INTRODUCTION  On Saturday Laura asked about the worst films we've watched during movie days. Here are fifteen stinkers worth calling out. These are all films that are objectively bad, whether through ill intent or ineptitude. These aren't just movies I didn't like. For instance, there isn't any Takashi Miike in here, because Miike is a competent filmmaker. I'm just not a fan of his work. I will offer some final one-word verdicts that are all personal opinion, mind. THE WORST  The top five are movies that show complete incompetence or whose existence actively causes harm. BEAT THE BUNNY (2005): This Christian film railed against the dangers of masturbation, promoting a culture of neurotic sexual frustration that I'm certain will have no ill effects when coupled with their creepy, reproduction-as-the-end-goal relationships down the road. Avoidable! AN EASTER BUNNY PUPPY (2013): A mind-numbingly insipid mess of a movie, drawn out to an interminable 90 minutes through long montages, a missing Faberge Egg, a dumb identical twin shtick, failed attempts at meta-humor, and a core story that the movie forgot about. Avoidable! GLEN OR GLENDA (1953): An early progressive appeal to accepting the trans community, sure, but also a muddled mess loaded to overflowing with a strung out Bela Lugosi playing God, multiple overlapping narrators, a random BDSM dream sequence, and long discredited psychoanalysis. Watchable! JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (2000): Look, I'm no fan of JCS, despite giving the soundtrack a shot, but even I know it's better than this effort would suggest. When our JCS fans were left underwhelmed, this aggravating dilapidated industrial take on the show failed even its target audience. Avoidable! MANIAC (1934): Exploitation flick about an insane makeup artist disguising himself as the doctor he murdered, who was working on resurrecting the dead. The film was completely nuts and barely comprehensible, rife with pseudoscience, ladies in their undies, and a cat named Satan. Watchable! THE RUNNERS-UP  The next five are runners-up, films that fail through various means but are otherwise comprehensible. GODZILLA: FINAL WARS (2004): This was supposed to be both the big celebration for Godzilla's 50th anniversary and a send-off as big G went on a decade hiatus. What resulted was a noisy, distracted headache, edited like a music video, that insults Godzilla fans who had suffered enough. Avoidable! THE ROOM (2003): Tommy Wisseau's magnum opus was a step-up from Ed Wood, but not by much. Sporting unlikable characters, dialogue written in a second language, football tossing, and untalented actors, but still imminently quotable and a fascinating trainwreck to witness. Watchable! TEEN BEACH MOVIE (2013): A Disney Channel movie about time-traveling surfers that painted the 1950s so cartoonishly as to make 'Happy Days' look like 'Django Unchained.' Vapid and IQ-stunting, designed to sell its soundtrack to teenagers while providing nothing for the greater good. Avoidable! UNINVITED (1988): Okay, so there's this cat that lives inside a bigger cat, and the inner cat occasionally comes out to kill people aboard a yacht. Not even George Kennedy could lend gravitas to this strange little picture that carries itself along a path of perplexing weirdness. Watchable! XANADU (1980): A disco musical that dropped after the disco inferno had been extinguished. It's flashy and had some nice production value, but wasted the talent of Gene Kelly in his final film. This is a dopey head trip that hoped to appeal to a rollerdisco audience that, by 1980, had ceased to exist. Avoidable! THE WHATEVER  The last five are, eh, they're stand-out bad, but they're otherwise harmless and/or forgettable. AEON FLUX (2005): God, this movie cost Paramount a solid chunk of money, and it had some really good talent on board, and it was based off a well-received MTV animated series, and yet, it's a buffoonish lout that kicks its audience in the most sensitive parts of the head. Somehow, still idiotic fun. Watchable! THE HEADLESS EYES (1971): Schlocky, blood-soaked horror with a disgruntled artist stalking around, collecting eyeballs for his creations. We watched it because Carla remembered the VHS box art, and despite some nice gore effects, didn't really live up to its silly premise. Avoidable! JASON X (2001): By the time Jason Voorhees wound up in the far future, terrorizing the crew of a spaceship, this franchise should have long been shot behind the barn. But it wasn't, and this tenth movie reanimated a pulverized horse carcass, screaming in pain at the horror of its continued existence. Avoidable! A TALKING CAT!?! (2013): Still a better effort than 'An Easter Bunny Puppy,' because at least this cat movie had a story I can follow, despite possibly having more repeated establishing shots. If nothing else, a drunk and disinterested Eric Roberts, recording dialogue in his bathroom, kept us aboard. Watchable! WHITE NOISE 2: THE LIGHT (2007): I have literally forgotten every single thing about this movie. All I can recall is it starred Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff. It's what you'd expect from a direct-to-video sequel to a mid-aughts horror film, marketed mostly to attract 'Firefly' and 'Galactica' fans by its cast. Avoidable! Written April 18, 2017 |