‘80s Halloween Treats
🎃Professor Mikey’s Tricky 13🎃
Welcome to the haunted 80s, when cultural horror stepped up its game and was reanimated in a fresh frozen time of cocaine, of techno, and mousse! Blame Stephen King, banging his wife’s Olivetti typewriter in Bangor and Boulder late into those cold and evil nights. Blame the no-strangulation-holds-barred super scary movies. Blame the Gothic inspired music that painted despair into fashion and fun.
The 80s were a time where the gloves came off (except Freddy Krueger’s knife-fingered style) as we transitioned from Reaganomics to Freakonomics. Our music, literature, movies and more mirrored the frightening deco of the Thirties, reborn in black leather and collars as the Decade of the Living Dead.
With so many contributions, getting this list down to a Dirty Dozen was as challenging as choosing between a regulation size Three Musketeers and a quaalude. It could have easily been limited to horror movies. IMDB lists over a hundred disturbing films from the 80s guaranteed to scare the bat guano out of us all.
For this compilation, I leaned toward timelessness and influence, but realized the appeal of buckets of blood.
Fangs for the memories,
Professor Mikey
13
Don’t go looking for them in 1987 Neverland, they are hanging out in the burbs of Santa Clara, California. There are two new kids in town, brothers Sam (Corey Haim) and Mike (Jason Patrick). who hear all the local stories about bikers, unexplained murders, and acid washed vampires. Wait a Nintendo millisecond. Fangs chewing Bubble yum?? Tagline: “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.”
12
Brain cancer claimed Bernie Wrightson in 2017, but not before he left his astounding mark on a Gothic masterpiece with pen and ink. The co-creator of “Swamp Thing” hunched over his drawing board for seven years crafting drawings for his illustrations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). In this drag and drop world, Wrightson’s jam packed panels from 1983 will likely play alongside the original words for yet another two hundred years or so.
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As the 80s drew toward a close, the wacky old Crypt Keeper became the hilarious dead face of HBO. This gore and more series was based on the EC Comics of the 1950s that caused such a stir. Congress ultimately jumped on a national bandwagon to ban raw terror in comics and in so doing, protect the unspoiled imaginations of impressionable children living in the shadow of The Bomb. By the late 1980s, those rules had been tossed out to encourage graphic violence and gallows humor on cable TV, as offered by Tales from the Crypt in 1989. The series went seven seasons, screaming way into the 90s.
10
Such a cop out to conjoin two giants in a single entry, but these franchises meshed together in the consciousness of the Eighties which should have kept them separated.
The Halloween series began in 1978 when that damned Michael Myers, described by author Nicholas Rogers as a “mythic, elusive bogeyman”) escaped from a mental institution to chase Jaime Lee Curtis and others through a dozen October 31sts. The 80s batch: Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989).
There are also twelve Friday the 13ths, all centered around poor little camper Jason Voorhees who was believed drowned in Camp Crystal Lake. That little bastard wreaked havoc in Friday the 13th (1980), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood (1988), and Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989). More would follow; it is hard not to answer when money comes knocking at the door. With the New York adventure Jason was done with the 80s.
9
Such a spooky album. The story is that as Robert Smith neared his 30th birthday, he was troubled by his band’s pop popularity and wanted to get back to his Goth roots. So he returned to the comfort of hallucinogenic drugs. A little reset here, some troubled images there, and we have the classic the South Park kids call the GOAT.
8 Little Shop of Horrors
The Little Shop first opened in the 1960 Roger Corman film of the same name featured an unknown Jack Nicholson. The musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (who would ultimately strike gold with Disney) opened off-Broadway in 1982. The interplanetary very hungry plant landed on the big screen in 1986. It’s a rockin’ little epic starring Rick Moranis as the florist, Ellen Greene as his true love, and a Venus flytrap that eats people.
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What Halloween would be complete without a ride through the decay of the 1981 UK in a 1961 Vauxhall Cresta packed with The Specials? It is a gloomy shadowland they cruise. The last single recorded by the original seven members of the band was hailed for its commentary on a hopelessly dark, bleak, modern society. “Ghost Town” was named “Single of the Year” by the big three of British music publications NME, Melody Maker, and Sounds.
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Steven Spielberg hatched the story, Tobe Hooper directed this tale of a contemporary California clan’s move to a new home in Cuesta Verde. As soon as the FOR SALE sign is pulled, an acute paranormality sets in. Spirits communicate with 5-year-old Carole Anne through the family television. Before we can fathom why, she is snatched into another dimension. Poltergeist becomes a rollicking real estate ghost romp, complete with an exorcism in lieu of a makeover. Sadly, the film itself became rooted in tragedy even before it was released on VHS. Two of the young stars never saw the 90s. Actress Dominique Dunne, 22, was strangled by an ex-boyfriend Nov 4, 1982. Carole Anne, actress Heather O’Rourke, starred in two sequels then died at 12 in 1988, of complications from congenital stenosis and septic shock.
5
When you get down to the nitty gritty of what was scary as well as hilarious in the 80s, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters. You can drop in on this film streaming anytime and find yourself staying to the end. Then craving toasted marshmallows. What great lines: “We’d like a sample of your brain tissue.” “This man has no dick!” “Don’t. Cross. The streams. It would be bad.” “We came! We saw! We kicked its ass!” The adventures of Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore ring down through the ages, solid representatives of the 80s when we weren’t afraid of no ghosts.
4
The 80s were a time for switching out old monsters for new. Freddy Krueger was the stuff nightmares were made of. In this first of nine films that would feature the Springwood Slasher, the freak with the razor “finger-knives” made regular appearances in the dreams of four teens. When the murders crossed over from night sweats into real life, it was time to stay awake no matter what. Five Freddy films were made in the 80s, as well as a TV series Freddy’s Nightmares (1988-1990). An anti-hero of our times, Krueger has also appeared in disturbing novels, comic books, and a series of video games, the first coming from Nintendo in 1989.
3
Another sign that children had become fair game in the 80s came with Stephen King’s epic two-pound hardcover that left no doubt about how the master of horror felt about clowns. Conceived in 1978 when his family was living in Boulder, Colorado, King started writing It in 1981 and finished the 1,138 page whopper in 1985. The franchise is bigger than ever today thanks to the two films made in 2017 and 2019. Pennywise the Dancing Clown charges completely when he is plugged into fear. Losers gotta stick together,
2
In addition to the music, the dancing, the makeup, the zombies, the red jacket, and the ensemble horror, the video contains the understatement of the decade. Michael Jackson, 24, says to Ola Ray, “I’m not like other boys.”
Thriller remains history’s best selling album worldwide with sales of 70 million copies. (Scary sidebar, it is #2 in the U.S., behind Their Greatest Hits from The Eagles.) The Thriller video, best selling videotape of all time, sold a million copies on VHS. All seven songs on the album became Top 10. It stayed on the charts for 80 weeks, was number one for 37 weeks, received 12 Grammy nominations and took home 8 awards.
What do we remember most? John Landis, who was hired to direct after Michael saw An American Werewolf in London (1981). Lugubrious narration from horror maestro Vincent Price? All that, but especially Thriller thrills because of the rotting corpses crawling out of their graves and dancing history’s first flash mob of the living dead. And at the center of it all, Michael the magnificent painfully transforms into a werewolf as well as a groovy zombie, shifting in and out of moves too fast for eyes to behold.
1
The ultimate horror of the 1980s began quietly enough on Oct 30, 1974, when Tabitha and Stephen King booked a room at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado’s Estes Park, where they were the only guests. They dined alone in the grand dining room that evening. The hotel was about to close for the season.
“Except for our table, all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night I had the whole book in mind.” --Stephen King
The book was published Jan 28, 1977, and was among a stack of horror novels that director Stanley Kubrick plowed through in search of his next movie. Most ended up tossed into a pile on the floor of his office. The Shining was different.
Writer and struggling alcoholic Jack Torrance moves his wife and young son to a luxury Colorado hotel where he has taken a job as the winter caretaker. Little Danny is only five, so his multi-horsepower psychic capabilities aren’t clear to him or his family. He can read minds, he has visions, he can “shine.”1 Certainly the child has special needs. His father is in a freefall descent into madness. Danny and his mother are in peril.
Stories behind the making of the film version of The Shining are legend. Kubrick and King disagreed on the casting. Robin Williams and Harrison Ford were discussed, King leaned toward Jon Voight and Martin Sheen. Kubrick wanted Jack Nicholson and labeled it “non-negotiable.” Kubrick was upset he could not torch the Stanley Hotel. Jack, or should we say “Heeere's Johnny!” goes completely booby shoobey.2
The isolation, the “redrum” insanity, the gift of prophecy as well as telepathy, the perpetual snow globe around the Overlook, the ghosts who rise from the bathtubs in the dead of winter, the sea of blood overflowing from the elevators. They all add up. The Shining, released May 23, 1980, is the greatest horror treat of the 80s.
As I mentioned in the intro, the effect of 80s horror on the modern Halloween is profound. Who or what else belongs on this list? There’s always next year. “Bedelia! I want my cake!!”
King says the term came from John Lennon’s song “Instant Karma,” where “we all shine on.”
Kubrick didn’t get the significance of the improvised line from the nightly Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and he almost cut it.
The behind the scenes tales were as horrific as what made the final cut. Duvall, tearfully backing up the steps swinging her Louisville Slugger at the stalking Nicholson, is the result of 127 retakes. The famous bar scene, where Jack’s money is no good, required six weeks of rehearsal, then was shot in one day from 9:00 a.m. until 11:30 p.m.