Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1981 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1981 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1981 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around it’s Jan. 14, 1981, and we’re off to see Scanners!
Quick side note: Since we launched this series this year, we’ve discovered that Vintage Video Podcast is doing the exact same project with two differences: First, it’s audio (naturally), and second, they are doing every major film. We’ve listened to a couple of episodes and it’s fun checking off their thoughts against my own. Check them out over at Vintage Video Podcast.
Scanners
Scanners is one of those films I’ve always meant to get around to, but I just could never find the time.
Now I’m just sorry I wasted my time with “Staring Contest: The Movie.”
Scanners is such a cookie cutter, paint-by-numbers “evil corporation screwed with babies” story that it is stunning. Add on top of this that the telepathic powers are demonstrated by intense staring coupled with a jittering camera, and it’s difficult to not laugh as you watch this film.
This may be one of those times where you truly did have to watch it at the time of release because I have just seen the “evil corporation gives drugs to mothers” story just too many times at this point. Add in people were apparently impressed with the special effects and I am just left scratching my head over this one.
This was not an awesome way to start off the 1981 reviews, that’s for sure.
The 1981 movie reviews will return on January 30 with The Incredible Shrinking Woman!
