Best Horror Film of 1982 (part 4 of a series)

i can't choose between the thing, tenebrae, poltergeist, night warning, and basket case.

cuz i love them all.

i will not be voting for the new york ripper. pieces should get a vote though.

always had a soft spot for the last horror film. caroline munro 4ever.

fyi, night warning was actually released in the states as butcher baker nightmare maker. god i love that movie. susan tyrrell 4ever. jimmy mcnichol 4ever.

there are another 15 or so movies up there that i really like. including the usually maligned season of the witch.

brilliance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toIkqEpixv4

oh man kind of have to vote for the thing i think

scott - is season of the witch, the one with the tv ad for "su-per shamrock"? That really is an underrated gem.

otoh - cat people!

Poltergeist and The Thing alone would make this tough for me! Add in Halloween 3, Basket Case, Q, Tenebrae, The Beast Within, and Creepshow and it's nearly impossible.

I think I need to re-watch Basket Case.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_D1ZZyTOG7tQ/SaypLyZIeZI/AAAAAAAAEn4/EtNxuaKXrWY/s400/Basket+Case+Kevin+Van+Hentenryck.jpg

i have more than a little bit of love for slumber party massacre as well tbh

this is a pretty great list, altho i cant really join in the chorus of halloween III love. nothing i knowingly hate here tho

oh crap i voted and didn't even see poltergeist and the thing. darn it.

Tenebrae!

Wow, what a tough choice, and what a classic year. Halloween III and Pieces are two of my favorite "OMG, WTF were you thinking?!?" movies of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgLICoFgb2s

And Poltergeist and Creepshow are two of my favorite, effectively creepy horror movies. But I think I have to go with all-time amazing The Thing.

Is Q anywhere near as insane as God Told Me To?

nothing comes close to the Thing imho, best horror movie of the 80s, certainly a film I never get tired of watching.

loads of good stuff on here tho, including some I had totally forgotten (lol Basket Case)

saw Creepshow again recently and it doesn't quite hold up, altho there are a handful of fun performances in it

Yea, having to choose between Creepshow and Poltergeist, which were pretty much my two very favorite movies up until I was a teenager, is gonna be impossible.

Cat People has Nastasia Kinski and that awesome Bowie song

xpost Runner up to those two is Tenebre.

I know The Thing will win, but my last viewing wasn't quite as spectacular. I like the Carpenter horror films on either side of it much better.

All-time one-sheet:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9f/Visiting_hours.jpg/393px-Visiting_hours.jpg

^ i have not seen this; why have i not seen this?!

The Dorm That Dripped Blood

...

oh shit, i didnt even see visiting hours up there, that is a goldmine xxpost

Another amazing scene from Pieces, for your consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLQWjQbKEbg&feature=related

they screened pieces here a year or two ago & I went into it blind - that bastards moment just ruled if you didn't know it was coming

best movie here is tenebrae

so much to say no time to say it

i keep wondering what year is going to be the breaking point where the regulars on these polls switch over from being amiable chipper appreciators into FULL ON RAGIN FUK U FEEL MY INDIGNANT RAGE BECAUSE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER U FOOLS

I'd prefer the INDIGNANT RAGE be kept to threads like bearsharktopus vs. bearotaur

i didn't see the other polls for other years. its nice to see the love. felt like years ago me and calum were the only horror fans on ile.

OK, who's seen Humongous?

http://www.slightly-deranged.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/humongous0.jpg

man I really wanna see some of these but I bet a fair portion of this list never made it to DVD

a lot of these aren't even on Netflix

eh there's tons of stuff that isn't on Netflix (part of the reason why I am VERY loyal to my local rental store). but shit I bet a bunch of these never even made it to VHS

otoh may be renting this shortly: http://www.amazon.com/Basket-Case-20th-Anniversary-Special/dp/B00005KH30

lol

guess what's on watch instantly right now!

http://80shorrormovies.com/images/Nightbeast.jpg

Q: The Wing Serpent is amazing

I'll probably vote for the Thing though

Amityville II: The Possession - underrated, imho - great 'bladder' faceburst efx, wickedly sleazy Burt Young performance and archetypal, Robin Woodian family-as-source of tension/terror plot motor. Apparently this was shown to the uk press on the same day as Evil Dead, which maybe accounts for its slightly obscure reputation. From the director of Bullet for the General, a great 60s semi-marxist spag western.

Basket Case - Henenlotter is a real expert on exploitation rub, and the film really vibrates with that 42nd St grindhouse sleaze-puke aura. DVD of this is available v. cheaply in the uk. Sequels nowhere near as good.

The Beast Within - written by Tom Holland, who also wrote/directed Fright Night (aka the greatest vampire movie ever made)

Cat People - written by Alan ormsby, who was also involved w/ great 70s exploitation trash like Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Deathdream and Deranged.

Creepshow - used to own the comic bk adaptation by Berni Wrightson. Great cast - eg marshall, ted danson, leslie neilsen, adrienne barbeau etc - and a pretty gd approximation of the EC revenge fantasy.

Friday the 13th Part III - saw this in 3-D back in the day (ie i am olde)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch - another underrated sequel, uncredited Nigel Kneale script

Madman - pretty routine stalk+slasher.

Manhattan Baby - the start of Fulci's terminal decline.

The New York Ripper - vile trash of course, but hard to take the quacking killer seriously.

Poltergeist - indian burial ground!

Q - Michael Moriarty is great in this.

The Slumber Party Massacre - claimed to be a feminist stalk and slasher yeah right

Swamp Thing - one of Wes Craven's worst (think i said this last time, but still...)

Tenebrae - again, actually saw this at the cinema when it came out. Argento made 'objectively' better movies, but there's something abt this film's combination of psychosexual trauma and cocaine chic that really hits the spot w/ me. The tracking shot over/around the house is still some kind of technical peak for pre-cgi exploitation cinema.

The Thing - my pick.

Visiting Hours - Shatner!

Have seen only Poltergeist.

Creepshow - used to own the comic bk adaptation by Berni Wrightson.

I used to take this out of the library all the time as a kid, long before I ever saw the movie. The two have almost become intertwined in my mind.

I really need to rewatch Basket Case. I rewatched Brain Damage (also by Henenlotter) a while back and was pleasantly surprised by how batshit it was and how well it held up.

those people buried up to their heads on the beach, waiting for high tide...that shit will be forever tattooed onto my memory...

man I haven't seen Fright Night in forever, that movie kicks ass

Fright Night's great! It seems to be on cable a lot for some reason.

agree w/Ward about Swamp Thing... altho I had no idea Visiting Hours is a Shatner movie...? This isn't the one where he's a creepy wife-killer is it?

Thanks for the ride, lady!

One of my favorite movie endings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_f4nKbZk4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_III

Halloween III opened theatrically in October of 1982 on the same weekend as First Blood. Some people were so upset with the film not showing Michael Myers that they threw things at the screen. Both movies were rated R and both depended on the male movie goer. In 1981, Halloween II opened up the same day as Time Bandits. While Halloween II did well against the PG fantasy, Halloween III however was no match for First Blood.

Critical response to Halloween III: Season of the Witch was negative. New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby struggled to apply a definite label to the film's content. He remarks, "Halloween III manages the not easy feat of being anti-children, anti-capitalism, anti-television and anti-Irish all at the same time."

Shatner plays a TV producer in Visiting Hours. The film was produced by the same Canadian guys who gave us Scanners, andit's Michael Ironside turns up again playing the psycho killer. This was classed as a 'video nasty' in the UK, and there was a small fuss when it was screened, uncut, on TV some years later. It's still unavailable on DVD here.

Shakey Mo, I think the film you're thinking of is Impulse, made in 1974 by the Florida-based exploitation director William Grefe (he also made the Jaws-ripoff Mako).

BTW, if you have any interest at all in obscure 70s and 80s American exploitation/horror movies, I can't recommend this book highly enough:

http://www.fabpress.com/vsearch.php?CO=FAB070

Basket Case. Haven't seen it in 25 years, but I loved it at the time. "What's in the basket?...AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

yeah Impulse was the one I was thinking of, that movie is bonkers. I think it was released under a couple different titles iirc

New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby struggled to apply a definite label to the film's content. He remarks, "Halloween III manages the not easy feat of being anti-children, anti-capitalism, anti-television and anti-Irish all at the same time."

pfft ILX is all of these things FWIW

anti-children, anti-capitalism, anti-television and anti-Irish all at the same time

^ suggest screen name

Thanks for the ride, lady! - not applicable til '87

I hang my head in shame as I admit (again..) that I have not seen The Thing - as I mentioned it in a previous poll, I'm sort of saving it & The Brood for a future Cronenberg double-feature.

Basket Case is another that I've meant to check out but haven't.

So I kinda feel unqualified to vote objectively in this particular installment but I will throw Season of the Witch a bone b/c it is THE BEST Halloween sequel (plus it is totes awesome when the kid's head turns into snakes.

Poltergeist will win if TT does not & it deserves whatever top billing it gets b/c it is obv great.

<3 Creepshow too but not as much as Creepshow 2 (sorry)

Yeah, think I'm gonna have to vote Poltergeist as the most likely to topple The Thing ... but really, that one's gonna win by a 20-1 margin.

The Thing!

As I recall, Cat people had Nastasia Kinski naked and still stank.

Yeah, I really like a handful of these, but there's no way I could vote for anything other than THE THING.

missed this one! 1982 is some strong fucking medicine. the thing vs. creepshow vs. poltergeist (!) vs. tenebre vs. basket case vs. halloween III vs. Q: the winged serpent? holy fuck. how to decide? even the also-rans are great: parasite, forbidden world, the beat within, cat people. the latter two are boring, but evocative and strange enough to justify it. former are sleazy and bad but, damn, they deliver the fucking goods.

of the top six, it seems almost too easy to vote for anything but halloween III, one of the most underrated horror sequels ever. kids' heads turning into bugs and whatnot. but shit, poltergeist, best thing tobe hooper ever had his name grafted onto. and shit, that crane crawl around the house in tenebre. and shit, creepshow as a whole, strong candidate for best horror movie of the decade.

went with the thing. yawn. me and everybody else. but that motherfucker blew my brains to kingdom come when i was a kid. first serious drug experience of my life was watching those dogs turn into flowers, and i wasn't even on anything.

the beat within...

i think it's appropriate this was the year i was born

but shit, poltergeist, best thing tobe hooper ever had his name grafted onto.

http://www.hastingsgov.org/Pages/HastingsNY_Recreation/014DE9BF-000F8513.0/drudge_siren.gif RONG RONG RONG http://www.hastingsgov.org/Pages/HastingsNY_Recreation/014DE9BF-000F8513.0/drudge_siren.gif

man, police sirenz is such a meme

Well, lemme step back a second: If, by had his name grafted onto, u mean "was credited for, but was actually incidental to," then I feel u 4 sure. But if it is some kind of ILX-horror-challops Poltergeist > TxCM posturing, then the Drudge sirens stand. You, of course, are welcome to yr opinion, sir. And I actually respect most opinions of yours that I've seen, but if yr talking CRAIG T NELSON vs. GUNNAR HANSEN, then no dice.

CTN wins vs. Gunnar Nelson OTOH.

it was more like "grafted onto" cuz it's so obviously a spielberg joint. TCM is better. hell, TCM 2 is better, but poltergeist is 100% not a tobe hooper flick.

which isn't to take anything away from poltergeist, which is awesome, btw, not only due to perambulating beef meat

OK then sorry abt the sirens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsMCOmn11zs

VS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMIgZmmO1c4

hell, TCM 2 is better - incidentally, TCM2 & P2 will be pitted against each other in '86. TCM2 is far superior overall imo, tho the "Cain" scenes from P2 are among the creepiest EVER

The Thing is going to wind this by a landslide and for good reason. <3 it so much.

...TCM2 & P2 will be pitted against each other in '86. TCM2 is far superior overall imo, tho the "Cain" scenes from P2 are among the creepiest EVER

― death kebab of DEATH (Pillbox), Thursday, July 8, 2010 2:31 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

iyo = science. TCM2 = the best movie ever made by people including tobe hooper. they were on here talking wrong knowledge because they do not understand, but hell... hell's exactly what they raised.

"Tenebrae" features the world's most pointlessly complicated camera shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL2hVO5BRIQ

Great shot, great music.

Tip of the hat to "Q" for some brilliant performances and a great script, plus this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjsag2vYlQ

But yeah, "The Thing" is a masterpiece.

"Tenebre" features the world's most pointlessly complicated amazingly amazing camera shot

It can be amazing and pointlessly complicated at the same time, and it is. Like, it's one thing to use a Stedicam to provide a creepy POV. It's another thing to have a nutball neo-POV shot so needlessly ambitious you can even see the sloppy jostling of the crane. It reminds me of nothing so much as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYFXv6bDIY8&feature=related

But, you know, not as mind blowing.

I was just going to say, it's like that shot in "I Am Cuba!"

Contenderizer, that post makes me wonder if you've been on a steady diet of RONG for a week, cuz that's what's coming out yr business end. Creepshow is a great cast saddled with ho-hum stories. Technical credits can't be faulted, but the movi*as a whole* is a museum-quality specimen of mediocrity. Best horror movie of its decade? Such claims call yr critical faculties into serious question.

As does implying that Parasite has ANYTHING to offer aside from some icky makeup. Turgid, anemic sci

-fi with gross-out aspirations. Watched it again recently, to see if the years had been kind. They have not.

best thing Hooper had his name "grafted onto." erm, ok. now name something else which Hooper only nominally directed. point being, isn't that like saying that Aberration is the best movie ever made about mutant geckos? yes, but... uh...

a museum-quality specimen of mediocrity

http://www.hastingsgov.org/Pages/HastingsNY_Recreation/014DE9BF-000F8513.0/drudge_siren.gif RONG RONG RONG http://www.hastingsgov.org/Pages/HastingsNY_Recreation/014DE9BF-000F8513.0/drudge_siren.gif

Tomatometer rating of 64% and 6.5(/10) IMDB speak for themselves. that would be a D, no?

i'm not saying that Creepshow isn't fun. it is. but it has also been overrated since its inception by genre fans, who want to believe that the dream-team progeny of Romero and King stock is so much more of a godsend than it turned out to be.

gotta agree with Mr. Hal here, having re-watched it recently. it's campy fun and all but it's not amazing.

ah, you're all on lohan pills. creepshow is a blast, has nothing to do with its cinematic qualities. good to watch on halloween, funny, dumb, excellent in equal measure. that said, it's only a candidate for decade's best. equivocal phrasing allows for all sorts of improbable hyperbole. and i did vote for the thing.

hal jam may be right abt parasite tho. been so long, all i remember are the squicky effects, downer vibe and 3 fucking D. all of which made a strong impact, long ago.

i'm not saying that Creepshow isn't fun. it is. but it has also been overrated since its inception by genre fans, who want to believe that the dream-team progeny of Romero and King stock is so much more of a godsend than it turned out to be.

Creepshow isn't a quintessential horror movie per se, but it's great in that it does what it sets out to do and it does it well. As an homage to classic EC horror comics, it trumps the official version (Tales From The Crypt in capturing the mood and style and OTT-ness. And it's notable for being the only movie I've seen that actively used comic book tropes and that didn't make me actively angry about how stupidly they were used (see: Ang Lee's Hulk.

Ang Lee is so fucking terrible

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hate that I have to hate The Thing now.

Well not really, but a landslide for that is as ridiculous as, I guess, the one for The Shining was for Morbs.

Nah, the top two is a pretty unimpeachable pair. Number three is pretty surprising, and Creepshow's low showing is disappointing but probably more a result of vote splitting in an ace year.

man, the thing is a great flick and all (voted for it, tbh), but everything between poltergeist and creepshow wuz robbed. and Q. Q wuz also robbed.

note: cat people wuz not robbed

The Thing fucking deserved this landslide imo. It's kind of on another plane here. But, yeah, I wish Creepshow had a better showing.

i think that bowie song deserved one vote.

song yes (x1000), movie...maybe

well, considering the song was at least 1/1000 of the movie ...

love that song SO MUCH. remember feeling incredibly ripped off as a kid upon buying the 7" only to find out that it was all amped up and discofied (not necessary a.b.t.) and hardly included any of the long, slow, tribal built-up. lp version was the jam, but still edited from the awesome long droney/dreamy version in the film.

build-up?

one of my first y u break hart moments with the pop radio, along with the fact that the 12" version of "safety dance" was ALL RONG

The Thing is on ITV tomorrow, UK ilxors! I'm honestly not sure if I've seen it - I have some memories of bits of it, but I don't think I've seen the whole thing.

hydraulics-pumped nausea wins the day

Bump - didn't mean for this poll to close over the weekend.

Fright Night was *huge* at the time or so it seemed. It was well reviewed and everything but seems to have fallen off the radar. Was it any good?

"Fright NIght" was OK. A bit, er, '80s, but more self-aware than most horror flicks.

was Fright Night the vampire film with the kid who loved horror films? If so then yes it was pretty decent.

The Thing was the best horror film of 1951

The original is overrated.

Now they both are.

Fright Night was *huge* at the time or so it seemed. It was well reviewed and everything but seems to have fallen off the radar. Was it any good?

― piscesx, Monday, July 12, 2010 8:05 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

fright night SPOILER below:

genuinely loved fright night back when it came out, but was slightly disappointed by a recent rewatch. most of the entertainment value came from the OTT 80s-ness, and to some extent the campy performances (tho that's definitely a mixed bag). i was struck, however, by the nightclub seduction scene and evil ed's death. these are significant moments in the film, but they're almost absurdly protracted, reaching for real erotic tension and pathos. they don't quite achieve it, but they achieve...something. briefly, during these two scenes, the film becomes weirdly charged and hypnotic, as though something strange were working itself out just beneath the surface. wish it managed this atmosphere on more than just a couple occasions...

the evil ed dude is so annoying - I get that that's the point of the character but man is he grating. movie's fun though. Eric Roberts is awesome.

I liked Fright Night... wasn't Stephen "Evil Ed" Geoffreys a gay-porn star?

why, yes:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313267/bio

his co-star came out a few years later too iirc

as a lesbian, not as a vampire

http://www.lazydork.com/movies/frightnight.jpg

lol @ stephen geoffreys quotes, I guess he took his own advice v srsly

"As an actor you've got to use your entire body to let the people know what's going on. In real life you don't walk around pretending there's a camera angle from just your chest up."

shakey, eric roberts isn't in fright night, chris (ex-husband of susan) sarandon was the main vamp

ah right sorry yeah meant Sarandon. dunno why I mixed those two names up

watched Basket Case last week holy shit

yeah dude, basket case is unhinged

I really enjoy stuff like this where the amount of effort put into using limited resources is really evident. this was clearly super low-budget but Hickenlooper pulls out every trick in the book to make things work - the music cues, the editing, framing/camera angles, etc. feels totally grimy. and works the underlying concept for maximum creepiness. the scene in the bathroom with him cradling Belial and talking to him! oh man

Hickenlooper?

henenlotter

anybody seen his recent bad biology?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974977/

"I was born with seven clits." That's all the real info about this movie you're going to find in this review.

hmm...

it's fantastic. his best since Brain Damage, IMO.

Night Warning (aka Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker, as it was credited last time TCM aired it) is probably not the best horror film of 1982, but it is a) unusually sympathetic towards its gay characters, and b) absolutely bonkers. Susan Tyrell gives a performance and a half, and it was directed by William Asher, of Frankie & Annette/Bewitched fame (there's even a Gladys Kravitz-esque nosy neighbour). It seems to be pretty obscure (I'd only heard of it recently), but its definitely more interesting than a lot of the more well-regarded 80s slasher pics.