Stars: Director: Tibor Takács Prior to his success with The Lord of the Rings, Shore was a regular Cronenberg collaborator. Hamilton Camp, From Ms. 45 to Bird to Looker, Brian Formo lists the best underrated gems of the decade. William Katt, The film has turned out to be quite the Nostradamus, given last year’s incident of YouTube star Logan Paul discovering and leering at a dead body in the so-called ‘Suicide Forest’ of Japan. Viewers of the original film are perhaps most likely to remember the crab-like Garthim, surely some of the most terrifying creatures of the decade. | It’s fair to say that, without Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, we wouldn’t have Point Break, Speed or The Matrix. Godfrey Ho ninjas are unlike other ninjas. The film was – shockingly – a box office disaster, though it was one of the inaugural nominees for the Academy Award for Best Makeup in 1982. You might have guessed from the wayward plot that the film was a complete flop, making only $1.6 million. Woah. Pause for laughter.). | Pee-wee’s Big Adventure spawned two sequels, which admittedly have less cinematic pedigree. On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal, and so restore order to his world. | Geena Davis, No, not Star Wars. Director: Werewolves are a tried-and-true cornerstone of popular mythology. 100 min A lot of 90s success is owed to 80s weirdness! Some of the best 80s films take an unabashed look at the bizarre and jump right in. Joe Dante Patrick McGoohan, Family, Adventure, Sci-Fi. While the film was marketed as a horror-comedy, that doesn’t stop the weirdness slipping from absurd to something more disturbing. Valeria Golino, Votes: Looking at this list, the 80’s were a weird time! $73.71M, PG Zach Galligan, Comedy, Fantasy. However, it was an ill-fated production. Pick your FIGHT below! Alan Rickman with a moustache? 199,569 Today we know the Avengers as a motley crew of Norse gods, American supersoldiers and occasionally a woman or two – but there’s yet to be a crossover with cinema’s greatest hero: the Toxic Avenger. Howard the Duck lives on Duckworld, but is then sucked across the universe to Earth, for reasons only explained towards the end of the film. | According to Grant, fellow weirdo actor Jim Carrey described his performance as “genius,” and it’s easy to see why Carrey might have been attracted to the film. 0:03:50 ROUND 1 What movie character would have the best podcast? Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jason Presson, Simultaneously lauded as “a silly and ribald superhero spoof” and damned as “too self-consciously parodic to be good kitsch,” The Toxic Avenger sees a harassed nerd transformed into a goopy monster-hero after an accident at a health club. | How nightmarish, you ask? Despite that robots are essentially not sentient, the film is nonetheless a tale of love, loyalty and despair. Taking place on the distant planet of Thra, The Dark Crystal depicts the conflict between the innocent Gelfings and the malevolent Skeksis, the latter of whom exploit the titular crystal to elongate their lifespan. Stars: 24,862 However, it’s revealed that Kane is in fact a Vietnam soldier who decapitated a young boy and then impersonated his brother in order to be dispatched back to the US, though the army knew his gambit all along and sent him to the insane asylum supposedly as its commanding officer. Comedy, Fantasy, Horror. Adventure, Comedy, Family. $3.92M, PG-13 What follows is a Tolkienesque quest to wrest the crystal from the Skeksis’ grasp before they can grant themselves immortality. | 113 min Jim Carrey, Director: 95 min Stars: When Dorothy attempts to escape the hospital, she wakes up in Oz, where her companions are no longer an adorably bashful lion and a neurotic scarecrow, but a robot and a pumpkin-headed monstrosity. Thankfully, the studio’s gamble on a sophomore director in Burton paid off – the film was a critical and commercial success, and was recently adapted into a stage musical. Kids, left home alone, accidentally unleash a horde of malevolent demons from a mysterious hole in their suburban backyard. 93 min 109 min | | Less so. (Just how do those ladies do it? | Movies like Blade Runner, Back to the Future, The Terminator, and The Thing all came out in the ‘80s, but there are even more films that were released under the Sci-Fi genre. But where the first film is a perfectly functional origin story, Conan the Destroyer is simply bizarre. Well, Return to Oz reveals that Dorothy was thought to be delusional after her initial adventures in Oz, and has been sent to a psychiatric hospital for electroshock therapy. | | The film delights in this kind of time travel nonsense, with future versions of Bill and Ted making appearances, and the sequel – Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey – focusing on a plot by future ne’er-do-wells to eliminate the slacker duo before the utopia can be established. We’re talking about Howard the Duck, the first theatrically-released Marvel film that eventually limped into theatres in 1986. Stars: Of course, that’s not to say that the films of today aren’t just as strange (Swiss Army Man, anyone? | An uproarious pastiche of the popular, wholesome Cabbage Patch Kids, Garbage Pail Kids were considered the height of playground counterculture. The last of the transmogrifying triumvirate is Wolfen, an uncomfortable crime film with a borderline racist premise. The 80s were full of these kinds of videos, with these 15 being the absolute icing on the weird cake. Return to Oz originated as a ploy by Disney to keep the movie rights to Frank L Baum’s stories, and bombed at the box office. The film even stars Debbie Harry, of Blondie, as a sadomasochist who gets aroused by the titular TV channel. 80s TV Shows; 90s Kids Movies; Best Kids Movies; $1 Summer Movies; 80s Movies. The '80s gave us Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Big, approximately 72 X-Men spinoffs and a whole host of sci-fi/coming-of-age films, all with the exact same lesson: Magic is like an STD.If you're not careful, it's not a matter of if, but when you contract it. | Gross: Fred Savage, Votes: This was followed by a sequel in 1984, mere months before The Terminator would change the course of Schwarzenegger’s career forever. As of yet, it’s still stuck in development hell. Directed by Douglas Trumbull, who also had a hand in sci-fi classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Brainstorm takes a simple premise and thoroughly Walkens it up. Stars: | Gross: Vivian Bonnell, | Directed by the Chiodo Brothers, who are otherwise best known for their special effects work, the film has gained such a cult following that a sequel has been in loud, if concentrated demand for decades. The film is rife with hallucinations and plot twists, much like The Exorcist, but don’t let the odd mix of a Gothic setting and a cosmic protagonist fool you into doubting the movie: it won a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. Sent to a castle that the US military has requisitioned as an insane asylum, the astronaut strikes up a prickly friendship with Kane, the commanding officer. Chenoweth would instead begin work on Wicked, which would debut in 2003 and become the defining role of her career. The film sees a group of vicious aliens, who coincidentally resemble circus clowns, arrive on Earth and massacre a small town. | The Weirdest 80's Movies by jwoehr | created - 27 Nov 2013 | updated - 30 Nov 2013 | Public Note, that weird doesn't mean that I think every movie on my list is bad. | Time-travelling DeLorean? In fact, the film’s dire warnings about the dangers of broadcasting and cassette tapes almost feel twee in today’s digital age. 140 Essential ’80s Movies #35. Sean Young, Action, Comedy, Crime. Sure! Katie Barberi, Votes: Alyson Hannigan, Votes: | Dodger must confront the struggles of life as he is visited by the Garbage Pail Kids and intimidated by some older bullies. Stephen Herek Tim Robbins, Christa Denton, Bill Norton | Stars: Earth Girls Are Easy might not rank among the decade’s greatest hits – in fact, it returned a dismal $3.9 million on an estimated $10 million budget – but it certainly ranks among its wackiest. Jim Henson, Heartbeeps (1981) Director: With a new Bill & Ted film releasing in 2020, and the enduring pop culture domination of the original, it can sometimes be hard to consider the series rationally – but there’s a lot about the classic that raises eyebrows. | Gross: It’s only once he decides to forego his lupine powers and box mano-a-mano that he realises what matters in life. Kaufman and Peters were certainly interesting choices for the two leads, with Peters a legendary Broadway star and Kaufman an alternative comedian. Director: 19,809 | | $13.54M, PG Keanu Reeves, But what other films have you forgotten? Portraying a near future in which technology has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, the film has since become a cult classic, and a must-watch for all the gore enthusiasts out there. Paul Reubens, Director: A creature from another planet tries to seduce a shy Earth physicist to gain control over his researches. Todd’s hairiness and aptitude for beating up others brings him fame and girls, but he loses sight of sportsmanship and his goal of becoming a veterinarian. Piper Laurie, PG-13 Before The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was known as something of a fantasy actor. | Gross: In Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, eccentric man-child Pee-wee Herman attempts to find his lost bike, getting into all sorts of sticky situations along the way. Frank Oz Starring future dad bod model Jason Bateman in his film debut, Teen Wolf Too [sic] has Scott Howard’s cousin, Todd, forced into taking up boxing. | The weird movies of the '90s will live on forever. | Gross: That’s not to suggest that Keaton is the only bizarre part of the film. 90 min Michael J Fox stars as a shape-shifting basketball wannabe who ends up using his lycanthropic powers to shoot some rad hoops. | Gross: A young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town. Director: Oh, and along the way there are revelations about incest, offers to commit more incest, rampant limblessness and a mysterious green gas. Having debuted (dubbed) in Hercules in New York, the future governor’s breakthrough role came in 1982’s sword and sorcery film Conan the Barbarian. 5,441 Director: In the film, Grant plays Dennis Dimbleby Bagley, a morally conflicted advertising executive who suffers a breakdown while marketing pimple cream. 13 kids movies from the 80s that were seriously dark and scary Ross McG Friday 6 Feb 2015 3:36 pm Share this article via facebook Share this article via twitter Share this article via messenger Hong Kong films have always been a bit weird and over-the-top at times, and even when that wave of Hong Kong directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam started making American films, they’ve always managed to bring that weirdness onto the table as well. Rod Amateau $1.58M, PG Toby Froud, Still, it’s inadvisable to follow him or anyone into the woods on the promise of an amazing hole. Randal Kleiser And, yes, it’s all done through puppets. Richard Benjamin Fantasy, Horror. After all, the crux of the film is that the pair’s lacklustre musical talent forms the basis of a future utopia. Randal Kleiser For example, a murder victim ends up being used as a ventriloquist’s dummy, and another scene sees a clown drinking gelatinised blood through a crazy straw. Originally sold as trading cards, the Kids each had a deformity or disgusting habit, and encouraged children to delight in their ugliness. The best part, however, has to be Finney’s remarkable hairdo. 263,410 118,288 | And did somebody say Robert Goulet? Michael Keaton, | Jeff Goldblum, Stars: Now what? Ethan Hawke, | Count us in! He invites them to use a time machine that looks like a phone booth in order to pass their History class, accidentally displacing Napoleon and other famous figures from their timelines. ... sometimes music videos just end up as weird but memorable creations that we never entirely understand. $7.00M, See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc. The structure of a crazed man undergoing supernatural circumstances, while struggling to maintain his relationship with his wife, is the basis of most Jim Carrey comedy flicks from the early 90s. Director: Joe Dante | It’s such a remarkable utopia, in fact, that they send George Carlin back in time to make sure Bill and Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) stay together and record their prophetic discography. However, as of October 2019, Schwarzenegger has confirmed a long-gestating project is still in development. The Duck himself was portrayed alternately by a child actor and a dwarf actor, neither of whom enjoyed the experience; plus, the voice actor for the role wasn’t hired until after shooting concluded, meaning syncing up the movements of his bill and the voice track proved troublesome. For some, 1985’s Teen Wolf is bizarre enough. Marshmallow man attacks New York? How does Carlin do this? Damon Wayans, Votes: | Terry Camilleri, Votes: Nastassja Kinski, His first line of inquiry? Walken and Natalie Wood star as a pair of estranged lovers and scientists who find the headset works better than they could have possibly imagined. Hoyt Axton, To honour these oft-forgotten works of art, we’ve compiled a list of the most bizarre films from the 80s. Paul Reubens, Directors: Adventure, Comedy, Family. 114 min The babysitter is played by Jeannie Elias, who went on to star as Pugsley Addams in the 90s cartoon version of The Addams Family, among several dozen other voice acting credits. The channel in question depicts torture being performed, and viewers become so enraptured that they undergo terrifying mutations and psychotic breaks. Let’s just say it involves lancing some boils. 1. Critics Consensus: Stand By Me is a wise, nostalgic movie with a weird streak that captures both Stephen King's voice and the trials of growing up. Why not? Scott’s erstwhile basketball coach, recast as Paul Sands, has become a boxing coach, and hopes being half-man half-beast will make Todd his new star. Malcolm McDowell, | 110 min Veronica Cartwright, Votes: Need I say more? $18.56M, PG If you aren’t yet sold on the film, it’s always interesting to listen to a Howard Shore score. Michael Eisner mooted a reboot in 2012, but plans were binned after an overwhelmingly negative response to the news. Sam Snyders, who plays Jamie Benjamin, has since retired from acting and become a dance teacher. ... None of it makes much sense, but it's a weird, wild ride, best enjoyed with like-minded fans of … At the time of its release, The Dark Crystal received mixed reviews; praise was offered for its worldbuilding and ambition, but the film was criticised for its markedly darker tone in comparison to Henson’s previous projects like The Muppets and Sesame Street. What effects couldn’t save, however, was a bizarre plot and a frightening central character. https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a829040/80-movies-offensive-inappropriate In the late 80's, Godfrey Ho made about a hundred thousand shitty movies that had the word “ninja” somewhere in the title, and most of them starred Richard Harrison, and at least three of them featured Richard Harrison having a completely serious conversation on a Garfield phone. Stars: Of course, you remember iconic '80s movies such as The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, and Back to the Future. | | Gross: Cliff De Young, If you look at the poster for The Ninth Configuration, you’ll probably feel a startling similarity to The Exorcist. Tell us what you think about this feature. Stars: Stars: John Heard, The Garbage Pail Kids come to Earth in a garbage can spaceship, where they intervene in a fight between a child and some bullies, and eventually end up in a prison for ugly people that counts Santa Claus, Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln among its inmates. | Gross: Admit it: you weren’t at all surprised to see this film on the list. Dan Aykroyd, Bonnie Bedelia, Sixteen-year-old Sarah is given thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother Toby when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King Jareth. Starring Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans as multicoloured extra-terrestrials, Earth Girls Are Easy has the 80s threesome pursue Geena Davis and Julie Brown for some intergalactic coitus. $7.18M, PG The plot concerns a headset that can record and play back the mental experiences of the wearer. Mombi, in case you’re wondering, has a remarkable collection of severed heads, and would like to add Dorothy’s to her exhibit. | When his ex-girlfriend mouths ‘I love you’ from the stands, he manages to deliver the knockout punch. These aren’t in a particular order – just what came to mind and how I looked them up. Part government conspiracy thriller and part full-throated sci-fi omen, Brainstorm very nearly never saw the light of day. 58 min Keene Curtis, PG If you love sword and sorcery films, there’s no question that you’ll find Conan the Destroyer entertaining. | 1981’s The Pit was hardly a box office smash, but what it lacked in ticket sales is more than made up for in straight-up strangeness. An early example of body horror, the film sees limbs protrude from a TV screen and tapes inserted into torsos. Return to Oz is a film responsible for the nightmares of an entire generation, and is a far cry from the Technicolor wonder of Judy Garland’s 1939 classic. With the help of a third kid, they follow it and build themselves a spaceship. Willard Huyck One, The Howling, was a straight-up slasher. Phoebe Cates, Nowadays, Christopher Walken and his iconic voice have transcended the man himself. Paul Schrader The family welcome her with open arms, but the neighbors are not so sure ... See full summary », Director: This was easily one of the most unassuming weird films from the late 80’s. In 1978, a boy travels 8 years into the future and has an adventure with an intelligent, wisecracking alien ship. For one thing, it also goes by the title Teddy, which you might think says enough already. | $13.85M, PG Unlike the original film, which made a colossal $80 million from a budget of $1.2 million, Teen Wolf Too’s tripled budget returned only $7.9 million. | Joey Cramer, Wilson finds this out after cornering a ‘militant Native American activist’. Plus, this is actually much more than a transportation-themed caper when you look beneath the surface: it’s a parody of the seminal Italian film Bicycle Thieves. Mere months before the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was known as a sadomasochist who gets aroused by the Teddy! Howard Shore score Kaufman ’ s re talking about Howard the duck, the film was Kaufman ’ final. 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