The ’80s were a good time for scary movies. The slasher genre flourished during this time, courtesy of iconic franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street; as a result, audiences were treated to an abundance of horror films that skillfully blended scares, blood and gore, excess, and even humour. VHS also helped remove financial restrictions placed on filmmakers. Because of this, several aspiring horror filmmakers have taken advantage of home video to disseminate their unique, low-budget, and often controversial works.
The Criterion Channel will be airing thirty of the best horror films from the 1980s, directed by thirty different people, in honour of the spooky season and this golden age of horror. On October 1, the whole thing will begin. From high-budget masters like John Carpenter and Dario Argento to low-budget masters like Frank Henenlotter, this Clyde Folley-curated series will give viewers a taste of the whole spectrum of 1980s horror. There’s a wide variety of horror here, from creature features and slashers to psychological thrillers and arthouse oddities.
No major franchises are represented here, but there are still many fantastic and novel options for your Halloween viewing pleasure. Almost all of the major directors are represented by lesser-known works, with the exception of Cronenberg and his groundbreaking Scanners. Prince of Darkness, the third and lesser-known instalment of Carpenter’s Apocalypse trilogy, with The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness, stands in for the director. The late, great Donald Pleasance plays the priest who, with the help of some curious graduate students, opens a mysterious container in the church, releasing Satan himself in liquid form into the world.
By choosing Inferno from Argento’s back catalogue, we are giving proper credit to a supernatural horror that has been unfairly overshadowed by Suspiria. There are many more films on the list, such as Paul Schrader’s Cat People and Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark. Some of the films on this list, including Brian Yuzna’s gruesome body horror Society, are less well-known or had smaller budgets, but have since become cult classics. Two examples of low-budget films that went on to become successful franchises are Henenlotter’s Basket Case and Amy Holden Jones’ The Slumber Party Massacre.
Robert Bierman’s Vampire’s Kiss is one of the more intriguing additions; it is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Nicolas Cage’s overacting, featuring some of his most iconic freakouts. The inclusion of pulpy works like White of the Eye by Donald Cammel and monster features like Larry Cohen’s Q: The Winged Serpent ensures that there is something here for every reader. On October 1, the Criterion Channel will begin streaming Halloween-themed movies (with the exception of Tony Scott’s The Hunger, which won’t be accessible until November 1).