Monster Movies: The Early Years (1920s-2000)
The New York Film Academy recognises a French silent film from 1896 as the first horror movie to reach audiences. Entitled Le Manoir du Diable or The House of the Devil/The Haunted Castle in English, the film wasn’t designed to be scary – “more wondrous,” to quote the NYFA – but represented the emergence of some classic tropes into the medium.
These were simple creeps, such as skeletons, ghosts, and Beelzebub himself, but it’s fair to say it affected audiences. The genre would remain largely unchanged for more than half a century, with vampires and often sympathetic monsters dominating the silver screen. Things would take a turn for the sinister in the 1960s, however.
Vampires
We still love a good monster, as evidenced by the rise of the MonsterVerse from 2014 (Godzilla, Kong) and the revival of both the Alien and Predator franchises – although both went on a slow, disappointing run after their early success.
More supernatural beings, like vampires, have taken over the mantle recently. Renfield (2023) represents one of the few vampire films since their heyday in the 2000s, with 30 Days of Night (2007).
The be-fanged creatures enjoy something of a fanbase in gaming, however. “Immortal Romance” is a jackpot casino franchise that’s evolved to include a roulette game. Made by Microgaming, the series added “Immortal Romance Vein of Gold” in June 2025.
The most recent effort from mainstream gaming, “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2,” had a fraught development, leading to middling reviews on release.
Wolfman
Modern vampires provide a useful mirror on the early days of horror movies, as they were the first “stars” to emerge. Max Schreck’s Nosferatu and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula haunted dreams during the 1920s and 1930s, starring in the pictures Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) and Dracula (1931), respectively.
A remake of Nosferatu in 2024 received surprisingly positive reviews for a 21st-century retelling. From director Robert Eggers, it had an all-star cast – Willem Dafoe, Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult, and Lily Rose Depp.
‘True” monsters, i.e., the less-human likes of Wolfman, found a rapt audience in the shadow of World War II. The unfortunate furball joined forces with Frankenstein’s monster after Wolfy’s debut in 1941’s The Wolf Man, and arguably created one of the first movie “universes.”
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) was the first of four titles featuring a cast that grew to include Dracula and Abbot and Costello (really) before the end of the decade.
The Slasher
One of the defining aspects of the WWII era was symbolism. The shadow of a monster and the mutating power of radiation all hinted at the horrors of war. The 1960s abandoned all subtlety by debuting the slasher. Norman Bates (Psycho), Michael Myers (Halloween), Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Candyman (Candyman) all captured a decade each over the next 40 years.
The change in horror attitudes might hint at a shift away from fears of the apocalypse to something more domestic, the potential threats of living an increasingly urbanised life. That’s not to say that the supernatural doesn’t play a role in the slasher genre. Michael Myers has lasted eleven movies so far. Legendary director John Carpenter even pitched a version where he goes to space.
Horror has a storied history, its tales mixing subtlety and outright terror. The most recent cycle in the genre has been from bloody yet cerebral movies like Saw (2004) to the more sledgehammer messaging of the Terrifier franchise (2016-). So, what’s next?
