The decade saw major box office hits but also a conscious embrace by fans of video nasties as VHS ownership became more ubiquitous. Practical effects and gore became more complex, more imaginative, and more deranged, and the genre pioneers went with the trend.
It was a great time to be a teenager just finding your footing with horror, and by the time 1988 came around, for every one of Hollywood’s glossy horrors, there was a disturbed, cult gem dribbling and scratching at the door to balance it. Some of the wildest and scariest horrors released that year have gone on to develop cult status and remain just as demented for kids born in the 1970s.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Part of the juggernaut Elm Street franchise that is so badly in need of new blood and new entries, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master saw Freddy Krueger in full pop culture antihero territory. The humor was creeping in more with each sequel, and Robert Englund was clearly having a ball, but Renny Harlin’s movie also has some of the series most disturbing set pieces.
Embracing body horror and surrealism, The Dream Master is, inevitably, less acclaimed than the original, but then so are basically all the sequels, and the sequel has grown in appreciation in recent years as its high camp and absurdism feel less like problems and more like design features. Which they always were. The disturbing set piece that sees Debbie transformed into a cockroach is high art and a surprisingly clever commentary on teen body image.
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Killer Klowns from Outer Space
If you’re one of the many sufferers of coulrophobia around the world, the Chiodo Brothers’ delightfully absurd sci-fi horror mashup was the perfect answer to cynics who wrongly believe clowns are harmless. Flying its ridiculous colors high, the tale of cartoonish clown-like alien invaders terrorizing small-town America was always going to be goofy, but it’s often forgotten how creepy it is.
For kids, the carnival weirdness was laser targeted at creating nightmares, no matter how much comedy was in there, because it’s a genuinely unhinged bloodbath, with more than 150 deaths in total on and off-screen. Victims are turned into cotton candy, eaten by shadow puppets, melted, drained of their blood, and kountless klowns are killed in the finale. The creature design is about as good as it got in the 1980s, and it should be no surprise that there have been attempts to make a Killer Klowns From Outer Space sequel, remake or reboot for years now.
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Maniac Cop
In Maniac Cop, William Lustig and writer Larry Cohen delivered a paranoid neo-noir slasher that was one of the last notable examples of exploitation movies set in New York. On paper, it was an archetypal video nasty, built on genuine social anxiety that was personified in the terrifying figure of Robert Z'Dar’s unstoppable undead cop. Or at least, seemingly undead - part of the movie’s dark charm is that Officer Matthew Cordell’s zombie status isn’t explained in the slightest. He was framed for police brutality, then beaten to death or near death, announced as brain dead, and then had his body released to his girlfriend.
He’s not strictly confirmed as undead, other than being shot several times and remaining unfazed, but it’s up for debate whether him being a zombie or not makes him scarier. The character is one of the best larger-than-life killers of the 1980s, and some of the socio-political commentary still hits a nerve. The idea of someone you’re supposed to be able to trust being the biggest threat was right up there for kids watching in 1988.
In possibly one of the weirdest - but most fascinating - twists in recent horror, Nicolas Winding Refn is making a Maniac Cop remake for Mubi after a decade of revival rumors.
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Pumpkinhead
Pumpkinhead is a genuinely important piece of horror movie history, as it marked the directorial debut of effects legend Stan Winston, which is why the monster at its heart is still so grotesquely successful. Inspired by a poem written by poet Ed Justin, it’s a dark and moody affair that’s actually quite restrained with its kill count. It’s a somber story about a broken father (Lars Henriksen) who seeks revenge on the killers of his son, turning to a witch for help and summoning an ancient demon, Pumpkinhead, to take on his kill list.
The titular creature might well be the best monster design of the 1980s and one of the best of all time, and the summoning sequence is also an all-timer. It's still spellbinding to see Henriksen’s Ed Harley watch in horror as the witch, inexplicably called Haggis (Florence Schauffler), resurrects a corpse, and it becomes the hulking, skeletal creation that clearly drew from H.R. Giger’s iconic Xenomorph. It’s a cult masterpiece, and news of a Pumpkinhead reboot in 2021 was very welcome, despite it seemingly going on ice since. 1970s kids will be holding their breath to see if the demon is raised once more…
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Release Date
June 9, 1988
Runtime
86 minutes
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Lance Henriksen
Ed Harley
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Release Date
May 13, 1988
Runtime
85 Minutes
English (US) ·