As Halloween approaches, what better way to celebrate than with a top 5 list of some of the scariest movie villains of the 80’s! Don’t forget to list your top 5’s in the comments section below, we’d love to hear them!
5. David (The Lost Boys)
Back before the shit teen vampire movies that we’ve endured over the last few years, Joel Schumacher made a movie called, The Lost Boys. This movie is hands down one of the most iconic of the 80’s and its soundtrack is likely to remain engraved in your brain for the rest of your life. Along with some amazing performances by some of the 80’s coolest actors, its hard to make this list without thinking of one them. David, exquisitely portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland, is certainly the most memorable and haunting of the film. Don’t let his sometimes calm and relaxed exterior fool you, what lies below David’s pale cold skin, is something extremely unsettling!
4. Russ Thorn (The Slumber Party Massacre)
Now a cult classic, The Slumber Party Massacre is one of my favourite films to come from the great Slasher movie boom of the 1980’s. The films antagonist and destroyer of teenagers is none other than escaped lunatic and double denim enthusiast, Russ Thorn. With more nudity and questionable acting than you could shake a drill at, Michael Villella’s portrayal of Russ Thorn is unquestionably perfect as the slumber party pooper.
3. John Rider (The Hitcher)
The Hitcher follows Jim Halsey (C.Thomas Howell), who while on a cross country journey picks up a sodden, John Rider (Rutger Hauer) from the side of a rainy, dark roadside. What quickly becomes clear here, after some breathtakingly intense conversation between the two, is the importance of listening to your mother when she tells you to never stop for strangers! With a performance on par to the late, great Robert Mitchum in Night Of the Hunter, Rutger Hauer demonstrates a masterclass in how to scare the crap out of you.
2. Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th Part 2)
After Mrs Vorhees looses her head in Friday the 13th, Jason emerges from the woods to avenge her in the sequel to the highly successful 1980 hit. Masked beneath an old dirty bag (pre Hockey Mask) and armed with a serious distaste for camp counsellors, we are introduced to Jason and his reign of terror. There’s something I find genuinely chilling about the scene where Deputy Winslow chases Jason into the woods in this film and it still manages to make me feel uneasy to this day. The fact that Jason and his array of murder weapons would go on to hack, slice and decapitate his way through the 80s and all the way upto this present day, is evidence enough that he is truly a horror movie great.
1. Cropsy (The Burning)
The Burning is a Slasher movie made in 1981 and is loosely based on the legend of ‘Cropsy’, which was an actual tale told around camp fires during the 60’s and 70’s in upstate New York. After a fiery prank goes horribly wrong for a bunch of teenagers, the camp’s caretaker ‘Cropsy’ becomes quickly engulfed in flames and is left to cook within his cabin. After numerous skin grafts and clearly nowhere near enough psychological treatment by his doctors, the unhinged madman is released back into society, only to return to Camp Blackfoot on a murderous quest. With some truly horrific death scenes and make-up effects supplied by Tom Savini, Cropsy embeds himself with ease into our nightmares and as a result is my number 1!
Happy Halloween!
Rhys
