There have been many horror movies over the years and they all have themes, story lines, or scenes in them that originated somewhere else.

There are horror movies that were made forty to fifty years ago that made the iconic scenes and story lines that are so well known today.

One of the most popular scenes to be created is the shower scene. The shower scene is renowned as a scene where one of the characters in a horror movie is usually murdered. The origin of this scene comes from the 1960 thriller Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The shower scene was a 3 minute and 50 second scene that was filmed using mostly close ups. Hitchcock used a background composition of screeching violins called ”The Murder,” which gave the scene a more melodramatic feel.

One widely used storyline in the horror film industry is demonic possession. Modern films such as Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism, and others use this storyline because it deals with peoples different beliefs. The movie that made this storyline popular was the horror film, The Exorcist. The Exorcist was made in 1973 and was based off a novel of the same name. The Exorcist, is the blockbuster of horror movies. This movie is the reason that possession in horror films were brought into the spotlight and are so popular today.

Finally there is the “slasher horror” genre. This type of horror film has been used throughout the history of film making and has been popular for its duration. There is a movie in this genre of horror films that set the bar for the rest; The Nightmare on Elm Street, a 1984 horror movie directed by Wes Craven. The film revolves around several teenagers who are stalked in their dreams by Freddy Kreuger. The teenagers find out that if Freddy kills them in their dreams, they also die in reality.

This film is important because it was the first film to actually be called a “slasher.” The term slasher film is in spite of the bladed glove that Kreuger wore and the graphic deaths that came from murder by blade. The term was from then on used for films that depicted people being stalked and killed in a graphic way.

This shows that almost all horror movies have borrowed a part from an earlier movie. Whether it was a scene, theme, or even a whole storyline. These are just three of many origins that appear in the horror movies we watch today.