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HORROR FILM OF THE YEAR (1931 - PRESENT)

By: Tom JF

Ignoring the strict parameters of genre, this list focuses on my favourite films (year by year) dealing with the horrific, the macabre, the spooky and the supernatural. Which I think explains why stuff like Topper and The Ghost & Mrs Muir are on this list.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“Free! Free!!!” – Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1931)

1931 Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Mamoulian, R)
runner up: Frankenstein (Whale, J)
1932 Freaks (Browning, T)
runner up: The Old Dark House (Whale, J)
1933 King Kong (Schoedsack, E)
runner up: The Invisible Man (Whale, J)
1934 The Black Cat (Ulmer, E)
runner up: The Big Bad Wolf (Gillet, B)
1935 The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, J)
runner up: Mark of the Vampire (Browning, T)
1936 Dracula’s Daughter (Hillyer, L)
runner up: The Invisible Ray (Hillyer, L)
1937 Topper (McLeod, N)
runner up: Lonseome Ghosts (Gillet, B)
1939 Son of Frankenstein (Lee, R)
runner up: The Tower of London (Lee, R)

The Wolf Man

“The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own,” – Robert Waggner’s The Wolf Man (1941)

1940 Pinocchio (produced by Disney, W)
runner up: Black Friday (Lubin, A)
1941 The Wolf Man (Waggner, R)
runner up: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Fleming, V)
1942 Cat People (Tourneur, J)
runner up: The Ghost of Frankenstein (Kenton, E)
1943 The Leopard Man (Tourneur, J)
runner up: I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur, J)
1944 Dead of Night (Cavalcanti, A, Chricton, C, Dearden, B & Hamer, R)
runner up: House of Frankenstein (Kenton, E)
1945 La Belle et la Bete (Cocteau, J)
runner up: The Body Snatcher (Wise, R)
1946 Bedlam (Robson, M)
runner up: She-Wolf of London (Yarbrough, J)
1947 The Ghost & Mrs Muir (Mankiewicz, J)
runner up: Scaed to Death (Cabanne, C)
1948 Macbeth (Welles, O)
runner up: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Barton, C)
1949 The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr Toad (Algar, J, Geronimi, C & Kinney, J)
runner up: Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (Barton, C)

Horror of Dracula

“Sleep well, Mr Harker.” – Terrence Fisher’s The Horror of Dracula (1958)

1950 Orpheus (Cocteau, J)
1951 The Thing from Another Wold (Nyby, C)
1952 Trick or Treat (Hannah, J)
runner up: Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (Gilling, J)
1953 Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi, K)
runner up: Invaders from Mars (Menzies, W)
1954 Gojira (Honda, I)
runner up: The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Arnold, J)
1955 Les Diabolique (Clouzot, H)
runner up: The Quatermass Xperiment (Guest, V)
1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel, D)
1957 Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, A)
runner up: Night of the Demon (Tourneur, J)
1958 The Horror of Dracula (Fisher, T)
runner up: The Crawling Eye (Lawrence, Q)
1959 The Tingler (Castle, W)
runner up: A Bucket of Blood (Corman, R)

Night of the Living Dead

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” – George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)

1960 Psycho (Hitchcock, A)
runner up: Peeping Tom (Powell, M)
1961 The Innocents (Clayton, J)
runner up: The Pit and the Pendulum (Corman, R)
1962 Carnival of Souls (Harvey, H)
runner up: Panic in Year Zero (Milland, R)
1963 The Birds (Hitchcock, A)
runner up: Black Sabbath (Bava, M)
1964 Onibaba (Shindo, K)
runner up: Kwaidan (Kobayashi, M)
1965 Repulsion (Polanski, R)
runner up: Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (Francis, F)
1966 Dracula Prince of Darkness (Fisher, T)
runner up: The Plague of Zombies (Gilling, J)
1967 Quatermass & the Pit (Baker, RW)
runner up: The Fearless Vampire Killers (Polanksi, R)
1968 Night of the Living Dead (Romero, G)
runner up: Witchfinder General (Reeves, M)
1969 Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (Fisher, T)

Martin

“There is no real magic. There’s no real magic ever.” – George A. Romero’s Martin (1976)

1970 The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Argento, D)
runner up: Blood on Satan’s Claw (Haggard, P)
1971 Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Hancock, J)
runner up: Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, S)
1972 Death LIne (Sherman, G)
runner up: The Last House on the Left (Craven, W)
1973 Don’t Look Now (Roeg, N)
runner up: The Wicker Man (Hardy, R)
1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, T)
runner up: It’s Alive! (Cohen, L)
1975 Jaws (Spielberg, S)
runner up: Deep Red (Argento, D)
1976 The Omen (Donner, R)
runner up: Carrie (DePalma, B)
1977 Martin (Romero, G)
runner up: Suspiria (Argento, D)
1978 Dawn of the Dead (Romero, G)
runner up: Halloween (1978)
1979 Phantasm (Coscarelli, D)
runner up: Murder by Decree (Clark, B)

Evil Dead II

“Groovy!” – Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II (1987)

1980 The Fog (Carpenter, J)
runner up: The Shining (Kubrick, S)
1981 An American Werewolf in London (Landis, J)
runer up: The Howling (Dante, J)
1982 The Hing (Carpenter, J)
runner up: Q the Winged Serpent (Cohen, L)
1983 Videodrome (Cronenberg, D)
runner up: Psycho II (Franklin, R)
1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, W)
runner up: Gremlins (Dante, J)
1985 Day of the Dead (Romero, G)
runner up: Re-Animator (Gordon, S)
1986 The Fly (Cronenberg, D)
runner up: Night of the Creeps (Dekker, F)
1987 Evil Dead II (Raimi, S)
runner up: The Monster Squad (Dekker, F)
1988 The Blob (Russell, C)
runner up: Monkey Shines (Romero, G)
1989 Society (Yuzna, B)
runner up: Tetsuo The Iron Man (Tsukamoto, S)

Sleepy Hollow

“Watch your heads.” – Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999)

1990 Misery (Reiner, R)
runner up: The Exorcist III (Blatty, W)
1991 The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, J)
runner up: The People Under the stairs (Craven, W)
1992 Candyman (Rose, B)
runner up: Braindead (Jackson, P)
1993 Cronos (Del Toro, G)
runner up: The Dark Half (Romero, G)
1994 In the Mouth of Madness (Carpenter, J)
runner up: Wes Craven’s New Nightmares (Craven, W)
1995 Lord of Illusions (Barker, C)
runner up: The Addiction (Ferrara, A)
1996 From Dusk till Dawn (Rodriguez, R)
runner up: Scream (Craven, W)
1997 Lost Highway (Lynch, D)
runner up: Cube (Natali, V)
1998 Ringu (Nakata, H)
runner up: Halloween H20 (Miner, S)
1999 Sleepy Hollow (Burton, T)
runner up: The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, D & Sanchez, E)

Drag Me to Hell

“I beat you, you old bitch!” – Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell (2009)

2000 Ginger Snaps (Fawcett, J)
runner up: Battle Royale (Kukasaku, K)
2001 The Happiness of the Katakuris (Miike, T)
runner up: Frailty (Paxton, B)
2002 Bubba Ho Tep (Coscarelli, D)
runner up: May (McKee, L)
2003 Dead End (Andrea, JB & Canepa, F)
runner up: Willard (Morgan, G)
2004 Dead Man’s Shoes (Meadows, S)
runner up: Creep (Smith, C)
2005 Land of the Dead (Romero, G)
runner up: Wolf Creek (Mclean, G)
2006 Requiem (Schmid, HC)
runner up: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (Levine, J)
2007 The Mist (Darabont, F)
runner up: [rec] (Balaguero, J & P, Plaza)
2008 Cloverfield (Reeves, M)
runner up: Let the Right One In (Alfredson, T)
2009 Drag Me to Hell (Raimi, S)
2010 The Ward (Carpenter, J)

 

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very nice work!

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