They’re here! The greatest horror movies of the 1980s
From arthouse horror like The Shining to low-budget fright fests like Basket Case, here are 20 films that prove the '80s was the scariest movie decade ever
Film Features American film directors
The 1930s and 1940s are frequently recognized as the golden age of horror. And while Universal Studios deserves much credit for launching the genre with acknowledged classics like Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), and The Wolf Man (1941), the mantle truthfully belongs to the auteurs and the schlockmeisters of the 1980s. Inspired by the success of the prior decade’s horror hits–like The Exorcist, Jaws and Halloween—top directors were able to make big-budget, scare-laden blockbusters while, at the same time, filmmakers were preparing to capitalize on the rise of home video to make some joyously tasteless B movies. So with Halloween creeping up on us, let’s celebrate the most diverse decade of scary movies in history with our ranking of the 20 greatest ’80s horrors. There are no lame Necco wafers or Smarties in this frightfully good collection that includes arthouse masterpieces and blood-soaked black comedies.
This article originally published on April 18, 2023
131 Comments
I have very few arguments with this list in general. I’d probably switch Tenebrae out for Demons, and despite my love for Basket Case, I’d probably bump it off and replace it with Deadly Friend.
I feel like someone felt they had to add some Argento. Again, no complaints, really. And Demons certainly belongs. Either top 10 or the Honorable Mention category (which I feel is, like, 25-films long).
Wolfen should be on there somewhere, I think.
Solid list! I love the inclusion of Basket Case and Re-Animator, which are under-seen and underappreciated outside of some very specific circles. I could quibble that They Live isn’t a horror movie, but I’ll support its spot on the list out of love for Kieth David.
My kid dressed up as Herbert West last Halloween — most people in their high school did not get it.
But the right people got it, and that’s what matters. You and your kid are awesome!
I will always have a soft spot for Lair of the White Worm. I was also going to complain about the lack of Phantasm, but it turns out that actually comes from the very end of the 70s.
I always LOVED Phantasm lol. Funny enough I have seen every movie in the list except Tenebrae, most more than once.
Tenebrae (along with a lot of other Dario Argento films around that time) is excellent. See it as soon as you can (make sure it’s not the butchered US cut!).
might check it out this weekend, looks like it’s on Amazon Prime video, though that may be the US cut you mentioned. As a self professed horror slut, I am always down for a new, or new to me, horror flick.
Of course there WERE 80s Phantasm movies, but as much as I like the sequels, they just don’t have the mojo of the first one. The first movie is this surreal, dream-logic arthouse psychological horror movie; the later items are more in the Sam Raimi tradition of over-the-top horror comedy. I don’t know how much of that is down to intent vs. Coscarelli not having the cash to fill the first movie with chainsaw swordfights and exploding karate zombie gang members, but they really made the most of their tiny cast and handful of locations.
Agreed that later ones just can’t match the first, a problem with almost all movie franchises. Though with Raimi, whom I love, he was trying for straight horror in the first Evil Dead, though with such a small budget it was a it cheap and kind of campy, which audiences found funny, so as they progress through Evil Dead 2 and finally Army of Darkness, it gets increasingly campy and has a lot more comedy and gags.
Amanda Donohoe. Wow. Great (but extremely silly) film.
I was pleasantly surprised to see her in the third Starship Troopers movie, which is a WAY BETTER movie than the second Starship Troopers movie, or the descriptor “third Starship Troopers movie,” might lead you to believe. It’s neither a horror movie nor an 80s movie, but I recommend it wholeheartedly.
I assume you have seen some of Ken Russell’s other films? They are uh…pretttty bonkers.
Peter Capaldi! Hugh Grant! I love this movie with a fiery passion.
I had a similar issue, but it was for The People Under The Stairs, which was early 90s.
Lair of the White Worm is one of my absolute favorites! It was a staple of Saturday afternoon viewing on a local channel back when I was growing up. I fell in love with it all over again when I found the uncensored version on cable. Maybe it should be on this list, but I don’t know what I would bump.
Lair of the White Worm has to hold some kind of record for the largest number of slumming great actors in a sleazy horror film. Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi and Amanda Donohoe! It’s a completely insane movie, but compulsively watchable.
They weren’t slumming. They were not yet famous, and it was Ken Russell!
Rawhead Rex?
Oh fuck, I just watched this like a few months ago for the first time. This was such a fun watch.
It’s not really a good movie, but it’s a wild watch
Good list, though The Shining was hardly “arthouse” horror.
Certainly not at the time, but it would probably be marketed as such today.
It was arthouse enough to ruin Ready Player One, which really should have gone with something from Carpenter, or a non-horror 80’s movie. But Spielberg’s Kubrick fanboyism got the better of him.
So would Critters be on here, or not?
I love Critters but no.
But, but… “They’ll get you in the end!”.Or was that Ghoulies?
Yeah, that’s Ghoulies. Which is classic false advertising as they never did a toilet butt bite despite the box art. As has been discussed a few times on The Flop House.Incidentally, Critters is one of a handful of horror sequels I prefer to the original. Critters 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Phantasm 2 (I acknowledge that the first is superior, I just have more fun with the second), Evil Dead II, Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Warriors…
My only complaint was going to be that The Thing was probably going to be too low, but #2 behind The Shining I can’t complain about. I’d probably have it #1 on my list, but that’s a minor quibble — Halloween if it were in the 1980s would obviously make the top-2 and I’d have to make a hard call…
Oh, man. Carpenter’s The Thing is one of those movies everyone seems to love except me.A Christmas Story, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Breakfast Club, L.A. Confidential… every now and then I think I’ll check ‘em out again and see if they’ve grown on me, but then I’ll watch a few clips on YouTube or something and… no luck. :-/(I’m glad the world has realized for a while now that American Beauty is pretty actively lousy.)
Crap. I didn’t mean Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (which I’ve never seen) — I meant Some Like it Hot.
This is all evidence that you are, in fact, The Thing.
*hangs head*
It’s interesting in that the 1-2 are still being discussed with relish 40 years after the fact with analysis on everything from architecture to plot armor to endings. They are incredible works of art that you can watch multiple times and discover nuances and fun tidbits.Just a month ago I dicovered that MacReady was actually correct in calling the computer chess game he was playing a cheater because….it seems to have really did. The final move is said to have been made with a black rook, which is impossible. In the shot shown before this move, there is not a single position available to that chess piece that would result in an instant checkmate.Probably an editing mistake….but still interesting. And used as a probable foreshadow tool to Mac ‘cheating’ the Thing at the end.
On a seperate note, I would roll Poltergeist a little higher I think. It really did a number on the Summer of 82 and blended up a perfect modern ghost story. I remember reading the original paperback of the movie that had more ties to the original script and it scaring the hell outta me with some additional creepy ass moments involving the clown doll which was already fucking scary enough…But the thought of that fucking thing appearing around the family in weird places prior to the initial scares would have had me putting the fucking thing in the garbage disposal.
God between that clown doll and the tree, I saw that movie WAY too young. Poltergeist does one of the best “the evil has been banished, you’re safe now – NO WAIT THERE’S A FINAL ACT!” fake-outs in all of horror.
If the film had been as good as the trailer, Shocker would be up there.Sadly, it isn’t.
I was so pumped to see that and was convinced Wes had given us another classic horror villain. Then I watched it . . .
Watching that clip of The Thing back now, you can see where the creators of Red Dwarf got a lot of their inspiration.
Well, they are the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society.
I’m sorry, Jenny who?
Even though I grew up in the 80s and 90s, it’s not until recently that I started to really appreciate horror. I was the young kid who would run out of the room while we all watched The Wizard of Oz, Ghostbusters, or even the “Thriller” music video. So I can’t say I was really eager to jump into Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. One movie that I absolutely refused to even try to watch, though, was Poltergeist. I’ve recently finally watch some classics like Halloween, Nosferatu the Vampyre, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so I think it might finally be time to watch Poltergeist. Thanks for the list reminding me!
I find less to complain about with this list than with many. What are the next ten, though? Looks like people have been going with Deadly Friend, Lair of the White Worm…I never really loved Phantasm II but I have to put From Beyond on here, plus Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Comet, and for some reason I’m the only person who really liked Hellbound: Hellraiser II
I love Hellraiser 2. Or at least, I remember loving Hellraiser 2 so much in high school that I watch it every few years and say to myself, “This is such a piece of shit, but I’m looking forward to seeing it again.” Roger Ebert’s zero-star review is also a masterpiece. My biggest quibble is that they included the original Friday the 13th rather than Friday the 13th Part 2, which is better in every way.
I love Hellraiser II. Soooo weird. Personally, I find all the love Night of the Comet gets a bit baffling. Even though I like it.Return of the Living Dead (for sure). Along with Dead & Buried (another Dan O’Bannon-penned masterpiece). The Stuff. Happy Birthday to Me. Sleepaway Camp? Slumber Party Massacre?! The Gate?!?! ahhhh!I dont envy anyone having to sift through great 80s horror to make a list of 10.
I think Night of the Comet just hit me at exactly the right age. It came out in 1984 and I probably first saw it on cable in 1985, when I was 12. To me, those girls were the coolest and all I wanted was to have a fashion show montage in an empty mall, preferably with my non-Uzi submachine gun nearby.“Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”
night of the comet is a vibe
Night of the Comet! Damn, I loved that movie so much! Once the 80s had given way to the 90s and I could no longer find it anywhere, I paid a ridiculous price that I won’t divulge here to buy a VHS copy of it. Also, Hellbound: Hellraiser II was nearly equal to the original, IMO.
Ha, I recently got a Night of the Comet blu ray for like ten bucks. Glad I held out for the deal, though I do really like it
It’s funny to me now, but at the time (roughly 1993), it was very serious business to me. I worked at a video store and went through a distributor; I think it had gone out of print for a while or something silly like that.
Return of the Living Dead is an oversight for sure. Not only is it pants-shittingly terrifying, it also pants-wettingly hilarious.
“You think this is a fucking costume? This is a way of life!”
Return of the Living Dead to me is the best zombie movie and the best horror-comedy
brrrrraaaiiiinnssss
Pumpkinhead!
Hellraiser II is underrated.
I’ll throw myself in the “loves Hellraiser II” gang that has responded to you. I will always prefer the first because of the amazing FX and the fact that Clive himself directed it, but I love the mythology development in the second. The ONLY thing I don’t like about II is that it sets up the awful bullshit Kreugerized Pinhead of III.
You are far from the only person that likes Hellraiser II. On some days, I’d put it above the original.
Also Near Dark
Oh my fucking god, how did I forget Near Dark, it is one of my favorite films
The Changeling (1980) is missing on this list. Also, I consider Wolfen (1981) superior to The Howling and even American Werewolf in London. And maybe The Watcher in the Woods, which I think is rather underappreciated.
The Changeling is a good ghost story. There were a few scenes in there that really scared me as a kit.
Wow you thought The Return of the Living Dead sucked shit?
This 80s teenager is glad you got the big ones thanks!
I don’t envy anyone attempting a “Best Horror of the 80s”. I suppose it was not so bad, though. I may have moved Friday the 13th up. Substituted Prince of Darkness for They Live (is it really…horror?), perhaps.One obvious mistake – Day of the Dead.
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch … lordy lord, this had it’s own think-piece on here a while back, right? Or maybe I watched one on YouTube. Anyway, I can’t think of a horror movie with a more brutal ending. I mean there’s lots of movies that end with: “And everybody dies off screen, the world is fucked, the end.” But this is just so… gruesomely specific. They really should gather everyone involved still living and their lawyers around a table, sign a contract in blood, bang a gavel, and redeclare the movie simply “Season of the Witch.” Or rerelease it into theaters for a one-week run with a 40 year (or whatever) anniversary intro by John Carpenter saying, “Hi everyone, please memory-hole that we tried to make this part of a ‘Halloween Anthology.’ Things got screwy back in the 80’s. Coke. Lawyers. Hollywood was a mess. That aside, this movie can stand on it’s own without the Halloween Michael Meyers Series in-title-only association. From now until the end of time, let it be known as ‘Season of the Witch’ sans any other prefix or suffix phrase attached. So sayeth me, John Carpenter: officially, internationally, recognized and accredited Master of Horror, Union Local 666.”
Tobe Hooper directed Poltergeist. No qualifiers.
Hahah, unless you actually watch the movie and realize it is paced almost exactly like Raiders, has the same visual effects as Raiders, has more Spielberg Faces than any other Spielberg movie, and in every other way is obviously the product of Spielberg’s direction. Then, once you’ve reached that conclusion, you can watch Funhouse and Lifeforce, the two movies Hooper made before and after Poltergeist, and acknowledge that neither of them has anything in common with Poltergeist, and neither of them displays any of the Spielbergian visual techniques that are used continuously throughout Poltergeist.In short, if you claim to believe that Hooper directed Poltergeist, you are either a liar or ignorant, because the proof he didn’t is in every shot of the movie.
Nah.
A-fucking-men!
It’s pretty hard to say that he didn’t at the very least have… let’s say “help”… (wanted or not), when Spielberg wrote an open letter apology to the guy.
There’s a high quality Spielberg documentary airing on HBO, I think, with extensive interviews with the director going back to his work pre-Duel with the Outer Limits TV show, I think? Anyway, he discussed in detail Duel, Jaws, Raiders, etc. etc. I stopped watching at Schindler’s List I think. He doesn’t skip over Poltergeist and talks about it at length. So yeah, he was involved.
While I can think of several more to add, I really can’t complain about the list. What a decade! It’s hard to pick only 20, and I won’t even quibble about order.
Pretty solid list. I could nitpick a little and say that Tenebrae doesn’t need to be on here, or that calling They Live a horror film is a bit of a stretch, but those are personal preferences. However, in what world does anybody rank The Fog higher than An American Werewolf in London? That’s ridiculous. I’m surprised The Fog even made the list. I’d personally prefer to see Prince of Darkness make the cut instead. It was ahead of its time and holds up surprisingly well.
You could pretty much put any of Carpenter’s films on the list, including Prince of Darkness, which has the most haunting ending of any of his films.
I would like Prince of Darkness to be on the list, but not at the expense of The Fog, which to me is the most quintessential Carpenter horror movie, with the most unique ambience
For my money Phenomena is a better 80s Argento anyway.
Another random slideshow, yay. Not a bad list. The Thing should be #1, Friday the 13th the final chapter is better than the original, maybe missed a giallo or two, Return of the Living Dead belongs in the top 10.
Honorable Mention:THE CHANGELING 1980MANIAC (1980)WOLFEN (1981)THE BURNING (1981)HELL NIGHT (1981)DEMONS (1985)SILVER BULLET (1985)DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)FROM BEYOND (1986)DEMONS 2 (1986)DEAD OF WINTER 1987NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988)
I think their list and your list covered almost everything for me except Possession (1981) and a few things that are debatable as to whether they’re primarily horror films, like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).
Yeah Possession is another 80s classic.
I watched Possession for the first time this year and now I don’t quite understand how it’s not considered one of the best of the best.
It’s amazing. I remember when it was extremely hard to find.
Good list.
Decent list! Friday the 13th parts 2 and 4 (“The Final Chapter”) are generally accepted as superior to the original, and I’m inclined to agree. They Live is amazing, but should probably cede its spot to, you know…an actual horror movie like From Beyond, Phantasm II, Demons, Wolfen, Day of the Dead, Prince of Darkness, etc.
I guess they’re relegated more to action but I submit The Terminator, Predator, and Aliens
I think that there is as good an argument to include any of those in this list as They Live, which is arguably more sci-fi. Terminator is basically a slasher movie, except the slasher is a robot from the future. Aliens may be much more action than horror, but the horror is still there aplenty. There are a number of sequences where the tension and dread are super successfully built up before an alien attack, most notably the early scene where the marines first encounter the aliens, the scene with in the med bay with the loose facehugger, the aliens breaching their sealed off room, and when Newt is taken.Predator may be the least of this trio and probably the one I’d consider it most acceptable to exclude from this list; however, it, too, is basically a slasher movie with an alien killer.
Wait, Billy is supposed to be a teenager in Gremlins?
Not only supposed to be, he was! Zach Galligan was only 20 when Gremlins was released. I don’t know filming dates but he could have even been 19 when it was shot. Even so, 20 is close enough.
Post high school obviously since he had a full time job at the bank. I just assumed since he was hanging at the bar with Phoebe Cates worked that he was 21 or so in the movie.
Good list, the only issue I have would be to include Fulci’s “The Beyond” rather than “Tenebrae” if only one 80’s Italian horror movie can be included in the top 20.
“Lair” is a better flick than half the movies on this list. And how can any story about great ‘80s horror films omit a masterpiece like “Near Dark”?
Near Dark is great but feels more like an action movie/thriller with vampires than a horror movie.
Pretty decent list, The only oversight I clearly see is no Possession.
Shhh. Nobody is supposed to know about Possession. I feel like Possession is that secret 80s horror masterpiece that to this day very few people, even horror fans, seem to know about. It reminds me of how The Thing was a fairly obscure cult film until approximately the DVD era in the late 90s when it (deservedly) started to massively gain respect.
Possession is on of those films that is was damn near impossible to find a copy to view. It was until the last decade that it was released on anything other than obscure VHS. I tried and tried for years to track down a copy.
Can we stop pretending The Howling is any good? I watched it, and then hate watched the sequels (which got worse and worse lol). Also, The Fog is completely lame. How did a film with Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Janet Leigh suck so bad?
Sounds like horror movies aren’t your cup of tea.
When it said there would be three Carpenter movies in the list on the They Live entry, I was struggling to figure out which Carpenter movie other than The Thing should be there AND be higher than They Live. I can’t say I agree with their assessment.
The Howling is good. Maybe not any better than, say, Silver Bullet. But it is still a classic. And The Fog is lame? You can’t beat it for style, atmosphere, or score. Not sure how one could find it “lame” as it uses the same structure as Halloween (except its ghosts rather than “pure e-ville!”). Lame?
Re-Animator is WAY the fuck better than it had any right to be.Still need to go as Herbert West some Halloween.
I’m going to recommend that you not name-drop philosophical terms like eternal recurrence if you don’t have any idea what they mean – it’s not a great look.
The Shining is boring, not scary, not particularly entertaining. I have never understood why people laud it the way they do–other than Jack being Jack, it’s a snooze.
You omitted the best one by far. It really should be No. 1. It’s a very well made, old school ghost story and for the most part works beautifully. I saw it in the theater twice when it was first released and Stephen King has been championing it for decades. Sadly, it remains largely overlooked. I personally find “The Shining” nothing more than an over-produced “Night Gallery” episode and found “The Thing” a dreary slog (I’ll take the Hawks/Nyby version any day. As for quintessentially eighties horror I’d pick “Return of the Living Dead” hands down with “Lair of the White Worm” and “Wolfen” getting nods as well. I was about to nominate “The Reflecting Skin” but then realized it was released in 1980.
Just wanted to agree with this – one of my absolute favorites!!
Gremlins: still amazed over how Spielberg managed to talk this movie down from an “R” rating!
And how they absolutely should not have been swayed. I mean, maybe it doesn’t fit R, but R is a better fit than PG given the amount of gore, even if it is cartoonish. (Thank you, Gremlins and Temple of Doom, for being a couple of the movies that granted us the studio beloved PG-13.)
Leslie Nielsen was playing against type in Airplane. He was known for more serious stuff before that movie. If anything Creepshow was just a return to form.
Love me some Leslie Nielsen (and Mel Brooks, for that matter), but I’m having a rough time getting through “Dracula: Dead & Loving It”… been watching in 20-minute chunks, but then get the desire to watch *anything* else.
Return of the Living Dead should be Top 5.
Ah, horror…a genre where a movie can keep an uninterruptedly good reputation for 40 years but still be terrible. I guess that’s more feature than bug.
I appreciate this list. I have no outright complaints.That said, I personally would have included Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. It may be a controversial opinion, but I much prefer TCM2 to the groundbreaking but comparatively less fun, less actually gory original.
Have you seen “The Changeling”?
Exclusion of Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is blasphemy.
I’d bump off Basket Case, which is definitely not a good movie in any sense, and include Altered States or Dreamscape.
Needs From Beyond and Dead and Buried.
Great list. I have to argue that “They Live” is not a horror movie, but rather Science Fiction.
Good list, but needs The Hitcher. Better than probably half the movies on the list.
Deadly Friend? Really? It’s a terrible movie and the only reason to see it is for that basketball scene.Also if a Friday the 13th is going to on here, make it pt. 4 or pick one that did it better such as The Prowler, The Burning or My Bloody ValentineOthers that should be on here: Cannibal Holocaust, Fright Night, Maniac, The Entity, The Blob, City of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, The Changeling, Near Dark, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, Pieces, Tetsuo
The Stepfather (1987) belongs on this list.
No Possession is a mistake. This list overall feels very “AVClub 2023”. Very safe, very mainstream.And hey, don’t you dare talk shit about Frankenhooker. It has one of the best weird performances in it that I’ve ever seen. Method actors WISH they had the commitment of Patty Mullen in Frankenhooker.
Having watched it on Shudder since this list was first published, I don’t at all agree. And “Very safe, very mainstream” feels like such a silly, pretentious defense of being annoyed by Possession not appearing. It’s a total arthouse wank that requires being bowled over by metaphor to give a toss. I didn’t hate it but it is WILDLY overrated by the beret crowd.
It’s not for everyone, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way at all. It’s certainly not an easy movie to like. Maybe what seems strange to us Possession fans is just how obscure it really seems to be, given how unique and unforgettable it is. I don’t think that’s quite the same thing as feeling that it’s underrated. It’s more like it deserves more recognition, even if it’s never going to rocket out of obscurity and become universally beloved the way say, John Carpenter’s The Thing did.
No love for Society?
Nice to see Frank Henenlotter prominent
Another 10 to the list, some of which easily belong in the Top 20:Aliens – Yes, it’s sci-fi action but the core of it is absolute horror
The Evil Dead – I do prefer the sequel but the original is Top 20 easily.Hellraiser II – see aboveThe Hidden – Underrated gem.Prince of Darkness – Remains colossally underratedThe Keep – Boggles my mind that this hasn’t seen a good release as yet.Near Dark – Neo-western horror that works.Phantasm II – Better than the originalPumpkinhead – Criminally underwatchedWolfen – Police procedural meets creature feature. Yes, please!
There’s an incorrect link for Fright Night (1986) movie. It links to a TV show instead.
Fright Night (1985) is a great little film, especially for me, because of Roddy McDowell. The link for the film is incorrect. It links to an Australian TV show series about horror.
I realize I’m in the minority here, but I don’t understand the love for The Shining. I tried to rewatch it recently and got bored halfway through. It’s such a product of its time. Actually it feels very 70s, which to be fair is when it was technically filmed. I think The Thing is superior and holds up to this day with amazing practical effects, tension in every scene thanks to Carpenter, and a great score.
What about The Blob?