Member-only story
DILLON ON FILM
Supergirl: 40 Years On
Four decades later, this Helen Slater-starring superhero spin-off remains one of my guilty pleasure films
If they are honest, every cineaste will admit to guilty pleasures; films that objectively aren’t very good, but that they nonetheless enjoy a great deal. Supergirl (1984) is one of my guilty pleasures. I will make very little attempt to defend it from an artistic standpoint. After all, it is little more than Alexander and Ilya Salkind attempting to cash in further on the success of their previous Superman pictures with a new spin-off. But I have nostalgic reasons for liking this one.
What are these nostalgic reasons? Well, most of these are best left unexplored, as they primarily concern my sexually awakened adolescent brain, circa early 1988, when I first saw this film — not at the cinema during the original run, but on a British TV premiere. I was twelve years old and therefore old enough to start seriously fancying the likes of Helen Slater. In this, she captured my, er, imagination, both as the blonde Supergirl and in disguise as schoolgirl brunette Linda Lee.
Viewed today, through a much more objective lens, I can entirely understand why this film was derided by critics and ignored by audiences. But I still can’t help but have…
