Voyage to the Bottom 100

#71 Nine Lives (2002)

2009-02-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

Before saturating the gossip mags, before the TV series, before the album, even before the sex tape, Paris Hilton got a small role in this low budget supernatural slasher flick. If she hadn’t there’s every chance it would never have been so widely distributed. Produced in the UK in 2002 it didn’t get a theatrical release, and it didn’t hit the UK shelves until 2005. Now it is on DVD, despite screen time at a quarter or less than the lead characters, Paris Hilton’s name is actually larger on the side of the DVD box than the film’s title. That should give some indication of the film’s quality, and the faith the marketing department had in it.

Nine Lives is a British production, set in a rural Scottish mansion as a group of well off socialites have an overnight birthday bash. In a snowy winter setting this batch of twenty somethings look like they were plucked from a mail order catalogue and dropped in a Marks and Spencer’s Christmas advert. There’s a variety of accents on offer, but this is all there is to really distinguish them as characters. I can’t remember any names, and to name them would suggest they had any distinct personalities, so from here on I shall simply refer to them as numbers.

As the night draws on we see snippets of the guests chatting, learning about each other. There are attempts at humour, but I didn’t like it much. It felt more like the script writer was having trouble finishing his scenes and conversations, so created a montage to maintain the standard story structure. After the failed character building and anecdotes section we get down to the late night nitty gritty. No, Paris does not show us the goods, aside from some brief teasing undressing shots. Neither does anyone else. So that’s most of the potential sales gone.

What I meant was, late at night as they ready for bed we get the first scare, when number four goes to the bathroom. It’s actually handled quite well with an eerie unseen menace quality. It gave me hope that the director’s skill lay in an atmospheric handling of horror. Sadly it was not to be, as the clunky plot fired up all cylinders with a contrived finding of a centuries old book in between the walls of the library. From here on we enter the territory of a well shot student film, with a vaguely novel approach to the slasher genre, involving possession. The potential for tension between characters who may not trust each other, thinking the other is possessed, is touched on but largely wasted in favour of lots of repetitive wandering about in the dark. Or standing around talking what they are going to do, yet never doing very much. Plus, in retrospect the best handled scene with number four didn’t tie into the rest of the plot at all.

By around the one hour mark I’d lost any desire to know how it ends. There was a bold attempt at a dramatic finale involving number one doing something you’d not expect would happen to number one, but it doesn’t pay off. The ending is further destroyed by the repetitive, cheap sentiments in a narrated epilogue that is actually painful to listen to. Not since Razor Blade Smile’s drearily delivered final narration of ‘It was all a kinky sex game and not real’, have I so despaired at a script writer’s ineptitude.

This was director Andrew Green’s only credit to date, and in fairness to him it has a visually pleasing quality (except for some poor exterior shots). The acting is unremarkable, merely getting the job done. I could say some mean things about a certain someone, but what’s the point. The major part of Nine Lives troubles was a script stretched out from only enough material for a short story. With so little to work with it’s not surprising that the film felt mostly dull and plodding. Not to mention the ridiculous cliches. There's a killer on the loose, I know, I'll sit by this human sized window. No-one will ever come flying through that. Or how about getting flustered and playing catch with the only working mobile phone before crushing it under a bed. Such a common accident in emergencies. Or having a Scottish killer hunting down people because they are English, and so the first person they kill is American. WTF!

The last route to profitability for a horror film is generally to have some sensationalist filth in it, but with most of the killings happening in darkened rooms with a whack to head, or a knife to the gut there are few thrills to be had. Why was this rated an 18? There was no sex, no nudity, no gore, no tension, very little profanity. Maybe the censors were trying to do the children of the world a favour and stop them watching it. Maybe they realised the inclusion of Paris Hilton in any film is offensive enough in its self.

This film tested me like The Last Sign did. I guess it truly deserves to be down here, but I struggled to even find two decent screenshots. I need another Monster A Go-Go or Ator . A little fun, a little oddness, a little rodent. Something, anything. Throw me a lifeline.

[2.2/10 | 1,456 votes | stats from 24th November 2008]

So far:
Top Drawer: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Bottom Feeder: #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#72 Alone in the Dark (2005)

2009-01-22T05:59:00.000-08:00

Or more accurately, small groups of people in dimly lit locations, shooting wildly at CGI and random extras with whited out faces. If I were to choose one word to sum up this film it would be ‘why’. In fact, why oh why oh why? Really. What makes anyone think that taking a generic computer game that borrows from older films and stories, and turning it into a movie, will produce anything other than an unoriginal generic movie. Although, according to gamers, the film’s plot has little to do with the game beyond using the same characters. Add Uwe Boll to direct it and the producers may as well stick all their money on red.

The story begins with a long passage of text about a lost Native American civilization called The Abkani. It speaks of two worlds, a gate between them, evil creatures, and ancient artefacts. The usual. Apparently the government have set up a pretty big agency (X files style) called Bureau 713 specifically to investigate this tale. Taxpayers would be shocked, and I can’t help but wonder what Bureaus 1 through 712 are doing? One of the Bureau’s scientists, Lionel Hudgens, was conducting controversial experiments and was kicked out. He continues by secretly experimenting on how to fuse humans with creatures, using orphaned children as guinea pigs. No, I’ve no idea why either. Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) was one of those children, and after escaping has grown up to be a paranormal investigator, formerly with Bureau 713.

One of the film’s biggest mistakes is that’s ninety percent of the plot right there. Don’t expect much new to happen over the next hour and a half, and don’t expect it all to make much sense either. Largely because the characters motives are so sketchily drawn. Like fuzzy felt templates handed down from the big studios of blockbuster movies. Hudgens seems to be a cruel, power crazed, because it’s there, scientist. I couldn’t make out what he hopes to gain from all this research and collecting artefacts. Tara Reid is wholly unnecessary. An old friend of Slater’s who is supposed to add a little friendly jibing and a love interest. However, there is no chemistry between them, their relationship isn’t explained properly, then halfway through the film they have sex for no reason whatsoever, and then continue as if it never happened. A baffling piece of sticking to a generic formula without bothering to create a clear internal logic. Many details are overlooked. My favourite being when they use explosives to make an entrance through a wall. After the smoke settles, the hole created is conveniently door shaped, bordered by large bricks that have perfectly retained their square shape, despite the blast, and are merely a bit askew. Maybe later these explosives will sweep up and give it a new paint job too.

The story lumbers from one underwhelming set piece to another. Stephen Dorff turns up with a platoon of monster fodder, dutifully shooting at random attacking creatures with a pumping metal soundtrack. When I say random I really mean it. Scenes begin and end suddenly, with little explanation. People attack, people die, and I’m still not sure what significance it had. The otherworldly creatures that are attacking our world are HR Giger inspired CGI creations. In many ways quite nicely done, but sadly they often seem both irrelevant to the scene, and don’t appear alongside humans often enough. It gives some action scenes a disjointed feeling as the creatures wander about in darkness and soldiers shoot at the air. This difficult to follow style continues to the very end, with an abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

As for the actors, Slater outperforms everyone else with a still sleepy performance. Despite having to deliver ridiculous lines such as, ‘I was tracking poachers across their lines in the Amazon, when I hooked up with some ex-Chilean military trafficking artefacts on the black market.’ In hindsight that was probably the high point of the film as I laughed myself silly. Reid, Dorff and the scientist guy are largely unmemorable. Although I love the way they tried to make Tara ‘boob job’ Reid a credible scientist, by giving her thick rimmed glasses, a clipboard, and putting her hair in a bun. Like an instant intelligence kit.

Alone in the Dark is shockingly bad. How it ever secured a 2008 sequel I’ll never know – I notice they have a completely new cast and different director. How did Uwe Boll get away with another tiresome game conversion after the mess of Bloodrayne? How is he now working on Bloodrayne 3 as we speak? Films from games already had a poor reputation, but alienating gamers by making a movie with only a passing resemblance to the original increases the likelihood that the core audience will be disappointed. Boll aims for a thrilling, action packed adventure with epic qualities. Then misses every mark.

And the damned disc screwed up my media player too. Shoddy to the last...

[2.2/10 | 21,176 votes | stats from 24th November 2008]

So far:
Monstabulous: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Burn My Eyes: #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#73 Forest Warrior (1996)

2008-12-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

This sure ain’t Missing in Action 3. There’s something a little disturbing about seeing Chuck Norris so clean, with that neatly combed beard. It’s not right – he should be crawling through mud, whilst foreign people run around shooting automatic weapons in the air. Coincidentally MIA3 was Aaron Norris’ first break as a director, leading to a series of other films directing his brother Chuck. I would hope Forest Warrior is his worst, but I’m biased because of a slight aversion to these caricature styled family films.

It opens with a campfire rendition of the tale of McKenna (Chuck Norris), an American Indian who was killed whilst trying to save his wife from an illness. Then his spirit was brought back by the power of the mountain, and he now roams as a shape-shifting guardian with the power of the bear, wolf and eagle. In other words if you’re naughty near the mountain forest, Chuck Norris will appear from thin air, dressed like Grizzly Adams’ geeky cousin gone native, and kick your butt. Oh, and he can see into your soul too. Cue the Thorne logging company.
Travis Thorne (Terry Kiser) is aggressively seeking logging rights to the mountain forest. His workers even terrorize the local kids from the campfire, as they spend time at a giant tree-house in the forest. It’s a classic stand off between small town rural America and big business, and naturally the kids play an integral part. Giving them a chance to go Rambo in the woods, like those in the audience would surely want to. There is a sub plot about a young girl and her father turned alcoholic over the loss of his wife, but it’s just the usual emotional obstacle in need of enlightenment.

There was a reminiscent feel of films like Tuck Everlasting, and other low grade Disney movies. It’s shot quite blandly, a little like watching an episode of Home Improvement. Of course, it’s not meant to be high art, simply a wholesome family film. Odd then that it’s being made by people with a background in R rated action films. That may be the reason why they overcompensate, as this is not much of a family film. The humour is geared more towards the under tens only, and everything is laid on very thick which will leave most adults bored, and older children feeling embarrassed. Although the song and dance sequence with loggers playing chainsaw air guitar should keep everyone laughing, even if for the wrong reasons.
Shockingly, the child actors aren’t annoying. Their not even that badly dressed, considering it’s the early nineties. Or maybe Chuck Norris’ theme restaurant outfit is keeping things in perspective. Regardless, the young actors do just fine for the target audience. They also get a few decent supporting actors, either the producers pulling in favours or they’re doing it for the kids. Roscoe Lee Brown (Topaz, The Liberation of LB Jones) is the wizened old friendly bachelor that every small town needs. It’s a subdued role and he maintains his dignity. Elya Baskin pops up amongst some of the more comedic loggers – he’s the guy that Hollywood loves to call whenever they have a Russian part that needs filling - most recently in the Spiderman movies. You even get a glimpse of William Sanderson (Bladerunner).

Sadly it’s the two leads that I liked least. Norris mostly looks bored, and his action scenes aren’t exactly wow factor. Do I dare speculate as to whether poor Chuck is getting a little past it all? The lacklustre editing does nothing to pep it up either. Chuck also gets some of the cheesiest lines, and it really doesn’t suit him. Then there’s Terry Kiser, who hams it up as he was probably instructed to, making a cartoony villain. Later he gets to go ‘Captain Harris’ on us, as he’s assaulted by the forces of good. Speaking of which, there’s a slight vigilante message of protectionism under the surface that may be a little less wholesome under scrutiny. Perhaps this is a favourite in the Palin household.
On the whole it’s a pretty sappy product of it’s time (post Home Alone). Not the most awful thing I’ve ever seen, but without Chuck Norris on the cover it would lose a lot of it’s kitsch value. I’m not sure what the inspiration behind making this was. It’s been cobbled together through connections, and lacks the detached oversight to be much else than a schmaltzy vanity project. The writer is also from the Norris stable, having only done screenplays for his films and TV. You’ll also see a Rebecca Norris pop up amongst the producers. Whatever the rhyme or reason only the most hardened of Chuck Norris or schmaltz fans should take a look at this.

[2.2/10 | 731 votes | stats from 24th November 2008]

So far:
High Kicking: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Drooling Wreck: #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#74 Kickboxer 3: The Art of War (1992)

2008-12-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

This all feels a little like déjà vu, especially after watching American Ninja 3. Once again there is a fighting tournament in a tropical location. This time Rio De Janeiro. An American kickboxing champion, David Sloan, arrives with his sensei, Xian, in tow. On first sight Xian looked a little like Lee Van Cleef, or maybe that was the spectre of 1984 TV series Master Ninja repeating on me. Either way, it helps signify that this was the tale end of a long running era of budget American martial arts films and television shows.

The first classic cliché comes quickly when the hapless heroes are mugged by a small Brazilian boy, Marcos, and his sister, Isabella. Naturally, after a long chase through the back alleys of Rio and the kicking of same random thugs, they befriend the knife wielding thieving children. Onto classic cliché two, when Isabella is kidnapped by a local gangster as part of his people trafficking business. Of course this is just a side line to him being a kickboxer manager, looking to fix the match between David and his own fighter, so as to make a ton of cash.

It’s seriously average stuff, but at least there’s enough action to keep things going. We get street fighting, bar room brawling, and ring matches. They even tool up with automatic weapons in another back alley, making them professional vigilantes. The theme of the film is that Rio is a sort of unruly wild west. Kill or be killed. So that’s what they do, giving us some gunplay and a Beverley Hills Cop style mansion assault. The story takes some odd twists to help fill the running time, and give our bulging hero some unusual endurance tests to prove his might.

I’m sorry to say that the only thing that sounds dumber than the plot is Sasha Mitchell playing the part of Sloan. He doesn’t have the charisma to carry the film, and is no great actor. Surprising then that he is the lead in three of the four Kickboxer sequels. Although, familiarity is an important ingredient in B-Movies, and they weren’t likely to get Van Damme back. There is a lot of playful banter between the two leads, but it’s neither actors’ strong points. Plus the dialogue was a poor imitation of many of the buddy cop movies of the 80s. Most of the jokes fell flat for me. For a change I found myself most forgiving of the child actors’ performances. They managed to hold their own, and outshine a lot of the wooden bit parts. Most disappointing was perhaps, Dennis Chan, who feels surplus to requirements as Xian. All he does is make random philosophical comments, and occasionally remind Sloan to meditate. As the role also requires a calm demeanour, he tends to fade into the background.

The villains were par for the ‘in the shadow of Miami Vice’ times. Sharp suits, colourful shirts, sensible middle-aged haircuts, and a dire need for some anger management classes. They do make for a laugh though. I liked that the chief kidnapper Bronco cited his day job as an investment banker. Something which in the current economical climate would be enough to shoot him regardless. Also, one of the most unintentionally funny lines was from the big bad gangster Lane about his child trafficking prostitution ring, delivered mid fight, “Kids are more mature now, it’s the nineties pal.” The defence rests.

As you can tell, it’s a pretty adult plot, but the only real gratuity is the fighting and body count. There’s little profanity, and nothing sexual. A contrast to modern western films where those would be pre-requisites. Kickboxer 3 is an action film first, and, well, not much else. Would you expect any less from a writer whose next film would be Leprechaun 4: In Space? Marvellous. Despite all this, I much preferred American Ninja 3 and that had a really goofy plot in comparison.

[2.3/10 | 659 votes | stats from 3rd April 2008]

So far:
Joie De Vivre: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Walking Dead: #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#75 The Last Sign (2005)

2008-12-10T12:16:00.001-08:00

So, Andie MacDowell pays the bills. I wish. Watching Andie MacDowell set up a direct debit would generate greater levels of excitement and tension. Sadly, in reality, MacDowell plays the part of recently widowed Kathy. She finds herself better off without her alcoholic and abusive husband, but has begun receiving anonymous phone calls and experiencing disturbing coincidences and flashbacks. It is affecting her social life and could result in a total breakdown. If only it were that interesting.

First up, I was getting mixed messages about how Kathy felt. There was no sense of freedom from her husband’s accidental death, and little background to go on. It’s never a good sign that you need to refer to the back of the DVD case for a plot point. The slow moving plot feels deliberately vague in an attempt to make something from nothing. Eventually we get round to a few supernatural happenings that create some genuine mystery, but it’s all a bit short lived and predictable. The other plotline is that of the rich, intelligent, hunky, neighbour with enough free time to give fatherly advice to Kathy’s teenage son, and with a manly voice suitable for sports commercials. What luck, like part exchanging your clapped out nasty husband for a shiny new one from Harrods.

As far as I can gather the film’s message is essentially get on with your life. Staying on message I would first advise you to avoid this film. I’ve seen greater wisdom from a fortune cookie. They cost less and taste better too. I found The Last Sign to be a wholly unrewarding experience.

Andie MacDowell seems to have found the trough from her Four Weddings peak in the early 90s. Tim Roth (best known from Pulp Fiction) plays the dead husband, in a role that consists entirely of flashbacks. Maybe this should have been called ‘where early nineties actors go to die’. Then Margot Kidder (the original filmic Lois Lane) turns up although you’d hardly notice. Beyond that the only notable character is the irritating kooky co-worker from personnel, who should be fired for rooting through Kathy’s file and going on about her dead husband. A typical piece of coincidence scripting that a busy body co-worker happens to be well versed in holding séances.

I could run through the usual list or pros and cons regarding direction and pacing, but the over riding feeling I got was how incredibly bland everything was. They’ve clearly spent enough money to get the film superficially looking good. They have a competent crew, but there isn’t any flair. I’ll never forget Darth Vader chopping off Luke’s hand. Equally I’ll never forget Rock Biter singing Born To Be Wild on his bicycle in Neverending Story 3 (much as I might want to). Whilst The Last Sign sits somewhere in a cinematic blind spot, where I can barely remember what happened the next day. It begs the question, is a truly awful film one which is such an utter waste of time? At least trash like Monster A Go-Go makes for an amusing anecdote.

I seriously wonder who green-lighted this script. It’s in the pitiful territory of a twenty year old TV movie, with wasted actors throughout. If you really love tearjerkers and soppy romances then you might find some interest. Although I’d much sooner recommend the 2002 film Dragonfly with Kevin Costner, which has a similar but more engaging story line. And come on, it's Kevin. Does The Last Sign deserve to be in the Bottom 100 films? I’ve no problem with it.

[2.3/10 | 814 votes | stats from 3rd April 2008]

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Painful - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#76 The Smokers (2000)

2008-12-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

It’s been quite some time since I’ve ventured into the realms of the bottom 100. What happened? The Smokers happened. Take a look at the warning signs.

1. The Box: The cheap cover design is an obvious start, but hardly conclusive as fans of cult hits like Bad Taste will attest. A tagline that tries to emulate a critics positive quotation, and the only actual quotations being attributed to no-one, most likely because the only person who said them was the producer to the marketing team. The listing of as many big movies associated with the actors as possible, even desperately adding Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Also highlighting Thora Birch in order to cash in on American Beauty despite her role here amounting to all of 10 minutes. Speaking of which, Thora Birch looks younger here, hinting that The Smokers was not released for some time after completion. Perhaps it would have sat on the shelf longer if two of it’s actors hadn’t become bigger stars. (Birch and Dominique Swain)

2. The Subject Matter: The blurb on the back of the box describes it as “a trio of seventeen year old girls surviving teenage life.” Hold up a minute. If this is set in Bhagdad then I’ll let that phrase go. Otherwise I’d suggest ‘surviving teenage life” usually indicates a film trying to hype whatever central unrealistic scenario it has. If it’s not a comedy then expect to find the director wearing his/her colon as a choker. The other two highlighted selling points of this story are a ‘.44 calibre revolver’ and an ‘aggressive sexual awakening’. I fail to see the relevance of the weapons calibre, unless it’s a distraction from the fact these are the ingredients of a shock and awe film, more at home in a grindhouse cinema than anywhere with aesthetic merit.

3. The Director: It’s her first film, so I would normally approach it with an open mind. However, a glance at her CV shows that after making The Smokers she changed her name and turned to directing porn films such as Young Sluts inc 10 and Campus Confessions 8. Not encouraging.

I could probably go on, but let’s get into the meat of it. Set at a boarding school filled with rich kids in their mid to late teens, the story concerns three of the more anarchic girls, and their relationships with the opposite sex. Karen, Jefferson, and Lisa are the so called ‘smokers’, frequently of cannabis. Tired of being treated as a sex object, Karen (Busy Philips), decides it's time to give men a taste of their own medicine using her friends gun. The three plan a sexual assault on a boy that has been treating Lisa poorly. Things don't go exactly as planned, although as the gun changes hands between the girls there are more incidents.

As far as coming of age stories go this has to be one of the more over the top ones. It's hard to know whether the intention was a feminist message or an exploitation flick. For an exploitation film there are no genuinely titillating or thrilling scenes, and the feminist message goes no further than comparing a penis to a gun. It's confusing and disappointing. The film treads an unusual line between too unbelievable and too realistic. The blasé inclusion of drug taking and a culture of loitering without intent will strike a chord with many who had mis-spent youths. The pacing is realistically slow, containing many seemingly motiveless and pointless scenes. I felt as though I was missing a lot of previous character development, making much of it redundant. As if I were watching a couple of episodes in the middle of a daily soap. Sadly, despite it's explicit sex and drugs story lines, The Smokers will never be as entertaining as a good Sunset Beach omnibus. For a character driven film this is a major flaw. And whilst the pacing may have realism, little else does, right down to the quite implausible finale, which I shouldn’t elaborate on.

This combination of miscues makes it increasingly hard to watch. More out of a lack of interest than anything else, even with all the casual rape chatter. The best, surprisingly tense, scene in the film happens early on and is wasted on a peripheral character (Thora Birch) who is otherwise an overblown stereotype. Although Birch manages to make the best of the role, making her the only character you may want to see a little more of.

The acting ranges from okay to ‘if I threaten a puppies life will you please make an effort?’ In fairness to Miss Swain, the only thing she's done wrong here is be in the film. While her performance is far from stellar, the material largely fades her into the background. Busy Philips seems to have built her character around pulling faces. It borders on a depiction of the mentally ill, or maybe that was what she was going for. It’s hard to tell. The male actors were for some reason uniformly atrocious. It was hard to believe such charisma free characters in various sexual relationships.

For the most part The Smokers tested my patience with it’s confused messages, terrible performances, and a directionless plot. There are one or two glimmers of an interesting snapshot of life trying to get through, but it’s no match for a film like Kids, which handles similar storylines in a far more engrossing manner.

[2.3/10 | 1,505 votes | stats from 27th March 2008]
(I know, just two more oldies before recent stats kick in)

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#77 Battlefield Earth (2000)

2008-04-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

With the upcoming third worldwide protest against the cult of scientology's abuses this weekend [Video One] [Video Two], it seems timely to review Battlefield Earth. Adapted from a novel by L Ron Hubbard, and championed by actor John Travolta for over a decade. It rapidly gained the infamous status of one of the most expensive flops in cinema history, and quite rightly so.

This film should carry a public service announcement at the start reading, 'Warning - You are now entering a film where all dramatic moments take place at one third normal speed.' If all the unnecessary and tedious slow motion was cut out, it might shave the lengthy two hour runtime down to something more manageable. I should have been more wary after reading about the "special effects that are completely real" on the back of the box. Do they know what a special effect is exactly? Or were all those green laser beams filmed in claymation by Ray Harryhausen? The shame of it is I was genuinely willing to give it a chance. Having seen it about six years ago, my only recollection was of a lacklustre blockbuster; it could have still been a laugh. Rather than the farcical wreck I just watched.

In it's favour the special effects are pretty good. I like the dreadlocked, giant platform booted design of the alien Psychlos, who have taken control of Earth and enslaved it's people to strip mine the planet. Everything has been captured well in terms of picture quality and lighting. There is some occasional good humour. Mostly from scenes with Forest Whitaker and Travolta together, with Whitaker managing one of the best performances in the film (still with pretty poor material). Sadly I'm struggling to find any more compliments.

To get back to the story, we follow the trials of Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), as he searches for answers to the big questions of life and his mythology. A thousand years after the Psychlos invaded, the human race has become an endangered species. Those that remain free are simple tribes people, without knowledge of the previous days of technology. Flung far away from the Psychlos themselves. After leaving his village, Jonnie soon becomes embroiled in the affairs of a Psychlo named Terl (John Travolta). Terl is the poster boy for frustrated and deluded middle management. If his plan to embezzle his way out of many years more service on Earth ever works, you'll see him on the Psychlo home planet version of The Apprentice. Despite the set-up, any hope for some intriguing and intelligent corporate power games is short lived and glossed over in favour of some manic laughter, shouting, tongue-waggling, and Travolta camping it up. He really knows no limits here. The plot is disappointingly run of the mill, linear and quite laboriously explained to the audience.

The complete lack of attention to detail in the plot is embarrassing. For starters, are we to believe it takes a vastly superior race over 1000 years to mine the planet for what it's worth? Also, in all that time, and despite being based in North America, they never once discovered the gold reserves of Fort Knox. Fragile items like books, left exposed to 1000 years of nature are merely covered with a fine layer of dust. A 1000 year old projector works instantly, but from what electricity supply? Not to mention that a group of savage tribes-people unable to understand the technology of a camera, learn to expertly fly Harrier Jump Jets in under a week. Should I go on?

No. And neither should you. Battlefield Earth is full of holes, it's overblown, too long, too camp, and Barry Pepper is an especially uncharasmatic lead actor. It's a B-movie that somehow walked off the lot with an A-movie budget, and Hollywood has been churning out much better films for a tenth of the cost. The few superficial achievements can't outweigh the mess of a script and over the top direction and editing. Between the bad guys chuckling to themselves about how evil they are, and Pepper being chased on every available set in slow motion, I very much doubt if any viewers will be satisfied.

[2.3/10 | 27,764 votes | stats from 9th March 2008]

Until recently it had the largest number of votes of all the bottom 100 films. There has been strong agreement about the film since soon after it's release, and thus has been a permanent fixture on the list for years.

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#78 Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

2008-04-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Also known as Uchu Kaisoku-sen. Time for another gem, made two years after the remarkable Prince of Space (number 88 in my little adventure), and by the same production company (Toei). It even retains the same writer Shin Morita, but they were the only scripts he ever had produced. The same fate would unsurprisingly befall Invasion's director Koji Ota; this being his only outing as a director. Being from the same stable you can expect lots of the same, but different in enough ways to unfortunately make it less fun.

The story is in essence very similar; why mess with such a winning formula? Things begin abruptly when a spaceship lands in a field in Japan, and out come some aliens wearing radiation suits, and bulbous helmets with spinning bits on top. On cue our random superhero of the hour appears and starts to defend the planet to an onlooking crowd of boys in short shorts. Our hero, played by a young Sonny Chiba (The Streetfighter, Kill Bill), uses some crude martial arts to defeat the utterly pathetic (I assume) Neptune Men. For an invasion force they aren't particularly fearsome; wandering aimlessly, very slowly, with their arms raised as if trying to traverse a treacherous bouncy castle. They even fall over without being touched.

Our hero in terms of character is quite the disappointment, as he doesn't really have one. I would have billed him in the credit list as, 'Badly dressed man with a spaceship'. He never introduces himself, instead telling the short shorts, “You boys pick one [a name]. That suits me fine.” I know of only one other profession where they claim their name is 'whatever you want it to be'. What secrets does Space Chief (as the short shorts named him) hide? My other problem with Space Chief is that he's hardly in the movie, and says very little when he does arrive. Instead we are left watching the blunderings of the government pitted in a technological struggle against the Neptune Men. Sounds more exciting than it is mind.

A large part of the plot is built on what is politely referred to as 'technobabble'. In other words, making stuff up that sounds like intelligent science. The Neptune Men use their alien gizmos to cause random phenomenons, the most impressive being to turn time backwards. If they can do that they should have won this movie by yesterday's matinee, and saved us sitting through this tripe. Special scientists try to explain the phenomena and create a shield, although none of it is explained with a shred of detail. When someone asks how a particular phenomena is possible, characters can blurt out random things that make no sense. The most bizarre of these is one technicians dramatic realization that something on his computer screen is “Roji Panty Complex”. What the heck is “Roji Panty Complex”? They don't even attempt to relate it to reality, just cut to the next scene.

As the plot continues to unfold it waivers between mundane and absolute nonsense, with brief intersections of boys in short shorts – one of which sounds like he's 30 thanks to the poor dubbing. On reflection much of the first half hour had it's moments of amusement. Unfortunately as we enter the final reel the plot has long decayed into a seemingly endless shoot 'em up between Space Chief, the government, and the Neptune Men. There is little dialogue to add any excitement to the drawn out battle sequences. Not that they haven't made an effort with some of the effects. They even used real Word War II stock footage to show Japan being blown up, which leads to an unusual cameo by Hitler no less. Nevertheless the pacing is terrible and I couldn't care less what happened to anybody. At all.

If the combined forces of Sonny Chiba, Hitler and a Robbie the Robot wind up toy, can't save a film, then there's little hope left. Too many short shorts I say.

[2.4/10 | 954 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#79 Howling 2: ...Your Sister is a Werewolf (1984)

2008-03-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

Picking up directly after The Howling (1981) we see the funeral of Karen White, who was shot down after turning into a werewolf. Christopher Lee appears on the scene to inform Karen's brother, Ben, and his girlfriend, Jenny, that because the silver bullets in Karen were removed at the autopsy, he must ritually kill her again before she rises from the dead as a werewolf. After Ben briefly goes on a gun totting frenzy out for Lee's blood, they are quickly convinced and team up with him. Then head out to Transylvania to kick werewolf butt. Namely - Stirba the immortal queen of all werewolves (Sybil Danning). Or as the alternative UK subtitle for the film calls her, 'Stirba - Werewolf Bitch'.

This film left me confused. Following on from Joe Dante's tongue in cheek style (The Burbs, Gremlins), you'd expect there to be a few laughs in the sequel. However, it all feel surprisingly straight yet woefully put together. The result - absurd hilarity punctuated by incompetence. The theatrical trailer describes it as the "rocking, shocking, new wave of horror", and it's surprisingly accurate. The ever growing MTV video generation was making it's mark. Howling 2's use of modern music, by way of an infectious new romantic song played repeatedly throughout the film, and focus on outlandish current fashions was a response to that. The confusion sets in again with the presence of Christopher Lee and cult like goings on in the medieval buildings of Transylvania. It adds a throwback Hammer Horror feel that is poorly thrown together with the modern elements.

One major criticism would be regarding the editing, and the decision to keep cutting back to the same footage of a concert where a band play the film's catchy title song. Originally it's part of an early scene where a group of punks is attacked by werewolves in an outstandingly unrealistic scene. Saved only by an embarrassing cameo from Jimmy Nail; he's awfully funny. Another scene that is cut back to at odd intervals is the show stopping softcore werewolf menage a trois. I don't think there's anything quite like it committed to film, all snarling and hairy. The way it's cut together with unrelated scenes it feel as though that's all they did for an entire day. A peculiar mix of jaw-dropping funny repulsion.

Philippe Mora's direction is uninspiring to say the least, and there are yet more dubious decisions. As the sequel to a film renowned for a it's werewolf transformation effects you'd hope for an attempt to make par. Whilst the effects as a whole are of a decent standard the transformations are not handled well. Consisting of a handful of simpler effects like nails and hair growing, along with a few latex masks, filmed extremely close up and cross faded over other scenes. It largely implies a transformation whilst avoiding any tricky shots or expensive effects. It feels cheap and underwhelming and these moments usually drag the most. Of course to balance out the disappointment we are given a token knife throwing dwarf, and a werewolf fancy dress orgy where everyone turns up dressed as Dr Frankenfurter.

I've little sympathy for the central characters Ben and Jenny, who amply fulfill the cliched roles of muscle and distressed maiden. They don't even appear very bright, walking into a local hotel and asking the manager behind the desk, "Have you seen any strangers?" It's a hotel. He sees strangers all day, everyday day. With only Christopher Lee's wooden gloom to break their inanity, and Sybil Danning hammily strutting about like an 80s soft rock dominatrix, I was close to tears. Equally from laughter and pain.

The tone the Howling 2 was most likely going for is along the lines of The Lost Boys, but there's too many conflicting things going on. Part old school chiller, part schlock slasher, part serious, part jokey. The most worrying thing of all must be the music video compilation of all the 'best' bits over the credits. Where a clip of Danning ripping her top off is repeated 17 times for comic effect. The film, it seems, is as confused as I am. It is a bad film, yet there is fun to be had here. Fans of the horror genre could lap this up with an unhealthy dosage of booze. Seeing Christopher Lee in bright white wrap around shades must be worth something alone. If not that then Christopher Lee's monologue in front of a star-field, or Christopher Lee's neon light-show battle, or maybe Christopher Lee's holy hand grenade. I kid you not, and there still is more I could mention.

[2.4/10 | 1,633 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Most Fun - #79 Howling II: Stirba: Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#80 Horrors of Spider Island

2008-03-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

Fans of the old black and white era monster movies hoping for some no frills fun should do a quick about turn. What we have here is a west german nudie picture, spiced up with a brief and tenuous mutant spiders plot, then later having most of the nude scenes cut out. I guess they thought after having toured the 'raincoat' cinemas, they could later try and flog it at some more mainstream places. With or without the nudity the quality of the film isn't really affected; merely it's practical applications.

Things kick off seedily enough with a little slow jazz, and the auditions for a dancing troupe, soon to be jetted off for shows in Singapore. In a time where crooners, rock and roll, and exciting dance steps are still the defining trends, the use of dance and music is the first of a few gimmicks. We get a quick glimpse of the sleazy manager Gary Webster (Alexander D'Arcy), and more than a glimpse of stocking from some of the young hopefuls. It's not long until they are jetting off in a private plane and crashing into the ocean. Now stranded on a remote tropical island, the name of the game is survival.

Or it would be, if things weren't made so easy for them. The main implication is that Gary and all his helpless girls spend most of their days sunbathing in their underwear, taking swims, and occasionally complaining about rations. All while creepy Gary gets some smooching in. I wasn't aware of the film's nature before watching it, but there was a clear turning point. Not long after all the dancers declare the island too hot and strip down to their smalls, a couple of girls have an argument and 'cat-fight'. It's a long lingering scene with lots of moist thighs and no shame.

So far I've hardly mentioned the spiders. Despite the short running time, they're barely in it. When first introduced it's as if there's a different director. It's eerily lit, and for such comparatively cheap effects quite effective. Mores the shame it only lasts for a few minutes. Regardless of the title this is just a subplot to the main 'action' on show. The horror element of the film is frequently put on hold, which seriously disturbs the pace and any chance of tension. Instead of any sustained story line we are treated to twenty minutes of an all night swinging bikini party.

If you hadn't already guessed, the characters are wafer thin. I'd go so far as to say the woman don't have characters. They start as objects, then look helpless, then shed their clothes, and do a little screaming. The quality of the dialogue is atrocious. A simple example will illustrate the point. On arrival they search for other people and soon find a hammer. Gary remarks, "It must be for the purpose of excavating some sort of metal, most probably uranium." Yes Gary, those speciality handheld uranium hammers are very recognisable. It couldn't just be a regular hammer from the hardware store, or are you trying to imply something Mr Screenwriter?

While this is all a little before my time, the star of the film is arguably Barbara Valentin, a confident sassy blonde, described as an icon of Munich gay scene. Many of the other actresses have only a few films to their name. Careers aside they are all very attractive and so fill the roles admirably. The male actors just look happy to be there, in an equal state of undress. It's hard to fairly judge the acting due to the poor dubbing, and woeful script. Let's just say it's nothing to write home about.

If you can navigate your way through the deeply subtle script, bare chested men in neckerchiefs, point and shoot cinematography, objectification of woman, pointless over-descriptive dialogue, sleazy jazz music (actually quite cool), and a laughable hybrid spider monster with make-up straight out of The Wolf Man, you're a stronger person than I am. This was a struggle. Fleetingly amusing for it's blatantly dirty style, somewhat offensive for it's porno characterizations (keeping women's lib chained to the kitchen sink), and an interesting seedling for the exploitation era that would explode throughout the sixties and seventies. I must admit it feels a little ironic posting this review on international woman's day. Welcome to sexploitation - fifties style. Gotta say, these woman simply don't have enough fur to be truly sexy. I don't know what all the hub-bubs about.

[2.4/10 | 1,039 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Most Fun - #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Worst of the Worst - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#81 Astro-Zombies (1968)

2008-02-21T23:16:00.000-08:00

A women drives home and is stabbed to death by a man in a skull like mask. A group of toy robots and a toy tank battle on the sidewalk by a smoke machine. A seemingly dead man is dragged away from his wrecked car. A tape recorder rewinds. Another man drives down the freeway. In his next feat, director Ted V Mikels will attempt to tie these unrelated plot strands (from the first five minutes of the movie) together. Except for the robots. I mean really, what the heck was that about? Although it made a hilarious title sequence, and is possibly my favourite scene of all.

Sadly the promise of a title such as Astro-Zombies isn't lived up to. There are no flesh eating creatures, a la George Romero. Nor are there any direct links to space. The first glimmer of a plot comes when we here CIA agents talk about a Doctor DeMarco (John Carradine), dismissed from the Space Agency for his experimentation on humans. He was working to create artificial people, using mechanical organs, that could be remotely controlled to conduct space missions. Naturally he continued his misguided experiments in a dungeon like basement, with a mute, short, hairy, immigrant assistant, named Franchot, and using the cadavers of criminals to create these prototpye 'Astro-Zombies'. Maybe those toy robots are a cunning metaphor for these manmade, brainless creatures. I could watch them for hours.

When Doctor DeMarco's first creation goes on a murderous rampage, rather than being the great benefit to mankind he envisaged, it gets the full attention of the CIA. He is also targeted by a group of unknown spies out for his scientific secrets. Headed by the iconic Tura Satana (best known from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), a tedious game of cat and mouse investigations is played out. Satana (also the name of her character) commands attention with her striking long, thick eyelashes, and high slit silky dresses. A femme fatale looking as though she'd wandered off a Man From UNCLE set. Unfortunately she turns in an atrociously flat performance that stands out amongst a largely mediocre cast.

Astro-Zombies is very much a product of it's time, and one of the tamer, earlier exploitation films that were churned out on a tight budget for maximum bums on seats. It even has a kind of warning alarm when the killers attack, so you know when to shut your eyes. Although, aside from some brief gore in the finale, there's nothing all that gruesome even for the year. On the point of gratuitous bits, it's amusing to watch the lengthy dancing topless painted lady scene. It was still a time where that thin veneer of minority culture was necessary for a little titillation. No matter how irrelevant to the plot.

One thing I love about this period is the rich colours, oranges, reds, and the warm auburn tone of the film. It goes hand in hand with the tidy suits, JFK haircuts, attractive redheads, and sets made mostly from painted MDF. In terms of the special effects quality it does 'get by', but there is nothing to impress. The Astro-Zombies themselves look rather like Halloween masks. Fans of all things camp may find something to enjoy; certainly Satana's outfits would be a good starting point.

If this film was more widely circulated I predict that the phrase 'I'd rather watch paint dry' would soon be replaced by, 'I'd rather watch blood being drained from a cadaver.' Indeed, director Mikels is certainly not afraid to hold a shot for as long as it could possibly take to watch whatever isn't happening at the time. Let me paint you a picture. Dr DeMarco examines his solar powered mechanical heart with a lamp (light source) switched on. He switches the lamp off and notes the heart slow to a stop. He switches it on again. His assisent Franchot comes over, and the doctor gives a simple yet detailed explaination of the device. DeMarco turns the lamp off, then goes and fiddles with some circuitry on another table. Franchot looks at the heart and turns the lamp on. Watches. Then turns it off. DeMarco closely examines a microchip held in a pair of tweezers. Franchot turns the lamp on. DeMarco spouts a little technobabble about the circuits. Franchot looks at the circuits. DeMarco goes to fiddle with the settings on a large dialed instrument. Franchot smiles at the circuits. DeMarco.... GET ON WITH THE MOVIE!

This is sadly what occurs in almost all of John Carradine's scenes, and the excitement levels rarely increase throughout the movie. Carradine's suitably gaunt figure and strong delivery are wasted. As you can tell, some will find this an excellent insomnia cure. However, while at first this leaden story feels like torture, it soon becomes surprisingly funny. There's something cruelly hilarious about the poorly crafted stereotypes, and hackneyed production. Give this script to a trendy modern director like, dar I say it - McG, and this would probably be over in ten minutes. Give it to Spike Jonez and it could be a masterpiece full of toy robots. Lovin' those robots. Whereas Mikels doesn't seem to know what to do with it at all.

The objective part of my brain is telling me this is awful, but it also had me in hysterical disbelief. Perhaps a suitable candidate for the now reformed Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew - now producing under the name Cinematic Titantic [/end plug]. If you enjoy these silly films as much as I do, then it makes for half decent entertainment with a few like minded friends. For most the slow pace and confusingly presented plot will be a major turn-off. I've still no idea why or where the bikini babe strapped to a table came from, went, or was going to be used for? On the other hand there is something endearing about it in an Ed Woodian kind of way.

Amazingly writer and director Ted V Mikels made a remake/sequel called Mark of the Astro-Zombies in 2002. It even starred Tura Satana.

[2.4/10 | 796 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Tasty Fish - #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Steaming Turd - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#82 Galaxina (1980)

2008-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

As I watch my way through some of the most disliked films on the planet, I take care to give them as fair a hearing as possible. One way of doing this is to not research or read anything about the film before actually watching it. It's something I like to do with all films. Without too many expectations or pre-connotations, it allows the film to speak for itself.

Galaxina starts with a Star Wars style roll of text setting the scene. Unfortunately set at such an angle that I had significant trouble reading it, admittedly on a smaller television. No problem I thought, as there was a second scene setter from a voice over; introducing us to the police spacecraft Infinity and it's ragtag crew in the year 3008. Along with it's grand classical music, and sweeping shots of model spaceships and space, I wondered if I was in for a 2001 wannabe. However, the crew were quirky to say the least, giving off more of a Dark Star vibe than anything else. Perhaps I've stumbled onto to an under-rated maverick, artsy, low-budget, intellectual film? It wasn't until nearly 15 minutes into the film, and the introduction of a character named Captain Cornelius Butt, I realised this was supposed to be a comedy. Yes, Galaxina is a 'wacky' spoof of popular films of the time, such as Star Wars, Alien, and Star Trek - but not as we know it.

Storywise, things are rather sparse, allowing more time to focus on characters for the jokes. Essentially the crew of the Infinity have been ordered to find a mystical artifact named The Blue Star, after an encounter with an alien they believe may know it's whereabouts. They never really say what this Blue Star is though. What use or threat it may be. How it suddenly surfaced. All we know is that every time someone says 'Blue Star', we get a fanfare chorus of 'Aaaahhaaaahhh!' in the background, and all the characters look around perplexed by the noise. Eventually that almost becomes funny, but it hasn't dated well.

In fact, that's probably the best description for most of the film. Much of it feels both dated and poorly realised. Jokes run on too long. There's an over reliance on rehashed crudity, like sticking a paper bag over an alien prostitutes head. Thinking that just by having an extra dressed like Mr Spock, with odd shaped ears, and calling him Mr Spot... well.. it just isn't funny if they're not going to make an effort. Strangely, there are a lot of situations ripe for good laughs; the cannibal restaurant was an enormously missed opportunity. What's missing is solid punchlines and delivery, further harmed by the drawn out pace as they try to stretch the material to 90 minutes. An odd by product of all this is many of the intended funny scenes feel very weird and alien. A prime example being Captain Butt taking great pleasure throwing an alien prisoner's food at him; an alien that eats rocks. It bypasses funny moving quickly to bizarre police brutality.

The characters by and large are unsympathetic. Captain Butt (Avery Schreiber) is a pompous, authoritarian. Private Buzz (JD Hinton) is an imbecilic dodgers fan, dressed like he's heading down the rodeo. Sergeant Thor (Stephen Macht) doesn't really have a character, whilst his subplot is about his growing infatuation with the service android that runs the ship. Bringing me finally to Galaxina; an android in female form that would short more than a few of Data's circuits. She is played by Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, who went on to become Playmate of the Year 1980. While her acting CV is short, she certainly has all the requirements for prancing about in skimpy maid outfits, and a skintight latex jumpsuit. It's hard to know if she's a wooden actress or trying to act the part of an emotionless, mute, android. Thankfully for her, the role probably covers a multitude of sins. Allowing us more time to focus on the assets she was hired for. Besides, the average standard of acting here is, well, average to be generous. So no one's really out of place.

A lot of the best characters and material come from the supporting cast. For instance, there is a completely random pipe smoking Chinaman just sat in the ships hold. Probably the funniest person in the film by virtue of being so out of place. The obligatory villain is also enjoyably over the top. Dressed in robes and a mask with a big booming voice, looking like he's lost his way out of a Greek tragedy. He's actually one of the better looking aliens in the film, as they start to look cheaper the further you get through the film. It's not that the effects are outright bad, I quite like much of the design in the Inifinity, more that they clearly have a limited budget. There's a certain amount of charm in it, and you have to remember this is 1980. Some of the cinematography is surprisingly good. One amusing cut corner is the use of sound effects for doors and red alerts taken from Star Trek.

It seems clear than writer director William Sachs was going for a laddish jaunt round the universe, full of 'out there' situations, and misfit characters. Whereas the final product is a mish mash of poorly edited, flat gags, unnatural dialogue, and incongruous arty scenes like an opera singing frog-women. When the competition at the box office that month is Airplane, the difference in quality is put into sharp perspective. Galaxina can't even compete with The Ice Pirates. Sadly the most notable thing about it is the tragic murder of it's leading lady, soon after the film's release, at the tender age of 20. Despite having savaged the film, I didn't hate it. It simply failed to deliver in a pretty big way. There will most likely be a niche audience that get a few kicks from it, but on the whole it's safer to save your pocket money.

[2.4/10 | 748 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Big Cigar - #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Humble Pie - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#83 American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)

2008-01-31T04:39:00.000-08:00

Face it. Bad movies will always be around. For every Atonement, you get a Transformers. Or should that be the other way around? That's the point, isn't it. One persons Champagne is anothers Special Brew. But since it's there, why not give it a try once in a while. You might be surprised. The American Ninja series is most definitely cheese. You can smell it a mile off. Somewhere between Miami Vice and Street Fighter you'll find this low budget beat 'em up series. After the modestly successful first installment, and the very so-so sequel, the third film sees changes to the previous cast and crew.

Michael Dudikoff has left, requiring a new lead character to be written in. Sean Dadivson, played by former karate champion David Bradley, happens to be another American raised in the arts of the ninja. Told in a remarkable flashback full of dry ice. He also happens to be an old friend of Curtis Powerhouse Jackson (Steve James - from the previous movies), and bumps into him at a Karate Championship. Despite the contrivances, Bradley makes for an equally good (read okay) lead.

The other big change is in the form of a new, and arguably better, director Cedric Sundstrom. American Ninja 2 had a very point and shoot feel about it. Whereas now there's a stronger emphasis on lighting and shadows. The overall feel is more in line with modern standards, so easier on the eye. The action scenes also have a little more urgency and realism about them, with less weapons than before; getting back to martial arts basics. I've only seen the previous movie, and know that fans generally view it as better. American Ninja 3 made it into the IMDB bottom 100 for a start, with part two escaping that embarrassment. Despite that I think the positions should be reversed, although there's very little in it. They're both dumb.

Plot-wise, we've moved on from the dreaded nemesis 'The Lion' of the second film, and now have to contend with 'The Cobra'. Sean (Bradley) discovers this ruthless businessman, who researches germ warfare to sell to terrorists, whilst searching for his kidnapped Ninja Master - kidnapped by ninjas of course. It's a simple linear story of investigation, but with that slower paced, night time moody atmosphere that 80s did so often. There's some mystery to hold the attention. However, it's still dogged by some fairly flat dialogue, and the supporting cast is weak, leading to some interminably dull scenes. Good job they threw in some random microlite action to spice things up. There's even a very prominant bit of 'Kilroy was here' graffiti for those that remember such things. Chuck in some personal tragedy and leave to fester.

On the downside, you may find yourself somewhat desensitized to ninjas by the end of it. They are literally wall to wall, appearing from thin air, and the plot gives no explanations as to why all these ninja are working for these nutters. Where do they come from? Is there a discount for buying in bulk? Another unfortunate side effect is that after seeing so many ninjas taken down by two guys, they start to lose their reputation. Maybe the next American Ninja will be a young Macauley Culkin, aka 'The Stoat'?

It would be very easy for me to deride this for lack of originality; the flying into the sunset shots, catching arrows with their bare hands, that last second burst of energy just at the brink of losing everything. The synthy soundtrack is also better left alone. I think the makers knew their limitations and simply decided to make a few bucks. A bit cynical, but there you go. The end product is a reflection of all the excesses of that era, done on the cheap. If your a fan of the 80s (as I am) then it's actually quite fun. Amongst the wooden acting, video game plots, mindless fighting, endless ninjas, and Curtis Jackson's quips, there is enough schoolboy charm and sillyness to keep me watching and amused. Fans of films like Roadhouse would probably find this hammier, but a laugh. It sure ain't art, but what the heck. If you want some bone crunching throwaway giggles, there is worse out there.

[2.6/10 | 1,184 Votes | as of 17th July 2007]

So far:
Best film – #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Worst film – #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#84 Bloodrayne (2005) again...

2007-10-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's that bad it sunk even lower in the ratings. Rather than bore you with yet more details of how awful this film is, I will sum it up in pictures.

Happy Halloween...

#85 Pinata: Survival Island (2002)

2007-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

[aka Demon Island]

Would I rather watch Pinata, or be a Pinata? Tough question. Both involve a fair amount of suffering.

Everything starts with a history lesson told by a gravely ethnic voice. Telling the tale of a Mexican village over a hundred years ago suffering from droughts and famine, believing they are cursed by evil spirits. A shaman conducts a ritual (pig hearts and all) to trap the evil that plagues the land inside a pinata. Then they chucked it in the river and ate a load of candy. There were apparently no fly-tipping laws in those days.

Cut to 2001, a sunny island, pop music, lots of skin baring college teens having a water fight. They're on a bizarre charity scavenger hunt that involves collecting thousands of pairs of underwear all over the island. Whilst handcuffed together in pairs. Soon enough someone finds a washed up pinata and does what any self respecting, drug fuelled, panty hunting teen would do. Hit it with a stick. I'm sure everyone knows what will follow.

Written and directed by what I will assume is the Hillenbrand brothers, Scott and David, their previous offering was King Cobra – a sequel to Anaconda. Enough said already I think, but I should give them a fair hearing. It's rubbish. Another 'teens die horribly' film. All the usual rules apply; smoke drugs – die, get jiggy – die, make bad jokes – die. All thanks to the NIMBY tribe. Speaking of which that intro sequence tells you the entire plot, destroying any chance of some potentially fun surprises. Then the Hillenbrand brothers have the gall to explain it all again later for the benefit of the dying teens. It's this kind of lazy film-making that typifies Pinata. I can only conclude that this movie was more about getting a quick buck off the Hollywood horror obsession that's been going strong for nearly a decade.

For the most part the camerawork is about as mundane as possible, aside from some random slow motion shots at inappropriate moments, and really ugly point of view shots from the pinata bearing a loose similarity to Predator. Other than the modern effects and video quality the whole film is very reminiscent of the cheap schlock that came out in the straight to video horror craze of the eighties. This wouldn't be as bad as it is if it didn't take itself so seriously. How that's possible with a killer pinata I don't know. It lacks atmosphere, and the story is on such well-trodden ground I doubt even the best directors could do much to improve it without a total overhaul. The core audience for this type of movie will be wanting cheap thrills, and while there is a little gore it generally fails to deliver. It barely deserves the 18 rating, probably best used to spare as many people as possible from watching it.

The pinata monster looks sort of cool (in a cheesy way) in the brief moments where it's a man in a suit. Then suddenly starts looking like a cheap rejected computer game sequence when the CGI takes over. And it takes over far too much and in the most under-whelming fashion thinkable. One of our sweet filled friend's chosen methods of death is of course hitting people with a stick. I guess it's supposed to be ironic, but ends up looking cheap. It may have been a wasted opportunity to set things on a tropical island. Imagine if the pinata had crashed a pool hall, and all the glorious potential stick hitting action. Perhaps even more amusingly I've actually seen stick hitting deaths done far better in other films, such as Sleepaway Camp 2. No kidding.

The acting is of the sort of standard you could expect from taking the supporting cast from numerous TV shows, and it's not too far from what they've done. There are no great performances, though it's all very easy on the eye. The leads are played by Nicholas Brendon (who was Xander in Buffy), and Jaime Pressly, whose other roles include Poison Ivy: The New Seduction and The Karate Dog. After that it's faceless, one dimensional, pinata fodder.

I've no sympathy for this movie. It gives horror a bad name, and for it has rightfully sunk into the IMDb bottom 100, scoring an average of 2.6 out of a possible 10, with 1,341 votes (as of 17th July). The tagline reads 'A weekend to dismember.' Just forget it.

So far:
Yay – #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Yeuck – #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#86 Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994)

2007-10-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

When I started this thing I thought I'd missed a bullet, as this film moved from No.91 and out of the bottom 100 when I updated my buying list some time ago. Unfortunately it has now fallen back down to an even lower position of No.86, scoring an average of 2.6 with 8,569 votes. (as of 17th July 2007). However, while I was really expecting to loathe this film (the sort of film that relies on kicking a grown man in the knackers for it best laughs), it's actually just fairly average. A lightweight comedy trying to cater for the remaining fans of the series, but failing to grab the wider audience. I've seen all the Police Academy films, and they do get worse with every installment, with this one being the exception. Part 6 (City Under Siege) was utter garbage, and so Mission to Moscow is a minor improvement on it.

The plot kicks off as some of our Police Academy regulars are invited to Russia to help investigate the Russian Mafia. Soon things centre around a computer game, funded by the Russian Mafia, simply called 'The Game'. It's highly addictive, and why are the Mafia behind it? It's a pretty tenuous storyline, but that's hardly anything new. Much stranger is how any of these guys are still employed. Captain Harris (GW Bailey) has become a more and more bizarre character over the years. Turning from an arrogant and strict character into one that likes to undermine his own officers with little motive other than shenanigans.

Of the regular cast we also have my favourite, Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) who was 77 years old when this was filmed. Sgt. Jones (Michael Winslow) best known as the guy who does the funny noises. He's underused this time, and no where near as funny compared to earlier films. Sgt. Tackleberry (David Graf) who isn't just gun crazy but somewhat unhinged as he rants on about excessive force restrictions. And Capt. Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), who is contractually obliged to end up in some very supportive lingerie before the credits roll. In addition to them we have another youngun trying to take on the Guttenberg mantle in the shape of Cadet Connors (Charlie Schlatter).

Surprisingly this appears to be quite a big production compared to previous films in the series, what with filming in Russia, including Gorky Park and Red Square. They also have some bigger named actors at various stages of their careers. Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black) plays the obligatory beautiful Russian cop love interest. Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings) is the Russian Commandant Rakov, and gets to shout at the useless Americans and kiss Lassard (surely the biggest draw the film has). Then there's Ron Perlman in full on caricature Mafia Boss mode as Konstantine Konali. He's a very naughty boy.

It's an eclectic cast that don't sit together that well. The regulars appear to be mostly sleepwalking through their lines. While the new characters are putting in much more energetic, over the top, performances as the largely slapstick and goofy material suggests. And slapstick is certainly high on the agenda; with a strangely large amount of acrobatics. A character doesn't just fall over, they fall over backwards, flip round a couple of times, ricochet off an amusingly shaped object, get hit in the nuts to the sound of animal noises, then fall in the mud, which they slowly spit out. It's not all like that, in fact it's not even that creative. The series now exists in an exaggerated environment more like a cartoon, where high pitched singing can break glasses. Safe to say if that's not your cup of tea, then look away.

It's aiming for the big kid market, but lacks the charm, surrealism, or imagination of things like the Police Squad/Naked Gun series. Ending up feeling better to suited to children's entertainment, a change that has been evolving throughout the series. You'll not see any bare breasts like there were in the original Police Academy. A real shame with Claire Forlani now on board.

On the whole it's a valiant effort to revive the series; wanting to parody the cop genre in the same way that Happy Gilmore sends up the generic underdog film formula. Unfortunately, Mission to Moscow's humour is so tame it can never pull it off. Leaving it a very cliched and formulaic film with weak jokes. The script felt like it came from an automatic scene generator. Many scenes having no relevance to the main story, and would be more at home in a sketch show. Although one of the funniest parts was completely unrelated. A truly surreal subplot (or running gag) where he crashes a Russian families funeral and seems to get adopted by them. I question whether Lassard has slipped into full on dementia at last.

This should be an easy target, but I don't think it deserves the mandatory beating it regularly gets. By the halfway point it did feel a little like an anaesthetic. My mind was numbed. Not bothered or entertained. Simply watching, endlessly, into the nothing. I smirked in one or two places, so I'm sure some will enjoy it. Most likely anyone who really liked the previous two or three films. Some of the humour is directed squarely at fans of the series. So long as you aren't looking for a riveting realistic police story (Top Cat is grittier), and enjoy watching the continued humiliation of Captain Harris, then Mission to Moscow is watchable, if not actually any good.

So far:
Chocolate Eclair – #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Rancid Lemon – #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

B100 List Update

2007-09-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest update. Actually from a while back on 17th July 2007. They'll be quite a few on the way soon though. As you can see, an eclectic bunch.

#87 The Neverending Story III: Escape From Fantasia (1994)

2007-09-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

The original Neverending Story (1984) is without doubt a children's classic. The second installment in 1990 met with much criticism and disappointment, but nothing could prepare you for this contemptible disaster. Usually when I see a film that is generally considered bad, I can find something to invest a little interest in. Perhaps a good actor, a flawed idea that could have worked, some amusing mistakes, a good costume, funny dialogue. There's usually something to get hold of and empathise with the film-makers. This time I was clutching at straws through the pain.

To briefly summarize the plot, we meet Bastian Balthazar Bux (child cruelty?) who in the last two films helped save the magical world of Fantasia via a book called The Neverending Story. The book serves as a portal between the two worlds, and chronicles the adventures that occur. Whilst being chased by a group of school bullies called 'The Nasties', Balthazar hides in the books world of Fantasia. The Nasties read the book and, without batting an eyelid, quickly accept that it's all real because it describes everything going on around them. They decide to use the power of the book to destroy Fantasia and Bastian; just for a laugh it would seem. Meanwhile, Bastian must get back to the real world and get the book in order to stop them. Unfortunately, when he leaves Fantasia something goes wrong and and some of the fantastical looking citizens of Fantasia get trapped in the real world. It is vital that they be returned before Bastian can use a charm to fix Fantasia, or else they will be trapped in the real world.

Heading up the cast is Jack Black, in one of his earliest roles, as the leader of 'The Nasties'. Whilst he has a screen presence strong enough to leave Jason James Richter (the boy from Free Willy playing Bastian) in the shadows, he also plays it so hammy you'd think he was auditioning for the lead role of Babe 3: Porcine Holocaust. I realise that much of Jack Black's brand of humour comes from his excesses, but there is a lack of finesse here that when matched with the lazy script grates quite horribly.

The rest of the cast has seen numerous changes, so that it no longer stars anyone from either of the previous films. The biggest change is that every character from the world of Fantasia now sounds terminally stupid. Anyone from Fantasia basically gets stuck in the 'light relief rubber puppet' category and none can salvage a shred of integrity. It's a sorry state of affairs, as I recall the big pink dragon Falkor fondly from my youth, only to have him turned into a quipping buffoon. The final straw was a gag where he gets the horn for a street parade's Chinese dragon, to the great distress of it's occupants.

Another favourite, Rock-Biter (a giant man made of rock), gets a wife and kid in scenes reminiscent of a bad episode of Dinosaurs (90s sitcom). The costumes look like the cheap men in suits they are. There is nothing magical about watching him and his wife bicker and throw crockery at each other. The highlight of the entire film was watching Rock-Biter go shopping on his bike whilst singing “Born to be Wild”. Yes, it's a full on music sequence including 'comedy' running over puppets moments. The tiresome characters don't end there. We get a couple of gnomes (one played by Tony Robinson), whose entire contribution to the film is a half hour gag about needing to go pee. And a big rubbery fake tree man that sounds like Jimmy Durante; I wanted to kill it.

So the characters are uniformly awful, and the reason I've barely mentioned the human ones is because they are so dull and clichéd it hardly matters. There is a sub-plot (arguably the focal lesson of the movie) about Bastian's stepmother and sister, family strength against adversity and the like. It's trite Hollywood manipulation at it's worst. There are pop songs and pop culture references everywhere, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The most successful message the story carried was that kids should read more, and this movie provides the perfect motivation. I wanted to switch it off within half an hour, but managed to rubber-neck my way through it out of stubborn disbelief.

There is a long trend in franchise kids films that each sequel requires less subtlety and style than the one before, and director Peter 'Rambo III' MacDonald fulfils this requirement effortlessly. It really does look like no effort was made at all. Hardly surprising when handed a script fit only for a shredder. One of the biggest disappointments is the lack of fantasy elements that were so vivid in the first film. By quickly moving all the action to our reality, most of the awe evapourates. Worse still when the most memorable moments include a madcap chase through the mall. The plot goes nowhere, and the jokes are as obvious as they are unfunny. If you make it to the end credits you'll also be wowed by the two specially written songs, 'Dream On' and 'Mission of Love', which both name check the movie – sick buckets at the ready.

Having such a passionate dislike for The Neverending Story part 3: Escape to Fantasia (Phew – mouthful) worried me. Am I intolerant of children's movies? After all, they are meant for a less discerning viewer. Then I remind myself that the first film in this series is very good, a bank holiday favourite, and there are lots of good quality fantasies like The Dark Crystal and Lord of the Rings. It's just that The Neverending Movie Title (blah) is only likely to please people that are entertained by bright colours, silly voices, and fast moving objects. Not something you should be paying for. I feel so violently about this film if I were one of the unfortunate souls to appear even on the 'special thanks' credits, I would demand my name removed. Not so surprisingly the film was in the IMDB bottom 100 list; on 8th May 2007 it scored an average of 2.5 out of 10 from 1,876 votes. Awful film.

So far:
Best film – #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Worst film – #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

Thankfully it did end.

#88 Prince of Space (1959)

2007-09-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

[aka Yusei Oji, aka Planet Prince]

Produced in Japan in the late 50s, this is en early example of their boom in superhero films. For the supposed benefit of foreign audiences it has been dubbed into English. This is one film where, for the sake of the writers' reputation, I hope it's lost a lot in translation. In all fairness though, it may have lost something in it's adaptation. Prince of Space was originally transmitted as a series of 49 episodes, and from it two movies were made. The two movies were then edited into a single movie for American audiences. Knowing that the finished product is such an amalgam makes it harder to rate on normal terms, but I'll give it my best shot.

The story begins when a random spaceship turns up out of nowhere. It's leader, The Phantom of Krankor, hijacks the airwaves and announces they will soon land and make their demands. Then threatens they will obey or die, followed by his trademark “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” Yes. The guy doing the dubbing actually goes, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” in a slow, drawn out, stupid sounding way. So bad it's funny, and it will occur many many times before the end of the film.

The Phantom of planet Krankor is the sort of villain who likes to start speeches with, “Attention people of Earth.” He calls himself both an ambassador and a dictator at different times, and resembles a human being with a cheaply stuck on cardboard beak nose (the kind you might find in an xmas cracker), and a television aerial on his head. His fake moustache looks like it's upside down – although that could be an alien thing. I won't go too deeply into the frilly jacket and lack of proper undergarments. It's strange that even before he lands some scientists say they know what he wants; a new rocket fuel which will make space exploration easier. How they figured that, when the fuel hasn't been tested yet and he is already flying considerable distances in space, is anyone's guess. They even make the usual scare-mongering claims that if he gets the fuel then they could conquer the world in a week. Having absolutely zero knowledge of these aliens naturally doesn't affect any of their predications.

None of that really matters though as Price of Space also turns up out of nowhere to beat the aliens of Krankor into submission and send them home. Prince of Space comes with a full polyester outfit, short cape, plastic face mask, and trigger actioned multi-purpose stick. He can say a variety of phrases including, “I am Prince of Space” and ”Your weapons have no effect on me”.

On that note, amongst the frequent and pointless encounters between the Krankorians (Krankies?) and Prince of Space, he keeps telling them that their guns won't harm him or his ship. I guess because he's super. In response, The Phantom's great plan is to “get the laser canon!” Idiot. He continues to keep trying to shoot him, no matter that it always fails. At one point he tries to cook him in a special griddle weapon, but none of their weapons work. This is the major problem with Prince of Space – aside from the weird outfits. His only super-power is being invincible. There's no danger, and the whole thing becomes a very silly farce.

However, at the same time, this utter silliness is one of it's saving graces. All the over the top kids melodrama, with American square-jaw voices, and extremely corny dialogue, can be really funny. Once he says your weapons are useless for the tenth time I wanted to join in like a pantomime. In fact I think a theatre version is long overdue. The terrible acting of terrible characters (these are some of the thickest scientists I've ever seen) just adds to it. I wish my knowledge of Japanese B-movie cast and crew was a little better so I could point out the repeat offenders, but everyone here fits the bill. Whoever thought to name the main town Beaver Falls should have realised how stupid it sounds in a Japanese film. Just one of the many chuckles.

It's a traditionally cheap and cheerful production, with kids in mind. As usual some irritating kids become central to the action, exclaiming “Prince of Space, woot, yay” at any given opportunity. It's filled with the usual stock sound effects of musical saws, possibly a theremin. The Krankor spaceship is actually quite a cool design in a retro way. It all boils down to a very dated film that most will either love or hate. It's a thumbs... well... paw up from me, and makes it to my favourite film in the B100 yet.

So far:
Favourite – #88 Prince of Space (1959)
Horrible – #95 The King and I (1999)

And the usual stats: On 8th may 2007 Prince of Space featured at number 88 on the IMDB bottom 100 list, with a total of 1,055 votes, giving it an average of 2.5 out of 10.

Just as a note, I've let these build up a little so expect quite a few more over the coming days...

#89 Bloodrayne (2005)

2007-07-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

Bloodrayne started life as a computer game, but I've never played it, so I'm reviewing this film entirely on its own merits. I've never seen a film by director Uwe Boll before, and if this is indicative of his style and talent I hope never to see one again. In recent years he seems to enjoy adapting video games, with titles like Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead, Dungeon Siege, and this autumn's Postal. He also seems to enjoy violence, gore and boobies, which Bloodrayne provides in perhaps overly generous portions. Okay, let's be honest – this is just plain gratuitous. Gratuitous unoriginal nonsense at that.

The plot is... um... confusing and forgettable, as I'm proving now. Essentially the central character Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a half human, half vampire person who kills really well. She is out to kill a nasty top dog vampire called Kagan (Ben Kingsley), and must collect some magical wotsit in order to do it. Other than that there is some personal tragedy back story, weird tribal posturing involving numerous cameo roles and a lot of blood. It feels like a poor Blade rip-off, which is probably where the computer game got it's inspiration. Once returned to the silver screen, Boll's direction takes a poor script (name and shame Guinevere Turner) and drives it into the ground, leaving a disjointed and gaudy mess.

Right from the start it's full of special effects, wobbly backgrounds, shaky cam, stylistic colour corrections for super-dramatic sunsets, jump cuts. Unfortunately it largely undermines a few effectively brutal moments scattered about the film. Then further undermined as each fight scene tries to outdo the last with ever more outlandish and disgusting scenes of murder. Decapitations, scalping, drawn out torture, various impalings through every part of the body, every possible limb is severed. The list goes on as the viewer becomes increasingly desensitised. The effects themselves are pretty good, whilst the fighting is quite implausibly over the top. However, one of the few things that kept me watching was to see how far they could up the ante on the gore.

The root of Bloodrayne's problems are that it has a weak structure that feels very much like watching a video game being played. It's mostly action scenes broken up by brief conversations and clues, which serve only to give exposition on the plot, and leaves the characters feeling barely two dimensional. Worse still, it fails to adequately get the plot across to those unfamiliar with the game. I could loosely tell what was going on, but only in the vaguest terms and with no vested interest in any of the characters.

Michael Madsen's character is introduced early on as a hard-nosed vampire killer in the blackest of manners, determined, and absent of emotion. He also seems thoroughly bored to even be there. With him is Michelle Rodriguez (currently in Lost), providing one of the more engaging performances, and Matthew Davis (who?) doing his best impression of dish water. In an attempt to entice more hapless viewers there are various dodgy cameos. Ben Kingsley's being the most notable as it's a vital role and yet has little actual screen time. He adds some authority to a an underwritten part, but again looks as lifeless as his undead character. Billy Zane appears – I have yet to appreciate the reason why. At least he looked good. Then Meat Loaf spends a couple of scenes giving his best vampiric version of Hermann Goring.

I do wonder if the writers looked at the script and thought, “we haven't filled all the prerequisites for a tasteless adolescent fantasy yet.” So they randomly have two characters have a big sex scene and later try to make out there is some kind of genuine relationship. It's a pretty pathetic bums-on-seats attitude to film-making when they should have been paying attention to story-telling. Further pointless excesses and clichés include lesbian kissing, surprise family members, and a tooled up training sequence.

In the second act it tries to create a brooding uncertain atmosphere. Building up the tension between characters, the tribal war games between head vampires. Due to the paper thin characters and lack of an inventive plot it plunges the film into a series of painfully dull and overblown sequences. Bloodrayne disappears up it's own arse as it uses every trick off the Lord of the Rings extras disc to aspire to an epic level it has no chance of reaching.

Then the most puzzling excess of all. At the end of the film, before rolling the credits we get what I can only describe as a two minute Montage of Blood. A compilation of all the most gruesome moments from the film crammed together for no reason whatsoever. I was simultaneously gob-smacked and in hysterics at the sheer audacity.

Bloodrayne deserves it's embarrassingly poor status on the internet. As of 8th May 2007 it had an average score of 2.5 out of ten, from 9,660 votes. Shockingly a sequel is on the way later this year, and Uwe Boll is still directing it. There are times when words fail me... This isn't one of them. Do NOT watch this film.

And it got six nominations in the Razzie Awards.

So far:
Best film – #96 Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – #95 The King and I (1999)

#90. Teen Wolf Too (1987)

2007-07-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

I've got to say that I enjoyed Teen Wolf. So this sequel always had something to live up to. The original was a highly silly, yet charming piece of 80s kitsch. As for Teen Wolf Too... well...

Jumping right in we meet Todd Howard, Scott's (Michael J Fox from the original) cousin. He has been dubiously offered a sports scholarship by a prestigious university's Dean, who in turn hopes he will turn Wolf and win... college boxing matches. All Todd wants to do is study to become a vet, but is under pressure to perform in the ring or loose his university place. The first thing I noticed when watching was that the plot is blatantly going to be exactly the same as the original. The second, from seeing John Astin (the original Gomez Addams and a veteran of the Killer Tomato movies) playing the Dean, it was clear this would be a much hammier and in your face movie.

There are a lot of returning characters from the first film, but not all played by the same people. Harold Howard (Scott's father and Todd's uncle), makes a couple of appearances. Oddly still played by the same actor, but the character feels totally different. Instead of being the previously wise and responsible father figure, he spends most of his time goading Todd to become a wolf and singing it's praises. Coach Finstock has for some reason stopped being a humourous, lethargic high school basketball coach, and gone into university boxing; even orchestrating the scholarship. He's also now played by Paul Sand (?) and is largely forgettable. Another previously favourite character of mine, Stiles, has also become a student here and had a face lift. Now played by Stuart Fratkin, he has little of the charm of his former, and a script which does him no favours; wheeling out the fart gags early on. One of the original basketball team, Chubbs, does return, with face intact. Although he too has made the contrived move to this university and switched his preferred sport to boxing. Perhaps he and Finstock made the decision together.

Jason Bateman heads up the cast as Todd Howard. Now best known for his role in Arrested Development, I'm afraid to say he shows little promise here. Admittedly there's not much to work with, but he only makes an impression thanks to turning into a wolf. The wolf this time round feels even more like a Jekyll character than before. Whilst Scott Howard had a desire to be the centre of attention and misguidedly uses the wolf to do so, here the transformation seduces Todd to act like an egotistical jerk against his will. It's reminiscent of Spiderman's recent transformation whilst wearing the Venom suit in Spiderman 3. The personality change goes to great extremes, as he degradingly catches frisbees with his teeth in the park, laughs at people being knocked off their bikes by his corvette, and then the crowning glory of the film. He sings “Do You Love Me?” on a balcony of a house party, with a full formation dance routine from the party guests. It's a jaw dropping moment of unintentional hilarity.

Staying with the wolf for a moment, the choice of boxing felt a tad misjudged. It was humourous watching a wolf slam dunking a basketball, and running the court. Whereas there's something uncomfortable about sticking a 6ft wolf into the ring to knock ten shades of crap out of a college kid. Maybe the university's next sporting initiative will be to put their youngsters into a caged arena with a rabid bobcat and a starved panther. Nevertheless we get a rocky style montage of the 'wolf too' beating and prancing his way through the matches. Even though most of the boxing material feels poorly tacked onto the plot.

As I've mentioned the script is essentially a remake, which is probably why Loeb and Weisman get 'story by' credits. It's the same story with a few changes of detail. The screenplay comes from Tim Kring, who went on to create and write TV series Heroes. Once again, he shows little promise at this stage of his career. The most inventive thing about Teen Wolf Too is probably it's title. The production values are low all round, as even the wolf mask is noticeably loose and rubbery. Stuart Fratkin has said that it was “One of the most tense sets I've ever worked on. Nobody seemed happy and the “Studio” (Atlantic Entertainment) put a lot of pressure on everybody to surpass the first one.” You can safely assume that they failed.

On 8th May 2007, Teen Wolf Too had an average score of 2.5 out of 10 from 3,550 votes. It placed at number 90 on the IMDB bottom 100.

Also, Teen Wolf is on the cards for a forthcoming remake – rumoured to have a female in the titular role.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King and I (1999)

91. Ghoulies 2 (1987)

2007-05-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

Reading through the comments on IMDB my favourite quote was “twice as good as the first one. 2 out of 10.” Unfortunately I haven’t seen the original, but it doesn’t seem to matter. It was also amusing to watch the trailers on this old ex-rental, and seeing one for another movie lower down the bottom 100 – The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Looking forward to that one. Speaking of trailers, I must have seen the one for Ghoulies 2 dozens of times from other 80s straight to video films. So it was fun to finally see it.

Ghoulies 2 seems to follow on directly from the first film as a priest runs around a deserted gas station with a small bag containing some kind of animal. As with all abandoned gas stations in America there is a big steel drum of liquid marked ‘extremely toxic’ and ‘solvent’, frothing up at the top with a light mist. In goes the bag and with the help of a Ghoulie, so does the priest. What is going on? I’ve no idea. There was a Ghoulie in the bag, which survives the toxic stuff - plus a few more loitering out back.

The Ghoulies look rather dated rubbery creatures - green and slimy, each about a foot tall. It would be fair to say there are influences from the characterisations of the Gremlins and Critters. The Ghoulies are also mischievous, sadistic, and incomprehensible. Some have distinctive features - one can even fly. Although the original Ghoulies film is said to have been the first of these ‘little monster’ films to go into production, with special effects man Stan ‘Predator Aliens Terminator’ Winston briefly attached. But that’s a different story. This sequel certainly looks to be drawing on the more successful aspects of its contemporaries.

Back to the story… The central human characters are three men running a spook house called Satan’s Den, as part of a travelling carnival. The carnival is in financial trouble and it’s owners, an accountancy firm, are checking the figures and axing the least profitable acts. When the Satan’s Den truck stops for fuel, it happens to be aforementioned gas station. The Ghoulies are attracted to the pictures on the side of the truck of freaky looking monsters, much like themselves, and stow away. I’ll leave you to figure out the rest out.

Two actors stand out more than most. Firstly Royal Dano, as Ned the drunken spook house owner. He’s a good character actor and suits this kind of hammy material with a well judged slightly over-the-top performance. The other is Phil Fondacaro as spook house maintenance man Sir Nigel Pennyweight. Once again consolidating the idea that dwarfs/little people can only be actors or work in carnivals and circuses. Here they do both by having him quote lots of random Shakespeare in an attempt to add a little depth and quirkiness. Surprisingly he succeeds in raising the weak material just above boring; a greater achievement than it sounds, and something the rest of the cast failed to do.

The real stars of the show are still the Ghoulies though, putting the special effects to the fore. Through a combination of animatronics, puppetry, and a little stop motion the Ghoulies are presented effectively enough to suspend your disbelief. Naturally there are a number of deaths and a climatic finale including some great man-in-a-suit moments. Whilst nothing is especially spectacular, and the gore is toned down somewhat to obtain a PG-13 rating, it all fits together nicely.

Now it’s time to scalp producer/director Albert Band, who took a bad script and did nothing with it. Things start quickly enough and the story got my attention, but the camerawork is drab and uninspiring, with the pacing in the middle section slow enough for some people to turn off. Considering this is the man who directed the wonderfully titled ‘Dracula’s Dog’, I think his biggest gift to cinema was probably that of his son, Charles Band. A notorious B-movie maker, from the 80s up to the present day, who gets an executive producer credit here.

I won’t discuss it in too much detail, but the ending is absolutely bizarre. Coming totally out of left field. It’s as if it was the ending to a different film and somehow the script pages got mixed up. I can only guess that it was written as a hasty tongue in cheek idea. Plus there’s another hilarious directorial boo-boo. When all hell breaks loose at the carnival Albert Band directs his many extras to run around screaming in every conceivable direction for 15 minutes, without ever leaving the carnival grounds! I say chop up all these moronic fairground goers, and then get to work on the film crew.

I’ve seen dozens of these late 80s cheesy, not very scary, killer monster fests. It’s familiar territory and Ghoulies 2 doesn’t really stand out from the crowd. All the staples are there; unusual deaths, dancing girls, some cheap shots at yuppies. With the emphasis more on humour and action than suspense or gore, it ends up being stupider than other films of the era, but still passable for a few cheap laughs. However, seeing as most of the jokes fall flat or are too predictable, you’ll be more likely laughing at it, not with it. Chuck in the obligatory metal song from W.A.S.P. and were about done. What a load of pants.

Series:
Ghoulies (1985)
Ghoulies II (1987)
Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College (1990)
Ghoulies IV (1994)

As of 8th May 2007 Ghoulies 2 scored a total of 2.5 out of 10, from 807 votes. Putting it at number 91 on the IMDB bottom 100. All the other Ghoulies films are perilously close to entering the bottom 100. A possible contender for worst received series of films ever?

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King and I (1999)

92. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

2007-05-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

This is the first public domain film to appear on the list. As a result, it’s fair game and so I don’t have a box cover to show you. Instead I whipped up this mini homage with my coloured pencils. Just a bit of fun. It’s also the first film from the new list. As of 8th May 2007 it had received a respectable 3,314 votes on the IMDB bottom 100. With an average score of 2.5 out of 10, leaving it at number 92.

Should I be ashamed when I say this actually made me laugh along with some of the jokes? It’s certainly no finely crafted Bill Murray comedy, or even up to the mediocre standard of a mid series Police Academy film, but it’s not completely without merit. Although for most, it will take a very special frame of mind to avoid drowning yourself in eggnog by the final reel.

The story begins with the leader of the Martians, Kimar. He is worried about the children of Mars - especially his own. They seem unhappy, can’t sleep, suffer a loss of appetite, and watch too much Earth television. Including a special interview in the North Pole with Santa Claus. After ten minutes deliberation and consulting a magical 800 year old wise man in a rock garden, he comes to the conclusion that Mars is no fun. Obvious solution: misappropriate Earth’s yearly Christmas festival for the Martians. Most inconsiderately they don’t try to approach Santa off peak and set up a convenient mid-July Christmas on Mars. They instead decide to kidnap him just before the big day.

Their ingenious plan consists of travelling to Earth, asking a couple of kids (Billy and Betty) where Santa is, kidnap them, send a giant robot named Torg to kidnap Santa, then back home in time to make toys for the whole planet. To make it a little more challenging they decide to bring along a Martian named Voldar, who has explicitly stated he hates the plan and will most likely try to sabotage the mission. As the title suggests, it doesn’t all go to plan, and a variety of shenanigans are crammed into the short running time.

The quality of the production matches that of the story. The Martians wear odd looking skin-tight uniform like pyjamas, with murky greenish face paint and wires on their heads. There is a certain awareness of this though. When the Martians meet Betty for the first time she asks what are the things on their heads? They reply “antennae”. She responds, “Are you a television set?” It’s absurd enough to be funny. As was a confused Santa thinking one of his reindeers was called Nixon.

The acting calibre is more reminiscent of a high school play. It’s wooden at times, hammy slapstick at others, but still manages to fit in with the overall highly silly tone. Bad guy Voldar is a traditional moustache twirling villain. Once he’s killed Santa he’ll probably move on to emptying his grandmother’s pension just to keep him in Brylcreem. At the other end of the spectrum we have light relief from Dropo; the Martian equivalent of Lee Evans. Not as frenetic, but they’d both be given a run in the IQ stakes by a glass of water. (Of course I’m talking about Lee Evans in character. I’m not that nasty.)

The chap playing Santa is everything you’d expect and more. Incessantly merry, and very accommodating considering he’s being violently attacked and harassed throughout the film. I wondered if he had a small keg of liquor stashed in his suit. Most of the cast actually make an impression whether for better or worse, particularly the newsreader faced with the daunting announcement, “Martians have kidnapped Santa Claus!!!”

As with all of the most embarrassing movies ever made, it has a specially written song. Sung by a rowdy group of kids in unison, here’s an excerpt.

“You spell it S-A-N-T-A! C-L-A-U-S!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Yeah yeah for Santy Claus
He's fat and round, but jumpin' jiminy!
He can climb down any chim-in-y!”

Now why they would spell it ‘S-A-N-T-A’, then sing it ‘Santy’, is just another of many baffling oddities.

To say Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is ridiculous would be an understatement. To say it has a good production is to be both blind and deaf. However, looking at it in the context of a mid 60s film aimed at 6 year olds, it really is just a harmless bit of fun. In some ways it resembles a live action Hanna-Barbera cartoon, on a shoestring budget. There’s no subtlety, a complete disregard for reality, the jokes are clearly played for the camera. There’s so much in the plot that doesn’t make sense it’d be futile to list it all. I doubt it was taken any more seriously then than it is now.

If you’re feeling brave, give it a go. Surely anything beats spending another hour and a half with Dudley Moore.

Despite a relatively favourable review, it still can’t beat Ator’s bizarre antics in the Italian countryside for raw entertainment value.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King and I (1999)

93. Underclassman (2005)

2007-05-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

It’s a bad sign when the first scene in a film about a wise-cracking black undercover cop is a very poorly directed rip off of the first scene in Beverly Hills Cop. This film wants to be Beverly Hill Cop so badly it’s quite painful to see them fail. The director even goes on record to say they were trying to emulate that style in the ‘making of’ DVD extra. ‘Trying’ is most definitely the word.

When a student at an elite private high school is killed, our bike cop hero, Tre (Nick Cannon), is sent in undercover to catch the killer. There’s the obligatory preppie gags as Tre tries to fit in. A nerdy water boy who’s cool really but nobody notices, who is also the white kid trying to talk ‘black’ and making a fool of himself. A caricature authoritarian headmaster. Some montage sports scenes of Basketball (that Tre naturally excels at) and Rugby. A sexy Spanish teacher (Roselyn Sanchez), who takes a liking to Tre’s roguish charm. Rich jocks as prime suspects. Couple all that with police Captain Delgado (Cheech Marin) doing the whole tough on the outside boss routine, a pedestrian car chase, and a highly predictable plot. This is so heavily packed with clichés it more closely resembles an old arcade game than a serious attempt at writing for the cinema.

The writing comes from the authors of The Girl Next Door and Van Wilder with a ‘story by’ credit going to Nick Cannon. While this feels like a Cannon vehicle, considering the script-writers better previous work and Cannon’s lacklustre performance, I think it’s Cannon that is dragging his own vehicle down. In it’s favour the humour is gentler than many other films. You won’t find any big gross outs here, and that’s refreshing. The main problem I found was that the jokes simply aren’t that funny, and Cannon lacks any of the charm required to make you want to laugh. I’d quite happily have seen him shot in the second act.

When the film stops trying to be funny it only manages to deliver functional dialogue and recycled ideas. Gems like, “Sometimes hunches are how cases are solved” are delivered with embarrassing sincerity. Despite being incredibly formulaic it still manages to chuck in a slightly confusing plot hole during the finale. Director Marcos Siega, who has mostly worked in television, does a standard job with the material. He could easily be replaced by a legion of other decent directors without anyone noticing. In all fairness to him, the script is so bereft of potential he’s done well not to make it as boring as it must look on paper.

Performance wise Nick Cannon is annoying. He clearly wants to be funny, with his big arm gestures and over the top delivery. It’s very much a case of style over substance, and it’s unlikely he’ll ever be a major star. Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong fame) and Kelly Hu (X-Men 2) are the only other notable actors due to their previous work. Both are on autopilot, and capable of more given the right material.

I’ve come down pretty hard on this quite frankly because it’s easy to. There’s nothing terribly offensive about this movie. Its major crimes are the unoriginality and a lot of very poor jokes. When the peak of intelligence is the ham-fisted painting metaphors with a paintball game it really is time to call it a day. No surprises it made number 93 on the IMDB bottom 100 with a score of 2.6 out of a possible 10, from 1,526 votes (as of 1st Feb 2007). Ultimately it has already left the bottom 100 because it was competently made, tells a story, and had one funny joke in it. Despite all its flaws it is at least a watchable time waster.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King and I (1999)

IMDB Bottom 100 Update and Reflections

2007-05-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve been plugging away at the bottom100 list for a couple of months now and quite feebly only made it to number 94 – although I’ll be posting up the next review of Underclassman soon. It’s time for a much need update of the list as, if you click the image to the left, you’ll see a lot of changes. This is the list from May 8th 2007. You can see there is a general downward trend of films leaving the bottom 100 over time. Possibly because as films receive more votes it gets harder to maintain such a low score. There are also a number of new entries that have just received the necessary 650 votes, and newly released films which get a very bad kneejerk reaction at first, then claw their way out soon after. None of my reviewed films are there anymore, although some do pop in from time to time if you check regularly.

Looking back on the films so far I can conclude that bad films know no limitations in genre, age, budget, or the talent of cast and crew. The 50s and 60s films Beginning of the End, Monster A Go-Go and Eegah were cheap, nasty, and thoroughly silly films. In fact, so were the Ator the Invincible (80s) and Werewolf (90s). In all cases they were laughable enough to be watchable and to some extent enjoyable. These films all touched on that rare filmic status of 'so bad they’re good’. Perhaps they only fell short by making too much sense, or having at least one good actor.

Then we have the more modern films. The King and I (1999), which I can imagine has been largely voted for by adults, parents, babysitters, and the like. I doubt that all the votes are from computer savvy 7 year olds who this film is aimed at. Nevertheless, it was a largely painful experience to watch and remains the worst I’ve seen yet. I wasn’t even expecting to see an animation on this list let alone hate it so much.

If Rollerball (2002) had been an ultra low budget film I think it may have been hilariously. Unfortunately it had enough of a budget only to homogenise it and bore me to death. Not to mention having a stupid, stupid, ending. Finally Underclassman (2005) – I don’t want to spoil my next review but this deservedly left the bottom 100 since February. It’s bad, but certainly no Werewolf.

I suppose what I’m also concluding is that, so far, the cheaper and older films provide the most fun in terms of unintentional laughs and sillyness. The inflated budgets of later films give a feeling of failure due to lack of effort and poor judgement, resulting in annoyance and boredom. Whilst watching some locusts filmed close up being chucked into a puddle of water is somewhat endearing in its attempts to entertain. Considering this is only 8 films in though we’ll see if this pattern maintains. After all, I still think that Con Air (1997) fits in the so stupid it’s funny category, and that has an enormous budget by comparison. So it can be done.

At this point a special mention to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) has to be made. An old TV show that found its fame through mocking bad movies. Read the Wiki entry here for more info. So far five of the eight films (Beginning of the End, Monster A Go-Go, Eegah, Ator the Invincible, Werewolf) have featured on their show, and I know more are to come. It’s no surprise that those films are from the episodes released on DVD. They’ve done more to highlight awful movies than anyone else I can think of, and in doing so had a profound effect on this list.

That’s enough from me.
Jaune

94. Eegah (1962)

2007-05-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

Things have been a little slow on here. A lot of ideas being knocked around and not enough work getting done. Rest assured a new story is on the way in a few days. But that’s not what I came to talk about. I came here to discuss the vast joys of the motion picture called Eegah! …

… Now I’ve done that I’ll get down to business.

“The crazed love of a prehistoric giant for a ravishing teen-age girl!”

With a tagline like that, who needs a film? And besides, what they made really doesn’t live up to the hype. I'd imagined something that should probably be banned. This is more like a really rich man’s warped home movie with one struggling actor thrown in for fun. More on that later.

Having not read the back of the box before watching this I was surprised to find it set in modern day (1960s) California. It wastes no time getting into the action, as our teenage girl, Roxy Miller, is driving late at night and nearly runs over a tall guy in rags with a big plastic club. Now I’m not the tallest chap in the world, but describing someone whose 7ft 2 as a giant is a little generous. He is obviously very tall, but it’s not filmed in a way which looks that impressive. Nevertheless, she sets about convincing her boyfriend and father.

A humorous piece of justification comes when the father, Robert Miller, cites the bible with, “There were giants in the earth, in those days”. Then her boyfriend Tom quickly stakes his Elvis LP on the existence of this giant. Naturally they visit the scene of the incident at the edge of the desert. Once they find a largish looking footprint in the sand, everyone is convinced. Robert even wants to write a book about it. This leads to a trip into the desert and lots of predictable giant fun.

This film is wrong in so many ways I’m not sure where to start. Eegah was made about the time of Cliff’s Summer Holiday and Elvis doing the hula. The influences are obvious as it jumbles up the genres to present us with a fantasy, horror, musical, love film. I might say it was innovative if it wasn’t such an obvious drive-in cash in. Amusingly the director Arch Hall Senior said, “It was always sort of a subject of laughter that the darned thing did so well”. Funnier still that he’s referring to the film just breaking even.

This film had no budget and it shows. Filming in the California desert, with a cast made up of the director’s son, Arch Hall Junior as Tom, the director’s secretary, Marilyn Manning as Roxy, and the director Arch Hall Senior playing the father. That just leaves Eegah the prehistoric oddity played by Richard Kiel. Who went on to play one of the 007 films most recognisable villains – Jaws. Often referred to as ‘the big guy with the metal teeth’. Kiel comes off with the best performance since he doesn’t have to do much other than growl, chuck stuff, and act primitive. Everyone else is dire. Worse still are the incongruous musical interruptions from Arch Hall Junior, as he sings songs about girls (and never his girlfriend – how insensitive).

I did find myself laughing a fair few times at some of the bizarre things going on. For instance Robert Miller trying to pimp his daughter to Eegah so that they can escape from his cave. Then there’s the very fact that Eegah and his prehistoric species have survived in a cave near L.A. for thousands of years and never been noticed till now. And when Roxy asks to see Eegah’s cave etchings I was rolling in hysterics.

The production values are as bad as the acting and story. Eegah sports a very big and very fake beard, whilst still maintaining a nice short, back and sides haircut. A lot of dialogue has been recorded and dubbed in later. Characters speak even though their lips are not moving. Some voices sound like they are coming from the sky. Scenes are overly long and bland. The overall pace of the movie is too slow with a rather abrupt ending.

It’s no surprise then that Eegah only scored 2.6 out of a possible 10 on the IMDB, from 2,107 votes, putting it at number 94 on the all time bottom 100 (as of Feb 1st 2007). It’s also no wonder that Arch Hall Junior never acted in a film that wasn’t either written or directed by his father. View at your own risk.

If you don’t think you can stomach a viewing of Eegah: The Movie, why not try out Eegah: The Website at www.eegah.com It's got some funky artwork, sound clips, photos, lyric sheets, and loads of info. All in an aptly mocking tone. Great fun.

So far:
Best Film: Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst Film: The King and I (1999)

95. The King And I (1999)

2007-04-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

Released the same year as the more successful Anna and the King, this is another attempt from director Richard Rich and Warner Brothers to copy the Disney format, after bringing us the Swan Princess trilogy. And boy, should they have quit while they were behind. On February 1st 2007 The King and I stood at number 95 on the IMDB bottom 100 with an average score of 2.6 out of 10, from 829 votes.

Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic of the same name. What’s that I hear turning? The King and I is one of the most famous musicals ever made. Performed on Broadway and around the world thousands of times over the last 55 years. Fans of the original will watch this sugar coated mess aghast at the butchering of a classic. Those who have never seen the story before, will most likely be bored by the string of unimaginative and unfunny clichés trotted out complete with numerous cutesy animal sidekicks for good measure.

The basic story revolves around Anna, a schoolteacher, and the King of Siam. Set in 19th century Siam, Anna has been hired to teach the King’s children English. It explores their cultural differences whilst also telling the subplot of a love story between Prince Chulalongkorn and a slave girl Tuptim. Meanwhile the king’s brother, The Kralahome, is using his evil magical powers to kill the King and Prince so that he can become King. There are substantial differences from the original stories plot and not all of the original songs are used, and those that are don’t feature in exactly the same order. Not to mention the addition of some action sequences.

On it’s own merits The King and I is a weak film. The animation is a mixed bag; at times just fine at others, for want of a better word, clumsy. There is a Saturday morning feeling that doesn’t deserve to make it to the big screen. It certainly doesn’t match up to the standard of other films of its time, such as Mulan or Toy Story 2. The story itself feels like an Aladdin wannabe. It uses all the stock elements of the genre, dastardly magical villain, cute animals, idiot sidekicks, slapstick, and uses them in a paint by numbers style. Thinking about it, maybe the animation was paint by numbers too; would explain the low quality.

No time is spent building up the characters. They remain as two dimensional as the paper they were drawn on. None of the vocal actors performances are memorable, although Martin Vidnovic stands out as a lacklustre imitation of Yul Brynner (the original actor who played the King). There aren’t any bad performances as such, it’s just a bad script. One curious new character is The Kralahome’s stupid henchmen, Master Little, whose running gag involves having all his teeth knocked out. It’s not funny. Neither are the less slapstick gags. All it does is make me want to kick all the other characters teeth out.

Some of the dialogue feels rather incongruous, for instance when Master Little wants revenge on a mischievous monkey he says, “Your time will come monkey, I know torture’. It’s delivered as a light aside, but seems inappropriately weird. Or the odd juxtaposition of the Prince singing a love song whilst practicing his martial arts. For whatever reasons these moments don’t work and it all seems a bit silly. The character scenes are just loosely strung together to accelerate the plot. Once a song ends they have sudden and dramatic shifts in mood, because the story requires it, although they haven’t taken the time to develop it plausibly.

I just need to get this off my chest. Why does every central character need to have a floppy animal wander around behind them, falling over a lot? The English kid has a monkey. Tuptim has a baby elephant. The King has a panther. I was half expecting The Kralahome to have a wisecracking aardvark jump out of a plant pot and perform ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’.

The songs are one of the stronger points by virtue of having been written by someone more talented. Unfortunately, they feel shoehorned into the shortened running time between character scenes. They also have less charm. A perfect example being the first song, ‘I Whistle a Happy Tune’, which is sung whilst being attacked by sea monsters conjured by The Kralahome. The scene is neither tense nor sweet, and isn’t even drawn very well. It creates a pretty bad impression right from the start.

I know I'm an adult but I should be able to at least sit through this film without the need of narcotics. The first half hour really breaks the viewer, even though it does settle down more through the mid-section, before it's mundane, if not ludicrous, finale. With so many other films of its type available, and better versions of the same story, it quickly sinks to the bottom of the list.

Here’s a little trivia I gleaned from the Wikipedia:
“The possession of anything related to Anna and the King of Siam or The King and I is illegal in Thailand, because of what the Thai government said were historical inaccuracies about the King of Siam.”
I’d have no problem with this particular version being made illegal worldwide, for it’s crimes against taste and entertainment.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King & I (1999)

96. Ator the Invincible (1984)

2007-04-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long break - but I had a VCR breakdown that held up getting screengrabs of this classic, which is yet to make it to DVD. Hopefully the wait was worth it. Now to Ator...

Writer/director Joe D’Amato is notorious for directing a multitude of gore, hard and softcore sex films, and various combinations of all three with lashings of sleaze thrown on top. He has worked on more films than many have watched, and gone by more pseudonyms than you could probably name members of your own family. Joe D’Amato being one of them; his birth name was Aristide Massaccesi. As his real name suggests, his films are Italian productions, but often working in English, with English speaking actors.

Ator the Invincible – also known as Ator 2, Ator L’invincible 2, Ator: The Blade Master, Cave Dwellers, The Blade Master, The Return… where was I? … oh yes. Ator the Invincible is the sequel to Ator; The Fighting Eagle – also known as Ator, Ator: L'aquila Battante, and of course Ator the Invincible. Oh dear.

The Ator films are a departure from D’Amato’s usual material, being more family friendly fantasy adventure films. Most likely made to cash in on the Conan films of 1982 and 1984 – the exact same years that the first two Ator films were released. I’m guessing they don’t make all that much cash anymore. On February 1st 2007 Ator the Invincible received an average score of 2.6 of 10, from 1,336 votes, placing it at No.96 on the Internet Movie DataBase’s bottom 100 films.
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The film starts with a quick, and unnecessary, recap of the events of the previous film. I’m not sure if it’s there to pad out the running time or show that Ator is really tough. Either way, he fights off some zombies, a shadow monster, and a giant spider God. So it gives you a flavour of what’s to come. The story revolves around an object of infinite power – the geometric nucleus. No more explanation is given, but an evil and powerful man named Zovv attacks the castle where the nucleus is kept. A wise man named Akronas has hidden the nucleus somewhere in the castle and Zovv must be stopped from finding it or he could… do something bad.

Akronas has also sent his daughter Mila out to find Ator and ask for his help to stop Zovv. Telling her to ride to “what seems like the end of the earth”, she actually just takes a quick jog through a field and some woodlands where she finds Ator in a cave. Strangely the journey back will take them a couple of days; just one of many plot holes and continuity errors. Ator joins her with his curiously named Japanese warrior friend ‘Thong’. Their epic journey begins.

Perhaps I’ve watched too many ‘bad’ films, but despite being very lazily made from start to finish, it’s actually quite amusing. Ator spends most of his time striding around in big pants and furry boots, proudly showing off his nipples, thwarting things. Whilst occasionally proving his exceptional scientific knowledge. And it’s surprising just how much he can fit into those pants, as he suddenly produces numerous homemade bombs, and at one point a hang-glider out of nowhere! Perhaps it came in his Kinder Egg. The standard of foes is similar to the previous film, including invisible monsters (a sure sign of the budget) and a big rubber snake.

There seems to be some confusion about when this film is set. We have a narration that talks of the fires of creation and man’s growing ascendancy - heavily implying prehistoric times through the clothing. Next we have well groomed men of science and language, along with medieval castles, gunpowder bombs, and mass-produced handrails on castle staircases. Not to mention the feudal samurai warriors, and the hang-glider. It’s all rather confusing.

The plot never goes anywhere logical. Despite knowing Ator is on his way, Zovv spends most of his time exchanging polite insults with Akronas and stroking his fake moustache. Despite knowing the fate of the world rests on attaining the geometric nucleus before Zovv, Ator decides to take a long excursion to sort out some petty disagreements between impoverished villagers. I would say things come to a predictable conclusion but the film is so loosely put together you can never be quite sure what will turn up next.

Acting wise there is very little talent on show. Lisa Foster is probably the most consistent and convincing of a bad lot as the smart, tough and sexy Mila. Miles O’Keefe, of Tarzan fame, gives an acceptable performance as Ator. Although his part calls for little more than killing things followed by a couple of moral speeches. Chen Wong (Thong) is lucky that he is not required to speak. It makes him appear a better actor by virtue of not being given the chance to make a fool of himself. Everyone else is atrocious.

It was a laugh, but it was also a great big mess, hammed up to the max. Whilst the direction is barely competent, pretty much everything else fails. They couldn’t even get the final narration right as a couple of words were accidentally edited out, rendering the sentence nonsensical. It’s quite astounding that this was followed by two further sequels. I wouldn’t recommend Ator the Invincible to anyone as serious entertainment. Conan fans might be able to derive some cheap laughs from it.

Sequels:
Iron Warrior (1987) - starring Miles O’Keefe, but not directed by D’Amato.
Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990) - no Miles O’Keefe but D’Amato returns to direct it.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – Rollerball (2002)

97. Beginning of the End (1957)

2007-03-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

From the man who brought you ‘King Dinosaur’ and ‘Earth vs The Spider’ I give you, ‘The Beginning of the End’. No, really – take it. With a title like that it would have been more fitting as the first film of this project. Anyhow, this was actually director Bert I Gordon’s second film, and an unfortunate sign of the type of films he would continue to direct. On February 1st 2007 it was placed at No.97 in the IMDB’s bottom 100 films, with an average score of 2.6, from 727 votes.

The film opens with that well known tradition amongst American youths in the fifties. Necking in a convertible. Then continues with that staple Hollywood cliché of two youths necking in a car being attacked by something off screen. It’s a dubious start; maybe that’s what they should have called the film. ‘A Dubious Start’, starring Doug Squarejaw, and Heidi Fluff. I digress.

The plot gets quickly into gear as we follow Audrey Aimes - a journalist on the trail of a news story in the Arizona desert. She soon discovers that an unknown force has destroyed a whole town, and it’s150 residents are all missing. An engaging enough premise. Acting on a hunch she visits a nearby department of agriculture research station that is experimenting with food crops exposed to radiation. At this point I’m quite amazed that for a near half hour the film has been an entertaining enough little mystery. A little slow, but even the acting is of a higher standard that you’d expect from such a poorly rated film. However…

Whilst visiting a warehouse that was also recently destroyed, Audrey and the two agricultural scientists (Ed and Frank) encounter the menace responsible. A giant grasshopper. Welcome back to the world of questionable special effects, stupid questions, and that military bloke who just can’t believe it. The radiation link was just too obvious to ignore. As was the introduction of scientist Frank, who was deaf and mute due to an accident involving radiation. Thus only there to illustrate the dangers of their work. Although why he didn’t grow to be a twenty foot killing machine, as most other things do on contact with radiation in the 50s, I don’t know.

On seeing one of these giant grasshoppers/locusts, Dr Ed Wainright quickly scarpers and tries to call in the army. He doesn’t get very far, but from this brief contact he suddenly knows the grasshoppers numbers, average height, resistance to weapons, disposition. He’s the leading authority on giant radioactive grasshoppers. My biggest frustration at this point is that all the hopping action is described and alluded to through radio and phone calls between important looking people. Those bugs sure sound like formidable foes if they need an anti tank weapon to take them down, but I don’t get to see any of it.

When we do get to see some fighting it’s the usual superimposed army guys firing at a back projection of the bugs in super-sized close up. Being in black and white the joins aren’t too jarring all the time. They get them to climb up photos of buildings, and chuck them in a pool of water to emulate a lake. They’ve made an effort in places and occasionally it just about works.

Now let’s cut to the chase and say it’s basically a rip off of Them (1954) - minus the direction, atmosphere, effects, charm, you name it. It’s inferior in all respects. Peggie Castle put in the best performance as Audrey. Peter Graves, who would go on to play Captain Oveur in the Airplane movies, was okay as Dr Ed. Unfortunately neither managed to lift the largely mundane material. One of the most exciting moments was seeing Audrey’s car phone. Yes, a car phone in 1957. I had no idea they had been invented then. It was a hefty looking thing, but a cool prop.

However cool a car phone may be, it doesn’t cover up the inconstancies in the plot. For instance a grasshopper later being easily killed by a handgun, or why they all seemed to stay together rather than spread across America. Actually that might have been addressed in the obligatory bug education portion of the film. Where Doug Squarejaw predicts doom from in front of a slide projector. If so, it has already been excised from my mind, as has the majority of the rest of the film.

I would have been more favourable toward Beginning of the End if it hadn’t have been so dull. Regardless of the hopeful start, even at just 73 minutes long I found myself clock-watching toward the end. At least with a movie like Monster A Go-Go you can laugh along with the silliness. Whilst entertainment here is severely limited by a highly predictable and linear storyline, that quickly fizzles out of ideas.

For the information of insect lovers – some grasshoppers died in the making of this movie. What began as 200 grasshoppers reduced to just a dozen after they started to cannibalize one another. I wouldn't be surprised the same situation occurred amongst cinema goers stuck in a darkened room watching this film.

So far:
Best film – Monster A-Go-Go (1965)
Worst film – Rollerball (2002)

98. Werewolf (1996)

2007-03-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

On receiving an old VHS copy of Werewolf, I was impressed by the hologram cover of a man turning into a werewolf. However, after starting to watch the film I worried that the special effects on the box would be better than those in the actual film. My worries weren’t entirely unfounded.

On February 1st 2007, Werewolf was placed at No.98 in the IMDB bottom 100, with an average score of 2.6 from 1,670 votes.

We start with an archaeological dig in the Arizona desert, where an unusual skeleton is found. It has the body of a man, but the head of an animal – you guessed it, a kind of wolf. The budget already seems strained at this point. An early fight scene between the diggers is so badly choreographed and filmed that at least half the punches miss, but still with a very loud smacking, and followed by painfully slow ‘being hit’ reactions. I refer to the budget here, as it seems all the actors were required to do their own stunts. No matter how bad they are.

Once the skeleton has been moved somewhere it can be studied, rather than investigate it properly and try to prove or disprove what it is, the leader of the group (Noel) rushes to various conclusions and scaremongering about werewolves. Within the films first ten minutes, any hope of mystery is killed by an overlong explanation involving American Indian mythology, and poorly recorded sound. Soon after, one of the diggers who had been scratched by a bone is taken to hospital. While under supposed ‘intense observations’ (amusing medical terminology from the doctor), he turns into a werewolf whilst no one is paying attention (really intense observations), then escapes. Thus proving their assumptions, regardless of how implausible and stupid they originally appeared.

Considering all this happens at the start of the film, you might wonder what plot there is left. To be frank, not much. Werewolf has some of the worst padding I’ve seen in any film this side of the 60s. Director Tony Zarindast has a curious fixation with wall murals, spending large amounts of time focusing on them whilst playing irritating derivative native Indian music, and animal noises. If I wanted to look at a painting of a woolly mammoth whilst being barked at, I’d… I’m not sure – perhaps commit myself. It’s not just boring; it’s badly filmed, edited, written (barely). Zarindast’s previous film was ‘Hardcase and Fist’ in 1989! A film whose trailer alone is laughable. He can’t even manage the continuity of a pool cue, let alone actually film a game of pool without it dragging the whole film to a painful halt.

The characters serve little or no purpose in a wafer thin plot. The most entertaining is also the most superfluous. That being a groundskeeper who seems to spend all his time in the foyer of a writer’s house, brandishing his shotgun. He also happens to be the worst actor, with monotone ‘cries’ of “please don’t hurt me’, whilst slowly edging towards the angry looking werewolf. Another focal character is Yuri, who wants to infect people with werewolf DNA so he can see them turn, then catch them and earn money for the famous find of a live werewolf. The biggest flaw in his ploy is he decides to try and catch these beasts when they are wolves, rather than simply wait till they turn into a normal person and are less dangerous. The logic for the rest of the film isn’t any sounder, and you will be lucky to make it to the end. Surprisingly the ending is the most original and unexpected thing of all. Yet still ultimately unsatisfying.

On the plus side we get the hilarious high jinks of a werewolf driving a sedan as if it were a bumper car. Cartoony yanking the steering wheel left and right included. Then it ploughs into some randomly placed gas canisters. And Martin Sheen’s brother is in it. Woot. Yay. [/sarcasm]

So, with no plot, no worthwhile characters, and no atmosphere, what’s left? A number of repetitive shots of some dodgy werewolf special effects, which at times look more like a taxidermied cat covered in spit. Plus some over the top and unconvincing attacks on girls who run, scream, and fall over in the nearest puddle of mud. A more pleasurably viewing experience can be found marvelling at the hologram on the box cover.

*Pictures courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000, because my capture equipment didn’t like the NTSC VHS. Unfortunately the MST3K team are watching a slightly edited version; missing out a couple more superb murals.

It wasn’t exactly difficult to defame poor Werewolf, but it still provided enough belly laughs from its gaffs to put it ahead of Rollerball.

So far:
Best Film – Monster A-Go-Go (1965)
Worst Film – Rollerball (2002)

99. Rollerball (2002)

2007-03-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, this is quite a difference from the last film. Bringing us right back into the present decade. On February 1st 2007, Rollerball was placed at number 99 on the IMDB’s bottom 100 films, with an average score of 2.6 out of 10, and 8,205 votes. That’s a very high number of votes for the bottom 100, strengthening its position there, and showing just how badly this film has been received.

Set in the near future, a violent new sport from Central Asia has taken the world’s interest. Rollerball is like a cross between American football and basketball, on rollerblades, in a figure 8 circuit, and chuck in a couple of motorbikes for good measure. The rules are simple, and the fouls are frequent. Increasing ratings and high levels of gambling keep the games creators and managers in good money. Interest from major television networks is set to boost the balances further, and so they continue to recruit more talented players.

Enter Chris Klein (American Pie); an extreme sports player in need of a healthy pay cheque. After signing up, we quickly get a taste of rollerball action. Somewhere between a wrestling event and a circus, the players wear outlandish masks and body armour. A large part of the game is mowing down the opposition; hence the motorbikes. Live nu-metal music blasts out from a cameo by Slipknot, who look like they could be a rollerball team themselves. The first 20 minutes prove to be a fairly effective action filled start, but from here on things never really get going.

The plot revolves around the idea that the game’s managers are bribing players to cause more and more spectacular injuries to their opponents, which in turn increases the ratings and profits. Jean Reno (Leon) plays the central rollerball creator/manager who lords his power and wealth over everyone. It’s probably the most engaging performance amongst a very bland cast, and yet it feels as though he’s on autopilot. Not least because there is so little dialogue between the many fighting, flaunting, and chasing sequences, that it’s hard to truly get behind any of the characters. LL Cool J fades into the scenery, and the only notable thing about Rebecca Romijn, best known as Mystique in X-Men, is her looks.

What little plot actually exists quickly descends into a daft mess of clichés. The original 1975 version of Rollerball focused on one man’s struggle against a corporation that ran the US and subdued its people. Here we have the cop out use of Central Asia - as it’s obviously more plausible that those ‘savages’ in Asia will love violent sports and let it rule their lives. But the rollerball corporation doesn’t appear to replace any government as in the original, so when someone dies during play and it is still broadcast, why isn’t there an instant investigation? How did the company think they could go on killing people on live TV and not get shut down? Even in the most under-developed countries snuff films are banned. By having the film set so closely in the future (actually now the past, 2005) it both undermines the original purpose of using a future setting, and insults half a continent.

Director John McTiernan, of Predator and Die Hard fame, made his biggest mistake simply by making this film. At what stage did the script ever look like a good prospect? It must have been all of 30 pages long. Looking even worse in comparison with the previous version. There is more character depth to be found in WWE, and if mindless violent ‘sports entertainment’ is what you’re looking for, I would recommend going there first.

I have no problem laying the bulk of the blame at the script itself, or lack of it. All other errors simply compounded this problem. A telling sign of its quality came when, after poor feedback from previews the films release was put back till the next year, and edited down from an R rating to a PG-13. Effectively an admission that the producers just wanted to milk whatever money they could from the carcass of this turkey. The very worst part of this film is it’s ending, but I will leave that joy to the braver amongst you.

On the whole Rollerball is a pointless mess, made worse considering the talent and money involved in a production so recent. You can’t even laugh at it.

So far:-
Best Film: Monster A Go-Go (1965)
Worst Film: Rollerball (2002)

100. Monster A Go-Go (1965)

2007-03-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

And so it begins.

With a title like that I’ll wager you’re expecting some kind of exciting, off the wall, unique viewing experience. It’s unique all right, but not for any commendable reasons. On February 1st 2007, Monster a Go-Go ranked at number 100 in the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) bottom 100 films. It averaged 2.6 out of 10 with a total of 1,735 votes.

Monster A Go-Go (I laugh every time I type it), started life as a low budget horror/sci-fi flick called ‘Terror at Halfday’. Bill Rebane co-wrote and directed, but alas, the money dried up and the incomplete footage was shelved. Until notorious gore and exploitation movie producer Herschell Gordon Lewis came along, in need of an inexpensive film to go on a double bill with one of his other dubious creations.

As far as I can tell, the majority of what we see in the final product is Rebane’s footage. The story concerns a failed manned rocket mission to investigate unusual objects orbiting the Earth. The rocket crash lands, the astronaut is missing, and there is a giant humanoid monster on the loose killing people. It appears the monster is a mutated version of the astronaut with a heavy dose of radiation, able to contaminate those that get too close. In other words, been there, seen this, but never so badly made. It’s really just a rehash of The Quatermass Experiment (1955), but with none of the atmosphere and a far less coherent plot.

Most jarring of all, although highly amusing, is the narration added by Herschell Gordon Lewis himself. It runs throughout the whole film. To get a flavour of this sadistic cherry on an already bad movie here’s a direct sample:

"Narrator: What changes the delicate interlocking of fates that determines life or death. A series of ‘ifs’. If the girl had danced with her boyfriend instead of the other boy, and they had stayed later. If the two of them hadn’t parked to kiss and make up. But that is not what happened. And fate, and history, never deal in ‘ifs.

>Monster enters stage right. Followed by poorly lit, shakily filmed death scene."

The purpose of the narration seems solely to try and make sense of the loosely connected scenes, without bothering to film the required extra footage to make it a proper film. Sometimes I think Lewis just gets bored as he decides to tell you what is going to happen in the next scene. One time it even substitutes having a scene, by purely describing what happens over the image of an empty room. It’s these moments of gobsmaking audacity that make Monster A Go-Go (snigger), both a delight and an abomination.

The other most notable thing on show is the monster itself; played by Henry Hite, who stood at an impressive 7 foot 6 inches tall. Although the movie blurb says the monster is 10 foot tall, and so he is shot from a low angle to try and make this believable. Hite’s monster is suffering from some form of radiation mutation that causes cheap latex to get stuck to his face. He wanders about his scenes looking more confused than terrifying. The rest of the cast is quite frankly utterly forgettable. Even the characters are forgettable. Most don’t even warrant a name, and simply get referred to as ‘driver’, ‘helicopter pilot’, ‘girl’, ‘boyfriend’. Not just in the narration, but in the dialogue too.

One of the most memorable scenes is a pointlessly long, yet entertaining, teen twist party. I was loving the fashionable 60s dancing and music. There is even a funky title song, ‘Go-Moster-Go’, which got me all psyched up for the film. Most of the other memorable moments come from the generally dire production standards. Such as the crashed space capsule that looks barely big enough to fit a cat in it. The ringing phone that sounds remarkably like a man behind the camera going, ‘brrr brrr’. Then there’s the ending.

The ending is to say the least lazy. Not lazy as in there are some plot holes in the resolution. Lazy as in they pretty much just didn’t bother coming in to work. It’s an astonishingly stupid ending, and you’ll have to see it to believe it. You still won’t be impressed though – just perplexed.

Despite my rather cruel assault, I can’t say I hated Monster A Go-Go. As a connoisseur of bad movies at least it’s not completely dull. Just a little dull, and somewhat dim too. It’s feckless charm comes from trying to figure out what may have been originally intended for ‘Terror at Halfday’, and just how far it has gone off the rails.

Does it deserve to be in the bottom 100? Well, it’s early days yet.

It was the best of times...

2007-03-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Jaune Heatley, and I am a writer and director for Bear & Beyond. Hopefully you will enjoy some of my offerings in the near future. In addition to that I am undertaking a shameless attempt to encourage extra funding for Bear films, by taking a look at the state of human films over the years. I will be reviewing every film on the IMDB bottom 100 list. Being a fan of low budget and most genre movies I will not prejudge these films because of their status. What I’m looking to see is whether they deserve to be where they are.

Here’s how it works. On 1st February 2007 I took a snapshot of the bottom 100 list. You can see part of it here [click for bigger picture]. Next I start watching them from number 100 onwards. Some of these films are understandably hard to get hold of. It took 4 weeks to get Werewolf flown in from the US. Anyone who regularly looks at the list will see it changes quite frequently. So at natural breaks I will update the snapshot and continue watching from whatever number I am at. Reviews will be posted here counting down from No.100 right to the very depths of the No.1 worst movie of all.

First review coming soon…