Nearly 37% Of Fans We Polled Think This Is The Best '80s Horror Movie Ever Made
The '80s were a special decade for horror. In a lot of ways, it's a hard decade to top simply because there are just so many damn good movies from that time period. Of course, the '70s were a great decade for horror, as well. Without the success of films like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Halloween," studios probably wouldn't have been so quick to fund more horror movies. After all, it's all about the money, baby! But thankfully for us horror nerds, a need for more gore on screen was suddenly very apparent, so the slash and the trash started being filmed in droves. Today, many of the horror films released in the '80s have gone on to become some of horror's biggest franchises. You can't go into a Spirit Halloween without immediately seeing recognizable costumes for Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, or Chucky. Just like in their respective films, these horror mascots are never going to die. But the debate over what is the best horror film to come out of this prolific decade has yet to be settled. Until now.
Obviously, many people have many opinions on this topic, but lucky for you, we here at /Film finally have an answer! In a Very Official Poll, we asked 613 horror fans (because if you add 53 to 613, you get 666, and even though those are two absolutely arbitrary numbers, there's no mistaking the mark of the Devil which is how you KNOW this is an official poll with non-negotiable results) to tell us what their favorite '80s horror film is, which they absolutely did. So now, with a clear winner at hand, we can finally put this topic to rest.
The number one '80s horror film exists only in your dreams
There are a lot of great contenders for the category of Best '80s Horror Film. I mean, over the course of 10 years, filmmakers managed to give us such gems as "The Shining," "Videodrome," "The Evil Dead," "Re-Animator," "Maniac," "Creepshow," "The Lost Boys," "Night of the Creeps" ... my god. How did we ever complete this poll? My point is that the '80s is such a killer decade for horror that it's amazing we even found a winner. But find a winner we did. Coming in with a WHOPPPING 36.87% of the vote was the always entertaining "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
Out of the 613 people that we polled, most of them harbored a deep love for the crass and sassy Freddy Krueger, haunter of dreams and destroyer of lives. But I mean, why wouldn't you be a fan of this Wes Craven masterpiece? The movie has it all. Heather Langenkamp plays an exceptional Final Girl as Nancy Thompson, a baby (I.E. young) Johnny Depp gets sucked into a bed only to be spit out as a geyser of human blood, there's some cool s*** that goes down with Freddy, his creepy knife glove, and Stretch Armstrong-esque arms, and oh yeah, if anyone in the film goes to sleep, Freddy will find you and murder you in your dreams. Neat.
I have always been a big fan of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" for the fact that it revolves around a very real thing every human must do in order to stay alive: sleep. Because of this, "Elm Street" gets under your skin in a way that other slashers don't, for sleep is utterly unavoidable making your death inevitable. I suspect part of the reason why so many people picked this as their favorite has something to do with that fact, but also there's no denying the likability of the film's main villain himself. Freddy's charisma as the main killer is undeniable. He, unlike so many of his other slasher villain counterparts, actually talks to his victims, giving him a personality that stands out amongst all the rest.
But don't forget these other great contenders
As for the rest of the people polled, they all chose decidedly different '80s horror flicks to pick as their number one. Coming in second with a respectable 19.74% of the vote was "Aliens" the follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece "Alien." "Aliens" is definitely a beloved sequel in the "Alien" franchise, and it's no wonder that many people feel so strongly about it. Still, even as talented as Ellen Ripley is as she takes on xenomorphs like a champ, it wasn't enough to oust Freddy K. from the number one spot.
Coming in third with a close 14.36% of the vote was the 1986 film version of "Little Shop of Horrors." You know the one where a giant, bloodthirsty venus flytrap named Audrey II needs to be fed more and more human blood to survive? Personally, I'm all for this quirky musical and for flesh eating plants, so I was happy to see that it placed in the top three. Other contenders on the list were "Return of the Living Dead" with 10.28% of the vote, John Carpenter's "The Thing" with 8.65% of the vote, "The Fly" with 8.48% of the vote, and "Near Dark" with a meager (and also wrong because that movie is great) 1.63% of the vote. Missing from this list are obvious contenders like "Friday the 13th" and "Child's Play," which one would expect to see very near the top. But like I said, this poll is VERY OFFICIAL, so we must take these results as the pure and honest truth. It's Freddy Krueger's world, and we're just dreamin' in it.