The 1970s is praised as the greatest decade in the history of American cinema, thanks to the bold, experimental stylings of the New Hollywood movement led by such widely influential filmmakers as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.
This game-changing reinvention of American movies extended to the horror genre. The ‘70s gave way to such seminal horror masterpieces as The Exorcist and Halloween. Audiences were introduced to such lovable protagonists as Ellen Ripley, Laurie Strode, and Chief Brody in the groundbreaking horror hits of the ‘70s.
Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre)
Sally Hardesty’s role as the “final girl” in Tobe Hooper’s seminal slasher masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an ironic satire on the meat industry. In the early scenes, it’s established that the Hardesty family has profited from slaughterhouses for years.
After lining her pockets with the systemic killing of thousands of cows, there’s an ominous subtextual sense that Sally is getting her comeuppance when Leatherface targets her and serves her friends for dinner.
Sergeant Howie (The Wicker Man)
Robin Hardy’s folk horror gem The Wicker Man revolves around Police Sergeant Neil Howie, played brilliantly by Edward Woodward, as he travels to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a little girl. Howie’s role in the movie hammers home the religious message.
Howie is a devout Christian who’s horrified to learn that Summerisle has renounced Christianity in favor of a sinister form of Celtic paganism. This hypocritical religious squabble builds to a harrowing finale in which Howie is sacrificed in the sadistic eponymous pagan ritual.
Suzy Bannion (Suspiria)
Dario Argento’s blood-soaked masterpiece Suspiria is widely regarded to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made. Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student who’s accepted into a prestigious German dance academy and learns that it’s a front for a paranormal conspiracy.
Suzy is a likable lead to ground the giallo theatrics of Argento’s vision of supernatural horror. A lot of gruesome things happen in this movie, but the audience sympathetically follows Suzy through all of it.
John & Laura Baxter (Don’t Look Now)
The villains of horror films have included an escaped mental patient in a boiler suit and a William Shatner mask, a 25-foot great white shark targeting the residents of a seaside town, and a dead guy who stalks teenagers across the dreamscape in a fedora and a bladed glove.
But in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, the real villain is grief. The unenviable John and Laura Baxter lose a child in the opening scene – every parent’s worst nightmare – and spend the rest of the movie trying to cope with that loss.
Carrie White (Carrie)
Brian De Palma’s filmed version of Stephen King’s debut novel Carrie still holds up as one of the greatest King adaptations and one of the greatest horror movies ever made. De Palma recaptured the movie’s metaphorical portrait of the struggles of adolescence and the ugliness of bullying.
Sissy Spacek gives a pitch-perfect performance as the titular high schooler, who discovers her telekinetic abilities right around the time that her schoolyard bullies and her abusive mother drive her to her inevitable breaking point.
Father Karras (The Exorcist)
William Friedkin’s The Exorcist was the first blockbuster horror movie and remained the genre’s highest-grossing entry for decades. Jason Miller plays arguably the most likable and compelling protagonist in the movie. Father Karras is a quiet, brooding priest who loses his mother, endearing the audience to him early in the movie.
When he reluctantly takes on the exorcism job, he’s relentlessly taunted by Pazuzu: “Your mother sucks c**ks in Hell!” In the shocking finale, Karras allows Pazuzu to possess him so he can launch himself through the window and down the iconic staircase so he can save Regan or anyone else from being consumed by the vicious demon.
Jess Bradford (Black Christmas)
Olivia Hussey gave an unforgettable turn in Black Christmas, one of the earliest slashers, as Jess Bradford, one of the genre’s earliest empowering “final girl” characters.
Jess’ characterization – and her sinister stalker – lean into the genre’s inherent theme of misogyny to a satirical degree. The movie’s use of abortion as a major plot point just one year after the landmark Roe v. Wade decision was truly groundbreaking.
Chief Brody (Jaws)
Steven Spielberg changed Hollywood cinema forever with his Hitchcockian thriller Jaws. In the half a century since then, every studio has filled the summer release window with high-concept attempts at replicating Jaws’ success.
The 25-foot great white shark is the movie’s U.S.P., but its emotional backbone is its everyman protagonist, Chief Brody, played by Roy Scheider. He’s a heroic cop, but he’s also afraid of the ocean, which – from a dramatic standpoint – makes him the perfect adversary for a giant, bloodthirsty shark.
Laurie Strode (Halloween)
John Carpenter got meta with the casting of “final girl” Laurie Strode in his hugely influential 1978 horror masterpiece Halloween. Jamie Lee Curtis is the real-life daughter of Psycho’s iconic “scream queen,” Janet Leigh. Curtis became horror movie royalty in her own right when she played Laurie as a badass everywoman.
Throughout the movie, Michael Myers effortlessly works his way through the babysitters of Haddonfield. He hits his first bump in the road when he encounters Laurie, who manages to defy the odds to outsmart and overpower him.
Ellen Ripley (Alien)
According to the behind-the-scenes documentary The Beast Within: The Making of Alien, all the roles in Alien were written as unisex. The writers decided to leave it up to the casting team to decide the characters’ genders. The decision to cast a woman as Ripley ended up breaking new ground for female action heroes.
Sigourney Weaver’s fierce performance as Ellen Ripley – the only crew member from the Nostromo to survive the xenomorph’s wrath (let alone kill the xenomorph itself) – proved that women can be just as badass as men in action-oriented roles.