10 Best Creature Features Of The 1980s
Movie monsters never looked so good (and so horrifying).
Even though there's been plenty of influential monsters movies over the years, many of them are let down by dated effects. For example, the original Godzilla is clearly a guy in a suit, and while King Kong was a technical marvel in its day, the stop-motion effects are janky as hell by modern standards.
With that said, the 1980s proved to be a high point for the genre. It was during this period that visual effects gurus like Stan Winston, Rob Bottin, and Rick Baker were in their prime, creating some of the most recognised monster designs of all time. Also, the following decade is when old-school SFX started being replaced with CGI, which is why the '80s feel like the peak of animatronics, puppetry, and prosthetics.
The '80s didn't just have some of the very best-looking creatures, but some of the greatest creature features, too. Thanks to the astounding filmmaking, tight writing, and superb performances, an entire generation was simultaneously wowed and petrified by these awesome monster flicks.
There were many to choose from, but the following ten creature features are generally considered to be the best the '80s had to offer.
10. Razorback
After the unprecedented success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the film industry saw a dramatic rise in Man vs. Nature stories. And one of those monster movies was 1984's Razorback, which centres around a gargantuan boar rampaging through the Australian outback.
Though many creature features emulated the bare bones of Jaws, this Aussie horror understood what made Spielberg's classic work. Like Jaws, the monstrous antagonist is rarely seen, letting our imagination run wild every time it's mentioned or hinted at. When the razorback tosses a car in the air or tears a house in half, we understand its destructive power, despite barely getting a glimpse of the tusked brute.
What makes Razorback work well is how it puts more focus on human conflict. Our heroes have to put up with hostile locals with such frequency that there are times when you forget there's a man-eating pig on the loose.
Although features in this genre can be formulaic, Razorback is refreshingly unpredictable. It takes a page out of Psycho's book by offing the supposed protagonist early on, making it clear that any character could be next, significantly elevating the stakes.