I think it would be fun for everybody to list what they think is the best horror film for each year from 1975 to the present day. It doesn't have to be straight up horror; it can be hybrids like horror/sci-fi (Alien), horror/serial killer (Silence of the Lambs), horror/action (Blade), etc.

Some years there weren't any good films, so I had to just pick what I thought was the best of them.

My List:
1975: Jaws
1976: Carrie
1977: The Hills Have Eyes
1978: Halloween
1979: Alien
1980: The Shining
1981: An American Werewolf in London
1982: The Thing
1983: Videodrome
1984: A Nightmare on Elm Street
1985: Re-Animator
1986: The Fly
1987: Predator
1988: They Live
1989: Pet Sematary
1990: Arachnophobia
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Bram Stoker's Dracula
1993: Army of Darkness
1994: Interview with the Vampire
1995: In the Mouth of Madness
1996: The Ghost and the Darkness
1997: The Devil's Advocate
1998: Blade
1999: House on Haunted Hill    
2000: Final Destination
2001: Joy Ride
2002: Bubba Ho-tep

2003: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2004: Saw

2005: The Descent

2006: The Hills Have Eyes

2007: 30 Days of Night

Out of pure morbid curiousity, why 1975?

My List: (I'm using wikipedia for my years, so hopefully all are right.)
1975: Jaws (i've never seen it (SHOCK AND AWE), but the rest of that year looks like it kinda pales in comparison)
1976: Carrie (beats The Omen easily for me.)
1977: Suspiria
1978: Dawn of the Dead
1979: Phantasm (I'm thinking I'm in the minority against Alien here.....lol)
1980: The Shining  (good year.)
1981: TIE:  An American Werewolf in London and The Evil Dead (I'm sorry I can't pick.)
1982: Creepshow (Purely because I haven't seen The Thing yet.  I will see it relatively soon though, then I imagine that will change.
1983: Christine
1984: Children of the Corn (This was really hard.  I put Corn a notch above Nightmare on Elm Street and Silent Night, Deadly Night)
1985: Re-Animator
1986: The Fly (From Beyond's a close second.)
1987: Hellraiser
1988: Hellbound:  Hellraiser II
1989: Pet Sematary (part of me wants to put Puppet Master here.)
1990: Stephen King's IT
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Braindead/Dead Alive
1993: Return of the Living Dead III (It should be noted that I do love Army of Darkness as well.)
1994: The Stand (I haven't seen it yet, but I didn't see one I could use otherwise.)
1995: Tales from the Crypt Presents:  Demon Knight (don't knock it till you've seen it.)
1996: The Craft (over Scream)
1997: The Devil's Advocate (good thing you put that, I wouldnt have remembered it otherwise.)
1998: Disturbing Behavior
1999: Storm of the Century (soooo underrated.)
2000: American Psycho
2001: TIE:  Jeepers Creepers and Joy Ride  (can't pick...lol)
2002: Rose Red (barely beating Resident Evil and Bubba Ho-Tep)

2003: High Tension

2004: TIE:  Three...Extremes and Saw

2005: The Descent

2006: Slither

2007: Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (barely beats out The Mist)

No particular reason besides the fact that I haven't seen nearly as many horror films pre-1975. And by the way, you've got to see The Thing as soon as possible. It's in my top 5 movies of all time.

1975: Jaws

1976:The Omen

1977: Suspiria, barely over Rabid

1978:Halloween

1979:Alien

1980:The Shining -- Cryp's right -- tough competition this year, but the shining shines through. nods to The Changeling

1981:  American Werewolf in London, nods  to Halloween II and underated Wolfen

1982:The Thing

1983: The Keep ( Cujo is great too, but major changes from book dissapointed me)  3 King movies this year.

1984: Nightmare on Elm Street

1985: Re-Animator

1986: Aliens

1987: Angel Heart, but serious props to Hellraiser and Near Dark

1988: Monkeyshines, nods to Child's Play

1989:Pet Sematary

1990:Jacob's Ladder, but serious props to great remake of NOTLD, and two of King's best: Misery and It.  Damn good year for Horror

1991:Sometimes They Come Back, but just because I consider the great Silence of the Lambs more of a murder/suspense movie than horror.

1992:Bram Stoker's Dracula

1993:Jurassic Park  -- I know some folks don't consider this Horror.  But, although I can live without the sequels, I thought this was great for making Dinosaurs terrifying again.  The T-Rex attacking the land rover and the rapters stalking the kids in the kitchen is some scary stuff.  And it should get credit just for having that little spitting sonuvabitch kill Newman.

1994:Interview with the Vampire, barely over Cemetery Man and a big nod to the Stand too

1995:The Prophecy

1996:The Craft

1997:  The Relic (I love this movie) --Event Horizon and Mimic were pretty good too.

1998: Fallen, but I really liked the Faculty too

1999:Innocent Blood ,  barely, barely over Sixth Sense. . Prince did have a reason to party in '99.  Great year for horror. Sixth sense, Storm of the Century,the Haunting, Blair Witch, Sleepy Hollow, and the very underated Lighthouse (known in US as Dead of Night)  -- maybe not horror per se, but damn scary. If you consider the murder movies horror then it's horror. Innocent Blood is one of my favorite vamp movies.

2000:Ginger Snaps , but big nod to Final Destination

2001:Jeepers Creepers barely over The Dagon.  If I thought Brotherhood of the Wolf could really be classified as Horror, which I don't, it would win hands down.  Props to Frailty, From Hell, and Donnie Darko. And even thirteen Ghosts had some damn fine moments. This stretch here, '99 -2001, is when I was telling my older friends, who were always saying new horror sucked, that oh no boyo -- you just got to give it a chance.  Some really good horror was ushering in the millenium.  I think It started with The Relic actually -- that movie was the one I think that that opened my eyes to what the new special effects could do for a Horror movie.

2002:House of 1000 Corpses, with props to Dog Soldiers and 28 Days Later.  And yes I do still Love Bubba Ho-Tep.

2003: High Tension

2004:Dawn of the Dead

2005:The Descent

2006:Slither

2007: 30 Days of Night

Is it just me or did we lose our way and the promise of another golden age of horror that was blooming in the late 90s.  Since the millenium we've had some good horror, but not alot of it.  They were starting to bang them out in the late 90s. Did the events in the US on 9/11/01 put a damper on folk's craving for Horror?  Did it scare studios and directors away

from making Horror movies?

Just wondering.

In my opinion, it was maybe a touch of 9/11....but more than that, direct-to-dvd and stupidity by studios killed it.  Example:  HEY lets release horror movies against blockbusters or on holiday weekends when people usually dont like to watch horror!  But NOOOOOO, we can't release another horror movie around halloween with Saw...thatd just be CRAAAAZY.  Plus, I think the studios are becoming more like just big money-hungry machines that may not always care about the product they put out.  But that's just me.

Good call. I can't believe I didn't think of that one since it's one of my favorite movies. If Jaws is considered horror, then JP should be considered horror, too.

I agree. It's so stupid that they don't release more than one big horror movie around Halloween. The month of October should be a celebration of the horror genre in theaters. It would be so much fun to go to the theater for multiple horror movies in October.

I miss the all-night horror fests we used to have.  They would start at like 11:00 or midnight, sometimes as early as 9:00,  and show horror movies until dawn at the drive-ins.  And we also had a 4-theatre cinema that would have the "Midnite Movies" evry Fri and Sat after the regular movies had stopped showing.  They would charge a reduced fee and show low-budget horror and soft-porn, or comedys considered too rough for mainstream.  I miss that stuff and really don't understand why some of our modern 20 theatre megaplexes don't do it -- it seemed like it was a moneymaker.

 I am an old fart so I remember when the Atlanta Super Station used to play horror movies at midnight, the old ones like b&w, Dracula, Frankenstein the old school movies. I would stay up late with my aunt to watch them. I would be scared out of my mind come the time when I had to go down the dark hall to the bathroom. Now in the summer time here we would have the "Faces of Death" movies play at the midnight movies, however before they would show the movie they would play cartoons"dirty cartoons" I don't know how many times I saw Snow White spank the monkey with the 7 dwarfs. Now they would play Night Mare on Elm Street a lot too. The good o'days!

If you are an old fart then I must be just the ancient memory of the smell

 Now your just aged to perfection. I like you Pumpboy!

I like you too!  Thanks.

Noones hit this topic for awhile but I had to put in the 2 cents:

1975--Jaws

1976--Grizzly (yeah, I know but I was young and impressionable).

1977--(I saw Star Wars 22 times that year...no time for anything else)

1978--Dawn Of the Dead (Halloween a close second)

1979--Alien

1980--The Shining and Friday the 13th in a tie

1981--American Werewolf In London

1982--The Thing

1983--Evil Dead (shouts to Dead Zone/Videodrome/Something Wicked This Way Comes

1984--Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

1985--Day of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead in a dead heat

1986--Aliens...but if that isn't considered horror...The Fly

1987--Evil Dead 2

1988--Return of the Living Dead 2

1989--Friday the 13th Part 8 (slow year)

1990--Night of the Living Dead...remake

1991--Pit & the Pendulum

1992--Bram Stoker's Dracula

1993--Dead Alive

1994--The Stand

1995--???

1996--From Dusk til Dawn

1997--the Relic

1998--Blade

1999--6th Sense

2000--The Exorcist (the version you never seen)

2001--The Others

2002--The Ring

2003--28 Days Later

2004--Shaun of the Dead/Dawn of the Dead (great double feature)

2005--Wolf Creek

2006--Slither (sorry...I found it amusing)

2007--28 Weeks Later

2008--so far, Diary of the Dead

1975 - Jaws, easily, although I love The Stepford Wives

1976 - Carrie (the Omen is pretty good, but not as good)

1977 - The Hills Have Eyes (Suspiria was o.k., but not a fave)

1978 - Halloween (I like Dawn of the Dead a lot, but it's really not that scary or creepy. Just a cool situation with guns. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a close second to Halloween.)

1979 - Alien, in a rout (the only other thing that comes close is Stalker, which may or may not be a horror film)

1980 - Dressed to Kill (The Shining was pretty good, but featured too much really bad acting--not Nicholson's, of course)

1981 - Dead and Buried (Wolfen, The Howling, American Werewolf, Evil Dead, Ghost Story...good year, esp. for werewolves)

1982 - The Thing, in a rout (didn't like Poltergeist, Cat People or Creepshow much)

1983 - Videodrome (I am most definitely not a Steven King fan and movies based upon his novels usually turn out badly to boot)

1984 - A Nightmare on Elm Street, a movie I don't particularly like that's just the best of a bad bunch

1985 - Fright Night, an o.k. movie but again only the best of a bad bunch

1986 - Aliens, in a rout, beating out several other quality films

1987 - Near Dark (not a rout, but beating out several other good movies, including Hellraiser)

1988 - Dead Ringers (boaby -- best of a bad year; nevertheless a great horror movie in my book)

1989 - A Nightmare on Elm Street V (it's pretty bad when some of my "Best ofs" are movies I don't actually like)

1990 - Jacob's Ladder, in a close win over Buried Alive

1991 - Silence of the Lambs (Cape Fear was good, too, although not really horror)

1992 - The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (I wish Rebecca would rock me...)

1993 - Army of Darkness (in what is probably the worst year for horror movies ever)

1994 - Interview with the Vampire (I guess...boaby...the '90s were a graveyard)

1995 - Lord of Illusions (boaby)

1996 - From Dusk til Dawn, a decent movie though I'm not a Tarantino fan, either

1997 - The Devil's Advocate (boaby)

1998 - Fallen, another bad year but a pretty good movie

1999 - The Blair Witch Project, in a rout. I love this movie. (Stir of Echoes was good, too)

2000 - Ginger Snaps (I also liked What Lies Beneath)

2001 - Dagon (I liked Session 9, The Others, and Frailty, too, but Dagon is hands down the best Lovecraft adaptation I've ever seen)

2002 - 28 Days Later (best of a good year; I like it best with the unhappy alternate ending)

2003 - A Tale of Two Sisters (another good year. I liked Underworld more than most, too)

2004 - Saw (much as I hate to...)

2005 - Next Door (I liked Skeleton Key a lot, too, and Wolf Creek)

2006 - Penny Dreadful (although I loved The Abandoned and THEM equally. I should have made it a three-way tie.)

2007 - 30 Days of Night (a good year. I liked Vacancy, Hostel II, The Orphanage, and especially: REC)

2008 - The Strangers (pretty good, not great. Same with The Ruins. Hoping for better)