Though shot in four weeks on a low budget, Stephen King's Children of the Corn, while not on a par with "Carrie," sure beats "Christine," "Cujo" and "Dead Zone." It's terse, tense and the sound is effective as auditory terror.

Irving is a generalissimo of literary assault techniques, shameless about shifting his emphasis from, say, the lewd to the sanctimonious on a moment's notice if he perceives an emotional advantage, particularly one lending itself to convulsive moral indignation. [17 March 1984, p.C8]

It's a quirky film -- extremely profane and violent -- a respite from reverential sigh-fi. It's like visiting the bus depot late at night, and finding you kind of like it. [14 Sept 1984]

Its cleverness is exceptionally congenial and sustained. [13 Apr 1984, p.B1]

It's depressing to see director Herbert Ross strain to fabricate an atmosphere of urgency around such perfunctory characters, events and crises. A minimal lyric can be finessed by stylish orchestration much easier than a minimal script can be finessed by streamlined composition and emphatic cutting. [18 Feb 1984, p.G1]

Zieff & Co. give it a game, good-humored try, but I don't think they're in jeopardy of being celebrated as inspired farceurs. [14 Feb 1984, p.D8]

The aim is oddball romantic comedy, with himself and Mia Farrow embodying a funny-grotesque mismatch; unfortunately, the obligatory demonstration of attraction and compatibility between these characters escapes Allen; the affair degenerates into a mawkish botch. [27 Jan 1984, p.D1]

Despite the flailing around, the picture fitfully accumulates a handful of modest highlights and silly brainstorms. [03 Feb 1984, p.E6]

Yentl is Streisand. Either you like her or you don't. And if a little Streisand means a lot, then a lot is what you've got. [09 Dec 1983, p.25]

Nothing if not monumentally obsessed, Mann seems to be volunteering himself as the American film industry's answer to the cinema of ultraportentous imagery and crackpot visionary affectation. One imagines him entering the unofficial competition trailing swirls of smoke or ground fog and radiating backlit shafts of light, like half the characters in his movie. [17 Dec 1983, p.B3]

The film only succeeds in establishing a remarkable new low in remakes.

Not much really happens here, and if you're looking for motivation or reasonable plot evolution or anything more than a night that feels like sitting in the stands at a really rowdy Redskins game, don't hail this cab...It's upbeat, bumper to bumper: squeals on wheels. [16 Dec 1983, p.23]

Hurt's horrendous, with his goofy stilted accent. He talks as though he swallowed a bathtub. [16 Dec 1983, p.24]

Christine does indeed suffer from the preposterous, low-octane nature of the devil-car pretext. But this satanic nonsense is saved from strictly facetious appeal by a few sensational pictorial effects, notably the sights of Christine speeding after a victim while engulfed in flames or miraculously repairing her own battered body, and by the no-nonsense performances of an excellent cast, especially Keith Gordon as the obsessed and transformed Arnie Cunningham.

It's difficult to view Sudden Impact as anything more exciting or authentic than the action movie equivalent of drawn-out foreplay and faked orgasm.

Oh, there's no doubt about it, Clark is manipulating his audience right down to those "Jingle Bells," but only an unreformed Scrooge would hate him for it. "A Christmas Story" is a joy to the world, right down to the moment Mom slips downstairs to unplug the tree lights.

The interludes of terror are strictly functional and literal-minded: If it's not a murder spectacle, it's a tease that anticipates a subsequent atrocity. [25 Nov 1983, p.C2]

It never ventures close enough to the victims to inspire profound reflections on the pity and terror of it all. [12 Nov 1983, p.C1]

A dreadfully earnest but fatally uninspired effort to compress the aftermath of an epic catastrophe, massive nuclear war, into a small-scale family memoir.

A GREAT American movie in a new epic form, The Right Stuff fuses the comic and the heroic to emerge as a knockabout social comedy that also packs a thriller inspirational and -- why deny it?-- patriotic wallop.

Never Say Never Again illustrates how much sheer entertainment value can accrue when seasoned, disciplined filmmakers are encouraged to use their accumulated experience and design a classy piece of escapism to the best of their abilities.

Brainstorm is like being caught in a Novocaine hurricane -- if you're not a numbskull when you walk in, you will be by the time you walk out. Talk about your brain drain. [30 Sept 1983, p.19]

It seemed to me that what Eddie and the Cruisers aspired to do was certainly worth doing. The problem is that it finally lacks the storytelling resources to tell enough of an intriguing story about a musical mystery man. [30 Sept 1983, p.E2]

Lamentably short of sense and acting skill but extravagantly long on choreographic combat, Revenge of the Ninja supplies a mock-bloody feast of acrobatic punching, vaulting, cutting and thrusting for presumably insatiable martial arts fans. [28 Sep 1983, p.B11]

Nightmares, an anthology of suspense shorts, is about as scary as getting up to face another day. It's teddy-bear terrifying, definitely not for those who're into blood and guts. [09 Sep 1983, p.23]

Neither triumph nor fiasco, Strange Brew leaves plenty of room for improvement, but I hope Thomas and Moranis get the chance to demonstrate that they've learned a lot from the mixed assortment of nuttiness in their first movie comedy. [30 Aug 1983, p.B4]

Mr. Mom has its share of bright lines and funny moments, but if you bring anything beyond trifling expectations to this role-reversal farce, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr as a couple obliged to switch homemaking and breadwinning duties, it will be difficult to avoid feeling shortchanged. [20 Aug 1983, p.C1]

One of the peculiar attractions of Easy Money is that it's suggestive enough to keep you amused even as it takes goofy, capricious detours. It's not what you'd call a classic or a class comedy act, but it has the kick of an embryonic pop phenomenon.