Best Horror Film of 1985 (part 7 of a series)

at first glance - Re-Animator

Good year though

For me it's between Re-animator and Return of the Living Dead. For whatever reason I'm leaning towards the latter right now. Both have their camp, and I really like both, but "seeeeeeeeeeend more cops" is making me giggle thinking of it, so I vote based on that alone.

also a big fan of The Stuff, Return of the Living Dead (punk rockers gettin eatin by zombies!), Fright Night, NOES2

x-post

""seeeeeeeeeeend more cops"" vs. "Misterrrr Wesssssssstttttt"

So you are into NOES2? I was under the impression that a lot of people (fans and critics alike) hated that one, but it is one of my favorites in the series. It does have its Jekyll and Hyde influences, for sure, and it does deviate a bit from the formula of the first movie with Freddy using the main character as a 'remote control' killer, but I really think it was a fun sequel. Not really as dramatic as the one that followed, not as psychological as the one before it, just dutiful and effective.

hahaha! man. in terms of genuine horror, I think Re-Animator wins hands down, although ROTLD has a few great moments. Both brought the LOLs, somehow for me I think I'd have a different answer if I hadn't seen Re-Animator more recently.

My favorite part of NOES2 is that it's got this way obvious gay subtext that everyone except the screenwriter and lead actor were oblivious to. Just rewatched Demons last week and it's pretty amazing, but Return/Living Dead is just too good (punk rock zombies, yes!!)

plus naked punk rock chick

Day of the Dead vs. Phenomena

Phenomena all the way. Dario Argento, Donald Pleasance, Jennifer Connelly and a chimp. Got it all.

Tempted to vote "Phenomena" just for the damned monkey and lol Donald Pleasance. But "Re-Animator" is so, so much better than most everything else on this list.

haha xp

Gore had a great year this year.

My main problem with Day of the Dead is that every character goes into histrionics every 5 minutes in some form of over the top rage. Granted I realize if zombies outnumbered me 400,000 to 1 I might be a little more on the irritable side but it's sort of like the director at the first read through said "Guys, you're all at 2, I need you all at 17".

With that being said though the zombie makeup and all was fantastic and the gore was solid. The moments with Bub just make me wish Romero could have made the movie he intended to make instead of the one he was forced to settle for.

agree that the naked punk chick dancing in the graveyard prior to getting eaten by radioactive zombie is some kind of beautiful archetypal figure

xp

Voted Demons, love it soooo much and Reanimator is too funny to be a properly Horror movie.

Day of the Dead second.

yeah I like NOES2 but it's been awhile - mostly thinking of the last scene on the bus, which is great. and yeah superlol gay subtext especially the sequence with the coach

DOTD is my favorite of Romero's zombie films, so I think I'll have to go with that. ROTLD is a camp favorite. For all of his cartoonishness, I still find Tar Man genuinely creepy. But, yeah, a pretty solid year overall.

Torn between Fright Night and Reanimator. Both are fantastic but for such different reasons.

Oh man, The Stuff is awesome.

I've been voting in all of these so far, but have to duck out at this point. I paid close attention to horror films in the early '80s, culminating in a big, independent university course on them my final year ('84); the first Nightmare made a big impression on me that year. I guess I just overdosed, and once the course finished, I stopped paying attention. (Excepting things like Blue Velvet or The Fly, where "horror film" becomes more of a subjective call.) I hope Darin goes backwards in time and does a few earlier polls, but I suppose you just wouldn't have the quantity that held sway in the early '80s.

I kinda gave up on the genre by the mid-90s myself. I've still seen occasional things that have been fun (Bride of Chucky! lol) but the rise of torture porn and endless shitty Rob-Zombie-style remakes have soured me

I'm sure some of this is attributable to the fact that by the 90s gratuitous gore and nudity had kinda lost their novelty but I'm sure there's more to it than just that

Yeah, I think after we catch up to 2010, I'll go back to poll individual years pre-1979. While the poll results will probably become more predictable, I think there is a greater chance to uncover a bunch of cool stuff that fewer of us have seen.

i feel like Sophie. if she had six kids.

another great year: day of the dead (okay, not night or dawn quality, but still pretty damn good), fright night, LIFEFORCE!, re-animator, return of the living dead. at the time i would have said re-animator, no question, with ROLD close behind, but these days i'm much more likely to watch/enjoy phenomena. clearly not the best argento flick, but probably my favorite. lifeforce and re-animator tied for second.

i.e., if you haven't seen it, watch phenomena now

can it wait til I get home from work

no Nail Gun Massacre? Spookies? Monster Dog? ¡Vampiros en la Habana!?

procrastinators (xpost)

cohen's the stuff should have been included in that list of good-to-great flicks

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

All there on Youtube apparently. I love it because a) the senselessness of the non-plot gives you the exact texture of a nightmare, b) Accept on the awesome soundtrack, c) scary monsters much more fun than old school zombies

Vampiros en la Habana! looked more comedy/animation. Monster Dog came out in 1984 and Spookies in 1986. However, I did miss Nail Gun Massacre. You'll have to write in that one.

ok, but plz don't give Evil Toons such short shrift when we get to '92. btw, kudos for including TDCTGA. pretty obscure.

Will do!

The Doctor and the Devils

^ wouldn't really call this a horror film, but it's prolly the best thing on the list nobody's seen. remake of the body snatchers, script by dylan thomas (!), stephen rea and jonathan pryce are great as the sleazy graverobbers.

DEMONS is a lot of fun. Went with ROTLD though. Endlessly watchable.

I watched fright night recently and was surprised by how effective it is, in spite of its complete ridiculousness. haven't seen it since it was in the theaters, it's pretty lol 80s, but the cast is very charming. they take the whole thing so seriously it's hard not to get pulled along for the ride, even though it's a fundamentally stupid movie. we were talking about it recently on some other thread I think? contenderizer otm about the effective pathos.

this really was the year that comedy + horror coexisted peacefully, right? re-animator vs return of the living dead is some kinda grudge match.

yeah there was some Fright Night convo on one of the other poll threads I think (Morbz posted something about Evil Ed doing gay porn...?). Fun movie.

this is the first of these were i dont really have a fave in the running - i like lots of them, but none of them are in my usual IF U DONT VOTE FOR THIS U SHOULD DIE RIGHT NOW comfort zone

mm i thought it was just me but yeah i can't vote 'best' on any of this lot. funny year.

going with Re-Animator over ROTLD - tough call tho, mostly b/c of my fondness for this dude:

http://www.iconsoffright.com/interview/zombie/russo/tarman1.jpg

Nods to sentimental favorites Fright Night & The Stuff (holy shit, The Stuff!)

Demons is underrated.

The last time I saw "Return of the Living Dead" is was kind of a letdown, for the first time. Some great moments but sort of not all there. Tons of fun, though. "The Stuff" is a great premise with terrible execution. "Day of the Dead" is all blah-blah-blah-guts-blah, but it has its moments, iconic or otherwise (though suspiciously, with every mediocrity "Day" and beyond, Romero is always given too much credit for the hypothetical movie he "wanted" to make).

I'll say "Re-Animator" for recalibrating where the top is in over-the-top, and having a blast with it, too.

you're soooooooo cool, brewster

I just looked up the name of the lady who played the naked alien vampire queen in Lifeforce, and apparently she also starred in a movie called The Tit and the Moon which "is about a nine-year-old boy's (Biel Durán as Tete) obsession with women's breasts. Tete becomes jealous of his baby brother who is breast fed by their mother. Tete goes on a personal mission to find the perfect pair of lactating breasts to feed on. A beautiful French dancer (Mathilda May) arrives in town, the answer to Tete's prayers. Unfortunately for Tete, Estrellita is the attention of many men's affections including her dance partner/boyfriend Maurice (Gérard Darmon) and attractive Flamenco-singing teenager, Miguel (Miguel Poveda). With this amount of competition will Tete fulfil his wish?"

hmmmm....

anyway, she is very good in lifeforce, in terms of being naked a lot

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Lifeforce was a seminal part of my pubescence.

But anyway I went with Frightnight because that movie actually makes my heart feel something.

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

Wow - expected a better showing from Fright Night.

just happy that two folks voted for lifeforce, and two others for phenomena

This really should have been Reanimator vs Fright Night. Return of the Living Dead is fun and memorable, but not in the same class as either of the aforementioned.