1930s Horror Films
by jluis1984 | created - 22 May 2020 | updated - 22 May 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Not Rated | 75 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson
Votes: 53,285 | Gross: $4.36M
2. King Kong (1933)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Horror
A film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City.
Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack | Stars: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher
Votes: 91,016 | Gross: $10.00M
3. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Passed | 98 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert
Votes: 15,815 | Gross: $2.79M
4. Frankenstein (1931)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles
Votes: 79,751
5. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,633 | Gross: $0.63M
6. The Invisible Man (1933)
TV-PG | 71 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers
Votes: 39,971
7. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
Votes: 10,909
8. Dracula (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
Directors: Tod Browning, Karl Freund | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye
Votes: 58,662
9. Svengali (1931)
Approved | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
Through hypnotism and telepathic mind control, a sinister music maestro controls the singing voice, but not the heart, of the woman he loves.
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, Donald Crisp, Bramwell Fletcher
Votes: 2,500
10. The Black Cat (1934)
Not Rated | 65 min | Crime, Horror, Romance
American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshipping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Votes: 13,003 | Gross: $0.51M
11. Mad Love (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
In Paris, a demented surgeon's obsession with a British actress leads him to secretly replace her concert-pianist husband's mangled hands with those of a guillotined murderer with a gift for knife-throwing.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy
Votes: 5,878 | Gross: $0.37M
12. The Mummy (1932)
Approved | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror
A resurrected Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes to be his long-lost princess.
Director: Karl Freund | Stars: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Arthur Byron
Votes: 30,149
13. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Approved | 99 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Returning to the ancestral castle long after the death of the monster, the son of Dr. Frankenstein meets a mad shepherd who is hiding the comatose creature. To clear the family name, he revives the creature and tries to rehabilitate him.
Director: Rowland V. Lee | Stars: Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 11,699
14. White Zombie (1932)
Passed | 69 min | Horror
A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiancé, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.
Director: Victor Halperin | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazer
Votes: 11,663
15. Werewolf of London (1935)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
After botanist Wilfred Glendon travels to Tibet in search of a rare flower, the Mariphasa, he returns to a London haunted by murders that can only be the work of bloodthirsty werewolves.
Director: Stuart Walker | Stars: Henry Hull, Warner Oland, Valerie Hobson, Lester Matthews
Votes: 6,506
16. Drácula (1931)
Unrated | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Centuries-old vampire Dracula preys upon the innocent Eva and her friends.
Director: George Melford | Stars: Carlos Villarías, Lupita Tovar, Barry Norton, Pablo Álvarez Rubio
Votes: 5,106
17. El fantasma del convento (1934)
85 min | Adventure, Drama, Horror
Alfonso (Del Campo), Eduardo (Villatoro) and Eduardo's wife Cristina (Ruel) get lost when visiting a forest. A strange monk finds them and takes them to an ancient convent. There, the three... See full summary »
Director: Fernando de Fuentes | Stars: Marta Roel, Enrique del Campo, Carlos Villatoro, Paco Martínez
Votes: 443
18. The Devil-Doll (1936)
Passed | 78 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
An escaped convict uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those who framed him.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Rafaela Ottiano
Votes: 4,961
19. Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Passed | 77 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
The disappearance of people and corpses leads a reporter to a wax museum and a sinister sculptor.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh
Votes: 6,831
20. Vampyr (1932)
Not Rated | 75 min | Fantasy, Horror
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz
Votes: 20,531
21. Two Monks (1934)
Not Rated | 79 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
When the Monk Javier acts violently in a gothic monastery, the Prior asks the Monk Juan to calm him down since he believes that Javier is possessed by demons. When Juan comes to Javier's ... See full summary »
Director: Juan Bustillo Oro | Stars: Víctor Urruchúa, Carlos Villatoro, Magda Haller, Beltrán de Heredia
Votes: 716
22. The Old Dark House (1932)
Passed | 72 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Seeking shelter from a storm, five travelers are in for a bizarre and terrifying night when they stumble upon the Femm family estate.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
Votes: 13,109 | Gross: $0.03M
23. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moorland that makes up his estate.
Director: Sidney Lanfield | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie
Votes: 11,695
24. Der Student von Prag (1935)
87 min | Horror
Prague in the 1860s: Balduin is a popular, handsome student, the best fencer in town, in amicable rivalry with his friend Dahl for the affections of Lydia, the innkeeper's niece. While the ... See full summary »
Director: Arthur Robison | Stars: Anton Walbrook, Theodor Loos, Dorothea Wieck, Erich Fiedler
Votes: 188
25. The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Unrated | 64 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
When Dr. Savaard's experiment in cryonics is interrupted by the short-sighted authorities, his volunteer dies, and he is condemned to death. He vows vengeance if he can survive his own hanging.
Director: Nick Grinde | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor
Votes: 1,965
26. I Accuse (1938)
95 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A traumatized World War I veteran builds a machine to prevent war. When the government subverts his machine and a second world war seems increasingly inevitable, in desperation the inventor summons the ghosts of the war dead to protest.
Director: Abel Gance | Stars: Victor Francen, Line Noro, Sylvie Gance, Marcel Delaître
Votes: 660
27. Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Passed | 62 min | Crime, Horror
A monomaniacal zoologist is pathologically jealous of his beautiful but unfaithful wife Evelyn and will not stop short of murder to keep her.
Director: A. Edward Sutherland | Stars: Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Gail Patrick, Randolph Scott
Votes: 1,785
28. The Black Room (1935)
Passed | 68 min | Horror
Ignoring an ancient prophecy, evil brother Gregor seeks to maintain his feudal power on his his Tyrolean estate by murdering and impersonating his benevolent younger twin.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Boris Karloff, Marian Marsh, Robert Allen, Thurston Hall
Votes: 2,255
29. Song at Midnight (1935)
Not Rated | 124 min | Horror, Romance
China's first horror film, this is loosely based on The Phantom of the Opera. A disfigured musical genius roams a traditional Chinese opera house, punishing those who offend him.
Director: Weibang Ma-Xu | Stars: Menghe Gu, Ping Hu, Shan Jin, Chao Shi
Votes: 945
30. Every Madman to His Specialty (1939)
Approved | 123 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A scared horror writer is sent to what he believes is a sanatorium to treat him for his fears, but it turns out to be a haunted castle where he becomes embroiled in a rich family's internal battles for a coveted inheritance.
Director: Juan Bustillo Oro | Stars: Enrique Herrera, Joaquín Pardavé, Gloria Marín, Antonio R. Frausto
Votes: 83
31. The Face at the Window (1939)
Approved | 65 min | Drama, Horror
Set in France in 1880. A series of murders is attributed to a Wolf Man.
Director: George King | Stars: Tod Slaughter, John Warwick, Aubrey Mallalieu, Marjorie Taylor
Votes: 759
32. The Ghost Goes West (1935)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A haunted Scottish castle is dismantled and transported to Florida, bringing the family ghost along with it.
Director: René Clair | Stars: Robert Donat, Jean Parker, Eugene Pallette, Elsa Lanchester
Votes: 2,126
33. The Walking Dead (1936)
Passed | 66 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
After hapless pianist and ex-con John Elman is framed for murder, he is resurrected by a scientist after his execution.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn, Marguerite Churchill
Votes: 3,071
34. The Man Who Lived Again (1936)
Approved | 66 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Laurience, a brilliant but unstable scientist experimenting with transferring minds, becomes vengeful when his magnate patron withdraws his support.
Director: Robert Stevenson | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, John Loder, Frank Cellier
Votes: 1,203
35. The Invisible Ray (1935)
Approved | 80 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A scientist becomes murderous after discovering, and being exposed to the radiation of, a powerful new element called Radium X.
Director: Lambert Hillyer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton
Votes: 3,033
36. The Bat Whispers (1930)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A master criminal terrorizes the occupants of an isolated country mansion.
Director: Roland West | Stars: Chester Morris, Una Merkel, William Bakewell, Grayce Hampton
Votes: 1,146
37. Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Passed | 60 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is murdered, a professor of the occult blames vampires, but not all is what it seems.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill
Votes: 5,583
38. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
Passed | 61 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A mad scientist seeks to mingle human blood with that of an ape, and resorts to kidnapping women for his experiments.
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Ames, Bert Roach
Votes: 5,265
39. Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Unrated | 71 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
When Countess Marya Zaleska appears in London, mysterious events occur that lead Dr. Von Helsing to believe that the Countess must be a vampire.
Director: Lambert Hillyer | Stars: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill, Edward Van Sloan
Votes: 8,018
40. Doctor X (1932)
Unrated | 76 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
A wisecracking New York reporter intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster
Votes: 4,266 | Gross: $0.88M
41. The Raven (1935)
Approved | 61 min | Crime, Horror
A brilliant surgeon with a morbid obsession for instruments of torture grows dangerously obsessed with a young socialite whose life he's saved.
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware
Votes: 6,654
42. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)
76 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A Fleet Street barber recounts the story of Sweeney Todd, a notorious barber who in the last century murdered many customers for their money.
Director: George King | Stars: Tod Slaughter, Stella Rho, John Singer, Eve Lister
Votes: 1,451
43. Fährmann Maria (1936)
85 min | Thriller, Horror, Mystery
A beautiful young drifter comes to a small village and battles Death itself to save the man she loves.
Director: Frank Wisbar | Stars: Sybille Schmitz, Aribert Mog, Carl de Vogt, Peter Voß
Votes: 322
44. The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
G | 68 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
Englishmen race to find the tomb of Genghis Khan before the sinister Fu Manchu does.
Directors: Charles Brabin, Charles Vidor | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Charles Starrett
Votes: 3,714 | Gross: $0.82M
45. Phantom Ship (1935)
Approved | 62 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
During a horrific storm at sea, the crew realizes that there is a murderer among them who is killing them off one by one.
Director: Denison Clift | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey, Arthur Margetson, Edmund Willard
Votes: 1,054
46. Black Moon (1934)
Approved | 68 min | Drama, Horror
A young girl who lives on a tropical island loses her parents to a voodoo sacrifice, but although she manages to escape the island, a curse is put on her. Years later, as an adult, she ... See full summary »
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess, Cora Sue Collins
Votes: 721
47. Supernatural (1933)
Passed | 65 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A serial black widow murderess returns to life in the body of a young woman to exact revenge on a former lover, a phony spiritualist who betrayed her.
Director: Victor Halperin | Stars: Carole Lombard, Randolph Scott, Alan Dinehart, Vivienne Osborne
Votes: 933
48. The Human Monster (1939)
Approved | 73 min | Drama, Horror
Insurance agent-physician collects on policies of men murdered by a disfigured resident of the home for the blind where he acts as doctor-on-call.
Director: Walter Summers | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Hugh Williams, Greta Gynt, Edmon Ryan
Votes: 1,530
49. The Cat and the Canary (1939)
Approved | 72 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
When an eccentric family meets in their uncle's remote, decaying mansion on the tenth anniversary of his death for the reading of his will, murder and madness follow.
Director: Elliott Nugent | Stars: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery
Votes: 3,770
50. The Ghoul (1933)
Approved | 77 min | Action, Drama, Horror
An Egyptologist returns from the dead to take revenge on those who have violated his tomb.
Director: T. Hayes Hunter | Stars: Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, Dorothy Hyson
Votes: 3,250
51. La llorona (1933)
73 min | Horror, Mystery
In modern day Mexico, a man on the street is supernaturally killed after hearing the eerie sound of a wailing woman. We then arrive at the manor of an upper class family, who are ... See full summary »
Director: Ramón Peón | Stars: Ramón Pereda, Virginia Zurí, Carlos Orellana, Adriana Lamar
Votes: 343
52. Chandu the Magician (1932)
Passed | 71 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
When delusional madman Roxor kidnaps a scientist in hopes of using his death ray to achieve world dominance, he is opposed by Chandu, a powerful hypnotist and yogi.
Directors: William Cameron Menzies, Marcel Varnel | Stars: Edmund Lowe, Irene Ware, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Mundin
Votes: 1,139
53. El signo de la muerte (1939)
90 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The story of a murder inspired by an ancient Aztec ritual in honor of Quetzalcoatl by a lost codes.
Director: Chano Urueta | Stars: Cantinflas, Manuel Medel, Carlos Orellana, Elena D'Orgaz
Votes: 146
54. The Vampire Bat (1933)
Passed | 65 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
When corpses drained of blood begin to show up in a European village, vampirism is suspected to be responsible.
Director: Frank R. Strayer | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne
Votes: 3,049
55. The Mystery of the Ghastly Face (1935)
88 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A disturbed doctor is obsessed with finding the cure for a strange disease and experimenting with his patients, who are slowly dying of their medical failures. Desperate, he embarks with ... See full summary »
Director: Juan Bustillo Oro | Stars: Carlos Villarías, Beatriz Ramos, Natalia Ortiz, Manuel Noriega
Votes: 61
56. The Return of Doctor X (1939)
Passed | 62 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A hotshot reporter and a young doctor team up to investigate a series of grisly murders and a mysterious sample of synthetic blood.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan
Votes: 2,559
57. The Drums of Jeopardy (1931)
Not Rated | 75 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A mad doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter's death.
Director: George B. Seitz | Stars: Warner Oland, June Collyer, Lloyd Hughes, Clara Blandick
Votes: 343
58. The Gorilla (1939)
Passed | 66 min | Comedy, Horror
When a wealthy man is threatened by a killer known as The Gorilla, he hires the Ritz Brothers to investigate. A real escaped gorilla shows up at the mansion just as the investigators arrive.
Director: Allan Dwan | Stars: The Ritz Brothers, Jimmy Ritz, Harry Ritz, Al Ritz
Votes: 1,673
59. The Macabre Trunk (1936)
79 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Mystery
A crazed scientist tries to keep his terminally ill wife alive by transfusing into her the blood of young women he murders.
Director: Miguel Zacarías | Stars: Ramón Pereda, René Cardona, Manuel Noriega, Esther Fernández
Votes: 56
60. Condemned to Live (1935)
Approved | 67 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
After a series of unsolved murders, a man finds out that his mother was bitten by a vampire bat during her pregnancy, and he believes that he may be the vampire committing the murders.
Director: Frank R. Strayer | Stars: Ralph Morgan, Pedro de Cordoba, Maxine Doyle, Russell Gleason
Votes: 584
61. The Crime of Doctor Crespi (1935)
Passed | 63 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A crazed scientist invents a serum that induces a catatonic state in whoever it is injected into. He uses the serum to paralyze his enemies, so that he can bury them alive.
Director: John H. Auer | Stars: Erich von Stroheim, Harriet Russell, Dwight Frye, Paul Guilfoyle
Votes: 399
62. Get That Girl (1932)
Passed | 67 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
A young girl who is about to receive a large inheritance is abducted to an isolated sanitarium where a crazed doctor is performing strange experiments.
Director: George Crone | Stars: Richard Talmadge, Shirley Grey, Fred Malatesta, Carl Stockdale
Votes: 120
63. The Monster Walks (1932)
Passed | 57 min | Horror, Mystery
People in an old dark house on a stormy night are menaced by a killer ape.
Director: Frank R. Strayer | Stars: Mischa Auer, Martha Mattox, Rex Lease, Vera Reynolds
Votes: 1,085
64. The Devil's Daughter (1939)
Approved | 52 min | Drama, Horror
Sylvia Walton returns from Harlem to take over a Jamaican plantation from her vindictive half-sister, amid the growing sound of drums.
Director: Arthur H. Leonard | Stars: Nina Mae McKinney, Jack Carter, Ida James, Hamtree Harrington
Votes: 334
65. Maniac (1934)
Not Rated | 51 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A former vaudevillian gifted at impersonation assists a mad scientist in reanimating corpses and soon goes mad himself.
Director: Dwain Esper | Stars: Bill Woods, Horace B. Carpenter, Ted Edwards, Phyllis Diller
Votes: 2,706
66. Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Approved | 65 min | Adventure, Horror
An international expedition is sent into Cambodia to destroy an ancient formula that turns men into zombies.
Director: Victor Halperin | Stars: Dorothy Stone, Dean Jagger, Roy D'Arcy, Robert Noland
Votes: 1,879
67. El hombre bestia (1934)
50 min | Horror
A downed American WWI pilot survives 12 years alone in a forest, only to be kidnapped by a mad scientist who turns him into a crazy beast man who kidnaps women and stashes them in a cave.
Director: C.Z. Soprani | Stars: Beatriz Colman, Mario Cuartucci, Mario Cuatucci, Raúl D'Angeli
Votes: 35
68. Murder at Dawn (1932)
Passed | 62 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
Mad scientist works on a death ray in his mountain hideaway.
Director: Richard Thorpe | Stars: Josephine Dunn, Jack Mulhall, Eddie Boland, Marjorie Beebe
Votes: 176
69. Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934)
Approved | 62 min | Drama
A black voodoo priestess comes out of the Louisians swamps to take revenge on the white plantation owner she believes killed her husband.
Director: Marshall Neilan | Stars: Olive Borden, Reed Howes, Molly O'Day, Francis Joyner
Votes: 329
70. Torture Ship (1939)
Approved | 57 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad scientist performs experiments on "the criminal mind" on captured criminals on board his private ship.
Director: Victor Halperin | Stars: Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, Julie Bishop, Sheila Bromley
Votes: 471
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