Re-Animator & 9 Other Best 80s Horror Sci-Fi Films

In the 1980s, movies were getting stranger, actors more flamboyant, and directors a little riskier. The kings of ’80s sci-fi/horror, David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, lit up the silver screen with wild, imaginative storylines and gruesome practical effects. Moviegoers never knew what monstrosity they were going to see next, what unimaginable creature or alien would appear, and to what lengths characters would go to stop the horror that surrounded them.

The gritty, and often grotesque, style of ’80s sci-fi/horror movies, sometimes categorized as “body horror,” was what they were known for, and it’s what has solidified many of these movies as cult classics.

10 Re-Animator (1985)

Anything based on H.P. Lovecraft is going to be a wild ride. 1985’s Re-Animator follows scientist Herbert West who has invented a serum to re-animate the dead, thinking he could bring the dead back to life. But he soon realizes that it brings back the dead into a zombie-like state, where the body becomes violent and uncontrollable.

The dean of medicine at West’s college finds out but is killed by a re-animated corpse. Hysteria ensues as he re-animates more bodies, bringing out telepathic abilities in them, as he tries to control the monsters he’s created.

9 Dreamscape (1984)

Alex, played by a young Dennis Quaid, has psychic abilities. While mostly using them to gamble and get girls, he is soon swept into a secret program that helps people with psychic powers infiltrate other people’s dreams.

Used therapeutically to help quell nightmares in some, others in the program want to use it to kill. Bob Blair, a powerful government agent, wants to use this psychic power to assassinate the President, and Alex has to fight within dreams to stop him. And remember, if someone dies in a dream, they die in real life.

8 The Dead Zone (1983)

Based on the Stephen King novel, The Dead Zone follows Johnny Smith, who has gained psychic powers after being in a coma caused by a car wreck. With one touch, he can see someone’s future. But he also realizes that he can change that future.

Disturbed and filled with anxiety, Johnny tries to live a normal life. But when he touches the hand of a politician, he sees a dire future that must be changed. Johnny sets out to kill the politician before he can cause the nuclear annihilation he sees in his visions.

7 The Fly (1986)

One of David Cronenberg’s most famous movies, The Fly is filled with some of his best practical effects and makeup. After inventing a teleportation device, scientist Seth Brundle decides to first test it on himself.

But as he initiates the first test, he doesn’t notice that a fly gets trapped in the chamber with him. The teleportation device works as he is transported across the room from one small pod to another. But throughout the rest of the movie, Seth slowly morphs into a grotesque and giant fly.

6 Scanners (1981)

This cult classic, directed by David Cronenberg, is also about humans with psychic and telekinetic powers (there is a theme emerging here). These people, called “scanners”, mostly work for two separate, warring entities. ConSec is recruiting to take down an underground ring of scanners led by Darryl Revok, each one trying to infiltrate and kill off the other group’s members.

The movie is filled with intrigue, murder, and bloody violence, with some of the coolest effects of the ’80s, which includes the most famous head explosion scene in movie history.

5 Altered States (1980)

This trippy and absorbing movie, based on the novel of the same name by Paddy Chayefsky, launches viewers into a hallucinogenic dreamscape. After experimenting with sensory deprivation tanks, Edward Jessup takes it a step further and begins using hallucinogenic drugs to further his experiences in the tanks, trying to experience other states of consciousness.

But as his hallucinations become more intense, and his experiments more dangerous, he begins to slowly devolve and regress into earlier physical states of being. Edward must fight to stay human or be transformed into a primordial heap of matter.

4 The Blob (1988)

After a military satellite crashes to the Earth, a wild and dangerous blob-like creature is let loose in a California town, killing and destroying everyone and everything in its path.

This fun and sometimes goofy film from director Chuck Russell follows three high school students as they try and defeat the blob before it kills everyone in town. The military also descends on the town in order to contain the blob, which is found out to be a biological weapon created by the U.S. that became too dangerous to use.

3 Leviathan (1989)

After finding a sunken Soviet ship at the bottom of the ocean, a team of geologists salvage some items from the wreck and bring them back to their underwater scientific facility. But after drinking some rescued vodka from the ship, crewmates begin to feel sick and eventually start to mutate into hideous, underwater creatures.

After realizing that the Soviet vessel was experimenting on its crew with mutagens, the geological team now has to fight off the mutated crew to survive at the bottom of the ocean.

2 Videodrome (1983)

David Cronenberg’s Videodrome is a psychedelic trip into a world of deception and mind control. After finding a strange and disturbing television program called “Videodrome”, Max Renn begins to play it on his own television station. The show, filled with the torture and murder of random people, eventually makes its viewers hallucinate in an attempt to control their minds.

Max finds out that the creator of the show wants “Videodrome” to kill its viewers, thinking anyone who would watch the filth shown in the program should be wiped off the Earth.

1 The Thing (1982)

This cult classic from John Carpenter encapsulates everything great about ’80s sci-fi/horror. Stuck in the middle of the Antarctic, researchers at a scientific base find an alien frozen in ice. After it wakes up, it wreaks havoc on the base and its inhabitants.

With the ability to morph into human shape, the “thing” kills and takes the place of crew members, which causes anxiety and distrust amongst the crew, not knowing who is still themselves, and who is the alien. With outrageous designs and brilliant use of effects and animatronics, Carpenter and his effects team make the “thing” come to life in vivid and grotesque detail.

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