Horror Movies of 1981
Ghost Story
This 1981 John Irvin picture constitutes an adaptation of Peter Straub's colossal, bestselling novel. The central plot -- shared by both book and film -- revolves around the four elderly members of the Chowder Society (Fred Astaire, Melvyn ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Monster Club
This quaint horror anthology is loosely based on the works of horror novelist R. Chetwynd-Hayes -- who is portrayed by John Carradine as an active participant in his own tales. The author is invited by a suave vampire (Vincent Price) to ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Wolfen
Wolfen, a frightening horror movie based upon a novel by Whitley Strieber, is an absorbing update on the werewolf legend. Detective Dewey Wilson (Albert ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Frankenstein Island
This uproariously bad film marks the less-than-glorious return of producer/director Jerry Warren, shameless purveyor of such cinematic abominations as Teenage ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Hand
Oliver Stone's first directorial effort for a major studio (and his second ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Howling
This groundbreaking, darkly-comic horror film from director Joe Dante changed the look and feel of werewolf movies in ways light-years distant from Universal's ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Saturday the 14th
In this early '80s send-up of venerable horror clichés, Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss star as ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Final Conflict
The second sequel to the 1976 horror hit The Omen finds Damien Thorn assuming the full mantle of the ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Halloween II
While John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic Halloween irrevocably changed the style of horror cinema with its simple but relentlessly tense story, ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Invaders of the Lost Gold
Escorting a valuable gold shipment through the jungles of occupied Philippines ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Strange Behavior
Dead Kids, aka Strange Behavior, is a creepy exercise from director Michael Laughlin--who conceived this as part one of an abortive "Strange Trilogy" which also included 1983's Strange Invaders. Although lensed in New Zealand, the film ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Scanners
The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
An American Werewolf in London
While wandering the English moors on vacation, college yanks David (David ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Final Terror
This mediocre slasher film from director Andrew Davis is worth watching more for its cast than for its cliched story. The film is ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Bloody Birthday
Sort of a triple-threat Bad Seed with a more overtly violent streak, this film tells the tale of trio of cherubic youngsters whose births all coincided with a solar eclipse, which somehow initiated a kind of ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Prowler
In this gory (the special effects are especially well done) slice-n-dicer, the happiness and the sanity of a W.W.II vet is destroyed when he returns home and finds his girl in the arms of another at the town's annual dance. Outraged, he ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Dead and Buried
Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the screenwriters behind the highly successful Alien, turned ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Happy Birthday to Me
Certainly the low point in Glenn Ford's acting career, this Canadian production is, nevertheless, one of the slickest-looking slasher films from that subgenre's early-'80s heyday. The plot (what one can ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Funhouse
This low-budget horror film about teenagers trapped in a carnival funhouse with a freakish monster is pretty standard ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Hell Night
This plodding, derivative slasher opus -- a surprise box-office hit -- stars Exorcist vet Linda Blair as ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Parasite
In this gory sci-fi outing, shot and originally released in 3-D, Dr. Paul Dean (Robert Glaudini) is a scientist living in the near ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Black Cat
Italian goremeister Lucio Fulci applies his characteristic touch to the Edgar ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Encounter of the Spooky Kind
Courageous Cheung (Sammo Hung) has a reputation for taking on any dare, no matter how foolish it may be, in order to prove his unabashed bravery. Though his friends often take advantage of his misguided ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Burning
Apart from early appearances by Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter, an interesting score by Rick Wakeman, and some typically effective work by effects icon Tom ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Midnight
In this occult horror film, director John Russo, best known for Night of the Living Dead, has created a few twists on the plot of ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Piranha II: The Spawning
This poorly scripted horror film about miniature, finny "jaws" details the mating rituals of the fictional "grunion" fish (falsely introduced as ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Antropophagus
In this Z-grade Italian "gorror" movie, an American student and her friends go on a tour of the Greek islands ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Alien Contamination
Following the surprising success of his cheapjack Star Wars knockoff, Star Crash, Italian director Luigi Cozzi was given the helm of this cheapjack Alien knockoff. An alien cyclops causes a man to cover the Earth with nasty eggs (sometimes ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Don't Go in the Woods
Four campers venture into the wilderness for a relaxing hike, unaware that a deranged mountain man is slaughtering whoever crosses his path. While they tell ghost stories around the campfire and romp in the rolling streams, a ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Final Exam
Since this no-brainer is basically a hybrid of frat-boy comedy and slasher-thriller exploitation which features no slashing, no humor, and fails to exploit anything, ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Friday the 13th, Part 2
Two months after the events of the original Friday the 13th, Alice (Adrienne King), the lone survivor or Mrs. Vorhees' killing spree, meets a grisly end in her city apartment. Five years ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The House by the Cemetery
This cult horror film from director Lucio Fulci lurches along with a certain amount of disjunction due to cutting, perhaps, if not to an innate Fulci ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Kiss Daddy Goodbye
Two unusual children have a unique solution to the problem of living without a father in this offbeat horror vehicle. Tom Blanchard (Fabian Forte) is the new deputy in a small town along the California coast, and during his ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
My Bloody Valentine
It's Valentine's Day in the tiny mining town of Valentine's Bluff, Nova ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
The Beyond
This gruesome Louisiana-set horror film opens with a 1927 ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Student Bodies
In this slasher film parody, a psychotic serial killer ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Macumba Sexual
Jesus Franco's surrealistic voodoo film stars Ajita ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Don't Go Near the Park
Don't Go Near the Park begins in a cave 12,000 years ago, where an ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Day of the Triffids
British sci-fi author John Wyndham's classic horror piece Day of the Triffids was first filmed as a 95-minute theatrical feature in 1963. Though more thoughtful than most alien-invasion pictures, this tale of a meteor ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Cannibal Ferox
Primarily a showcase for the gory special-effects artistry of Gianetto de Rossi, this revolting horror film stars Giovanni Lombardo Radice (also known as "John Morghen") as a drug-dealer who comes to the Amazon jungle from New York ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
Crocodile
If Jaws left you trembling in fear of the ocean, then just wait until you get a load of Crocodile! What was supposed to be a getaway vacation quickly turns into a run-away nightmare ... [ Horror movie - 1981 ]
