clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Take a first look at the Criterion Channel’s ’70s horror series

29 horror films to kick off the spooky season

Just in time for the Halloween season, the Criterion Channel has programmed a series of 29 horror movies to usher in the spookiest vibes possible. The collection pulls together a selection of films from the 1970s, including such iconic horror hits as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Wicker Man, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The new trailer, which Polygon is proud to exclusively premiere, gives audiences a glimpse at the films included in the collection.

From Criterion:

In the 1970s, everything was wilder, weirder, and more far-out—and horror movies were no exception. In North America, a new generation of maverick directors like Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), George A. Romero (The Crazies), Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes), Brian De Palma (Sisters), and David Cronenberg (The Brood) responded to the decade’s heightened political anxieties and Vietnam War–era sense of disillusionment by pushing the genre’s psychological intensity and visceral violence to shocking new heights. Across the Atlantic, Britain’s legendary Hammer Films continued to serve up old-school gothic spine-tinglers (The Vampire Lovers), while auteurs like Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now) wedded spellbinding terror to art-house experimentation. Bringing together some of the decade’s most iconic slashers, chillers, and killer thrillers alongside low-budget cult rarities (Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Deathdream) and camp-tastic oddities (Trog, Theater of Blood), this tour through the 1970s nightmare realm is a veritable blood feast of perverse pleasures from a time when gore, grime, and sleaze found a permanent home in horror.

The complete list of 29 films is below:

Trog, Freddie Francis, 1970
The Vampire Lovers, Roy Ward Baker, 1970
Daughters of Darkness, Harry Kümel, 1971
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, John D. Hancock, 1971
The Nightcomers, Michael Winner, 1971
Dracula A.D. 1972, Alan Gibson, 1972
Images, Robert Altman, 1972
Death Line, Gary Sherman, 1972
Season of the Witch, George A. Romero, 1972
The Crazies, George A. Romero, 1973
Don’t Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Ganja & Hess, Bill Gunn, 1973
Sisters, Brian De Palma, 1973
Theater of Blood, Douglas Hickox, 1973
The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy, 1973
Black Christmas, Bob Clark, 1974
Deathdream, Bob Clark, 1974
It’s Alive, Larry Cohen, 1974
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974
Shivers, David Cronenberg, 1975
The Tenant, Roman Polanski, 1976*
The Witch Who Came from the Sea, Matt Cimber, 1976
The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven, 1977
Rabid, David Cronenberg, 1977
Coma, Michael Crichton, 1978
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Philip Kaufman, 1978
Long Weekend, Colin Eggleston, 1978
The Brood, David Cronenberg, 1979
The Driller Killer, Abel Ferrara, 1979

The collection (with the exception of The Tenant, which will become available on Nov. 1) will hit the Criterion Channel on Oct. 1. And if you’re on the lookout for even more movies to watch, the Criterion Channel is also debuting two more collections in October: the Women Filmmakers of New World Pictures on Oct. 21, and New Korean Cinema on Oct. 25.