1985. The middle of the decade. Awash with neon, chrome, and pastel suits. And some damn fine horror movies. Indeed, in my mind 1985 is THE year of the 80s for horror movies. Don’t believe me? Well, check out this list:
Return Of The Living Dead.
Day of The Dead.
Fright Night.
Re-Animator.
Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning.
A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
Ghoulies.
Lifeforce.
Mr Vampire.
Phenomena.
Silver Bullet.
Impressive, no?
And it was heady mix of sub genres. In there you have slasher films, vampire films, zombie films, serious horror, comedy horror, sci-fi horror…
Sure, not all of the film mentioned above were huge hits. Some were even flops. But they are still incredible films. Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce is a fever dream of a sci-fi vampiric horror. Which also features it’s leading lady spending about 99% of her screentime completely nude. A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 almost killed the franchise. Sure, it was popular, but caught some flack for it’s obvious gay coding. And it wasn’t an undertone. It was blatant. But quite bold in the mid 1980s gay-bashing, AIDS paranoia. Friday The 13th PArt V was a sleazier take on the franchise. More grindhouse than prior entries, it revelled in it’s lowbrow tone. More nudity, more violence.
And you had the battle of the Living Dead. In one corner was genre heavyweight George A. Romero with the finale of his Dead trilogy, Day of The Dead. And in the other, his erstwhile ex partner John Russos Return of The Living Dead (even if it bore little resemblance to it’s source novel). Both superb films, packed to the gills with outstanding effects and memorable moments (Linnea Quigley atop the tombstone… be still my teenage pants…). But both were almost upstaged entirely in the zombie horror stakes by a little heralded film from a Chicago theatre director called Re-Animator. It balanced the extreme gore of Day of The Dead with the satirical humour of Return almost perfectly. And once you’ve seen it, the phase “giving head” takes on a whole different meaning.
Silver Bullet was an excellent werewolf film and Stephen king adaptation (which was no mean feat).
Internationally you then had the kung-fu meets ancient superstition of Mr Vampire, and the general weirdness of Argento’s Phenomena (AKA Creepers for my American fiends).
Plus there were countless lesser known films released both theatrically and direct into the burgeoning VHS market. title such as The Mutilator and Nail Gun Massacre (both low budget but very enjoyable slasher films). or Hard Rock Zombies (exactly what it says on the tin).
So yeah, 1985 was a hell of a year. So many top tier releases and cult classics. If you can’t find at least 1 film to enjoy from this year… you’re probably dead.
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