I went through a phase in the late 1980’s when the likes of these sex comedies from that decade came to be my preferred choice for my movie watching evenings after school. I must have been in my very early teens when I first came across the classic Revenge of the Nerds for the very first time. I had already done Porky’s (hadn’t we all during that era), and I kinda liked it, and there was a definite flurry of these types of movies released back in that time, and I went for this more — hell, I even enjoyed the tacky sequel Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise.
The film’s plot is ever so simple. The 1984 movie revolves around Lewis and Gilbert (played by Robert Carradine and future ER star Antony Edwards), two guys, who after their freshman dorm is accidentally burned down by pesky jocks, the Alpha-Betas (breathing fireballs with 180 proof alcohol). After trying to join every frat house at the university, the duo finally end up joinf Lambda Lambda Lambda (the TriLams, a house in which they forgot to include their pictures with their applications. Hilarity ensues as a full scale war breaks out between the geek house and the jock house. We see the likes of the TriLams installing CCTV cameras in the dorm rooms of the Pi’s (the hottest girls in college) to the tune of Mission: Impossible, an over the top party with the female equivalent of the TriLams, the Lambda Mus and the fantastic Greek Homecoming Festival, a festival that consists of some pretty wweird athletic events, a charity fund-raiser, and a skit competition (gotta love that 20 lap race on tricycles which requires the drinking of 20 cans of beer — which, not to spoil anything, the TriLams win).
“We have bush… we have bush!”
Obviousley too young to be watching it, which I took great pleasure in knowing as I begged my unsuspecting old man to rent it from my local video store at the time, Nerds was so good and an important part of my growing up, as it documented where I really wanted to be the next stage in my life — college – and I was the biggest geek in school at the time.
There are rumours that a remake is due of the movie sometime soon, but I urge fans to revisit the world of Lewis, Gilbert, Booger, Arnold Poindexter, Ogre and the others in this cult original. I have no idea if it is available on DVD, but it’s one of the only reasons I still own that dusty old VHS machine.
