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1890s–1920s Horror movies
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneers such as Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the most well known being his 1896 Le Manoir du diable (The House of the Devil) which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. The early 20th century brought more milestones for the horror genre including the first monster to appear in a full-length horror film, Quasimodo. -
1930s-1940s Horror movies
It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film,[9] bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), some of which blended science fiction films with Gothic horror. Some actors began to build entire careers in such films, most notably Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. -
1950s–1960s Horror movies
With advances in technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted from the gothic toward concerns that some saw as being more relevant to the late-Century audience. The horror film was seen to fall into two sub-genres: the horror-of-armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film. In some cases, when Hollywood co-opted the popularity of the horror film, the directors and producers found ample opportunity for audience exploitation, with gimmicks such as 3-D and Percepto. -
1970s–1980s Horror movies
The release of more films with occult themes in the 1970s, such as The Exorcist (1973), and scores of other horror films in which the Devil represented the supernatural evil, often by impregnating women or possessing children. The genre also included gory horror movies with sexual overtones, made as "A-movies" (as opposed to "B movies"). Some of these films were made by respected auteurs.