In adapting hardboiled detective novel Falling Angels, writer-director Alan Parker mixes the story’s original noir with the New Orlean supernatural in 1987’s Angel Heart. The gamble mostly pays off. Mickey Rourke brilliantly brings hapless Harry Angel to a terrifying reveal, stoked by the mystery presented by an inscrutable Robert de Niro, while Lisa Bonet makes a striking debut as fresh-faced Epiphany Proudfoot. But what makes Angel Heart work is mixing the post-war disillusionment towards humanity with entities that people can’t ever hope to control, leading the film with the noir-like investigation into a terrifying descent into hell. It’s no wonder Angel Heart eventually garnered cult classic status, even becoming influential to the likes of Christopher Nolan.

This film was initially X-rated, but viewers today might be surprised to see how this was somehow less explicit, but more scary than shows like Game of Thrones.