Horror films from around the 1930's to the 1960's have a very campy and almost humorous feel to the modern day audience however during the time they had a lasting affect on their new audiences.
As those films seem almost outdated creators of horror movies, modern day, have to always think of new ideas to fit in with society and our cultural context. for example, It Follows from 2014 is metaphorically about std's, Get Out from 2017 is about an interracial couples and racism in general and 10
Modern films use new techniques and tactics to not only scare the audience but also leave the films messages and look in the audience minds, for example, In 2018's A Quiet Place, the monster isn't really shown a lot and instead the director relays on sound and settings to create tension, along with the fact that an audience and rather then a vampire's castle the settings are often more domestic and natural to play on an audience fears that these type of events can happen to anyone anywhere. Another example of this is Netflix's The Ritual which puts four men in a natural environment after the murder of one of their friends and the monster in this film is arguably part of the forrest and part of nature. Even the mise en scene of these films has changed comparing Dracula from 1958 with Get Out for example. In Dracula The costume and effects for example are very exaggerated, it's clear that he's a vampire and meant to be a villain because during the time this was what was scary in cinema however in Get Out the audience doesn't know that Rose is the antagonist and in fact she is not typically who we would think to be the villain, but Get Out explores the idea that most people aren't what they seem whilst also exploring a cultural divide that's still very much present even if it's just through slightly racist digs.
Another example of the aesthetic change in the horror genre is how tolerant an audience is to violence and as the years have passed in film. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a good example or this is as it's clear that Norman is a threat to Marion and the way her death plays out is extremely brutal however we never see any graphic violence compared to basically any film brought out in modern day, and this change has developed because not only have graphics, cgi and special effects developed but audience's have matured.
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