Best Horror Movies of 1980

Strange things begin to occurs as a tiny California coastal town prepares to commemorate its centenary. Inanimate objects spring eerily to life; Rev. Malone stumbles upon a dark secret about the town's founding; radio announcer Stevie witnesses a mystical fire; and hitchhiker Elizabeth discovers the mutilated corpse of a fisherman. Then a mysterious iridescent fog descends upon the village, and more people start to die.

Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.

After a tragic event happens, composer John Russell moves to Seattle to try to overcome it and build a new and peaceful life in a lonely big house that has been uninhabited for many years. But, soon after, the obscure history of such an old mansion and his own past begin to haunt him.

After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.

A psychotic man, troubled by his childhood abuse, loose in NYC, kills young women and local girl American models and takes their scalps as trophies. Will he find the perfect woman in photographer Anna, and end his killing spree.

A serial killer brutally slays and dismembers several gay men in New York's S&M and leather districts. The young police officer Steve Burns is sent undercover onto the streets as a decoy for the murderer. Working almost completely isolated from his department, he has to learn and practice the complex rules and signals of this little society.

The successful writer Benjamin "Ben" Mears returns to his hometown Salem's Lot, Maine, expecting to write a new novel about the Marsten House. Ben believes that the manor is an evil house that attracts evil men since the place has many tragic stories and Ben saw a ghostly creature inside the house when he was ten. Ben finds that the Marsten House has just been rented to the antique dealers Richard K. Straker and his partner Kurt Barlow that is permanently traveling. Ben meets the divorced teacher Susan Norton that is living with her parents and they have a love affair. Ben also gets close to her father Dr. Bill Norton and his former school teacher Jason Burke. When people start to die anemic, Ben believes that Straker's partner is a vampire. But how to convince his friends that he is not crazy and that is the truth?

"Meat is meat, and man's gotta eat!" That was always granny's philosophy. And that's the way folks still think over at the Motel Hello where Farmer Vincent mixes up his special blend of smoke meats. Heck, everybody in the county just loves Farmer Vincent's sausages and hams -- there's nothin' quite like 'em. But pray tell, what's that we've heard about strangers just disappearing after passing by Vincent's motel? And what are those odd things planted in Vincent's "secret garden" that he tends to only at night?

A baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives by eating discarded lab animals that have been injected with growth hormones. The now gigantic animal escapes the city sewers and goes on a rampage, pursued by a cop and a big-game hunter.

A masked killer targets six college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier and who are currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train.

Col. Vincent Kane is a military psychiatrist who takes charge of an army mental hospital situated in a secluded castle. Among Kane's many eccentric patients is Capt. Billy Cutshaw, a troubled astronaut in the midst of an existential crisis. Although Kane's own grasp on sanity is questionable, he manages to engage Cutshaw in a series of thoughtful conversations about science and faith that deeply affect the lives of both men.

At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years prior.

After an American family moves to an old country manor in rural England, one of the daughters is tormented by the spirit of the owner's long lost daughter, who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago during a solar eclipse.

After a new cannery introduces scientifically augmented salmon to a seaside town in the Pacific Northwest, a species of mysterious, mutated sea creatures begin killing the men and raping the women.

When a dispute occurs between a logging operation and a nearby Native American tribe, Dr. Robert Verne and his wife, Maggie, are sent in to mediate. Chief John Hawks insists the loggers are poisoning the water supply, and, though company man Isley denies it, the Vernes can't ignore the strangely mutated wildlife roaming the woods. Robert captures a bear cub for testing and soon finds himself the target of an angry mutant grizzly.

Emmy Award-winning hour documentary about the worldwide animal mutilation mystery that has haunted ranchers and law enforcement since the 1950's. TV producer Linda Moulton Howe follows the eyewitness testimonies and the facts where they lead, linking the unusual animal deaths to a non-human intelligence and technology.

Three girls discover that two men are willing to do anything to impress Mother and what impresses Mother is watching her sons commit acts of rape and murder. Now these women are prisoners and lowered to pawns in the game of checkers between two dim wits and their Maniac Mommy and the question becomes, can any of them escape, alive?

The lord and lady of a capacious manor are killed, and the lord's ghost seems to have returned to knock off the staff one by one, causing Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart to investigate the wacky house and its inhabitants.

A toy factory worker, mentally scarred as a child upon learning Santa Claus is not real, suffers a nervous breakdown after being belittled at work, and embarks on a Yuletide killing spree.

In this modern-day version of the Rasputin story, David Hemmings plays an up-and-coming senator, Nick Rast, whose young son is terminally ill with leukaemia. A mysterious faith healer, Gregory Wolfe, appears and seems to cure the boy. Rast's wife Sandy falls in love with Wolfe, but the powerful interests behind Rast's career, represented by geriatric monster Doc Wheelan are less happy with events.

When Chuck Spillers is released from prison, he tells his wife Annie that he had been visited by an old man, Martin Blueck, along his sentence for robbing a safe, and Blueck had given some money for him to help a fresh start in life. On the next morning, Chuck pays a visit to Blueck in his pet shop to thank the support and is invited to work for him feeding his animals in his private zoo while he is traveling. Blueck explains that he trains animals, conditioning then to obey some signals. A couple of days later, Chuck sees a safe in the store, and decide to open it, being trapped in a weird situation and disclosing the truth about the sadistic Blueck. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

Survivors of a tragic shipping collision are rescued by a mysterious black ship which appears out of the fog. Little do they realise that the ship is actually a Nazi torture ship which has sailed the seas for years, luring unsuspecting sailors aboard and killing them off one by one.

A shy, lonely film buff embarks on a killing spree against those who browbeat and betray him, all the while stalking his idol, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

A real estate broker finds himself having dreams that seem to be incredibly real. They are so real, in fact, that he begins to wonder which is the dream and which is reality. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

David Nau leads a band of modern day pirates who raid yachts and sail boats of people on vacation in the Caribbean. When reporter Blair Maynard and his son arrive to investigate the mystery of the disappearing boats, Nau and his band of raiders decide to induct them into their tribe.

A carved African fetish with voodoo powers has a dangerous mind of its own. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

A nuclear-plant leak turns a bus-load of children into murderous atomic zombies with black fingernails.

Murder victims are being found with the hearts cut out. A police detective is assigned to find and stop the killer. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

No-Wave film directed by Gordon Stevenson from Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. Mirielle Cervenka (Exene's sister) plays a young woman named Rose who is afflicted with a case of extreme stigmata.

An English family of six takes in a pregnant woman who disappears shortly after giving birth. They raise the baby girl as their own, but over the years the strange deaths of their children make them consider whether the little girl is more than she appears.

A TV adaptation of Washington Irving's classic ghost story. Humor is the drawing card in this version, with Jeff Goldblum a nerdish Ichabod Crane, Dick Butkus an appropriately nasty Brom Bones, and Meg Foster as spirited Katrina van Tassel. Angered that Katrina has grown fond of schoolmaster Crane, Brom Bones determines to scare off the interloper by filling his head with spooky tales of a Headless Horseman. Crane pooh-poohs the legends, until one fateful ride home in the dark of night.

Fred is annoyed when an eerie new house is built next door, inhabited by the Frankenstone family.

A trio of female reporters find themselves staying overnight in a house occupied by a hostile being lurking in the basement

An alien creature stalks human prey.

War veterans visit a lakeside cabin for a week of shooting, drinking, etc. but find the cabin being looked after by a young caretaker named David. When David's status as a war deserter is revealed, all hell breaks loose.

A married couple, lost in the woods, stumbles across a creepy mansion and its inhabitants - an overly-kind old woman and deadly wolf children that scour the country-side looking for victims. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

A former astronaut helps a government agent and a police detective track the source of mysterious alien pod spores, filled with lethal flesh-dissolving acid, to a South American coffee plantation controlled by alien pod clones.

When Dr. Peter Fales's patients start getting annihilated by an unknown serial killer, he and his daughter Alison both come under suspicion. Julie, a syndicated “Dear Abby”-style columnist, is in one of Dr. Fales's therapy groups. After she receives several ominous letters she not only wonders if Dr. Fales might be behind the killings, she also starts to suspect her estranged husband.

A reluctant bride to be is stalked by a serial killer who only kills brides and the people around them. While her friends get whacked one by one, a hard boiled renegade cop whose bride had been killed years before tries to hunt him down before it is too late.

A young woman arrives at her grandmother's house, which used to be a funeral home, to help her turn the place into a bed-and-breakfast inn. After they open, however, guests begin disappearing or turning up dead.

Ruth, the reporter for the women's section of a magazine, is assigned by her editor to participate in the ten-weeks course of a new weight-loss organization called "Think Thin". According to a letter from a reader, the course is very masochistic and depressing, destroying the self-esteem of the patient. Ruth makes a friend in the course, who dies in a car crash. During the funeral, an employee of the funeral house discloses weird events that are happening in his job. In her investigation, Ruth finds dark and macabre secrets. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

When a British archaeologist violates an Egyptian queen's tomb, her evil spirit enters his daughter.

A schoolteacher moves into her deceased aunt’s house in a small Californian town, and is harassed by unfriendly locals and a mysterious hearse.

Charles Dexter Ward, a young student of metaphysics, befriends Erich Zann, an elderly violinist who lives on the floor above him. Ward is fascinated by Zann's sinister yet wonderful music, which he hears late at night drifting down from above. But he discovers more then he bargains for when he peers at what beckons beyond that strange curtained window in Zann's room...

Adaptation of the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson

At the isolated Woodstock Farm in rural England, workaholic composer David Winter is depressed because he feels that his wife, actress Mary, is unfaithful. In a dark and stormy night, Lucinda Jessup, the ghost of a witch from the 17th Century and former dweller of the farm, arrives in the barn and possesses David. Mary fights against Lucinda trying to recover David. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

Fu Manchu's 168th birthday celebration is dampened when a hapless flunky spills Fu's age-regressing elixir vitae. Fu sends his lackeys to round up ingredients for a new batch of elixir, starting with the Star of Leningrad diamond, nabbed from a Soviet exhibition in Washington. The FBI sends agents Capone and Williams to England to confer with Nayland Smith, an expert on Fu.

During a New Year's Eve celebration, a punk-rock singer gets a phone call saying that when New Year's strikes in each time zone, someone will be murdered--and she will be the last one.