
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

Nightmare Sisters
›1988 · Horror, Comedy · 83m · Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer
Three socially awkward sorority girls invite three fraternity pledges over for a night of fun, but when the group holds a séance, the girls find themselves possessed by a shaman who transforms them into lustful, uninhibited succubi.

The Video Dead
›R1987 · Horror, Comedy, Fantasy · 90m · Roxanna Augesen, Rocky Duvall, Michael St. Michaels
On a quiet, tree-lined street, an old television set receives a single channel that repeats the same horror film over and over, freeing zombies from the grave to kill.

Death Spa
›1988 · Horror · 87m · William Bumiller, Brenda Bakke, Shari Shattuck
Michael's health club is beseiged with a series of terrible murders involving killer saunas and other grisly devices. Michael's wife killed herself a while before and her brother holds Michael responsible. Michael needs to stop the bloodshed before he loses all of his clients.

Cellar Dweller
›R1988 · Fantasy, Horror · 77m · Debrah Farentino, Yvonne De Carlo, Jeffrey Combs
A comic book artist Whitney Taylor is doomed to repeat history in a most grotesque way when she unleashes a demon after drawing it.

Mortuary
›R1982 · Horror · 92m · Mary Elizabeth McDonough, David Wallace, Bill Paxton
A young woman investigates the seemingly accidental death of her father, revealing many unsettling secrets and putting her in mortal danger.

Mausoleum
›R1983 · Horror · 97m · Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton
By way of an unnatural urge during her Mother's funeral, Susan enters her family's mausoleum, which unleashes an evil presence to lurk inside of her.

Sweet Sixteen
›1983 · Crime, Horror, Mystery · 90m · Bo Hopkins, Susan Strasberg, Patrick Macnee
A beautiful lonely girl named Melissa tries to make new friends from a town she's currently living in. The only problem is, each of the boys that she spends time with end up brutally murdered. Her sixteenth birthday is on the way, but Melissa turns out to be a suspect when it seems she's the last person who has seen her boyfriends alive.

Grandmother's House
›1988 · Horror, Thriller · 90m · Eric Foster, Kim Valentine, Len Lesser
Recently orphaned teenagers David and Lynn are sent to California to live with their grandparents who they discover are harboring a terrifying secret.

The Doctor and the Devils
›R1985 · Horror, History · 93m · Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Twiggy
In Victorian England, graverobbers supply a wealthy doctor with bodies to research anatomy on, but greed causes them to seek an easier means of getting the job done.

The Nesting
›R1981 · Horror, Mystery · 104m · Robin Groves, Christopher Loomis, Michael David Lally
A New York writer of gothic fiction finds her mansion full of ghosts from a brothel massacre.

Evil Laugh
›R1986 · Horror · 87m · Ashlyn Gere, Steven Baio, Tony Griffin
A group of medical students take a weekend to fix up an old house where a mass murder occurred 10 years earlier.

Nightmare at Noon
›R1988 · Action, Horror, Thriller · 96m · Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins, George Kennedy
Scientists poison the water supply of a small town, turning the residents into homicidal maniacs who kill each other and anybody who passes through.

Wacko
›R1982 · Comedy, Horror · 85m · Joe Don Baker, Stella Stevens, George Kennedy
Thirteen years after the "Lawnmower Killer" killed her sister, high school student Mary Graves and obsessed detective Dick Harbinger are on the lookout for the killer to reappear during the annual Halloween Pumpkin Prom.

The Devonsville Terror
›NR1983 · Horror · 82m · Suzanna Love, Robert Walker Jr., Donald Pleasence
Dr. Worley investigates a 300-year-old witch's curse in the New England town of Devonsville. Three liberated, assertive women move into town, which angers the bigoted, male-dominated town fathers. One of the women is a reincarnation of the witch, who proceeds to exact revenge on them.

Destroyer
›R1988 · Horror, Thriller · 94m · Lyle Alzado, Deborah Foreman, Clayton Rohner
A prison riot breaks out at the moment of a serial murderer's execution by electrocution, and his fate becomes indeterminate when the prison is shut down. 18 months later, a team of filmmakers converge on the prison to film a women-in-prison exploitation flick, but find that a certain somebody is disrupting their shooting schedule...

Nightmares
›1980 · Horror, Thriller · 83m · Jenny Neumann, Gary Sweet, Nina Landis
A little girl named Cathy tries to keep her mother from making out with a man while driving one day, and she inadvertently causes her mother's death in the car crash. 16 years later, Cathy has changed her name to Helen and has become a psychotic actress. Things are going fine until horrible things starts to happened with the cast of her new play.

Bloodsuckers from Outer Space
›1984 · Comedy, Horror, Science Fiction · 81m · Thom Meyers, Laura Ellis, Dennis Letts
A mysterious and invisible alien presence has landed in rural Texas and has started turning the nearby townspeople into white-faced, bloodthirsty killers. As the local authorities begin to investigate the strange and violent goings on, a photographer and his girlfriend find themselves trapped in the midst of an unexpected rural bloodbath, which seeks to turn them into another pair of bloodsuckers from outer space...

Spellcaster
›1988 · Horror, Mystery · 83m · Adam Ant, Richard Blade, Gail O'Grady
A group of people are killed one by one while participating at a million dollar treasure hunt in a mysterious Italian castle.

Island Claws
›PG1980 · Horror, Science Fiction · 90m · Robert Lansing, Steve Hanks, Nita Talbot
A biological experiment in Florida goes awry. The result: 8-foot long land crabs which roar loudly and kill everything in sight.

Island of Blood
›1982 · Horror · 82m · Marie-Alise Recasner, Rick Dean, Ron Gardner
The cast and crew of a low budget movie, filming on an island, are murdered one by one in accordance with the lethal lyrics of a punk rock song.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch
›R1982 · Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery · 98m · Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy
After a terrified toy salesman is mysteriously attacked and brought to the hospital, clutching the year's most popular Halloween mask, Dr. Daniel Challis sets out to investigate the strange events and finds himself thrust into a nightmarish conspiracy.

The Final Conflict
›R1981 · Horror, Mystery, Thriller · 108m · Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon
Damien Thorn has helped rescue the world from a recession, appearing to be a benign corporate benefactor. When he then becomes U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Damien fulfills a terrifying biblical prophecy. He also faces his own potential demise as an astronomical event brings about the second coming of Christ.

Prom Night
›R1980 · Horror, Mystery · 93m · Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens
At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years prior.

Amityville II: The Possession
›R1982 · Horror · 104m · James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda
Anthony and Dolores Montelli, along with their four children, move into their dream house in Amityville and are immediately plagued by a string of paranormal experiences. When the abusive Anthony wrongly places the blame on the children, Dolores recruits a local Catholic priest to exorcise the house.
