The 1970s saw a big change for the movie industry as the traditional Hollywood releases were slowly replaced by more independent-minded movies. This included the horror genre, where the decade saw dark and disturbing movies like no one had ever seen before come out of the Hollywood system.
The decade saw some of the best horror movies of all time, including some of these more indie-based releases with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween as perfect examples. However, along with the more popular movies, other great horror movies are more obscure to modern-day movie fans but deserve to remain a part of every horror fan's library.
Don't Look Now (1973)
One of the best horror movies of the 1970s was the 1973 release Don't Look Now. The movie by Nicolas Roeg focused on a married couple who mourned the death of their young daughter. When a clairvoyant tells them their daughter is trying to contact them, the dad begins to see who he thinks is his daughter wandering the streets of Venice.
The movie is a great one that deals with both grief and psychological terror. The acting is also superb, with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland giving two of the best performances of their careers.
Martin (1978)
George Romero remains best known today for his zombie movies and he released one of the best in the genre in the 1970s with Dawn of the Dead. Romero wasn't just a zombie filmmaker and many of his other horror movies remain obscure but well worth the watch.
Martin was a 1978 movie that followed a young man who thought he was a vampire. While the movie became the victim of the video nasties of that era, the movie received high critical praise at the time for its social commentary, which was prevalent in all Romero's horror movies.
The Brood (1979)
For many years, there wasn't a more disturbing, yet brilliant horror movie director than David Cronenberg. He directed some of the top critically rated horror movies of the 1970s and 1980s, yet many of his movies remain obscure to all but cinephiles and horror aficionados.
The Brood tells the story of a woman undergoing controversial psychological treatment, all with the backdrop of a series of unsolved murders in the city. This was the one Cronenberg movie that relied almost exclusively on horror elements. It remains a true classic and a movie that film scholars and cinephiles study to this day.
Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
Released in 1976, Alice, Sweet Alive, was the movie that introduced the world to Brooke Shields in her screen debut. The movie was highly influenced by Don't Look Now, which came out three years before, and told the story of a girl who is the suspect in her own sister's murder.
This was another movie that was seized during the video nasties panic, causing it to disappear for years and drift into obscurity. However, it has since become a cult classic and offers a strong look into the destruction of the family unit as a basis for horror movies and some macabre and very frightening scenes.
The Legend Of Hell House (1973)
The Legend of Hell House is one of the greatest haunted house novels ever written. In 1973, the Richard Matheson story was brought to the big screen with the story of paranormal investigators all called to a home by a millionaire to determine if the house really is haunted and by what.
The book was a disturbing tale, but the movie brings a level of fun to the scares, with great performances by Roddy McDowall and Pamela Franklin. The movie remained obscure but Shout! Factory released a special edition in 2014 for anyone who wants to relive this classic ghost story.
Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971)
Let's Scare Jessica To Death arrived in 1971 and remained an obscure curiosity for many years until it finally received a DVD release in 2006. In the movie, Jessica is released from a psychiatric hospital and goes to live in the country outside of the city with her husband. When a drifter moves in with them, Jessica believes she might be a vampire.
The movie is a psychological horror movie and one that takes a legendary myth in the vampires and transfers it to a real-world situation. It is also is a movie that delves heavily into paranoia in an ever-changing world and has an effective ending that several movies copied, including Friday the 13th a few years later.
House (1977)
Released in 1977, House is a Japanese horror-comedy that has a massive cult following but remains an obscure movie for mainstream horror audiences. The movie is about a schoolgirl who travels to a country home only to find the home is supernatural and wants to consume the children.
The movie was a hit but received bad reviews from critics. However, it ended up reevaluated when it was released in North America over 30 years later. The movie is a strange one, similar to what Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson did early in their careers, not so much a great story but more of a crazed horror experience.
Who Can Kill A Child? (1976)
Released in 1976, Who Can Kill A Child? was a Spanish horror movie that also went by the title Island of the Damned when released in the United States. The movie follows an English couple who head to an island for a vacation after their third child is born. What they find is an island full of scary kids.
It is easy to see a similarity between this movie and later horror movies like Children of the Corn and Village of the Damned, with the fear of unsupervised children building tension until the unexpected climax.
Eraserhead (1977)
Eraserhead is a true cult classic that any cinephile will know by heart and a movie taught in film studies classes to this day. However, it is also a movie that remains obscure for most mainstream movie fans and one that will fall further into the annals of film history as time goes on.
This is David Lynch's directorial debut in 1977 and the movie that helped make him a star. The movie is about a man who is left to care for a child that might not be human. The movie is disturbing but its effectiveness is in its grotesque imagery and the sound design, which makes the experience unbearable at times.
The Toolbox Murders (1978)
In 1978, the horror movie The Toolbox Murders hit theaters featuring a series of murders around an apartment complex in Los Angeles. Much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie claimed to be based on a true story, but in this case, there was no known incident the movie pulled from.
The movie was one of those that hit the video nasties list and was banned in the United Kingdom for a time. The movie is heavily violent and doesn't depict the victims in a kind way, but it has a huge cult following and is an obscure horror movie from the 1970s for those who like their horror down and dirty.