The 1980s made for an interesting decade. Progressive rock fell out of fashion as the 70s drew to a close, and campy films full of disco and overacted, overdramatic gore and blood dominated the horror scene. While a fair few horror films from the decade went on to be classics (The Shining, Nightmare On Elm Street, Poltergeist), a lot went under the radar.
We’ve found five films from the 80s who deserve to remain firmly under said radar and five that might have become one of those instant classics in an alternate reality.
10 EXCELLENT: Pet Sematary
Arguably the most famous film on this list comes from, you guessed it, Stephen King. The recent remake of Pet Sematary didn’t land particularly well, but the 1989 film actually received reviews that weren’t so bad.
The main criticism that may have stopped this film reaching the lofty heights of many other King adaptations is its loss of scare factor. The weirdness and campy comedy of the situation detract slightly from the spine-tingling terror of the original book. It had a sequel as well. Don’t watch it. Please.
9 NOT SO EXCELLENT: Jaws: The Revenge
Considering the Jaws film has gone down in history as one of the greatest films ever made, and certainly one of the best examples of how to own the horror genre effectively, you’d be hard pushed to count just how many sequels it actually had. They really did keep churning them out. The fourth entry (yeah, four!) was turned around in just nine months, and perhaps that incredible speed wasn’t of much help to the final product, which was panned universally and put an end to the franchise.
8 EXCELLENT: Day Of The Dead
One of George A Romero’s lesser-known zombie flicks, Day Of The Dead, came out in 1985. It, like most of his films, follows the escapades of a group trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. It might not have the cult value and ground-breaking originality of Night Of The Living Dead or Dawn Of The Dead, but it’s still a good film.
It certainly isn’t his most scary, but the ability to demonstrate the goring killings of both zombies and humans with technology Romero simply didn’t have when making his previous films is enough to make this one worth a watch.
7 NOT SO EXCELLENT: Amityville 3D
Despite engaging with 3D ahead of its time (well, at the same time as a lot of strange 80s films), you’ve never heard of Amityville 3D have you? It was the third film in the very long, very overdone Amityville Horror franchise, and the first of those films to attempt 3D. It ended up failing to be scary on any level, with the 3D only adding to the comedically bad execution of the film, rather than adding to its scare factor.
6 EXCELLENT: Just Before Dawn
The 1981 film Just Before Dawn has all your hallmarks of a standard slasher. A group travels through mountains to some newly inherited property, before a killer starts to pick them off one by one.
Director Jeff Lieberman manages to use darkness and gloom to his advantage, covering up a low budget set with dim lighting, while combining this aesthetic with a tense soundtrack, some weirdly-good-for-a-horror-film dialogue and a hopeless atmosphere perfect for the genre.
5 NOT SO EXCELLENT: Time Of The Apes
Just from the title, you can tell exactly where Time Of The Apes was going with this one. Drawing their name and plot from Planet Of The Apes, this 1987 TV movie follows a group as they are transported to a future in which Earth is ruled by monkeys. Sounds familiar, right? The stolen plot, abysmal acting and scary scenes that are borderline impossible to find scary all contribute to why this film is considered one of the worst horrors ever.
4 EXCELLENT: The Slumber Party Massacre
From the title, you might expect The Slumber Party Massacre to be on the ‘not so excellent’ side of proceedings here. Released perhaps in 2003 with the lesser-known members of the American Pie cast? Well, actually, no.
Instead, this 1982 horror is an underrated gem of a film. It was conceived as a parody, but when the filmmakers realized they might actually be onto something good, it went down as a more straightforward slasher, full of very real tension, a good story and a lot more humor than you might be expecting.
3 NOT SO EXCELLENT: Frankenstein Island
If The Slumber Party Massacre turned your expectations on their head, then I can guarantee that Frankenstein Island will meet those expectations with all the force of a battering ram. The general premise is that a relative of Dr. Frankenstein is capturing fishermen on an island and turning them into zombies. The resultant film is about as camp as it comes, merging various unrelated moments into a feast of strangeness.
2 EXCELLENT: Cannibal Holocaust
Either you’ve never heard of Cannibal Holocaust or you’ll never forget it. If you’ve never heard of it, we can only assume it’s still banned in your country, because as soon as it came out, that’s what happened.
Full of real animal killings, disturbingly graphic sexual assault scenes and a death so convincing it took a full-scale criminal trial to clear the director of snuff film allegations, Cannibal Holocaust is about as deranged as cinema gets. Despite that, it’s a groundbreaking film, often considered the first in the found-footage genre, and it’ll truly terrify you if you can stomach it.
1 NOT SO EXCELLENT: Oasis Of The Zombies
The desert setting of Oasis Of The Zombies is actually weirdly unique, with the plot following the excavation of Nazi gold from under the nose of soldiers-turned-zombies sounding semi-interesting on paper. However, this 1982 French film doesn’t do it justice. Terrible acting, a cringe-inducing script and some monstrously bad visuals are just a few reasons behind its remembrance as one of the weakest films in horror history.
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