Extreme Horror Thru the Ages: 1960's

The Most Extreme Horror Movies from the 1960s.

Posted on 10 June 2007 by

Pazuzu Iscariot

Horror Movies could be just as extreme in the 1960s

Extreme horror movies experienced a popularity explosion in the 1970s and 80s but the roots of the horror movie go much further back. The "Extreme Horror Thru the Ages" features will take you back through the decades to give you an idea of what shocked movie goers back in the day. The most extreme movies of the era have been picked for these pages. First up - The 60s...

Blood Feast (1963)

Blood Feast (1963) - directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Blood Feast was one of the earliest horror movies to find itself on the Video Nasties list and is often considered the first real gore (or splatter) movie. Blood Feast is a low-budget horror movie about an Egyptian caterer whose favourite ingredient is the body parts of young maidens with the hopes that the sacrifices will bring back to life an ancient goddess of good and evil. Blood Feast was the first horror movie to show graphic violent bloody murder in all of its gory glory and is famed for the scene where the murderer rips out a young woman's tongue. The movie is also infamous as the first movie to show people dying with their eyes open.

Dementia 13 (1963)

Dementia 13 (1963) - directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Dementia 13 is a horror thriller written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The story follows a young woman who attempts to have herself written into her rich mother-in-law's will after inadvertently causing the deadly heart attack of her husband. She pays a surprise visit to her late husband's family castle, but her plans are ruined by an axe-wielding maniac who begins to stalk and violently murder herfamily members.

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

Two Thousand Maniacs (1964) - directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Two Thousand Maniacs is a low-budget splatter movie directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. The movie is infamous for extreme gore and violence and has the appropriate tag line An Entire Town Bathed In Pulsing Human Blood! Madmen Crazed For Carnage!. Six tourists are lured into a small southern town redneck inhabitants to be the guests of honor for the centennial celebration of the day Union troops destroyed the town. The tourists soon become separated and are forced to participate in various sick and twisted games which lead to their gory death.

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

The Flesh Eaters (1964) - directed by Jack Curtis

The Flesh Eaters is a sci-fi/horror movie that contains moments of violence much more graphic and extreme than other movies of its time, making it one of the first ever gore films. A failed actress, her personal assistant, and their helicopter pilot are downed on a secluded isle where they meet a former Nazi scientist performing forbidden experiments that have resulted in the production of monstrous "flesh eaters" that can devour the skin off of screaming victims in mere seconds.

Color Me Blood Red (1965)

Color Me Blood Red (1965) - directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis

Color Me Blood Red is the third splatter movie from Herschell Gordon Lewis making up the trilogy dubbed as The Blood Trilogy by fans of the director. A crazed artist criticized for his sense of color soon discovers that blood red is the color that his paintings are missing. He starts a new series of paintings using his own blood but soon becomes weak and must find another source of blood. This is not the goriest horror movie in The Blood Trilogy but it was still extreme for the time!

Repulsion (1965)

Repulsion (1965) - directed by Roman Polanski

Repulsion is a 1965 film directed by Roman Polanski and is widely considered a masterpiece of the psychological thriller. Carol is a young Belgian virgin, who is both repelled and attracted by the idea of sex. When Helen leaves on a holiday to Italy with her married boyfriend, Carol is left alone and becomes a slave of her own paranoid fears, unable to tell fantasy from reality, and begins to hallucinate which sends her on a violent killing spree.

Rosemary's Baby (1967)

Rosemary's Baby (1967) - directed by Roman Polanski

Rosemary's Baby was one of the first effective psychological horror movies to hit the mainstream, relying on ambiguity, twisted characters and religious taboos rather than shock, horror and gore. Soon after moving into a creepy apartment, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband begin to experience strange goings on and suspect that the strange couple next door have something to do with it. After a shocking nightmare in which Rosemary is raped by the devil she soon falls mysteriously pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbours have special plans for her unborn child.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - directed by George A Romero

Night of the Living Dead is one of the first (and most influential) zombie movies from George A. Romero. The movie was a low-budget, black and white, independent movie that was strongly criticized at the time of its release for its graphic content. The story revolves around the mysterious re-animation of the dead and the efforts of a small group of survivors to survive the night while trapped in a rural farmhouse as the bloodthirsty zombies try to get in.

Naked You Die (1968)

Naked You Die (1968) - directed by Antonio Margheriti

Naked You Die is a creepy Italian horror mystery very much like an early Dario Argento movie with mad killer stalking rich girls at a rich girls school.

Night of the Bloody Apes (1968)

Another horror movie to make the video nasty list, Night of the Bloody Apes is a cheap Mexican horror movie about a mad Mexican scientist that ends up in a bloody situation when an ape-to-human heart transplant goes awry as the human takes on the characteristics of the donor and goes on a violent, bloodthirsty rampage.

This feature was posted on 10 June 2007 by

Pazuzu Iscariot