5 Classic Horror Movies That Are Still Shocking Today
It's that time of the year when we're all watching as many scary movies as our schedules can handle—it's the festive thing to do, after all. Here are five surprisingly freaky classics that will scare you silly.
Here's a list of five classic horror movies that still haven't lost their edge decades later. All of these films are available on DVD and can be rented on all major streaming services like iTunes, Google, Amazon Prime Video and VUDU.
1. Psycho (1960)
This is where modern horror begins. Alfred Hitchcock went to unprecedented lengths to convince American theater chains not to allow anyone into the theater once screenings of Psycho began, to keep a tight lid on the plot’s many twists and turns. Audiences played along, delighting in the experience (it’s a lot of fun to scream in a movie theater), and it became the most profitable black-and-white sound film ever made. Over 60 years later, Psycho is still shocking, nerve-frying even. An unnecessarily prolonged epilogue with too much expository dialogue has always stuck out like a sore thumb, but that’s not enough to detract from Psycho’s permanent standing as an indispensable cultural landmark. It’s the granddaddy of shock cinema. iTunesAmazon VideoDVD/Blu-ray
Related: The 100 Best Movies of All Time, Ranked
2. Peeping Tom (1960)
Released in 1960, the same year as Psycho, Peeping Tom has been endlessly compared to that film for over five decades. Both have been argued to be the first slasher film. Whereas Psycho was a runaway success, English auteur Michael Powell's psychological drama about a serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera to record their terrorized dying expressions was a notorious bomb. Though Powell's technical mastery was undeniable and he was previously thought of as one of the nation's finest filmmakers, critics of the time trashed Peeping Tom for what was perceived as sadism and depravity; Powell's career never recovered.
Now, along with Powell's ballet drama The Red Shoes (1948), Peeping Tom is considered to be one of the finest films of all time. It's easy to see why the movie was hated in 1960: the subject matter is sickening and it isn't even thrilling or fun the way Psycho is. It is scary, though—meaner and nastier than Psycho. It is brilliant too, an endlessly provocative and way ahead-of-its-time allegory about voyeurism from the perspective of someone who makes movies. Watching the movie in 2017 is particularly tantalizing, as the dark messages about voyeurism seem freshly relevant in light of reality shows that lay it all out there like Keeping Up With the Kardashians and The Real Housewives. iTunesAmazon Video
3. Freaks (1932)
Here's another one of the most important horror films ever made, and another one that ruined the director's career. Following the enormous success of 1931's Dracula, studio filmmaker Tod Browning was given the freedom to make whatever he wanted. He did, and Freaks was horrifying in ways 1932 couldn't handle. The story of a heartless woman who swindles a wealthy midget into marriage, and thusly becomes the target of violent revenge by the man's sideshow performer friends, Freaks was so shocking that a woman in the first test screening threatened to sue MGM because she claimed the film caused her to have a miscarriage. The studio drastically cut the film, down from 90 minutes to just over an hour, removing most of the film's grisly final act.
Though you can find the shooting screenplay of Freaks online, that missing half hour of footage is assumed to be lost forever. Even in its softened version, or perhaps because the film had been so tampered with, Freaks was a critical and commercial disaster in its initial release. The film was banned in the UK for three decades, but over the years gained a worldwide cult status before finally being re-assessed as a misunderstood masterpiece. iTunesAmazon VideoDVD/Blu-ray
4. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
Shot at the same time and on the same RKO sets as 1933's King Kong, using many of that film's cast and crew, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's adaptation of Richard Connell's short story got away with a considerable amount of violence because it was released right before the Hays Censorship Code went into effect in 1934. The film stars Joel McCrea and Fay Wray as castaways who are hunted for sport by a madman on his jungle island. Though this is equal parts horror and adventure film, images like a severed trophy head submerged in water are alarming even by today's standards.
First and foremost, The Most Dangerous Game is a lot of fun, and though it's surprisingly creepy and gruesome for an 85-year-old film, the content here is never more intense than—say—an Indiana Jones flick. Of all the movies on this list, this is the one most suitable for braver kids looking for a Halloween thrill. Popular YouTuber James Rolfe did a delightful review of this movie recently on his channel Cinemassacre. Watch below. iTunesAmazon VideoDVD/Blu-ray
5. Eyes Without a Face(1960)
1960 was one hell of a year for iconic horror films. Georges Franju's haunting French thriller Eyes Without a Face (Les yeaux sans visage) is about a mad doctor who kidnaps young women, incidentally killing them as he attempts to find a new face for his daughter who was disfigured in a car accident for which he was responsible. The film's centerpiece is a graphic, unflinching depiction of a heterograft—a face transplant. When the movie premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, seven people fainted, to which Franju famously responded, "Now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts."
Eyes Without a Face was butchered in editing, given an English re-dub and retitled The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus [interesting title because there's no one named Doctor Faustus in the movie] for its initial 1962 stateside release, one half of an exploitation double bill with something called The Manster. Over the years, critics have accepted the film's considerable artistic merits; in 2003 Eyes Without a Face was released uncensored in American theaters to universal acclaim.
Eyes Without a Face is like a dream come true for a diehard horror fan: it doesn't skimp on the scares and gore, yet it has a lyrical, poetic and dreamlike quality about it. Its impact on pop culture is remarkable. John Carpenter cites the film as the inspiration for Michael Myers' iconic featureless mask in Halloween. The face transplant between Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in 1997's Face/Off was transplanted directly from this film. Check out esteemed British film critic Mark Kermode's contemporary reassessment of the film below. iTunesAmazon VideoDVD/Blu-ray
For even more timeless horror recommendations, check out our ranking of the 151 best horror movies of all time.
What do you think of our list of horror classics? What are you watching to get in the Halloween spirit? Let us know in the comments!