Watching films when you're a kid is a massively joyful experience – before all the cynicism kicks in, it's the perfect escape to another world.
So it's no surprise that we hold our childhood favourites close to our hearts, precious pieces of nostalgia that they are, so warm and perfect, like a favourite soft toy.
Yeah. Well, we're here to ruin that. It's time to put away childish things and accept that some of the films we thought were "brilliaaaaaant" when we were kids are in fact "rubbiiiiish" when approached with a critical eye. Prepare to have your memories wrecked.
1. The NeverEnding Story
This was just a cut-price Labyrinth with half the charm, which opted for mean moves as a substitute for subtlety or emotion. Yeah, that's right kids, we're going to drown the lovely horsey in the SWAMP OF SADNESS. Yeah, watch him drown and cry real tears! Also Bastian (Barret Oliver, who also played D.A.R.Y.L.) is very annoying. Very annoying indeed.
2. Police Academy
It's actually mildly embarrassing that we genuinely thought this was a comedy masterpiece when we were very small. It's not, it's really not. It is puerile, homophobic, slapstick nonsense which relies heavily on a) boobs, b) Steve Guttenberg and c) a man making noises for its humour.
3. Three Men and a Baby
While we're on Steve Guttenberg – what the hell was wrong with us that he was our idea of a great actor and leading man? And why were we so charmed by a movie that said "Ha ha, look, blokes are crap at childcare!", like new mothers all suddenly know how to do all that stuff innately.
Kind of sweet, but no masterpiece, and don't even get us started on Three Men and a Little Lady.
4. Clash of the Titans
Whoa, whoa! Hold onto your outrage for just a moment... we agree that this movie is still eminently watchable, in part because it's just a really great story (thanks, Ancient Greeks!), but also because of the performances (thanks Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, etc!).
But wait – this movie was released in 1981. Yes, 1981. Not 1963 when Jason and the Argonauts came out, but 1981. That's four years after Star Wars. One year after The Shining. Thirteen years after 2001: A Space Odyssey! Now go watch it and tell us it's a brilliantly made film.
Exactly.
5. The Mask
At the time, we could still sanction Jim Carrey's buffoonery. He wasn't mega famous and completely ubiquitous so we quite liked his energy – or something. Now of course, The Mask is completely unwatchable, with Carrey's gurning and forced delivery feeling like fingernails down a chalk board. The bits where he's playing 'Zero' Stanley Ipkiss are just about sufferable though.
6. Pump Up The Volume
Women of a certain age are likely to remember with fondness this movie starring Christian Slater as a rebellious pirate-radio DJ.
Cashing in on his popularity from Heathers, it was another aspirational counter-culture teen movie. Thing is, looking at it now, it's quite clearly terrible. If they remade Pump Up The Volume now, Slater's Hard Harry would be a YouTube sensation, popular with the kids for speaking his mind, until the terrible olds who don't understand try to shut him down.
Yep, the original was just as awful as that sounds.
7. Flubber
It's a remake of the 1961 movie The Absent-Minded Professor, about a scatty scientist who invents "flying rubber" (flubber), causing all sort of CGI-based hijinx and pratfalls. This was around the time that Robin Williams was at his most frenetic – funny if you're a kid, but massively tiresome if you're not.
8. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Yes, Indiana Jones is one of cinema's greatest ever heroes. And The Crystal Skull was a huge disappointment. But Indy's second movie seems to get away with its own terrible ideas, seemingly just because it's from the '80s. When we were kids, all we could see was Indy being as awesome as ever, and it was a load of swashbuckling fun. But if you watch it today, it's almost impossible to do so without wincing.
The reason? Kate Capshaw as Indy's love interest Willie Scott, aka Hollywood's worst ever character. She spends the entire movie screaming, getting in the way and providing nothing for the plot. Willie is so bad that it makes the movie pretty damn unwatchable.
Even without Willie, it's strangely dark and violent, Indy is more of a dick than usual, and its portrayal of India and Hinduism is, well... yeah (chilled monkey brains are not actual Indian food, guys).
As it's a prequel, you can just do yourself a favour and skip to The Last Crusade.
9. Highlander
At the time it seemed such a cool idea – immortals do battle across the centuries, because There Can Be Only One! Christopher Lambert was the Scottish sabre-wielding baddass, Sean Connery his Spanish-Egyptian mentor, and Clancy Brown was a horrible, bald quasi-medieval baddie. And Queen! Queen did the music! The album A Kind of Magic is basically the soundtrack!
Sadly a rewatch reveals that it was, in fact, dreadful. Bombastically shot, shonkily edited and barely acted at all, with accents that make no sense. A French Scotsman. A Scottish Spaniard. An American Russian. It looks like a made-for-TV Mad Max rip-off, or, more pertinently, an extended rock video with delusions of grandeur. Off with its head!
Deputy Editor, Digital Spy Chris has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor, having worked as a journalist covering TV and movies since the '90s. Starting out as a TV listings editor at the Press Association, he was quickly hired by the nascent Heat magazine, where he rose to become Senior Editor, interviewing the likes of Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and Paris Hilton. Over the years he has written about entertainment with clarity and wit for Heat, Elle, Q, The Telegraph and of course Digital Spy, and has served many times as a judge in the Royal Television Society awards. He has written and recorded a novelty single with Lord Lloyd-Webber, written scripts for the National TV Awards, made Noel Edmonds cry, accidentally punched an Inbetweener and stolen a small piece of rubble from the Battle of Hogwarts movie set. (They can't have it back.)
