The best horror movies of the 1970s

Combining horror with sci-fi was far from a new thing by the time Alien rolled around in 1979. However, Ridley Scott’s movie would achieve a balance between the two elements like few films before or since. It might essentially play out like a slasher movie in space, but Alien’s dank, lived-in atmosphere and sense of place, as well as an H. R. Giger-designed alien foe that’s glimpsed only occasionally, gives the film a singular and timeless appeal.

Max von Sydow plays the titular priest called in to attempt an exorcism of a particularly nasty demon from a young girl. Never mind The Exorcist being in the running for the best horror movie ever made – there are well known critics out there who would name William Friedkin’s 1973 religious horror as the best movie period. It’s certainly one of the most influential, not to mention the most controversial. The Exorcist had to contend with moral outrage and an almighty certification row even as it did unexpectedly huge numbers at the box office.

Ten years on from Night of the Living Dead, the second film in George A. Romero’s seminal zombie series marks a suitably huge shift. Not only is it in full colour this time, it moves the focus to a US shopping mall, and in the process serves as a stinging rebuke of consumerist culture. David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, and Gaylen Ross play the survivors holed up in a former shopper’s paradise. Needless to say, Romero’s depiction of the undead continues to be treated as gospel, and he laid a lot of the groundwork here.

Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror movie proved hugely influential to subsequent decades of slasher movies. Unlike many of the films it influenced, however, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre retains its ability to shock and disturb some 50 years on. Taking the real life story of serial killer Ed Gein as its (very loose) inspiration, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre leans into the grit and the grime of its sordid source material. In antagonist Leatherface, meanwhile, the film produces one of the great Hollywood boogeymen of all time.

This shortlist was designed to mark the Halloween season, so it only seems fitting the original Halloween movie gets a mention. John Carpenter’s movie would go on to spawn a long and patchy franchise, but the original still hits hard. It would make a truly iconic villain of Michael Myers, the disturbed killer who terrorises a sleepy suburban Illinois town after donning a nightmare-inducing rubber mask. Jamie Curtis plays the would-be teenage victim fighting to survive the slaughter.

There’s a long-running controversy over whether Steven Spielberg directed 1982’s Poltergeist, but the truth is he’d already made his definitive contribution to horror some seven years earlier. Many would class Jaws as a thriller, but as successive generations of kids will attest, nothing can induce as much latent dread as the two ominous opening notes of the Jaws main theme. That’s a tribute to Spielberg’s mastery of his craft, as he steadily ratchets up the tension in the tale of a great white shark terrorising a US coastal town.

These days, a story about a young girl who discovers she harbours enormous telekinetic powers sounds like perfect material for a PG-rated Disney Plus treatment. Suffice to say, Brian De Palma’s take on Stephen King’s 1974 novel is anything but. It starts out as a relatively low-key psychological drama dealing with themes such as religious fanaticism and teenage alienation. It all climaxes in a shocking bloodbath as the various pressures on our shy young protagonist reach a luridly violent head.

Robin Hardy’s cult 1973 film is steeped in old fashioned British paganism, and derives its creeping brand of horror from the contrast between idyllic scenes of pastoral life and something altogether more sinister running just under the cosy veneer. Edward Woodward’s virtuous Sergeant Neil Howie travels to the fictional Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, but soon finds himself playing an unwittingly central part in the community’s ancient and sinister customs.

Jack Finney’s 1956 novel The Body Snatchers has to be one of the most frequently adapted sci-fi horror stories ever written, and Philip Kaufman’s 1978 movie is widely held to be the best of the lot. Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, and a young Jeff Goldblum all feature in this paranoid tale of humanity steadily being replaced by a parasitic plant-like alien. The final scene, in particular, has to be one of the most desolately chilling ever committed to film.

The Omen may have spawned a fairly underwhelming batch of sequels, but that’s no knock on the quality of the original. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is a carefully paced, even subtle horror film that eschews blood and guts and focuses instead on a steadily building sense of dread and unease. The story concerns a family who comes to suspect their young child just might be the antichrist, as a succession of increasingly dark and portentous events start to occur around young Damien.

Wes Craven’s second film after The Last House on the Left (also on this list) transplants his sadistic flair to the Mojave desert, as a family road trip turns into a hellish nightmare. When the Carter family finds themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, a family of deformed cannibals sets about them. What ensues is a remarkably brutal war of attrition, though in true Wes Craven style, it would be a stretch to declare any real winners.

Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film is quite unlike any other horror film on this or any other list. From its chilly Venice setting to its intimate portrayal of a grieving couple (played superbly by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) dealing with the loss of their young child, Don’t Look Now just hits different. The film’s clever editing plays with memory and ominous foreshadowing, while its inscrutable denouement is so unsettlingly odd it will stay lodged in your brain forever.

It took some chutzpah producing an homage to and remake of one of the original horror movie greats, 1922’s Nosferatu. But then, writer-director Werner Herzog has shown repeatedly that he is nothing if not bold. His film serves to reunite the original silent picture’s creepy bald-headed vampire with Bram Stoker’s Dracula mythos, upon which it was unofficially based. The mercurial Klaus Kinski is perfectly cast as a terrifyingly intense Count Dracula, who finds his passions stirred by Isabelle Adjani’s innocent Lucy Harker.

Pre-empting John Carpenter’s Halloween by some four years, this low budget Canadian production is seen by many as a prototype for the ensuing slasher genre. It follows a group of sorority sisters (one of whom is played by future Lois Lane Margot Kidder) as they’re at first threatened, then stalked, and ultimately killed off in various gruesome ways by a mysterious psychopath one Christmas. It remains queasily terrifying stuff in the here and now, and if anything has only grown in stature over the years.

It wouldn’t be until the ’80s that Wes Craven would make his signature horror genre statement with A Nightmare on Elm Street, but he made a memorable start more than a decade earlier with The Last House on the Left. It’s an incredibly dark way to kick of a career, pulling few punches with its depiction of the incarceration and violent assault of a young woman by a gang of violent criminals, as well as the violent retribution sought by her parents. This one’s horrific in a gruesomely unflinching way.

Just before making what many consider to be his definitive horror statement in Suspiria, Italian director Dario Argento produced this equally inspired giallo film. Deep Red concerns a Jazz pianist, played by David Hemmings, who finds himself drawn into investigating a string of grisly murders by an almost supernaturally gifted leather-gloved menace. Soon enough, a deadly chase develops as the killer stalks our hero and disposes of anyone who might help uncover their identity.

Dario Argento’s 1977 ‘giallo’ – a specifically Italian breed of horror-thriller steeped in garish blood and pronounced eroticism – has proved hugely influential over the years. It concerns a young American ballerina (played by Jessica Harper) who rocks up to a German dance academy, only to discover that the institute has a sinister grounding in the occult. The film’s loose narrative, striking use of colour and grandiose set-pieces give it a dream-like tone that even Luca Guadagnino failed to match in his 2018 remake.

David Cronenberg’s final film of the ’70s turns a bitter domestic squabble between two divorcees (played by Samantha Eggar and Art Hindle) into a chilling slice of sci-fi body horror. Oliver Reed plays the sinister Dr. Hal Raglan, who develops a mysterious new physiological procedure to help his patients deal with psychological traumas. The monstrous results leave a trail of death and destruction. It’s a classic Cronenberg move, using outlandish horror as a metaphor for his own everyday concerns.

Don Coscarelli’s first Phantasm film introduced the world to the Tall Man, a creepy mortician who silently terrorises his victims through various mystical and technological means. It’s the film’s dreamlike tone and vivid imagery that sets Phantasm apart from its ’70s horror peers. It might be low-budget and hammily acted, but if ever there was a film that typified the cliché ‘expect the unexpected’, it’s this one. Phantasm is without doubt one of the weirdest films on this list, which is really saying something.

As the debut effort of one David Lynch, Eraserhead is some calling card. The American auteur wrote, directed, produced, edited, and scored this 1977 black-and-white film. It hasn’t lost any of its disconcerting edge in the ensuing year. The plot, such as it is, concerns a man (played by Henry Spencer) who discovers he has become the father to a deformed monstrosity. But really, describing Eraserhead’s plot feels a little like recounting last night’s nightmare. You really need to see it – or rather experience it – for yourself.