Greatest 40s Horror
by TheRedDeath30 | created - 13 Aug 2014 | updated - 02 Oct 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. 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: 30,685
2. 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: 9,952
3. 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: 14,208
4. House of Frankenstein (1944)
Passed | 71 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
A deranged scientist escapes from prison and recruits Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man to get revenge on his behalf.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, John Carradine
Votes: 7,716
5. 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: 9,866 | Gross: $3.92M
6. 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: 4,704
7. King of the Zombies (1941)
Passed | 67 min | Adventure, Comedy, Horror
On a spooky island, three stranded travelers find an evil doctor working with foreign spies and in control of zombies.
Director: Jean Yarbrough | Stars: Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, Mantan Moreland, Henry Victor
Votes: 2,506
8. 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: 12,460
9. 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: 13,665
10. 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: 10,188
11. The Mummy's Tomb (1942)
Passed | 61 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
The ancient Egypt Mummy, Kharis, is transported from his homeland with the high priest Mehemet to wreak vengeance on the family who has defiled the sacred tomb of his beloved Princess Ananka.
Director: Harold Young | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Dick Foran, John Hubbard, Elyse Knox
Votes: 3,848
12. House of Dracula (1945)
Approved | 67 min | Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
The Wolf Man and Count Dracula beg Dr. Edelman to cure them of their killing instincts but Dracula schemes to seduce the doctor's nurse.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Onslow Stevens, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Martha O'Driscoll
Votes: 6,155
13. 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: 11,257
14. 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: 6,193
15. The Return of the Vampire (1943)
Not Rated | 69 min | Drama, Horror
When 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
Director: Lew Landers | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Roland Varno
Votes: 2,742 | Gross: $1.09M
16. 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: 7,093
17. The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
Passed | 64 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist, aided by an old hag and her two sons, kills virginal brides, steals their bodies, and extracts gland fluid to keep his ancient wife alive and young.
Director: Wallace Fox | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Tristram Coffin, Elizabeth Russell
Votes: 3,511
18. 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: 3,445
19. Crimes at the Dark House (1940)
Not Rated | 69 min | Drama
A madman kills a man who has just inherited a large estate, then impersonates his victim to gain entrance to the estate so he can murder his enemies.
Director: George King | Stars: Tod Slaughter, Sylvia Marriott, Hilary Eaves, Geoffrey Wardwell
Votes: 610
20. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Passed | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.
Director: Joe May | Stars: Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, John Sutton
Votes: 5,287
21. Invisible Ghost (1941)
Passed | 64 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
The town's leading citizen becomes a homicidal maniac after his wife deserts him.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, John McGuire, Clarence Muse
Votes: 2,591
22. 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: 8,304 | Gross: $3.49M
23. The Mad Monster (1942)
Approved | 77 min | Drama, Horror, Romance
A mad scientist changes his simple-minded handyman into a werewolf in order to prove his supposedly crazy scientific theories - and exact revenge.
Director: Sam Newfield | Stars: Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Nagel, Glenn Strange
Votes: 1,940
24. 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: 7,574
25. 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: 25,983 | Gross: $4.00M
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