Horror cinema, with its in-built tropes of shock and tension, has always provided a convenient way for culture to process real-life fears. Later the chaos and bloodshed of the Vietnam war inspired a cycle of cynical, anarchic and bloody movies such as Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven’s Last House On the Left, in which the rules of civilised society collapse amid senseless, numbing violence. In the 1950s, Cold War paranoia led to a spate of films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers about aliens hiding among us, looking to destroy humanity from within. Horror movies have always reflected and explored the political climate of the eras that produced them.
