CGI spokesmodels hawk housewares, "Indiana Jones" meets "Mad Max" in space, and an accidental phone
call warns of nuclear war… or does it? You won't want to miss these '80s sci-fi gems.
Between his time playing Luke Skywalker in the original "Star Wars" trilogy and
the sequel trilogy, Mark Hamill's most high-profile role was voicing the Joker
for various "Batman" TV shows and video games. But the actor continued to appear
in live-action movies throughout the decades, including another sci-fi film released in the
'80s — albeit one that didn't take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
A small but fervent fanbase sings the praises of 1989's "Slipstream," the story of a near-future
Earth that has been left a barren wasteland due to pollution and natural disasters where
bounty hunters battle the police for the right to bring criminals to justice.
"Poison dart. Now drop the gun and we'll talk about getting you the antidote."
"I never believe a man staring down the barrel of a gun."
Hamill once described "Slipstream" on Twitter as, quote, "one of my favorite movies that most
people have never seen." If the recommendation of Hamill and his Twitter followers doesn't convince
you to check out this underappreciated film, how about the fact that it also stars Bill Paxton,
F. Murray Abraham, and Ben Kingsley, and was directed by "Tron" director Steven Lisberger?
1980's "Battle Beyond the Stars" is well worth tracking down for fans of sci-fi just by virtue of
the names behind it. For starters, it's one of the first films to be written by future Oscar nominee
John Sayles. It was only the second movie to be scored by the late James Horner, an Oscar-winning
composer whose work includes "Aliens," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," and "Avatar." And
the art direction and special effects featured a rising talent by the name of James Cameron,
who soon built an entire career out of reinventing the sci-fi genre several times over.
Impressive pedigree aside, "Battle Beyond the Stars" is an ambitious sci-fi fantasy adventure
about space cowboys, barbarian armies, and alien clones that both calls back to the
campy adventures of the '50s and '60s and also hints at the future of the genre. It
was produced by Roger Corman and feels very much like a movie that was produced by Roger Corman,
but he is called the "King of Cult" for a reason — he definitely has a knack for creating,
or at least attaching himself to movies that are often written off when they're first released,
but are much more appreciated when looked back on years later.
The New Wave/Post-Post Punk aesthetic of the 1980s that was most prominent in music,
fashion, and hair salons also found itself a compelling bedfellow in sci-fi. This was
most prominently illustrated in "Blade Runner," the movie that informed the
cyberpunk subgenre of sci-fi for decades to come. But another pioneering cyberpunk film
was also released that same year called "Liquid Sky" — unfortunate timing as
it was all but guaranteed to be completely swallowed up by Ridley Scott's masterpiece.
Still images of "Liquid Sky" look like an early-MTV music video,
from the era when bands like Duran Duran, The Human League,
and The Cure were in heavy rotation. Sure enough, the movie starts during a New Wave fashion show,
and among the first characters introduced are rival models Jimmy and Margaret — a dual role
played by actor and performance artist Anna Carlisle. It should be noted that "Liquid Sky"
is a very adult movie and doesn't tread lightly in its depiction of a drug- and sex-fueled Manhattan
that soon finds itself under the influence of a dangerous extraterrestrial being.
"Are you afraid?"
But if it seems like a movie you can handle — and you're a fan of "Blade Runner" and the
pop culture zeitgeist it was tapping into — you should definitely seek out "Liquid Sky."
Few actors ever have a year like Charlie Sheen did in 1986 — especially when they're only 21 years
old. That was the year that he added "Platoon," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Lucas," and a little
indie sci-fi movie called "The Wraith" to his growing filmography. He was only the top-billed
star in the last one, but unfortunately it's the least-remembered of the four.
In "The Wraith," Sheen plays the titular character, who is both the ghost of a murdered
teen and a different kid who's new to town. Sound confusing? Not only would explaining further ruin
the movie, but it also doesn't do the admittedly convoluted plot any favors trying to boil it down
to a single sentence. Convoluted isn't necessarily bad, though, and "The Wraith" does tell a pretty
interesting story with a few surprising twists. But the biggest reason to check it out is that it
presents one of the coolest and most underrated anti-heroes of that era's sci-fi, not to mention
that every scene of the movie absolutely drips with mid-1980s cool — especially the awesome
version of a Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor that the Wraith uses as both transportation and weapon.
Intentionally campy movies tend to rise and fall in popularity as time goes on,
but companies like Troma Entertainment and filmmakers like John Carpenter certainly
helped to make the 1980s one of the best eras of all time for camp. Campiness,
sci-fi, and horror intersected together wonderfully — and hilariously — in
the 1984 extraterrestrial zombie invasion romp "Night of the Comet."
Starring Catherine Mary Stewart of "Flight of the Navigator," Kelli Maroney of "Chopping Mall," and
future "Star Trek: Voyager" commander Robert Beltram, the cast members of "Night of the
Comet" are all great choices for the various genres the movie is attempting. The story sees
the aftermath of a comet that has vaporized much of the population, leaving only a small
number of survivors to contend with the zombies that the comet also inexplicably unleashed.
"There's nobody! I mean there's nobody!"
Arguably, the film's most important pop culture achievement is that it inspired Joss Whedon in
part to create the character of Buffy Summers, and it's always worth going back to see the
source material for later beloved characters and franchises. Plus, for what it's worth,
"Night of the Comet" is a much better film than the original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Michael Crichton doesn't always get the credit he deserves for how important and
genre-defining of a sci-fi writer he was. In addition to "Jurassic Park," Crichton also
wrote the novels "The Andromeda Strain," "Timeline," "Congo," and "Sphere," and
though not all of them got stellar screen adaptations, it doesn't detract from what
an ever-present force he was on both the page and the screen over multiple decades.
Crichton sometimes bypassed writing a book altogether,
instead writing a story directly for the screen, as he did with his criminally
overlooked 1981 film "Looker." The sci-fi movie satirizes the control that the media
has over people and, in particular, how much influence physical attractiveness
can wield. "Looker" also predicted the mainstream popularity of plastic surgery,
as well as the fairly recent phenomenon of computer-generated celebrities and spokespeople.
"Hi, I'm Cindy. I'm the perfect female type, 18 to 25. I'm here to sell for you."
In addition, "Looker" is underappreciated for the way it pioneered the use of computer
effects and images in films, having the first true CGI character ever used in a movie,
as well as using 3D computer shading before "Tron" did — even though "Tron"
often erroneously gets the credit for doing that first.
The movie that "The Ice Pirates" was most frequently compared to upon its release was
"Star Wars," and that is certainly valid. But the movie also draws inspiration from "Star
Trek," "Battlestar Galactica," "Mad Max," and "Indiana Jones." It's the
kind of movie that both pokes fun at science fiction and the other movies from the genre,
while also demonstrating a love and reverence for them.
Also featuring early appearances by Ron Perlman and Anjelica Huston, "The Ice Pirates" stars
Robert Urich as Jason, who leads the pirates on various intergalactic adventures. While
silliness is definitely the order of the day — there is a character called the Pimp Robot,
for example — "The Ice Pirates" still takes itself seriously as a production and feels
like it had ambitions of being the start of an ongoing franchise. Poor reviews and an
underwhelming box office take ensured that those plans didn't come to pass,
which is too bad, as it seems like further "Ice Pirates" movies could've
really been something special with a fully formed narrative universe. As it stands,
it's a fun little one-off that was among the first to do what earned later productions like "Red
Dwarf," "Spaceballs," "Mars Attacks," and "Galaxy Quest" a lot more attention and recognition.
The vast majority of the movies on this list got fairly lukewarm reviews at best, and have needed
retrospective analysis and a cult following to get their due. "Miracle Mile," on the other hand, was
pretty strongly praised right from the start and shouldn't have had to be relegated to the dustbin
of cinematic history. But audiences just didn't show up for it, and for one reason or another,
it never got that push that VHS rentals and years of TV reruns did for so many of its peers.
The premise of the movie — the entirety of which takes place almost in real-time
within a single night — is that the world has been whipped up into a frenzied panic over an
impending nuclear war that will leave Earth a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The twist is that
said war might not even be coming, and all of the hysteria surrounding it might not be based
on any credible information whatsoever. Indeed, "Miracle Mile" might have felt current at the
time given its proximity to the Cold War and other geopolitical fears of that generation,
but it has a renewed prescience, thanks to similar panics resulting from questionable news sources.
Bonus points for the gorgeous score by Tangerine Dream,
and what is arguably a career-best performance from Anthony Edwards.
Though it was a huge hit in Japan and was, at the time,
the most expensive movie ever produced in the country, "Fukkatsu no Hi" — which translates to
"Day of Resurrection" — never got the chance to become the Western crossover success that
it could have been. Though a rough cut was screened at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival
under the title "Virus," it didn't get much attention, due in no small part to having
to contend with Akira Kurosawa 's "Kagemusha " being the toast of the festival that year.
It got a VHS release a few years later, but with little fanfare,
since nobody really knew anything about it. This was surprising,
considering its international cast that included George Kennedy, Olivia Hussey, and Robert Vaughn,
as well as Japanese actor Sonny Chiba, who was fairly well-known to American audiences at the
time. But American sci-fi fans should rectify this immediately, as "Virus" is an excellent
film that by all rights deserves to have had two or three sequels or remakes by this point.
"Virus" tells the story of a manmade virus that is inadvertently released
and subsequently causes a massive pandemic, resulting in riots and widespread civil unrest.
"If I were to open this ampule to the air, you would be dead within three days."
Fans of more well-known pandemic sci-fi movies like "Outbreak," "Contagion," "12
Monkeys," and "Quarantine" should go back and check out "Virus."
French filmmaker Luc Besson is known to sci-fi fans as the writer and director of both 1997's
genre defining "The Fifth Element" and 2017's more underrated "Valerian and the City of a
Thousand Planets." It turns out that he actually has a third sci-fi movie in his filmography that
many people believe to be an overlooked gem — and it was actually his directorial debut.
Released in 1983 in his native France, "Le Dernier Combat" — or "The Last Battle" — can
easily be enjoyed by anyone, whether they know French or not, as the movie is almost entirely
devoid of dialogue. But it's not just some artsy gimmick, as the story of the film is
about a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has lost the ability to speak. As such, the characters
don't have names: They are simply referred to with labels such as Man, Brute, and so on.
From his very first movie, Besson was already an extremely innovative and self-assured filmmaker,
and "Le Dernier Combat" has aged much better than most film debuts. It's not at all hard
to see why he went on to create multiple hidden gem sci-fi movies over the decades.