The Best Horror Movies of the Eighties
AMC Movie List

The Best Horror Movies of the Eighties

The decade's best fright flicks are so deliciously thrilling you just can't resist coming back for more. Which ranks highest?

rank title points votes your vote
1 A Nightmare on Elm Street
"Just a dream" doesn't mean much when Freddy Krueger is in it. Nightmare gave a generation of kids insomnia. 1313 2671
2 The Evil Dead
Sam Raimi's low-budget demonic-possession movie impressed everyone, including horror legend Stephen King. 1089 2649
3 Hellraiser
Clive Barker's horror tale is heavy on the freaky sex and features one of the most iconic horror characters ever, the Uber-creepy Pinhead. 563 2237
4 The Howling
The Howling posits werewolves live among us. When they get in touch with their basic instincts, run. 365 1951
5 Child's Play
The first flick of a long series introduces Chucky, the living doll with the soul of a killer, and his irresistably evil ways. 362 2394
6 The Fly
In a tragic remake, scrambled atoms turn a scientist into a mutated monster-fly, in a movie that vastly improves on the campy original. 262 2052
7 They Live
Part over-the-top action flick, part horror classic, part social critique, John Carptener's underrated movie is misunderstood by nearly everyone. 201 1979
8 Near Dark
The villains of this flick, helmed by Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, look like dangerous drifters, but they're worse: they're vampires. -165 1639
9 Re-Animator
Creating life from death is a ghoulishly funny matter in this horror farce with comic scenes so disturbing you feel bad about laughing. -238 1780
10 Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Murder is a grim, casual business in this true-crime shocker, which draws its gasps from the aftermath of killings, not the acts themselves. -618 1606