As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window. [23 Feb 1983, p.B4]

Though even Blake Edwards, the director behind the Panthers, could not make the connective material in this film work well, there is so much joy in the vintage Sellers that Trail of the Pink Panther rates as one of the funniest films of this year. Sellers' outtakes are funnier than most of the new material on film today. We shall not see the like of him again soon. [21 Dec 1982, p.C7]

Imagine for a moment Lord of the Rings peformed by puppets and hydraulically operated monsters against a background of realistic fantasy, and you have an idea of The Dark Crystal. It's the kind of film that children may take for granted, but that adults are transfixed by; there is much oohing and aahing in the seats. [20 Dec 1982, p.B8]

There are times when a B-movie is made so carefully and performed so robustly that the audience wants it to work and goes with it, roots for it; those are the times that directors grope for, even with A-material. The Verdict may be only a B-movie in a three-piece suit, but this is one of those times, and everybody's going to like it. [21 Dec 1982, p.C7]

Tootsie is full of good movie writing, and such are its pleasures that you wonder early on why all comedies can't be this good. The problem is that it's hard to do; the trick is that Tootsie makes it look easy. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Honkytonk Man is Clint Eastwood's long, long ramble through the American Southwest in search of period, in search of character, in search of self-control. As a director, at least, he never finds the latter -- among the many things wrong with his latest film is that he apparently could not bring himself to slice away any of the flab. [22 Dec 1982, p.D18]

Airplane II opens promisingly with a spate of hit-and-run gags, but the picture sags in the middle and lies flat for the last half-hour. Bringing on the rigor mortis is the appearance of William Shatner, playing the lunar-base commander who must guide Hays' troubled space shuttle to a safe landing. [14 Dec 1982, p.D14]

Two energetic and wonderfully physical comedians, each among the best of his generation. But in their movie, The Toy, they do not amount to much. Pryor seems unhappy about some of his lines and situations, and well he might. It's hard to know just what Gleason thinks, as he is able to deliver even atrocious dialogue with a misanthropic zest that is always appealing, but he has a right to be embarrassed, too. [20 Dec 1982, p.B7]

G-rated material with the snap of a good story and animated artwork that often sparkles. [01 Dec 1982, p.D6]

Still of the Night is a restful thriller, soft and dreamy and largely undisturbing. Like the wee hours themselves, the movie seems to stretch its time beyond the normal frame of minutes; here, 90 of them go by at the pace of an entire evening. [17 Dec 1982, p.D14]

It's good work in aid of very little. Smithereens is often fascinating, but it is never satisfying. And by the end, when Wren seems about to be billed for her sins, it's hard to care much one way or another. [28 May 1983, p.D7]

The film has fun. In a way, Creepshow is a horror for grownups. It is grownups, after all, who understand that horror stories must be fun; if they're not, then they're just horrifying, and who wants that? [15 Nov 1982, p.D3]

Sound and image are consistently bad, and Piranha II is the first film in my experience to give screen credit (in opening and closing titles) to a man in charge of "special effects and prosthetics." It can't be an easy way to make a living.

We hear a lot about the great hunger for "wholesome" films, but it is rare that one is successful; wholesomeness and treacle seem to have become confused in the Hollywood mind. The Man From Snowy River is different. It's a lesson in how such films should be made. [26 Jan 1983, p.B8]

There's a delightfully promising premise behind Halloween III -- something's wrong with the kids' masks -- but somehow Wallace gets sidetracked, and the movie wanders away. [30 Oct 1982, p.D5]

First Blood is no more than a man-bites-town retread, in which Vietnam and its aftermath are merely the angle. [27 Oct 1982, p.B6]

It's like an afternoon at the quarter slots -- lots of effort, small payoff. [11 Oct 1982, p.B6]

Stones fans will enjoy Let's Spend the Night Together, flaws and all; those who aren't devotees of the venerable band won't be converted by the movie, and probably should stay away. [17 Feb 1983, p.B9]

My Favorite Year moves from bad joke to bad joke, but it does move. [08 Oct 1982, p.D9]

With their flair for wretched excess, Damiani and screenwriter Tommy Lee Wallace make it hard to bear Amityville II in good humor. [28 Sep 1982, p.D6]

Zapped strains for laughs with a few weak attempts at film parody. The references here are to Star Trek, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist (in this context, flying vomit is supposed to be funny). They only make us wish we were watching a different movie. [09 Sep 1982, p.C7]

Lester's film is so clearly about getting even rather than about troubled youth or any other societal problem that it seems, like Death Wish II and a hundred others, a waste of that energy. [16 Nov 1982, p.B4]

Implicit in the artlessness of this scene is the filmmakers' sense of the formulaic nature of their work, which requires no higher art than bartering with the butcher for spare parts; when the teen van moves out, like a fisheries truck loaded with trout for the spring re-stocking, it's a nod to the genre and a wink for the grown-ups in the crowd. The rest is in your face. [16 Aug 1982, p.B4]

Fast Times at Ridgemont High could have been the sleeper success of the summer, but uncertainty of tone and a lame, derivative ending reduce it to the status of a missed opportunity. [13 Aug 1982, p.D6]

Mazursky never makes the case for his hero's disaffection, and Cassavetes is not one of those screen presences for whom we are willing to fill in the blanks. [24 Sep 1982, p.D2]

The film adaptation of Pink Floyd's chart-topping album The Wall has all the humor and charm of a brain tumor. [21 Sept 1982, p.B4]

Somebody at 20th Century-Fox should have had the decency to deep-six The Pirate Movie. It stinks, but it's first. The Pirate Movie's sole accomplishment is making it to the screen before Universal's The Pirates of Penzance, thus poisoning the well for the real thing. [7 Aug 1982, p.C4]

The climax of Things Are Tough All Over finds Cheech and Chong slouched in a seedy theater, watching themselves perform in a pornographic film with Rikki Marin and Shelby Fiddis, their real-life wives. Yuccchhh to you, too, fellas. [9 Aug 1982, p.3]