Horror Movie Review: Terror (1978)

Terror is a fun early mix of slasher & paranormal horror that sees a group of ancestors cursed to die by a witch who was burned at the stake. Low budget but with some great imagination particularly in death sequences, this horror has plenty of thrills to keep the viewer watching until the end.

The movie opens with the witch burning and the curse being put upon the ancestors of those involved. This turns out to be a film being shown to said ancestors at a party. A varied bunch of people, it’s not long before things take a turn in a darker direction when a hypnotism goes bad.

From this point on what we get is a murder mystery that sees the cast being picked off in varied and gory fashion. With a lot of the film between deaths being a bit boring these scenes really spice things up. POV shots of knives being brandished, death by falling light fixtures, pinned to a tree…it’s all very imaginative & the camera work is stellar!

Now the acting is hardly something to get excited about, it’s very Hammer House of Horror-esque but it works for the most part as this is a film about everyone dying in unique ways.

A slasher at heart, it does a great job of building tension when it appears something more sinister is occurring & it does leave you guessing right up until the end. It’s not a ‘twist’ movie & it’s fairly obvious few are getting out of it alive but you’re never quite sure just what is going on. I mean is the witches curse real or has one of the guests just gone off the deep end?

Like many films from the early time of horror it can be a difficult watch thanks to the low budget effort. The film takes place in a lot of darkness and it can be tough to pick out just what is going on with a particular forest chase lacking because of this.

A classic horror that has more excitement & clever deaths then you might first expect!