#Criterion Channel ’70s Horror Trailer – /Film

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“#Criterion Channel ’70s Horror Trailer – /Film”

To celebrate Halloween, the Criterion Channel is unleashing a smorgasbord of great 1970s horror for you to stream. Titles from Tobe Hooper, George Romero, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, and more are included, along with lower-budget affairs like The Diller Killer and It’s Alive. There’s something for everyone here: vampires, witches, body horror, serial killers, Donald Sutherland, even troglodytes. And now there’s a new trailer to announce the impending arrival of the films.

Criterion Channel ’70s Horror Trailer

Are the 1970s the best decade for horror? I’m sure that’s debatable, but it’s definitely one of the best decades. Horror – when done well – always reflects the era it exists in, and in the ’70s, people were still reeling from the turbulent 1960s, with the Vietnam War very much still a reality. As a result, the horror of the era is often loaded with heavy themes and violence that was – at the time – quite shocking.

And now, The Criterion Channel is bringing 29 of those movies together for October (well, technically 28 – one of them doesn’t arrive until November, so I’m not entirely sure why Criterion included it on this list) in order to help with your Halloween season movie marathon. Here’s how they’re describing the collection:

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.

And here’s the list of films, all of which (save one) will be available on October 1:

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