History Of Horror Films

 Horror Film History: Transitional Period (1950s–1960s)

Advances in technology, the tone of horror films shifted from the Gothic towards contemporary concerns. Low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats such as alien invasions and deadly mutation to people, plants, and insects. Japan's experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki bore the well-known Godzilla in 1954 and its sequels, featuring mutation from the effects of nuclear radiation.

Horror Film History: Transitional Period (1960–1969)

 By the 1960s, Hollywood was in decline, unable to keep up with the radical political and cultural developments transforming American society. Fewer and fewer studio films were profitable. Perhaps no decade had more seminal, acclaimed horror films than the '60s. 
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 Film History: Transitional Period (1970–1979)

Perhaps no decade had more seminal, acclaimed horror films than the '60s. Reflecting the social revolution 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 Film History: Transitional Period (1980–1989)

Horror in the 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 lighthearted 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.

 Horror Film History: Transitional Period (1990–1999)

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.

 Horror Film History: Transitional Period (2000–2009)

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).
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 and, of course, Asia, from Hong Kong (The Eye) to Japan (Ichi the Killer) to Korea (A Tale of Two Sisters) to Thailand (Shutter).