At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

1985 was a pivotal year in the teen comedy cycle; it took the teen comedy to whole levels that ranged from the supernatural ( Teen Wolf, The Heavenly Kid, Once Bitten) to commentary about gender relations ( Just One of the Guys), and commentary about the high school social structure ( The Breakfast Club) . And there was Better Off Dead, which almost belongs in a category of its own. Better Off Dead ’s basic storyline isn’t anything original, in fact, it is pretty formulaic to the teen comedies of that time; all the tropes are there: Lane –   The average male protagonists, who lacks confidence and obsesses over a pretty blonde (in this case his ex-girlfriend). He spends the majority of the film either obsessing on how to get Beth back, or attempting suicide and failing every time. Beth -   Lane’s pretty ex-girlfriend, who (as the genre dictates) is a flaky blonde that left Lane for the more popular Roy Stalin. Roy Stalin – Beth’s current boyfriend and Lane’s main antagonist

My first exposure to Godzilla is directly linked to the family’s first VCR; in 1985 my dad finally broke down, drove the family to Sears, and bought a VCR for the THEN low price of $400. It served its function rather usefully and lasted well into the 90s.   Well, owning a VCR is pointless if you don’t have anything to watch on it, so the next day the old man drove to K-Mart (this was before the coming of Wal-Mart) and picked up a few video cassettes, one of which was Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster .   He bought if for two reasons: 1)       He was a fan of old monster films, especially 50s sci-fi like Them and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. 2)       It was a relatively cheap video. This provides some context; it was relative cheap for 1985.   When most videos by major labels (MGM, Fox, etc.) ran anywhere from $14.99 to $39.99, my dad got these for the reasonably low price of $9.99. Of course, there was a reason for that: these videos were of extremely poor quality. The print of Go