45. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Robert Weine, 1921
Considered by many to be the first real horror movie, Caligari remains a masterpiece of visual storytelling to this day, utilizing an expressionistic style that has been imitated many times, but never matched. Honestly, there’s nothing I can say about this movie that isn’t better demonstrated just by seeing it for yourself, so enjoy this fan-made trailer-ish thing I found on youtube (they didn’t make trailers back then).
44. The Masque of the Red Death
Roger Corman, 1964
For sheer consistency, it’s hard to beat the Roger Corman/Vincent Price cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. None of them are bad, and several are outright classics. This film is not the very best of the series, but it’s probably the most striking, due in large part to Nicholas Roeg (later a director in his own right, and will be seen again later on this list), who serves as director of photography. It’s filled with vivid, primary colors that lend the story a greater sense of surrealism than the other films, and Vincent Price is his usual self (over the top, and loving it).
43. Hour of the Wolf
Ingmar Bergman, 1968
There is very little in my experience that is more chilling than hearing Max Van Sydow describe the ghosts that haunt him, including a bird-like man and an old woman who always threatens to take her hat off, which would be a terrible thing, because her face will come off with it. It’s a masterpiece of suggestion, the words just abstract enough to invoke chills that an actual visualization could never possibly match.
But then, we do see them. And somehow, it’s even worse.
42. Suspiria
Dario Argento, 1977
Argento’s most famous movie, Suspiria is a wonderful mixture of fairy-tale imagery and tremendously gruesome violence. As with most Italian movies of the era, there are a lot of clunky parts, but the combination of blatantly stylish visuals (ooh, the colors) and more subtle design choices (all of the doorknobs are mounted too high, to make the characters feel like children) all wrapped up in Goblin’s iconic score, weaves such a spell that it doesn’t matter. Best moment of horror? When (SPOILER) falls into a pit full of razor-wire. Ugh.
41. Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell
Terence Fisher, 1974
This is the last of the hammer Frankenstein films, and is my favorite of the bunch, despite some dodgy model work. Although the main difference between Peter Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein and the Henry Frankenstein of most other versions of the story is the former's outright villainy, I tend to prefer the installments where he has a bit more humanity – and in that regard, this is second only to Revenge of Frankenstein. What elevates ...Monster from Hell above that entry is the more interesting setting, the more monstrous monster, and a subtly tragic ending, when it becomes apparent that Frankenstein actually has gone mad – just not in the way that people usually accuse him of being mad.
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