Return of the Living Dead (1985)

The first film that my classmates and I went to watch together when we were probably 11 or 12. It was at the Prince and Jade cinema in Beach Road, which is still around. I remember sort of making fun of others who might have been scared by the film, although I myself was also closing my eyes during certain parts, although I never admitted to it.   

Vamp (1986)

Apart from being an entertaining and wacky horror comedy, this film which starred Grace Jones as a stripper vampire in a club where most, if not all the strippers were vampires, sorta appealed to me with its generous showings of bare skin and sexuality at a time when I guess my hormones were emerging. 

Mannequin (1987)

There was a fantasy element of this film that really appealed to me. Big shopping mall empty at night free for person to roam in. Mannequin that comes to life, becoming the love of the down and out individual who I could identify with. Down and out guy coming out a big winner in the end. And of course, there's the title track by Starship 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now', which sorta embodied why this film appealed to this newly teenager in me at that time. 

Police Academy (1984)

My dad brought my mom and me to watch this at the old Ocean cinema near our home. I always had the feeling (but never verified) that my dad thought he was going to be watching some serious movie about a police academy, not some wacky comedy. I of course, enjoyed it tremendously and caught most of the sequels that followed , but not before I lost interest in it when I got older.

The Terminator (1984)

When I watched this, it was probably on TV or VHS. I was not a fan of action films so this film didn't attract me when it was shown theatrically. When I finally saw it, I was like Wow. The stakes were really high. The characters were engaging. It was not just slam bang blowups for the sake of blowups. There was a really engaging story here.  

The River 河流 (1997)

The River was probably the second Tsai Ming-Liang film I watched (The first could have been Vive L'Amour. I caught it in a fully packed screening at the Majestic cinema during the Singapore International Film Festival. Back then, I really got into films by Chinese indie filmmakers like Tsai, Fruit Chan and Lin Cheng-Sheng. I'm not sure if I'd dig a film like this as much these days where I'm more into commercial fare, but these was one of those films that got me excited about cinema in my early days of being a film enthusiast. 

Aliens (1986)

I wasn't really enthused to go catch this film but I was glad I did. I watched it with my primary school classmates at the old Cathay cinema at Handy Road and came out really blown away. I was 12 years old then.