children and social issues. The crumbling family unit becomes the source of much fear as the evil, horror aspect of the film is ‘within’ the traditional family unit. Again, as in Psycho the characters psychological mishap is displayed through killing people as gore at the time as the best way to portray how mentally crazed people can be.
1990s	SE7EN: The killer John doe who carry’s out acts through the 7 deadly sins speaks for all our dark hearts about who we view people in society with him saying ‘we see a deadly sin on every corner’. Now compared   to previous films in earlier decades, the audience witness and observe a more in depth expression of the antagonists giving the audience a more sinister look into the mind of the killer. However, we still have the killing and the gore of the antagonist to accentuate to the audience a visual representation of his mental instability as well as portraying it intangibly through the expressions and shock of the detectives trying to solve the murders which gets the audiences minds thinking etc.
2000s	Black swan: Compared to recent psychological thrillers, this film has evolved from them to demonstrate contemporary fears of out modern today society through the setting of entertainment. Through Nina’s character changing from a shy girl to a possessed superstar to conveys to the audience the dark side of the entertainment business that dominates our society today. Comparatively, this film does not have any of the explicit gore factors that previous films in recent decades have which signals a change in how psychological instabilities are presented. In this film, we the growth and demise of the protagonists in a very personal and eerie way to create an unsettling feeling that resides with the audience for a while rather than in previous films use the ‘shock horror’ tactic of gore and violence.