Black Widow (1987)

In this very straightforward easy-to-watch soapy 80s thriller, a Government agent (Debra Winger) tries to prove that a series of deaths are connected not just by bad lurching editing but by a mysterious 'black widow' with crimped blonde hair who marries rich men then kills them for their money.

★★★☆☆

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Prince of Darkness (1987)

The John Carpenter aesthetic, kicking in immediately with the black and white opening credits set against the director's own pulsing electronic music composition - not to mention Donald Pleasence turning up as a troubled priest - rises this horror above similar others which generally don't get away with such laughable plotting: a team of physicists (a feast of Carpenter regulars (and Susan, the radiologist...in blue? With glasses?)) are gathered together in a church to investigate a glass chamber full of swirling green that seems to be alive, sentient, communicative, ancient, able to possess the bodies of others, and somehow author to strange Coptic, Latin, and English texts that contain differential equations...and if that weren't enough to overload a 102-minute horror romp, each of the gathered scientists receives tachyon messages in their dreams from the future!

★★★★☆

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Bedroom Window (1987)

The plot relies too much on bad police work and characters making stupid decisions, and the end is rushed and a mess, but Bedroom Window, a thriller I loved as a kid and managed to dig up and rewatch last night, gleefully, is a fun, effective thriller and homage to Hitchcock, featuring not just a falsely accused The Wrong Man, but a Rear (bedroom) Window that affords a view of a crime, a Witness For The Prosecution courtroom fiasco, and hijinx at a The Man Who Knew Too Much gala event, and the movie also features terrific performances from Steve Guttenberg, perfectly cast as the boyish, truly short-sighted Terry Lambert who lies and tells police he witnessed a crime, Isabelle Huppert as the glamorous, self-interested other woman who actually witnessed the crime but didn't want to come forward, and Elizabeth McGovern as an assault victim and shrewd amateur undercover investigator.

★★★★☆

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Miss Marple: 4.50 To Paddington (1987)

I like these BBC adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, including this particular one based on What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw, because I like the opening credit titlecards and the jaunty Antiques Roadshow music that kicks in every time a body or scandal or an excuse to have a cup of tea turns up, and I especially like the 80-something Joan Hickson's Miss Marple, THE Miss Marple in my mind, who here enlists a young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe Manor to investigate a claim that a woman was strangled on a nearby train.

★★★☆☆

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Masters of the Universe (1987)

Dolph Lundgren does a great job as He-man - sometimes you'd think he really was a plastic Mattel action figure - and the characters and story perfectly recall the Saturday morning cartoon I grew up watching as a bleary child just out of bed and not yet capable of complex thought (He-man teams up with Earthling teenagers to recover a key that has allowed Skeletor to overtake Castle Greyskull) but despite all these positives, MotU is a famous turkey - a critical and commercial failure upon its release in 1987.

★☆☆☆☆

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Evil Dead II (1987)

Bruce Campbell, pretty much a big-jawed rubbery-faced cartoon himself, battles stop-motion-animated horror like this Evil Dead sequel is a Tom and Jerry cartoon: it doesn't matter that the back-and-forth between Ash and the H P Lovecraft-inspired horrors of the cabin-in-the-woods is senseless because the ordeal is inventive ghastly fun and is never anything less than visually arresting.

★★★★☆

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The Lost Boys (1987)

The world of vampires, pirates and Peter Pan collide in Joel Schumacher's cult classic from the 80s about vampires who dress like Jack Sparrow (or Adam Ant, depending on your age), lounge about like teenagers who'll live forever, and get away with a stupid number of murders in seaside Santa Carla despite the very public altercations they have with all of their victims in the moments just prior to their feeding frenzies - it is all a very daft but hugely enjoyable mix of horror, comedy and fantasy bolstered by a way-cool pre-male pattern baldness Jason Patric, the two Coreys hamming it up as teenaged vampire experts, a bleached-blonde Kiefer, a dizzy Diane Wiest, and - the real star above all else - a killer 80s soundtrack.

★★★★☆

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The Princess Bride (1987)

A farmhand-turned-pirate rescues a princess from kidnappers and helps her escape from her impeding marriage to a dastardly king in this much loved fantasy adventure famous for its offhand humour, laidback action and a cast of big names including Robin Wright, Billy Crystal, and Mandy Patinkin.

★★★☆☆

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Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The Superman series starring Christopher Reeve had just given up by number four, worsening inexorably after its sombre, impressive number one, offering up a high camp number three and then, despite the good omen of Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder returning as Lex Luther and Lois Lane, the series serves up this preposterous number four, a movie in which Superman is pitted against a Lex Luther-created solar-powered drag queen and must find someplace to shove her where the sun doesn't shine.

★★☆☆☆

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Moonstruck (1987)

An Italian American widow falls for her fiance's brother in this romantic comedy that delights with its neurotic and histrionic characters experiencing chaotic, complicated, operatic love, perhaps under the spell of a full moon.

★★★★☆

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Lethal Weapon (1987)

One interesting thing about this buddy cop action movie is the nostalgic image of its young, lithe and mulleted star, Mel Gibson - he plays cop-with-a-death-wish Riggs who partners with police officer and grounded family man Murtaugh (Danny Glover) to break a drug-smuggling ring - but the most interesting thing is how popular an action flick this was, spawning three sequels despite essentially being a protracted fist fight - largely plot-free, shallow, ridiculously macho, devoid of any creative flourishes and completely free of special effects.

★★★☆☆

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

In this classic John Hughes comedy from the 80s, circumstances throw together an odd couple - a permed and incessantly jovial shower ring salesman (John Candy in a role that would be played these days by Melissa McCarthy) and an uptight and incessantly grumpy marketing executive (Steve Martin...(who, Ben Stiller? Sandra Bullock?)) - on a trip across America via planes, trains, and automobiles.

★★★★☆

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The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

A trio of women, Jane, Sukie and Alexandra (Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Cher, redheaded, blonde and brunette) conjure up a dark, mysterious stranger using their collective feminine powers of creation, bringing havoc to their conservative New England town, in this riotous, star-studded film version of John Updike's distinctly feminist novel looking at gender politics, standards of social propriety (old-fashioned versus new) and good old good and evil, creation and destruction.

★★★★☆

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Overboard (1987)

Rich and nasty Goldie Hawn isn't very nice to her carpenter, Kurt Russell, so when she hits her head and suffers amnesia, he takes revenge by adopting her into his less fortunate life, making her keep house and raise his children in this light and frothy romantic comedy from the 80s.

★★★☆☆

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