1950's Science Fiction/Horror Classics

1950's Science Fiction/Horror Classics

You know these movies and probably seen them. These are five of the original 1950’s classic horror flicks that may have scared you when you were a kid; well maybe some of you that are around my age. Most were made before I was born and some are in black and white, others in color. I used to watch them when I was a young girl, late night with my friends, and with a bowl of popcorn. It was our midnight horror flick tradition that we did almost every weekend. All have had remakes that may or may not have live up to the intensity of the original. I just wrote a reader digest version of each movie with a video of the trailer added on.

The ThingThe Thing is a 1951 movie which centers around a shape-shifting alien that infiltrates an Antarctic scientific research station and kills the Norwegian research team deployed there. A nearby American research team investigates the incident and is in turn attacked by the alien. Remake: 1982


Invasion of the Body Snatchers
In this 1956 movie the story focuses on a local doctor, who finds a rash of patients accusing their loved ones of being impostors and that the townspeople are being replaced by reproductions grown from plantlike pods. These pods are perfect physical duplicates that kill and dispose of their human victims and can be distinguished from normal people by their total lack of emotion. The pod people secretly spread more pods to replace the entire human race. Remake: 1978


Them
This 1954 film begins with New Mexico State Police Sergeant investigating the disappearance of a vacationing FBI agent and his wife. Their little girl was found wandering the desert in a state of shock and not speaking. The family’s trailer was found pulled into pieces by some great force, with a single strange track near the wreckage. These unusual track grab the attention of a father/daughter team of entomologists from the Department of Agriculture. A doctor arrives and has the little girl smell the contents of a vial of formic acid, which brings her out of shock and causes her to start screaming "Them! Them!" After returning to the trailor, the group encounters a patrol of soldier ants, mutated by atomic radiation to the size of automobiles. Remake: 2006


The BlobThe Blob is a 1958 movie about an amorphous creature from outer space which lands on Earth encased in a meteor. After making a meal of an elderly man, nurse and doctor, this jelly-like substance or “Blob”, continues to consume any living beings in its path. Remake: 1988


The Fly
The 1958 movie a Canadian scientist, has invented a teleportation device and after many setbacks including the family cat, he finds success in transporting a small rodent which appeared unharmed from the process. Confident in the machine's abilities, he now attempts to transport himself. The first time works, but, unknown to him a fly enters the cabin with him on his second attempt, and the two are jumbled together. The scientist emerges as a half-man, half-fly hybrid, a human with a fly's head, leg and arm/claw. After his wife finds out what happened, she tries to find the “fly with a white head” to reverse the process. He does return back to normal but realizes that his mind is being overtaken by that of the fly he asks his wife to end his suffering by killing him with a heavy machine press. Later, after his wife is arrested for his murder, we see her son and the Inspector looking in a spider web, where they see a tiny creature with the scientist’s head and arms with the body of a fly, shrieking, “Help me! Help me!” as it is about to be eaten by a large spider. Remake: 1986


The House on Haunted Hill
This 1959 movie, House on Haunted Hill is the story of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, who is throwing the "party" for his fourth wife, with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night, given that they are still alive, will each receive $10,000. After spending a horrifing night of murder, mayhem and trickory in the house, they think that the trauma in finally over and they can leave, but the real horror is revealed. With a terrifying look on his face, the millionaire announces to them that the ghosts are finally coming for them. Remake: 1999


Here is a list of more 1950's horror flicks.