The appeal of the Gothic horror film ebbs and flows, like any subgenre.
Here then are 9 remarkable examples of the Gothic horror film done right, with some of them standing as classics and others as overlooked gems worthy of more affection.
In the 1950s and 60s Hammer Horror studios had great success re-inventing those Universal films with a lush color palette and the popularity of those more visceral films inspired filmmakers all over Europe to follow suit, adding sex and blood to fevered tales of Victorian-era graverobbing, tragic vampires, malevolent ghosts, doomed romances and almost pornographic levels of atmosphere and dread.
The earliest Universal films locked the two key Gothic horror properties in Frankenstein and Dracula to forge their initial spate of films and those two titles – along with Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and to a lesser extent, Bronte sister novels like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre – have been cornerstones of the sort of cinema lovers of all things ornate and romantic and lurid thrive on.