I watched tons of cheesy and bad horror movies as a kid and have memories of quite a few films that I can't recall very much about, including the titles. I have a couple books, like the Psychotronic Video Guide and Phantom of the Movies Videoscope, that have helped me figure out what these movies were, but I can't figure a few out still.
1. From 80's probably-- There are people having lots of hallucinations or perhaps they are supernatural things happening in a haunted house or something. One happens when a guy is underground, I think. He sees stop motion food products, like a doughnut, maybe, dancing around. I wish I could remember more, but that's all I have to go on. Hopefully somebody knows what I'm talking about.
2. Also from the 80's I think-- This one I figured out what it was a while back, but my ADD has caused me to forget it again. Anywho, a boy gets kidnapped by two old people in a car. The one old guy has a disfigured hand. They use a rag with chemicals on it to knock him out. It seems like they were at the Alamo or some historic place before it happened. This movie I think has a showdown between some bad guy and the kid's dad at the end. Possible that it had to do with spies or something.
3. Late 70s-80s-- I don't think it is the same movie as 2, but it has another boy having to fight off some guy when he breaks into his family's motor home. I saw it on A&E a few years back.
Movies I've figured out include The Pit, The Believers, Invaders from Mars (80's version) which may give you a time frame of the movies I watched as a kid.
JR, Number 2 is, I think "Cloak and Dagger". The boy is running from spies because his video game (called cloak and dagger) is secretly implanted with spy data that displays when you hit a certain level. He is on the look out for a spy with a gympie hand when an old couple befriends him, and actually believe his story. Once in their vehicle he sees the old woman dowsing a rag with drops from a bottle and she pulls off here dainty with, you guessed it, a gympie hand. He then gets knocked out. The scene you mention, a chase in a mall, and the basic plot are about all I remember. I think the Comic Book Store Guy from the SImpsons is based on a similar character from this movie.
BradLaGrange
It's a long shot, but number one could be YOUNG EINSTEIN. I know there are a lot of hallucination scenes in this movie, and at one point "young" Watson has a hallucination that he has being attacked by dancing food.
That's my only idea.
2 and 3 sound a little bit like "Death Valley", an 80's Slasher film with Wilford Brimley, Catherine Hicks, and Edward Hermann.
"Cloak and Dagger" and "Death Valley!" Thanks guys, that was quick. Yeah, I know the first one isn't Young Einstein, it was definitely a horror film... Maybe it wasn't a hallucination and I've just used that to make the scene make more sense. Hopefully it is a movie and not a TV show or something. I know I was pretty young when I saw it. I think it was a group of teenagers in a house or castle or something and the part I'm thinking of the guy goes down like a mine or something under the house. The little food guys seem cute at first and then they just go apes**t on the guy, I think. Man, I'm reaching here. I wish I could remember some other scenes from it.
...but Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), directed by Barry Levinson, written by Chris Columbus and produced by Spielberg.
OK I'm going a little off topic here sorry. JR, I don't think your ADD is why you couldn't remeber more than a few details of those movies. Like you said you were younge when you saw them and when your younge you tend to not pay attention to a whole lot of details. Granted ADD is an attention disorder(I have it to) but I don't think this is part of it.
Actually, it has nothing to do with my ADD. I watched these movies with my two older sisters, and whenever I bring them up, they don't remember them at all, so at least my memory of them is better than theirs.
Sorry Ringneck, I can see that's what you meant, now. Thanks for clearing it up Dwight. I can't believe it was Young Sherlock Holmes. I went to the iMDB and checked it out, and as I read some of the comments, more of the movie came back. Granted, I had to have been around four or five when I saw it, but it scared the living hell out of me. That's why I thought it was a horror movie I guess, because all I remembered were the deaths and army of pastries. What's sad is that I knew I'd seen Young Sherlock Holmes and had seperated the plot of him and Watson from the actual case they were probing, and thought they were two different movies. I really need to watch this again, and laugh at the stuff that scared me when I was little. I'm sure it's much worse in my head than what was actually on the screen.
Thanks a ton, guys! If I have anymore vague memories of movies (and I know there are a couple that I just can't think of right now), this looks like the place to figure them out.
I bet your sisters remeber every single moment where you did something they didn't like. I'm still getting in trouble for stuff that happened so long ago I don't remeber doing it!