By Andrew Buckner

The following is a list of thirty-one terrific lesser-known and/or underappreciated horror films. All of which deserve to be more often celebrated. There is one title reserved for each day in October. This is with at least one entry per decade from 1920-2020. The varied genre features included herein are arranged in order of the earliest year of release to the most recent. When two or more movies share the same year, they are placed in alphabetical order.

This article will be the first of a yearly set of such itemizations. Thirty-one different terror pictures, all of which are similarly underpraised, will be included every October in each accruing piece. These works will also follow the rules specifically laid-out in the first paragraph concerning the decades of 1920-2020. Each respective exercise in this series will be published at AWordofDreams.com by the middle of the previously mentioned month.

Without further hesitation, here are the selections for 2021.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Director: Rupert Julian.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Freaks (1932)

Director: Tod Browning.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Director: Jacques Tourneur.

Isle of the Dead (1945)

Director: Mark Robson.

Them! (1954)

Director: Gordon Douglas.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Director: Terence Fisher.

The Tingler (1959)

Director: William Castle.

Black Sunday (1960)

Director: Mario Bava.

Kwaidan (1964)

Director: Masaki Kobayashi.

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)

Director: Paolo Cavara.

The Devils (1971)

Director: Ken Russell.

It’s Alive (1974)

Director: Larry Cohen.

Martin (1976)

Director: George A. Romero.

House (1977)

Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Directors: Barbara Peeters, Jimmy T. Murakami.

Inferno (1980)

Director: Dario Argento.

Motel Hell (1980)

Director: Kevin Connor.

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981)

Director: Andrea Bianchi.

The Entity (1982)

Director: Sidney J. Furie.

Santa Sangre (1989)

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Tetsou: The Iron Man (1989)

Director: Shin’ya Tsukamoto.

Dead Alive (1992)

Director: Peter Jackson.

Ghostwatch (1992)

Director: Lesley Manning.

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Director: Guillermo del Toro.

Teeth (2007)

Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein.

Pontypool (2008)

Director: Bruce McDonald.

mother! (2016)

Director: Darren Aronofsky.

The Wolf House (2018)

Directors: Joaquin Cocina, Cristobal Leon.

Tennessee Gothic (2019)

Director: Jeff Wedding.

Sister Tempest (2020)

Director: Joe Badon.