Category: Humpday Horribleness

Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Monster a Go-Go’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Comments on the poster: What’s a “wim-wam” anyway? The quote at the top was so clearly not real and, in fact should read… “THIS PICTURE COULD SET OUR MOVIE INDUSTRY BACK AT LEAST FIFTY YEARS!”

Title: ‘Monster a Go-Go’

Release Date: July 1965

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 9/23/2009): #7 (based on 2,516 votes)

Why it’s Here: “Why is MONSTER A GO-GO on this list?” That’s a great question, albeit an extremely easy one to answer. MONSTER A GO-GO is, quite simply the WORST movie EVER made, at least it as so far, amongst the 4,000+ films I’ve seen over my three decades of existence thus far. At the time of this article, MONSTER A GO-GO sits at a disgracefully high-ranking position of #7 on the IMDB’s Bottom 100 List. Sitting at #4 is SUPER BABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2 and sitting proudly at #1 is POCKET NINJAS. I would, and I exaggerate none, GLADLY sit through either of those films… no, BOTH of those films, back-to-back, before I would willingly subject myself to a second viewing of MONSTER A GO-GO.

As far as I’m concerned, this movie should have a lifetime membership on the IMDB Bottom 100 list and retain a position at #1, indefinitely! Now, I’m not one to criticize an older film, based solely on it’s age, but that’s not the problem. Many “old” movies a bad by today’s standards, but still hold some redeeming value and interest. MONSTER A GO-GO however, holds none, whatsoever. I am actually amazed that Turner Classic Movies occasionally plays this film, although it’s usually late at night. I thought the film had to be good as well as old to be taken under TCM’s wing, but I guess I was wrong.

The film is a terrible knock-off of the classic sci-fi TV series like THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS, complete with the semi-documentary feel and the articulately-spoken narration from a mysterious, unseen voice. The difference of course, is that these elements are epic failures in MONSTER A GO-GO. The cinematography is beyond amateurish, in fact… high school student amateurs with NO prior experience could have done a better job, even back in the 60’s.

The opening title cards aren’t even properly leveled, and the 60’s go-go music at the beginning an end has absolutely no place in the film. The camera is shaky, often out of focus, poorly lit to the point many of the night scenes are nearly pure black and the bulk of the rare “monster” scenes are so dark and obscured they might as well have not even shot any monster scenes. The filmmaker lingers WAAAAAAAY TOOOOOOO LOOOOOOONG on scenes of little to no importance, often maintaining a single, straight-forward non-moving camera angle. Seriously, this is the most boring, uninteresting, un-enjoyable and unbelievably regrettable 70 minutes I have EVER spent watching a movie. Period!

A few words on the audio, what there is of it… Not only are the levels so uneven and poorly modulated that I found myself often playing hopscotch with my remote control’s volume buttons, there are so many audibly silent sections of the film where there’s simply no audio track at all. The narrator in the film has a terrible tendency to give the point of a scene away, right before the scene occurs. Let me illustrate: the narrator explains on more than one occasion that a character will meet his demise, as that character approaches that very demise, then it happens… why even shoot the damn scene? MONSTER A GO-GO might as well have just been an audio book (if they had them back then). At least it would have cost less. The dialogue, well… that’s really a whole other article in itself. Here’s a taste of the narrator’s dialogue at the end… don’t worry, it really doesn’t matter that I’m giving this away. Trust me, you won’t want it!

Narrator: “Suddenly there was no trail. There was no giant, no monster, no thing called Douglas to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness. With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size some 8000 miles away in a lifeboat.”

Lowest of the Low Moments: Easily, one of the lowest of the low moments is during a scene when an attractive brunette’s car breaks down in the middle of the road. She can’t get the car started. She hears a vehicle approaching, gets out of her car and runs in front of the truck. The driver stops, gets out and yells at the woman. She tells him her car is broke down, unbelievably terrible (and pointless) dialogue ensues between the two characters before the truck driver realizes she’s apparently just out of gas, gives her a bit of fuel, then as he walks away the brunette calls him back to give the stocky stranger a big, wet kiss on the mouth, then they both part ways. That’s it! Why? Does this scene really need to take as much time from the “story” (using the term loosely) as it does, if it needed to be there at all?

If you’re truly interested in torturing yourself by watching MONSTER A GO-GO, view the trailer below, so that at least you’re not going into the movie blind…

Will it Ever Get Off the List: The only enjoyable way to view this film is as the episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 that was produced, but even then it’s not the best. I imagine this was one of the most difficult films for them to make fun of…

I surely hope it never finds it’s way off the IMDB Bottom 100 list. The list is intended for bad movies that actually ARE bad and NOT fun to watch, and MONSTER A GO-GO certainly fits that mold. Any movie that has me (of all people) repeatedly checking the running time of the film every ten minutes to see how much longer I would have to endure this torture, is not a film a would wish upon my worst enemies. Then again, now I’m imagining such an enemy being strapped into a chair with his fuzzy warbles held open, forced to watch this film, in a loop, over and over and over and over… hahahahaha (evil laugh).

Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Title: ‘Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders’

Release Date: 1996

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 9/16/2009): #24 (based on 2,100 votes)

Why it’s Here: MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS… how does that sound to you? Sure, that’s what I thought as well. Oh, no! It’s gonna be some cheesy low-budget lame kid’s movie that could only appeal to the youngest of kids, primarily due to the lights and sounds. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. Well, sort of… the movie sure seems to be marketed as a children’s fantasy film, chock full of magical things. Who wouldn’t love it if Merlin the Wizard/Sorcerer decided to open shop in modern times? Think of all the cool stuff he’d have!

That is what happens, but the difference is that many of the items in his shop are EVIL! Yeah, the long-haired, long-bearded Dumbledore hippie dude seems friendly enough on the surface, but as the characters in the movie find out, if you get on Merlin’s bad side you’ll pay the ultimate price. No, not by his own hands, but his nifty knick-knacks will do a real number on ya! What I’m saying is that this is NOT a kid’s movie, but more of a really bad, yet deeply disturbing anthology of two horror stories stitched together as though a grandfather is telling them to his grandson as bedtime stories.

WTF? What kind of grandfather would do that? The kid in the movie is all of 6-7 years old! Ernest Borgnine, that’s who. Yeah, Old Ernie was still making movie in 1996. I’m actually ashamed to find out he was involved in this film, because I like Mr. Borgnine (MARTY, THE WILD BUNCH). I guess when you get to be that age and still love acting, your options are fairly slim. Kind of gets you pigeon-holed into playing grandpa. Anyway, the most horrifying part of this deceptively not kid-friendly movie is actually that the grandfather is telling his grandson these stories.

The production value of MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS is an interesting topic. It’s not good, so let’s get that out of the way. No surprise there. However, parts of the film appear to have been attempting a hybrid look, melding TALES FROM THE CRYPT with LAND OF THE LOST (the old TV show) and a dab of FRAGGLE ROCK as well. You’d have to see Merlin’s shop to understand what I mean. Actually, the movie tends to borrow quite a bit from other, more successful horror films. A few that I noticed right away were CAT’S EYE, POLTERGEIST and especially MONKEY SHINES.

As is often the case with low-budget films of this genre, fog machines are over-used and the music in this movie is so lame it almost warrants a criminal offense. However, some of the special FX in the second story are kinda cool, in a bad cult movie kind of way. You’ll seem some of them in the YouTube highlights video below, particularly the guy digging in the middle of nowhere when all Hell breaks loose.

This shouldn’t come as any shock, but the writing is atrocious as well as the acting. Borgnine’s performance is well above anyone else’s and that’s not saying a lot. Mr. Borgnine has lost a mighty chucnk of his talent in his golden years. I have to admit though, some of the dialogue is actually kind of funny because it’s so crazy, but if I had to guess, it was probably written that way. “Merlin, you bastard!” There’s a scene when a kid is playing, pretending to be a “Rock and Roll Martian” as he sings those very words… classic stuff.

One of the most poorly written little scenes (of many) occurs when the grandfather tells his grandson about how the character in his story seeks out the help of a psychic. His grandson doesn’t know what that word means, so his grandfather attempts to explain, then finally says “someone who can see into the future, talk to ghosts… you know, a clairvoyant.” His grandson responds “Oh, a clairvoyant. Why didn’t you say so?” I assume this was intended to be funny, but it just comes off as silly.

Speaking of bad dialogue, and there’s plenty of it here, one of my favorite lines in the whole movie is when Merlin goes out into the modern world (looking like Merlin) to look for the evil toy monkey that has escaped his shop. Merlin approaches an attractive young woman on the street and asks “Excuse me, but have you seen my little monkey?” I’m sorry… I know the movie sucks, but that right there is funny. I don’t care who you are!

Lowest of the Low Moments: In the first of the two stories, Satan himself appears before Jonathan Cooper, now aging rapidly and on the brink of death. Satan is having a good old belly-aching laugh at Jonathan and asks him if he believes in magic now. Why is this so bad? You’d have to actually SEE Satan in this scene to understand, but it’s ridiculous. It may sound strange to say this about Lucifer, bringer of evil, but I feel bad for the guy. If I were him, I would totally be filing a defamation law suit because this portrayal of the Lord of the Flies is nothing short of insulting. He has this big, stupid-looking grin that doesn’t move, even though he’s talking and laughing, and his little puppy-sized teeth stick up out of his jaw, making him look more like a Boston Terrier with an under-bite than the Prince of Darkness.

An added point of lowness must be made. It’s not an issue with it being poorly made, but rather that I am a pet person. Dogs and cats alike, they hold something of a soft spot on my heart. Now, I’m not saying that movies should never portray cute, cuddly pets being killed or dying, it depends on the story… but, I took issue with MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS because they killed a pet in BOTH of the two stories. Hey, this isn’t PET SEMETARY people! Ease up! A cat dies at the hands of Jonathan’s evil spell-tinkering hands int he first story and the family dog dies at the hands of an evil toy monkey in the second story. I would boycott the movie, but I doubt anyone would care.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: Mmm, probably not. MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS already sits right at the Top 25% region of the IMDB Bottom 100, so it has a good 75 spots on average to recover before it drops off the list. Add to this the fact that it’s been immortalized as a bad movie by the MST3K crew, some fans with whom I have spoke even calls it one of their favorite episodes. In most cases, that means good things for a film, but not with MST3K. This movie’s only 13 years old, compared to many of the list that are either much older or much newer, so it sits in limbo between the films that are rarely ever seen due to their age and lack of availability and the relatively new films that show up on a whim but often tend to drop off fairly quickly as people move on to other movies. Given the spotlight MST3K has placed on the film, it may find itself stuck on the list for a long time to come. After all, what’s more fun than watching really bad movies while consuming excess amounts of cheap vodka? Exactly, and we’ll always need a healthy supply of really bad movies to play while getting hammered!

Hump Day Horribleness: ‘The Hellcats’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

the hellcats poster

Title: ‘The Hellcats’

Release Date: 1967

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 9/2/2009): #12 (based on 1073 votes)

Why it’s Here: Biker chicks and Davy Jones, that’s about all this movie has going for it.   What’s it have working against it?   A whole helluva lot.  Directed by Robert F. Slatzer from a screenplay by Tony Huston and James Gordon White, the movie moves along at a snails pace.  After setting up the opening at an undercover cop’s funeral, any idea of a discernible plot line gets lost in endless scenes of people riding on bikes and dancing to funky, super swinging sounds of the ’60s.  At one point, Davy Jones and the Dolphins kick into their song, “Mass Confusion,” and the placement couldn’t be more appropriate.  There’s a backbone narrative of some sorts about former military guy going undercover and the biker gang his brother was riding with.  The mob gets connected in there somewhere, but, honestly, it gets easy to lose track of where any noticeable story is going.  The film, if whittled down to its soul, could have, and probably should have, been about 10 minutes long.  What Slatzer and company do is pad the hell out of it with every, little bit of minutia they can think of.  We get more than a few scenes involving Eric Lidberg as Hiney, a gang member who just can’t lay off the 8-balls.  Watching him practically OD once is torture enough, but we get to revisit it again and again, as if it’s the only thing holding the film’s flimsy structure up.

And it’s not like the film can even play up the style-over-substance card.  A number of shots that are way, WAY out of focus indicate the director may have been falling asleep behind the camera.  That’s not all that surprising, but you would have thought someone on set would have cared enough to let him know what he was shooting.  Special props also go out to Gil Hubbs, the cinematographer, on this one.  I emphasize “props” not in the sense of kudos but literal props…from the movie.  He clearly got hold of some of the drugs laying around on set and imbibed himself.  What am I saying?  Hubbs clearly isn’t the only person on this films set who was under some kind of chemical influence.  It’s very odd considering Hubbs would go on seven years later to serve as director of photography on ‘Enter the Dragon.’

The acting is plain awful with Ross Hagen leading the pack.  Typically a character actor for TV westerns, Hagen advanced to the lead position for ‘The Hellcats,’ and he dropped the ball completely.  According to his biography on IMDB, he once ran an acting school with his wife, Claire Polan.  I would love to see some of the talent that came out of that school.  However, as abysmal a performance as Hagen gives here, it holds no candle to the utter gear-grinding dialogue reading that comes from the director himself, Robert F. Slatzer.  He plays the mob boss, and any semblance of acting ability hits a brick wall when it’s in this guy’s presence.

The film does have one, interesting scene, however.  At one point, as a sort of initiation into the gang, would-be members are forced to lay down on the ground and have their feet tied to the back of one bike.  They then hold on a rape that is tied to another bike.  The bike they are tied to begins revving and pulling them, and the inductees have to hold on for a certain amount of time.  It’s an interesting segment that would have worked wonders in a much better film.  As it stands, it’s just a mild high point in a film loaded with lows.

‘The Hellcats’ is a complete mess of boring screenwriting, horrendous direction and cringe-inducing performances.  On the surface, it’s the kind of film that would play perfectly in a Grindhouse double feature, but it’s just so bland and meaningless.  It truly is one of those movies where you sit back after it is over and ask yourself, “What the hell was that movie about?”

Lowest of the Low Moments: At one point during a particularly raucous party, a fight breaks out.   To say the choreography in this fight is bad is putting it incredibly lightly.   This is some of the worst fight choreography this side of ‘Pocket Ninjas.’   The guys involved are swinging chains at one another, and the way one of them jumps over the chain is more reminiscent of jumping rope than a hard-edged, biker brawl.   In a film with this much down-time and boring plot progression, you would think the one, true, action sequence might get revved up even more so.   Well, Mr. Slatzer took that notion and stomped it into the ground.   This fight is just awful, and, like everything else in the film, it takes about four times as long to play out as it should.

Not even these glorious screen captures will give you much of an inclination as to how slow-paced this fight is, but enjoy them anyway.

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Will it Ever Get Off the List: In all honesty, as bad as this film is, it probably does not deserve to be on the IMDB bottom 100 at all, let alone all the way up/down the list at #12.   Having said this, it’s probably not a good sign for the film getting off the list any time soon.   With just over 1000 votes, it would have to pick up some serious cult status to move its way up and off the list permanently.   Unfortunately, the film, while not a good film in any sense, falls nowhere near the “so bad it’s good” category as something like ‘Troll 2.’   Don’t look for this film to ever get off the list.   In fact, it’s probably a good idea not to look for this film in any sense of the word.   The more this film falls further into the swamp of obscurity it’s already sunk in, the better.

Hump Day Horribleness: ‘R.O.T.O.R.’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Title: ‘R.O.T.O.R.’

Release Date: 1989

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 8/26/2009): #15 (based on 1,053 votes)

Why it’s Here: From the moment you start watching R.O.T.O.R. it’s becomes pretty clear why it’s on IMDB’s Bottom 100 list. One of the first shots on screen is an aerial shot from a traffic chopper depicting a highway in Dallas with the ideal “good” traffic scenarion, yet the voice over describes unbearable traffic jams and a virtual parking lot. Hmm, must be talking about a different highway… This sets the viewer’s expectations for the rest of the film fairly well.

The story follows Captain Coldyron (Richard Gesswein), a tough-as-nails police officer, and I guess scientist [?] as he’s the head of the police research lab developing a robotic police force. When Coldyron and his boss have a falling out, Coldyron is relieved of his position and he gets revenge by becoming a vigilante, intent on making life for the police difficult. Meanwhile, one of the robotic cops escapes and malfunctions, going on a misguided law-enforcement killing spree.

In the robot cop’s first appearance, he stops a guy and his girl speeding, blows away the dude and then goes after the chick, but she manages to escape the “unstoppable” robot cop by laying on her car horn, which apparently immobilizes the robot cop by giving it a massive robo-headache. Coldyron finds out soon after that the robot cop has escaped and makes it his mission to stop the carnage.

Definition: R.O.T.O.R. = “Robotic Officer Tactical Operations Research”

Virtually everything in this movie is laughable. The acting could have been more sophisticated from trained apes, but even a seasoned award-winning thespian couldn’t have done much with this dialogue. Here’s a taste…

Coldyron: “Let me tell you something, mister. You fire me and I’ll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin, brother.”

R.O.T.O.R. is a sci-fi/crime/action movie that’s one half WALKER: TEXAS RANGER, one half DIRTY HARRY and one half JUDGE DREDD, with a Robbie the Robot knock-off thrown in, just for comic relief. [However, the comic relief comes off more as comic torture.] Chronologically, R.O.T.O.R. precedes both, but it’s clear the idea was at least partially inspired by THE TERMINATOR (1984) which was a landmark accomplishment at the time. Robbie the Rip-Off Robot even makes a snide remark at one point, saying this “must have been how The Terminator got his start,” referring to his being forced to do something against his will.

For some unimaginable reason, R.O.T.O.R. has yet to be released on DVD. So, I was forced to watch this movie on good ole VHS. Part of me enjoyed this ancient ritual as nostalgic, breaking out the VCR and blowing the dust off. The other part of me wondered why I was going to so much trouble to watch a movie guaranteed to disappoint. If ever there was a movie that needed the attention of Mystery Science Theater 3000, this was it!

Lowest of the Low Moments: This is one of those movies with so much bad, it’s difficult to choose one part that is the worst. However, I have am 99 certain the worst part is the ending. Despite all that sucks about R.O.T.O.R., the filmmaker had the nerve to end the film by teasing a sequel. Yeah, as if this wasn’t painful enough, there was at least the intention of a second dose, setting us up to believe Coldyron’s nephew would take his place fighting an updated model called R.O.T.O.R. II, this time based off of Dr. Steele’s mind and body, whereas the first was based on Captain Coldyron.

The fact that this film has so much voice-over narration makes that a low moment all on it’s own. Combine this with the excessive amount of explanatory dialogue written into the script, it’s like watching play-by-play commentary of the film as it plays. This is both a truly odd and excruciatingly bad movie. Captain Coldyron spouts the following answer to an inquiry regarding whether creating the robotic police force made them heroes or villains… “The only difference between heroes and villains is the amount of money they take for compensation. At our pay scale, I’d say we’re heroes.”

The second-in-command police scientist who takes over on the robotic police project has a conversation with his robot assitant, mocking the movie by asking “What do you think this is, some low-budget sci-fi flick?” YES! It is! Need more proof of wrong-doing? In another scene, Coldyron stops a thug at a convenient store. The Caucasian thug takes a woman hostage at gunpoint and calls Coldyron (a white guy) a “white boy”… yeah, that’s obvious!

My favorite character is Dr. Steele, a Rambo-like female character who is also a scientist. She wears combat fatigue pants and a black muscle shirt. Dr. Steele is actually about as ripped as Coldyron, and she sports a skunk hairdo. No kidding! Dr. Steele is played by Jayne Smith, whose only other cinematic role was a character named Mary Turd in another 1989 movie called FLESH GORDON MEETS THE COSMIC CHEERLEADERS (aka FLESH GORDON 2). Now, that’s what I call high-class talent!

There’s another scientist character who happens to be a Native American. This character is putting the moves on a blonde female scientist, speaking the most stereotypical, poorly-written jive I’ve ever heard, ending his attempt when the lady walks away by saying “Once you go red, you never get out of bed.” What? C’mon, was this movie EVER taken seriously. “ARRGH!” As the R.O.T.O.R. cop would clench his fists and say whenever someone gets away, I suppose not.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: God, I hope not! R.O.T.O.R. should be a lifetime member of the IMDB Bottom 100 List. In fact, with the movie currently being at #15 on a list of 100, if this ever drops off the list I will have had lost all hope in humankind. My only concern is that the movie ISN’T available on DVD. Why is this a bad thing? No DVD, the number of people subjected to this film continues to diminish until by mathematics alone, it drops off the list. So, this is my official call for R.O.T.O.R. to be released on DVD, so that enough poor, unsuspecting movie watchers will continue to see the film in the future and rate it poorly on IMDB. Ah, HA HA HA HA… this, be my perfectly evil master plan!

Humpday Horribleness: ‘Pocket Ninjas’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

pocket ninjas poster

Title: ‘Pocket Ninjas’

Release Date: March 25, 2007

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 8/12/2009): #1 (based on 700 votes)

Why it’s Here: Recently, while coming up with ideas for our weekly Top 10 Tuesday column, a Movie Geeks joked that we should come up with the list of Top 10 Hollywood chins.  He threw out names like Bruce Campbell, Willem Dafoe, Sienna Miller, and a few other notable mandibles.  However, I had an ace up my sleeve.  Amidst this back and forth of a non-alcoholic name game,  I whipped out the name of the one actor that trumped all others.  This man has a chin that can be seen by space.  I’m pretty sure if his chin were to ever appear in a movie theater, the gravitational pull would create a wormhole.  I’m talking about Robert Z’Dar.

Don’t know who I’m talking about?  How about now?

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I think that tattoo used about a half a gallon of ink.  Then, while scouring the IMDB Bottom 100 to find what movie I should talk about this week, I came across the name ‘Pocket Ninjas.’  It stars Z’Dar.  It’s about a trio of pre-teen martial arts experts.  It’s at #1.  #1!!!  How could anything be so bad starring Robert Z’Dar that it deserves to be all the way up (or down, depending on how  you look at it) at the very top (or bottom) of the list?  I thought that, then I pushed play.  This movie is unwatchable.

Z’Dar stars as Cobra Khan, an evil gangster who can only be stopped by the White Dragon, played by kick-boxing champ, Gary Daniels.  After becoming injured during a battle with Khan, the White Dragon trains three of his black belt students.  Before you can say “‘Three Ninjas’ is getting ripped off” the kids are fighting crime and whooping some Cobra Khan ass.

Everything, EVERYTHING, about this movie is at an all-time low.  The acting can’t even be considered acting.  There are moments involving an evil kid (I didn’t bother to remember his name) where it literally seems like he was being fed one line at a time from some offscreen voice.  I would think that for real, but I’m sure it wasn’t in this film’s budget to go back in post and take the instructional voice out.  The fight choreography is horrendous with stunt coordination going to someone named Rick Rabago.  He also has a part in the film as Cubby Khan, though I’m not quite sure which character that was.

The music, the plot detailing, the pacing.  Everything seems to be pulled out of some, God-awful, ’80s movie trying to capitalize off of the popularity of Chuck Norris movies.  Unfortunately, ‘Pocket Ninjas’ was filmed in 1994.  Released in 1997, it is a movie that instantly hit the wall of being dated.   Awful and endless training montages, ridiculously choreographed fighting, and lamest of the lame in terms of humor, this movie has absolutely nothing interesting to offer.   Fortunately for the world, not that many people have seen it.  There’s a reason why director Dave Eddy only did one, other movie, a documentary about September 11 called ‘The Box.’  We won’t hold that movie against him, but we sure as hell will hold ‘Pocket Ninjas’ aganst him.

There are some movie that I watch for this column, and I wonder why they are on the Bottom 100 list.  A lot of these movies just get bad wraps, and people feel they have to slight them.  Then there are movies like ‘Pocket Ninjas,’ which not only deserves to be on this list, it genuinely deserves to be at this #1 spot.

Lowest of the Low Moments: As with most of these movies we talk about, there are many moments that could be construed as “lowest of the lows.”  With ‘Pocket Ninjas,’ it comes down to two moments.  One is a throwaway scene.  While criminals are terrorizing the streets of the city, one thug lures a helpless girl into a nest of other thugs by pulling on a piece of paper with fishing line.  She has a rod and reel and is standing behind some bushes.  The helpless girl, who deserves to get beat up by goons, slowly walks after the piece of paper (it might be a pamphlet of some kind, though it eludes me why she gives a damn about it) bent over in a faint effort to pick it up.  Really awful.

However, as bad as this is, it really can’t hold a candle to the central fight scene.  It involves Cobra Khan and White Dragon, and it takes place at a carnival.  Think you know where this is going?  Think again.   Everyone involved in this movie, I believe, thought they were making comedy gold, but this fight proves they were wrong.   Z’Dar and Gary Daniels bouncing up and down on balloons is one thing.   Watching them play patty-cake is another entirely.   There isn’t even much fighting in this “fight” scene.

See for yourself:

Will it Ever Get Off the List: It’s all the way at the bottom of the bottom list.   Granted, only 700 people have seen it, but that number isn’t looking to explode anytime soon.   Even if it does, the more people who see this, the more 1s out of 10 this movie is going to get.   There is no way, NO WAY, this movie is ever going to get off the Bottom 100 list, and it shouldn’t.

It is absolutley one of the worst pieces of movie making I have ever had to force myself to watch.   Even then, and I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I found myself doing anything else during the last half of the movie.   That includes dusting my computer and alphabetizing my book shelves.   If you’re ever with your buddies, and you are debating on what to watch to subject yourselves to the worst movie known to man, look no further than ‘Pocket Ninjas.’

Humpday Horribleness: ‘Track of the Moon Beast’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Title: ‘Track of the Moon Beast’

Release Date: Roughly speaking, 1976.

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 8/5/2009): # 15 (based on 1.492 votes)

Why it’s Here: This movie is here for all the typical reasons… bad acting, terrible script, amateur camera work (although fundamentally not bad) and lame special effects. TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST is the kind of filmmaking that makes you sit there and wonder what it must be like, during the writing process, to believe what you’re writing is quality stuff only later to realize no one to come within 10-feet of the finished product.

Kathy Nolan: But you’re going to kill him with a bow and arrow?
Johnny Longbow: Not with just any old bow and arrow but with this!
[Johnny shows Kathy the bit of meteor that serves as the arrowhead.]

At least, that’s the original reaction to this film from director Richard “Dick” Ashe. It’s not a stretch to realize TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST was Dick’s first and final film. If you see the movie, you’ll know why. However, I imagine the fact that the movie was made in 1972 and was not picked up by a distributor until four years later left a sour taste in Dick’s mouth. In reality, this would be considered a relatively impressive first feature for an amateur backyard filmmaker without a budget. Honestly, I’ve seen much worse filmmaking with much larger budgets.

The acting is forced by every actor in the film, unnatural and the timing is usually anything but successful. The dialogue attempts to be too perfect. No one talks like these characters in real life. Fortunately, Ashe managed to cast some relatively appealing actors, as in not difficult to look at. Chase Cordell plays Paul, the lead character that gets hit in the head with a tiny piece of meteor that turns out to be a moon rock with mystical powers. Cordell’s crowning achievement would end up being a three-episode stint on the TV series VEGA$ at the end of the 70’s.

Leigh Drake certainly is not hard to look at, as far as amateur actresses from the late 70’s are concerned. Drake plays Paul’s girlfriend Kathy. Her big claim to fame would be as the dispatcher in THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). This would also be her last acting role in a film. Fortunately, Drake was kind enough to wear nothing but sinfully short shorts for the entire film. Hooray for short shorts!

When it comes time to for TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST to pay off with special effects, the result is anything but scary. Well, that’s not entirely true. If you find a six-foot tall lizard-man resembling a Komodo Dragon wrapped in bondage leather flailing about making fart noises scary, then yeah… this is a decent horror film. The gore and dismemberment scenes are laughably bad, providing a welcome dose of unintended comic relief.

Lowest of the Low Moments: The scene that sticks out in my mind the most is when Paul and Kathy are hanging out in a local bar/club with a late-era hippie band performing ‘California Lady’ on stage, inter-cut with scenes of Paul and Kathy after they leave the bar. The scene has a sort of evil appeal to it, even though you can’t stand t watch or listen. Sort of like walking into a department store in the middle of August and finding yourself humming along with the inappropriately-early Christmas music being pumped into the store. By the time you realize you’ve actually kind of been subconsciously digging the music it’s too late and you start looking around to make sure no one saw you. (Hey, I’ve been there. I know how it feels!)

The other lowest of the low moment is actually a small collection of crucially failed scenes. These are scenes that would have needed to be original and creatively accomplished to sell a sci-fi/horror film like this. The first scene is Paul’s very first experience with transforming into the deadly lizard-man from the moon creature. His portrayal of this transformation is more like an awkward moaning and light tossing in bed as a result of eating bad ham salad that it is the epic and electrified transformation of Jack into a werewolf in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLD IN LONDON. Shortly following this scene is the first kill scene by the moon beast, attacking a tiny old man on the doorstep of his house. The old man appears frightened, slack-jawed and wide-eyed for about ten seconds longer than is necessary as the moon beast is right on top of him. The creature’s growl literally sounds more like a combination the hocking of phlegm and the flatulent release of gases from a constipated old man. Not pretty! Not pretty at all!

One final note… TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST seems reliant on an element of make-believe Native American folk lore to drive it’s story. As a person who holds a great deal of respect for the Native American people, their traditions and beliefs, I had a difficult time getting past this part of the film. I suppose it’s a valiant attempt at creating an original concept in a genre otherwise filled with cliche’s but it’s use goes mostly unappreciated.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: This difference is, TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST is one of those painfully fun movies that has that legendary bad movie appeal, a yet unrealized cult potential that hopefully will catch up with it’s extremely late 2008 DVD release. Gregorio Sala isn’t entirely bad as Professor John “Johnny Longbow” Salinas, the man who investigates the mysterious murders, figures out the mystery of what the killer is, tracks down the killer and figures out how to kill the moon beast. Hell, Dick Ashe might have well just cast the film as a one man show, starring just Sala. He could have even played the monster. It’s always a good sign of popularity for a film like this when the MST3K crew devotes an episode of their show to the movie as they did with TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST. It’s unlikely to fall off the list completely in the next 100 years, but the cult status of the film will probably lift it higher than it’s current spot at #15 on IMDB’s Bottom 100 List.

Humpday Horribleness: ‘Going Overboard’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Title: ‘Going Overboard′

Release Date: May 11, 1989

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 7/29/2009): #69 (based on 5475 votes)

Why it’s Here: We thought in honor of Adam Sandler’s new collaboration with Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, ‘Funny People,’ (which is bound to make each one of them enough money to buy a small country) we would go back and view one of the earlier and universally panned films of Sandler. Lucky me. ‘Going Overboard,’ in fact, Sandler’s first feature film after making a few spots on “The Cosby Show,” has to be the worst film I’ve had to write up for this column. Hokey and lame and not funny in the least, it is the one film I’ve seen that I can truly say there is absolutely nothing redeemable about.

Sandler plays Schecky Moskowitz, a name, I’m sure, writer/director Valerie Breiman, just died laughing at as soon as she wrote it. Schecky is a struggling comedian who takes a job as a waiter on a cruise ship. As luck would have it, there Miss Universe contest being held on board. This provides absolutely nothing to the story. The crew shot on this particular cruise ship that was headed for Cancun and the real Miss Universe contest, and there had to be some explanation for all the pageant contestants in the background.

Anyway, Schecky’s rival on the ship is the ship’s entertainment, a flashy comedian named Dickie Diamond, played by Scott LaRose, who can’t go 30 seconds without dropping an F-bomb on everybody. Throw in a grungy rock star, King Neptune, and General Noriega (yeah, you heard that right) and you’ve got yourselves a recipe for comedy.

Not really. This film isn’t funny in the least. It’s budget, or lack thereof, is actually flaunted in earlier moments. Schecky, talking directly to the camera, talks about how “no-budget” the film is, then provides a demonstration on how to create an earthquake by shaking the camera. This is early Sandler, way, waaaaaayyyyyy before he honed his skills as a comedian. The idea that Schecky is a struggling comedian who just can’t catch a break is about the only believable thing here.

To look at the cast list is to hang your head in shame at some of the people who stepped on board this project before they were anybody. Peter Berg and Billy Zane are at the top of that list, showing up as a sleezy manager for the rock star and King Neptune, as previously mentioned. It’s just shameful and cringe-worthy at its very worst. Billy Bob Thornton makes an appearance as an audience member. He gets a few lines, and no one in the room believes that less than ten years later, he’s have an Oscar on his mantel. Burt Young and Milton Berle give glorified cameo performances, and you can’t feel sorry for them, too bad. They’d been around Hollywood enough to know how atrocious this film was.

Stay away from ‘Going Overboard.’  In fact, the film as shelved until Sandler became a huge star nearly ten years after the film was completed.  You can probably find it in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart.   Do yourself and everyone around you a favor.  Shove it all the way to the bottom and keep moving.

Lowest of the Low Moments: As part of our journey with Schecky, we become privy to his inner thoughts.   He daydreams, and we are forced to watch these dreams come to sparkling life.   One, in particular, features Schecky and Dickie in a boxing match.   However, this isn’t just any   boxing match.   No punches are thrown, just insults.   Each insult, increasingly brutal and unfunny, causes physical harm to the opponent.   It’s as lame as it sounds.   In fact, it’s even lamer than that.   Honestly, I’m sure there are worse moments than this in the film, but your brain will be so numb to it all by the time they come around that it won’t matter.   This scene happens early enough that your still lucid and not contemplating throwing your TV in the trash to save it.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: Let’s hope not.   There isn’t much hope for ‘Going Overboard’ to ever get itself off the Bottom 100 list, nor should it.   If Sandler’s success hasn’t driven enough people to go back and watch this piece of trash, nothing will.   It only has 5475 votes compared to the just over 66,000 votes for ‘Click.’   And, honestly, the more people who see this movie, the worse the chances of it getting off this list become.   It’s wholly unfunny and completely annoying.   I’m sure this is one Sandler wants hidden in his closet for a long, long time.

Humpday Horribleness: ‘Leonard Part 6’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit. Continue reading Humpday Horribleness: ‘Leonard Part 6’

Humpday Horribleness: ‘King of the Lost World’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

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Title: ‘King of the Lost World’

Release Date: December 13, 2005

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 7/15/2009): # 90 (based on 986 votes)

Why it’s Here: Is it any surprise a film from The Asylum would end up on IMDB’s Bottom 100 list? The film is “based” on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic adventure-fantasy novel. The story follows four survivors of a plane that crashes in a remote jungle who must trek through the unknown thickets and terrain to reach the cockpit of the destroyed plane with hopes that the radio still functions. Along their journey, they discover the hidden truth of this lost world that time forgot and the endless dangers that inhabit these deadly jungles.

Sounds cool, right? Ah, but if it were, it wouldn’t be featured on Humpday Horribleness, now would it? ‘King of the Lost World’ was directed by Leigh Scott, something of a company man for The Asylum, having gone on to direct ‘Pirates of Treasure Island’ and ‘Transmorphers’. He’s also done some work directing Sci-Fi Channel movies. Are you starting to see a trend? It’s like what Vivid and other high-end big(ger) budget adult movie companies do with popular film titles except, without the sex… a la ‘Forest Hump’. Nope. These films are anything but eye candy.

‘King of the Lost World’ stars Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5) and Steve Railsback, who in the trailer for ‘King of the Lost World’ is credited as having been in ‘The Devils Rejects’ even though he is uncredited in the film as playing Sheriff Ken Dwyer. The [fake] Kong makes his first appearance in the first ten minutes, taking a poor female crash survivor stuck in a tree for a snack. Enjoy it as best you can, because this is the last time you’ll see [fake] Kong until the very end of the film. Fairly disappointing for a movie that obviously wanted to bank on Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ that released the same year.

Lowest of the Low Moments: While the lowest moments of these movies are generally related to acting, directing or special effects, one of the lowest things about ‘King of the Lost World’ is the audio. Atrocious! I’ve never had such a difficult time listening to a movie in my life. The audio is so up and down, disproportionate to what’s happening in the movie and often nearly inaudible, resulting in my constant need to wear out the volume keys on my remote. Normally if this sort of thing occurs, I flip on the subtitles and just make do… oh, wait, the DVD has no subtitles. Great!

While I’m on a kick with the technical side of the film, I have to take a moment to congratulate the filmmaker’s on having won two very prestigious awards aside from the worst audio… Most Excessive Use of Lame Blue Filter Day-For-Night Photography and also Most Blatant Case of Putting a Fog Machine to Use Every Chance Possible. Depending on how you look at it, the only good thing ‘King of the Lost World’ had going for it were the primitive tribal lesbian cave-women.

Woman: “Oh my God! It’s a snake!”
Man: “No, that’s not a snake.” (He says this so calmly, right before being yanked up off the ground by a killer jungle tree vine.)

The above quote is just one of many examples of the writing/acting collaboration on this film. There’s a reason there are no “memorable quotes” listed on the IMDB page for ‘King of the Lost World’. B-movies are often still fun because they’re so silly, but that silly fun is completely lost when such a bad movie as this takes itself so seriously. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t blame the writer, seeing as I couldn’t freaking hear half of the dialogue to begin with! Sorry audio dudes, but you did a truly lousy job on this one.

Of course, the special FX guys picked up your slack, right? Hmm… I don’t think so. Aside from the lame, and very brief encounters with [fake] Kong, we get a badly rendered CGI giant spider and a brood of equally bad CGI giant scorpions that are apparently mortally afraid of a camera flash. That’s it. Yeah, I know… ‘King of the Lost World’ needs dinosaurs, right? Apparently not, according to The Asylum. However, there are some really cheesy CGI dragons swarming around [fake] Kong at the end, for no apparent reason. Disappointing indeed.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: Sure. “King of the Lost World’ is already pretty low on the list as it is. While the film is far from perfect, in fact… OK, yeah, it’s bad, but it’s no worse than your average run-of-the-mill Sci-Fi Channel Original movie, so long as you can stay awake. So, we’d be seeing tons of these films on the list if they were truly considered bad enough to earn a permanent place in the hall of infamy. Heck, you could take all the Sci-Fi Channel movies and the entire archive collection from The Asylum and have no more room left for others on the IMDB Bottom 100, but that would just be greedy! Long story short, this movie is boring!

Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Miss Cast Away’

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One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film: Continue reading Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Miss Cast Away’