Horror Year of 1959

The Great Horror Year of 1959

Looking Back Half a Century

1959 was indeed a great year for horror. Although I believe most people reading this article already know it, I should point out before continuing that horror in film was far different in 1959 than what it is today. This is not necessarily good or bad. It is up to each of us to choose which era we prefer.

You probably have guessed what my favorite era is. I have chosen the year 1959 to highlight because so many of my B-schlock horror favorites were released that year. These include, but are not limited to, such films as Circus of Horrors, Curse of the Undead, The Devil’s Hand, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, The Headless Ghost, The House on Haunted Hill, (my personal favorite), The Monster of Piedras Blancas, The Mummy, The Tingler and even that excellent Euro film, Les Yeux Sans Visage, AKA The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. Each of these films deserves a stand alone review, but doing so would turn this article into a small book!

Films that some reviewers believe are more science fiction than horror from that year include The Alligator People, The Black Scorpion, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, The Cosmic Man, 4D Man, The Giant Gila Monster, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Killer Shrews, Return of the Fly and Teenagers from Outer Space.

I have listed these films to encourage readers who are not familiar with 1950 – 60s horror and science fiction films to seek them out for viewing. You will see a simpler, less graphic story and wonder how these films were successful. You may also wonder why the producers kept making them. The answer is that they were indeed frightening in their time and place and made money for the film makers. House on Haunted Hill alone made several million dollars – an impressive sum for such a film in 1959.

So, again, why these films, and why this year to highlight? I believe the answer lies in the time. 1959 was a time of Eisenhower and the United States feeling good about itself. We had not yet experienced the full impact of social change, such as the civil rights movement and the assassination of President Kennedy. The drug culture and the many problems it brought with it were several years in the future. It may not have been, in reality, a simpler, more innocent time but it felt like it. Science fiction films of the 1950s were thinly disguised warnings against communism but horror was pretty much given a free ride. Horror films of that time would barely be considered as such today. This is what I love about them -- especially those of the nadir year of 1959.

In 1959, horror was entertainment that a young child could see without being traumatized. Scared, yes, but nothing compared with today’s shock for the sake of shock offerings. If you have not seen Vincent Price in his prime, as he was in House of Haunted Hill, or been frightened so badly by Henry Daniell in the Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake that you could not sleep for several nights, then you do indeed need to become familiar with this era in horror.

Most of the horror films from 1959 are done in black and white. There is little gore and no graphic language. By today’s standards, you may notice a strange wholesomeness to them, even as you see the unfortunate young woman decapitated in bed in Horrors of the Black Museum. You do not actually see acts such as those, they are only suggested. In 1959, that was enough to badly frighten a young moviegoer.

The point I am trying to make about 1959 horror is this: it was frightening, but it was also fun. (Were you, perchance, sitting on one of William Castle’s tingler devices when viewing The Tingler at your favorite neighborhood indoor theater?). That is not true today. There is nothing amusing about Freddie, Jason, or Hannibal Lector. One views a horror film for a different reason today than for escapism entertainment. 1973’s The Exorcist ended whatever innocence was left over from the 1960s. (In my mind, the House of Hammer and Roger Corman’s Poe cycle of films dominated the 1960s. While tame by today’s standards, they are an example of how horror and horror tastes were changing along with society during that time). Today, you may attend a horror film at the cinema to see if you are still capable of being genuinely shocked by what you see. In our unhealthy culture, chances are, you will not be.

It changed quickly after 1959. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho changed everything in 1960. It is interesting to note that his famous shower murder scene, perhaps the best known and most frightening of any ever placed within a motion picture, contained very little in the way of actual graphic violence. A few brief flashes of a knife blade and a dark chocolate sauce running suggestively down a bathtub drain are the disturbing points of that scene. Everything else is suggestion and the real horror is in the viewer’s mind. You may say that Psycho bridged the gap. It could be considered the last of the innocent horror films and also the first of the more realistic ones.

They say that night is darkest just before the dawn and a candle burns brightest just before flickering out. I believe this is the case with the horror genre in 1959 – less than a year before Psycho. House on Haunted Hill, released in late 1958 and very much a 1959 film in tone and mood, is perhaps the quintessential pre-Psycho horror film. It has everything a viewer from that era would want: Mood, atmosphere, a decent if not great plot; preposterous enough to be interesting but not taken too seriously and a fine cast including the great Vincent Price. For good measure it even contains some exterior shots of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis-Brown house in Los Angeles. (The Fall of the House of Usher would appear the following year, also starring Price. It would be an interesting shift in the direction of greater dark disturbance with the horror genre). I lovingly call it the Gone with the Wind of B-horror. Sadly, for me, things changed quickly and forever after that great horror year of 1959.

This is not to suggest that I do not enjoy today’s horror films. I do. I have followed the exploits of Hannibal Lector and Stephen King always seems to run a thread of wholesomeness and hope within his darkest stories. Ah – but how can any of these compete with The Headless Ghost and Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (a wonderful documentation of late 1950s teenage culture)? They can’t and that, as they say, is the rub.

People like me will simply have to remember and relive that time by re-viewing the films and, perhaps, reading articles such as this one.

Would you care to join me tonight? I have not seen The Monster of Piedras Blancas in a while, or perhaps you would prefer the cowboy vampire in Curse of the Undead.

Both of these, of course, in glorious black and white.