From Nosferatu to Get Out, here are 13 movies that changed horror forever. Perfect watches for spooky season.
13 Movies That Changed Horror Forever
As with everything in life, the key to genre survival has always been evolution. Whether western, sci-fi or musical, these groups of films may always have their go-to tropes but an inability to evolve with your audience is a sure-fire shortcut to the genre graveyard.
With its roots embedded deep in cinema history, there’s no genre more aware of this evolutionary need than horror. Change is what horror does best and is what’s allowed it to endure.
From monsters to slashers to everything in between, horror has seen it all on its way to becoming one of cinema’s most popular genres. Of course, such evolution doesn’t just happen. There have been plenty of key points along the way that have made the genre the beast that it is today.
And with Halloween just round the corner, there seems like no better time than now to take stock of these moments and to celebrate the movies that changed horror forever.
Nosferatu (1922)
Simply put, horror as we know it would not exist without Nosferatu. Horror was there before, for sure, yet Nosferatu was the film that brought the fledgeling genre to prominence and the one that demonstrated the true scaring power of the moving image.
Birthing just about every vampire cliché going, Nosferatu’s exquisite use of shadow, makeup, and an iconic performance from Max Schreck combined to set the horror tone for a century to come.
Psycho (1960)
While it’s been parodied, referenced, prequelled, and remade to death, nothing can take away Psycho’s sheer psychological heft.
Cleverly subverting expectations, Hitchcock crafted a deeply unsettling thriller with unparalleled cultural impact and a shower scene that harnessed the terrifying power of suggestion to become one of the most iconic moments in cinema history.
The Exorcist (1973)
There’s something so wickedly unnerving about what William Friedkin captured with The Exorcist that, even after all these years, just the process of pressing play to watch it feels like a sin.
Kicking off a wave of imitators and causing widespread satanic panic in the process, The Exorcist was a monumental moment in horror history, and as the first horror nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, it went a long way to legitimising the genre, laying the foundation for everything to come.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Dismissed as ‘despicable’ upon release, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre went on to become a genuine horror classic with shock power that holds to this very day.
Brutal, bloody, and deeply disturbing, the film used its exploitative trappings to explore a range of themes, becoming one of cinema’s greatest slashers in the process.
Jaws (1975)
Is Jaws a true horror? Of course it bloody is. When a movie puts an entire generation off swimming in the sea, you’ve got yourself a horror my friend.
Not only did Steven Spielberg usher in a new dawn of blockbuster cinema with Jaws, he crafted one of the most taut and terrifying films ever, capturing a simple-yet-powerful horror energy that has endured to this day.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
While it’s worth mentioning the pivotal part Night of the Living Dead played in horror history, its follow-up was the foundation upon which the entire zombie subgenre has been built.
Balancing the joys of a good old zombie gore-fest with a scathing consumerist critique, Dawn of the Dead goes for both the gut and the brain, taking the raw materials of George A. Romero’s first film and upping the blood and social commentary to deliver a zombie flick that altered horror forever.
Halloween (1978)
In a time before slashers dominated the horror scene, there was John Carpenter’s Halloween – the subgenre’s first true benchmark and the night a horror icon came home.
With low-cost horror perfection, Halloween put every penny of its tiny budget to good use. From Michael Myers’ basic-but-iconic mask to Carpenter’s legendary, no-frills score, the film remains, like Myers himself, a true force of nature.
Alien (1979)
Draining every drop of horror out of a relatively limited setup, Alien stacks up the suspense to unbearable heights for a ride that blurred genre lines and shattered gender tropes.
By the time its sequels arrived, it was clear the franchise had shifted away from its horror roots, yet the first film will forever remain a truly terrifying trailblazer that demonstrated its genre’s limitless possibilities.
The Shining (1980)
Despite King’s hatred of the film, The Shining remains his finest adaptation to date, with Kubrick upping the ante on the legendary author’s claustrophobic tale of spiralling madness to offer something else entirely.
While Jack Nicholson’s uninhibited performance is what sticks with you, Kubrick’s iconic vision offers so much more, pulling you in and chilling you to your very core in a way few horrors can.
Scream (1996)
The film that defined a horror generation. Make no mistake, Scream was a genre game changer that altered the landscape forever.
Combining comedy, whodunnit mystery, and every slasher cliché in the book, Wes Craven birthed a monster and a subversive horror satire that honours the genre’s traditions while blazing a trail for its future.
Ringu/Ring (1998)
Remember when every lazy Hollywood studio under the sun bled Japan dry of all its horror? It happened and it wasn’t pretty.
While Japan had been producing fantastic horrors for years, Ringu was the moment Western audiences took notice. The film is a true masterclass in horror execution, and while its success would see Hollywood scoop up and mutilate every J-horror they could get their grubby hands on, Ringu’s status among the genre’s greats remains unsullied.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Like it or not, the indelible mark The Blair Witch Project left on horror can still be felt more than two decades after its release.
Always guaranteed to split opinion, Blair Witch is lo-fi horror filmmaking at its finest. Backed by a viral marketing campaign that would change the film industry forever, the film deployed a devastating less-is-more approach to become one of the most profitable horrors of all time.
Get Out (2017)
Politics and horror have always gone hand in bloody hand, but you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of this unholy union than with Get Out.
Visceral, socially conscious, and genuinely terrifying, Jordan Peele’s debut feature builds its scares around a blistering attack on a very modern brand of racism and absolutely nails it.
Unwilling to compromise on message or scares, Get Out rewrote the horror rule book while setting both its director and its genre up for a potentially thrilling future.
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