1950s: Television discovers dread

Early TV horror leaned hard into psychological terror and bleak futures. This infamous broadcast proved television could unsettle millions at once.

• BBC Sunday Night Theatre: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954)

1960s: Gothic chills and literary ghosts

The 1960s favored atmosphere over shock. These films move slowly, trust silence, and let imagination do the work.

• Kraft Mystery Theater: House of Mystery (1961)

• Omnibus: Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968)

• Fear No Evil (1969)

1970s: The golden age of TV horror

If you only explore one decade, make it this one.

This is the core decade. Networks greenlit bold, unsettling stories that often pushed further than theatrical horror.

• The House That Would Not Die (1970)

• Crownhaven Farm (1970)

• Duel (1971)

• Paper Man (1971)

• A Taste of Evil (1971)

• A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Barchester (1971)

• The Night Stalker (1972)

• A Ghost Story for Christmas (1972)

• Crawlspace (1972)

• Moon of the Wolf (1972)

• The Stone Tape (1972)

• Home for the Holidays (1972)

• The Screaming Woman (1972)

• Gargoyles (1972)

• The Victim (1972)

• Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)

• A Cold Night’s Death (1973)

• Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

• Isn’t It Shocking (1973)

• The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)

• The Night Stangler (1973)

• Dying Room Only (1973)

• The Norliss Tapes (1973)

• The Wide World of Mystery: Deadly Visitor (1973)

• Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)

• The She-Butterfly (1973)

• Doberman Patrol (1973)

• Sticenik (1973)

• Killdozer (1974)

• Reflections of Murder (1974)

• Bad Ronald (1974)

• Where Have All the People Gone (1974)

• Winter Kill (1974)

• The Elevator (1974)

• Juge Dee and the Monastery Murders (1974)

• The California Kid (1974)

• El televisor (1974)

• Trilogy of Terror (1975)

• The Deadly Tower (1975)

• The Savage Bees (1976)

• Beasts: Special Offer (1976)

• A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Signalman (1976)

• Helter Skelter (1976)

• Count Dracula (1977)

• Dead of Night (1977)

• Night Drive (1977)

• Snowbeast (1977)

• Spectre (1977)

• The Possessed (1977)

• Ants! (1977)

• Someone’s Watching Me! (1978)

• The World Beyond (1978)

• Are You in the House? (1978)

• The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978)

• Summer of Fear (1978)

• The Magical World of Disney: Child of Glass (1978)

• Schalcken the Painter (1979)

• The Plumber (1979)

1980s: Anxiety, apocalypse, and prime-time nightmares

The 1980s brought global fear, social collapse, and lingering paranoia straight into living rooms.

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)

• Hammer House of Horror: The Two Faces of Evil (1980)

• Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

• The Day of the Triffids (1981)

• Goliath Awaits (1981)

• Midnight Offerings (1981)

• This House Possessed (1981)

• Don’t Go to Sleep (1982)

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982)

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)

• The Day After (1983)

• V (1983)

• Threads (1984)

• Blackout (1985)

• Fortress (1985)

• Sommarens tolv månader (1988)

• The Woman in Black (1989)

• Trapped (1989)

• The McPherson Tape (1989)

1990s: Psychological horror and experimental formats

This decade experiments with realism, mockumentary styles, and deeper psychological damage.

• Buried Alive (1990)

• The Phantom of the Opera (1990)

• Cast a Deadly Spell (1991)

• The Haunted (1991)

• The Intruder Within (1991)

• Ghostwatch (1992)

• The Vampyr: A Soap Opera (1992)

• The Dollhouse Murders (1992)

• Intruders (1992)

• To Catch a Killer (1992)

• Body Bags (1993)

• A Family Torn Apart (1993)

• When a Stranger Calls Back (1993)

• Citizen X (1995)

• Humanoids from the Deep (1996)

• Trilogy of Terror II (1996)

• Intensity (1997)

• Out of Mind: The Stories of H. P. Lovecraft (1998)

• School Ghost Story G (1998)

2000s: Prestige TV horror emerges

These films bridge classic TV horror with modern sensibilities, setting the stage for today’s horror television boom.

• They Nest (2000)

• A Christmas Carol (2000)

• She Creature (2001)

• No Night Is Too Long (2002)

• A Haunting in Connecticut (2002)

• Living with the Dead (2002)

• Frankenfish (2004)

• Masters of Horror: Cigarette Burns (2005)

• A Christmas Tale (2005)

• A Ghost Story for Christmas: A View from a Hill (2005)

• The Amazing Screw-On Head (2005)

• The Baby’s Room (2006)

• Hogfather (2006)

Why TV Horror Still Matters

Made-for-TV horror had constraints theatrical films didn’t: standards departments, ad breaks, and living-room audiences. Those limits forced creativity. The result is a body of work that often feels more intimate, more disturbing, and more honest than big-screen horror of the same eras.

Be sure to check out our Ultimate Horror Movie Hub!