The 30 Greatest Horror Films Of The 1950s
by jamesenstein31 | created - 21 Jun 2014 | updated - 21 Jun 2014 | PublicA selection of the greatest horror films of the 1950s.
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1. Curse of the Demon (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
American professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshipper Julian Karswell.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham
Votes: 15,503
2. Horror of Dracula (1958)
Not Rated | 82 min | Drama, Horror
When Jonathan Harker rouses the ire of Count Dracula for accepting a job at the vampire's castle under false pretenses, his friend Dr. Van Helsing pursues the predatory villain.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling
Votes: 27,960
3. The Thing from Another World (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost.
Directors: Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks | Stars: Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, James Arness, Robert Cornthwaite
Votes: 33,339
4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan
Votes: 54,722
5. Them! (1954)
Not Rated | 94 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness
Votes: 24,167
6. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
G | 79 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno
Votes: 34,393 | Gross: $1.30M
7. The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
Not Rated | 90 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Having escaped execution and assumed an alias, Baron Frankenstein transplants his deformed underling's brain into a perfect body, but the result proves to be mortally perilous.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn
Votes: 6,120
8. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Approved | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
While awaiting execution for murder, Baron Victor Frankenstein tells the story of a creature he built and brought to life - only for it to behave not as he intended.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee
Votes: 12,638 | Gross: $17.44M
9. The Mummy (1959)
Unrated | 88 min | Adventure, Horror
In 1895, British archaeologists find and open the tomb of Egyptian Princess Ananka with nefarious consequences.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne
Votes: 10,989
10. The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Not Rated | 78 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Professor Bernard Quatermass' manned rocket ship returns to Earth, but two of the astronauts are missing and the survivor seems ill and unable to communicate.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth, Margia Dean
Votes: 7,180
11. House of Wax (1953)
GP | 88 min | Horror
An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.
Director: André De Toth | Stars: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones
Votes: 20,241 | Gross: $23.75M
12. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Approved | 75 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A millionaire offers $10,000 to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with him and his wife.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal
Votes: 30,816
13. Godzilla (1954)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable dinosaur-like beast.
Director: Ishirô Honda | Stars: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kôchi
Votes: 39,596 | Gross: $2.42M
14. I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Approved | 76 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A hypnotherapist uses a temperamental teenager as a guinea pig for a serum which transforms him into a vicious werewolf.
Director: Gene Fowler Jr. | Stars: Michael Landon, Yvonne Lime, Whit Bissell, Charles Willcox
Votes: 2,862 | Gross: $2.00M
15. The Fly (1958)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device.
Director: Kurt Neumann | Stars: David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall
Votes: 25,645 | Gross: $3.00M
16. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Not Rated | 87 min | Horror, Mystery
When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi
Votes: 12,379
17. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
Approved | 80 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A ferocious dinosaur awakened by an Arctic atomic test terrorizes the North Atlantic and, ultimately, New York City.
Director: Eugène Lourié | Stars: Paul Hubschmid, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, Kenneth Tobey
Votes: 8,722 | Gross: $5.00M
18. Invaders from Mars (1953)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A young boy learns that space aliens are taking over the minds of earthlings.
Director: William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson
Votes: 8,830
19. It Came from Outer Space (1953)
Approved | 81 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A spaceship from another world crashes in the Arizona desert and only an amateur stargazer and a schoolteacher suspect alien influence when the local townsfolk begin to act strangely.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer
Votes: 11,037
20. Fiend Without a Face (1958)
Approved | 74 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist's thoughts materialize as an army of invisible brain-shaped monsters (complete with spinal-cord tails!) who terrorize an American military base in this nightmarish chiller.
Director: Arthur Crabtree | Stars: Marshall Thompson, Terry Kilburn, Michael Balfour, Gil Winfield
Votes: 4,801
21. The Abominable Snowman (1957)
85 min | Adventure, Horror
A kindly English botanist and a gruff American scientist lead an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis
Votes: 4,958
22. The Blob (1958)
Approved | 86 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.
Directors: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., Russell S. Doughten Jr. | Stars: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland
Votes: 29,366
23. A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Approved | 66 min | Comedy, Crime, Horror
A dimwitted busboy at a beatnik cafe passes off a cat he accidentally killed and covered in plaster as a sculpture, prompting a demand for more art that compels him to commit murders.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Julian Burton
Votes: 7,887
24. Quatermass 2 (1957)
Approved | 85 min | Sci-Fi, Horror
Professor Quatermass, trying to gather support for his Lunar colonisation project, is intrigued by mysterious traces that have been showing up.
Director: Val Guest | Stars: Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes
Votes: 4,653
25. The Tingler (1959)
Not Rated | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
An obsessed pathologist discovers and captures a parasitic creature that grows when fear grips its host.
Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts
Votes: 9,459
26. Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)
Unrated | 93 min | Horror
A frustrated thriller writer wants accurate crimes for his next book so he hypnotizes his assistant to make him commit the required crimes.
Director: Arthur Crabtree | Stars: Michael Gough, June Cunningham, Graham Curnow, Shirley Anne Field
Votes: 1,671
27. The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A centenarian artist and scientist in 1890 Paris maintains his youth and health by periodically replacing a gland with that of a living person.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé
Votes: 2,424
28. The Vampire (1957)
Approved | 75 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A kind, small-town doctor mistakenly ingests pills made from vampire bat blood and they turn him into a dangerous fanged creature.
Director: Paul Landres | Stars: John Beal, Coleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Lydia Reed
Votes: 1,305
29. El vampiro (1957)
95 min | Mystery, Thriller, Horror
A pretty young Mexican girl returns to her hometown to make funeral arrangements for her beloved aunt, who has just died. Soon she begins to hear disturbing stories about the town being ... See full summary »
Director: Fernando Méndez | Stars: Abel Salazar, Ariadne Welter, Carmen Montejo, José Luis Jiménez
Votes: 1,013
30. I Bury the Living (1958)
Approved | 77 min | Horror
Cemetery director Robert Kraft discovers that by arbitrarily changing the status of plots from empty to occupied on the planogram causes the death of the plots' owners.
Director: Albert Band | Stars: Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, Peggy Maurer, Howard Smith
Votes: 3,191
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