The Five Horror Movies That Haunted Me For Decades

When I was a young lad back in the 1970s, my parents would go out Saturday night, leaving my older brother and me alone. My brother was cool with me staying up and watching television with him, which ultimately meant watching late night horror movies on Chiller on WPIX Channel 11. The program’s stop-motion opening with the six fingered hand and disturbing soundtrack creeped me out. I didn’t check the TV guide so I didn’t know the titles of the movies we watched. However, there were five horror movies embedded into my memory. Their lingering power was due to the nature of select scenes, even I didn’t know the title. As years passed, I wondered if these scenes were from actual movies or fragments of forgotten nightmares.

This changed one afternoon around ten years ago. I was perusing horror movies in our local library and found myself staring at a black and white image of a woman’s eyes gazing back through a white mask. A bolt of electric recognition shot through me; this was one of the movies. I checked out Eyes Without A Face and confirmed it as one of the Chiller features. The movie held up as a classic horror piece and I rediscovered all five titles over the following years.

I present them in order from greatest to least emotional trauma:

EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960)

MEMORIES: Not surprising, the surgery scene lingered the strongest. I remember a doctor tracing a woman’s face with a pencil and then cutting along the lines with a scalpel. The network probably cut the scene as the face was being peeled away, but it was enough for me. I’d never seen anything like it. The other memory was from late in the movie, when the doctor’s daughter, her face bandaged after the transplant, ran down a dark hallway and through a window to her death.

DISCOVERY: Accidental. Found the DVD at the public library and recognized the cover.

SUMMARY: Pierre Brasseur plays Dr. Genessier, a brilliant surgeon whose daughter, Christine (Edith Scob) suffered a disfiguring accident. The doctor kidnaps young woman as subjects to transplant a new face onto his daughter. Special effects technician George Klein and make-up artist Hagop Arakelian created the groundbreaking surgical scenes. The procedure was realistic enough to have the movie censored. The unsettling nature of the film coupled with the graphic content continue to resonate and maintain this film’s classic status.

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960)

MEMORIES: I recalled the heroine hearing a loud party outside her room, but when she goes to join it, there’s no one there. Eerie, right? But the sequence welded into my memory is the hero, badly wounded, stumbling through the graveyard with a large cross. He blesses the attacking witches causing them to burst into flame. The dark sets and heavy fog gave the movie an unreal, dreamy quality.

DISCOVERY: Researched. After telling my sons about the movie, they recommended I post on Reddit, to see if anyone knew it. Sure enough, it didn’t take long for someone to identify it as The City of The Dead. I found it streaming free on Tubi. It remains a great witchcraft flick.

SUMMARY: Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) is a college student who travels to Whitewood, MA, at her professor’s recommendation, played by Christopher Lee, to research witchcraft. During her stay, she discovers the sinister history of the town and the truth of its inhabitants and why she was sent there. When Nan disappears, her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor) and brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) go to Whitewood to find her and confront the witches intent on sacrificing her.

ISLAND OF TERROR (1966)

MEMORIES: I always remembered the creatures attacking, because once they latched onto you, there was no escape. The sound of them consuming your skeleton along with the eerie soundtrack and being in color amped up my horror. I was afraid to hang my feet off the couch, in case one was there and grabbed me.

DISCOVERY: Accidental. It was featured one night on Svengoolie. I jumped off the couch, telling my wife about seeing it as a kid. It was still a fun watch and highly recommended.

SUMMARY: Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) and Dr. David West (Edward Judd) travel to the remote Petrie’s Island to investigate townspeople being found without any bones. They discover the deaths were caused by silicon-based creatures, called silicates, which were inadvertently created in the island’s experimental cancer research facility. The silicates reproduce by splitting apart, and soon a mob of them advance on the town. With the townspeople gathered together in a building, Stanley and West rush to find a way to kill the silicates, preventing them from leaving the island.

CROWHAVEN FARM (1970)

MEMORIES: I didn’t realize this was a made-for-TV movie, so I probably watched it with my parents when it aired. There weren’t many memories, except it was in color, and took place in a small NE town, but the one that stood the test of the time was the mother being pressed by the witches. For whatever demonic reason, they could take her husband or baby, so they kept adding rocks until she broke down and surrendered her husband.

DISCOVERY: Research. I returned to Reddit to uncover this title. This one took a little longer to identify. It doesn’t appear to be available on streaming.

SUMMARY: Maggie Porter (Hope Lange) and her husband Ben (Paul Burke) inherit an old farm in New England. Hoping that the rural location might help their struggling marriage, they move to Crowhaven Farm, only to be confronted by the forces that inhabit the town. Maggie seeks assistance from Nate Cheever (John Carradine), a local historian who helps her learn about the town’s dark supernatural past. This may have been the first movie I saw where the evil forces get what they wanted. I vaguely remember it ending with Maggie and her daughter living back in the city.

THE ASPHYX (1972)

MEMORIES: This movie wasn’t as frightening as it was strange. I remember the main character discovered the Asphyx, a spirit that retrieved the soul at the moment of death, by photographing executions. The spirits showed up due to his special photographic process. He formulated a plan to capture his son’s, daughter-in-law’s, and his Asphyx, and gain immortality. It does not go according to plan. I remember it ending in the present. He’s wandering the streets withered, aged past his years, but still living.

DISCOVERY: Research. I found this title by Googling elements of the film. There weren’t many choices concerning capturing of souls. It is on Tubi but I haven’t watched it yet.

SUMMARY: Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) is a Victorian scientist who discovers the existence of the Asphyx, and seeks to build a device to trap it and thereby prevent dying. He enlists his daughter Christina (Jane Lapotaire) and her hopeful husband-to-be Giles (Robert Powell) in his endeavor. The key to luring the Asphyx is to make it believe you’re about to die. Hugo fools it through the use of an electric chair, but Christina is partially decapitated when the guillotine Hugo set up for her malfunctions. Not willing to leave her in a state of eternal pain, Hugo releases the Asphyx. Despondent over Christina’s death, Giles blows up the laboratory. The movie ends in the present day when an old man crossing the street is hit by a car. The police arrive only to find him unharmed. Aged past his time and disfigured, Hugo stands up and shuffles away.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Those were the five movies that haunted me. There certainly were other movies that freaked me out, but not knowing these titles always made them special. It was nice to be able to finally identify them all. Do you have bits of scary childhood movies floating around your memory?