The horror film is like a cannibal — it feeds on its own kind to survive. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), a seminal terror film, took its cues from a host of haunted-house pictures that had preceded it; Night of the Living Dead (1968), often cited as the film that began the whole zombie cycle, merely breathed new life into the undead. These films came at the well-established source materials from a different angle — in Kubrick’s case, engineering frights with methodical precision; with NOTLD, zombies were used as social allegory. The genre never tires of reinventing itself. With the new low-budget film Paranormal Activity a box-office sensation in the US, here are a clutch of titles that had, and have, audiences realising there are always new ways to be scared silly.

1. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) This early, extremely creepy Danish docu-drama about demonic goings-on, showed things that had never been seen before on screen — including torture, demon love, witches flying over a town. Inevitably, it was banned.

See also: Night of the Eagle (1962); Witchfinder General (1968); Jack’s Wife (1972)

2. Dracula (1958) The British studio Hammer reinvigorated the vampire myth with this X-rated full-colour notion of Dracula as a sexual beast. This suggestion that sex and horror might be natural bedfellows was wholly embraced; soon nudity was a staple of the genre.

See also: Vampire Lovers (1970); Twins of Evil (1971)

3. Village of the Damned (1960) The Bad Seed (1950) hinted that a lone child was born evil. Here a whole playground turns nasty, starting a sub-genre of murderous tykes, that confronted two taboos: children who kill, and child-killing.

See also: Would You Kill a Child? (1976); The Brood (1979); The Children (2008)

4. The Birds (1963) An unlikely idea for a film spawned the whole “Nature versus Man” genre, tapping into the primal fear of forces beyond our control taking hold. Cue various giant sea creatures, grizzly bears, snakes and insects.

See also: Jaws (1975); Long Weekend (1978); Cujo (1983); Arachnophobia (1990)

5. Blood Feast (1963) The idea of showing gruesome death in all its bloody gore was not an aesthetic decision, merely an attempt by marketing guru H. G. Lewis to sell more tickets to the salacious drive-in theatre market. Film-makers would test the censors from thereon in (give them an inch and they pull out the whole intestine).

See also: Maniac (1980); The Thing (1982); Re-animator (1985); Braindead (1992)

6. The Exorcist (1973) Not many horror films caused queues round the block and audience faintings; and few were so brilliantly constructed. But it just went to show that the horror film didn’t need to be cinema’s poor cousin. William Friedkin brought the genre a decade of respectability, and two Oscars to boot.

See also: Rosemary’s Baby (1968); The Omen (1977); The Amityville Horror (1979)

7. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) One of the first films to use the “it happened” tagline, combined with a semi- documentary feel, thus giving the audience an extra jolt. Also notable for pushing the “deranged family” thematic, that being: the family that slays together stays together.

See also: The Hills Have Eyes (1977); Wolf Creek (2005)

8. Shivers (1975) Director David Cronenberg pretty much has full copyright on “body horror”, whereby the flesh is torn, twisted or, in this case, subjected to viral slugs that make the host sex-mad. Trailers for his film The Brood (about killer kids) showed infra-red footage of audiences screaming. Enough said.

See also: Rabid (1977); 28 Days Later (2002)

9. Halloween (1978) The seasonal shocker that kick-started the slasher franchise, with the hard-to-kill Michael Myers returning for endless sequels.

See also: Friday the 13th (1980); A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

10. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) This grimly real midnight movie shocked the few audience members that saw it. One was a certain Martin Scorsese, who called it a “crazy little movie”.

See also: Silence of the Lambs (1991); Se7en (1995); American Psycho (1999)

11. Ringu (1998) After a decade in the doldrums, Ringu was part of a wave of “J-horror” that used the power of creeping dread and what you don’t see to make the horror film memorable and nightmarish all over again. The US took note and remade the lot.

See also: Ju-on (2002); Audition (2002)

12. The Blair Witch Project (1999) The first film to utilise the power of the internet as a marketing tool, allowing a low-budget creep-out to go global. By mixing a made-up myth with “is it real?” footage, BWP tantalised the incoming audience with delicious expectation.

See also: Cloverfield (2008)

13. Paranormal Activity (2009) At the time of writing, this micro-budget ghost flick (it reportedly cost $11,000 to make) was at the top of the US box office — meaning that for the price of a camcorder, anyone can make a horror movie. And audiences can carry on screaming.

See also: The Collingswood Project (2002); Colin (2008)

A Hammer exhibition is at the Idea Generation Gallery, London E2 (ideageneration.co.uk), until Nov 15, free; Paranormal Activity is released on Nov 25

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