Awesome to the Max (Part 2 of 4)

17. The Monster Squad: Ever since The Goonies, there were a slew of “Group-of-Kids-Embark-on-Adventure” movies and probably the best of the formula was this movie that combined the aforementioned formula with a loving nostalgia for the classic Universal monster movies.

 

Ever wonder what would happen if Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, The Wolfman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon decided to join forces? Well, it’s up to a group of scary movie loving kids to use their knowledge of horror mythology and seek out an amulet that will send these creatures into another dimension. As a kid, this is kinda scary, but it’s still a lot of fun to watch a group of kids take on these monsters that you used to read about in those thin, orange Crestwood House books that you’d always find on the bookmobiles. Oh, and one thing this movie taught us that those books never did: Wolfman’s got nards!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZs0B0mjXY

16. Flight of the Navigator: What is it about science fiction that was so accessible to kids during the 80s? Was it because Star Wars was such a huge success that studios decided that everything needed to be science fiction? Well, whatever the reason is, we can be thankful because it produced movies like Flight of the Navigator, a story about a boy from 1978 who gets abducted by aliens, then returned to 1986, but he hasn’t aged a day.

 

NASA wants to study him, but he breaks away and goes for a road (sky?) trip with the alien spacecraft that abducted him. And now we’re talking about one of the coolest road trip movies ever! This spaceship can do anything, go underwater, fly at the speed of light, it has a small zoo of aliens on board and it’s pilot is voiced by Pee Wee Herman (sorry, parents). What kid didn’t want to go for a ride on this ship? It’s fun, it’s energetic, it’s cool as hell and it actually holds up pretty well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcTUk3CZ9eM

15. The Rocketeer: Okay, this one technically came out in 1991, but I’m including it as the last movie of childhood wonderment that I saw growing up. This movie literally took you soaring over 1930s Los Angeles like no other movie did before, and, yes, I am including Superman when I make that statement. That’s how amazing the flying effects in this movie were.

 

A stunt pilot stumbles across a smuggled rocket pack uses it to fight back against the mob and the Nazis that are looking to exploit it. Spectacular effects, exciting action scenes and a really cool cast (Jennifer Connelly, Terry O’Quinn, Paul Sorvino, Alan Arkin and Timothy Dalton) help propel this movie beyond a simple popcorn film to being a movie of pure wonder and excitement that is still cool to watch the older you get. And that James Horner score so perfectly captures the wonder of flight that it makes you feel like you’re flying even when you’re sitting down to listen to it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi0Et31E7s4

I feel that I have to include a footnote about James Horner here. In his later career, Horner composed some of the biggest movies of all time (Apollo 13, Braveheart, Titanic, The Mask of Zorro and Avatar), but all of his scores, when you listen to them back to back, really sound the same. But his scores in the 1980s were simply fantastic! I’ve already covered five movies that he composed the scores for (Rocketeer, Land Before Time, An American Tale, Honey I Shrunk the Kids & *batteries not included). I mean, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Aliens, this man’s scores have a direct window into my youth. I honestly want you to sit down and listen to this track from The Rocketeer all the way through and see how it makes you feel when it’s over.

The Rocketeer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgazr_8x0cg

*batteries not included: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnNCTWzMN7o

Honey I Shrunk the Kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlGuSboxrCw

The Land Before Time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfkXHBHGJik

14. The Last Starfighter: Confession time: I saw The Last Starfighter way before I ever played my first video game. Yes, this movie came out in 1984 and I saw it when I was 4, long before I ever got my first Nintendo Entertainment System and long before I found out my neighbor had an Atari. But no matter, I knew arcade games were awesome and I knew that space battles were just as awesome and this movie was a wonderful hybrid of both. 

A young man in a trailer park has dreams of bigger things for himself, but can’t seem to cut a break until he learns that the arcade game he’s mastered was actually a training system to be an intergalactic space fighter pilot. Corny? You bet, but this movie never plays itself too seriously and has a lot of fun with its core story, which makes for an actually exciting story. And to cap it off, it has one of the best, most rousing science fiction theme songs since Star Wars. Yeah, I went there. Every time I hear that theme, it makes me want to strike the hero pose for a triumphant comic book cover. So, yeah, it still holds up that well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q-Qs3loKoc

13. Gremlins 1 & 2: Also in 1984, there were two movies that came out that were too graphic for a PG rating and helped to usher in the PG-13 rating. One appears later on in the list and I’ll cover it later (if you figured it out, spoilers, I know), but the other was a rather impish puppet movie called Gremlins. And let me tell you, this is one dark movie! Set during Christmas, a group of little creatures go on a rampage in a small, Rockwell-ian town, destroying all of the technology and destroying everything in their path. But they all came from what was arguably the cutest diminutive furry creature of the 1980s: Gizmo.

The movie is actually pretty gruesome for the first hour or so and especially during the end showdown sequence, but there are two scenes that are genuinely hilarious. It’s a scene where Phoebe Cates has to tend bar and all of the Gremlins are getting drunk and acting like cartoons of people getting drunk, then they migrate over to the theater to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. These two scenes just make the movie for me because it’s like the puppeteers were given free range to get as nutty and clever with their Gremlin puppets as they wanted. And it works because it actually helps offset the grisliness of the rest of the movie.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24CFZqSEAA

Then flash forward to 1990 and the long awaited sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which I consider to be one of the rare sequels that are actually better than the original. Director Joe Dante went all out in this movie that actually plays as a satire of capitalism and corporations gone mad. The gremlins are loose again, and this time in a New York City skyscraper that’s run by an eccentric billionaire.

Zach Galligan and Pheobe Cates reprise their roles from the first part and do what they can to save the building. But remember those two scenes I mentioned from the first part? Yeah, let that be the tone for the rest of the film. There are jabs at corporate expansions, slimy middle-management yes men, research experiments; you name a hot button capitalistic topic from the 80s, Gremlins 2 took a jab at it. Not only that, but you get some genetically mutated gremlins, one that becomes a spider gremlin, one that becomes a bat gremlin, another one that becomes pure electricity and one who drinks a brain formula and becomes the first Gremlin to speak fluently. Uproariously funny, very clever satire and some pretty great old movie nods make this one of the most enjoyable and most underrated movie experiences I had from my childhood.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGMsBvslV_8

12. Little Shop of Horrors: This is a movie that was wicked cool when you saw it as a child and just got better as you got older. One of the greatest remakes of all time, this was based on the off-Broadway musical that was based off of the 1960 Roger Corman B-movie of the same name about a plant that hungered for humans. And let’s face it, that was one really convincing plant. The special effects and puppetry that went into making it as lively and terrifying as it was were pretty intense.

In fact, they were so intense that for the longest time, I couldn’t watch the last half hour because the plant, affectionately named Audrey II in the movie, was so gigantic and so menacing that the six year old in me got freaked out when it started eating people. But the older I got and the stronger stomach I developed for the movies I watched, I was able to get through to the ending. Then I revisited it a couple years back and the movie’s themes of wanting a better life than where you’re at and what happens when you sacrifice yourself to obtain it really hit home for me. In fact, I’m going so far as to say this is one of the most unrecognized gems of the 1980s, especially when you find out how the movie was really supposed to have ended.

Nonstop fun, fantastic music, brilliant satirical bite and really funny characters make this one of the most cherished nostalgic movies I look back on today and realize how it has gotten better with age. That is what a good nostalgic movie is supposed to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFENSU8CmZk

11. Explorers: Speaking of unrecognized gems from the 1980s, Explorers is a movie that I simply fell in love with the moment I watched it, but became disheartened whenever I would bring it up around my friends and found out that they never saw it growing up. This is a movie I think all kids should see because it is, no joke, about using your talents and abilities to chase your dreams.

Ethan Hawke (in his first movie) begins having weird dreams where he’s flying over a strange pattern, which his scientist friend, a young River Phoenix, determines is actually schematics for a circuit board. The kids put the circuit board together and find out that it is an energy sphere capable of moving any direction they want it to. So what do they do? They, along with their tough outcast friend (who oddly enough didn’t go on to be as recognized as the other two stars), assemble a craft for them to travel in and find out where their dreams are coming from, which the three are now sharing. I love this movie. I cannot express how much I love this movie, the sheer joy that it embodies about having a talent and using it to see how far your dreams reach.

Okay, the third act kind of falls apart a little, but still, the overall sensation that this movie gives the viewers and especially inspires in the kids that watch it, is one that should definitely be embraced, cherished and shared with all generations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EygPaPLWj8k

Now, you’ve heard about the movies that were either really big among my age group or undiscovered gems that I grew up with (and maybe a few others). So what movies made the big ten? What ten movies were such pinnacles of nostalgic childhood entertainment that they deserved such a high placement on my list? Well, chances are, you’re probably seen them. In fact, I’m gonna go so far as to say if you didn’t see most of these movies as a kid in the 80s, you missed out on a huge part of what was a collective childhood at that time for everyone. Some of them, I lumped together because as kids, it’s so hard to imagine one without the other. I do that a lot with my lists, but for good reason, it allows the opportunity for other movies to receive their justified accolades. As for my childhood, they had their own individual impact on me which I will share with all of you as we continue on with my list of the top movies of the 1980s Movies That Made it Awesome to Grow Up in the 1980s.