Decade
1980s Horror
The horror that defined the 1980s — ranked by Crypt Score, from era-defining classics to the deep cuts worth resurrecting.
625 titles
The Nest
›R1988 · Thriller, Science Fiction, Horror · 89m · Robert Lansing, Lisa Langlois, Franc Luz
Horrifying shocker as a biological experiment goes haywire when meat-eating mutant roaches invade an island community, terrorizing a peaceful New England fishing village and hideously butchering its citizens.
Venom
›R1981 · Horror, Thriller · 93m · Klaus Kinski, Oliver Reed, Nicol Williamson
International terrorists attempt to kidnap a wealthy couple's child. Their plan comes unstuck, however, when a deadly Black Mamba, sent by mistake instead of a harmless snake, escapes and terrorizes both them and their hostages.
The Dead Pit
›R1989 · Horror · 102m · Jeremy Slate, Cheryl Lawson, Stephen Gregory Foster
The arrival of an amnesiac patient in a psychiatric hospital somehow frees a mad doctor, who was shot and entombed with his fiendish experiments in an abandoned wing of the asylum 20 years before.
Warning Sign
›R1985 · Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller · 99m · Sam Waterston, Kathleen Quinlan, Yaphet Kotto
An accident occurs in an ultra-secret government biological weapons laboratory spreading a sinister bacteria.
Ghost Town
›R1988 · Horror, Western, Crime · 85m · Franc Luz, Catherine Hickland, Jimmie F. Skaggs
Deputy Langley tracks a kidnapped girl to an abandoned ghost town. However, the town is not abandoned, but haunted by the spirits of an outlaw, Devlin, and his gang, who hold the equally deceased townspeople hostage until the outlaws can be killed by a lawman.
Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge
›R1989 · Horror · 91m · Derek Rydall, Kari Whitman, Rob Estes
A young man named Eric apparently dies in a suspicious house fire after saving his girlfriend, Melody. One year later, a new mall is constructed atop where Eric's house once stood, where a shadowy, uninvited guest is preying on the mall's crooked developers.
They're Playing with Fire
›R1984 · Crime, Horror, Thriller · 96m · Sybil Danning, Eric Brown, Andrew Prine
A married college professor decides to seduce her student, whom she hired as a handyman for her yacht. The hesitant student succumbs to his buxom professor, but their romance is interrupted by her corrupt husband and a masked murderer.
Special Effects
›R1984 · Drama, Horror, Thriller · 106m · Zoë Lund, Eric Bogosian, Brad Rijn
Reality and illusion collide as megalomaniacal filmmaker Chris Neville murders a young would-be actress, then sets about making a feature about the deed, casting the deceased's clueless husband as the patsy, and finding a dead ringer to play the late actress.
Hell High
›R1989 · Horror · 84m · Maureen Mooney, Christopher Stryker, Christopher Cousins
A teacher still haunted by the death of two teens that she accidentally caused as a young girl goes berserk when four teens start harassing her and then attack her in her home.
The Survivor
›1981 · Horror, Mystery, Thriller · 98m · Robert Powell, Jenny Agutter, Joseph Cotten
When a 747 crashes shortly after take-off, the sole survivor is the pilot. Virtually unhurt, he and the investigators look for the answers to the disaster. Meanwhile mysterious deaths occur in the community and only a psychic, in touch with the supernatural, can help the pilot unravel the mystery surrounding the doomed plane.
Rush Week
›1989 · Horror, Mystery, Thriller · 96m · Pamela Ludwig, Dean Hamilton, Roy Thinnes
An ambitious young journalist working for her college newspaper becomes intrigued by the recent string of disappearances of several female students, which she believes to be connected to an on-campus murder that happened the previous year during the college's raucous Rush Week.
Apprentice to Murder
›PG-131988 · Drama, Horror, Mystery · 97m · Donald Sutherland, Chad Lowe, Mia Sara
Pennsylvania, 1928. Billy Kelly, a sixteen-year old boy, meets a mysterious traveler claiming he's the messenger of God. Falling under under the spell of this "doctor" Reese, he will soon discover Reese has murderous plans for his future. Based on a true story.
Luther the Geek
›NR1989 · Horror, Comedy · 80m · Edward Terry, Joan Roth, Stacy Haiduk
A psychotic killer convicted of multiple murders is released on parole after spending twenty years in prison. His psychosis immediately takes over and he goes on a killing spree.
Beyond the Door III
›1989 · Horror · 94m · Mary Kohnert, Bo Svenson, Victoria Zinny
A shy co-ed and her classmates travel to Europe to see a ritual. With a satanist/professor with them, he lures them into deadly traps to become sacrifices to Satan. One co-ed is a virgin, the main key to bring Satan back to life. But can the co-ed lose her virginity before Satan controls the world?
Blades
›R1988 · Horror, Comedy · 98m · Robert North, Jeremy Whelan, Victoria Scott D'Angelo
A peaceful country club becomes the hunting ground for a demonically possessed lawnmower with a taste for human flesh.
Slime City
›1988 · Horror, Drama, Fantasy · 81m · Robert C. Sabin, Mary Huner, T.J. Merrick
A student moves into a run-down building in New York City. His bizarre neighbors make a concoction in their apartment they call wine, but when he takes some of it, he turns into a deformed, murderous monster.
Pandemonium
›PG1982 · Comedy, Horror, Mystery · 82m · Carol Kane, Tom Smothers, Candice Azzara
A former high school student who always wanted to be a cheerleader decides to reopen the cheerleading program at her former high school after years of closure for being targeted by a serial killer.
The Black Cat
›1989 · Horror, Drama, Fantasy · 89m · Florence Guérin, Urbano Barberini, Caroline Munro
When a horror film based on the same source material as Suspiria and Inferno goes into production, the evil witch the story is based upon manifests herself and not only begins to terrorise the actress set to portray her on screen, but reveals plans to wreck havoc and bloodshed throughout the world.
The Undertaker
›1988 · Horror · 89m · Joe Spinell, Rebecca Yaron, Patrick Askin
A deranged undertaker kills various people to keep as his friends in his seedy funeral home.
Grave Secrets
›R1989 · Horror · 89m · Paul Le Mat, Renée Soutendijk, Lee Ving
A woman tormented by ghostly apparitions and a professor of psychic phenomena investigate other-worldly disturbances and unlock the secret of a malevolent force reaching out for vengeance from beyond the grave.
555
›R1988 · Horror · 90m · Greg Kerouac, B.K. Smith, Mara Lynn Bastian
A spate of killings of teenagers by a maniac dressed like a hippie causes a detective to check the records for similar killings. He discovers that every five years, in the fifth month of the year, for five consecutive days, the same type of killings have occurred, and the few descriptions of the suspect always match: he's dressed like a hippie. As the detective searches for the killer, he begins to have suspicions about his superior, an older man who is haunted by memories of his military service in Vietnam.
The Black Room
›R1982 · Horror, Thriller · 88m · Stephen Knight, Cassandra Gava, Jimmy Stathis
An unfaithful businessman rents a spare room from two siblings to use for his sexual conquests, unaware that they're serial killers who murder every woman he brings there.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
›R1985 · Horror · 87m · Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Myers
A teenage boy is haunted in his dreams by deceased child murderer Freddy Krueger, who is out to possess him in order to continue his reign of terror in the real world.
Children of the Corn
›R1984 · Horror, Thriller · 92m · Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong
A traveling couple end up in an abandoned Nebraska town inhabited by a cult of murderous children who worship a demon that lives in the local cornfields.