“Good Bad” Movie Reviews
Please note that the ratings of these movies are on the “good bad” scale, not one for “non-good bad” (a.k.a. regular) movies.
The Deadly Spawn 1982
4/5
What a great bad movie. I mean it, this one is right up there with "C.H.U.D.", "Night of the Comet", and "The Beastmaster". If you like bad B movies, trust me, you will LOVE this one. It didn't miss a trick, it's got:
--The obligatory tit shot right near the beginning, but that's all you get
--Handsome but nerdy teenage kid who is a science major and has friends come by to study for a biology test in the middle of the monster attack
--Smart 10-or-12-year-old who has room filled with monster paraphernalia who, of course, figures to how to best the monster (and all I will tell you about that part is it requires a monster mask and an extension cord that doesn't quite reach the outlet, bwah-hah-hah)
--Bunch of old ladies who, when attacked, kick some major monster ass
--A dissection of one of the monster babies for no apparent reason
--Shot of people running around aimlessly brandishing shock rods and yelling things like "Here's one, Earl, kill that thang!"
--Occasional glimpse of crew, camera, or boom reflected in windows/mirror, seeing thorough monster's open mouth that innards are gears and tubing, and glimpse of human crew member's arm shoving monster around the doorway
And so on. I really liked this one and the only reason I won't buy it is the lousy transfer to DVD and horrible sound; I had our SurroundSound home theater system 3/4 of the way up and still had trouble hearing parts of it. Plus it was in fullscreen, which I just abhor. If I ever find a clean print of this, it's mine!
Also don't miss the Outtakes Reel in the Extras, it's great!
C.H.U.D. 1984 (Director's Cut)
5/5
Okay, so I can have really bad taste in movies, even worse than "Dude Where's My Car". "C.H.U.D." is one of my guilty pleasures, one of those movies that's so bad it's good.
It does have a good cast: John Heard, Christopher Curry, Daniel Stern, Eddie Jones, and a brief but excellent cameo by John Goodman as a rude cop. The acting isn't the problem, the script isn't the problem (except for the "which movie was this scene supposed to be in" bathroom sequence), the cinematography isn't a problem--the freakin' CHUDs are the problem! If the monsters had been halfway more realistic I think this movie might have attained respectability, or at least not be the joke it is now.
It's one of those movies that my son and I watch together, and I really bought it for him although I like it as much. It was my last day of vacation so this morning we settled down to watch it. He works midnights and dozed off by 3/4 of the way through the movie, but I watched it all with great enjoyment because although it didn't say so on the case, I realized that this was the director's cut and had some great restored scenes. Trust me, I've seen this movie enough times to recognize new and/or extended scenes! If you saw the original release I highly recommend watching this one to see how much better it is, or if you just like “good bad” movies then this is one not to miss.
Glen or Glenda 1953
5/5
Ed Wood's first movie and just as bad as I'd heard, but it was also hysterically, unintentionally funny! My son, his girlfriend and I were laughing so hard that we missed parts of it, not to be rewound and played again, understand--we're not that brave. Other times were so boring that we fast-forwarded (I'm still puzzling over the half-naked strange woman sleeping on the couch, not to mention the giant tree in the living room...), but I'm glad I saw it. This is not one to watch alone, trust me. But with fellow bad-movie-lovers you will enjoy it, trust me. Bring on the buffalo and angora sweaters, baby!
Phantasm 1980
5/5
I love this movie. I don't care how bad it is, I love this movie! Partly because it brings back such good memories of the early 80s and going to see this in the theater and jumping out of my skin, partly just because I like the original, imaginative story. Doesn't seem like that now, but trust me, at the time it was very original.
For those who haven't seen it, it's a low-budged Don Coscarelli horror flick about the terrifying goings-on at Morningside Cemetery by The Tall Man, and the brothers and their friend who have to figure it out or die themselves. Although by no means a well-made movie, it's clear that everyone who worked on this film had their heart in it and did their best with what they had. Despite some bad acting, silly effects, telegraphed jump moments, editing goofs, and plot holes big enough to drive a hearse through, this is a fun movie if you just like a good scary story. Don't expect "The Exorcist" and you won't be disappointed; pop the popcorn, turn off the lights, and take a journey to Morningside--bwah-hah-hah-hah!
The Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (a.k.a. Your Sister Is a Werewolf) 1985
4/5
Bad movie lovers, put this one on your list if you haven't seen it. Whoo-ie, this one stinks worse than my friend's horse who likes to fart in my face when I'm grooming him. The sad thing is that it has Christopher Lee in it, who I liked so much in the Hammer films that I named my son after him. How far the mighty can fall; this isn't quite as sad as Lugosi in Ed Wood's films, but far more excruciating. Poor Chris actually tried to act his way through this embarrassment, which only made everyone ELSE look that much worse.
My husband recommended we watch this; he knows that I enjoy good bad movies and while he usually doesn't unless it's MST3k, he had seen this one before and knew I'd like it. Now to get him to watch "The Deadly Spawn" with me....
I'm not quite sure what was worse:
A. The bad acting from the two main leads
B. The even WORSE acting from the other two main leads and their furry boytoy
C. the obvious confusion between werewolves and vampires (they had garlic against the werewolves) or
D. the werewolf queen wearing a leather and steel outfit complete with hip waders and epaulets, or the orgying werewolves wearing spiked dog collars with their S&M outfits. Werewolf + collar = DUH.
And we can't forget the werewolves who could only be killed with titanium instead of plain old silver. We felt safe as we have a titanium iBook in the house and figured we could pitch it at any werewolves that might appear.
And poor Sybil Danning! That goofy costume must have been uncomfortable, not to mention the ménage-a-trois werewolf sex scenes where they spent much of their time sniffling, licking, and snapping at each other. Let me in on that, baby!
I also loved it when the intrepid werewolf hunters were looking for the werewolf queen's protégée and were unable to find her; she was a black woman in Transylvania, for cryin out loud! How could you NOT spot her among all those white faces?! Another DUH!
Then, of course, the lame wanna-be-Devo punk band from L.A. shows up in Transylvania at the orgy near the end. Of course the cutaways to the band showed them still in the club in L.A. while the rest of the orgy was in the castle in (you guessed it) Transylvania, but you just can't be too nit-picky in a movie like this.
Last but not least, the end credits feature at least fifteen repeats of Sybil Danning whipping her top off. Over and over again, interspersed with other shots from the movie when people looked shocked or smiled. Kinda like they got done with this piece of crap, realized how bad it was, and had to do SOMEthing to get people in the seats. (I later found out that the director got into an argument with Danning over the movie and did this just to piss her off.)
Grab a friend or two, let the brain have the night off, and enjoy!
Plan 9 From Outer Space 1959
5/5
I finally got around to watching this gem--yes, GEM! This movie is truly a classic, the best bad movie I've seen yet. Hey, it actually has a plot and several SUB-plots that do get followed and finished up, decent acting from some of the actors (poor Bela, though!), and an ending that had me in hysterics. I laughed so hard at the flaming hubcap-or-cymbals as flying saucers being shot down that I had to stop the movie and get hold of myself before letting it finish its run to the credits.
I liked this much better than "Glen or Glenda", mostly because it made more sense with less nonsensical stock footage tossed in here and there for no apparent reason. I actually dozed during "G or G" and I'm a veteran of some real stinkers; I've watched "Manos: The Hands of Fate" without the robots down front, how's that for credentials?
Don't get me wrong, this film stunk like a week-old dead fish left in a sealed cooler, but it was also much fun. I watched it with my adult son and his girlfriend, also bad movie buffs, but he fell asleep about half an hour in (they work midnights) and she and I watched most of it. He did get one MSTie-like line in there that gave me a good laugh; the first time that the spaceship buzzes the pilot's house he popped out with: "Those darn hot-rodding kids!" It was a moment worthy of Crow or Tom Servo.
We also made much of the fact that Vampira was supposed to be Bela's "much loved elderly wife". Did Ed ever read his scripts either before or after he cast the actors?!
My favorite moment was with the gravediggers in the beginning. If the movie wasn't b/w, I would have expected them to be wearing red shirts. This one's well worth watching if you want to see truly adorable B-movie cheese at its finest.
The Mangler 1995 SPOILERS if you can call them that, ha ha
0/5
This is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen no matter what genre or type, and that's saying something. Whew! I won't forget this stinker anytime soon (waves hand in front of face). And remember, I usually like bad movies!
Where to start? This movie was horrid on so many levels it's difficult to know which to choose first. I guess the very worst thing about it was Ted Levine as the cop; I can't recall such bad casting before. He was great as Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs", decent as Alan Shepard in "From the Earth to the Moon", and even good as the General in "Evolution", but hoo boy was he lousy here. I kept expecting to see him wearing night goggles and carrying a big gun in a dank basement. Bleah.
Then we have Robert Eglund buried under about 6# of latex and metal as the weird old man, less said the better... should have stuck to being Freddy. Brgh.
Plus we have Levine's eccentric ex-hippy neighbor who figures out what's going on instantly and how to fix it, but who the hell is he and why is he there?! And why does he keep putting plates of food in front of Levine that he never eats? I thought they were gay lovers until the bit about the cop's dead wife came up!
We won't even go into the police photographer, I have no idea what he was supposed to be up to. When he dies in the hallway I thought it was Eglund's character, took me a good 5 minutes to realize who it was. Good job on the makeup there, guys...
Very little of the original story was left, but then it was only about 10 pages long. As to the plot, they added something weird regarding missing fingers and sacrificing virgin daughters on their sixteenth birthday that was never quite fully explained and probably tossed in at the last minute. Made about as much sense as the rest of the movie.
And of course, the gore. Lame, lame, lame! Where's Tom Savini when you need him, or even Greg Nicotero? Hell, Ray Harryhausen could have done better when the Mangler comes to life and chases Our Hero and Heroine--the so-called 16 year old virgin to be sacrificed who looks at least 25--through the catacombs under the laundry plant. (Yes, catacombs under the laundry plant, you read that right.) How can you manage to make a person who's been through a sheet folding machine look silly rather than sick? Seeing Levine throw up made me more disgusted than any of the so-called "gore". Though it is kinda neat when Eglund's character gets "folded" in the end and the hippy neighbor gets chopped in half. Still... ho-hum.
And then we have the Mangler itself. I worked in a dry cleaner/laundry when I was in my early 20s and ran a smaller version, and they are not that dangerous when unpossessed; I ran full-sized sheets through one that was a quarter of the size. I guess it could be a real machine, though I suspect that they made it much larger for the movie.
Hey, at least they didn't show the mountains and palm trees of California in this "set in Maine" movie. About the only thing they got right!
There are two sequels to this, one due out next year. Nuff said.
Overall, I don't even recommend this waste of celluloid for even true bad movie fans; spend your time better with just about anything else. Of course I think I'm in for it again since I have "Sleepwalkers" up next...!
Wild Zero 1999
4/5
20 things I learned from "Wild Zero"
"Wild Zero" is a very bad, very (unintentionally?) funny Japanese horror (?) movie that I just had the pleasure (?) of viewing. However, this trashy masterpiece did teach me a few interesting things. Here we go:
1. When you need to save the hermaphrodite heroine (hero?) that you abandoned an hour ago in the middle of a zombie attack, a moped will appear out of nowhere.
2. When all else fails, play really bad rock music really loud.
3. How to swear in Japanese. Lots of profanity spoken in Japanese with English subtitles works well.
4. How to do a zombie love scene. Or perhaps how not to do it.
5. To be a cool Japanese warrior chick, you need to wear something that looks like a cross between a Miss America bathing suit and a fur-trimmed Jackio O-style jacket in a plaid seersucker material.
6. Filming the same explosion from 6 different angles can double for different explosions.
7. Stopping to comb your hair or take a drink during a zombie attack is really cool.
8. When dozens of zombies fall down after their mothership is destroyed, they are careful to not bump their heads or knees.
9. If your lead zombie is allergic, don't put the green zombie makeup that is all over the rest of her face around her eyes.
10. One shot can blow up at least three zombie heads if the shooter is the cool leather-jacket-wearing lead singer of a Japanese rock band.
11. If you're the hero, two dozen zombies can take you down and you don't suffer one bite, just get lots of blood all over you which mysteriously disappears when you get away from them using nothing but a tire iron and lots of Kung Fu style yelling.
12. Don't kill the guy who shoots green lightening out of his eyes if he's destroying invading alien spaceships with it. This will come in handy later.
13. If you're a hermaphrodite and are interested in the cute hero, don't strip down and display The Package without warning before he rescues you. This can lead to freaking out and abandonment on the hero's part. Understandably.
14. If it looks like a zombie, it probably is a zombie. Don't stop to discuss it instead of shooting them.
15. Big bad Japanese gas station robbers who forget to grab the money later cry like a baby about it.
16. Never use a zombie as a shield in a gunfight. It just does you no good.
17. All vehicles driven by cool people or really bad guys shoot flames out of the tailpipe.
18. If absolutely necessary, lead zombies can talk and are clearly more intelligent than the "common" zombies who just wander around groaning.
19. If you're the bad guy, hold a shotgun upside-down and it will suddenly work as a grenade launcher.
20. Any movie that has a drinking game as part of the DVD has got to be worth watching.
Night of the Creeps 1986
3/5
I vaguely remember seeing this film shortly after it originally came out, but still can't remember if it was on the original HBO cable channel (when you could either get HBO or ON TV, nothing else) or at a drive-in. Regardless, I had a great time re-discovering this movie. Not something I want to see again anytime soon, but as with all good bad movies it's got its place. Also very glad I recorded it on TiVo and didn't pay money to rent it.
This isn't a really bad movie, it's an almost-good-not-quite-really-bad movie. It doesn't take itself seriously, which is fun, but it has some huge plot goofs. An important one left me baffled and scratching my head for about ten minutes until they got around to explaining how the flower-giving zombie ended up headless on the front lawn so that the "good guys" got blamed for the so-called prank. Tell me that that scene wasn't an afterthought after someone saw the rough cut and realized they'd forgotten to explain how the body got from the balcony to the lawn!
And who did the lead credits, the local Wal-Mart photo lab? Yeesh.
Overall, I was very surprised at the decent acting, neat touches and homage to horror directors and movies, and overall quality of the film, but not surprised at the absolutely horrible effects, continuity problems, and plot holes big enough to drive a chartered bus through (with zombies on board, of course). Still, it was quite fun and I enjoyed remembering it.
Dinocroc 2004
1/5
Well, this movie is truly bad but not quite bad enough to be a "good bad" movie. I say take the money away from Corman and let him direct as well as produce and you'll get a fine bad movie from him (Coscarelli, too, was ruined by budget). Trust me, if you liked "Wasp Women" or even "Piranha", don't expect that level of innocent cheese from this one. "Dinocroc" is "Lake Placid" seen by a modern-day Picasso on anti depressants. Still, it's got a few LOL moments. As anyone who's seen any of the made-for-Sci-Fi-Channel movies knows, their effects are done by Budget Digital Studios and come with no warranties or guarantees of looking realistic at any time. Most of the scenes of the monster in the water are laughably bad, although there are a couple of surprise killings that I didn't expect. Still, the bad guys get their comeuppance and most of the good guys survive. If you're a "good bad" movie fan, I recommend "The Stuff" or "The Howling II" instead of this.
Empire of the Ants 1977
4/5
This is a great bad movie for watching with friends and family who can appreciate this type of film; there's plenty of fun riffing material here. Never mind the "plot", note the amazing disappearing rain! Keep an eye on the awesome effects, and how the ants can not only change size, but manage to crawl on the sky! Very little in this movie makes sense or even stays the same from scene to scene, which is great fun in a movie of this type. My adult son once again had the best line, right after you see the first leaking radioactive drum wash up on the beach: "Look, it's the keg that the crew finished the night before!" Definitely see if you've liked "The Stuff", "The Deadly Spawn", or any of Bert's other "giant critter" films. Much better than the dull Sci-Fi channel abominations like "Mansquito" or "Dinocroc". Pop some popcorn, gather your friends, and enjoy!
The Stuff 1985
4/5
I adored this bad movie for what it was. Truly awful, it has everything to recommend it: bad writing, choppy editing, horrible acting, a plot that contradicts itself frequently, truly laughable effects, and a 'monster' so silly you'll laugh yourself sick. It could only get better with three silhouettes down front. If you enjoy "good bad" movies, this is a winner right up there with "C.H.U.D." and "The Deadly Spawn".
Beach Girls and the Monster 1965
3/4
This is a true stinker in THE most fun sense of the word! The story goes that a monster is "clawing" people to death on the beach (I guess that in their world, three faint claw-marks on your face represented by lines of catsup can kill you) but it only catches one "beach girl", and in fact only four victims total--don't get your hopes up; this is the dopiest, slowest-moving monster that I have ever seen. The limping cripple outruns him in one scene, for crying out loud! The brilliant police suspect a monster (the giant webbed footprints mean anything?), but the local scientist pooh-poohs this idea because he's too busy dealing with his drunken floozy of a wife (MONSTER FODDER!) and rebellious beach-bum son. And then there's the beach girls. For no apparent reason they dance madly on the beach in hideous bikinis day and night despite the monster running amuck. I recommend not eating before watching this because the gyrating girl in the striped bikini may make you motion-sick. Speaking of sick, I don't know who decorated Jon Hall's house (where the interiors were shot) but heaven help us all, the Monkees would have loved it. My worst moment? When one guy (I'm still not sure exactly who he was) finds the floozy wife's shoes on the kitchen floor and PUTS THEM ON THE COUNTER. How gross! That was far worse than the monster, because she'd been out at the bar just before and can you imagine what she might have walked through in those shoes? Give me the monster any day! This one was quite fun to heckle when it didn't have us speechless in bafflement (one girl screams loudly before her mouth opens, that's quite a trick). For "good bad" or "trashy" movie fans, I highly recommend this, but don't watch it alone--you'll need at least one more person there to help you make sense of it.
