The Decade Of Horror:1981

Depending on how you looked at things, the deluge of slasher films that really began in 1980, was either a good or a bad thing, or both. I think that it was both. Firstly, I liked that there was a new slasher/ horror film in the theatres every week. Hell sometimes, there were 2 or 3 new ones debuting in the same week. Some folks claimed that they only liked "quality" films, and all of these "knockoff" films somehow cheapened the genre. I was and still am to this day, a fan of all horror. I love the cheap, bottom of the barrel stuff, in the same ways that I like a film like The Exorcist, which is one of the pinnacles of horror cinema. The detractors were right in a way, the more of these films that were successful, 20 more came out that weren't. The public grew tired of these films, which eventually led to it's downfall in the late 80's. We also know that the hardcore fans stuck by, through dreary times, by re watching these early 80's classics. And, a decade later, the genre was resurrected by Wes Craven, a die-hard from the first generation of slashers. These films are like treasures to me and many other fans, there is something so charming about the way a Horror nut can pontificate about Radish from Final Exam being the prototype for Craven's Scream character Randy. Or the life of Pamela Voorhees before she became the mother of Jason, it's a way for us to live vicariously through these movies and characters, and who doesn't wanna escape reality, every now and again? Enjoy these images from some of my favorites from 1981: