Essentials: 20 Oddball Sci-Fi Films Of The 1970s

Somewhere between 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and 1977’s “Star Wars,” something happened in the culture. Storytellers, perhaps inspired by the fizzling out of the hippie counter-culture, the still-dragging-on war in Vietnam and post-Watergate disillusionment, began to look at the future in a somewhat darker, more idiosyncratic way than had been the case before, shifting focus to recurring themes of environmental disaster, utopias gone sour, and the end of all things.

The result is one of the most distinctive and self-contained periods of sci-fi movies in the history of cinema, one where the films proved weirder, more distinctive and trippier than at almost any other time. One such example, Michael Crichton‘s curious western/sci-fi hybrid “Westworld,” hits Blu-ray for the first time this week, and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. And so we thought this felt like a good opportunity to run down 20 of our favorite — or in some cases, least favorite — odd ’70s sci-fi movies. Check out our list below, and let us know your own favorites in the comments section below.

“The Andromeda Strain” (1971)
Very much the model of the restrained sci-fi film — there’s very little eye candy on display, including the star-free cast who play the rare movie scientists who look like scientists — “The Andromeda Strain” marks the first movie adaptation of a novel by doctor-turned-novelist-and-filmmaker Michael Crichton, the author who’d later bring us the worlds of “Jurassic Park,” “Congo,” “Sphere” and “Timeline” among others (and who’ll figure several times elsewhere on this list). And while there’s an alien threat at work in the film, it’s literally a tiny one, though no less dangerous for its size. The movie, efficiently directed by chameleonic veteran journeyman Robert Wise (“The Haunting,” “The Sound of Music“) gets underway when a government satellite carrying a microscopic alien organism crashes in a New Mexico town, gruesomely killing all but two of its inhabitants, an old man and a baby. The survivors are brought to a secret underground facility where a team of scientists prepared for this kind of eventuality attempt to find out what happened, and how to stop it. While Wise’s film doesn’t include much in the way of spectacle (beyond some impressive production design from Boris Leven, who got an Oscar nomination for his troubles), it’s no less gripping for it, although it’s dry in spots. And Crichton’s background in medicine shows that, aside from the alien origins of the organism, the whole thing is terrifyingly plausible, at least until it shifts into a disaster movie in its closing stages.

“The Black Hole” (1979)
While now almost completely forgotten about, despite some idle talk about Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy“) hadling a big budget remake, “The Black Hole” is a true sci-fi oddity, for a number of reasons. Firstly – it was directed by Gary Nelson, a filmmaker whose most notable contribution to the artform seems to be the Jodie Foster version of “Freaky Friday.” Secondly, it was the most expensive movie ever produced by Disney up to that point and its first to carry a PG-rating. It was also, maybe most importantly, something of a technological breakthrough, particularly when it came to the computer-generated sequence that started the movie (at the time it was the longest in history). The filmmakers also developed a technology that would allow “panning” over a stationary matte painting, after being denied the use of similar equipment from Industrial Light & Magic. The movie, about a spaceship crew on the precarious edge of the titular gravity mass, is pretty weird too – it follows a similar “derelict space station” motif that “Alien” would share that same year – and has a stellar cast that includes a spry Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins (who gets murdered by robots in the movie’s best scene), Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux and Ernest Borgnine. The production design (by Peter Ellenshaw and John B. Mansbridge), too, is genuinely jaw dropping, as is the score, by Bond composer John Barry (that main theme kills). It’s pretty existential too (read: slow), with metaphysically knotty notions of heaven and hell sprinkled in amongst the telepathic robots. While it became the 21st highest grossing film of 1979, for Disney’s most expensive film to date, that was hardly a major victory. Critics at the time were also very mixed on it, but it’s such a strange outlier for the company, it’s worth checking out for that alone.

“A Boy And His Dog” (1975)
L.Q. Jones, a renowned character actor from dozens of westerns, saddled up as a director with a young Don Johnson, Harlan Ellison, Ray Manzarek (yes, the garrulous/nerdy keyboardist from The Doors), the dog from “The Brady Bunch” and members of the Firesign Theater for this weirdo post-apocalyptic tale of telepathy, rape and popcorn. Johnson and his shaggy pup roam the desert, looking for food and love. The telepathically talking dog, Blood (adorable, by the way), is basically in charge, and leads Johnson to easy sex in exchange for food. It’s kinda like “Knight Rider” except it’s a dog instead of a car and they aren’t busting smugglers, they’re being not-so-scrupulous scavengers. Eventually the pair are lured to an underground city where the men are sterilized and Jason Robards wears white face paint. Shockingly, once you get into the groove of the bizarre film (it does have some witty dialogue) it actually kinda works. This one is in the public domain, so you can watch the film in full on any video streaming site without feeling guilty. Ray Manzarek also contributed music to the film along with Tim McIntire and Jaime Mendoza-Nava.

“Dark Star” (1974)
Imagine taking all the dread and horror of “Alien” and replacing it with a loquacious, stoner vibe and that is, pretty much, what you get with “Dark Star.” Co-written, starring and edited by “Alien” co-creator Dan O’Bannon and directed by John Carpenter, “Dark Star” is a shaggy dog film about a low-rent crew busting their hump in space, destroying planets for The Man. The space crew workers’ ever-malfunctioning ship (no toilet paper) faces increasing obstacles, like a pesky alien mascot (really just a painted beach ball) who won’t go where he’s told and the belligerent sentience of one of their world-killing bombs. The picture’s finale features bearded space hippies trying to calm down this freaked-out “Thermostellar Triggering Device” through a dialogue of rather heavy post-grad philosophy. While the director’s later films such as “The Thing” and “Escape From New York” would feature memorable endings of their own, few films in the Carpenter canon can compare with mass death spawned by robotic Cartesian doubt. Carpenter’s early synthesizer score only makes it better.

“Demon Seed” (1977)            
Science fiction perverts love to talk about sex robots, but no one wants to address the dangers of robot rape. In this strangely effective adaptation of Dean Koontz‘ “Demon Seed” by Donald Cammell (the oft-forgotten co-director, with Nicolas Roeg, of “Performance“) Julie Christie isn’t just violated, she is impregnated by an artificial intelligence that her own husband (Fritz Weaver) created (Robert Vaughn co-stars). The Proteus IV computer program has the sum of all human knowledge in it, so you know that isn’t going to end well. In classic sci-fi manner, Proteus tries to test its limits, especially after it is relegated to simple chores around the Weaver/Christie place. Proteus refuses to shut down, bunkers in the basement and mutates into a surprisingly chilling form that kinda resembles golden air conditioning ducts contorting like a Rubik’s Snake. Storywise, “Demon Seed” is trash, but it is treated so seriously and the design (not just the villain, but the science labs and early computers) are so nifty that one can’t help but get sucked in.