My Take: 50 Favorite Horror Films of 1980-1984
by JCarl01 | created - 26 Jul 2011 | updated - 19 Aug 2015 | PublicMaintaining this list to a mere 50 films was a daunting task, especially considering that my original number was more than 100. First, I tried to streamline the original list by removing thrillers, comedies, science fiction, and mysteries. A few still remained, like ALTERED STATES, VENOM, SATURN 3, and ROAD GAMES, and that's my decision, because I like these particular films. You'll notice quite a few "must-sees" of the genre are absent, notably THE EVIL DEAD, THE BEYOND, MANIAC, and VIDEODROME. It was tough cutting them, but then again, I had some hard cuts to make, and those films I could do without. Does the absence of your favorite horror film mean I believe it's not worthy? Not at all, but the 50 films on this list represent the ones I most enjoy watching, and not necessarily the ones most beloved by certain circles. Do I consider all the films listed here to be Great Movies? Absolutely not. In fact, many make an appearance because I suspect they're not as well-known as others, and I wanted to throw them a bone, poor bloody things. I am not trying to impress readers, believe me, just offer my own opinion. This is a list of 50 "Favorites" and not necessarily 50 "Best." There's a difference. Yes, I realize most of the films are American, with the exception of several Argento titles and a pair of British movies. Almost all of them were released by major studios. I wish this wasn't true about myself, these viewing habits, but there you are. Of the 50 films, five are sequels, and that's not bad for a list from 1980-1984, the heyday of the horror sequel. There are thousands of other lists similar to this one on IMBD. When it comes to genre films, it seems, everyone is a professional critic. This list happens to be mine. Finally, I am 100% certain that I've missed one or two films that should be here, and that's my oversight, not my intention. This list may be amended over the next few weeks as certain titles come to mind, but not by much.
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1. The Fog (1980)
R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller
An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Houseman
Votes: 83,051 | Gross: $21.38M
2. Ghost Story (1981)
R | 110 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Two generations of men find themselves haunted by the presence of a spectral woman. When the son of one of the elderly men returns to his hometown after his brother's mysterious death, they attempt to unravel her story.
Director: John Irvin | Stars: Craig Wasson, Alice Krige, Fred Astaire, John Houseman
Votes: 9,880 | Gross: $23.37M
3. Poltergeist (1982)
PG | 114 min | Horror, Thriller
A family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight
Votes: 179,674 | Gross: $76.61M
4. The Changeling (1980)
R | 107 min | Horror, Mystery
After the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.
Director: Peter Medak | Stars: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, Jean Marsh
Votes: 40,044
5. Terror in the Aisles (1984)
R | 84 min | Documentary, Drama, Horror
"Terror in the Aisles" is a compilation of scenes from many science fiction, crime drama and horror movies of the 1930s through 1980s.
Director: Andrew J. Kuehn | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Nancy Allen, Fred Asparagus, Lainie Cooke
Votes: 2,319 | Gross: $10.00M
6. The Thing (1982)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Votes: 466,991 | Gross: $13.78M
7. Psycho II (1983)
R | 113 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery
After twenty-two years of psychiatric care, Norman Bates attempts to return to a life of solitude, but the specters of his crimes - and his mother - continue to haunt him.
Director: Richard Franklin | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Meg Tilly, Robert Loggia
Votes: 31,096 | Gross: $34.73M
8. Halloween II (1981)
R | 92 min | Horror
While Dr. Loomis hunts for Michael Myers, a traumatized Laurie is rushed to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, and The Shape is not far behind her.
Director: Rick Rosenthal | Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer
Votes: 101,752 | Gross: $25.53M
9. Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
R | 110 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
At the snobby Crawford Academy, Virginia's group of friends start to go missing years after horrible events that happened to her as a child around her birthday.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker
Votes: 11,241
10. Terror Train (1980)
R | 97 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Three years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode | Stars: Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield
Votes: 13,859
11. The Fan (1981)
R | 95 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Douglas, a record salesman, is an obsessive fan of actress Sally Ross. When his letters are rejected, he strikes out at her and her loved ones.
Director: Ed Bianchi | Stars: Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Michael Biehn, Maureen Stapleton
Votes: 2,846
12. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Votes: 1,107,433 | Gross: $44.02M
13. Cujo (1983)
R | 93 min | Horror, Thriller
Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard, contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.
Director: Lewis Teague | Stars: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone
Votes: 51,013 | Gross: $21.20M
14. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Horror
Two American college students on a walking tour of Britain are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.
Director: John Landis | Stars: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Joe Belcher, Griffin Dunne
Votes: 120,596 | Gross: $30.57M
15. The Howling (1981)
R | 91 min | Horror
After a bizarre and near deadly encounter with a serial killer, a television newswoman is sent to a remote mountain resort whose residents may not be what they seem.
Director: Joe Dante | Stars: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone
Votes: 40,228 | Gross: $17.99M
16. Friday the 13th (1980)
R | 95 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A group of teenage camp counselors attempt to re-open an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past, but they are stalked by a mysterious, relentless killer.
Director: Sean S. Cunningham | Stars: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan
Votes: 157,528 | Gross: $39.75M
17. Venom (1981)
R | 92 min | Horror, Thriller
Terrorists in the process of kidnapping a child get trapped in a house with an extremely deadly snake.
Directors: Piers Haggard, Tobe Hooper | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Oliver Reed, Nicol Williamson, Sarah Miles
Votes: 3,227 | Gross: $5.23M
18. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
R | 98 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Kids all over America want Silver Shamrock masks for Halloween. Doctor Daniel Challis seeks to uncover a plot by Silver Shamrock owner Conal Cochran.
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace | Stars: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy, Michael Currie
Votes: 61,025 | Gross: $14.40M
19. Scanners (1981)
R | 103 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane
Votes: 61,798 | Gross: $14.23M
20. Dressed to Kill (1980)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A mysterious blonde woman kills one of a psychiatrist's patients, and then goes after the high-class call girl who witnessed the murder.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon
Votes: 48,262 | Gross: $31.90M
21. The Burning (1981)
R | 91 min | Horror
A former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank gone wrong, lurks around an upstate New York summer camp bent on killing the teenagers responsible for his disfigurement.
Director: Tony Maylam | Stars: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua
Votes: 22,294
22. Inferno (1980)
R | 106 min | Horror
An American student investigates the disappearance of his sister and the death of a friend, both connected from New York to Rome by an old alchemy book.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Leigh McCloskey, Irene Miracle, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi
Votes: 24,028
23. Tenebrae (1982)
R | 101 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
An American novelist visiting Rome to promote his latest book is stalked and harassed by an obsessed fan who is committing a string of murders that appear to be tributes to his work.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Anthony Franciosa, Giuliano Gemma, John Saxon, Daria Nicolodi
Votes: 27,447
24. Prom Night (1980)
R | 92 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
At a high-school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years previously.
Director: Paul Lynch | Stars: Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin
Votes: 20,940 | Gross: $14.80M
25. Christine (1983)
R | 110 min | Horror, Thriller
A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky
Votes: 92,504 | Gross: $21.20M
26. My Bloody Valentine (1981)
R | 90 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead.
Director: George Mihalka | Stars: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, Neil Affleck, Keith Knight
Votes: 25,116 | Gross: $5.67M
27. The Sender (1982)
R | 91 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A disturbed telepathic man is unable to fully control his ability to transmit his dreams and visions into the minds of the people around him, or even influence reality. A female therapist tries to help him, but his mother gets in the way.
Director: Roger Christian | Stars: Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Shirley Knight, Paul Freeman
Votes: 2,212 | Gross: $1.05M
28. Visiting Hours (1982)
R | 103 min | Horror, Thriller
A deranged, misogynistic killer assaults a journalist. When he discovers that she survived the attack, he follows her to the hospital to finish her off.
Director: Jean-Claude Lord | Stars: Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, Linda Purl, William Shatner
Votes: 4,838 | Gross: $13.26M
29. Cat People (1982)
R | 118 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
A woman who was orphaned from a young age finally reunites with her older brother. Matters start to go awry when she slowly discovers the true nature of her family.
Director: Paul Schrader | Stars: Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O'Toole
Votes: 23,918 | Gross: $7.00M
30. Dead & Buried (1981)
R | 94 min | Horror, Mystery
Sheriff Dan Gillis investigates eerie deaths in a sleepy coastal town.
Director: Gary Sherman | Stars: James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, Dennis Redfield
Votes: 14,928 | Gross: $0.22M
31. Altered States (1980)
R | 102 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories.
Director: Ken Russell | Stars: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid
Votes: 38,658 | Gross: $19.85M
32. Creepshow (1982)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
"Creepshow" is a 1982 movie that tells five grisly tales from a children's comic book: a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall
Votes: 53,269 | Gross: $21.03M
33. Gremlins (1984)
PG | 106 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.
Director: Joe Dante | Stars: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, John Louie
Votes: 247,942 | Gross: $148.17M
34. Road Games (1981)
PG | 101 min | Mystery, Thriller
A laid-back American truck driver in south Australia suspects that the driver of a green van is killing young women along his route, and plays a game of cat-and-mouse to catch him.
Director: Richard Franklin | Stars: Stacy Keach, Jamie Lee Curtis, Marion Edward, Grant Page
Votes: 9,104
35. Hell Night (1981)
R | 101 min | Horror, Thriller
Four college pledges are forced to spend the night in a deserted old mansion, where they are stalked by the monstrous survivor of a family massacre years earlier.
Director: Tom DeSimone | Stars: Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Kevin Brophy
Votes: 8,775
36. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
R | 91 min | Horror
Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams, in which if they die, it kills them in real life.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon
Votes: 262,658 | Gross: $25.50M
37. The Prowler (1981)
R | 89 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
An unknown killer, clad in World War II U.S. Army fatigues, stalks a small California town, bent on reliving a 35 year-old double murder by focusing on a group of college kids holding an annual graduation dance.
Director: Joseph Zito | Stars: Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Lawrence Tierney, Farley Granger
Votes: 13,008
38. Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
R | 104 min | Horror
A dysfunctional family moves into a new house, which proves to be satanic, resulting in the demonic possession of their teenage son.
Director: Damiano Damiani | Stars: James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner
Votes: 12,864 | Gross: $12.53M
39. Island of Blood (1982)
Unrated | 82 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A group of actors are assembled in a small island to film a low-budget movie. Soon, they begin to fall prey to a mysterious killer who uses the lyrics of a weird song to determine his method of murder.
Director: William T. Naud | Stars: Marie-Alise Recasner, Rick Dean, Ron Gardner, Terence Goodman
Votes: 644
40. The Children (1980)
R | 93 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A nuclear-plant leak turns a bus-load of children into murderous atomic zombies with black fingernails.
Director: Max Kalmanowicz | Stars: Martin Shakar, Gil Rogers, Gale Garnett, Shannon Bolin
Votes: 2,753
41. The Final Conflict (1981)
R | 108 min | Horror
The now adult Antichrist plots to eliminate his future divine opponent while a cabal of monks plot to stop him.
Director: Graham Baker | Stars: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow
Votes: 22,801 | Gross: $20.47M
42. Evilspeak (1981)
R | 97 min | Horror
An outcast military cadet taps into a way to summon demons and cast spells on his tormentors through his computer.
Director: Eric Weston | Stars: Clint Howard, R.G. Armstrong, Joe Cortese, Claude Earl Jones
Votes: 4,889
43. Galaxy of Terror (1981)
R | 81 min | Action, Adventure, Horror
A ragtag spaceship crew sent on a rescue mission encounter a formidable enemy, their worst fears projected by their own imaginations.
Director: Bruce D. Clark | Stars: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Bernard Behrens
Votes: 8,906
44. Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
R | 80 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Humanoid sea creatures start killing a fishing town's residents, and raping their women. It's up to the townsfolk and a visiting biologist to fight back and fend them off.
Directors: Barbara Peeters, Jimmy T. Murakami | Stars: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub
Votes: 10,516
45. The Silent Scream (1979)
R | 87 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
During her first semester at college, a co-ed finds housing at a seaside mansion where, following the death of a fellow-student, she becomes entangled in a murder mystery surrounding the property and its secretive tenants.
Director: Denny Harris | Stars: Rebecca Balding, Cameron Mitchell, Avery Schreiber, Barbara Steele
Votes: 2,091
46. The Awakening (1980)
R | 101 min | Horror
An archeologist discovers his daughter is possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian queen. To save mankind he must destroy her.
Director: Mike Newell | Stars: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist
Votes: 2,868 | Gross: $8.42M
47. Saturn 3 (1980)
R | 88 min | Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi
Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid belt of Saturn are intruded upon by an anal-retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent eight foot tall robot.
Directors: Stanley Donen, John Barry | Stars: Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, Ed Bishop
Votes: 10,492
48. The Boogens (1981)
R | 95 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Otherworldly creatures are released from the bootleg tunnels underneath a small-town mining community, and begin chomping on the locals.
Director: James L. Conway | Stars: Rebecca Balding, Fred McCarren, Anne-Marie Martin, Jeff Harlan
Votes: 3,123
49. Xtro (1982)
R | 84 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
An alien creature impregnates a woman who gives birth to a man who was abducted by aliens three years ago. The man reconnects with his wife and son for a sinister purpose.
Director: Harry Bromley Davenport | Stars: Philip Sayer, Bernice Stegers, Danny Brainin, Maryam d'Abo
Votes: 8,143
50. The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
PG | 84 min | Family, Horror, Mystery
When a family moves to a country home, the young girls experience strange happenings that have a link to an occult event years past.
Directors: John Hough, Vincent McEveety | Stars: Bette Davis, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Carroll Baker
Votes: 7,068 | Gross: $5.00M
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