Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 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 1985 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 1984 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 March 22, 1985, and we’re off to see Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Friday the 13th: Part V – A New Beginning, The Last Dragon, Porky’s Revenge, He-Man & She-Ra: Secret of the Sword.
Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend
Jurassic Park this is not.
Dr. Susan Matthews-Loomis (Sean Young) heads out into the jungles believing a dinosaur is hidden out there. Followed by her husband George (William Katt), the two discover a family of brontosaurus, only to see the dad dinosaur killed off be an evil scientist (Patrick McGoohan) who wants all the glory for himself. Susan and George then spend the rest of the film trying to rescue the mom and Baby, and get them to safety.
This film was supposedly written for kids, but between the suggestions of domestic violence as ‘humor,’ and numerous topless women, I’m not quite sure how it got a PG rating. Add in the script is weak and the dinosaurs look about as rubber as you can get, and the movie is just better left to fond memories of people who saw it when it was first released.
Friday the 13th: Part V – A New Beginning
Even by the standards of this series, this was a weird entry.
Several years after the events of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Tommy (John Shepherd), is taken to a camp for kids being taught how to reenter society following severe trauma. He was believed to have been killed Jason, but he is still haunted by his memories of the monster. Shortly after he arrives, a patient kills one of their own, and this sets off a series of events that leads to the return of Jason. Toward the end of the film we learn that is not the original Jason at all, but the father of the person killed toward the beginning of the film pretending to be Jason.
The film was not well received by critics or fans, and the events of the film were ignored by the next installment in the series. There are some interesting kills in this one, such as leather strap around a tree scene, but the story itself is just annoying. You spend the majority of the film trying to figure out how Jason came back only to learn he never really did. When the secret is revealed it is wholly unsatisfying.
If you like the series, give it a watch, but even at that it is not a great use of your time.
He-Man & She-Ra: Secret of the Sword
Apparently 1985 was the year for turning episodes of animated series into a longer story and calling them a movie.
He-Man gets transported to another world that is ruled by Hordak and the Horde. Force Commander Adora is Hordak’s most trusted soldier, but it turns out that she was kidnapped as an infant and is He-Man’s sister, destined to become She-Ra. Awakened to her destiny, she turns on Hordak and fights alongside her brother to try to liberate her world. After a quick visit to Eternia, she heads back to continue the fight for her world.
There’s nothing wrong with this “movie” once you realize it is just episodes of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe strung together. Later in the same year, the episodes aired on TV individually, just further proving the point.
I’ll say this, this at least I had an engaging story. It didn’t make me want to claw out my own eyes quite the same way Here Come The Littles did earlier this year.
It’s a fun watch, but certainly not essential.
The Last Dragon
I honestly had no idea what to expect from this film, and even then it surprised me.
Leroy Green / Bruce Leeroy (Taimak) has trained in martial arts for years, and his Master feels he has finaly achieved The Last Dragon. Now, all he lacks is ‘The Glow,’ a super ability that will make him unstoppable. Along the way to discovering his glow, he falls for TV host Laura Charles (Vanity), and must come up against Sho’nuff, the Shogun of Harlem (Julius Carry) to prove that he his truly the master now.
This film is bonkers, but it’s hard not to love it. It has all of the crazy concepts you love from films such as The Warriors, but updated for the 1980s. This is a world that posits martial arts are how most major arguments are settled, and we’re here for it.
High recommendations for checking out this peculiar film. You just have to accept where it’s going and let you take you on the journey.
Porky’s Revenge
Okay, this franchise has definitely overstayed its welcome.
It’s senior year, and the kids from the previous two films are preparing to graduate, but not before they have another ill-advised adventure. This time, their basketball coach has gambling debts owed to Porky (Chuck Mitchell), who has rebuilt his illicit casino as a paddle wheel ship that cruises the river each night. The usual group of kids trying to figure out how they can get their coach out of debt and offer to throw the championship game for Porky if he forgives the debts. As you can imagine, nothing goes quite to plan.
Everything in his movie feels recycled from the previous films and just lands with a sickening thud. It’s hard to care any more if these kids get the girls they want as they clearly don’t see them as people. Nevermind that the majority of the boys are just completely forgettable. This series really needed to end, and luckily it did for many years until someone tried to salcage the rights for reasons unknown.
1985 Movie Reviews will return on March 29, 2025, with The Care Bears Movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, King David, Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, and The Slugger’s Wife.
