November 29th, 2007
Hanging by a thread
I’ve seen some terrible films (including 17 of these).
I’ve even enjoyed some terrible films.
I think I’ve done my time, had my fill and paid my duty back three times over.
Normally, I like to ask people to show me things I should see. Now I’m begging you, tell me what not to watch.
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
Plan 9 From Outerspace
no one I’ve met has ever made it entirely through the movie more than once…
most don’t even make it through an entire time.
Bella Lugosi died during the making of the film, so they have some guy walking around the graveyard with his arm over his face so you can’t tell it’s not Lugosi…
People tripping over cardboard gravestones, knocking down props, clearly visible strings on the UFOs and overly dramatic acting and narration…
Absolutely the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was WAY better than Plan 9
Alas I’ve seen Plan 9 and I can say, at the very least, it was good for one thing – Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.
I can’t really think of any terrible films right now. When I think of an obvious lack of suspended disbelief, my mind jumps immediately to a rather mediocre production of To Kill a Mockingbird that I saw several weeks ago. In general, the acting and the set were good; the kids who played Scout and Jem were rather wonderful, but the adult Scout, the narrator? Her voice grated on the ears. It was impossible to focus on the play. Every time she started talking, I just wanted to get up and leave. It’s really depressing how one bad actor can ruin an entire production.
I’m very surprised- I’ve only seen five of the bottom 100 in their entirety. The problem, I think, is that there are so many recent bad movies on there. Where is Syngenor? Highlaner 2?
Recommendations of movies to not watch fall into two categories. The first is the “Don’t watch this, it’ll warp your mind” group. In actuality, by telling you to not watch this movie, the reviewer secretly (or not so secretly) is hoping that you do. Anti-recommendations of this type typically end with the phrase “You have been warned”.
In this category, I strongly recommend that you not watch “Meet the Feebles” by Peter Jackson. It’s a sex-drugs-and-violence pastiche of the Muppet Show. Just when you think this movie can’t get any more disgusting, it does. Really, unless you’re a masochist, stay away from this movie. You have been warned.
The second category consists of those movies which simply aren’t worth watching. Personally, I recommend that you stay away from “The Matrix”. I never got the point of that movie. The plot wasn’t anything new. The special effects were nice for the most part (except the obviously CGI killer robots), but again nothing to write home about, and for the love of Xemu if you’re in the mood for a wire stunt kung fu movie, at least watch a Chinese one where they know how to do wire stunt kung fu action scenes well. I think that’s what killed the movie for me- well, that and the story.
There may be a third category that falls between the two: the fatally flawed movie. This is a movie that has high potential, and you want to like it, but in the end there’s a fatal flaw that breaks your heart. I can’t think of any movie examples, but in comic books I’d go with “Cerebus the Aardvark”.
I didn’t find Plan 9 that bad, personally. I’d take another shot of Plan 9 over the Matrix any day.
‘Meet The Feebles’ is great, as are Mr Jackson’s other fine early offerings (I’m more than partial to ‘Braindead’).
I didn’t mind the first Matrix film so much – It was just a spruced-up retelling of a classic Twilight Zone type twist driven story – but the other two were just awful.
As for the Aardvark… I have Dave Sim’s home address here on my desk. Someone suggested that he’d like The Flowfield Unity and that I should send him a copy of it in print… I say, if he likes it he’d buy a copy himself.
I for one have made it through Plan 9 TWICE and am keeping on my computer to watch again the next time I’m bored.
Plan 9 gets a bad rap because it’s the most WELL KNOWN bad movie, not because it’s actually the worst. Many people who’ve seen other Ed Wood films would argue Glen or Glenda is worse (I think it’s about evenly matched), and any MST3K aficionado can toss out 20 or 30 bad movies which are at least as bad. The Crawling Eye is fairly bad, The Creeping Terror has a monster that looks like a pile of carpets, Manos: the Hands of Fate is incomprehensible and intolerable (if I hadn’t been so mesmerized by how awful it was I wouldn’t have even made it through the MST3k treatment), and just the other day I saw one with the title that says it all: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.
All that said, I myself am far less critical of cheap bad movies than I am of big-budget Hollywood crap, and cash-grabbing sequels to successful films. I took to reviewing them on my blog, and while I’ve only done a few, I have some fine recommendations for films to avoid (though no one would have actually watched them anyway): Doctor Dolittle Three, The NeverEnding Story Part Three, Inspector Gadget Two, and Raw Deal (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger). See my blog for more full reviews and in most cases full summaries on these terrible movies. I’m most critical of romantic comedies and pandering family films: The Pacifier (starring Vin Diesel), RV, Stepmom (THIS MOVIE MAKES PLAN 9 LOOK LIKE CITIZEN KANE), and Runaway Bride (Julia Roberts may be the Devil).
Now the Matrix on the other hand, that I liked. But its sequels made me want to murder the Wachowski brothers.
I applaud you sir
I’ve made it through the movie 1 1/2 times and I only keep the tape to torture other people.
Manos: the Hands of Fate! That was my first thought. Oooooh, I shudder to think about it. The worst movie ever made, I’m quite certain.
Anyone have a dl link for Plan 9? I’ve actually never even heard of it until now, but it looks like something I might enjoy (or enjoy showing in a group).
Ah, speaking of showing things in a group, there’s one more movie I’d recommend avoiding (though partly in Joseph Hewitt’s first catagory, but only in large groups): Urotsukidôji: Legend of the Overfiend. This is the FIRST (I think anyway) movie in the genre of twisted Japanese dark tentacle/monster/daemon hentai. Truly disturbing stuff, but hilarious if watched with the right group at the right party. But mostly, it’s safer to just stay away from it.
“Doctor Dolittle Three, The NeverEnding Story Part Three, Inspector Gadget Two, and Raw Deal”
Don’t ever used that type of language here…
…seriously, did you get counseling for that?
By the time I got to the NES3 review I had added a safety warning:
WARNING: WATCHING MOVIES REVIEWED ON THIS BLOG MAY RESULT IN INJURY OR DEATH. THE GREAT JOE BIVINS IS A PROFESSIONAL MOVIE WATCHER AND HAS TAKEN ALL POSSIBLE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS TO BRING YOU THIS REVIEW. NO GOOD CAN COME FROM WATCHING THESE MOVIES YOURSELF. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
I would hate to cause someone to be horribly psychologically scarred by imitating my movie reviewing. Those movies are seriously dangerous.
You should never, ever under any circumstances watch “the company of wolves”. It’ll make you wanna drink bleach… Neither should you be tempted to watch “Mimic 2″. “Mimic 1″, yes. “Mimic 2″…. not even with a gun pointed at your head.
Other than that, I’m a sucker for horror films. Even the ones where the monster is clearly made of putty.
I’m with you on this. I can quite happily watch a film that has poor special effects… I can even watch one that has poor acting… but I can’t watch a film that has poor ideas;
Mimic 2 – I rest my case.
Aw, see there are movies I like that everyone else considers awful so I’m stuck. I like most of the movies I see at least a little, I *try* to like the movie, and usually succeed or at least pick out what it is I don’t like.
I’m a sucker for a costume piece, though romances make me want to strangle the characters most of the time.
Dangerous Liaisons… the one with John Malkovich… that’s not a bad compromise.
I almost always watch a film through to the end. I’m a real optimist when it comes to that… ‘it might pull it back’… that said, I did walk out of the cinema for The Day After Tomorrow.
Yeah I’m like that. I’ve only ever walked out of ‘The Prestige’. God, I hated that movie. It had SO MUCH potential, and then there was just gratuitous gore and revenge. ;_;
Don’t watch network news.
I prefer E! news.
Britney might be pregnant again.
I read about that today… she’s turned out great don’t you think? It’s like she’s an advocate for child stardom.
Still, at least she can replace the other one if she wants. Too harsh?
Wild, Wild West. The TV show rocked, and the movie cast is great. Yet it sucks.
I like both.
Yeah! Will Smith is DA BOMB!
Actually I am aaaall about Kevin Kline as Artemus. Mrowr.
Ah hahahahahaha! Well, it’s true, he pulled it off rather well.
Sometimes, I’d like Will Smith not to release a movie theme tune as a record. WWW is one of those cases.
Oh, I thought of a movie I absolutely despised! The DaVinci Code! Like many people here, I generally sit through a movie to the end, no matter how horrible it is, but in this case, I couldn’t make it. I went and did trig homework instead.
Whenever a thread about films to avoid comes up I have to take the opportunity to warn people off one in particular: The Village. M Night Shyamalanaman had already been getting worse, but nothing in Signs prepared me for the terrible dialogue, appalling acting from some pretty good actors, and the least scary monster in a mainstream Hollywood film.
The worst thing about it is that a reveal in the last minute of the film changes everything to the extent that everything up to that point had in fact been acted and scripted perfectly for what was actually going on, but they clearly didn’t realise that that doesn’t forgive them for wanting you to sit through two hours of what seemed to be the worst-made thing ever. The fact that it’s actually incredibly clever just makes it even worse that you’ve not enjoyed the last two hours of film.
Ah, the village. That’s another movie that you need to be in a certain atmosphere to properly enjoy. I must say, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the storyline, probably because it followed the plot of a book that I had read several years previously almost exactly.
I’m not convinced said atmosphere for enjoying that film exists.
It’s an interesting test to see which M Night Shyamalan movie people think is the first bad one he made. Most everyone was on board for the Sixth Sense, people tend to forget about Unbreakable, then on Signs there’s a pretty major drop-off, then by the Village just about everyone has crossed the line from fan to hater. Some of them come back for Lady in the Water. Me, I didn’t like Signs but thought the Village was pretty alright.
There’s a proper atmosphere for enjoying any film. In this case, it consists of, “Hey, isn’t this exactly like that book we all read when we were about ten? Yeah, I thought so! Okay, this is-OMG THE WOLFMAN!” And then you wait for something to be scary/original and it never comes. And then you make jokes about it for about a month after seeing the film. It works.
I stand corrected.
I don’t really tend to watch crap movies.
Only movie I have every walked out of was Duece Bigalo-Male Gigalo.
That was just stupid.
Some of you are clearly idiots with a taste for self-harm. I can lend you a knife if you feel so strongly about scarring yourself.
/tic\