1980s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

If you hated Eureka (Nicolas Roeg 1983) so much, make sure you don't bother with his 'Insignificance' or the truly awful, 'Track 29', Dom.
Wife, Theresa Russell, was brilliant in 'Bad Timing', Roeg's last decent picture - at least I stopped even looking after 'Track 29' - but I think his mistake was to make her even more a centre of his film universe.
He should never have let her cut his hair!

I've seen Bad Timing, which I liked (though not enough for it to make my list), and Insignificance, which I didn't like but was still a million miles above Eureka. I think the only other late period Roeg I've seen is the Witches, but that was when I was much younger. I was interested in Track 29 before watching Eureka, but now... I think even I have limits on what I'll willingly watch!

[Yojimbo]

I've seen Bad Timing, which I liked (though not enough for it to make my list), and Insignificance, which I didn't like but was still a million miles above Eureka. I was interested in Track 29 before watching Eureka, but now... I think even I have limits on what I'll willingly watch!

I didn't actually think Eureka was that bad, but it was clear that Roeg was on the slippery slope.
With Track 29 , it was clear that he'd 'fallen down a well'!

[domino harvey]

Ha, apparently Mark Cousins put Eureka on his Top 10 of all time for Sight and Sound. I knew I was avoiding his recent film docs for a reason!

[Yojimbo]

Ha, apparently Mark Cousins put Eureka on his Top 10 of all time for Sight and Sound. I knew I was avoiding his recent film docs for a reason!

Of course some people like to promote as unappreciated Masterpiece a film that nobody rates, to make them seem as some 'deep thinker', who's discovered the 'Rosetta Stone' to a film's 'inner meaning'.

Of course, we know better!

[knives]

It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books
Why is Linklater dressed like a rent boy in this? I ask because that piece of weirdness is the closest thing this home movie collection comes to be interesting. If you wanted to know how in the '80s people got money, shopped, and listened to voice mails well I guess this is the movie for you. I get the sense that maybe Linklater was trying to morph James Benning's style to the narrative realm, but even under that condition the film is just really uninvolving.

Falling in Love
It's not really a much talked about quality in film, but pleasantness can be such a joy to find even when it isn't wrapped up in the greatest package in the world. This film perfectly exemplifies this by having an okay script and the misfortune of Meryl Streep, but coming across as simply wonderful through sheer niceness. No one is a villain with every character no matter how small sketched into a fully formed human. The pacing too allows one to simply stand back and appreciate the actions of the characters. The end result is a film overburdened with empathy which just gives an emotion of loveliness. Nothing here is revolutionary, though Streep is shockingly humane, but it doesn't need to be given that is actually contains the rare cinematic treat of joy.

Around the edges of the picture, particularly with the glimpsed at story of Harvey Keitel's marriage, there emotes a darkness, but that stuff works to make the film feel more true to reality giving weight to the main pair's decisions in a way that doesn't take away from the pleasure of the film. In fact one of the interesting things about the film is that it seems to use Grosbard's experience with theater to create a space between the audience and what goes on de-romanticizing the experience without condemning the individuals. There's an anthropological permissiveness that I didn't expect out of a romance where rules of the genre usually dictate taking a moral perspective. We're just seeing these people for who they are.

En rachâchant
I love these two to death, but comedy was something I'd never expect in earnest from them so pardon my surprise when this turned out to be one of the most hilarious films I've seen recently. A lot of credit, of course, has to go to Duras' excellent writing, but their insistent to go further and further into deadpan until the face truly disappears into a formless mass makes it work better than could be imagined. Yet for how much I was howling and breaking my ribs the tragedy of the end cut like a knife to which I must bleed out from. This honestly might be the best thing I've seen from them.

Someone to Watch Over Me
To give credit where it's due Scott's direction has never been more evocative than with the violence here which despite being phoned in miles ahead has a visceral impact that never leaves during the course of the movie. That as a quality would put this ahead of most of Scott's other films, but unfortunately that frightening black humour never gels fully with the film rarely able to balance the theatricality seems to love with the humour the script is constantly professing. Maybe under the direction of someone like the Coens (though with every other element the same) the film could have broached the greatness that it seems entirely capable of.

Though that brings up the plot which is more than underbaked. Scott does really well though bringing a De Palma slime to its Bodyguard form allowing the film a sense of transgressive existentialism. The film doesn't commit fully to its themes of loss of identity and transfiguration which makes the proceedings feel too safe at times.

The Milagro Beanfield War
After the recent shocks of Ordinary People and The Company You Keep I'm basically willing to trust Redford anywhere he decides to take me, but jeez the idea of him making a culture clash comedy with a poster as whimsical as the one here seems like a kiss of death. Fortunately this isn't just a good film but an amazingly great one that feels fortunately removed from the politics of Hollywood while embracing the best stylistic elements of the studio system. It's also most surprisingly very, very hilarious.

It's almost amusing how Redord with child like glee subverts expectations of this sort of film giving it no sense of culture clash. Just take a look at the Daniel Stern who in a lesser movie would be some lamed audience identification character who's point of view would turn alien the outlook and experiences of the real characters. Instead he doesn't come to the film until a quarter of the way through and is mostly on display as a way to point out his own ignorance and reveal in the nonchalance the main characters have in their own culture (which should be a no duh, but still seems like a breakthrough given the audience segregation that still goes on). In fact the highlight of the film for me was when Stern interviews the Carlos Riquelme and gets no answer he wants. Even when it seems like might whitey in the form of John Heard will save the day by organizing everyone to rebellion he fails hard core and has to get bailed out and chewed out by the only person sympathetic to him.

I suppose this sense of what I'm astonished by is best summed up by Christopher Walken's villain. The whole role is reminiscent of what he did in Heaven's Gate though his relationship with the people is far more dastardly here. He utilizes his knowledge as a way to suggest his superiority to outsiders, insiders, and all the rest. It's not a large part (fortunately the film spends more time on the Milagrovians than I have), but it gets to the heart of the film's satire.

[Mr Sausage]

X Ray AKA Hospital Massacre (Boaz Davidson 1982) By my count this is the 80th slasher I've seen from this decade (and that bodycount will only go up as I work my way through the unwatched stacks) and even by the pretty low standards of this genre, this is a total failure. It's not even the third best hospital-set slasher, and that's about as specific as these kind of distinctions can get! What a shame that Shout Factory rescued this from the VHS shelves over countless other superior examples. The film itself is so mediocre and safe that it seems pre-edited for USA Up All Night, with mild, mostly unseen killings and one piece of gratuitous nudity courtesy of the Playboy Playmate occupying the lead that could be easily excised for TV airing. The whole film, in fact, could be easily excised. Two closing thoughts: 01, This film takes place in possibly the only hospital in existence to have never heard of fluorescent lights, or indoor lighting in general. 02, For some reason every time the murderer executes one of his PG killings, the soundtrack turns itself over to some singers chanting "He sees you, he sees you" so hurriedly that it starts to sound like "Little Caesars, Little Caesars." And that was the only interesting thing that happened in 89 minutes!

Eighty slashers? Christ in heaven, domino, I stopped watching giallos at an unnecessary sixty, and after that I seriously doubt I'll be watching another for a long time (and only if it gets a pretty ringing recommendation from colinro#### or somebody). And that subgenre at least could boast a consistent European weirdness even in its worst examples. So eighty slashers...I can't even...

[flyonthewall2983]

I read that the sudden influx of low or no-budget slashers in the 80's were a result of the sudden popularity of VHS rental and that the major and leading independent studios were not able to meet the demand so these films (I'm a little fuzzy on this particular point) were made as a way of doing that.

[domino harvey]

Eighty-one, I miscounted. And remember, that's only from this particular decade-- the total number is higher. I can give an exact count for 80s film though because I'm working off an incomplete checklist of 80s Slashers (I say incomplete because there are so many that the list grows longer and longer all the time with each new discovery not listed), but I've only seen 81/235 from this list, which means I've still only experienced a little over a third of what's out there (and probably less than that since the list is not definitive)

You know it's all this board's fault, right? I was talking smack on slashers, realized I didn't really know enough to do so with confidence, started watching a bunch of them, and then I fell down the rabbit hole of finding them interesting tone pieces, with variations on a common theme becoming the interest factor. I don't really find these films good, but I do find them interesting, and it's a weird case where the more I watch, the more worthwhile the whole lot is since it's all about how they work in tandem with each other. Plus it's important to note how many negative misconceptions concerning the genre go away the more examples you study. Considering how sensitive I am to these things in film in general, the alleged misogyny especially-- I had a funny encounter with my gf's college mentor where she was excited and with me on my studying of these films from a feminist approach until I mentioned that overall the bulk of the work doesn't support the misconceptions of sexism, etc, and she turned her mouth down and looked like she wanted to shoot lasers out of her eyes. I guess this well-respected academic institution frowns upon evidence that contradicts a convenient thesis! It's also of value to consider how these films are really the dominant independent cinema of the decade, not Jarmusch et al.

Flyonthewall: Yes, in part. VHS copies for rental from major studios were too expensive to stock many titles for mom and pop shops, so indie labels and distros could get more of their products, many of which were slashers since these sold and were rented in high number, into rental shops by having a far lower list price.

[flyonthewall2983]

Porn flourished as well during that period, changing the game like Hefner did the generation before.

[domino harvey]

Indeed, though there your audience was limited to those over 18 (and your titles were segregated in a room with a beaded door). Since most slashers didn't even bother to submit to the MPAA (and those that did usually had a theatrical run first, something that mostly went away as the decade progressed), anyone could rent them. Same for the silly college sex comedies of the decade, though those generally found more life on premium cable stations in need of appealing product to fill new hours of TV than video shelves. Slashers of the volume and construction we see this decade could only have existed and thrived under the conditions they were under. And if nothing else they certainly kept artists capable of producing compelling grotesque images for VHS covers in the pink!

[flyonthewall2983]

This seemed to repeat itself in the music industry not that much later on, with the volume of hair bands that came out with the same formula of poofy hair, spandex and power ballads. The difference being that those bands were briefly with major labels and all those movies were independently released.

[Mr Sausage]

Eighty-one, I miscounted. And remember, that's only from this particular decade-- the total number is higher. I can give an exact count for 80s film though because I'm working off an incomplete checklist of 80s Slashers (I say incomplete because there are so many that the list grows longer and longer all the time with each new discovery not listed), but I've only seen 81/235 from this list, which means I've still only experienced a little over a third of what's out there (and probably less than that since the list is not definitive)

You know it's all this board's fault, right? I was talking smack on slashers, realized I didn't really know enough to do so with confidence, started watching a bunch of them, and then I fell down the rabbit hole of finding them interesting tone pieces, with variations on a common theme becoming the interest factor. I don't really find these films good, but I do find them interesting, and it's a weird case where the more I watch, the more worthwhile the whole lot is since it's all about how they work in tandem with each other. Plus it's important to note how many negative misconceptions concerning the genre go away the more examples you study. Considering how sensitive I am to these things in film in general, the alleged misogyny especially-- I had a funny encounter with my gf's college mentor where she was excited and with me on my studying of these films from a feminist approach until I mentioned that overall the bulk of the work doesn't support the misconceptions of sexism, etc, and she turned her mouth down and looked like she wanted to shoot lasers out of her eyes. I guess this well-respected academic institution frowns upon evidence that contradicts a convenient thesis! It's also of value to consider how these films are really the dominant independent cinema of the decade, not Jarmusch et al.

Flyonthewall: Yes, in part. VHS copies for rental from major studios were too expensive to stock many titles for mom and pop shops, so indie labels and distros could get more of their products, many of which were slashers since these sold and were rented in high number, into rental shops by having a far lower list price.

Stop tempting me with your compelling reasons!

Although given what you say above about variation and repetition, maybe you ought to rewatch Stagefright, one of my favourites and a slasher with an uncommon level of technical expertise and cliche avoidance, since I remember your original pan boiled down to being tired of the stalk-and-slash formula.

Also, I'd be interested in seeing a list of your favourites, if you have one, tho' maybe that's for another thread.

[domino harvey]

Completely subjective 80s Slasher recs based on viewings thus far. "Best" here translates to most-memorable or worthwhile. A board search should pull up longer thoughts on all of these from me in the Horror List thread

Well, if you are only going to see one slasher, I still think it should be the Slumber Party Massacre, which is Roger Corman cashing in on the craze with a non-stop barrage of basically everything you could ever expect from one of these films (the only thing missing is the surprise reveal of the killer) in 75 short minutes. The best of the original post-Halloween cash-ins is Terror Train. The best of the camp-set slashers is the Burning. The best hospital-set slasher is Bad Dreams. The most creative use of location goes to Intruder. The best treatment of mental institutions as slasher fodder is Alone in the Dark. The best Friday the 13th film is either the second if you want a serious take, or the sixth if you want the parody. The best Halloween wasn't made this decade. The best Nightmare on Elm Street is the third, though it is superfluous in the face of Bad Dreams. The best self-reflexive slasher is Anguish. The best holiday-themed slasher is My Bloody Valentine. The best performance in a slasher is Terry O'Quinn in the Stepfather. The best revenge from the past slasher is the Prowler. I have a lot of the deep woods-set slashers still in my unwatched gully, so I abstain from that call for now. The best worst slasher is A Night to Dismember. The worst worst slasher is the Nail Gun Massacre.

EDIT: Having now seen all the prominent backwoods slashers, none are worthwhile from this decade. And I forgot to mention best sorority/fraternity slasher, which is the House on Sorority Row (and the remake is even better)

[Yojimbo]

As far as I'm concerned, once you've seen Bava's 'A Bay of Blood', you really don't need to see another slasher movie.
Or do I?
He did it with such style, and - as the late Kenny Everett might say - in the best possible taste

[bamwc2]

the Great Mouse Detective (Ron Clements / Burny Mattinson / Dave Michener / John Musker 1986) While the Little Mermaid is likely the only Disney film from the decade to get my vote (and it's well deserved)...

This leaves me wondering whether anyone plans to vote for or intends to re/visit The Black Cauldron? I have only the foggiest memories of seeing it in theaters when I was a boy, and haven't seen it sense. Its available for streaming on Amazon. Perhaps I'll give it a shot one of these days.

[Gregory]

For me, the most worthwhile slasher film of the '80s is Eyes of a Stranger, which superficially seems to repeat many of the tropes of the slasher subgenre but fundamentally reverses and undermines them. Having read a couple of tossed-off critiques of it elsewhere, I'll say that criticisms of it as misogynistic don't hold water. Any scene of a man murdering a woman can be criticized for presenting the act on film for voyeuristic pleasure, and that's often a valid claim, but here that voyeurism is part of the point of the film: it's part of the way that the characters in the film interact, not something simply presented for the viewer. And because the internalized trauma of rape and abuse is one of the main keys to the film, and women are clearly the protagonists (and not simply objects), it's one of the least misogynistic slasher films I've ever seen.

[knives]

I think we, then, have different definitions of misogyny as the film seems about as straightforward in these regards I can think of. Also it just is not a good film.

[Gregory]

It's not straightforward, for the reasons I've already outlined. "It just is not a good film" doesn't bring anything to the discussion either.

[zedz]

"It just is not a good film" doesn't bring anything to the discussion either.

I think this is the point where you're supposed to yell "Is too!" and say something about his mother.

And in ten years time the trauma of this incident will turn you both into serial killers, tracking down the forum members who were watching this all unfold. It is also revealed that knives' troubles really began when his parents decided to call him "knives."

[Yojimbo]

"It just is not a good film" doesn't bring anything to the discussion either.

I think this is the point where you're supposed to yell "Is too!" and say something about his mother.

Seconds out, second round!

[knives]

That deserves a slow clap. Anyways I wrote about that film more in depth in the horror thread and I really don't care for it enough to expend energy writing about it again.

[colinr0380]

I've seen Bad Timing, which I liked (though not enough for it to make my list), and Insignificance, which I didn't like but was still a million miles above Eureka. I was interested in Track 29 before watching Eureka, but now... I think even I have limits on what I'll willingly watch!

I didn't actually think Eureka was that bad, but it was clear that Roeg was on the slippery slope.
With Track 29 , it was clear that he'd 'fallen down a well'!

The thing with Track 29 is that it is as much, if not more, rooted in Dennis Potter as Roeg, based on Potter's play "Schmoedipus", the title of which was probably changed as it was a massive spoiler and should tell you all you need to know about how seriously the Oedipal subtext is taken! It actually got adapted a few times for television, with a "Play For Today" 1970s version featuring Tim Curry in the part Gary Oldman would later take on! Track 29 is replacing the repressed Britishisms of a faded, loveless marriage and curtain twitching gossipy neighbours with a too-young Southern housewife trapped alone in a house just waiting for her girlfriends to pop over and with time to brood. There are a lot more Potter-obsessions thrown into Track 29, particularly the Brimstone and Treacle one of an devilish, previously repressed figure coming back to destroy a family. We should also count ourselves lucky that there is only the one meta-musical number (the other major Potter motif) in the scene where Christopher Lloyd leads a gathering of model train enthusiasts with the verve of a political campaign rally!

All of this really reached its peak in the Potter directed (the only feature film he directed) Secret Friends starring Alan Bates. The film seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth since its 1994 television screening but I remember it being almost impenetrable and full of mysterious overwrought (and hilarious!) symbolism. I'd love to revisit it again some time though to see what I might make of it twenty years on!

Anyway Track 29 is deeply flawed, and there are only flashes of some of the Roegian style of old. But worth a look if just to say that you've seen Sandra Bernhardt and Christopher Lloyd having a causal workplace conversation in Lloyd's dentists office while she gets dressed up in dominatrix gear and proceeds to give him a good thrashing! Or Russell's harrowing flashback story to her teenage fairground assault by a carny told to a steadily more unnerved girlfriend who just came across for a friendly mid-afternoon chat! Or Gary Oldman jumping naked from a closet onto the shocked Lloyd in perhaps one of the weirdest slasher film moments of the 80s, and one of the most blatant 'return of the repressed' moments ever put on film!

It also might possibly contain the most unhinged and over the top Gary Oldman performance, which is quite a feat!

[Gregory]

Here's the knives comment on Eyes of a Stranger from the Horror List thread:

The Jennifer Jason Leigh vehicle is worse, but more entertaining. There are still huge elements of giallo here particularly in the mystery set up and the fantastic ending. The thing that keeps the not killing scenes lively is that the movie opening scene aside doesn't really bother with victims and tries to (not very well) develop it's characters. The misogyny is also a bit excessive which puts a damper on the proceedings, but there's been worse.

Per usual, I can barely make any clear sense out of any of this.
It's not really a Jennifer Jason Leigh "vehicle," because she was an unknown actor at the time and is not in the lead role here.
There isn't a "mystery set up" because the film allows us to see the killer early on rather than keeping us guessing about who he is. It's much more of a suspense kind of horror film.
The criticism of character development isn't fleshed out at all, so I don't know what you were getting at there, but the two sisters at the center of this film have more agency, motivation, intelligence, and emotional connection to the violence in the film than the (potential) victims in any other film like this that I've ever seen from the slasher cycle post-Black Christmas.
Calling something misogynistic without explaining how doesn't help anything and in fact adds to it being an over-used accusation, taking away the force of it when it really is merited.
Anyway, you've said don't want to write about it more, and I don't really want to have an argument. I just wanted to put in a recommendation for it because it's long been maligned in very hasty ways and was never treated fairly from the word go upon its release, and I think it deserves some serious assessment for once.

[Yojimbo]

I've seen Bad Timing, which I liked (though not enough for it to make my list), and Insignificance, which I didn't like but was still a million miles above Eureka. I was interested in Track 29 before watching Eureka, but now... I think even I have limits on what I'll willingly watch!

I didn't actually think Eureka was that bad, but it was clear that Roeg was on the slippery slope.
With Track 29 , it was clear that he'd 'fallen down a well'!

The thing with Track 29 is that it is as much, if not more, rooted in Dennis Potter as Roeg, based on Potter's play "Schmoedipus", which was probably changed as it was a massive spoiler and should tell you all you need to know about how seriously the Oedipal subtext is taken! It actually got adapted a few times for television, with one in the 60s and a 1970s version with Tim Curry in the Gary Oldman part! Track 29 is replacing the repressed Britishisms of a loveless marriage with a faded Southern housewife trapped alone in a house just waiting for her girlfriends to pop over and with time to brood. There are a lot more Potter-obsessions thrown into Track 29, particularly the Brimstone and Treacle one of an devilish, previously repressed figure coming back to destroy a family. We should also count ourselves lucky that there is only the one meta-musical number (the other major Potter motif) in the scene where Christopher Lloyd leads a gathering of model train enthusiasts with the verve of a political campaign rally!

All of this really reached its peak in the Potter directed (the only feature film he directed) Secret Friends starring Alan Bates. The film seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth since its 1994 television screening but I remember it being almost impenetrable and full of mysterious overwrought (and hilarious!) symbolism. I'd love to revisit it again some time though to see what I might make of it twenty years on!

Anyway Track 29 is deeply flawed, and there are only flashes of some of the Roegian style of old. But worth a look if just to say that you've seen Sandra Bernhardt and Christopher Lloyd having a causal workplace conversation in Lloyd's dentists office while she gets dressed up in dominatrix gear and proceeds to give him a good thrashing! Or Russell's harrowing flashback story to her teenage fairground assault by a carny told to a steadily more unnerved girlfriend who just came across for a friendly mid-afternoon chat! Or Gary Oldman jumping naked from a closet onto the shocked Lloyd in perhaps one of the weirdest slasher film moments of the 80s, and one of the most blatant 'return of the repressed' moments ever put on film!

It also might possibly contain the most unhinged and over the top Gary Oldman performance, which is quite a feat!

I'm not really sure Sandra Bernhardt is my bag, Col, but I'm not completely sold on Potter, which perhaps didn't help either.
But more than anything what sticks out for me is Roeg pushing Theresa Russell even more than in 'Bad Timing' ; which, if it isn't the pinnacle of her acting career, I'd really like to see what was

[zedz]

The thing I recall about Track 29 (apart from the fact that it wasn't very good) was that it featured one of the most egregious and self-destructively arbitrary 'relocations' of any adaptation I've seen. The material is absurdly, almost stereotypically 'British' (and I think this would be problematic even if the film weren't geographically dislocated), from its toy train obsession to its tired, smarmy, 'naughty' sexuality (ooer, missus), and transposing it to the US only exposes the shallowness of those cliches and makes the whole thing collapse into a shambles of weirdly irrelevant affectations.

I've never seen the original Schmoedipus, but on the basis of this it seems to be one of Potter's weaker efforts from an extremely prolific and worthwhile period. If you want to see how truly great a focussed, feature-length Potter script can be, check out Blue Remembered Hills, which was in contention for my 70s list.