The 1970s were a golden era in horror and films ran the gamut from revenge (I Spit on Your Grave) to cults (I Drink Your Blood) to slasher (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) often reflecting the tumultuous political and social conditions of the time. With so much variety, not every release received the fanfare that it deserved. So in an effort to remedy those oversights, here are my picks for the most underrated horror films of the 70s.
Maggie is a post-apocalyptic film set in a recognizable albeit devastated world. Humans have survived; the “zombies”—that is, people suffering from the “necroambulist virus”—are mostly under control. Centering on a single family, the film opens with Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) bringing his daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) back to their farm in the Midwest after she left for a reason we don’t learn. While she was in the city she was bitten, and the film is about her slow death on the dying family farm. The elegiac tone of Maggie suffuses everything—the slowness of the film’s movement, its music, the sepia tone, the thunder that rumbles continuously in the background, the storm that threatens. Death always looms, but in this film it’s gotten significantly closer, more imminent. It’s palpable.
A sense of sisterhood peeks out from the otherwise less than maternal Mother’s Day. Synopsis: In Mother’s Day, three former college roommates go off into the woods for an annual reunion tradition. What they meet in the back woods is some citified rednecks that do the bidding of their sadistic mother.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was written and directed by Iranian-American Ana Lily Amirpour and is based on her graphic novel of the same name. Filmed in California but set in a surreal, industrial Iranian town called “Bad City,” it follows a vampire (Sheila Vand) who wanders the streets looking for . . . .well, it’s never quite clear what she’s looking for, or what she wants, or what she’s doing.
While the films within the franchise have been hit or miss, there is no denying that the original Scream film injected the horror genre with a much needed shot of self-awareness. From Drew Barrymore unexpectedly getting killed within the film’s opening moments to the script’s self-referential humor, Scream is the film that used the conventions of the slasher horror film against itself to create a new breed of terror.
Like most slasher films, the premise is simple. Sydney Prescott, a girl who is still reeling from her mother’s death one year prior, is being stalked by the same unknown killer who claimed the life of her mother. What follows is a fascinating blend of meta horror in which classic slasher tropes are openly mocked even as they are deployed successfully[i]
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