Horror is usually a tricky genre to nail. Filmmakers need to genuinely scare or, at least, unsettle an audience despite the fact that their audience is fully aware that what they're watching is not real. Horror must also strike a delicate balance with sincerity; too overly-serious, and filmmakers lose their audience. Yet, go too goofy, and it veers into camp.
As such, horror is one of the most divisive genres of all time. It's also a genre of wildly fluctuating quality. Some horror films are fantastic, while others are pure drivel. These are the five best and five worst horror movies of the 80s, ranked according to IMDb.
10 Best: An American Werewolf In London (1981) - 7.5
An American Werewolf in London is perhaps the greatest comedy-horror ever made. If not, it's certainly up there. The surprising thing is that such horrifying sequences came from director John Landis, better known for his wacky comedies like The Blues Brothers and Animal House. The movie expertly toes the line between horror and comedy, creating a rich tone that is deceptively hard to produce. The laughs are uproarious, and the scares are genuinely terrifying.
9 Worst: The Nail Gun Massacre (1985) - 3.8
The Nail Gun Massacre was written, produced, and co-directed by Terry Lofton, who previously worked as a stuntman on The Dukes of Hazzard. It was released straight to video in 1985 where it promptly received horrible reviews. It was compared to the myriad cheap slashers that were being produced in the 80s, but this one also contained a sprinkling of outright sexism, as well. It's a classic, but for all the wrong reasons.
8 Best: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) - 7.5
The 80s were certainly the time of the slasher. While movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween helped revolutionize the genre in the 70s, the80s is when the genre was perfected. Monsters like Jason and Freddy became iconic, with the latter being especially terrifying.
Unlike many corny slashers of the decade, A Nightmare on Elm Street was genuinely scary, complete with the iconic Freddy Krueger, disturbing visuals, and buckets of blood.
7 Worst: Phantom Brother (1988) - 3.1
Phantom Brother is every bit as horrible as its cheesy name suggests. The movie concerns a young teenager whose entire family is killed in a tragic car accident.
Following the accident, he is haunted by the ghost of his dead brother, hence the film's title. This is yet another cheesy, low-budget slasher that was buried in the countless movies of its type that were being produced in the second half of the decade.
6 Best: The Fly (1986) - 7.6
The Fly isn't enormously popular, but those who've seen it seem to love it. This movie is arguably David Cronenberg's masterpiece, as it perfectly exemplifies his body horror subgenre.
Throughout the movie, Jeff Goldblum, in a surprisingly great performance, slowly turns into a fly before the disgusting climax culminates the story in one of the most grotesque sequences ever put to film. It's certainly not for the faint of heart or the squeamish.
5 Worst: Blood Lake (1987) - 3.0
Here is yet another cheap slasher from the mid-80s. Blood Lake is an obvious ripoff of Friday the 13th, so much so that it's surprising it wasn't subjected to a lawsuit.
As the title suggests, this movie concerns various teenagers being stalked and killed during a weekend trip to the lake. The filmmaking is truly horrific, complete with abhorrent pacing issues, inane dialogue, and truly atrocious acting. Even among the cheap, poorly-produced slashers of its time, Blood Lake stands out as particularly poor.
4 Best: The Thing (1982) - 8.1
The Thing proves that a movie's quality should never be judged on first impressions.
When it was originally released in the summer of 1982, The Thing was considered an utter failure, generating horrible reviews and bombing at the box office. It wasn't until much later that its reputation began to turn, and it's now considered one of the finest horror movies ever made. Its grisly practical effects remain disgusting, revolting, and utterly compelling to this day.
3 Worst: Hollywood's New Blood (1988) - 2.6
Yes, this is yet another cheap slasher, and, yes, it is arguably even worse than Blood Lake. The story concerns the vengeful ghosts of an entire family who were accidentally killed on a movie set. It's essentially Scream 3, only it's ghosts instead of a serial killer.
The movie doesn't have many ratings—a mere 141 at the moment—but it's clear that the few people who have seen the movie find it truly terrible. As many of the user reviews suggest, it's arguably the worst slasher movie ever made.
2 Best: The Shining (1980) - 8.4
When it comes to horror films, few can compete with the sheer majesty of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Not only is this one of the greatest horror films ever made, but it's arguably one of the greatest movies, full stop. Nearly forty years after its release, it's still being discussed on message boards and social media sites, proving the lasting power of its ambiguous story and themes. It's an undeniable classic in every sense of the word.
1 Worst: Boogeyman II (1983) - 2.0
Boogeyman II was directed by Ulli Lommel, who would have a decades-spanning career stretching into the 2010s with movies like Queen of Rio and Genus X, released in 2018. This movie was released in the United Kingdom under the title Revenge of the Boogeyman and was declared a "video nasty," which was a term typically given to cheap exploitation films infamous for their violence and gore.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/39CQcFF
0 Comments