<P> Some subgenres of horror film include action horror, comedy horror, body horror, disaster horror, holiday horror, horror drama, psychological horror, science fiction horror, slasher horror, supernatural horror, gothic horror, natural horror, zombie horror, first - person horror and teen horror . </P> <P> The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du Diable, which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film . Another of his horror projects was La Caverne maudite (1898) (a.k.a. The Cave of the Demons, literally "the accursed cave"). Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo (Jizo the Spook) and Shinin no Sosei (Resurrection of a Corpse), both made in 1898 . The era featured a slew of literary adaptations, adapting the works of Poe and Dante, among others . In 1908, Selig Polyscope Company produced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . </P> <P> In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first filmed version of Frankenstein . The macabre nature of the source materials used made the films synonymous with the horror film genre . </P> <P> Though the word "horror" to describe the film genre would not be used until the 1930s (when Universal Pictures released their initial monster films), earlier American productions often relied on horror themes . Some notable examples include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Unknown (1927), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). Many of these early films were considered dark melodramas because of their stock characters and emotion - heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality . </P>

When was the first horror movie made in america