No.10 Butchered – 2010
A critic called this “Horror in the vein of the classics!” and this quote is prominently displayed on the poster. However, this line could mean anything. The same story as the classics? The same feel as the classics? I can say that a taco is in the same vein as a hamburger and all that would really mean is that I’m retarded.
The actors in this film are playing recently graduated high school students, which would work if the storyline brought up the fact that they’d all failed junior year eight times. The graduates all go to an island to set up tents, throw footballs, and reminisce when they’re attacked by a large, bald man in a prison outfit. They’re then killed off in a number of uninspired ways. They even kill off one girl three times, just to show that they really don’t care about you, audience.
The best part of the entire film is that it sets up for a sequel. This would mean that someone was so assured that this movie would be the bomb that they said “People are definitely going to want another Butchered! Has anyone seen my cerebral cortex? I may have dropped it.” I can think of a variety of things that I’d want more than a sequel to Butchered and most of them can be found in the “Cause Of Accident” forms in an Intensive Care center.
No.9 Leprechaun: In The Hood – 2000
They’d just sent the Leprechaun into outer space. I’m sure the question you’re all asking yourselves is “How do you top outer space?” Well, the people behind the Leprechaun franchise knew that only one thing could top the entire damn galaxy.
The Hood. Twice.
There are two straight movies of the Leprechaun attacking the ‘hood, and I apologize for just creating half of the whitest sentence of all time. It’s hard to make this concept into anything remotely watchable and it seems like the cast and crew realized this.
The jokes are ripped straight out of a eulogy for the film. No one fairs worse than Ice T, who looks like he’s dressed for a voodoo priest’s wedding. At one point, Ice T says, “Get these fucking losers out” and I almost imagine that he’s referring to the other actors.
I don’t know how a studio head gets to the point where they’d greenlight Leprechaun: In The Hood, but I imagine that it’s the last step before telling your employees that the doors are locked and that the petroleum drums will light up in five minutes.
No.8 Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid – 2004
It’s called Anacondas, conceptualized by the tried-and-true method of multiplying something or turning it plural to make it worthwhile to see – again. With that kind of logic, had The Empire Strikes Back been titled More Star Wars, it would still be in theaters.
I could talk about the acting in this movie or the bad looking snakes or the lack of drive in the story, but I’ll focus on one line that encapsulates just how much I hate this thing instead.
At a certain point in Anacondas, the characters are forced to build shelters made of branches and plant parts since the weather forecast is leaning toward “Suck it.” While two people are building one, the black comic relief character walks by and says, “Man, do that in my neighborhood, that’s ya ass.” It’s a line that’s so stereotypically black that I’m surprised it wasn’t followed with a quick “DY-NO-MITE!”
I can only imagine what the screenwriter was thinking when that combination of words came into his head.
Okay, comic relief black guy hasn’t said anything in a while. Shit. What to do? Well, he’s black and black people come from the ‘hood, I guess. I’ve never been there, but that episode of The Wire made it look pretty terrible. Yeah. In the midst of a fucking anaconda attack, he’ll make a funny remark about the violent nature of the neighborhood he grew up in. I know cultures! Snoop doggy Dogg! Am I right, playa? You were wrong, father! That Creative Writing major is coming in handy. Word!
No.7 Night Of The Lepus – 1972
Watching Night Of The Lepus is the equivalent of finding out that Santa Claus is real, but he’s been using your childhood soccer trophies as dildos. Also, he’s your real father. Surprise, you’re adopted. Night Of the Lepus!
It takes a certain kind of bad film to make me question the effectiveness of genocides, but Night Of The Lepus takes the cake in the “We’re Not Sorry For What We’ve Done” department.
The film is about killer rabbits, and Janet Leigh, star of Psycho, is in it. This is the sadness equivalent of watching a 90-year-old man attempt to climb a slide. Also, Lepus tries to make a message of ecology and conservation, but I’m not even sure that the crew of Night Of The Lepus understood how to use silverware, much less their own equipment. I would call this film a failure, but I feel like the word “failure” would want to punch me for the embarrassment.
No.6 Glass Trap – 2005
A lot of these films are noteworthy for taking the “special” out of “special effects,” and Glass Trap is the Number 1 offender. This movie is the kind of thing that editing software has nightmares about. Glass Trap is Adobe After Effect’s 9/11.
It’s a movie about dog-size ants invading a skyscraper, and since most of the ants look like weird Legos, Glass Trap comes off like one long commercial for toys to buy for your brain-damaged, psychopathic child. Every actor in the film looks like he or she has wandered off the set of an infomercial and are trying desperately to make their way back to it.
You would think that a movie like this could only be created when the angry god finds out that the virgin sacrificed to him was impure, but it was actually made by Fred Olen Ray. Ray has directed 123 films, and they all can’t be as terrible as Glass Trap, because, if they were, the whole country would have come around on Capital Punishment decades ago.
Out of 123 films though, Ray has made 18 with the word “bikini” in the title since 1995. That’s about one bikini movie a year. How magnificent is Fred Olen Ray? This man has dedicated a significant portion of his life to one of the skimpiest outfits ever invented. Thus I propose a charity to help fund this bikini film trend. I call it the “Fred Olen Ray Boner Foundation.” Donations accepted constantly and forever.
No.5 Birdemic: Shock And Terror – 2010
I understand that this film, for the most part, is a joke. I mean that in as many ways as you can interpret it. However, the film’s jokes are so unfunny that Birdemic seems like its poking fun at the concept of humor itself. Satire truly comes full circle with Birdemic: Shock And Terror. Also, it sucks.
The biggest problem with the film is that The Birds has already been made, and no matter how many times the winged abominations in Birdemic spit acid or explode on impact, it can’t change the fact that the “birds attack” genre has been all but covered by a single film for the past 50 years.
This is the kind of movie that one guy buys for the sole purpose of showing other people. Watching Birdemic by yourself can drastically decrease serotonin levels, and unless you have more backs willing to support the weight of its awfulness, you might as well begin your suicide note now. However, considering how much Birdemic sucks at even being a humorous type of schlock, having other people around when it’s on simply makes you a bigger target for gang violence. I’m pretty sure, somewhere, a college kid is showing Birdemic to his friends and laughing about how hilarious it is and I’m absolutely sure that somewhere else, another group of that kid’s friends are plotting to kill him.
No.4 Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla – 1952
Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla is a comedy/horror film that includes none of the genres that I just mentioned. Bela Lugosi participated in a lot of bad films, but he might as well have been paid to eat sand on camera rather than feature in this crap. Calling something “flawed” implies that there was good intent behind it from the start, but the makers of Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, or MEH in acronym form, seem to have been trying to summon one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and simply settled when a film canister rolled out of the portal.
The jokes in this film range from “fat woman gets a crush on skinny guy” to “gorilla acting stupid,” and they all have the effect of your parents getting a divorce. The film stars Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, who are obviously used in futility to recapture the magic of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy team. Sammy Petrillo was an actor whose entire claim to fame was his Jerry Lewis impersonation, and it’s absolutely stunning. You’d swear that he was wearing Jerry Lewis’ skin! Wait. Someone call Jerry Lewis. The phones are dead, you say? Oh… God…
No.3 House Of The Dead – 2003
This film was based loosely around the arcade shooter, and when I say “loosely,” I mean it. Either that or I forgot the level where the tiny Asian girl in tights roundhouse-kicked zombies in a graveyard. Now, while I could critique the films utter disdain for everything, and make snide remarks about Uwe Boll’s directing skill, I’m simply give you my treatise with this:
Uwe Boll makes movies like Adolf Hitler treated the Jewish people.
He tries to utterly annihilate them.
No.2 Manos: The Hands Of Fate – 1966
If there is one horror film that has been consistently ridiculed through time, it’s Manos: The Hands Of Fate. This work is a classic example of when not enough Yeah! meets too much Duhh. It’s uncompromisingly dull and stupid. If terrorists truly wanted to scare us, they’d simply force hostages to watch copies of Manos until their heads exploded. And if any film was going to blow up the human cranium, it would be Manos.
I could spend hours racking my brain, trying to come up with frustrated metaphors for why Manos sucks so bad, but I get the feeling that that’s what Manos would want me to do. To “piece of shit” this hard, you really have to be aiming at the soul of a person. (That’s right. I turned “piece of shit” into a verb. When dealing with Manos: The Hands Of Fate, you must ignore the normal laws of grammar and physics and play by the rules of a more spiritual realm.)
An early review called this film “a brave experiment,” and I can agree with it. Associating yourself with Manos in any positive way is like entering a bear cave, armed with only nakedness and a spear made of fresh meat. The director and cast apparently hurried away from the premiere of the film after seeing the reception. Legend has it is that they’re still running.
No.1 Night Of A 1000 Cats – 1972
I picked up this movie while at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and I’m convinced that the only reason I found it is because a janitor wasn’t afraid to dip his hands in a toilet. The film treats cinematography and dialogue like an afterthought, and I remain convinced that there was never a second take. There probably wasn’t a first take either, and what we see in the finished product is actually poor rehearsal footage. And if you go into Night expecting to see 1000 cats, you’ll be disappointed about that too. There are maybe 50 of them at the most, so calling this Night Of A 1000 Cats is like filing a rape case whenever you see someone with a bad mustache.
Nothing works in this movie. In the first few minutes, Hugo, the antagonist, rides on horses with his lady to the ocean water. He takes his horse into the waves and it becomes very obvious that the horse fucking hates this. After only a few seconds of the most un-romantic thing ever done on horseback (which says quite a lot), Hugo steers his animal out of the water. I don’t know if the director and editor had to fill a specific running time or if they felt bad because they let the director’s son operate the camera on this shot, but it’s baffling that they’d leave in a scene that only exists to point out the fact that at one time, a horse was furious.
There’s no real plot in Night, as Hugo simply kidnaps women until one escapes. Hugo eventually gets injured and is eaten by his own cats. This is less poetic justice and more of an obligatory necessity, as there’s really no other way to end a movie this dumb.
Daniel Dockery is actually a big fan of horror movies, but he likes hate too. See his work here
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt0lAyyX4OE
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