Well, now that we are past Memorial Day and fully into June, we are are deep into Summer Movie Madness… of 1982.

If you want to know why I think 1982 is the Greatest Summer of Genre Movies, take a look at my thoughts on May 1982!

June of 1982 was fully loaded with FIVE classic genre movies in one month. Sorry, but MEGAFORCE doesn’t even come close!

A couple of these are ones that didn’t do well to outright bombed when they came out. But they weren’t considered classics…though at least I thought they were at the time. Everyone had to catch up!

So onto June of 1982!

POLTERGEIST. (June 4, 1982)

"It knows what scare you."

We all knew what haunted houses were as kids: They always old, creepy mansions and were in black and white.

They weren’t modern suburbia, in colorful Southern California… until POLTERGEIST.

Dropping horror into the middle of a suburban landscape was both a perfect and a subversive choice all at once. It wasn't the first time it was done in film, but the fact that it was also brought to us as "Steven Spielberg producion" allowed it to slip beneath our guard... and the MPAA.

The best horror goes after it's audience from as many angles as possible to get the most scares. Perhaps a little tame today, the movie hit so many buttons to scare us, from light shocks to body horror. Ask anyone if they were scared by the movie, they will give you plenty of different answers. Bobbing skeletons. Evil trees, Living food. Face Tearing. The DAMN clown. There are terrors here for EVERYONE-and it was all PG!

That include losing one's children. The fear and the toll it takes on the parents, Steve & Diane Freeling (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth William) is truly palpable. You see early on how loving and ordinary these two are with their kids. They are the "fun" parents you wish you had. As events escalate, the fear of losing their children becomes real and it shows in them. They did the heavy lifting in this movie that I think gets lost in all the creatures. You care about what happens to everyone in the family.

That underlying dread, turned to real fear of loss runs through the entire movie, giving it a back bone unlike many movies since. There's debate on whether Tobe Hooper "really" directed it or was ghost directed by Spielberg as he was doing E.T. I'm not sure. But I don't think it would hurt some of the horror studios and directors today to give this movie a rewatch.

POLTERGEIST also cemented my infatuation with JoBeth Williams, an 80's "MILF" before the term even existed!

STAR TREK II – THE WRATH OF KHAN. (June 4, 1982)

"At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance."

The level of inter-connectivity we have now is nothing short of amazing.
It IS Science Fiction made reality.
Not only do we connect with other around the world, but we can see films as they are shot, converse with actor & directors on set, and watch movies that are in theaters from out home at the same time.

There are days, though, I miss the “quiet” of the 80’s, especially when it comes to movies.

Because, even as a faithful reader of Starlog and follower of Entertainment Tonight, I had no clue going into this movie on Saturday the 5^th at the Dedham Showcase (RIP) with my two best friends what a huge event was to occur. Today, it would have been leaked by script, analyzed by the trailer, and spoiled online by lunch opening day. But back then I was lucky and had no clue what I was about to see unspool.

Nor would I know how much it would influence and color the rest of my life. There are many reasons, but mostly it was because of the loss of such a well-known character… at a time when movie protagonists rarely, if ever, did die.

Too add to that, Spock’s death was not in combat, a standard heroic trope, punching it out or shooting it up. It was in acting to save others, ahead of himself. A knowing sacrifice. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one.” Don’t think that that quote has bounced around in my head from that day forward.

Wrapped around a movie about a villain’s for Kirk’s past come to claim vengeance with some great space battles (Mutara Nebula ship battle STILL kills), there are thoughts on aging (both as people and characters), our place in the universe as we grow older, and the consequences of our actions in our youth. All heady stuff for a under-budgeted, second tier, summer movie sequel. But it is all things that have stayed with me, and I’ve even touched base with again and again, every time I’ve watched it.

At this point in my life, I’m nearly as old as Kirk was in this.
I’m thinking there’s another viewing in my very near future.

It also set up that, I too want “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes played at my funeral.
Maybe it’s a cliché, but if it was good enough for Spock, it’s good enough for me.

E.T.-THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (June 11, 1982)

"He is afraid. He is totally alone.
He is 3 million light years from home."

I hate being “back in the day” guy, but you don’t know what a Summer Movie blowing up REALLY look likes today.

Just imagine: There is no a month-ahead advanced ticket sales, no purchasing tickets online or by phone, no reserved seating to stroll in minutes before the movie starts, no half the screens devoted to one movie at the multiplex.

All you had was the newspaper and the phone for showtimes. Those and the sinking feeling as you drew closer to the movie theater to see the lines: of cars going into the parking lot, of the line for tickets stretching out the theater door. You go inside and see the board with all the movies, if they had more than two screens, with time listed with the dreaded “SOLD OUT” sign for the next three screenings-even into the next day!

E.T.-THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL was a phenomenon that no one saw coming.
It was either #1 or #2, alternating some weeks, at the box-office until mid-October-THEN went back to #1 for three weeks in November & December!
It was still in over 600 theaters a year LATER!

THAT is what it was like trying to see E.T.

I never grew up in Southern California, never lived in a development suburbia neighborhood, and I most definitely never found an alien in the woods of Massachusetts. But Elliot and the kids in E.T. were me and my friends reflected back on the big screen. That’s what connected for me.

Yes, there was a cute alien that looked oh-so-real that was your best friend. The fun moments of dressing up and going out for Halloween, His death and resurrection. The thrilling chase, evading the federal authorities on BMX’s.

But it was more about seeing kids that had the same things I did (Hey, I have that Star Wars figure!), played the same things I did (Hey, I play D&D!), had the same problems I did (Hey, my older brother can be a jackass too!) that always connected with me. I may have been older than Elliott, but I recognized him. It gave me the proof that I wasn’t the only weird kid in the world. In a world of little media connection for kids, this was life-affirming.

BLADE RUNNER. (June 25, 1982)

"Man Has Made His Match... Now It's His Problem!"

So after the huge success of ALIEN in 1979 for 20^th Century Fox, Ridley Scott was back in science fiction with the Ladd Comp0nay & Warner Brothers for an adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

When it was released in 1982, no one knew what to make of BLADE RUNNER!

Of this futuristic film noir, studio, critics, and audiences were dumbfounded. There was nothing like it, no genre of “cyberpunk” to even attach to it. It would take a few years for audiences and pop culture to catch up with it.

I also think that audiences weren’t ready for Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard. For an actor who had played heroic roles of Han Solo two years previous and Indiana Jones the year before,
there was nothing for them to grasp onto. Ford does an excellent job as a classic film noir detective, but not as much “heroic”.

In many ways, BLADE RUNNER was ahead of its time, as much as it is ahead of its audience.

I’ve loved films all my life and go to them as much as I can… and could. But at 13 in 1982, it made it a little more difficult. So, I sadly missed BLADE RUNNER in theaters. But in the last 35 years, I’ve made up for it by seeing the other four versions, 3 in theaters including “Director’s Cut”/Rough Cut in 1991 & 1999, the Director’s Cut in 1992, and the Final Cut in 2008. And with some many versions bouncing around my head, I don’t know what I like more. But I dig the voiceover and I do not believe that Deckard’s a replicant!

JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING. (June 25, 1982)

"Man is the warmest place to hide."

I had been following along with the development of the movie through Starlog (completely dating myself here!), as well as their installments of John W. Campbell’s original novella, “Who Goes There?”.

But the trailer got me hooked.

I caught it when I saw CONAN THE BARBARIAN back in May. Today, I still think this is one of the best trailers I’ve ever seen, with the voice-over and static, esp. at the end.

Complete isolation, a pervading & escalating sense of paranoia mixed mind-blowing practical effects (that hold up more than 3 decades later) and a score that unsettles you (once you realize the “heartbeat” rhythm, you can never NOT) made it a film unlike it’s original. The audience I saw the movie with had no idea what hit them! That, and critical reviews, are kept them away.

JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING is a movie that, like BLADE RUNNER, was ahead of its time… or maybe just ahead its audience. There are many reasons given as to why it failed at the box-office, including the release only a few weeks earlier of “feel-good alien” E.T. I think it was part of change in movies of 70’s into more escapist fare. The grimness and (wonderfully!) downbeat ending was something audiences weren’t interested in at that moment.

Personally, I’ve championed it since I came out of seeing it-and always will.

The film always holds a special place for me because of two firsts that happened. For reasons unknown (and I’m still trying to corroborate), the film had a Sunday advanced screening… something seemingly alien in Massachusetts in the early 80’s-and it was near me! It was also the first, and only, time in my life that I had to have a stranger buy my ticket for me! Guess they decided to crack down hard that night on letting 13-year old me get in. But I did!

WHEW-That's is for June!

Hoped you enjoyed the look back.
We'll finish up next month with a future of computer wizardry and one of post-apocalyptic abandon - July 1982!