The 80s Movie Podcast

This week, host Edward Havens starts a new, semi-regular series called Produced and Abandoned, which will focus on movies that were made but abandoned by their distributor after only a handful of theatrical screenings... or none at all. And we begin with a long forgotten 1980 Oliver Reed movie written and directed by the creator of The Little Shop of Horrors, Charles B. Griffith.

This week, we present our first remote recording, as your intrepid host talks about his fortieth high school reunion, memorializes an old friend who recently passed away, and a long forgotten Keanu Reeves television movie that shot at your host’s high school weeks after he graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles to break into the industry.

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens continues his retrospective on the films of director Susan Seidelman with a deep dive into her quirky 1987 sci-fi romantic comedy, Making Mr. Right. Following her massive breakout success with Desperately Seeking Susan, Seidelman used her three-picture deal with Orion Pictures to craft this unique cinematic blend of classic screwball romance, retro-futuristic satire, and 1980s workplace comedy. The episode explores the film’s production, detailing how Seidelman transformed the screenplay into a Frankenstein-inspired comedy and the gamble of casting John Malkovich in a dual role. Alongside Malkovich, we look at the incredible ensemble cast, including standout performances from Ann Magnuson, Laurie Metcalf, and Hart Bochner, who navigate this highly colorful, neon-soaked production. Finally, we analyze the vibrant Miami setting that gave the film its signature aesthetic and break down why this initial box-office disappointment eventually developed into a beloved cult classic. We close out the discussion by evaluating where this offbeat sci-fi feature stands in the larger legacy of 1980s feminist cinema and Seidelman’s overall filmography.

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens takes a deep dive into the chaotic history of Collision Course, the bizarre buddy-cop action-comedy starring late-night giant Jay Leno and The Karate Kid legend Pat Morita. Filmed at the height of the 1980s mismatched-partner craze, this forgotten cinematic curiosity paired a fast-talking Detroit detective with an investigator from Tokyo, resulting in a fascinating cultural time capsule that struggled to find its footing. The episode tracks the film’s incredibly troubled production journey, which was helmed by director Lewis Teague. Havens unpacks the financial turmoil behind the scenes, specifically detailing how the sudden bankruptcy and collapse of Dino De Laurentiis’s Entertainment Group (DEG) trapped the completed film in legal limbo, shelving its release for years. Finally, we analyze the movie’s stellar supporting cast, including Chris Sarandon and Ernie Hudson, and explore how it eventually bypassed theaters entirely for a quiet home video release in 1992. We close the retrospective by evaluating why this heavily delayed project ultimately became a footnote in the careers of its main stars and where it ranks among the era’s saturated buddy-cop landscape. The episode tracks the film’s incredibly troubled production journey, which began in late 1987 under original director Tom Mankiewicz before he was abruptly replaced mid-shoot by veteran action director Robert Shaye. Havens unpacks the financial turmoil behind the scenes, specifically detailing how the bankruptcy and sudden collapse of Dino De Laurentiis’s Entertainment Group (DEG) trapped the completed film in legal limbo, shelving its release for years. Finally, we analyze the movie’s stellar supporting cast, including Chris Sarandon and Ernie Hudson, and explore why it eventually was given a quiet home video release in 1992. We close the retrospective by evaluating why this heavily delayed project ultimately became a footnote in the careers of its main stars and where it ranks among the era’s saturated buddy-cop landscape.

Explore Brats (2024), Andrew McCarthy’s documentary about the Brat Pack, as The 80s Movie Podcast examines the 1985 article, the careers of Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and the lasting legacy of 1980s teen cinema.

On this episode, we’re going to tackle a movie from the early 1980s that, if made today with the same pedigree, would cause movie geeks and cinephiles to lose their freaking minds over. But because this was made early in their careers, most people are only tangentially aware of its existence, let alone have actually seen it. We’re talking about the 1986 Sam Raimi/Coen Brothers collaboration, Crimewave.

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens looks back at Threads (1984), the harrowing BBC television film directed by Mick Jackson that depicts the devastating consequences of nuclear war on the city of Sheffield, England. Originally broadcast during the height of Cold War tensions, the film follows two ordinary families as escalating geopolitical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union leads to a full-scale nuclear exchange and the collapse of modern society. Unlike conventional disaster films, Threads presents an unflinching, documentary-style portrayal of the long-term effects of nuclear fallout, including societal breakdown, economic collapse, and generational trauma. The film was produced on a modest budget for the BBC but became one of the most talked-about and feared television broadcasts of its era due to its realism and bleak outlook. Edward explores the production background, the film’s impact on audiences in the 1980s, and why Threads continues to be cited today as one of the most disturbing and realistic depictions of nuclear catastrophe ever filmed. He also places it in context alongside other Cold War-era works such as The Day After, highlighting how television and cinema reflected global anxieties about nuclear conflict.

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens takes a look at one of the most difficult and overlooked films of the early 1980s: Deep in the Heart (released in the UK as Handgun), a 1983 vigilante drama directed by British filmmaker Tony Garnett. Set in Texas, the film follows Kathleen Sullivan, a teacher who relocates from Boston and is violently assaulted by a local lawyer, leading her to confront both the failures of the justice system and her own transformation through firearms training and self-defense. The film stands out in early 80s cinema for its unflinching approach to gun culture in America, blending social commentary with the structure of a revenge thriller in a way that sparked controversy and limited distribution. Despite strong critical discussion of its themes, Handgun quickly faded from mainstream awareness and became a rarely-seen title for decades. Edward explores the film’s production history, its British-American perspective on American gun ownership, and how Tony Garnett used the revenge genre to critique (not glorify) violence, setting it apart from more exploitative entries in the same era of cinema.

Explore UFOria (1985), a quirky UFO comedy starring Harry Dean Stanton and a hidden favorite among fans of cult 80s movies.

The 80s Movie Podcast returns to The Orphans series, which spotlights films whose distributors released exactly one theatrical feature before closing their doors. In Part 5, host Edward Havens examines three films with almost nothing in common except that shared fate. The Last Fight (1983) stars Fred Williamson as his signature character Jesse Crowder, alongside Ruben Blades and Darlanne Fluegel, distributed by Best Film and Video, a company that ceased operations immediately after the film's release. The Howling III (1987) took the werewolf franchise to Australia under director Philippe Mora, picked up by Square Pictures, a distributor so obscure it left behind no business filings and no further releases. However, the episode's most surprising entry is Sullivan's Pavilion (1987), a personal documentary by upstate New York filmmaker Fred G. Sullivan that won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance and still almost nobody saw. Each of these films tells a different story about what it meant to make and release movies outside the Hollywood studio system in the 1980s. Along the way, Edward traces Best Film and Video's brief and troubled attempt to build a distribution business on the back of a Fred Williamson action picture, the mysterious origins of Square Pictures, and Mora's decision to self-finance The Howling III as a kind of apology to fans of the original. Furthermore, the episode follows Sullivan's remarkable persistence in self-distributing his film city by city, eventually retitling it The Beer Drinker's Guide to Fitness and Filmmaking and finding genuine audiences in Burlington, Vermont and at the Bleecker Street Cinemas in New York. Consequently, Sullivan's story stands apart from the others as something closer to a quiet triumph than a cautionary tale. In addition to the individual release histories, this episode builds a portrait of independent cinema infrastructure that was simultaneously ambitious and deeply fragile. At the same time, it recovers three filmmakers who operated entirely on their own terms, with wildly different results. The Beer Drinker's Guide to Fitness and Filmmaking is available to watch free on Vimeo, and this episode makes a strong case for why it deserves to be found. The Orphans series is an ongoing exploration of one-off distribution company films as part of The 80s Movie Podcast.

Host Edward Havens concludes the Miramax Films series by exploring the company’s 1989 releases and the year it emerged as a major force in independent cinema.

Rampage is one of the most fascinating and overlooked films of the 1980s. In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, we dive into the troubled production, disturbing subject matter, and complicated legacy of William Friedkin’s 1987 crime thriller. Written, directed, and produced by Friedkin, the film tells the story of a chilling serial killer case that pushes the justice system, morality, and the death penalty debate to their limits. We explore how Rampage was originally intended as a hard-edged courtroom and psychological drama inspired by real-life crimes, and how its production became entangled with the collapse of De Laurentiis Entertainment Group. The film’s fate was sealed when the studio went bankrupt, delaying its release for years and leaving it largely unseen by audiences at the time. Despite being completed in the late 1980s, the film did not receive proper distribution until the early 1990s, contributing to its reputation as one of Friedkin’s most misunderstood works. Whether you’re a fan of William Friedkin’s filmmaking or discovering Rampage for the first time, this episode revisits a dark, challenging, and often forgotten corner of 1980s cinema. We break down why the film still feels unsettling today, how it fits into Friedkin’s career, and why some of the most interesting films of the decade are the ones that nearly disappeared entirely.