In the comment thread for HE’s Best Films of 1986 piece (posted late last night), it was argued that Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge and Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, dual ‘86 releases about kids finding a dead body and debating what to do about it, are of equal classic stature.

River’s Edge technically isn’t a 1986 film but I let that slide. Shot between January and March of ‘86, it premiered at the 1986 Toronto Film Festival (9.10.86 — a month after Reiner’s film appeared in theatres) but didn’t commercially open until May ‘87.

Hunter’s film is far more haunting, not to mention realistic and mature — a major, deeply unsettling arthouse film about a zombie virus that had begun to permeate stoner teen culture (it’s based upon a 1981 murder that happened in Milpitas) in the early Reagan era. A couple of critics described it as a kind of moral horror film.

Based on a 1982 Stephen King novella, Stand By Me is basically a sentimental flick about adolescent friendship and the veil of nostalgia. I hated, hated, HATED the title (the revered 1961 Ben E. King song has NOTHING to do with the plot), and I sorta kinda despised the presence and performance of chubby-ass Jerry O’Connell, who was 11 or so during filming.

No offense but Reiner’s film, which I regard as no more than decent as it is pure popcorn, shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath with Hunter’s.