After George A. Romero laid the terrifying blueprint for the low-budget zombie movie template with Night of the Living Dead in 1968, the 1970s were littered with countless imitators and equally impressive off-shoots alike. While Romero's 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead is largely hailed as the best zombie movie of the decade, the film has some really scary competition from some of the horror genre's finest international directors.
As Halloween fast approaches and fans entertain a cinematic fright fest, fans of lumbering, flesh-starved ghouls would be wise to dig up some of the decade's most unnerving genre titles.
Tombs Of The Blind Dead (1972)
One of the earliest and most terrifying zombie films released in the '70s includes the Spanish-Portuguese import Tombs of the Blind Dead, a film that withstands the test of time due to its unique, unsettling medieval atmosphere and original zombie ghouls comprised of hooded undead blind monks that demonstrate far more intelligence than typical mindless corpses.
With brand new zombie mythology to keep fans engaged in between the moments of grisly carnage, the film gets under the skin with a slow-burning pace and an extremely creepy soundtrack. The film spawned a trio of sequels known as director Amando de Ossorio's The Blind Dead series.
The Crazies (1973)
Before making a Night of the Living Dead sequel, the zombie godfather George A. Romero made one of the first viral-infection zombie chillers via The Crazies. The film concerns a military experiment gone horribly awry when a biological weapon turns the citizens of a small town into rabid bloodthirsty zombies.
In addition to the scathing commentary on government oversight and the collateral damage it can cause, the movie continues to terrify audiences through its visceral gore-sodden violence, bleak and nightmarish sense of societal hopelessness, and the passel of freakish gas-masked good-guys who storm the town with just as much aggression as the zombies themselves.
Deathdream (1974)
The late Bob Clark made two of the most famous holiday movies of all time: Black Christmas and A Christmas Story. Yet, it's his deeply disturbing 1974 film Deathdream (A.K.A. Dead of Night) that zombie fans need to check out, as it's one of the most unforgettably frightening 70s horror experiences on record. Simply, the film follows a Vietnam soldier who dies in battle and returns to his home as if nothing happened.
The way in which the soldier Andy (Richard Backus) slowly morphs into a hideously mutated ghoul who prowls the streets and cemeteries at night is made even scarier when his parents witness his behavior and become morally ambivalent about what to do. With a shocking twist ending sure to drop the jaws of the most calloused horror fan, Deathdream is as nightmarish as they come.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Jorge Grau laid the blueprint for the sleazy, excessive, wildly gory zombie movies to come in the 80s with Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, a bizarre and baleful tale of two hippies accused of murders exacted by a gaggle of mouth-foaming undead monsters suffering from ultrasonic radiation.
Hailed for boasting some of the most startling zombie makeup and effects in a year full of superb zombie creations, the film has a moody atmosphere, wince-worthy graphic carnage, and an extremely stylized visual tableau that adds to the jarring surrealism of the whole experience.
Rabid (1977)
While David Cronenberg's Shivers could also be included, his mortifying 1977 horror salvo Rabid takes the viral-infection zombie subgenre to a terrifying new level. The story concerns Rose (Marilyn Chambers), a woman who undergoes plastic surgery after a car accident, only to awake with a newfound penchant for human blood. Soon, she spreads the condition to the local population.
The fusion of grotesque body horror and sadistic medical experimentation is neither for the squeamish nor the faint of heart, boasting Cronenberg's trademark moral quandaries of who to trust in positions of power. Warning: the finale of the film is as nastily nauseating as zombie films get.
Shock Waves (1977)
The little-known zombie film Shock Waves has the unique distinction of featuring underwater zombies, a daringly original take on the grave-rising monsters. When shipwrecked tourists find their way to a secluded island, they find a sadistic Nazi general—portrayed by horror legend Peter Cushing in a fittingly creepy role—conducting heinous experiments to keep his kind in power.
In addition to the freaky, inescapable island and sense of claustrophobia, the appearance of the zombies themselves with moldering bald heads and thick dark military goggles stands out with startling effectiveness. But, it's the way the zombies move through the water, capture their human prey, and lumber their way toward the shore that is frighteningly unforgettable.
Dawn Of The Dead (1978)
As the most adored zombie movie of the decade, Romero's Dawn of the Dead combines action-packed zombie violence, a badass soundtrack by Italian rock band Goblin, and a searing metaphorical indictment of American's mindless consumerism that add up to a grand gestalt of horror movie greatness.
Beyond the sickening stints of gory entrails and head-squishing pulp matter splattered on the screen, the terror of Dawn of the Dead comes from the sheer size and scope of the zombie outbreak, which necessitates an entire SWAT unit to combat its murderous magnitude. The indefatigable onslaughts of brutal violence never let up for a second, leading to one of the most breathless and suffocating zombie films ever made.
The Grapes Of Death (1978)
Although it is a blatant rip-off of Romero's The Crazies, Jean Rollin delivered a truly terrifying and stylishly made French horror film called The Grapes of Death at the end of the decade. When a French vineyard is tainted with a toxic pesticide, it turns the townsfolk into mindless murderous stalkers.
Unshackled by the structures of the Hollywood MPAA, Rollin was afforded a brand of unremitting violence only found in European chillers of the time. As such, the film is shockingly gory, yet it retains the artsy sophistication of a heightened 70s arthouse film. As a study in fear, paranoia, and trust, the film shakes audiences to the core when there are few people left to identify with and root for as the zombie takeover advances.
Zombie (1979)
Italian splatter maestro Lucio Fulci turned arguably the second-best zombie film of the decade with Zombie—A.K.A. Zombie 2—known for boasting a weird, funny, and scary underwater shark versus zombie attack that must be seen to be believed. Between that and the infamous wooden shard to the eyeball scene, there's a reason why Zombie has earned such a terrifying reputation.
The plot concerns a search party looking for a woman's missing father who is suddenly stalked by a gruesome gaggle of undead ghouls on a tropical island. But, it isn't the story that startles as much as the grotesque zombie makeup and practical FX and vicious stints of abject violence that show no remorse or restraint whatsoever.
Phantasm (1979)
Don Coscarelli's Phantasm is a zombie breed of a different stripe that is no less mortifying than its counterparts. The main fear source from the film comes from The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), an evil paranormal undertaker who turns the dead on Earth into reanimated zombie dwarves to act as his slave back on his home planet. Zombies or not, The Tall Man is one of the most iconic horror villains of the decade.
Bizarre beyond belief and boasting some of the most scarifying zombie imagery of the decade, the scene in which little Mike's (Michael Baldwin) bed surreally appears in the cemetery with the Tall Man looming over him is alone enough to give even the most hardened horror fan heart palpitations. Throw in the deadly silver balls that the Tall Man uses to kill his prey, and a horror classic is born.