Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) review: a Brooklyn block on its hottest day, comedy turning to tragedy, and an ending still argued over.
David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) reviewed: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper and the severed ear that split critics and became a cult classic.
A review of Robert Zemeckis's 1985 time-travel comedy Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, and why its clockwork script still holds up.
Aliens review: James Cameron swaps horror for action, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, and the 1986 sequel still runs like a hard, loud machine.
The Gate (1987) review: Tibor Takács's backyard-demon horror still terrifies, from the geode to the pint-sized demons and Stephen Dorff's debut.
Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982) review: a haunted house built on moved graves, a portal in the closet, and why the static still works.
Don Coscarelli's Phantasm (1979) reviewed: a self-financed horror nightmare with Angus Scrimm's Tall Man, flying silver spheres, and a 9.3/10 score.
Clive Barker's 1987 directorial debut Hellraiser: a $1M British horror film about a puzzle box, the Cenobites, and appetite without a ceiling.
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II turns a haunted cabin into a comedy about a man fighting his own severed hand, and Bruce Campbell sells every minute of it.
An American Werewolf in London review: John Landis's horror-comedy, Rick Baker's Oscar-winning transformation, and why the pub scene still cuts deepest.
John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror The Thing: paranoia in Antarctica, Kurt Russell, practical effects, and the ending that still haunts us. Score: 9.8.
Sam Raimi's 1981 debut The Evil Dead, reviewed: five students, one cabin, a destroyed bridge, $90,000 and a franchise born at Cannes.
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