Savage Streets / *** (1984)

Good comedies are a dime a dozen. Mediocre ones ride a crowded wave occupied by the most consistent of underachievers: the same school of filmmakers that persist in the tired trend of momentary gross-outs, sight gags and juvenile humor associated with the human digestive system. Unintentional ones, on the other hand, are another commodity – they come from that place of mistaken values that is sometimes so vacuous of common sense, we are left with no other solution than to howl in protest. Consider “Savage Streets” as an example of this latter classification, and you begin to see beyond what can otherwise be surmised as a god-awful “Death Wish” rip-off. Not a single scene of the movie is modulated as if it were in sincerity. Characters speak to each other in vulgar soundbites that are detached from rhythms of the moment, seeming as if they are merely hurling graphic vulgarities at dead space for effect. And then there is a notable sequence in which two teenage competitors – one played by Linda Blair – engage in fisticuffs in the middle of the girl’s locker room while their naked classmates bounce up and down in enthusiasm. In any ordinary movie, these would be prime examples of sheer tonal absence. But then you take them into the context of a full running time that is chock-full of after-school-special melodrama, hammy acting, hackneyed back stories, implausible scenarios, overzealous cruelty, laughable sentiment and trashy and implausible violence, and you begin to suspect those involved have set out to make the most hilariously bad movie of its time.

Children of the Corn / * (1984)

A great evil lurks in the fields of Gatlin, known only to a select few who have been ensnared by its mental claws. All those who do not accept it – mostly adults – are destined to become its famous first victims, as shown in an early sequence where the young narrator watches as rows of adolescents slaughter them at a local diner. Few beyond the town’s borders know of what transpired there, but a token mechanic living on the outskirts provides all the perfunctory warnings to those passing through. “Well, folks in Gatlin’s got a religion,” he tells a couple searching for a phone. “They don’t like outsiders.” And so the stage is set for the two oblivious leads to get lost on the road, wander into the abandoned town square and begin a bloody face-off with kids who otherwise would be carried off to youth detention centers in any normal reality. Piece all these elements together and you have the default premise for countless teenage splatter films; add in a few extra touches like excess violence with farm weapons, bad child actors mugging for screen time and a preacher who sounds like he is choking out his ponderous sermons, and what you have is the greater offense of “Children of the Corn.”

The Initiation / * (1984)

A group of fresh-faced 20-somethings assemble in the halls of a sorority house to pledge their loyalties during hell week. One of them, seen in the early scenes waking from a violent nightmare, is to be the primary target of a series of impending pranks; being beautiful and wealthy are traits easily exploited by the more vain and narcissistic, especially while she seems oblivious to them. Dialogue is formal but laced with underlying resentment, as if more than mere looks and prestige divide the cliques. But these are not motions to imply more secrets between them – only gestures used by novice actors who have yet to formulate a plausible manner in front of the camera. In a way they acquire that behavior both from inexperience and from the misguided endeavors of their director, who was on his first (and last) film assignment here in the months preceding “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” which was credited with adding a potent psychology to the tired dead teenager formula. His “The Initiation,” which survives in the periphery of an inexplicable cult status, is one of the last genre excursions preceding that transition, and certainly one of the dumbest: every single scene exists not to stimulate the excitement of the audience, but to suggest a sense of laughable frustration on part of individuals who have no clue as to what they are doing.

Romancing the Stone / ***1/2 (1984)

There is an observation in the last five minutes of “Romancing the Stone” that provides a great framework for the material that comes before: in it, romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is staring out of a window in the building of her publisher, who has just finished reading her new manuscript and offers a brief glimpse into her client’s silent desires. “You are now officially a hopeless romantic,” she says. “Not hopeless,” Joan corrects: “hopeful.” And with that remark comes the realization that her preceding adventures – be they about love or dangerous encounters with treasure-hungry foreign rebels – do not always have to end with the damsel being lost in the shuffle of less optimistic realities. Even when her romantic interest, the brave but mysterious Jack (Michael Douglas), leaves her standing at the site of her near demise, she isn’t resigned to a morose perspective. She believes, rightfully, that one day it will all come to a happy ending, and one that is authentic to the context of what the movie has built us up to.

Gremlins / *** (1984)

Childhood joys often settle in the eyes of little fluffy creatures that capture our hearts, and for me no greater instrument for such possibilities resonated more than a small gremlin named Gizmo. As a child of the ‘80s, there were certainly ample opportunities to find comfort in the company of sympathetic movie creations – including Spielberg’s famous E.T. and George Lucas’ misunderstood Ewoks – but something about a cute furry beast with long ears and big brown eyes bypassed all others as a source of visual comfort. To me, he embodied every trait necessary in creating youthful wonder: innocence, clumsiness, fear of the unknown and a certain gutsiness that spilled over when a plot insisted a level of danger onto those he cared about. The adorable factor was the most minor of those facets but no less critical, and when one brought all of those qualities together in the figure of something so delightfully endearing, there was scarcely a moment where we could walk away from the experience not wishing he was real (or better yet, actually part of our lives). And that’s the truth even after one acknowledges the bizarre anatomical characteristics he comes cursed with.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" Revisited

“Here is a film that compares to some of the greats of the genre: a film that can be no closer to reality; a film that matches us against our true fears. No, there has never been a movie like it, and there never will be.” – taken from the original Cinemaphile review of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”

The transcending nature of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is not in how it establishes a unique premise or even an important villain, but in how its actors buy into the material with such vivid implications. When Wes Craven first made his daring and graphic foray into the nightmarish visions of weary teenagers, how was he to know that it would provide more than just a momentary thrill for audiences of that generation? What were the odds that it would be cited so many decades later as a critical benchmark in the evolution of mainstream horror films? Could he have predicted that Freddie Krueger, such a vicious and unrelenting S.O.B., would also persist in the memory bank of notable movie villains? It is because his cast of relative unknowns believed in what they were submitting to with such unwavering conviction that the tragedy of their existence throbs on so effectively in our modern awareness, often informing the movies that continue to emerge from its shadows. Absorbing it now, thirty years from the first moment it shattered the dead teenager genre’s proverbial glass ceiling, is like reliving a primitive (but powerful) attempt at understanding a dangerous world of evil. It forces us to inherit these nightmares as if extensions of our own.

The NeverEnding Story / ***1/2 (1984)

As a general rule of thumb, the movie buff is wise to plead ignorance on most things associated with 80s movie fantasy. Widely seen as the decade of origin for this cinematic subgenre, the results were often coarse and uneven, limited not just by over experimental (and overzealous) writing but also by technical limitations that often clashed with the entire purpose of fantasy, which is to be taken to places beyond the wildest in imagination. Some attempts were of ample satisfaction (“Willow” and “Ladyhawke”), others just plain mediocre (“Labyrinth”) or, worse, ridiculous (“Legend”). John Boorman’s “Excalibur” was the only of its kind to break free of those chains and remains the defining spectacle of that time, but, perhaps, not widely accepted as such since its source material is rooted less in pure fantasy and more in literary legend.