I was born in 1965, and my folks were fans of the movies. They took me along to almost everything I think. I was so young for some that I didn’t understand them. Or I barely remember them. One of the first that I recall as horror was The Corpse Grinders in 1971. A company was killing people and grinding them up for cat food! And the cats that ate the food went berserk wanting more human meat, attacking their owners! It was terrifying. Then I watched it again recently, and it was really kind of awful and not very scary at all.
Another a year later was Raw Meat in 1972. People being killed and eaten! People being trapped and chased in the subways! A scary guy who only seemed to be able to say “Mind the doors” (because he’d been born in a forgotten section of the British subway and grown up hearing the recorded warning over and over for years.) Nightmare inducing to a 7-year-old. Watched again recently, it wasn’t too bad. Kind of a thin story milked into a full length movie. Donald Pleasence was pretty funny. But not too scary.
Others I only remember in bits and images. I don’t even know if I remember them correctly. A type of captured vampire (I think he was a vampire) that they tried to kill by impaling through the heart and hanging, but finally died because the cross around his neck was made of steel. A guy being swarmed and consumed by insects. An invasion of carnivorous monsters that looked like lumps with one tentacle that ate people, and when they fed they were dormant for a short time while they split into two monsters. A very wet-faced werewolf dripping snot and drool.
I don’t think those snippets were all from the same movie, but maybe. There were some weird films in the 70s.
What are some of your earliest horror memories?