Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s June 6, 1986, and we’re off to see Invaders from Mars, Raw Deal, and SpaceCamp.

Invaders from Mars

While everyone complains about how there are no original ideas in today’s films, welcome to the same issue in 1986.

12-year-old David Gardner dreams of space, and after staying up to watch a meteor shower, he sees what he believes is a UFO landing over the hill behind his house. The next morning his dad goes to investigate, but comes back not acting like himself. It seems the Martians have come to town and they’re going to start taking over the world by controlling one person at a time. With the help of his teacher, David starts to fight back and hopefully drive the Martians off the planet.

Other than some very goofy looking designs for the Martians, the film was a bit of fun, I felt. It certainly didn’t break any new ground, but I also definitely didn’t hate it. Throw it on for a mindless watch.

Where to watch: Available to stream.

Raw Deal

Even for a Schwarzenegger movie, this one was pretty bad.

Mark Kaminski (Schwarzenegger), was thrown out of the FBI on trumped up charges, but when his old boss, FBI Agent Harry Shannon, (Darren McGavin) finds his son killed while protecting a mafia informant, there’s only one man he trusts. Kaminski goes undercover in the mafia and tries to bring it down from the inside, ending up in a lengthy shootout with all of the members of two different mafia families.

I’m not sure how a movie with such a basic plot can be this boring, but it somehow succeeds. Not once was I engaged with the story. The only saving grace was I would watch McGavin in anything.

Where to watch: Available to stream.

SpaceCamp

Apparently, we’re all going to try to forget this movie existed.

When a group of teens attends Space Camp, they find themselves in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit inside a Space Shuttle while it’s on the launch pad. Following an ‘accident’ orchestrated by a friendly robot, they end up having to launch with their adult supervisor and trying to find their way back home with limited resources.

As of this writing (June 6, 2026), this film is out of print physically, not streaming (legally), and is not available for digital purchase. YOU may be able to find it on a TUBE somewhere, however, if you look around.

Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. It’s silly, but it pretty much knew what it was. Lets put it this way, I enjoyed it more than Raw Deal.

1986 Movie Reviews will continue on June 6, 2026, with Invaders From Mars, Raw Deal, and SpaceCamp.

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: June 5th, 2026 / 09:01 PM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Alice Eve, Eric Michael Cole, Elle Haymond, Sarah Siadat, Johnny Gaffney, Lisa Yaro, Jim Klock, Vince Jolivette, Stephen Oliver
Writers: Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone, story by Dick Grunert and Ryan R. Johnson and James Kondelik
Director: Jonathan Zuck
Distributor: IFC
Release Date: June 5, 2026

CHUM is the latest entry in the shark-obsessed-psycho-with-a-boat subgenre. It also meshes, perhaps coincidentally, with the 2024 sharks-but-no-psycho-ruin-a-Mediterranean-destination-wedding SOMETHING IN THE WATER.

Our narrator is Roy (Jim Klock) who, in the opening sequence, loses his wife to an enormous Great White in the sea off Malta. He begins by saying in voiceover, “You took her from me.” This is followed by a monologue about how much Roy loves his wife and includes the line, “Her scream lost in the roar of the sea.”

There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the line, except that we see the whole incident and then some – CHUM is very gore-friendly in all its shark attacks – and the woman is already underwater when the attack occurs. There’s no scream.

So, are we supposed to think that Roy’s imagination is playing tricks, or that director Jonathan Zuck and his co-writer Joe Leone, working from a story by Dick Grunert and Ryan R. Johnson and James Kondelik, aren’t paying close attention to what they’re doing? 

Roy says he spent his life on the ocean, but “when you took her, I learned something new.”

Then we cut to a wedding banquet, where proud father Reginald (Stephen Oliver) is toasting his daughter the bride Tina (Alice Eve) and her groom Tom (Eric Michael Cole). Also in attendance are Tina’s irritable younger sister Sadie (Elle Haymond), bridesmaids Rachinda (Sarah Siadat) and Britney (Lisa Yaro), and Eric’s bro-ish best man Rick (Johnny Gaffney).

It’s a beautiful setting and a good-looking group, but it doesn’t take long for us to realize this union may not last. Tina and Tom have had a bitter fight about something that they seem unable to resolve. Tom winds up sleeping on the beach near the tide line, while Tina passes out on their hotel room bed in her wedding gown.

The nature of the dispute turns out to be one of the best aspects of CHUM. It’s real, it’s not the clichés that we too often get about onscreen marital disputes, and it’s wholly plausible that the timing is such that the couple haven’t had to confront it earlier.

Unaware of trouble in paradise, Rick has arranged a boat outing for the wedding party (sans Dad). Tina and Tom don’t want to go, but Rick guilts them into it – renting the boat for the day cost him a fortune.

The proprietor of The Tipsy Mermaid, Captain Mackey (Vince Jolivette), welcomes the six passengers aboard. He assures shark-averse Britney that there have never been attacks in these waters.

This again makes us wonder what’s happening on a meta level. We can see that The Tipsy Mermaid is out by the same coastline that we saw in the opening, so we know there’s been at least one shark attack here. Is Captain Mackey uninformed or lying?

A little later, we see that the microphone on the communications panel is severed. Our minds leap toward sabotage, but – spoiler alert – no, it’s just shoddy upkeep on The Tipsy Mermaid.

In reality (and easy to Google for Mackey or anyone in the group to who knew they’d be going out to sea that day), while they are rare, there have been shark attacks off Malta.

Furthermore, Tom, who is meant to be an expert on these matters, asserts that Great Whites are strangers to these waters, but are being driven north by climate change. It’s laudable that CHUM makes climate change part of the plot (and not just because of where the shark is), but again, there is a whole actual (albeit declining) subspecies of Great Whites in the Mediterranean.

We’re trying to figure out how all this will link up with Roy and what he’s learned, and we get to that, although perhaps not the way we expect, which is another CHUM asset.

Except for when the shark needs to interact with humans and/or vessels, the animal looks realistic, like footage of a genuine Great White. We also get a variety of fish in the underwater shots, which is a nice touch.

But there are the common-to-the-subgenre tropes of the shark looking way too big every time she breaches and eating way too much. Also, sharks do not growl.

One key aspect of this subgenre is how intrigued we are by the human villain. Here, the link between motivation and action doesn’t stack up well against that of comparable characters (e.g., Quint in JAWS or Bruce Tucker in DANGEROUS ANIMALS).

As these kinds of movies go, CHUM is moderately diverting, but it’s easy to see where it could have been better.

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The state of California is leading an effort to prepare a possible lawsuit that could thwart Paramount Skydance Corp.’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, a potential obstacle for the $111-billion deal.

The lawsuit, which could be filed as early as this month, would likely involve multiple states, according to a source familiar with the deliberations who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The litigation would seek to challenge the proposed merger on antitrust grounds, arguing it would thwart competition, lower wages and lead to widespread job losses.

“The Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers remains an active investigation, and we do not have any updates to share at this time,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement.

In a statement, Paramount said it “will continue to fight against any attempt to derail a deal that plainly benefits consumers, creators and the industry as whole.”

“Opposing this deal means opposing expanded consumer choice, new opportunities for creators and workers, and greater competition throughout the creative ecosystem — the opposite of what antitrust law is meant to achieve,” the company added.

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders in April approved the sale of the company to Paramount after Netflix dropped out of the auction.

Under Paramount Chairman David Ellison’s proposal, Warner investors would receive $31 a share, nearly four times the price of the company’s stock in April 2025. He also said he will keep both studios’ release schedules of 15 movies a year for a total of 30 films a year.

Nonetheless, Ellison and his team have vowed to make $6 billion in cuts following the merger, which requires regulatory approval. The combined company would have to contend with $79 billion in deal debt.

The prospect of substantial job cuts during a period of downsizing in Hollywood has ignited widespread opposition to the sale.

Thousands of people who work in the TV and film industry, including actor Joaquin Phoenix and director-writer-producer JJ Abrams signed an open letter opposing Paramount’s planned acquisition of WBD, saying it would lead to fewer production jobs and fewer choices for consumers. Others have also raised concerns about the impact it could have on content.

“The consequences would be felt nationwide, from destroying CNN the way that Ellisons have devastated CBS to entertainment industry job losses and consumers losing access to independent voices and a competitive market,” said Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, one of the groups that organized the open letter. “State attorneys general have both the authority and the responsibility to act when a transaction of this scale directly threatens the public’s interest, and I hope states across the country will join any effort to challenge this deal,” Eisen said in a statement.

The potential lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg and Reuters, is being considered by other states, including New York and Colorado.

“Paramount and Warner Bros. haven’t cleared regulatory scrutiny,” Bonta told The Times in March. “My office has an open investigation into [the deal] and we intend to be vigorous in our review.”

Despite the potential obstacle, Raymond James equity analysts said in a note on Thursday that they “still believe the deal is likely to close.”

Last month, Paramount hired antitrust attorney Jeffrey Kessler to defend its planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Kessler recently led a case for state attorney generals against concert promoter and ticketing firm Live Nation, resulting in a win for states, including California.

“We also think there are win/win solutions to be had particularly in California given exodus of production from CA in recent years and efforts to bring production back to Hollywood,” the analyst said in their note.

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.