Even though I’m typically the first one to openly ridicule many modern films focusing on fantastical fare along the lines of goblins, hobbits and elves, there are a few from the 1980s I unabashedly enjoy, with one of them being the 1985 Ridley Scott flick Legend, a favorite video rental of my mother.

I have to admit that, during my many childhood viewings, even though I was somewhat lost in the plot, as soon as Tim Curry’s demonic creature Darkness showed up in the third act, the fear of God was in me and it didn’t matter what had come before, as I was engrossed.

And that Bryan Ferry song playing over the credits? I’ve always loved that tune.

Tom Cruise is Jack, a forest dweller in love with the lovely Princess Lili (Mia Sara). In order to impress her, like most men would do, he shows her the secret unicorns roaming the woods. However, some evil demons are looking for the same beasts, mostly to steal their horns which apparently are imbued with some kind of magic.

This causes an immediate winter in the forest, as Jack and his newfound elven buddies try to make it down to the underworld to rescue Lili and regain the horn. That’s all well and good, but the place is ruled by Darkness, who, if you ask me, is the most perfect realization of a Satan-like creature in all of film. He is truly some scary stuff, although I heard women say he’s erotic. (Chances are they were looking for attention.)

When originally released, Legend was a bit of a bomb, and I can see why: The film suffers from a case of overimagination, almost creating its own rules and language — something that hurts many nonderivative films, as many moviegoers just want something they can get in and out of in around 90 minutes.

And, bless the studio, in the original theatrical cut, they sliced much of Scott’s work down to right around 90 minutes.

That being said, after viewing the director’s cut, I think he ably did his best to craft a modern-day fairy tale in the studio system, with actual thought put into it, so of course they didn’t want it. This isn’t just kids running around shouting made-up words like morons. But, you know, that’s the kind of fantasy that sells and this didn’t, so what do I know? —Louis Fowler

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Before I even get to the film, when did the subtitle become Jobe’s War? I always remember it being Beyond Cyberspace, but maybe I’m in one of those Mandela holes so prevalent these days.

Regardless, in this sequel to The Lawnmower Man — a Stephen King adaptation I never saw and probably never will— Jobe (Matt Frewer), a mentally handicapped and perpetually legless landscaper who loves comics and cake, is put to work by a heartless corporation to design a cyberworld inside of some sort of a super chip.

Outside, as the world is mired in a low-rent end-of-civilization-style collapse, a group of subterranean youths and their wacky dog are contacted by Jobe to find the comically apocalyptic Dr. Trace (a moustache-less Patrick Bergin) and help him decipher part of the super chip. Too bad it’s a trick and, drunk on power, Jobe has ATMs spit out money and fire hydrants shoot fire.

It’s all part of his plan to rule cyberspace as a god; personally, I don’t see a problem, but Trace and the kids do, jumping into the information superhighway, hopping on their “cyber-bikes” and taking on Jobe with a rather run-of-the-mill swordfight before the extremely rushed ending.

Still, would I be wrong in saying I kind of liked it?

Fitting in on the virtually imagined circuit board of pre-internet features like Virtuosity and Brainscan, Lawnmower Man 2 makes little to no sense, but in a way, that’s probably its strongest feature; it’s a disjointed film with characters that weirdly respond to one another, much of the time feeling like we’re in the dreams of another Frewer character, Max Headroom.

As long as we’re changing film titles, how about Matt Frewer Presents Tales from the Chip: Jobe’s War? Just a thought … —Louis Fowler

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Crack in the World could have been born from a discussion question in your fifth-grade science textbook: “What do you think would happen if scientists broke through the center of the earth with a nuclear warhead? Explain.” Heck, Crack in the World even uses the requisite 10 words from that chapter’s vocabulary list.

Underneath Africa, in a lab not unlike TV’s soon-to-debut Batcave, Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews, The Crowded Sky) runs Project Inner Space, which aims to harness the magma at our planet’s core as a “limitless” energy source. Rather than put a baby in his pregnancy-craving wife, Maggie (Janette Scott, 1963’s The Day of the Triffids), Stephen is obsessed with penetrating the final layer of crust to reach said magma.

His proposed solution — a 10-megaton thermonuclear device — sounds alarms in Maggie’s ex, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore, Arabesque), who warns the explosion would cause massive fissures, tidal waves and other stuff that disaster-movie dreams are made of. Secretly terminally ill and thereby obsessed with his legacy, Stephen proceeds anyway.

The mission is a success! If the mission were to hella fuck some shit up ’round the globe. The titular crack in the world forms and begins circumnavigating; if not stopped, Earth will split in two, ending life as we know it. In what amounts to a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, Ted suggests fixing Stephen’s blunder by dropping a hydrogen bomb to effectively cut the crack off at the pass. (Trust me: It makes enough sense within the movie.)

As enjoyable as Crack in the World is, which is close to immensely, I can’t help but think what Irwin Allen would have done with it in his prime — likely something as cataclysmic as the poster depicts. In the hands of one Andrew Marton, then on the verge of becoming Ivan Tors’ go-to director, nothing remotely like that occurs, although he does take out a (model) train of evacuating villagers. Prepare not for an effects spectacle, but for a more sober, science-minded clarion call with a coda that leans hard into biblical overtones. After the near-miss of the Cuban missile crisis, it was just the type of Technicolor reminder the Western world needed. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.