Timeline for Horror Films from 1980s - 2000s

1890s-1920s Horror Movies

It didn't take long after the advent of motion picture technology in the late 19th century for filmmakers to dabble in the horror genre, as witnessed by French director Georges Méliès' 1896 short "The House of the Devil", often credited as being the first horror movie.Although America was home to the first Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde movie adaptations, the most influential horror films through the 1920s came from Germany's Expressionist movement, with films like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Nosferatu" influencing the next generation of American cinema.

Actor Lon Chaney, meanwhile, almost singlehandedly kept American horror afloat, with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Monster", which set the stage for the Universal dominance of the '30s.

1896: The House of the Devil
1910: Frankenstein
1913: The Student of Prague
1920: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1920: The Golem: Or How He Came into the World
1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1922: Haxan
1922: Nosfertu
1923: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1924: The Hands of Orlac
1924: Waxworks
1925: The Monster
1925: The Phantom of the Opera
1926: Faust
1927: The Cat and the Canary

1930s Horror Movies

Building upon the success of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, Universal Studios entered a Golden Age of monster movies in the '30s, releasing a string of hit horror movies beginning with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931 and including the controversial Freaks and a Spanish version of Dracula that is often thought to be superior to the English-language version.

Germany continued its artistic streak in the early '30s, with Vampyr and the Fritz Lang thriller M, but Nazi rule forced much of the filmmaking talent to emigrate. The '30s also witnessed the first American werewolf film (The Werewolf of London), the first zombie movie (White Zombie) and the landmark special effects blockbuster King Kong.

1931: Dracula
1931: Drácula
1931: Frankenstein
1931: M
1931: Vampyr
1932: Freaks
1932: The Mask of Fu Manchu
1932: The Mummy
1932: The Old Dark House
1932: White Zombie
1933: The Invisible Man
1933: Island of Lost Souls
1933: King Kong
1934: The Black Cat
1935: The Bride of Frankenstein
1935: The Werewolf of London

1940s Horror Movies

Despite the success of The Wolf Man early in the decade, by the 1940s, Universal's monster movie formula was growing stale, as evidenced by sequels like The Ghost of Frankenstein and desperate ensemble films with multiple monsters, beginning with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Eventually the studio even resorted to comedy-horror pairings, like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which met with some success.

Other studios stepped in to fill the horror void with more serious-minded fare, including RKO's brooding Val Lewton productions, most notably Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. MGM, meanwhile, contributed The Picture of Dorian Gray, which won an Academy Award for cinematography, and a remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, while Paramount released the highly regarded haunted house picture The Uninvited. Notable international entry Mahal marked India's first foray into horror.

1941: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1941: King of the Zombies
1941: The Wolf Man
1942: Cat People
1943: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
1943: I Walked with a Zombie
1944: The Uninvited
1945: Dead of Night
1945: The Picture of Dorian Gray
1948: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
1949: Mahal
1949: Mighty Joe Young

1950s Horror Movies

Various cultural forces helped shape horror movies in the '50s. The Cold War fed fears of invasion (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, The Blob), nuclear proliferation fed visions of rampaging mutants (Them!, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla) and scientific breakthroughs led to mad scientist plots (The Fly).


Competition for increasingly jaded audiences led filmmakers to resort to either gimmicks like 3-D (House of Wax, The Creature from the Black Lagoon) and the various stunts of William Castle productions (House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler) or, in the case of Great Britain's Hammer Films, explicit, vividly colored violence.International efforts include the first full-length Japanese horror movie (Ugetsu), the first Italian horror movie in the sound era (I Vampiri) and the acclaimed French thriller Diabolique.

1951: The Thing from Another World
1953: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
1953: House of Wax
1953: Ugetsu
1954: The Creature from the Black Lagoon
1954: Godzilla
1954: Them!
1955: Diabolique
1955: The Night of the Hunter
1956: The Bad Seed
1956: I Vampiri
1956: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1957: The Curse of Frankenstein
1957: I Was a Teen-age Werewolf
1957: The Incredible Shrinking Man
1958: The Blob
1958: The Fly
1958: Horror of Dracula
1959: House on Haunted Hill
1959: Plan 9 from Outer Space
1959: The Tingler

1960s Horror Movies

Perhaps no decade had more seminal, acclaimed horror films than the '60s. Reflecting the socialrevolution of the era, the movies were more edgy, featuring controversial levels of violence (Blood Feast, Witchfinder General) and sexuality (Repulsion).Films like Peeping Tom and Psycho were precursors to the slasher movies of the coming decades, while George Romero's Night of the Living Dead changed the face of zombie movies forever.

Horror luminaries of the time included Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, The Birds), Vincent Price (13 Ghosts, The Fall of the House of Usher, Witchfinder General), Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs), Roman Polanski (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby) and Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath).


1960: 13 Ghosts
1960: Black Sunday
1960: Eyes Without a Face
1960: The Fall of the House of Usher
1960: The Little Shop of Horrors
1960: Peeping Tom
1960: Psycho
1960: Village of the Damned
1961: The Innocents
1962: Carnival of Souls
1962: Mondo Cane
1962: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
1963: At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
1963: The Birds
1963: Black Sabbath
1963: Blood Feast
1963: The Haunting
1964: Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte
1964: Kwaidan
1964: Two Thousand Maniacs
1965: Dr Terror's House of Horrors
1965: Repulsion
1968: The Rape of the Vampire
1968: Night of the Living Dead
1968: Rosemary's Baby
1968: Spider Baby
1968: Witchfinder General

1970s Horror Movies

The '70s pushed the envelope even further than the '60s, reflecting a nihilism born of the Vietnam era. Social issues of the day were tackled, from sexism (The Stepford Wives) to consumerism (Dawn of the Dead) to religion (The Wicker Man) and war (Deathdream).

Exploitation Movies hit their stride in the decade, boldly flouting moral conventions with graphic sex (I Spit on Your Grave, Vampyros Lesbos) and violence (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes), the latter reflected particularly in a spate of zombie movies (Dawn of the Dead) and cannibal films (The Man from Deep River).The shock factor even pushed films like The Exorcist and Jaws to blockbuster success. Amidst the chaos, the modern slasher film was born in Canada's Black Christmas and America's Halloween.

1971: The Abominable Dr. Phibes
1971: Twitch of the Death Nerve
1971: Vampyros Lesbos
1972: Blacula
1973: The Exorcist
1972: The Last House on the Left
1972: The Man from Deep River
1973: Sisters
1973: The Wicker Man
1974: Black Christmas
1974: Deathdream
1974: It's Alive
1974: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
1974: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
1975: Jaws
1975: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
1975: Shivers
1975: The Stepford Wives
1976: Carrie
1976: The Omen
1977: The Hills Have Eyes
1977: Suspiria
1978: Dawn of the Dead
1978: Faces of Death
1978: The Fury
1978: Halloween
1978: I Spit on Your Grave
1979: Alien
1979: The Amityville Horror
1979: Phantasm
1979: When a Stranger Calls

1980s Horror Movies

Horror in the first half of the '80s was defined by slashers like Friday the 13th, Prom Night and A Nightmare on Elm Street, while the latter half tended to take a more ligh the arted look at the genre, mixing in comic elements in films like The Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead 2, Re-Animator and House. Throughout the '80s, Stephen King's fingerprints were felt, as adaptations of his books littered the decade, from The Shining to Pet Sematary.

Fatal Attraction, meanwhile, spawned a series of "stalker thrillers," but despite the efforts of newcomers like Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins) and Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child's Play), horror's box office might had subsided by the end of the '80s.

1980: Cannibal Holocaust
1980: Prom Night
1980: The Shining
1980: Friday The 13th
1981: An American Werewolf in London
1981: The Beyond
1981: The Evil Dead
1981: The Howling
1981: My Bloody Valentine
1981: Scanners
1982: Cat People
1982: Creepshow
1982: Poltergeist
1983: The Hunger
1984: Ghostbusters
1984: Gremlins
1984: A Nightmare on Elm Street
1984: Silent Night, Deadly Night
1985: Demons
1985: Fright Night
1985: Mr. Vampire
1985: Re-Animator
1985: The Return of the Living Dead
1985: The Toxic Avenger
1986: Aliens
1986: House
1986: Manhunter
1987: A Chinese Ghost Story
1987: Evil Dead 2
1987: Fatal Attraction
1987: Hellraiser
1987: The Lost Boys
1987: Near Dark
1987: Predator
1988: Child's Play
1988: Night of the Demons
1988: Pumpkinhead
1988: The Vanishing
1989: Pet Sematary

1990s Horror Movies

The early '90s brought unrivaled critical acclaim for the horror genre, with The Silence of the Lambs sweeping the major Academy awards in 1992, a year after Kathy Bates won the Oscar for Best Lead Actress for Misery and Whoopi Goldberg won for Best Supporting Actress for Ghost. Such success seemed to spur studios into funding large-scale horror-themed projects, such as Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Wolf.

In 1996, Scream's runaway success reignited the slasher flame, spawning similar films, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend. At the end of the decade, Blade foreshadowed the coming flood of comic book adaptations, and Asian horror movies like Ringu and Audition signaled a new influence on American fright flicks. Meanwhile, 1999 witnessed two of the biggest surprise hits of the decade, regardless of genre, in The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project.

1990: Arachnophobia
1990: Ghost
1990: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
1990: Misery
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Bram Stoker's Dracula
1992: Candyman
1992: Dead Alive
1993: Cronos
1993: Jurassic Park
1993: Leprechaun
1994: Interview with the Vampire
1994: Wolf
1995: Se7en
1996: The Craft
1996: From Dusk Till Dawn
1996: Scream
1997: Funny Games
1997: I Know What You Did Last Summer
1998: Blade
1998: Fallen
1998: Ringu
1998: Urban Legend
1999: Audition
1999: The Blair Witch Project
1999: The Mummy
1999: The Sixth Sense
1999: Sleepy Hollow

2000s Horror Movies

Twenty-first century horror in the US has been identified with remakes of both American (Friday the 13th, Halloween, Dawn of the Dead) and foreign films (The Ring, The Grudge), but there have been innovations within American horror most notably the "torture porn" of Saw and Hostel fame.

Outside of the US, there is as great a variety of edgy and innovative material as there has ever been in the genre, from Canada (Ginger Snaps) to France (High Tension) to Spain (The Orphanage) to the UK (28 Days Later) and, of course, Asia, from Hong Kong (The Eye) to Japan (Ichi the Killer) to Korea (A Tale of Two Sisters) to Thailand (Shutter).

2000: final destination
2000: Ginger Snaps
2000: Scary Movie
2001: Ichi the Killer
2001: Joy Ride
2001: The Others
2002: 28 Days Later
2002: The Eye
2002: Resident Evil
2002: The Ring
2002: Signs
2003: Freddy vs. Jason
2003: High Tension
2003: House of 1000 Corpses
2003: Ju-on: The Grudge
2003: One Missed Call
2003: A Tale of Two Sisters
2003: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2004: Dawn of the Dead
2004: The Grudge
2004: Hellboy
2004: Night Watch
2004: Saw
2004: Shaun of the Dead
2004: Shutter
2005: The Descent
2005: Hostel
2006: The Host
2007: Halloween
2007: I Am Legened
2007: The Orphanage
2007: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2008: Cloverfield
2008: Let the Right One In
2008: Prom Night
2008: The Strangers
2008: Twilight
2009: Friday the 13th