Horror films aim to elicit emotions of fear, disgust, and horror in viewers through disturbing and macabre scenes involving the supernatural, gore, and jump scares. They often overlap with fantasy, science fiction, and thriller genres. Common horror elements include ghosts, torture, demons, cursed houses, and serial killers. While early horror films drew from Gothic literature, modern horrors continue to exploit classic monsters and push boundaries of explicit content. Highest rated classics include Psycho, The Shining, and The Exorcist, while lowest rated films are often considered so bad they're funny, like Manos: The Hands of Fate.

1. A background into Horror<br />Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror from viewers. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres. Horrors also frequently overlap with the thriller genre. <br />Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Although a good deal of it is about the supernatural, if some films contain a plot about morbidity, serial killers, a disease/virus outbreak and surrealism, they may be termed \"
horror.\"
<br />Plots written within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Themes or elements often prevalent in typical horror films include ghosts, torture, gore, werewolves, ancient curses, satanism, demons, vicious animals, vampires, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies and masked serial killers. Conversely, stories of the supernatural are not necessarily always a horror movie as well. <br />What is considered to be a horror film has varied from decade to decade. These days, the term \"
horror\"
is applied to films which display more explicit gore, jump scenes/scares or supernatural content (Wes Craven's New Nightmare, A Tale of Two Sisters, Saw films, The Strangers, The Ring, Session 9). <br />Early horror movies are largely based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. More recent horror films continue to exploit the monsters of literature.<br /> <br />(wikipedia)<br />Best rated horror feature films<br />Psycho (1960)

2. Alien (1979)

3. The Shining (1980)

4. Les Diaboliques (1955)

5. Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010)

6. The Thing (1982)

7. The Exorcist (1973)

8. Nosferatu (1922)

9. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

10. Faust (1926)From Looking at the ratings of best rated horror feature films, it is obvious that most people prefer the horrors which were made years ago rather than present day horrors, however this could be simply because horrors were more popular n the 90’s than present day.<br />Top US grossing Horror titles<br />1) What lies beneath (2000) ($155m)<br />2) Gremlins (1984) ($148m)<br />3) The Blair Witch Project (1999) ($141m)<br />4) Godzilla (1998) ($136m)<br />5) The Ring (2002) ($129m)<br />6) The Grudge (2004) ($110m)<br />7) Paranormal Activity (2007) ($108m)<br />8) Scream (1996) ($103m)<br />9) Scream 2 (1997) ($101m)<br />10) The Haunting (1999) ($91.2m) <br />Lowest rated horror feature films<br />Manos : The hands of fate (1996)

11. Daniel – Der Zauberer (2004)

12. Monster -a go go (1965)

13. Zombie Nation (2004)

14. The Final Sacrifice (1990)

15. The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961)

16. Hobgoblins (1988)

17. Merlin’s Shop Of Mystical Wonders (1996)

18. Track Of The Moon Beast (1976)

19. The Creeping Terror (1964)