The Most Shocking Horror Movie From Each Year Of The 1950s – Screen Rant

The 1950's typically presented an idyllic view of life, but what horror movies went against the grain and shocked viewers throughout the decade?

The supposedly wholesome and family-oriented 1950s were, in actuality, anything but. Look no further than the decade's horror movies for proof that life wasn't all green lawns and picket fences. In fact, quite a few frightening flicks from the era undermine this whitewashed image of the ideal suburban existence.

RELATED:The Top 50 Horror Movies Of All Time, Ranked (According To IMDb)

While the Hays Code and it's "moral" guidelines limited what filmmakers could depict on screen in the United States, directors were still able to get away with a lot. Through implied violence, sudden plot twists, and looming monsters, these are most shocking entries to the 1950s horror cannon remain influential to this day.

Considered one of the most important horror movies to come out of Mexico,The Man Without a Face is one of a handful of shocking films helmed byJuan Bustillo Oro. As its title suggests, the film's eponymous character is a faceless serial killer hunting down women in Mexico.

Oro embeds noir vibes into his work, casting a troubled detective as the person who must bring the shadowy, visage-less murderer's reign of terror to an end. Replete with surrealistic imagery, psychological undertones, and pulpy plot points,The Man Without a Face is full of surprises.

Alfred Hitchcock explores the macabre curiosity of two men inStrangers on a Train. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, an amateur tennis star teams up with a charming, wealthy psychopath he meets on a train ride for nefarious ends: they will each orchestrate and get away with the perfect murder.

In true Hitchcockian fashion, these characters and their potential victims become wrapped up in a tense psychodrama that comes to a startling conclusion. While it doesn't depict much on-screen violence,Strangers on a Train delves into the evil things men are capable of committing.

This dark, jittery film noir is rife with psychological terror and intensity. Long beforePsychoexplored one disturbed man's deadly impulses,Harry Horner directed Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan in the tour-de-forceBeware, My Lovely.

RELATED:She Wouldn't Even Harm A Fly: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Psycho (1960)

Lupino plays a widow who hires Ryan's character to look over her home, but little does she know he's a convict on the run. The hired help harasses his boss, trapping her in her own home and threatening to kill her.

The first 3D, colorized horror filmreleased by a major motion picture studio,House of Waxgave star Vincent Price a much-needed career boost. Price plays the purveyor of a wax museum who coats real corpses in wax for his displays.

Spirited performances from Price and his co-star Carolyn Jones complement the movie's eerie atmospherics in compelling ways. With its visualized death scenes and focus on body horror,House of Wax got away with displaying some very subversive content on screen for 1953.

Although it was 1956's AmericanizedGodzilla, King of the Monsters! that introduced the world to the most iconic giant lizard of all time,Ishir Honda's original feature was a shocking success across Japan.Gojira, as the monster is referred to in the original film, stands as a metaphor for the devastation Japan experienced after being struck by atomic bombs at the end of WWII.

RELATED:Godzilla: The 10 Best Movies In The Entire Franchise, Ranked

Bringing Gojira to life secured Honda's status as the king of the monster movie while launching one of the most successful franchises of all time. Unfortunately, subsequent films downplay the nuclear war paranoia that makes the first entry soraw.

Two women plot and execute a murder inHenri-Georges Clouzot's startling French-language thriller.Simone Signoret andVra Clouzot play the mistress and wife (respectively) of the cruel school headmasterMichel Delassalle; when both women have had enough, they decide to end Michel's reign of terror by sedating and then killing him.

Les Diaboliques takes an unexpected turn when Michel's corpse goes missing, sending the women into a deranged search for his remains. Despite being a slow burn, Clouzot's masterpiece is a captivating, morally ambiguous tale of retribution.

One of the most paranoid sci-fi horror movies of the decade,Invasion of the Body Snatchers takes concerns about identity and embodiment to the next level. Kevin McCarthy stars as a small-town doctor whose sleepy California municipality is being silently attacked by alien invaders.

RELATED:The Thing & Every Body Snatchers Movie, Ranked (According to IMDb)

Arriving in the form of large, seed-like pods, these alienshope to clone every human until Earth is populated by emotionless duplicates. Even though the market was flooded withCold War-era creature features like this one, few come close to generating as muchgenuine fear in audiences as Invasion of the Body Snatchers- which was remade twice since its release.

One of the earliest Satanic panic horror flicks, Jacques Tourneur'sNight of the Demon delves into the occult, witchcraft, and parapsychological. It centers around an American psychologist who travels to London for a conference, only to find himself entangled in a devil-worshipping cult.

Tourneur builds tension and generates legitimate scares as the psychologist gets closer to the truth, which arrives in the form of an appalling, monstrous demon. Along the way, viewers are exposed to foggy forests, seances, and plenty of black magic.

Before David Cronenberg's 1986 film starring Jeff Goldblum, Kurt Neumann also offered little comedic relief with his take onGeorge Langelaan's short story. David Hedison plays a French-Canadian scientist whose experiments with a matter transporter go awry when a housefly joins him in the transportation chamber.

In this original version ofThe Fly, Hedison's characterAndr Delambre undergoes a revolting transformation into a humanoid fly hybrid. With its scientific inventiveness and earlytraipse into body horror,The Fly was way ahead of its time.

A bloody, comical horror movie for beatniks, Roger Corman'sA Bucket of Blood pokes fun at the burgeoning bohemian movement while dousing its characters, literally, in buckets of blood. It starsDick Miller as a busboy who becomes an overnight sensation for a sculpture he produces as the result of a terrible accident.

Miller's character Walter accidentally kills his landlady's cat and hides the evidence in clay. When he's asked to produce more "avant-garde" works of art, Walter suffers a nervous breakdown.

NEXT:10 50s Sci-Fi Movies That Are Still Mindblowing Today

Next 10 Things That Make No Sense About Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Megan is a public librarian by trade obsessed with the intersections between art, culture, and society. She's a nerd for horror, obscure memes, weird history, graphic novels, and binge-worthy science fiction series.

Read more from the original source:
The Most Shocking Horror Movie From Each Year Of The 1950s - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero