100 Essential Horror Movies on Blu-ray: 1920-1979
A selection of 100 Essential Horror Movies available on Blu-ray at Amazon.com.
Being a great horror fan since childhood, here is a list aimed specifically at the horror aficionado. All the titles listed below, I believe, are more than worthy of inclusion in any serious horror-collectors library. All of which I have personally seen, and many of which are in my personal collection.
*Please note: Listing is in chronological order, and purely subjective.
Applicable links:
A: Amazon.com: Movies & TV.
B: Amazon.com: Horror Movies on DVD & Blu-ray.
C: Amazon.co.uk: Horror on DVD & Blu-ray.
Or: Amazon.co.uk: Horror on DVD & Blu-ray.
Being a great horror fan since childhood, here is a list aimed specifically at the horror aficionado. All the titles listed below, I believe, are more than worthy of inclusion in any serious horror-collectors library. All of which I have personally seen, and many of which are in my personal collection.
*Please note: Listing is in chronological order, and purely subjective.
Applicable links:
A: Amazon.com: Movies & TV.
B: Amazon.com: Horror Movies on DVD & Blu-ray.
C: Amazon.co.uk: Horror on DVD & Blu-ray.
Or: Amazon.co.uk: Horror on DVD & Blu-ray.
Log in to copy items to your own lists.
1.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(1920)
Dr. Caligari's somnambulist, Cesare, and his deadly predictions. (78 mins.)
Director: Robert Wiene
2.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1920)
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself. (49 mins.)
Director: John S. Robertson
3.
The Penalty
(1920)
A deformed criminal mastermind plans to loot the city of San Francisco as well as revenge himself on the doctor who mistakenly amputated his legs. (90 mins.)
Director: Wallace Worsley
4.
Nosferatu
(1922)
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife. Silent classic based on the story "Dracula." (94 mins.)
Director: F.W. Murnau
5.
The Phantom of the Opera
(1925)
A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely young opera singer. (93 mins.)
Director: Rupert Julian
6.
Dracula
(1931)
The ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young Mina. (75 mins.)
Director: Tod Browning
7.
Frankenstein
(1931)
An obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses. (70 mins.)
Director: James Whale
8.
Island of Lost Souls
(1932)
An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. (70 mins.)
Director: Erle C. Kenton
9.
The Most Dangerous Game
(1932)
An insane hunter arranges for a ship to be wrecked on an island where he can indulge in some sort of hunting and killing of the passengers. (63 mins.)
Director: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack
10.
The Mummy
(1932)
A living mummy stalks the beautiful woman he believes is the reincarnation of his lover. (73 mins.)
Director: Karl Freund
11.
White Zombie
(1932)
A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiance, but instead turns her into a zombie slave. (69 mins.)
Director: Victor Halperin
12.
The Invisible Man
(1933)
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane. (71 mins.)
Director: James Whale
13.
King Kong
(1933)
A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star. (100 mins.)
14.
The Bride of Frankenstein
(1935)
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein (goaded by an even madder scientist) builds his monster a mate. (75 mins.)
Director: James Whale
15.
The Wolf Man
(1941)
A practical man returns to his homeland, is attacked by a creature of folklore, and infected with a horrific disease his disciplined mind tells him can not possibly exist. (70 mins.)
Director: George Waggner
16.
Phantom of the Opera
(1943)
This is the story of a disfigured violinist who haunts the Paris Opera House (92 mins.)
Director: Arthur Lubin
17.
The Uninvited
(1944)
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. (99 mins.)
Director: Lewis Allen
18.
House of Wax
(1953)
An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous. (88 mins.)
Director: Andre de Toth
19.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
(1954)
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. (79 mins.)
Director: Jack Arnold
20.
Godzilla
(1954)
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast. (96 mins.)
Director: Ishirô Honda
21.
The Night of the Hunter
(1955)
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery. (92 mins.)
Director: Charles Laughton
22.
Tarantula
(1955)
A spider escapes from an isolated desert laboratory experimenting in giantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants. (80 mins.)
Director: Jack Arnold
23.
The Bad Seed
(1956)
A housewife suspects that her seemingly perfect 8-year-old daughter is a heartless killer. (129 mins.)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
24.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(1956)
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates. (80 mins.)
Director: Don Siegel
25.
She Devil
(1957)
Doctors Scott and Bach inject the dying Kyra Zelas with a formula which saves her life - but also renders her almost immortal and wickedly evil. (77 mins.)
Director: Kurt Neumann
26.
The Blob
(1958)
An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows. (86 mins.)
Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
27.
The Colossus of New York
(1958)
A brilliant surgeon encases his dead son's brain in a large robot body, with unintended results... (70 mins.)
Director: Eugene Lourie
28.
Horror of Dracula
(1958)
After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city... (82 mins.)
Director: Terence Fisher
29.
The Fly
(1958)
A scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device. (94 mins.)
Director: Kurt Neumann
30.
Plan 9 from Outer Space
(1959)
Aliens resurrect dead humans as zombies and vampires to stop humanity from creating the Solaranite (a sort of sun-driven bomb). (79 mins.)
Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
31.
Black Sunday
(1960)
A vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess... (87 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
32.
Eyes Without a Face
(1960)
A brilliant surgeon, Dr. Génessier, helped by his assistant Louise, kidnaps nice young women. He removes... (88 mins.)
Director: Georges Franju
33.
The Little Shop of Horrors
(1960)
A clumsy young man nurtures a plant and discovers that it's carnivorous, forcing him to kill to feed it. (72 mins.)
Director: Roger Corman
34.
Psycho
(1960)
A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. (109 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
35.
Gorgo
(1961)
Greedy sailors capture a giant lizard off the coast of Ireland and sell it to a London circus. Then its mother shows up. (78 mins.)
Director: Eugene Lourie
36.
The Innocents
(1961)
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted. (100 mins.)
Director: Jack Clayton
37.
Night Tide
(1961)
On leave in a shore side town, Johnny becomes interested in a young dark haired woman. They meet and... (86 mins.)
Director: Curtis Harrington
38.
The Awful Dr. Orlof
(1962)
Dr. Orlof, a former prison doctor, abducts beautiful women from nightclubs and tries to use their skin to repair his daughter's fire-scarred face... (90 mins.)
Director: Jesús Franco
39.
Night Creatures
(1962)
In this engaging costume melodrama of skulduggery on the low seas set back in the 18th-century, the... (80 mins.)
Director: Peter Graham Scott
“ Aka: 'Captain Clegg'-(1962). ” - Dr-Faustus
40.
The Birds
(1963)
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness. (119 mins.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
41.
Black Sabbath
(1963)
A trio of atmospheric horror tales about: A woman terrorized in her apartment by phone calls from an... (92 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
42.
Dementia 13
(1963)
When her husband John has a heart attack while out in a rowboat on the lake, Louise Haloran throws his... (75 mins.)
Director: Francis Coppola
43.
The Haunting
(1963)
A scientist doing research on the paranormal invites two women to a haunted mansion. One of the participants soon starts losing her mind. (112 mins.)
Director: Robert Wise
44.
The Whip and the Body
(1963)
In the 19th century, a sadistic nobleman terrorizes the members of his family. He is found dead, but his ghost soon returns to haunt the residents of his castle. (91 mins.)
Director: John M. Old
45.
Dead Ringer
(1964)
The working class twin sister of a callous wealthy woman impulsively murders her out of revenge and assumes the identity of the dead woman. But impersonating her dead twin is more complicated and risky than she anticipated. (116 mins.)
Director: Paul Henreid
46.
Die, Monster, Die!
(1965)
A young man visits his fiancée's estate to discover that her wheelchair-bound scientist father has discovered... (80 mins.)
Director: Daniel Haller
47.
Planet of the Vampires
(1965)
After landing on a mysterious planet, a team of astronauts begin to turn on each other, swayed by the uncertain influence of the planet and its strange inhabitants. (86 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
48.
Repulsion
(1965)
Left alone when her sister goes on vacation, a young beauty finds herself besieged on all sides by the demons of her past. (105 mins.)
Director: Roman Polanski
49.
Dracula: Prince of Darkness
(1966)
Dracula is resurrected, preying on four unsuspecting visitors to his castle. (90 mins.)
Director: Terence Fisher
50.
Seconds
(1966)
An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity - one that comes with its own price. (106 mins.)
Director: John Frankenheimer
51.
The Blood Beast Terror
(1968)
A scientist, working with genetics, creates a creature that is capable of transforming back and forth... (88 mins.)
Director: Vernon Sewell
52.
Corruption
(1968)
A doctor goes to extreme lengths--even murder--to restore the badly burned face of his fiance. (91 mins.)
Director: Robert Hartford-Davis
53.
Kuroneko
(1968)
Two women are raped and killed by samurai soldiers. Soon they reappear as vengeful ghosts who seduce and brutally murder the passing samurai. (99 mins.)
Director: Kaneto Shindô
54.
The Man Who Lies
(1968)
On the run from pursuing soldiers, a man hides in a small European town. (95 mins.)
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
55.
Night of the Living Dead
(1968)
A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse. (96 mins.)
Director: George A. Romero
56.
Rosemary's Baby
(1968)
A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life. (136 mins.)
Director: Roman Polanski
57.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
(1970)
A writer is stalked by a serial killer after witnessing a murder attempt on one woman's life. (98 mins.)
Director: Dario Argento
58.
Hatchet for the Honeymoon
(1970)
A bridal design shop owner kills various young brides-to-be in an attempt to unlock a repressed childhood trauma that's causing him to commit murder. (88 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
59.
The Vampire Lovers
(1970)
Seductive vampire Carmilla Karnstein and her family target the beautiful and the rich a remote area of late 18th century Gemany. (91 mins.)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
60.
A Bay of Blood
(1971)
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out... (84 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
61.
The Cat o' Nine Tails
(1971)
A newspaper reporter and a retired, blind journalist try to solve a series of killings connected to a pharmaceutical company's experimental, top-secret research projects and in so doing, both become targets of the killer. (115 mins.)
Director: Dario Argento
62.
Countess Dracula
(1971)
In medieval Europe aging Countess Elisabeth rules harshly with the help of lover Captain Dobi. Finding... (93 mins.)
Director: Peter Sasdy
63.
Daughters of Darkness
(1971)
A newlywed couple are passing through a vacation resort. Their paths cross with a mysterious, strikingly beautiful countess and her aide. (87 mins.)
Director: Harry Kümel
64.
Hands of the Ripper
(1971)
The infant daughter of Jack the Ripper is witness to the brutal murder of her mother by her father.... (85 mins.)
Director: Peter Sasdy
65.
Twins of Evil
(1971)
A religious sect led by Gustav Weil hunts all women suspected of witchcraft, killing a number of innocent victims. Young Katy, Gustav's niece, will involve herself in a devilish cult, and become an instrument of Justice in the region. (87 mins.)
Director: John Hough
66.
Baron Blood
(1972)
A young man, Peter, returns to Austria in search of his heritage. There he visits the castle of an ancestor... (98 mins.)
Director: Mario Bava
67.
Horror Express
(1972)
An English anthropologist has discovered a frozen monster in the frozen wastes of Manchuria which he believes may be the Missing Link... (84 mins.)
Director: Gene Martin
68.
The Last House on the Left
(1972)
A pair of teenage girls are headed to a rock concert for one's birthday. While trying to score marijuana in the city, the girls are kidnapped by a gang of psychotic convicts. (84 mins.)
Director: Wes Craven
69.
Night of the Devils
(1972)
The patriarch of a wealthy family fears that he will show up one day in vampire form. Should this happen, he warns his family not to let him back in his house, no matter how much he begs them. (91 mins.)
Director: Giorgio Ferroni
70.
Vampire Circus
(1972)
A village in Nineteenth Century Europe is at first relieved when a circus breaks through the quarantine to take the local's minds off the plague... (87 mins.)
Director: Robert William Young
71.
The Asphyx
(1973)
English country squire Sir Hugo Cunningham searches for immortality by literally 'bottling up' the Spirit of the Dead, or Asphyx. (99 mins.)
Director: Peter Newbrook
72.
The Exorcist
(1973)
When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter. (122 mins.)
Director: William Friedkin
73.
The Legend of Hell House
(1973)
A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous... (95 mins.)
Director: John Hough
74.
Sisters
(1973)
A journalist witnesses a brutal murder in a neighboring apartment, but the police do not believe that the crime took place. With the help of a private detective, she seeks out the truth. (93 mins.)
Director: Brian De Palma
75.
Theatre of Blood
(1973)
A Shakespearean actor takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition. (104 mins.)
Director: Douglas Hickox
76.
The Wicker Man
(1973)
A police sergeant is sent to a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the townsfolk claim never existed. Stranger still are the rites that take place there. (88 mins.)
Director: Robin Hardy
77.
Black Christmas
(1974)
A sorority house is terrorized by a stranger who makes frightening phone calls and then murders the sorority sisters during Christmas break. (98 mins.)
Director: Bob Clark
78.
House of Whipcord
(1974)
An old man that lives in an old house conducts a correctional institute for girls. But he does not realize... (102 mins.)
Director: Pete Walker
79.
Phantom of the Paradise
(1974)
A disfigured composer sells his soul for the woman he loves so that she will perform his music. However, an evil record tycoon betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise. (92 mins.)
Director: Brian De Palma
80.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
(1974)
Five friends visiting their grandfather's house in the country are hunted and terrorized by a chain-saw wielding killer and his family of grave-robbing cannibals. (83 mins.)
Director: Tobe Hooper
81.
Deep Red
(1975)
A musician witnesses the murder of a famous psychic, and then teams up with a fiesty reporter to find the killer while evading attempts on their lives by the unseen killer bent on keeping a dark secret buried. (126 mins.)
Director: Dario Argento
82.
Bloodsucking Freaks
(1976)
Sardu, master of the Theatre of the Macabre, and his assistant Ralphus run a show in which, under the guise of 'magic', they torture and murder people in front of their audience. But what the punters see as a trick is actually real. (91 mins.)
Director: Joel M. Reed
83.
Carrie
(1976)
A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl discovers she has telekinesis, and gets pushed to the limit on the night of her school's prom by a humiliating prank. (98 mins.)
Director: Brian De Palma
84.
The Omen
(1976)
Mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the anti-christ? The devil's own son? (111 mins.)
Director: Richard Donner
85.
The Car
(1977)
A sleek, possessed black car terrorizes everyone it comes in contact with in a small town in Utah. (96 mins.)
Director: Elliot Silverstein
86.
Eraserhead
(1977)
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child. (89 mins.)
Director: David Lynch
87.
The Hills Have Eyes
(1977)
On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack. (89 mins.)
Director: Wes Craven
88.
House
(1977)
Seven girls on their summer trip pay a visit to a possessed house which plans to eat them in extremely bizzare and surreal ways. (88 mins.)
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
89.
Shock Waves
(1977)
Visitors to a remote island discover that a reclusive Nazi commandant has been breeding a group of Zombie soldiers. (85 mins.)
Director: Ken Wiederhorn
90.
Dawn of the Dead
(1978)
Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall. (127 mins.)
Director: George A. Romero
91.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(1978)
In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion. (115 mins.)
Director: Philip Kaufman
92.
Halloween
(1978)
A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood for the murder of his sister, escapes and stalks a bookish adolescent girl and her friends while his doctor chases him through the streets. (91 mins.)
Director: John Carpenter
93.
I Spit on Your Grave
(1978)
An aspiring writer is repeatedly gang-raped, humiliated, and left for dead by four men whom she systematically hunts down to seek revenge. (101 mins.)
Director: Meir Zarchi
94.
Magic
(1978)
A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart. (107 mins.)
Director: Richard Attenborough
95.
Piranha
(1978)
When flesh-eating piranhas are accidently released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal. (94 mins.)
Director: Joe Dante
96.
Alien
(1979)
The commercial vessel Nostromo receives a distress call from an unexplored planet. After searching for survivors, the crew heads home only to realize that a deadly bioform has joined them. (117 mins.)
Director: Ridley Scott
97.
The Amityville Horror
(1979)
Newlyweds move into a house where a murder was committed, and experience strange manifestations which drive them away. (117 mins.)
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
98.
Beyond the Darkness
(1979)
A young rich orphan loses his fiancée to voodoo doll mischief on the part of his housekeeper who is jealous of his attentions... (94 mins.)
Director: Joe D'Amato
99.
Nosferatu the Vampyre
(1979)
Jonathan and Lucy live in Wismar and the Count wants a house there. Varna is a port on the Black Sea, close to Dracula's castle. (107 mins.)
Director: Werner Herzog
100.
Zombie
(1979)
Strangers looking for a woman's father arrive at a tropical island where a doctor desperately searches for the cause and cure of a recent epidemic of the undead. (91 mins.)
Director: Lucio Fulci