If it’s true that Batman fans should enjoy other gothic comics, then of course the same goes for gothic movies. In the first film list I did for this blog, I suggested Dead of Night and The Unknown as examples of the kind of old school horror that is bound to appeal to those who dig the darkest corners of Gotham City.
Here are another 10 recommendations:
FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
‘It moving… It’s alive. It’s ALIVE!’
Frankenstein is the most gothic-looking film this side of Murnau’s Faust and Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast. With a gloomy, poetic tone, this loose adaptation of Mary Shelley’s fascinating seminal sci-fi novel about a scientist who creates a sentient monster set the visuals for most other versions of the material in popular culture, including a ton of comics (by the way, fans of the original book should definitely check out Frankenstein’s Womb, by Warren Ellis and Marek Oleksicki). The movie also spun a bunch of sequels – and while the quirky Bride of Frankenstein has a reputation for being the best of the follow-ups, for my money Young Frankenstein is the true masterpiece!
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)
This mesmerizing tale of a white nurse encountering voodoo rituals in a Caribbean sugar plantation, directed by Jacques Tourneur (who also did the chilling Night of the Demon and The Leopard Man), couldn’t be farther from our current idea of zombie horror, as defined by the likes of Night of the Living Dead, Evil Dead, 28 Days Later, or The Walking Dead. There are no brain-eating corpses, no gore, not even a clear commitment to whether or not the magic should be accepted literally… Instead, well placed shadows and the somber sound of the wind are enough to make I Walked with a Zombie the most eerily atmospheric movie ever released.
THE UNINVITED (1944)
Less ambiguous about its take on the supernatural, The Uninvited is a clever, good old-fashioned ghost story. Who doesn’t love those? The plot is devious and provocative but, like in many of the other movies on this post, ultimately immaterial. It’s all about the sinister ambience and there sure is plenty of that!
THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)
Robert Wise’s morbid mood piece bleakly adapts a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson inspired by the Burke and Hare murders (and written in the same dark prose as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde).
On the surface, this movie has little to do with Don Siegel’s similarly titled science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. What the two have in common is that, like subsequent versions of the latter, they serve as perfect metaphors for their decades… 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers reeks with the anticommunist paranoia of McCarthyism, 1978’s surprisingly good remake taps into the post-hippie culture of individualism, 1993’s Body Snatchers is dumb and full of explosions, 2007’s The Invasion aims for War on Terror poignancy (but fails miserably), 2013’s The World’s End is a smart satire of small town homogenization and alienation.
As for 1945’s The Body Snatcher, its tale of grave robbing and medical experiments feels like a distillation of late WWII concerns over the intersection between ethics and science. Also, it has a genuinely macabre ending!
THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946)
I’ve mentioned before that Robert Siodmak was an awesome director of film noir, but he could also do horror better than most. Set in the turn of the century, The Spiral Staircase is an intense, spellbinding thriller about a mute girl trying to avoid a serial killer who targets disabled young women.
Scary and effective.
DIABOLIQUE (1955)
This suspenseful masterpiece was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, often referred to as the French Alfred Hitchcock (although Clouzot’s movies were even crueler than Hitchcock’s and with a less flashy style). Les Diaboliques begins with a mundane story of infidelity and murder, then it slowly but surely evolves into horror, culminating in one of the most terrifying final sequences I’ve seen on film… (And yet, it’s still not as grim or warped as Clouzot’s earlier crime flicks Le Corbeau and Quai des Orfèvres.)
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)
It all starts when the inhabitants of a whole village suddenly fall unconscious, even the animals… Closer in spirit to the best episodes of the brilliant The Twilight Zone than to John Carpenter’s pointless remake, this British sci-fi chiller keeps throwing viewers one enthralling idea after another, including twisted deaths, Cold War fears, and those unforgettable hypnotic children!
(Hardcore Bat-fans may also dig the fact that the lead role is played by George Sanders, who went on to play Mr. Freeze in the first season of the Batman TV show.)
PSYCHO (1960)
Although Alfred Hitchcock’s most perversely gothic movie is Rebecca, I had to go with this later classic about a woman on the run who makes the mistake of checking into a motel where the creepy Norman Bates lives with his even creepier mother. After decades of spoofs, spoilers, and rip-offs (and Batman homages), it’s easy to forget just how sleazy a thriller Psycho is, packed with tension and disturbing twists and a hell of a soundtrack.
THE INNOCENTS (1961)
By contrast, The Innocents is all suave atmosphere and psychological sophistication… which is not to say that things don’t get seriously frightening in this taut, stylish tale of a governess who suspects that the children she is taking care of are being possessed. Nightmarish.
THE HAUNTING (1963)
Almost 20 years after The Body Snatcher, Robert Wise returned to his gothic roots with this gorgeous-looking haunted house extravaganza. The story of four strangers brought to an old mansion to determine whether or not the rumors of ghosts are true, The Haunting is at times delightfully tongue-in-cheek, with some hammy interior monologues and lesbian undertones, but when it wants to it’s as expressionist and spooky as anything else on this list.
NEXT: President Batman.