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By GFR | Published
The 1970s were a revolutionary time in movie history, with studios giving more creative control over to artists in order to capture the imaginations of a radically changing audience.That was certainly felt in the realm of science fiction as cinema was willing to push boundaries with the genre in ways that still give us chills today.
These are the 1970s sci-fi movies that are still terrifying.
9. A Clockwork Orange
Based on the controversial novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange focuses on the horrific crimes of youthful gang leader Alex, whose life revolves around his love for ultraviolence, and the nightmarish tragedy of his attempted reform by an authoritarian hyper-moralist society through a horrific experiment..
A Clockwork Orange is a solid literary adaptation that serves up style and scares. And none of the performers are as stylish or scary as Malcolm McDowell, whose performance cemented Alex as one of the greatest protagonists in silver screen history.
Stanley Kubrick’s infamous film is bound to turn some viewers away – we even talked about its director contributing to banning the film in a previous video – but those with the stomach for it will be rewarded with an unnerving classic.
8. Mad Max
Mad Max is an Australian futuristic tale that presents the land down under as a bleak hellscape in which oil shortages have brought humanity to the brink of self-annihilation.
A cop played by Mel Gibson in his breakout role is all that stands between the encroaching chaos and the everyday men and women who just want to live peaceful lives. Unfortunately, peace isn’t in the cards for Max Rockatansky, a family man who must become a road warrior after violence visits his doorstep.
Gibson’s performance gives Max roaring emotions and surprising inner depth. He’s a loose cannon terrified of going off, and once he does, it’s hunting season on biker punks. Come for the car chases, stay for the carnage.
7. Logan’s Run
Logan’s Run features a futuristic world in which humanity gets to party like there’s no tomorrow. However, there really is no tomorrow for those who turn 30 and are required to turn themselves in for Carousel, a process that secretly kills them. Sandmen hunt down those who try to escape by fleeing the city, but when one of them is tasked with finding a Runner Sanctuary, his life will never be the same.
Logan’s Run excels with its frightening premise. The story taps into our ancient fear of getting older while also showing the dangers of running an automated society by computer. From evil AI to apocalyptic anxiety, this half-century-old movie hasn’t lost any of its relevance.
You owe it to yourself to watch Logan’s Run before you get a visit from the Sandmen.
6. Phantasm
Phantasm is a psychedelic phantasmagoria of bizarre ideas that better resembles a living nightmare than anything we can call “reality.”
The sci-fi part of the story involves a mysterious Tall Man at a mortuary who is turning corpses into shrunken minions for his alien home planet. If anyone messes with him, he sends his weaponized flying balls to drill a hole in their head. We said this was weird, right?
Phantasm is admittedly hard to explain, and if one of The Tall Man’s severed fingers turning into an angry insect doesn’t convince you how bizarre this film is, the attack of half-size humans and a hearse definitely will.
Overcoming critics’ scathing reviews at the time, Phantasm has gone on to become one of horror’s most endearing franchises, with Angus Scrimm returning as The Tall Man for all five films. Leave logic at the door and get swept away in the eerie unreality of Phantasm.
5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Online rage grifters complain about endless remakes as if they haven’t existed since the beginning of the film industry. One of the best remakes hit the screens in 1978: Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Even if you’ve never seen the 1956 original or its other remakes, the basics of the plot are easy to swallow: aliens invade Earth by replacing humans with emotionless duplicates. The catch is that the humans must be asleep for the process to work, a simple twist that turns every yawn into dramatic tension.
Donald Sutherland leads the cast of famous sci-fi stars, including Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, and Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. Our heroes try to uncover the mystery of the pod people, but that soon takes a backseat to trying to survive another night.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is treated as a very serious story where the stakes are life and death for the entire human race. That’s refreshing compared to modern films winking at the audience every twenty minutes with a tension-deflating joke. The result is one of the most impressive remakes of all time and remains a must-watch for any sci-fi or horror fan today.
4. Westworld
Before HBO’s award-winning series was even a dream, author Michael Crichton made the leap to the silver screen in 1973 with Westworld, the classic sci-fi story of an advanced theme park that becomes a death trap for its guests.
Two friends are having the time of their lives in the wild west simulation, when they slowly realize that the robots are killing humans, leading up to a Gunslinger duel that’s all too real. It’s a slow burn, but it’s worth it for Yul Brenner’s performance as the robotic Gunslinger, an iconic horror villain who can’t be stopped in pursuing frontier justice. Before the T-1000, before Jason, before Michael Myers, the Gunslinger was the original unstoppable force.
3. Soylent Green
Though the bleak future depicted in 1973’s Soylent Green is now behind us in 2025, its narrative about a society in disrepair as human rights are continually stomped on by the ruling class is the stuff of nightmares and still rings depressingly true.
By the year 2022, the world’s population has been subdued by a ruling class of elites as resources like food, housing, and water become increasingly unobtainable. Common citizens have no choice but to eat synthetic products known as Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow while their oppressors have access to natural foods and an abundance of other luxuries behind closed doors.
NYPD Detective Robert Thorn finds himself living in a dystopian nightmare when tasked with investigating the murder of a wealthy executive from the Soylent Corporation, while the general population is introduced to a new food source derived from plankton known as Soylent Green.
A slow-burn mystery of the highest order, Soylent Green generates its dread through its grim, claustrophobic, and eerily prophetic depiction of a society in shambles. This allows Charlton Heston to deliver one of the most iconic lines in science-fiction history (sorry, Planet of the Apes).
Soylent Green isn’t just a bona fide cult classic. It’s a warning about societal woes that are more common than ever in the present day. If you’re looking for a wake-up call, this is it.
2. Alien
Masterfully blending sci-fi and horror in ways no one had seen before, Alien is a relentless exercise in suspense and paranoia as some unknown, extraterrestrial antagonist claims its subjects one by one.
When crewmembers aboard the Nostromo are instructed by their computer to investigate a potential source of intelligent life in deep space, they get more than they bargain for after a species of unknown origin follows them onto the ship. Initially intending to study the lifeform, their research is immediately derailed when they learn they are housing a hostile creature that latches onto faces, bleeds acid, and intends to use their bodies to propagate the species.
The cramped corridors of the Nostromo alone make Alien a masterclass in claustrophobic tension and suspense, but we need to talk about the titular antagonist itself. It’s slimy, repulsive, has a mouth inside of its mouth, and is absolute nightmare fuel even by today’s standards, proving just how ahead of its time Alien was upon its release. And of course, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley redefined the genre’s idea of a ballsy heroine with nothing to lose in her fight for survival.
Few movies combine horror and sci-fi this well, and Alien crawls under your skin, but only before bursting out of your chest. This one’s a classic for a reason.
1. The Brood
Taking a more personal approach to sci-fi and body horror, David Cronenberg’s The Brood is a custody battle wrapped in psychoplasmic trauma that will keep you awake for days on end.
Frank Carveth’s mentally disturbed ex-wife, Nola, undergoes an experimental and controversial psychotherapy regimen in seclusion under the care of the morally dubious Dr. Hal Raglan. Having reason to believe that his 5-year-old daughter is being abused by her mother, our protagonist fights for sole custody, but doesn’t have the resources to become her primary caretaker and legal guardian. As Nola’s treatment intensifies, a series of violent murders involving those close to Frank take place, each one more brutal and bizarre than the last.
Thanks to Cronenberg’s willingness to use body horror as a vehicle to explore repressed emotional trauma, The Brood channels its rage into a grotesquely literal abomination, leading to a third-act reveal that’s almost too much to stomach. And don’t get us started on the creepy-as-hell childlike figures that are ever-present, but just out of frame whenever all hell breaks loose.
Cementing David Cronenberg’s legacy as one of the early body horror trailblazers, The Brood doesn’t just get under your skin. It grows there like an infection.
