The Best Horror Movies of the 1940s
The thirty best, most successful, and/or most influential movies of the 1940's. I analyze reviews from horror critics, fans, and filmmakers to determine the "must-see" films for hardcore horror buffs.
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- DirectorJean YarbroughStarsBela LugosiSuzanne KaarenDave O'BrienA mad scientist develops an aftershave lotion that causes his gigantic bats to kill anyone who wears it.
- DirectorChristy CabanneStarsDick ForanPeggy MoranWallace FordArchaeologists defile the tomb of mummified Kharis, who was buried alive for falling in love with an Egyptian princess.
- DirectorVictor FlemingStarsSpencer TracyIngrid BergmanLana TurnerDr. Jekyll allows his dark side to run wild when he drinks a potion that turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde.
- DirectorJules DassinStarsJoseph SchildkrautRoman BohnenOscar O'SheaIn this classic Edgar Allan Poe story, a man commits a murder, but afterward the victim's beating heart torments the murderer's mind.
- DirectorGeorge WaggnerStarsClaude RainsWarren WilliamLon Chaney Jr.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.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsSimone SimonTom ConwayKent SmithAn 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.
- DirectorErle C. KentonStarsCedric HardwickeLon Chaney Jr.Ralph BellamyDr. Frankenstein's plans to replace the brain of his monster are hijacked by his scheming and malevolent assistant Ygor.
- DirectorMaurice TourneurStarsPierre FresnayJosseline GaëlNoël RoquevertRoland Brissot bought for a nickel a talisman that gives him love, fame, and wealth. The talisman is a cut left hand, and it works perfectly. Of course, there is nothing free in this world, and after one year, the devil comes and asks for his due.
- DirectorRoy William NeillStarsLon Chaney Jr.Ilona MasseyPatric KnowlesThe 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.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsFrances DeeTom ConwayJames EllisonA nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
- DirectorRobert SiodmakStarsLon Chaney Jr.Robert PaigeLouise AllbrittonWhen 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.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsRichard DixRussell WadeEdith BarrettThird Officer Tom Merriam accuses Captain Will Stone of being a homicidal maniac, but no one believes him.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsDennis O'KeefeMargoJean BrooksA seemingly-tame leopard used for a publicity stunt escapes and kills a young girl, spreading panic throughout a sleepy New Mexico town.
- DirectorLew LandersStarsBela LugosiFrieda InescortNina FochWhen an errant bomb unearths the coffin of a vampire during the London Blitz, a gravedigger unknowingly reanimates the monster by removing the stake from his heart
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsKim HunterTom ConwayJean BrooksA 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.
- DirectorGunther von FritschRobert WiseStarsSimone SimonKent SmithJane RandolphThe young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.
- DirectorJohn BrahmStarsLaird CregarMerle OberonGeorge SandersA landlady suspects that her new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
- DirectorLewis AllenStarsRay MillandRuth HusseyDonald CrispA 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.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsBarry FitzgeraldWalter HustonLouis HaywardSeven guests, a newly hired secretary and two staff are gathered at a manor house on an isolated island by an unknown absentee host and are killed off one-by-one. They work together to determine who the killer is before it's too late.
- DirectorAlberto CavalcantiCharles CrichtonBasil DeardenStarsMervyn JohnsMichael RedgraveRoland CulverGuests 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.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsBoris KarloffEllen DrewMarc CramerOn 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 one young girl of being a vampiric kind of demon called a vorvolaka.
- DirectorRobert WiseStarsBoris KarloffBela LugosiHenry DaniellA ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
- DirectorAlbert LewinStarsGeorge SandersHurd HatfieldDonna ReedA corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
- DirectorRobert SiodmakStarsDorothy McGuireGeorge BrentEthel BarrymoreIn 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.
- DirectorRobert FloreyStarsRobert AldaAndrea KingPeter LorreIn 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.
- DirectorMark RobsonStarsBoris KarloffAnna LeeBilly HouseNell Bowen, the protégé of Lord Mortimer, wants to help change the conditions of notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (Bedlam). Though she tries to reform Bedlam, the cruel Master Sims who runs it has her committed there, but ultimately, it's the lunatics who've taken over the asylum.
- DirectorCharles BartonWalter LantzStarsBud AbbottLou CostelloLon Chaney Jr.The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster's body.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsJames StewartJohn DallFarley GrangerTwo men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.
- DirectorKamal AmrohiStarsAshok KumarMadhubalaM. KumarA young lawyer is involved with a ghostly woman in his new house, where the builder and his fiancée died shortly after it was built.
- DirectorJames AlgarClyde GeronimiJack KinneyStarsBing CrosbyBasil RathboneEric BloreAn animated adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows" followed by an adaptation of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".
- DirectorMaya DerenAlexander HammidStarsMaya DerenAlexander HammidA woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsFredric MarchVeronica LakeRobert BenchleyA beautiful 17th-century witch returns to life to plague politician Wallace Wooley, descendant of her persecutor.
- DirectorJames AlgarSamuel ArmstrongFord Beebe Jr.StarsLeopold StokowskiDeems TaylorThe Philadelphia OrchestraA series of eight famous pieces of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted in animation by Walt Disney's team of artists.
- DirectorThorold DickinsonStarsAnton WalbrookEdith EvansYvonne MitchellAn army officer becomes obsessed with learning the secret to a card game for which an elderly countess sold her soul years earlier.