Revenge of the Nerds (1984) on Netflix
Freshmen Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowe come to Adams College to study computer science. Alpha Beta jocks burn down their house, seize the freshman dorm and leave the newcomers in the gym.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.6/1062,803 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes69%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Tucson, Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowe start their first year at Adams College, aiming to major in computer science, date women and grow up. The jock fraternity Alpha Beta, whose star quarterback is Stan Gable, accidentally burns down its own house and then, with Coach Harris's backing, seizes the freshman dormitory, so the new students end up housed in the gym. Betty Childs, Stan's girlfriend, persuades the two to pledge Alpha Beta, and the hazing they endure humiliates them. Lewis is drawn to Betty, and Gilbert finds a companion in Judy, a fellow nerd. With Arnold Poindexter, Harold Wormser, Dudley "Booger" Dawson, Lamar Latrelle and Toshiro Takashi, the two rent a rundown house and renovate it, hoping to found a fraternity of their own.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In an interview with GQ in 2019, director Jeff Kanew and writer Steve Zacharias expressed their regret regarding the film's rape by deception scene, with Kanew saying, "In a way, it's not excusable. If it were my daughter, I probably wouldn't like it."
- Producers Ted Field and Peter Samuelson had to fight to keep the nerds' peaceful pep-rally triumph as the ending, resisting others who wanted a more violent revenge finale, saying the nerds' passive resistance was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.
- The film's fictional Tri-Lambs inspired a real Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity, founded at the University of Connecticut in 2006 and now open to all races and orientations across six chapters.
- Director Jeff Kanew saw Ted McGinley on the cover of a "Men of USC" calendar and decided he was perfect for the role of the head of the Alpha Beta fraternity.
- Matt Salinger, son of author J. D. Salinger, was cast as an Alpha Beta brother partly because Kanew loved his father's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
- A scene depicting a Tri-Lambda convention in Las Vegas was cut from the film because a 20th Century Fox executive thought it was mocking him personally.
- The film's premise was sparked by a Los Angeles magazine article describing how computer programmers were starting to gain respect in Silicon Valley.
- While working as a security guard during filming, an off-duty police officer found a vial with a small amount of cocaine in a dressing room; the police decided not to pursue an investigation because it would be impossible to determine whose it was.
