Red Dawn (1984)

When I was in elementary school it was believed that our building was utilized as a hospital during the second World War.  The reason we believed this was because we could look through the old grated windows in the basement of the school and see beds and matraces.  Now that I am older I have found out that it was never used as ahospital, but was a school since its creation during WWII.  The beds and matraces were there for "Fall Out" purposes during the Cold War.  This movie was made during the high points of nuclear war discussions of my young childhood.  I remember playing on the playground pretending to be army guys being attacked by the Russians, it was great because the Americans always won.
Well, this movie was very much a depiction of those games we used to play on the playground, except it was not just the Russians that attacked, but the entire Central and Southern American countries as well.
The story begins with a couple of high school guys being droped off at school.  During their history class the invaders start to land and they begin shooting up the school and everyone in it.  A dozen of these boys escape, gather supplies, and head to the mountains to fight the war.  Their families have been killed, and they are left to take on the entire operation of WWIII.  Along the way they are able to find a couple of girls to join their team; and oddly enough they are able to go in to town anytime they want to gather more supplies.  As the "Wolverines", they are easily able to dismantle the entire enemy line, but that begins to collapse as some of these boys turn on their buddies.  In the end, they all are killed and they war is won elsewhere.  WOW!!!  I think this was filmed, edited, produced, and directed by a bunch a high school buddies who were caught up in the Cold War hysteria.  The only reason I decided to watch this movie was because of the recent release of a remake, boy I wish I hadn't.  The guys on the KSL movie show said this wasx a horrible movie, but I just had to watch it to see for myself.  Patrick Swazye, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, man they had better careers after this show.  There was ZERO character development in this show.