Recker's World
Major movie franchises that were spawned in the 80s
Some of the biggest movie franchises ever started out in the 80s, in many cases bringing us multiple sequels. Perhaps the sequels weren't always so great but many of them were.
When I first saw the preview for this in the movie theatre, when the title was revealed, there were a lot of snickers from other members of the audience. Nevertheless it became one of my favourite martial arts movies of all time. Didn't do much for Michael Dudikoff's career though.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
When I first watched the original in the movies I got more frights than any other movie I'd ever watched. Most of those were from the women screaming from behind me. It was truly an original horror with lots of scares.
This trilogy is possibly the greatest trilogy ever, next to perhaps the original Star Wars Trilogy.
The way these moves tied together was genius.
Beverly Hills Cop
Die Hard
Evil Dead
The first one was the iconic, "creepy house in the woods" and "trees come alive" horror, the standard for all others to come.
Part 2 was a lot more light-hearted, whereas part 3 was sometimes even slapstick.
The TV series is a brilliant continuation of these movies.
Friday the 13th
The plots were simple. A bunch of teenagers come to the lake to stay in the cabin. One by one they get killed off by Jason in creative ways.
Indiana
Jones
The Karate Kid
They have now gone on to create a TV show about these characters 35 years on (Cobra Kai). And what a great TV show. Brings back most of the original actors too.
Lethal Weapon
Mad Max
Police Academy
7 movies were done of this and a less successful TV series.
What wonderful colourful characters they created. They could have all had their own spinoff movies.
Rambo
Return of the Living Dead
BRAAAAINNNNS! This was the first movie to spoof the zombie genre and it did it brilliantly, yet provided heaps of scares in the process.
I can still remember in 1985, going with a bunch of friends to see the very first Revenge of the Nerds movie. We sat in the upper level of the Civic Theatre in Queen Street Auckland. What an amazing experience. And the movie was pretty good too.
They made some pretty awful straight-to-video sequels, although part 2 was a lot of fun.
HAW HAW HAWWWWW!
When the original came out 2000AD fans saw him as a rip off of Judge Dredd. It was full of shock value. A lot more graphic violence than what we were used to and it was awesome!
In later movies, Robocop started to take a softer approach towards criminals, especially once the TV series came along, which kind of sucked really. Judge Dredd would never soften his stance on crime.
The Terminator
After seeing the original twice in one week, I dared hope that we would continue to see Terminator movies coming our way. They weren't as regular as I'd hoped but we certainly got them. Plus an awesome TV series - The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Others:
Child's Play
Critters
Death Wish (first in the 70s. All the others in the 80s)
The Ernest movies
The Howling
Iron Eagle
Maniac Cop
Police Story
Poltergeist
Porky's
The Puppet Master
The Reanimator
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