horror films of the 1970s

A June Cleaver type bites off a man's most intimate of parts while performing the act of fellatio; A crippled youth is maimed at the hands of a chainsaw-wielding maniac; a half-wit uses the recently dead flesh of young women to mend the decaying corpse he calls mother; a vacationing family finds their German Shepherd gutted at the hands of a cannibal clan. These are just a few of the extraordinary scenarios thrust upon an ill-prepared audience during the savage cinema period of the 1970s. Never more exploitive, the media, with Dan Rather at the helm, tested the American sentimentality on a nightly basis with images of a war-torn Vietnam. Cinema is an affecting medium. The most perhaps of all the arts for it casually blends the expression of the written word with that of music, drama and movement. Its impact, however, pales in comparison to that garnered via the cataclysms of war. Thus, directors the likes of Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and Sam Peckinpah took advantage of this new immunity, creating visions of intense and profound horror with near disregard for the emotional state of their audiences. In a recent blog in which I praised the relentless approach of last year's Wolf Creek, I likened the picture's power to that created via the aforementioned movies of the savage cinema period. The geek gears that occasionally drive my brain sparked into motion and I was compelled to pay homage to what is arguably the greatest period in horror history by counting down the best genre films of said decade in this fan's opinion. Read on if you care at all.

1. Halloween

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

3. The Exorcist

4. The Hills Have Eyes

5. Jaws

6. Dawn of the Dead

7. It's Alive

8. Martin

9. Carrie

10. Theater of Blood

Honorable Mentions: Black Christmas, And Soon the Darkness