The Biggest Horror Movie From Every Year in the 1980s

Back in the 1980s, horror sequels arrived on a schedule: eight Friday the 13th movies and five A Nightmare on Elm Street movies opened between 1980 and 1989.

To find each year’s biggest in the gene, we went to Box Office Mojo and ranked every straight horror film by its total domestic gross, filed under the year it opened, without adjusting for inflation. In the years where a horror-comedy or a sci-fi monster movie outdrew the winner, it gets an honorable mention, because this will not be a list that hands 1984 to Ghostbusters.

1980: The Shining

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel opened on May 23, 1980, and took in $44.0 million for Warner Bros. The closest competition had opened two weeks earlier: Friday the 13th, which made $39.8 million for Paramount. That made it the biggest Friday the 13th film of the decade, and none of the seven sequels that followed through 1989 caught it.

1981: An American Werewolf in London

The werewolf picture grossed $30.6 million for Universal, about $5 million more than Halloween II, which Universal opened on October 30, the day before Halloween. The transformation scene paid off twice: Rick Baker won the Academy Award for Makeup for it at the 1982 ceremony.

1982: Poltergeist

The biggest straight horror hit of the decade made $76.6 million, and the name most associated with it wasn’t the director’s. Tobe Hooper directed, but Steven Spielberg co-wrote and produced, and when MGM’s trailers printed “A Steven Spielberg Production” twice the size of Hooper’s credit, the studio was ordered to pay Hooper $15,000 in damages.

Spielberg’s other movie that month did fine too: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial opened a week later and made $359.2 million.

1983: Psycho II

23 years after Hitchcock’s classic, Universal brought Norman Bates back on June 3, 1983, and Psycho II grossed $34.7 million, beating a crowded field that included Twilight Zone: The Movie ($29.5 million) and two King adaptations, Cujo and The Dead Zone, at about $21 million apiece.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: Jaws 3-D, $45.5 million.

1984: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Paramount promised the end of Jason Voorhees and delivered $33 million on April 13, 1984. It wasn’t the end: four more Friday the 13th movies came out before the decade concluded. The year’s most important horror release didn’t come close, either. A Nightmare on Elm Street opened on November 9, made $25.5 million in total and earned more than a quarter of that in 1985.

Honorable mentions for not being straight horror: Ghostbusters ($229.2 million) and Gremlins ($148.2 million), which opened on the same day, June 8.

1985: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge

Freddy Krueger’s first sequel opened on November 1, 1985, and finished with $30 million, nearly $5 million more than the original. It edged out Fright Night ($24.9 million), the summer’s vampire-next-door hit, and left Friday the 13th: A New Beginning ($21.9 million) in third.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: Teen Wolf, $33.1 million.

1986: Poltergeist II: The Other Side

The closest race for the genre of the decade was decided by about $540,000. Poltergeist II made $41 million for MGM, and David Cronenberg’s The Fly made $40.5 million for 20th Century Fox, which is what you get when two studios split the same audience three months apart. The Fly got the consolation prize: it won the Oscar for Makeup.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: Aliens, $85.2 million, along with seven Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Sigourney Weaver.

1987: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Dream Warriors opened on February 27, 1987, and went on to make $44.8 million for New Line. That was $12.6 million more than Warner Bros.’ The Lost Boys, the summer’s teen-vampire movie, and it gave Freddy his second win in three years.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: The Witches of Eastwick ($63.8 million) and Predator ($59.7 million), which opened on the same day, June 12.

1988: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

The fourth Nightmare opened on August 19, 1988, and grossed $49.4 million, the most any Freddy movie made in the 1980s. The year also introduced a new slasher: Child’s Play opened in November and made $33.2 million, nearly twice what Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers managed three weeks earlier.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: Beetlejuice, $73.7 million.

1989: Pet Sematary

Stephen King wrote the screenplay for this one himself, the first time he adapted one of his own novels for the screen, and Paramount opened it on April 21, 1989. It grossed $57.5 million, and nothing else in the straight horror genre that year was close: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child made $22.2 million and The Fly II made $20.0 million.

Honorable mention for not being straight horror: Ghostbusters II, $112.5 million.