80's Horror - year by year - 21 films that are well worth a look

Just a really fun creature feature, with a better than average cast, some seriously ropey FX and a pitch black sense of humour

This is a superior ghost story which I'm pretty certain would feature on many horror aficionados lists of most underrated movies. George C Scott is just immense in this

The director Richard Franklin is often referred to as the Australian Hitchcock so much so that after this he went on to direct the very underappreciated Psycho II. Road Games riffs off another Hitchcock classic 'Rear Window' only it takes the story out onto the desolate highways of Australia. Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis head the cast.

One of the very best backwoods horror films. Could be seen as a missing link between Deliverance and Wrong Turn.

Another creature feature. This really is something special. Once again the FX are pretty laughable but the cast is fantastic. David Carradine, Richard Roundtree, Candy Clark and Michael Moriarty as one of the biggest douches in film history

This sounds like a pretty routine slasher film and for the most part it is. A quartet of mental patients escape an asylum and go on the rampage. What raises it above the bar though is a cat that includes Jack Palance, Martin Landau, 'Sir' Donald Pleasance, Dwight Schultz (aka Howling Mad Murdock) and Erland Van Lidth (Grossberger from Stir Crazy). It also features a hockey mask wearing psycho a year before Jason would make that his trademark.

John Carpenter directing a Stephen King adaptation. Neither man's best but this is still hugely enjoyable. I'm hard pressed to think of a better killer car movie. Keith Gordon is terrific as Archie Cunningham. Harry Dean Stanton appears as a detective and the soundtrack is just bad to the bone.

I do enjoy a good creature feature or nature gone bad movie. The second movie on this list directed by Lewis Teague (see also Alligator). It's a very simple premise man's best friend goes bad. With 80's horror movie staple Dee Wallace heading the cast what's not to like

Another Stephen King adaptation this time directed by David Cronenberg and starring Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen amongst numerous other familiar faces.

The second dose of Ozploitation on the list and could it get anymore Australian than a gigantic killer pig terrorizing the outback. Ok wild boar probably does sound better. This is directed by Russell Mulcahy who would achieve greater success with Highlander.

This is a movie I haven't seen in quite a while now. I do recall it being a fun, tongue in cheek take on I am Legend. Interestingly the director Thomas Eberhardt's next movie was the insanely enjoyable Sherlock Holmes role reversal film Without a Clue with Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine. Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have done anything else of note since then.

1985 was a good for Horror-Comedy with Return of the Living Dead, Fright Night and Re-animator also being unleashed upon the world that year. House doesn't quite attain the level of that prestigious triumvirate but it is a lot of fun. George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) is especially entertaining as the next door neighbour and the story was created by Fred Dekker who would go on to write and direct the brilliant Night Of The Creeps and one of my 1987 selections The Monster Squad.

Yet another Stephen King adaptation. Well he is kind of good at this horror stuff. My only Werewolf movie on this list, although I was very close to picking The Company of Wolves as one of my 1984 selections. In many respects this is a very similar story to Fright Night only with a Werewolf instead of a vampire. I suppose both owe a considerable debt to Rear Window. Corey Haim, Gary Busey and Everett McGill effectively play the roles of William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowell and Chris Sarandon

Just utter nonsense from start to finish. 100% guilty pleasure. I would love to see a remake though.

A trio of drongo kangaroo hunters clash with a young woman who runs an animal sanctuary. The tagline 'They hunted her....terrorized her....and now they pay the price' pretty much tells you the rest.

He'll tear your soul apart

Despite featuring all our favourite movie monsters; Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster etc this is more of an action adventure movie than horror film along the same lines as films like The Goonies. Great fun and really should have been a huge hit.

Wonderfully gruesome remake of the 1958 sci-fi horror classic - which featured a very early screen role for Steve McQueen.

I would like to think that no synopsis is required here. If the titular Killer Klowns are not enough for you this film also benefits from the considerable presence of the late great John Vernon (Dean Wormer from Animal House).

An equally weird and wonderful / sick and twisted film that makes some salient points about the class system. The FX are still mind blowing nearly 30 years on. One of my favourites.

Not an especially good film but it does have the always wonderful Lance Henricksen and the genuinely entertaining Brion James (who famously, in an accent the origins of which remain a mystery, called Stallone a 'wanker' in the hilarious Tango and Cash) as the main protagonists. Very similar to Wes Craven's Shocker which was released in the same year. A serial killer on death row is executed and somehow comes back. I just found this movie to be more fun mainly because of the OTT performance by the aforementioned James.