Wayyyy overhyped?!
I watched this movie for the first time today and it made me realize, people have the tendency to give independent films too much credit. Just because it had a low budget doesn't mean you praise it with glory. It had a very cliche nonsensical story, bad visual effects for its time, dumb script, and just terrible acting. Look at when this movie was made. There were so many horror movies before this that revolutionized the genre; eg: The Omen, The Shining, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Exorcist, Alien, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All of these movies came out within 1 - 10 years before this and did everything better by far.
If your argument is based on "low budget", look at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), it was made 7 years before that with almost the same/lower budget and it looks much better in terms of film quality, cinematography, and special effects. Night of the Living Dead (1968) had less than half of the budget of this movie and did a far superior job. I would've said this was amazing if it was made back in the early 70's or even late 60's but, no... For something that was made so late, way after so many great horror flicks, it brought nothing new to the table. All the effects, story idea, camera work, etc, it was all done before nothing special.
People who think this movie is a classic or a masterpiece are the same people who give directors such as Tarantino (Pulp Fiction to be specific) god-like praise over nothing. A film's rating should be based on how well written the script is, the acting, cinematography, camera work, the plot, the dialogue (part script), and the directing. This movie has a low in all these traits based on when it was made (1981) and its budget. So over hyped for absolutely no reason.
Just because a movie is simply just enjoyable or entertaining, does not mean it is great or deserves any special praise. Just the quality of the film is much more important to consider it a classic or a masterpiece.