The 1980s were a golden age for special effects inhorror movies, seeing the release of so many classic chillers with shocking and creative designs. More so than any other genre, horror movies are often responsible for pushing the boundaries of special effects, with spooky villains like ghosts, zombies, aliens, and monsters all prowling in the background. Today, manyhorror movie creatures are CGI, but there was a time when the most impressive special effects were all practical.
The 1980s were a special timefor the evolution of practical effects. By the 90s, computer-generated imagery had improved enough to be the standard for most blockbuster films requiring fantastical elements, but the technology was still in too rough shape to be worthwhile for most horror films. Practical effects had decades to evolve going into the 80s, leaving the era the pinnacle of a lost art form that doesn’t appear in even thebest modern horror moviesas often as it should.
10Brundle-Fly
The Fly (1986)
The 1980s were an amazing era for horror movie remakes, taking concepts from old 50s science fiction B-movies and making them genuinely scary. While a man that simply had the head and arm of a giant fly was scary enough in the decades of yesteryear,1986’sThe Flytook things to a whole new level.
As his human flesh sloughs of and falls to the floor with wet, sickening thuds, the revealed glistening new form of the Brundle-fly is a nauseating sight indeed.
Similarly to the 1958 original, the plot concerns a scientist who discovers the secret to teleportation only for a literal fly in the ointment to transform him into a grotesque insectoid beast. In the 1986 remake ofThe Fly, Brundle’s transformation into the so-calledBrundleflyis the apex ofDavid Cronenberg’s famous body horror.
As his human flesh sloughs of and falls to the floor with wet, sickening thuds, the revealed glistening new form ofthe Brundle-fly is a nauseating sight indeed. The bristling creature truly feels like a painful abomination of nature, somehow communicating complex feelings through its surprisingly emotive bug eyes.
9The Blob
The Blob (1988)
The Flywasn’t the only remake of a classic creature feature to debut with some impressive creature effects in the 80s. Enter 1988’sThe Blob, another 80s take on an old 50s monster movie abouta seeping, creeping villain that gradually absorbs an entire town. Rather than being an alien invader, this film’s version of the Blob is a government experiment that breaches containment within a satellite in orbit, crashing down to Earth ready to consume.
Despite being little more than an oozing pile of pink goo,The Blob is quite the jaw-dropping spectacle. The way the acidic creature is able to dissolve flesh and bones in mere moments is rendered brilliantly through some jaw-dropping practical effects, conveying the sinister pain of perishing in such a nightmarish scenario. The smoking, bubbling mess the Blob creates as it envelops its victims is hard to stomach even today.
8The Thing
The Thing (1982)
The 80s were truly a standout decade for horror movies about viscous fleshy monsters with no solid form. Infamously a box-office bomb when it released,The Thinghas since gained notoriety as the crowning jewel ofvisionary director John Carpenter’s filmography. Yet another remake of an old science fiction story,The Thingfollows an Antarctic research team whose lives are thrown into disarray when the titular shapeshifting alien invader begins picking them off one by one, disguising itself convincingly as its human hosts along the way.
When the Thing finally reveals its true monstrous nature,every scene is a marvel of John Carpenter’s prowess with tricky special effects. From the shrieking dog monster to the toothy ribcage to the iconic skittering head spider, the Thing’s myriad forms are all a marvelous practical effect in their own right. Selling the isolated terror of such a hopeless situation,The Thingmight be the gold standard for horror movie special effects done right.
7The Cenobites
Hellraiser (1987)
The 1980s were the start of many fearsome slasher franchises, but none are as chilling with their special effects as Cliver Barker’sHellraiser.The chillingly unique story surrounds a group of beings called the Cenobites, who describe themselves as “angels to some, demons to others”.
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The 1980s were a great time for horror movies, as spooky slashers and fear-inducing franchise starters helped make this a golden age for the genre.
The mysterious figures are interdimensional travelers obsessed with testing the limits of human sensation, mostly pain in the form of extreme bodily mutilation. The Cenobites can be summoned to the regular world by using the mysterious Lament Configuration puzzle box.Pinhead is the most famous Cenobite, and he’s certainly an impressive sightwith his dozens of namesake spikes delicately embedded into his skull.
However, monstrous creations like Butterball, the Chatterer, and the female Cenobite are all arguably more unsettling special effects, with extreme forms of self-mutilation that are hard to even look at. That’s not even to mention the fate of poor Frank as he’s pulled apart by hooks.
6The Curse Of Lycanthropy
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Still the pinnacle of the rarewerewolf movie subgenre,An American Werewolf in Londonis still remembered decades later for its shocking practical effects. True to its name,An American Werewolf in Londoncenters on a pair of American backpackers who endure a vicious encounter with the form-changing beast of legend, leaving one of them infected with the curse of lycanthropy. Here,the curse of the werewolf is shown doing absurd damagein a crowded modern environment, though the sufferer is just as much of a victim as the people they prey on.
Thejaw-dropping transformation sequence of the filmemphasizes this point with some stunning practical effects. It’s hard not to wince in pain seeing the poor Yankee’s face stretch into a snout, his bones cracking under the strain as he assumes his canine form. Even today, this particular scene holds up as a fierce example of just how chillingly effective animatronics can still be.
5Chucky
Child’s Play (1988)
Sliding out of the second-to-last year of the 80s, theChild’s Playfranchise managed to establish itself with one of the most iconic slasher villains of all time. Originally a depraved serial killer, Charles Lee Ray becomes Chucky after performing a voodoo ritual that allows him to transfer his soul into that of the season’s hit toy, a talking “Good Guy” doll.
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The 1980s was a landmark decade for horror, with influential and innovative works being produced by some of the best filmmakers of their generations.
As Chucky reveals his ability to pilot his new diminutive form to terrifying new ends, he soon proves just how much of a misnomer that title for the toy is.Child’s Playtakes its time in actually revealing the doll in motion, using clever camera angles and POV shots to convey the villain scampering away just out of line of sight.
When he finally appears in all his wrathful, raging glory, the pay off is more than worth it, with a fluid-moving puppet that truly feels alive thanks to the shocking profanities he unleashes in anger. Through a combination of animatronics, puppetry, and forced-perspective wizardry,Chucky is a true wonder of special effects in 80s horror.
4Pumpkinhead
One of the moreunderrated horror movies of the 1980s,Pumpkinheadwas one of the many unfortunate victims of the era’s oversaturation in the horror space. After his son is killed in a cruel bit of bullying gone wrong, the wrathful Ed visits a witch in the country hoping to seek revenge on the perpetrators. Her ritual brings forthPumpkinhead, a gaunt, hunched over demonwho soon gets to work tearing apart the guilty murderers.
Pumpkinhead isan amazing practical effect that somehow gets better the more one looks at it, from its snarling maw to its flicking tail. The monster clearly has shades of the Xenomorph ofAlienfame, but is still very much able to stand on its own as a creative creature design. The visual only gets more chilling as Ed and Pumpkinhead begin to inherit the traits of one another, creating two monster-human hybrids sure to stick in the mind of viewers.
3The Xenomorph Queen
Aliens (1986)
Speaking of the Xenomorphs, the 1980s also marked the sophomore appearance of Ridley Scott’s original apex predator designed by the evocative H.R. Geiger. This time around, the intrepid Ripley has to aid a squadron of colonial marines from exterminating an entire hive of Xenomorphs from a doomed colony.
The facehuggers and Xenomorphs are as horrific as ever, but the massive Alien Queen is the true star of the show, serving as a climactic final enemy.
It can be argued that James Cameron’s follow-up is more of an action movie than a horror film, but it certainly has enough skin-crawling beasts to earn the title. The originalAliennever showed the Xenomorph out in the open for too long to keep the suit from being obvious, butAliensis able to do a lot more with the creaturesthanks to James Cameron’s special effects knowledge.
Aliens
Cast
Aliens, released in 1986, follows Ripley as she joins a group of Colonial Marines returning to LV-426, site of her previous encounter with the extraterrestrial species. Having been in hypersleep for 57 years, her story of survival is met with doubt, yet she assists in confronting the new threat.
The facehuggers and Xenomorphs are as horrific as ever, butthe massive Alien Queen is the true star of the show, serving as a climactic final enemy. From her curious tiny extra set of arms to her drooling double-mouths, the Xenomorph Queen is a standout effect in Cameron’s already fantastical career.
2The Zombies
The third film inGeorge A. Romero’sNight of the Living Deadseriesof zombie movies,Day of the Deadtook the idea of living corpses to a whole new level. In this film,the zombie infestation has gone full-on apocalyptic, with only scattered pockets of humanity remaining. One such pocket is of a military and scientific outfit secured within a bunker in the Florida Everglades, hoping to make sense of the phenomenon and chart the future of the human race’s survival.
WithDay of the Dead,George A. Romero confidently fought for an R-rating to not compromise on his artistic vision. As a result,the zombies ofDay of the Deadare truly groundbreaking sights, shuffling about with empty ribcages leaking entrails and having their heads blown clean off. Outdoing evenDawn of the Deadwith its creative blood and gore,Day of the Deadis hard to watch for the squeamish thanks to its stunning practical effects and makeup.
1The Shunting
Society (1989)
Another criminally underseen 80s horror movie,Societymay start off quite light on the special effects, but soon ramps up to some of the most audacious body horror ever put to screen. The story follows a rebellious young man as he navigates his privileged, wealthy community, always feeling at a far remove from the lives of his peers and even family. It’s eventually revealed thatthe polite society he lives in is not as it seems, culminating in a horrific event known as the Shunting.
Here, the non-humanantagonists of the film reveal their true nature as shape-shifting hedonists, reveling in a nightmarish bacchanal that literally melds body parts together. What makes this special effect so particularly incredible is the sheer scale of how many actors are connected via fleshy tissue, morphing their bodies into all sorts of demented new forms. The Shunting ofSocietyis onehorror movieeffect that’s impossible to forget.
