I turned 40 this year, but I’m not the only one — these 1985 horror movies also hit the Big Four-Oh in 2025!
I realized last year when we were writing big birthday/anniversary lists of horror films that calling it a “Best of [YEAR]” wasn’t always accurate. I’m sure each movie on this list (and those) is a “best” to SOMEone in the audience, but it just didn’t jive with me overall. So, I’ve renamed this series to the “Most Significant” films of whatever year!
Because each of these films — for better or worse — made an impact.
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Return to Oz
If you’ve been a HorrorFam.com reader for a while, you already know how much I love Return to Oz. It’s one of my favorite movies ever, and I’m chuffed that it shares my birth year!
It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: The Wizard of Oz‘s Dorothy RETURNS to Oz! Unfortunately, things have changed since she was last there. The Nome King (the main protagonist from the books!) has taken over, and she needs to navigate a new set of dangers – with a new group of friends – to rescue her friends from the first film and save the Land of Oz! It’s wonderful.
It also managed to scare a lot of folks and went down in history as “that time Disney made a horror movie” in people’s memories. I’ve never been scared of it personally, but it IS a horror-fantasy film. Check it out!!
Where Return to Oz is streaming now:
Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead is one of my husband Frank’s favorite movies ever (tied with another film on this list!). It’s the third installment in the “Of the Dead” franchise, following Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead takes place almost entirely underground, where scientists and the military are trying to figure out how to deal with the whole zombie problem going on up above. Things look promising, but then humans do what they do and tragedy ensues – with some of the most memorable zombie effects put to film! The “choke on ’em” scene still stuns, two decades later!
Where Day of the Dead is streaming now:
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
One year earlier, a horror icon was born: Freddy Kreuger! A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was a fantastic commercial success and there was high demand for a follow-up. But the follow-up audiences got wasn’t quite what they were anticipating.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge has become significant as one of the gayest horror films ever made. Something that wasn’t particularly appreciated by audiences of the era, but has earned it “cult classic” status today.
Love it or hate it, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is an oddity in the NOES franchise. It’s the only one with a male lead (actor Mark Patton, who played Jesse, has embraced being known a “Scream Queen” in later years), it’s the only one that doesn’t have the NOES theme music/score, and although the “rules” of the NOES universe are a little wobbly in ALL of the films – they’re thrown completely out the window for Freddy’s Revenge giving it a strange “Is this even canon?” feeling.
Since A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is more of a direct sequel to the first film, it’s fun to do a triple feature of the first three NOES movies. It makes it feel like you fell asleep after part one, had an oddly homoerotic dream about what you saw, and woke back up for the true sequel. It’s a hoot! Plus, NOES2 really does have some neat special effects. The scene where Freddy claws his way out of Jesse’s body is brutally cool!
Where A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is streaming now:
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Speaking of 1985 horror movies that left people wondering “Is this canon to the franchise?” … Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning also left franchise devotees puzzled.
It’s almost impossible to describe this Friday the 13th Part V without giving away major plotline spoilers. Let’s just say… If the first Friday the 13th is the one you watch for Mother’s Day, then Part V would be your Father’s Day pick. If you know you know, as the kids say.
Where Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is streaming now:
Fright Night
Fright Night is one of my mom’s favorite horror movies. She even has a pet vampire shrimp named Jerry after Chris Sarandon’s character!
Speaking of Jerry, Fright Night is the story of Jerry the vampire moving next door to a teenage boy named Charley Brewster.
When Charley figures out what Jerry is, and that he and his loved ones are in danger, he seeks out the help of the horror host from his favorite TV show, Fright Night. This takes the story into a lil subgenre of film that I love: An actor character having to actually BECOME what they pretend to be! Like Dusty, Lucky, and Ned in ¡Three Amigos! becoming real gunfighters or the cast in Galaxy Quest becoming a legit crew of space heroes — horror host Peter Vincent has to embrace his “vampire killer” television persona and face off against a REAL vampire!
If you’re a fan of vampire movies, 1985 was a fun year for you! Fright Night is the first of several vampire films on this list — and it’s one of the very best in the genre as a whole. It’s still a ton of fun, and it spawned a sequel, a remake, a video game, a stage play, at least two novelizations, and a series of comic books. It was a THING! And among horror fans, it still is to this very day.
Where Fright Night is streaming now:
The Return of the Living Dead
My husband Frank’s other favorite movie! The Return of the Living Dead is not only one of the best 1985 horror movies (especially in the horror comedy subgenre), it’s one of the best zombie movies — ever.
Just like I’ve gushed about Return to Oz every chance I’ve been given, longtime readers already know Frank has written thousands of words across several articles about how why The Return of the Living Dead is awesome. I recommend the retrospective he wrote on all FIVE(!) films in the Return of the Living Dead franchise, including the absolutely stellar first film of the series.
Where The Return of the Living Dead is streaming now:
Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye
Confession: Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye was a first-time watch for me. Kinda. I’d seen the “Quitters, Inc.” segment of this horror anthology film previously, but that’s it. It was nice to finally be able to watch the entire movie! (But it also made me cry a few times because a couple of the cat actors they used for General Sebastian looked a LOT like our beloved kitty, Flex, who passed away about three months ago. Particularly the cat who does an adorable tongue “blep” at the 39-minute mark!).
Cat’s Eye is a three-segment horror anthology film. The first two stories (“Quitters, Inc.” and “The Ledge”) are adaptations of stories in Stephen King’s Night Shift book. The third story, “General,” is unique to this movie. The connecting element is the cat! He’s in every story.
Drew Barrymore is in every story too, but she plays a different character in each segment whereas the cat is the same cat throughout (even if he’s given different names by whoever “owns” him in each story). It’s kind of like the cat just sees every little girl as Drew Barrymore. Which makes me laugh. It’s like that theory that cats see humans as Big Cats, but with a silly twist: cats see all female human children as young Drew Barrymore! Hahahahaha!
Despite my emotional breakdown, I thought Cat’s Eye was a great horror anthology movie! It doesn’t overstay its welcome, every story is well done (usually there’s at least one clunker in horror anthologies), it had some seriously suspenseful moments, and I dug the music! (Funnily, Cat’s Eye isn’t the only movie on this list that features Sting).
Plus, it’s rated PG-13! This is one that you can share with older tweens and teens!
Where Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye is streaming now:
Silver Bullet
Is it even the 1980s if you don’t get at LEAST one Stephen King movie? We had The Shining in 1980; Creepshow in 1982 (co-written & directed by Day of the Dead’s George A. Romero); Cujo, The Dead Zone, and Christine in 1983; Children of the Corn and Firestarter in 1984; and Cat’s Eye and Silver Bullet in 1985! (If you’re curious, I’ll be writing about Stephen King’s Stand by Me and Maximum Overdrive next year for my list of 1986 horror films!).
Silver Bullet, based on the Cycle of the Werewolf novella, is a film I have a lot of nostalgia attached to. I’m fully admitting my bias! If you’re watching this one for the first time, as an adult, you might not be wow’d. It’s a little silly that it plays almost like a mystery, but there’s clearly only one suspect (something it has in common with Bad Moon!). It leisurely paced, which decreases the scariness And the werewolf looks like a bear.
And that’s exactly why, even though it’s rated R, it’s a good horror movie for tweens. Obviously, pre-watch it to make sure it’s right for your kid, but I first saw Silver Bullet when I was 10 and I loved it. It’s not made for kids (therefore, treating its audience like adults – something that tweens love!), but it has kids as the heroes. Sure, they get some help from their drunk uncle (their Drunkle, if you will), but they perform most of the important actions on their own.
I also enjoy the dynamic between Marty (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys) and his older sister Jane (Megan Follows, Anne of Green Gables). Marty is a paraplegic and most of the adults other than his Drunkle tend to (overly) baby him, but Jane – while still mindful of his needs – treats him primarily as her brother. I don’t have siblings of my own, but I closely observed my friends growing up and, when they hit their teen (Jane) and tween (Marty) years, they interacted almost exactly like Marty and Jane. But there’s still a lot of love between them and they’re very good at trusting and communicating with each other, and they even apologize to each other (something adults struggle with!) and talk their way through spats. And I know that doesn’t sound like typical bullet points for why a horror film is great, but the well-rounded realistic characters were a big part of why this one resonated with me as a kid and as an adult.
Oh, and the scene in the church with multiple werewolf transformations is friggin’ RAD! And two other scenes are genuinely suspenseful, even if you’ve watched this one a few dozen times.
Where Silver Bullet is streaming now:
Howling II … Your Sister’s a Werewolf!
Howling II … Your Sister’s a Werewolf! is also known as Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch! Which isn’t TOO provocative because, like dogs, female wolves are sometimes referred to as bitches (but they’re more commonly called she-wolves – like the song “She Wolf” by Shakira!).
In 1981, The Howling starring Dee Wallace was a hit with both audiences and wallets, but there was still money to be made so they made this one. And, yeah, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.
Howling II … Your Sister Is a Werewolf! picks up right after the first film. And much like the fictional public forgot the existence of ghosts between Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, the public of the Howling franchise’s universe has forgotten the widely-seen broadcast exposing the existence of werewolves — including Ben, the brother of Dee Wallace’s character from the first film.
Fortunately for Ben, Christopher Lee shows up to inform him that not only was Ben’s sister a werewolf, but he knows where the Werewolf Queen, Stirba (Sybil Danning) is hiding out in Transylvania.
From there Ben, Christopher Lee, and a former co-worker of Ben’s sister head to Transylvania to take down Stirba and her horny minions. Make no mistake, Howling II isn’t a good movie – but it’s a “so bad it’s FUN” movie! But, er, maybe not your best choice for a family/group movie night due to the aforementioned horniness of the monsters.
It has a full-length music video/concert segment (“The Howling” by Babel), they randomly replay the scene where Sybil Danning rips off her shirt SEVENTEEN more times, and Christopher Lee wears ridiculous sunglasses indoors.
Howling II was a significant 1985 horror movie for being a terrible sequel to a well-liked original. Joe Dante revealed in the DVD commentary for Gremlins 2: The New Batch that Sir Christopher Lee apologized to him for starring in Howling II. Which was a nice gesture, but Christopher Lee is the best part of Howling II. Just like every movie he’s in!
Where Howling II … Your Sister’s a Werewolf! is streaming now:
Teen Wolf
Michael J. Fox plays a 24-year-old high school student Scott Howard. Naturally, being one full inch taller than I am, he’s the perfect candidate for the basketball team.
Just kidding. He IS on the team, but unlike Muggsy Bogues (who was exactly my height!), Scott just doesn’t have the skillz to be great at B-ball. And neither do his teammates. They’re all bullied pretty badly.
But then Scott hits, like, werewolf puberty and being covered with hair makes him really good at basketball. And popular, and desired by the ladies, and the star in the school play, and basically everything else he ever dreamed of.
Although Teen Wolf was one of the genre films there was the most hoopla over in 1985, I almost didn’t include it on this list. It has a werewolf as the main character, but it’s not a horror movie (unless you count the general horrors of being a teenager, dealing with high school, and the soul-sucking price of popularity). However, since it spawned the heavily horror-focused television series of the same name, I thought it earned its historical significance for horror fans, and especially fans of the TV adaptation.
Where Teen Wolf is streaming now:
Legend
It was 2002 and a friend in my afterschool Anime Club turned to me and said, “You like Birds of Prey, right?” Indeed, I did. She continued, “The one who plays old Harley Quinn is the star of my FAVORITE movie. She’s a princess! And it also has Tom Cruise. It was before he plucked his eyebrows and he’s the CUTEST! And he doesn’t wear pants for the ENTIRE movie!! He runs around in a little mini-dress. And they team up with fairies and fight the DEVIL! And the devil is that one guy with the cool voice. And there’s a unicorn! AND…” she paused for dramatic effect, “…it’s a HORROR movie!”
So, that’s the story of how I ended up watching Legend when I was a teenager. And now I’m five years older than “old” Harley Quinn (Mia Sara) was in 2002. Hah! Time’s funny.
My friend’s description of Legend? Pretty accurate! Directed by Ridley Scott, Legend is a horror-fantasy adventure that revolves around Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness trying to take over the world via slaughtering all the unicorns – which will plunge the land into an Eternal Night. To make things a little easier for himself, he kidnaps a pure/innocent princess (because unicorns dig her vibe, which makes her good bait to lure them out of hiding) but Tom Cruise takes it upon himself to rescue Princess Lili and save the world.
Along the way, Tom (whose character’s name is Jack) runs into all kinds of cool fantasy monsters. Tim Curry’s Lord of Darkness is the main showstopper, but Meg Mucklebones — a hag that I’m pretty sure was the inspiration for Auntie Ethel in Baldur’s Gate 3 — also looks awesome. There’s some truly killer makeup effects in this one!
Oh, and if you want to host a double-feature with another 1985 Tim Curry film that’s horror adjacent, check out Clue!
Where Legend is streaming now:
Re-Animator
Also known as H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator, this one’s the story of megane cutie Herbert West… er… Wait. Sorry. I was still having Anime Club flashbacks. 😛 (Though Herbert IS a great horror character to cosplay if you need eyeglasses!).
AHEM. Anyway, Re-Animator is a horror comedy in the “Frankenstein” vein. It’s about mad scientist/medical student Herbert West and a fellow classmate figuring out how to bring the dead back to life. And that goes about as well as it ever does in those situations; however, it’s an extremely fun ride with some really neat effects.
Re-Animator didn’t get left behind in 1985 either! It spawned two sequels and has become yet another “cult classic” favorite among genre fans. (I’m looking forward to writing about Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond next year!).
Where Re-Animator is streaming now:
The Bride
Re-Animator wasn’t the only “Frankenstein” film in 1985: The gothic horror romance film The Bride was also released that year!
The Bride stars Sting (frontman of The Police, and the guy with the weird panties in David Lynch’s Dune) as Dr. Baron Charles Frankenstein and Clancy Brown (Gus from Pet Semetary II, and Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants) as Frankenstein’s Monster, Viktor.
Sting creates a lady made for Viktor — Eva, played by Jennifer Beals (she who wow’d the world with her removing-her-bra-without-removing-her-shirt skills in Flashdance) — but she’s just a little TOO hot, so Sting decides to keep her for himself instead. He basically attempts to pull a My Fair Lady/Pygmalion on her.
My dad wrote a bit more about The Bride, with particular focus on Viktor, in his article on 110+ years of actors portraying Frankenstein’s Monster.
Where The Bride is streaming now:
Mr. Vampire
Mr. Vampire was a first-time watch for me! I’d been wanting to see it for a while (horror comedies are my favorite subgenre of horror!), but I knew I’d need to finally grab the 7-Day Free Trial of the Criterion Channel in order to watch it… So, I wanted to be SURE that it was the right time! (You’re only a First-Time User ONCE, after all!!). Writing about the most significant 1985 horror movies felt like the perfect time.
TOTALLY worth it! I loved Mr. Vampire!! I hope Criterion is working on a deluxe DVD/Bluray version of this one because I absolutely NEED it. It’s so creative and so fun. It had me literally laughing out loud multiple times. And the STUNT WORK! Oh my gosh. The fight choreography is great!
It’s one of those films that gives off “live action cartoon” vibes. I loved it.
I don’t want to talk about it TOO much (you gotta see it!), but the main character is Mr. Kao, a Taoist Priest. He’s… please, forgive my interpretation given the language/culture barriers, but his character is basically “What if a vampire hunter Van Helsing-type ran a mortuary, while also giving spiritual advice?” He’s awesome!! And his goofy assistants are a lot of fun.
I’d seen other “hopping vampire” films, but Mr. Vampire is THE jiāngshī film that defined the genre. It has ghosts, vampires, zombies, martial arts, and a ton of laughs. An excellent horror comedy.
Where Mr. Vampire is streaming now:
Transylvania 6-5000
And then there’s this film.
Transylvania 6-5000 is the film that made me say, “Yeah… I can’t call this a BEST horror movies of the year list.”
My dad, who will sit through nearly anything horror-related, has never been able to watch Transylvania 6-5000 to the end. He described it as “painful” and “unwatchable.”
I watched it. I watched ALL of it. It’s SHOCKINGLY, jaw-droppingly horrible. But… I’m a big believer in “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” (one of my main pieces of advice for HorrorFam.com writers is “if you can’t think of ONE nice thing to say about the topic, write about something else”), soooooooooooo… Geena Davis & Jeff Goldblum were both nice to look at, and I enjoyed the song that plays over the end credits.
Where Transylvania 6-5000 is streaming now (if you’re feeling masochistic):
Phenomena
Directed by Dario Argento, Phenomena AKA Creepers is an example of the giallo subgenre blending with supernatural horror.
It’s very dreamlike and has a killer soundtrack (featuring music from Goblin, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead) and stars 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly as a Pokémon Bug-Type trainer who gets no respect from her peers. I kid. She’s actually a bit more like a psychic version of Willard, but she communicates with bugs instead of rats. Either way, the other girls at her boarding school aren’t especially thrilled…
Fortunately, while sleepwalking in the woods (as one does), Jennifer is found by entomologist Donald Pleasence’s pet chimp Inga and they become a trio murder-solving buddies. And I’m very afraid of chimps, so I was giving Inga the side-eye through the entire film. Anyone else?
If you enjoy Dario Argento films with their surreal weirdness and slower pacing that lures you into a false sense of security before you’re slapped with a blast of music and bright red gore… you’ll love Phenomena! Just make sure you watch the 116-minute Director’s Cut and not the 96-minute Theatrical release that left audiences and critics befuddled in 1985.
Where Phenomena is streaming now:
Demons
Directed by Lamberto Bava and written & produced by Dario Argento, Demons has become a favorite for fans of Italian horror for its wild pacing, excessive gore, and unique premise.
The plot to Demons is essentially: What if a zombie outbreak happened IN a movie theater while the audience is watching a horror film? Think of the opening scene for Scream 2, but feature-length and spreading.
Critics weren’t especially impressed with this one, but Italian theater-goers made it the 39th most successful film in Italy that year! Which led to it being released (nearly) everywhere else the following year, and it performed well enough to warrant filming a sequel, Demons 2.
Where Demons is streaming now:
Ghoulies
The first thing I noticed about Ghoulies was that it takes place in the same house as the Frat house from the “Reptile Boy” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a striking bit of Los Angeles architecture, what can I say? Unfortunately, Wattles Mansion and its attached park sustained significant fire damage this month but LA Parks & Rec is working on salvaging it. (Side note: If you’re a fellow Angeleno and your heart’s been repeatedly breaking this month due to all the EVERYTHING we and our beloved city’s been going through this month… Same. -hug-).
So, what does that historic mansion have to do with the plot of Ghoulies? Well, the main character, Johnathan, inherits the mansion from his late Satanic cult-leading father. And despite the warnings from his adoptive father figure (Eraserhead‘s Jack Nance), he just HAS to go check it out!
Johnathan, desperate to feel a connection and learn more about his personal history, starts mucking around with his father’s occult stuff in the basement. Over the course of the film, his muckery ends up summoning two dwarfs, a ton of Ghoulies (fun FX puppet monsters!), and — dun dun DUNNNNN — his evil dad!!
Where Ghoulies is streaming now:
Vampire Hunter D
Vampire Hunter D is the anime adaptation of a horror novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi and is one of the first anime films made for adults rather than younger audiences. And while some of the character designs look very “of the era” (leading lady Doris and her little brother, in particular), the animation holds up surprisingly well overall! A lot of old anime can be exceptionally stiff, but Vampire Hunter D is decently fluid, and the painted backgrounds are gorgeous. It’s hard to believe it was a direct-to-video release.
As for the plot, Vampire Hunter D takes place in the FAR future (unlike Akira, that takes place in 2019, the VHD universe is still a good 10,000 years away for us!), after a nuclear apocalypse. And this far future is littered with monsters.
D, as the title implies, is a vampire hunter. Doris, who was recently bitten by local bloodsucking troublemaker Count Lee, hires D to kill the Count before she turns into a vampire herself.
Also, D has a talking face on his palm. A literal face palm.
The original Vampire Hunter D animated movie is rare to come by these days. I rewatched it as best I could by cobbling together various clips fans had sneakily uploaded to YouTube (sometimes subbed, sometimes dubbed, sometimes neither) but I wouldn’t recommend viewing it that way. I’m going to put the JustWatch coding below, per usual, but don’t be surprised if it says, “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any streaming offers for Vampire Hunter D.” However, if it ever DOES show up, then the appropriate buttons will appear! That’s one of the things that appealed to me when I accepted JustWatch as an affiliate resource for HorrorFam.com readers: The coding automatically updates so no matter when you’re reading this, the streaming services are current. I was having a heck of a time keeping up with where everything was playing on my own! I hope you find it handy too. 🙂
Where Vampire Hunter D is streaming now:
The Black Cauldron
At the time, The Black Cauldron was the most expensive animated film ever made. And it was a massive failure that almost tanked Disney’s animation department. That, its horror theming, and its PG rating (the first Disney cartoon movie to receive more than a G!) made The Black Cauldron pretty significant.
Whether you love, hate, or are completely neutral to The Black Cauldron, I highly recommend watching the Defunctland mini-documentary on the history of the film as well as the walking tour attraction that existed at Tokyo Disneyland. Seriously. It’s under 20 minutes and it’s educational AND humorous – truly entertaining.
Where The Black Cauldron is streaming now:
Once Bitten
You know the two 1990’s Jim Carrey modes of either FULLY wacky (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber, etc.) or relatively grounded/realistic (The Truman Show)? His performance in 1985’s Once Bitten is sort of in-between those two modes. He’s somewhat goofy, but he’s almost the straight man in this one. He has a couple sidekicks who do the FULLY wacky and are clearly supposed to be the comic relief, but Jim’s pretty normal.
Once Bitten makes the list of significant 1985 horror movies for being both Number One at the box office its opening weekend while simultaneously getting pretty thrashed by critics for the jokes not landing. That said, even with his somewhat restrained performance, this very early lead role for Jim Carrey impressed audiences who enjoyed the glimpses at his physical comedy skills and general charm that would make him an international superstar not too long after!
As for the movie itself, Once Bitten is the story of a vampire Countess (Lauren Hutton) who needs to feed on virgin boys to sustain her youth. Guess who gets bitten!
Where Once Bitten is streaming now:
Lifeforce
Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” music video), Lifeforce was an extremely ambitious erotic sci-fi horror film, with a killer cast (shoutout to Patrick Stewart’s small-but-memorable performance as a side character!) and truly impressive special effects! It was also notable for having gorgeous Mathilda May as a totally nude leading lady for almost the entire film.
If all that sounds great to you, then you’ll be surprised to learn that Lifeforce was a MASSIVE box-office BOMB that was the start of a pretty bad time for Tobe Hooper (Lifeforce was followed by two other notable – expensive – flops, the remake of Invaders from Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2).
Lifeforce is actually the adaptation of a novel from 1976 called The Space Vampires. And the title of the novel is a fairly accurate summation of the film’s plot: Astronauts stumble upon some nudists in glass coffins and think it’d be a grand idea to bring them back to Earth. Oops. They were vampires…from space!
I really enjoyed the special FX in Lifeforce! My main issues with it involved getting “The Ick” from the male lead due to his dialogue. I know it was a different time and horror movies of the era typically didn’t have women in mind in terms of audience, but… ew. I was able to (kinda) chuckle about him (and a couple other hapless oafs) lamenting that he “had” to do certain things because the lady vampire was just TOO SEXY. It was meant to be serious, but he just seemed like a laughably pathetic Renfield hypnotized by horniness. But when he was beating up another woman, despite her protesting, while saying “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she WANTS me to hurt her!” I immediately turned against him as the “hero” and the film as a whole. I had too much lived experience with creeps like that in my younger days – they’re NOT heroes.
The first 15 minutes of Lifeforce has zero dialogue – only the film score – and it has a very dreamlike quality. It’s almost like watching a ballet, or a music video for an instrumental. I’m still feeling soured on the film in the moment, but I’d be curious if watching it again on Mute while listening to music would be fun. (Let me know if you’ve tried it!)
Where Lifeforce is streaming now:
Creature
If HorrorFam.com existed in 1985, Creature AKA Titan Find would almost certainly have gotten a spotlight in the Izzy’s Eerie Indies column! It’s an early film of William Malone (House on Haunted Hill 1999, FearDotCom) and it’s truly impressive what he was able to accomplish with such a low budget.
The costumes, sets, and practical special FX in Creature all look great! In fact, the FX looked so great that they were nominated for “Best Special Effects” at the 12th Saturn Awards; and although they didn’t win, the FX leads (Robert & Dennis Skotak) were chosen to design the special effects for Aliens in 1986!
Also, 1979 Nosferatu‘s Klaus Kinski’s performance in this definitely adds to the cult appeal for B-movie indie horror fans. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd Creature fell into the Public Domain in 1997, so if you’re looking for an online MST3K-style Watch Party choice, Creature probably won’t get you in trouble.
Where Creature/Titan Find is streaming now:
House
It’s difficult for me to articulate exactly why, but House reminds me of the Silent Hill games. If you’re familiar with both this film and the games, lemme know what you think in the comments’ section. Thanks!
As for the film itself, House was based on a story by Fred Dekker (the man behind The Monster Squad & Night of the Creeps) and follows Roger Cobb, a man who inherits the title house from his recently deceased aunt.
Roger is a Vietnam War veteran grappling with trauma from the war that often manifests itself in horrific flashbacks/visions, as well as unresolved guilt from the loss of his son and the consequential distancing of his wife. There’s a blurring between past and present, reality and hallucination. Is any of this actually happening? Is he just being driven mad?
And I know that sounds quite a lot like Jacob’s Ladder (1990), but House is wackier tonally. Plus, rather than nauseating jittery-cam scares and forced sadness, House has quintessentially 1980’s rubber monster effects and puppetry, and that’s always a treat!
Where House is streaming now:
The Stuff
Larry Cohen’s satirical horror film is a sharp critique of consumerism and corporate greed, cleverly disguised as a campy creature feature. The titular “Stuff” is a delicious white substance that looks like a cross between ice-cream and marshmallow fluff (with zero calories!) that spreads like wildfire (and we’re all VERY aware of how quickly and powerfully THOSE can spread!) due to a marketing campaign that rivals the Silver Shamrock ads from Halloween III in terms of catching on with the fictional public.
Trendy consumers blindly, OBSESSIVELY, LITERALLY consume(!) The Stuff to be hip with the latest fad, only to find out that The Stuff is actually a parasitic organism. After ingesting enough of The Stuff, buyers end up briefly becoming zombies… before the real horrors explode out of them and leave the empty, rubbery husks of their former bodies behind. WOW!!
Its blend of dark humor, body horror, social commentary in the vein of They Live, and zippy pacing make The Stuff one of the most fun 1985 horror movies!
Where The Stuff is streaming now:
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
Some people will argue that Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, directed by Tim Burton, isn’t a horror movie. I disagree. But, if you don’t want to believe ME, I actually got into an argument with a friend around a decade ago regarding the “horror”-ness of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and was challenged to find one other person outside of my own family who agreed with me. And that’s how I stumbled across this post by a fellow named J.W. Ocker making the argument that Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is a HALLOWEEN movie!
It’s a fun, well-written piece that I still remembered 10 years later. More importantly, it helped me win the argument. (Thanks, J.W. Ocker!).
But, seriously, you should watch or re-watch Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. For me. For my birthday. You’ll like it!
Where Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is streaming now:
POP QUIZ! Which of These 1985 Horror Movies End with a Freeze Frame?
When I was watching and/or rewatching the 1985 horror movies on this list in order to write this article, I noticed a couple repeating patterns when it came to ending styles. However, the one that tickled me the most was the amount of FREEZE FRAME endings! On one particular night, I watched three films in a row that ended on a freeze frame. That’s when I started counting them…
And then I turned my findings into this fun quiz for you to enjoy!
What 1985 Horror Movies Mean the Most to YOU?
What did you think of this list? Did you enjoy the quiz? (Should I create more quizzes in the future??).
How many of the 1985 horror movies I wrote about have YOU seen? Which one’s your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
Also, let me know if there were any 1985 horror movies I missed! I actually watched The Peanut Butter Solution (a Canadian film, also celebrating its 40th birthday this year!) as part of my research for this piece… but it wasn’t a horror film. It had been recommended to me by a couple of Canadian friends back when I was in my twenties – each of them saying that it was “like Return to Oz” and that it “terrified” them as children – but the film wasn’t readily available here in the US at that time.
Flash forward to now, the age of streaming, and I was FINALLY able to check it out. And The Peanut Butter Solution is incredibly, almost indescribably WEIRD (when my parents and I tried to relay what we’d just watched to Frank, he said it sounded like we’d all “taken too much Nyquil, passed out, and shared the same dream”), but it’s not a horror movie. Though, if I had to compare its general “vibe” to an actual horror movie, I guess I’d go with Hausu…? Like if you put only the silly, non-gory parts of Hausu, Celine Dion CDs, a wig, and a stack of Roald Dahl’s children’s books into the telepod from The Fly, The Peanut Butter Solution might be the result.
Anyway, I don’t regret watching it! It’s been several weeks now and I’m STILL thinking about it. Haha. And I found some fun things for anyone who loves The Peanut Butter Solution and may have been surprised/disappointed that I didn’t cover it: 1. A video a young man named Eddy watching the film and humorously commenting on it and, 2. this lovely documentary by a woman named Coda about the film (including interviews with just about everyone involved in creating it).
Once again, your feedback means so much to me. I always love hearing from you, Fam! Thanks for reading!
Images for this article were purchased via MovieStillsDB & Cinematerial.
