Horror movies are made to scare, shock, and disgust people. They were first invented to bring out people’s worst fears but also entertain them. Horror movies have been popular for many decades. Some of the most popular horror movie franchises include the Friday the 13th series, the Chucky movies, and the Saw movies.
80s
A lot of horror movies from the 80s are still popular even today. They have also set the standard for a lot of movies. One of the most popular horror movie franchises that still has movies being added to it today is the Friday the 13th movie series. The first movie premiered in 1980, and seven movies followed, all coming out in the 80s. The Friday the 13th series is about a killer named Jason terrorizing Camp Crystal Lake, where he sadly drowned when he was a little boy. Another popular movie series that came out in the 80s is Nightmare on Elm Street. It was first released in 1984, and three other movies in the franchise came out that decade and decades after. Nightmare on Elm Street is about a teenage girl and her boyfriend investigating strange deaths that have been happening in their town. These deaths are caused by a killer named Freddy Krueger who preys on teenagers in their dreams, which kills them in real life. Later into the 2000s, a movie called Freddy vs. Jason was released which has them team up and later turn against each other and start battling.
90s
One of the most popular movies of the 90s that is still loved by many to this day is Scream. This movie was first released in 1996. This movie is also the first in the series but only one other one was released in the 90s. They are still releasing movies in this series today that fans love. This movie series is about a killer named Ghostface who kills people, usually high school students. The unique thing about this movie franchise is that there is a new killer in every movie, and sometimes there’s even more than one. Another popular film of the 90s is The Blair Witch Project. This movie is based on a true story about three student filmmakers who go into the mountains in Maryland to make a documentary about a local myth called the Blair Witch. The three students go missing, but their equipment and footage of what happened to them were discovered a year later. This occurred in 1994, but the movie wasn’t released until 1999.
2000s
A popular movie that was released in the 2000s is The Ring. The Ring is about a haunted tape that causes its viewers to die exactly a week later after watching it. It follows a woman who was questioned by a mother whose daughter died by watching the video. She and her family investigate the tape and find out that it’s haunted by a girl named Samara, and they have to find out how to stop it. Another super popular movie is Jennifer’s Body, which came out in 2009. This movie is about a high school girl who was sacrificed but ended up being possessed by a demon. This causes her to start eating her male classmates, which causes her best friend to be concerned and try to stop her.
2010s
One of the biggest horror movies that came out in the 2010s is called The Conjuring. The movie was released in 2013. It is based on a true story where a dad gets a new job, and he and his family move into a house they found. Weird stuff keeps happening to them, so they eventually become fed up and call two paranormal investigators to help them. They find out it is haunted by a demon who killed her baby and then later killed herself. Another big movie of the 2010s is Insidious. It starts with a family who moves into a new house. In this new house, their son sneaks into the attic where he sees something and falls off a ladder and hits his head. The next day, he slips into a coma and no one knows the reason why. After a couple months of him being in the hospital, they finally go home. After returning home, strange things start happening so they bring in paranormal investigators to investigate what’s been going on.
2020s
A horror movie that recently came out that has blown up is Smile. It is about a psychiatric ward therapist who witnesses a girl slit her throat while smiling really big. This girl came to the therapist for help because she witnessed her professor kill himself and she is now being terrorized by an invisible entity. Now the therapist is seeing the invisible entity, and she doesn’t know what to do. Another popular movie that has come out recently is Megan, which was released in 2022. Megan is about an artificially intelligent doll named Megan that was created by a woman. Megan was designed to play the friend, teacher, and protector of a child. When the creator of Megan unexpectedly gets custody of her niece, she decides to give her a prototype of the doll and things go downhill.
There have been a lot of great horror movies released over the last decades and this only listed a handful of them. Horror fans can expect a lot more movies to be released in the upcoming decades.
