The Fun of Fear: 3 Great Videos on Horror

Here are 3 fantastic videos you need to watch if you’re a horror fan and want to learn more about the genre!

A Short History of the Horror Film (1890s - 2010s)

A quick education on how horror first came about and why it’s such a ground-breaking genre, as it not only introduced tropes like ‘cat scares’ or the ‘found footage’ technique, but is also always pushing the boundaries of what can be done on screen (and what with “video nasty” could only be done on VHS) and how many different subgenres one genre could possibly have (with a vast range that covers slasher, psychological, cult, parody, teen, and animal).

Horror is the Best Genre (and here’s why)

A fascinating and intelligent video essay by Grace Lee which attempts to unravel a question we’ve all probably asked ourselves before: Why on earth do people like horror? Exploring how we find relief in the discomfort it provokes and drawing on numerous sources and ideas, like what Jean-Paul Sartre thought about slime and Virginia Woolf said on illness, she argues that horror is the best genre of film, in the way it both thematically and formally always disrupts and resists the very concept of classification, dismantles dichotomies, plays on the tension between truth and fiction, and creates a space for a feeling of community through collective experience.

Jordan Peele on Writing Thrillers

For fans of Get Out (2017) - a modern horror I highly recommend you watch if you haven’t already - here's a great video of Jordan Peele talking about how he creates empathy and intelligent protagonists who act in logical and believable ways, how writing comedies helped him tackle the horror/thriller genre and why the ending of Get Out was originally supposed to be completely different.