FIFTY+SA’s film critic Dave Bradley picks five 1970s horror movies that haven’t lost their bite, from Romero’s zombies to Argento’s witches, and the chainsaw that, somehow, still cuts.
1. Dawn of the Dead
Late great auteur George Romero’s 1978 epic, the followup to Night Of The Living Dead a decade earlier, remains the greatest zombie movie of ’em all. The plot is well-known (four survivors escape the undead apocalypse in a gaudy Pittsburgh mall), and beneath the character drama, low-budget action, pointed social commentary and oodles of gore, it is also damn scary.
2. Don’t Look Now
Daphne du Maurier’s 1971 short story gets Nicolas Roeg’s dreamily disturbing treatment in his 1973 follow-up to Performance and Walkabout. After the legendary opening sequence, the Baxters (Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland) escape to Venice, where he denies his eerie visions while a killer stalks the streets. Doom-laden and tragic, it’s also home to one of cinema’s most tender, and creepy, sex scenes.
3. The Exorcist
For many, William Friedkin’s 1973 filming of William Peter Blatty’s novel is THE 1970s horror pic. Despite the alternate cuts, dire sequels, poor TV spinoff, endless imitations and parodies, and so on, and on, and on, it is still genuinely frightening 53 years later. Even for those who, you know, don’t believe in EEEEVVILLLL.
4. Suspiria
Dario Argento’s most beloved outing is unsettling throughout, but the rest of it never quite lives up to the first 20-odd minutes, which are terrifying, especially in a cinema. Jessica Harper plays the American student at an Austrian ballet school that turns out to be a front for a coven of witches. Which makes you wonder why, if they wanted to stay hidden, they opened a ballet school.
5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
What more can be said about Tobe Hooper’s barnstorming 1974 classic? You know the story: five young ‘uns run afoul of a nightmarish killer clan, fronted by saw-wielding Leatherface. Despite the sequels, reboots, remakes, rip-offs, parodies, homages and documentary studies (like 2024’s Chain Reactions), it remains just about perfectly scary. Don’t believe me? Watch it tonight. Alone. With the lights turned off. I dare you…
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