50 Unmissable Horror Movies
31. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Two American backpackers, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), are traveling through the English countryside. After ignoring local warnings to stay off the moors, they are attacked by a mysterious creature. Jack is killed and David is gravely injured. David wakes up in a London hospital, only to be haunted by visions of Jack’s ghost, who warns him he is destined to transform into a werewolf by the next full moon.
An American Werewolf in London is considered important for its groundbreaking blend of horror and dark comedy, a mix that influenced countless horror films that followed. The soundtrack is killer too, cleverly featuring songs that exclusively relate to the moon. The film’s dry wit has remained endearing for decades.
John Landis’ movie also set new standards in special effects, with Rick Baker’s work on David’s transformation into a werewolf earning the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup – a category created in-part because of his work on this film. The scene became iconic, pushing practical effects to new heights and showcasing the potential for horror films in a new era. It’s easy to see An American Werewolf’s influence on films like The Thing and Beetlejuice, proving that it deserves a seat at the table of important horror films. GT
32. The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter had always been a fan of Christopher Nyby’s 1951 film The Thing from Another World – little Lindsay Wallace watches it in Carpenter’s 1978 film Halloween, for one – so when Carpenter was given the chance to direct a new version, he went all out.
Kurt Russell plays lead character MacReady, the helicopter pilot at Antarctica Outpost 51, in his most iconic role. After a Norwegian helicopter attacks a runaway dog, his station’s members find the Norwegian camp destroyed, along with video tape footage showing them discovering a spaceship buried under the ice. Something, however, has already broken free, and it’s imitating the researchers at the American base. Now nobody can tell who is really human. If they don’t act quickly, it will all end in a bloody mess.
Considering the story an Agatha Christie thriller with a monster, Carpenter loaded the film with paranoia and treachery at every turn. The threat is certainly the shapeshifting alien, but also the men within the base. Nobody trusts anyone. They’re cut off from the rest of the world with no help incoming. Blizzards are sweeping in. It’s an impossible situation with very human characters about to lose their minds.
Added into the mix is Rob Bottin’s incredible creature effects, which are some of the best ever put to screen. There’s something about the gooey body-horror of the repulsive, tactile creations that make it worse than any CGI. Any story that features a traitor in the midst now turns to John Carpenter’s film for ideas, with Kevin Williamson’s The Faculty from 1998 featuring an identity test very similar to the one in The Thing, for example.
The Thing is terror turned up to the absolute maximum, and might possibly be John Carpenter’s best film. It is certainly one of the best horror films, and best science fiction films, of all time. KJ
33. Videodrome (1983)
Canadian director David Cronenberg had been on the scene for a few years by 1983, bringing strange creations such as Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), and Scanners (1981) to the world; the latter featuring cinema’s best-ever head explosion. Still, when he came out with Videodrome, nobody knew quite what to make of it. The story of a TV station president that comes across strange signals from his television that may or may not alter his reality is bizarre, brutal, and altogether vintage Cronenberg.
In a world where Baudrillard’s seminal text “Simulacra and Simulation” had been released only two years prior, more and more artists were beginning to look at television, film, and other forms of mass electronic media, and consider their effects on humankind. The term ‘cyberpunk’ was coined in the same year, and it would be only the year following Videodrome that William Gibson would release “Neuromancer”, now considered the archetypal cyberpunk text. Videodrome could very easily fit into the same group of texts, using body-horror as a metaphor for addiction, and for desensitisation to abhorrent violence and sexuality on the television screen.
Barraging the viewer with surreal, strange and violent imagery, director Cronenberg crafts a thriller that lodges in the brain like the aftereffects of Videodrome itself. For his troubles, he won a plethora of awards upon the film’s release, even if the film itself was a bomb at the box office. Videodrome is a deranged and disturbing political thriller with James Woods and Blondie’s Debbie Harry leading the way. It is one of a kind. Long live the new flesh. KJ
Recommended for you: Where to Start with David Cronenberg
34. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven had already made a mark on horror films by the time A Nightmare on Elm Street rolled around in 1984. He had released The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) to the vitriol of critics but the adoration of the public, and had even been the first person to bring Swamp Thing out of DC comics (Wes Craven: Swamp Thing, 1982). Still, there was work to be done, and after trying everywhere to get his new slasher film script accepted, it was finally greenlit by new kids on the block, New Line Cinema. Good for them, because when teenagers started being killed in their dreams by a man with knives for fingers, it became their first commercial success, and gave them the nickname ‘The House That Freddy Built.’
The key to the film’s success was a combination of good acting, good directing, and sheer imagination. Robert Englund gives one of the greatest horror performances in the history of cinema as Freddy Krueger, a role he would fill in all but one of the franchise’s 9 feature film instalments. The dream sequences defy all belief given the film’s low budget, with victims being dragged by invisible hands up walls and onto ceilings in moments that blend pure terror and inspiration. Johnny Depp makes his acting debut here, kickstarting his A-list career. John Saxon steps up to the plate as Heather Langenkamp’s on-screen father, and both deliver some of their finest performances. A Nightmare on Elm Street is bloody and horrifying and makes it impossible to distinguish reality from a dream – Craven uses every trick in the book to keep us thrilled throughout its 90-minute runtime, and it works.
The film grossed $57million on a $1.8million budget and gave the slasher film, which had been criticised for saturating the market and becoming stale as the 80s progressed, a slight resurgence. With one of cinema’s greatest bogeymen leading the way, A Nightmare On Elm Street proved to be a vicious, nightmarish hellscape, and an unforgettable horror feature film. KJ
Recommended for you: Nightmare on Elm Street Films Ranked
35. The Fly (1986)
The 1958 Vincent Price vehicle The Fly was given a big budget and updated for contemporary audiences by Videodreome director David Cronenberg in 1986. Cronenberg’s version stars Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle, who creates a pair of teleportation pods but accidentally enters the pod with a fly and has his DNA combined with the insect, beginning the process of a slow morph into a hybrid monstrosity. Like John Carpenter’s remake The Thing (1982), Cronenberg creates a unique and superior version of the story he is adapting.
Focusing on the change as a metaphor for both disease and a fear of aging, Cronenberg crafts a nightmare unlike anything else shown before. His traditional body-horror craftsmanship is helped along by the extraordinary work of make-up artists Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis, who would take the Oscar for the film, but it is the vulnerability and internal determination that Jeff Goldblum brings to his role that makes this film stand out; he is one of most likeable protagonists in all of horror.
The film was a box office success, and won the Academy Award for best makeup. Revered film critic Gene Siskel, a man who was usually very particular with which horror films he recommended, claimed that Goldblum should have received an acting nomination. Alongside fellow genre stalwart Geena Davis, who delivers one of the immortal lines in all of cinema, this is one of those rare horror films that transcends its genre trappings and becomes something much greater. KJ
Nice work everyone. Next year: 50 MORE unmissable horror films.
What a list, truly something for every horror movie lovers’ taste!