Category: Horror

#653 Cat People (1982)

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What we have here is basically a werewolf movie, with wolves replaced with leopards. As daft as it sounds, the switch is actually a successful one and Cat People is a breath of fresh air in the endless line of werewolf movies popular from 70s to the 80s.

Genre-wise the movie is listed as an erotic thriller, which mostly always is bad news, and a sure sign of a cheesy movie. There’s some cheese here as well, but fortunately Cat People is a thriller first, with some strong horror & gore elements added, and the erotic motives are just a sprinkle on the top.

Nastassja Kinski is a spot on casting here with her cat like appearance and movement, and John Heard is his always likeable self and plays his part in perfectly harmony to Kinski and the tone of the movie.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 80%

#651 The Forest (1982)

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If you’re looking for a cult movie, you’ve got one right here.

Shot and produced by a team of unemployed film makers, the beauty of The Forest is the way it’s so adorably clumsy and yet done with such a sincerity. It’s one of those movies where you are never quite sure if the movie was done with tongue in cheek, or if they were seriously thinking they had a good thing going on here. As it turns out watching the ‘making of’ not only they were dead serious, but the director ended up losing his mortgaged house because he really believed in this movie. Ouch.

Whether you get your kicks off a movie like this boils down to your personal taste for bad movies – and probably what you had in your pipe today.

As far as bad movies go, this is definitely one of those so bad it’s good kind of films, but be advised that its value is very limited for any other kind of consumption.

80s-o-meter: 43%

Total: 17%

#648 Pulse (1988)

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Although Pulse‘s idea of making the possessed electricity a cruel killer is pretty unique, the movie starts to soon follow trails often seen in similar movies: A little kid, shunned by his peers senses a great danger within the house, but none of the grown ups believe him before it’s too late.

This is not to say that some predictability is bad – in many cases following the beaten path but in a memorable way can create a genre cult classic. Pulse really does nothing in a memorable way and it certainly isn’t that long lost classic movie of the era. With that out of the way, there’s a lot to love here as well. The cinematography is solid and the movie successfully culminates towards the end. Cliff De Young has always been a great guy to be cast as the family dad and the same goes here, and Joey Lawrence as the 12-year old protagonist performs admirably and comparable to many top kids actors of the era.

Pulse doesn’t reach the standards of the other haunted house movies of the 80s – the likes of Poltergeist, House and Amityville Horror – but is still very much a recommended watch.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 76%

#645 Creepozoids (1987)

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For some unfathomable reason the Creepozoids’ team seems really impressed of its plasticky, unconvincing antagonists giving them far too much screen time, thus turning a potential Alien (1979) in a warehouse into home-video like wrestling with inanimate puppets laugh fest.

It’s a shame though, because despite the often patchy directing and editing, the movie and its effects, scares and the superb synth soundtrack often seem to far outperform its shoelace budget.

80s-o-meter: 72%

Total: 58%

#641 C.H.U.D. (1984)

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Starting off as a very b-movie, C.H.U.D. finally picks up the pace after 45 very sluggish minutes and gets eventually so good that i’d easily watched another 15 minutes of it. As entertaining as the movie was towards the end, there’s no way around that it’s just very unorganised mishmash that could’ve used some streamlining in the production department, and as it stands now, it’s just too little, too late.

A shoelace-budgeted work of a few devoted film makers, C.H.U.D. still earns a tipping of a hat as a valiant effort.

And in case you’re wondering: The acronym stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 63%

#632 Child’s Play (1988)

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After a somewhat silly initial plot Child’s Play makes sure to shake off any traces of being just a silly comedy by offering plenty of thrilling suspense, action and all those little things the nightmares are made of. The co-operation between the director and the dolls’ animators is flawless, making Chucky feel like an actual, demented character on the screen.

Child’s Play and Chucky became, and still remain, synonymous to 80s horror milestones – and deservedly so as the movie hands down fulfils its premise: An animated doll has never managed to be more scary.

80’s-o-meter: 95%

Total: 92%