Two to Three Horror Films Representing Each Decade?

[Yowza]

Hello. I was just thinking the other day, what horror films do you feel really capture the cultural aura of a particular decade that still have great re-watch value today without becoming dated over time due to being the orginator of tropes that have been re-done over and over again. This means they don't need to be the most popular horror films to best represent the period in which they were made.

If you could pick 2 to 3 horror films per decade, what would they be?

Categories:
10's:

20's

30's

40's

50's

60's

70's

80's

90's

2000's

2010-2014

2015-2017 (New)

 

[Yowza]

I haven't really centered upon what to put for each of these but have the following so far that I think best represent a certain cultural period (in other words type of approach/film making used on it that gives it a distinct feel) and don't seem to have staled as much as would seem likely (haven't had newer movies trying to repeat stuff from them over and over ) in my opinion so far are:

20's: Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera

60's: Rosemary's Baby

70's: Wicker Man

80's: White of the Eye, Manhunter

90's: Bram Stoker's Dracula

It's White of the Eye and Manhunter that are the 2 films that I saw not too long ago that really got me thinking on this topic. Both unique that seem to hold up well for viewing even today and filmed in a way that makes me think it's from the 80's.

 

[Lighthouse]

10s: Frankenstein, The Golem
20s: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu
30s: Frankenstein, King Kong
40s: Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein
50s: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Godzilla
60s: Night of the Living Dead, Psycho
70s: Halloween, Jaws
80s: Friday the 13th, Poltergeist
90s: Scream, Silence of the Lambs
00s: Saw, Paranormal Activity

I actually don't even like some of these movies, but I thought they were the appropriate representations.

 

[David H.]

2010 - 2014

The Cabin in the Woods, Under the Skin

2015 - 2020

Get Out, The Witch

 

[2kt09]

10s: Frankenstein, The Golem
20s: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu
30s: Frankenstein, King Kong
40s: Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein
50s: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Godzilla
60s: Night of the Living Dead, Psycho
70s: Halloween, Jaws
80s: Friday the 13th, Poltergeist
90s: Scream, Silence of the Lambs
00s: Saw, Paranormal Activity

I actually don't even like some of these movies, but I thought they were the appropriate representations.

This one's almost as good as it is gets even if I haven't watched most of them.
I'd add The Exorcist for the 70s.
I tend to acknowledge the 80s as popularizing the creature and body horror sfx even if Eraserhead and Alien released a decade prior.
The 90s feel like when horror features relished in how silly and/or self-aware they can be. Dead Alive and Army of Darkness were released in the states less than a week apart.

The 2000s seemed like the previous horror icons were running on fumes, so by then it was either nigh inescapable death porn, Final Destination,
or back-to-basics haunting; some of which of course being "found footage".

The 2010s have been fairly all over the place, perpetually chasing the next concept yet to be mined. I guess they tend more toward thriller rather than supernatural (something I noticed watching It realizing the creepy parents were more terrifying than the clown). You're Next comes to mind.

Still, I almost always preferred the black-horror comedies for the sheer amount of creativity on display.
Tucker & Dale vs Evil, John Dies at the End, and Dave Made a Maze would be some of the ones I might not get sick of after multiple rewatches.

 

[redhawk23]

they tend more toward thriller rather than supernatural [/B](something I noticed watching It realizing the creepy parents were more terrifying than the clown). You're Next comes to mind.

Quite the opposite. We are 9 years into an endless procession of possessions and ghosts, mostly from the Blumhouse assembly line. Paranormal activity was annual for most of the decade. James Wan has had dueling haunting franchises in Insidious and the Conjuring movies. Now the Conjuring is spinning off films. That's a straight up billion dollar franchise on its own.

I've grown rather bored of it. I hope we can get some creature features going.

 

[2kt09]

Quite the opposite. We are 9 years into an endless procession of possessions and ghosts, mostly from the Blumhouse assembly line. Paranormal activity was annual for most of the decade. James Wan has had dueling haunting franchises in Insidious and the Conjuring movies. Now the Conjuring is spinning off films. That's a straight up billion dollar franchise on its own.

I've grown rather bored of it. I hope we can get some creature features going.

Should have clarified for recent. I kept my attention to movies outside of that.
So, haven't seen any Paranormal, Conjuring, Insidious, Sinister, Ouija flicks.
Even Blumhouse by the middle of the decade realized they're better off pumping out other kinds of horror features.

This is also the decade in which zombie and vampire films lost their typical steam, so now they have off-kilter concepts/premises to them.

 

[redhawk23]

I'm just saying we ate still in the midst of that ghost wave. Another Insidious just came out this past week, the conjuring has multiple spinoffs in the next year. We haven't gotten past that.

There has been a pretty boisterous market for high end horror films that people try to pretend stent horror. A24 has put big pushes behind films like The Witch and It Comes At Night. IFC put out the Babadook, who has now been ironically adopted as a gay icon. A lot of these prestige Indies are really focused on satanic themes. Bug wave of that ayrar or two ago, some finding distribution only now like The Devil's Candy, A Dark Song and (ugh) the black coats daughter.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Will be very interesting to see the overall reaction to this year's new Halloween film, in terms of the balance between returning 'older' fans and newer fans, who won't have seen a Halloween franchise film on the big screen and who are more used to a 'different' type of horror film context.

 

[Lighthouse]

This one's almost as good as it is gets even if I haven't watched most of them.
I'd add The Exorcist for the 70s.
I tend to acknowledge the 80s as popularizing the creature and body horror sfx even if Eraserhead and Alien released a decade prior.
The 90s feel like when horror features relished in how silly and/or self-aware they can be. Dead Alive and Army of Darkness were released in the states less than a week apart.

The 2000s seemed like the previous horror icons were running on fumes, so by then it was either nigh inescapable death porn, Final Destination,
or back-to-basics haunting; some of which of course being "found footage".

The 2010s have been fairly all over the place, perpetually chasing the next concept yet to be mined. I guess they tend more toward thriller rather than supernatural (something I noticed watching It realizing the creepy parents were more terrifying than the clown). You're Next comes to mind.

Still, I almost always preferred the black-horror comedies for the sheer amount of creativity on display.
Tucker & Dale vs Evil, John Dies at the End, and Dave Made a Maze would be some of the ones I might not get sick of after multiple rewatches.

I originally put "Th Exorcist" on there, but considering the decade of slashers that came after Halloween and Jaws creating the "blockbuster", I felt they were more representative.

 

[Yowza]

I originally put "Th Exorcist" on there, but considering the decade of slashers that came after Halloween and Jaws creating the "blockbuster", I felt they were more representative.

Very representative list. If a certain movie is not popular but evokes a feel of a time gone by then that's certainly representative too.

For example, Let's Scare Jessica to Death certainly not an iconic film but does kind of evoke the 60's (yet can't put on that as came out in early 70's) with way the characters are hippies as would've been seen in that time period.

Certainly a cultural contrast between a modern generation and the times that came before as seen from a 60's slanted perspective. A feel of a former generation and times can be had in a movie whether popular or not.