Chewers' 100 Scariest Films of the 70's

2. Halloween (1978), d. John Carpenter.

 

Do I even need to explain this one?  Rather than writing some pithy summary about a film we know to be a horror classic, I'll simply note my favorite moment in the entire film: In the broad daylight of a crisp fall afternoon, Laurie Strode glances out her bedroom window to see the boogey man standing in her back yard and staring up at her.  With sheets blowing on the laundry line, it's an incredibly nightmarish scene.  And the fact that it's terrifying despite being shot in broad daylight makes it all the more remarkable.

3.

dir. Robin Hardy

1973

 

Beware the fuckin' locals.

4. The Exorcist (1973) - d. William Friedkin

 

I'm not religious, in fact I'm so not religious that I'm kind of envious of the comfort that spiritually minded people must get from their beliefs, and yet this film feels me with absolute fucking terror everytime I see it. There's just something about the slowbuild and the fever-dream nature of the possession itself that just worms it's way under my skin and makes it hard for me to get a decent nights sleep after watching, it's the kind of existential horror which kind of crosses theological barriers because the terror of the film is about the loss of control, the loss of self, rather than the (very loosely drawn) mythology that the film hangs upon itself.

Art Decade, I'm curious.  Do you actually find Wicker Man to be scary?  And if so, why?

 

I don't find it "scary" as much as I find it really unsettling. It's the film that first introduced me to the idea that, while the bogeyman doesn't exist, delusion people who believe in crazy shit most certainly do & they can be utterly ruthless in the expression of those ideas. Also, just as it is with other British horror films like Roeg's Don't Look Now, it's this film's sense of atmosphere that succeeds in selling that palpable sense of dread & unease.

 

Anyway, I just thought that in a 70s Horror "Best Of" list, Wicker Man deserved to be in the Top 10.

 

Not to answer for Art, but I think the main strength of the Wicker Man is how it sort of lulls you into a false sense of security. Because it's essentially a psychadelic musical for two acts it makes the sudden sinister shift right at the end all the more jarring. It also completely taps into that human fear of being an outsider, or a stranger in a strange land. We're naturally social animals and I've always found films which show a hero completely disconnected from the people around them to be really disconcerting. Whilst the violence in Texas Chainsaw is repulsive what always freaked me out about the film was the family unit stuff towards the end.

To clarify, I wasn't calling Art out for The Wicker Man's inclusion.  I was genuinely curious as to what he might find scary in a film that I don't find remotely scary.  Atmospheric, most definitely, but not scary.  In that regard, I think Spike's response hits the nail squarely on the head.

5. Alien (1979) d. Ridley Scott

"In space no one can hear you scream."

A damn near perfect buildup of tension about exploring the unknown and dealing with what you might find there. After multiple rewatches in an effort to study the film's pacing, I now firmly believe that all those who claim Cameron's Aliens is a sequel better than the first film are wrong. The tension in Aliens just does not hold up to repeat viewings as well as it does in Alien. Quite possibly the best Sci Fi Horror ever (right next to The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

6. Don't Look Now (1973)

 

Along with The Wicker Man, this Roeg masterpiece is one of the best horror films to come out of Britain, or any place at all. Some of the most sumptuous cinematography outside of Suspiria cloaks this genuinely frightening tale of a man who cannot escape the fate he has been chosen to live out. The final quick-cut montage alluding to all the signs leading up to that moment is filmmaking bravado at its finest, and the reveal of the villain of the piece is somehow simultaneously disturbing and ridiculous. A hypnotic, pulsating vision of terror and one of my favorite horror films of all-time.

 

Edited by Park Chan-wookie - 9/16/11 at 1:56pm

7.  Jaws (1975)

 

I've been scared by lots of films, but this one is probably the only one that has without a doubt changed one aspect of my life forever.  I used to love to go to the beach as a kid (I grew up in Cape Canaveral), but Jaws put an absolute damper on that.   While logically I know how extraordinarily rare shark attacks are, I have still never felt comfortable in the ocean since.  That's the power this film has over my psyche.  Thanks for nothing, Spielberg!  

8. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (dir. Philip Kaufman, 1978)

 

If MacReady & Childs had said "Fuck it!" & took their chances returning to the world, the events portrayed in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers would be the consequence of that decision. From the still immensely effective practical effects of the "pod people" transformations to Donald Sutherland's iconic scream, this is one of the creepiest films ever made.

9: Let's Scare Jessica to Death -

 

This one really freaked me out as a kid.  From the voices to the oddness to the utterly unexplained nature of everything that was going on.  Like The Wicker Man & Don't Look Now, this is an 'atmosphere' horror that really got to me.

10. Dawn of the Dead (dir. George Romero, 1978)

 

When there's no more room in hell the dead will walk the Earth. A great tagline for a great movie. Romero managed to take everything that worked about Night of the Living Dead and upped the ante. It's a great scary movie, dripping with social commentary. We are the zombies, which makes it all the better metaphor. There's a reason that zombies are so popular today and Dawn of the Dead is it.

 

Also, I watched Don't Look Now for the first time this week. Wow. I support its inclusion that high on the list.

Edited by EvilTwin - 9/16/11 at 8:14pm

12: Suspiria - 

 

It feels like a bit of a no brainer to include this.  Beyond the Epic Kill that occurs so early on that everyone forgets there's another hour and twenty minutes, this is a tense and weird little film which doesn't make much sense but has such an abundance of primary colours and odd camera angles that you'll get sucked into its incredible score and nightmarish logic.  It's also the essential Argento horror film.

13: 'Carrie'

 

the end of the film has the single most effective jump scare that I've ever seen.  Add in Piper Laurie as the fucking SCARIEST mother that a person could have, and yeah...nightmare city for my young self.

14. Black Christmas (1974) d. Bob Clark

 

Creepy, atmospheric early slasher that influenced dozens of lesser films (and a few good ones).

15. Last House on the Left (1972). True story: my high school girlfriend saw an ad in the paper for this, and figured it was some kind of spooky ghost movie (don't ask me how she reached that conclusion). So we went to the drive-in and... she was verrrrry quiet on the drive back to her house.

16. STRAW DOGS (1971) d. Sam Peckinpah 

 

Possessed by the Devil? Probably not going to happen. Alien space pods? Not in my lifetime. Zombies? No. Big, blue collar assholes, bigger than you, laying siege to your house, wanting and taking what's yours, forcing you to test yourself in ways you never considered?  Raping your wife, and the idea that she might be enjoying it?  Fucked-up sexual politics aside, that will always be terrifying.

17. Taxi Driver (1976)

 

I know that this isn't a traditional "horror" movie, but Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle has to be one of the most disturbing characters ever put on the big screen.

 

He's a powder keg of anger and disllusionment that's waiting to go off. And when he does, the results are quite frightening.

18. Eraserhead (1977) d. David Lynch

 

A majority of his films (aside from the obvious exceptions like Dune and The Straight Story) have straight-up ball-shrivelling moments of fear even if by and large they aren't considered horror films (the Mystery Man with the phone, the bum behind the restaurant). This one actually has a monster — the baby, which to this day is a mystery as to how the fuck Lynch created it. Even aside from that, the damn movie gives me the creeps; but the baby seals the deal, because unlike 99% of horror movies, the first time you see that thing you're like "What the fuck? Is that real? Is it alive?"

 

(On that tip, someone later on in this thread will no doubt raise a toast to It's Alive, which is pretty fun.)

 

Alternative, unnumbered choice that's highly arguable: The Sentinel. I watch it today and it's boring and klutzy with a great cast wasted, but holy fuck did that scene with the creepy old guy walking around the room scare the shit out of me as a kid. Not to mention the climax with all the actual deformed people (including Bob "The Man With Two Faces" Melvin).

 

Melvin was also in De Palma's Sisters, which might more plausibly make this list.

This thread is awesome.   Getting lots of great suggestions here.   Big fan of The Exorcist.   What I find interesting is how strongly the movie affects atheists on this board.   I would think supernatural stories wouldn't have as much of an effect on non believers.  

 

As for more suggestions for the list, I've never seen it but its reputation probably warrants inclusion on this list.....

 

19(?)

 

I Spit On Your Grave:

 

Like I said, never seen the movie so feel free to take it off if it doesn't belong.   From the endless rape to the graphic (or so I heard) revenge, how could it not be on here?

It has an effect on anyone who's talked to doctors who have no idea what's wrong with an ill loved one (this part of the film is mercilessly realistic). It has an effect on anyone who's seen an adolescent child go through weird and sometimes troubling changes. It has an effect on anyone who has doubted him/herself in the face of crushing adversity. In brief, it grounds itself in the real world and touches a lot of nerves that have nothing to do with Catholicism. I would think that the more you believe in God, the more comforting the movie ultimately is; Pauline Kael called it "the biggest recruiting poster for the Catholic Church since Going My Way."

 

As for I Spit on Your Grave, it's often called a horror film, but reads to me more like the sort of rapesploitation that was common in its day, the main difference being the dead camera eye staring at the entirety of the rape (much like the later Irreversible). As such, it does horrify, and the subsequent revenge is violent enough that it probably qualifies. Besides, it was bound to show up on here sooner or later anyway; how many genuinely scary '70s movies can we actually come up with before we start scraping the barrel for the likes of The Town That Dreaded Sundown?

 

Also, are we including TV movies? If so, there are a few obvious candidates, which I'll leave for others to share.

21. Deliverance (dir. John Boorman, 1972)

 

I kinda think of this as the American Wicker Man. It begins with a musical number & proceeds to show 4 guys havin' a good time. Then things slowly get weird, then bad, then godlessly, unblinkingly awful. We just see these guys slowly & quietly sink into the depths of an imperceptible, horrifying situation. There are no jump scares or clever manipulations of editing. Everything plays out naturally & in broad daylight & the only soundtrack is the sound of the river & the screams of men. Disturbing, haunting, masterful filmmaking.

 

above: nightmare fuel

 

Edited by Art Decade - 9/17/11 at 8:50pm

Yeah, the shot of the hand near the end spooked the shit out of me. As did the Ronny Cox With Special Double-Jointed Arm Action Figure™.

They made a figure of that? I just took my Dick Jones (with Window Falling Action!) Action Figure & melted it a little bit. Sure, it was a bit big for my "Deliverance" Backwoods Action Playset, but I made it work.

My Ned Beatty Squealing Action Figure stopped squealing after a month. What a gyp.

 

I returned it and got another one, but it just kept saying "YOU WILL ATONE."

22. Martin (1976) d. George A. Romero

 

Arguably Romero's masterpiece, it's no less disturbing for all its flashes of dark humor. If they remake it with Michael Cera in the lead, I will kill everybody.

23. Duel (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1971)

 

I'll play the tv movie card. Dennis Weaver pisses off a truck driver and gets more than he bargained for. Weaver turns in a great performance and Spielberg masterfully stages set piece after set piece. Before "road rage" was a common phrase, Spielberg tapped into something primal. You just don't know who's behind the wheel of one of those massive trucks and what they can do if they get angry enough.

Agreed on most of the points about why it's effective, but I find nothing a believer would find comforting in the film. If the only yardstick is "if there's a devil, there has to be a God", then I guess the movie has good news. But God's a no-show in the movie. Father Karras is left broken by his test, his last rites delievered by another priest who seems to find the words so empty he bursts into tears midway. And if the movie does indeed posit a God, he's a really bloodthirsty, Old Testament kind.
 

24. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (AKA The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue) (1974) d. Jorge Grau

 

Probably the second best zombie film of the 70's (sorry, Lucio), this movie has some truly frightening scenes like the first zombie attack in broad daylight and when they are trapped in the crypt at the graveyard. Gory, suspenseful, and it has great photography that gives it a lush, organic look. If you haven't seen it please check it out!

25. The Hills Have Eyes (1977) d. Wes Craven

 

After the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's the seminal backwoods (well, desert wasteland) psychos on a rampage flick.  Not even the dogs were safe.

Yes, but one of them survived for the sequel, wherein the dog was so traumatized it had a flashback.

 

One of those moments that, even after reading about it, you don't believe until you've seen it.

Wait, what? I've never been particularly interested in seeing that film, but now...

 

So, all the films that immediately sprang to mind either have already been nominated or fall just outside the decade at either end. But I've come up with something worthy of inclusion:

 

26. THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976) dir. Pupi Avati

 

This is the only giallo that has genuinely creeped me out, if you can even call it a giallo. Really more of a gothic thriller with an almost supernatural mood, and is even a bit reminiscent of DON'T LOOK NOW. An art historian/restorer working in a rural Italian village delves into the unsettling history of a local painter while mysterious stuff happens around him. It cultivates a nice eerie atmosphere of mystery and dread in its picturesque (and gorgeously photographed) setting and goes to some really bizarre, disturbing places.

That Body Snatchers image never fails to suspend my heartbeat. Oh god, the tongue slurp. And especially since I have a Boxer, it's even more troubling.

 

27. The Toolbox Murders (Donnelly, 1978)

 

Bit by bit by bit...he carved a nightmare!

 

A brilliant equilibrium of nuance and menace that epitomizes the strengths of the genre in the 70's. As the sadistic killer, Cameron Mitchell gives a rare genre peformance that goes far and beyond what is usually expected from such a fim.

 

28. The Fury (De Palma, 1978)

 

...and what a culture can't assimilate, it destroys.

 

De Palma at his best. Kirk Douglas at his crustiest. Cassavetes at his slimiest. John Williams at his most underrated. A staggering third act.

31. Marathon Man (1976)

 

If Jaws made you scared of the water, Man made you want to avoid going to the dentist.

 

"Is it safe?"

32.  The Brood (1979)

 

Took WAY too long for Cronenberg to show up in this thread!

 

This is arguably his earliest masterpiece and a film that works brilliantly on many levels.   It's a scathing indictment on fringe psychology.  It's the most extreme movie about divorce ever made.   And it's also one of the nastiest "Killer Child" movies of all time.   Those gnarled freaks in hoodies will haunt your dreams, my friend  

 

 

Battle of the 70s killer child movies! Who would win in a fight, The Brood or the kids from the island in WCKAC? The Brood are snappier dressers but the WCKAC gang has greater numbers. Winner can fight the baby from IT'S ALIVE (I'd throw Damien in there too but I think he has an unfair advantage. Let's limit this to kids who are, at most, mutated but have no special powers)

 

Why has this never been released on DVD (or Blu-ray)?

 

Great pick.
 

 

34. Long Weekend (1978) - d. Colin Eggleston

Essentially the movie is about a couple, Peter and Marcia, on a camping trip out in the middle of nowhere in Australia. The couple’s relationship is pretty much in ruins now, just the frayed remains of a miserable existence, and the trip seems to be drawing out all the resentment between them. Whilst Peter and Marcia desperately try to reconnect the landscape around them seems to broil with some unseen rage. In a lot of ways Lars Von Trier’s ANTICHRIST seems to be influenced by this film, but the chief difference between the two is that LONG WEEKEND seems to have a genuine cause and effect between the actions of the couple and the overall hostility.

We are constantly reminded of how destructive a force these two are by how they treat their surroundings. Running over a kangaroo in the first ten minutes, chopping down a tree just for the hell of it, destroying eggs. There’s a real sense of nature in a sense of revulsion about these two’s presence and it’s all represented quite unsubtly by a dead Manatee on the beach, which just rots and festers ominously whilst it’s young call out in the night like lost children.

There’s a real sense of unease to the film and it’s not just because of the mounting external tension, Marcia and Peter are at each other’s throats for the majority of the film and it makes scenes between them absolutely fraught. In terms of depicting how people actually are this is almost like a Ken Loach film in its unabashed realism, but that realism also means that it’s generally unpleasant watching these two slowly rip each other to shreds.

35. The Omen:   Continuing the evil child trend, comes The Omen.   Great script, great performances, and an all time great score make the inclusion of this film on the list a no brainer.

Seconded.   The priest impalement scene alone makes this a Hall of Famer.

37. Vampire Circus (dir. Robert Young, 1972)

 

It's incomplete. The young leads are pretty but bland. It's certainly not the best of Hammer. However, it's one of Hammer's most unique entries and has a number of fine touchs. Creepy, dwarf clown. More kid killings than you can shake a stick at. Creepy circus music. Lalla Ward and David Prowse. A body painted tiger woman wearing almost nothing but paint. A body count to do any horror film proud as well as a great decapitation climax.

38. The Sentinel (1977) d. Michael Winner -

 

Slow burn, quintessentially seventies horror from Michael Winner. It's about a fashion model that moves into a very nice apartment, only to find that something very strange is going on inside its walls. The cast includes John Carradine, Chris Sarandon, Beverly D'Angelo, Ava Gardner, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, and Burgess Meredith.

The Sentinel is a terrible movie based on a really great idea. While it does succeed pretty well with creating a sense of dread & atmosphere, I found the most unsettling thing about the flick to be a shot at the end that features a super young Nana Visitor & Tom Berenger (who looks to have jumped from the pages of a Sears catalog).