TAGGED AS: foreign, Horror, movies
(Photo by International Classics)
The 47 Best Italian Horror Movies
The golden age of Italian horror may have been brief, but the country’s innovations in style and genre have given the era’s movies an enduring appeal sustained in the decades since. Among the most exciting contributions to horror from Italy include the wonderfully spooky supernatural Suspiria, proto-slasher A Bay of Blood, and Cannibal Holocaust, the notorious, heavily banned found footage movie. Of course, we can’t leave out giallo films (murder mysteries featuring high body counts and erotic content, with the identity of the killer saved for a big finale reveal) like Deep Red and The Cat o’ Nine Tails.
#1
Adjusted Score: 100639%
Critics Consensus: The blood pours freely in Argento's classic Suspiria, a giallo horror as grandiose and glossy as it is gory.
Synopsis: Suzy (Jessica Harper) travels to Germany to attend ballet school. When she arrives, late on a stormy night, no one...
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#2
Adjusted Score: 90065%
Critics Consensus: Combining a deadly thriller plot with stylized violence, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage marks an impressive horror debut for Dario Argento.
Synopsis: An American writer, Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), is living in Rome with his girlfriend, Julia (Suzy Kendall). While visiting an...
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#3
Adjusted Score: 100559%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Oliviero is a drunk, burned-out writer who amuses himself by hosting orgies and humiliating his wife. When a number of...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 60645%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A young woman can see into the future and is horrified when she sees the circumstances surrounding her own death....
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#5
Adjusted Score: 65760%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A woman tormented by strange, drug-induced hallucinations finds her fantasies giving way to violent reality....
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#6
Adjusted Score: 95661%
Critics Consensus: The kinetic camerawork and brutal over-the-top gore that made Dario Argento famous is on full display, but the addition of a compelling, complex story makes Deep Red a masterpiece.
Synopsis: A psychic medium (Macha Méril) is brutally murdered, and musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) feels a need to solve the...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 91202%
Critics Consensus: The Opera house location gives plenty to work with for director Dario Argento, who hits his decadently bloody high notes here.
Synopsis: A hooded figure forces a young diva (Cristina Marsillach) to watch as he murders performers in a production of Verdi's...
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#8
Adjusted Score: 90685%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Karloff introduces tales of a haunted nurse (Jacqueline Pierreux), a stalked call girl (Michèle Mercier) and a vampire (Boris Karloff)....
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#9
Adjusted Score: 90402%
Critics Consensus: Mario Bava's official narrative debut is a witchy nightmare steeped in gothic splendor, shot in chiaroscuro black and white and punctuated with startling gore.
Synopsis: Burned at the stake, a vampire witch princess (Barbara Steele) wakes up centuries later with her undead henchman....
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#10
Adjusted Score: 86841%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Following the murder of Countess Federica Donati (Isa Miranda), an heiress possessing a beautiful piece of beachfront property, members of...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 77524%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A reporter and a young woman investigate a series of child murders in a remote town....
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#12
Adjusted Score: 83059%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Visiting Rome on a promotional tour for his new novel, writer Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is pulled into a murder...
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#13
Adjusted Score: 82762%
Critics Consensus: The Cat O'Nine Tails is a solidly entertaining Argento outing elevated by a well-chosen cast and the director's distinctive visual style.
Synopsis: A newsman (James Franciscus) works with a blind puzzle-solver (Karl Malden) to catch a killer with mixed-up chromosomes....
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#14
Adjusted Score: 80869%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A masked man with a metal-claw glove stalks models at a couple's (Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok) fashion salon in Rome....
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#15
Adjusted Score: 80413%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A sadistic nobleman terrorizes his family, but the relief that the family members feel upon his death is short-lived when...
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#16
Adjusted Score: 74240%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An astronaut (Barry Sullivan) and his partner (Norma Bengell) flee from walking-dead astronauts on a volcanic planet....
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#17
Adjusted Score: 55838%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A police detective falls under hallucinatory spells while trying to capture the sadistic man who raped her....
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#18
Adjusted Score: 71486%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Patrons (Natasha Hovey, Urbano Barberini) of a sneak preview see others zombie-fied to heavy-metal music in a Berlin theater....
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#19
Adjusted Score: 71090%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After several coeds are murdered at a college, a professor (Fabio Testi) who is involved with a student becomes a...
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#20
Adjusted Score: 70262%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An American tourist (Letícia Román) in Rome witnesses a vicious murder, but no one believes her. Fearing she may be...
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#21
Adjusted Score: 73153%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#22
Adjusted Score: 69440%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Gruesome deaths occur when a woman (Katherine MacColl) inherits a hotel that is one of seven gateways to hell....
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#23
Adjusted Score: 66014%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A professor (Francesca Ciardi) finds the remains of a film crew in the Amazon and brings the camera footage back...
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#24
Adjusted Score: 64110%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Tourists are trapped in a cathedral cursed since the Crusades by the mayhem of German knights....
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#25
Adjusted Score: 64707%
Critics Consensus: Cemetery Man will frustrate viewers seeking narrative cohesion or coherence, but this surreal blend of humor and horror should satisfy B-movie fans in the mood for quirk.
Synopsis: Something is causing the dead to rise from their graves as flesh-eating zombies, and cemetery custodian Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett)...
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#26
Adjusted Score: 63893%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A young man (Leigh McCloskey) returns from Rome to his sister's (Irene Miracle) satanic New York apartment house....
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#27
Adjusted Score: 63213%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A madman haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife carves a corpse-laden trail....
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#28
Adjusted Score: 61114%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A woman (Daria Nicolodi) returns to her former home with a new spouse (John Steiner) and a son (David Colin...
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#29
Adjusted Score: 52422%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Dario Argento directs the tale of a rock musician who becomes entangled in a gruesome murder case....
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#30
Adjusted Score: 60178%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A hooded killer with a hacksaw stalks college coeds (Suzy Kendall, Tina Aumont)....
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#31
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#32
Adjusted Score: 32809%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Five people traveling by camper crash into a tree. When they recover, the road they were driving on has been...
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#33
Adjusted Score: 58413%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A hallucinating woman (Elke Sommer) flees to a mansion full of corpses and sees the devil (Telly Savalas) and other...
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#34
Adjusted Score: 54177%
Critics Consensus: While it's far from Dario Argento's best, Dark Glasses may be worth a look for fans hungry for another horrific helping from a master of his craft.
Synopsis: Rome. A serial killer has killed three prostitutes, strangling them with cello ropes. The last rope of the "Cellist" is...
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#35
Adjusted Score: 23666%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A TV reporter (Hugo Stiglitz) spreads the news of radioactive monsters, growing in number with every victim....
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#36
Adjusted Score: 32706%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Two mixed-up young lovers try to hunt down a decapitator called Head Hunter by the media....
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#37
Adjusted Score: 50195%
Critics Consensus: As excessive and ketchup laden as predecessors Suspiria and Inferno, Dario Argento's Mother of Tears completes the trilogy with the same baroque grandeur and soggy 1970s sensibilities.
Synopsis: Grisly deaths await Italian citizens after an archaeology student (Asia Argento) accidentally releases a demonic witch from her ancient prison....
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#38
Adjusted Score: 40109%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Soon after moving his family into a New England house with a dark history, a doctor begins receiving warnings from...
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#39
Adjusted Score: 44894%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A newsman (Christopher George) and a prematurely buried woman (Katriona McColl) confront the living dead in Massachusetts....
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#40
Adjusted Score: 45141%
Critics Consensus: Zombi 2 is an absurdly graphic zombie movie legendary for some gory scenes and nothing in between.
Synopsis: A New York reporter (Ian McCulloch) follows a woman (Tisa Farrow) to an island where a doctor (Richard Johnson) faces...
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#41
Adjusted Score: 22186%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A cocaine dealer and an anthropology student fall victim to cannibalistic Colombian natives....
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#42
Adjusted Score: 21965%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An American photographer (Mimsy Farmer) and a Scotland Yard inspector (David Warbeck) suspect a man's (Patrick Magee) cat of murder....
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#43
Adjusted Score: 22650%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A homicidal madman's vendetta against promiscuous women is taken to grisly extremes on the streets of Manhattan....
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#44
Adjusted Score: 20563%
Critics Consensus: Schlocky and gross but far from bad enough to be good, Argento's Dracula 3D bites and sucks in all the wrong ways.
Synopsis: Count Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann) wants to sink his fangs into Mina Harker (Marta Gastini), who resembles the vampire's late wife....
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#45
Adjusted Score: 7927%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: When a British tourist is kidnapped, lawman John Brennan (Liam Cunningham) heads to Rome to investigate -- and falls into...
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#46
Adjusted Score: 14090%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Castle renovators revive the moldy ghost of an Austrian baron (Joseph Cotten) known for his torture chamber....
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#47
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A menacing catacomb dweller (Julian Sands), raised by rats beneath the Paris Opera, falls for an understudy (Asia Argento)....
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