If you were a child of the 80s, there's a good chance that at school you were lent a copy of The Running Man. And there's also a pretty good chance that you thought it was the dog's bollocks. But now that the decade of excess homoeroticism has been left behind, and now that easily pleased children have grown up, it's clear that The Running Man is pretty, well, crap.

The Running Man's most obvious shortcoming is its production values. Runners run around in quilted suits that resemble mattresses, glass lollipops serve as the ominous warning beacons that mark the point of no return for prisoners who don't want to have their heads blown off, Dynamo drives about in a car that appears to be made of Lego, fascist soldiers capture criminals with the terror that is a small red net, the wasteland that is the game quadrant appears to repeat itself Hanna-Barbera style and the opening crawl looks like it was typed on a BBC Micro. It's a cheap, cheap film.

However, despite the fact that it's cheap, despite the fact that it looks like sludge was smeared over the lenses, despite the fact that it was filmed by Detective Dave Starsky and despite the fact that the film repeats the words 'uplink', 'relay', 'network', 'interface', 'satellite' and 'resistance' so many times that I want to remove them from the dictionary Newspeak-style, there's still plenty to enjoy. The film's the epitome of a guilty pleasure.

What you most expect from an 80s Arnie film is homoeroticism, and in that regard the film certainly delivers. The first shot of Arnie (post Bakersfield massacre) is of him carrying a massive steel girder on his shoulder (it's a repeat of the shot in Commando where you're introduced to Schwarzenegger with the visual of him carrying a huge log). Sure he's probably got a micropenis, but let us buy into the fantasy - this man is hung like a shire horse and you viewer are nothing but a pathetic girly man who would wither and die when faced with the awesomeness of the Austrian Oak. And just to prove how virile Arnie is, no sooner has the film started than he's grabbing men by their privates and smoking unfeasibly large cigars.

All of this is certainly very stimulating for Killian, the Bobby Heenan-style game show presenter who hosts The Running Man. When he first sees Arnie, running in dreamy slow-motion with muscles-a-bulging, he says, "Hello gorgeous." And in the course of this scene he also says, "Isn't he beautiful?" and shouts, "I want him!" I bet he's got a steel girder in his pants. But when he first meets Arnie face to face he coos, "Hi, cutie pie." I think I'm getting a steel girder too.

But as log-friendly as this banter is, it's amateur league punk stuff when you compare it to the Captain Freedom workout. Jesse Ventura appears on the screen, shouting, "Are you ready for pain? Are you ready for suffering? If the answer is yes, then you're ready for Captain Freedom's workout." Sure there are some women in the background that you're supposed to be gently ogling, but they're clearly just window dressing. Jesse is the main course and his is the body that the camera lingers on. Hell, the scene might as well have have flashing lights and sirens, 'Butt sex is a painful but glorious workout!'

Another great detail is Arnie's disguise when he's on the run from the law. He walks around with a thick beard, a gym t-shirt (which is ripped to show as much of his neck and biceps as possible) and a yellow builder's hat. Maybe he ransacked the local YMCA.

But the film also delivers in terms of amusing deaths. Of course, the most obvious are the stalker deaths. You've got Fireball exploding, Sub-Zero wearing a barbed wire necktie, Dynamo being electrocuted (mid-rape) in his saggy kecks, and, best of all, Buzzsaw getting castrated – I love his falsetto scream. But you've also got a prisoner having his head blown off (while his body keeps running), and, my personal favourite, Killian going through a sign in that toboggan thing. But what makes the Killian death my favourite is the way the sign explodes when Killian goes through it. It's totally unnecessary but that's what makes it great.

Just as unnecessary are Arnie's atrocious puns. But their awfulness is what makes them so brilliant. "He had to split." "What a hot head." "Yeah, he was a pain in the neck." Even Roger Moore would be proud. But Arnie's best piece of dialogue is considerably more subtle. After Yaphet Kotto dies, and after he's made an offer by Killian to become a stalker, Arnie grabs a camera and yells, "I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine!" Poetry.

Not quite as poetic, though, is the final shoot-out. Basically Arnie and a bunch of soldiers who look like members of Culture Club invade the studio and reveal the truth regarding this fascistic society. It's a dull action scene (although I like the way that Arnie, like Charles Bronson, can avoid bullets simply by ducking). Plus Arnie, for some reason, spares the bloodthirsty mob. Surely I can't be the only one that was hoping he'd open fire on the crowd – especially on that old granny – and establish a Ben Richards dictatorship? But no, in a typically un-Republican way, Arnie wants freedom. And he also gets the girl and walks off with her to the sound of some abysmal 80s power ballad. Personally, I think it would have been more convincing if he'd walked off arm-in-arm with Killian's bodyguard, Sven.

What makes Alien such an effective horror film is how quiet it is. After all, most horror films make the mistake of equating fear with noise. But that's often a mistake, as silence is usually infinitely more effective. And so it is with Alien. The scariest moments are all devoid of intrusive scoring, jagged editing and overblown sound effects.

One of the best examples is when Brett is killed. He has to chase after Jones (the cat) and he's led into a dark corner of the ship. You know he's going to get killed but Ridley Scott knows that you know. Therefore the sequence is dragged out. All the time you're waiting. You're waiting for the inevitable. But Scott doesn't rush things. He racks up the tension by having Brett wander for an inordinate length of time and by having him wash his face in a shower of dripping water as chains rattle in the background. And when the Alien does appear, it's not with a sudden jolt. It just appears quietly behind Brett before killing him. And the way that the death is played on the face of the cat, which has a look of almost stunned curiosity, makes the whole sequence incredibly spooky. It's not really a crash, bang, wallop sort of horror film.

Not that there aren't any jump moments. There are actually quite a few. But because the lead-up is so quiet and ominous it makes the pay-off a whole lot more effective. For example, when Kane looks into the egg. Again the sequence takes its time, racking up the tension to breaking point with the discovery of the ship and the slow exploration of it, but when he finally has a peek and the facehugger leaps out, it has the perfect timing of a great joke.

Another fantastic piece of timing is when the Alien takes Dallas. You go through another long, drawn out sequence of him scurrying through narrow air vents before the Alien finally pops out of a dark corner. But although the moment is fantastically timed, the lead up is where the fun lies. And I have to say that the lead up is probably the most frightening thing in the film. Dallas scurries through narrow corridors searching for the Alien, but you know it's futile - we know that he won't find it and that it will find him and that it'll kill him. And the dark, claustrophobic corridors are full of iris-shaped doors that open and close slowly and forebodingly, which really does add to the air of dread that fills the sequence. And the tracker is the icing on the cake – it racks up the tension to breaking point.

The second most frightening sequence is when Ripley is finally alone in the ship. She sets the Nostromo to self-destruct so that she can take the shuttle but then with strobe lights flashing all around her she sees the Alien. She then goes back and tries to reverse the self-destruct sequence, but it's too late. It's frightening because Ripley has to run around the ship, not knowing where the Alien might be. No longer does she have the option of just hiding. And with everyone dead she no longer has anyone to talk to or help her out. She's all alone. But perversely, once everyone's dead, the film finally gets loud. There's a countdown sequence (which is brilliant in the way that it raises the stakes - not only does she have to face a terrifying monster, but she's against the clock now as well) and the ship begins to destruct. Just when Ripley might have needed the silence to find out where the Alien is, she has to run around in cacophony of noise knowing that the Alien could be anywhere.

But the silence comes back in the final sequence, and it's quite ingenious the way that the Alien is camouflaged in the shuttle. I nearly shat myself when I first saw it as a kid.

What I also like about the final sequence is that it's weirdly sexual. Ripley strips down to her underwear and then the Alien appears. And the Alien then begins almost stroking the console it's resting on. And of course, Ripley penetrates the Alien with a harpoon.

Another excellent bit of weird sexuality is when Ash the robot tries to choke Ripley with a magazine. He shoves it in her mouth and he looks rather turned on as she gags on it. Perhaps robots don't come with all the parts. Perhaps this is his way of venting his frustration. But there's also the way that the Alien kills Lambert. Its tail inches up the insides of her thigh and then you cut away and hear her screaming like she's being violated – the screaming is actually pretty chilling. And of course, Kane getting ripped open goes back to the male fear of childbirth. (The birth scene is still great. The blood, the sound and the way it takes the Alien two or three attempts to burst through is fantastic. But I do have to say that the way the Alien shoots off the table looks rather dodgy.)

Going back to the Lambert killing, though... As well as being chilling, this scene is also quite frustrating because Parker (Yaphet Kotto) gets killed as well. I mean, Parker is quite possibly the coolest man in the universe. I swear he could have taken the Alien had it not been for the cowardly Lambert. (It's quite surprising that the coward and the black character survive so long – they're usually the first two to go.)

But although I dig Parker, I think Ian Holm as Ash delivers the film's best performance. It's quite subtle the way that he hints at his true identity – I like the way he jogs on the spot to get his joints working. And he's so smug and slimy. He's more of a villain than the Alien.

But I think everything in the film is fantastic – the music, the special effects, the sequence on the alien planet, the production design, the moody atmosphere, the script. Everything works perfectly.

I can remember as a kid being somewhat frightened by Live and Let Die. I'm not sure what it was – whether it be the freaky Baron Samedi, the crocodiles or seeing more black people than you'd see on an average episode of Sesame Street (poor whitey had probably only encountered one black person at that time) – but like the supposedly kid-friendly Raiders of the Lost Ark, it freaked me out somewhat. Now, though, I'm not quite sure what the fuss was about. Live and Let Die is more camp than a row of tents.

Although, to be fair, the film does have it moments. For example, the opening sequence features three brutal slayings. Fair enough, the first one, with a British ambassador getting zapped, is rather comic, but after that we have a guy getting stabbed and a man getting bitten by a snake. No wonder it had me browning my pants as a child. And then there's the sadistic moment towards the end when Kananga (Yaphet Koto) slices Bond's arm. Once again the darkness is immediately relieved by the ludicrous way in which Kananga is dispatched (he literally goes pop: "He always did have an inflated opinion about himself"), but all those years back the damage was done.

There was also something rather unsettling about the rubber faced Mr Big and Tee Hee. And those scarecrows, too, gave me the creeps. But one thing that made me laugh as a kid and which still gives me the giggles now is Kanaga's lackey Whisper. You'd be hard pressed to find a more amusing Bond subordinate - a fat black man whose voice is perpetually hushed. Indeed, I only have to say to myself, in his silly voice, "Anybody home?...Your champagne…Shall I open it?...Shall I oooopen it?" and I'm laughing like an idiot. And what about the inflating couch that explodes from under him? Bloody hilarious.

Also hilarious is Bond's attitude to sex in this film. Every single lay is achieved via nefarious means – with the Italian girl he indirectly forces her to hide in the cupboard and then sneakily unzips her as she coos over him like a schoolgirl; with Rosie he lets her make a fool of herself before nailing her and then shoving a gun in her face; and with Solitaire he steals her virginity via a set of trick cards. What a rake.

But the very idea of Jane Seymour playing a meek virgin makes me laugh as well. She's one of those women, like Elizabeth Taylor, who made a habit of playing the English rose – women of principles and purity – who behind the scenes were getting more knob than a squad of streetwalkers. You just can't believe that Bond's the first to go there. But it says something for Bond that he's prepared to break her in. Black or white; good or bad; virgin or slut – Bond will shag them all.

But to be honest, the Bond girls in this film are rather sub-par. Rosie is played as a dimwit and Jane Seymour is, well, Jane Seymour. She's just a poor actress with too much hair. And it says something about her and her character that after her first shag she becomes obsessed with sex – all she goes on about is sleeping with Bond or finding a bed in which to sleep with him. And, of course, Bond is happy to comply. And this actually leads to a rather funny moment in the film. In a roundabout way Seymour asks Bond to service her again, and after acquiescing, he says there's no sense in going off half-cocked. How right you are, Rog.

However, Bond doesn't get his way with every woman. In one of my favourite moments in the film, Moore is watching a cabaret singer sing a rendition of 'Live and Let Die'. Moore smarms it up like crazy – as he nods his approval you can see him thinking, "I'd do her" - but before he can start working his magic, he disappears through a hole in the floor. The one that got away, eh? Oh well, there's plenty more fish in the sea.

Another detail that makes me laugh is the fact that there's only one point in the film where Bond looks genuinely worried. I mean, he faces crocodiles and sharks and does it with confidence. But when he's captured by Kananga and it's suggested that his more vital extremities might get cut off, a flicker of concern flashes across his face – for Moore's Bond there's no fate worse than having your cock snipped off.

Another amusing part of this scene are the chair restraints that hold Bond down. They look like they wouldn't hold back Stephen Hawking. And I also love the way that Bond gets knocked out by Tee Hee. He doesn't get hit so much as brushed, yet he goes down like a sack of spuds. Oh, and the 'butterhook' line a few moments earlier in the scene is delivered with toxic levels of smarm.

Perhaps the biggest laugh in the film, though, comes during the boat chase. Sheriff J. W. Pepper, hick extraordinaire, is waiting by the riverside for his cracker brother-in-law to come round the bend and chase Bond in his speedboat. Pepper is proudly telling his pals that if one side of the family doesn't get him, the other side will. And it's then, as Pepper's back is turned, that you see a big black guy driving the boat. It's a wonderful bit of comedy.

Having said that, as funny as the film is, I do prefer the more serious Bond films – with the Moore films I'm usually groaning as I laugh. However, Live and Let Die stands up as one of Moore's best entries. And after having seen the film more times than I care to mention, I only just noticed a wonderful detail rather late on in the film. In the fight at the end with Tee Hee, Bond defends himself by throwing a deck of cards in his face. A deadly weapon that – paper cuts are lethal.