Various cultural forces helped shape horror movies in the '50s. The Cold War fed fears of invasion (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, The Blob), nuclear proliferation fed visions of rampaging mutants (Them!, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla) and scientific breakthroughs led to mad scientist plots (The Fly). Competition for increasingly jaded audiences led filmmakers to resort to either gimmicks like 3-D (House of Wax, The Creature from the Black Lagoon) and the various stunts of William Castle productions (House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler) or, in the case of Great Britain's Hammer Films, explicit, vividly coloured violence. International efforts include the first full-length Japanese horror movie (Ugetsu), the first Italian horror movie in the sound era (I Vampiri) and the acclaimed French thriller Diabolique.
1951: The Thing from Another World
1953: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
1953: House of Wax
1953: Ugetsu
1954: The Creature from the Black Lagoon
1954: Godzilla
1954: Them!
1955: Diabolique
1955: The Night of the Hunter
1956: The Bad Seed
1956: I Vampiri
1956: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1957: The Curse of Frankenstein
1957: I Was a Teen-age Werewolf
1957: The Incredible Shrinking Man
1958: The Blob
1958: The Fly
1958: Horror of Dracula
1959: House on Haunted Hill
1959: Plan 9 from Outer Space
1959: The Tingler
