Cool 70s Horror TV Movies
by sam-shaw7349 | created - 13 Sep 2014 | updated - 25 Jun 2016 | PublicThere were a lot of fantastically creepy US made horror / thriller tv movies in the 70s. It now seems to have been something of a golden age for them. They always had a creepy, unsettling tone to make up for the lack of gore or grand effects and there was never an ounce of fat on them, they were usually between 70 and 75 minutes long, so you can't really go wrong. Here's the good ones I've seen, got a bunch more to go...
First a few honourable mentions:
Fear No Evil (1969) - a cool 60's one that has the same vibe as the others and had a 1970 follow up - Ritual of Evil
The Brotherhood of Satan (1971) - I assumed this was one of the bunch when i watched it coz it sure feels like one, turns out it was released it theatres though, great movie regardless worth seeking out
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) - An 80's one but this needs talking about as often as possible, really wonderful flick
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1. Crowhaven Farm (1970 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 74 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple inherits a farm. Hoping that the rural location might help to patch up their strained marriage, they move into it, only to be confronted by the supernatural forces that inhabit it.
Director: Walter Grauman | Stars: Hope Lange, Paul Burke, Lloyd Bochner, John Carradine
Votes: 1,018
2. How Awful About Allan (1970 TV Movie)
PG | 73 min | Horror, Thriller
After an eight-month stay in a mental hospital, a tormented man comes home to live with his sister; but a mysterious boarder may be trying to kill him.
Director: Curtis Harrington | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Julie Harris, Joan Hackett, Kent Smith
Votes: 1,008
3. Ritual of Evil (1970 TV Movie)
98 min | Drama, Horror
A psychiatrist investigates the death of one of his patients, a young heiress.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Louis Jourdan, Anne Baxter, Diana Hyland, John McMartin
Votes: 294
4. Duel (1971 TV Movie)
PG | 90 min | Action, Thriller
A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Dennis Weaver, Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell
Votes: 78,377
5. A Taste of Evil (1971 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 73 min | Horror, Thriller
On her way home from a stay at a mental institution after a traumatic rape, a woman realizes that someone is deliberately trying to drive her insane.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Barbara Parkins, Roddy McDowall, William Windom
Votes: 744
6. Crawlspace (1972 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror, Thriller
A childless middle-age couple adopt a troubled youth they find living in their crawlspace and attempt to get him to rejoin society with tragic results.
Directors: John Newland, Buzz Kulik | Stars: Arthur Kennedy, Teresa Wright, Tom Happer, Eugene Roche
Votes: 462
7. Gargoyles (1972 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 74 min | Horror
An anthropologist/paleontologist and his daughter, while travelling through the southwestern U.S., stumble upon a colony of living, breathing gargoyles.
Director: Bill Norton | Stars: Cornel Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Grayson Hall, Bernie Casey
Votes: 3,768
8. Home for the Holidays (1972 TV Movie)
73 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
An ailing man summons his four daughters home for Christmas and asks them to kill his new wife, who he suspects is poisoning him.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Sally Field, Jill Haworth, Julie Harris, Eleanor Parker
Votes: 1,336
9. Moon of the Wolf (1972 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 75 min | Horror, Thriller
After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he may be dealing with a werewolf.
Director: Daniel Petrie | Stars: David Janssen, Barbara Rush, Bradford Dillman, John Beradino
Votes: 1,935
10. The Night Stalker (1972 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 74 min | Horror, Mystery
An abrasive Las Vegas newspaper reporter investigates a series of murders committed by a vampire.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker
Votes: 7,380
11. She Waits (1972 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror
A murdered woman possesses her husband's new wife to seek revenge.
Director: Delbert Mann | Stars: Patty Duke, David McCallum, Dorothy McGuire, Lew Ayres
Votes: 383
12. Something Evil (1972 TV Movie)
Unrated | 73 min | Horror
A young couple moves into a farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. What they don't know is that there is an unseen presence in the house, and that it wants to take possession of the wife.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Darren McGavin, Sandy Dennis, Ralph Bellamy, Jeff Corey
Votes: 2,092
13. When Michael Calls (1972 TV Movie)
73 min | Horror, Thriller
A woman begins to receive ominous phone calls from her nephew, who died 15 years earlier. With each phone call, a family member dies. Will she be the next in line?
Director: Philip Leacock | Stars: Ben Gazzara, Elizabeth Ashley, Michael Douglas, Al Waxman
Votes: 1,003
14. A Cold Night's Death (1973 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Two scientists suspect that there is someone other than their research primates inhabiting their polar station.
Director: Jerrold Freedman | Stars: Robert Culp, Eli Wallach, Michael C. Gwynne, Vic Perrin
Votes: 1,080
15. The Devil's Daughter (1973 TV Movie)
Unrated | 74 min | Horror
A young girl whose mother had sold her soul to Satan when she was born is told by Satan that she must marry a fellow demon.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc | Stars: Shelley Winters, Belinda Montgomery, Robert Foxworth, Jonathan Frid
Votes: 640
16. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973 TV Movie)
Unrated | 74 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own.
Director: John Newland | Stars: Kim Darby, Jim Hutton, Barbara Anderson, William Demarest
Votes: 4,113
17. Dying Room Only (1973 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Stranded at a roadside diner in the desert, a woman searches for her husband who has mysteriously disappeared from property.
Director: Philip Leacock | Stars: Cloris Leachman, Ross Martin, Ned Beatty, Dana Elcar
Votes: 560
18. The Night Strangler (1973 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 74 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A reporter hunts down a 144-year old alchemist who is killing women for their blood.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug, Simon Oakland, Scott Brady
Votes: 4,136
19. The Norliss Tapes (1973 TV Movie)
72 min | Horror
An investigative reporter stumbles onto an artist that has made a pact to come back after his death to sculpt a statue of a demon using human blood and clay. Once the demon is awakened he will be granted immortality.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Roy Thinnes, Don Porter, Angie Dickinson, Claude Akins
Votes: 1,548
20. Satan's School for Girls (1973 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 78 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
A young woman investigating her sister's suicide at a private girls' school finds herself battling a Satanic cult.
Director: David Lowell Rich | Stars: Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Lloyd Bochner, Jamie Smith-Jackson
Votes: 1,634
21. Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 74 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A sculptor hires young college girls to take care of his elderly mother and his supposedly insane sister, both of whom live in the old family mansion with him.
Director: Gordon Hessler | Stars: Ted Bessell, Bette Davis, Sian Barbara Allen, Charles Drake
Votes: 1,186
22. Bad Ronald (1974 TV Movie)
Unrated | 74 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A perverted teenage boy who lives in the walls of a house finds the house sold to a family after his mother dies, then he falls for one of the new residents.
Director: Buzz Kulik | Stars: Scott Jacoby, Pippa Scott, John Larch, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 2,413
23. Dracula (1974 TV Movie)
TV-14 | 98 min | Drama, Horror
Dracula is searching for a woman who looks like his long dead wife.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Jack Palance, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport, Pamela Brown
Votes: 2,785
24. Scream of the Wolf (1974 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror, Thriller
A big-game hunter comes out of retirement to help track down a killer wolf, and begins to suspect that it isn't a wolf but an animal that can take human form.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Peter Graves, Clint Walker, Jo Ann Pflug, Philip Carey
Votes: 875
25. The Strange and Deadly Occurrence (1974 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 78 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A family moves into a new home in an isolated area, and soon realizes that someone--or something--doesn't want them there.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Robert Stack, Vera Miles, L.Q. Jones, Herb Edelman
Votes: 426
26. The Stranger Within (1974 TV Movie)
Approved | 74 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
An expectant mother begins acting strangely and doesn't know why. Gradually she starts to realize that her bizarre behavior is being controlled by her unborn baby.
Director: Lee Philips | Stars: Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Joyce Van Patten, David Doyle
Votes: 412
27. Satan's Triangle (1975 TV Movie)
74 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A US coast guard finds only a woman still alive aboard a shipwreck. She tells her rescuer what happened and soon, they find themselves trapped in a mysterious part of the ocean known as Satan's Triangle.
Director: Sutton Roley | Stars: Kim Novak, Doug McClure, Alejandro Rey, Ed Lauter
Votes: 1,429
28. Trilogy of Terror (1975 TV Movie)
Unrated | 72 min | Horror, Thriller
Three bizarre horror stories, all of which star Karen Black in four different roles playing four tormented women.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Robert Burton, John Karlen, George Gaynes, Jim Storm
Votes: 8,711
29. Dead of Night (1977 TV Movie)
76 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Three horror stories about a vintage car that transports its driver back to 1926, the mistress of an old Victorian mansion who is scared of a vampire and a mother tormented by her dead son who she has brought back to life.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Ed Begley Jr., E.J. André, Ann Doran, Christina Hart
Votes: 1,625
30. Night Drive (1977 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 73 min | Thriller
A housewife is stalked by a psycho after she sees him murder a highway patrol officer.
Director: E.W. Swackhamer | Stars: Valerie Harper, Richard Romanus, Nicholas Pryor, John Quade
Votes: 813
31. Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 95 min | Horror, Thriller
A dog that is a minion of Satan terrorizes a suburban family.
Director: Curtis Harrington | Stars: Richard Crenna, Yvette Mimieux, Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann
Votes: 1,469
32. Someone's Watching Me! (1978 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 97 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A woman is being watched in her apartment by a stranger, who also calls and torments her. A cat-and-mouse game begins.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Lauren Hutton, David Birney, Adrienne Barbeau, Charles Cyphers
Votes: 5,180
33. Summer of Fear (1978 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 98 min | Horror, Thriller
A teenage girl's life is turned upside down after her cousin moves into her house, and as time goes by she begins to suspect that she may be a practitioner of witchcraft.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Linda Blair, Lee Purcell, Jeremy Slate, Jeff McCracken
Votes: 3,009
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