10 Must-See Horror Movies From The ’70s – Screen Rant

From Jaws to Carrie to the slasher-defining Halloween, the horror genre owes a lot to the seventies. Which of these films still make audiences scream?

When it comes to naming the greatest decade in American cinema, the 70s is bound to come up as a strong contender. This is the decade that brought moviegoers the New Hollywood movement, which blended big-studio filmmaking and arthouse sensibilities to produce movies like The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

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The cynicism of this era of cinema can be attributed to the political climate of the time. American audiences wereon edge due to the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. Naturally, a social climate of fear was great for horror movies. Some real masterpieces of the genre hit theaters in the 1970s.

Steven Spielberg proved with 1975s Jaws, widely regarded to be the first-ever summer blockbuster, that excessive gore and an R rating arent what matter when creating a sense of dread in an audience. Despite its PG rating, Jaws is one of the most terrifying movies ever made. Spielberg used all the tricks from the Hitchcockian suspense playbook to make his audience fear a 25-foot great white shark for two hours while only actually seeing it for around four minutes.

What elevates Jaws above its shark-infested imitators is its perfectly constructed screenplay. This isnt a movie about a shark; its a movie about three mismatched guys. The shark is just there to get them on a boat together in the middle of the ocean.

Brian De Palma is one of the masters of cinematic violence. Hes turned on-screen bloodshed, once disregarded as Hollywoods form of smut, into an art form. He was the perfect filmmaker to bring Stephen Kings debut novel Carrie to the big screen.

The title character develops telekinetic powers while facing merciless bullying from both her abusive religious zealot mother and her fellow high schoolers. Its only a matter of time before she snaps, and De Palma builds the suspense masterfully.

Until thelatest adaptation of Stephen Kings It came along in 2017, William Friedkins 1973 classic The Exorcist was the long-reigning highest-grossing horror movie of all time.

The story of a priests attempts to exorcize a demon that has possessed a 12-year-old girl really captured the zeitgeist in the 70s. While there are plenty of other contenders, The Exorcist is regularly touted as the scariest movie ever made.

After defining the zombie mythos with an eerie parallel to Americas ugly history of racism in Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero followed it up with a zombie-infested satire of consumer culture, Dawn of the Dead.

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With its hordes of the undead swarming to the nearest mall, Dawn of the Dead has both gnarly, blood-soaked violence and biting social commentary in spades.

Although its been ruined for many modern moviegoers by the terrible Nicolas Cage remake, Robin Hardys The Wicker Man remains an unsettling masterpiece of folk horror.

One of the few horror films considered to be high art, The Wicker Man is the pioneer and pinnacle of the law enforcement officer goes to spooky isolated place where all is not as it seems subgenre.

Every parents worst nightmare is realized in the chilling opening moments of Dont Look Now. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland star as a couple who go to Venice following the accidental death of their daughter when the husband is commissioned to restore a church out there.

While the story has supernatural elements, the focus of Dont Look Now is purely on the very real fear of losing a child and the effect it can have on a couples psyches.

All the Texas Chainsaw sequels have devolved into an exercise in one-upmanship built around excessive violence, but Tobe Hoopers original masterpiece is relatively bloodless.

Hooper used the inherent tension in the immediate threat of Leatherface to create more dread and fear than any amount of bloodshed ever could.

John Carpenter set the template for the slasher with his minimalist 1978 hit Halloween. The story of an escaped mental patient stalking a bunch of teenagers and finding that one of them is way more badass than he anticipated has been loosely copied time and time again, but few have come close to matching the brilliance of Carpenters work.

RELATED:Halloween (1978): 5 Ways It's The Greatest Slasher Ever Made (& Its 5 Closest Contenders)

Laurie Strode, played by iconic scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, is the quintessential horror movie protagonist (and one of the smartest, most resourceful final girls ever written), while the faceless embodiment of pure inhumanity that is Michael Myers is the quintessential horror movie villain.

Ridley Scotts Alien is a masterclass in pacing. Instead of rushing into the terror, Scott takes his time introducing the characters and their world. The crew members on the Nostromo are just like us. We get to know Kane as a regular guy before a facehugger latches onto him and impregnates him with a flesh-eating extraterrestrial.

The build-up is what makes the iconic chestburster scene at the midpoint so effective. And from there, Scott continues to ratchet up the tension, keeping the audience in fear of the xenomorph, designed beautifully by the master H.R. Giger.

Dario Argentos Suspiria plays like an operatic nightmare. The opening minutes hit like a surprise shot in the arm and then the rest of the movie maintains that disorienting pace and haunting beauty.

Noted for its bright, vibrant colors, influence on horror filmmakers, and musical score by Argento and prog-rock band Goblin, Suspiria is a serious contender for the greatest horror movie ever made.

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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, and independent filmmaker, and he's good at at least two of those things. In addition to writing for Screen Rant and Comic Book Resources, covering everything from Scorsese to Spider-Man, Ben directs independent films and does standup comedy. He's currently in pre-production on his first feature film, Hunting Trip, and has been for a while because filmmaking is expensive. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema and BabbleTop.

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10 Must-See Horror Movies From The '70s - Screen Rant