Elements of horror:
The amount of dismemberment and intensity of the violence certainly changed from story to story. In the original Perrault, the violence occurred in the past. While there is a large pool of blood, the murders themselves are not described. However, in the Grimms' "Fitcher's Bird," there is a graphic decapitation followed by dismemberment and blood spill. In the Grimms' "Robber Bridegroom," a girl is dismembered, covered in salt, and served to eat, while in "Mr. Fox," the girl's hand is sliced off.
I think it is important to note that the violence is used as much for plot as for sensationalism. In all of the non-Perrault stories, the dismembered body parts act as messages to the real heroine of each tale. The Perrault version actually suffers without the violence, as the plot situation is handled with a single awkward sentence: "(these were all the women Bluebeard had married and then murdered one after another)". By "seeing" the violence instead of hearing about it in past tense, the Bluebeard-type villain becomes far more evil.
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The violence did seem to escalate after the original Perrault tale. This is probably due to the different audiences since Perrault's audience was the elite who told stories in drawing rooms for entertainment.
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