Zaat - The Book of Vintage Horror Movie Posters

Page 1

Zaat The book of VINTAGE Horror Movie Posters

1


2

13 GHOSTS 13 Ghosts is a 1960 American horror film, produced and directed by William Castle, written by Robb White, and starring Jo Morrow, Rosemary DeCamp, Martin Milner, Donald Woods, and Charles Herbert. The film also co-features experienced character actress Margaret Hamilton. 13 Ghosts was released in 1960 on a double bill with either 12 to the Moon, The Electronic Monster, or Battle in Outer Space, depending on the film market. Throughout the film, Buck (Herbert) refers to the housekeeper Elaine (Hamilton) as a witch. Though never confirmed, these were possibly inside references acknowledging Hamilton's best known screen role as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939). At the end of the film, Buck says to Elaine, "You really are a witch, aren't you?", to which she replies, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies".


3

ABBY Abby is a 1974 A m e r i c a n blaxploitation horror film about a woman who is possessed by an African sex spirit. The film stars Carol Speed as the title character, William H. Marshall and Terry Carter. It was directed by William Girdler, who co-wrote the film's story with screenwriter Gordon Cornell Layne. The film was a financial success, grossing $4 million in a month, but was pulled from theaters after the film's distributor, American International Pictures, was accused of copyright violation by Warner Bros., which saw the film as being derivative of The Exorcist and filed a lawsuit against AIP. Girdler himself told the Louisville Courier Journal: "Sure, we made Abby to come in on the shirttail of The Exorcist." The film is also inspired by 1968's Rosemary's Baby.


4

ALICE, SWEET ALICE Alice, Sweet Alice (originally titled Communion) is a 1976 American slasher film cowritten and directed by Alfred Sole, and starring Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, and Brooke Shields in her film debut. Set in 1961 New Jersey, the film focuses on a troubled adolescent girl who becomes a suspect in the brutal murder of her younger sister at her first communion, as well as in a series of unsolved stabbings that follow. Inspired by Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973) and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, writer-director Sole devised the screenplay with Rosemary Ritvo, an English professor who was his neighbor. In the years since its release, Alice, Sweet Alice has accrued a cult following and is considered a contemporary classic of the slasher subgenre in critical circles. It has also been the focus of scholarship in the areas of horror film studies, particularly regarding its depictions of Roman Catholicism, child emotional neglect, and the disintegration of the American nuclear family.


5

ALLIGATOR Alligator is a 1980 American monster movie directed by Lewis Teague and written by John Sayles. It stars Robert Forster, Robin Riker and Michael V. Gazzo. It also includes an appearance by actress Sue Lyon in her last screen role to date. Set in Chicago, the film follows a police officer and a reptile expert to track a giant murderous sewer alligator, flushed down the toilet years earlier, that is attacking residents after escaping from the sewers. The film received praise from critics for its intentional satirizing.


6

AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS! And Now the Screaming Starts! is a 1973 British gothic horror film. It is one of the few featurelength horror stories by Amicus, a company best known for anthology or "portmanteau" films. The screenplay, written by Roger Marshall, is based on the 1970 novella Fengriffen by David Case. It stars Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Stephanie Beacham and Ian Ogilvy, and was directed by Roy Ward Baker. The large gothic house used in the film is Oakley Court, near Bray village, which is now a four star hotel.


7

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven, and produced by Robert Shaye. It is the first installment of a series and stars H e a t h e r Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund as Fred Krueger, and Johnny Depp in his film debut. The plot concerns four teenagers living on one street in the fictitious town of Springwood, Ohio, who are invaded and killed in their dreams, and thus killed in reality, by a burnt killer with a bladed leather glove.


8

ANTHROPOPHAGOUS

Anthropophagus is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Joe D'Amato and cowritten by D'Amato and George Eastman, who starred in the film as a cannibal. The film also starred Tisa Farrow, Zora Kerova, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, Margaret Mazzantini, and Mark Bodin. It has been described as having "a noted place in the annals of the escalation of gore". The film has gained cult status - if only "amongst fringe horror video audiences".It has been argued that the reason for its cult status lies in its theme of cannibalism, hence "consumption of humans", which lends itself to cult reception. The scene in which the titular man eater strangles a pregnant woman, tears out the fetus from her womb and bites into it, made it become one of the infamous "Video Nasties" that were prosecuted in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s, and the "controversy greatly aided its cult reputation" as well.


9

ASYLUM Asylum (also known as House of Crazies in subsequent US releases) is a 1972 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Milton Subotsky, and scripted by Robert Bloch (who adapted four of his own short stories for the screenplay). Baker had considerable experience as a director of horror films as he had tackled Quatermass and The Pit, and Scars of Dracula. Robert Bloch, who wrote the script for Asylum based on a series of his own short stories, was also the author of the novel Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock directed as a film. Shot in April 1972, the film was edited and set for release 15 weeks after the final day of shooting, premièring in July 1972 in the UK. The film had its North American dÊbut on 17 November 1972.


10

ASYLUM OF SATAN Asylum of Satan is 1972 horror movie directed from William Girdler starring Charles Kissinger, Carla Borelli, Nick Jolley and Louis Bandy. A young woman finds herself held against her will in an eerie mental asylum by the sinister "Dr. Specter" and his masculine-looking a s s i s t a n t , Martine. She begins to suspect that the visions of horror she experiences are not nightmares and that she is due to be sacrificed to The Evil One.


11

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 independently made American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, produced and directed by Roger Corman (via his Los Altos Productions), that stars Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, and Russell Johnson. The film was distributed by Allied Artists as a double feature with another Corman feature, Not of This Earth. Attack of the Crab Monsters concerns a second scientific expedition that is sent to a remote Pacific island to discover what happened to the scientists of the first. Unknown to them when they arrive, the island is inhabited by a pair of radiation-mutated giant crabs that not only consumed the members of the first expedition, but absorbed their minds, and now plan to reproduce their kind in numbers.


12

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE Attack of the Puppet People (working titles The Fantastic Puppet People and I Was a Teenage Doll, and retitled Six Inches Tall in the UK) is a 1958 American black-andwhite science fiction horror film starring John Agar, John Hoyt, and June Kenney. The film was produced, written, and directed by Bert I. Gordon for his Alta Vista Productions. He also worked on the film's special effects. American International Pictures released it as a double feature with War of the Colossal Beast. Attack of the Puppet People was rushed into production by AIP and Bert I. Gordon to capitalize on the popular success of U n i v e r s a l International's The Incredible Shrinking Man, released the previous year in 1957.


13

BAY OF BLOOD Bay of Blood (Italian: Ecologia del delitto,[a] lit. "Ecology of Crime", later released as Reazione a catena [lit. "Chain Reaction"]), also known as Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood Bath, is a 1971 Italian giallo film directed by Mario Bava. Bava cowrote the screenplay with Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, and Sergio Canevari, with story credit given to Dardano Sacchetti and Franco Barberi. The film stars Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli and Laura Betti. Carlo Rambaldi created the gruesome special make-up effects. The story details a string of mysterious murders that occur around the titular bay. Widely considered Bava's most violent film, its emphasis on graphically bloody murder set pieces was hugely influential on the slasher film subgenre that would follow a decade later. In 2005, the magazine Total Film named A Bay of Blood one of the 50 greatest horror films of all time.


14

BARRACUDA Barracuda is a 1977 A m e r i c a n horror/thriller film about a small Florida coastal town that is menaced by chemically induced and highly a g g r e s s i v e barracuda fish. The cast included Wayne Crawford, Jason Evers, Roberta Leighton, Cliff Emmich, William Kerwin and Bert Freed. It was directed by Harry Kerwin, with the underwater sequences handled by Wayne Crawford.


15

BLACK CHRISTMAS Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by A. Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Marian Waldman and John Saxon. The story concerns a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a deranged killer during the Christmas season. Inspired by the urban legend "The babysitter and the man upstairs" and a series of murders that took place in the Westmount section of Montreal, Quebec, Moore wrote the screenplay under the title Stop Me. The filmmakers made numerous alterations to the script, primarily the shifting to a university setting with young adult characters.


16

BLOOD BATH Blood Bath is a 1966 American horror film directed by Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman, starring William Campbell, Linda Saunders, Marissa Mathes, and Sid Haig. The film concerns a delusional painter in Venice Beach, California who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a vampire. He begins to kidnap local women for his art pieces, and comes to believe that he has found his reincarnated mistress in the person of an a v a n t - g a r d e ballerina. Blood Bath had a complex and troubled production history, marked by various cuts and reshoots.


17

BLOOD MANIA Blood Mania is a 1970 American horror film written by Peter Carpenter and Tony Crechales and directed by Robert Vincent O'Neil, and starring Carpenter, Maria De Aragon, Vicki Peters, Reagan Wilson, and Alex Rocco. The film stars Carpenter as a doctor whose mistress, an heiress, murders her terminally ill father to help him pay off a debt. Released in the fall of 1970, the film would go on to be featured as a double bill with 1961's Blood Lust.


18

CHILD’S PLAY Child's Play is a 1988 American horror film directed and co-written by Tom Holland, and produced by David Kirschner from a story by Don Mancini. It is the first film in the Child's Play series and the first installment to feature the character Chucky. It stars Catherine Hicks, Dinah Manoff, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, and Brad Dourif. Hicks plays a widowed mother who gives her son a doll for his birthday, unaware that the doll is possessed by the soul of a serial killer. The film was released on November 9, 1988, and grossed more than $44 million against a production budget of $9 million. Along with the film gaining a cult following, the box office success spawned a media franchise that includes a series of six sequels, merchandise, comic books and a remake film of the same name released in the summer of 2019. Child's Play was distributed by MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, although the rights to the series were sold to Universal Pictures in 1990, right before production on Child's Play 2 started. MGM retained the rights to the first film and as such, distributed the 2019 remake.


19

COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE Count Dracula and his vampire bride AKA The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a 1973 horror film directed by Alan Gibson and produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is the eighth film in Hammer's Dracula series, and the seventh and final one to feature Christopher Lee as Dracula. The film was also the third to unite Peter Cushing as Van Helsing with Lee, following Dracula (1958) and Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).


20

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black-andwhite 3D monster horror film from U n i v e r s a l International, produced by William Alland, directed by Jack Arnold, that stars Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno and Whit Bissell. The Creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Ricou Browning underwater. The film premiered in Detroit on February 12 and was released on a regional basis, opening on various dates. Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in 3D and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, similar to the viewers most commonly used today.


21

CREEPSHOW 2 Creepshow 2 is a 1987 American comedy horror anthology film directed by Michael Gornick, and the sequel to Creepshow. Gornick was previously the cinematographer of the first film, and the screenplay was written by Romero who was director of the original film. It was once again based upon stories by Stephen King, and features three more horror segments consisting of Old Chief Wooden Head, The Raft and The Hitchhiker. Unlike the first film, Creepshow 2 only contains three stories instead of five. Originally, two additional stories, Pinfall and Cat from Hell were set to appear in the film, but were scrapped due to budgetary reasons; however, the latter has been filmed for Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. The film was Dorothy Lamour's final film before her death in 1996.


22

DEAD OF NIGHT Dead of Night is a 1945 British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is most remembered for the concluding story, which features Redgrave and concerns a ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.


23

DEEP RED Deep Red (Italian: Profondo rosso), also known as The Hatchet Murders, is a 1975 Italian giallo film, directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and B e r n a r d i n o Zapponi. It was released on 7 March 1975. It was produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento, and the film's score was composed and performed by Goblin. It stars Macha Meril as a medium and David Hemmings as a pianist who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves.


24

DIAL M FOR MURDER Dial M for Murder is a 1954 American crime mystery film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, and John Williams. Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which it was based were written by English playwright Frederick Knott. The play premiered in 1952 on BBC Television, before being performed on stage in the same year in London's West End in June, and then New York's Broadway in October. Originally intended to be shown in dual-strip polarized 3-D, the film played in most theatres in ordinary 2-D due to the loss of interest in the 3-D process (the projection of which was difficult and error-prone) by the time of its release. The film earned an estimated $2.7 million in North American box office rentals in 1954.


25

DOCTOR BLOOD’S COFFIN Doctor Blood's Coffin is a 1961 British horror film produced by George Fowler, and directed by Sidney J. Furie. It stars Kieron Moore, Hazel Court and Ian Hunter. The story is that of young biochemist Dr Peter Blood (Kieron Moore), who returns to his hometown in Cornwall with the belief that he can selectively restore life by transplanting the living hearts of 'undeserving' people into dead people who 'deserve' to live. The film is significant for being one of the first two zombie movies to be shot in colour, the other being the obscure 1961 US film The Dead One and for its early portrayal of zombies as homicidal rotting cadavers. The movie was released in the UK in January 1961 and in the US in April of that year.


26

DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE Don't Go in the House (alternately titled Dont Go into the House!) is a 1979 psychological horror film written and directed by Joseph Ellison and cowritten by Ellen Hammill and Joe Masefield. Despite some respectable critical notices, Don't Go in the House attracted controversy almost immediately because of its graphic depiction of the death of Kohler's first victim, and the central theme of childhood abuse. The film was cut by almost three minutes when it was released in Britain in the winter of 1980, but an uncut version was released on video by the Arcade label in 1982 – knowingly or not, they advertised the release as "a true 'nasty' from Arcade", and it quickly wound up on the DPP's list of banned titles, or video nasties. The pre-cut British cinema version was released on video by the Apex label in April 1987, though the film was finally passed uncut in 2011.


27

DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is a 1976 blaxploitation horror film loosely inspired by the novella, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film stars Bernie Casey and Rosalind Cash and was directed by William Crain, who had also directed the successful Blacula for American International Pictures in 1972. Along with Crain, the film was written by Larry LeBron and Lawrence Woolner with cinematography by Tak Fujimoto. The movie was filmed primarily in Los Angeles and at locations such as the Watts Towers. Along with other blaxploitation films, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is filled with themes surrounding ideas of race, class and black power, yet it is unique in that the film depicts these themes through the genre of horror.


28

DRACULA Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. Produced by Universal, the screenplay is based on the 1924 stage play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is loosely based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.


29

DRACULA 73 Dracula is a 1958 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster based on Bram Stoker's novel of the same name. The first in the series of Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, this original also features Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, along with Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, and John Van Eyssen. In the U.S. the film was retitled Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with the earlier Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi, and the film was released in the U.S. in 1958 on a double feature with the Universal film The Thing That Couldn't Die.


30

DRACULA’S DOG Dracula's Dog (U.K. t i t l e : Zoltan...Hound of Dracula) is a 1977 American horror film starring Michael Pataki and JosÊ Ferrer. It revolves around a dog who is turned into a vampire by a member of the Dracula family, who is also a vampire. The film's screenplay was the basis for the paperback novel Hounds of Dracula (1977) by Ken Johnson, which was retitled Dracula's Dog upon the film's release in the U.S.. In the U.K., the novel was titled Dracula's Dog only.


31

EATEN ALIVE Eaten Alive (known under various alternate titles, including Death Trap, Horror Hotel, and S t a r l i g h t Slaughter) is an American horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper and released in May 1976. It was written by Kim Henkel, Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam and produced by Fast, Larry Huly, Robert Kantor and M a r d i , Mohammed and Samir Rustam. The film stars Neville Brand, Roberta Collins, Robert Englund, William Finley, Marilyn Burns, Janus Blythe and Kyle Richards.


32

EVIL DEAD 2 Evil Dead II (also known in publicity materials as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, and a parody sequel to the horror film The Evil Dead (1981). The film was written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Robert Tapert, and stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. Filming took place in Michigan and North Carolina in 1986, and the film was released in the United States on March 13, 1987. It was a minor box office success, achieving just under $6 million. It garnered positive reviews in which critics praised Raimi's direction and C a m p b e l l ' s performance. Like the original, Evil Dead II has accumulated a cult following. The film was followed by a third installment, Army of Darkness (1992), and a television series, Ash vs Evil Dead (2015).


33

FLESH FEAST Flesh Feast (released in 1970, though shot in 1967) is an American horror film that features Veronica Lake in her final screen performance. Dr. Elaine Frederick, a mad scientist, is working on developing maggots that prefer human flesh, while her services are used to make a clone of Adolf Hitler. She cooperates with the plan to resurrect Hitler as a way of exacting revenge for the death of her mother, a political prisoner executed in RavensbrĂźck concentration camp. While convincing everyone the flesheating maggots are for regeneration research, she simply wants to throw them in the resurrected Hitler's face, which she does.


34

FRANKENSTEIN Frankenstein is a 1931 American pre-Code gothic monster horror film from Universal Pictures. It is about a scientist and his assistant who dig up corpses to build a man animated by electricity. The project goes awry when Frankenstein's assistant accidentally gives the creature an abnormal, murderer's brain. The film was directed by James Whale, and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling, which in turn was based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The created "monster" is portrayed by Boris Karloff in the film. A hit with both audiences and critics, the film was followed by multiple sequels and has become one of the most famous horror films in history.


35

FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER

Frankenstein's Daughter is an independently made 1958 American black-and-white s c i e n c e fiction/horror film drama, produced by Marc Frederic and George Fowley, directed by Richard E. Cunha, that stars John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, and Sally Todd. The film was distributed by Astor Pictures and was released theatrically as a double feature with Missile to the Moon. The film, set in mid20th century America, tells the story of the creation of the first female "Frankenstein's monster".


36

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Friday the 13th is a 1980 American slasher film produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, written by Victor Miller, and starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, and Kevin Bacon. The film tells the story of a group of teenage camp counselors who are murdered one by one by an unknown killer while attempting to re-open an abandoned summer camp. Prompted by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), director Cunningham put out an advertisement to sell the film in Variety in early 1979, while Miller was still drafting the screenplay. After casting the film in New York City, filming took place in New Jersey in the summer of 1979, on an estimated budget of $550,000. A bidding war ensued over the finished film, ending with Paramount Pictures acquiring the film for domestic distribution, while Warner Bros. secured European distribution rights.


37

HALLOWEEN Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut. The plot tells the story about psychopathic serial killer Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends, while under pursuit by his psychiatrist. Filmed in the spring of 1978 in Southern California, Halloween was produced on a budget of $300,000. Upon its release, it grossed $70 million worldwide, becoming one of the most profitable independent films.


38

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME Happy Birthday to Me is a 1981 Canadian psychological slasher film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Melissa Sue Anderson and Glenn Ford. Its plot revolves around six brutal murders occurring around a popular high school senior's birthday. Filmed primarily in Canada and upstate New York, Happy Birthday to Me was distributed by Columbia Pictures, and released theatrically in North America in the spring of 1981. The film was released on May 15, 1981. While reception was generally negative, it has since achieved a cult following. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.


39

HORRORS OF THE SPIDER ISLAND Horrors of Spider Island (German: Ein Toter hing im Netz, "A Corpse Hung in the Web") is a 1960 West German horror film directed by Fritz Bรถttger from his screenplay, and produced by Gaston Hakim and Wolf C. Hartwig for RapidFilm/Intercontinen tal Filmgesellschaft. The film stars Alexander D'Arcy as a talent agent who invites several girls to a club in Singapore. Their plane ride ends abruptly when they crash-land into the ocean. D'Arcy and the women make their way to an island where they find a larger spider web. A giant spider sinks its teeth in D'Arcy which turns him into a mutant.


40

HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS

House of Dark Shadows is a 1970 American featurelength horror film directed by Dan Curtis, based on his Dark Shadows television series. In this film expansion, vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) searches for a cure for vampirism so he can marry a woman who resembles his longlost fiancĂŠe Josette (Kathryn Leigh Scott). Filming took place at Lyndhurst Estate in Tarrytown, New York, with additional footage at nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Curtis followed this film one year later with Night of Dark Shadows, another expansion of the Shadows franchise, dealing with the witch Angelique.


41

JAWS 3-D Jaws 3-D (stylized on-screen as Jaws III) is a 1983 American thriller film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett, Jr. It is the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films at SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. The film made use of 3D during the revived interest in the technology in the 1980s, amongst other horror films such as Friday the 13th Part III and Amityville 3D.


42

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS Kingdom of the Spiders is a 1977 American science fiction horror film directed by John "Bud" Cardos and produced by Igo Kantor and Jeffrey M. Sneller. The screenplay is credited to Richard Robinson and Alan Caillou, from an original story by Sneller and Stephen Lodge. The film was released by Dimension Pictures (not to be confused with the distributor Dimension Films). It stars William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling, Woody Strode, Lieux Dressler and Altovise Davis.


43

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT The Last House on the Left is a 1972 American exploitation horror film written, edited, and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. The film stars Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David A. Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, and Marc Sheffler. The plot revolves around two teenage girls who are taken into the woods and tortured by a gang of murderous thugs. The story is inspired by the Swedish film The Virgin Spring (1960), directed by Ingmar Bergman, which in turn is based on a Swedish ballad, "Töres döttrar i Wänge". Craven's directorial debut, the film was made on a modest budget of $87,000, and was filmed in New York City and rural Connecticut in 1971. It was released theatrically in the United States on August 30, 1972, and was a major box office success, grossing over $3 million domestically. Although its confrontational violence resulted in it being heavily censored and sometimes banned in other countries, the film was generally well received by critics. The film was remade under the same title in 2009.


44

MADHOUSE Madhouse is a 1974 British horror film directed by Jim Clark for Amicus Productions in association with A m e r i c a n International Pictures. It stars Vincent Price, Natasha Pyne, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry, Adrienne Corri and Linda Hayden. The film performed considerably less well at the box office than other horror movies Price had made for AIP and Samuel Z. Arkoff considered it marked the end of the horror cycle.


45

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE Mark of the Vampire (also known as Vampires of Prague) is a 1935 horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt, and directed by Tod Browning. It has been described as a talkie remake of Browning's silent London After Midnight (1927), though it does not credit the older film or its writers.


46

MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR Monster from the Ocean Floor is a 1954 science fiction horror film about a sea monster that terrorizes a Mexican cove. The film was directed by Wyott Ordung and starred Anne Kimbell and Stuart Wade. It was the first film produced by Roger Corman (although he had previously written Highway Dragnet).


47

MORTUARY Mortuary (also k n o w n internationally as Embalmed and Hall of Death) is a 1983 American slasher film directed by Howard Avedis and starred Bill Paxton, Mary Beth McDonough, David Wallace, Lynda Day George, with Michael Berryman (who only appears in the film's trailer) and Christopher George in one of his final roles.

The film was released in 1983, and has grossed $4.3 million. Mortuary was officially released on DVD for the first time on May 25, 2012, followed by a limited Blu-ray release on October 7, 2014.


48

MY BLOODY VALENTINE My Bloody Valentine is a 1981 Canadian slasher film directed by George Mihalka and written by John Beaird. It stars Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, and Neil Affleck. The plot tells about a group of young adults who decide to throw a Valentine's Day party, only to incur the vengeful wrath of an assailant in mining gear who begins a killing spree. Conceived and produced entirely over the course of around a year, the film was shot on location in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, in the fall of 1980. It was theatrically released on February 11, 1981 by Paramount Pictures, coinciding with the Valentine's holiday. Despite a mixed response from critics and grossing $5.7 million at the box office, the film has developed a large cult following over the years since its release. My Bloody Valentine faced notable censorship, having a total of nine minutes cut by the Motion Picture Association of America due to the amount of violence and gore.


49

NIGHTMARE Nightmare (also known as Nightmares in a Damaged Brain) is a 1981 American slasher film written and directed by Romano Scavolini, and starring Baird Stafford and Sharon Smith. Its plot follows a deranged man, subject to a medical experiment, who leaves his New York City psychiatric institute to murder his ex-wife and child in Florida. Nightmare gained instant notoriety among horror fans when it was banned in the UK as a video nasty and its distributor was sentenced to 18 months in prison for refusing to edit one second of violent footage. The film also garnered controversy for claiming in its press material that Tom Savini had provided the film's special effects, which Savini vehemently denied.


50

OPERA Opera (also known and released as Terror at the Opera) is a 1987 Italian giallo film co-written and directed by Dario Argento, with music composed and performed by Brian Eno, Claudio Simonetti, and Bill Wyman. Starring Cristina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, and Ian Charleson, the plot focuses on a young soprano (Marsillach) involved in a series of murders being committed inside an opera house by a masked assailant. The film was one of Argento's most commercially successful, seeing 1,363,912 ticket sales in his native country of Italy. This is the second Dario Argento horror film to have THX audio certified and picture quality.


51

PIECES Pieces (Spanish: Mil gritos tiene la noche, lit. "The night has 1000 screams") is a 1982 SpanishAmerican slasher film directed by Juan Piquer Simon, and starring Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Frank BraĂąa, Edmund Purdom, Paul L. Smith, Ian Sera, and Jack Taylor.[6] The film follows a mysterious murderer killing female students at a college campus in Boston, who uses their body parts to make a human jigsaw puzzle. Since its release, the film has attracted a cult following and has been a drive-in favorite. While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty controversy.


52

PROM NIGHT Prom Night is a 1980 slasher film directed by Paul Lynch, written by William Gray, and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen. The plot follows a group of high school seniors who are targeted at their prom by a masked killer seeking vengeance for the accidental death of a young girl six years earlier. It features s u p p o r t i n g performances from Casey Stevens, Eddie Benton, Mary Beth Rubens, and Michael Tough. The film was a major commercial success. Critical reaction to the film varied, with some, such as Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, dismissing it for its depictions of violence against women, while others alternately praised the film for its more muted violent content.


53

PSYCHO Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Joseph Stefano. It stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles, and Martin Balsam, and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on an encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer, and the motel's owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath. Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre.


54

RETURN OF THE FLY Return of the Fly is the first sequel to the horror film The Fly (1958). It was released in 1959 as a double feature with The Alligator People. It was directed by Edward Bernds. Unlike the previous film, Return of the Fly was shot in black and white. Vincent Price was the only returning cast member from the original. It was intended that Herbert Marshall reprise his role as the police inspector, but due to illness he was replaced by John Sutton.


55

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr., and starring Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley, Britt Leach and Leo Geter. The story concerns a young man named Billy, who suffers from posttraumatic stress over witnessing his parents' murder on Christmas Eve and his subsequent upbringing in an abusive Catholic orphanage. In adulthood, the Christmas holiday leads him into a psychological breakdown, and he emerges as a spree killer donning a Santa suit.


56

TENEBRE Tenebre (lit. "darkness", also known as Tenebrae) is a 1982 Italian giallo film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Anthony Franciosa as American author Peter Neal, who – while in Rome promoting his latest murdermystery novel – becomes embroiled in the search for a serial killer who may have been inspired to kill by his novel. John Saxon and Daria Nicolodi co-star as Neal's agent and assistant, while Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro appear as detectives investigating the murders. John Steiner, Veronica Lario, and Mirella D'Angelo also feature in minor roles. The film has been described as exploring themes of dualism and sexual aberration, and has strong metafictional elements; some commentators consider Tenebrae to be a direct reaction by Argento to criticism of his previous work, most especially his depictions of murders of beautiful women.


57

TERROR FROM UNDER THE HOUSE Terror from under the house, aka Revenge! is a 1971 British thriller film directed by Sidney Hayers and starring Joan Collins, James Booth and SinĂŠad Cusack. The screenplay concerns a family who seek brutal revenge on the man who they suspect attacked their daughter. The film is based on the novel "There Was an Old Woman" by Lou Ellen Davis. In May 1976 this was released in the United States under the title Inn of the Frightened People. When it was released in the United States on video, it was retitled Terror From Under the House.


58

THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a 1971 British dark comedy horror film, produced by Ronald S. Dunas and Louis M. Heyward, directed by Robert Fuest, written by William Goldstein and James Whiton, and starring Vincent Price and Joseph Cotten. Its art deco sets, dark humour, and performance by Price have made the film and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again cult classics. The film also features Terry-Thomas and Hugh Griffith, with an uncredited Caroline Munro appearing in still photographs as Phibes's wife.


59

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

The Abominable Snowman (US title: The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas) is a 1957 British fantasy-horror film directed by Val Guest and written by Nigel Kneale, based on his own BBC teleplay, "The Creature". Produced by Hammer Film Productions, the plot follows the exploits of British scientist Dr. John Rollason (Peter Cushing), who joins an American expedition, led by glory-seeker Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker), to search the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti. Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis and Arnold Marle appear in supporting roles.


60

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR The Amityville Horror is a 1979 A m e r i c a n supernatural horror film directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder as a young couple who purchase a home haunted by c o m b a t i v e supernatural forces. The film is based on Jay Anson's book of the same name (1977). The story is based on the alleged experiences of the Lutz family who bought a new home in Amityville, New York where a mass murder had been committed the year before. It is the first film based on the Amityville horror.


61

THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER The Astounding SheMonster is a 1958 science fiction horror film starring Robert Clarke and directed, co-written and produced by Ronnie Ashcroft for Hollywood International Productions. The film focuses on a geologist, a gang which has kidnapped a rich heiress, and their encounter with a beautiful but deadly female alien who has crashed to Earth. In the UK, it was released as The Mysterious Invader. The film was released in American theaters on April 10, 1958 by A m e r i c a n International Pictures on a double feature with Roger Corman's The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent.


62

THE BLACK SLEEP The Black Sleep is a 1956 American independent horror film directed by Reginald LeBorg, and written by John C. Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams. It stars Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi (in his final film role), and Akim Tamiroff in a role originally written for Peter Lorre. Tor Johnson appears in a supporting role. The film was produced by Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, as part of a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists. The film was released as a double feature with the 1955 British film The Creeping Unknown. The Black Sleep was re-released in 1962 under the title Dr. Cadman's Secret.


63

THE CAULDRON OF DEATH Ricco the Mean Machine (Italian: Un tipo con una faccia strana ti cerca per ucciderti, Spanish: Ajuste de cuentas, also known as The Cauldron of Death and The Dirty Mob) is a 1973 ItalianSpanish crimethriller film directed by Tulio Demicheli and s t a r r i n g Christopher Mitchum and Barbara Bouchet. It achieved some cult status because of its violent and gory scenes, including a graphic castration. The US title was actually a misspelling of the main character's name Rico.


64

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US The Creature Walks Among Us is a 1956 American monster horror film and the third and final installment of the Creature from the Black Lagoon series from Universal Pictures, following the previous year's Revenge of the Creature. The film was directed by John Sherwood, the longtime UniversalInternational assistant director, in his directorial debut. Jack Arnold, who had directed the first two films in the series, had moved on to "A-list" films, and felt he had no more to contribute to the horror genre. He suggested that his assistant director, Sherwood, could move up to full director, which partly affected Universal's decision to allow him to direct the film. The Creature Walks Among Us starred Jeff Morrow, Rex Reason, and Leigh Snowden, and, like the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, had music composed by Henry Mancini, who at the time was under contract with Universal.


65

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (shortened to The Fearless Vampire Killers; originally released in the UK as Dance of the Vampires) is a 1967 horror comedy film directed by Roman Polanski, written by GĂŠrard Brach and Polanski, produced by Gene Gutowski and starring Polanski with his future wife Sharon Tate, along with Jack MacGowran and Alfie Bass, and featuring Ferdy Mayne. In the film, a doddering vampire hunter and his bumbling assistant travel to a small mountain village where they find the tell-tale traces of vampirism. The assistant becomes enchanted by the local tavern keeper's daughter, before she is promptly abducted. Determined to save the buxom maiden they confront the undead Count in his castle. The film has been adapted into a musical, Dance of the Vampires or "Tanz der Vampire" (German for "Dance of the Vampires").


66

THE FLY The Fly is a 1958 American science fiction-horror film produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall. The screenplay by James Clavell was based on the 1957 short story of the same name by George Langelaan. The film tells the story of a scientist who is transformed into a grotesque creature after a common house fly enters unseen into a molecular transporter he is experimenting with, resulting in his atoms being combined with those of the insect, which produces a human-fly hybrid. The film was released in CinemaScope with Color by Deluxe by 20th Century Fox. It was followed by two black-and-white sequels, Return of the Fly (1959) and Curse of the Fly (1965). The original film was remade in 1986 by director David Cronenberg.


67

THE FUNHOUSE The Funhouse (also released as Carnival of Terror) is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Tobe Hooper, written by Larry Block and starring Elizabeth Berridge, Kevin Conway, William Finley, Cooper Huckabee, Miles Chapin, and Sylvia Miles. The film's plot concerns four teenagers who become trapped in a dark ride at a local carnival and are stalked by a deformed killer inside. Released by Universal Pictures, the film was director Hooper's first major studio production after Eaten Alive (1977) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Upon its release on March 13, 1981, it has grossed $7.8 million and received mixedpositive reviews from critics.


68

THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN The House on Skull Mountain is a 1974 horror film directed by Ron Honthaner. After Pauline Christophe (Mary J. Todd McKenzie), the sole heir for the mansion on Skull Mountain dies, four of her family members are called to hear her will. Upon arrival, each of the guests is stalked by a skeleton in a robe.


69

THE MUMMY’S TOMB The Mummy's Tomb is a 1942 American horror film produced by Ben Pivar for Universal Pictures Co., directed by Harold Young, and starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Kharis the mummy. It is the first of three sequels to that company's The Mummy's Hand of 1940.


70

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American slasher film directed by Tobe Hooper and written and coproduced by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and Leatherface. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience and to act as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate; although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, its plot is largely fictional.


71

ZOMBIE 2 Zombi 2 is a 1979 Italian zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. It was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), which was released in Italy with the title Zombi. It stars Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, and Richard Johnson, and features a score by frequent Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi. Frizzi's score has been released independently of the film, and he has performed it live on tour. The film tells the story of a Caribbean island cursed by voodoo, whose dead residents rise as zombies to attack the living. A scientist's daughter journeys to the island after her father's boat turns up abandoned in New York City. Intended by its writer as a return to "classic zombie tales", Zombi 2 was filmed in Italy, with further location shooting in New York and Santo Domingo. Produced on a small budget of ₤410 million, the film earned several times its production costs back in international gross. It attracted controversy upon its release in the United Kingdom, where it became listed as a "video nasty".


72

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU Zombies of Mora Tau (also known as The Dead That Walk) is a 1957 black-andwhite zombie horror film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Gregg Palmer, Autumn Russel, Joel Ashley, Morris Ankrum, and Marjorie Eaton. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, it was produced by Sam Katzman. The screenplay was written by George H. Plympton and Bernard Gordon. Zombies of Mora Tau was released on a double bill with another Katzmanproduced film, The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957).


73

ZAAT Zaat (also known as Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Hydra, and Attack of the Swamp Creatures) is a 1971 American science fictionhorror film written, produced, and directed by Don Barton. Critical reception for Zaat has been predominantly negative, with criticism directed at the film's script, acting, and poor monster design. It has been cited as one of the worst films ever made. It gained s i g n i f i c a n t exposure when it was used in an episode of moviemocking television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in May 1999.


Table of Contents






THE END


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.