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There is a variety of different  ways in which the genre of horror has developed over the last 100 years. They have gone from being silent black and white films to  more advanced and realistic films that are now used more to horrify and scare you rather than make you laugh and surprise you.

In the 1925 Phantom of the opera the silent version was brought out this was staring Lon Chaney who has a large impact on the development of make up this is because he practiced and used different techniques so that the monster has the impact on the audience that he desired. Lon Chaney doing his own make up and making it such a large part of what the monster is then helped people to understand the impact that make up can make. If Lon Chaney had not done this then the monsters of Frankenstein and Dracula would not have been the way that they are known for to this day. Phantom of the opera was produced by Universal studios and was set in universal studio opera house in paris this still stands to date and is said to have the ghost of Lon Chaney. This studio has now recently been used to film the latest muppets film which was released in November 2011.                        

During the 1920's there was a large depression worldwide. This depression meant that studios had to pick a genre that they felt was going to bring in the biggest audience. As a result of this Universal Studios decided that they where going to choose the genre of horror as they felt that this would bring the largest audience in. This depression also meant that the studios had to pay their actors less but they would put them on a permanent contract. This was good for the actors as they always had a wage coming in even if it was lower than what they where used to or deserved at least they had a job. 

The next film after Phantom of the opera was Dracula which was released in the 1930's this film had to be cut down alot compared to The phantom of the opera because of the depression that was around when they where filming it. However it was Dracula that helped with the progression of horror because of it being the first horror with any sound as well as them starting to use low key lighting within the film to add to the affects of shadows which helps horrify the audience not by the actual shadows but what the shadows could be, it is more the audiences imagination that scares them more than anything else. This lighting has a large impact on the use of it now in modern horror film because if they had not used it in Dracula then it would not have progressed in the way that it has. The actor that played Dracula was Bela Lugosi who was a hungarian actor which meant that due to his accent he had limited opportunities because of the accent. However in Dracula his hungarian accent actually added to the affect of the monster and made it have that much more of an impact on the audience. In the first release of Dracula there is no blood or fangs this is because of the Hays office stating what they can and can not show within films. This had a large impact on horror films especially as they had to think about how they where going to show particular scenes within films that would deemed wrong by the Hays office. Another cultural change that affected Dracula during filming was the german jews coming over from germany. They where all coming over due to the holocaust that was occurring back in germany. This meant that the germans wanted there influence on films just like the english had. This was one of the most modern horror films of the time but still was missing something that no one could quite put there finger on. 

The next big horror film was frankenstein which was released in 1931. The creators again wanted Bela Lugosi to play the monster and actually wrote the play as if Bela was Frankenstein. However in the end it was Borris Karloff who played Frankenstein not Bela Lugosi. The image that is known as Frankenstein today was actually Universal's idea i.e. the green square face and the bolts in the neck. The reason that they actually used the square head was to do with them picturing Bela Lugosi as the monster and then them having to change it to Boris Karloff. This was the first horror to try and put in gore and necrophelism and get away with it even with the Hays office still in action. However they did raise issues in society due to during the film frankenstein throwing a girl in the river and killing her. There was also progress in the genre because of the makeup-try used on the monster i.e. frankenstein. Boris Karloff brought alot of his own experiences to the film to make the monster as realistic as he did. 

Both Dracula and Frankenstein helped to make horror the genre it is today, if they had not pushed the boundaries that they did with the genre then directors would not be able to do what they are with horrors today. All horrors up until this date had been set in one time period, however when warner brothers took over from doing horror films as well they decided to set them in the present day this made the horror films seem more realistic than what they seemed before this time as it seemed as if this could actually happen. 

The next big film for universal studios was the mystery of the wax museum, this was important for the progression of horror as it was the first horror that had any form of color in it. The color that The Wax Museum used was early techni color which meant that they could show in better detail the color of the skin and then when they turn to wax you can see the difference better. If this color was not used in the wax museum then there would not be the progress that there is today.  However even though The Wax Museum did help so much with the progression of horror Universal is still not known for this film but for Frankenstein and Dracula.