Bad Movie Night #11 - SUPERHEROES

1. Fantastic Four

 A friend of my brother-in-law's bought a bootleg DVD of the 2005 'Fantastic Four' overseas and was quite disappointed to bring it home and find out it was the unreleased 1994 film of the same title wrapped in the newer, flashier film's artwork. He gave it to my brother-in-law who gave it to me and now I've watched it twice. To be honest I don't really care that much for superhero movies but this movie is pretty fun. It is definitely a bad movie, but they put a lot of effort into it for it to be swept under the rug before getting a proper release. From what I understand, it was made for a low to modest budget and they were prepared for a big release and then someone made the decision to shelf the movie. I guess the producer or whoever owned the rights never actually planned to release it but they wanted to keep the rights so they made a film that would never be seen and then a few years later bootlegged copies started showing up around the world.
Anyway, it is a fairly straightforward comic book movie - some scientists have an accident that gives them powers and they have to fight a bunch of bad guys. There are some cool effects, like the costume for the Thing and some interesting characters, like a little leprechaun guy that steals jewels. It is by no means a good movie, but I'd say it is probably just as entertaining as most of the other comic movies made today.

2. The Death Of "Superman Lives": What Happened?

'The Death Of "Superman Lives": What Happened?' was not a bad movie at all. It was a fascinating documentary about the unreleased Tim Burton film starring Nicolas Cage. Back in the 90's, after Tim Burton revolutionized the superhero movie format with his 'Batman' movies, he was picked to direct a Superman movie that would be a lot darker than the Richard Donner 'Superman' franchise. After a legal battles and clashing egos tore that project to shreds, all that was left was curious pictures of Nicolas Cage in a weird Superman costume and some crazy rumors about what happened. All of the production stills and notes and drawings looked amazing, and I think this could have been a great movie if they had went with it. Unfortunately, the world will never know.

3. Flash Gordon

'Flash Gordon' is a classic. It is a campy throwback to 60's style superhero shows. It stars Sam Jones as "Flash", a football player whose plane gets hit by a meteor causing him to crash land on the property of a scientist who built a spaceship to investigate why the moon is getting closer to the earth. Flash ends up boarding the ship and flying to the planet Mongo where he is captured by the evil Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow). Chaos ensues and it is up to Flash to save the world. At the end of the movie they put a question mark after 'The End', indicating there'd be a sequel. While there was never a direct sequel, it did spawn a porn parody, 'Flesh Gordon' which actually did get a sequel, 'Flesh Gordon Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders'. Supposedly a remake or reboot of 'Flash Gordon' is in the works now.

Bad Movie Night #10 - ROBOTS

1. Robot Wars

From the bowels of Full Moon Films' filmography, 'Robot Wars' was so bad that it was hard to even make fun of. I tried to pay attention but it really was difficult. What I gathered was that there was some sort of military base in the future that let people ride on giant robots that occasionally underwent attack simulations. One of those attacks happened to be the real deal, but the pilot got the people through it safely only to be ridiculed for conducting a drill that seemed unsafe. The pilot, a suave, Scott Valentine impersonator, immediately fell for Barbara Crampton when she and her horny reporter-on-vacation friend belittled his pilot skills and punched him in the face. The pilot also didn't get along with his captain and was relieved of his duty for a while but that didn't seem to matter. Then he went to the desert and killed some random people. He had a friend/co-pilot who seemed to be a little on the slow side who helped him out. The two of them figured out that the stereotypical Asian guys who wanted to buy a robot were in league with the bad guys from some other corporation and they wanted to do something to someone or something. I don't know. I was really trying to stay with it but it was just so bad. To sum up the ending, the pilot and his friend and Barbara Crampton found an old robot that still worked and apparently they were able to defeat the Asian dude in his robot that he stole. They don't really show the end of the fight though, they just said they won, so I guess they must have. I felt bad for Barbara Crampton for being part of this.

2. Clash of the Titans

Ray Harryhausen never made anything bad. His creature effects are still some of the coolest that have ever appeared on screen. That said, 'Clash of the Titans' isn't necessarily a good movie. Sure, it is a classic, but it is still pretty bad. Made 18 years after 'Jason and the Argonauts', the two movies look like they could've been made one right after the other. Oh well, that doesn't matter. It is still a very entertaining movie. I won't go into the details about the plot. If you want to know, either go watch the movie (or the remake) or, better yet, go read up on Greek mythology. 'Clash of the Titans' boasts an all star cast including Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, and several other big names. Part of me feels bad for calling it a bad movie, but then there is a part of me that doesn't care about that first part.

Bad Movie Night #9 - BABIES

1. The Baby

With all the babies being born into the Bad Movie Club these days, it only made sense to do a Baby themed bad movie night. And what better way to start off a baby themed night than with the movie 'The Baby'? It doesn't get much weirder than 'The Baby'. A social worker goes to visit a family and discovers a man in his 20's with the mental capacity and physical limitations of an infant. He is kept in diapers and a crib and regularly molested by his sisters. His mom throws a party for him and several adults show up and nobody seems perturbed by the fact that he is an overgrown man-baby in one of the most bizarre families ever. Oh well, I guess it was the 70's... The ending was pretty hilarious. Overall I couldn't really call 'The Baby' a bad movie, just... different. I was transfixed. It was impossible to take my eyes off the screen, and I think everyone else felt about the same. It was a good movie that left me feeling dirty afterwards.

2. Won Ton Baby

We've sunk to new lows with 'Won Ton Baby'. A guy who may or may not have been Elvis has sex with a prostitute and she gives birth to a baby girl. Several years later, her daughter (with the absolute worst fake Chinese accent ever) seems pregnant, but is really just carrying her parasitic twin brother. The twin hatches and begins killing and having sex with everything it can. That is pretty much the gist of it. It actually sounds better than it was. It had some funny parts but most of all it was just dumb. I think it went over pretty well with the Bad Movie Club though, and it was definitely worthy of a bad movie night!

3. The Suckling

The final baby-themed movie of the evening was 'The Suckling'. A coat-hanger abortion in a brothel gets flushed down the toilet and meets up with some radioactive waste and I'm pretty sure you can guess what happens next. The fetus becomes a monster and the placenta becomes a thick, gooey wall that envelops the brothel and holds everyone inside hostage while the monster-fetus goes on a killing spree. Well, it may have been a better movie if it was more of a killing spree. What actually happened was a whole lot of arguing while the creepy little creature just looked menacingly around and scared a few people. It wasn't what most people would call a good movie, but then that is why we have bad movie nights!

Bad Movie Night #8 - SEX

1. Malibu High

As painful as it was for me to miss a bad movie night, I wasn't able to get to this one. Having a two week old baby at home makes it hard to do much of anything. However, I was able to watch remotely, which counts for something I guess. So while I can't speak to the event itself (I'm sure it was a blast - it was a pool party too!), I can say for sure that 'Malibu High' was a wonderfully bad movie! It was about a girl in high school who went from a fairly decent student to a drug-dealing prostitute assassin in very little time after her boyfriend left her. It was a pretty fun movie, with a funny ending. I enjoyed it.

2. Ultrachrist!

'Ultrachrist!' may have been one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was certainly one of the worst ever shown at a bad movie night! I don't even remember most of what happened, but I remember being somewhat surprised by how bad it was. Basically, Jesus gets sent back to Earth to bring goodness back, and nobody on Earth really cares or wants him back or believes him. So he decides to wear a superhero costume and take on bad head first. It had a very amateur feeling, which is fine, but I think it was a little more impressed with itself than I was.

Bad Movie Night #7 - FITNESS

1. Killer Workout

The seventh Bad Movie Club bad movie night theme was Fitness, and we got the ball rolling hard and fast with David A. Prior's 'Killer Workout' (AKA 'Aerobicide'). After losing her twin sister Valerie in a terrible tanning accident, Rhonda becomes the owner of Rhonda's Workout, a gym where folks just keep dancercising even though people keep dropping dead all around them. An undercover detective (Ted Prior) joins the gym to try to get to the bottom of the murders but is unable to stop the bloodbath before it is too late. 'Killer Workout' is a classic 80's slasher that is absolutely worth seeing. Where else can you see a guy get stabbed in the leg with a rake and then roundhouse kick his attacker into a swimming pool?

2. Body Melt

The first phase is hallucinogenic... the second phase is glandular... and the third phase is...

By no stretch of my imagination is 'Body Melt' anything close to being a bad movie, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to show it to a captive audience! This Australian oddity is so amazing and bizarre that it defies categorization. Suffice to say it is a spectacle that everyone should be so lucky to witness. A corporation called Vimuville produces a new type of vitamin guaranteed to make you healthier and they test it out on the population of a cul-de-sac. The problem is that the vitamins make people freak out and makes their bodies do all sorts of disgusting things. I won't spoil it any more than that, but I will suggest that everyone see this movie right away. I can't call it a bad movie, so in that sense it didn't really work for Bad Movie Night, but it was totally worth it.

3. Death Spa

Michael Fischa directed three movies in 1989 - 'My Mom's a Werewolf', 'Crack House', and 'Death Spa'. Regretfully, I haven't seen 'Crack House', but of the two I have seen, I'd say 1989 was a pretty great year for Fischa. Aside from the fact that 'Death Spa' (AKA 'Witch Bitch') has a decidedly supernatural story line, it is very similar to 'Killer Workout' which was released one year prior (not that I'm complaining - I love them both - it just seems odd). The owner of Michael's Health Spa is still distraught after the suicide death of his wife, and he blames his brother-in-law David for a series of deaths that have occurred in the gym. The rest is a pretty fantastic blend of 80's workout scenes, bizarre and gory deaths, exploding heads and spectral electrocutions. It was the perfect end to an awesome night of (mostly) bad movies, and I don't know about you but now I feel like hitting the gym!

Bad Movie Club #6 - KILLER MICE

1. Gnaw: Food of the Gods Part 2

From the director of 'Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe', comes this unforgivably awful sequel (in name only) to 'Food of the Gods'. 'Food of the Gods 2' or 'Gnaw' was the first movie in the Bad Movie Club's sixth Bad Movie Night, and calling it bad is putting it nicely. The film is most notable for featuring a child named Bobby who grew to gigantic size after his teacher dosed him with an experimental growth hormone. Unfortunately Bobby wasn't in the movie for very long, because he was hilarious. The real plot of the movie involves animal rights activists who smash up a vivisection laboratory and unwittingly release giant rats that have been given the same growth hormone as Bobby. Those rats naturally go ballistic and start eating everything and everyone in their way. Was 'Food of the Gods 2' terrible? Yes. Was it entertaining? Absolutely.

2. Rodentz

'Rodentz' (AKA 'Altered Species') was the second terrible movie in our sixth Bad Movie Night. It featured a scientist looking for a cure for cancer but finding some green slop that his assistant flushed down the sink. The substance leaked through rusty pipes in the basement and found its way to some rats who gobbled it up and turned into monstrous beasts. Meanwhile, the scientist's assistant invited some friends over to party in the lab, and they inevitably became giant rat food. 'Rodentz' is a super cheesy giant rodent film perfect for a bad movie night.

3. Rats: Night of Terror

Bruno Mattei's post-apocalyptic masterpiece, 'Rats: Night of Terror' is a highly entertaining pile of garbage about survivors of a nuclear holocaust who take refuge in a dreary abandoned warehouse filled with mutilated corpses and mutated giant rats. The promise of food is enough to make them stay, even with dead bodies strewn all over the place. This movie is terrible, but well worth the watch (the twist at the end is just ridiculous). Its also always good to see Geretta Geretta ('Demons'). 'Rats: Night of Terror' was the fitting end to a wonderful night of truly terrible movies.