The five best British horror movies of the 1960s that you’ve never heard of

Posted On October 21, 2025October 21, 2025

It’s sad that in recent years British horror hasn’t thrived as much as it once did, because there was a time when some of the most haunting, ridiculous, sinister, and camp scary movies were emerging from the island, doused in bright red paint and probably led by Christopher Lee. 

Hammer and Amicus had the biggest hold over horror in Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s, with the former’s championing of pre-existing horror characters, like Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula, drawing in countless viewers. The 1960s was a time of experimentation for the genre, because the goriness and explicitness that would come to be commonplace in the 1970s had not been yet established, hence filmmakers had to get creative. Often tinged with a sexiness that was appropriately of the era—think women with ample cleavage on display for no apparent reason—and joined by terrible special effects and schlocky dialogue, the campiness of many British horror films from the period has kept a dedicated cult following all these years later.

That’s not to say that there weren’t horror movies from the era that didn’t take their subjects more seriously, with Satanic worship and fears of witchcraft, possession, and paganism certainly making for some dense thematic exploration, reflecting a time when society in ‘60s Britain was rapidly changing. 

With social justice movements picking up speed as a shift in thought came with the rise of the post-war generation, people’s fears and deep-rooted anxieties in response to this change could be traced through these underrated horror gems.

The five best 1960s British horror films you’ve never heard of:

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