Since the end of the 19th century, audiences have regarded being frightened as one of the best forms of motion-picture entertainment. This love affair with horror starts in the late 1890s with the fantasy films of France's Georges Méliès. His trick-photography shorts, filled with witches, devils, wizards, imps, and mad doctors, were both spooky and funny, and audiences flocked to them internationally. More deliberate attempts at horror soon began appearing in America: Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde" reached the screen in 1908; Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," in 1910. Master filmmaker D.W. Griffith eventually set the tone for the genre with his seven-reel chiller The Avenging Conscience (1914), a dream of madness and guilt drawn from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

The German Expressionist cinema produced numerous landmarks of horror, starting with the doppelganger thriller Der Student Von Prag (1913, aka The Student Of Prague), directed by Stellan Rye. Paul Wegener, the film's star and co-writer, also co-directed Der Golem (1914, aka The Golem) and Der Golem Und Die Tänzerin (1917, aka The Golem And The Dancer), and played the clay sculpture that was magically given life. The genre's classic came in 1919 with Das Kabinett Des Dr. Caligari (1919, aka The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari), directed by Robert Wiene. Distorted sets created an unrelenting sense of madness and doom in this tale of the sleepwalker Cesare, played by Conrad Veidt, who is controlled by the sinister hypnotist Caligari, played by Werner Krauss. F.W. Murnau's Der Januskopf (1920) was a Jekyll-and-Hyde tale starring Veidt; Nosferatu (1922) was Murnau's liberal (and unauthorized) adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," with a monstrous vampire whose supernatural powers were depicted through imaginative camera tricks. Elements of horror also distinguished such German silents as Paul Wegener's third version of The Golem (1920); Wiene's thriller Orlacs Hände (1925, aka The Hands Of Orlac), starring Conrad Veidt; Henrik Galeen's remake The Student Of Prague (1926), with Veidt and Krauss; and Fritz Lang's science-fiction classic Metropolis (1926). Two memorable and stylish silent chillers from Sweden were Körklaren (1920, aka The Phantom Carriage), in which writer/director Victor Sjöstrom also starred as an alcoholic struggling to save his soul, and Häxan (1922, aka Witchcraft Through The Ages), a provocative and erotic account of devil worship, with director Benjamin Christensen appearing as Satan.

German director Paul Leni capped his filmmaking career with the creepy Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924, aka Waxworks), written by Henrik Galeen and starring Veidt and Krauss, in which wax statues of killers come to life. He then emigrated to America, where he kept to the atmospheric and bizarre with his haunted-house thriller The Cat And The Canary (1927) and The Man Who Laughs (1928) an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel about a mutilated clown, played by Conrad Veidt. By the late 1920s, American films had developed a tradition of horror in which Leni could readily find a place. Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1920), already the sixth filming of Stevenson's tale, was the strongest version to date, thanks to actor John Barrymore. Rex Ingram's occult thriller The Magician (1926), starring Paul Wegener, combined eroticism and shocks. The Wizard (1927), despite its title, was a mad-scientist horror tale. Producer/director Roland West brought humor to his mystery thrillers The Monster (1925), starring the great character actor Lon Chaney, and The Bat (1926). Chaney also created the extraordinary make-ups for his most celebrated roles: a mad doctor and his apeman assistant in A Blind Bargain (1922); indelible portrayals of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom Of The Opera (1925); a razor-fanged vampire in director Tod Browning's London After Midnight (1927).

Chaney died in 1930, before he could star for the Universal production company in Browning's sound film Dracula (1931). The part went to Bela Lugosi, who repeated his stage triumph and immortalized himself as Stoker's vampire. That same year, Universal released a second horror classic: Frankenstein, directed by James Whale. The film was also a star-making vehicle for Boris Karloff, who brought pathos as well as terror to his role of a monster sewn together from parts of dead bodies. Despite the legendary status of both films, Browning and Whale went on to achieve even greater heights in horror. In Browning's Freaks (1932), a troupe of sideshow freaks takes revenge on a beautiful trapeze artist who tries to kill her dwarf husband. Too bizarre for audiences of its day, the film is now revered for its unique blend of terror and compassion. Whale's gifts for both humor and horror reached their peak in the sequel The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), with Karloff bringing an even greater depth and sensitivity to his performance as the monster. Both directors made other notable horror films in the '30s: Browning with Mark Of The Vampire (1935), starring Lugosi, and The Devil-Doll (1936), and Whale with The Old Dark House (1932), starring Karloff and Charles Laughton, and The Invisible Man (1933), with Claude Rains.

The early 1930s was one of the richest periods for horror, with Freaks one of eight classics released in 1932 alone. Fredric March won an Academy Award for his performance in Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, still the most powerful version of Stevenson, thanks to director Rouben Mamoulian's innovative treatment of camera movement and sound. Bela Lugosi continued to create memorable portraits of pure evil, with his mad scientist in Murders In The Rue Morgue and his voodoo wizard in White Zombie. Boris Karloff and director Karl Freund introduced a new horror icon in The Mummy; Karloff also portrayed Sax Rohmer's arch villain in The Mask Of Fu Manchu. Director Michael Curtiz brought speed and wit to The Mystery Of The Wax Museum, with Lionel Atwill as a disfigured artist who turns people into wax statues. Carl Dreyer's Vampyr, a French-German co-production, remains unsurpassed for its atmosphere of pervasive evil and its chilling scenes of possession. Other classics appeared over the 1930s. The producer/directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack hired special-effects genius Willis O'Brien to bring to life King Kong (1933), in which a giant ape runs amok in New York City. Charles Laughton was H.G. Wells's Dr. Moreau in Island Of Lost Souls (1933), who turns animals into semi-humans through sadistic medical experiments; Laughton also made real the sufferings of Victor Hugo's deformed bellringer Quasimodo in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1939). The Black Cat (1934), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, featured Karloff as a devil worshipper who's hunted down by a vengeful Lugosi; in The Raven (1935), Lugosi is a Poe-obsessed madman who mutilates escaped-criminal Karloff. Freund remade Hands Of Orlac as Mad Love (1935), giving Peter Lorre one of his finest roles as the maniacal Dr. Gogol. The Werewolf Of London (1935) brought the first lycanthrope to the screen.

The audience for horror waned by the late '30s but was reinvigorated by Son Of Frankenstein (1939), Universal's third outing in the series. Karloff made his final appearance as the monster, but the film was dominated by Bela Lugosi's riveting portrayal of the murderous Ygor. The studio also had a hit with The Wolf Man (1941), with Lon Chaney Jr. as the tragic Lawrence Talbot, who survives a werewolf's attack only to become a murderous beast himself. He became Universal's new genre star, and after playing the Frankenstein monster in the Son Of follow-up The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942), also with Lugosi as Ygor, he stuck to the Wolf Man in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), with Lugosi as the monster; House Of Frankenstein (1944), with Karloff as the mad scientist, Glenn Strange as the monster, and John Carradine as Dracula; and House Of Dracula (1945), with Strange and Carradine. Chaney also starred in Man-Made Monster (1941) and Son Of Dracula (1943), and played the Mummy in The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Mummy's Ghost (1944), and The Mummy's Curse (1945).

During this wartime horror boom, the low-budget studios PRC and Monogram made numerous horror quickies starring Karloff (The Ape, 1940), Lugosi (The Devil Bat, aka Killer Bats, 1941; The Corpse Vanishes, 1942; The Ape Man, 1943), John Carradine (Revenge Of The Zombies, 1943; Bluebeard, 1944), and George Zucco (The Mad Monster, 1942; Dead Men Walk, 1943). The major studios also kept the trend stoked: Peter Lorre was a disfigured criminal in the Columbia release The Face Behind The Mask (1941); Claude Rains was the acid-scarred killer in the Universal remake The Phantom Of The Opera (1943); Spencer Tracy portrayed the faces of good and evil in MGM's version of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1941). At RKO, producer Val Lewton brought a new quality and depth to the genre. His belief in creating shocks while keeping horror offscreen suited the young directors who worked for him: Jacques Tourneur with Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943); Robert Wise with The Curse Of The Cat People (1944) and The Body Snatcher (1945) starring Karloff and Lugosi; and Mark Robson with Isle Of The Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946), both starring Karloff. Lewton's restrained approach also rubbed off on such contemporary works as the haunted-house thriller The Uninvited (1944), and persisted in later horror films from Tourneur (Curse Of The Demon, 1956) and Wise (The Haunting, 1963). The stylish British anthology Dead Of Night (1944), although more surreal in its chills, shared Lewton's concern with psychological horror, and stands as one of the scariest films of the decade.

Two masterpieces of the 1950s echoed Lewton in their ability to explore the poetic without sacrificing horror. Director Charles Laughton evoked the beauties and terrors of childhood in The Night Of The Hunter (1955), with Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic preacher who marries a widow, kills her for her money, and then stalks her two young children when they run away with the loot. In Georges Franju's Les Yeux Sans Visage (1959, aka The Horror Chamber Of Dr. Faustus), an insane doctor kidnaps young women and attempts to graft their faces onto his disfigured daughter -- a Grand Guignol premise, yet Franju and his cast succeed in making real the desperation and hopelessness of the characters.

In the early 1950s, the short-lived 3-D craze produced three memorable horror films: The Maze (1953), directed by William Cameron Menzies; House Of Wax (1953), a remake of The Mystery Of The Wax Museum, in which Vincent Price made his horror-film debut; and The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954), with an amphibious monster that would return for two sequels (Revenge Of The Creature, 1955; The Creature Walks Among Us, 1956). Most of the decade's big-studio thrills, however, came in science fiction; horror movies were usually low-budget films for drive-ins and double features. Bela Lugosi had his last hurrahs acting for writer/director Edward D. Wood Jr. in Bride Of The Monster (1956) and Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959). Boris Karloff kept busy with Voodoo Island (1957), The Haunted Strangler (1958), and Frankenstein 1970 (1958); Lon Chaney Jr. starred in The Black Sleep (1956), The Indestructible Man (1956), The Cyclops (1957), and The Alligator People (1959). Vincent Price established himself as the genre's new star with producer/director William Castle's gimmicky horror films House On Haunted Hill (1958) and The Tingler (1959); Castle's subsequent chillers includes 13 Ghosts (1960), Homicidal (1961), Mr. Sardonicus (1962), and Strait-Jacket (1965). The prolific Roger Corman produced and directed a slew of genre films, including The Undead (1957) and The Wasp Woman (1959), as well as spoofs such as A Bucket Of Blood (1959) and The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960), both scripted by Charles Griffith. As Corman's budgets got bigger in the '60s, he made a series of Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, including House Of Usher (1960), The Pit And The Pendulum (1961), Tales Of Terror (1962), and The Masque Of The Red Death (1964).

Starting in the late 1950s, American audiences provided a reliable market for the British studio Hammer Films, which launched a torrent of popular scare fare with The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror Of Dracula (1958); both films were directed by Terence Fisher and starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, making their genre debuts. They went on to co-star in numerous horror films, including The Mummy (1959), The Gorgon (1964), Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors (1965), The Skull (1966), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), Horror Express (1972), The Creeping Flesh (1973), and The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1974). Lee, icy and aristocratic, appeared in many other chillers, including The Two Faces Of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Hands Of Orlac (1962), The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (1967), The Devil's Bride (1968, aka The Devil Rides Out), The Wicker Man (1973), and To The Devil -- A Daughter (1976); he would also return periodically to the roles of Dracula (Dracula -- Prince Of Darkness, 1966; Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, 1968; Taste The Blood Of Dracula, 1970; Scars Of Dracula, 1970; Count Dracula, 1971) and Fu Manchu (The Face Of Fu Manchu, 1965; The Brides Of Fu Manchu, 1966; The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu, 1967; The Blood Of Fu Manchu, 1968; The Castle Of Fu Manchu, 1970). Cushing, intellectual and sympathetic, starred in such horror films as The Flesh And The Fiends (1959), The Brides Of Dracula (1960, opposite David Peel's vampire), Island Of Terror (1966), Torture Garden (1967), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Tales From The Crypt (1972), From Beyond The Grave (1973), Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires (1974), and The Ghoul (1975); he also made several appearances as Dr. Frankenstein (Revenge Of Frankenstein, 1958; Evil Of Frankenstein, 1964; Frankenstein Created Woman, 1967; Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, 1969; Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell, 1974).

The year 1960 saw two serial-killer films which both became classics of the horror genre. Michael Powell's British thriller Peeping Tom was a terrifying account of a madman who films his female victims while killing them. Rejected by the public and denounced by the press, the film crippled Powell's career; not until its 1980 revival did Peeping Tom receive the accolades it deserved. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, inspired by the real-life murderer Ed Gein, offered shocks far more brutal than those of Peeping Tom; yet Hitchcock's film was enormously popular, critically and commercially, and prompted several sequels -- as did two other of Gein-based horror tales, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), directed by Tobe Hooper, and The Silence Of The Lambs (1990), directed by Jonathan Demme. Although Hitchcock had implied more mayhem than was actually shown, Psycho showed enough bloodletting to excite a trend of increasingly graphic violence. Hitchcock himself was the immediate beneficiary, employing some grisly shocks in The Birds (1963), a cautionary thriller in which birds turn against human beings. But he couldn't have anticipated that an entire subgenre, the splatter film, would emerge in the wake of Psycho's profitability, beginning with a trio low-budget gore-fests from director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David Friedman: Blood Feast (1963), 2000 Maniacs (1964), and Color Me Blood Red (1965).

Italian director Mario Bava began making atmospheric, stylish, and frequently gruesome horror films in the 1960s, most notably La Maschera Del Demonio (1961, aka Black Sunday), with Barbara Steele as a vengeful witch who returns from the dead; I Tre Volti Della Paura (1963, aka Black Sabbath), an anthology of horror tales featuring Boris Karloff; Sei Donne Per L'Assassino (1964, aka Blood And Black Lace), a serial-killer thriller; and Operazione Paura (1966, aka Kill Baby Kill), in which the ghost of a little girl drives her victims to suicide. British-born Barbara Steele starred in numerous Italian shockers, including L'Orribile Segreto Del Dottor Hitchcock (1962, aka The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock), La Danza Macabre (1962, aka Castle Of Blood), and Amanti D'Oltretomba (1965, aka Nightmare Castle). Prolific Spanish director Jesus Franco made frequent excursions into horror, most notably Gritos En La Noche (1961, aka The Awful Dr. Orlof), El Proceso De Las Brujas (1969, aka The Bloody Judge; Night Of The Blood Monster) with Christopher Lee, and Jack The Ripper (1976) with Klaus Kinski. Spain's Paul Naschy became a genre star playing a werewolf in La Marca Del Hombre Lobo (1968, aka Frankenstein's Bloody Horror). He went on to play other horror icons with such films as El Gran Amor Del Conde Dracula (1972, aka The Great Love Of Count Dracula) and La Venganza De La Momie (1973, aka Mummy's Revenge). In Brazil, actor/director José Mojica Marins made a career as the ghoulish undertaker Zé do Caixão, or "Coffin Joe," starting with À Meia-noite Levarei Sua Alma (1963, aka At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul) and Esta Noite Encarnarei No Teu Cadàver (1966, aka This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse).

Psychological horror reached a new plateau in American film of the '60s with director John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966), in which a man is given a new body and life by a mysterious organization; both are reclaimed when he fails to adjust to his identity. Roman Polanski directed two classics: Repulsion (1965), in which a woman's sexual terrors drive her to murder, and Rosemary's Baby (1968), a Lewton-esque thriller about a woman victimized by devil worshippers in contemporary New York. Horror lost its most promising talent in 1968, with the death of 24-year-old director Michael Reeves. From his uncredited debut co-directing The Castle Of The Living Dead (1963) with Christopher Lee, Reeves displayed an intense, individual style that matured quickly through The She Beast (1965) with Barbara Steele and The Sorcerers (1967) with Boris Karloff. He died shortly after completing the outstanding Witchfinder General (1968, aka The Conqueror Worm), in which Vincent Price gave perhaps his finest performance as a corrupt witchfinder in 17th-century England. That same year, an independent American film provided the next landmark in horror: George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead (1968), in which the dead leave their graves to feed on the living. This gripping, low-budget shocker inspired an international wave of hungry-zombie movies, including Romero's own gory sequels Dawn Of The Dead (1979) and Day Of The Dead (1985). Jack Hill, who wrote and directed the clever horror tale Spider Baby (1964) with Lon Chaney Jr., helmed various sequences with Boris Karloff in 1968; after Karloff's death the following year, they were cut into Mexican scare fare -- The Snake People, The Incredible Invasion, The Fear Chamber, and House Of Evil -- and released in the 1970s. Chaney's final horror film was director Al Adamson's Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1972).

In the early 1970s Vincent Price starred in a trio of tongue-in-cheek shockers: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), and Theatre Of Blood (1973). Belgian director Harry Kumel made the erotic vampire tale Daughters Of Darkness (1971) starring Delphine Seyrig, and the occult thriller Malpertuis (1972) starring Orson Welles. Mario Bava's slasher tale Antefatto (1971, aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve), directly anticipated a torrent of sequel-spawning killer thrillers, which has yet to abate: The trend kicked off with John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and its killing machine Michael Myers, which has had seven follow-ups to date; Sean Cunningham's Friday The 13th (1980) followed with its mass murderer Jason, and has scored a whopping ten further installments; Wes Craven's Nightmare On Elm Street (1985), starring Robert Englund as the dream-inhabiting Freddy Kruger, has made seven more trips to the well; Tom Holland's Child's Play (1988), with the murderous doll Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) has returned thrice; and Mark Jones's Leprechaun (1993), starring dwarf Warwick Davis as a malevolent Irish sprite, has had four sequels. (In 1996, Wes Craven struck another vein of gold with the slasher film Scream; two more have since followed.) After Antefatto Bava made the popular Gli Orrori Del Castello De Norimberga (1972, aka Baron Blood) and the far superior but seldom-seen Lisa E Il Diavolo (1972, aka Lisa And The Devil), in which he combined poetry and shocks in a dreamlike atmosphere worthy of Laughton or Franju. In 1973, a single film changed the face of the genre as thoroughly as Psycho had in the '60s: The Exorcist, a vastly profitable adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel, directed by William Friedkin. The sight of a young girl undergoing hideously realistic possession torments demonstrated new extremes that horror could probe, and numerous graphic occult thrillers (and their sequels) appeared in its wake, including Beyond The Door (1975), The Omen (1976), and The Amityville Horror (1979). Even Mario Bava took highlights from Lisa And The Devil, intercut them with new possession-themed footage, and released the result as La Casa Dell'Exorcismo (1975, aka House Of Exorcism). Bava's final chiller was Al 33 Di Via Orologio Fa Sempre Freddo (1977, aka Beyond The Door 2; Shock); his son Lamberto went on to make a name for himself directing such horror films as Macabre (1980) and Demons (1985).

More original work in the '70s came from independent, low-budget writer/directors. Larry Cohen made imaginative, fast-paced horror films with unusual political and moral overtones, such as It's Alive (1974), God Told Me To (1976, aka Demon), Q (1982), and A Return To Salem's Lot (1987). Paul Morrissey brought humor and imagination to Flesh For Frankenstein (1973, aka Andy Warhol's Frankenstein) and Blood For Dracula (1974, aka Andy Warhol's Dracula), both starring Udo Kier. Canada's David Cronenberg explored madness, deformity, and disease in They Came From Within (1975, aka Shivers) and The Brood (1979); in the '80s he made two of the decade's wildest and most terrifying films, Videodrome (1982) and The Fly (1986). David Lynch's entropic nightmare Eraserhead (1977) established him as a unique visionary, and he went on to fulfill that reputation in Blue Velvet (1986) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). Other directors who made their reputations in horror during the 1970s include Brian De Palma (Sisters, 1973; Carrie, 1976; The Fury, 1978; Dressed To Kill, 1980; Raising Cain, 1992), Tobe Hooper (Eaten Alive, 1976; The Funhouse, 1981; Poltergeist, 1982), Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes, 1978; Swamp Thing, 1982; The Serpent And The Rainbow, 1988; The People Under The Stairs, 1991), John Carpenter (Someone's Watching Me!, 1978; The Fog, 1980; The Thing, 1982; Prince Of Darkness, 1988; In The Mouth Of Madness, 1995; Vampires, 1998), and Italy's Dario Argento (Profondo Rosso, 1976, aka Deep Red; Suspiria, 1976; Inferno, 1980; Tenebrae, 1982; Opera, 1988, aka Terror At The Opera).

Numerous leading filmmakers have also made stylish forays into the horror genre. Werner Herzog reinvented Murnau with Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht (1978, aka Nosferatu, The Vampyre), starring Klaus Kinski. Stanley Kubrick adapted Stephen King for The Shining (1980) with Jack Nicholson. Nicholson also played the devil for director George Miller in The Witches Of Eastwick (1987), and a werewolf for director Mike Nichols in Wolf (1994). Bram Stoker was the source for Ken Russell's tale of vampirism and human sacrifice, The Lair Of The White Worm (1989), as well as for Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992); Coppola produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), with director Kenneth Branagh also starring as Dr. Frankenstein and Robert De Niro playing the monster. Neil Jordan helmed the Anne Rice adaptation Interview With The Vampire (1994), starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. John Frankenheimer directed The Island Of Dr. Moreau (1996), with Marlon Brando as the mad scientist.

Horror also remained a fertile ground for low-budget independents, such as Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, 1982; Brain Damage, 1988; Frankenhooker, 1990), Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, 1983; Darkman, 1990; Army Of Darkness, 1993), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, 1985; From Beyond, 1986; Bride Of Re-Animator, 1990; The Pit And The Pendulum, 1991), Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, 1987), and Clive Barker (Hellraiser, 1987; Nightbreed, 1990). Perhaps the most spectacular success in the field of cheaply made horror films was that of directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who scored a major hit by returning to Val Lewton's formula of offscreen shock with The Blair Witch Project (1999): a fake documentary, the "recovered" video footage shot by a trio of filmmakers who journeyed into the Maryland woods to document a legendary witch, only to disappear forever. Two big-budget horror films that were also big box-office were the effects-laden remakes The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001), both written and directed by Stephen Sommers. Less successful commercially were Sleepy Hollow (1999), directed by Tim Burton, in which Johnny Depp confronts the Headless Horseman; Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate (1999), in which Johnny Depp confronts devil worshippers; and From Hell (2001), directed by the Hughes Brothers, in which Johnny Depp confronts Jack the Ripper. Other recent horror films include director E. Elias Merhige's Shadow Of The Vampire (2000), a funny and creepy reconsideration of the filming of Murnau's Nosferatu, with the vampire being played by a genuine vampire; the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Dagon (2001), directed by Stuart Gordon; and The Ring (2002), directed by Gore Verbinski, from the popular series of Japanese horror films. And if Frankenstein could meet the Wolf Man, then it was inevitable that we'd have Freddy Vs. Jason (2003). Today more than ever, as long as people want to be entertained by a movie, there will be an audience for horror.