20. The Beyond (1981)
Being tasked with writing about The Beyond makes me feel like I’m emerging from some smog-choked alley to hawk a cursed VHS that’s almost certainly going to ruin your life. It’s just that good. The Beyond is, like most of Lucio Fulci’s films, not so much something you watch as something you experience. Which sounds like bullshit until you see the film, pick yourself off the floor, and try to remember what your name is.
The Beyond is perhaps the most obtuse Fulci film, if only because the film’s outright goal is to trudge into the deep, obscure waters of the mystical, arcane, and unknowable. I could tell you what the film is about, but it won’t do you much good. There’s a haunted painting, a frightened couple, and an insidious knowledge that results in blindness, but the sum of their parts is so much more than a mere synopsis. So say goodbye to narrative, and say hello to a gargling, bewildering nightmare. This is cosmic horror the Italian way. Which means the basement’s flooded and no eyeballs are safe. (Meg Shields)
19. The Hitcher (1986)
Get outta my nightmares and into my car. Rutger Hauer is the devil thumbing a ride, and C. Thomas Howell is the final boy foolish enough to offer him a lift. The Hitcher operates like the best urban legend. The plot is simple, the threat is severe, and the climax sparks a fundamental lesson. Don’t pick up strange men, or any men for that matter. Let that thumb dangle. If they walked this far, they could keep on walking. The 1980s were an era of paranoia and fear. The Hitcher exemplifies our distrust of others and shames whatever inkling of trust for humanity we can muster. The open road is paved on the bodies of chumps who fell for Hauer’s twinkle and a smile. Don’t you do it. (Brad Gullickson)
18. The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
The Slumber Party Massacre is a bit of an anomaly. Originally conceived as a parody by writer Rita Mae Brown and then reworked into a straight-up slasher, the directorial debut from Amy Holden Jones (who turned down an offer from Steven Spielberg to edit E.T. in order to make this movie) occupies an interesting place in its subgenre. It retains a lot of the humor, with some world-class visual gags like the gals eating pizza off a dead delivery boy’s body and a keen self-awareness that exists throughout.
It’s also got a bountiful supply of fake blood, jubilant thrills, and a genuinely frightening killer. Indeed, the cherry on top is that the baddie isn’t some mythologized or supernatural being, he’s just a dude with a drill and a hatred of women. Jones’ film knows what’s scary as well as it knows how to subvert those scares. All around, a masterwork in slasher cinema. (Anna Swanson)
17. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
John Carpenter and Debra Hill had the perfect idea to navigate a post-Michael Myers Halloween world. The plan was to turn the franchise into an anthology, with a new story every year based on the spooky holiday. Unfortunately, that idea never took, and the slash and dash aspect that launched the series quickly returned. However, it did leave us with Season of the Witch from director Tommy Lee Wallace, one of the best Halloween-set horror films in existence.
Toymaker and owner of Silver Shamrock Novelties, Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy), has a devilish plan in mind — get all the world’s kids to buy his microchip-infused Halloween masks and then used said masks to turn their kiddie brains into a pile of mush and bugs. The purpose of this plan is never clear, but it hardly matters. He wants to kill kids and that’s downright sinister! Tom Atkins plays sexy Dr. Daniel Challis and with the help of his sexy ‘stache plans to save the day, but not before having a little sexy time with the daughter of one of his dead patients. Carpenter and Alan Howarth partner for arguably the best of the Halloween scores. Five stars! (Chris Coffel)
16. House (1986)
Picture this set up: after his Aunt commits suicide, a traumatized Vietnam Veteran struggling to write his memoir moves into her lavish Victorian Home. After settling in and meeting his kooky new neighbors, the veteran finds himself haunted not only by the memory of his missing son – whose disappearance remains unsolved – but the specters of war he long thought dormant that threaten to break the boundaries of the physical world in an onslaught of psychoplasmic rage. Sounds like it could be directed by Ari Aster or Natalie Erika James, right?
Nope, this is Sean S. Cunningham’s wacky horror-comedy House! Cunningham himself has said that his loose grip on the tone of the series is what caused the franchise to be so uneven, but its clashing serio-playfulness is what makes the film so distinct. Amidst the rubber-suited monster gags, George Wendt, and the fun House of Leaves-style Eldritch Location, Cunningham devotes large stretches of the film to ‘Nam flashbacks that build considerable empathy towards lead William Katt, whose emotional rawness grounds a film that’s largely fancy-free. If House was a brand new movie, produced today with the exact same script, I have no doubt it’d be a welcome, humorous addition to the current crop of prestige horror. (Jacob Trussell)
15. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
I’ve long railed against the woefully low percentage of horror/comedies that deliver mightily on both genres, but this mid ’80s romp remains among the top tier of titles that know what they’re doing and do it beautifully. Dan O’Bannon co-writes and directs this tale of punk rock “teens” caught up in a zombie apocalypse, and it is perfection from start to finish. The laughs are big and plentiful, the horror is gory, occasionally scary, and endlessly inventive, and it walks a fine line having fun with zombie tropes while also embracing and honoring the sub-genre.
The story, co-written by Night of the Living Dead‘s John Russo — who once misspelled my name while signing his novelization of Return and then graciously gave me a second copy for free with my name corrected, so yes, I have two copies of the Return of the Living Dead novelization — offers up a fun ensemble of characters whose presence we come to enjoy, and that alone is an anomaly when it comes to young punks.
The effects run the gamut from reanimated split dogs to a corpse that won’t stop screaming, and we get plenty of gory guts and bloodletting along the way. It’s one of the best zombie movies, one of the best horror/comedies, and one of the absolute best slices of ’80s horror. (Rob Hunter)
14. The Fly (1986)
In one of his greatest works, David Cronenberg expertly blends grotesque body horror, deep-seated existential drama, genuine romance, and a half-dozen other elements that seem as if they could never coexist. The result is a mad scientist’s experiment, one that’s much more successful than Seth Brundle’s (Jeff Goldblum) ill-fated telepod trials.
Goldblum and Geena Davis (who plays his girlfriend Ronnie) are both operating on all cylinders here, so it’s impossible not to root for the lovestruck duo even as they deal with the increasingly nightmarish side effects of Brundle’s superhero-origin-story-gone-wrong. The film’s ultimate metaphor of terminal illness is chillingly effective, reminding us that few things on this earth are scarier than losing the one you love to something beyond your control. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
13. Aliens (1986)
If you’re the kind of person who thinks Aliens is more of an action film than a horror film, congratulations you are exactly the kind of person James Cameron would stuff into a locker. We’ve got sniveling marines getting impregnated with face-huggers. We’ve got acidic blood getting sprayed over a dude’s face. We’ve got James “big dick” Cameron being absolutely correct that things are scarier when there’s more than one of them.
It’s like Cameron saw the chain room scene from the original and thought to himself, “hmm things are pretty spooky when they’re wet.” And then 20th Century Fox said, “Oh boy James please take $18 million.” We will probably never see another blockbuster this startlingly in-tune with body-horror and this brazenly anti-capitalist. That is… unless Cameron makes another horror film. Aliens is one of the best sequels of all time. And Aliens is one of the best horror films of all time. Disagree, and I’ve got a locker with your name on it. (Meg Shields)
12. From Beyond (1986)
There’s a chance you’re boggled by this film’s placement on this list of the ’80s best horror movies, but trust me, it belongs here. After busting into the genre scene with the over the top miracle that is Re-Animator (1985), the filmmakers decided (wisely) to stick with the works of H.P. Lovecraft for their follow-up. Director Stuart Gordon and co-writer Brian Yuzna brought back stars Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs for another bloody gem filled with madness, crazy gore effects, inappropriate sexual shenanigans, and dead bastards causing havoc.
The plot is a little more out there than a mere reanimating fluid, though, as otherworldly beings and aroused pineal glands are the order of the day here. This time Combs takes the brunt of the practical effects work, as a phallic worm sprouts from his distorted forehead, and Crampton gets to embrace and display her sexuality rather than have it manhandled by a headless dick. It’s a weirder film than its predecessor, overflowing with unforgettable imagery and S&M, but I’d argue that it’s no less entertaining or fun for it. (Rob Hunter)
11. Demons (1985)
Italians made some of the best horror movies in the world throughout the ’70s and ’90s. Everyone rightfully praises the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava’s efforts among the best genre efforts the country produced in that time. However, few horror movies beat the gory thrills and action-packed mayhem of Lamberto Bava’s Demons. Where else can you see a motorcyclist take out demons with a katana sword in a hellspawn-infested movie theater? Nowhere. That’s where. There’s plenty of fun to be had here, but the movie also works as a cheeky satire of censorship in regard to entertainment causing actual violence. Demons stuck it to the man in the 1980s, and that’s punk rock. (Kieran Fisher)
Related Topics: 31 Days of Horror Lists, Horror
