Pirates (1986)

The Atlantic Ocean, the year 1659. The infamous English pirate Thomas Bartholomew Red (Walter Matthau), known as the Captain Red, and his ship's teenage cabin boy Jean-Baptiste (Cris Campion), nicknamed "Frog", are lost on a raft without supplies in the ocean. Luckily, Captain Red and Frog are picked up by Neptune, a Spanish galleon en route to Spain. Thrown into the brig, Red and Frog meet the ship's cook Boomako (Olu Jacobs), imprisoned after being accused of poisoning the Neptune's captain Linares (Ferdy Mayne) in a supposed attempt at stealing the golden throne, loot from the Aztec King Catapec Anahuac, that is being secretly transported in the galleon's hold. Captain Red becomes obsessed with capturing the throne for himself. Meanwhile, Frog falls in love with Maria-Dolores (Charlotte Lewis), the niece of Maracaibo's governor, who is travelling on the Neptune as a passenger.

Captain Linares dies and the command of the ship is taken over by his ruthless and ambitious first mate, lieutenant Don Alfonso de la Torré (Damien Thomas) who is also in love with Maria-Dolores, though she does not reciprocate his feelings. Red and Frog, put to work along with Neptune's crew, make an attempt at instigating a mutiny. In response, Don Alfonso has them sentenced to death along with a few other mutineers. However, Captain Red devises a plan that allows them to avoid execution and use the ensuing confusion to launch an open rebellion, which proves successful when most of the crew members rally against their masters. After the battle, Frog gains Maria-Dolores' interest when he saves her from an attempted rape, killing one of his fellow mutineers in the process.

Putting himself in command of the Neptune, Captain Red directs the ship to a pirate cove, led by Dutch (Roy Kinnear), a merchant and old associate of Red. Meeting his former crewmates, Captain Red throws a party and imprisons Don Alfonso and his officers. However, one of Dutch's hostages releases them while the pirates are partying. Don Alfonso and his men return to the Neptune and retake the ship, sailing away with the golden throne in the morning. Using the money he has gained from Dutch, Captain Red purchases an old brig and pursues the Neptune to Maracaibo.

At night, Captain Red, Frog, and Boomako sneak into the governor's residence with Maria-Dolores as their hostage. Red plans to use her as a bargaining chip and force her wealthy uncle to exchange her for the golden throne. Although the governor proves to be unsympathetic for her niece's fate, he becomes more cooperative after Captain Red tortures him instead, finding out that he is suffering from podagra. As Red demands, the governor provides him with a document that entitles him to confiscate the golden throne, posing as the governor's secret messenger. However, Red and Frog fail to carry the throne out of the bay and are later captured by Don Alfonso, who puts them in prison. Maria-Dolores visits them in their cell. She reveals her feelings toward Jean-Baptiste as the two embrace and share a kiss. Maria-Dolores returns to the Neptune, which soon sets off to Spain again, with Don Alfonso promoted to captain.

The pirates, informed by Boomako of what has happened, assault the prison the following night, releasing Red and Frog. Captain Red pursues the Neptune and launches an assault on the galleon. Red sinks his own ship, making retreat impossible, and secretly orders Boomako to prepare a boat in order to make off with the golden throne. In the heat of battle, Frog finds Maria-Dolores and duels with Don Alfonso over her. However, in the end, he remains loyal to Captain Red, abandoning the fight with Don Alfonso in order to aid his leader in capturing the throne. With the Neptune burning and beyond repair, her remaining crew and passengers flee on the boat, while Red, Frog, and Boomako make off in one of their own with the golden throne in their possession. With Maria-Dolores out of his reach now, a furious Frog throws insults at Don Alfonso, who tries to shoot him in retaliation. However, Maria-Dolores intervenes desperately, disrupting his aim, and Boomako is shot dead instead. Red and Frog then leave the scene, abandoning their surviving crewmates in the water.

The last scene from the movie mirrors the first one, with Red and Frog finding themselves alone on a small boat in the open ocean once again.
 

(1986) From Beyond

From Beyond is a 1986 American science fiction-body horror film directed by Stuart Gordon, loosely based on the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written by Dennis Paoli, Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and stars Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree and Ted Sorel.

From Beyond centers on a pair of scientists attempting to stimulate the pineal gland with a device called The Resonator. An unforeseen result of their experiments is the ability to perceive creatures from another dimension that proceed to drag the head scientist into their world, returning him as a grotesque shape-changing monster that preys upon the others at the laboratory.

Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) is a scientist who has developed the Resonator, a machine which allows whoever is within range to see beyond normal perceptible reality. His assistant, Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), activates the machine and soon sees strange creatures in the air. When he is bitten by one of them, he urges Pretorius to turn the machine off. However, the crazed Pretorius refuses. Events transpire to the point where Crawford panics, fleeing outside. When the police arrive, they find Pretorius decapitated. Crawford is subsequently arrested and accused of murder.

Crawford is committed to a psychiatric ward, where he is treated by Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton). After Crawford gives his account of Pretorius' death, Katherine orders that Crawford undergo a CAT scan, showing that Crawford's pineal gland is enlarged and growing. Convinced of Crawford's innocence, Katherine has him released to her custody, and plans on taking him back to Pretorius' house and the Resonator. They are accompanied by Detective Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree), who investigated Pretorius' death.

Upon returning to the house, Katherine and Crawford rebuild the Resonator. Crawford reactivates the machine, which causes more creatures to appear. A severely deformed Pretorius, still alive, appears in the attic and tells the trio of a world beyond that is more pleasurable than normal reality. A panicking Crawford shuts off the Resonator, making Pretorius and the creatures vanish.

The next morning, Katherine insists that the Resonator could shed light on the victims of schizophrenia, as well as possible treatments and suggests that they turn the machine back on, but Bubba and Crawford disagree. While Bubba and Crawford are asleep, Katherine gets back up to feel the pleasure from the machine and turns it back on, bringing forth a worried Crawford and the now almost unrecognizable and mutated Pretorius. Bubba enters the scene as Pretorius grabs Katherine, preparing to eat her mind and take her to the world of beyond. Crawford and Bubba go down into the basement to shut off the power, but encounter a giant worm-monster. Bubba succeeds in shutting off the power, rescuing Crawford and Katherine and sending Pretorius away.

When Bubba decides that they should leave the house, all of a sudden, Pretorius somehow returns and the Resonator turns back on, as all three of them run up into the attic to deactivate it. Katherine and Crawford are attacked by little bee-like creatures, and as Bubba pushes them out of the way, he is devoured to the bone. Crawford fights off Pretorius and succeeds in freeing Katherine, but then his enlarged pineal gland pops out of his forehead. Katherine short circuits the machine by spraying it repeatedly with a fire extinguisher.

She then takes Crawford back to the hospital, where she is evaluated for insanity and schizophrenia, since her story was just like Crawford's. As Katherine is being prepared for shock treatment by a sadistic staff member, Crawford has developed an overwhelming hunger for human brains and kills Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon). Katherine escapes and drives back to the house with a bomb and a crazed Crawford following her.

Katherine puts the bomb on the Resonator and goes to leave when Crawford attacks her. As he is about to eat her brain, she bites off his pineal gland, reverting him to his senses. However, Crawford is pulled away and eaten by a completely deformed, mutated Pretorius. Katherine finally escapes, right as the whole attic explodes.

She lands on her legs, breaking one, and as the neighbors gather around her, she goes from sobbing to laughing hysterically as she tells them, "It ATE him!".

(1986) Blue Velvet

College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery. They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

(1986) Short Circuit

Short Circuit is a 1986 American comic science fiction film directed by John Badham, and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. The film's plot centers upon an experimental military robot that is struck by lightning and gains a more humanlike intelligence, with which it embarks to explore its new state. Short Circuit stars Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W. Bailey, with Tim Blaney as the voice of the robot, Number Five. A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988.

Number 5 is part of a series of prototype U.S. military S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport) robots built for the Cold War by NOVA Laboratories. The series' inventors, Newton Graham Crosby and Ben Jabituya, are more interested in peaceful applications including music and social aid. After a demonstration of the robots' capabilities, Number 5 is hit by a lightning-induced power surge, scrambling its programming and giving it a sense of free will. Several incidents allow the robot to escape the facility accidentally, barely able to communicate and uncertain of its directive. In Astoria, Oregon, Stephanie Speck (who cares for animals and mistakes Number 5 for an extraterrestrial visitor) grants Number 5 access to books, television, and other stimuli, to satisfy his hunger for 'input'; whereupon Number 5 develops a whimsical and curious childlike personality. When Stephanie realizes Number 5 is a military invention, she contacts NOVA who send out a team to recover him, bringing one of the other robots along to help. When Number 5 accidentally crushes a grasshopper and gains an understanding of mortality, he concludes that if NOVA disassembles him he too will cease to be alive. Horrified, Number 5 steals Stephanie's van and flees, but the pair are cornered by NOVA, including Newton and Ben. Although Stephanie attempts to reveal his newly discovered sentience, Number 5 is deactivated and captured. Being taken on the way to NOVA, he manages to turn himself back on and escapes despite a tracker that had been placed on him. Returning to Stephanie for protection, Number 5's unusual actions catch the attention of his creators, but NOVA's CEO Dr. Howard Marner turns a deaf ear to their wild hypothesis.

From this follow several adventurous escapes from the soldiers, led by NOVA's security chief Captain Skroeder (G. W. Bailey). Having humiliated Stephanie's suitor Frank and three of the remaining prototypes (that have been reprogrammed to imitate The Three Stooges by Number 5), Stephanie and the robot convince Newton of the robot's sentience. Shortly after, the trio are cornered by Skroeder, who has secretly taken over NOVA's security, and the Army, both of whom chase after Number 5, whose only concern is Newton and Stephanie's safety. Number 5 flees across the fields until a US Army helicopter sweeps over a nearby rise and its missiles blow the hapless robot to pieces. Newton and Stephanie are devastated over the loss, Newton quits NOVA. Marner is also disappointed at the destruction of years of research, and seeing the security team celebrate, quickly dismisses Skroeder for insubordination. Stephanie leaves with Newton, who plans to head to his father's estate in Montana and start over. During their drive, Number 5 reveals himself to them, surprising his friends by revealing the warmongers actually blew up a duplicate he made out of spare parts. Elated in their reunion, Number 5 renames himself "Johnny Five" after a song "Who's Johnny" that he heard when he escaped from NOVA's van. He accompanies her and Newton to their new home.

(1986) Pretty in Pink

Andie (Molly Ringwald) is an outcast at her Chicago high school, hanging out either with her older boss (Annie Potts), who owns the record store where she works, or her quirky classmate Duckie (Jon Cryer), who has a crush on her. When one of the rich and popular kids at school, Blane (Andrew McCarthy), asks Andie out, it seems too good to be true. As Andie starts falling for Blane, she begins to realizes that dating someone from a different social sphere is not easy.

(1986) Platoon

Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) leaves his university studies to enlist in combat duty in Vietnam in 1967. Once he's on the ground in the middle of battle, his idealism fades. Infighting in his unit between Staff Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), who believes nearby villagers are harboring Viet Cong soldiers, and Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), who has a more sympathetic view of the locals, ends up pitting the soldiers against each other as well as against the enemy.

(1986) Mona Lisa

George is a small-time crook just out of prison who discovers his tough-guy image is out of date. Reduced to working as a minder/driver for high class call girl Simone, he has to agree when she asks him to find a young colleague from her King's Cross days. That's when George's troubles just start.

(1986) Lady Jane

King Henry VIII has died, and his only heir, a young Edward VI (Warren Saire), is dying too. Minister John Dudley (John Wood) doesn't want the Roman Catholic Princess Mary (Jane Lapotaire) to become queen, as that would end the Protestant Reformation. Dudley plots to keep Edward alive long enough to name Lady Jane Grey (Helena Bonham Carter) as his heir and also marries Jane to his son, Guilford (Cary Elwes). Jane and Guilford soon fall in love, but the kingdom doesn't believe they should rule.

(1986) Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour Krelboin (Jonathan Haze) works in the Skid Row flower shop owned by Mr. Mushnik (Mel Welles). In his spare time, Seymour creates a new plant species he names Audrey Junior in honor of his girlfriend Audrey (Jackie Joseph). Audrey Junior begins speaking and demands to be fed human blood and flesh, convincing Seymour to kill a railroad detective, a sadistic dentist and a trollop. Seymour's guilt over the deaths forces him to confront Audrey Junior in a final confrontation.

(1986) Labyrinth

Labyrinth is a 1986 British-American adventure musical fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, executive produced by George Lucas, and based upon conceptual designs by Brian Froud. The film revolves around 16-year-old Sarah's (Jennifer Connelly) quest to reach the center of an enormous otherworldly maze to rescue her infant brother Toby, who has been kidnapped by Jareth, the Goblin King (David Bowie). With the exception of Bowie and Connelly, most of the significant characters in the film are played by puppets produced by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Williams rehearses a play in the park with her dog Merlin and becomes distracted by a line she is unable to remember while being watched by a barn owl. Realizing she is late to babysit her baby brother Toby, she rushes home and is confronted by her stepmother Irene before she and her father Robert leave for dinner. Sarah realizes that Toby is in possession of her treasured teddy bear Lancelot. Frustrated by this and his constant crying, Sarah rashly wishes Toby be taken away by the Goblin King Jareth, a character in the play she is rehearsing. She is shocked when Toby disappears and the Goblin King confronts her and transports her to his kingdom. He refuses to return the baby, but gives Sarah thirteen hours to solve his Labyrinth and find him before Toby is turned into a goblin. Sarah meets the dwarvish Hoggle, who aids her in entering the Labyrinth, but a talking worm inadvertently sends her in the wrong direction.

Sarah ends up in an oubliette where she reunites with Hoggle. After they confront Jareth and escape one of his traps, the two encounter a large beast named Ludo. Hoggle flees while Sarah befriends Ludo. After another riddle, she loses him in a forest. Hoggle encounters Jareth, who gives him a peach and instructs him to give it to Sarah, calling his loyalty into question as he was supposed to lead her out of the maze. Sarah is assaulted by a group of creatures with detachable body parts who try to remove her head, but Hoggle comes to her aid. She kisses him, and Jareth magically sends them to the Bog of Eternal Stench as punishment, where they reunite with Ludo. Sarah, Hoggle, and Ludo meet the guard of a bridge out of the swamp named Sir Didymus, an anthropomorphic fox and his Old English Sheepdog steed named Ambrosius (who bears a resemblance to Merlin). After Ludo saves Sarah from falling into the swamp, Didymus joins the group. After the group gets hungry, Hoggle gives Sarah the peach and runs away as it begins to erase her memories. She has a dream where Jareth comes to her at a masquerade ball, proclaiming his love for her, but she resists and escapes, falling into a junkyard. After an old hag named Junk Lady fails to brainwash her and her memory is jogged, she is rescued by the others, and they are right outside Goblin City near Jareth's castle. Confronted by the gate guard, Hoggle comes to the rescue. Despite his feeling unworthy of forgiveness, Sarah and the others welcome him back, and they enter the city together.

Jareth is alerted to their presence and sends his goblin army to stop them, but Ludo's powers to summon rocks helps to turn the tide of the comical battle, and they enter the castle. Sarah insists she must face Jareth alone and promises to call the others if needed. In a room modeled after an Escher staircase, she confronts Jareth while trying to retrieve Toby. She tries to recite the line from her play, that has told her adventure to that point, but cannot remember the last line. As Jareth begs her to obey him and he will love her, she remembers the line, "You have no power over me!" Defeated at the last second, Jareth returns Sarah and Toby to the real world safely.

Realizing how important Toby is to her, she gives him Lancelot and returns to her room. While there, she sees her friends in the mirror and realizes even though she is growing up, she still needs them in her life every now and again. In an instant, all of the major characters from the Labyrinth appear in her room for a raucous celebration, while Jareth in his owl form watches from outside and then flies away into the night.

(1986) Kung Fu: The Movie

Searching for a peaceful life in 1885 Sacramento, Calif., Caine is stalked by opium traders and a vengeful Manchu lord.

(1986) In Sickness & in Health: Series Two

(1986) Half Moon Street

A London scholar (Sigourney Weaver) moonlights as a personal escort and becomes a pawn in a plot against a client (Michael Caine).

(1986) Highlander

When the mystical Russell Nash (Christopher Lambert) kills a man in a sword fight in a New York City parking lot, he leaves a sliver of an ancient weapon lodged in a car in the process. After brilliant forensics specialist Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) recovers evidence of the mysterious weapon, she and her partner, Lt. Frank Moran (Alan North), embark on an investigation Of Nash that will land them in the middle of a dangerous, centuries-old feud between powerful immortals.

(1986) Flight of the Navigator

This 1978 Disney adventure tells the story of 12-year-old David (Joey Cramer) who lives with his family in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. When he awakens from being accidentally knocked out in the forest near his home, he finds that eight years have passed. His family is overjoyed to have him back, but just as perplexed as he is by the fact that he hasn't aged. When a NASA scientist (Howard Hesseman) discovers a UFO nearby, David gets the chance to unravel the mystery and recover the life he lost.

(1986) Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) has an uncanny skill at cutting classes and getting away with it. Intending to make one last duck-out before graduation, Ferris calls in sick, "borrows" a Ferrari, and embarks on a one-day journey through the streets of Chicago. On Ferris' trail is high school principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), determined to catch him in the act.

(1986) Clockwise

(1986) Critters

(1986) Aliens

After floating in space for 57 years, Lt. Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) shuttle is found by a deep space salvage team. Upon arriving at LV-426, the marines find only one survivor, a nine year old girl named Newt (Carrie Henn). But even these battle-hardened marines with all the latest weaponry are no match for the hundreds of aliens that have invaded the colony.

(1986) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home