In the 1970s, everything was wilder, weirder, and more far-out—and horror movies were no exception. In North America, a new generation of maverick directors like Tobe Hooper (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE), George A. Romero (THE CRAZIES), Wes Craven (THE HILLS HAVE EYES), Brian De Palma (SISTERS), and David Cronenberg (THE BROOD) responded to the decade’s heightened political anxieties and Vietnam War–era sense of disillusionment by pushing the genre’s psychological intensity and visceral violence to shocking new heights. Across the Atlantic, Britain’s legendary Hammer Films continued to serve up old-school gothic spine-tinglers (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS), while auteurs like Nicolas Roeg (DON’T LOOK NOW) wedded spellbinding terror to art-house experimentation. Bringing together some of the decade’s most iconic slashers, chillers, and killer thrillers alongside low-budget cult rarities (LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH, DEATHDREAM) and camp-tastic oddities (TROG, THEATER OF BLOOD), this tour through the 1970s nightmare realm is a veritable blood feast of perverse pleasures from a time when gore, grime, and sleaze found a permanent home in horror.
Directed by Freddie Francis • 1970 • United Kingdom
Starring Joan Crawford, Michael Gough, Bernard Kay
Joan Crawford meets the missing link in this cult classic of camp horror, which marked the Hollywood legend’s final film appearance. Deep within a hidden cave, Dr. Brockton (Crawford) discovers...
Directed by Roy Ward Baker • 1970 • United Kingdom
Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, George Cole
Hammer Film Productions put a sexy, sapphic spin on their celebrated vampire cycle with this lusty take on Sheridan LeFanu’s gothic classic “Carmilla.” Cult icon Ingrid Pitt plays the bloodthirsty...
Directed by John D. Hancock • 1971 • United States
Starring Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Gretchen Corbett
One of the most fascinating horror films of the 1970s, this low-budget cult gem conjures an otherworldly mood of dreamlike dread. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, the unstable Jessica (...
Directed by Harry Kümel • 1971 • Belgium
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet, John Karlen
The vampire myth gets a disturbingly seductive psychosexual spin in one of the most exquisitely mesmerizing adult horror films ever made. International screen icon Delphine Seyrig stars as Elizabeth B...
Directed by Michael Winner • 1971 • United Kingdom
Starring Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird
Marlon Brando brings considerable menace to this chilling prequel to Henry James’s classic tale of psychological terror THE TURN OF THE SCREW. He plays Quint, the gardener at an eerie English...
Directed by Alan Gibson • 1972 • United Kingdom
Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Stephanie Beacham
Dracula is raised into the modern era in this swinging shocker from the legendary Hammer Films. Bored with life in the ultra-mod London of 1972, a band of jaded Satan-worshipers decide to r...
Directed by Gary Sherman • 1972 • United Kingdom
Starring Donald Pleasence, Norman Rossington, David Ladd
Two years before THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, this lesser-known but equally harrowing cannibal shocker brought flesh-eating mayhem to the screen with gruesome ferocity. When a prominent poli...
Directed by Robert Altman • 1972 • United Kingdom
Starring Susannah York, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi
In the midst of his remarkable 1970s creative run, Robert Altman made one of his boldest and most unique films. Susannah York won the best actress award at Cannes for her edgy performance ...
Directed by George A. Romero • 1972 • United States
Starring Jan White, Raymond Laine, Ann Muffly
Perhaps the most unclassifiable work by George A. Romero, SEASON OF THE WITCH sees the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD director returning to the realm of the supernatural for the bewitching tale of a house...
Directed by Nicolas Roeg • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie mesmerize as a married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, t...
Directed by Brian De Palma • 1973 • United States
Starring Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning
Margot Kidder is Danielle, a beautiful model separated from her Siamese twin, Dominique. When a hotshot reporter (Jennifer Salt) suspects Dominique of a brutal murder, she becomes dangerously...
Directed by Douglas Hickox • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Harry Andrews
The one and only Vincent Price brings his inimitable flair for camp to this wickedly inventive horror comedy. He is perfectly cast as a scenery-chewing Shakespearean actor determined to wreak ven...
Directed by Robin Hardy • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee
This legendary cult favorite was released to relatively little fanfare but has gone on to be regarded as one of the most disturbing and audacious horror films of all time. A young girl’s disappearance br...
Directed by Bill Gunn • 1973 • United States
Starring Duane Jones, Marlene Clark, Bill Gunn
Straining the conventions of blaxploitation and horror through a singular avant-garde sensibility, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent landmark GANJA & HESS is a highly stylized and utterly original tre...
Directed by George A. Romero • 1973 • United States
Starring Lane Carroll, Will MacMillan, Harold Wayne Jones
When a plane carrying a secret biological weapon crash-lands in the vicinity of a rural town, the area descends into chaos. Infected with a virus that sends them into a homicidal frenzy,...
Directed by Larry Cohen • 1974 • United States
Starring John P. Ryan, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan
It has a nasty habit of killing when it’s scared . . . and it’s very easily scared! Frank (John P. Ryan) and Lenore Davies (Sharon Farrell) have been anticipating the birth of their child, plagued...
Directed by Bob Clark • 1974 • Canada
Starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder
In 1974, a low-budget nightmare filmed in Toronto was unleashed upon theaters and revolutionized horror cinema. A now-legendary film among genre aficionados, the groundbreaking BLACK CHRISTMAS was not only t...
Directed by Tobe Hooper • 1974 • United States
Starring Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal
Nearly fifty years ago, five youths on a weekend getaway in the Texas countryside fell prey to a butcher in a mask made of human skin and his cannibalistic family, and horror cinema would never be ...
Directed by Bob Clark • 1974 • Canada
Starring Richard Backus, John Marley, Lynn Carlin
In this shattering variation on “The Monkey’s Paw,” grief-stricken suburban parents Charles (John Marley) and Christine Brooks (Lynn Carlin) refuse to accept the news that their son, Andy (Richard Backus), ha...
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1975 • Canada
Starring Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry
Canadian auteur David Cronenberg has spent much of his career mining our fears about sex, technology, and corporeal existence, but this breakout feature is perhaps the most shocking of all his body-horror ...
Directed by Matt Cimber • 1976 • United States
Starring Millie Perkins, Lonny Chapman, Vanessa Brown
Representing something of an anomaly in the career of director Matt Cimber (whose other credits include blaxploitation fare like THE CANDY TANGERINE MAN), THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA is an un...
Directed by Wes Craven • 1977 • United States
Starring Suze Lanier-Bramlett, Robert Houston, Martin Speer
The lucky ones died first . . . Horror master Wes Craven achieved critical and commercial success with the likes of SCREAM and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET—but for many genre fans, the director...
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1977 • Canada
Starring Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver
David Cronenberg cemented his reputation as one of the most daring directors of his generation with his deeply disturbing second foray into the body-horror genre. After undergoing radical emergency su...
