Monday, August 2, 2010

The 30 Worst Films Of All Time Pt. 3

and here is my top 10...


10. Xanadu (1980):
Oh my god, it would be alot easier to make a list of things that are NOT wrong with this film, because really, this is one of the biggest trainwrecks there has ever been, Olivia Newton John with her aussie accent playing a muse of ancient greek mythology, the fact roller disco was completely dead by the time 1980 rolled around, the fact this film killed the career of Michael Beck who was riding that wave of popularity that 1979's The Warriors gave him, or, possibly the worst part of this whole thing for me, is that this travesty is the final nail in the film career of once hollywood icon Gene Kelly, who was never seen on the big screen ever again after this celluloid abortion made its way to the theaters. The film tells the story of Sonny (played by Michael Beck, Swan from The Warriors), and how he falls in love with this roller skating girl who crashes into him, then kisses him, near the start of the film, he eventually finds her in what used to be a big band auditorium thats now abandoned, she tells him her name is Kira but will tell him nothing else as she skates around the empty building. After guiding Sonny to a partnership with a former big band leader turned construction mogul (played by Gene Kelly), and to eventually start a night club with him, a roller disco called Xanadu, after Kubla Khan's Pleasure Garden of the same name. Eventually you discover that Kira is really Terpsichore, the muse of dance, and as I'm sure you've guessed, Kira eventually falls in love with Sonny, and the two are very happy, until Kira up and leaves him. You know, because thats what you do when you love someone, you eventually leave them, because you're the Olympian muse of dance, and you can't be tied down to just one man! With an ass like yours from all the dancing, you gotta play the field!


9. Teenagers From Outer Space (1956):
Oh what a twisted, sad and curious little film with a twisted, sad and curious film this one is. Teenagers From Outer Space is as much a story so bad that Ed Wood and Uwe Boll wouldn't even touch it, as it is the twisted and depressingly tragic story of the cheapest film ever made, and how it ruined lives, and drove its director to lose his mind, and then commit suicide. Teenagers From Outer Space is the story of a young man named Derick who decides to stop his people from destroying the population of the earth to turn the planet into their raising grounds for these giant lobster like creatures his people eat, and eventually finds peace but in the end gives up his life to save the earth, in lieu of allowing his people to take the planet from the humans. The film is, as I'm sure you've guessed is completely useless and with out the backstory of tragedy and insanity, this film, however bad it is, would have been completely forgotten by history, and regarded as something so bad even Ed Wood would have called it terrible. And really, its the backstory that makes us all remember it, its the story of how a man who would later travel around Los Angeles and surrounding areas walking into church services proclaiming he was the lord Jesus Christ, claiming everyone there was a sinner, destroyed every single friendship he'd ever had, and eventually killed himself, all to make a shitty movie about space lobsters and jerks with rayguns all for under $14,000.oo which back then was seen as really cheap, and is infact the cheapest film ever made.


8. The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy (1957):
I've always made jokes that if you wanna see an entire film industry thats completely aimed at camp fun, then look no farther then the film industry of our neighbor to the south, Mexico. From all Spanish versions of american films, to the great El Santo and all the other Luchadors that where made into film stars, to their take on just about everything, its like Poverty Row Hollywood studios of the 1930s, but with a spicy latin flavor to it. The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy was sort of the hight of Mexicheese, where in two mad scientists do their best to deal with a cursed mummy that they plan on stealing from the tomb of by building a robot to deal with it, and those who try and stop them from making it all happen, for some reason, I guess because graverobbing is wrong or something. Anyway this is one of those silly little crank out as many as we can films, being the follow up to two other films in the aztec mummy series that were released earlier in the year. Its just nuts really, plus the robot kind of looks like Bender from Futurama which is awesome as hell too when you think about it.


7. Thor Vs. The Amazon Women (1964):
This is one of those films that you just have to laugh at, from the title, to the acting, to the fact its whats refered to as a "sword and sandles" film, meaning its a europian wizardry film, normally italian, like this film is. Thor, is not the Thor of norse lore, he's just some random strongman named Thor who's the friend of the children of a murdered king, he's their sort of protector, and has to save the older sibling, the beautiful Tamarr is kidnapped by the same man hating Amazons that killed her father, Thor decides its time for him and his slave that affirmative action forgot, need to get their asskicking on, which they do, fighting the Amazons and "the Beast That Kills Women" to get her back. You don't really expect much from movies like this, they're really only about a rung above things with titles that start with "the erotic adventures of.." and the like, so its not exactly gonna be Citizen Kane, but of what they are, this one is clearly the worst, its just so flawed, the sets look fake, the monster looks fake as hell, and its very obvious that alot of these people are wearing badly attached to their head wigs, I mean like so bad its kind of silly they even tried.


6. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964):
This is one of those films thats name just makes you chuckle, and makes you wonder if it really is just as horrible as the name implies, and guess what? It really is as bad as you think, actually wait, no, its worse. It basically goes like this; Martian kids are watching to much earth television, and with Christmas coming they fear that the children will watch to rebel against Martian beliefs and rigidly strict structure, however after a change of heart, they decide to instead of banning the children from watching television, to simply just kidnap Santa Clause and force him to bring christmas and toys to the children of Mars. This ofcourse pisses off ol'Father Christmas who, like Dylan Thomas, doesn't go gently into that good night, but is overpowered by the little green horde of kidnappers. Anyway eventually as this horrible assault on the eyes and ears progresses, as you can guess, Santa uses the power of Christmas to beat the martians and because he's such a nice guy, he leaves the nicest martian there is as Mars' official Santa Clause, complete with worship and his own midget slaves. Its seriously horrible, the whole idea, the whole film, everything about this should be locked in the same vault as the star wars christmas special and left to rot.


5. Hitler, Beast of Berlin (1939):
I wanted to makes sure there is atleast one of the propaganda films of the world war 2 era, and though I would have rathered it be a german one, but well, honestly their films were just so beautifully shot. So that leaves us to deal with american made "boo and hiss" propaganda films, Boo and Hiss propaganda films are sort of like what cult classics Reefer Madness and The Pace That Kills and other drug awareness movies that came off as hilariously bad today fall into, they were designed to make the world hate whatever the thing they were against was, by horrifying it and making you hate it completely, this was adapted into the anti-german sentiment during world war 2 rather well, and though I applaud the attempt, a full 2 years before America was dragged into the war abroad, I have to find the out and out villainy of this film to be funny, it literally stops short of saying Adolf Hitler eats babies and the Nazi Party kick puppies. And though I am rather sure if anyone was going to eat live babies, and kick puppies, I'm sure it would be that wacky Adolf Hitler Un Das Heir Nazi Bunch, I just find all of this so very hilarious. The plot is so thin, basically, an anti-nazi german newspaper owner and his wife get kidnapped and sent to a camp where they're mistreated and tormented like the jews they sympathize with... This film was so pushed on the american people, they was released three times with recuts and adding of more footage of hitler and the SS getting their goosestepping on, twice in the years before America entered the war, and once near the end, each time under a different name and each time no one noticed, whats that tell you about each of the American public?


4. Myra Breckinridge (1970):
And here we go, you couldn't have a list of the worst films of all time, its just a must. Myra Breckinridge was based on a book of the same name by modern master of literature Gore Vidal, however unlike the critically acclaimed book, this film was just a completely twisted and unsettlingly wrong film that did nothing more then confuse and shock its viewers, and it still does to this day infact. The basic plot of this film is this, Myron Breckinridge (played by future film critic and fan of the Gene Shallot stash, Rex Reed) is a young confused man who sees Raquel Welch in One Million BC, and falls so far in love with her that he wants to become her, like literally, so he goes to a doctor and decides to have himself some penis removal surgery, so he can look in the mirror every day and feel up Raquel Welch, and that she'll love it. So Myron gets his surgery on, and walks up as his new self, Myra Breckinridge, who promptly goes completely insane, no, really, becoming the definition of 1960s hotness made Myra completely insane, she goes around rampaging, and at one point raping a young doctor by tying him down to a table and violating him with a fake penis. Combine that with the fact that this is Mae West's final film, and the first acting jobs for both Tom Selleck and Farrah Fawcett, and you just have a giant steaming pile of WTF that there is really just no way of ever being able to fully recover from.


3. Robot Monster (1953):
So when you think of the words "robot" and "monster" and even in their combined form, does a gorilla suit with a diving bell helmet and television antenna come to mind? If not, well then you've never had to witness the spectacle of camp at its best that is Robot Monster, one of Ed Wood's defining films, and one of the most hilariously bad films there has ever been. Here is the plot; The evil alien "Ro-Man" has destroyed all but eight humans on Earth with his death ray, the "Calcinator". Survivors include a family of five, a scientist, and two unseen assistants to the scientist in a spacecraft bound for an orbiting space platform carrying a garrison of human soldiers. All eight have developed an immunity to the death ray as a side effect of an antibiotic serum developed by the scientist. Ro-Man must destroy these survivors before his invasion of Earth is complete. He is waylaid in his mission after developing an attraction towards Alice, the eldest daughter of the family. He refuses to eliminate her, forcing "The Great Guidance", leader of the aliens, to personally finish the unsavory task. Finally the young boy apparently wakes up, revealing the entire film was presumably a dream. Robot Monster is the second cheapest film ever made, clocking in at a budget claimed to be near $16,000.oo, and apparently shot at the same area where the outer areas for the batcave in the 1960s Batman series, and cult television series Gillian's Island filmed their exterior shots, which is literally on the side of the highway in Santa Monica California, which doesn't actually suit well for a movie about the last humans on the planet, and the robot monster who loves one of them... This really is a must watch for horrible film nights.


2. Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959):
Here it is, the film most people would have assumed would be my worst film ever, but it comes up just shy of the bullseye, this film has almost everything you will ever need for a horrible film, confusing casting, confusing story thats written so thin that a wet paper towel could hold more stress then it, and the fact it "starred" Béla Lugosi, 3 years after he had died, seriously, you could drive yourself insane trying to make sense of this film really, its so infamous that the mid 1990s film Ed Wood centered around the filming of it, because it was just as completely insane as the film itself. Here is its plot; The plot of the film is focused on extraterrestrial beings who are seeking to stop humans from creating a doomsday weapon that would destroy the universe. In the course of doing so, the aliens implement "Plan 9", a scheme to resurrect Earth's dead as zombies to get the planet's attention, causing chaos. As many know, I'll always have some love for the film because of it starring my dear friend Maila Nurmi, and the story behind how she came to be in the film is just hilarious in itself, and makes it a giant shining testimony toward the simple fact that no matter how insane it might be, any one's vision can become reality through the world of film. Even if that vision involves using body doubles and old stock footage to make a dead man seem to be in your film, even when he's not alive to avoid starring in your film.


1. The Beast Of Yukka Flats (1961):
And finally we've come to the end of the Shrubbery maze, the final film on our countdown, the worst film of all time, the worst of the worst, the stank of the stank, the greatest pantload of all... Ladies and Gentlemen I give to you, The Beast Of Yukka Flats, this is the most confusing, unsettling, and down right bad film I have ever seen, its just this whole mess from the start to the very end. The film starts with a nude woman getting out of a shower and then these two hands reaching out and choking her as she screams to death. You then get yourself into the film, a russian turncoat is getting off a plane at a secret US airstrip in the Yukka Flats, with him is a briefcase of russia's top secrety secrets about secrets, but a double agent tries to kill him before he can pass the briefcase off to the US Secret Service, this spooks him, he drops the case and runs into the sands of Yukka Flats, where he's exposed to radiation and somehow becomes The Beast, The Beast Of Yukka Flats, and goes on a rampage. This film is seriously a disjointed and completely confusingly bad mess. Plus, the opening scene has nothing at all rest of the film! It was tossed in by the director "because he wanted a nude scene", its seriously insane. Its just completely wrong... so very wrong. Also, its the inspiration for The Incredible Hulk, so go that!


Dishonorable Mentions: Honestly, there are so many I can't count...



------

BC

6 comments:

  1. LMAO.....great list....although I would have put Laserblast closer to number 1. I wanted to find a copy of the movie just so I could destroy it...but I came to the conclusion that I would never be able to hurt it the way that it hurt me.

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  2. Yeah I thought about it, but i figured there were more deserving films to be put in the higher slots, so it had to found out the middle, seriously making lists like this is a pain in the ass for me because I just don't know what to put were sometimes.

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  3. U have to believveee we are magiicccc nothing can stand in our wayyyy:) lol

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    ~Pamela who doesn't have an account yet:)

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  5. Damn you...I got I bought a vampire motorcycle to see for myself just how bad it was...now I am scarred for life...

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  6. Haha!! Did you really Evil Doctor Porkchop? If its a dvd can you rip it for me? I lost my copy of it years ago and can't seem to find a new one on the net. Give me a yell and we can talk about like what quality to rip it at and stuff yo, maybe do a high quality one and put it on Cinemaggedon or something....

    ReplyDelete