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Start of Horror films
France was the first to create silent short "horror" films, these had the style of theatrical comic fantasy. The conventions used were supernatural and medieval structures, these films weren't meant to be seen as scary but to create the sense of wonder in the audience. -
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Start of American "Horror"
The early cycles of american horror weren't described as part of the "horror" genre but it relied heavily on the themes from it. These films had very emotion-heavy that focus on the conventions of romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality. Another main part of these "horror" films was the use of "stock characters" e.g. Frankenstein and Dracula -
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Gothic Horror
The Gothic horror film cycle started from the popularity of Gothic fiction novels. There were glimpses of Gothic Horror films being created earlier but the main cycle begun once the Dracula and Frankenstein were filmed. The conventions used in Gothic horror is supernatural, dim lighting, barren landscapes, medieval castles and abnormal locations. -
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Doomsday and Demonic Films
This cycle was based around the event of humanity overcoming "doomsday" and demonic events, these include alien invasions, zombies, deadly mutilation and films based on Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Conventions in these type of films were zombies, demons, gore, and the fear of the unknown -
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The Occult cycle
The occult cycles brings the fear of a demon entity possessing children and women for supernatural evil, this cycle is mainly based around demons being the villains. Conventions used in this cycle include demons, darkness and red lighting, psychological themes, gore, insanity, and murder. -
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Sci-fi and Fantasy Horror
Before the Sci-fi and Fantasy cycle begun it carried on with slasher and gore films, this caused it to slowly die out. This pushed back the creation of horror films until the explosion of sci-fi and fantasy were made with the new possibilities of CGI. Conventions of this cycle were based around special effects, near the end of this cycle films started to become self-mockingly ironic and parodic. -
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Comedy/Torture porn Horror
Most of this cycle was all about making fun of previous horror cycles (parodies) and creating more realistic gory films to scare the audience, real world "issues" to screens. Conventions in this cycle were comedic, "based on real life" films, brutal gore, jump scares, and "creatures" hiding in the darkness. -
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Found Footage/Remaking films
This cycle which is present to this day is about found footage films that look like they're found on camera's to bring a new sense of fear to the table. The remaking of old films is to bring them up to "modern standards" and make more profit for less effort. Convention in this cycle contain "homemade" footage, darkness, sci-fi, fantasy, gore, comedic and still more parodies.