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An Illustrated History of the Horror Film

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ97798719 ↗
Source-derived summary

An Illustrated History of the Horror Film is a 1967 non-fiction book by film historian Carlos Clarens. In 1997, it was republished under the title An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-fiction Films: The Classic Era, 1895-1967.

Content

An Illustrated History of the Horror Film is divided into a foreword, nine chapters, an appendix that includes credits for every film that is mentioned, an index, and numerous stills from some of the films that are discussed.

Chapter 1 explores Georges Méliès's contributions to cinema. Chapter 2 surveys German expressionist films from 1913's The Student of Prague to 1933's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Chapter 3 looks at American horror films from the earliest known examples of the 1900s to the ones that were made in the 1920s near the end of the silent era. Chapter 4 chronicles American horror films from 1928's The Terror to 1946's The Beast with Five Fingers. Chapter 5 analyzes Vampyr. Chapter 6 discusses Val Lewton's horror films and Dead of Night.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “An Illustrated History of the Horror Film” as open-knowledge reference entry. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Illustrated, History and Horror.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1967, 1997, 1895, 1913—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Illustrated, History and Horror providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q97798719. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1997, 1895 and 1913.

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This entry incorporates text from “An Illustrated History of the Horror Film” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.