re: The Most influential Horror movie of its time?

Halloween came out two years before Friday 13th, which was a copy.

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Were there any franchise type horror movies before Friday the 13th? I'm not just talking cheap sequels. I mean creating an iconic villain like Jason. Hockey mask. You immediatley think one character. Possibly Halloween and Michael Myers but I'd give the edge to the 13th bc it really created the perfect slasher type horror.

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Sure it did but I don't recall Halloween 2 until after Friday the 13th wheeled out 1 & 2 in back-to-back years cashing in. It seemed to me at least that Jason became the standard of a cult horror franchise type movies and setting the standard in that regard of year after year pumping out movies and merchandise. Halloween was excellent movie on it's on and was probably taken more seriously as a film because of Carpenter. It influenced Friday the 13th but most horror movies are borrowed ideas. Halloween is just psycho in a sense. But Jason had action figurines, comic books, T-shirts, etc. I can remember thinking it was a big deal to be able to see Friday the 13th part 3 in 3D. Everything after the original Halloween was bad in comparison and tried to emulate what Friday the 13th was doing at the time. And Halloween 3 killed that series.

I'll say NOTLD as well. It was the first horror film to make a bold social statement, influenced independent filmmakers like Raimi, etc.

The doc was about how The Ring was the most influential of its time.

I take that to mean late 90s to now.

I take issue with that... While Japan horror had a mini-invasion and sold well, I think it's innovation is oversold.

Blair Witch was the same time frame and had more an impact on filmmaking. Japan horror was just reintroduction to monster movies in a new form for American audiences burnt out on slasher after Scream killed the genre.

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There was M, etc...but that isn't modern horror.

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A young Peter Lorre was great in that movie!



What about the other Fritz Lang classics.....'Metropolis' and 'Dr. Mabuse (the Player)' (1922).

Dr. Mabuse can be certainly considered both the grandfather of horror movies and the first movie to spawn two sequels (although several years later).



For myself, I think that Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' was an epoch maker.

such movies as Jaws and the Ring

I think it's Halloween, which really proved that independent horror movies could be a viable enterprise. It also pretty much invented the concept of the "slasher movie", even though we had slasher-types before. But they never grabbed the zeitgeist like Mike Meyers did. It's still the blueprint for how to make a low budget horror movie almost 40 years later (okay, but now we add shaky camera work thanks to Blair Witch)

I think the problem with Ringu being that influential is that it wasn't terribly good. The American remake is far superior and made the ideas work a lot better. I'd argue THE classic J-horror film is Pulse, which came out a year later in Japan (and has a terrible American remake).

I think Audition is the best J-horror, but it isn't really emblematic of the genre. It also never came with a terrible US remake. However, while J-horror was influential, it seems we've largely moved on. It was a brief period, but I think Korea is putting out the better horror films now (which would mean Oldboy is now the more influential film).

What's ironic about the whole horror genre, to me, is that what is considered influential horror one decade is more comedy the next. My litmus test when watching is "is it still scary today?"

After I first watched Halloween I slept with every light on in and around my room for a week....I was 12.