Horror Countdown: The 1940s
by SkeletonTree | created - 05 Nov 2016 | updated - 23 Dec 2016 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Cat People (1942)
Not Rated | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph
Votes: 26,015 | Gross: $4.00M
2. The Uninvited (1944)
Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner
Votes: 12,471
3. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett
Votes: 13,669
4. Dead of Night (1945)
Approved | 77 min | Drama, Horror
Guests invited to a weekend in the country share their supernatural stories, beginning with Walter Craig, who senses impending doom as his half-remembered recurring dream turns into reality.
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer | Stars: Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver, Mary Merrall
Votes: 14,229
5. The Spiral Staircase (1946)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith
Votes: 11,277
6. The Body Snatcher (1945)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Thriller
A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater
Votes: 10,199
7. The Wolf Man (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: Claude Rains, Warren William, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy
Votes: 30,737
8. The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.
Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter
Votes: 7,179
9. The Leopard Man (1943)
Approved | 66 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Thriller
A seemingly-tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 5,963
10. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
Director: Albert Lewin | Stars: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 14,455
11. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Not Rated | 83 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.
Directors: Charles Barton, Walter Lantz | Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi
Votes: 19,576 | Gross: $4.80M
12. The Seventh Victim (1943)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 7,580
13. The Devil Bat (1940)
Approved | 68 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad scientist develops an aftershave lotion that causes his gigantic bats to kill anyone who wears it.
Director: Jean Yarbrough | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O'Brien, Guy Usher
Votes: 3,453
14. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Passed | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp
Votes: 9,874 | Gross: $3.92M
15. Phantom of the Opera (1943)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Horror, Music
An acid-scarred composer rises from the Paris sewers to boost his favorite opera understudy's career.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier
Votes: 8,318 | Gross: $3.49M
16. Black Friday (1940)
Approved | 70 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Dr. Sovac transplants the brain of a gangster into his professor friend's body to save his life, but there is a side effect that causes a dangerous split personality.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel
Votes: 2,879
17. The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
Passed | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
In a turn-of-the-century Renaissance Italian mansion, its tyrannical owner, a wheelchair-bound one-handed pianist with a strong belief in the occult is murdered.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen
Votes: 3,011
18. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
Passed | 67 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Frankenstein's plans to replace the brain of his monster are hijacked by his scheming and malevolent assistant Ygor.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Cedric Hardwicke, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 7,098
19. The Mummy's Hand (1940)
Approved | 67 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Horror
Archaeologists defile the tomb of mummified Kharis, who was buried alive for falling in love with an Egyptian princess.
Director: Christy Cabanne | Stars: Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, Wallace Ford, Eduardo Ciannelli
Votes: 4,708
20. Son of Dracula (1943)
Unrated | 80 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When Katherine, a beautiful Southern girl obsessed with thoughts of eternal life, invites Count Alucard to come to her mansion in the U.S., she unleashes a Pandora's box of horror on unsuspecting relatives and neighbors.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, Evelyn Ankers
Votes: 6,203
21. Isle of the Dead (1945)
Not Rated | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
On a Greek island during the 1912 war, several people are trapped by quarantine for the plague. If that isn't enough worry, one of the people, a superstitious old peasant woman, suspects ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery
Votes: 5,267
22. The Devil Commands (1941)
Approved | 65 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientist becomes obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dead wife.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Amanda Duff, Richard Fiske
Votes: 1,440
23. The Ape (1940)
Approved | 62 min | Horror
Dr. Bernard Adrian is a kindly mad scientist who seeks to cure a young woman's polio. He needs spinal fluid from a human to complete the formula for his experimental serum.
Director: William Nigh | Stars: Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon, Gene O'Donnell, Dorothy Vaughan
Votes: 2,063
24. The Undying Monster (1942)
Not Rated | 63 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Surviving members of an aristocratic English family are threatened by a legendary monster when they venture out on chilly, foggy nights.
Director: John Brahm | Stars: James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher
Votes: 1,539
25. Strangler of the Swamp (1945)
Passed | 59 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A number of swamp land men have died by strangulation and the inhabitants believe that an innocent man they hanged is seeking revenge on all of the male descendants of those responsible for... See full summary »
Director: Frank Wisbar | Stars: Rosemary La Planche, Robert Barrat, Blake Edwards, Charles Middleton
Votes: 704
26. Man Made Monster (1941)
Passed | 59 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
A mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson
Votes: 1,881
27. The Black Cat (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Comedy, Mystery
Elderly Henrietta Winslow lives in an isolated mansion with her housekeeper and beloved cats. As her health fails, her greedy relatives gather in anticipation of her death.
Director: Albert S. Rogell | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Hugh Herbert, Broderick Crawford, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 2,083
28. Night Monster (1942)
Passed | 73 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama
Kurt Ingston, a rich recluse, invites the doctors who left him a hopeless cripple to his desolate mansion in the swamps as one by one they meet horrible deaths.
Director: Ford Beebe | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Leif Erickson, Irene Hervey
Votes: 1,854
29. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
Passed | 74 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
The resurrected Wolf Man, seeking a cure for his malady, enlists the aid of a mad scientist, who claims he will not only rid the Wolf Man of his nocturnal metamorphosis, but also revive the frozen body of Frankenstein's inhuman creation.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 9,968
30. She-Wolf of London (1946)
Passed | 61 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse and has begun committing ghastly murders in a nearby park.
Director: Jean Yarbrough | Stars: Don Porter, June Lockhart, Sara Haden, Jan Wiley
Votes: 3,032
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