The 1980s can be best described as being the age of discovery for horror movies. During the 80s the horror genre transitioned from telling thriller and adventure stories to creating a line of movie franchises that were unique and invoked a new level of terror in their audiences. Many cult classics were also developed in the 80s such as Jaws, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th to name a few. In this post, we take a look back at the 80s and evaluate some of the most terrifying movies that were released during that time period.
1) Night Of The Comet
If you lived in the 1980s as a child and the world went to hell, where would you go? To the mall of course! This is the concept behind Night of the Comet. A team of adolescent children lock themselves in a mall, to survive an extinction event which consists of murderous mutants who have devastated the planet. The concept was unique at the time, because it managed to successfully mix horror with comedy.
2) Child’s Play
Even children in today’s modern world are aware of who Chucky is. The story consists of a serial killer – Charles Lee Ray – who was killed by a team of homicide detectives in Chicago. In the midst of dying, Charles invoked a ritual which allowed his soul to transfer into the body of a child’s doll. What follows after this, is a shocking thriller as the doll starts to cause mayhem and murder multiple people.
3) The Blob
Nowadays, it’s rare for you to find a modern day creature feature horror flick, a good one at last. Back in the 80s, this most definitely wasn’t the case. The 1988 thriller The Blob is a remake of the 1958 film. The story features an alien acidic/amoeba-like creature that crawls through California as it consumes every living thing it its path. The creature starts off as a small flexible shapeless being that constantly grows and becomes more powerful as it absorbs more people.
3) The Evil Dead
The Evil Dead is a cult classic which spawned a 2015 television show and a 2013 remake simply called Evil Dead. The flick is well known for not using CGI effects and sticking to real life physical effects. The story centers around a demonic book which was made of human flesh and filled with text which was made using human blood as ink. In the flick, Ash (protagonist) comes into contact with the book and reads a few lines from it. What he failed to know was that the book was a demon summoning book and he read the lines to raise a demonic entity from hell. Throughout the story, this entity meticulously murders the protagonist’s friends one by one and it’s up to ash to put the entity back where it belongs before it’s able to get its final kill, as to which it would then be able to start the process of invading earth.
4) A Nightmare On Elm Street
Wes Craven has been praised throughout the last 3 decades for creating one of horror’s most infamous villains of all time: Freddy Krueger. Freddy Krueger was an accused child killer who was killed by the locals as a result of the fact that he was suspected of kidnapping and murdering multiple children in the area. Unfortunately, Freddy did not stay dead and eventually came back and started to terrorize children when they slept. Freddy thrived on fear as it gave him power to become strong enough to enter into the real world.
5) The Thing
When it comes to remakes that surpassed the original, look no further than the 80s version of The Thing. Originally created in 1951, the 1988 The Thing movie is a remake of the original and the preferred version that many people love till this day. The story consists of a shape shifting alien creature that comes into contact with a group of isolated scientists in the arctic. The creature attempts to escape the arctic and throw itself in with the rest of the world population, by continuously consuming, then transforming itself into the victim.
