Horror in the public domain

The most popular horror film in terms of downloads on Archive.org

Let’s face it; being a horror fan can sometimes be quite expensive. Between picking up our favorite DVDs, books, posters, action figures, comics and other bits and pieces, horror fans can find that although their collection is impressive, their wallet may not be. However, if someone knows where to look, there are many resources available to the horror fan that can provide excellent genre entertainment for free.

The first step in the hunt for free horror entertainment, is learning what the public domain is and what it has to offer. Wikipedia.com defines public domain as “a range of abstract materials—commonly referred to as intellectual property—which are not owned or controlled by anyone. The term indicates that these materials are therefore "public property", and available for anyone to use for any purpose.” The only question now is: How do I get my hands on these free films?

Many companies have gathered works found in the public domain, repackaged them, and then sold them as a pack of many horror films. Millcreek Entertainment has put together multiple collections of horror and sci-fi films and sold them for pennies per movie. However, if you would like to find public domain works completely for free,  The Internet Archive is a great place to start looking. The Internet Archive (Archive.org) is an online resource that provides a collection of links to download films, texts, and audio.

On Archive.org, you can find a landing page that is the portal for horror and sci-fi films. Here is the gateway to find films by luminaries of the genre such as William Castle, George Romero, Roger Corman, Dario Argento, Peter Jackson, and many more. There are many formats available; however, the most common formats are MPEG4, MPEG2, and OGG. Before downloading any of these films, it’s a good idea to read some of the comments that have been posted. These comments may give the downloader important information such as an idea of the quality of the file to be downloaded.

Films, however, are not the only thing that can be found on The Internet Archive. Horror novels can be found in both text and audio format. If you’re a fan of Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, or Edgar Alan Poe. These works are typically read and recorded by volunteers for organizations such as LibraVox. LibraVox has a mission to “to make all public domain books available as free audio books.” Their noble efforts give us hours and hours of free entertainment. Although these volunteers are not professional audio book readers, the quality of the readings are typically very good. The quality of the audio file itself is also very good in general.

The resources discussed in this article hardly scratch the surface of horror entertainment that can be found on the World Wide Web for free. This will be the first of many articles to be found here regarding free horror entertainment and where it can be found.