10 Most Underappreciated '80s Horror Movies

5. Stage Fright

Pumpkinhead 1988
Artists Entertainment Group

Michele Soavi's Stage Fright deserves a spot on this list solely for the film's bizarre opening sequence, but that aside, this 1987 effort manages to carry with it a genuine sense of dread while simultaneously not taking itself all that seriously.

As for that opening? Why, the villainous Night Owl ambushes a sex worker, and we hear her curdled, terrified screams as the awakened locals stir and check what's happened. So far, so very much formulaic slasher opening. Completely out of left-field, though, Stage Fright has the Night Owl dive out of a dark alley and start performing a snazzy dance routine.

Of course, it's then we learn that what we've watched is actually a rehearsal for a musical based on the myth of the Night Owl killer. 

Unbeknownst to our cast and crew though, a deranged former actor has escaped an asylum, locked the building's doors, donned that same Night Owl garb, and is slicing 'n' dicing his way through the theatre - something which our key figures play off as fake until the first dead body is found.

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