1976 was a great year for horror.
Two all-time classics from that year have never left the conversation in the 50 years since their release: Brian DePalma’s Carrie and Richard Donner’s The Omen. Both have been franchised, remade, discussed, discoursed, analyzed, and put through the academia grinder over the last five decades. And both are worthy of all the accolades they continue to receive.
Beyond those monumental films are many others that are less discussed but are well worth revisiting or discovering for the first time. Here is a list of ten horror films that fall into this category, celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this year.
Alice, Sweet Alice (aka Communion)
Directed by Alfred Sole.
Alice Spages (Paula E. Sheppard) is a mischievous and even cruel young girl, but is she a killer? Someone wearing the yellow raincoat and plastic glamor mask she is known to wear killed her sister Karen (Brooke Shields) and attacked her aunt. Alice swears it wasn’t her. Featuring an iconic killer look, infused with plenty of Catholic guilt, and ambiguous enough to leave the audience questioning whether or not Alice is so sweet, Alice, Sweet Alice is one of the great unsung horror films of the 70s. Built on a Hitchcockian plot and filmed with plenty of style, it still feels subversive, and even a bit perverse and dangerous to this day.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Tubi, Kanopy. Arrow Blu-ray.
Burnt Offerings
Directed by Dan Curtis.
Dan Curtis is best known for his prolific television work, but he also directed this unique and effectively creepy haunted house feature. Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed and Karen Black) rent the beautiful but decaying Alardyce manor for the summer and move in along with their son David (Lee Montgomery) and Ben’s feisty old aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis). The longer they stay, the house seems to regenerate as the family disintegrates. Some of the film’s most memorable elements include some playful roughhousing in the pool that takes a turn toward attempted murder, the creepy grinning hearse driver played by Anthony James, and the demise of a character that involves their face smashing through the windshield of the family station wagon. Burnt Offerings is a subtle film, bridging the gap between The Haunting (1963) and The Shining (1980), that demands patience and focus but rewards those willing to fall under its spell.
Where to watch: Prime Video, MGM+, Tubi, Roku. Kino Lorber Blu-ray.
Eaten Alive
Directed by Tobe Hooper.
Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) has some similarities in substance to his savage masterpiece but is very different in style. Eaten Alive stars Neville Brand as Judd, the redneck owner of an isolated and run down hotel in the East Texas Bayou. Various guests check in, with several running afoul of either Judd’s grim reaper-style scythe or his man-eating pet crocodile, which he takes great pains to confirm is not an alligator. Eaten Alive crosses the gritty anarchic savagery of Texas Chain Saw with a stage-bound aesthetic that lends the film a bizarre, dreamlike energy. The film features memorable supporting performances from Stuart Whitman, Mel Ferrer, Morticia Addams herself, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns returning from Chain Saw, and future horror icon Robert England delivering the immortal line, “My name is Buck, and I’m rarin’ to fuck.”
Where to watch: Tubi, Fandango, Night Flight. Arrow Blu-ray
God Told Me To
Directed by Larry Cohen.
Larry Cohen was the master of the great story “hook.” From killer babies to a dragon guarding its egg in the Chrysler Building, and a healthy snack that eats you, he never seemed to run short of ideas. In this interrogation of faith and fanaticism, several people commit horrible murders, and when asked for a reason, they freely and remorselessly answer, “God told me to.” Tony Lo Bianco plays detective Peter Nicholass whose investigation into these murders leads him further and further into bizarre territory that forces him to confront his faith, not only in a higher power, but in his own identity. Featuring some of Cohen’s most daring trademark guerilla filmmaking, especially a sequence involving Andy Kaufman infiltrating the real New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade dressed as a police officer, God Told Me To is entertaining, thought-provoking, and thoroughly bizarre.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Tubi, PlutoTV. Blue Underground Blu-ray and 4K.
Grizzly
Directed by William Girdler.
Jaws became the top-grossing movie of all time up to that point in 1975, so imitators were inevitable. Grizzly does little to hide that it is essentially “Jaws on land,” including its minimalist approach to showing the bear, a mayoral authority who refuses to close the park, a group of deficient vigilante hunters, an explosive climax, and a thumping rhythmic score. It also involves a trifecta of men searching for the creature: a park ranger, a wildlife expert, and a grizzled veteran who is now a helicopter pilot who delivers a monologue not too far removed from Quint’s USS Indianapolis speech. But despite the plot similarities, it also has its own unique sense of style and moves at a breakneck pace. Now to be clear, Grizzly is no Jaws and William Girdler is no Steven Spielberg, but the film is still one hell of an entertaining “when animals attack” picture.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Tubi, Roku. Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray
The House with the Laughing Windows (La casa dalle finestre che ridono)
Directed by Pupi Avati.
Technically speaking, The House with the Laughing Windows is giallo rather than pure horror but filled with enough thrills and chills to belong on this list. Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) arrives in a remote village to restore a fresco discovered on a church wall. He learns that it was painted by the mad artist Buono Legnani and soon uncovers sinister secrets about the painter, the church, and the town. The film culminates in a truly bonkers climax, but the story also plays fair, planting the seeds for it all along. Though different from Carrie in almost every way, it does share some surprising images with DePalma’s film, including a woman in white covered in blood and St. Sebastian, a Christian martyr usually depicted as being pierced by several knives or arrows.
Where to watch: Rent or buy on Prime Video, Apple TV. Arrow Blu-ray and 4K
Massacre at Central High
Directed by René Daalder.
Though the title suggests it is a formulaic slasher, Massacre at Central High is far more innovative and sharp than one might expect. New student David (Derrel Maury) is welcomed by the wealthy students that rule Central High but also stands up for the poor kids that they bully. When their wrath eventually turns on David, he begins to orchestrate accidents that kill the bullies off one by one. However, the vacuum created by their absence is quickly filled by the formerly bullied, who in turn torment those they deem to be below them. Featuring a number of memorable kills along with its intelligent examination of class and power structures, Massacre at Central High is one of the most unique exploitation films of the era. Its reputation as a cult classic has grown over the years due to its inclusion in critic Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 2 and its clear influence on another cult classic, 1989’s Heathers.
Where to watch: Tubi, Hoopla, Fandango. Synapse Films Blu-ray.
The Tenant
Directed by Roman Polanski.
The slowest of slow burns in which the tension is ratcheted up throughout its runtime like the steady turning of a screw. It is the story of the new tenant of a Parisian apartment building who finds himself taking on the identity of its previous occupant and sent barreling headlong toward her fate. The Tenant features colorful and eccentric supporting performances by Isabel Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, and Shelley Winters, among others who may or may not be in on the whole thing. I debated whether or not to include this title due to the controversial nature of its director/star, and would not begrudge anyone for skipping this one, but for those who do choose to watch it, the efficacy and influence of The Tenant is undeniable.
Where to watch: Hoopla, Kanopy. Several Region Free Import Blu-rays and 4K are available.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Directed by Charles B. Pierce.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown is one of the early examples of a true crime feature film and is still one of the best. It follows the reign of terror of “The Phantom Killer,” who murdered several young people in the town of Texarkana in 1946. Though it does take significant dramatic license, it also generally sticks to the broad stroke facts of the real case, and its influence on other genre classics is clear. Without the look of The Phantom Killer, we may not have gotten “baghead” Jason in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). The film also features one of the most memorable kills in all of slasher cinema when the killer attaches a knife to the end of a trombone slide (in reality, this victim was a saxophonist) and stabs a teenage girl while blatting out sour notes on the instrument. Because of its fusion of exploitation with the real-life story, The Town That Dreaded Sundown remains controversial, as addressed in the 2014 meta sequel/remake.
Where to watch: Prime Video, Tubi, Kanopy. The Scream Factory Blu-ray appears to be out of print.
Who Can Kill a Child? (¿Quién puede matar a un niño?)
Directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador.
An English couple on holiday in Spain travel to an island in the Mediterranean to find it practically deserted except for a group of children. After spending some time exploring the island, trying to figure out what is going on, they witness a young girl gleefully beating an old man to death with his cane. It soon becomes clear that the children have been infected with a kind of telepathic urge to kill every adult. The children in the film behave in a way somewhat akin to the avian attackers in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), sometimes waiting and watching, sometimes savagely assaulting. In neither film is there a thorough explanation for their sudden homicidal behavior, only theories and conjecture. Though it has a lot of competition, Who Can Kill a Child? is arguably the most disturbing “killer kids” movie ever made.
Where to watch: Rent or buy on Prime Video. Mondo Macabro Blu-ray
Honorable Mentions
Of course I can’t possibly just limit myself to ten (well, twelve with Carrie and The Omen), so here are a few others if you need more. Schizo is a very Hitchcockian but quite entertaining British thriller. House of Mortal Sin would make a great pairing with Alice, Sweet Alice. To the Devil a Daughter, the last horror film of Hammer’s original run, may not be great but it certainly has its moments, especially for Hammer fans. Finally, I can’t help but love the remake of King Kong, especially for the work of the great Rick Baker, who, while working for Carlo Rimbaldi, fabricated and performed in the Kong suit.
Of course, there are always more movies to discover. In fact, I discovered quite a few new movies from 1976 of varying quality while preparing to write this article. That’s one of the great beauties of the movies: if you’ve never seen it, then it’s new to you. You can do a lot worse than diving into the horror of 1976.
