Summary
- ’80s horror directors like Carpenter and Craven made iconic slasher films, leading to cult classics through creative innovativeness.
- Some underrated ’80s horror films, like Society and Vamp, showcase imaginative storytelling and offbeat humor, pushing genre boundaries.
- Unique films like Christmas Evil and Tetsuo: The Iron Man stand out for their weirdness, creativity, and lasting impact on the horror genre.
The horror films most people are familiar with from the 1980s are well-worn, but some of the most underrated of the decade are the most bizarre. Directors like John Carpenter and Wes Craven popularized slasher franchises whose killers became brands unto themselves, made into toys, comic books, and t-shirt icons, from Chucky to Jason. This decade’s horror wasn’t all formula, though, which is why so many ’80s horror movies became cult classics.
Before CGI technology had begun taking hold of the industry, craftspeople who brought practical effects to new heights (or depths, depending on one’s perspective) worked overtime on hyper-commercial, yet notably imaginative, ’80s slasher movies like the Nightmare on Elm Street or Hellraiser franchises, as well as the kinds of passion projects that got far less attention. The ‘80s may have been an era when horror was put on the back foot by organizations like the PMRC and Focus on the Family, but the creative prowess horror filmmakers had developed in the 70s continued to shine through in the horror movies of the ’80s–– sometimes, in especially bizarre ways.
Related 10 Underrated 1980s Horror Movies You Should Definitely Check Out
While ’80s horror is best known for endless slasher sequels and body horror movies, there is a lot more to the decade’s underrated releases.
10 Society (1989)
Society Director Brian Yuzna Release Date June 11, 1992 Cast Billy Warlock , Concetta D’Agnese , Ben Slack , Evan Richards , Patrice Jennings
Before making his directorial debut with Society in 1989, Brian Yuzna produced several body horror classics for Stuart Gordon, including his H.P. Lovecraft classic, Re-Animator. His familiarity and easy comfort with all things bloody, bony, and sinewy, is already on clear display in Society, a satirical black comedy about a suburban rich kid who begins to fear his old-money parents and yuppie-in-the-making beauty queen sister might be conducting more than cocktail parties behind closed, country club doors.
This movie, whose plot falls somewhere between Rosemary’s Baby and Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a good helping of Fright Night, should come with its own bucket and mop. Viscera and excretions cover every inch of shag carpet and parquet floor. The performances have an edge of surrealism in their dizzying rise from deadpan normalcy to deadpan insanity. WIthout spoiling the movie’s twists, even if a viewer can guess the ultimate destination of Society, how the journey itself is worth repeat viewing.
Related Society: How The Movie’s Ending Was Different In The Original Script
Society’s infamous shunting scene is the reason this movie’s become a cult classic, but that wasn’t part of the original script when Yuzna picked it.
9 Vamp (1986)
Richard Wenk’s beloved vampire camp classic, Vamp, takes a classic tale and injects it with humor. When privileged kids seek thrills at a New York strip club, they find themselves entangled with dark forces. Katrina, the stripper they pay for a dance, turns out to be an immortal vampire, part of a secret group that runs the neighborhood. The film is most memorable for its casting of supermodel Grace Jones, whose arresting, statuesque good looks and androgynous style make her a fashion inspiration to this day, in this lead vampire role.
The film is delirious and boundlessly energetic, full of glittery and gory set pieces, hectic chases, off-beat dialogue, and meta-referential jokes. While it received mixed reviews at the time, it has gained an audience over time, particularly as a vehicle for Jones.
8 Deadly Blessing (1981)
Deadly Blessing (1981)
Deadly Blessing, directed by Wes Craven, is a horror film set in a rural farming community where a young widow’s friends visit after her husband’s mysterious death. Starring Maren Jensen, Sharon Stone, and Susan Buckner, the film explores themes of religion and supernatural terror amidst an isolated, enigmatic community known as the Hittites. Tension rises as the women face a series of eerie occurrences and confront hidden dangers.
Director Wes Craven Release Date August 14, 1981 Cast Maren Jensen , Sharon Stone , Susan Buckner , Jeff East , Colleen Riley , Douglas Barr , Lisa Hartman , Lois Nettleton
Before the Scream director made it big in the recently minted PG-13 horror category with his Nightmare on Elm Street series in 1984, Wes Craven’s horror output was decidedly varied. Made famous by notoriously difficult, often-rural set films like his debut, The Last House on the Left or The Hills Have Eyes, in 1981, Craven shifted tacks and tackled a new subject as he transitioned into commercial filmmaking: The Amish.
In this odd little farm-set thriller, a couple (played by Maren Jensen and Jeff East) is menaced by the hyper-conservative religious order of “Hittites,” a clear amalgam of groups like the Mennonites and the Amish. Deadly Blessing is a dizzying grab-bag of slasher conventions, replete with dream sequences, tractor chases, and strange, violent bumps in the night as renegade Hittites (including, inexplicably, Sharon Stone in a leading role) try to escape their repressive community.
Related 10 Wes Craven Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen
While Wes Craven is known for A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, he has a ton of horror films that quietly built cult followings.
7 Brain Damage (1988)
Brain Damage Director Frank Henenlotter Release Date April 15, 1988 Cast Rick Hearst , Gordon MacDonald , Jennifer Lowry , Theo Barnes , Lucille Saint-Peter , Vicki Darnell
Basket Case cult director and gonzo chronicler of Manhattan’s sleaziest spaces, Frank Henenlotter, pulled out all the stops for his sophomore feature, Brain Damage. In this sweaty creature feature, clean-cut Brian (Days of Our Lives actor Rick Hearst in his debut), is deviously tempted by a small, ancient alien Aylmer (voiced by ‘50s horror host John Zacherle), into trying a taste of his secretions, which are psychedelic.
Soon, Brian descends into blue Gatorade narcotic abandon, becoming addicted to Aylmer’s needle, used as a mule for the little monster to indulge in his cannibalistic taste for women’s flesh. Aylmer is an incredible villain, chipper, fast-talking and shockingly musical, while Brian is a suitably miserable and disheveled foil. Like all of Henenlotter’s films, this one keeps you guessing, and laughing too.
6 Christmas Evil (1980)
Christmas Evil
Christmas Evil is a holiday-themed horror film by writer-director Lewis Jackson. After a traumatic childhood incident involving his parents, young Harry Stadling grows up to be utterly obsessed with the idea of Santa Claus – eventually leading to a Christmas-themed murder spree where he plans to punish those who are “naughty.”
Director Lewis Jackson Release Date November 7, 1980 Cast Brandon Maggart , Jeffrey DeMunn , Dianne Hull , Andy Fenwick , Joe Jamrog , Peter Neuman
Christmas horror has become an inevitable part of the commercial holiday season, and bad Santas and other evil Christmas movie villains have lost some of their shock. But this early, low-budget slasher is far weirder, sadder, and less accessible than even its contemporaries. Christmas Evil follows traumatized anti-hero Harry Stadling (actor and painter Brandon Maggart, Fiona Apple’s father) on a tragic Christmas rampage. Convinced he is Santa Claus, this factory toy painter wants to bring joy to the good children–– and just desserts to the bad ones.
The tone of Christmas Evil is disconcertingly grave, and its naturalistic location shooting adds to the impression that this holiday slasher is actually a lost New Hollywood classic. At the same time, the plot is at times jaw-droppingly odd and discomfiting, injecting the kind of inadvertent humor into the proceedings that makes a film a cult classic. Christmas Evil certainly has become one over the years, and has been repeatedly praised by John Waters.
5 The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Ken Russell’s underseen ’80s horror film, The Lair of the White Worm, has everything. The controversial and prolific British auteur followed up his scandal-inducing thriller, Gothic, with an adaptation of Brahm Stoker’s not-particularly-loved novella by the same name (Stoker was something of a one-hit wonder). In this erotic, insectile horror-drama, an ancient, evil worm-hominid creature threatens the safety of a Highlands town.
The film is full of great performances. As its tale of medieval mayhem in a modern setting unfolds, an archeologist (Peter Capaldi) and the current lord of the town (Hugh Grant) must surmount their class-based difficulties to defeat the seductive worm queen (former video vixen Amanda Donohoe). The men’s chemistry is palpable and Donahoe’s vampy performance as a sexy worm is both hilarious and magnetic. The film also features a musical number with a strangely catchy tune.
4 White of the Eye (1987)
Better known for co-directing Performance with Nicolas Roeg, Australian director Donald Cammell’s White of the Eye is a bleak portrait of a marriage gone dangerously stale. Pairing deliberately antiseptic domestic interiors with the bleached, arid exteriors of an Arizona exurban town, the film chips away at the flaking walls of a dead-end love with surgical precision. Hi-fi salesman Paul (David Keith) and his wife Joan (Cathy Moriarty) circle each other distrustfully as a detective traces a string of murders to their door. By this idiosyncratic film’s close, this shivery domestic tet-a-tet feels religiously apocalyptic.
White of the Eye also features a soundtrack by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd and Rick Fenn of 10ccs. The music blends twangy blues with staticky synth, creating a rich, off-kilter atmosphere that fits the film perfectly.
3 Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a Japanese cyberpunk horror film directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. The film follows a man who, after a freak accident, begins to transform into a grotesque amalgamation of flesh and metal. Combining surreal and shocking imagery, the movie explores themes of transformation and body horror through a dystopian lens, making it a distinctive entry in the genre.
Director Shin’ya Tsukamoto Release Date July 1, 1989 Cast Tomorô Taguchi , Kei Fujiwara , Nobu Kanaoka , Shin’ya Tsukamoto , Naomasa Musaka , Renji Ishibashi
Shinya Tsukamoto’s cult classic is a scrappy, singular Japanese horror cyberpunk gem, influencing a ream of famous filmmakers from David Lynch to the Wachowski sisters, even with its slight, 67-minute runtime. In this film, a tortured salaryman takes body modification to a whole new level, finding himself transformed into a man-machine hybrid. While the film is first and foremost a clear metaphor for the punishing rigidity of Japan’s work culture during that era, it layers in nuanced sexual anxieties as well, reveling in ambiguities that simmer under its maximalist exterior.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man is incredibly homemade, making ample use of painstaking stop-motion animation and practical effects the artist and his friends built themselves. The obvious attention to detail and bursting creativity also make this body horror classic an almost delicate work of art, and a notable entry into the canon of terrifying Japanese horror.
2 Vampire’s Kiss (1989)
Vampire’s Kiss (1989)
Nicolas Cage stars in this dark comedy as a literary agent who believes he is turning into a vampire after an encounter with a mysterious woman, leading to increasingly bizarre behavior.
Director Robert Bierman Release Date June 2, 1989 Cast Nicolas Cage , MarÃa Conchita Alonso , Jennifer Beals , Kasi Lemmons , Bob Lujan , Elizabeth Ashley , Jessica Lundy , Marc Coppola
Vampire’s Kiss is likely best known as an early example of its star’s modus operandi. Written after a difficult breakup, this film takes its inspiration from fevered psychological thrillers like George Romero’s Martin, following Peter, a rude and self-serving publishing exec, through his nervous breakdown after he believes himself bitten by a vampire.
Peter is, of course, played to the max by Nicolas Cage, who claims to have been inspired by the work of the German Expressionist filmmakers for the role. In this film, Cage eats a real waterbug, sings his ABCs with operatic nuance and verve, and generally throws a fit. The film itself is eerie, bleak, and despondent in tone, setting a unique balance between the character and the film he so fully inhabits.
Related Longlegs Is A Great Reminder To Watch Nicolas Cage’s Scariest Performance From 35 Years Ago
Longlegs may feature a very good scary performance from Nicolas Cage, but the actor’s best horror performance is still in this undersung classic.
2
1 Lady Terminator (1988)
This Indonesian fantasy action film bears little relation to The Terminator franchise it deliberately rips off. A product of a system that regularly remade American products on low budgets for audiences who rarely saw the originals, Tjut Djalil’s take on the Schwarzenegger vehicle is mystical, ribald, and almost episodic in its approach to its tale of gangsters and goddesses.
When anthropology student, Tania (Barbara Anne Constable), goes deep sea diving as a part of her research into the “legend of the South Sea Queen,” she gets more than she bargained for. The “queen” in question, an ancient sex goddess in the form of a snake that takes control of a female host by living inside her vagina, takes over Tania and returns to the surface to wreak havoc by seducing men and biting off their members. She also shoots lasers and is unkillable, because technically, this is a Terminator movie.
At once hysterically funny, inexplicably difficult to follow, and historically fascinating as a product of international commercial exchange, Lady Terminator’s blend of body horror, sex comedy, and blockbuster action is arguably the peak of bizarro ‘80s horror cinema.