In the 1980s, fears and paranoias related to technology and the family unit were big themes in science fiction and horror movies. Employing elements from action thrillers, creature features, and alien invasion films, the decade produced some very interesting sci-fi, as well as some very interesting accompanying movie posters.
While every 1980s sci-fi film can’t be as good as mechanical masterpieces like Blade Runner and RoboCop, some of them tried their best, even if that meant stealing directly from these innovative genre films. The optical sights elicited by the movie posters below envision alternative universes marked by intergalactic visitors with sharp teeth, cyborg David Carradines, and robot uprisings. Full of camp and low-budget absurdity, the films highlighted on this list will probably make you glad that, while the 1980s are long gone, the Internet has done a good job of preserving the decade’s legacy.
Hangar 18 (1980)
Films fail when the story or directing don’t match up to what the actors can do. Hangar 18 is an example of this. The sci-fi thriller starred Darrin McGavin, Robert Vaughn, and Gary Collins. All with a large resume of television and movie appearances. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make the movie work.
The plot itself is intriguing. A satellite launched by the Space Shuttle crashes into an alien spaceship, killing the passengers. The shuttle astronauts see what happens but are told to keep quiet by NASA. When they discover the alien craft is being stored in a place called Hangar 18, the astronauts attempt to access it in order to reveal the truth to the public.
Megaforce (1982)
According to the tagline, the motto of Megaforce is “Deeds Not Words.” That’s what Ace Hunter, played by Barry Bostwick, and his team of international soldiers do in this sci-fi action film. It’s filled with motorcycles and dune buggies that shoot lasers. In a way, Megaforce is like The Road Warrior, except cleaner.
The plot follows a basic trope in this genre. Ace and his troops get ready for battle; Ace meets a new female recruit he falls for; Megaforce gets into trouble; Ace comes up with a brilliant plan; the evil dictator is defeated. In the end, it’s a street-level version of Star Wars.
2019: After The Fall Of New York (1983)
Well, we’re certainly glad the events of this Italian sci-fi movie (2019 - Dopo la caduta di New York) didn’t come true. Else, this would have been written in the middle of a smoldering apocalypse. Plus, we would be on the hunt for the last fertile woman on Earth.
That’s the story the film tells. Two decades after a nuclear war, everyone has become sterile due to the constant radiation. However, one woman is found in Manhattan who can have children. It’s up to the movie’s hero, Parsifal, to find this woman and get her out of enemy-controlled Manhattan. It’s not a coincidence the plot is similar to the more successful Escape from New York. The film’s director was influenced by the 1981 film.
Godzilla 1985 (1985)
Franchise reboots are not a 21st-century thing. It happened in the 80s as well. For instance, the Godzilla movie series was restarted in 1984 with the Japanese release of a new film. It returned the powerful sea creature from the 1956 movie. Not the one that rescued us from Mothra.
The American version of the film was heavily edited and included original Godzilla star, Raymond Burr. While the U.S. version didn’t make a huge splash, the Japanese version did quite well.
TerrorVision (1986)
Harking back to the B-movies of the 1950s with its style, TerrorVision focuses on a hungry alien that injects itself into the TVs of a naive family with way too many tubes in their domicile. The problems begin when the family’s satellite starts acting up.
When a member of the family goes on the roof to inspect the problem, he accidentally zaps the cycloptic E.T. into the TVs below, where it’s free to pop out and feast on nearby treats, including people. TerrorVision will definitely make you pause the next time you’re about to turn on your TV, even if it’s just to giggle.
Condorman (1981)
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oops. It’s just Condorman. This jammed pack Cold War action film stars Michael Crawford as a comic book writer named Woody Wilkins, who just so happens to have a friend in the CIA in need of a volunteer to help him retrieve a beautiful female Soviet defector.
Wilkins signs up for the task, but he has a caveat: he must be able to don the costume and persona of the comic book hero he created: Condorman. His buddy agrees, and Condorman goes on a fantastic voyage full of love and totalitarianism.
Future Force (1989)
In the wake of RoboCop’s popularity, movie producers worked hard to replicate the film’s success with other releases, yet most of their efforts turned out to be cheap replicas that abandon the most important aspect of Paul Verhoeven’s movie: its status as a satire.
Future Force takes place in American circa 2020, and police officers have become ineffective crime fighters. Fortunately, the aptly titled bounty hunter organization C.O.P.S. (Civilian Operated Police Systems) is trying to make things right again, and David Carradine plays a Los Angeles member of C.O.P.S., John Tucker, who is equipped with a robotic arm that shoots lasers. Tucker joins forces with a computer nerd in his quest to eradicate criminal activity.
Zone Troopers (1985)
Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone combined a World War II drama with an alien encounter? If your answer is yes, then Zone Troopers is the movie for you.
The film follows a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Italy that seems wrapped up in the normal components of war. However, the film takes a sudden turn when, after retreating from enemy lines, the soldiers experience some extraterrestrial action when they stumble upon a crashed UFO. Unfortunately, the Nazis got to the aliens and their technology first, and now the soldiers have much bigger problems on their hands.
The Kindred (1987)
The Kindred is the kind of film that makes even the most dysfunctional family seem like a dream. John’s mother Amanda, a geneticist, wakes up for a coma after many years. The happy reunion comes to a crashing halt when John learns his mother was in the middle of an experiment that went terribly wrong when she had her accident. In the middle of her confession, Amanda tells John he has a brother named Anthony.
Soon later, Amanda is killed by a former colleague, Dr. Phillip Lloyd, which compels John to travel to his childhood home in order to uncover the true nature of his late mother’s experiments and figure out whether or not he has a brother. It turns out the answers to both mysteries are connected: Amanda used John’s DNA to make an aquatic humanoid creature, and the creature is his brother, Anthony, who is still alive in the house and hungry for protein of the human variety.
Xtro (1982)
A British gorefest disguised as a science fiction film, Xtro is another family feature about a father who is abducted by some repugnant space creatures. While playing outside with his son Tony, Sam is suddenly blasted into space by a bright light. Three years later, he comes back to Earth via the same beam of light, but he’s been infected by evil alien juju he plans to spread throughout the planet.
The movie’s plot is a bit nonsensical, and its violence is over-the-top. By the end, Sam fulfills his round-trip space mission by retrieving Tony and bringing him to his new home, leaving a lot of carnage in his path.
Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn (1983)
Yet another film about aliens attacking a family minding their own business, Return of the Aliens centers around a three-headed alien slimeball that catches a ride with a meteorite before it lands on Earth. The creature seeks shelters in the basement of the nearest house, where it munches on the parents and hatches hundreds of viscous spawn.
With its sharp teeth and ability to rapidly reproduce, the alien becomes a real menace to the two boys living in the house who are now parentless. As the spawns begin devouring folks, too, the brothers band together with some friends to eradicate the invaders, taking some queues from old horror movies for help.
Arena (1989)
Before Mortal Kombat became a feature film, there was Arena. The film is structured around an intergalactic gladiator network that involves extraterrestrials battling to the death in a massive arena. On the distant planet where the action takes place, a despotic ruler named Marc Alaimo controls everything with an iron fist.
Eventually, Earthling Steve Armstrong comes along, and he trains tirelessly to earn a chance to fight alongside other gladiators. Armstrong has ulterior motives: he wants to topple Alaimo’s regime and then return to his home planet, and he hopes to do it one punch at a time.
Firewalker (1986)
Firewalker manages to exploit Aztec culture, mock Native North Americans, and strip the hidden treasure trope of all excitement. Indiana Jones it is not. Who else but Chuck Norris could be at the helm of a movie like this?
Norris plays a former Marine who, with his friend Leo Porter, played by Lou Gossett, helps a woman find a lost Aztec city and the gold buried within it. Along the way, they are held up by aggressive Natives who fulfill the one-dimensional stereotypes found in old Westerns. As the men get closer and closer to their destination, the mythical nature of their journey makes less and less sense.
Robot Holocaust (1986)
Conan The Barbarian meets The Terminator, Robot Holocaust may not star Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it sure takes plot points from his movies. In the alternate Earth depicted in the film, robots have taken control, and most of the humans left are under the enchantment of The Dark One.
Somehow, a few humans have managed to avoid The Dark One’s magical hold, and they organize an uprising against the robots that have destroyed their way of life. The problem is that while the robots have ray guns and advanced weaponry, humans only have loincloths and swords.
