Revenge of the Nerds

1984 comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Some nerds go to college. They're thrown out of their dorm room when the jocks burn their fraternity house down and team together to form their own fraternity. The jocks pick on them.

Not only did I start watching this movie--I finished it. Afterward, I felt more depressed than I've ever felt before. My will-to-live was at an all-time low. I made a mental list of well over one-thousand things that I could have done with the time it took me to watch Revenge of the Nerds. I wept uncontrollably for another ninety minutes.

For me, this is the typical 80's comedy, and that is not a good thing. I did catch the insult "douchebag" in there somewhere. I'd questioned its use in Wet Hot American Summer which was supposed to take place in '81. I wonder if Nerds is the first movie with a "douchebag" reference. It should be noted that the character (Booger, of course) did not call another character a douchebag; he just used it in an insult. The only chuckle this got from me was the following conversation:

"See that man over there? We arrested him for mopery."
"What's mopery?"
"Mopery is exposing yourself to a blind person."

And thinking about how that made me chuckle has depressed me again. So does thinking about the musical number where Poindexter plays an electric violin. I can't decide if that's the greatest thing I've ever seen or the worst thing I've ever seen.

Trivia: Booger has a real name in the movie--Dudley Dawson. Curtis Armstrong is one of the most underrated actors of all time, by the way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i agree curtis armstrong is awesome. i kind of want to be booger. i stand by my emailed comments. the nerds are bullys they took their "revenge" to far by raping the jocks girlfriends and selling nude pics of them. apperently thats the way to get the girl. the rapist gets the girl in the end.

Shane said...

Yes, that could explain my depression.

Booger, by the way, was in one of my favorite terrible movies that I watched last year--Quigley. Gary Busey plays a canine reincarnation of a rich guy. Plays it to perfection! Curtis Armstrong plays a guy whose suit doesn't fit him correctly. It's an awesomely bad movie with some great religious themes.

Shane said...

Yeah, you are right. The nerds aren't sympathetic at all. What they do for the titular revenge is criminal and far worse than anything the jocks did in this movie. Well, revenge on the females. I wonder what this says about the 1980s.

Anonymous said...

hhmmm yes they got back at the girlfriends of the jocks instead of the jocks themselves. i suppose if you ignore the methods the real victory is the nerd stealing the jocks girlfriend. unfortuantely all men appear to be misognists. armstrong carried that turd of a movie better off dead. he was the only reason to like that movie.