"Worst" movies of the 80s

Cafe Society
1

Inspired from the same source that inspired me to start the “Top 100 songs of the 70s” thread.

This is not intended to be a thread about the worst movies of the 80s. We could do something similar for any decade. The 80s were special. The hair, the music, the spandex, and leg warmers made it a unique decade. I’m looking for movies that may have been considered watchable at the time, but have been rendered so incredibly obsolete by that culture that they are laughable today. I’m talking movies that make you grateful that that terrible decade is long since dead and buried.

Include your reasons.

Some possible earmarks of bad 80s movies:

-Includes a fantasy sequence with a 3-minute pop song, obviously designed to get airplay on MTV.

-Main character has Flock of Seagulls haircut. (Or for the inginue, a poodle cut.)

-Leg warmers appear in any part of it.

-A part has been cast with a pop star.

-The plot is intricately linked with the politics of the time, i.e. Reagan-era cold war.

-Brat Pack vehicle

-Main title music uses a drum machine

-Punks feature prominently

My entries:

Gotcha

Drum machine, cold war politics, bad hair.

Dune

Sting is in it. Score by Toto.

Can’t Buy Me Love

Bad hair, bad hair, leg warmers, and more bad hair.

Footloose

Total material for MTV, with little other redeeming value.

2

Bastard!

Now I have ‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ stuck in my head.
War Games has all the ‘problems’ you mention but it is still watchable.

St. Elmo’s Fire was, IMHO, never watchable.

“What is the president of the Young Democrates Association doing working door to door for the Republicans?”

“Moving up for a change.”

3

First thing that popped into my head was Zapped.
It does’t really fit all your criteria, but maybe we could toss in a “Scott Baio” and “gratuitous boobs” clause for bad 80’s movie.

4

Cobra

A rolling clicheathon even at the time, it hasn’t aged well and if it couldn’t get any worse, Bridgette Nielson is in it…

5

Dragnet

It is utterly boring and unfunny. It’s still the only movie I have ever walked out on.

6

The correct answer is Howard the Duck.

Honorable mentions:
Mannequin - Andrew McCarthy falls in love with a mannequin while doing his own mannequin-like acting performance.

Less than Zero - even Robert Downey Jr’s performance can’t redeem it.

7

Agreed. On a similar but different note, The Breakfast Club was entirely steeped in the 80s, but it’s such a good movie that it can’t quite make the list.

18 Again is such a consumately bad 80s movie, but the badness goes far beyond the decade. Aside from the bad haircuts and horrible party music in highschoolers at horrible keggers scenes, we get a relative unknown actor (Charlie Schlatter) doing a bad imitation of George Burns. That’s pretty much the entire plot.

While Summer Rental is one of my favorite movies, it makes the list. As much as I loved Kerri Green, she was the flagship actress of horrible 80s movies. Add in John Laroquette, an MTV-wannabe montage, and cliched cultural stereotypes, and we’ve got a true winner here. It even includes that silly instrumental song made famous by Beverly Hills Cop.

8

Can’t Stop the Music (1980)

It’s the fictional musical/comedy backstory of the Village People with Steve Gutenberg and Bruce Jenner. Unfortunately, it’s just bad and, IIRC, the disco backlash was under way by the time the movie was released.

9

Love that title sequence, though, with a montage of different feet dancing to Kenny Loggins title song.

10

You can’t have **Footloose ** without thinking of Flashdance.

11

I can’t remember the name of the movie but it was a John Travolta/Jamie Leigh Curtis flick about working out in a gym. Pretty much the ultimate in legwarmer screen time.

Let’s not forget Breakin’ and even worse, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. These may not have *all * the elements of the 80’s, but they are so saturated with that quintisenntial 80’s element: breakdancing.

12

You people are not even scratching the surface. I give you:

Body Rock - Lorenzo Lamas plays “Chilly,” a dude from the streets with wicked break dancing moves who must answer the eternal question, fame and fortune or stay with my broke-ass street buds?

Over the Top - Sylvester Stallone as Lincoln Hawk, a widowed trucker who has to win back the love of his son through competitive arm wrestling.

Rhinestone - another Stallone vehicle, this time playing an obnoxious cab driver who, on a bet, Dolly Parton must make into a country music superstar.

Staying Alive - John Travolta reprises his role from Saturday Night Fever and wears leg warmers and a faggy headband while doing it. Of course you’re not gay, Mister Travolta! Directed by Sylvester Stallone.

Perfect - Travolta again, this time as a hard-hitting investigative journalist for Rolling Stone (!) sent to Southern California to investigate the fitness craze. Features an entire cast in leotards and leg warmers, plus Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner doing aerobics.

I had HBO in the 80s, I could list these for days.

13

My vote for worst film of the 1980s would go to the Hunger. This flick epitomizes the mid-80s credo of excessive style and no substance. It’s got a pop star (David Bowie), it’s got big hair (Susan Sarandon’s “dyke”-do), it’s got yuppie psuedo-classiness (lesbian vampire-seduction scene set to opera music), it’s got opening credits that looks like an MTV video (featuring “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, a bad 80s flashback if ever there was one.) It’s got the atmospheric soft-lighting of a Bonnie Tyler video. And it all comes off the worse because it’s all done so seriously. The director seemed to think he was making a genuinely great cinematic masterpiece, rather than the campy fluff it really was.

14

:confused:
[ul]
[li][del]Includes a fantasy sequence with a 3-minute pop song, obviously designed to get airplay on MTV.[/del][/li][li][del]Main character has Flock of Seagulls haircut. (Or for the inginue, a poodle cut.)[/del][/li][li]Leg warmers appear in any part of it.[/li][li][del]A part has been cast with a pop star.[/del][/li][li]The plot is intricately linked with the politics of the time, i.e. Reagan-era cold war.[/li][li]Brat Pack vehicle[/li][li][del]Main title music uses a drum machine[/del][/li][li][del]Punks feature prominently[/del] Unless you count “cyberpunks” :)[/li][/ul]

15

You’re all wrong. It’s Galaxina. Imagine a low-budget softcore porn movie with the sex and nudity excised. That’s two hours and five dollars I’ll never see again. Yes, I saw it in the theaters, first run.

16

**Xanadu

Flash Gordon

**

17

You know that game “Fuck, Marry, Kill?” You could do the same thing with “Rhinestone, Breakin’ 2, or pull your eyeballs out.”

*The Last Dragon * merits consideration, I think. There’s a pop star in the cast as the love interest (Vanity), and even better, a non-actor in the lead! (Taimak as “Bruce” Leroy Green.) I don’t know if you’d call Sho’Nuff’s gang punks, but they’re close enough. I remember some crummy music and haircuts, especially on Vanity.

It doesn’t fit many of the criteria in the OP except perhaps for legwarmers, but there’s something about the cheesiness of Gymkata that really screams “80s!” to me.

18

Teen Wolf Too. Hey, we got the fat guy back from the first one, green light this mother!

19

Tron – I’ve never been able to watch more than about two minutes’ worth of it. (Was I missing anything redemptive about it?)

20

Red Dawn

Taps