Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller

Friday, August 24, 2018

Top 10 Horror Movies of the 1960s

I am a horror fan. Always have been. Always will be. I grew up on a steady diet of late night horror films in the bygone era of Friday and Saturday night horror hosts. I wanted to write a blog about my Top 10 Horror Films, but I had far too many favorites to choose from. Therefore, I am writing a series of blogs dealing with specific decades. Now we're examing the 1960s.

This was a good decade for horror films, but not quite as good as I expected. Much like the 1950s, a great number of horror movies were produced for the drive-in market, but the drop off from classic to schlock is rather sudden and steep. Once again, according to the ground rules I laid down in my first list, I do not include crime films about torture or murder, such as Psycho or Silence of the Lambs, that do not feature a supernatural aspect. Nor do I include films about animal attacks like Jaws.

So here's the list:
Written and Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Travelers from the North find themselves the guests of honor at a Centennial Celebration in a small Southern town only to be killed in grotesque ways.

Director Herschell Gordon Lewis is called The Godfather of Gore. His work in the early 1960s definitely earned him that title. It could be said he established the school of over-the-top gore with his 1963 film Blood Feast. However, I included this film instead because I found it more amusing. This film is essentially a demented rip-off of Brigadoon, but, instead of having Gene Kelly dancing and singing around a mystical Scottish town, in this film the ghosts of a Southern town wiped out during the Civil War rise every hundred years to slaughter some Yankees.

BTW, I had the good fortune to edit Herschell Gordon Lewis in the film Chainsaw Sally.  He was a very nice guy!  RIP.


Directed by Herk Harvey
Written by John Clifford

A woman, Candace Hilligoss, survives a car accident but finds herself haunted by a ghostly figure as she heads to Utah to work as a church organist.

Industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey, who also plays the ghostly figure, created a genuine low-budget cult classic. This is a creepy and haunting little movie, if a little reminiscent of the hitchhiker episode of The Twilight Zone. This film has mood and atmosphere to spare. Plus, while driving through Utah, my wife and I stopped at the place where the final sequence was filmed. It remains just as creepy! Here's the whole film:

"FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH"
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Screenplay by Nigel Kneale based on his original story

While working on the subway, a mysterious item is uncovered. The military believes it is an unexploded Nazi secret weapon, but Dr. Quatermass believes it is a spaceship that proves that aliens originally stimulated human intelligence for their own purposes.

This film covers some of the same thematic territory as 2001: A Space Odyssey and the later Alien sequels crediting human evolution and intelligence to alien forces. When I first saw this film, I didn't realize that it was part of a series of films about the Quatermass character. I have yet to see any of the others, but I should check them out.

I am surprised that this is the only Hammer film on my list.

Directed by Roger Corman
Screenplay by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell
Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe's tale of a corrupt nobleman partying while the plague ravishes his land gets the upscale Corman treatment.

Roger Corman made his reputation on schlock, but he deliberately strove for filmmaking credibility with a series of high budget (for him) Poe adaptations. This one is my favorite. It was beautifully shot by Nicholas Roeg and features a literate script by the great Charles Beaumont, who also wrote more than his share of classic Twilight Zone episodes. Vincent Price hits all the right marks, and we get to see Paul McCartney's main squeeze at the time Jane Asher. When is her tell-all coming out?


"BLACK SABBATH"
Directed by Mario Bava
Screenplay by Marcello Fondato
in collaboration with Mario Bava and Alberto Bevilacqua
Based on stories by Anton ChekhovAleksei Tolstoy and Guy de Maupassant

Italian maestro Mario Bava treats us to three tales of terror by renown authors in this anthology film hosted by Boris Karloff, who also stars in a segment.

This film really scared me late one night when I watched it as a child. At the time, I thought the scariest episode was A Drop of Water, about a nurse who steals a ring off the hand of a dead woman. Now I tend to favor The Wurdulak where Boris Karloff plays the patriarch of a family who returns home after hunting a vampire changed. Now he preys on his family. I consider Karloff the best actor who worked predominately in the horror field. This is one of his last great roles.

Now, I also prefer to watch the film in its native Italian.


5. THE BIRDS, 1963
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Evan Hunter
Based on the story by Daphne Du Maurier

The coastal town of Bodega Bay is plagued by an increasingly violent series of bird attacks after the arrival of a socialite played by Tippi Hedren.

Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking (or at least I know what my nieces are thinking.) According to my stated rules, animal attack films like Jaws don't qualify as horror films. True. Jaws doesn't qualify because its about a shark doing what sharks do. In this film, the birds aren't simply doing what birds do. There is something utterly unnatural about their behavior. That's why I include this film in the horror category.

This film features some amazing sequences which show Hitchcock at the peak of his powers. However, there are problems. The pace is very slow. Also, the ambiguities of the film, such as the cause for the attacks, diminish the effectiveness. Additionally the film just stops more than it ends (though it is a great shot.)  The Birds might not be peak Hitchcock, but it definitely deserves its place on this list.


4. THE INNOCENTS, 1961
Directed by Jack Clayton
Screenplay by William Archibald and Truman Capote
with additional scenes and dialogue by John Mortimer
Based on the novel by Henry James

A prim and proper governess, Deborah Kerr, at a sprawling country manor home begins to think her charges, one boy and one girl, are becoming possessed by the spirits of two licentious former servants who died mysteriously.

This is a beautifully shot and literately scripted version of the oft filmed novella A Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Deborah Kerr gives a great performance as the sexually-repressed governess who slowly becomes unhinged. But are there really ghosts? Or are they simply manifestations of her own repressed mind? You be the judge.

One of the best ghost stories ever, but the best is yet to come.


3. ROSEMARY'S BABY, 1968
Written and Directed by Roman Polanski
Based on the novel by Ira Levin

A young couple moves into an expensive apartment building and become befriended by elderly neighbors. The wife Rosemary, played by a wide-eyed Mia Farrow, discovers that their neighbors are occultists and fears they have designs on her unborn child.

This film serves as a trial run for many of the themes of 70's cinema. It was this film, followed later by The Exorcist, that really put Satanism on the map in horror. The film also provided a foretaste of the paranoia endemic to the cinema of the next decade. This is a serious film, like The Innocents and The Haunting, made for adults, by a filmmaker with a degree of gravitas.

Of course, the director of this film, Roman Polanski, gives me pause. Even before the #MeToo movement, I was already semi-boycotting his work. (I generally avoided the films he made after the rape charges.) But is it fair to boycott a film simply because of the director? A studio film is the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Should their work be invalidated because of the behavior of one person? No doubt Roman Polanski receives residuals for his work. I certainly wouldn't want to reward him by buying the Blu Ray of this film. But is it fair to deprive Mia Farrow of her residuals by doing so?

Tough questions.....


Directed by George A. Romero
Written by John A. Russo and George A. Romero

The dead begin to rise and trap a group of terrified and confused survivors in a rural farmhouse.

In this film, George Romero invented the modern zombie genre. There had been zombie films before, such as the classic White Zombie with Bela Lugosi and late night fare like Zombies of Mora Tau, but Romero set up the modern paradigm. Zombies are slow-moving, flesh-eating, non-speaking and can only be killed by destroying the brain. Some filmmaking heretics have opted for fast-moving zombies, but, other than that, the rules have stuck. (All three films in Romero's original zombie trilogy have made my lists in their respective decades.)

It's hard to over estimate the effect this film has had on me. I originally saw this film on Super 8mm. My friend Bob Kuzyk reviewed movies for a film collectors magazine and he lent me the print. The description sounded corny. I wasn't very enthusiastic about watching it, but it grabbed me from the beginning. It was shot in B&W 16mm with a documentary feel. Although the acting was hit and miss, the first act is very scary and suspenseful. The second act was slower but peppered with then state of the art gore. The third act left me speechless.

The more I write about this film, the more I am surprised I didn't make it the top horror film of the decade. But it's hard to beat the next film.

Meanwhile, here's the whole film (which sadly fell into public domain):


1. THE HAUNTING, 1963
Directed by Robert Wise
Screenplay by Nelson Gidding. Based on the novel by Shirley Jackson

A paranormal researcher invites two women, played by Julie Harris and Claire Bloom, to help him investigate a haunted mansion.  Tragedy ensues.

This is the granddaddy of ghost films. It is the definitive masterpiece of the genre. More importantly, in my opinion, it is also the most realistic. I grew up in a haunted house, and this film most accurately conveys what I experienced during the height of our haunting. Nights filled with noises and bangings and footsteps. Objects moving. A palpable feeling of utter malevolence and dread. But, in the sunlight the next morning, your rational mind can dismiss everything as only your imagination. Still, you knew you would be facing it again that night....

The Haunting captures the feeling of a true haunting, without all of the over-the-top bells and whistles filmmakers feel the need to include today in these stories.

Speaking of over-the-top bells and whistles, avoid the Jon De Bont remake at all costs!


Honorable Mention:

PSYCHO, 1960. Scary. Influential. However, it does not fit my definition of a horror film.  It is a psychological crime thriller. Sorry. PLANET OF THE APES, 1967. A number of sci-fi films have overlapped into my horror lists, but this film remains firmly in the sci-fi category. With a script by Rod Sterling, it remains superior to all sequels. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, 1968. This is one of my favorite films of all time, but it too remains firmly in the sci-fi camp despite the malevolent computer villain. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, 1964. Vincent Price plays the titular fellow battling a race of vampires. This isn't great, but it is perhaps the most faithful version of Richard's Matheson's great novel I Am Legend. I am still waiting for the definitive version. DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, 1966. I think I like Christopher Lee's quiet, animalistic portrayal of Dracula better than any of the individual films themselves. Ditto the next film:  DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, 1968.  Of course he has! That's sort of what makes him Dracula. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? 1962. This film is often listed as a horror film, but it isn't one. REPULSION, 1965. This film also made a lot of horror lists, but I am happy to exclude a Roman Polanski film about rape, despite his expertise on the subject.

Other Lists:



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1 comment:

  1. n your 1960's Horror movies list, Loved 'I tre volti della paura', would take out Rosemary's Baby and Innocents, and put in Onibaba (Japanese, directed by Kaneto Shindo) and Kwaidan (Japanese, Directed by Masaki Kobayashi).

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