Horror: Classic
Classic horror movies which lack monsters.
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- DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsBela LugosiLouise CurrieWallace FordA crazed scientist accidentally turns himself into a half ape, half human creature, and scrambles to find a cure.Have you ever wanted to see Bela Lugosi turn into a monstrous ape/human hybrid? Well, that is the very specific thing you can see in this movie. Yet another film from the weird gorilla mania of the 1930s and 40s. So if you like guys in gorilla suits, this movie also has that.
5/10 - DirectorBert I. GordonStarsJohn AgarJohn HoytJune KenneyLonely, deranged puppet-master designs a machine that shrinks people.
- DirectorWilliam BeaudineStarsBela LugosiDuke MitchellSammy PetrilloTwo goofy entertainers meet a mad scientist on a jungle island.Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)
Overall standard "Characters are in the jungle for some reason and meet a mysterious scientist living in said jungle" movie. They even have a chimp! While there are quite a few "Product of its time" issues, the most off-putting aspect of the film is how it seems to exist primarily to showcase the talents of lead actors. Unfortunately, those talents are being a discount Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. So there are quite a few out-of-place musical and comedy routines awkwardly inserted into the story... Also, it's almost an hour into the movie before a gorilla actually appears.
It's also a movie that makes you feel a little sorry for Bela Lugosi. At this point in his career, he was reduced to taking roles like this, while still having enough drawing power for them to put his actual name in the title of the movie.
4/10 - DirectorSam NewfieldStarsGeorge ZuccoWanda McKayNoel MadisonA group of strangers are brought together in an old, dark house and must contend with two murders and $50,000 in stolen money.An average murder mystery. Decently acted, but makes the mistake of only really providing two good suspects and doing everything in its power to convince you that one is innocent, while making the other look as suspicious as possible. So when the "Shocking conclusion" comes it's much more of an "Oh," than it is a "Wow."
5/10 - DirectorMario BavaStarsBarbara SteeleJohn RichardsonAndrea ChecchiA vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant.Gothic horror is one of those things where the bar is very high. Which means that a lot of movies fail to get over that bar. You just can't make bottom-of-the-barrel gothic horror and get away with it like you can with other subgenres. Fortunately, Black Sunday is a movie that easily sails over that bar. It maintains a great creepy atmosphere throughout and builds a lot of suspense that always pays off. However, like all gothic horror, it can be a little slow at times, but end up being with the wait.
7/10 - DirectorMario BavaStarsCameron MitchellEva BartokThomas ReinerA masked, shadowy killer brutally murders the models of a scandalous fashion house in Rome.An obscenely stylish giallo film with amazing cinematography and a very striking and memorable killer. Definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of murder and/or mystery, but like any foreign film with an English dub, you want to make sure you're getting the most uncut version availalable.
8/10 - DirectorJack HillStephanie RothmanStarsWilliam CampbellMarissa MathesLori SaundersA crazed artist who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a murderous vampire kills young women, then boils their bodies in a vat.
- DirectorAlbert DeMondStarsMorton LowryMae ClarkeLawrence GrantA wisecracking narrator mocks footage featuring Frankenstein's monster and Count Dracula.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsDick MillerBarboura MorrisAntony CarboneA dimwitted busboy at a beatnik cafe passes off a cat he accidentally killed and covered in plaster as a sculpture, prompting a demand for more art that compels him to commit murders.
- DirectorJoseph GreenStarsJason EversVirginia LeithAnthony La PennaA doctor experimenting with transplant techniques keeps his girlfriend's head alive when she is decapitated in a car crash, then goes hunting for a new body.When it comes to vintage science fiction, is always interesting to see what the specific fictional science is. And in this case, it's organ transplants. The first successful kidney transplant had only been performed a few years prior, and heart and liver transplants were still years away. At the time this movie came out, the idea of keeping a head alive to transplant onto another body might seem like something that was within the realm of possibility. And while that is the premise of this movie, it chooses to frame that focusing less on the horror of a head being kept alive by science gone too far, and more on the horror of being a severed head kept alive by science gone too far. Overall, it is a movie that spends much more time focused on the characters than you might expect.
6/10 - DirectorCurt SiodmakStarsBarbara PaytonLon Chaney Jr.Raymond BurrThe owner of a plantation in the jungle marries a beautiful woman. Shortly afterward, he is plagued by a strange voodoo curse which transforms him into a gorilla.Basically just a werewolf story with a jungle twist. Just replace the Romani curse with a voodoo one, and wolf with gorilla.
4/10 - DirectorEdward D. Wood Jr.StarsBela LugosiTor JohnsonTony McCoyA mad doctor attempts to create atomic supermen.Like most of the works of Ed Wood, a movie whose reputation for being a terrible movie is more than a little exaggerated. In reality, it's fairly average for a mid-50s sci-fi horror film. Honestly some of the oddities, as well as a great performance from Bella Legosi, might put it a little bit above average in terms of enjoyability. Don't get me wrong, it's not a good film, just miles away from the worst.
3/10 - DirectorChano UruetaStarsAna Luisa PeluffoAbel SalazarMauricio GarcésA group of archaeologists break into the tomb of an ancient Aztec general, arousing the warrior's head and sending his undead servant out to take revenge on the careless scientists.A pretty by-the-numbers mid-century Mexican horror film. It's got the Aztec mummies, reincarnation, and mind control. The only thing it's missing is a lucha libre match. Beyond that it sticks to the basic format of archeologists discover a thing, that thing is cursed, that thing kills them.
4/10 - DirectorHerk HarveyStarsCandace HilligossFrances FeistSidney BergerAfter a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.Watch this movie! Now, go watch!
- DirectorGerald ThomasStarsKenneth WilliamsJim DaleHarry H. CorbettThe sinister Dr Watt has an evil scheme going. He's kidnapping beautiful young women and turning them into mannequins to sell to local stores.A gothic horror comedy that can best be described as "Aggressively British." It is a very British style of comedy satirizing a very British style of horror. At no point are you ever in danger of forgetting exactly what country this movie comes from. It's even British enough to feature future Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee. So if you like the comedic and horrific style of the soggy little island west of Europe, you'll probably like this too, if not, it'll probably be dull and/or annoying. The theme song is annoying no matter what though.
- DirectorJohn Llewellyn MoxeyStarsPatricia JesselDennis LotisChristopher LeeA young college student arrives in a sleepy Massachusetts town to research witchcraft; during her stay at an eerie inn, she discovers a startling secret about the town and its inhabitants.A movie that takes some very gothic horror concepts and puts them in a more modern setting. Overall decent occult horror tale with witches and cults and rituals that have an almost Lovecraftian feel to them given the premise of academic research leading to greater truths than expected. Just make sure to watch the original version, the US release—Horror Hotel—cuts out important dialogue that was deemed too inappropriate for delicate American ears.
6/10 - DirectorWallace FoxStarsBela LugosiLuana WaltersTristram CoffinA scientist, aided by an old hag and her two sons, kills virginal brides, steals their bodies, and extracts gland fluid to keep his ancient wife alive and young.
- DirectorHerbert L. StrockStarsPeter BreckKent TaylorRod LaurenThe hand of a dead astronaut comes crawling back from the grave to strangle the living
- DirectorFreddie FrancisStarsSuzanna LeighFrank FinlayGuy DolemanTrouble strikes when an exhausted pop singer, sent on a vacation to a farm, realizes that the farm's owner raises deadly bees.
- DirectorGeorge KingStarsTod SlaughterStella RhoJohn SingerA Fleet Street barber recounts the story of Sweeney Todd, a notorious barber who in the last century murdered many customers for their money.The first sound adaptation of the Sweeny Todd story, and arguably the best. Tod Slaughter does an amazing job of portraying Todd as a thoroughly reprehensible character oozing with despicable sleaze that just doesn't wash off. It's also quite interesting seeing just how much they had to dance around the actual violence and cannibalism, the latter only ever being slightly implied—at one point hilariously, as man questions where Todd could dispose of the bodies while casually eating a meat pie. The only real downside is the comedic bookend segments in a modern—at the time—barber shop are cute, but don't really add anything to the overall experience.
7/10 - DirectorHerbert L. StrockCurt SiodmakStarsLon Chaney Jr.Karen KadlerMichael HinnSatan enlists the help of a suicide victim in Hell to lure unsuspecting earthly victims to their eternal doom. Contains three somewhat unrelated Twilight Zone-esque stories.Three episodes of a Swedish anthology series edited together into a movie with a framing device featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as Satan. The weird thing being that the series is originally in English, and also featured Lon Chaney Jr. presenting the stories, but in a different context. The stories themselves are good to okay, but don't really fit together in any way or into the framing device.
5/10 - DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsWilliam CampbellLuana AndersBart PattonA scheming widow hatches a bold plan to acquire her late husband's inheritance, unaware that she is being targeted by an ax murderer who lurks in the family's estate.
- DirectorDino TavellaStarsMaureen BrownLuigi MartocciAlcide GazzottoA crazed killer is on the loose in the catacombs of Venice, Italy. He stalks beautiful women, drags them to his underground lair, kills them, then stuffs them and adds them to his "collection."A very good giallo film that leans heavily into the elements that would later come to define the slasher subgenre. A story about a killer who stalks women by scuba diving through the Venice canals and then brings them back to his lair so he can preserve their bodies. It's also one of those movies that may have been unintentionally brilliant. Focusing on the stalking and snatching of the victims, then skipping to them being embalmed and displayed, without showing most of the actual deaths. And the film analysis explanation for that is that the killer was only interested in collecting and preserving the women, with their deaths just being incidental to that process, and as such the film treats their deaths as insignificantly as the killer. Of course, the more likely explanation is that it was just too costly and difficult to film several underwater death scenes that wouldn't even add that much to the film, and that absence just happened to lend itself to the themes.
7/10 - DirectorT. Hayes HunterStarsBoris KarloffCedric HardwickeErnest ThesigerAn Egyptologist returns from the dead to take revenge on those who have violated his tomb.Historically important, and overall well-made, but it does feel more like a crime thriller where someone briefly rises from the grave than it does a full-on horror film. Good for its time, but a little slow by modern standards.
6/10 - DirectorVictor TrivasStarsHorst FrankKarin KernkeHelmut SchmidA scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies.A movie that it would be surprising if it were not a direct influence on The Brain That Wouldn't Die, dealing with the racial science fiction concept of organ transplants, a head kept alive via an experimental serum, and a doctor driven to murder to give a woman a new body. The big difference being that this movie actually goes through with the head transplant, and all the uncomfortable moral implications that accompany that, and American audiences tend to dislike.
6/10 - DirectorRiccardo FredaStarsBarbara SteeleRobert FlemyngSilvano TranquilliIn 1897 London, a woman weds a necrophiliac doctor whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances - and who might be returning from the grave to torment her successor.Gothic horror, as a genre, has a tendency to feel very similar. Like you're watching a series of paintings of a woman wandering through a candlelit manor, occasionally screaming and/or fainting at the sight of some ghastly thing. And this movie doesn't really do anything to deviate from that formula. The plot about a doctor who anesthetizes his wife to satisfy his necrophilic urges is the sort of thing that sounds like it might have been interesting, when anesthesia was a new concept, as it is in the movie. However, by 1962, any novelty in the concept has long since expired and we're left with a movie that feels like it's trying to be salacious, but without the nerve to actually push any boundaries.
5/10 - DirectorAndré De TothStarsVincent PriceFrank LovejoyPhyllis KirkAn associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.
- DirectorWilliam CastleStarsVincent PriceCarol OhmartRichard LongA millionaire offers $10,000 to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with him and his wife.
- DirectorHerbert L. StrockStarsRobert H. HarrisPaul BrinegarGary ConwayWhen a master monster make-up artist is sacked by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge.
- DirectorAlbert BandStarsRichard BooneTheodore BikelPeggy MaurerCemetery director Robert Kraft discovers that by arbitrarily changing the status of plots from empty to occupied on the planogram causes the death of the plots' owners.
- DirectorJuan IbáñezJack HillStarsBoris KarloffJulissaCarlos EastAn evil scientist runs a veritable army of LSD-crazed zombies.A movie that seems to hope that just having Boris Karlof is enough. While there aren't any actual snake people, there is a confusing amount of other stuff. It's a movie that never seems sure if it wants to be about voodoo rituals, zombies, or psychic powers. For that matter, it's not even clear about whether zombies are reanimated corpses, or living people under the effects of mind-controlling substances. Overall it's just the movie equivalent of a junk drawer. Filled with random stuff, and you can't find what you're looking for.
4/10 - DirectorMario BavaStarsGiacomo Rossi StuartErika BlancFabienne DaliA Carpathian village is haunted by the ghost of a murderous little girl, prompting a coroner and a medical student to uncover her secrets while a witch attempts to protect the villagers.A town is haunted by the murderous spirit of a little girl. It's your bog-standard Italian gothic horror: an outsider encounters secrets, superstitions, and death in a small village. While the initial buildup is a little interesting, the explanation behind it is messy at best and lazy at worst.
6/10 - DirectorEdward DeinStarsColeen GrayGrant WilliamsPhillip TerryAn endocrinologist in a dysfunctional marriage with an aging, alcoholic wife journeys to Africa seeking a drug that will restore youth.
- DirectorHarold P. WarrenStarsTom NeymanJohn ReynoldsDiane AdelsonA family gets lost on the road and stumbles upon a hidden, underground, devil-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master and his servant Torgo.
- DirectorJoy N. Houck Jr.StarsGerald McRaneyGaye YellenHerbert NelsonWesley goes out on a killing spree while experiencing the nightmares of his brother, who was murdered 13 years ago.
- DirectorCurtis HarringtonStarsDennis HopperLinda LawsonGavin MuirA young sailor is attracted to a mysterious mermaid performing at a carnival, but soon suspects that the girl is actually a siren who draws men to their watery deaths during the full moon.I'm a sucker for mermaids, so a suspense thriller about a woman who may or may not be a mermaid is right up my alley. And overall it is a decent film, at times even having a surrealist dream-like quality to it evocative of Carnival Souls.
Unfortunately, a lot of the tension is built on a disappointingly flat performance by Dennis Hopper in the lead role. He just kinda stumbles through scenes pointing at things and saying "Wow, look at that." However, despite that it is an overall enjoyable film, as long as you go into it expecting something a little weird, but not weird enough for that to be the selling point.
6/10 - DirectorMario CaianoStarsBarbara SteelePaul MullerHelga LinéA woman and her lover are tortured and killed by her sadistic husband. The pair return from the grave to seek vengeance.
- DirectorStephen C. ApostolofStarsCriswellFawn SilverPat BarringtonA couple driving to a cemetery looking for inspiration for a horror story encounters the dancing dead.
- DirectorMichael PowellStarsKarlheinz BöhmAnna MasseyMoira ShearerA young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.
- DirectorClark L. PaylowStarsGeorge E. MatherAustin GreenEsther FurstA group of medical students undertake some silly and frightening endeavors in order to pledge a fraternity.
- DirectorChristy CabanneStarsBela LugosiGeorge ZuccoMolly LamontFrom a slab in the morgue, a dead young woman tells the bizarre tale of how she got there, through a maze of murder involving a hypnotist, a midget and a mysterious figure in a green mask.A murder mystery that starts with the victim lying in a morgue and then goes back to tell you the events that brought her there, making it something of a whowilldoit mystery. The format and some of the ideas are interesting, but the tone is weirdly inconsistent and it just doesn't do much to hold your attention. Leaving this film mainly notable for being the only color picture with Bela Lugosi in a starring role.
4/10 - DirectorAlex NicolStarsJohn HudsonPeggy WebberRuss ConwayA newly married couple arrives at the home of the husband's late wife, where the gardens have been maintained by a gardener faithful to the dead woman's memory. Soon, eerie events lead the new wife to think she's losing her mind.
- DirectorRichard C. KahnStarsZack WilliamsLaura BowmanAlfred GrantA newlywed couple is visited by a strange old woman who harbors a secret about the young girl's father.
- DirectorJack HillStarsLon Chaney Jr.Carol OhmartQuinn K. RedekerA caretaker devotes himself to three demented siblings after their father's death.
- DirectorRoger CormanFrancis Ford CoppolaJack HaleStarsBoris KarloffJack NicholsonSandra KnightA young French soldier cut off from his unit is beguiled by a mysterious woman, whom he learns is the wife of the local Baron - and that she seemingly died twenty years earlier.Fairly typical gothic horror, which of course means troubled spirits and buried secrets of the past in a decaying castle. Unfortunately, it also means that all of those things crawl along at a snail's pace. Also, at times it feels like they're just making things up as they go along, which for Roger Corman, is a distinct possibility. But if you want to see Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff directed by Roger Corman and Francis Ford Coppola, this is that very specific thing.
5/10 - DirectorWill CowanStarsWilliam ReynoldsAndra MartinJeffrey StoneA psychically gifted young woman discovers a centuries-old crate buried on her aunt's ranch. Opening it, her family discovers the living head of Gideon Drew, a 16th century devil worshiper who was beheaded by Sir Francis Drake.
- DirectorBert I. GordonStarsRichard CarlsonSusan GordonLugene SandersA man lets a former flame fall to her death rather than let her interfere with his new relationship, but her ghost returns to disrupt his impending nuptials.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsPamela DuncanRichard GarlandAllison HayesA beautiful woman is sent back in time via hypnosis to the Middle Ages where she finds she is suspected of being a witch, and subject to being executed.
- DirectorBoris PetroffStarsJohn CarradineMyron HealeyAllison HayesMad doctor uses patients at his isolated psychiatric institute as subjects in his attempts to create longevity by surgically installing an artificial gland in their skulls, with disastrous results.
- DirectorCharles SaundersStarsGeorge CoulourisVera DayPeter Forbes-RobertsonA mad scientist captures women and feeds them to a flesh-eating tree, which in turn gives him a serum that helps bring the dead back to life.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsColin CliveMae ClarkeBoris KarloffDr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.