Eps 1372: A look back at the weirdest obscure horror movies of the 1980s
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Sheila Griffin
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This article, titled the 50 best 1980s horror movies, is part of the FSR series of 31 days of Horror Lists. The 1980s gave audiences plenty of classic horror movies from Halloween to Friday the 13th. Every year since the beginning of cinema there have been some fantastic horror films, but for many fans the output of the genres could not have been better than in the 80s.
In fact, my personal number one for the best horror film of the 1980s came in at fifty, which is something terrible about our voting system and the incredible quality of the films made during that magical decade. If there's one thing we can all thank the 1980s for, it's that some of the best and wildest horror movies have been made. It's bonkers, but it just goes to show how many popular horror films there have been in this decade.
It wasn't just the brilliant 70s that were charged with iconic films, zombie masterpieces, paranormal gems and slasher-heavy decades, the 80s also brought renowned classics and small treasures. Some of the best horror films of the decade did not go straight into the ether like Kubrick and Carpenter, but from a unique vantage point, with ambitious and capable artists surrounded by the technical genius of other artists who helped them get where they were. These great overlooked horror films are not killer films, and many of these slashes do not get the recognition they deserve because they are solid films.
In the book 1001 movies you must see before you die, horror critic Kim Newman called Dr. Caligari's cabinet a good early entry into the horror genre, introducing images, themes and character expressions that would become essential to characters such as Tod Browning's Dracula and James Whale's Frankenstein . The success of Frankenstein was followed by several sequels in the same year and Dracula became one of the most famous horror movies in history. The hugely successful psychological horror film Black Cat was the first of six Universal Pictures films that brought Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi together.
Paramount Pictures released horror movies throughout the decade, the most popular of which was Uninvited . In 1945, Britain contributed the anthology horror film Dead of Night.
Horror trailers from the 1980s are a fun campy time capsule to explore in 2014. The 1980s were the second golden age of B movies, horror movies that finally shaken off the naveté of the giant monsters and haunted houses of the 1950s and embraced a dirty, splash-soaked aesthetic of neon, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Here are some of the cheesiest horror films of the Eighties that will make you laugh at their ridiculous scenes.
There is no doubt that this is the most underrated film on this list and one of the most overlooked gems in horror history in my humble opinion. Most people take that as highlighting one horror film a day, but for FSR this is a creepy increase to nine and celebrates the day with a top ten list.
One of my all-time favourite B-horror films is Coulrophobic Nightmare, the absolute definition of a cult classic. Now part of the Midnite Movies collection. Maligned because the film is as remarkable for what it shows as it is for what it shows, departed from the trail of the horror franchise established in the first two films, but it is so crazy that it has developed a cult following since its debut in 1982. It is the only film in the franchise that does not have the iconic, unflappable serial killer Michael Myers, who is part of established mythology.
One of the most traumatising horror films of the time is about a young boy who witnesses the brutal murder of his parents by a madman in Santa costume, who turns out to be a like-minded killer years later. The platonic ideal of kitschy horror movies from the 1970s and 1980s was silly and dated to the best of their ability, full of killers, ogre-eaters and demons lurking somewhere between poltergeist and troll 2 in the credibility spectrum. It also included a list of actors who appeared in supporting roles in O.C.
A horror film is one that tries to elicit fear from its audience for entertainment purposes. Inspired by one of the greatest horror poster posters of all time, this cult classic of 1986 crosses the slasher "Manor House" with a murder mystery in which a group of college kids spend a weekend that turns bloody and begins to engage them. In his horror film "The House," experimental director Nobuhiko Unhinged has a schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to the estate of her sick aunts.