'80s Horror | Criterion Channel

Riddled with secret but horrid suspicion, young American poet Rose Elliot writes to Mark, her musicology-student brother in Rome, about her startling findings in the dark, dank basement of her New York Art Deco apartment building. Pivoting around the cryptic knowledge hidden in the leather-bound book entitled "The Three Mothers", Rose is convinced that her aristocratic but damned abode is actually an ancient coven for Mater Tenebrarum, the malevolent Mother of Darkness. Little by little, as the siblings delve deeper and deeper into the occult, a mysterious disappearance and an endless string of gruesome killings will bring Mark closer and closer to a surreal nightmare. Where do the long and shadowy corridors of Rose's building lead?

The film takes place before, during and immediately after the engagement party of Dr.Henry Jekyll and Miss Fanny Osborne, attended by numerous highly respectable guests (a general, a doctor, a priest, a lawyer), the last of which informs the company that a child has been murdered in the street outside. While the others watch a young dancer perform, Dr.Jekyll instructs the lawyer to alter his will, leaving everything to a certain Mr.Hyde. Shortly afterwards, the dancer is found murdered, and the guests realise that one of their number must be a maniac with a prodigious sexual appetite...

Sheriff Dan Gillis has a nice life with his wife, the teacher Janet Gillis, in the small coastal and friendly town of Potter's Bluff. When visitors are mysteriously killed in the town, Sheriff Gillis investigates the cases carefully and finds that dead people are reanimating and coming back to life. Dan finds a book of witchcraft and voodoo in his wife's drawer and he suspects that she might be practicing black magic. Dan meets the coroner-mortician William G. Dobbs and learns the dreadful and surprising secret.

In New York, Dr. Norman Boyle assumes the research about Dr. Freudstein of his colleague Dr. Petersen, who committed suicide after killing his mistress. Norman heads to Boston with his wife Lucy Boyle and their son Bob to live in an isolated house in the woods that belonged to Dr. Petersen. Bob befriends the girl Mae that only he can see and she warns him to leave the house. Soon his parents hire the mysterious babysitter Ann and creepy things happen in the house. When Bobby goes to the basement, his parents discover the secret of the house.

Teenage Amy Harper dates Buzz Dawson for the first time and they go to the carnival with their friends Richie and Liz. They smoke grass and have a good time visiting the attractions including a sideshow with freak animals. The silly Richie suggests the group to spend the night in the Funhouse for fun. During the night, they witness the murder of fortuneteller Madame Zena by a man wearing a Frankenstein mask from an opening in the ceiling of a room. They decide to leave the funhouse but all the exits are locked. Meanwhile, Richie sneaks into the room and steals the funhouse manager's money. The masked man returns with his father and owner of the funhouse to show the corpse of Madame Zena; when the man realizes that he had been robbed, he presses his son, who removes the mask and shows his horrible face. Richie starts and drops his lighter in the room. The owner asks his freak son to chase the thieves and eyewitnesses in a night of terror for the teenagers.

Widowed John Brady is the Chief of Police in small town Galesburg, Illinois, where he has lived most of his life. His only offspring, Pete Brady, is a bright high school senior. John has been in turmoil since the suspicious death of his wife Catherine years earlier, which he always believed had something to do with her boss, Dr. Le Sange, who himself died shortly after Catherine's passing. Only recently has John and Pete's home life gotten back on track with John dating Barbara Moorehead, a waitress at the local hangout, she who has known John for some time. John's life takes a turn for the worse when he has to investigate the brutal slashing murders of four townsfolk in four separate incidents. A brief eyewitness statement to one of the murders before the eyewitness herself is murdered is the only substantive evidence. However, the three other victims were the sons of long time friends of his. Those three friends have a special connection to John's past. As such, he believes if the pattern holds true that Pete may be the next intended target. What John is unaware of is that Pete, who has been trying to earn a little extra money in nearby Galesburg College in the Psychology Department with Mrs. Gwen Parkinson, is not the next target but that he unwittingly has a connection to the next intended murder.

A city cop is assigned to solve a bizarre set of violent murders where it appears that the victims were killed by animals. In his pursuit he learns of an Indian legend about wolf spirits.

Darryl Revok is the most powerful of all the scanners, and is the head of the underground scanner movement for world domination. Scanners have great psychic power, strong enough to control minds; they can inflict enormous pain/damage on their victims. Doctor Paul Ruth finds a scanner that Revok hasn't, and converts him to their cause - to destroy the underground movement.

Pat Quid is driving a semi across Australia. On the way he encounters various other travellers and the occasional hitchhikers repeatedly as they're traveling the same road. A favorite pastime of Pat is to play games to pass the time on the journey (such as to make up backgrounds of the other people on the road). Pamela is one hitchhiker he picks up. But when she disappears, he suspects that the driver of a van who has been acting a little strange (Smith or Jones), may be the serial killer mentioned on the radio. But his pursuit of the van driver brings him to the attention of the police, who begin to suspect him.

While leaving home, Dr Julius Lifflander feels something strange on the street and returns home. He locks up in the house, tries to call the police but is attacked and murdered. In New York City, a man named Duane Bradley arrives from Glenn Falls and check in the very low-budget Hotel Broslin. He pays the manager Anthony in cash and stays in room 7, where he opens a basket and feeds something with many hamburgers and reads the medical record from Dr. Lifflander. He looks in the phone book for the address of Dr Harold Needleman and goes to visit him with his basket. The receptionist Sharon hits on Duane and they schedule a date. When Dr. Needleman sees the scars on Duane, he sends him away and unsuccessfully tries to contact Dr. Lifflander. He calls Dr. Judith Kutter, who does not gibe much attention to him, but advises Dr. Needleman to deny anything about Glenn Falls. What is the secret of Duane's basket and what is the mystery of the three doctors?

In a rest home for elderly people, a daughter reads her mother's diary. Soon events that are mentioned in the mother's diary begin to happen to the daughter.

The Cat People originated way back in time, when humans sacrificed their women to leopards, who mated with them. Cat People look similar to humans, but must mate with other Cat People before they transform into panthers. Irene Gallier was raised by adoptive parents and meets her older brother Paul for the first time since childhood. We follow brother and sister - who seem to be the only ones of their kind left.

New York police are bemused by a spate of reports of a giant flying lizard that has been spotted around the rooftops of New York, which they assume to be bogus until the lizard starts to eat people. An out-of-work, ex-con piano player is the only person who knows the location of the monster's nest and is determined to turn the knowledge to his advantage, but will his gamble pay off or will he end up as lizard food?

It plunges into horror when a high school girl's sleepover takes a nightmarish turn. A psychopathic serial killer, freshly escaped, terrorizes the neighborhood with a menacing power drill. The film unfolds as a suspenseful and chilling tale of survival, blending classic horror elements with the intensity of a slasher thriller. As the body count rises, the girls must navigate the terrifying ordeal, creating a heart-pounding narrative that explores the primal fear lurking behind the seemingly innocent setting of a slumber party.

Nazis are sent to guard an old, mysterious fortress in a Romanian pass. One of them mistakenly releases an unknown force trapped within the walls. A mysterious stranger senses this from his home in Greece and travels to the keep to vanquish the force. As soldiers are killed, a Jewish man and his daughter (who are both knowledgeable of the keep) are brought in to find out what is happening.