1985 was the WORST Year for Movies - Part Five

Yeah, that's right.

You just look at these bad boys here and you think about what a wonderful, beautiful year 1985 was, full of hope and promise and love...

AND NEW COKE.

The absolute worst, most horrid, disgusting thing anyone could put in their mouth that wasn't dipped fresh from a sewer - at least that we were made aware of.

And what year did this come out again...? Hmm? Take a guess? Anyone?

I think I made my point: in a year that gave the world a drink product that caused rioting in the streets and a mass exodus from a popular brand due to sheer seething hatred, it only makes sense that these double terrors represent the bile that rises every time anyone think of the year 1985.

And just like New Coke, many motion picture products were released in 1985 that made the viewer retch, convulse, vomit, hallucinate and require a series of painful abdominal shots to recover from. Well, okay...maybe not the shots, but you know what I mean.

So let's revisit this sad period in man's development and find out just why most almanacs jump from 1984 to 1986.

In no random order, let the screaming start:

WARNING SIGN

Another one I'd almost completely forgotten about. It's a Three Mile Island/China Syndrome allegory, I think. This time involving a science facility and accidental contamination. Sam Waterston, G.W. Bailey (fresh from Rustler's Rhapsody) and Yaphet Kotto do their thing, whatever their thing was. I kind of remember zombies, or mutant scientists. I think. But this was a drama, so I doubt these zombies/mutants were the cool kind, anyway....



THE NAKED FACE

Roger Moore not only went out with a fizzle as James Bond in A View to A Kill, but also played a thoroughly UN-James Bond character as a psychiatrist accused of murder. Based on a Sidney Sheldon book (Sidney, of course, not having the best track record for movies) and also featuring Rod Steiger and Elliott Gould (who weren't exactly in their respective primes in the Eighties), nothing really works in terms of acting, story or Bryan Forbes' direction. Forbes also directed the 1975 Stepford Wives...maybe that accounts for the robotic pace herein?



HELLHOLE

Sleazy killings by Ray Sharkey. Amnesiac doe-eyed flitting about by Judy Landers. Chemical lobotomies in a psychiatric hospital/asylum manned by Marjoe Gortner and Mary Woronov. Fun? Not for a second. And all darkly and cheaply directed by Pierre De Moro, whose biggest claim to fame was directing...the kiddie film Savannah Smiles. Yeah; go look it up. Quite a swing, huh?








FAST FORWARD

A cast of no one you've ever heard of stars in ANOTHER dance movie about kids who want to make it big at a dance contest. Heard of it? That and about 4 million others like it, I'll bet. But how many of the others were directed by Sidney Poitier? Hmm? That's right: Mr. Tibbs stepped behind the camera for this one. And while Poitier is best-remembered as lenser for Uptown Saturday Night, A Piece of the Action and Stir Crazy, after this one, his last directing gig was Bill Cosby's Ghost Dad. So much for respectability....



AVENGING ANGEL

Oh yes, a sequel to a film that was no great shakes itself. 1984's Angel was a grindhouse sleaze masterpiece about a high school honor student who moonlights as a hooker. This sequel, while more of the same, somehow seems even worse. When you find yourself missing Dick Shawn playing a drag queen, there was something missed in the story re-telling department.






SWEET DREAMS

Beverly D'Angelo did a remarkably sympathetic job playing Patsy Cline in 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter. Unfortunately, she was unavailable for Sweet Dreams, and Jessica Lange had to fill in. Without reading for the part prior, apparently. But the worst offense is a choppy, uneven story in which Ed Harris doesn't even make an impression. And when it comes to lip-synching, give me Beverly D'Angelo any old day.






KING SOLOMON'S MINES

Poor old Richard Chamberlain. He was the king of TV miniseries (as evidenced by "Shogun") but movie success was far more elusive (check out any of his Irwin Allen disaster flick acting turns). The worst part is, though, in a Golan-Globus ripoff of - SHOCK! - Raiders of the Lost Ark, Chamberlain, Sharon Stone and Herbert Lom ham it up in the most irritating way possible, but there's a difference between parody and overplaying it. A difference unlearned by anyone involved with King Solomon's Mines.




TUFF TURF

An existential teen angst/comedy/violent actioner. That's different. For James Spader, this was probably one of those things that kind of sounded like a John Hughes slice of teen life, minus the urgency. This feels more like a throwback to the stupid Fifties teen dramas, only in color and with worse acting. Robert Downey Jr's efforts as a wild-and-crazy pal are the only good parts, but then he's the best part of ANY movie.





CAT'S EYE

Stephen King could do no wrong...except for Cat's Eye, which was another one of those "Twilight Zone" features with different King-concocted stories connected by a tenuous-at-best thread, this time around centering around a cat. James Woods, Robert Hayes, Drew Barrymore and Kenneth McMillan try but this is more suited for "Tales from the Darkside", not King. Talk about a paycheck opportunity.






PORKY'S REVENGE

A sequel? That's bad enough, but two years down the road? For a teen comedy? When the leads ARE NOT TEENS ANYMORE? Did humanity learn nothing from Porky's II: The Next Day? There isn't even the same level of raunch here - this is more like a Bowery Boys movie with more skin...and a lot fewer laughs. Oh yeah, and Porky (Chuck Mitchell) does come back, but big whoopty-doodly deal: Alex Karras didn't. Go freakin' figure.




This is getting more painful the further along this particular series goes, isn't it? But dredging up old hurts usually is painful. At least I'm not asking you to watch them again. Count your lucky stars.

Next time, we'll discover Tom Hanks' dirty little secret, dig up the worst Police Academy ripoff you've never heard of and find out just how many directors it takes to make one lousy movie.

Dope out.

- TGWD