I grew up watching old, black and white horror movies, such as the Universal classics. FRANKENSTEIN (1931) is the movie I saw as a boy that I give credit for turning me into a horror fan!
But as I got older, and finally moved out of my parents house and bought a TV and a VCR, I finally got a chance to rent all those R rated films I couldn't see at home. (My parents hate horror, but I could watch old horror sometimes, and when my parents were gone from the house.) I eventually got tired of a lot of American films because some of them are lame. They're more about special F/X and gore, nudity and dumb characters than an actual story with scary scenes. So I got turned on to Eurohorror, or European horror films. Italian and Spanish films were mostly what I started watching. Now I'm a fan of Dario Argento, "Joe D'Amato" / Aristide Massaccesi, Lucio Fulci, "Paul Naschy" / Jacinto Molina Alverez, Amando De Ossorio and other directors. ("Paul Naschy" is an actor, writer and director.) I'd recommend to people who haven't seen their films the following....
Dario Argento: SUSPIRIA, THE CAT O'NINE TAILS, PHENOMENA and DEEP RED.
Aristide Massaccesi: BEYOND THE DARKNESS, ANTHROPOPHAGUS, ROSSO SANGUE and the sci-fi / action movie ENDGAME. For fans of silly fantasy films, I'd recommend the ATOR movies.
Lucio Fulci: ZOMBIE, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and MANHATTAN BABY.
Paul Naschy: WEREWOLF SHADOW, CURSE OF THE DEVIL and THE BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL.
Amando De Ossorio: THE BLIND DEAD series (four films), starting with TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD.
My favorite version of FRANKENSTEIN was the Swedish-Irish film TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN.
I haven't watched too many Japanese horror films, other than GODZILLA movies
, but I did like JU-ON better than the American remake THE GRUDGE.