Editorials
Five Underseen ‘80s Horror Gems You Should Stream This Week
The boon of home video in the ‘80s and the advances in practical special effects meant an overwhelming volume of horror. So much so that many never made the leap from VHS to DVD, and without video stores, discovering the titles that slipped through the cracks can be tricky. This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to underseen ‘80s horror movies.
These five movies run the gamut in style and tone from rare gems that won’t get a physical release any time soon and rarely appear on streaming to wild cult horror with an underground following. As always, here’s where you can watch them this week.
For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.
The Keep – Pluto TV
If you only have time to stream one horror movie this week, perhaps make it this one due to its rarity. Adapted from a novel of the same name by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep is set in 1941 and tells of a group of Nazis taking refuge in an isolated castle in the Romanian mountains. When they inadvertently free an ancient evil from its prison within, an entity named Molasar, they turn to a Jewish historian to help them stop it from killing them all. In turn, it also sets the ancient force of good, Glaeken, on a quest to face off against his foe one last time. Writer/director Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat) might’ve disowned the movie, but between his direction, the strange story, and Tangerine Dream’s impeccable score, you won’t see anything like The Keep.
The Seventh Curse – Crackle, Midnight Pulp, Plex
This Hong Kong action/horror/fantasy hybrid dials up the pulp insanity to eleven, delivering an insane crowd-pleaser in the process. After saving a young princess from being sacrificed to the worm god, a cop is stricken with a blood curse. He has seven days to return to the jungle to find the cure, or he’ll bleed to death. Feuds, evil sorcerers, worm gods, vengeful skeletons, monsters, and more get in his way. Expect the blood to flow freely, too, as this is from the same director behind the ultraviolent Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. Gather your friends and pizza, and settle in.
I, Madman – Tubi
When Virginia (played by Near Dark’s Jenny Wright) receives a package containing pulp horror novel I, Madman, reading it brings the villainous madman into her world. The lines between fiction and reality blur as Virginia becomes the killer’s target and the body count rises. I, Madman was directed by Tibor Takács (The Gate and Gate 2: The Trespassers). The Gate’s SFX artist Randall William Cook provided the stop motion animation and played the monstrous madman. Creatures, kills, and a pulpy feel make this 80s horror movie a unique slasher.
Dreamscape – IMDb TV, Kanopy, Roku, Tubi
Co-written by A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warrior’s Chuck Russell and directed by The Stepfather’s Joseph Ruben, this sci-fi adventure tale embraces horror in a big way. Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is a psychic for hire enlisted for government research to enter others’ dreams. Alex gets entangled in government conspiracy when his dream walking uncovers an assassination plot. Dreamscape frequently leans into horror thanks to recurring nightmares, from apocalyptic dystopias to a nightmarish snakeman.
Paperhouse – IMDb TV, Roku
Before Candyman, Bernard Rose directed this surreal 80s horror fantasy that sees a lonely girl making friends with a sickly boy that she meets in the dream world she created. Dreams sometimes turn into nightmares, though. Rose creates a unique aesthetic with haunting visuals, but the emotional poignancy of the central characters and their journey makes this a real standout. Bleak and heartbreaking, but with innocence and hope.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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