Fangoria rose to prominence by running exclusive interviews with horror filmmakers and offering behind-the-scenes photos and stories that were otherwise unavailable to fans in the era before the Internet.

Fangoria began struggling in the 2010s due to issues arising from the internet, including difficulty in generating enough ad revenue to cover printing costs.

[2] Publication became sporadic beginning in fall 2015, and the magazine ran through a succession of editors in 2015–2016, culminating with the February 2017 announcement of Ken Hanley's December 2016 departure.

In February 2018, Dallas-based entertainment company Cinestate bought Fangoria and, under new editor-in-chief Phil Nobile Jr., relaunched the magazine as a print-based quarterly publication.

[4] Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs first conceived of Fangoria in 1978 by under the name Fantastica as a companion to their science fiction media magazine Starlog.

O'Quinn, who had previously published soap opera fan magazines, anticipated a groundswell of interest in the fantasy genre due to Hollywood's plan to bring Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian to the screen, although that movie would not appear for another four years.

[5] The first issue was assembled under the editorship of "Joe Bonham", a pseudonym taken from the quadriplegic hero of Dalton Trumbo's pacifist novel Johnny Got His Gun.

"[5] With the seventh issue, "with a bold shift to fright flicks by featuring a still from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining on the cover", the magazine had become profitable.

[8] Then "the 1980s gave rise to an endless offering of gory slasher films that Fangoria was more than happy to highlight, turning Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees into unlikely lucrative newsstand idols.

[10]In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Fangoria tested numerous international horror markets, releasing issues of the magazine modified for various foreign languages.

[12] Under Gingold and Timpone's tenure, Fangoria rose to its greatest level of prominence, enjoying widespread recognition and influence in the horror community.

Creative Group purchased Fangoria (and its parent publication Starlog) in the early 2000s, hoping to expand the brand identity of the magazine to radio, television, and comics.

On December 5, 2007, a warehouse operated by Kable News, in Oregon, Illinois, which contained all back issues of Fangoria and Starlog magazines, was destroyed by fire.

Starting with issue #281, the original Fangoria logo was re-designed, and the trademark "film strip", tagline, and embedded photos were removed.

In February 2010, Chris Alexander, a Toronto-based filmmaker and former writer for Rue Morgue, succeeded Tony Timpone as Fangoria's new editor.

[16] Under his management, the magazine explored more esoteric genre content, had its cover layout altered a few times, and hired several new staff members.

[18] Many within the horror community responded with shock at Gingold's termination and took it as a sign that the magazine had both lost touch with its fanbase and passed its glory days; Guillermo del Toro took to social media to voice his disappointment with the decision.

The company further announced that they would bring back the magazine as a quarterly, exclusively print-based publication, and offer a one-year free subscription to anyone who never received the issues to which they were entitled under the old ownership.

In addition to Gingold and Timpone returning as regular columnists, Cinestate further announced that the new writing staff would be composed of S. Craig Zahler, Grady Hendrix, Shudder curator Sam Zimmerman, Birth.Movies.Death's Meredith Borders, author and former Rue Morgue magazine writer Preston Fassel, horror historian Rebekah McKendry, and black feminist critic Ashlee Blackwell.

[24] The book was released September 11, 2018, to generally positive reviews, ultimately being named one of the ten best horror novels of 2018 by Bloody Disgusting.

[26] In June 2020, The Daily Beast published an exposé about producer Adam Donaghey's sexual misconduct on the set of a Cinestate film.

[27] In August 2020, Fangoria was acquired by Wanderwall Entertainment CEO Tara Ansley and entrepreneur Abhi Goel, and quarterly printing continued under their ownership.

[30] In 1996, Fangoria Films re-emerged as a distribution company, occasionally using their "Gore Zone" label, to release twenty low-budget horror features over the next ten years.

The winners were announced at an awards show in Los Angeles, California, which was produced by Fangoria's managing editor, Michael Gingold.

Originally conceived as a network television station dedicated to horror films, it was eventually modified to fit a limited online format.