Series: Horror

Born in 1887 in Surrey, England, William Henry Pratt would eventually change his name to Boris Karloff and wind up becoming one of the most important figures that the world of horror cinema has ever known. Although he had been in films since as early as 1919, it wasn’t until his legendary turn as the Frankenstein monster in the classic Universal film of 1931 that Karloff’s career really got off the ground. Between then and the end of his career, in 1968, Karloff appeared in hundreds of films, both on the big screen and on television, around 60 of which served to cement his reputation as one of horror’s all-time greats.

During the course of my horror-movie musings here on FanLit, this film buff has written many reviews of scary pictures that were the products of Britain and Italy. And indeed, what with Hammer Studios in the former and the dozens of giallo films issuing forth from the latter, there really is a seemingly endless number of mind-blowing horror films to be had from those two countries alone. But Italy and the U.K. were surely not the only countries “across the pond” to have produced wonderful horror fare, and in today’s Shocktober column, I would like to shine a light on some other European countries that have given the world some shocking cinematic experiences.

As I believe I have mentioned elsewhere, the history of the 1940s horror film can practically be summarized in two words: Universal and Lewton. Over at Universal Studios, a continuing stream of pictures featuring such classic characters as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, and the Mummy emerged to delight and entertain war-weary audiences. Meanwhile, over at RKO, producer Val Lewton, beginning with 1942’s Cat People, would come out with a series of subtle horror films that depended more on atmosphere and mood, rather than gruesome monsters themselves, to deliver shudders. Some other Lewton horrors to emerge that decade would include the truly wonderful and artful I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and the undersung Boris Karloff outing Isle of the Dead (1945).

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “sleeper” as “someone or something unpromising or unnoticed that suddenly attains prominence or value,” and that is just the kind of horror film that I would like to discuss in today’s Shocktober column. Below you will find five examples of what I would consider a “sleeper” horror film; films that are sleepers not because they might put you to sleep – far from it – but rather, because they are seldom-discussed items that just might surprise you with their manifold fine qualities. All five of these films are ones that have somehow managed,

Born in Madrid in 1930, Jesus Franco Manera would go on to become one of the most prolific filmmakers that international cinema has ever witnessed. Under his professional name Jess Franco, the man would, starting in 1959 and then continuing all the way to the year of his death in 2013, ultimately come out with no fewer than 173 films (!), all of which he either directed, wrote, produced, and/or appeared in as an actor. Franco’s films covered an enormous variety of subject matter – horror, sci-fi, giallo, war movies, “adult films” and so many others – and his distinctive visual style,

As I have mentioned elsewhere, starting in the late 1950s and proceeding on throughout the ‘60s, the Mexican film industry enjoyed a Golden Age of sorts when it came to the field of horror. I have already written here on FanLit of such wonderful Mexican fright fests as The Vampire (1957), The Vampire’s Coffin (1958), The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (1958), The Ship of Monsters (1960), The Witch’s Mirror (1960), The Brainiac (1961),

Born in upstate NY in 1948, John Carpenter would go on to become not only one of the foremost directors of horror films of his generation, but a producer, screenwriter and composer, as well. His first film, the amusing sci-fi thriller Dark Star (’74), had shown how very effective he could be even on a limited budget, while his second, Assault on Precinct 13 (’76), had been a remarkably tense urban-crime wringer that was more than a little in debt to, of all things, the seminal 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead.

What fan of horror cinema does not like a good vampire story? Perhaps the most popular and oft-used figure in the history of the scary movie, the vampire, going back to Max Schreck’s rat-visaged monster in 1922’s Nosferatu and on to Bela Lugosi’s infamous count in 1931’s Dracula, has been a mainstay in tales of fright almost from the very beginning. And the cinema’s love affair with the bloodsucking creatures of the night seems to show no sign of abatement, as a latter-day series of sparkly pretty-boy vampires would seem to suggest. In today’s Shocktober column,