Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1983 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 four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1983 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 1983 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. 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 November 18th, 1983, and we’re off to see Amityville 3-D and The Being. (No, it’s not Nov. 18 yet, but there were too many films that day to do all at once.)
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 numerous episodes and it’s fun checking off their thoughts against my own. Check them out over at Vintage Video Podcast.
Amityville 3-D
Oh good. So excited for another adventure in this stupid house. We didn’t need a second film, and we most definitely didn’t need a third one in horrible 1980s 3-D which is just things poking at the screen.
Set some time after the first film, a paranormal debunker decides to buy the house and quickly learns that it has an evil presence. Which, somehow, can now extend its powers well outside of the house. And also make doppelgangers of dead people?
The movie ends with the house destroyed, but the evil escapes to live on in a seemingly never-ending string of these films.
The most notable thing about this film is the inclusion of Lori Loughlin in her film debut as the new homeowner’s daughter, and Meg Ryan in only her second film role as her bad influence friend. Otherwise, it’s an utterly forgettable haunted house film that is more of an assault on the eyes with its shoddy film making than anything else.
The Being
The Being is a truly confusing movie. It is a B-film if there ever was one, but somehow attracted talent in the likes of Martin Landau, Ruth Buzzi, Dorothy Malone, and Jose Ferrer. I am truly baffled by this cast.
Set in Pottsville, Idaho, residents begin disappearing and the only clue is that each disappearance there is a green slime left behind. While at first you think an alien has made its way to town, we later find out that the town is one of 2,000 nuclear dumping grounds in the U.S., and one of the missing people has actually mutated into a psychotic creature.
The movie is utter garbage. The lighting, directing, script, acting… everything is horrid except, oddly enough, the creature design. Once you finally see the mutant, it’s refreshingly original, and actually increased my interest into the film a bit.
But, then there is the casting elephant in the room. How the likes of Landau and Buzzi ended up in this film is beyond me. They are so much more talented than this nonsense, but yet, here they are. All I can figure is it somehow paid well, or the director had some really good blackmail on the two of them.
It’s difficult to recommend, but you probably wouldn’t hate yourself if you watched it.
1983 Movie Reviews will return on Nov. 18, 2023 with A Christmas Story, Nate and Hayes, and Sleepaway Camp!
