On December 26, 1973, The Exorcist, a horror film starring the
actress Linda Blair as a girl possessed by an evil spirit, made
its debut in theaters; it went on to earn a reputation as one
of the scariest movies in history. 

The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller,
and Linda Blair.

It become the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Picture, as well as nine others.

December 16, 2009 saw the premiere of the James Cameron 
blockbuster science fiction film Avatar. One of the most
expensive films ever made, it was also one of the most
successful, holding the title of highest-grossing film of all
time for nearly a decade.

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, 
                Michelle Rodriquez, and Sigourney Weaver
              
              

Director James Cameron (69)

On April 10, 1953, the horror film The House of Wax, starring
Vincent Price, opened at New York’s Paramount Theater
(below)..

Released by Warner Brothers, it was the first movie from a
major motion-picture studio to be shot using the three-
dimensional, or stereoscopic, film process and one of the
first horror films to be shot in color.

Directed by Andre De Toth, The House of Wax was a remake
of 1933’s Mystery in the Wax Museum.

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993)

SANDY KOZEL

The movie King Kong opened in New York City on March 2, 1933,
to rave reviews, and has since been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes 
as the greatest horror film of all time and the fifty-sixth greatest
film of all time. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically
and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and
selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Robert William Armstrong (November 20, 1890 – April 20, 1973)
Vina Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004)

On January 19, 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar
Allan Poe was  born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had
died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a
wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England,
Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After
fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was
forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served
two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West
Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely
and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules
infractions.

Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none
of which had received much attention.