There is no plot to speak of in Terror in the Aisles. It is simply a horror/thriller/exploitation clip-show hosted by genre veterans Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen sitting in a mocked-up movie theater filled with all sorts of 80s-looking people. That's it.
Pleasance and Allen use a wide variety of clips to illustrate different types of terror and to ponder why we gravitate toward these movies. Of course, this isn't some deep psychological and sociological discussion. It's just an excuse to show some crazy scenes.
Clips range from classic movies like Bride of Frankenstein to 80s staples like Friday the 13th and Halloween. Nothing is held back, including all the gore and nudity included in the scene in its original form. You get the head explosion from Scanners, the crazy shape-shifting monstrosities from The Thing, PJ Soles' death scene from Halloween, Jaws eating a bunch of people (yeah, I know that's not the shark's name - it's Jabberjaw), and all sorts of scenes from Ms. 45, Alligator, The Marathon Man. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and so on.
A lot of these were old favorites, and it was fun to revisit some of them in "highlight reel" form. But best of all, Terror in the Aisles introduced me to a number of movies I had never heard of or had not previously had a desire to see that I now want to track down, like Nighthawks (with Sylvester Stallone), Vice Squad (looks intense), and others.
If you want a look at the state of horror early in the 80s and how horror has changed over time, Terror in the Aisles has you covered. It's very investing that this movie - this clip show - actually got a theatrical release and made a very respectable $10 million back in 1984. I guess that just goes to show that audiences love their horror movies and want to revel in them whenever they possibly can. Some things never change.
