The 30 Greatest Horror Films Of The 1940s
A selection of the greatest horror films of the 1940s.
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- DirectorGeorge WaggnerStarsClaude RainsWarren WilliamLon Chaney Jr.Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsSimone SimonTom ConwayKent SmithAn American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
- DirectorAlbert LewinStarsGeorge SandersHurd HatfieldDonna ReedA corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
- DirectorLewis AllenStarsRay MillandRuth HusseyDonald CrispA composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
- DirectorRobert WiseStarsBoris KarloffBela LugosiHenry DaniellA ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
- DirectorAlberto CavalcantiCharles CrichtonBasil DeardenStarsMervyn JohnsMichael RedgraveRoland CulverGuests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig, who senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsFrances DeeTom ConwayJames EllisonA nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
- DirectorCharles BartonWalter LantzStarsBud AbbottLou CostelloLon Chaney Jr.The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.
- DirectorJohn BrahmStarsLaird CregarMerle OberonGeorge SandersA landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsKim HunterTom ConwayJean BrooksA woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsBoris KarloffEllen DrewMarc CramerOn a Greek island during the 1912 war, several people are trapped by quarantine for the plague. If that isn't enough worry, one of the people, a superstitious old peasant woman, suspects one young girl of being a vampiric kind of demon called a vorvolaka.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsBoris KarloffAnna LeeBilly HouseNell Bowen, the protégé of Lord Mortimer, wants to help change the conditions of notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (Bedlam). Though she tries to reform Bedlam, the cruel Master Sims who runs it has her committed there, but ultimately, it's the lunatics who've taken over the asylum.
- DirectorVictor FlemingStarsSpencer TracyIngrid BergmanLana TurnerDr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
- DirectorFrank WisbarStarsRosemary La PlancheRobert BarratBlake EdwardsA number of swamp land men have died by strangulation and the inhabitants believe that an innocent man they hanged is seeking revenge on all of the male descendants of those responsible for his death. Maria, granddaughter of the guilty ferryman, decides to operate the ferry service. Chris Sanders, a son of one of the men who did the hanging, and Maria fall in love. The "strangler" seizes Chris and Maria offers her life if Chris is spared.
- DirectorRobert SiodmakStarsLon Chaney Jr.Robert PaigeLouise AllbrittonWhen Katherine, a beautiful Southern girl obsessed with thoughts of eternal life, invites Count Alucard to come to her mansion in the U.S., she unleashes a Pandora's box of horror on unsuspecting relatives and neighbors.
- DirectorGeorge MarshallStarsBob HopePaulette GoddardRichard CarlsonA radio broadcaster, his quaking manservant and an heiress investigate the mystery of a haunted castle in Cuba.
- DirectorJoe MayStarsCedric HardwickeVincent PriceNan GreyThe owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsDennis O'KeefeMargoJean BrooksA seemingly-tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.
- DirectorChristy CabanneStarsDick ForanPeggy MoranWallace FordArchaeologists defile the tomb of mummified Kharis, who was buried alive for falling in love with an Egyptian princess.
- DirectorJohn BrahmStarsJames EllisonHeather AngelJohn HowardSurviving members of an aristocratic English family are threatened by a legendary monster when they venture out on chilly, foggy nights.
- DirectorEdgar G. UlmerStarsJohn CarradineJean ParkerNils AstherIn Paris, an artist hires portrait models, and after he finishes their portraits, he strangles them.
- DirectorRobert FloreyStarsRobert AldaAndrea KingPeter LorreIn a turn-of-the-century Renaissance Italian mansion, its tyrannical owner, a wheelchair-bound one-handed pianist with a strong belief in the occult is murdered.
- DirectorRoy William NeillStarsLon Chaney Jr.Ilona MasseyPatric KnowlesThe resurrected Wolf Man, seeking a cure for his malady, enlists the aid of a mad scientist, who claims he will not only rid the Wolf Man of his nocturnal metamorphosis, but also revive the frozen body of Frankenstein's inhuman creation.
- DirectorJames P. HoganStarsDavid BruceEvelyn AnkersGeorge ZuccoA university chemistry professor experiments with an ancient Mayan gas on a medical student, turning the would-be surgeon into a murdering ghoul.
- DirectorGeorge WaggnerStarsLionel AtwillLon Chaney Jr.Anne NagelA mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.