Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 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.
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 1986 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 1986 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 October 24, 1986, and we’re off to see Soul Man and Trick or Treat.
Soul Man
I know this was 40 years ago, but even then, the idea of an actor spending almost the entire film in blackface was certainly a choice.
Mark Watson (C. Thomas Howell) has just been accepted to Harvard Law School, but one small problem: his father has cut him off, and he’ll have to pay for it himself. He comes up with a brilliant plan: use a scholarship meant only for African Americans, since no one else has apparently signed up for it. Thanks to some experimental tanning pills, what could possibly go wrong for Mark?
One can, of course, point to the far more recent instance of Robert Downey Jr. spending all of Tropic Thunder in blackface, but I think it’s also widely accepted that the joke there worked because it was supposed to be absurd. And while Soul Man does spend a considerable amount of time poking fun at white people, you still never get over the fact that Mark is taking advantage of a program meant for African Americans.
The humor is pretty thin even if you take all of that out of the equation, and it really should only be considered for what it is: an oddity.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
Trick or Treat
Oh, that evil “devil music!”
Eddie “Ragman” Weinbauer (Marc Price) is a heavy metal superfan, and his favorite artist is Sammi Curr, who, by chance, went to his high school years earlier. Sammi dies in a fire, leaving Eddie distraught, but, thankfully, Sammi had recorded one last album before his death. Too bad it brings Sammi back to haunt everyone.
The 1980s really did try to convince people that heavy metal music was evil. It seems natural that it ended up being the plot of a low-grade horror movie. You do get cameos from Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne, but that’s about where the excitement ends.
Low-grade possession horror at its finest.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on Oct. 31, 2026, with Link and The Mission.
