Friday, January 15, 2016

It Depends . . . .

What's the Worst Movie of All Time? 

15 comments:

Deb said...

Anyone with no talent, no money, and no clue can make PLAN 9 or THE ROOM or BIRDEMIC. It takes a whole next-level of incompetence to make BATTLEFIELD EARTH.

Tom Johnson said...

I thought CHILDREN OF MAN (or MEN) was absolutely terrible. Characterization was almost non-existent, except for the old guy who wanted people to pull his finger, and I shuddered at that. I actually like BALLISTIC, It had plenty of action, and a nice plot.

Don Coffin said...

I've often read comments on "The Terror of Tiny Town" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_of_Tiny_Town; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030845/) suggesting it might set the standard.

One of only two movies I've ever walked out on because it was (imo) so bad--"Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." I've managed to miss all the ones that show up in the article Bill linked to.

mybillcrider said...

"Hush, Hush . . ." is one I saw in the theater so long ago that I remember almost nothing about it. I sat through it, though.

Art Scott said...

Predictable that this piece doesn't even give a mention of the Medveds' pioneering work in this field: 50 Worst Films of All Time, Hollywood Hall of Shame, and Golden Turkey Awards. Of course they're books, not online; Mental Floss probably doesn't know they exist. Pfui!

Deb said...

Yes--those Medved brothers' books are essential--a real labor of love, especially when you consider that their earliest books were written before the advent of the VCR and they had to rely on tv late shows and repeat visits to the cinema to do their research. Then there's the wonderful BAD MOVIES WE LOVE by Edward Marguiles and Stephen Rebello. Its subtitle, BIG HAIR, BIG BUDGET, BIG PROBLEM says it all. It's a great book. Sadly, one of the co-authors passed away and a promised sequel never materialized.

Cap'n Bob said...

The worst I ever saw was something like Revolt of the Hapazoids. A merciful ghu has blocked the real name from my memory. It was so cheap the dialogue was pasted onto the film as word balloons. Or maybe scratched into the film. Truly pitiful.
But still better than Battlefield Earth.

Unknown said...

The thing about Bad Movies (which the Medveds completely missed)is that some of them worm their way into a movie buff's heart simply by way of their complete ineptitude --like a puppy tripping over his own ears.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I did watch THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN all the way through. Believe me, I've seen much worse. BATTLEFIELD EARTH I wouldn't turn on for a second, even for laughs.

I submit for your consideration, the hideously untalented Bill Rebane's THE ALPHA INCIDENT, a sad coda to Ralph Meeker's career. The Wikipedia summary doesn't do justice to the mind- and soul-numbing tedium of it. (SPOILER ALERT - if you have any intention of ever watching this one you might want to skip the following.) Meeker is running some train depot in the desert (as I remember it) and seems to have been heavily sedated as he barely moves all movie. There are two guys in a lab, a General in an office, and five others (including Ralph and Gabby). A scientist is accompanying space spores across the desert but a bad Gabby Hayes/toothless old codger gets curious and looks inside, breaking some. They pull into a railroad siding and wait while the lab guys try and find an antidote.

It seems you're OK if you're exposed unless you fall asleep; then you die. A helicopter drops them some amphetamines. I wished they'd dropped me some. The girl (a horrible actress styled "introducing Carol Irene Newell") runs out to her car, and as seen from the read, blows her [obvious mannequin] head off. Meeker, who has been all but catatonic the whole movie (except when smoking a cigarette or taking a crap), falls asleep , his head swells and his brains fall out! (Believe me, the summary is far better than actually watching it.)

The climax has the scientist fall asleep and then wake up. apparently immune, only to have government snipers blow him away in a terrible NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ripoff. (END WARNING)

This makes Rebane's previous GIANT SPIDER INVASION look like a winner in comparison.

mybillcrider said...

You are the champion of the bad movie watchers, Jeff.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I think you'd get a {minor} kick out of it if you could use some judicious fast-forwarding. It was pretty sad, however, remembering Ralph Meeker in KISS ME DEADLY and seeing him in this, not much more than 20 years later.

Deb said...

I thought few movies could beat FLESH FEAST for providing a sad coda to a former star's final appearance (in this case, Veronica Lake), but it seems as if Ralph Meeker may have received an equally depressing send-off.

IMHO, the only way to watch THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION is the MST3K version which iirc contains this classic line from Mike Nelson (while watching a rather downscale couple), "These people truly are the backbone of our casino-based economy."

Todd Mason said...

Cap--I believe you refer to SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS, a home movie by the Kuchar Bros, who became underground film heroes and one is or was a college film professor eventually. It was based in its Outsider Art way on a more conventionally terrible film adaptation of Jack Williamson's THE HUMANOIDS (aka "With Folded Hands..." and "...and Searching Mind").
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/search?q=humanoids

Among my favorite remarkably terrible films that are only infrequently cited are JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN (which has roughly the same astrophysics as Gor novels, with another Earth constantly on the other side of Sol from ours...only this one isn't a culture based on a Kindergarten version of STORY OF O but an exact replica of our Earth, only everything is mirror-image backwards. From the Andersons (SPACE:1999, and about as tedious and stupid)., and WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE, written by Lewis John Carlino who was working on a film script for STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND for a while, which has a solar flare turn everyone not in a cave into a dust pile. Why do I forgive, say, NIGHT OF THE COMET for this kind of thing when I find this one aggressively foolish? Because it just is, in its humorless, inane tv-movie sort of way. Starring Peter Graves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udQN9k3erD4 is an unwatchable video camera aimed at a tv screen, but you can look at the ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK opening. There are less ineptly recorded versions of the film in pieces on YT and the whole thing on Veoh.

Todd Mason said...

I should've said, Ripoff of the Williamson novel Uncredited, as I recall.

mybillcrider said...

I managed to sit through JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN, but I was able to watch only one episode of SPACE: 1999. That was more than enough.