Highest-Rated Movies about 'Video Nasty'

The Thing (1982), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Profondo rosso (1975), The Evil Dead (1981), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Suspiria (1977), Tenebre (1982) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Video Nasty movies.

#1. The Thing (1982)

Storyline: A US research station, Antarctica, early-winter 1982. The base is suddenly buzzed by a helicopter from the nearby Norwegian research station. They are trying to kill a dog that has escaped from their base. After the destruction of the Norwegian chopper the members of the US team fly to the Norwegian base, only to discover them all dead or missing. They do find the remains of a strange creature the Norwegians burned. The Americans take it to their base and deduce that it is an alien life form. After a while it is apparent that the alien can take over and assimilate into other life forms, including humans, and can spread like a virus. This means that anyone at the base could be inhabited by The Thing, and tensions escalate.

Plot Keywords: antarctica, body horror, paranoia, isolation, alien life form, alien creature, shapeshifting ...

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#2. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Storyline: Following the events of Night of the Living Dead (1968), we follow the exploits of four survivors of the expanding zombie apocalypse as they take refuge in an abandoned shopping mall following a horrific SWAT evacuation of an apartment complex. Taking stock of their surroundings, they arm themselves, lock down the mall, and destroy the zombies inside so they can eke out a living--at least for a while. Tensions begin to build as months go on, and they come to realize that they've fallen prey to consumerism. Soon afterward, they have even heavier problems to worry about, as a large gang of bikers discovers the mall and invades it, ruining the survivors' best-laid plans and forcing them to fight off both lethal bandits and flesh-eating zombies.

Plot Keywords: zombie apocalypse, cult film, american horror, motorcycle gang, motorcycle, ghetto, grindhouse film ...

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#3. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Storyline: Barbra and Johnny visit their father's grave in a remote cemetery when they are suddenly set upon by zombies. Barbra manages to get away and takes refuge in what seems to be an abandoned farm house. She is soon joined by Ben who stopped at the house in need of gas. Beset by the walking dead all around them Ben does his best to secure the doors and windows. The news reports are grim however with creatures returning to life everywhere. Barbra and Ben are surprised when they realize there are 5 people hiding out in the basement: Harry, Helen and Karen Cooper; and a young couple, Tom and Judy. Dissensions sets in almost immediately with Harry Cooper wanting to be in charge. As their situation deteriorates, their chances of surviving the night lessen minute by minute.

Plot Keywords: zombie, radiation, running out of gas, cemetery, basement, year 1968, surprise ending ...

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#4. Profondo rosso (1975)

Storyline: A psychic who can read minds picks up the thoughts of a murderer in the audience and soon becomes a victim. An English pianist gets involved in solving the murders, but finds many of his avenues of inquiry cut off by new murders, and he begins to wonder how the murderer can track his movements so closely.

Plot Keywords: giallo, serial killer, color in title, slasher, cigarette smoking, fireplace, theatre ...

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#5. The Evil Dead (1981)

Storyline: Five college students take time off to spend a peaceful vacation in a remote cabin. A book and audio tape is discovered, and its evil is found to be powerful once the incantations are read out loud. The friends find themselves helpless to stop the evil as it takes them one by one, with only one survivor left with the evil dead and desperately tries to fight to live until morning.

Plot Keywords: cult film, sexual violence, female victim, absurd violence, first of series, sexual assault, violence against women ...

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#6. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Storyline: En route to visit their grandfather's grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch-hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home... where they're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills...

Plot Keywords: cannibal, chainsaw, chainsaw murder, psychopath, massacre, skull, murder ...

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#7. Suspiria (1977)

Storyline: Suzy Bannion travels to Germany to perfect her ballet skills. She arrives at the Tanz dance academy in the pouring rain and is refused admission after another woman is seen fleeing the school. She returns the next morning and this time is let in. She learns that the young woman she saw fleeing the previous evening, Pat Hingle, has been found dead. Strange things soon begin to occur. Suzy becomes ill and is put on a special diet; the school becomes infested with maggots; odd sounds abound; and Daniel, the pianist, is killed by his own dog. A bit of research indicates that the ballet school was once a witches' coven - and as Suzy learns, still is.

Plot Keywords: stabbed in the heart, gothic, electronic music score, cult film, italian horror, drugged food, reanimated corpse ...

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#8. Tenebre (1982)

Storyline: With Argento's trademark visual style, linked with one of his more coherent plots, Tenebrae follows a writer who arrives to Rome only to find somebody is using his novels as the inspiration (and, occasionally, the means) of committing murder. As the death toll mounts the police are ever baffled, and the writer becomes more closely linked to the case than is comfortable.

Plot Keywords: giallo, misogynist, violence against women, serial killer, lesbian, pantyhose, miniskirt ...

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#9. Zombi 2 (1979)

Storyline: A zombie is found aboard a boat off the New York coast which belongs to do a famous scientist. Peter West, a journalist, travels to the Antilles with Ann, the daughter of the scientist. On the way, they meet with with Brian, a ethnologist, and Susan. When they arrive at Matul Island, they find Dr. Menard, and discover a terrifying disease which is turning the islanders into horrifying zombies which devour human flesh and seem indestructible....

Plot Keywords: tropical island, voodoo, world trade center manhattan new york city, molotov cocktail, breaking through a door, manhattan new york city, survival horror ...

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#10. Scanners (1981)

Storyline: 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.

Plot Keywords: psychic power, exploding head, surprise ending, human experiment, telepathy, investigation, sabotage ...

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#11. Phantasm (1979)

Storyline: Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost his parents, afraid to lose his brother follow him to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lifting a coffin on his own. Mike decides to investigate, and discovers that the Tall Man, protected by his flying spheres, is shrinking dead bodies down to half their normal size and reanimating them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother, and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man.

Plot Keywords: woman on top, independent film, part of series, director also cinematographer, cemetery, slut, fellatio ...

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#12. ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilĂ  (1981)

Storyline: The cellar of an old hotel is built on top of the door to the beyond. Bloody zombies roam there. A young woman who is heir of the hotel wants to restaurate it. She is confronted with strange events. A painter has a lethal fall, the plumber vanishes and her friend breaks his neck. When she escapes to the hospital of a friendly doctor she doesn't know what a nightmare is waiting there...

Plot Keywords: hell, spider, eye gouging, surrealism, tarantula, blindness, cult director ...

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#13. Inferno (1980)

Storyline: Riddled with secret but horrid suspicion, the young American poet, Rose Elliot, writes to her brother and musicology student in Rome, Mark, about the startling findings in the dark and 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, in fact, 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?

Plot Keywords: second part, dead animal, killing an animal, actual animal killed, part of trilogy, taxi, swimming underwater ...

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#14. Dead and Buried (1981)

Storyline: 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 mysterious 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.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: extreme violence, burnt body, burnt face, photographer, sadism, screaming, suffering ...

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#15. Friday the 13th (1980)

Storyline: One summer at Camp Crystal Lake, a group of young counselors begin to get ready to lead campers. Unfortunately, someone isn't happy about what's going on in the camp and enjoys playing Kill the Counselor. As bodies fall to the ground in the camp, no one is safe.

Plot Keywords: 1970s, surprise ending, mother, slasher, actual animal killed, bare chested male, machete ...

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