100 Best ’70s Horror Movies 

Adjusted Score: 114400%

Critics Consensus: Compelling, well-crafted storytelling and a judicious sense of terror ensure Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has remained a benchmark in the art of delivering modern blockbuster thrills.

Adjusted Score: 105143%

Critics Consensus: Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.

Adjusted Score: 103085%

Critics Consensus: Made with obvious affection for the original, Young Frankenstein is a riotously silly spoof featuring a fantastic performance by Gene Wilder.

Adjusted Score: 100316%

Critics Consensus: Stunning visuals from Werner Herzog and an intense portrayal of the famed bloodsucker from Klaus Kinski make this remake of Nosferatu a horror classic in its own right.

Adjusted Score: 100688%

Critics Consensus: The blood pours freely in Argento’s classic Suspiria, a giallo horror as grandiose and glossy as it is gory.

Adjusted Score: 114634%

Critics Consensus: A modern classic, Alien blends science fiction, horror and bleak poetry into a seamless whole.

Adjusted Score: 101735%

Critics Consensus: Don’t Look Now patiently builds suspense with haunting imagery and a chilling score — causing viewers to feel Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie’s grief deep within.

Adjusted Score: 100353%

Critics Consensus: Employing gritty camerawork and evocative sound effects, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a powerful remake that expands upon themes and ideas only lightly explored in the original.

Adjusted Score: 102666%

Critics Consensus: Carrie is a horrifying look at supernatural powers, high school cruelty, and teen angst — and it brings us one of the most memorable and disturbing prom scenes in history.

Adjusted Score: 97731%

Critics Consensus: This intelligent horror film is subtle in its thrills and chills, with an ending that is both shocking and truly memorable.

Adjusted Score: 96921%

Critics Consensus: One of the most compelling and entertaining zombie films ever, Dawn of the Dead perfectly blends pure horror and gore with social commentary on material society.

Adjusted Score: 95165%

Critics Consensus: House is a gleefully demented collage of grand guginol guffaws and bizarre sequences.

Adjusted Score: 94012%

Critics Consensus: George A. Romero’s contribution to vampire lore contains the expected gore and social satire — but it’s also surprisingly thoughtful, and boasts a whopper of a final act.

Adjusted Score: 97491%

Critics Consensus: Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.

Adjusted Score: 95928%

Critics Consensus: David Lynch’s surreal Eraserhead uses detailed visuals and a creepy score to create a bizarre and disturbing look into a man’s fear of parenthood.

Adjusted Score: 94035%

Critics Consensus: Duel makes brilliant use of its simple premise, serving up rock-solid genre thrills while heralding the arrival of a generational talent behind the lens.

Adjusted Score: 92511%

Critics Consensus: The Abominable Dr. Phibes juggles horror and humor, but under the picture’s campy façade, there’s genuine pathos brought poignantly to life through Price’s performance.

Adjusted Score: 91693%

Critics Consensus: Deliciously campy and wonderfully funny, Theater of Blood features Vincent Price at his melodramatic best.

Adjusted Score: 89640%

Critics Consensus: Clever yet clearly indebted to the masters of the genre, Sisters offers an early glimpse of De Palma at his stylishly crafty peak.

Adjusted Score: 90036%

Critics Consensus: Combining a deadly thriller plot with stylized violence, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage marks an impressive horror debut for Dario Argento.

Adjusted Score: 91438%

Critics Consensus: The Omen eschews an excess of gore in favor of ramping up the suspense — and creates an enduring, dread-soaked horror classic along the way.

Adjusted Score: 89444%

Critics Consensus: Brian De Palma’s subversive streak is on full display in Phantom of the Paradise, an ebullient rock opera that rhapsodizes creativity when it isn’t seething with disdain for the music industry.

Adjusted Score: 97759%

Critics Consensus: The Exorcist rides its supernatural theme to magical effect, with remarkable special effects and an eerie atmosphere, resulting in one of the scariest films of all time.

Adjusted Score: 100702%

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Adjusted Score: 70401%

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Adjusted Score: 95655%

Critics Consensus: The kinetic camerawork and brutal over-the-top gore that made Dario Argento famous is on full display, but the addition of a compelling, complex story makes Deep Red a masterpiece.

Adjusted Score: 93764%

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Adjusted Score: 94105%

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Adjusted Score: 93642%

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Adjusted Score: 92638%

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Adjusted Score: 92706%

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Adjusted Score: 91700%

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Adjusted Score: 92091%

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Adjusted Score: 90193%

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Adjusted Score: 90106%

Critics Consensus: Director Tobe Hooper and a devilishly charismatic James Mason elevate this television adaptation of the Stephen King novel, injecting the vampiric tradition with fresh blood and lingering scares.

Adjusted Score: 88994%

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Adjusted Score: 88050%

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Adjusted Score: 88050%

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Adjusted Score: 87790%

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Adjusted Score: 88744%

Critics Consensus: Thanks in large part to Anthony Hopkins’ layered performance, Magic is an unusual albeit creepily effective experience.

Adjusted Score: 87786%

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Adjusted Score: 86837%

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Adjusted Score: 78984%

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Adjusted Score: 84488%

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Adjusted Score: 87277%

Critics Consensus: Shivers uses elementally effective basic ingredients to brilliant effect – and lays the profoundly unsettling foundation for director David Cronenberg’s career to follow.

Adjusted Score: 88193%

Critics Consensus: A rough-edged thriller that lacks the precision of Polanski’s best work, but makes up for it with its skillful mounting of paranoia, dread, and dark themes.

Adjusted Score: 83855%

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Adjusted Score: 62766%

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Adjusted Score: 58420%

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Adjusted Score: 76978%

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Adjusted Score: 85018%

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Adjusted Score: 83512%

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Adjusted Score: 84320%

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Adjusted Score: 83222%

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Adjusted Score: 82755%

Critics Consensus: The Cat O’Nine Tails is a solidly entertaining Argento outing elevated by a well-chosen cast and the director’s distinctive visual style.

Adjusted Score: 83507%

Critics Consensus: The Brood is a grotesque, squirming, hilariously shrill exploration of the bizarre and deadly side of motherhood.

Adjusted Score: 80900%

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Adjusted Score: 47741%

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Adjusted Score: 61905%

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Adjusted Score: 80401%

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Adjusted Score: 81624%

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Adjusted Score: 81105%

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Adjusted Score: 82580%

Critics Consensus: Brian De Palma reins in his stylistic flamboyance to eerie effect in The Fury, a telekinetic slow burn that rewards patient viewers with its startling set pieces.

Adjusted Score: 80106%

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Adjusted Score: 80243%

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Adjusted Score: 77824%

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Adjusted Score: 77565%

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Adjusted Score: 70277%

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Adjusted Score: 76473%

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Adjusted Score: 78656%

Critics Consensus: Phantasm: Remastered adds visual clarity to the first installment in one of horror’s most enduring — and endearingly idiosyncratic — franchises.

Adjusted Score: 74460%

Critics Consensus: Performed with a wink and directed with wry self-awareness, Piranha is an unabashed B-movie with satirical bite.

Adjusted Score: 75167%

Critics Consensus: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom will strike some viewers as irredeemably depraved, but its unflinching view of human cruelty makes it impossible to ignore.

Adjusted Score: 58303%

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Adjusted Score: 71082%

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Adjusted Score: 73285%

Critics Consensus: The Crazies isn’t top-shelf Romero, but its blend of genre thrills and social subtext should still be enough to satisfy discerning horror fans.

Adjusted Score: 71837%

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Adjusted Score: 71761%

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Adjusted Score: 71549%

Critics Consensus: Love at First Bite could use some more warm-blooded barbs to liven up its undead comedy, but George Hamilton’s campy charisma gives the prince of darkness some welcome pizazz.

Adjusted Score: 70548%

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Adjusted Score: 71729%

Critics Consensus: The rare slasher with enough intelligence to wind up the tension between bloody outbursts, Black Christmas offers fiendishly enjoyable holiday viewing for genre fans.

Adjusted Score: 71789%

Critics Consensus: The Stepford Wives‘s inherent satire is ill-served by Bryan Forbes’ stately direction, but William Goldman’s script excels as a damning critique of a misogynistic society.

Adjusted Score: 69243%

Critics Consensus: When it’s not bludgeoning the viewer with its more off-putting, cruder elements, The Hills Have Eyes wields some clever storytelling and a sly sense of dark humor.

Adjusted Score: 67857%

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Adjusted Score: 67393%

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Adjusted Score: 68269%

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Adjusted Score: 69039%

Critics Consensus: Tough and unpleasant, It’s Alive throttles the viewer with its bizarre mutant baby theatrics.

Adjusted Score: 68815%

Critics Consensus: The Legend of Hell House makes up for its disappointing lack of outright scares with a top notch cast and a suitably macabre atmosphere.

Adjusted Score: 70190%

Critics Consensus: Its visceral brutality is more repulsive than engrossing, but The Last House on the Left nevertheless introduces director Wes Craven as a distinctive voice in horror.

Adjusted Score: 66152%

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Adjusted Score: 64584%

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Adjusted Score: 63050%

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Adjusted Score: 59137%

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Adjusted Score: 63050%

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Adjusted Score: 64534%

Critics Consensus: Eyes of Laura Mars hints at interesting possibilities, but they’re frittered away by a predictable story that settles for superficial thrills.

Adjusted Score: 60546%

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Adjusted Score: 61484%

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Adjusted Score: 61401%

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Adjusted Score: 59143%

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Adjusted Score: 58408%

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Adjusted Score: 58811%

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