Best Mystery Movies of 1983

After years of treatment at a mental institution for the criminally insane, serial killer Norman Bates is finally released. Deciding to move back into his long-dead mother's infamous old house, he soon finds himself tormented by 'her' demands and begins to question his own sanity.

In a small American town, a diabolical circus arrives, granting wishes for the townsfolk, but twisted as only the esteemed Mr. Dark can make them. Can two young boys overcome the worst the devil himself can deal out?

An ancient church is being dismantled and moved to a new location, stone by stone. One of the gargoyles from the stones falls into the possession of a mother who takes the stone man back to her family. Soon after, four strangers show up in the village and the Sogood & Firkettle children seem to be the only ones who question the mysterious things that begin to happen. This film was originally broadcast across six 25 minute episodes with a total runtime of 150 minutes. A few years later, the US cable network Nickelodeon edited the miniseries into a 2 hour (including commercials) movie block. This 2 hour edited version was shown throughout the 1980s on US television.

A family of the three fall into a dark and disturbing nightmare after meeting the mysterious Orlok and the seductive punk girl Patty.

Sherlock Holmes comes to the aid of his friend Henry Baskerville, who is under a family curse and menaced by a demonic dog that prowls the bogs near his estate and murders people.

Divorced professor Susan Selky lives alone in a Brooklyn apartment with her young son, Alex. When Alex fails to return home from school one afternoon, a frantic Selky contacts the police. Detective Al Menetti, a father himself, takes an interest in the case that quickly turns into an obsession. As a devastated Selky struggles to come to terms with Alex's disappearance, Menetti steps out from behind the badge to continue investigating.

An American writer goes to a remote Welsh manor on a $20,000 bet that he can write a classic novel like 'Wuthering Heights' in 24 hours. However, upon his arrival he discovers that the apparently empty manor has several rather odd inhabitants.

Private eye Mike Hammer probes his long-lost love's death while seeking their daughter.

While his parents are renovating a cottage in an English village, teenager Tim and his friend Rebecca uncover information about the mysterious death of a 15-year-old boy who lived in the house decades prior, and as they dig deeper, Tim begins to find events from the past being mirrored in his own life.

Charlie's ex-wife disappears, and he goes to where she grew up--a rural town in the midwest--to look for her. But, surprisingly, nobody knows about her or any of her many relatives, the Newmans. He meets aliens; but when he contacts the FBI, they don't believe him. He tells his story to a tabloid; and suddenly, he is chased by the aliens.

Inspector Clouseau disappears, and the Surete wants the world's second best detective to look for him. However, Clouseau's enemy, Dreyfus, rigs the Surete's computer to select, instead, the world's WORST detective, NYPD Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. Sleigh obtusely bungles his way past assassins and corrupt officials as though he were Clouseau's American cousin.

After a chance meeting and an indiscreet conversation, childhood friends Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley become involved in a convoluted intrigue led by a mysterious man known simply as Mr. Brown.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to track down the Great Mogul, the second-largest diamond in the world.

Holmes & Watson investigate a cursed family.

Townsfolk discover a warped secret while clearing out the house of a recently deceased, aristocratic spinster.

Aging Major Palgrave, an idiosyncratic but charming mystery writer, reveals to Miss Marple that one of the guests at a luxurious Caribbean resort they're staying at is a Bluebeard-type wife murderer. Unfortunately, the Major succumbs to an apparently accidental overdose of alcohol and blood pressure medication before revealing the killer's identity. When it's discovered that the medicine belonged to another guest and the revealing photograph the Major was carrying is missing, Miss Marple realizes that the serial killer has struck again and more murders will follow.

A man arrives in China to search for his son, whom he hasn't seen in many years. A female American Embassy employee, who knows the country and speaks the language, is assigned to assist him, but soon they run into more trouble than they expected.

Dixie Ray, a beautiful but bad starlet, finds herself the target of a vicious blackmailer - and in desperate need of Nick's services in more ways than one. If Nick can stop the extortionist, he'll receive his usual fee, plus the carnal pleasures that only a Hollywood star can provide.

One year ago on November 2, seven people sat down to dinner at the Luxembourg. One of them, Rosemary Barton, never got up. She was thought to have committed suicide due to post-flu depression.

An aspiring mystery writer becomes accidently embroiled in an international plot during a two-week stay in Malta.

Holmes & Watson have one baffling clue to help them track down the crime of an American visitor in London.

Holmes & Watson receive a letter from an informant who known by the pseudonym Fred Porlock. Porlock is a man well connected with criminals. The letter is written in code, and Holmes determines that the code comes from the words in a book. They decipher the code by page and column and find that John Douglas of Birlstone House is in danger.

Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)

In this pilot for a proposed TV series, B.T. Brady is a flippant, but somewhat klutzy female private detective in Hollywood who sets out to solve the murder of a obnoxious mystery writer. Along the way, Brady gets help from her flamboyant mother Zandra, a washed-up actress, as well as Brady's live-in boyfriend Wolfe who runs a memorabilia shop.

Two different men are possessed by spirits of Native Americans after they separately wander into a sacred burial ground. When John and Sybil come home with their son after a trip to the Mojave Desert, they bring an unusual stone back as a memento of the trip. The stone seems to cause strange noises and other horrible inexplicable phenomena.

A medical examiner investigating a series of prostitute murders discovers that the culprit is an ancient tribal witch doctor come back to life.

A private detective has to deal with an unpleasant memory, a near-insoluble mystery, and a pursuing murderer inflicted with drugs and political corruption.

People claim to know an amnesiac who finds herself in a hotel with a suitcase full of cash.

A former child show host misses the good old days. He and his sidekick from the show are doing a gig when the place gets robbed and the sidekick murdered. The host is the only one who saw the robber well so the robber goes after him.

A man falls for his nubile stepdaughter. When his hot wife founds out about this, she is furious. Murder ensues. It's obvious who's the guilty party. Or is it?

In 1940s Los Angeles, private investigator Nick Popodopolis, is hired by actress Dixie Ray, to find her blackmailer.

The story is set in a small English coastal town, around the turn of the century. A young woman, thought by many in the village to be a witch, dies suddenly one day. Not long after she's buried, the villagers begin to see her walking around the area and especially along the shoreline. The village minister begins to look into her life and her death, hoping to lay the spirit to rest.

An American couple buy an English Manor House - complete with resident sypernatural forces...