Random Obscure Horror Movies from '60s You Need to See Right Now (15 items)

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  (#1) Carnival of Souls

  • Reza Badiyi, Herk Harvey, Candace Hilligoss, Art Ellison, Dan Palmquist, Tom McGinnis, Frances Feist, Bill de Jarnette, Forbes Caldwell, Steve Boozer, Stan Levitt, Sidney Berger

  This independent film begins with a woman surviving a traumatic car crash. From that moment she is haunted, having difficulty distinguishing reality from hallucination. Eerie throughout, this black and white film makes excellent use of shadow and dead space to leave the viewer feeling isolated and detached. The score adds another layer of creepy, making Carnival of Souls an excellent horror film.
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  (#2) Village of the Damned

  • George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Michael Gwynn, Martin Stephens

  Though John Carpenter's 1995 remake left much to be desired, the original remains a great film. Telepathic children from space are all the more creepy when given British accents. These kids can take control of people and make them do whatever they want. Often what they want is murder. Using the tropes of science fiction common to the day, this story transcends the creature features of the 50s in a genuinely scary movie. Village of the Damned is definitely an intellectual horror tale with quality acting and solid cinematography.
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  (#3) The Masque of the Red Death

  • Vincent Price, Jane Asher, Hazel Court, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee, Robert Brown, Gaye Brown, Paul Whitsun-Jones, David Davies, David Weston, Verina Greenlaw, Julian Burton, Skip Martin, Brian Hewlett, Doreen Dawn

  This Vincent Price film is a masterful adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story of the same name. The Masque of the Red Death centers around a despotic prince whose kingdom is gripped by the Red Death plague. The style is reminiscent of Shakespeare, with a touch of Satanism thrown in. With opulent costume parties, Satanic rituals, and a disease that makes you bleed from your pores, this film has it all.
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  (#4) The Last Man on Earth

  • Vincent Price, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Umberto Raho, Carolyn De Fonseca, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli, Antonio Corevi, Christi Courtland, Ettore Ribotta, Giuseppe Mattei, Rolando De Rossi

  Based on the novel I am Legend, this film features Vincent Price fighting living-dead vampires long before Will Smith ever took up the part in the 2007 remake. The story follows Price as he goes through his daily routine as the last living human. Wake up, go murder some vampires, get back to shelter by night, repeat. The loneliness of losing his wife and daughter during the outbreak is as much of a threat as the vampires themselves. In The Last Man on Earth, we see a man struggling just to get by, and it raises the question, what makes a man?
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  (#5) Peeping Tom

  • Anna Massey, Michael Powell, Pamela Green, Miles Malleson, Michael Goodliffe, Nigel Davenport, Jack Watson, Esmond Knight, Moira Shearer, Karlheinz Böhm, Brenda Bruce, Maxine Audley, Bartlett Mullins, Columba Powell

  Part Rear Window voyeurism, part meta-level movie about movies, Peeping Tom centers around a murderous, amateur filmmaker and part time pornographer. His basic motive is to capture on film the terror in a person's eyes as they are being killed. The British film makes you think, as if the film is hinting that it knows it is being watched. Without overtly breaking the fourth wall, this film manages to leave the viewer a little uncomfortable with their own viewing tendencies. I mean, what kind of a person likes to watch these films, right?
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  (#6) Kuroneko

  • Eimei Esumi, Nakamura Kichiemon II, Mutsuhiro Toura, Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Hideo Kanze, Kei Sato, Kiwako Taichi, Kentaro Kaji, Shoji Oki

  This 1968 Japanese horror involves a ghost who has been ripping out the throats of samurai in medieval Japan. A samurai is dispatched to stop the spirit, but he must face his own past to do so. This Criterion Collection film is extremely sexual, and surprisingly feminist for the time. Combining a complex plot with eerie cinematography, Kuroneko remains one of the best examples of Japanese horror.
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  (#7) Eyes Without a Face

  • Alida Valli, Pierre Brasseur, Édith Scob, Claude Brasseur, Yvette Etiévant, Charles Blavette, Juliette Mayniel, Beatrice Altariba, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault

  The mask is really creepy, first and foremost. Beyond the visually frightening imagery, though, lies a suspenseful and complete horror film. Eyes Without a Face is both gory and macabre by the day's standards, initially having trouble getting past the censors. It is a great example of the shift toward realism in horror that defined the '60s. This French film follows a doctor's attempts to restore his daughter's disfigured face to its former beauty, even if it means using less than ethical means.
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  (#8) The Tomb of Ligeia

  • Vincent Price, Frank Thornton, Derek Francis, Richard Vernon, Ronald Adam, Elizabeth Shepherd, John Westbrook, Oliver Johnston, Denis Gilmore, Penelope Lee, Fred Wood

  Vincent Price stars in this adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe classic. This gothic romance centers around a widower played by Price and his new bride. All the while an eerie black cat menaces the couple. It is a tale of love and revenge from beyond the grave, and it is stylistically a very well-done film. Not surprisingly, the acting is superb in this underrated horror film.
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  (#9) Onibaba

  • Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Kei Sato, Jukichi Uno, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kentaro Kaji, Somesho Matsumoto, Hosui Araya

  This Japanese horror film is set in warring medieval Japan where a mother and daughter-in-law have taken to murdering unsuspecting samurai in order to scrape out a living. Everything is going well enough for the pair of bandits until their neighbor returns from war, informs the daughter that her husband is dead, and sexual tension ensues. Onibaba adds supernatural elements to the intense human drama, with the appearance of a cursed samurai mask. The imagery is beautifully shot, and the beating drums that are present from the beginning of the film create a tense atmosphere that matches nicely with the drama.
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  (#10) The Cremator

  • Rudolf Hrušínský, Jiří Menzel, Míla Myslíková, Vladimír Menšík, Jiří Lír, Ilja Prachař, Helena Anýžová, Vlasta Chramostová, Eduard Kohout, Marie Rosůlková, Jana Stehnová, Jindřich Narenta, Václav Štekl, Zora Božinová, Miloš Vognič

  This one can definitely be qualified as art house. The 1969 Czechoslovakian film involves a man working at a crematorium who enjoys reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead and believes that cremation relieves earthly suffering. The Cremator combines black comedy with surrealist cinema to make an interesting and unique experience.
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  (#11) Hour of the Wolf

  • Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Georg Rydeberg, Naima Wifstrand, Gertrud Fridh, Folke Sundquist, Ulf Johanson, Gudrun Brost, Agda Helin, Mona Seilitz, Bertil Anderberg, Lenn Hjortzberg, Mikael Rundquist

  Ingmar Bergman's only horror film tells the story of an artist on the brink of madness. The Hour of the Wolf refers to the hour between night and day, and it is at this time that the protagonist tells his wife about his painful memories and repressed desires. The cinematography beautify conveys madness, directly mixing hallucination with reality. It is also complex, with layers of symbolism making it feel akin to a waking nightmare.
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  (#12) This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse

  • José Mojica Marins, Oswaldo De Souza, Graveto, Jose Lobo, José Carvalho, Antonio Fracari, Nadia Freitas, Laércio Laurelli, Esmeralda Ruchel, Tina Wohlers, Tania Mendonça, Lya Lagutte, Geraldo Bueno, Paula Ramos, Arlete Brazolin

  The sequel to At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul follows Coffin Joe the gravedigger on his quest to find the perfect woman to give birth to his son. The Brazilian horror film is plenty sleazy and equally sadistic, but the violent imagery and bizarre plot also give the film its appeal. The addition of a color sequence as Coffin Joe descends into Hell is particularly good. This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse is a great example of the campy, ultraviolent style of horror.
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  (#13) Bloody Pit of Horror

  • Mickey Hargitay, Femi Benussi, Alfredo Rizzo, Roberto Messina, Walter Brandi, Nando Angelini, Ralph Zucker, Gino Turini, Barbara Nelli, Luisa Baratto, Albert Gordon, Moa Tahi, Rita Klein

  The title says it all. This is a gore-fest from back when the trope was first invented. The Italian film involves a group of models who go to an old castle to shoot some sexy horror novel covers. There they encounter an insane executioner in tights with tastes similar to those of the Marquis de Sade. Bloody Pit of Horror combines gore and erotic fan service in a way that only the campy horror of the 1960s can.
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  (#14) Kwaidan

  • Takashi Shimura, Tatsuya Nakadai, Tetsurō Tamba, Rentarō Mikuni, Keiko Kishi, Michiyo Aratama, Fumie Kitahara, Kei Sato, Sugimara Haruko, Ganjirō Nakamura, Mariko Okada, Misako Watanabe, Ranko Akagi, Jun Tazaki, Kenjiro Ishiyama

  This Japanese horror film is not so much scary as it is beautiful. It is a work of art painted with the pallet of the horror genre. Based on the famous collection of Japanese ghost stories by the same name, this film is comprised of four short stories: "Black Hair," "Yuki Onno" (Snow Woman), "Hoichi the Earless," and "In a Cup of Tea." The film is visually stunning, and it evokes a sense of melancholic tragedy that fits perfectly within the Japanese view of beauty.
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  (#15) King Kong vs. Godzilla

  • Mie Hama, Akiko Wakabayashi, Akihiko Hirata, Haruo Nakajima, Akemi Negishi, Ichirō Arishima, Kenji Sahara, Yu Fujiki, Jun Tazaki, Senkichi Omura, Tadao Takashima, Katsumi Tezuka, Shoichi Hirose

  This one is just pure fun. This is the title fight of the giant monster battle circuit, the culmination of the entire genre. In King Kong vs. Godzilla a pharmaceutical company decides that capturing King Kong and bringing him to Japan to put on display is a good idea. Meanwhile, Godzilla escapes from a glacier that he was apparently trapped in. No matter who wins the fight, Tokyo is sure to get wrecked in the process.

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