In Search of Darkness: A Journey Into Iconic '80s Horror

Great mix of horror clips and interviews. The only person who I found annoying due to his fake weather man/newscaster voice was the overly-animated host of Dead Meat on Youtube. I don't mean to single him out but the guy should consider toning it down as it smacks of phoniness. The rest of the interviews seemed great and authentic and it was a fun throw back to see all the clips of 80's films. Awesome watch for horror fans.

Complete list of films as discussed in order.

1980 1.) The Fog 2.) The Changling 3.) Friday the 13th 4.) The Shining 5.) Dressed to Kill 6.) Fade to Black 7.) Motel Hell 8.) Maniac

1981 1.) Scanners 2.) My Bloody Valentine 3.) The Howling 4.) The Burning 5.) American Werewolf in London 6.) Full Moon High 7.) The Evil Dead 8.) Halloween II 9.) Ghost Story

1982 1.) Cat People 2.) Basket Case 3.) Poltergeist 4.) The Thing 5.) Halloween III 6.) Q - The Winged Serpent 7.) Creepshow

1983 1.) Videodrome 2.) The Hunger 3.) Psycho II 4.) Cujo 5.) Sleepaway Camp 6.) Christine

3-d sub-section 1.) Friday the 13th III (3-d) 2.) Parasite (3-d) 3.) Rottweiler (3-d) 4.) Amityville 3 (3-d) 5.) Jaws 3 (3-d)

1984 1.) Children of the Corn 2.) Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter 3.) Firestarter 4.) Gremlins 5.) A Nightmare on Elm Street 6.) Night of the Comet

1985 1.) The Company of Wolves 2.) The Stuff 3.) Day of the Dead 4.) Fright Night 5.) Return of the Living Dead 6.) Howling II 7.) Silver Bullet 8.) Re-animator

1986 1.) Chopping Mall 2.) The Toxic Avenger 3.) Poltergeist II: The Other Side 4.) Psycho III 5.) Maximum Overdrive 6.) Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives 7.) The Fly 8.) Night of the Creeps 9.) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 10.) From Beyond

1987 1.) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 2.) Dolls 3.) Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn 4.) It's Alive III: Island of the Alive 5.) The Lost Boys 6.) The Monster Squad 7.) Hellraiser 8.) Near Dark

1988 1.) Critters 2 2.) Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood 3.) Killer Klowns from Outer Space 4.) Phantasm II 5.) The Blob 6.) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master 7.) The Lair of the White Worm 8.) Elvira: Mistress of the Dark 9.) Pumpkinhead 10.) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers 11.) The Live 12.) Child's Play 13.) Hellbound: Hellraiser II

1989 1.) The Burbs 2.) 976-Evil 3.) Pet Sematary 4.) Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan 5.) Stepfather 2 6.) Society

I was looking forward to this documentary, but after slogging through almost four and half hours, I'm disappointed. There are too many titles missing, too much time spent on the usual Freddy and Jason series, and the titles they do include are given short shrift.

It seems like the creators were going for quantity over quality. And some of the talking heads are a little tough to take, especially the obnoxious James Janisse from the Dead Meat channel. He's obviously reading his lines, and trying to sell them like a used car salesman.

Seeing John Carpenter was cool, but we learn almost nothing new from him here.

While this is an ambitious attempt to document 80's horror, it misses the mark.

Count me amongst those who were ecstatic at the prospect of a four and a half hour documentary on my favourite decade of horror, the 1980s. I felt disappointment set in pretty early however, as the obvious budget limitations had the film feeling like a slightly better produced YouTube video. That feeling may have also stemmed from a number of the talking heads being actual YouTube video bloggers. These people can be entertaining at times, but are ultimately little more than fans themselves. I would have preferred their time given to other folks actually involved in the making of these films. Then again, if Joe Bob Briggs was simply allowed to talk for four and half hours we would have gleaned much more than we did from the ensemble.

The best moments of In Search of Darkness were the sections in which the cultural and historical relevance of 80s horror was analyzed. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the doc is comprised of simple and brief commentary on classics of the decade. The decision to structure the discussion year-by-year (marked by title cards) made the project feel laborious at times.

I'm glad I watched the film, in the sense that it felt like talking about horror movies for an afternoon with fellow fanatics. Don't expect a deeply thorough examination though.

This brings 2 of my favorite types of movies together horror and documentary's!! The way in brings in actors writers and talking heads to talk about tons of different ways these 80 horror movies touched a lot of our lives. Very fun watch even tho it is pretty long but no 1 time did i feel bored there's so much great info about some of the most popular and some of the cult classics i really think any fan of 80 horror should give this doc a try