1981: HORROR’S GREATEST YEAR
I’m turning 30 in July. This is upsetting to me. So, naturally, I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting on an ottoman, like a 5 year old, in front of my DVD collection, pulling down horror gems, and staring blankly at their front and back covers. It turns out a ton of amazing horror films were made the same year I was fired from my mother’s womb, like a tiny ginger fireball. I know that this assertion has been made before, especially recently with it being an even 30 years later and all, but I’d like to share my evidence for stating, definitively, that 1981 was the greatest year in the history of horror.
Exhibit A: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
FANGORIA #14, on the stands in July of 1981
I could present this film, and only this film, and some of you would still be with me. John Landis crafted a pitch perfect horror film with his 1981 classic. AMERICAN WEREWOLF has equal parts chills, thrills, gore, and so much fucking more. I watch this film first and foremost every October of my life to set the mood for Halloween. I’ve even had the pleasure of programming it for the Coolidge’s Halloween Horror Marathon as one of our secret titles, and it plays to an audience brilliantly. It is the crown jewel of werewolf movies. Rick Baker pulls of the greatest werewolf transformation in the history of cinema! It happens right before your eyes! No CGI, no animation, simply the most amazing practical effects you’ve ever seen. I must have dressed up as a werewolf at least 4 years in a row for Halloween because of this flick. My costume was made out of brown felt and it had a black yarn tail that made me look more like Black Beauty than a post Creedence Clearwater David Kessler. There are elements of this flick that still scare the daylights out of me, especially when David and Jack decide to veer off the path into to the moors and the beast begins to circle…I get CHILLS! Going on like this is making me want to see it on the big screen again, maybe it’s time for a 30th anniversary screening to back up this stupid blog post…
(Honorable mention goes to Joe Dante’s 1981 THE HOWLING, which is also pretty awesome, and has an almost equally eye-popping wolf out from FX legend Rob Bottin)
Exhibit B: THE EVIL DEAD
The Evil Dead (1981)
My favorite horror sub-genre is the splatter film. A horror film that goes so far beyond “over the bar” that it winds up back on its feet, covered in a gelatinous aura of pure carnage and gore, holding an axe while laughing maniacally. THE EVIL DEAD is the prime example of this. It contains atrocities so far beyond human conception that the film had to be made a second time, just to get it right. It’s the simple story of friends encountering demonic spirits while spending a weekend at a cabin in the woods, but really it’s much more. It’s the birth of one of the most classic horror heroes ever, Ash Williams, and it launched a cult career for the man who portrayed him, the incontinent Bruce Campbell. This classic splatter-fest had “midnite movie” written, in blood, all over it back in 1981 when it made its debut and what began 30 years ago is now a classic horror trilogy.
Reason Number 3: JASON VOORHEES MAKES HIS MURDEROUS DEBUT
A favorite among iconic horror slashers, Jason is one of the Frightful Four. It’s between him, Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, and Leatherface for most fearsome leading man. No one debates this. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 gave us the silver screen debut of Jason, albeit in his bag-over-the-head form. It wasn’t until the spear gun kill scene in Part 3 that we first see Mr. Voorhees put in his famous goal tending equipment for the first time. We all know that it was Jason’s mom who dices up a bunch of overly hormonal camp counselors in order to avenge the negligent homicide they facilitated by boning in the woods while little Jason was drowning. Well, here in part two, we get to see him all grown up and cutting loose throughout Camp Crystal Lake. Sure, Mrs. Voorhees kicked off the franchise, but it isn’t her severed head that carries the next dozen films. It’s Jason’s lumpy, undead, hockey-masked head that we hold so dear. Also, there’s this booty.
(Honorable mention here goes to HALLOWEEN 2 (1981) and PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING (1981), two other films that began a sequel trend that would spiral out of control throughout the 1980’s and the Horror genre in general)
Reason Number 4: TOM SAVINI IS A BOSS! (or THE BURNING and THE PROWLER)
THE PROWLER onesheet (1981)
Tom Savini will go down in history as one of the greatest special effects make-up artists of all time. Almost every film he has touched has become a classic; such as DAWN OF THE DEAD, FRIDAY THE 13th, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. His shotgun scene in MANIAC is the stuff of legend, and his handling of the death of Captain Rhodes in DAY OF THE DEAD is probably the best zombie kill of all time. Savini had made his name the year before with FRIDAY THE 13th, but ‘81 would prove to be a pretty awesome year for the man. His kills in THE BURNING and THE PROWLER, both incredibly underrated slashers, help push these two films over the edge, and into cult status. Savini’s astonishing work in these films is what drives people to seek them out. There aren’t too many effects men with that type of pull. We were able to screen an amazingly mint 35mm print of THE BURNING recently, and our audience was truly thrilled to see it in its original glory. It really is the greatest summer camp slasher of them all. THE PROWLER is available on Blu Ray from Blue Underground, and I highly recommend checking it out. There’s a shotgun kill at the end of this flick that rivals Savini’s earlier 12 gauge work in MANIAC! You can check it out here, but beware of spoilers!
Exhibit 5: YOUR SPECIAL OCCASION IS NOW DRENCHED IN BLOOD!
Slasher films have always been popular. They were around in the 60’s and 70’s, but 1981 was certainly a high water mark for the genre. Running out of originality room, as the slasher film prides itself on following strict formula, the early 80’s saw a rise in slashers that went after what we love most of all: our holidays. Following the success of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th came a slew of date specific murder. Let’s start with the Birthdays! 1981 gave us the amazing kid-slasher BLOODY BIRTHDAY, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Both of these flicks pride themselves on shock value. BLOODY BIRTHDAY delivers a handful of murderous, voyeuristic, little kids, who are more likely to cut you than their birthday cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME has some extremely outlandish kills in it 
that are pretty much listed right on the film’s poster. As we know, nothing leads to murder as often as love, so it was only a matter of time before MY BLOODY VALENTINE would put a pick axe through our hearts. The characters that populate these slashers are almost always teens, so slashers based around school activities were obviously on the rise. In 1981 alone we were given the Troma release GRADUATION DAY, Linda Blair in HELL NIGHT, the collegiate killer FINAL EXAM, and the Boston-set NIGHT SCHOOL. (Check out the Boston aquarium scene in the trailer!) Some of these, of course, are more worthy attempts than others, but the sheer volume of slashers put out in 1981 is significant.
Extremely Thin Concluding Statement: THE THING WAS SHOT IN 1981!
Yeah, I know. It wasn’t released until June 0f 1982. BUT, the simple fact that this thing went into the can in 1981 is a major boost to the year’s horror credibility. We live in a time where horror remakes are king at the box office. Unfortunately none of them will ever be as good as John Carpenter’s vision of 1951’s THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. This THING set the remake bar so damn high, that everyone else to attempt a horror remake since has been doomed to mediocrity of failure. I know that this is because we all hold this particular film in mind. Director John Carpenter broke frozen ground with this milestone in special effects and gore. Effects master Rob Bottin instantly became one of my childhood heroes as soon as he made a severed head sprout legs and walk, and he did all of this work in the year of my birth, 1981.
Rob Bottin creates the greatest creature effects of all time. In 1981.
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