Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Fright Night (1985)

The Reanimator (1985)

You like em tongue-in-cheek? You might try Chopping Mall (1986). Shopping mall management invests in a killer robot security system. A group of horny teens decides to spend the night there, but a lightning storm takes out the main killer robot controller! It's funny, a little gory, has topless men and women, and it's hilarious. A spook night favorite of mine.

The original Night of the living Dead is way up there for vanilla zombie horror. 28 days later for modern zombies.

Thankskilling and Jack Frost for B movie holiday horror.

The 1922 Nosferatu.

Not my favourite but Sleepaway Camp is an absolute classic of so-bad-its-good 80s horror with an unforgettable ending.

GYO Tokyo Fish Attack. Body horror is a great genre that doesn’t come around very often without looking kind of cheesy so it helps being animation.

The Fly is another great example of the genre. Such an excellent movie with a sad ending to top it off.

day of the dead is fantastic. perfect build up and release. watched it with a lot of friends and damn we went crazy for that ending

Midsommer is my favorite. A slow, realistic slide into horror.

One of my favorites, one I feel is hugely underrated, Michael Wadleigh's 1981 Wolfen, which is not about werewolves, but ecological displacement, loss of habitat from urban development (among other issues), and not terrorism

a conclusion initially drawn by the police

but territory. With Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos, and Tom Noonan. Its release in theaters was eclipsed by “The Howling” and “An American Werewolf in London”, but Wolfen is not merely a horror movie, but an intelligent one, ahead of its time IMHO. The confrontation atop the Manhattan Bridge between Finney and Olmos (see below, not a spoiler), which still makes my knees weak, involves no stunt doubles. The film also has beautiful dog sequences, imaginative cimenatography, and yes, some gore.

Another horror favorite: Don't Look Now (1973), directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Set in Venice, it concerns a couple recovering from the accidental death of their very young daughter. Roeg uses the color red as a signature throughout the film: things are not always what they seem.