50 Unmissable Horror Movies
11. Black Sunday (1960)
In the 1960s, horror films began to push envelopes like never before. Alfred Hitchcock showed a lavatory for the first time in Psycho (1960), and US censorship was relaxed within the decade. In the UK, Terence Fisher offered more gore and blood than ever before with Hammer’s Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein in the late 1950s. In Italy, Mario Bava created shock for an audience that craved blood.
Using the classic horror novella “Viy” by Nikolai Gogol as inspiration, Black Sunday offered corpses and torture and crucifixes aplenty. A British cast, with Barbara Steele at the helm, was used to convince English-speaking audiences that they were in for something as strong and terrifying as Hammer’s Dracula. Bava presented a story of a witch in the 1630s resurrected in the 1830s, bringing such fantasy to life in horrifying reality.
Heavily censored upon release, the extreme nature of the film gained it both admirers and notoriety, and set Bava up for a highly influential career; one in which he would eventually help to create and define the giallo genre. With a spooky story, a great cast, and wonderfully deft direction, Black Sunday is an Italian shocker. KJ
12. Peeping Tom (1960)
1960 was home to two notorious horror films by famous British filmmakers: Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, and Peeping Tom by Michael Powell (previously of directorial duo Powell & Pressburger). While Psycho cemented an a phenomenal career, Peeping Tom damned another. Michael Powell was never regarded in the same way again.
Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) has a fascination with watching, with observing, and the act of both within cinema. It is a fascination that has taken control over him. He is obsessed with capturing true fear, and there’s only one way to find it.
A complex, layered, and nuanced film, Peeping Tom is more than just a progenitor for the slasher film (which it undoubtedly happens to be), it is an analysis of the act of viewing, of cinema, and the dangers of attempting to capture reality through an unreal lens. When we watch the film, who is the voyeur? Is it Mark, the victims, or is it us? The film is a psychological study, a look at emotional trauma, a reflection of a generation who grew up with bombs in the night and the constant fear of invasion from foreign forces. Beyond that, it’s scary, with one of the most unique murder weapons ever conceived.
Upon its release, it was savaged by the critics who described it as obscene and devoid of art. In the decades since, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and theorists like Laura Mulvey have hailed it as an artistic masterpiece. Its slow and steady influence on the horror genre is everlasting. It is a film that was twenty years ahead of time.
Recommended for you: Where to Start with Powell & Pressburger
13. Psycho (1960)
In 1959, pulp writer Robert Bloch released his book, “Psycho”. Upon reading it, the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, decided that he wanted to adapt it. To do so, he made every concession possible: he financed the film himself and filmed it using his TV crew, shooting in black-and-white to keep the budget as low as possible.
In Psycho (1960), Janet Leigh plays Marion Crane, a woman who steals $40,000 from her employer with the intention of running away with her boyfriend. Her journey to meet her boyfriend is disrupted by a storm, however, and she holes up at the Bates Motel. She is, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the danger lurking in the dark.
The impeccable direction by arguably the greatest film director in the history of cinema, Alfred Hitchcock, truly delivers. The acting is top class, the music by Bernard Hermann is iconic, and the crisp black and white photography is some of the greatest ever shot. There isn’t a viewer in the world who didn’t initially watch Psycho from the edge of their seat.
Hitchcock was a master of marketing, and for Psycho he banned film critics from seeing the film ahead of its release and told cinemas to reject patrons attempting to enter once the film had started. He reportedly also bought up all the copies of the book he could find to try and keep the film’s twists a secret. It all paid off in the end – almost every thriller, every slasher, every film that keeps a killer around a corner, owes a debt to Psycho. KJ
14. The Birds (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock was most commonly a director of thrillers, but when he turned his hand to not just thrilling an audience but outright terrifying them, he was his ever-effective self. The Birds is one of the horror films that the great Master of Suspense went all in on.
The third Hitchcock film to be based on a Daphne Du Maurier story (the others being Jamaica Inn and Best Picture winner Rebecca) orbits Tippi Hedren’s Melanie Daniels, a socialite who follows the mysterious Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) to the small town of Bodega Bay. Whilst there, she’s attacked by a seagull and notices how the local birds begin to act more and more strangely.
The 1960s and 70s would begin a trend of ecocentrism in literature and film – a move away from a human-focused, anthropocentric view of the world. Animal attack films would kick into gear in the seventies following Jaws, but it was beginning even in 1963. Hitchcock offered a film with no answers to the violence, and presented the most amount of blood and gore (if only for a few quick shots) he ever put to screen. Were the strange attacks due to the wrath of nature? A retribution for the town’s sins? An ecological contaminant? Who knows? That’s not the point. The point is to watch people struggle and survive against the impossible and unknowable world where we are not as all-powerful and important as we think we are (sound familiar Jurassic Park?). KJ
Recommended for you: Alfred Hitchcock Films Ranked
15. Blood and Black Lace (1964)
Subgenres don’t just appear from nowhere; they need to evolve over numerous films, meshing style and convention and idea together into something distinct. That’s certainly the case for the giallo, yet somehow Blood and Black Lace seems to have done the job of 50% of the evolutionary work by itself. The second film by Mario Bava to appear on this list, this violent thriller about a series of murders targeting models at a fashion house puts all of the conventions into place and solidifies the giallo as a distinct cinematic subgenre.
Taking influence from the murder mystery thrillers of Italian publishing house Arnoldo Mondadori Editore under its “I gialli Mondadori” banner (giallo meaning ‘yellow’, as the line was published with bright yellow covers), Bava brought Italy, France, and West Germany together to create a nightmarish thriller for the ages. Combining lurid, vibrant colours with brutal murders, the opening scene is one of the most shocking murder sequences put to screen. Bava is known for a violent opener, but from the first minutes to the last, the bloody twists and turns keep you on the edge of the seat, and the finale will stay with you long after the film has ended.
Blood and Black Lace’s use of vibrant, psychedelic colours in both its sets and its lighting have their legacy in Suspiria (2018), another Italian shocker. The black coat and gloves have become the standard for a giallo killer, and indeed many slasher killers. All these years later, filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodóvar have referenced the film as an influence, and why wouldn’t they? Its sheer power and visceral style still shocks and disturbs all these decades later.
Nice work everyone. Next year: 50 MORE unmissable horror films.
What a list, truly something for every horror movie lovers’ taste!