The 20 Best '60s Horror Movies Ranked

The '60s was a time of great upheaval –- it was the supposed decade of peace and love but, was also the era of riots, the civil rights movement, and of seismic shifts both politically and culturally. The post-war optimism of World War II had begun to fade, and with that came a new cynicism –- counterculture was in the ascendance, and it was reflected in film tastes. The '50s had been spent watching the stars, but much of the '60s would be spent watching your back. Horror was cheap, and the deterioration of the censorial nature of the already fragmented Hays Code meant that directors could do more, show more –- something that would be truly exploited in the '70s, the golden age of horror.

The growing popularity of television also cast a dark shadow over cinema. The decade saw the traditional studio system begin to fragment, ironically even as the first multiplexes were beginning to appear. Ambitious epics were harder to justify, and it became increasingly cheap to shoot abroad with foreign film crews –- which benefited the UK cinema industry greatly, assisting already established dedicated horror studios such as Hammer and Amicus.

It's worth mentioning that there will be spoilers here –- you've had six decades to watch the twenty movies presented here, so read on at your peril.

Sometimes known as anthology movies, the portmanteau horror hit its stride in the '60s. They commonly featured numerous standalone stories linked by a framing device. Introduced by a deliciously deadpan Boris Karloff, this Mario Bava directed film (released as "The Three Faces of Fear" in his native Italy) consists of three individual tales.

The first features a woman alone in her apartment being troubled by menacing phone calls from an unseen prowler. The second featuring Karloff himself as a man returning home to his family after supposedly killing an undead creature. The standout story here is the final tale though, "The Drop of Water," which sees a nurse haunted by the corpse of a woman she stole a sapphire ring from.

The first two tales are distinctly average, one ending predictably and the other dragged to a length that the script can't support, but it finishes on a high note. It's a delightfully creepy tale with a terrifying protagonist, the ghastly appearance of whom will linger in your subconsciousness long after Karloff has bid his monotone farewells. We also have this film to thank for the naming of the legendary band Black Sabbath, who were simply known as "Earth" before this film inspired their epochal name change.

Amicus Productions became inexorably linked with the portmanteau horror format throughout the '70s, but "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" was their first. The mysterious Doctor Schreck (Peter Cushing) steps into a carriage in London and performs tarot readings for the men within. This is the framework for the upcoming pentalogy of horror tales, stories of werewolves, killer plants, voodoo, possessed disembodied hands, and vampires –- all culminating in a not particularly well-hidden twist ending.

The great beauty (and strength) of the anthology format is the pace; stories are tight, brief, and if they're not particularly good, there'll be another one along in a moment. It allows for a variety of styles, in this case wildly veering so much between genuinely chilling horror and dark humor that it's enough to give you whiplash. This particular film is also a veritable Who's Who of horror talent, featuring genre stalwarts such as Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, and Donald Sutherland, all clearly enjoying themselves way too much.

The title (and portmanteau format) would later be spoofed to significant effect in the BBC Comedy 2001 horror series, "Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible".

Set in Japan during the Nanboku-cho civil war of the 14^th century, Onibaba sees two scavengers –- an older woman and her daughter-in-law –- making a living by murdering samurai unwary enough to stumble into their territory and selling their weapons and armor for coins. One day the two encounter a warrior wearing a hannya mask (a traditional theatrical mask of a jealous female demon) and, he, too is lured to his death. The mask is removed from his hideously disfigured face, and thus begins a chain of events that will make the women pay for their crimes.

Shot in harsh monochrome, "Onibaba" is a bleak and unrelenting view of war — but is as visually stunning as it is chilling. Much of the film is set amongst plains of silver seven-foot-tall susuki grass, both home and camouflage for the two ill-fated women. A brilliantly distinctive soundtrack tops off this movies assault on the senses, with its weirdly anachronistic avant-garde jazz.

Christopher Lee would make his second performance as the eponymous undead aristocrat in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness" but it's "Brides of Dracula" -– Hammers unofficial sequel to the first movie –- that's of more interest, with a frankly wasted Lee playing the role without dialogue in the former. Deviating away from the Bram Stoker source material, "Brides of Dracula" is the first of a protracted line in Hammer Horror Dracula sequels, "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" (a bizarre martial arts/horror hybrid) being the last such movie in 1974.

A young Baron, cursed with the bloodline of Dracula, breaks free of his castle prison. He's allowed to wreak havoc through the village and a girl's school before professional Vampire Hunter Abraham Van Helsing arrives on the scene.

"Brides" is a quintessential Hammer movie, featuring all the trademarks that cinema audiences had come to expect from the prolific horror studio; a gothic period setting, a garish and distinctive technicolor palette, candle-lit mansions, stoic square-jawed heroes, and beautiful women in flimsy nightdresses. The enigmatic Peter Cushing reprises his role as Van Helsing lifting this up as a worthy entry to Hammer's vampire canon, with enough classy gore to keep the horror fans content.

The first of two movies on this list from Polish-French auteur Roman Polanski, this is notably the fugitive director's first English-language movie. Set in Kensington, London, "Repulsion" is a psychological horror thriller about an androphobic manicurist named Carol (played by Catherine Deneuve) and her slow descent into madness within the cramped confines of her apartment.

Shot in moody black and white, the apartment is forever doused in shadow, a claustrophobic space mirroring the fractured state of Carol's mind. We're witness to all of Carol's hallucinations, including a particularly memorable scene in which hands emerge from walls to desperately grasp at her (in a shot that would later be paid homage in both the trailer and opening scenes of George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead"). It's all wonderfully surreal, and we're never quite sure what is real and what is not.

The soundtrack is as stifling as the visuals, featuring unnerving repetitive sounds such as the ticking of clocks and the audible beating of Carol's heart. As Carol's neuroses heighten to unsustainable levels that can only end in tragedy, the audience feels complicit in every act. Rarely has mental health been portrayed so vividly (and so disturbingly) on the big screen.

"Eyes without a Face" ("Les yeux sans visage") tells the tale of guilt-ridden Doctor Génessier, remorseful at being responsible for an accident that disfigured his once-beautiful daughter Christiane. In an attempt to atone for his sins, he kidnaps young women in order to remove their faces to try to graft them onto his scarred daughter.

Despite having been elevated to more than just a mad scientist movie through the skilled camerawork of director Georges Franju, it was poorly received on initial release, with many detractors claiming that the horror genre was beneath Georges' talents. It has since undergone massive critical reevaluation. It's uncomfortable viewing and feels remarkably ahead of its time, especially with its clinical approach to its uneasy imagery.

John Carpenter implied that Christiane's blank faced mask was an inspiration for Michael Myers in the "Halloween" series. "Eyes without a Face" has also been hugely influential on European cinema, inspiring a number of Jesús Franco's movies as well as the Pedro Almodóvar film "The Skin I Live in"

Based on the 1959 Shirley Jackson novel "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Haunting" concerns a group of people invited by a paranormal investigator to stay in and research the supposedly haunted titular house. The investigator, Dr. John Markway, is joined in the sprawling and sinister gothic manor by the family heir Luke, psychic Theodora, and Eleanor, a guilt-ridden woman with a history of hauntings.

In an era where censorship was being gradually relaxed and horror movies were becoming bolder and more experimental in their attempts to scare, "The Haunting" at first appears something of a throwback. It turns out to be a masterclass in ramping up atmosphere and tension, with the sound design worthy of particular note; rattling pipes and creaking walls give the impression that the building is alive and is as much a character as any of the hapless humans wandering within its oddly angled walls. Also worthy of note is the movies surprisingly modern approach to homosexuality -– Theodora is portrayed as feminine, whereas the Hollywood tendency at the time was to portray lesbians as predatory and masculine.

A poorly received remake was released by Jan De Bont in 1999, with a more successful television adaptation for Netflix created and directed by Mike Flanagan in 2018.

Blanche and Jane Hudson, two aging child stars past their prime, share a dilapidated Hollywood mansion. "Baby" Jane Hudson's star faded in childhood, whereas Blanche went on to a successful acting career. Now living together, Blanche confined to a wheelchair with Jane remains resentful of her sister's success, regularly abusing her crippled sibling.

The backstage story behind the two lead actors from this 1962 psychological horror is almost as vicious as the one portrayed on screen: the two divas just as prone to barbed comments against the other as either of their characters. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were rivals for at least three decades, and it was rumored that the two only agreed because each was envious of the other's starring role.

Both performances are utterly hypnotic, with Davis' Jane in particular coming across as a truly pathological grotesque. It's as much character study as horror, the venom spat between the two coming across as frighteningly genuine. It's rare that Hollywood dares to be quite so introspective, but "Whatever happened to Baby Jane?" is a gripping and unique look at the aftermath of success and stardom.

Rosemary and her husband Guy have recently moved to a New York apartment building, confronted with odd neighbors and the buildings equally odd history. When Rosemary falls pregnant, she begins to strongly suspect that something is wrong with everyone around her -– and it's only when she gives birth that she learns the unholy truth.

Mia Farrow gives a career-best performance as the beleaguered Rosemary, her paranoia only worsening as those around her try to offer comfort. She cuts a waif-like figure, propelled like a leaf in a hurricane as her situation worsens. Is it the hormonal changes of her pregnancy affecting or judgement, or is it something far worse? When she suspects that even her husband is acting against her, is it paranoia or a (soon-to-be) mother's intuition?

Many speak of the standout ending, but it's the moments that happen just before it which are the most chilling: her chirpy and overly helpful neighbors talking about eldritch rituals with the same giddy enthusiasm as they'd talk about a tea party. Just normal-seeming humans capable of conspiring to conduct hideous, nefarious acts in order to achieve a singularly pitch-black aim. Rosemary is little more than a pawn, and the bleaker-than-bleak ending reveals her dark purpose.

"They're coming to get you, Barbara..."

"Night of the Living Dead" is landmark film in many ways. Effectively a siege movie in which a disparate group of people attempt to defend themselves against a horde of the rampaging cannibalistic undead, it was like nothing ever seen before. This was a movie which would dwell on the eating habits of the undead, watching them chow down on human limbs with a documentary-style voyeurism. It was a movie when dead little girls would attack their parents, and a film where the good guy dies at the end.

Hollywood zombies had previously been the product of African necromantic rituals, yet 28-year-old George Andrew Romero would do what countless square-jawed leading men could never do: wipe out all the voodoo zombies. These were the dead reanimated in an ambiguous manner, but through science and not magic — and that legacy would go on to infest cinema like a plague.

Amazingly, in the same year that saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., African American Duane Jones was cast in the leading role –- not for political reasons, but simply for being the best actor who auditioned, with Romero consciously refusing to amend any of the existing script to reflect the color of his lead's skin.

The threat of Romero's zombie has always been simple; it will not rest, and it will always be there. Like his pale skinned ghouls, the legacy of "Night of the Living Dead" will never die, its all-permeating influence still as strong now as it was half a century ago.