Best Horror Movies of 1971

Joe, a young American soldier, is hit by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I. He lies in a hospital bed with a fate worse than death as a quadruple amputee who has lost his arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. Unbeknown to his doctors, he remains conscious and able to think, thereby reliving his life through strange dreams and memories.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

Famous organist Anton Phibes is horribly disfigured in an automobile accident while rushing to the side of his sick wife and presumed to be dead. Once Phibes learns that his wife died on the operating table, he is convinced the doctors are responsible and begins exacting his revenge on all those involved.

The story of British serial killer John Christie, who committed most or all of his crimes in the titular terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans.

While dabbling in Satanism, Count Karstein resurrects Mircalla Karnstein who initiates him into vampirism. As a rash of deaths afflicts the village, Gustav the head of Puritan group leads his men to seek out and destroy the pestilence. One of his twin nieces has become inflicted with the witchcraft but Gustav's zeal and venom has trapped the innocent Maria, threatening her with a tortuous execution, whilst Frieda remains free to continue her orgy of evil.

A Scotland Yard investigator looks into four mysterious cases involving an unoccupied house.

Ostend, Belgium. In a decadent seaside hotel, Stefan and Valerie, a newlywed couple, meet the mysterious Countess Báthory and Ilona, her secretary.

Newly released from a mental ward, Jessica hopes to return to life the way it was before her nervous breakdown. But when Jessica moves to a country house with her husband and a close friend, she finds a mysterious girl living in there. Jessica's terror and paranoia resurface as evil forces surround her.

The accidental unearthing of Satan’s earthly remains causes the children of a 17th-century English village to slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.

In the English countryside, Sarah Rexton, recently blinded in a horse riding accident, moves in with her uncle's family and gallantly adjusts to her new condition, unaware that a killer stalks them.

An insane Swedish farmer escapes from an asylum to get revenge on his sister, her husband and others.

In foggy London Dr Jekyll experiments on newly deceased women determined to discover an elixir for immortal life. Success enables his spectacular transformation into the beautiful but psychotic Sister Hyde who stalks the dark alleys of Whitechapel for young, innocent, female victims, ensuring continuation of the bloodstained research. With each transformation Sister Hyde becomes the more dominant personality, determined to eventually suppress the frail, ineffectual Dr Jekyll forever.

A retelling of Edgar Allan's Poe haunting tale.

The dreary existence of middle-aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. Based on the novel *Nest in a Fallen Tree* by Joy Cowley.

A series of murders occur that mirror those committed by the Whitechapel Ripper. Through his experiments with psychoanalysis Dr Pritchard discovers a deadly violence in one of his young female patients. As he delves into the recesses of her mind he uncovers that Anna is possessed by her dead father's spirit, willing her to commit acts of gruesome savagery over which she has no control. But the most chilling revelation of all is the identity of her father: Jack the Ripper himself.

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

A social misfit, Willard is made fun of by his co-workers, and squeezed out of the company started by his deceased father by his boss. His only friends are a couple of rats he raised at home, Ben and Socrates. However, when one of them is killed at work, he goes on a rampage using his rats to attack those who have been tormenting him.

A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.

Young babysitter Amanda arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. Soon after the Lloyds leave, a series of frightening occurrences in the gloomy old house have Amanda's nerves on edge. The real terror begins, however, when the child's biological father appears after recently escaping from a nearby mental institution.

Hungary, XVII century. After being widowed, the old countess Elizabeth Nádasdy, of the Báthory lineage, fortunately discovers a way to become young again; but the price to be paid by those around her will be high and bloody.

In 1830, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla - or as she was in 1710, Carmilla. The nearby Finishing School offers rich pickings not only in in the blood of nubile young ladies but also with the headmaster who is desperate to become Mircalla's disciple, and the equally besotted and even more foolish author Richard Lestrange.

Two Egyptologists, Professor Fuchs and Corbeck, are instrumental in unleashing unmitigated horror by bringing back to England the mummified body of Tara, the Egyptian Queen of Darkness. Fuchs’s daughter becomes involved in a series of macabre and terrifying incidents, powerless against the forces of darkness, directed by Corbeck, that are taking possession of her body and soul to fulfill the ancient prophesy that Queen Tara will be resurrected to continue her reign of unspeakable evil.

A family is trapped in a desert town by a cult of senior-citizens who recruit the town's children to worship Satan.

Christopher Lee stars in this Amicus production of “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” where the names have been changed to Dr. Marlowe and Mr. Blake. Lee as Dr. Marlowe experiments with intravenous drugs that are suppose to release inner inhibitions. So comes forth Mr. Blake (also Lee) who gets more monstrous with each transformation. Peter Cushing plays his friend and colleague, Dr. Utterson.

Count Yorga continues to prey on the local community while living by a nearby orphanage. He also intends to take a new wife, while feeding his bevy of female vampires.

Scholar Dr. Black's seemingly mundane assignment of sorting through the assets of the Barchester Cathedral library takes an eerie turn when he comes across the papers of the late Archdeacon, who plotted to gain his position through murder. However, he soon comes to discover something truly horrific about the wooden choir stalls in the church, which are tied to a famous local tree and a sinister local legend.

A newlywed painter and his wife move into his family's ancestral home and find themselves plagued by spirits of past residents.

After her prostitute mother and her john are beaten to death while they are asleep in bed, teen-aged Ellie Masters is sent to an isolated orphanage...

Satan sends his two sons to Earth to seduce and corrupt young women.

A mother and daughter hatch a scheme to murder their family's domineering and sadistic patriarch.

In Paris, in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Cesar Charron owns a theater at the Rue Morgue where he performs the play "Murders in the Rue Morgue" with his wife Madeleine Charron, who has dreadful nightmares. When there are several murders by acid of people connected to Cesar, the prime suspect of Inspector Vidocq would be Cesar's former partner Rene Marot. But Marot murdered Madeleine's mother many years ago and committed suicide immediately after.

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.

An ESP expert uses his powers to try to track down a psychic who uses telepathy to commit murder.

A deranged mother avenges herself on the man she thinks seduced her daughter by imprisoning him in a cage in her basement.

A married couple accept the invitation of mysterious vixen Diane LeFanu to visit her in her secluded desert estate. Tensions arise when the couple, unaware at first that Diane is a centuries-old vampire, realize that they are both objects of the pale temptress' seductions.

Reverend John Keyes and his wife, Lorna, on their way to a new congregation out west, break down in the desert and are rescued by the residents of a nearby town. At first warm and welcoming, the townspeople become more and more solicitous of John and insistent that he stay on as their minister, against the wishes of Lorna, who goes unheeded and slowly becomes deathly ill. Will John realize the danger before it is too late?

A notorious outlaw being escorted to prison by a homesteader and his wife turns out to have satanic powers. He uses them on the man's wife to try to possess her and help him escape.

A woman is persecuted by Jesus freaks after they've crucified her preacher husband.

A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan. When the monks try to persuade one of the female bikers, Helen, to become a satanic sacrifice the bikers smash up the monastery and leave. The monks have the last laugh, though, as Helen, as a result of the satanic rituals, is now possessed and at night changes into a werewolf, with dire results for the biker gang.

Simon is a modern day warlock. Though he lives in a storm drain and sometimes talks to trees, he's deadly serious about his witchcraft. After being picked up for vagrancy, Simon spends a night in jail with Turk, a young hustler with connections to powerful people such as Hercules, an aging hipster who hires Simon to work one of his groovy parties. There he meets Linda, the DA's pill-popping daughter. In between romanic dallances and colorful sex magic ceremonies, Simon must contend with those who dare to challenge his magical prowess causing him to summon the dark world for his revenge.

Jean Duprey and his wife Danielle are famous journalists with a special interest in unsolved mysteries. They receive a request of help by an old noble friend of Jean, Guillaume de Saint Lambert, who is about to die by an unknown illness. He lives, obviously, in ancient castle with his wife and the servants. Soon Duprey discover that his friend's wife is a witch (originally burnt in the 18th century) and that Guillaume is under her wicked influence. She practices the art of black magic and by making die slowly all members of the Saint Lambert family she gains eternal beauty. When Duprey breaks the marble casket containing the ashes of the witch she shows her real aspect before dying.

A disillusioned housewife on a vacation in the woods is disturbed by her husband continually trying to get her to come home and, more ominously, a mysterious howling at night.

After their parents divorce, one daughter lives with her mother in England while the other lives with her father in Portugal. After the untimely death of her mother, the one daughter stands to inherit a large sum of money and also a number of documents containing information that will incriminate her father, who was a crooked judge. While her father wants the documents, her sister wants the money and they will each stop at nothing, even murder, to get what they want.

After one schoolgirl is raped while taking a short cut through the local woods, and another is murdered in the same woods a few days later, the local police are baffled. With the help of a reporter from one of the local papers, and against the wishes of a psychologist at the local hospital, a young teacher at the school the girls attended uses herself as bait to lure the perpetrator out. Could it be the creepy husband of the head mistress at the school, the psychologist who seems to be taking an unusual interest in the case, or something altogether more sinister?

Two eccentric fugitives become roommates in Miami to avoid the law, while one dresses in drag as the other's aunt, leading to deception and murder.

A Nazi scientist and a woman known as a "spider goddess" attempt to develop a nerve gas made from spider venom.

Based on Ed's book, The Only House, was thought to be just an alternate version of Necromania, which is also based on the book. This has proven to be untrue, although it appears to have been unfinished. According to Rudolph Grey: "Wood evidently began as director but was replaced by producer-cameraman Saul Resnick. In his resume, Wood tales screenplay credit. Uschi Digard did not remember shooting this 1970 1-day wonder, although she has extensive dialogue."

A state senator is murdered outside his home, and the police arrest a strange man described as having "icy eyes" for the crime. An Italian reporter finds a stripper who claims to have been an eyewitness to the assassination and saw the man with the icy eyes commit it. At his trial she testifies against him, and he's sentenced to death. However, the reporter soon begins to find holes in the stripper's story, and other circumstances arise which makes him believe that the wrong man may have been convicted

A lecherous thief posing as a preacher is wandering in northern coastal Mexico. After stealing a car and evading police, he stumbles on a small coven of mysterious witches living in a seaside mansion. The preacher attempts to extort money from the witches, not knowing how dangerous they really are.