When we think of the greatest decades of horror immediately most people will cite the 1980's and the 1970's and often the 1930's and rightfully so. The thirties were when horror exploded on the big screen and provide us with iconic characters that are still revered to this day.. The seventies pushed the boundaries of what horror could be and could be allowed to be and gave us new iconic characters. The eighties took the foundation built in the seventies and just ran with it.
When we think of the 1960's, however we immediately think hippies, protests against the establishment and against societal norms. Marches for civil rights, Womens' rights and protests against the war in Vietnam There was Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll, Woodstock. Assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, Malcom X and Martin Luther King.
I cinema it was the birth of the anti-hero, edgier movies but lost or forgotten was the horror movie genre.
In retrospective , the sixties might be the most underrated and underappreciated. decade in the horror genre.
Perhaps it is because the volume of horror movies made in America just wasn't there or sure the decade started great with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and a few other Hitcock films and the decade ended with Rosemary's Baby but not much else from the U.S.
But what really saved and progressed horror in the 1960's was what i call The British and Italian Invasion of Horror. As filmmakers and studios from those two countries kept the genre going. This was the decade where legends like Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Barbara Steele were in their prime. Even the great Boris Karloff was still making movies.
British studio injected new blood into already established horror icons in the form of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy, offering new and unique interpretations. Other classic British movies were The Two Faces of Dr. Jeckyl ,The Kiss of the Vampire,The Gorgon and The Witches to name a few.
The Italians gave us so many underappreciated classics as the Giallo sub-genre was in it's infancy. With Italian filmmakers' unique cinematography and art design , Italy gave us Black Sunday, Curse of the Blood Ghouls,Horror Castle, Black Sabbath, Tomb of Torture, Crypt of the Vampire, Nightmare Castle and An Angel for Satan.
The horror movies of the sixties acted as the perfect bridge between classic horror and modern horror as those movies began to push the boundaries of gore and sex in movies as was most of society. If not for those innovative filmmakers from the UK and Italy, would the Seventies and Eighties be as iconic as we remember?
Anyway the next time you are having some fish n chips with a British Ale or a plate of lasagna with a glass of Italian wine. Make sure to toast our friends in Italy and the UK for not just keeping the horror genre going but reinvigorating it.
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