We’re diving back through a hundred years of horror and picking one unmissable film every ten years from 1924 to 2024…
The history of cinema, from silent pictures to a stellar selection of horror films this year alone, shows that the horror genre has plenty to offer discerning viewers. If you want to add some gems to your watchlist then consider these eleven films, starting way back with one from 1924, and then one from every ten years after that, right up until this year. Strap in for a century of cinema boiled down to 11 films…
1924: The Hands of Orlac
Director Robert Wiene is a legend of the silent film era, best known for his iconic movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari one of the most important films of horror cinema. It wasn’t his only great work either, and whilst The Hands of Orlac isn’t quite as legendary, it is still filled with striking imagery and plenty of atmosphere.
The story has been rehashed countless times since (check out the enjoyable Jeff Fahey starrer, Body Parts for one). A pianist loses his hands in an accident and has a new set grafted on, unaware they once belonged to a murderer. Horror, of course, ensues and the reason the premise has been oft repeated is because it’s great. For another suggestion from 1924, check out Alice’s Spooky Adventure, an early short from Walt Disney which blends live-action with animation. It’s quaint but an interesting early attempt at what would later be more refined in the future, both in terms of the animation and also fusing it with live action.
1934: The Black Cat
Edward G. Ulmer made over 50 movies in his lengthy career, probably peaking with the superb noir classic, Detour (definitely check it out if you haven’t). He also jumped between a number of genres including horror and perhaps his best in that genre was The Black Cat. Ulmer’s film is based on the Edgar Allen Poe story, so this one draws upon iconic literary material.
You have a satanic cult chief and a cast of horror luminaries like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. It also has some incredible visuals with more than a few nods to German expressionist cinema. Interestingly this year also saw the release of Maniac by Dwain Esper, an independent film and considered an early entree in the so bad it’s good category that was also loosely based on Poe’s, The Black Cat.
1944: The Uninvited
Firmly settled in the era of soundies by this point, the film industry was beginning to see a rise in distinct visual stylists in Hollywood crafting films way beyond the previous decade, and really drawing upon Europe’s silent cinema approach to lighting.
The Uninvited is an early forerunner to that classic horror trope… the grand property that’s mysteriously cheap, only for the new homeowners to discover it’s besieged by angry spirits. Lewis Allen’s film is dazzling to look at, and like most genre films of the era, very lithe. It’s been treated to some reasonable transfers in HD and on Blu-Ray and is essential. Gaslight, The Scarlet Claw and The Lodger are also great horror films from 1944.
1954: Godzilla
You youngens. You’ve been treated to a swathe of creature features in the past decade and some notable ones featuring Godzilla but if you haven’t gone back to the OG from Ishiro Honda, you really should.
You know the score, Godzilla, a giant dino-lizard thing who can breathe fire, terrorises Tokyo. Practical will always win out over CGI and there’s something grounded and physical (if quaint) about the visual effects here. Aside from the visual aspects, the film manages to make you care about the plight of the characters making all that monster-smashing mayhem secondary and something the recent, Godzilla Minus One really harked back to. Elsewhere in 1954 it’s worth checking out Them, which also has the destructive consequences of nuclear testing, and The Mad Magician that Chris Nolan’s The Prestige perhaps owes some debt to.
1964: Onibaba
1964 was an incredible year of horror cinema notably in Japan with not only the superb, Kwaiden but also the visceral and visually dazzling, Onibaba. Kaneto Shindo is an icon of J-Horror and someone with a sense of visual storytelling way ahead of his time. Here, a woman and her daughter-in-law are robbing and murdering wandering samurai to survive but trouble arises when the young woman falls for one of the Samurai, incurring the anger of her mother-in-law.
Unforgettable imagery that has become part of horror history, Onibaba is one of the best horror films ever made, mixing folk horror with parables as many J-horrors of the time did. Outside of Japan, 1964 also gave us The Masque of Red Death, The Last Man on Earth and Maria Bava’s greatest work, Blood and Black Lace.
1974: Black Christmas
Bob Clark is pretty synonymous with Christmas, but not just with the light fluffy antics of a boy longing for a BB gun in A Christmas Story. He also made Black Christmas, a film that gained more recognition in the genre as the years passed for being ahead of the curve in its approach (notably with P.O.V). It’s had the remake treatment in more recent years, but Clark’s original starring Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder and John Saxon is a film that still deserves more acclaim than it has.
We can’t mention 1974, a full 50 years ago, without mentioning The Texas Chainsaw Massacre either. It’s iconic but I’d guess more people have seen that than Black Christmas.
1984: The Company of Wolves
Sure, 1984 gave us A Nightmare On Elm Street and The Terminator, but everyone has seen those and I’ve even seen both on re-release at mainstream cinemas this year alone. Another great film that year is arguably Neil Jordan’s most mainstream film yet still distinctly idiosyncratic The Company of Wolves.
A fusion of fairy tale, fantasy and horror, dressed up in dazzling colour, Jordan’s film riffs on Red Riding Hood and Werewolves in a truly unique horror film. Absolutely stunning visuals and like many fantasy films of the era it was stuck between being too soft for adult horror fiends and too dark for kids (see also, Ridley Scott’s Legend).
1994: Nightwatch
It’s had a solid Hollywood remake starring Ewan McGregor (from 1997) and a recent sequel, but 1994’s Nightwatch is a stellar Danish horror film coming during a great era of Nordic horrors and thrillers. Ole Bornedal’s film sees a student taking up a job as a nightwatchman at a morgue placing us in a perfect setting for horror from the off. As the isolation and creepy setting starts to pique his curiosity and paranoia, Martin (Nikolaj Coster Waldau) becomes a suspect in the murder of one of the morgue stiffs.
Atmospheric, creepy with plenty of macabre humour (much of which comes from Kim Bodnia), Nightwatch is an underrated gem of 90s Euro-horror. Other excellent horror films from 1994 include New Nightmare, Cemetery Man and In The Mouth of Madness.
2004: Dumplings
2004 was a mixed bag of horror, although it did launch the Saw franchise with the eponymous first feature. Of the rest that year, one of the more intriguing and enthrallingly icky films was Dumplings from Fruit Chan. Starring Bai Ling in one of her finest roles, Dumplings is another film with a few broad dashes of parable laced within that would make a good companion piece to this year’s, The Substance. A fading actress (Miriam Yeung) seeks to reverse the signs of ageing (to attract her distant husband) and the answer seemingly lies within the dumplings made by a former abortionist (Bai Ling).
There’s a grim inevitability about just what’s inside those youth-enhancing dumplings but Chan eeks out plenty of grim atmosphere, aided by two excellent performances from Yeung and Ling, particularly when the latter flees the country and Yeung finds the effects drastically fading.
2014: It Follows
With The Babadook and The Guest, after something of a lull in the genre generally, 2014 really did seem to reinvigorate the horror genre, beginning a solid phase that we’re now seeing hit a peak. With It Follows, David Robert Mitchell took a simple premise with a simple allegory and made a brilliantly effective chase horror with the titular ‘it’ following victims unshakably, wilfully paced and determined. It just does not stop coming for you.
Maika Monroe leads the film, showing a great ability in the genre that we’re still seeing to this day in films like Longlegs. She’s more than a scream queen, that’s for sure. A sequel is on the horizon but whether it can be as effective remains to be seen.
2024: MaXXXine
Aside from the aforementioned The Substance and Longlegs, 2024 has seen a non-stop barrage of horror movies and for the most part, they’ve been decent. We’ve had the nun horror of Immaculate and The First Omen, both effectively the same film. Flickering Myth even has our entry to nun horror, The Baby in the Basket coming soon. We’ve had Alien: Romulus (a rare reboot/sequel that doesn’t suck), indie horrors like I Saw The TV Glow, In A Violent Nature even Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 and many more.
It’s not the best by any stretch, but as a new face of horror, I give you Mia Goth in the final part of the Maxine/Pearl trilogy, MaXXXine where Goth and Ti West take us to the 1980s, cranking up the neon, VHS tapes and rock soundtrack to homage the giallo. It’s divided fans somewhat (particularly the finale) but Goth compels (as always) and the film looks great, really capturing the era and some MTV aesthetics very well. Plus it opens with a ZZ Top song. What’s not to love?
Will you be checking out any of the films on this list? Hit us up on our social channels @FlickeringMyth and check out our FREE Patreon for more exclusive content…
Tom Jolliffe
