HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE: 80‘s Cheesy Horror Films Part One!

We are now halfway home in my recommendation list for my pal 'Mad Cat’ Cattis.  We’re now hitting the 80‘s which...is not my favorite decade.  I have a very dim view for the deification of that time, and feel it is responsible for the way popular media has devolved into a frantic search for which corpse to try and revive.  Those people who fetishize this ten year period forget about the not-so-great stuff that was vomited out.

You’ll notice there’s a couple of weird cross-over films...and that’s because there’s a lot of blending in this decade.  So while some of these entries are more...science fiction or art school than pure horror, I stand by them as great recommendations.

As always, if I discussed these films before on the site or on one of my podcasts, a link is provided.

STRANGE BEHAVIOR (1981)
This was produced by the notorious Australian producer Anthony I. Giannini (who also produced Thirst from part two of our list), and was shot in New Zealand.  It’s supposed to be set in the American Midwest.  Even with the weird accents supposedly in the middle of the Farm Belt, it’s an effective, slightly tongue-in-cheek throwback to 50‘s sci-fi horror with a pair of scientists (one, played magnificently by Fiona Lewis, who feels like she should be shot in black and white) doing behavioral experiments on small town teenagers that cause them to become highly aggressive.  It features a witty script by Bill Condon (better known for musicals such as Dream Girls and Chicago, which isn’t surprising, given this film has a dance number) and an injury-to-the-eye effect that shouldn’t work given its cheapness, but does.

GALAXY OF TERROR (1981)
Yes, this is science fiction, but it’s seriously scary, thanks partially to some great effects and set design overseen by one James Cameron.  This is the film that features the infamous ‘maggot rape’ scene, but the other death scenes are pretty cool and there’s just a strange look overall to this thing.  It’s got a pretty great cast of character actors and is fun in a grim sort of way.

THE BEAST WITHIN (1982)
I am a big fan of Phillippe Mora, the French-born, Australian filmmaker who made some absolutely insane genre flicks, and this is his first--a grimy, dirty backwoods horror about a were-cicada (honest!).  It may be slow going, and a bit gross, for most of its run time, but you have to see the transformation in the final act to believe it.  It is as good as the ones in the two werewolf movies around the same time--only a lot filthier--and, like those, it’s 100% practical.

Q (1982)
I said we’d return to Larry Cohen on this journey.  This is maybe my favorite of his works, an offbeat thriller featuring Cohen’s favorite actor, Michael Moriarity as a piano playing petty thief who happens to find a kaiju nesting in the Chrysler Building.  It comes off as a police procedural--the detective Moriarity runs into is played by David Carridine back when he still gave a damn--that just happens to have a stop-motion winged lizard picking people off rooftops of Manhattan in the middle of it.

OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN (1983)
This film is directed by George Cosmatos, the father of Mandy’s Panos Cosmatos, and on the surface it sounds ludicrous: Peter Weller becomes obsessed with a rat that has invaded his newly bought brownstone while his family is out of town.  The bulk of the film is Weller tearing apart his home driven half insane by the rodent in his walls.  But trust me, this film is legitimately good thanks to Weller’s performance and Cosmatos’ direction, which slowly ratchets things up before ending in a riot of insanity.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)
You’ve probably heard of this one.  And you may know the twist ending.  But if you still haven’t seen it, you still should...even if it is all different shades of wrong in the light of modern mores.  It helps that the actors are actually more or less the age they’re supposed to be (female lead Felissa Rose was thirteen when she made this, which makes her eerie performance all the more impressive) and there’s a sort of viciousness that rings true with how we all grew up back then.  And no matter how much you heard about it, the ending is essential viewing...even if nowadays I can’t watch that last few minutes without thinking of a certain drummer and rock group leader.

Look, you’ll know what I mean when you see it.

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984)
This is an early film by Neil Jordan, who will go on to do The Crying Game, and it’s...unique.  Based on an anthropological text, it should be approached as something of anthology film with its dream like images and storytelling and stream-of-consciousness flow.  It features several truly amazing transformation sequences--each one different from the one before it--and one of my favorite depictions of Satan (played by Terrence Stamp) on film.  This is the artiest film on the list, but it is very worth it.

RAZORBACK (1984)
Yet another Ozploitation film, an early film by Russell Mulchahey of Highlander fame.  It’s a land-based take on Jaws with a giant boar taking the place of the shark, and the Outback at night taking the place of the beach.  It’s got a real atmospheric look to it, a real stunner of a first act twist, and some great creature effects. 

CAT’S EYE (1985)
This one is admittedly not the greatest...it’s an anthology film based on some of Stephen King’s earliest works with only one really great story in it...but what. a. story.  ‘Quitter’s Inc,’ which opens the film, features James Woods as a man trying to quit smoking who falls in with a new organization that uses mob methods to help him off the nicotine habit--not surprisingly run by actual mobsters.  The performances by Woods and Alan King, playing the head of the organization, is incredible and it’s got a good sense of humor (watch for the scene where Woods hallucinates King, dressed as Elvis, singing ‘Every Breath You Take.’).  The third story, with Drew Barrymore’s cat fending off an evil troll has a pretty good Carlos Rimbaldi creature effect.  The second story is...regrettable.

PHENOMENA (1985)
It’s about time I talked about Dario Argento, one of those singular weird visionaries who had a run of outstanding, idiosyncratic horror films that are much watches.  This one, the last one of his to be released to theaters here in America until Two Evil Eyes got shoved out in a limited release several years after it was finished, is his self-professed ‘fairy tale’ complete with spooky castle, evil witch, hidden passages and Jennifer Connelly as a modern day, sleepwalking princess.  Of course, it’s an Argento film, so there’s also decapitation, maggots and a razor-wielding monkey (who supposedly slashed the face of Argento’s then wife, Daria Nicoldi).  His work is an experience, the kind of dream-like nightmare that you just have to let wash over you.

Next Time: Ten Cheesy Horror Films from the end of the 80‘s!

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