This week, I revisit one of the most important films on my list — An American Werewolf in London (1981). We talk transformation horror, doomed heroes, Rick Baker’s groundbreaking effects, and why this film changed werewolf cinema forever.

In 1985, at the height of the Satanic Panic and PMRC hearings, Italian horror masters Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento delivered the ultimate middle finger to media censorship: a film where watching a horror movie literally transforms you into a demon. Shot in nine weeks in Cold War-era West Berlin, "Demons" is part meta-cinema commentary, part gore-soaked thrill ride, and entirely unapologetic.

With a pounding Claudio Simonetti synth score colliding with a heavy metal soundtrack featuring Mötley Crüe, Accept, and Billy Idol, the film literalizes every fear the moral panic warriors had about horror and metal corrupting youth - and then cranks it to eleven with a guy on a motorcycle slicing demons with a samurai sword. For Lamberto Bava, this was his one moment to step out of his legendary father Mario's shadow and create something uniquely his own.

This is the story of how a claustrophobic Italian splatter film became a cultural statement, a technical achievement in practical effects, and a love letter to everyone who was told that horror movies and heavy metal would destroy their souls. Spoiler alert: we survived. The demons didn't.

Dave explores Ken Russell's Altered States (1980) as #14 on his top-20 1980s horror countdown, summarizing the plot, key performances, and the tumultuous creative team behind the film.

He examines the movie's central themes — sensory deprivation, psychedelic experiments, evolutionary regression, and the inward search for meaning — ties them to real-world science and personal experience, and closes with a reflection on love and human connection as the film's emotional anchor.