Summary:
Want to know what horror movies were the granddaddy of them all? Read on to find out about the ten best, and most influential, horror movies of the 1920s.

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People have always, on some level, enjoyed being scared. The horror genre has always been popular, as can be seen by some of the earliest films. The "speaking pictures" became common in the early 1930s and wiped out the silent film forever, but before that happened some great horror movies were made during the silent picture era. This list is on the ten greatest horror films from the silent movie era.

#10 "The Monster" (1925): Nowadays this might seem like a movie filled with old clichés, but in 1925 a mad scientist working in a lunatic asylum and kidnapping strangers for experiments was really new. This movie starred Lon Chaney, who will be in the majority of movies on this list since he made his living as the master of horror films during the silent movie era.

#9 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1920): This movie starred John Barrymore, who was widely considered the greatest actor of the silent film era. His ability to create two distinct characters and personas is really impressive, especially in a silent film. The special effects are dated, but not nearly as bad as a modern horror film fan might expect. This movie is hard to find, but it is a treat, especially for fans of old cinema.

#8 "London After Midnight" (1927): This silent vampire film was directed by Tod Browning, and is actually technically a "lost" film. Clips and photo remain, and have been put together to give a "sense" of the original movie, but the last known film copy of this movie was destroyed in 1967 in a fire, adding to the aura of this great vampire flick. This was another Lon Chaney film, and was remade in 1935 as "Mark of the Vampire." A lost classic, but it was one of the best of the 1920s.

#7 "Waxworks" (1923): Like many of the horror films of the 1920s, this was a German expressionist film that was a fantasy/horror mix. This movie is about a writer who accepts a job from a waxworks entrepreneur to write the stories of three exhibits: the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible, and Jack the Ripper. This film shifts from fantasy to history to horror, and is an excellent movie that has a rating of 7.4 on the Internet Movie Database.

#6 "Hands of Orlac" (1924): This movie was so popular that it was actual re-made several times, include the famed 1960 version with Christopher Lee, who would be well known as Dracula in the Hammer vampire movies. This film is about a famous concert pianist whose hands are destroyed in an accident. His hands are replaced by those of an executed murderer, but a growing urge to kill overwhelms him until he can resist no longer.

#5 "The Penalty" (1920): This is another Lon Chaney film, and is often also considered a crime film. This movie follows a gangster named "Blizzard," a man whose legs were amputated when he was young, when they weren´t supposed to be. The social pressures and snickering drives him insane, and he decides to get revenge on the original doctor by kidnapping his daughter´s fiancé and grafts his legs to Blizzard´s stumps. This strange film was extremely macabre and was considered a real breakout role for Lon Chaney, who would become one of the most famous actors in America.

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Written by: Shane Dayton
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