The History of British Horror and Comedy

Horror

In David Pirie's book Heritage of Horror, he explains British film could only claim 1970's Gothic genre as its own with films like Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Devil Rides Out. However at the end of this decade, British Horror lost its popularity and place in British Film. More recent Zombie Horrors have been influenced by American and European Horrors


Comedy

British comdy closely links to British culture, it's as if only British audiences understand the humor e.g. Catherine Tate and Little Britain. Recent Rom Coms do have American actresses to appeal to an audience wider than just the Brits.



A key scene in Shaun of the dead where the main characters bump into characters that look almost identical. This is a part of the outsiders joke to international audiences. However there is an inner joke for British audiences as they might recognise characters such as Lucas Williams from Little Britian. This suggests the film has a primanry audience of British people and a secondary audience of US and Eurpopean audiences.