n Hollywood co-opted the popularity of the horror film, the directors and producers found ample opportunity for audience exploitation, with gimmicks such as 3-D and "Percepto" (producer William Castle's pseudo-electric-shock technique used for 1959's The Tingler). Some directors of horror films of this period, including The Thing from Another World (1951; attributed on screen to Christian Nyby but widely considered to be the work of Howard Hawks) and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) managed to channel the paranoia of the Cold War into atmospheric creepiness without resorting to direct exploitation of the events of the day.
Filmmakers continued to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. One of the most notable films of the era was 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man, from Richard Matheson's existentialist novel. While more of a "science-fiction" story, the film conveyed the fears of living in the "Atomic Age" and the terror of social alienation.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, production companies focused on producing horror films, including the British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer enjoyed huge international success from full-blooded technicolor films involving classic horror characters, often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) and many sequels. Hammer, and director Terence Fisher, are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the modern horror movie.
Other companies also contributed to a boom in horror film production in Britain in the 1960s and '70s, including Tigon-British and Amicus, the latter best known for their anthology films like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965).
American International Pictures (AIP) also made a series of Edgar Allan Poe–themed films produced by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. Some contend that these sometimes controversial productions paved the way for more explicit violence in both horror and mainstream films. Teaming with Tigon British Film Productions, AIP would make Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General (1968). Released in 1968, it was retitled for American audiences as The Conqueror Worm, most likely in an attempt to capitalize upon the success of AIP's earlier Poe-themed offerings, but the tale of witch hunter Matthew Hopkins (played by an uncharacteristically humorless Vincent Price) was more sadistic than supernatural.
Ghosts and monsters still remained popular, but many films used the supernatural premise to express the horror of the demonic. The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) and The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963) are two such horror-of-the-demonic films from the early 1960s. In Rosemary's Baby by (Roman Polanski, 1968), the devil is made flesh.
An influential horror films of the late 1960s was George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Produced and directed by Romero, on a budget of $114,000, it grossed $12 million domestically and $30 million internationally. This horror-of-Armageddon film about zombies was later deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" enough to be preserved by the United States National Film Registry. Blending psychological insights with gore, it moved the genre even further away from the gothic horror trends of earlier eras and brought horror into everyday life.
Low-budget gore-shock films from the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis also appeared. Examples include 1963's Blood Feast (a devil-cult story) and 1964's Two Thousand Maniacs! (a ghost town inhabited by psychotic cannibals), which featured splattering blood and bodily dismemberment.
With the end of the Production Code of America in 1964, and the financial successes of the low-budget gore films of the ensuing years, the 1970s started referencing the occult, occultism; the genre also included gory horror movies with sexual overtones, made as "A-movies" (as opposed to "B movies" exploitation films and grindhouse cinema). Some of these films were made by respected auteurs.
The critical and popular success of Rosemary's Baby (19