‘Friday the 13th’ (Sean S Cunningham, 1980)

Friday the 13th was never a particularly original franchise, as it originated as a cheap ripoff of what John Carpenter had done with Halloween. Although the saga has ended up earning a cult following because of its endless sequels, people tend to forget how boring the first film is.

It was not until Friday the 13: Part 2 that Jason Voorhees was actually introduced as the killer, and he doesn’t get his mask until Friday the 13th: Part III, with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter standing as the actual masterpiece of the series, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is the instalment that introduced the self-aware, cheeky humour. However, the first film is incredibly boring, has no likeable characters, and doesn’t get exciting until its twist ending, which only serves the purpose of setting up sequels that would tell the real story of Jason.

‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ (Steven Spielberg, 1984)

Steven Spielberg has actually apologised for making Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as he admitted that both he and co-creator George Lucas had been in a dark headspace when they had conceived of the prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. By replacing the actual historical archeology and mythology of Raiders of the Lost Ark with ridiculous, immature fantasy logic, Temple of Doom was both too goofy for adults and way too dark for kids.

The film is straight-up xenophobic in its depiction of impoverished Indian villages, and it’s not fun at all to see Harrison Ford’s Dr Henry Jones briefly turned into a villain. Even though Spielberg met the love of his life, Kate Capshaw, on set while making the film, her performance as Willie Scott is one of the most obnoxious in cinematic history.

‘Rambo: First Blood Part II’ (George Cosmatos, 1985)

Sylvester Stallone turned in a legitimately great performance in the original First Blood, which told a sincere and heartbreaking story about a veteran of the Vietnam War who was haunted by post-traumatic stress disorder and forced to return home to a nation that didn’t have a place for him. The sequel, Rambo: First Blood Part II, completely betrayed the themes of the original, because it features John Rambo being offered a deal by the American military to go on a commando mission in order to head overseas and kill people.

It was unusual that one of the great anti-war films was turned into another jingoistic action thriller, but this is often the mistake of giving Stallone creative control. He has the capability to be a great actor, but he’s such an egomaniac that he often gives himself scripts that simply make no sense.

‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ (Steve Rash, 1987)

There are plenty of high school comedy films from the ‘80s that are pretty creepy from a modern perspective, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all that bad; even if they haven’t aged well, films like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink are still pretty charming. However, Can’t Buy Me Love has a bonkers premise of a geeky kid who hires a girl to be his fake girlfriend, and the bad-taste humour only gets worse from there.

While plenty of ‘80s comedies use language that wouldn’t be deemed appropriate today, Can’t Buy Me Love is simply mean-spirited and doesn’t depict high school with any sense of realism. The most confusing thing is the casting of Patrick Dempsey, and while Grey’s Anatomy would eventually reveal him to be a true heartthrob, he is completely miscast here as a creepy outsider who has no friends.

‘Clash of the Titans’ (Desmond Davis, 1981)

Greek mythology has inspired many of the greatest adventure stories of all-time, as it was foundational for the Star Wars franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, Hollywood has continuously failed to make interesting films about Greek myths, and Clash of the Titans was another misfire that made all the great characters completely boring.

While the film is best remembered for its stop-motion special effects, it is easy to forget that they didn’t look that great in 1981, which came out a year after The Empire Strikes Back and Superman II, and a year before ET the Extra-Terrestrial and Blade Runner. While there was a disastrous 2010 remake that the actors actually apologised for making, that film at least had some over-the-top performances from Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, whereas the 1981 original had absolutely nothing of value.

‘Teen Wolf’ (Rod Daniel, 1985)

Michael J Fox took over the world in 1985 when Back to the Future became one of the decade’s biggest hits, and so Teen Wolf was rushed out into theatres in order to capitalise on his star power. What’s easy to forget about the film is that it isn’t really about werewolf mythology at all, as a majority of the story is about Fox’s character being a basketball star at his high school. Teen Wolf is too predictable to be a good comedy, as it can’t help but follow every cliché imaginable for both coming-of-age and supernatural stories.

Even though ‘realism’ isn’t something that a film called Teen Wolf should ever strive for, the basketball scenes are so poorly shot and put together that it feels like everyone involved had no knowledge of how the sport was actually supposed to be played.

‘Short Circuit’ (1986, John Badham)

Science fiction can often be predictive of the future by peering into the possibilities of future technology, but it can also miss the mark and feel completely out of touch and ridiculous. Short Circuit is one of those films that was perceived to be cutting edge at the time of its release because it examined robotic technology in a declarative way, but in reality, it’s just a bad family film that hasn’t held up.

It’s not like every ‘80s film about robots has aged poorly; The Terminator and Robocop are two of the decade’s best, but Short Circuit was merely trying to rip off the family-friendly story of ET, and the result was a dull Spielberg clone. Although there have been many rumours about a potential remake for a new generation, the film is probably best left in the past.

‘All the Right Moves’ (Michael Chapman, 1983)

Tom Cruise has made very few mistakes in his career, but his track record isn’t completely spotless, and while he starred in one of the greatest teen comedies of all time in 1983 with Risky Business, he also appeared in the dull high school football film All the Right Moves, which only seems to be remembered because he was involved in it.

Although the film is also notable for the admittedly decent chemistry between Cruise and Lea Thompson, All the Right Moves doesn’t take advantage of its star power and seems completely lacking in self-awareness with its melodramatic portrayal of high school football. One of the few things that Cruise has never been able to do is have convincing accents, and his poor attempts to play a Serbian character have only rendered the film inadvertently hilarious in retrospect.

‘Halloween II’ (Rick Rosenthal, 1981)

Halloween is one of the greatest horror films ever made, but it also never should have been a franchise because everything about Michael Myers was perfectly wrapped up in John Carpenter’s original. Myers is a frightening villain because he is a true enigma who is shrouded in mystery, and all the attempts to give him more of a tragic backstory only end up making him less scary.

Halloween II has a ridiculous twist that reveals that Myers is actually the brother of Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, a reveal that was so illogical that the new trilogy of films beginning with David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween completely ignored it. Even though Curtis created one of the most singular final girls in horror, Laurie spends most of Halloween II in bed while other characters are hunted down and murdered by Myers.

‘Heartbreak Ridge’ (Clint Eastwood, 1986)

Clint Eastwood had a pretty great decade in the ‘80s with masterpieces like Pale Rider, Bird, and Honkytonk Man, but Heartbreak Ridge was one of his only true misfires and features one of his worst performances.

Although the notion of seeing Eastwood play a grizzled veteran who has to get a rough-and-rowdy batch of soldiers into shape seems like an amazing idea on paper, Heartbreak Ridge spends too much time on its melodramatic love story, and doesn’t get the chance to flesh out any of the other characters in much detail, with the lone exception to this being Mario Van Peebles, who is so obnoxious that he weighs the entire film down. Despite the fact that Eastwood has directed many amazing war films, the climactic battle scene at the end of Heartbreak Ridge feels completely phoney, concluding the story on a sour note.