Historical Fear-related Cinema

Summary: The last top grossing horror movie was 1993 Jurassic Park. Here's a list of other fear-related films since 1916.

In 1916, the highest grossing film of the year was the silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. An adaption of the classic 1870 novel by Jules Verne detailing Captain Nemo's famous undersea journey to dispatch that mysterious sea creature.





Frankenstein, starring the legendary Boris Karloff, was the top film of 1931. Here is a list of all fear-related films to be the top grossing films of the year:



1916 - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

1931 - Frankenstein

1933 - King Kong

1960 - Psycho

1973 - The Exorcist

1975 - Jaws

1987 - Fatal Attraction

1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day

1993 - Jurassic Park


Unless we count Avatar (2007), it's been 20+ years since the top grossing film was in the horror genre. It's time for something truly scary (and please no more remakes and reboots of classics), Hollywood!



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Published on March 02, 2013 11:54
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message 1: by Chris (new)

Chris The last horror movie that I found to be genuinely scary was Rec. The Spanish are making the good horror nowadays.


message 2: by Todd (new)

Todd Russell Have you seen DEAD SNOW? It's on Netflix. Nazis and zombies, oh yeah! Watched that in all subtitles. Also liked THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (the first one). DEAD SNOW was more along the lines of something I could have seen Jeff Strand pen and THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE was very creepy body horror. I will never view the same way again the statement "eat!"

Man, I hate what GR does to my blog posts with all this extraneous white space. If you click over to my website, that's formatted as intended.


message 3: by Chris (new)

Chris Are those so bad that they are good? I heard Human Centipede was banned everywhere!

Have you seen Rec? I also enjoyed The Devil's Backbone, The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth. The Baby's Room was freaky too.


message 4: by Chris (new)

Chris This movie was pure genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8rsPu...

Doghouse. I am sure that women find it very offensive, however....LOL


message 5: by Todd (new)

Todd Russell Nope, haven't seen any of the movies you've recommended, Chris.

CENTIPEDE (the first one, not the sequel which I haven't seen, but have heard was very, very bad) wasn't cheesy, it was unsettling. Watch it in a dark room and see what you think. The actor that plays the doctor is great! Kinda reminded me a bit of the creepiness of Donald Plesance in the original Halloween. Rent it, mon, and let me know what you think.

(I wouldn't eat while watching)

I wrote film reviews of both movies for Wicked Channel back in 2011:
http://wickedchannel.com/2011/04/nazi...

I've steered away from watching many contemporary horror films because they weren't scary like older films. Once Hollywood went all sequelitis on us (Jason X? Come on, that movie blows), I started limiting my modern horror film intake.

I didn't care much for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but did enjoy the first couple SAW movies (and then it got silly and stupid). I enjoyed HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN and RUBBER, both for being more tongue-in-cheek than being scary.

CENTIPEDE is the last time any recent film disturbed me. I haven't seen INSIDIOUS, though, and I hear that's good.


message 6: by Sean (new)

Sean If you liked the Human Centipede: First Sequence you probably would like Rabbit (aka Chained).

http://youtu.be/Uney3BbKyjU

Good flick.


message 7: by Todd (new)

Todd Russell Thanks for the rec, Sean.

Chained is not on Netflix streaming but is available from Redbox. Our Blockbuster just closed down. Will check out Vudu and Amazon.


message 8: by Chris (new)

Chris Here is Rec for you guys. Rotten tomatoes gave it a 96% which is really high. It was remade in the states as Quarantine but from what I have heard they changed the last 10 minutes which was the really disturbing part, at least for me.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009...


message 9: by Todd (new)

Todd Russell I saw Quarantine and thought it was ok. Would like to see the last 10 minutes that was cut. In general, I don't care much for the shaky cam "real-time footage" flicks I've seen. Blair Witch spawned a generation on a gimmick.


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