Revenge of the Nerds

When Louis and Gilbert head to college they think it'll all be different from high school. However they are branded nerds and, when the jocks burn their own dorm down, the nerds find themselves kicked out and forced to sleep in the gym. When the nerds form their own chapter of the Tri-Lam fraternity. When they are bullied continually they decide to take matters into their own hands and fight back with the Jock's own games.

If there's one genre in the world that I hate it's the American college jock/nerd comedy. Whether it be the Animal House or Porky's or more modern ones – I hate almost all of them! So when I watched this I watched it with a certain fear. However the plot makes redresses the balance by having us support the nerds! It's well plotted so that it isn't just them becoming just like the jocks but instead learning their own lessons. Of course it is rude at times and does fall into being just silly and slapstick, but it's mixed nicely with some good sentiment and more gentle laugh.

The cast is great (in retrospect). Anthony Edwards is a real surprise in this post-ER time. Likewise Busfield is strange after 30-something and West Wing. Less so but Moonlighting's Curtis Armstrong is funny to see. And lets not forget James Cromwell (or Jamie as he was called then!), John Goodman and black 1970's star Bernie Casey! The nerds are all good – rising above their caricatures to start to bring out characters.

Overall this is a spin on the frat-comedy so it is a little juvenile and silly but the fact that it is spun towards the nerds makes it that little bit refreshing to watch compared to so many where our `heroes' are arrogant, annoying jock-types who sponge off mummy and daddy just to get drunk at college. Not a great movie but much better than anything else post-Animal House - I'm with the nerds!

Although it may be all a bit silly and quite clichéd, this is nevertheless a good film of its type, with main characters that are appealing and a great title song, scored by Thomas Newman, who would later compose the scores of movies such as 'American Beauty'. The film does not really go anywhere much at all, the jokes work only about half the time, and it is all a bit short on its content, but despite all of this, the film has a pleasant and rather enjoyable nature not common to the average college comedy, and this makes it a rather uniquely likable film overall. It may not be a great piece of cinema, but it is quite good entertainment.

Friends Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are excited for their first year at Adams College only to be met with the cruel reality that the social hierarchy dictates one's enjoyment and privileged at Adams with the two labeled "Nerds" by the lunkheaded but also established and cruel Alpha Beta fraternity of jocks overseen by Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), Danny Burke (Matt Salinger), and "The Ogre" (Donald Gibb). After the Alpha Betas take control of the freshmen dormitory (after burning down their own house and avoiding consequences due to their University connections), all Freshmen, including Lewis and Gilbert, are reduced to living in a cordoned off part of the college gym. While the university allows displaced freshmen to join fraternities, Lewis, Gilbert and a handful of others branded "nerds" due to race, age, and sexual orientation are rejected by all Adams fraternities. With no other options, the nerds band together and find a dilapidated house and restore it through teamwork and their intelligence, but with cruel vandalism and pranks by the Alpha Betas the nerds take it upon themselves to upend the Alpha Betas' reign of Adams College.

Revenge of the Nerds is a 1984 college comedy which took inspiration from a news paper article about Silicon Valley computer programmers gaining respect and applied the themes of the article to the framework of college and sexual shenanigans comedies that had become in the wake of films like Animal House and Porky's with their low budgets and high returns making them a routine staple of 80s movie-going throughout the decade. While there was some support for the film, notably from Siskel and Ebert who praised the likable human element in the two leads and themes of the movie, there were many others who lumped the film in with the other sex/college comedies of the time that were produced cheaply and quickly. Despite not attaining major support from the outset, the film nonetheless became a major hit earning $60 million domestically against a $6-8 million budget. Revenge of the Nerds does certainly have many of the crude and raunchy elements of its contemporaries, the thing that gives it an edge is in its characters and its anti-prejudice themes.

As noted by some of its supporters at the time, Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards are perfectly matched and very likable together. While Carradine's Lewis provides the spark with his more mischievous smart alecky character, Edward's Gilbert serves as the emotional anchor as he's established as being the sweetest and most sensitive of the group and sort of the glue that holds their found family of nerds together. The rest of the nerd collective is made up of a variety of memorable personalities like pre-pubescent wunderkind Harold Wormser (Andrew Cassese), the crude and gross "Booger" (Curtis Armstrong), and the openly flamboyant and gay Lamar (Larry B. Scott) who despite embodying many of the exaggerations is positive for the time especially when you consider the nerds are welcoming and (relatively) none-judgmental of him. And of course, what good are your heroes without some loathsome villains?, and Revenge of the Nerds gives us some real loathsome heels in the form of Ted McGinley's Stan despite being the "smartest" of their group is also the most openly sadistic carrying an arrogant and superior smirk on his crafted features that makes him an excellent foil to the nerds as his confidence that he can't be punished for his actions makes his downfall all the more satisfying. The movie also has good supporting players such as Bernie Casey's U. N. Jefferson who as head of a national Black fraternity becomes an unlikely ally to the nerds, or John Goodman's Coach Harris who serves as a secondary antagonist ignoring or even outright encouraging the Alpha Beta's reprehensible behavior.

In terms of the movie's humor you could certainly say it was "of the time" (though filming location University of Arizona had reservations even back then of allowing filming due to the film's portrayal of campus life) and this has led to some reassessment since it's release. Here's the thing, comedy by its nature exists in a flexible reality where the absurd is often as acceptable as the mundane in order to convey jokes or serve story beats and that's the best way to look at Revenge of the Nerds, not as reality but as funhouse mirror image of reality that although distorted carries some truth. One of the notable aspects that has been re-evaluated is the romantic subplot between Lewis and Stan's girlfriend Betty played by Julia Montgomery and the means by which the two get together. Per Montgomery's role in the film, she felt Betty secretly wanted to be with Lewis and leave Stan (and there are hints of this in the movie, albeit in a slightly fleeting manner until a few minutes before the event happens) and much like the funhouse mirror exaggerations of certain persons on display, this is best approached as something of a spin on the "Sleeping Beauty" trope (and I mean the original version where it was MUCH more than a kiss....). This will depend on a person-by-person basis, but I feel like the movie places its values at the forefront (particularly in the ending climax) while sort of bending and twisting them when necessary for the sake of either a joke or plot mechanic.

While Revenge of the Nerds is certainly of the time in many ways, it also has its heart and occasionally head in the right place so it isn't cynical like Private Lessons or Preppies which helps to explain why it's endured in pop culture (and spawned an ill-advised media franchise). Definitely a good time, just be aware that like a funhouse mirror, the thing reflected is occasionally real but not necessarily reflective of reality.

I recall watching this film in a drive-in as part of the double-bill. We had just finished watching the phenomenal Ghostbusters and having this follow it was a pleasant surprise indeed.

It's pretty much a 'Rocky'-type plot. The underdogs fighting back to win it BUT it's how these types go about it that makes this movie so charming!

Being an 80's film, political correctness was not considered...at all!

Thank-god!

I hunted this movie down after trying several video stores to no avail and finally after popping it in and showing it to family and friends (some of whom were too young to have seen it or not born at all during this film's release!) enjoyed it thoroughly! It's nearly timeless!!! Watching Bernie Casey listening to 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' had us all on the floor!!! We're black and we weren't offended in the least! Why should we? It's a harmless comedy with good ol' dirty humour for all.

Porky's and Animal House are the only ones of this era that could be considered part of the holy Teen-age comedy trilogy! All the rest, and there were a few, just don't measure up.

My folks and I enjoyed this film almost 20 years ago in that old drive-in (which has long-been shut-down now), while leaving my dad cited that it was a rare event to watch two great comedies back-to-back like that...two great nostalgic classics...very rare indeed!

With the resurgence of the raunchy teen comedy, now seems like as good a time as ever to go back and study its roots. What kinds of films influenced American Pie and Road Trip? It is easy to point out films like Porky's, Animal House and Fasttimes, but somewhere forgotten in all this is Jeff Kanew's hilarious flick REVENGE OF THE NERDS. This is not only entertaining and funny, but it contains what has to be considered a blue print for success in campus comedy. Take lots of people getting drunk, jocks ostracizing nerds from there way of life, the weak rising up to take back what is just as much a right as it is to others, and of course lots of nudity featuring an abundance of gorgeous women. What you have here is a great recipe for success.

What made Revenge work is that it didn't try to pretend to be something that it wasn't. This was an exploitive sex-fest and it worked well. What it also had was a funny script and one that we could all relate to. I mean, who hasn't felt left out or relegated to the side lines while someone else gets all the glory? Besides being extremely funny, this film touched on something that we all can relate to.

Revenge of the Nerds is another of the teen films that was hilarious and it ended up spawning a slew of sequels. Avoid them and see this one again. It's worth it, especially if you were a teen when it came out. And if you are a teen now, this is a treat to watch. This is one of the films that writers study when they are thinking what they can put into their film to make it crude, rude and raunchy. This should be a must see!

9 out of 10