The unsettling brilliance of British horror in the 1980s
Horror cinema has always been hugely popular with a specific audience, even if the genre rarely picks up accolades from mainstream awards organisations. Fans of horror movies are some of the most dedicated in cinema, appreciating everything from the newest horror sensation to old gory B-movies.
The genre was one of the earliest to grace screens, with early silent cinema pioneers like Georges Méliès making spooky shorts that experimented with special effects, such as layering frames to create ghostly apparitions. From there, horror thrived in the post-war period, with German Expressionists championing dark stories that reflected the horrors of a country in the immediate aftermath of war.
Due to censorship and societal taboos, it took a while for explicit violence and gore – things that define much modern cinema – to enter the canon. Hollywood relied on lots of haunting, supernatural stories during the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, only treading truly shocking and provocative ground in the ‘60s and, most prominently, the ‘70s. Italy was also making huge developments during the ‘60s and ‘70s with the rise of Giallo horrors, which paved the way for American slashers.
In the United Kingdom, however, Hammer Film Productions defined the country’s horror output, with the company producing many movies featuring pre-existing spooky characters in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. After many years of success, the interest in Hammer lessened, while another prominent British production company frequently dealing with horror, Amicus, stopped releasing movies.
With American and Italian horror thriving, Britain entered the ‘80s with its best days of horror seemingly behind it. Titles from the ’70s like The Wicker Man, The Omen, Don’t Look Now, and The Devils seemed to suggest that British filmmakers had what it took to progress the genre even further, but now, there was a sudden lack of investment from production companies.
Luckily, there were still British horrors that managed to crawl out onto our screens during this time, although many were indie films that ended up fading into obscurity for many years after. Yet, these films, wildly inventive and ambitious despite their limited budgets, proved that British horror was still thriving, just on a smaller scale.
One of the most underrated British horror movies of the ‘80s was The Appointment by Lindsay C. Vickers, which was almost lost forever. After being released on home video and receiving one television broadcast, the prints mysteriously disappeared, only to be found decades later and restored by the BFI. It’s a haunting film that looms with a sense of unease and uncertainty; The Appointment isn’t blood-soaked or full of witches or vampires, but an anxiety-ridden car drive is enough to have you sitting on the edge of your seat.
Another great horror of this era was Sleepwalker, which communicates the fears of the Thatcher era through a fairly abstract plotline and lots of blood. Clocking in at just 49 minutes, the film is compact, packing as much terror in as it can in a short runtime. Its experimental nature, like The Appointment, reflects the uniqueness of British horror filmmaking during this era, which clearly took inspiration from the arty Italian flicks that were incredibly popular in the ‘70s, like Suspiria and Deep Red by Dario Argento, as well as the low-budget yet terrifying slashers made in America, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween.
Other titles worth checking out from this period include White of the Eye, The Sender, House of the Long Shadows, Britannia Hospital, The Lair of the White Worm, and Paperhouse. At a time when the genre could’ve disintegrated, it seemed to find the strength to continue due to innovative modes of thinking and fearless experimentation.
