The horror movie genre is a multi-million dollar business and sell some of the most movie posters and memorabilia than most. Americans' love for all things scary and gory first started back in the 1920s, during the dawn of film. Major stars such as Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff played a variety of scary monsters including Frankenstein, Dracula, and various zombie monsters. These black and white films were the nation's first glimpse into the darker side of mankind. The 1922 film Nosferatu is considered the father of all horror movies and is a classic icon of horror cinema.

By the 1950s, new technology had infiltrated American culture. No longer were horror movies about scary monsters, but the concept of space men and aliens from another planet began to become part of the American horror film. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a prime example of a horror film that in the 1950s, really grabbed people by the collars and made them pay attention. Perhaps the most important pioneer of horror film during the next two decades (the 1950s and 1960s) was Alfred Hitchcock. His world famous movies include The Birds, Rope, Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest to name a few.

In the 1970s horror films took on a whole new perspective and moved from the sheer frightening psychological kind to much more gory and graphic types of films. A prime example of this genre is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is considered by many to be the scariest movie ever made. It featured highly graphic and bloody scenes of murder by chainsaw. Many horror films in the 1970s began to take on a new feel to them; some were especially disturbing, including The Omen, The Exorcist, and The Amityville Horror. When the 1980s rolled around, horror films had gathered a very large following. Some of the most well-known horror movies were released in the 1980s, including A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Today, horror films are still quite popular. The new advances in special effects allow these scary films to be even more disturbing and graphic than ever before. For more information about horror films, check out the following links:

A website dedicated to the horror films of the 1970s

Horror Movies fan site

Comprehensive website of horror movie reviews

Time Magazine's list of the Top 25 Horror Movies of All Time

Cult Horror Films

Website dedicated to British Horror Films

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films

Great Collection of Famous Horror Movie Posters

A list of some of the most well-known Horror Movies of all time

An article about horror movies and why they scare us

Comprehensive website for all things horror

IMDB\'s list of the top 50 horror films