I've made it so far. I'm almost finished watching every horror film of the 1960s. It's been a wild ride these past six months, but honestly, I think I'll be glad to move on when it's over.

This experience has mostly consisted of watching the same crappy films made over and over again. Going into this, I thought I would discover more gems like The Birds, Lady in a Cage, Seconds, and El esqueleto de la Señora Morales. However, I stand… corrected.

Granted, there are some cheesy tropes that I always enjoy seeing, such as the classic falling dummy shot, but then there's plenty of others that have me rolling my eyes, like the ever-present line, "This is the 20th century!", the go-to for any lazy genre screenwriter.

I’ll get into more of the stuff I hate tomorrow, but now I’d like to take you through eight horror films that I’d recommend from the last year, 1968. 8 from '68. Rolls off the tongue. Most of these films aren’t great, in my opinion, but I’d say they’re the cream of the crop as far as the year is concerned.

The Boston Strangler, Richard Fleischer

This one has the most stacked cast of all the '60s horror films I've seen. Henry Fonda, George Kennedy, Murray Hamilton, George Voskovec, William Hickey, William Marshall, a young James Brolin, and a special guest as the titular Strangler.

It really was a mistake to plaster the identity of this actor all over the promotional materials and on the opening credits, since he doesn’t show up until the halfway mark, and the film is about the many false leads the cops follow before finding the real culprit. I would recommend putting on the film and covering your eyes during the opening credits, or getting up to grab some snacks.

It's a decent '60s thriller, mostly what you'd expect from a Hollywood true crime film of the era. Good performances, naturally, and some cool split-screen tricks. The last third could've used some trimming, but the last scene is excellent.

Hasta el viento tiene miedo, Carlos Enrique Taboada

Well, the Mexicans have done good, for once. Mexican horror films, I mean, don't misread me here.

It's about a ghost haunting the observatory tower at a girls' college, but that's not the scary part. No no no, the real villain here is the college's flaming bitch of a principal that grounds a group of girls over the holiday break for snooping around the tower. Much like Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling!, she's a villain you love to despise and she steals the show. Granted, this film isn't nearly as good as that one.

It's almost like a "women in prison" film, albeit with far less sex, although there is a striptease!

I, the Executioner, Tai Kato

The Japanese are getting real hardcore this year. This one centers on a ladykiller, and it opens in quite a harsh fashion. After this first section of the film, however, it becomes more of a melodrama about people running away from their pasts.

The most intriguing aspect of the film is its final twist. It touches on a subject which is rarely ever explored in film or the media, and when it is, it's a subject of ridicule. This film, however, treats it with the seriousness it deserves. Perhaps it isn’t the most tasteful depiction, but at least it's being presented for your consideration.

Kuroneko, Kaneto Shindô

Shindô's follow-up to his 1964 classic Onibaba is a bit of a step down, but still worth your time. Like the aforementioned, this one also centers on a mother and daughter waiting for the son-in-law to return home from the war, only this time, it's the women who are brutally slain by a gang of bandits. They then spend the rest of their days as spirits, luring their killers one-by-one into their own web of death.

It takes a little while to get going, but once it does, you get some compelling drama accentuated by some nice cinematography. See Onibaba first, though.

Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero

Well, duh. This is the epitome of a classic, iconic horror film. It's amazing that a film with a $114K budget, one that couldn't afford an original score or an undented Pontiac GTO, could become such a major classic, one of the most watched, celebrated, and influential films ever made.

It definitely helps that it's in the public domain, so that it's freely available for everyone to view and disseminate legally. It will always be playing on late night TV somewhere. Classic films like these belong to the people, not to the corporations.

Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski

Another landmark film, a highlight of the great paranoid thrillers of the decade, one with truly disturbing implications. It's often hailed as one of the best films ever made, but I don't think I would rate it so highly.

It's a William Castle production of a Roman Polanski film, and you can see both of their styles at play here. Nothing will prepare you for the most disturbing moment in the film, when Rosemary dumps a cup of chocolate mousse in the trash. Such a fine dessert going to waste, unspeakable!

The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, Noriaki Yuasa

The Japanese are back at it again. It's quite similar to the Freddie Francis film Nightmare, with a girl returning from a Catholic school back to her troubled home, and just like that film, this one takes until the halfway mark to really get going.

Once again, you have villains that are thoroughly detestable, and by the film’s climax, you are rooting for the heroine to escape with her life. It’s not a great film like Nightmare or Die! Die! My Darling!, but it’s a decent, little thriller, more in line with an old children’s fable.

Viy, Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov, et. al.

For this last one, I'm cheating a little bit, since this film premiered in the Soviet Union in November of '67, but it continued its run into the following year, I imagine, and slowly made its way to the rest of the world over the succeeding years, so whatever.

It's the Soviets' first horror film, a classic case of witchcraft. The first half can be pretty dull, but it's worth it to get to the second half, a showcase of inventive special effects, as cheesy as they look, and some genuinely freaky monsters, all complemented by a beautiful color palette.

I would like to end by acknowledging Josh Spiegel of the YouTube channel Movie Timelines. It was his series The ’80s Project, as well as Brad Jones’ Year in Film series, that served as the main inspiration for embarking on my own comprehensive marathon. Thank you for reading and for loving the movies.