Despite being one of the most maligned and criticized of film genres, horror has not only remained a staple of entertainment for audiences throughout the twentieth century, but has enjoyed ever-renewing cycles of popularity through nearly every decade. One of the first films ever produced for Thomas Edison's fledgling movie studio - a mere handful of years after his patent for motion-picture film - was a filmed adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1910), a 12-minute morality tale featuring some inventive photographic tricks and a hulking, wild-haired monster. French fantasy filmmaker Georges Melies thrilled early cinema audiences with inventive camera tricks and often employed horrific themes in his films, depicting sinister magicians capable of transforming passers-by into animals and conjuring leering devils.

The appeal of these macabre moving images thrived into the heyday of silent films, as artists began to see the new medium of film as a natural extension of their often disturbing visions. The German Expressionist movement in particular embraced this new canvas, bringing nightmarish worlds and their inhabitants to life. Among the most unsettling of these works was Robert Weine's The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari (1919), whose bizarre set designs depict impossible geometry and distorted perspective, and evoke the feel of a waking nightmare mirroring that of its sleepwalking character, Cesare. Director Paul Wegener drew on Hebraic mythology to create The Golem (1920), in which he also played the title role -- a hulking clay statue animated by the occult skills of its master. The first significant film to depict that most feared supernatural villain -- the vampire -- emerged from this period. F.W. Murnau's chilling and masterful Nosferatu (1922) is a loose and wholly unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, which was unfortunately the target of fierce litigation from Stoker's heirs and nearly driven out of existence as a result. One German director who found greater success in American horror productions was Paul Leni, whose version of Robert Louis Stephenson's Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1920) features one of star John Barrymore's most compelling performances.

Thanks to the burgeoning Hollywood studio system of the 1920s, horror films began to obtain larger budgets, better publicity, and an enormously popular following - thanks in no small part to the emergence of horror's first true movie star, Lon Chaney. A celebrated master of disguise, Chaney prided himself in his ability to completely transform his appearance according to each role's requirements - often regardless of personal injury or extreme discomfort. The "Man of 1,000 Faces" displayed his talents in several horror projects, playing a mad scientist in Blind Bargain (1922), a demonic killer in Tod Browning's London After Midnight (1927, of which no surviving print has yet been found), and the first filmed adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923) -- but his most memorable portrayal remains the hideous, skull-faced Erik from Rupert Julian's film of Gaston Leroux's Phantom Of The Opera (1925).

It was with the advent of sound that horror cinema saw mass appeal like never before. Universal Studios was the standard-bearer for the genre, establishing a foothold with two icons of horror, Dracula and Frankenstein -- both of which made overnight stars of their lead performers. Tod Browning adapted Dracula in 1931 - drawing from both the popular play and Stoker's novel -- and acquired the talents of Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, fresh from his stage portrayal of the vampire Count, to reprise the lead for the film. Suave, handsome Lugosi infused the character with an eerie sexuality far removed from Stoker's cold, inhuman villain. Later that same year, director James Whale selected brooding British bit player Boris Karloff to fill the lumbering shoes of Frankenstein's patchwork creation, and audiences worldwide were both repulsed and moved by his tragic portrayal of the all-too-human monster.

Horror thrived throughout much of the 1930s, with studios large and small turning out dozens of popular titles. Lugosi and Karloff still reigned supreme; Lugosi assayed one of his most memorable post-Dracula roles as voodoo master Murder Legendre in White Zombie (1932), and Lugosi and Karloff worked together in the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired thrillers The Raven (1934) and The Black Cat (1935). Other macabre literary adaptations included Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932, also featuring Lugosi) and H.G. Wells's Island Of Lost Souls (1933), in which Lugosi appeared with star Charles Laughton. Laughton would later play the tragically deformed bell-ringer Quasimodo in a new version of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1939), while Frederic March won critical acclaim - and an Academy Award - for his brilliant portrayal of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932). Also in 1932 RKO Pictures introduced audiences to the first truly non-human horror film star, the 12-inch-tall Willis O'Brien animated creation that came to life as a gargantuan gorilla in King Kong. Meanwhile, Karloff brought another classic movie monster to life in Universal's The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund - who would later introduce American audiences to German movie star Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935), a remake of Paul Leni's Hands of Orlac ten years prior. Karloff also returned to his most famous role - once again, under the assured direction of James Whale - for the superb sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), gifting the man-made monster with the power of speech and more human motivation. Like Whale, Dracula director Tod Browning would also prove himself adept at crafting other tales of the macabre, including Freaks (1932), a significant landmark in cinematic horror. The eerie tale of love, greed and brutal revenge among a troupe of carnival freaks (portrayed by actual human oddities) was deemed so disturbing at the time, it was pulled from distribution and did not surface again for nearly a generation.

The late '30s saw a significant ebb in the popularity of horror films - partially due to the ominous rumblings of war in Europe, threatening real-life horrors far more nightmarish than anything depicted onscreen. Nevertheless, like their undead monsters, horror films refused to die; they merely changed shape. As budgets became tighter and the larger Hollywood studios turned to more upbeat films during World War II, low-rent studios such as PRC and Monogram stepped up to meet the demand for cinema scares by creating low-rent horror films at a considerable clip. Bela Lugosi lent his talents to some of these "quickies," playing vampires and mad scientists in films like The Devil Bat 1941), while similar productions elevated lesser-known actors John Carradine and George Zucco to minor-league star status.

Larger studios such as RKO served up more subtle, atmospheric shocks -- most notably the sublime, moody productions of Val Lewton. Lewton's preference for generating horror through atmosphere and suggestion instead of outright shocks was honored by the directors he employed -- including Robert Wise (The Body Snatcher; 1945), Mark Robson (Isle Of The Dead; 1945), and most importantly Jacques Tourneur, whose sultry Cat People (1942) and dreamlike I Walked With A Zombie (1943) created an unbearable atmosphere of tension without depicting a single monster or spilling one drop of blood on camera. Having perfected their styles in Lewton's camp, Tourneur and Wise went on to direct two moody horror classics in the coming decade: Tourneur's Curse Of The Demon (1956) and Wise's The Haunting (1963). Despite horror's more sublime incarnations in the '40s, Universal hadn't given up its profitable monster franchises yet; indeed, they managed to introduce a new horror icon in 1941 with The Wolf Man, starring the son of horror's first movie star, Lon Chaney, Jr.. Though reluctant at first, Chaney eventually assumed the mantle of the decade's new horror star, appearing several times as werewolf Lawrence Talbot. He also helped to revive the popularity of other Universal monsters by dawning the Count's cloak for Son Of Dracula (1943), heavy monster makeup for Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942) and House Of Frankenstein (1944), and even swathed himself in the Mummy's crumbling bandages for two sequels.

The dearth of horror projects from the bigger studios continued into the early 1950s; gothic castles and man-sized monsters gave way to more massive atomic-age nightmares - ranging from gigantic mutant insects to malicious outer-space invaders - as the majors turned their attention to science fiction. Low-budget horror continued to thrive, however, thanks in no small part to the emergence of the drive-in, which had evolved from a family-oriented movie venue in the early post-war years to a favorite teenage hangout in the late '50s. Low-budget pioneer Roger Corman rose to meet the needs of movie-hungry teens with low-rent mini-classics like A Bucket Of Blood (1959), The Wasp Woman (1959), Little Shop Of Horrors (1960) and countless more. Gimmick-loving producer William Castle tilled similar soil, promoting his films on the road, offering patrons free "death by fright" insurance policies and rigging local bijous with scare-inducing gadgets to "enhance" the horror experience in films like The Tingler (1959), during which some theater patrons got a buzz from specially-rigged motors beneath their seats. Corman and Castle were also fond of casting a refined Shakespearean actor who would soon emerge as the most prominent horror star since the glory days of Karloff and Lugosi -- Vincent Price, who first emerged on the horror scene in the colorful 3-D film House Of Wax (1953), starred in The Tingler and The House On Haunted Hill (1958), and went on to topline nearly all of Corman's cheap but colorful adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's literary works. The House Of Usher (1960), The Pit And The Pendulum (1961) and The Masque Of The Red Death (1964) are among the most enduring of Corman and Price's Poe collaborations; Corman even played Poe's oeuvre for laughs in The Raven (1963), in which Price shared comic duties with Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre.

By the late '50s, the classic monsters once sired by Universal had returned - though this time they would have to travel across the Atlantic to grace American screens. England's Hammer Studios rose to prominence in this period, becoming one of the most dependable and prolific producers of sumptuous gothic horrors for two decades. Hammer's Dracula and Frankenstein series introduced audiences worldwide to the commanding images of two new international stars: Christopher Lee, whose chilling portrayal of the savage, hissing Count in Horror Of Dracula (1958) was the first to effectively challenge Bela Lugosi's cinematic icon; and Peter Cushing, whose dangerously single-minded Baron Frankenstein was often far more menacing than his monstrous creation. This period marked a horror boom across continental Europe as well, spearheaded by talents like Italy's Mario Bava - whose occult shocker La Maschera Del Demonio (1961) launched the long career of horror's first great female star, Barbara Steele. Bava first worked as protégé to Riccardo Freda, whose I Vampiri in 1956 helped to usher in a new wave of continental horror films whose rich atmosphere and haunting images transformed fairly conventional gothic stories about ghosts, vampires and madmen into sumptuous, surreal fantasies.

By the early 1960s, audiences had become jaded to traditional cinematic horrors as television invaded nearly every home, offering a wealth of late-night creature features and chilling programs such as The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Hitchcock himself sensed that audiences were ready for something a bit more unsettling - and found just the ticket in Robert Bloch's best-selling terror novel Psycho (1960). Loosely based on the real-life exploits of mother-obsessed serial killer Ed Gein, Psycho paired the gritty feel of a low-budget production (Hitchcock used much of the same small crew from his television series to cut costs) with the director's flawless powers of viewer manipulation to produce a new breed of violent, intimate horror that shocked audiences out of their complacency and left them craving even more explicit scares. A new permissiveness in American media and the burgeoning exploitation market provided fertile ground for these more graphic horror films, and exploitation pioneer Herschel Gordon Lewis went at it with a will, pushing the envelope for violence in ways that have seldom been matched for audacity. When it seemed that his lighthearted sex romps no longer titillated drive-in audiences, Lewis introduced them to the bargain-basement gore epic Blood Feast (1963). Moviegoers were shocked and appalled… and came back for more. Lewis then delivered the balance of the so-called "Gore Trilogy" the following year with 2000 Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red.

Having first mesmerized audiences in 1965 with the nightmarish psycho-thriller Repulsion, Roman Polanski tread lightly into the domain of horror with the darkly satirical Fearless Vampire Killers (Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck) (1967), but pulled out the stops with his impeccable 1968 adaptation of Ira Levin's occult best-seller Rosemary's Baby, starring Mia Farrow as a terrified expectant mother whose neighbors' interest in her unborn child is anything but benign.

Many other European filmmakers found international success during this period as well -- though their films were often badly butchered by distributors on their way to American theaters and drive-ins. The Italian genre known as "giallo" (so named for the yellow covers of popular pulp thrillers in that country) proved one of the most enduring, pioneered by visually daring directors like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Always the visual pioneer, Argento took a cue from Bava thrillers like The Evil Eye (1963) and Sei Donne Per L'Assassino (1964) for L'Uccello Dalla Piume Di Cristallo (1969), shocking audiences with a disturbing blend of voyeuristic sex and stylishly staged murder scenes. Argento would soon find his greatest success with the surreal, nightmarish thrillers Profondo Rosso (1975) and Suspiria (1977) - films which eschewed formal plot structure in favor of visually arresting set-pieces. Spanish horror star (and later director) Paul Naschy introduced his sympathetic werewolf character Valdemar Daninsky in Las Noches Del Hombre Lobo (1968), the first of numerous Naschy monster-fests pitting Daninsky against Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and many other classic monsters; these traditional horror scenarios were often peppered with enough nudity and gore to titillate modern audiences.

Ironically, it was after the instigation of the new MPAA ratings system in late 1960s that the horror and exploitation markets enjoyed a newfound freedom which ushered in their second Golden Age. Drive-ins and midnight features screened independent horror films that larger studios wouldn't touch for fear of the unmarketable "X" rating - movies which often pushed the envelope of mainstream sensibility in their depictions of explicit sex and violence. The watershed work from this period is George A. Romero's 1968 Night Of The Living Dead - a grim, claustrophobic nightmare depicting the final hours of a trapped group of people fighting off hordes of walking, flesh-eating corpses. Though largely unrecognized during its first run, the film found a strong audience in foreign markets, inspiring a wave of variations on the zombie theme; a noteworthy example is Spanish director Jorge Grau's atmospheric "Blind Dead" series, which depicted the rotting, eyeless Knights Templar, who hunted their victims by listening for their screams. Horror's new permissiveness also allowed filmmakers to explore more sexual themes, and vampire films of this period delved into the carnal aspects inherent in the genre. The provocative and popular theme of lesbian bloodsuckers pervaded countless films, including Harry Kumel's Daughters of Darkness (1971) and Hammer's The Vampire Lovers (1970), the first of the "Karnstein" trilogy (loosely based on characters from Sheridan LeFanu's Blood and Roses -- a tale also adapted by Roger Vadim in 1960). French director Jean Rollin's body of work during this period focused almost entirely on this subgenre, and included such erotic horrors as Le Frission Des Vampires (1970) and Requiem Pour Un Vampire (1971).

Two directors with a aggressive, take-no-prisoners style of horror first shocked the public in the early '70s: Wes Craven first released Last House On The Left (1972), a gritty, bloody tale of murder and revenge in a quiet suburb; shortly thereafter came Tobe Hooper's groundbreaking film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), detailing a cannibal family's twisted reign of terror - particularly the murderous antics of the Ed Gein-inspired "Leatherface" (Gunnar Hansen). Though both directors maintained prolific careers, Hooper's initial success led to a string of hit-and-miss horrors, including the Southern-fried follow-up Eaten Alive (1976) , while Craven's success increased as he honed his craft on such savage thrillers as The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and eventually hit mainstream pay dirt a decade later with the wildly popular A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984).

As independent film became a force to be reckoned with in the '70s, many remarkable visionaries chose horror and exploitation genres as the preferred mode of expression. David Cronenberg and David Lynch both moved comfortably through the world of horror. Cronenberg's Shivers (1975), Rabid (1976) and The Brood (1979) were tales of mutated flesh in rebellion, horrors that resided not outside mankind but within our own bodies. Lynch's feature debut Eraserhead (1977) defies rational interpretation, but is perhaps the most unnerving depiction of nightmare ever committed to film. Though many of Brian De Palma's works have been interpreted as homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the director found his own voice with the quirky psycho-thriller Sisters (1973), and later moved into the realm of supernatural horror with his acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie (1976) - an achievement which gave a boost to both men's careers. Accomplished low-budget auteur Larry Cohen also made a splash during this period with the paranoid monster-baby chiller It's Alive (1974) -- the first of many Cohen works to address current sociopolitical issues in the context of classic horror and science fiction themes. While the horror genre continued to grow with an influx of bold new talent - including the likes of Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, 1979) -- other influential works of the period came from established genre veterans, including George A. Romero, who followed his superb revisionist vampire opus Martin (1975) with a successful sequel to his classic Night Of The Living Dead. Dawn Of The Dead (1979) enjoyed phenomenal success in Europe (partly due to its distribution there by Dario Argento) and touched off a zombie-movie craze that continued throughout the following two decades, beginning that same year with Lucio Fulci's notorious gore epic Zombi 2.

The defining horror films of the 1970s came not from the independents, but from the major studios. In 1974 Warner Brothers released The Exorcist, based on William Peter Blatty's best-selling novel. Purported to be loosely based on a real-life account of demonic possession, the film touched off a storm of moral outrage at its depiction of a vomit-spewing, foul-mouthed 12-year-old possessee, played to the hilt by Linda Blair. Despite of, or indeed because of the surrounding controversy, the film became a box-office smash, and inspired scores of European imitators. The next year, Universal introduced Jaws, the first large-budget feature from young director Steven Spielberg. The sweeping suspense saga of a New England coastal town menaced by a gigantic white shark became the first certified summer blockbuster and remains one of the biggest box-office hits of all time. It also inspired numerous killer-fish knock-offs, most notably Joe Dante's entertaining horror-comedy Piranha (1978) and the laughable killer-whale tale Orca (1977). Horror also proved profitable for Fox in 1976 thanks to the high-concept apocalypse epic The Omen, in which a diplomat played by the venerable Gregory Peck comes to grips with his adopted son's true identity as the Antichrist.

It was at the end of the '70s that two films managed to pave the way for horror's latest cinematic trend -- the so-called "Slasher" film. John Carpenter employed gliding camera movements, excellent widescreen compositions and a chilling synthesizer score (of his own composition) to superb effect in 1978's Halloween, a simple and tightly-knit tale of a seemingly inhuman killer returning to his old neighborhood on the title eve. Though creatively less original, Sean S. Cunningham's low-budget Friday The 13th (1980) was picked up by Paramount for wide release; the bloody tale of a deadly intruder stalking randy summer-camp counselors played to packed houses and became a runaway hit. The subsequent surge of "dead teenager" knock-offs - which owed as much to the Italian "giallos" as to the aforementioned films -- were fairly consistent in their lack of originality, but managed to deliver the gory goods throughout the 1980s.

Despite a harsh MPAA crackdown on movie violence during the Reagan Era, horror films found a new venue that allowed them to thrive like never before - with the advent of home video. Now horror-hungry viewers previously denied access to low-budget independent horror films found a new world of opportunity at their local video store. Films like Sam Raimi's ghoulish Evil Dead series, Stuart Gordon's surreal H.P. Lovecraft variant Re-Animator (1985) and Frank Henenlotter's grisly Basket Case (1982) became cult hits with video renters. Despite this popular new venue, horror still found a home on the big screen in the 1980s in numerous big-studio productions. Legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's epic, revisionist take on Stephen King's The Shining (1980) wowed critics and raised the eyebrows of King's ardent fans. Paramount continued to crank out sequels to Friday the 13th, and while other studios dipped in the slasher pool as well, there was still a significant market for more traditional horrors. The werewolf reared his hairy head in 1981 with Joe Dante's The Howling and John Landis's horror-comedy An American Werewolf In London, while his lupine spirit-cousins stalked cinemas in Wolfen and The Company of Wolves. Vampires bared their fangs as well in the successful big-budget releases Fright Night (1985) and The Lost Boys (1986). John Carpenter adapted Stephen King's best-seller Christine (1983), while David Cronenberg's subversive vision reached mainstream movie audiences with his compelling 1986 remake of The Fly. While cookie-cutter slasher films continued unabated into the late 1980s, some extraordinary new talents managed to emerge from the studios. Chief among them is horror author Clive Barker, who stunned audiences with the surreal, fetishistic demons of Hellraiser in 1987, and established himself as a powerful visionary force.

The next wave in horror movies came in the early 1990s with the highly successful big-budget vampire epic Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and the much-hyped release of Interview With The Vampire (1994), based on the best-seller by Anne Rice. Much fuss was made of Rice's aversion to the casting of screen idol Tom Cruise as the sinister king vampire Lestat, but the controversy only helped generate intense interest in the finished product (which Rice ultimately supported) and sizable rewards at the box office. Both films created a new interest in cinematic vampire lore that thrived throughout the '90s, leading not only to countless direct-to-video ripoffs, but also proving fertile ground for unique and inventive variations on the theme -- including Michael Almereyda's Nadja (1994), Abel Ferarra's The Addiction (1995) and Larry Fessenden's Habit (1996).

Wes Craven, having achieved closure of sorts on the numerous Nightmare On Elm Street sequels by playing with the formula in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), would go on to achieve his greatest success in the mid-'90s - ironically, by turning to defunct '80s slasher trends for inspiration. With the phenomenally successful Scream (1996), Craven, along with writer Kevin Williamson, effectively turned slasher convention on its ear, winking at audiences' familiarity with '80s horror themes while establishing believable, funny teen characters instead of mere body-count stereotypes. Scream's runaway success spawned two sequels, as well as several lesser variants that retained the teens-in-jeopardy theme but lacked the essential irony.

It is appropriate that after one hundred years of motion picture history, the last landmark horror film of the 20th century demonstrates considerable forward vision while simultaneously drawing inspiration from horror films of yore. Despite harsh divisions between fans and detractors of the micro-budgeted film The Blair Witch Project (1999), the film's staggering box-office success -- not only as a motion picture but as a cross-media event -- was a clear indication that the face of movie horror had not only changed, but was enjoying popularity like never before. This further proved that finding success in the low-budget arena did not require resorting to crass exploitation, and that modern audiences jaded by every manner of graphic onscreen nightmares could respond to the same subtle, suggested horrors once wielded so skillfully by filmmakers of horror's bygone era.