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 Oct. 11, 1985, and we’re off to see Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins and Silver Bullet.
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
It is clear they had high hopes for this film, but then they turned in whatever this is.
A super-secret government organization recruits a battered New York cop against his will and turns him into a secret agent who must be trained to kill in any number of ways.
Lets get the whole Master of Sinanju Chiun (Joel Grey) of it out of the way. In what universe anyone thought it was a good idea to bury a man under pounds of makeup to make him look Korean as opposed to just hiring a Korean for the role is mind-boggling. It was a good makeup job, but good grief was this a bad idea.
I like Fred Ward generally, but he just didn’t work in this part. Every moment of the film you felt like he was two seconds away from looking at the camera and asking, “Are you buying any of this?”
No… we weren’t.
Silver Bullet
For once, it seems I am on the positive side of a film that was generally disliked.
Marty (Corey Haim) is a disabled kid in a small town that suddenly finds itself in the midst of a spate of murders. As the situation worsens, Marty begins to figure out it’s a werewolf, and not only that, but who the werewolf is will surprise everyone.
In general, people didn’t care for this film, but I really enjoyed it and have since, back in the days of video store rentals. Was it the most in-depth take on werewolves? No. However, it had some pretty original moments, and having Marty kept in a wheelchair added some original moments of tension.
I would have liked a bit more depth to the werewolf portion of the story such as the person became one, but it wasn’t that important.
A fun and original film that I feel deserves a bit more love.
1985 Movie Reviews will return on Oct. 18, 2025, with The Holcroft Covenant, The Quiet Earth, Re-Animator, and Wild Geese II.
