The Best Decade for Horror Movies: 1970s vs 1980s
When it comes to the best decade for horror, two main contenders tend to emerge: the 1970s and 1980s, but which is truly the better choice?
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When it comes to the best decade for horror, two main contenders tend to emerge: the 1970s and 1980s, but which is truly the better choice? Naturally, every decade has had its share of great horror films, as horror has been a prominent movie genre since the earliest days of the medium, with silent classics like Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera terrifying audiences of that bygone era. By the 1930s, “talkies” had arrived, and so did the era of the Universal Classic Monsters, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man.
The 1950s brought it with lots of sci-fi/horror blends, and plenty of creature features about giant rampaging monsters, many inspired by the fear of nuclear warfare and its potential side effects. In the 1960s, a time of widespread cultural upheaval in America, Hollywood horror responded by pushing the envelope when it came to content, from mainstream proto-slashers like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho to independently made gore-fests like Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast.
Above all other decades though, including the decades since, horror fans tend to cite the 1970s and 1980s as the peak time periods for quality horror. So, which one is better overall? That depends on what one is looking for.
The Best Decade for Horror Movies: 1970s vs 1980s
Whether a particular horror fan prefers the films of the 1970s or 1980s greatly depends on what they want out of the genre. The classics of the 1970s tended to be much more harrowing and serious, and prefer generating creeps and tension to delivering over the top gore and loud scare scenes. Great examples of that mentality are The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and The Omen. Meanwhile, befitting the sort of decade-long party vibe that permeated so much of American culture at that time, the hits of the 1980s tended to be more “in your face” and unabashedly exploitative. Films like The Lost Boys, Return of the Living Dead, and the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise come to mind when thinking of that ilk.
That’s not say that the 1970s didn’t have splatter flicks or horror movies more focused on entertainment than scares, or that the 1980s didn’t have movies concerned with subtly unsettling and unnerving the viewer. Some films even combined the two schools, featuring both cerebral terror and graphic imagery, like The Shining and The Exorcist. But overall, the 1970s was generally more serious and high-minded with its top films, while the 1980s was more about watching slashers go to work and cheering them on, popcorn in hand. When it comes to sheer variety of content though, it’s hard to beat the 1980s, for one simple reason.
The 1980s played host to the rise of the home video market, and along with it, more horror films were released than ever before. While a good amount of this material was dreck, there were also some real gems. The home video market also led to an explosion in the amount of foreign horror movies able to make their way to the U.S., such as the surge in Italian cannibal and zombie film popularity during the decade. Basically, while it’s arguable that the 1970s’ highest horror highs topped those of the 1980s, the sheer variety of new material available to consume contributed greatly to the 1980s being thought of now as a horror golden age. One can’t really go wrong watching horror films from either decade, but if we could time travel back to one of them, we’d pick the 1980s as the best decade for horror.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/horror-movies-best-decade-1970s-1980s-comparison/