Seven 70s Horror Flicks Better Than The Crap Out Right Now (well, 6 anyway)
Rachel posted a plea to whatever crazy Mexican gods her people pray to for Hollywood not to go through with the remake of the awesome vampire flick Let The Right One In, which you can find me raving about a few months back in the archive. Her heathen prayer got me to thinking about some of the horror movies I grew up on and how cool they were...relatively speaking, of course.
It's not that any of these movies were good films; none of them are. The acting is over the top, the plots are ludicrous, and I could have done better special effects with an egg carton, some Elmer's glue and a crazed baboon scratching my balls with a cheese grater. God knows (my god, the good white Christian god, not some beady-eyed Mexican god) I don't typically allow nostalgia to gauge my appreciation of a thing. At the same time, these were movies that had the right IDEA, and an original idea goes a long way with me. If they had been made now or back then with a little more panache, we would be talking about some serious filmmaking. As it stands, we are not. Conversely, do not expect me to talk about them seriously.
I offer these few gems, trailers of the paramount horror films of my youth (a period which can be easily gauged by the bell-bottoms, porno moustaches and the color of William Shatner's hair contained therein). A couple of them can even be found in their entirety on YouTube, but keep that on the downlow. Also, this post is loaded with spoilers...though I fail to see how shit can spoil. I mean, it's waste already. So what, it goes meatloaf on you a few days later. It was still shit. Shit don't spoil.
Come, let us step into the basement of my childhood. The stairs creak, but the stuff in the big cardboard box next to the life-sized Mr. Spock standee? That's where I keep the gold.
In no order...
1) It's Alive
This film was basically a statement about, of all things, the environment. Not the soft-ass shit we call environmentalism now, but the hard stuff: pesticides, prescription drugs, out-of-control sewage...stuff you worry about when you've spent the weekend in a discoteque wearing flares and showing off the taco meat that was your chest hair. The premise was that a couple give birth to a mutant killing machine that proceeds to kill its way through town. They threw some serious familial tension on top to give it meat, but really: it's a killer baby that looked like Orca's fetus. Do you really need any good reason to want to kill it besides it might embarass you at church picnics?
True story: this film's original preview was so bad...
(The owner of the video has disabled embedding it was so bad, but it's worth clicking to see.)
...that they replaced it with this one a couple of YEARS later...
...and it made 1,000,000% more money than it did before. Do you see the irony? The trailer that showed 3 full minutes of actual scenes and action and carnage from the film itself made millions of people not go see it than a rotating crib with a voiceover. That's how bad THAT movie is. To actually see it is to commit ritual suicide.
Did I mention this movie ONLY got a PG rating at the time? If they didn't change a single frame of film and released it now, it'd get at least a PG-13. Not because it's so horrific, but because we have turned into a country of pussies scared of even the un-realized, corny effect-laden IDEA of anything remotely horrific.
Speaking of remakes, this one is the only one on this list that's been officially remade. Some of them have been ripped off, but not remade. The remake was relkeased abroad in theaters, but not in the U.S. It's due for DVD before the end of the year here, so you an see it then if you like. Based on the preview, it's GRUESOME...and I might even like it. The box cover for it is chilling, too.
2) Magic
Come on, you remember this one! It's the one with Anthony Hopkins when he was 12 running around with a ventriloquist dummy that killed people! Of course, how hard could it be to kill Burgess Meredith? The guy was old at birth. He was fucking Benjamin Button. Abe Vigoda type shit. How hard could it be for even a dummy to get its little wodden hands around Mickey's neck? Seriously, this one was pretty scary when it wasn't plodding along trying to be an actual love story. One of Hopkins's best acting jobs, if we're honest. If your'e scared of clowns you'll hate this movie.
3) The Hand
I remember seeing this one on HBO at my aunt's house. This was back when HBO was the only channel you could catch a movie on before it's primetime, completely edited release. I thought it was awesome, and it has one of those Psycho-ripped endings like Magic does, but still leaves enough wonder to make a good argument over pizza and D&D miniatures about whether or not there was a hand. I'd have to see it again to make a grown decision, but my decision as a kid was, of course, that there was a hand. And that the screaming ending was hilarious.
If they remade it today there wouldn't be any argument: killer hand all the way. Why? Because Hollywood thinks we can't handle suspense.
Now my list starts to get into my favorites.
4) Kingdom of the Spiders
Captain Kirk kicking spider ass, son! The cool thing about 70s horror was that Man didn't always get to win (see Planet of the Apes), so when Spielberg ripped this off to make Arachnophobia I was kind of salty. After a while, you're like "How ARE they going to get out of this jam?", and then it ends awesome.
Funny line in the trailer: "Why did they come? What do they want?"
Really? They're spiders, dog. Mostly they just want to eat you. Even if they're mutated by the environment (see a theme here?) that just means they want to eat you in larger numbers and will blow up both a station wagon and an ambulance for the privilege.
5) The Swarm
This one bordered on good, but was mostly treated like a typical disaster ensemble movie (which really just made it even more awesome). And who would have guessed that the environment(!) would be the culprit? When this came out it actually got the news buzzing about killer bees for a minute, which just amde it even more scary because it's always been implied it could happen. That, and michael Caine showing up at your door to burn your house down. (Note: Michael Caine now appears twice on this list.)
Please note that the best actor in this film is none other than Slim Pickens.
Most hilarious scene in a horror movie: When Katherine Ross opens the door to a human-sized bee hallucination and slow-falls to the floor. I had to rewind that shit ten times.
6) Demon Seed
Holy shit, the best premise ever. It's almost inconceivable that this is based on a Dean Knootz book (which he wrote TWICE, once from the perspective of the victim, then years later from the perspective of the murderous computer). This movie has an awesome effect: the folding metal boxes that wind around a basically rip shit up. It puts you in the mind of the beach ball from The Prisoner, but in this instance actually kicks ass. There is some diabolical stuff here that will really get the sensitive mind working, like computer rape or the constant bondage, but it's supposed to be frightening and creepy. It works on that level, but a number of philisophical ones as well. What does it say about sexual violence when the victim isn't the only one treated as inhuman?
Deep stuff.
This may be the only genuinely well-done movie on this list. Why it's not been remade, I don't know. Probably because of the heady sexual themes. Fortunately the old film is good enough to be watchable even by today's standards.
7) The Car
Probably my favorite film on this list. No build-up, no explanations...this film was Predator quick: the car shows up and just starts killing people. You're trying to figure it out alongside the characters and it really adds to the suspense in an otherwise blatant action movie. Everyone always called it Jaws with a car, and they were right.
Trivia: Seven of these cars were made (it's a rigged-up Lincoln), 6 destroyed while making the film. The last one is in a private collection.
===
Well, that's it for me. Those are my go-to horror films of the 70s. Sure, I saw almost every horror film from that period eventually, but these were the ones that really had an effect on my worldview and creativity...whatever that implies. All of them deserve to be seen at least once, if not for the same reasons.
It's not that any of these movies were good films; none of them are. The acting is over the top, the plots are ludicrous, and I could have done better special effects with an egg carton, some Elmer's glue and a crazed baboon scratching my balls with a cheese grater. God knows (my god, the good white Christian god, not some beady-eyed Mexican god) I don't typically allow nostalgia to gauge my appreciation of a thing. At the same time, these were movies that had the right IDEA, and an original idea goes a long way with me. If they had been made now or back then with a little more panache, we would be talking about some serious filmmaking. As it stands, we are not. Conversely, do not expect me to talk about them seriously.
I offer these few gems, trailers of the paramount horror films of my youth (a period which can be easily gauged by the bell-bottoms, porno moustaches and the color of William Shatner's hair contained therein). A couple of them can even be found in their entirety on YouTube, but keep that on the downlow. Also, this post is loaded with spoilers...though I fail to see how shit can spoil. I mean, it's waste already. So what, it goes meatloaf on you a few days later. It was still shit. Shit don't spoil.
Come, let us step into the basement of my childhood. The stairs creak, but the stuff in the big cardboard box next to the life-sized Mr. Spock standee? That's where I keep the gold.
In no order...
1) It's Alive
This film was basically a statement about, of all things, the environment. Not the soft-ass shit we call environmentalism now, but the hard stuff: pesticides, prescription drugs, out-of-control sewage...stuff you worry about when you've spent the weekend in a discoteque wearing flares and showing off the taco meat that was your chest hair. The premise was that a couple give birth to a mutant killing machine that proceeds to kill its way through town. They threw some serious familial tension on top to give it meat, but really: it's a killer baby that looked like Orca's fetus. Do you really need any good reason to want to kill it besides it might embarass you at church picnics?
True story: this film's original preview was so bad...
(The owner of the video has disabled embedding it was so bad, but it's worth clicking to see.)
...that they replaced it with this one a couple of YEARS later...
Click to view...and it made 1,000,000% more money than it did before. Do you see the irony? The trailer that showed 3 full minutes of actual scenes and action and carnage from the film itself made millions of people not go see it than a rotating crib with a voiceover. That's how bad THAT movie is. To actually see it is to commit ritual suicide.
Did I mention this movie ONLY got a PG rating at the time? If they didn't change a single frame of film and released it now, it'd get at least a PG-13. Not because it's so horrific, but because we have turned into a country of pussies scared of even the un-realized, corny effect-laden IDEA of anything remotely horrific.
Speaking of remakes, this one is the only one on this list that's been officially remade. Some of them have been ripped off, but not remade. The remake was relkeased abroad in theaters, but not in the U.S. It's due for DVD before the end of the year here, so you an see it then if you like. Based on the preview, it's GRUESOME...and I might even like it. The box cover for it is chilling, too.
2) Magic
Come on, you remember this one! It's the one with Anthony Hopkins when he was 12 running around with a ventriloquist dummy that killed people! Of course, how hard could it be to kill Burgess Meredith? The guy was old at birth. He was fucking Benjamin Button. Abe Vigoda type shit. How hard could it be for even a dummy to get its little wodden hands around Mickey's neck? Seriously, this one was pretty scary when it wasn't plodding along trying to be an actual love story. One of Hopkins's best acting jobs, if we're honest. If your'e scared of clowns you'll hate this movie.
3) The Hand
I remember seeing this one on HBO at my aunt's house. This was back when HBO was the only channel you could catch a movie on before it's primetime, completely edited release. I thought it was awesome, and it has one of those Psycho-ripped endings like Magic does, but still leaves enough wonder to make a good argument over pizza and D&D miniatures about whether or not there was a hand. I'd have to see it again to make a grown decision, but my decision as a kid was, of course, that there was a hand. And that the screaming ending was hilarious.
If they remade it today there wouldn't be any argument: killer hand all the way. Why? Because Hollywood thinks we can't handle suspense.
Now my list starts to get into my favorites.
4) Kingdom of the Spiders
Captain Kirk kicking spider ass, son! The cool thing about 70s horror was that Man didn't always get to win (see Planet of the Apes), so when Spielberg ripped this off to make Arachnophobia I was kind of salty. After a while, you're like "How ARE they going to get out of this jam?", and then it ends awesome.
Funny line in the trailer: "Why did they come? What do they want?"
Really? They're spiders, dog. Mostly they just want to eat you. Even if they're mutated by the environment (see a theme here?) that just means they want to eat you in larger numbers and will blow up both a station wagon and an ambulance for the privilege.
5) The Swarm
This one bordered on good, but was mostly treated like a typical disaster ensemble movie (which really just made it even more awesome). And who would have guessed that the environment(!) would be the culprit? When this came out it actually got the news buzzing about killer bees for a minute, which just amde it even more scary because it's always been implied it could happen. That, and michael Caine showing up at your door to burn your house down. (Note: Michael Caine now appears twice on this list.)
Please note that the best actor in this film is none other than Slim Pickens.
Most hilarious scene in a horror movie: When Katherine Ross opens the door to a human-sized bee hallucination and slow-falls to the floor. I had to rewind that shit ten times.
6) Demon Seed
Holy shit, the best premise ever. It's almost inconceivable that this is based on a Dean Knootz book (which he wrote TWICE, once from the perspective of the victim, then years later from the perspective of the murderous computer). This movie has an awesome effect: the folding metal boxes that wind around a basically rip shit up. It puts you in the mind of the beach ball from The Prisoner, but in this instance actually kicks ass. There is some diabolical stuff here that will really get the sensitive mind working, like computer rape or the constant bondage, but it's supposed to be frightening and creepy. It works on that level, but a number of philisophical ones as well. What does it say about sexual violence when the victim isn't the only one treated as inhuman?
Deep stuff.
This may be the only genuinely well-done movie on this list. Why it's not been remade, I don't know. Probably because of the heady sexual themes. Fortunately the old film is good enough to be watchable even by today's standards.
7) The Car
Probably my favorite film on this list. No build-up, no explanations...this film was Predator quick: the car shows up and just starts killing people. You're trying to figure it out alongside the characters and it really adds to the suspense in an otherwise blatant action movie. Everyone always called it Jaws with a car, and they were right.
Trivia: Seven of these cars were made (it's a rigged-up Lincoln), 6 destroyed while making the film. The last one is in a private collection.
===
Well, that's it for me. Those are my go-to horror films of the 70s. Sure, I saw almost every horror film from that period eventually, but these were the ones that really had an effect on my worldview and creativity...whatever that implies. All of them deserve to be seen at least once, if not for the same reasons.