These were the core monster films that featured the immortal Universal Classic Monsters movies, the canonical ones of which were released between 1931 and 1954. Here is the standard list:

Movies from RKO included —

King Kong (1933), Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Body Snatcher (1945), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939, with Charles Laughton), Bedlam (1946), The Curse of the Cat People (1944), The Thing from Another World (1951)

Too many to list. I never liked any of these boring British pieces of crap where nothing happens. Interesting witty dialog, to be sure, my good chap! Yet the special effects were supposed to be groundbreaking and controversial for the time. I downloaded all the films in the Frankenstein and Dracula series, and I had to hunt to find the exciting gore parts. And it’s true—there is blood and, sometimes, pink and flesh-tone blobs. But the stories, like the Dr. Who episodes from the same period, are draggy.

During its powerhouse years (1947 − 1979), Hammer released 158 films. 50 of these were horror, the “Hammer horror films.” And of these, 15 covered the Universal Classic Monsters and were part of the Creature Features distribution.

UPDATE: Having sent a FOIA request to WCIX this year (2019), I finally got the list! Here it is:

• The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
• Dracula (1958)
• The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
• The Mummy (1959)
• The Brides of Dracula (1960)
• The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)
• The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
• Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
• Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
• Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
• Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
• Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
• Scars of Dracula (1970)
• The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
• The Vampire Lovers (1970) — Everyone loves lesbian porn. Everyone. Nothing is more beautiful and mesmerizing. Today it is cliche, but things used to be different. Lesbian sex scenes once lived in “the mind alone,” as Anselm would say. In fact, the father of all Monster Kids, Forry Ackerman, was found guilty on five counts of mailing “letters which were obscene, lewd, indecent, lascivious and filthy in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1461.” The content? Written lesbian fantasies. So I think the normalization that lesbian sex received in the monster/vampire genre was a big release valve so a massively popular fantasy type.

AIP is the producer of the famous Corman-Poe Cycle. Each movie in the CPC features Vincent Price. Each has the same shot of an obvious matte painting castle/mansion/house on a hill by a rocky shore. Each has the same plot—a young guy comes to Vincent’s castle to save a young female. And each has the same ending—the building burns down. And except for their titles, each has nothing to do with any story by Poe. Here they are —

Besides the CPC movies, AIP also produce the first horror movie that I remember, or the one that impacted me in a serious way by altering or intensifying my self-consciousness and -concept—The Screaming Skull (1958).

The Screaming Skull 1958 [1975]. By John Kneubuhl. Directed by Alex Nicol.

House of Usher 1960. By Richard Matheson & Edgar Allan Poe (story). Directed by Roger Corman.

The thrillers by Amicus Productions included:

• Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
• Torture Garden (1967)
• The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
• Tales from the Crypt (1972)
• Asylum (1972)
• Vault of Horror (1973)
• From Beyond the Grave (1974)
• The Skull (1965)
• The Deadly Bees (1966)
• I, Monster (1971)
• And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
• The Beast Must Die (1974).

UPDATE

I just saw Tales from the Crypt (1972) and Vault of Horror (1973) for the first time last week (March 15) and I was shocked by how good (upsetting, repulsive) they were. Since Amicus is English, I figured their stuff would be as boring as the Hammer horror films or even Dr. Who.

People use “cruel” and “terrible” to describe the Saw films—and slasher films generally. But there is no cruelty like the cruelty of the elite-cold-sociopathic inhuman assholes in Tales from the Crypt (1972) and Vault of Horror (1973). It is stomach-turning because it is narcissistic self-serving cruelty and total disregard of others as even having feelings. People—loving spouses, even the heartbreakingly altruistic Peter Cushing—were less than furniture, and treated with the simplest and driest disregard. Way more inhuman than anything in the Saw series.

The sexy BDSM occult films produced by Tigon include:

• Witchfinder General (1968) — Vincent Price’s best acting.
• The Blood Beast Terror (1968)
• The Crimson Cult (1968)
• The Body Stealers (1969)
• Horror House (1969)
• The Beast in the Cellar (1971)
• The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)
• The Creeping Flesh (1973)