Best Horror Film of 1984 (part 6 of a series)

The halcyon days were over for sure.

Can't believe I'm gonna vote for the PG-rated, Spielberg-produced kids creep-show.

... again.

A walk for Nightmare on Elm Street

Don't really care for any of the ones I've seen from this list. Is it bad that I'm sorely tempted to vote for Gremlins?

I'll probably have to go with Gremlins. Nightmare is fine, but a recent rewatch didn't really do a whole lot for me. Toxic Avenger is stupid fun (and, in the hit-and-run scene, more OTT gory than anything else I can think of in this list), but I really don't think of it as anything resembling a horror movie.

Nightmare; before the schtick took hold, a terrifying (and unusual) film. God, Children of the Corn was awful...

there's plenty of good stuff on this list, but nothing really GREAT as in previous polls

re-watched C.H.U.D. recently and that is a pretty fun campy movie. Best moment is when one of the characters is asked how she knows something and she responds out of the blue "Because I used to BE A NUCLEAR SCIENTIST". also several odd cameos (John Goodman's first film role, I think?)

Gremlins is good, Friday 13th Final Chapter probably the best in the series, Toxic Avenger is pretty funny, Nightmare is decent but not amazing.

Probably vote for F13th

Nightmare in a romp. I mean what else could even complete in this list?

Gremlins, actually

have seen only Gremlins & Nightmare, not crazy about either

I think Gremlins is the only one I have seen. I like it a lot, but will nevertheless vote for CHUD.

eh, I like Gremlins, but I've never been compelled to watch it as much as I have Nightmare.

company of wolves ppl

I've got a b-movie soft spot for night of the comet but I prolly haven't seen it in 20 years

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/company_of_wolves_poster_05.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Carter_01_body.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/company_of_wolves8.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/compamyofwolves7.jpg

Huh, didn't know The Toxic Avenger went back this far--I really got a kick out of Citizen Toxie, one of the great indie alternacinema flavors. I loved Nightmare at the time because... I was finally old enough to get into horror movies in the theater without my parents! (At least when it came back as a midnight movie two years later.) One thing I remember: the razors against the pipes.

so much weird + wonderful imagery in company of wolves

love the adult fairy tale vibe

if you need horror movies to have a plot or make sense you might want to avoid it tho

Toxic Avenger was my intro to Troma in high school and my friends and I promptly dived into the rest of their comedy-gore-exploitation ouevre - there's a lot of garbage in there, but some fun stuff in general (Atomic High and Surf Nazis Must Die!) The other TA movies are kinda unbearable tho

Neil Jordan! Never saw this though the images ring a bell...

his second film... jordan has a bizarre body of work

# Ondine (2009)
# The Brave One (2007)
# Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
# The Good Thief (2002/I)
# Not I (2000)
# The End of the Affair (1999)
# In Dreams (1999)
# The Butcher Boy (1997)
# Michael Collins (1996)
# Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
# The Crying Game (1992)
# The Miracle (1991)
# We're No Angels (1989)
# High Spirits (1988)
# Mona Lisa (1986)
# The Company of Wolves (1984)
# Angel (1982/I)

The creepy kidz in Children of the Corn scared the bejeezus out of me when I was 9 or 10, but I can't imagine it has aged too well.

I almost want to vote F13IV for sentimental reasons - b/c I used to love the hell out of the scene where little-tyke Corey Feldman shaves his head & flips the fuck out on Jason w/ the machete: DIE! (chop) DIE! (chop) DIE! (chop) etc.

I have an affection for The Toxic Avenger as well, for pretty much the same reasons as Shakey Mo, tho I would like to add that Redneck Zombies & Class of Nuke-em High also belong near the top of the Troma A-list, if there could be such a thing.

And yeah, the obvious ones for the obvious reasons. Dunno yet if I'll go for TA, G or NOES

O I did not see SNDN there - loved it at the time. have not seen it since junior high. cannot properly assess.

Rocktober Blood is kinda a rip off of Phantom of the Paradise - it has definite 80s camp value, as does Night of the Comet

C.H.U.D. is a classic

Class of Nuke-em High

ah yeah this is what I was thinking of, got the title wrong

Company of Wolves super-underseen. Sort of sly flick.

Friday the 13th IV is my fave of the series, but, of course, shitty. The first "Nightmare" is great. Almost wrote my senior thesis on "Gremlins," though, which remains awesomely subversive. Lots of stories about how it was Spielberg, not Dante (or - gasp! - screenwriter Chris Columbus) that pushed the horror element.

I always wanted to see Firestarter...is that any good?

firestarter was p terrible

gremlins vs nightmare, i guess? cant wait for these polls to cover years i was alive

Write-in vote:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/35/Threadsmoviecover.jpg/421px-Threadsmoviecover.jpg

^^ is this out on DVD in the US now?

never heard of it

assume of a piece with The Day After and Testament...?

Testament really messed me up as a young'un

Yep, same post-nuclear world as those.

The whole thing is streaming through Google.

Not horror-horror, but horrific.

The Company of Wolves - though it isn't a horror film.

A walk for Nightmare on Elm Street

― PappaWheelie V, Tuesday, July 13, 2010 4:15 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

Was this really it for 1984? Wow. What about "Ghostbusters?" Heck, what about "1984?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xns67AVkOeI

(Whole thing is on youtube)

"Threads" scared me to death as a kid, way moreso than "The Day After"

I really have to amend my anti-horror stance to an anti-slasher film stance because there are a bunch of movies popping up on these threads that I love.

Michael Radford's 1984 is fantastic--as bleak as the book, and Burton's performance stands with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Virginia Woolf, or anything else he ever did. Granting that it's terrifying, it'd be a stretch to classify it as a horror film.

Threads is the scariest film I've ever seen. Wouldn't place it in the horror genre, though.

Dreamscape over Gremlins. I dunno if I'd consider it horror really, but awesome movie

The Company of Wolves. One of the films I would re-watch constantly to the point of obsession when I was around 13/14/15 y/o. "Red as a berry. Red as blood".

Yeah, I just realized this morning that Ghostbusters was missing from this poll. I'd say it counts if Gremlins and Toxic Avenger do. And although I'd say it was probably my favorite film from '84, I guess I'd have a hard time saying it was my favorite horror film from '84 with a straight face.

All this talk of Threads and The Day After makes me want to amend my '83 pick to a write-in vote for Testament. It's very much of a piece with the other two (post-nuke film following the slow death of a suburban family), except that it's the most literally dread-full film I can think of, full stop. I inadvisably saw it when I was quite young and it gave me nightmares. I rewatched it a few years ago and felt pretty much hollowed out afterwards. And they showed it on PBS, apparently! I would highly recommend it to anyone who "enjoys" either of the other two nuclear war heebie-jeebie films.

The Black Room - never seen
Children of the Corn - idk, the whole "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" thing is really creepy, but the killer kids were kind of meh
C.H.U.D. - went to college with the daughter of the director who swore that it was a masterpiece before editing so i cant really make up my mind. ok i guess, but not for its horror elements
The Company of Wolves - super vague memories of seeing this a long time ago and liking it, but need to see again before i can vouch
Deadly Intruder - according to imdb this came out in 85 and has danny bonaduce in it. pass.
Dreamscape - LOVED this as a kid, lizard dude scared the shit out of me, rewatched it a little while ago and it certainly didnt hold up to my memories of it, but its still pretty good. doesnt feel like horror quite to me, dont know why.
Death Warmed Over - ? descriptions seem to make it some insano new zealand zombie splatterfest, so i probably need to track this one down.
Firestarter - GARBAGE
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - way way down the slope of decline already by this point
Gremlins - utterly fantastic, love it. not horror.
The Initiation - ?
Monster Dog - hilariously howlingly awful flick w/Alice Cooper in it. it is truly terrible in a way that few movies can manage, worth seeing for laughs alone. lameness of special effects a particular treat.
Night of the Comet - just watched this again a couple of weeks ago. has not aged well.
A Nightmare on Elm Street - winner. not as great as people remember, but still totally solid.
The Prey - ?
Razorback - this one is totally slept on and actually pretty good - killer pig movie but with some good old creepy fucked up outback redneck stuff going on as well
Rocktober Blood - no idea
Silent Madness - ?
Silent Night, Deadly Night - its ok, way more legendary thx to stupid censorship controversy than uh anything in the movie
The Toxic Avenger - i fucking hate troma. also not a horror movie
Zombie Island Massacre - also troma. so boo.

Children of the Corn may have been a decent story but it was a terrible movie. I like to quote "He wants you too, Malachi!" at people, that is about it.

I draw the line at calling Ghostbusters a horror film.

Gremlins tries to do some genuine horror stuff along with its comedy, but Ghostbusters is straight up silly the whole time

The entire concept behind "Children of the Corn" takes on a different character when you have to stand next to a massive corn field to catch the school bus every day, particularly when you're doing geeky extra-credit summer school classes.

The Black Room - creepy, claustrophobic mishmash of paraphilia and vampire paraphernalia. always associated it with Bartel's Private Parts. nicely shot but negligible. not the best anything of any year. early Linnea Quigley sighting. clothed, alas.

Death Warmed Over -
mad doc surgically alters troubled teen, adding one more motorcycle-riding maniac to his growing army of lobotomized minions. splattery sci fi which comes off like a cross between Repo Man and Re-Animator. wet and worth seeing.

The Initiation - ?
Daphne Zuniga and friends elude slasher in a department store, after hours. Hell Night meets Intruder. some vicious kills, much padding. mediocre.

The Prey
forest psycho of possibly supernatural origins. padded but fairly effective.

Silent Madness - more maniac-on-the-loose mediocrity.

Monster Dog - same writer/director as Troll II!

loved The Company of Wolves - until i actually read Angela Carter. a Jordan film, through and through.

Gremlins was my youth. but horror? no. so ANOES gets my vote. yeah, boring.

I genuinely find the kitchen scene and Stripe's demise from Gremlins more squicky than anything from A Nightmare On Elm Street. Neither film is at all scary, but Gremlins is really inventive and fun and the first NOES is honestly a little cookie cutter for my tastes (good premise, but it really doesn't go very far with it).

agree that subsequent installments of the NOES series were WAY better

maybe I'd feel differently now but the idea that there was nothing scary about "Nightmare on Elm Street" in 1984 is one of the most ludicrous statements I've read on this board

yeah, no offense intended, but saying NOES wasn't scary (particularly to the audience of the time) is uh crazy talk

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - way way down the slope of decline already by this point

really?? i remember this one being really good!

xxpost

Yeah, it's hard to say how scary it would've been in the context of the times. But I'm not making that argument, so whatever. Like I said upthread, I watched it again very recently and it was more than a little cheesy. The only scene that's at all OTT creepy is the murder on the ceiling, but even that lacked a lot of the oomph that I seemed to remember it having. I think a lot of stuff in the movie was scary in theory but pretty lacking in execution.

All of the friday the 13th movies are just different kinds of terrible, with the occasional great scare.

kinda true - but the 4th is far and away the best, imho

"Ghostbusters" is totally not horror, but ... it is, isn't? There are scares. Ghosts. Monsters. What else to call this scene?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFZPhf5p-BU

I think the biggest crime of the Nightmare... series was in never taking full advantage of the whole nightmare element. With only a few exceptions, the nightmare sequences never felt surreal or at all dreamlike to me. I think the series would've been a lot more effectively creepy had the dreams felt a little more like The Tenant or something. And Freddy's goofy persona would've contrasted against that backdrop and been a bit more effective, maybe. The dream element seemed a little perfunctory more often than not, like a half-assed excuse to up the ante on the pro forma murder scenes in most other slasher films. The Nightmare movies stand above the pack on that count, but they didn't really do a whole lot to transcend the genre.

Not that I'm not a fan, mind. I still enjoy the first four films on a number of varying levels. Like most other horror films, though, I don't find any of them scary.

Well that was kind of the entire point of the original movie, wasn't it? Freddie was intruding on these kids' banal dreams and twisting them around to where he was all-powerful, and then killing them; making them more surreal dilutes what a scary presence Freddie actually is because the scare comes from being in what should be a familiar, harmless environment that has been co-opted by a maniac who wants you dead, and you can't escape from it.

like how is getting pulled into your waterbed less scary than purple tapdancing elephants smothering you with jeallybeans?

I think the biggest problem with NOES is that a tv actor wearing prosthetics and a sweater is not scary.

I think ANOES not being scary is nutso talk. I won't deny the cheesy moments (although compare/contrast the one-liners Freddy throws out here with future movies, and they are not cut from the same cloth in content or tone). But the atmosphere was very different from the later movies.

I don't even think the quality sequels that followed were as scary, per se. ANOES 2 was more "fun" than "scary", ANOES 3 was half drama/half horror, and well 4-6=awful.

But if he avoided television and wore silk dress shirts it would be fine

I admit I'm now curious as to what year ppl first saw ANOES and how scary they found it; it seems like the "Psycho" effect is in full force here, where the initial movie makes such an impact and is aped so many times that later viewings of it are insanely diluted

jjusten - you should see Rocktober Blood for the lolsome "heavy metal stage show" alone - alcohol is required to fully appreciate it though

I saw it in 1997 or so.

i can drink alcohol! i can do this!

xpost man idk dudes, i feel like the knife glove alone was a big fucking scare jump for a lot of people, the whole concept of it is awful, gets to some primal dread mix of claws/knives/stabbing/slashing/penetration. its a totally fucking evocative iconic horror trope, goofy sweater or not.

I admit I'm now curious as to what year ppl first saw ANOES and how scary they found it; it seems like the "Psycho" effect is in full force here, where the initial movie makes such an impact and is aped so many times that later viewings of it are insanely diluted

I saw them on VHS around 13-14 yo I think. didn't find Freddy particularly scary, mostly just watched for the gratuitous gore, T&A, and one liners. kinda agree with Deric that the nightmare stuff wasn't exploited as much as it could have been - iirc most of the victims' dreams were more or less them thinking they were awake and in the real world and then all of a sudden something ridiculous happens and Freddy kills them. I dunno about you guys, but my dreams don't really reflect literal reality that way, like I don't dream about waking up and going to the kitchen to make breakfast or whatever as if I am awake.

"Oh no! It's the guy from 'V' wearing a hat! Run!!!"

you know what I thought was scary? the dead girls jumping rope and singing the Freddy song lol.

probably residual freak factor from the Shining at work there...

nah actually i think that slomo jumprope thing is really well done and totally unsettling, one of the better shots of the movie imo

Shakey I wasn't asking how old you were, I was asking what year it was; the hypothesis is that the movie comes across as scarier the closer you see it to 1984

Razorback!
then Dreamscape,
then Nightmare

Gremlins is great tho.

C.H.U.D. - can't quite get the love for this, movie is actually pretty slow and turgid imho(at least for the first half)
The Company of Wolves - this was a surprisingly big deal in England back in the day, saw it on a gigantic screen in Leicester Square on its first run, cinema was packed!
Gremlins - 15 certificate in the UK. My pick.
Night of the Comet - charming post-feminist post-apocalyptic SCIENCE FICTION movie. Features a cover version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. Went to see it on the basis of a great review by Anne Bilson (still one of my v. fave genre film crits) in Time Out.
A Nightmare on Elm Street - terrible recent remake of this has kinda tarnished my memory of the orig, plus i wrote a long article abt it for a UK Freddy/Jason cash-in mag, so really don't need to see it again.
Razorback - totally agree that this one is a real gem (and has proved unexpectedly popular with non-horror-nut friends of mine.) Great cinematography/atmosphere, totally sleazy acting, Mad Max quality stunt driving craziness, unexpected deaths etc. It gets a mention in Not Quite Hollywood, that excellent recentish documentary abt Ausploitation.

a more apt name for the new Nightmare on Elm Street would be Kelly Leak's Pedophilic Rage

hah i did not actually even register that NOES had been remade!

god the more i think about it the more i want to go back and change my vote to razorback, its so awesome and fucking gonzo and lets be fair NOES is going to win this anyway

I'm think I saw NOES on VHS when I was way too young. Nine or so? Which would've been just a couple of years after it came out. I honestly don't recall being scared by it then.

I should point out again that most horror movies don't scare me much. I think there's often just a little too much remove from reality for them to really instill much fear. The last thing I can think of that really freaked my shit was the first half of The Descent, and I think that was mostly because it was a rare instance of a horror film taking advantage of basic, meat & potatoes phobias. The idea of a dude with finger knives invading my dreams doesn't really stimulate my fear centers nearly as effectively, I guess.

watch paranormal activity, all i gotta say

Pretty sure the only things that have ever scared me in movies are things that can sneak up on you from behind or below. Sharks, zombies ... not Freddy. Still, good horror movie.

pretty sure Freddy is capable of sneaking up on someone, it's not like he's wearing a costume made of pots and pans

really want to see a horror movie now where the twist is that the killer is cursed to forever wear a cat bell around his neck

Shakey I wasn't asking how old you were, I was asking what year it was; the hypothesis is that the movie comes across as scarier the closer you see it to 1984

lol isn't my age and bday in some kind of ILX spreadsheeet somewhere... um I saw it around '88 or '89 I would say

"On a quiet night like any other, you will know that the end is near when you hear...THE JINGLING."

And in THE JINGLING 3: SEASON OF THE SANTA there will be an insanely catchy song featuring jingling and a chorus of children

sounds great!

*makes popcorn*

Freddy totally never sneaks up on anyone. He's always scraping his claws or rattling pans and shit. 'Cause Freddy thinks that stuff is scary.

They already made "The Jingling," in France. It was called "Ils," which actually translates roughly to "The Rattling."

would you really have to sneak up on someone if you had the supernatural power to be anywhere you wanted in whatever shape or form you desired and enjoyed toying with people?

Horror sequence (woman, drill, helpless onlooker) in a 1984 non-horror movie):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Az0gjmqRw

I've always thought of "Body Double" as a comedy. I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ZOxdlrBbg&feature=related

Doesn't "Ils" translate as "Them?"

it was a joke, dude. Ever see the movie?

Yeah. Twice, in fact. Once with an all-French cast, once with Liv Tyler.

I saw nightmare on elm street in the theaters in 1984 and yeah, it was pretty scary. particularly the early moments when you're not sure whether the characters are awake or dreaming. the classroom scene was memorably disorienting and, yes, surreal. years of sequels, copycats, and the cultural ubiquity of freddy have dulled the impact but at the time it was pretty freaky. the thought that you couldn't escape the killer, shoot him, call the cops, whatever, the lack of control or agency contributed to the freakishness of it. trying to stay awake to stay alive? that grounded the horror in an inevitable biological process, similar to how rosemary's baby derived its horror from an impending birth. I'd say ANOES and the evil dead were the only films I saw that year that really scared me. ANOES gets a bit formulaic in the last act but it was a pretty innovative concept, and the idea that it wasn't scary at the time is a laughable one.

I saw it again in the past 5 years or so and was surprised by how brutal the freddy character is, before he became a silly icon. freddy isn't treated like a punchline machine, he's a nasty unpleasant child murderer and he acts like one.

still voting the company of wolves, tho. not sure why someone upthread said it's not a horror film. where in the video store would you put it? it's a fantasy, granted, but it's a fantasy about werewolves, and I wouldn't file it in with the harry potters and neverending stories. there's a lot of real grue + dismemberment, and some primal fear moments - ppl in the woods being pursued by wolves. also, terence stamp as the devil.

these are the movies on the list I saw in the theaters

Children of the Corn - corny, furthered the long stretch of bad king adaptations
C.H.U.D. - saw it at the drive-in!
The Company of Wolves - really bowled me over and it's held up well
Dreamscape - david patrick kelly! awesome granted but this is not a horror film
Firestarter - this neither, thought it sucked to boot
Gremlins - loved it, went back a bunch of times while it was still playing
Night of the Comet - a perfect b-movie, comedy teen sci-fi but also post-apocalyptic zombies so I get the horror angle
A Nightmare on Elm Street - yeah yeah yeah

know what is missing from this list that I will totally rep for is IMPULSE

arguably a sci-fi film but creepy and disturbing and well done and everybody should see it

i saw this in the theater in 1984:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbvh0vKJcQo

this should be on the list. best eric bogosian movie evah.

http://images.dead-donkey.com/images/specialeffectsch3.jpg

by the way, you can watch all of Purana Mandir on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60QQXdQLdFw

I'm confusing "Ninja III," which I never saw, with "Revenge of the Ninja," which I totally saw. Neither is horror, of course - just horrible.

really want to see a horror movie now where the twist is that the killer is cursed to forever wear a cat bell around his neck

That movie is Dogville.

ninja III is half horror/half ninja.

Scott, are you referring to Special Effects? If so, I thought that one was more crime/thriller.

And IMDB classified Impulse as Sci-Fi, so sorry I missed that one, Edward.

Is it Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th that is Kim Jong-Il's favourite film?

Kim Jong-Il is a total movie buff, so I bet he likes, dunno, "Casablanca."

WHOA i haven't thought about impulse for years, but that is a childhood memory of "movie i wanted to see but never was able to"!

off to netflix

ninja III is half horror/half ninja.

AND ALL AWESOME

actually never seen it but trailer is A++++

what's weird about impulse is it's this increasingly creepy freakshow for the duration and then you find out in the last 10 minutes it's a sci-fi film. the less you know about it before you watch it, the better.

also, meg tilly

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/impuls12.jpg

Hey I love CHUD, but the answer is Nightmare on Elm Street.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

best Friday the 13th, for whatever that's worth:

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

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

can't argue w/ poll results, nice showing for a company of wolves

Saw The Company of Wolves based on this thread's recommendations and those screencaps; interesting movie. Not all that great a film, but a lot of nice imagery and peculiar, dated special effects that made it worth seeing. Fits well in the same adolescent girl fantasy genre as Labyrinth.

LOVE the company of wolves, though that love is probably enhanced by lingering youthful enthusiasm vibes, i.e., incomensurate w reality. but the best bits are so ott evocative they make me dizzy with it: the deliriously fake tree w nest containing eggs, which break open to reveal dolls, who weep; the crazy slo-mo dog flight back through the forest & mirror into the girls room w portentious narration, heralding womanhood; the sexy wolf-girl's creep through the darkness and into town. those images are burned deep into my head and probably always will be. angela carter stories the movie's based on are likewise great.

yeah, it's a weird one. watched it again recently and it's still a favorite. all the pieces don't quite fit together but it skates by on its dream logic. the plot arc is more of a blip, you can't even rightly call it an anthology, all the stories are so interwoven.

great script too. "I love the company of wolves. look out of the window and you'll see them."

cant believe no one voted for friday the 13th the final chapter, i re-watched it the other week + still love it

http://planetofthenerds.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/photo_06_hires.jpg

huh I thought I DID vote for it

ever since i can remember i been poppin my collar

Gremlines was on TV last night, I think this is the first time I'd seen it since like jr. high or something.

it is really not very good.

eh i think its pretty ok. gremlins 2 on the other hand is fucking awesome.

yeah I've never seen that one and the praise from various corners makes me curious

I just found the first one more annoying than anything, primarily because of the usual Spielberg hamfistedness. He doesn't do comedy well, it's all very cutesy and obvious (a cute little monster breakdancing! that's hilaaaarious!). And then there's the various DRUDGE SIREN: YOU ARE WATCHING A MOVIE HAHA :DRUDGE SIREN elements that are totally overdone - the educational film projection clips, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers being on TV, Robbie the Robot, etc. As many have pointed out, the darkest/most disturbing thing in it is Phoebe Cates' story about her dad.

Actually, the story goes that the first draft of screenwriter Chris Columbus (yes he later of "Home Alone" and some real family-friendly shit) was a lot more vicious, and that things were toned down, but that Spielberg personally encouraged/allowed them to mean it up a lot more (this was, after all, one of the films that prompted PG-13, this and "Temple of Doom," also Spielberg, of course). Granted, Spielberg also upped the Gizmo quotient, so...

The wackiness and in-jokes, though, I'd credit to Joe Dante, whose love of "Looney Tunes," b-movies and (literally) cartoon violence in general is well documented.

I just find the overall tone odd and disconcerting - it veers between fairly inane comedy to semi-genuine attempts at horror/gore to sacharrine cutesiness so abruptly

Yeah, definitely the things you're attributing to Spielberg here are almost certainly at least as attributable to Dante, if not more so. I'm surprised he didn't try to actually get Kevin McCarthy in the movie, as opposed to just having the "Body Snatchers" clip.

xp lol that's kinda Dante's career in a nutshell, post "The Howling"

"t veers between fairly inane comedy to semi-genuine attempts at horror/gore to sacharrine cutesiness so abruptly" could be a capsule review of Innerspace or Matinee e.g.

gremlins 2 on the other hand is fucking awesome.

it's the best.

my fave movie at age 9, btw

Gremlins 2 also the rare film that has a cinema-centric visual gag altered to a video-centric gag for the VHS release (not unlike New Order's "Brotherhood" on CD vs. vinyl, come to think of it).

Just watched Night of the Comet. Something about the overall vibe of the movie, the way it kinda splits the difference aesthetically between early-80s proto-indie like Eating Raoul and Liquid Sky with post-apocalyptic anime, that in many ways make it the ultimate Drugs A. Money movie

Also huge bonus points for the regard it affords the two teenage-girl protagonists. Its IMDb page is littered with links to two-star reviews and every one of them condescends to the movie's heroines and seemingly penalizes the movie for not doing the same

Funny you should mention that movie. It's playing locally tomorrow night and I was torn about going to see it... that sounds totally awesome.

Yeah, this was good stuff. An ultimately sweet '80s teen comedy set in the apocalypse, the different degrees of zombies, desolated L.A. (kind of like the beginning of Vanilla Sky stretched out to a whole movie) and weird government conspiracy stuff give it a really unique flavor, I see why it's lasted as a cult classic.
Still kinda surprised how massively influential this movie seems to be! Thinking about it and seeing bits of this in places like Zombieland and Lost and lots of other things offhand.

Saw it on release, nearly 30 years ago now. I remember that it was well-reviewed and enjoyable, but as a burgeoning gorehound, I think I found it a little tame. Little beyond that but general outlines & a few lingering images: the protagonists cheerfully trying on clothes in a desolate mall, comet zombies with lumpy red eyelids, low angle shots emphasizing LA's weirdly luminous night sky, maybe someone on a motorcycle? Surprised that anyone's comparing it to Liquid Sky, which I remember being much more ramshackle and art-damaged (and great!), but I probably ought to revisit both.

I should really put Liquid Sky and Eating Raoul on my queue. ER was one of those weird video store box covers that always jumped out at me as a kid. And now I realize it has two cast members from Night of the Comet, including Cmdr. Chakotay!

I had a similar experience as Contenderizer - Night of the Comet seemed a lot more vanilla than Vanilla Sky when it came out to me, but considering I saw it as a very stoned teenager enthralled with Romero and Raimi I probably didn't give it a fair shake.

Yeah, it's really best to look at it at a really dark teen comedy rather than a zombie genre movie (of which there are barely any in the film anyway, half of them are in dream sequences)

oops I mixed up Vanilla Sky with Liquid Sky there