page_title: Horror film
section_title: 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Horror film / 1960s
caption_attribution_description: Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead
context_page_description: A horror film is one that seeks to elicit fear in its audience, for entertainment purposes. Initially inspired by literature from authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror has existed as a film genre for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Horror may also overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction, and thriller genres.
  Horror films often aim to evoke viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, extraterrestrials, vampires, werewolves, demons, Satanism, evil clowns, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, giant monsters, zombies, cannibalism, psychopaths, natural, ecological or man-made disasters, and serial killers.
  Some sub-genres of horror film include comedy horror, folk horror, body horror, found footage, holiday horror, psychological horror, science fiction horror, slasher, supernatural horror, gothic horror, natural horror, zombie film, and teen horror.
context_section_description: Released in May 1960, the British psychological horror thriller film, Peeping Tom (1960) by Michael Powell, is a progenitor of the contemporary "slasher film", though Alfred Hitchcock cemented the subgenre with Psycho released also in the same year. Hitchcock, considered to be the "Master of Suspense" didn't set out to frighten fans the way many other traditional horror filmmakers do. Instead, he helped pioneer the art of psychological suspense. As a result, he managed to frighten his viewers by getting to the root of their deepest fears. One of his most frightening films besides Psycho is The Birds (1963), where a seemingly idyllic town is overrun by violent birds.
  France continued the mad scientist theme with the film Eyes Without a Face (1960). The story follows Parisian police in search of the culprit responsible for the deaths of young women whose faces have been mutilated. In Criterion's description of the film, they say it include "images of terror, of gore, [and] of inexplicable beauty".
  Meanwhile, Italian horror films became internationally notable thanks to Mario Bava's contributions. His film La Maschera del Demonio (1960), marketed in English as The Mask of Satan then wound up being known as Black Sunday in the United States and Revenge of the Vampire in the United Kingdom. In this film, Bava turned a Russian folk legend into a beguiling fairly tale about a young doctor who finds himself stranded in a haunted community and falls for a woman whose body become possessed by a woman executed for witchcraft. Three years later, Bava went on to make the horror anthology film Black Sabbath (1963) known in Italy as I tre volti della paura, literally 'The Three Faces of Fear'.
  In the United States, gimmicks continued to be used to entice film-goers into theaters. William Castle's 1960 horror film 13 Ghosts was shot in "Illusion-O", where audiences were given a "supernatural viewer" that they could wear to see hidden ghosts in the film. In 13 Ghosts, a family searches for fortune inside the mansion of a reclusive doctor who died. They will need to search the house to find the doctor's fortune, but along with the property they have also inherited the occultist's collection of thirteen ghosts. In 1961, Castle made Mr. Sardonicus. It tells the story of a man whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing his father's grave to obtain a winning lottery ticket. During the promotion of the film, Castle introduced the "punishment poll" where the audiences decide what happens to Mr. Sardonicus in the film. All they had to do was hold up a "thumbs up" ballot if they wanted Mr. Sardonicus go free or "thumbs down" if they want to punish him. Supposedly no audience ever voted for life over death, so the film continues as if the audience's majority verdict was seriously counted. Also in the same year, William Castle made Homicidal, which follows a murderous woman in a small California town. A "fright break" was featured during the film where the audiences are shown a timer over the terrifying climax. The audiences who are too frightened to see the end of the film are given 25 seconds to walk out of the theater and into the "coward's corner" where they could get a full refund of their ticket and a free blood pressure test.
  Francis Ford Coppola in his feature debut also used gimmicks in the screenings for his 1963 horror/thriller Dementia 13. Before you could see the film inside the theaters, you had to pass a 13 question test that included such questions as "Did you ever do anything seriously wrong for which you felt little or no guilt?" and "Have you ever been hospitalized in a locked mental ward... or other facility for treatment of mental illness?". If audiences failed any of the questions they wouldn't be allowed inside the theater. In Dementia 13, a scheming widow hatches a daring plan to get her hands on her late husband's inheritance, unbeknownst to her that she is targeted by an axe-wielding murderer who lurks within the family's estate.
  The American International Pictures (AIP), in the early 60s, made a series o
caption: Zombies in Romero's most influential film, the groundbreaking 1968 Night of the Living Dead. This was the template for all future zombie films.
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