When we talk about television we almost exclusively are talking about television series. That’s what makes sense, as the television series is the cornerstone of entertainment for the small screen and there have been countless iconic series over the decades that have made major impact on popular culture. But television entertainment has always been much more than just series. Movies have long been an important part of the television landscape, especially the made-for-tv movie.
While made-for-tv movies have been around for years (and if you want to get very technical, any movie made for a non-theatrical release on the small screen can be considered to be made for television), they were particularly popular in the 1980s. These were movies, frequently broadcast as miniseries over a couple of nights on the big three networks, produced specifically for the television audience. With lower budgets and often sensational stories and subjects, they made for discussion-worthy appointment television and some of them, well, they were downright scary. So much so that now, decades later, they still give us chills. Here are five made-for-tv specials from the 1980s that still scare us.
5) The Day After (1983)
In 1983, we were still in the thick of the Cold War and nuclear tensions were still pretty high so of course we got a “what if” sort of movie offering a grim look at the impact of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union with The Day After. To make things hit home even harder, the story was focused on the residents of Kansas City, Missouri and the relatively nearby Lawrence, Kansas as well as various family farms near the American missile silos in the Midwest. The film starred some of the bigger stars of the day, including JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, Jason Robards, and John Lithgow.
The story is grim. We’re introduced to various families in Kansas City, nearby Harrisonville, and Lawrence before things escalate rapidly. The Soviet Union invades West Germany, there are naval attacks in the Persian Gulf, and before you know it NATO tries to stop things with airburst of nuclear warheads over Soviet troops. As things continue to escalate, ICBMs are launched and Kansas City, a target because of its proximity to Minuteman launch sites, is struck. Viewers watch the horrors of nuclear attack as the characters we’ve met all suffer and many die, horribly. The film’s ending is even more grim as there’s a disclaimer saying that the real-life outcomes would be far worse. Kids were traumatized watching this one and it reportedly even had impact on government policy, but even now, that movie is chilling.
4) Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Not all made-for-tv movies are movies with a message or about a social issue. Some are just simply genre movies made for the television format and one of the most notable ones in the horror genre is Dark Night of the Scarecrow. The 1981 film was actually originally envisioned as an independent feature film, but the script was purchased by CBS and minor change made for broadcast. The film tells the story of a mentally challenged man, Bubba, who is falsely accused of hurting a young girl when he had, in fact, saved her life. Poor Bubba is gunned down by town vigilantes but later comes back as a creepy scarecrow to get revenge on those who killed him.
First, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is actually good. Second, it’s actually really creepy and scary for broadcast television. It’s not overly bloody or gore-filled like you might expect of a horror film, but it does a great job of being subtle and having sort of a slow burn psychological scare that it’s very creepy and unsettling. It’s become a cult classic in the decades since it’s broadcast and for good reason. It just is also something we don’t want to watch with the lights off.
3) It (1990)
Image Courtesy of ABC
Okay, okay, we’re cheating a little on this one. Yes, ABC’s two-part It adaptation aired in 1990 but everyone knows that the first year of a new decade is transitional and if you go back and watch this classic, it definitely has late 1980s vibes. This is also a made-for-tv production that pretty much everyone knows and is the reason we’re all scared of clowns. It had a notable cast including Richard Thomas, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, Harry Anderson, Jonathan Brandis, Tim Reid, Dennis Christopher and more, but the standout is probably Tim Curry as Pennywise. Curry’s Pennywise is hands-down the scariest clown in film or television ever.
It’s not a perfect adaptation. It’s a little campy, but it’s still really unsettling and, once again, Curry’s Pennywise is freaky. It’s still creepy years later — and even after a much better theatrical adaptation of the same source material.
2) Don’t Go to Sleep (1982)
The 1980s really were a good time for genre entertainment and that made-for-tv horror was definitely having a moment. 1982 gave us Don’t Go to Sleep and if Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a slow burn horror revenge classic, Don’t Go to Sleep makes it look tame in comparison. The movie stars Dennis Weaver, Valerie Harper, Ruth Gordon, Robert Webber, Kristin Cumming, Robin Ignico, and Oliver Robins and follows a family who moves into a new home while mourning the recent death of daughter Jennifer. Pretty quickly, Mary starts hearing her dead sister calling to her from underneath the bed but this isn’t just Ghost Jennifer saying hi. Oh, no. Ghost Jennifer wants to kill the entire family, except for Mary out of revenge because a prank resulted in Jennifer’s death.
The movie has plenty of jump scares, a pretty solid possession plot, and there’s just something about a ghost that wants revenge — especially a kid ghost — that’s terrifying. Mix in the whole idea of the ghost being under the bed and you have a movie that scared the crap out of us as kids and if we’re being honest, is still scary now.
1) Threads (1984)
The United States wasn’t the only country to have the made-for-tv special market cornered, nor were they the only country to have the nuclear apocalypse special cornered, either. A year after The Day After, The U.K. aired Threads and while The Day After was grim, Threads goes full horror. The film notably goes so far as to depict nuclear winter and its impact on society and has been considered the closest to representing what nuclear war would do to humanity — and it’s not good.
The movie follows tow family in the English city of Sheffield when confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union turns into actual war and results in nuclear exchange between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. A young couple is caught up in everything, Jimmy and Ruth, who are planning to marry after discovering that Ruth is pregnant. When things get dire, Jimmy is at the market where everyone is panic buying when the bombs drop and is never seen again while Ruth survives, but that may honestly be worse. Over the course of the film, we see people die from radiation poisoning and worse, society breaking down, and nuclear winter causing mass starvation. A decade later, we see a decimated Britain with a low population that remains devastated and children who are still dealing with the impact of the bombs, including Jane, Ruth and Jimmy’s daughter. The film ends with a very young Jane giving birth to her own child, though it’s heavily implied that the child is horribly mutated or even dead because of the radiation.
Far more graphic and darker than The Day After, Threads is the kind of unsettling that never leaves you. It takes the “what if” of the situation and makes it full on, believable horror that feels all too real. While it was a British production, it was also aired in the U.S. in 1985 so a generation of American kids also got to see it and be traumatized, too.
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