5. Gremlins (1984)
Instructions are hard. Don’t get the Mogwai wet. Don’t let him eat after midnight. Don’t let him sunbathe. Don’t give him a gun. Don’t cook him in the microwave. How on Earth do you expect a teenage boy to remember all these details? You don’t. Boys will be boys, and Mogwais will be Gremlins. The only way anyone will learn to follow the rules is to learn by breaking them, and of course, all the rules will get shattered by the climax. Gizmo is the good kid who understands the rules are there for a reason. Stripe is the naughty one who will eventually regret his wild ways when he happily plops himself in that bird fountain only to have his nervous system baked in the daylight. Snap, crackle, pop. (Brad Gullickson)
4. Street Trash (1987)
Street Trash isn’t the most politically correct exploitation movie out there, so don’t watch it if you don’t want to see genital mutilation and a problematic portrayal of ex-soldiers and homeless people. The story is about vagabonds who drink contaminated alcohol and start melting, spewing liquid from their mouths and spraying multicolored residue from their bodies. Elsewhere, a sociopathic Vietnam vet goes apeshit in a junkyard. It’s a silly, silly, silly, movie, but it’s also a lot of disgusting fun. (Kieran Fisher)
3. RoboCop (1987)
Paul Verhoeven, you magnificent madman, you brilliant master of schlock and satire, you king of cinematic toxic trash, none of us deserve you, but I’m so glad we have you anyway. With RoboCop (1987), Verhoeven’s exaggerated but incisive take on the American police force, hedonistic desires for violence are interrogated and indulged in equal measure. In one of the film’s gnarliest sequences, a fountain of toxic waste spews forth, mutating and melting Paul McCrane’s Emil Antonowsky as he gets caught in its goopy path. Nothing in this film — or Verhoeven’s oeuvre — is for the faint of heart, but watching a man in the process of liquefying then get slammed into full speed by a car is the cherry on top of this goopy spectacle that only a coward would dislike. (Anna Swanson)
2. The Blob (1988)
Chuck Russell’s The Blob is one of several solid arguments against dumb people who poopoo the idea of remakes, and while the reasons are legion there’s one element that stands above the rest — the film’s effects are crazy great. Sure, there are a couple of optical beats that haven’t aged well, but the bulk of blob is achieved practically through wizardry supervised by f/x legend Tony Gardner. We get lots of biological damage including a great beat involving a phone booth, but it’s the damage done to human flesh that lands the film here. The gelatinous alien basically melts living tissue it comes in contact with meaning we’re gifted with goopy faces and destroyed flesh. It’s fantastic. (Rob Hunter)
1. Hellraiser (1987)
Honestly, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is such an ‘80s-body-horror-intensive movie that the whole thing seems goopy to me. If I had to single out One Perfect Melt, it would be the transformation of Frank (Sean Chapman), which is technically a reverse melt. The guy is ripped to shreds early in the film by an occult puzzle box, but later on, his brother’s accidental blood sacrifice sort of, well, regrows him in the family home. Frank isn’t the same, though: he’s skinless, for one thing, and for another, he keeps pressuring his ex-lover and current sister-in-law Julia (Clare Higgins) into murdering people on his behalf so he can absorb their humany bits and become more corporeal. There’s this whole Marquis de Sade-type subplot with these grody looking guys called Cenobites (more on them in the sequels), and long story short, there’s another round of flesh-ripping in the end. Hellraiser has some of the most disgustingly ambitious practical effects of its decade, and although it’s not as traditionally melty as other picks on this list, it deserves this spot for its commitment to sticky body horror. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
Stay sticky with more entries in our 31 Days of Horror Lists!
Related Topics: 31 Days of Horror Lists
