The Most 80s Movie Ever Made Wasn't Actually Made In The 80s

Chances are, if you're reading this, that you love 80s pop culture. Clearly Hollywood does too, because in the last few years we've seen a bunch of movies come out that try to capture the spirit of the classics we all know and love from that decade.

When it comes to the coveted title of "The Most 80s Movie Ever" however, there can be only one. Luckily for us, the winner is pretty is a pretty easy choice. Strangely enough though, it came out in 2015.

One of the biggest crowdfunding success stories in recent years, Kung Fury is a 30-minute short film by Swedish director and lead actor David Sandberg and his company, Laser Unicorns. It was funded via an immensely successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $600,000 back in 2014, and has since been featured at festivals worldwide.

Sandberg plays the titular character, a superpowered kung-fu cop who has to travel back in time to arrest the worst criminal in history: Adolf Hitler (AKA "Kung Führer"). To do this, he enlists the help of Hackerman, the world's greatest hacker, to hack him back in time.

However, things go wrong and Kung Fury ends up in the Viking age, where he must fight off laser raptors in order to gain the assistance of not only the beautiful and deadly Barbarianna, but even Thor, the god of thunder himself, if he is to find his way to Nazi Germany.

Even without the "so absurd it's amazing" plot, Kung Fury goes out of its way to look, sound, and feel like the kind of movie you'd have found on the shelves of a video store in the 80s. The intentionally cheesy visual design (which is actually quite impressive for being entirely green-screened) sets the tone throughout with a color palette of vivid reds and purples, while Mitch Murder's booming synth soundtrack gives it just the right level of nostalgic class.

The performances are great too. Sandberg's constant deadpan, gravel-voiced delivery is consistently hilarious, while The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone turns Adolf Hitler into an over-the-top supervillain with the singularly worst German accent you're likely to hear. Even the smaller parts are memorable, with a particular highlight being the two Nazi soldiers who simply sit on a bench and insult each other's facial hair.

Even some 80s mainstays couldn't deny the appeal of the project. During the film's production, Laser Unicorns signed a deal with Universal Music to have David Freaking Hasselhoff himself perform the film's theme song, "True Survivor." A music video for this was released ahead of the movie, and it's every bit as campy and glorious as what it was made to promote.

The Hoff even has a cameo in the movie, but I'll let you discover where for yourself. Suffice to say, it's perfect, especially if you like Knight Rider as much as we do.

Best of all, the film is completely free to watch on Youtube (and is on Netflix as well)! Not only that, but Sandberg is reportedly in talks to direct a full-length sequel! At this point, if you love 80s movies and just how absurd they can be, you really have no reason not to check this out.

Want to hear about more modern movies that remind us of the 80s? Let us know! In the meantime, if you fancy yourself an expert on 80s music, man do we have a list for you!