The five best horror movies of the 1980s that you’ve never heard of
Following the horror boom of the 1970s, which saw the advent of slashers thanks to titles like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Black Christmas, and Halloween, horror entered a strange era in its following decade.
While there were some great, wholly original releases, like The Shining and Possession, the 1980s also saw the beginning of endless sequels and spin-offs as horror villains started to become recurring characters, continuously coming back for more. It was simply becoming a bit of a dire landscape, with Halloween rip-offs as far as the eye could see.
But what about the horror movies that never got the proper attention they deserved? There are only so many horror movies you can watch, and it seems like many people simply missed out on the titles below, likely because they didn’t get widespread releases or, as is the case with one of the films, because it vanished into thin air for many years.
Yet, there are some terrific hidden horror gems from the 1980s, from the Thatcherite critiques of Sleepwalker to the gorgeous colours of White of the Eye. It’s never too late to catch up.
The five best and most overlooked 1980s horror movies:
The Appointment (Lindsey C Vickers, 1980)
The mystery that surrounds the disappearance of The Appointment is almost as intriguing as the one at the heart of the film, which takes viewers on a haunting drive where paranoia, dogs, and nightmares craft the perfect tension-filled atmosphere that’ll have you wondering if you dreamt the whole thing. Directed by Lindsey C Vickers, the movie got its funding from the National Coal Board Pension Fund, but what could’ve been a successful British horror classic faded into obscurity.
When the movie was broadcast on British television, a fucking storm prevented Vickers from being able to watch the full broadcast, and then the film vanished. No one knows what happened to The Appointment, for it seemed like a supernatural force was preventing it from being widely seen, but eventually, an old tape was found, and the movie was able to be properly released decades after it had been made.
Sleepwalker (Saxon Logan, 1984)
Britain has its fair share of forgotten horror movies that only aficionados of scary hidden gems might be aware of. Sleepwalker is one of them. At just 51 minutes in length, there’s no excuse not to watch Sleepwalker, which uses an ominous dinner party to explore the horrors of the British class divide. Things turn bloody, although the lines are blurred between what’s real and what is just a nightmare.
Saxon Logan’s film is rather on the nose, with the house aptly titled Albion, and as a snobbish wannabe-politician clashes with a much more liberal-minded dinner guest, it’s only a matter of time before murder (and sexual tension, no less) ensues, with some gorgeous blue lightning creating an uneasy yet simultaneously beautiful atmosphere. Not widely known in England or beyond, Sleepwalker deserves your attention because who doesn’t want to watch a movie that takes the horror route to condemn Thatcher’s Britain?
Alice (Jan Švankmajer, 1988)
Not everyone will class Alice as a horror film, and while there are no crazed masked killers or ghosts, I’m sure most people will feel adequately unsettled by the bizarre mix of stop-motion and live-action, which makes up this Czech adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. It’s surreal and creepy, but utterly gorgeous, with the young Alice turning into a doll and meeting odd characters made up of animal skulls or puppet parts.
If you were to watch this as a child, you’d almost definitely have nightmares about it (or maybe you’d become obsessed with its strangeness). Still, this has to be the finest bloody adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s tale out there, capturing all the strange beauty and surreal charm at the heart of the story. It’s super underrated, too, often overshadowed by Tim Burton’s live-action take and Disney’s animated classic.
Stage Fright (Michael Soavi, 1987)
Who doesn’t love a good old Italian slasher? Stage Fright draws on the classic giallo, with director Michael Soavi having started his career under the mentorship of Dario Argento. Of course, Stage Fright was going to be good. With a killer wearing an owl costume and a meta premise which sees actors trapped inside a theatre while making a production about a murderer – all while a real one is on the loose – Stage Fright is bags of fun but sorely underappreciated.
A little bit camp and full of great scares, Soavi’s film might have slipped past the radar of certain horror fans as the decade became jam-packed with forgettable slashers, but Stage Fright is genuinely great and worth your time, especially if you like a horror movie laced with the appropriate doses of humour.
White of the Eye (Donald Cammell, 1987)
Donald Cammell co-directed Performance with Nicholas Roeg back in 1970, which saw Mick Jagger take on a rare acting role during the height of his fucking fame, and the psychedelic thriller allowed Cammell to continue his career as a horror director, although he would only make three more feature films. One of these was White of the Eye, which follows a sound expert as he is suspected of murdering several housewives in his local area.
Inspired by giallo cinema, White of the Eye sees Cammell draw on the hallucinatory imagery of Performance, with striking colours (especially bright red contrasted against white) and intense close-ups. For the visual impressiveness alone, you’d think that the film would be better known, but sadly, Cammell’s film has only recently started to garner more appreciation.
