I don’t really know why, but I’ve been on an 80s kick lately. Maybe it’s the lamest mid-life crisis ever. The 80s do remind me of a time when life was full of promise, and I had much more to look forward to than gradually breaking down body parts and maybe a grandchild or two someday.
I started an 80s song thread awhile back, and I’ve found a trove of 80s horror movies on Amazon Prime I’ve been having fun working my way through-- some I’m rewatching through older eyes, some I never caught the first time around. I watched one the other day I had never even heard of before, though it seems like it was a reasonably big budget production with a couple fairly big names-- “Nomads” with Pierce Brosnan and Lesley-Anne Down.
Nomads is a little different than the typical “bunch of horny teens getting slaughtered one at a time” 80s horror genre, it’s a bit more of a grownup’s version of a horror movie. And without getting into spoilers, its central horror premise was somewhat interesting. But it does show its 80s colors by having a delightfully cheesy 80s soundtrack, and my favorite 80s trope of all time, the Gang of Evil Punks. I swear, every 80s movie had that trope. Mainstream America must have been terrified of them. I remember punkers first-hand-- they used to hang out on Main Street in Royal Oak, Michigan where I used to live. They were harmless, Mohawk haired, army jacketed teens who hung around smoking but not really bothering anybody. So I always laugh when I see scary gangs of punks causing all kinds of mayhem in movies.
Hey, in addition to sharing your favorite 80s trope (doesn’t have to be just horror-related), feel free to recommend any 80s movies you’ve seen on the streaming channels (Prime, Netflix, Hulu) that are classics of the genre but may have been overlooked (I’ve seen most of them).
I don’t know about “favorite” but I can think of tropes so ubiquitous that they nearly become rules in the art of film making.
A trope not limited to the 80s, but it seemed to begin there ( I lost my teen-hood in the early 80s ) was of well-heeled high school teens possessing whopping amounts of autonomy. Expensive automobiles, either the teen’s own, or a parent’s, involving hijinks thereof, with swimming pools being one of the favored ends of an out-of-control ride. Also involves out-of-control parties that utterly trash upscale homes.
There was the Vietnam veteran who spent years living in Asia to become a martial arts master.
A subset of this trope was the Ninja, who became invisible by dressing like an 18th-Century Japanese (in public, in broad daylight), and carrying a 3-foot sword (usually in a city where a 6-inch pocketknife was illegal as hell).
Speaking of knives, I think it was in the 1980s when Bad Guys stopped carrying switchblades, and started carrying balisong knives.
The training montage. Set some clips of a person doing something to some awesome 80s tune and boom, instant expert. If only it was so easy in real life.
Redlettermedia listed one that I think was very common in the 80’s. They called it the “No-Look Look” trope. I have never seen the exact thing on Tvtropes.
It’s specific. An officer arrives back on the crime scene, but he finds the FBI or another federal agency there. The federal officer is looking at the crime scene and does not turn to see the police officer. He shows his badge over his shoulder and says something like, “FBI. We’re taking over now.” <----that is the “no-look look” moment, the insulting no-look and flash of badge to the inferior officer.
I can’t pinpoint an example, but Redlettermedia acted it out and it seemed super familiar.
Oddly, that TV Trope entry fails to explain why they call that particular trope “The Quincy Punk” other than to say “…nothing to do with President John Quincy Adams”.
I kind of feel like when Larry pulled that gun on Wez and his friends and called them “faggots” in Weird Science, that was kind of a “hate crime”. It was certainly a dick move. I mean so they were riding motorcycles in the house and being rowdy? There was already a Pershing missile in the bedroom, the kitchen has magically turned blue and most of the furniture was blown out the chimney.
That said, the wild out of control teenager party where hundreds of randoms show up was definitely an 80s trope.
Most problems could ultimately be resolved through martial arts - Karate Kid, Rocky II and IV, Road House, Norris, Segal, JCVD, etc. Right eventually makes might.
The best job in the world is a circa 1980s Wall Street trader or investment banker.
Thanks, I thought of “Quincy M.E.” But had a hard time imagining punks being so prominent on the show that its name become a TV Trope. Would love to watch that episode if I could get access to it somehow. Maybe YouTube? I’ll have to investigate.
If IMDB is to be believed, the CHIPS battle of the bands episode was released earlier in the year than the Quincy episode. I’m not interested enough in TV Tropes to find out if the Quincy episode was thought to be the first or became more iconic for some other reason.
