Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci (June 17, 1927 – March 13, 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his directorial work on gore films, including Zombie (1979) and The Beyond (1981), although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy. Fulci is known as the "Godfather of Gore". In 1979, he achieved his international breakthrough with Zombie, a violent zombie film that was marketed in European territories as a sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978). He quickly followed it up with several other tales of horror and the supernatural, many also featuring shambling, maggot-infested zombies which were all the rage at the time. His features released during the 1979 to 1983 period (most of them scripted by famed Italian screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti) were described by some critics as being among the most violent and gory films ever made. City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), House by the Cemetery (1981), The Black Cat (1981), and The New York Ripper (1982) were among his biggest hits, all of which featured extreme levels of on-screen blood and cruelty.

ZOMBIE (1979)

THE BEYOND (1981)

Dario Argento

Dario Argento began his career in film in the 60s as a critic and screenwriter. By the time he directed his first feature in 1969, Mario Bava and others had already built the foundation of the giallo sub-genre of which Argento would become the most famous proponent. As his work progressed through a dispensed with plotting intricacies in favor of vibrant and visceral studies of the terrifying (il)logic of nightmares. Argento has become known as one of the most visually creative directors in the horror genre, with his use of striking expressionistic lighting and color schemes as well as some of the most unusual and gory fake deaths ever lensed and musical scores that are both pulse-pounding and poetic.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L'Uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo, 1969)

Deep Red (Profondo Rosso, 1976)

Suspiria (1977) 

Creepers (Phenomena, 1985)

Mario Bava

Mario Bava was the horror film director responsible for several of the most memorable vampire films of the 1960s. He was born on July 31, 1914, in San Remo, Italy. He worked as a cameraman for two decades before he became a director. The disruption of the industry through the 1940s limited the number of features he worked on; but beginning in 1950, he worked on one or more films almost every year. Mario Bava made his name in the Italian film industry as a cinematographer on more than 70 films before he was finally assigned to finish directing I VAMPIRI for Ricardo Freda in 1956.
On the strength of this work, he was backed to direct a project on his own: BLACK SUNDAY (1960), which some still consider to be his masterpiece. For the last two decades of his life he continued a prolific directorial career, usually photographing his own films, and making a glorious transition from black and white to the vibrant color for which he became known and imitated. On the subject of imitation, it is worth noting that Bava—with his film BAY OF BLOOD (1971) featuring 13 murders in 90 minutes—was the progenitor of the "body count" horror movie. Because his films generally explore dark, adult psycho-sexual themes, they were on several occasions brutally censored and re-edited for release to English speaking audiences.

BLACK SUNDAY, (La Maschera del Demonio 1960)

 Black Sabbath (I Tre Volti della Paura, 1963)

Blood and Black Lace (Sei Donne per l'Assassino, 1964)

A Hatchet for a Honeymoon (Il Rosso Segno della Follia, 1969)