Classic horror movies list is a term used to describe the horror movies of all time of the early days of cinema, where people used to watch black and white classic horror movies in UK. These films were characterized as slower-paced and more atmospheric – hence the phrase “scary movie.”
This blog post will take a look at some of the best classic horror movies in UK of all time, inclusive of the black and white classic horror movies. Here are classic horror movies you should watch:
Dracula (1992)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writer: Bram Stoker (novel), James V. Hart (screenplay)
Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Dracula is an iconic novel written by Bram Stoker in 1897. The story focuses on the titular vampire Count Dracula – who tries to move from Transylvania to England to spread vampirism throughout Great Britain. However, several people try to stop him. You need to include this and other best classic horror movies in UK in your movie list this season.
Psycho (1960)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Robert Bloch (novel), Joseph Stefano (screenplay)
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
IMDb Rating: 8.5/10
Psycho is a movie directed by American film director, producer, and screenwriter – Alfred Hitchcock. The story focuses on a young secretary, Marion Crane – who steals $40,000 in cash and flees to California. However, her journey takes an unexpected turn when she stops at the Bates Motel to take shelter. Psycho is one of the most disturbing movie of in the horror genre.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Director: Robert Wiene
Writer: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz
Cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt , Friedrich Feher
IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
The story focuses on Francis, who’s thrown into an insane asylum after murdering his former mentor – Dr. Caligari. However, once he leaves the institution several years later – he sets out to prove that Caligari was, in fact, a real-life vampire who uses hypnosis to turn his victims into mindless sleepwalkers.
King Kong (1933)
Director: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Writer: James Ashmore Creelman (story), Ruth Rose (screenplay)
Cast: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
This is among the best classic horror movies in UK to stream. Here, 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. He is then captured and brought back to New York City for public exhibition. If you are into Monster big giants horror movies, you must also watch Godzilla movies in order.
Alien (1979)
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Cast: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, it’s landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious life form, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. If you liked Alien, you must watch among the best sci-fi movies as well over the weekend.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Director: Charles Laughton
Writer: James Agee, David Grubb
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
IMDb Rating: 8.0/10
In West Virginia in the 1930s, a strange man arrives in town, charming the people with his tales of adventure as he is welcomed into the home of a local widow and her children.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Director: James Whale
Writer: William Hurlbut, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (novel)
Cast: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
The mad scientist Victor Frankenstein discovers a way of bringing dead tissue back to life and engages the services of a colleague, Henry Clerval, to procure corpses for his experiments.
Jaws (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
IMDb Rating: 8.0/10
An insatiable great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, prompting police chief Martin Brody to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter.
Frankenstein (1931)
Director: James Whale
Writer: John L. Balderston, Mary Shelley. Peggy Webling
Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
A scientist obsessed with creating life and antagonized by his wealthy father-in-law uses an apparatus to breathe life into a corpse. This is among the best classic horror movies in UK to stream on Netflix if you are looking to update your classic horror movies list.
Vampyr (1932)
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Writer: Sheridan Le Fanu, Carl Th. Dreyer, Christen Jul
Cast: Julia West, Rena Mandel, Maurice Schutz
IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
A male drifter is obsessed with supernatural powers. He stumbles upon an inn where she sees a severely ill adolescent. The girl is slowly becoming a vampire. What does he do? Check the movie. Horror genre is incomplete without Vampire movies, Twilight movies are a must to binge-watch.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Director: Don Siegel
Writer: Daniel Mainwaring, Jack Finney, Richard Collins
Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
When people in a small California town start coming down with comas, doctors find that they are not sick. The root cause of the outbreak is a silent alien invasion of plant-like creatures who are slowly turning every human into emotionless alien duplicates.
Freaks (1932)
Director: Tod Browning
Writer: Clarence Aaron Robbins, Tod Browning (additional material), Willis Goldbeck
Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
A traveling circus headed by Henry Victor (Harry Earles) and his midget lady friend, Katie (Olga Baclanova), is in town. The freaks in the sideshow are all eager for Katie to grab her attention; she chooses Hercules (Henry Victor), much to the chagrin of Hans (Hardy Krüger), a dwarf clown.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Director: George A. Romero
Writer: John Russo, George A. Romero
Cast: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
A group of people hides from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse while trying to figure out a way to survive the night.
Aliens (1986)
Director: James Cameron
Writer: James Cameron
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
Following on from the first film, ‘Alien,’ a team of marines goes to investigate a distress call on a faraway planet only to meet the aliens again.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Writer: Thomas Harris, Ted Tally
Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney
IMDb Rating: 8.6/10
FBI Agent Starling investigates the killing of a number of young girls; she seeks help from imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter to help her solve the case. This is among the best classic horror movies in UK you should include in your movies list.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Ira Levin, Roman Polanski
Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon
IMDb Rating: 8.0/10
A young couple moves into an apartment only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences, shortly after the wife becomes pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbors have special plans for her child.
Halloween (1978)
Director: John Carpenter
Writer: John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
On Halloween night of 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers brutally murdered his 17-year-old sister, Judith. Shortly after, he was hospitalized at Warren County’s Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he has remained for the past 15 years. On October 30, 1978, a bus carrying a group of transfer prisoners was forced to stop in Haddonfield when it was caught in a terrible downpour. It is one of the best classic horror movie, Halloween movies are the spookiest to enjoy for the Horror fans.
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Director: Georges Franju
Writer: Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Jean Redon
Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
A brilliant surgeon is obsessed with restoring the beauty of his daughter, who was disfigured in a car accident. After years of searching for the perfect face, he discovers a young woman whose damaged skin is the perfect match. The only problem: she’s only an unwilling recipient who has been forced to wear a mask and cannot verbally communicate with anyone.
Dead of the Night (1945)
Director: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton
Writer: John Baines, Angus MacPhail, T.E.B Clarke
Cast: Michael Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
Dead of the Night is a British horror anthology film that was released in 1945. It deals with five supernatural tales, all of which revolve around the theme of death.
The Birds (1963)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Evan Hunter (screenplay and novel), Daphne Du Maurier (novel)
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is an attractive blonde who meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a school teacher, in a pet shop. The two begin to date and fall in love. On one of their dates, Melanie rescues a seagull that has been trapped by some bullies. As thanks for her kindness, the bird follows her home.
Cat People (1942)
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Writer: DeWitt Bodeen (screenplay)
Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway
IMDb Rating: 7.3/10
The film tells the story of Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian fashion designer living in New York City whose childhood was dominated by a fear that she might harm someone. This feeling begins to manifest itself again after a series of attacks on women who look like her.
IT (2017)
Director: Andy Muschietti
Writers: Chase Palmer (screenplay), Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman (screenplay)
Cast: Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgard
IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
A group of outcast kids bands together when a monster, taking the appearance of a clown, begins hunting children. An adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. It is intended to be the first installment in a planned duology.
The Fly (1986)
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Charles Edward Pogue, George Langelaan
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.
House of Wax (1953)
Director: Andre De Toth
Writers: Charles Belden, Crane Wilbur
Cast: Vincent Price, Phyllis Kirk, Frank Lovejoy
IMDb Rating: 7.1/10
When the owner and proprietor of a traveling wax museum dies in a fiery car crash, his sons immediately set about reviving their father’s business. The task isn’t easy because the last fateful journey has left the corpses in the old man’s collection severely burned and (ahem) “meltingly” deformed.
Carrie (1976)
Director: Brian De Palma
Writers: Lawrence D. Cohen, Stephen King
Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Carrie White is a lonely and outcast teenage girl who isn’t popular at school and gets bullied by others at school due to her appearance and religious beliefs. One day, she is invited to the Prom but embarrasses herself. A week later, a prank orchestrated by some popular girls goes terribly wrong, and Carrie uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to get revenge on everyone who bullied her.
The Evil Dead (1981)
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor
IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
A group of friends travels to a secluded cabin located in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.
Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987)
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
The second installment in the Evil Dead trilogy sees Ash Williams being sucked back into the same old cabin in the woods where he must once again fight off demonic possession. Find more collection of 80s films on Netflix in other genre as well.
The Innocents (1961)
Director: Jack Clayton
Writer: William Archibald, Henry James, John Mortimer
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
A governess for two young children becomes convinced that the house is haunted by a ghost that may be attempting to take possession of the children.
The Host (2006)
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Writer: Chul-Hyun Baek, Bong Joon-ho (screenplay)
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Byeon Hie-bong, Park Hae-il
IMDb Rating: 7.1/10
While eating some disgusting instant noodles, Park Gang-du notices a mysterious, blobby creature in his bowl, which he decides to bring home. His daughter Hyun-SEO discovers the creature is actually a pet with an identity crisis that eats everything it comes across.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright (screenplay)
Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
A man decides to turn his moribund life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.
