Top 10 Horror Movies That Did Something Brand New

#10: “The Evil Dead” (1981)

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Crafted in a style that still resonates today, this no-budget DIY ‘80s classic inspired a legion of followers to pick up their cameras and put their vision on film, with or without the resources. The dark humor and creative makeup effects paved the way for so much ‘80s horror cinema. Sam Raimi’s gruesome story single-handedly created the “cabin-in-the-woods” genre, but his fearless filmmaking attitude showed the world that gritty indie films with heaps of imagination can become worldwide phenomena. It clearly helps to have buckets of blood.

It’s dizzying to think that a full-length movie this terrifying was made almost a century ago! While not the first horror flick ever made, it is certainly the first feature-length one to be put on the silver screen this effectively. The gothic settings, the shadowy figures, the gruesome makeup... audiences had never seen anything like this before. The Germans had created a surreal cinematic expressionism, and “Nosferatu” became almost synonymous with gothic silent horror. And although the story was directly lifted from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” moviegoers were too busy being horrified to worry or care.

#8: “Saw” (2004)

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Horror trends come in (bloody) waves, and following the terrible resurgence of cheesy slasher films in the late ‘90s, audiences were looking for even more gruesome entertainment. Enter the delightful world of, uh, torture porn, brought to us thanks to a little indie film known as “Saw.” The surprise popularity of the cheaply-produced fan favorite, with its brutal story and shocking ending, paved the way for a decade of controversial hits. It not only created a huge franchise, but also taught studios that smartly-written horror films can be economically-made, and fun, and mainstream audiences will not shy away from gore.

#7: “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” (1994)

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Leave it to Wes Craven to constantly change up the horror genre. When masked killers were already getting stale in 1984, he gave us Freddy. When Freddy himself was becoming a bore, Craven turned his own franchise on its head, and gave us “New Nightmare,” a meta-horror film where the idea of Freddy seeps into the real life of the actors and creators of the series. Although he again reinvented the genre soon after, with “Scream,” another meta-classic, “New Nightmare” was praised for its uniqueness. Craven, thankfully, broke from dying trends, and dared create something new.

#6: “Halloween” (1978)

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While the honor for creating the slasher genre goes to other films, such as the Italian Giallo “Blood and Black Lace,” John Carpenter brought the world something wholly unique: the savage but muted experience of a slow-stalking killer. The later sequels establish a backstory and motive for Michael Myers, but this faceless, unrelenting killer initially had a horrifying and disturbing lack of apparent motive. The opening sequence, unveiling the blank face of a young murderer, shocked audiences to their very cores. The popularity of “Halloween” spawned its own unending franchise, with innumerable knock-offs and holiday-themed thrillers.

#5: “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974)

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“The Exorcist,” just a year prior to this entry, prepared audiences for a new horizon of brutal horror realism. However, these were still supernatural terrors. Nobody was prepared for the late Tobe Hooper’s vision of violent realism. Anyone (well, sorta) can see themselves falling prey to a cannibalistic family of crazies, or at least being chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac. Innovative in more ways than we give it credit for, the original “Massacre” popularized the teenagers-in-peril motif, as well as using the “based on a true story” opening, which can still, to this day, make any horror movie seem even scarier.

#4: “Night of the Living Dead” (1968)

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Some of you may be tired of seeing zombies everywhere, but they are enduring movie (and TV) monsters, and it’s all thanks to the genius of this little passion project. Before 1968, the term zombie meant something different, usually a sometimes-dead sleepwalker controlled by a voodoo priest. Although “28 Days Later” made them more aggressive, our slow, lurking, decomposing, brain-eating undead made their first appearance in George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.” Unique for its underlying message about race, and for featuring the first black hero in a horror movie, it is still analyzed and praised half a century later.

#3: “The Blair Witch Project” (1999)

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We know that “The Blair Witch Project” is far from being the first use of “found footage,” with that honor going to the equally classic “Cannibal Holocaust.” However, the way that the found footage method was brilliantly used to elevate the tension in the film, and innovatively exploited to create buzz in its sly viral marketing campaign, was beyond anything audiences had encountered before. The film’s bare, minimalist approach allowed the crew to save money on lavish effects and equipment; this, unfortunately, inspired studios to later cur corners and make cheap knock-offs.

#2: “Alien” (1979)

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Horror was experiencing a resurgence in mainstream cinema by the late ‘70s, and slasher films were becoming a huge commodity. So what was the next evolutionary stage at that point? Slasher-in-space, of course. Audiences, all fired up to see another space epic on the big screen, were shocked, horrified and thrilled to find an amalgamation of a classic sci-fi monster movie with a modern stalk-and-kill thriller. What’s more, is that “Alien” broke the convention of what an on-screen alien looked like . . . not to mention it featured a powerful brave and intelligent heroine audiences could really root for. Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. - “Carrie” (1976) - “Frankenstein” (1931) - “Black Christmas” (1974)

#1: “Psycho” (1960)

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Already a world-renowned master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock knew he had to not just break the mold, but smash that bad boy into a million pieces and flush it down the toilet. Enter a deranged killer, brutal on-screen deaths, and “psycho”-sexual stalking. The overshadowed “Peeping Tom” may have covered similar ground, but “Psycho” changed everything by reaching the mass audience. A campaign was even launched to keep moviegoers from entering theaters too late (you know, because of the whole killing the main character early in the film thing); and warning audiences about revealing the twist ending was another innovation in viral marketing.