“Pacific Heights” - suspense done well is great. Suspense done poorly is pathetic.
Universal’s The Mummy’s Hand, where the archaelogist, after discovering the mummy, comment that the poor sap was BURIED ALIVE, and then, 10 seconds later, says “That’s the best EMBALMED corpse I ever saw”.
Huh? What? He was EMBALMED AND BURIED ALIVE??? Gosh, those egyptians were truly amazing!
The test of time has proven it: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the best bad movie of all time. I don’t know if you’ve ever just sat down and watched it as a movie, but is indescribably bad. And yet, people the world over watch it again and again, as a group experience, in a mass-mocking frenzy. It’s darn near supernatural.
I’ll second Krull, it’s great!
A few more. In fantasy, I’m going to nominate Time Bandits. It has Sean Connery, John Cleese, midgits and a big floating head. It doesn’t get more entertaining than that.
You want martial arts? Forget Jackie Chan. Pass by Bruce Lee. What you need is The Last Dragon.Oh sure… you can see James Bond fights arch enemies bent on taking over the world, but that gets really boring really fast. What you need is true mastermind who spends an entire movie implementing his diabolical plan of getting his girlfriend into a rock video at a dance club. It’s a coming of age film for a young black martial artist (who thinks he’s white and chinese, but that just adds more charm). The theme song is bringing a tear to my eye even as I type this.
I’ve never seen the film, but I understand (through the book “The Golden Turkey Awards”) that this film contains a classic line:
“There’s a horde of killer rabbits coming this way!”
That must have been difficult to say with a straight face.
About crappy giant animals on the loose, the best example is Food of the Gods (parts 1 AND 2).
I’ll go with Leprechan.
Three words :
Better Off Dead
or en francais :
Le Cusack de film
french fries
french toast
french dressing
Hey! What was wrong with Tremors?! The sequel was bad, sure, but the first one was okay!
I was once cursed with a double feature presentation of Howard the Duck and Armed and Dangerous. It was my parents’ idea. To this day, I still distrust their tastes in film.
Manos, The Hands Of Fate
The Wild World of Batwoman
Bride of the Monster
The Leech Woman
Of course, I recommend the MST3K versions with hysterical commentary. MMMMM. Tom Servo.
Okay okay you all have some good movies picked but nothing tops Dead Alive. When I think horrible scarey movie that sucks = unbelievable laughs it has to be Dead Alive. For anyone who has ever seen this movie you know what I’m talking about. From the parts of the Zombies humping and creating a baby demented f*cked up little zombie is funny. Or where the lady turns into that god awful big nasty a$$ zombie/pure nasty thing at the end. Or how about the ending sceen which used over 50 gallons of fake blood about 50 zombie extras an intestinal creature and the hero with a lawnmower? Oh I could go on and on about this horrible cinematic endevour but I won’t. If you watch this movie and can sit through the slow beginning you’ll be glad you did!
Of course, several people have already mentioned “Attack of the Killer Tomatos”, but how about “Killer Klowns from Outer Space”? Darned funny – alien clowns you kill by shooting them in the nose.
More recently – and seasonally – there’s “Jingle All the Way”. Stomach-turningly stupid film staring Ahnold and Sinbad.
jr8
and unfortunately, it’s not yet available on video or dvd…
(starring DeForest Kelley, IIRC)
Another yet to be mentioned is “Alien from LA” in which Kathy Ireland bemoans her father’s fate of “falling into a bottemless pi-et”, wears “nerdy” glasses through half of the flick, then when they get dropped and lost, it makes no discernable difference. Awe inspiring in its badness.
An honorable mention also goes to “Humanoids from the Deep” who have the good sense that when they come onto land, they kill everyone they see unless it’s a young female with large breasts, in which case, they impregnate said female.
And to drink… PERU (perrier)
I almost forgot: I haven’t actually seen this one, but it ranks as one of my favorite film titles:
“CHUDs”
(Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers)
In the last house I used to live in, we called the people who lived in the basement apartment the Chuds, although not to their faces…
jr8
“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.”
– TV listing for the movie The Wizard of Oz in the Marin County, CA newspaper.
There’s also the Mexican series of La Momia Azteca (The Aztech Mummy), a shape-shifter monster who was always being defeated by wrestlers like Santo and Mil Mascaras.
Oh, and every Tim Kincaid movie EVER. He did Breeders and Mutant Hunt. The guy sucks.
The Barbarians starring bodybuilder twins, the Barbarian Brothers. Words cannot do it justice. To this day, I am not certain if it is just Ed Woods-level bad, or an incredibly subtle parody of sword-and-sorcery movies.
I would also direct your attention to http://www.jabootu.com for reviews of some great bad movies.
I have to add “Sorceress”. There are at least three films with this title, but you’ll know the one I mean if you see it. Roger Corman produced. It has bad effects, a bad script, bad makeup, bad sound. It looks like a cheesy Italian or Mexican movie that was dubbed into English – except it was made in English to start with. It features psychically-linked Valkyrie twins, a smart-ass second-rate Han-Solo-ish hero, a satyr (in really bad makeup), a Viking, and a pointless winged lion monster at the end that Corman re-used later on. Bone-chillingly bad, but fun to make fun of.
That’s a TROMA flick!!!
They are so terrible, they’re great.
I bought the entire Troma inventory. I’ve lost IQ points for doing so.
Repo Man
Evil Dead 2 (preceeded Army of Darkness)
Joe Vs. the Volcano
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Reanimator