Films: Classic Horror - The 1950's and 60's
Annotation:Alfred Hitchcock contributes his second great horror movie with this tale of nature run amok. This one features some classic set pieces.
Place a Hold
Annotation:Ur-gothic goings on with scream queen Barbara Steele playing a witch/vampire. Directed by the Italian master of the macabre, Mario Bava.
Annotation:A woman wakes after a car accident to find the world a very strange and threatening place. A low-budget gem.
Annotation:A stiff-necked scientist (the perfectly cast Dana Andrews) learns that skepticism can be a dangerous thing. Simply a terrific movie.
Annotation:Vincent Price joined with director Roger Corman to make a series of not very faithful (but extremely fun) Edgar Allen Poe adaptations. Here are two of the best, found on one DVD. Carnival of Souls (1962) A woman wakes after a car accident
Annotation:One of the greatest horror movies of all time, and directed by Robert Wise, the guy who made The Sound of Music and West Side Story. A party of investigators assembles to study a purportedly haunted house. Watch this one late at night with the lights out.
Annotation:Hammer Studios made supernatural horror fashionable again with glossy, color-saturated films like this classic, starring Christopher as the sanguinary Count and Peter Cushing as the vampire hunter Van Helsing.
Annotation:Vincent Price invites a party of strangers to spend the night in the titular spookhouse. A very fun film directed by showman extraordinaire William Castle.
Annotation:An extremely creepy tale (adapted from Henry James’ Turn of the Screw) about an English governess who believes her young charges are haunted by ghosts. For those who like their horror subtle and quiet.
Annotation:A small town doctor is faced with a rash of people saying their loved ones aren’t who they appear to be. A classic tale of sci-fi paranoia.
Annotation:A woman murders soldiers for their gear in medieval, war-torn Japan. A concurrent romantic triangle results in a nice spooky tale with an erotic charge. Found in our Japanese language DVD section.
Annotation: A scientist seeks to repair his daughter’s ruined face. Sadly, this involves skin grafts from unwilling participants. This gruesome goodie can be found in our French language DVD section.
Annotation:A woman murders soldiers for their gear in medieval, war-torn Japan. A concurrent romantic triangle results in a nice spooky tale with an erotic charge. Found in our Japanese language DVD section.
Annotation:George Romero completely reinvented the zombie movie with this all-time classic tale of the living besieged by the recently risen, flesh-eating dead.
Annotation:Alfred Hitchock’s classic tale of murder at a small roadside motel. Stars Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.
Annotation:This Roman Polanski flick kicked off Hollywood’s love affair with films featuring a Satanic twist. Find out what’s wrong with Rosemary’s Baby. (It’s not that she eventually ends up sleeping with Woody Allen.) Stars Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her supporting role here.
Annotation:Scientists and Air Force personnel are trapped in an Antarctic base with a murderous space alien. Directed (unofficially) by Howard Hawks, movies don’t get much better than this.
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Description
Gothic horror movies fell out of favor after the real life terrors of World War II. With the coming of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, science fictional monsters ruled the day throughout the 1950s. At least until a small studio in England, Hammer Films, gave traditional supernatural horrors a new lease on undeath.
Genre Guide