As the calendar turns to October, cinephiles begin to prepare for the spookiest month of the year. With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing many outdoor gatherings, horror film marathons will be in full effect. Starting, October 4th the Criterion Channel will be streaming classic 70’s horror flicks.
Here’s the official description: 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.
The following ’70s horror films will be arriving on Sunday, October 4:
- Trog, Freddie Francis, 1970
- The Vampire Lovers, Roy Ward Baker, 1970
- Daughters of Darkness, Harry Kümel, 1971
- Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, John D. Hancock, 1971
- The Nightcomers, Michael Winner, 1971
- Dracula A.D. 1972, Alan Gibson, 1972
- Images, Robert Altman, 1972
- Death Line, Gary Sherman, 1972
- Season of the Witch, George A. Romero, 1972
- The Crazies, George A. Romero, 1973
- Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
- Ganja & Hess, Bill Gunn, 1973
- Sisters, Brian De Palma, 1973
- Theater of Blood, Douglas Hickox, 1973
- The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy, 1973
- Black Christmas, Bob Clark, 1974
- Deathdream, Bob Clark, 1974
- It’s Alive, Larry Cohen, 1974
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974
- Shivers, David Cronenberg, 1975
- The Tenant, Roman Polanski, 1976 (Arriving November 1st)
- The Witch Who Came from the Sea, Matt Cimber, 1976
- The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven, 1977
- Rabid, David Cronenberg, 1977
- Coma, Michael Crichton, 1978
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Philip Kaufman, 1978
- Long Weekend, Colin Eggleston, 1978
- The Brood, David Cronenberg, 1979
- The Driller Killer, Abel Ferrara, 1979
