Happy Class of 88 Month, everyone! Here at Daily Dead, we’ll be spending all of July celebrating all of the classic genre films that are turning 30 this year. With that in mind, this writer thought it might be helpful to put together a list of all the horror and sci-fi movies from 1988 so that you could be a part of our month-long celebration. So for those of you who are looking to check out a few of these films that may not already be a part of your own personal media collections, here’s where you can either rent or stream for free over 40 different movies from what was a banner year for genre cinema.
One quick note: this list doesn’t include every single title that was released during 1988, as there are numerous films out there you can’t quite get your hands on digitally just yet. But with over 40 movies available, I’m sure there’s enough here to keep you busy over the next few weeks. Enjoy!
Alien Nation
In 1991 Los Angeles, a human detective teams up with his alien, counterpart to prevent an extraterrestrial drug dealer from poisoning the community.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on All Major Platforms
Beetlejuice
When a recently-deceased ghost couple find their now-vacant home invaded by an obnoxious family, they hire a sleazy ghost who gets rid of humans to help them.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on All Major Platforms
Child’s Play
Young Andy Barclay gets the doll he wanted. However, he did not know it was alive!
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU; Available to Rent on All Other Major Platforms
C.H.U.D. II: Bud the CHUD
When snooping kids at a school science lab discover a corpse and accidentally let it roll away, they need a replacement fast. They find one at the local hospital, but this is no ordinary corpse, this is "Bud the Chud," a cannibalistic humanoid underground dweller.
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU; Available to Rent on Amazon
Critters 2
Eggs of the small, furry alien carnivores are left behind on Earth and, after hatching, again set their appetites on the town of Grover's Bend.
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU; Available to Rent on Amazon
Dead Heat
Maverick L.A.P.D. officer Roger Mortis is a good cop who will do anything to nail the bad guys. Investigating some frightening goings-on, Mortis and his partner, Doug Bigelow pay a visit to Dante Laboratories. It is here that they discover the high-tech Resurrection Room churning out a weird band of recycled and indestructible criminals. And it is here that Mortis meets his untimely death.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon & VUDU
Dead Ringers
Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon & VUDU
Earth Girls Are Easy
A Southern California girl befriends three furry aliens after their spaceship lands in her swimming pool.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on All Major Platforms
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Upon arriving in a small town where she has inherited a rundown mansion, a famous horror hostess battles an evil uncle, and townspeople who want her burned at the stake.
Where to Find It: Free on HULU; Available to Rent on Amazon
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Ever since homicidal maniac Jason Voorhees got trapped in chains at the bottom of Crystal Lake, the nearby summer camp has operated without a hitch... without a murder. But one of this season's happy campers has brought along a deadly secret.
Where to Find It: Free on the Starz Channel; Available to Rent on All Major Platforms
Ghoulies II
The Ghoulies are back in this sequel in which they take over a traveling carnival giving a park full of teenagers a night they'll never forget.
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU; Available to Rent on Amazon
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece on Halloween. Can Dr. Loomis stop him?
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
In 1988, it emerged as the shocking follow-up to the film that redefined the face of horror. Two decades later, it remains the most brutally original sequel in horror film history. Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence and Kenneth Cranham co-star in this hit sequel from executive producer Clive Barker that experiences the flesh like no other.
Where to Find It: Free on Shudder, HULU & Netflix
High Spirits
When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon & VUDU
Hobgoblins
A young security guard must track down diminutive aliens who kill people even as they make their fantasies come true.
Where to Find It: Free on Screambox & VUDU (Both Standard and Elvira Versions)
Howling IV: The Original Nightmare
Haunted by a series of unnatural happenings and hounded by her worst nightmares, a young and beautiful writer Marie Adams heads for the sanctuary of a rural hideout in a desperate bid to regain her sanity - only to find a horror far more deadly than her own deranged imaginings. From the depths of the forest he's calling, waiting for the full moon, to hunt Marie down; to take her on a terrifying journey into the gaping jaws of death. As night descends, the Howling rises again to shatter the stillness of the night.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon
Jack’s Back
A young doctor is suspected when a series of Jack the Ripper copycat killings is committed in contemporary Los Angeles. When the doctor himself is murdered, however, his identical twin brother comes forward.
Where to Find It: Free on Shout/Scream Factory Streaming & Shudder; Available to Rent on YouTube & GooglePlay
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Aliens who look like clowns come from outer space and terrorize a small town.
Where to Find It: Free on Amazon & HULU
Lady in White
An author tells the story of how, as a young boy growing up in a 1960s small town, he was haunted after witnessing the murder of a little girl.
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on VUDU
Maniac Cop
Innocent people are brutally killed on the streets of New York by a police officer. A young cop finds himself marked as the chief suspect after his wife is murdered. As he investigates the death toll rises and he suspects a mysterious police cover-up. This "maniac" cop must be stopped, but it might not be so easy. He seems inhuman, ready to take on the entire police force and hell-bent on revenge!
Where to Find It: Available to Rent on Amazon & VUDU
Masquerade
Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly star in this psychological drama about a wealthy young woman who becomes tangled in a web of passion, deceit and heart-stopping suspense after her stepfather wants her killed.
Where to Find It: Free on Amazon; Available to Rent on VUDU
Monkey Shines
A quadriplegic man has a trained monkey help him with his paralysis, until the little monkey begins to develop feelings, and rage, against its new master.
Where to Find It: Free on Amazon & HULU
My Best Friend is a Vampire
After a sexual encounter with a beautiful client, a teenage delivery boy finds himself being turned into a vampire.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
My Stepmother is an Alien
Alien Kim Basinger marries astrophysicist Dan Aykroyd as part of a plan to save her home planet from destruction.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Night of the Demons
Ten teenagers party at an abandoned funeral parlor on Halloween night. When an evil force awakens, demonic spirits keep them from leaving and turn their gathering into a living Hell.
Where to Find It: Free on Shout/Scream Factory Streaming & VUDU
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Freddy Kreuger (Robert Englund) resurrects--hideously scarred--and returns to haunt the dreams of the teenaged children of the people who lynched him. It's just a nightmare ...
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Phantasm II
The ultimate evil - the Tall Man of Phantasm - returns in this terrifying horror film about the relentless and unstoppable mortician on an even more sinister murderous rampage.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Poltergeist III
In the climactic finale to the Poltergeist trilogy, those elusive demons are more frightening than ever as they follow Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) to Chicago and inhabit an entire skyscraper.
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU & the Starz Channel; Available for Rent on All Other Major Platforms
Return of the Killer Tomatoes
It's been 25 years since the Great Tomato War, and tomatoes are still banned throughout the country. But a terrible plot is being hatched.
Where to Find It: Free on the CONtv Channel; Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Return of the Living Dead II
Inquisitive kids release deadly gas from a misplaced military canister, causing corpses from a nearby cemetery to rise and wreak havoc.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Scarecrows
Five crooks rob an army base payroll and kidnap a pilot and his daughter, who are forced to fly them to Mexico. One crook parachutes out with the money--followed closely by the others.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on Amazon
Scrooged
A selfish, cynical television executive is haunted by three spirits bearing lessons on Christmas Eve.
Where to Find It: Free on the Starz Channel; Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers
The grisly murders that terrorized Camp Arawak have become favorite ghost stories around Camp Rolling Hills six years later. As each of the campers learn the secrets about the murders, their carefree days at summer camp come to an end.
Where to Find It: Free on VUDU; Available for Rent on All Other Major Platforms
Slugs
It all began in a sleepy Midwestern community, a place that had never known evil...until now. But years ago, in a stillness beneath the waters, something sinister happened, and now its deadly spawn are emerging from the depths into the light. What are these hungry, mutated creatures after? Any piece of flesh they can get, including human beings!
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on Amazon & VUDU
Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama
Three frat boys sneak into a sorority to see pledge initiation and are caught, ending up forced to steal a trophy. When the prize breaks, an evil imp begins wreaking havoc.
Where to Find It: Free on Shudder
The Blob
A malignant, gelatinous life form takes over a small town in this visually gut-wrenching thriller.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
The Lair of the White Worm
In a remote corner of England's Peak District, a mysterious skull is unearthed. But even weirder is that Lady Sylvia steals the skull for use in worshipping -- very erotically -- her pagan god, The White Worm, who hungers for the taste of virginal flesh.
Where to Find It: Free on the Showtime Channel; Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
The Serpent and the Rainbow
An anthropologist goes to Haiti after hearing rumors about a drug used by black magic practitioners to turn people into zombies.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
The Seventh Sign
Abby Quinn is eagerly awaiting childbirth but is haunted by dreams where she suffers a miscarriage. When she decides to rent a room to a mysterious stranger, she realizes a chain of events that will unleash the end of humanity.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
The Unholy
A priest battles a demon that kills sinners in the act of sinning.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
They Live
A drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth.
Where to Find It: Free on the Starz Channel; Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Waxwork
A wax museum owner uses his horror exhibits to unleash evil on the world.
Where to Find It: Available for Rent on All Major Platforms
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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