14 of the First Horror Movies from Around the World
Sure, France was the first to make a horror movie, but it was basically a silent TikTok, so we’re not sure how much credit they deserve.
1896: The First First Horror Movie
France produced the first-ever horror movie, 1896’s The House of the Devil, although it was meant more as a fun way to show off special effects than to scare some Francos — among others, it kicked off a classic vampire trope, with a fluttering bat transforming itself into the devil.
1897: Spooky Scary Skeletons
The U.K. got in on the action with 1897’s The X-Rays. This featured a local comedian trying to hook up with the director’s wife, with their courtship interrupted when some kind of X-ray gun zaps them both into skeletons.
1898: Japan Made a 19th Century ‘Coffin Flop’
Shinin no sosei, or Resurrection of a Corpse, was a black comedy sketch where the bottom drops out of a coffin, a corpse tumbles to the ground, then suddenly wakes up from death. The film is lost, but was recalled by cameraman Shiro Asano.
1908: America Has Entered the Chat
Before this, most “horror” films were goofy little shorts with motifs that we now recognize as spooky. But when Americans came along and adapted Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (against Robert Louis Stevenson’s wishes), they weren’t playing around. This was 16 minutes of slaughter and body dysmorphia.
1909: The Dutch Made a Movie That Jenna Maroney Might Star In
Anglicized, it’s called The Grip, and it’s about an old man who used to beat his family but now sits lamely in a chair all day, until he has to summon the last of his strength to defend his family from his murderous daughter-in-law. In Dutch, De Greep by Filmfabriek F.A. Nöggerath sounds like a 30 Rock joke.
1913: The Germans Remade Their Messed-Up Movie Three Separate Times
The Student of Prague is about a poor university student who makes a deal with a man in black in order to win the heart of a wealthy countess. But the stranger steals the guy’s mirror image, causing all kinds of chaos. He ultimately shoots his mirror self, dies, and the movie ends with his reflection squatting on his grave.
1916: ‘Friday the 13th’ Meets of ‘Mice and Men’
Blind Justice is a Danish film about a dimwitted circus strongman who’s wrongfully convicted of a murder, and seeks his revenge when he gets out of prison 14 years later. He chases and traps a family around a house, and it even ends with a familial twist.
1918: Hungarian ‘Little Shop of Horrors’
The film Alraune (German for “mandrake”) has been lost to time, but it’s based on a German novel by the same name. A mad scientist forces a human woman to procreate with a mandrake root, which had been watered with the blood of a hanged man, naturally, creating a demon child.
1921: The Swedes Made ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Inception’ Long Before Either
The Phantom Carriage is about a drunk guy who bonks his head and meets his old dead friend, a man named Georges who was doomed to drive Death’s carriage for a year. It uses a novel technique of flashbacks within flashbacks to force the drunkard to relive his darkest deeds.
1944: What’s Worse, a Gambling Ghost or Online Sportsbooks?
A poor young man trying to impress a pop star takes a stranger’s gambling advice, and wins a ton of money. The stranger turns out to be the ghost of an archaeologist, who points the young man toward an underground lair full of mysterious money-forging hunchbacks. It might be a cool movie if you could take out the anti-Semitic tropes. (It would also be about 30 seconds long).
1959: Possibly the First Horror Tetralogy
Creature from Blood Island is the first of a four-part Philippine horror anthology that takes place on Blood Island. In this one, a shipwrecked man discovers a mad scientist trying to turn a panther human.
1961: A Movie Called ‘The Mask’ Starring a Canadian
Rather than a horny cartoon wolf, this cursed ancient tribal mask turns the psychiatrist who saw it into a raving madman. It was a 3D movie produced by Warner Bros., and viewers were given a spooky 3D glasses mask to wear in the theater. It was rereleased as The Spooky Movie Show, completely obliterating any street cred it once had.
1970: Polish ManBearPig
A Countess who was attacked by a wild bear gives birth soon after, and is convinced her baby is a bear. She’s declared insane and locked away, but guess who reveals himself to be a bloodthirsty man-bear hybrid on his own wedding night? That’s right, the son she thought was a bear.
1991: The Last First Horror Movie
Romania didn’t get around to making a horror movie until 1992, when America was already on Frankenweenie and Gwar: Phallus in Wonderland. Miss Christina, based on a 1936 novella of the same name, is about a horny young man who wants very badly to hook up with a ghost he meets in a haunted house.
