10 Amazing ’80s Movies That Inspired Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs’ The Darkdeep

The ’80s was the Golden Age for awesome, amazing kid-hero movies. The Darkdeep is a direct descendant of some of those wonderful films. We love the scares, the friendships, and the coming together of a group to battle impossible odds. Here are ten 80s movies that inspired us to write The Darkdeep. 

The Goonies (1985)
This is the greatest ragtag-group-of kids-come-together-to-win-the-day movie in history. It’s also my favorite film of all time. The Goonies’ unbreakable friendships are exactly what we strove to capture with Nico, Opal, Emma, and Tyler in The Darkdeep. We wanted our story to have the same the crackling humor, heart-stopping pace, and infectious sense of adventure. The Darkdeep gang have each other’s backs no matter what happens, or whose darkest fear they must face down. A great kids’ movie is all about how friends support each other in the toughest moments. Goonies never say die? Same, Mikey. Same. – BR

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
This is a movie that scares you just enough. As a kid, I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even though there were moments that were terrifying—crazy pop-up-hospital-tent-in-a-field-scene, I’m looking at you!—because I cared so much about E.T. This is also a movie about friendship, communication, and personal connections in the face of the Great Unknown. (Side note: It was also the basis for a truly terrible Atari game that I played religiously. Neither my dad nor I could ever win that thing, despite hours of play and dedication. As an adult, I now feel vindicated because it is unanimously voted the worst video game of all time and was likely buried en masse in a New Mexico landfill. Seriously. Google it.) – AC

The Monster Squad (1987)
I’m surprised that this fantastic horror comedy often gets overlooked when people discuss the greatest kids’ films of the ’80s. It’s about a group of five snarky kids who battle a team of classic monsters like Dracula and The Mummy—who’ve invaded their hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana—and drop vicious one-liners every step of the way. The friendships are great, the scares are everywhere, and I think we all remember where we were when we learned that “Wolfman’s got nards!” The group fight scenes in this movie directly inspired the battles that Nico, Opal and their friends have in The Darkdeep. – BR

The Dark Crystal (1982)
If you’ve ever seen The Dark Crystal, you know that it’s impossible to forget. This movie is an epic high fantasy with puppets, and, thanks to the genius of Jim Henson, it is not ridiculous at all. It is completely unique and shattering. As a kid, this exploded my imagination and sent me to my notebook, storyboarding and illustrating (terribly) tales bigger than anything I’d come up with before. The kids in The Darkdeep are stunned to see what comes from their own imaginations, and I think that is a legacy of the wealth of possibility that this movie presents. – AC

Gremlins (1984)
One of the top scary movies for kids of all time, this film taught us everything we need to know about mogwais: don’t get them wet, don’t expose them to bright light, and never, ever, EVER feed one after midnight, no matter how much they beg. I especially love this movie because it made Christmas scary, which was a nervous thrill for me as a kid. We tried to capture some of the chills from Gremlins in The Darkdeep, but also some of the dark humor. Scary things can also be pretty funny at the same time. – BR

Short Circuit (1986)
Number 5 Is Alive! I can’t even tell you how many times we watched this show in my family when I was a kid. We loved the robot (robots are always cool) and his zany antics (zany antics are also always cool). When I saw Wall-E, I immediately thought of Number 5. I love it when you can see art building on what came before. And, even though this movie is fun, it has a lot of big questions/realizations (like when 5 squishes a grasshopper and realizes it won’t come back to life) that play out in a very authentic way for kids confronting these big concepts in their own lives. – AC

The NeverEnding Story (1984)
This incredible movie has everything. Majestic worldbuilding, wonderful imaginary characters, the terror of a faceless enemy known simply as the Nothing, and a kid who skips school, at school, to read a giant book, rationing his bites of an apple along the way. Finally, it has one of the most iconic climax scenes of all time. “Say my name, Bastian!” Then he gets to ride a flying dog and divebomb the awful kids who’ve been bullying him. So many elements of this movie inspired The Darkdeep! How was there never a sequel?! (Wait, there was one? Oh dear.) – BR

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
I know, I know, this isn’t actually a movie about kids. But if you were a kid in the ’80s, you likely loved Star Wars, and if you were a girl living in rural Utah in the ’80s (without the internet, remember, or even a bookstore) you would watch these movies on VHS over and over, pausing them when Princess Leia was onscreen because you wanted to make sure you got the details just right for your Halloween costume, which was Leia on the ice planet Hoth, which you then wore until it literally fell apart. Leia is a smart, capable, interesting woman in power which, in the ’80s, was very good and all too rare to see. – AC

Willow (1988)
This movie is a pure fantasy and about magic and sorcery, so it’s different from our scrappy kids finding a dark well in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. But the unstoppable determination and huge heart of the Willow is exactly what we were striving for with our protagonists in The Darkdeep. Willow isn’t the biggest or the baddest, and he screws up more than he doesn’t, but he has zero quit in him and does what he can to save the world. That’s the kind of story I can always get behind. Plus, he throws magic acorns at a witch and antagonizes Val Kilmer. It’s gold. – BR

Labyrinth (1986)
This movie is another ornate creation by Jim Henson, and it’s visually stunning (those costumes)! There’s magic seeping its way into the real world (something that definitely comes into play in The Darkdeep), creatures who may or may not have your best interests at heart, and a really wonderful moment at the end where Sara claims her power. We always wanted the kids in our story to have a moment like this. – AC