title: Mermaid

text: Mermaids have been described as able to swim up rivers to freshwater lakes. In one story, the Laird of Lorntie went to aid a woman he thought was drowning in a lake near his house; his servant pulled him back, warning that it was a mermaid, and the mermaid screamed at them that she would have killed him if it were not for his servant. But mermaids could occasionally be more beneficent; e.g., teaching humans cures for certain diseases. Mermen have been described as wilder and uglier than mermaids, with little interest in humans.


title: Mermaid

text: According to legend a mermaid came to the Cornish village of Zennor, where she used to listen to the singing of a chorister, Matthew Trewhella. The two fell in love, and Matthew went with the mermaid to her home at Pendour Cove. On summer nights, the lovers can be heard singing together. The legend, recorded by folklorist William Bottrell, stems from a 15th-century mermaid carving on a wooden bench at the Church of Saint Senara in Zennor.


title: Mermaid

text: In Scottish mythology, a "ceasg" is a freshwater mermaid, though little beside the term has been preserved in folklore.


title: Mermaid

text: Mermaids from the Isle of Man, known as "ben-varrey", are considered more favorable toward humans than those of other regions, with various accounts of assistance, gifts and rewards. One story tells of a fisherman who carried a stranded mermaid back into the sea and was rewarded with the location of treasure. Another recounts the tale of a baby mermaid who stole a doll from a human little girl, but was rebuked by her mother and sent back to the girl with a gift of a pearl necklace to atone for the theft. A third story tells of a fishing family that made regular gifts of apples to a mermaid and was rewarded with prosperity.


title: Mermaid

text: In Irish lore, Lí Ban was a human being transformed into a mermaid. After three centuries, when Christianity came to Ireland, she was baptized. The Irish mermaid is called merrow in tales such as "Lady of Gollerus" published in the 19th century.


title: Mermaid

text: The mermaid corresponds to Danish and Bokmål Norwegian , whereas merman answers to Danish/Norwegian "havmand".


title: .xxx

text: .xxx (pronounced "dot triple-ecks" or "dot ecks ecks ecks") is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) intended as a voluntary option for pornographic sites on the Internet. The sponsoring organization is the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR). The registry is operated by ICM Registry LLC. The ICANN Board voted to approve the sTLD on 18 March 2011. It went into operation on 15 April 2011.


title: .xxx

text: The TLD entered its sunrise period on 7 September 2011 at 16:00 UTC; the sunrise period ended 28 October 2011. Landrush period lasted from 8 November through 25 November, and general availability commenced on 6 December 2011.


title: .xxx

text: A gTLD (generic top-level domain) for sexually explicit material was proposed as one tool for dealing with the conflict between those who wish to provide and access such material through the Internet, and those who wish to prevent access to it, either by children and adolescents, or by employees at their workplaces.


title: .xxx

text: Advocates of the idea argue that it will be easier for parents and employers to block the entire TLD, rather than using more complex and error-prone content-based filtering, without imposing any restrictions on those who wish to access it. Editors of explicit content sites, however, were afraid that the use of a single TLD like codice_1 would also make it easier for search engines to block all of their content.


title: .xxx

text: Critics of the idea argue that because there is no requirement for providers of explicit content to use the TLD, sexually explicit material will still be commonplace in other domains, making it ineffectual at restricting access, and simply creating a new "landrush" as registrants of .com domains hosting explicit material attempt to duplicate their registrations in the codice_1 domain, competing with operators who hope to register desirable names unavailable in other TLDs. There is also concern that the existence of codice_1 will lead to legislation making its use "mandatory" for sexually explicit material, leading to legal conflicts over the definition of "sexually explicit", free speech rights, and jurisdiction.


title: .xxx

text: There were also early indications that codice_1 domain names will be registered not with the intent to focus on pornographic content, but to use the adult connotations as a benefit to a marketing strategy. An example is the registration of codice_5, which is aimed at the extreme sport of kitesurfing, thus benefiting from sexual connotations and innuendo for humor and promotional purposes. Another example of a codice_1 domain name being registered without a focus on pornographic content was the registration of codice_7, which contained pro-Islamic content despite being named after Pope Benedict XVI.


title: .xxx

text: The .XXX TLD was first proposed in 2000 by ICM Registry and resubmitted in 2004, but it faced strong opposition from politicians and conservative groups.


title: .xxx

text: ICANN announced on 1 June 2005 a preliminary approval of codice_1 as an sTLD similar to codice_9, codice_10, etc. ICM said it would charge $60/year for domains. In December 2005, discussions about the implementation of codice_1 were taken off the agenda of ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), placing its future in doubt. In its March 2006 meeting, the GAC formulated a letter of concern to the ICANN board about codice_1. On 10 May 2006, ICANN reversed the approval. On 6 January 2007, ICANN put up for public comment a revised proposal following changes to the policy of the ICM registry including the policing of any site that signs up to use the codice_1 registry. On 30 March 2007, the ICANN board again rejected the codice_1 proposal for the third time.


title: .xxx

text: On 6 June 2008, in accordance with ICANN bylaws, ICM filed an application with the International Centre for Dispute Resolution for an independent review challenging ICANN's decision. The filing became ICDR Case No. 50 117 T 00224 08, and in September 2009, a live hearing was held in Washington, DC, where both sides submitted documentary evidence and witness testimony. on 19 February 2010, the ICDR's independent review panel – consisting of Stephen M. Schwebel, Jan Paulsson and Dickran Tevrizian – issued its declaration. The panel found that the application for the ".XXX sTLD met the required sponsorship criteria," and that "the Board’s reconsideration of that finding was not consistent with the application of neutral, objective and fair documented policy". At the ICANN meeting in Nairobi in March 2010 the board resolved to consider "process options". A 45-day public comment was opened on 26 March 2010. At the Brussels ICANN meeting in June 2010, the ICANN board resolved to restart the process, including renewed due diligence and GAC consultations.


title: .xxx

text: On 18 March 2011, ICANN's board approved the execution of the registry agreement with ICM for the codice_1 sponsored top level domain. The vote was nine in favor, four against, with three abstentions.


title: .xxx

text: ICM is expected to make over $200 million a year, with 3 to 5 million domain registrations, as companies are anticipated to defensively register their domains.


title: .xxx

text: On 16 November 2011, Manwin International, a pornography company that operates a large number of popular adult websites including YouPorn, filed a request for a second ICANN Independent Review Proceeding. In the request, Manwin asks that the .xxx delegation be voided, or, if not, put up to competition on renewal.


title: .xxx

text: On the same day Manwin, together with adult film studio Digital Playground, filed a suit in the Central District of California against ICM alleging antitrust and competition violations. Among the claims in the suit are that ICANN provided "no competitive process for the award of the .XXX registry contract" and that ICM CEO Stuart Lawley "has announced that he expects to be able (and intends) to prevent the establishment of any other (potentially competing) adult-content TLDs, including through a contractual promise by ICANN not to approve such TLDs".


title: .xxx

text: On 14 August 2012, Judge Philip S. Gutierrez granted in part and denied in part ICANN's motion to dismiss Manwin's claims and allowed the case against ICANN to move forward. On 10 May 2013, the case was voluntarily dismissed by the parties, likely due to private settlement.


title: .xxx

text: The Free Speech Coalition opposed the domain, arguing it would "harm the adult entertainment business" by inviting censorship and blocking, while raising money for ICM without considering the "best interests of the industry".


title: .xxx

text: Starting in 2005, there was an alternative implementation of codice_1 by New.net, a private domain registration service unaffiliated with ICANN, via an alternative DNS root. New.net no longer offers domain names under this unofficial TLD.


title: .xxx

text: Another unofficial codice_1 TLD was previously available through the alternative DNS root system administered by the now-defunct AlterNIC.


title: Nicola Walker

text: Nicola Jane Walker (born 15 May 1970) is an English actress, known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, including that of Ruth Evershed in the spy drama "Spooks" (2003–2006 and 2009–2011) and DCI Cassie Stuart in "Unforgotten" (2015–2021). She has also worked in theatre, radio and film. She won the 2013 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for the play "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", and was twice nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for the BBC drama "Last Tango in Halifax".


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker was born in Stepney in the East End of London and has an elder brother. She attended Saint Nicholas School at Old Harlow in Essex, and Forest School, Walthamstow, and undertook acting classes from the age of 12 in order to speak to boys. Interviewed in 2014 by "The Daily Telegraph", she said, "I was really encouraged by my mother. My dad thought it was a ridiculous thing to do."


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker studied English at New Hall, Cambridge, becoming the first member of her family to go to university. She started her acting career with the Cambridge Footlights. Her contemporaries included "Spooks" writer David Wolstencroft and comedian Sue Perkins, who were all part of the 1990 national tour. Perkins, then an older undergraduate, was assigned to be her "college mother", although Walker later said: "She was the worst college mother I could have had. They're meant to hold your hand. She asked to borrow my bike, got drunk, and I never saw it again." Walker acted on stage as Perkins's stooge, and years later their partnership was resumed when Perkins cast Walker in her sitcom "Heading Out".


title: Nicola Walker

text: Offered a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on graduation from Cambridge, Walker already had some roles and an agent, so she decided to pursue her acting career. Based in London, she shared a flat with Perkins, Sarah Phelps, and Emma Kennedy, and acted at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Festival Fringe.


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker's first major television roles were in 1997, as Gypsy Jones in Channel 4's adaptation of "A Dance to the Music of Time", and as English teacher Suzy Travis in two series of Steven Moffat's school-based sitcom "Chalk". She has also appeared in guest roles in episodes of series such as "Dalziel and Pascoe", "Jonathan Creek", "Pie in the Sky", and "Broken News".


title: Nicola Walker

text: She played the leading part of DI Susan Taylor in the ITV thriller serial "Touching Evil" in 1997, co-starring opposite Robson Green. She also appeared in its two sequel serials in 1998 and 1999. Also in 1999, she took the lead role in the post-apocalyptic drama serial "The Last Train", also screened on ITV (and written by future "Spooks" writer Matthew Graham). Also in 2003, Walker played Molly Millions in the BBC Radio adaptation of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2003, with the production team of Kudos Television looking to replace the character played by Jenny Agutter in Series 1 of "Spooks", the part of Ruth Evershed was specially written for Walker from Series 2. She remained with the show until the fifth series, during the production of which it was announced she was expecting her first child and would be leaving. She returned in 2009 and continued until the series ended in 2011. Benji Wilson of "The Daily Telegraph" praised Walker's performance, stating: "an actress who has squeezed every drop out of TV’s greatest ever largely dumbstruck doormat for the best part of a decade. Her scenes with Peter Firth, another fine player, have become self-contained little bubbles of weltschmerz within every recent episode".


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2007, Walker had a prominent supporting role as a child snatcher in the ITV1 drama serial "Torn" and appeared in the BBC adaptation of "Oliver Twist".


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2009, she appeared as a maid in a new BBC adaptation of Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", which also starred Michelle Dockery and Sue Johnston. In 2010, Walker appeared as a beleaguered wife (Linda Shand) of a murderer in an episode of the BBC1 crime thriller "Luther".


title: Nicola Walker

text: In February 2011, she appeared as nervous social worker Wendy in the BBC TV series "Being Human". In February 2012, she played a major character in the one off BBC crime drama "Inside Men".


title: Nicola Walker

text: From 2012 to 2020, she appeared as Gillian Greenwood (née Buttershaw) alongside Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid and Sarah Lancashire in five series of the BBC original drama "Last Tango in Halifax".


title: Nicola Walker

text: In February and March 2013, Walker reunited with her former Cambridge Footlights colleague Sue Perkins in the BBC comedy "Heading Out". She then appeared in the second series of "Prisoners' Wives" and the third series of "Scott & Bailey" playing Helen Bartlett.


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker was again nominated for a Television BAFTA for "Best Supporting Actress" in 2014 for her role in "Last Tango in Halifax", but the award was won by her co-star Sarah Lancashire.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2015, she appeared as Jackie "Stevie" Stevenson, the colleague of DI John River played by Stellan Skarsgård, in the BBC drama series "River".


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker starred, alongside actor Sanjeev Bhaskar, in series one through four (2015–2021) of the ITV drama series "Unforgotten" as DCI Cassie Stuart.


title: Nicola Walker

text: From 2018 to 2022 Walker starred as Hannah Defoe Stern, a divorce lawyer, in all three series of the BBC drama series "The Split". Also in 2018, she played Reverend Jane Oliver in the BBC2 serial "Collateral".


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker was number 10 on the ""Radio Times" TV 100" list for 2018, a list said to be determined by television executives and broadcasting veterans.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2021, she starred in the British crime drama television series "Annika", based on the BBC Radio 4 drama "Annika Stranded", with Walker reprising the title role. Produced by Black Camel Pictures for Alibi and All3Media, the first episode aired on 17 August 2021. This is the eighth different police officer or detective role she has played on British TV.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2022 Walker appeared in Stefan Golaszewski's drama, "Marriage" alongside Sean Bean. The series received mixed reviews from both critics and viewers.


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker won an Olivier Award in 2013 for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Judy, the main character Christopher's mother, in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". The play won seven Olivier Awards, equalling "Matilda the Musical's" record win in 2012.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2014, she starred alongside Mark Strong and Phoebe Fox in Arthur Miller's play "A View from the Bridge", at the Young Vic theatre. The play received extremely positive reviews from critics and transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2015 and to the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2022 she starred as Miss Lily Moffat in the National Theatre revival in London of "The Corn is Green", the 1938 autobiographical play by Emlyn Williams.


title: Nicola Walker

text: In film, Walker's roles have tended to be smaller supporting parts. Her most prominent role was as one half of the folk duo in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994), who sing "Can't Smile Without You" during the first church service. She also appeared in the feature film adaptation of the television series "Thunderbirds" (2004).


title: Nicola Walker

text: In 2002, Walker co-starred in the BBC radio production of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer".


title: Nicola Walker

text: In July 2011, she played the significant supporting role of Medtech Liv Chenka in the Big Finish Productions "Doctor Who" audio drama "Robophobia", opposite Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. The Chenka character proved popular both with producers and listeners, and in February 2014 Walker returned to the role, this time as a foil for Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor in "Dark Eyes 2". The character was sustained throughout" Dark Eyes 3" and "Dark Eyes 4," at the end of which it was revealed that Chenka was to continue as the Doctor's established travelling companion. Walker returned to the role in the follow-up 4-volume "Doom Coalition", "Ravenous" and "Stranded". Walker reprised the role of Chenka in 2022 in "The Eighth Doctor Adventures: What lies inside?" and "The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Connections". She also played the role in an 18-part series titled "The Robots", starring along side "Claire Rushbrook". In 2017, she starred in the company's adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel "The Shape of Things to Come".


title: Nicola Walker

text: Since 2013, Walker has voiced the Norwegian detective Annika Strandhed in six series of the BBC Radio 4 drama series "Annika Stranded" by Nick Walker and produced by Sweet Talk. From 2018 to 2020 she played the role of Dr. Eleanor Peck in the RedHookStories BBC Radio 4 production "The Lovecraft Investigations" of three H. P. Lovecraft stories, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", alongside her husband Barnaby Kay.


title: Nicola Walker

text: Walker is married to actor Barnaby Kay. The couple have a son Harry (born in October 2006), who is named after Harry Pearce, the character of her co-star Peter Firth in "Spooks".


title: Diego Costa

text: Diego da Silva Costa (, ; born 7 October 1988), commonly known as Diego Costa, is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers and the Spain national team.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa began his football career in his native Brazil before joining Braga in Portugal in 2006, aged 17. He never played for the club but spent time on loan at Penafiel, and signed with Atlético Madrid the following year. Over the next two seasons he had loan periods with Braga, Celta Vigo and Albacete. His form earned him a move to fellow La Liga club Real Valladolid in 2009, where he spent one season, finishing as their top goalscorer, before returning to Atlético Madrid. Costa struggled to maintain a regular starting role with Atlético, and spent more time on loan, this time at Rayo Vallecano, where he finished as the club's highest scorer that season.


title: Diego Costa

text: In 2011 Costa returned to Atlético with a greater role. He blossomed as a goalscorer, and helped the team win a La Liga title, a Copa del Rey title, and a UEFA Super Cup. His performances attracted the attention of several big clubs, and in 2014 Costa was transferred to Premier League club Chelsea in a deal worth €35 million (£32 million). In London, Costa won three trophies, including two Premier League titles, and a League Cup. In 2018, following a rift with head coach Antonio Conte, Costa returned to Atlético Madrid in a club record transfer worth an initial €56 million, where he won a UEFA Europa League title and another UEFA Super Cup.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa is a dual citizen of Brazil and Spain. He played twice for Brazil in 2013, before declaring his desire to represent Spain, having been granted Spanish citizenship in September that year. He made his debut for Spain in March 2014, and has since won 24 caps and scored 10 goals, and has represented them at the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups.


title: Diego Costa

text: Known for his fiery temperament, Costa has been criticised and punished for several confrontations with opponents.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa was born in Lagarto, Sergipe, Brazil, to parents José de Jesus and Josileide. His father named him in honour of Argentine footballer Diego Maradona despite the rivalry between the two nations, and he has an elder brother named Jair after Brazilian player Jairzinho. Despite regularly playing street football, Costa did not believe as a child that he would turn professional, in part due to the remote location of his hometown. He has since set up a football academy in his hometown, where he pays all the costs. Costa is a fan of Palmeiras.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa trialled unsuccessfully at his hometown team Atlético Clube Lagartense. At age 15, he left Sergipe and moved to São Paulo, to work in the store of his uncle Jarminho. Although he was never a professional, Jarminho had connections in football and recommended his nephew to Barcelona Esportivo Capela, a team from the south of the city set up as an alternative to drugs and gangs for youth of the "favelas". Before joining this team, he had never been coached in football. He turned professional at the club, earning around £100 per month, and competed in the under-18 Taça de São Paulo despite a four-month ban for slapping an opponent and dissent towards the referee. Although he was sent off in the first game of the tournament, he attracted the attention of renowned Portuguese agent Jorge Mendes, who offered him a contract at Braga. Costa's father was apprehensive of sending his son to Europe, and suggested he instead sign for nearby Associação Desportiva São Caetano, but he was adamant that he would take the opportunity.


title: Diego Costa

text: Jair played on the same team as Diego, and was a slimmer, more technically able player, but had less focus; the two were often not fielded at the same time in order to prevent arguments. He never turned professional, but had a three-month trial at Basque club Salvatierra.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa signed for his first European club in February 2006, Portugal's Braga. He initially struggled with loneliness and the comparatively cold weather of northern Portugal. Out of action due to the club's lack of a youth team, he was loaned that summer to Penafiel in the second division, managed by former Portugal international Rui Bento, who desired the "rough diamond".


title: Diego Costa

text: Through his negotiations with Spain's Atlético Madrid, Mendes arranged Costa's transfer for €1.5 million and 50% of the player's rights in December 2006, but he remained on loan at Braga until the end of the season. Atlético defeated interest from Porto and Recreativo de Huelva for Costa's signature, with director Jesús García Pitarch admitting that it was a risk to pay so much for an inexperienced player. After 5 goals in 13 games for Penafiel, he was recalled to Braga in January 2007. On 23 February, he came on in the 71st minute for Zé Carlos and scored his first goal for the team, a last-minute goal for a 1–0 win at Parma to advance 2–0 on aggregate to the Last 16 of the UEFA Cup. His season ended after seven games due to a metatarsal injury which ruled him out for six months.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa was presented by Atlético Madrid president Enrique Cerezo on 10 July 2007 as "the new Kaká". While scout Javier Hernández wished for him to return to fitness in the club's reserves, García Pitarch instead suggested loaning Costa out immediately. He made his debut on 11 August in the Ciudad de Vigo tournament against Celta de Vigo, replacing Simão at half-time in a penalty shootout victory.


title: Diego Costa

text: Later that month, Costa and Mario Suárez were loaned to Segunda División side Celta de Vigo for the season, and Costa became a regular in the team, managed by former Ballon d'Or winner Hristo Stoichkov. In his seventh league match, he scored his first goal in Spanish football in a dominant home victory over Xerez; after scoring, he showboated, causing a brawl which resulted in him being sent off. Costa was subsequently rested from Celta's away game at the same opposition. The event drew the wrath of Stoichkov, who unexpectedly left his position. Towards the middle of the season, he was involved in two further controversies: he struck Málaga defender Weligton in the head, causing an injury which required medical stitches, and was sent off against Sevilla Atlético for diving and dissent, leaving his team to fight for a draw without him. The loyal strike partner of Quincy Owusu-Abeyie despite the pair not sharing a common language, he was dropped for Cypriot Ioannis Okkas. On 23 March 2008, Costa scored both Celta goals in a 2–1 win at Numancia, the latter after a long dribble; but later on in the campaign, he was sent off against Tenerife at Balaídos, after which Celta went from winning 2–0 to drawing 2–2. The team barely avoided relegation, and Costa earned a reputation for being a disruptive influence.


title: Diego Costa

text: Despite earning a poor reputation for his conduct, Costa attracted interest from Salamanca, Gimnàstic de Tarragona and Málaga after his loan at Celta; García Pitarch ruled out any approach from the latter, fearing how Costa would behave on the Costa del Sol. After attending Atlético's pre-season tour of Mexico, he signed on loan for Albacete, also of Segunda División, on 22 August 2008, signing a contract which would have a lower fee depending on how many games he played. He initially threatened to terminate his deal with the Castile-La Mancha team, on account of the quality of his teammates and the city's lack of a beach. Nine days after signing, he scored a late winner in a 2–1 victory over Sevilla's reserves at the Estadio Carlos Belmonte. The "Queso Mecánico" suffered with financial problems during Costa's loan, with him threatening to strike unless their non-playing staff were paid in full. He was dropped to the bench by manager Juan Ignacio Martínez for the home game against Real Sociedad on 13 December as punishment for an argument with goalkeeper Jonathan, but came on as a substitute to score another late winner.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa was known for misbehaviour on and off the pitch while at Albacete. He was sent off away to Tenerife, after which he slandered the referee's mother and confronted his opponents. He pulled practical jokes on his teammates and employers, earning him the moniker "that fucking Brazilian". However, he was a central figure as they avoided relegation, assisting twice in a 3–0 win at high-flying Rayo Vallecano on 2 May 2009, despite missing a penalty.


title: Diego Costa

text: In the summer of 2009, Costa was desired by Barcelona for their reserve team, an approach which Atlético rejected, citing that he remained in their plans. Frustrated by his lack of opportunities, however, a now overweight Costa argued with his management and attempted to negotiate a move to Brazil's Esporte Clube Vitória.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 8 July 2009, Costa was sold to Real Valladolid as part of the deal that sent goalkeeper Sergio Asenjo in the opposite direction, with the transfer including a €1 million buy-back option that could be activated by Atlético at the end of the season. García Pitarch confessed that there was a verbal agreement that Costa would definitely return at the end of the campaign, and that the deal had been made to look permanent in order to give Costa more commitment to his new club.


title: Diego Costa

text: Initially, Costa had competition up front from fellow new signings Alberto Bueno and Manucho, signed from Real Madrid and Manchester United respectively; he eventually forged a friendship with the latter, a fellow lusophone, from Angola. He started strong for the Castile and León side, scoring 6 times in his first 12 games, but only found the net once in the following five-and-a-half months as the campaign eventually ended in relegation from La Liga. He was sent off in a goalless draw against Espanyol on 24 March 2010 for a stamp on Dídac Vilà in the first half.


title: Diego Costa

text: In June 2010, Costa returned to the "Colchoneros", initially as a backup to Sergio Agüero and Diego Forlán – Atlético also paid an undisclosed sum to Braga to buy all the residual 30% economic rights (the former also had to pay in excess of €833,000 in agent's fees to Gestifute). He was an unused substitute as Atlético won the 2010 UEFA Super Cup on 27 August.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 26 September, with the injured Agüero on the substitutes bench, Costa scored the game's only goal at home against Real Zaragoza. On 3 April of the following year, already as a starter after manager Quique Sánchez Flores demoted Forlán from his position, Costa scored all of his team's goals in a 3–2 win at Osasuna.


title: Diego Costa

text: In July 2011, during Atlético's pre-season, Costa suffered a serious knee injury, going on to miss the majority of the season. The injury prevented him from passing a medical at Turkish club Beşiktaş, having already agreed to transfer to them. On 23 January 2012, Costa was loaned to fellow league club Rayo Vallecano until June; he scored four goals in his first three appearances, including two in a 5–3 away win against Levante, eventually finishing his loan spell with 10 goals from 16 games.


title: Diego Costa

text: For the second time in his career, Costa was an unused substitute as Atlético won the UEFA Super Cup on 1 September 2012. That December, Costa was involved in several on-field altercations in two separate matches. The first was in a 0–2 local derby loss against Real Madrid where he avoided disciplinary action after spitting incidents between him and Sergio Ramos. He was sent off in the following game at Viktoria Plzeň in the UEFA Europa League for headbutting opponent David Limberský, and was handed a four-match ban by UEFA. This, however, did not deter coach Diego Simeone from continuing to start him, and he responded by scoring three goals in two home contests, against Deportivo de La Coruña in the league (6–0) and Getafe in the season's Copa del Rey (3–0).


title: Diego Costa

text: After the Copa del Rey semi-finals against Sevilla, Costa took his goal tally in the competition to seven in as many matches, having scored three times in the tie. In the first leg he scored two penalties in a 2–1 win and, in the second at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, scored one after an individual effort and assisted Radamel Falcao in the other, also being involved in incidents which resulted in two opposing players – Gary Medel and Geoffrey Kondogbia – being sent off in the 2–2 draw.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa scored Atlético's equalising goal in the Copa del Rey final clash against city rivals Real Madrid on 17 May 2013, contributing to the 2–1 triumph – the first in 25 games in a streak stretching back to 1999 – and the tenth win in the tournament, confirmed by Miranda's extra-time header. He and opponent Cristiano Ronaldo had gone into the match as joint top scorers in the tournament, and thus Costa's eighth goal made him the top scorer.


title: Diego Costa

text: In August 2013, Costa was heavily linked with a move to Liverpool, who allegedly matched his release clause of €25 million and offered him three times his salary at Atlético. Costa, however, chose to stay at the club and renewed his contract until 2018, while also doubling his wages; a few days after this, in the first match of the new season on 19 August, he scored a brace in a 3–1 win at Sevilla.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 24 September, Costa scored both goals in a 2–1 home triumph over Osasuna to help his team stay level on points with league leaders Barcelona through six games. Four days later, in the Madrid derby, he scored the only goal of the game to record a second win over Real at the Santiago Bernabéu in under five months. For his performances, he was crowned the inaugural La Liga Player of the Month for September 2013. By his 25th birthday on 7 October, he had scored ten goals in eight league matches, equalling his tally from the previous season. All of those matches were won by Atlético, setting a new record for the best start to a season. On 23 November 2013, Costa scored an overhead volley from a cross by Gabi in a win over Getafe; the goal was nominated for the FIFA Puskás Award.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 22 October 2013, Costa marked his UEFA Champions League debut with two goals against Austria Wien, the first coming after a fine individual effort in an eventual 3–0 group stage away win. On 19 February 2014, in the first knockout round's first leg, he scored the game's only goal at Milan, scoring seven minutes from time after a corner kick from Gabi; he added a further two in the second match, helping Atlético to a 4–1 victory that put them into the quarter-finals for the first time in 17 years.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 30 April 2014, Costa won and converted a penalty in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea, as Atlético won 3–1 at Stamford Bridge and advanced to the final of the competition for the first time since 1974. He finished the league season with 27 league goals to become the third highest scorer, and the team won the title for the first time since 1996, but he was substituted after 16 minutes of the last match of the season against Barcelona due to a hamstring injury. Atlético sought to cure this injury before the upcoming Champions League final against Real Madrid by sending him to Belgrade for treatment with a horse placenta, and he was included in the starting line-up for the decisive match. However, he left the pitch after eight minutes in an eventual 1–4 loss; manager Diego Simeone later admitted a personal mistake in selecting the player to start the final despite his recent injury. Costa scored eight goals during the Champions League campaign, equalling the record held by Vavá since 1959 for most in a season by an Atlético player, and in his entire career was in the top ten Atlético players by goal average. At the season's LFP Awards, he was nominated for the league's Best Forward, losing out to Cristiano Ronaldo.


title: Diego Costa

text: Having completed his medical in June, Chelsea announced on 1 July 2014 that they had agreed to meet the £32 million buy-out clause in Costa's contract. On 15 July, Chelsea confirmed the completion of the signing of Costa, who signed a five-year contract on a salary of £150,000 a week. On signing, Costa said, "I am very happy to sign for Chelsea. Everybody knows it is a big club in a very competitive league, and I am very excited to get started in England with a fantastic coach and team-mates. Having played against Chelsea last season I know the high quality of the squad I am joining". Following the departure of former Chelsea striker Demba Ba, Costa inherited his number 19 shirt, the same number he wore at the 2014 World Cup for Spain and previously at Atlético.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa scored on his Chelsea debut on 27 July, running onto a through ball from Cesc Fàbregas in a 2–1 friendly win against Slovene club Olimpija. His first competitive match was Chelsea's first game of the league season, away to Burnley on 18 August, scoring the team's equaliser in a 3–1 victory. He scored in his third consecutive match on 30 August, the first and last goals of a 6–3 win at Everton, the first goal coming after 35 seconds. Costa was given the Premier League Player of the Month award for August 2014. He completed his first Premier League hat-trick in his fourth game of the season against Swansea City as Chelsea continued their perfect start to the season with a 4–2 win. With seven, Costa holds the record for most goals in his first four Premier League matches, surpassing the tally of six by both Sergio Agüero and Micky Quinn. In spite of his form at the start of the season, Costa had been suffering from a recurring hamstring problem which limited his participation in training; manager José Mourinho said that it would not heal until mid-November.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa scored his tenth goal of the league season to give Chelsea a 2–1 win away to Liverpool on 8 November, preserving their unbeaten start to the campaign. In January, Costa was charged by the FA in relation to a stamp on Emre Can during Chelsea's win over Liverpool in the League Cup semi-finals, and was given a three-match ban. Costa won his first trophy for Chelsea on 1 March, as they defeated Tottenham Hotspur 2–0 to win the League Cup at Wembley Stadium; he scored the second goal of the game.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 26 April, Costa was chosen of one of two forwards for the season's PFA Team of the Year, alongside Tottenham's Harry Kane. Five of Costa's Chelsea teammates were also in the selection. Due to injury, he was due to miss the remainder of the season, in which Chelsea won the league title with a 1–0 home win over Crystal Palace on 3 May. However, he featured in their last match of the season on the 24th, replacing the injured Didier Drogba after half an hour against Sunderland. Seven minutes later, he scored his 20th goal of the league campaign, an equalising penalty in an eventual 3–1 home win.


title: Diego Costa

text: With reports speculating that Costa wanting to leave Chelsea, Costa affirmed on 2 June 2015 after Chelsea's post-season tour that he had no desire to leave London, saying, "It's always a bit more difficult in the first season for adaptation, but I have no reason to leave this place, I love it, the fans love me, and I want to stay. It’s really good to come in the first season [to Chelsea] and win two things [the Premier League and the League Cup titles]. Next year I’ll be ready to come back and, hopefully, win a couple more trophies."


title: Diego Costa

text: Due to injury, Costa missed the 2015 FA Community Shield, which Chelsea lost 1–0 to rivals Arsenal. On 23 August, he scored his first goal of the campaign in a 2–3 win at West Bromwich Albion, which was Chelsea's first victory of the campaign, set up by international teammate Pedro. He scored his first Champions League goal for the team on 16 September, a volley from a Cesc Fàbregas ball in a 4–0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv.


title: Diego Costa

text: Three days later, Costa was involved in controversy in a 2–0 home win over Arsenal; he repeatedly slapped Laurent Koscielny and chest-bumped him to the ground, and then confronted Gabriel, who allegedly tried to kick him and was sent off, though footage from ESPN Brazil later showed that little to no contact actually took place. He escaped any punishment at the time. His conduct was deemed "disgusting" by visiting manager Arsène Wenger, and teammate Kurt Zouma initially reacted by saying, "Diego likes to cheat a lot," but later clarified that he meant that "Diego is a player who puts pressure on his opponents". As a consequence, on 21 September, he was charged with violent conduct by the FA. and the following day he was given a three-match suspension. Gabriel's red card was also rescinded, although he was given a one-match ban and £10,000 fine for improper conduct after failing to leave the pitch immediately. After this incident, the "Daily Express" wrote that Costa was "named as [the] Premier League's dirtiest player".


title: Diego Costa

text: After a 1–0 defeat at Stoke City on 7 November, a Britannia Stadium steward made an allegation of assault against Costa, which was resolved without further action. Also that month, Costa was again involved in a skirmish with Liverpool's Martin Škrtel, where he appeared to dig his boot into the Slovak defender's chest, but escaped punishment by the FA. On 29 November, Costa was an unused substitute in a match against Tottenham and threw his bib on the floor when Ruben Loftus-Cheek was sent on at his expense. Mourinho told the media that, "For me his behaviour is normal. A top player on the bench will not be happy."


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa, Oscar and Fàbregas were targeted by Chelsea supporters as the players whose poor form led to the dismissal of popular manager José Mourinho in December 2015. Costa scored twice in the first game under interim replacement Guus Hiddink, a 2–2 home draw against Watford. Costa, who played in a protective mask after breaking his nose in training, improved his form under the Dutchman, scoring seven times in his first eight games under the new management.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 12 March 2016, Costa received his first red card in a Chelsea shirt near the end their 2–0 FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Everton for confronting opponent Gareth Barry. Footage appeared to show Costa biting Barry during that confrontation after clashing heads. Earlier in the match, Costa appeared to spit in the direction of the referee after he was yellow carded for a clash with Barry. Later, both Costa and Barry denied that the bite occurred. Costa's two-match ban was extended to three, and he was fined £20,000. On 2 May, as Chelsea drew 2–2 against Tottenham to deny them the title, Costa was gouged in the eyes by Mousa Dembélé during a mass brawl; the Belgian received a retrospective six-match ban.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 15 August 2016, Costa scored a late winner against West Ham United to give Chelsea a 2–1 win in their season opener. During the match, he caught opposing goalkeeper Adrián with a late challenge when already on a yellow card, but did not receive a second yellow and went on to score the winner; Adrián stated after the match that he was fortunate not to be seriously injured. On 15 October, he scored in a 3–0 over reigning Premier League champions Leicester City, and on 20 November Costa became the first player to reach ten league goals for the season, with the only one of the game at Middlesbrough. With two goals and two assists for league leaders Chelsea, he was voted Premier League Player of the Month for the second time in November 2016, with his manager Antonio Conte picking up the equivalent.


title: Diego Costa

text: In January 2017, Costa fell out with Conte and was dropped from the team, amidst interest from the Chinese Super League. A potential move to Tianjin Quanjian F.C. was curtailed by the league limiting the number of foreign players in each team. He returned to Chelsea's starting line-up on 22 January, opening a 2–0 win over Hull City, his 52nd goal on his 100th appearance. Costa was Chelsea's top scorer with 20 goals as they regained the Premier League title. On 27 May, he scored an equaliser in the 2017 FA Cup Final against Arsenal, a 2–1 loss.


title: Diego Costa

text: In June 2017, Costa was told by Conte that he was not part of his plans for the coming season and that he was free to move to another team via text message. Although Costa was linked to potential moves to the likes of Milan, Monaco, and Everton, he stated that he would only be open to moving back to his former team Atlético Madrid. Costa attempted to find a legal solution through his lawyer in pushing for a move back to Madrid, and said that Chelsea were treating him like a "criminal" by demanding a high transfer fee for his exit. He was excluded from training with the first-team, but was named in the Premier League squad, yet left out of the Champions League squad.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 21 September 2017, Chelsea announced that Costa would return to Atlético at the start of the next transfer window in January 2018. On 26 September 2017, it was announced that after passing medical tests Costa signed a contract with Atlético. He was registered and became eligible to play after 1 January 2018, due to a transfer ban imposed on Atlético.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 3 January 2018, he scored on his return game against Lleida Esportiu in the Copa del Rey round of 16, just five minutes after being substituted on for Ángel Correa in the 64th minute. Three days later in his first league game back, he started in a 2–0 win over Getafe at the Wanda Metropolitano and scored the second goal. However, having already been cautioned for a stray elbow on Djene Dakonam, he was cautioned for a second time for charging into the stands to celebrate his goal, thus being sent off. "ESPN FC" credited Costa as being a key element in Antoine Griezmann's return to form, opining that Costa's "physical presence at centre-forward has understandably distracted opposition defenders quite a lot. Griezmann has now taken up a roaming No. 10 role, with freedom to go where he feels best"; Atlético manager Diego Simeone namechecked three of Atlético's players in particular–Costa, Koke, and Filipe Luís–who had helped Griezmann perform.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa scored the only goal of Atlético's 1–0 home win in over Arsenal in the second leg of the Europa League semi-finals, sending them into the 2018 UEFA Europa League Final 2–1 on aggregate. He played in the final in Lyon, a 3–0 win over Olympique de Marseille.


title: Diego Costa

text: In Atlético's first match of 2018–19, the UEFA Super Cup at the Lilleküla Stadium in Estonia, Costa scored twice – including in the first 50 seconds – in a 4–2 win after extra time against Real Madrid.


title: Diego Costa

text: In April 2019, he was handed an 8-match ban for abusing a referee. On 18 June 2020, Costa marked his 200th club appearance for "Los Colchoneros" when he started in a huge 5–0 away win against Osasuna. Costa scored his fifth goal of the season in a 1–0 home victory against Real Betis to ensure his team a top four finish and qualification for next season's Champions League. On 29 December 2020, Costa and Atlético agreed to terminate their contract, making Costa a free-agent.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 14 August 2021, Costa joined Brazilian club Atlético Mineiro, signing a deal until December 2022. He scored on his debut on 29 August, coming off the bench in the second half and settling a 1–1 league draw to Red Bull Bragantino. On 16 January 2022, after only playing 19 times and scoring 5 goals, Diego Costa terminated his contract and became a free agent.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 12 September 2022, Costa joined Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers until the end of the 2022–23 season. On 1 October 2022, Costa made his league debut for the club, coming on in the 58th minute in a 2–0 defeat to West Ham United at the London Stadium.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 5 March 2013, Costa was called up to the Brazil national team by head coach Luiz Felipe Scolari for friendlies with Italy in Geneva and Russia in London, both taking place late in that month. He made his debut in the first match on 21 March, replacing Fred midway through the second half of the 2–2 draw. Four days later at Stamford Bridge, he replaced Kaká for the last 12 minutes of a 1–1 draw with Russia.


title: Diego Costa

text: In September 2013, the Royal Spanish Football Federation made an official request to FIFA for permission to call up Costa for the Spain national team. He had been granted Spanish nationality in July. FIFA regulations currently permit players with more than one nationality to represent a second country if, like Costa, he had only represented his first country in friendly matches.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 29 October 2013, Costa declared that he wished to play international football for Spain, sending a letter to the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). Following the news, Scolari commented, "A Brazilian player who refuses to wear the shirt of the Brazilian national team and compete in a World Cup in your country is automatically withdrawn. He is turning his back on a dream of millions, to represent our national team, the five-time champions in a World Cup in Brazil."


title: Diego Costa

text: On 28 February 2014, Spain manager Vicente del Bosque included Costa in the squad for a friendly against Italy. He finally made his debut on 5 March, playing the full 90 minutes at his club ground, the Vicente Calderón Stadium, as the hosts won 1–0.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa was named in Spain's 30-man provisional squad for the 2014 World Cup, as well as the final list which was named on 31 May. He returned from the injury which had ended his club season by starting in a warm-up game against El Salvador, winning a penalty in a 2–0 victory. In the first match of the tournament, against the Netherlands, he again won a penalty, conceded by Stefan de Vrij and converted by Xabi Alonso for a 1–0 lead but in an eventual 1–5 defeat; he was booed by Brazilian fans during the match. Costa then started in a 0–2 loss to Chile making little impact as he was substituted for Fernando Torres for the second consecutive match, and Spain were eliminated. He was an unused substitute in the team's third match, a 3–0 defeat of Australia.


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa scored his first goal for Spain with the third in a 4–0 UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying win away to Luxembourg on 12 October 2014. He did not feature again for Spain until 5 September 2015, when he was fouled by Slovakia goalkeeper Matúš Kozáčik for a penalty, which Andrés Iniesta converted for a 2–0 qualifying win at the Estadio Carlos Tartiere in Oviedo. He was booed when he was substituted for Paco Alcácer later in the match. Del Bosque defended Costa from criticism, saying that he performed well against the Slovak defence. However, he was not included in the final squad for the tournament.


title: Diego Costa

text: On 5 September 2016, Costa scored his first international goals for nearly two years, in an 8–0 win over Liechtenstein at the Estadio Reino de León for Spain's opening match of 2018 World Cup qualification, the first being a header from a free-kick by his former Atlético teammate Koke. In May 2018, Costa was called up to Spain's squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. In their opening game on 15 June in Sochi, he scored his two first World Cup goals to help Spain secure a 3–3 draw against Portugal. Five days later, he scored the winning goal of the match against Iran.


title: Diego Costa

text: Friends and family recalled how Costa's style of play changed little over time, with his father stating how as a child, Costa would be furious whenever his team lost. Atlético scout Javier Hernández, on watching 17-year-old Costa play for Penafiel, was impressed by the young forward's determination and power, although found it evident that he was not observing a healthy lifestyle. Costa's Penafiel manager Rui Bento, who was at Sporting CP when Cristiano Ronaldo broke into the team, rated Costa in the same calibre as the Portuguese winger. According to Atlético director Jesús García Pitarch, Costa ranks as one of the best signings of his career, alongside Mohamed Sissoko, Miranda and Ricardo Oliveira.


title: Diego Costa

text: While on loan at Celta de Vigo, Costa drew comparisons to their former Egyptian striker Mido, who was also known for his temper. During his spell at Albacete, Costa was nicknamed after bullfighter Curro Romero and the Tasmanian devil. His manager Juan Ignacio Martínez conceded that Costa played as a model professional for 89 minutes per match, with only one minute per match being his downfall. Costa refers to José Luis Mendilibar as his greatest manager because of his fatherlike "tough love", respecting his talents while keeping strict discipline, once sending Costa to work in a vineyard as a punishment.


title: Diego Costa

text: Earlier in his Atlético Madrid career, Costa's physical play was used in support of Radamel Falcao, thus ensuring a lower goalscoring rate. After Falcao was sold in 2013, the attack was restructured around Costa by manager Diego Simeone. Simeone, who like Costa was known for his competitiveness and aggression, found ways to enhance his discipline while retaining his determination. In 2014, his club teammate Diego Godín described Costa as the team's "heartbeat," commenting that he "gives us everything," also adding: "Sometimes things aren’t going well and he is able to open up the game with his strength and technique." Nick Dorrington of "Bleacher Report" described him as a "battering ram of a striker: Strong, quick and tireless in his pursuit of the ball," while the club's manager Simeone lauded his work-rate as being "contagious."


title: Diego Costa

text: Ahead of his competitive debut for Chelsea in August 2014, BBC Sport pundit Robbie Savage described Costa as "the missing piece in the jigsaw" for the "clear favourites" who "could end up winning the title by five or six points". He explained that Chelsea's defence was already the strongest in the league, but a poorer rate of shot-to-goal conversion had cost them the title. He praised Costa's stature and physical style of play which "suits the Premier League down to the ground" in the same role that Didier Drogba previously played at Chelsea, an opinion also voiced by the league's top scorer of all-time, Alan Shearer. Costa has also been attributed with a greater ability to keep possession of the ball than any Chelsea striker since Drogba first left the club in 2012. That same year, Henry Winter of "The Telegraph" noted that Costa "...has the technique, the strength and the burst of acceleration to destroy defences."


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa's size, technique, and strength, coupled with his link-up play and ability to hold up the ball with his back to goal allow him to be an effective "target-man"; moreover, his constant movement and powerful running in the centre-forward role allows him to distract opponents and in turn create space for teammates. Although he was initially known to be inconsistent in the earlier part of his career, due to his low goalscoring rate, he later established himself as a good finisher as his career progressed, which along with his composure in front of goal and ability inside the penalty box, made him a prolific goalscorer, and even saw him regarded by several pundits and managers as one of the best strikers in the world at his peak. In 2018, Simeone lauded Costa for the "enthusiasm" and "aggression" he brings to Atlético Madrid, as well as his "speed, decisiveness, and physical strength."


title: Diego Costa

text: Costa has been the source of much controversy in his career due to confrontations with opponents, and has received multiple violent conduct charges from The Football Association of England.


title: Diego Costa

text: In January 2015, following two stamp incidents involving Costa and Liverpool players for which Costa received a three-match ban by the FA, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers stated that he thought Costa had fouled his players when "he could easily have hurdled over the player" and "there’s no need to do it". Costa described his style of play as "strong but noble", and refuted allegations that he deliberately aims to injure opponents.


title: Diego Costa

text: In late 2015, Costa was the subject of scrutiny for his comparatively poor start to his second season at Chelsea and his low scoring rate for Spain. French newspaper "L'Equipe" named Costa as the most hated footballer in December 2015, based on his provocative and violent behaviour.


title: Horror film

text: Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.


title: Horror film

text: Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience.


title: Horror film

text: Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of "Dracula" (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produced worldwide, varying in content and style between regions. Horror is particularly prominent in the cinema of Japan, Korea, Italy and Thailand, among other countries.


title: Horror film

text: Despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society and spawned several popular culture icons.


title: Horror film

text: The horror film is defined by "The Dictionary of Film Studies" as representing "disturbing and dark subject matter, seeking to elicit responses of fear, terror, disgust, shock, suspense, and, of course, horror from their viewers." In the chapter "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s" from "Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan" (2002), film critic Robin Wood declared that commonality between horror films are that "normality is threatened by the monster." This was further expanded upon by "The Philosophy of Horror, or Parodoxes of the Heart" by Noël Carroll who added that "repulsion must be pleasurable, as evidenced by the genre's popularity."


title: Horror film

text: Prior to the release of "Dracula" (1931), historian Gary Don Rhodes explained that the idea and terminology of horror film did not exist yet as a codified genre, although critics used the term "horror" to describe films in reviews prior to "Dracula"s release. "Horror" was a term used to describe a variety of meanings. In 1913, "Moving Picture World" defined "horrors" as showcasing "striped convicts, murderous Indians, grinning 'black-handers', homicidal drunkards" Some titles that suggest horror such as "The Hand of Horror" (1914) was a melodrama about a thief who steals from his own sister. During the silent era, the term horror was used to describe everything from "battle scenes" in war films to tales of drug addiction. Historian Gary Don Rhodes stated that the term "horror film" or "horror movie" was not used in early cinema.


title: Horror film

text: The mystery film genre was in vogue and early information on "Dracula" being promoted as mystery film was common, despite the novel, play and film's story relying on the supernatural. Newman discussed the genre in British Film Institute's "Companion to Horror" where he noted that Horror films in the 1930s were easy to identify, but following that decade "the more blurred distinctions become, and horror becomes less like a discrete genre than an effect which can be deployed within any number of narrative settings or narratives patterns".


title: Horror film

text: Various writings on genre from Altman, Lawrence Alloway ("Violent America: The Movies 1946-1964" (1971)) and Peter Hutchings ("Approaches to Popular Film" (1995)) implied it easier to view films as cycles opposed to genres, suggesting the slasher film viewed as a cycle would place it in terms of how the film industry was economically and production wise, the personnel involved in their respective eras, and how the films were marketed exhibited and distributed.


title: Horror film

text: Mark Jancovich in an essay declared that "there is no simple 'collective belief' as to what constitutes the horror genre" between both fans and critics of the genre. Jancovich found that disagreements existed from audiences who wanted to distinguish themselves. This ranged from fans of different genres who may view a film like "Alien" (1979) as belonging to science fiction, and horror fan bases dismissing it as being inauthentic to either genre. Further debates exist among fans of the genre with personal definitions of "true" horror films, such as fans who embrace cult figures like Freddy Kruger of the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, while others disassociate themselves from characters and series and focusing on genre "auteur" directors like Dario Argento, while others fans would deem Argento's films as too mainstream, having preferences more underground films. Andrew Tudor wrote in "Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie" suggested that "Genre is what we collectively believe it to be"


title: Horror film

text: In a study by Jacob Shelton, the many ways that audience members are manipulated through horror films was investigated in detail. Negative space is one such method that can play a part in inducing a reaction, causing one's eyes to remotely rest on anything in the frame – a wall, or the empty black void in the shadows.


title: Horror film

text: The jump scare is a horror film trope, where an abrupt change in image accompanied with a loud sound intends to surprise the viewer. This can also be subverted to create tension, where an audience may feel more unease and discomfort by anticipating a jump scare.


title: Horror film

text: Mirrors are often used in horror films is to create visual depth and build tension. Shelton argues mirrors have been used so frequently in horror films that audiences have been conditioned to fear them, and subverting audience expectations of a jump scare in a mirror can further build tension. Tight framing and close-ups are also commonly used; these can build tension and induce anxiety by not allowing the viewer to see beyond what is around the protagonist.


title: Horror film

text: Music is considered a key component of horror films. In "Music in the Horror Film" (2010), Lerner writes "music in horror film frequently makes us feel threatened and uncomfortable" and intends to intensify the atmosphere created in imagery and themes. Dissonance, atonality and experiments with timbre are typical characteristics used by composers in horror film music.


title: Horror film

text: In the book "Dark Dreams", author Charles Derry conceived horror films as focusing on three broad themes: the horror of personality, horror of Armageddon and the horror of the demonic. The horror of personality derives from monsters being at the centre of the plot, such Frankenstein's monster whose psychology makes them perform unspeakable horrific acts ranging from rapes, mutilations and sadistic killings. Other key works of this form are Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," which feature psychotic murderers without the make-up of a monster. The second 'Armageddon' group delves on the fear of large-scale destruction, which ranges from science fiction works but also of natural events, such as Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963). The last group of the "Fear of the Demonic" features graphic accounts of satanic rites, witchcraft, exorcisms outside traditional forms of worship, as seen in films like "The Exorcist" (1973) or "The Omen" (1976).


title: Horror film

text: Some critics have suggested horror films can be a vessel for exploring contemporary cultural, political and social trends. Jeanne Hall, a film theorist, agrees with the use of horror films in easing the process of understanding issues by making use of their optical elements. The use of horror films can help audiences understand international prior historical events occurs, for example, to depict the horrors of the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, the worldwide AIDS epidemic or post-9/11 pessimism. In many occurrences, the manipulation of horror presents cultural definitions that are not accurate, yet set an example to which a person relates to that specific cultural from then on in their life.


title: Horror film

text: In his book "Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror" (1980), author Siegbert Solomon Prawer stated that those wanting to read into horror films in a linear historical path, citing historians and critics like Carlos Clarens noting that as some film audiences at a time took films made by Tod Browning that starred Bela Lugosi with utmost seriousness, other productions from other countries saw the material set for parody, as children's entertainment or nostalgic recollection. John Kenneth Muir in his books covering the history of horror films through the later decades of the 20th century echoed this statement, stating that horror films mirror the anxieties of "their age and their audience" concluding that "if horror isn't relevant to everyday life... it isn't horrifying".


title: Horror film

text: Beliefs in the supernatural, devils and ghosts have existed in folklore and religions of many cultures for centuries; these would go on to become integral parts of the horror genre. Zombies, for example, originated from Haitian folklore. Prior to the development of film in the late 1890s, Gothic fiction was developed. These included "Frankenstein" (1818) and short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, which would later have several film adaptations. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, more key horror texts would be developed than any other period preceding it. While they were not all straight horror stories, the horrific elements of them lingered in popular culture, with their set pieces becoming staples in horror cinema.


title: Horror film

text: Critic and author Kim Newman described Georges Méliès "Le Manoir du diable" as the first horror film, featuring elements that would become staples in the genre: images of demons, ghosts, and haunted castles.


title: Horror film

text: The early 20th century cinema had production of film so hectic, several adaptions of stories were made within months of each other. This included Poe adaptations made in France and the United States, to "Frankenstein" adaptations being made in the United States and Italy. The most adapted of these stories was "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886), which had three version made in 1920 alone.


title: Horror film

text: Early German cinema involved Poe-like stories, such as "The Student of Prague" (1913) which featured director and actor Paul Wegener. Wegner would go on to work in similar features such as "The Golem and the Dancing Girl" and its related "Golem" films. Other actors of the era who featured in similar films included Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt who starred in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", leading to similar roles in other German productions. F. W. Murnau would also direct an adaptation of "Nosferatu" (1922), a film Newman described as standing "as the only screen adaptation of "Dracula" to be primarily interested in horror, from the character's rat-like features and thin body, the film was, even more so than "Caligari", "a template for the horror film."


title: Horror film

text: Following the 1927 success of Broadway play of "Dracula", Universal Studios officially purchased the rights to both the play and the novel. After the "Dracula"s premiere on February 12, 1931, the film received what authors of the book "Universal Horrors" proclaimed as "uniformly positive, some even laudatory" reviews. The commercial reception surprised Universal who forged ahead to make similar production of "Frankenstein" (1931). "Frankenstein" also proved to be a hit for Universal which led to both "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" making film stars of their leads: Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff respectively. Karloff starred in Universal's follow-up "The Mummy" (1932), which Newman described as the studio knowing "what they were getting" patterning the film close to the plot of "Dracula". Lugosi and Karloff would star together in several Poe-adaptations in the 1930s.


title: Horror film

text: Following the release of "Dracula", "The Washington Post" declared the film's box office success led to a cycle of similar films while "The New York Times" stated in a 1936 overview that "Dracula" and the arrival of sound film began the "real triumph of these spectral thrillers". Other studios began developing their own horror projects with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros. Universal would also follow-up with several horror films until the mid-1930s.


title: Horror film

text: In 1935, the President of the BBFC Edward Shortt, wrote "although a separate category has been established for these [horrific] films, I am sorry to learn they are on the increase...I hope that the producers and renters will accept this word of warning, and discourage this type of subject as far as possible." As the United Kingdom was a significant market for Hollywood, American producers listened to Shortt's warning, and the number of Hollywood produced horror films decreased in 1936. A trade paper "Variety" reported that Universal Studios abandonment of horror films after the release of "Dracula's Daughter" (1936) was that "European countries, especially England are prejudiced against this type product ." At the end of the decade, a profitable re-release of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" would encourage Universal to produce "Son of Frankenstein" (1939) featuring both Lugosi and Karloff, starting off a resurgence of the horror film that would continue into the mid-1940s.


title: Horror film

text: After the success of "Son of Frankenstein" (1939), Universal's horror films received what author Rick Worland of "The Horror Film" called "a second wind" and horror films continued to be produced at a feverish pace into the mid-1940s. Universal looked into their 1930s horror properties to develop new follow-ups such in their "The Invisible Man" and "The Mummy" series. Universal saw potential in making actor Lon Chaney, Jr. a new star to replace Karloff as Chaney had not distinguished himself in either A or B pictures. Chaney, Jr. would become a horror star for the decade showing in the films in "The Wolf Man" series, portraying several of Universal's monster characters. B-Picture studios also developed films that imitated the style of Universal's horror output. Karloff worked with Columbia Pictures acting in various films as a "Mad doctor"-type characters starting with "The Man They Could Not Hang" (1939) while Lugosi worked between Universal and poverty row studios such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) for "The Devil Bat" (1941) and Monogram for nine features films.


title: Horror film

text: In March 1942, producer Val Lewton ended his working relationship with independent producer David O. Selznick to work for RKO Radio Pictures' Charles Koerner, becoming the head of a new unit created to develop B-movie horror feature films. According to screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen and director Jacques Tourneur, Lewton's first horror production "Cat People" (1942), Lewton wanted to make some different from the Universal horror with Tourneu describing it as making "something intelligent and in good taste". Lewton developed a series of horror films for RKO, described by Newman as "polished, doom-haunted, poetic" while film critic Roger Ebert the films Lewton produced in the 1940s were "landmark[s] in American movie history". Several horror films of the 1940s borrowed from "Cat People", specifically feature a female character who fears that she has inherited the tendency to turn into a monster or attempt to replicate the shadowy visual style of the film. Between 1947 and 1951, Hollywood made almost no new horror films. This was due to sharply declining sales, leading to both major and poverty row studios to re-release their older horror films during this period rather than make new ones.


title: Horror film

text: The early 1950s featured only a few gothic horror films developed, prior to the release of Hammer Film Productions's gothic films, Hammer originally began developing American-styled science fiction films in the early 1950s but later branched into horror with their colour films "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Dracula" (1958). These films would birth two horror film stars: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and led to further horror film production from Hammer in the decade.


title: Horror film

text: Among the most influential horror films of the 1950s was "The Thing From Another World" (1951), with Newman stating that countless science fiction horror films of the 1950s would follow in its style. For five years following the release of "The Thing From Another World", nearly every film involving aliens, dinosaurs or radioactive mutants would be dealt with matter-of-fact characters as seen in the film. Films featuring vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein's monster also took to having science fiction elements of the era such as have characters have similar plot elements from "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Horror films also expanded further into international productions in the later half of the 1950s, with films in the genre being made in Mexico, Italy, Germany and France.


title: Horror film

text: The horror film changed dramatically in 1960, specifically, with Alfred Hitchcock's film "Psycho" (1960) based on the novel by Robert Bloch. Newman declared that the film elevated the idea of a multiple-personality serial killer that set the tone future film that was only touched upon in earlier melodramas and "film noirs". The release of "Psycho" led to similar pictures about the psychosis of characters and a brief reappearance of what Newman described as "stately, tasteful" horror films such as Jack Clayton's "The Innocents" (1961) and Robert Wise's "The Haunting" (1963). Newman described Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) the other "event" horror film of the 1960s after "Psycho".


title: Horror film

text: Roger Corman working with AIP to make "House of Usher" (1960), which led several future Poe-adaptations other 1960s Poe-adaptations by Corman, and provided roles for aging horror stars such as Karloff and Chaney, Jr. These films were made to compete with the British colour horror films from Hammer in the United Kingdom featuring their horror stars Cushing and Fisher, whose "Frankenstein" series continued from 1958 to 1973 Competition for Hammer appeared in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom with Amicus Productions who also made feature film featuring Cushing and Lee. Like "Psycho", Amicus drew from contemporary sources such as Bloch ("The Skull" (1965) and "Torture Garden" (1967)) led to Hammer adapting works by more authors from the era.


title: Horror film

text: Mario Bava's "Black Sunday" (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Earlier British horror films had their gorier scenes cut on initial release or suggested through narration while "Psycho" suggested its violence through fast editing. "Black Sunday", by contrast, depicted violence without suggestion. This level of violence would later be seen in other works of Bava and other Italian films such the "giallo" of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Other independent American productions of the 1960s expanded on the gore shown in the films in a genre later described as the splatter film, with films by Herschell Gordon Lewis such as "Blood Feast", while Newman found that the true breakthrough of these independent films was George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) which set a new attitudes for the horror film, one that was suspicious of authority figures, broke taboos of society and was satirical between its more suspenseful set pieces.


title: Horror film

text: Historian John Kenneth Muir described the 1970s as a "truly eclectic time" for horror cinema, noting a mixture of fresh and more personal efforts on film while other were a resurrection of older characters that have appeared since the 1930s and 1940s. "Night of the Living Dead" had what Newman described as a "slow burning influence" on horror films of the era and what he described as "the first of the genre auteurs" who worked outside studio settings. These included American directors such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven and Brian De Palma as well as directors working outside America such as Bob Clark, David Cronenberg and Dario Argento. Prior to "Night of the Living Dead", the monsters of horror films could easily be banished or defeated by the end of the film, while Romero's film and the films of other filmmakers would often suggest other horror still lingered after the credits.


title: Horror film

text: Both Amicus and Hammer ceased feature film production in the 1970s. Remakes of proved to be popular choices for horror films in the 1970s, with films like "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" (1978) and tales based on "Dracula" which continued into the late 1970s with John Badham's "Dracula" (1979) and Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979). Although not an official remake, the last high-grossing horror film of decade, "Alien" (1979) took b-movie elements from films like "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (1958). Newman has suggested high grossing films like "Alien", "Jaws" (1975) and "Halloween" (1978) became hits by being "relentless suspense machines with high visual sophistication." He continued that "Jaws" memorable music theme and its monster not being product of society like Norman Bates in "Psycho" had carried over into "Halloween"s Michael Myers and its films theme music.


title: Horror film

text: With the appearance of home video in the 1980s, horror films were subject to censorship in the United Kingdom in a phenomenon popularly known as "video nasties", leading to video collections being seized by police and some people being jailed for selling or owning some horror films. Newman described the response to the video nasty issue led to horror films becoming "dumber than the previous decade" and although films were not less gory, they were "more lightweight [...] becoming more disposable, less personal works." Newman noted that these directors who created original material in the 1970s such as Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Tobe Hooper would all at least briefly "play it safe" with Stephen King adaptations or remakes of the 1950s horror material.


title: Horror film

text: Replacing Frankenstein's monster and Dracula were new popular characters with more general names like Jason Voorhees ("Friday the 13th"), Michael Myers ("Halloween"), and Freddy Kruger ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"). Unlike the characters of the past who were vampires or created by mad scientists, these characters were seemingly people with common sounding names who developed the slasher film genre of the era. The genre was derided by several contemporary film critics of the era such as Roger Ebert, and often were highly profitable in the box office. The 1980s highlighted several films about body transformation, through special effects and make-up artists like Rob Bottin and Rick Baker who allowed for more detailed and graphic transformation scenes or the human body in various forms of horrific transformation.


title: Horror film

text: Other more traditional styles continued into the 1980s, such as supernatural themed films involving haunted houses, ghosts, and demonic possession. Among the most popular films of the style included Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980), Hooper's high-grossing "Poltergeist" (1982). After the release of films based on Stephen King's books like "The Shining" and "Carrie" led to further film adaptations of his novels throughout the 1980s.


title: Horror film

text: Horror films of the 1990s also failed to develop as many major new directors of the genre as it had in the 1960s or 1970s. Young independent filmmakers such as Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, Michael Moore and Quentin Tarantino broke into cinema outside the genre at non-genre festivals like the Sundance Film Festival. Newman noted that the early 1990s was "not a good time for horror", noting excessive release of sequels. Muir commented that in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, the United States did not really have a "serious enemy" internationally, leading to horror films adapting to fictional enemies predominantly within America, with the American government, large businesses, organized religion and the upper class as well as supernatural and occult items such as vampires or Satanists filling in the horror villains of the 1990s. The rapid growth of technology in the 1990s with the internet and the fears of the Year 2000 problem causing the end of the world were reflected in plots of films.


title: Horror film

text: Other genre-based trends of the 1990s, included the post-modern horror films such as "Scream" (1996) were made in this era. Post-modern horror films continued into the 2000s, eventually just being released as humorous parody films. By the end of the 1990s, three films were released that Newman described as "cultural phenomenons." These included Hideo Nakata's "Ring" (1998), which was the major hit across Asia, "The Sixth Sense", another ghost story which Newman described as making "an instant cliche" of twist endings, and the low-budget independent film "The Blair Witch Project" (1999). Newman described the first trend of horror films in the 2000s followed the success of "The Blair Witch Project", but predominantly parodies or similar low-budget imitations.


title: Horror film

text: Teen oriented series began in the era with "Final Destination" while the success of the 1999 remake of William Castle's "House on Haunted Hill" led to a series of remakes in the decade. The popularity of the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) led to a revival in American zombie films in the late 2000s. Beyond remakes, other long-dormant horror franchises such as "The Exorcist" and "Friday the 13th" received new feature films. After the success of "Ring" (1998), several films came from Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan with similar detective plotlines investigating ghosts. This trend was echoed in the West with films with similar plots and Hollywood remakes of Asian films like "The Ring" (2002). In the United Kingdom, there was what Newman described as a "modest revival" of British horror films, first with war-related horror films and several independent films of various styles, with Newman describing the "breakouts of the new British horror" including "28 Days Later" (2002) and "Shaun of the Dead" (2004).


title: Horror film

text: David Edelstein of "The New York Times" coined a term for a genre he described as "torture porn" in a 2006 article, as a label for films described, often retroactively, to over 40 films since 2003. Edelstein lumped in films such as "Saw" (2004) and "Wolf Creek" (2005) under this banner suggesting audience a "titillating and shocking" while film scholars of early 21st century horror films described them as "intense bodily acts and visible bodily representations" to produce uneasy reactions. Kevin Wetmore, using the "Saw" film series suggested these film suggested reflected a post-9/11 attitude towards increasing pessimism, specifically one of "no redemption, no hope, no expectations that 'we're going to be OK'"


title: Horror film

text: After the film studio Blumhouse had success with "Paranormal Activity" (2007), the studio continued to produce films became hits in the 2010s with film series "Insidious". This led to what Newman described as the companies policy on "commercial savvy with thematic risk that has often paid off", such as "Get Out" (2017) and series like "The Purge". Laura Bradley in her article for "Vanity Fair" noted that both large and small film studios began noticing Blumhouse's success, including A24, which became popular with films like "The Witch" (2015) and "Midsommar" (2019). Bradley commented how some of these films had been classified as "elevated horror", a term used for works that were 'elevated' beyond traditional or pure genre films, but declared "horror aficionados and some critics pushed back against the notion that these films are doing something entirely new" noting their roots in films like "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). The increase in use of streaming services in the 2010s has also been suggested as boosting the popularity of horror; as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video producing and distributing numerous works in the genre, Shudder launched in 2015 as a horror-specific service. In the early 2010s, a wave of horror films began exhibiting what Virginie Sélavy described as psychedelic tendency. This was inspired by experimentation and subgenres of the 1970s, specifically folk horror. The trend began with "Enter the Void" (2009) and "Beyond the Black Rainbow" (2010) and continued throughout the decade with films like "Climax" (2018).


title: Horror film

text: Adapted from the Stephen King novel, "It" (2017) set a box office record for horror films by grossing $123.1 million on opening weekend in the United States and nearly $185 million globally. The success of "It" led to further King novels being adapted into new feature films. The beginning of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the film industry, leading to several horror films being held back from release, or having their production halted. During lockdowns, streaming for films featuring a fictional apocalypse increased.


title: Horror film

text: Horror is a malleable genre and often can be altered to accommodate other genre types such as science fiction, making some films difficult to categorize.


title: Horror film

text: A genre that emerged in the 1970s, body horror films focus on the process of a bodily transformation. In these films, the body is either engulfed by some larger process or heading towards fragmentation and collapse. In these films, the focus can be on apocalyptic implication of an entire society being overtaken, but the focus is generally upon an individual and their sense of identity, primarily them watching their own body change. The earliest appearance of the sub-genre was the work of director David Cronenberg, specifically with early films like "Shivers" (1975). Mark Jancovich of the University of Manchester declared that the transformation scenes in the genre provoke fear and repulsion, but also pleasure and excitement such as in "The Thing" (1982) and "The Fly" (1986).


title: Horror film

text: Comedy horror combines elements of comedy and horror film. The comedy horror genre often crosses over with the black comedy genre. It occasionally includes horror films with lower ratings that are aimed at a family audience. The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving is cited as "the first great comedy-horror story".


title: Horror film

text: Folk horror uses elements of folklore or other religious and cultural beliefs to instil fear in audiences. Folk horror films have featured rural settings and themes of isolation, religion and nature. Frequently cited examples are "Witchfinder General" (1968), "The Blood on Satan's Claw" (1971), "The Wicker Man" (1973) and "Midsommar" (2019). Local folklore and beliefs have been noted as being prevalent in horror films from the Southeast Asia region, including Thailand and Indonesia.


title: Horror film

text: The found footage horror film "technique" gives the audience a first person view of the events on screen, and presents the footage as being discovered after. Horror films which are framed as being made up of "found-footage" merge the experiences of the audience and characters, which may induce suspense, shock, and bafflement. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas noted that the popularity of sites like YouTube in 2006 sparked a taste for amateur media, leading to the production of further films in the found footage horror genre later in the 2000s including the particularly financially successful "Paranormal Activity" (2007).


title: Horror film

text: In their book "Gothic film", Richard J. McRoy and Richard J. Hand stated that "Gothic" can be argued as a very loose subgenre of horror, but argued that "Gothic" as a whole was a style like "film noir" and not bound to certain cinematic elements like the Western or science fiction film. The term "gothic" is frequently used to describe a stylized approach to showcasing location, desire, and action in film. Contemporary views of the genre associate it with imagery of castles at hilltops and labyrinth like ancestral mansions that are in various states of disrepair. Narratives in these films often focus on an audiences fear and attraction to social change and rebellion. The genre can be applied to films as early as "The Haunted Castle" (1896), "Frankenstein" (1910) as well as to more complex iterations such as Park Chan-wook's "Stoker" (2013) and Jordan Peele's "Get Out" (2017).


title: Horror film

text: The gothic style is applied to several films throughout the history of the horror film. This includes the Universal's horror films of the 1930s, the revival of gothic horror in the 1950s and 1960s with films from Hammer, Roger Corman's Poe-cycle, and several Italian productions. By the 1970s American and British productions often had vampire films set in a contemporary setting, such as Hammer Films had their "Dracula" stories set in a modern setting and made other horror material which pushed the erotic content of their vampire films that was initiated by "Black Sunday". In the 1980s, the older horror characters of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster rarely appeared, with vampire themed films continued often in the tradition of authors like Anne Rice where vampirism becomes a lifestyle choice rather than plague or curse. Following the release of Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), a small wave of high-budgeted gothic horror romance films were released in the 1990s.


title: Horror film

text: Also described as "eco-horror", the natural horror film is a subgenre "featuring nature running amok in the form of mutated beasts, carnivorous insects, and normally harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers." In 1963, Hitchcock defined a new genre nature taking revenge on humanity with "The Birds" (1963) that was expanded into a trend into the 1970s. Following the success of "Willard" (1971), a film about killer rats, 1972 had similar films with "Stanley" (1972) and an official sequel "Ben" (1972). Other films followed in suit such as "Night of the Lepus" (1972), "Frogs" (1972), "Bug" (1975), "Squirm" (1976) and what Muir described as the "turning point" in the genre with "Jaws" (1975), which became the highest-grossing film at that point and moved the animal attacks genres "towards a less-fantastic route" with less giant animals and more real-life creatures such as "Grizzly" (1976) and "Night Creature" (1977), "Orca" (1977), and "Jaws 2" (1978). The film is linked with the environmental movements that became more mainstream in the 1970s and early 1980s such vegetarianism, animal rights movements, and organizations such as Greenpeace. Following "Jaws", sharks became the most popular animal of the genre, ranging from similar such as "" (1976) and "Great White" (1981) to the "Sharknado" film series. James Marriott found that the genre had "lost momentum" since the 1970s while the films would still be made towards the turn of the millennium.


title: Horror film

text: The slasher film is a horror subgenre, which involving a killer murdering a group of people (usually teenagers), usually by use of bladed tools. In his book on the genre, author Adam Rockoff that these villains represented a "rogue genre" of films with "tough, problematic, and fiercely individualistic." Following the financial success of "Friday the 13th" (1980), at least 20 other slasher films appeared in 1980 alone. These films usually revolved around five properties: unique social settings (campgrounds, schools, holidays) and a crime from the past committed (an accidental drowning, infidelity, a scorned lover) and a ready made group of victims (camp counselors, students, wedding parties). The genre was derided by several contemporary film critics of the era such as Ebert, and often were highly profitable in the box office. The release of "Scream" (1996), led to a brief revival of the slasher films for the 1990s. Other countries imitated the American slasher film revival, such as South Korea's early 2000s cycle with "Bloody Beach" (2000), "Nightmare" (2000) and "The Record" (2000).


title: Horror film

text: Supernatural horror films integrate supernatural elements, such as the afterlife, spirit possession and religion into the horror genre.


title: Horror film

text: Teen horror is a horror subgenre that victimizes teenagers while usually promoting strong, anti-conformity teenage leads, appealing to young generations. This subgenre often depicts themes of sex, under-aged drinking, and gore. Horror films aimed a young audience featuring teenage monsters grew popular in the 1950s with several productions from American International Pictures (AIP) and productions of Herman Cohen with "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957) and "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" (1957). This led to later productions like "Daughter of Dr. Jekyll" (1957) and "Frankenstein's Daughter" (1958). Teen horror cycle in the 1980s often showcased explicit gore and nudity, with John Kenneth Muir described as cautionary conservative tales where most of the films stated if you partook in such vices such as drugs or sex, your punishment of death would be handed out.


title: Horror film

text: Prior to "Scream", there were no popular teen horror films in the early 1990s. After the financial success of "Scream", teen horror films became increasingly reflexive and self-aware until the end of the 1990s with films like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997) and non-slasher "The Faculty" (1998). The genre lost prominence as teen films dealt with threats with more realism in films like "Donnie Darko" (2001) and "Crazy/Beautiful" (2001). In her book on the 1990s teen horror cycle, Alexandra West described the general trend of these films is often looked down upon by critics, journals, and fans as being too glossy, trendy, and sleek to be considered worthwhile horror films.


title: Horror film

text: Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgenre of psychological thriller, and often uses mystery elements and characters with unstable, unreliable, or disturbed psychological states to enhance the suspense, drama, action, and paranoia of the setting and plot and to provide an overall unpleasant, unsettling, or distressing atmosphere.


title: Horror film

text: Horror films in Asia have been noted as being inspired by national, cultural or religious folklore, particularly beliefs in ghosts or spirits. In "Asian Horror", Andy Richards writes that there is a "widespread and engrained acceptance of supernatural forces" in many Asian cultures, and suggests this is related to animist, pantheist and karmic religious traditions, as in Buddhism and Shintoism. Although Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean horror has arguably received the most international attention, horror also makes up a considerable proportion of Cambodian and Malaysian cinema.


title: Horror film

text: The Cinema of India produces the largest amount of films in the world, ranging from Bollywood (Hindi cinema based in Mumbai) to other regions such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Unlike Hollywood and most Western cinematic traditions, horror films produced in India incorporate romance, song-and-dance, and other elements in the "masala" format, where as many genres as possible are bundled into a single film. Odell and Le Blanc described the Indian horror film as "a popular, but minor part of the country's film output" and that "has not found a true niche in mainstream Indian cinema." These films are made outside of Mumbai, and are generally seen as disreputable to their more respectable popular cinema. As of 2007, the Central Board of Film Certification, India's censorship board has stated films "pointless or unavoidable scenes of violence, cruelty and horror, scenes of violence intended to provide entertainment and such scene that may have the effect of desensitising or dehumanizing people are not shown."


title: Horror film

text: The earliest Indian horror films were films about ghosts and reincarnation or rebirth such as "Mahal" (1949). These early films tended to be spiritual pieces or tragic dramas opposed to having visceral content. While prestige films from Hollywood productions had been shown in Indian theatres, the late 1960s had seen a parallel market for minor American and European co-productions to films like the James Bond film series and the films of Mario Bava. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Ramsay Brothers created a career in the lower reaches of the Bombay film industry making low-budget horror films, primarily influenced by Hammer's horror film productions, with little known about their production or distribution history. The Ramsay Brothers were a family of seven brothers who made horror films that were featured monsters and evil spirits that mix in song and dance sections as well as comic interludes. Most of their films played at smaller cinema in India, with Tulsi Ramsay, one of the brothers, later stating "Places where even the trains don't stop, that's where our business was." Their horror films are generally dominated by low-budget productions, such as those by the Ramsay Brothers. Their most successful film was "Purana Mandir" (1984), which was the second highest-grossing film in India that year. The influence of American productions would have an effect on later Indian productions such as "The Exorcist" which would lead to films involving demonic possession such as "Gehrayee" (1980). India has also made films featuring zombies and vampires that drew from American horror films opposed to indigenous myths and stories. Other directors, such as Mohan Bhakri made low budget highly exploitive films such as "Cheekh" (1985) and his biggest hit, the monster movie "Khooni Mahal" (1987).


title: Horror film

text: Horror films are not self-evident categories in Tamil and Telugu films and it was only until the late 1980s that straight horror cinema was regularly produced with films like "Uruvam" (1991), "Sivi" (2007), and "Eeram" (2009) were released. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a flurry of commercially successful Telugu horror films like "A Film by Aravind" (2005), "Mantra" (2007), and "Arundhati" (2009) were released. Ram Gopal Varma made films that generally defied the conventions of popular Indian cinema, making horror films like "Raat" (1992) and "Bhoot" (2003), with the latter film not containing and comic scenes or musical numbers. In 2018, the horror film "Tumbbad" premiered in the critics' week section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival—the first ever Indian film to open the festival.