MSTable movies: D

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DAD (1989)
If MST3K does any movie with Jack Lemmon, this is the one. I had to live through this in Sophomore English two years back. WARNING: Watching this coupled with the melodrama "I Never Sang for my Father" and "The Elephant Man" and other struggle-death related things can cause massive depression.

Jack Lemmon plays Jake Tremont, a character of 78, when Lemmon was in his 60's. At first, I thought it to be a copy of "I Never Sang for my Father," although John Tremont's, the main character's, mother doesn't die in it. See Jack Lemmon go insane in a hospital bed when the doctors tell him he has a rare form of cancer! Riffing of this scene will mask you from the effects of it. Olympia Dukakis plays the mother who actually lives! (If you read "I Never Sang for my Father," you'd know what I mean!)

There are a few scenes that will soothe you from the stress, like Jake actually recovering temporarily. The cancer then returns, and he ends up dying.

Russell Christiansen, russell@cyberoak.com
DANGEROUS GROUND (1997) Entertainment/New Line Cinema
It stared Ice Cube as a man in Africa searching for his lost brother. [...] It was so bad that I didn't even stay to see the ending. From what I saw Ice Cube Played a punk, he was stuck up for his money and he was car jacked. All I could think of was this poor film. From my stand point all of the acting was bad and the movie was poorly directed.
elf_pub@email.rutgers.edu
DANTE'S PEAK (1997) Universal
you could forgive this movie's stupidity if it wasn't so immensely boring. A volcano blows up, but hardly kills anyone. And it takes an hour of mind-numbing "character development" to get to the damn eruption, by which point you really want these boring assholes to bite it so there'll be some entertainment value. there ain't.
Vlady Pildysh, vpildysh@ucla.edu

Rebuttal

DARK AGE (1987)
In this strange little Jaws ripoff, a giant crocodile begins eating Australians, but apparently he means well. Cheesy plot devices include a race to rescue the crocodile after he is captured by evil poachers out to avenge their buddy and (oh no) old, overweight aborigines spouting pseudo-english wisdom. A serious threat to the intelligence, but could be fun if brutally ripped to shreds.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
DARK STAR (1973) Liberty Home Video
this movie is about these guy from earth who travel around and destroy unstable planets in the ship DARK STAR this movie is so lame i got it for .99 cents and my video store anyway half way through the movie this alien gets on board that looks like a beachball and tears the place up this is the kind of movie that when you don't see the strings holding the ship you wonder why this one has enough to win mst3k an OSCAR SO MIKE,CROW,&TOM DO THE FREAKIN' MOVIE
rOnAld clArkE III, themoopsjerry@worldnet.att.net

I have heard (and I can't recall exactly where) that this was John Carpenter's grad school project at USC or UCLA's film school. In those lights, it's still pretty damn bad. Not the deepest hurting imaginable, but the cheesy computer and the beach ball alien make up for it.

Dagonet, dagonet@oaktree.net
DARK UNIVERSE (1993)
My god!!! What a piece of crap. This is a movie where orange sponge is mutating swamp life and making animals bleed Cheese Whiz!!! Sporting computer effects that make you wish they had used a Vic 20 and actors that are stiff enough to drive nails through, this has to be the worst movie out today. And the best part is, it's not that old. Also, watch for the wanna-be alien queen in the film. This creature survives burning up in the atmosphere only to be burned to death by a torch. Yes, this one is definetly a nominee for the Doorstop of the year award.
mediapll@nbnet.nb.ca
DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1962) Security Pictures Ltd.
A 1962 Horror Science-Fiction "classic" based on a novel by John Windham (by the same title). In short, a terrific meteor shower sprays the planet, and most of the world's poulation witnessing the event is blinded. At the same time, a strange plant called a Triffid (hence the title) undergoes a horrifying mutation due to the cosmic radiation. Around the world, Triffids grow to enormous size, aquire mobility, and march on civilization, stinging their sightless victims and feeding on their remains. (Sounds great, huh?) The special effects are ridiculously bad, as is most of the dialouge. Produced by Philip Yordan, the film stars Howard Keel and Nicole Maurey.

My friend found this movie in the local video store bargain-bin. The original retail price was $19.99, but it was sold for $4.88. This definately makes for a night of fun, and I've actually heard that a group in Oswego, IL used this movie as the feature for their own MST mimic that was filmed in a local tv studio. Enjoy!

Ben Kobulnicky, benak@fnal.gov

[Editor's note: It was rumored that this was being considered for use on MST3K when it first moved to the Sci-Fi Channel, but nothing about it has been heard since.]

DEAD SPACE (1991)
This one stars Marc Singer, so you know you're in trouble from the get-go. Singer and his pal, a cute robot ("cute" as in the talking motorcycle in Warrior of the Lost World) help save a bunch of wimpy scientists, most of whom appear to be almost pushing puberty, from a massive, mildly impressive and phenomenally derivative monster. (Remember the Queen from Aliens? That's EXACTLY what it looks like.) We know it's totally and irredeemably evil when it destroy's Singer's robot. And let's not forget gratuitous sex! I don't remember if he was producer or executive producer or what, but somehow Roger Corman was involved.
Brian Reubelt, reub6707@uwwvax.uww.edu
THE DEADLY GAME (1993) USA channel (?)
Yet another take on The Most Dangerous Game, this time set on a tropical island, with the psycho chasing a young couple. Standing in for the lush tropical forest is Latourell Falls, Oregon. Viewers familiar with the Latourell area will notice that various shots pieced together in the cliff-climbing sequences are actually from places up to a mile apart. Did I mention there's rock climbing?
THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957) Universal Pictures
Giant supersonic Mantis threatens the world...bla blah blah. Very Cheesy.
gydweli@aol.com

[Editor's note: Recently used on MST3K, episode 804. Probably not for any reason to do with this page, though one can dream...]

DEADLY SPYGAMES (1989) Sell Pictures Inc.
...directed and played by the one and only Jack M. Sell (excuse my poor english but i'm french). My family and I watched this movie and we are unanimous: this is the worst movie we have never seen!!!!!!! Worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space! We found approximatly 180 mistakes of all kinds! I don't understand why, after consulting many sites on bad movies, this one is not included. Check it out! You won't be disappointed!
Christian Boissinot, cboissinot@cegep-fxg.qc.ca
DEADLY WEAPON (1989)
One afternoon while watching HBO I saw the single worst movie of my life. It all settles a loner kid whose dad beats him and his dog, he rides around a rinky-dink town on a beater of a bicycle, and gets picked on by the local bullies, until he finds a government-owned experimental laser gun which he uses to toast his dad with. A beautiful girl falls for him and the movie follows their exploits with the government and such and has the worst scripting, acting, directing, and special-effects I have seen.
Dana George, danag@mail.fidalgo.net
DEATHFIGHT (1994)
Deathfight! Deathfight! A great bad movie. A martial arts epic starring Richard Norton (he's in Mr. Nice Guy with Jackie Chan) and a host of other film greats. The plot revolves around Richard Norton kicking ass to save his company from his evil brother Chang. Deathfight! Highlights: The Rastafarian fighter; Chang's promise to make the Rastafarian the world's most reknowned black martial artist; Deathfight!; The 'Please Fall In' sign; Our hero breaking the rastafarian's stomach bone (watch, you'll understand); Deathfight!; Wiley, the sidekick, umm....abusing himself, shall we say, in the final scene, and hilarious sound effects all around. An interesting thing about this movie is it seems the good guys would not have won had the editor not been on their side, as the final scene has more bad cuts than if it had been edited by a psychotic chimpanzee. Deathfight!
Crary Myers, lmyers@panther.middlebury.edu
DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) New World Video
Starring David Carradine
Future 2000, bad effects, worse acting, also featuring a young Stallone as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo. Stinks so bad it makes you laugh incredibly. You won't be dissappointed.
Gary E. Berg, geberg@magellan.cloudnet.com
DEMOLITION HIGH (1996) Astra Cinema
Direct to video or cable. Terrorists take over a high schoool, and it's up to the son of the police captain to stop them. The cast alone makes this riffable. Corey Haims is still playing a teenager, even though he has to be pushing thirty. Alan Thicke is his concerned father, and Dick Van Patten appears as an Army general. Features psycho-chick who gets off on death, death by pencils, and a really great shot of a 3rd grade school model getting blown up.
KenWMcC55@aol.com
THE DEMON OF PARADISE (1987) Concorde-New Horizons
The plot (if this can even qualify) is that a monster (a creature of the black lagoon rip off) terrorizes paradise. This was low budget monster movie from the 70s, so how could I not rent this 49 cent cheapie. The picture quality sucked but the sound was good. Let the bashing begin- Ok, lets start with the "demon".In the film it is described as a ,and I quote,a "Carniverous Lizard-Man from the Triassic age". The "Akooa"(the monster's name) was horrorably designed.The body looked like a bulky, green man with a tail. The head looked like it was made out of cardboard. And "paradise" was more like "shithole". There were palm trees, and there was no sand; just mud, dirt, and a very un-tropical looking forest. And every one in "paradise" wore long pants, which leads me to believe that this movie was shot in some god-awfull Louisianna swamp. The acting was horrorable and the characters were cardboard( just like the Akooa's head!). Virtually EVERYTHING the Akooa looks at blows up.In the movie the Sheriff shoots a illegal dynamite runner's boat with a shotgun and it blows up. But the really good stuff doesn't happen until the National Guard shows up.The Akooa jumps out of the water and pulls their helichopter out of the sky and into the water where it proceeds to blow up. the last twenty minutes of the movie are spent shooting the Akooa with machine guns and guess what? It won't die! The main characters and the national guard finally nab the critter by throwing genades in sync.Then they leave an opening for a sequel when some one says," You know what happens when you cut off a lizard's tail." as we watch it's tail float down stream. the end .
francart@telerama.im.com
THE DEMON WITHIN (original title THE HAPPINESS CAGE) (1972) Cinerama Releasing Corporation
A very young Christopher Walken stars in this terrible piece of garbage. In it he plays a man named Reese something who is a "violent schizophrenic" who ever actually gets violent. He gets arrested for "assaulting" someone who he never assaulted. He gets taken to this military hospital where there are only three patients. One of them has had a hole drilled in his head.

Reese spends most of the movie trying to find out if the doctors are really giving them deadly diseases. His stupid roommate - the one without the hole- starts coughing up blood after a silly fight on the front lawn and consents to having a hole drilled in his head. He gets to push a big red button on this joystick thing. The thing is connected to the thing in his brain and causes a feeling that makes the stupid guy go crazy with button pushing (I don't know how else to put it).

Reese sees all this and tries to escape. He fails and ends up getting the implant in his head. You get this monologue about how he is an individual and won't push the button. Picture a twenty-something Christopher Walken, seriously acting, with his head loosely wrapped in gauze with a metal thing sticking out of the top.

This general guy finally grabs the button and pushes it. Reese falls to the ground. The next scene you see him at a press conference extolling the virtues of the new cure. (the thing in his head)

All this time you are left wondering-where is the demon? And why oh why was this in the horror section? It is truly worthy of mst3k.

Generic User, jersum@prodigy.net
DESPERATE MEASURES (1998) Sony Pictures Entertainment/TriStar
Ouch! This movie was a HUGE let down. On the ads they are comparing it to The Silence of the Lambs, but they should compare it to Maniac Cop. The story is a cop (Andy Garcia) needs a homicdal maniac (Michael Keaton) to donate bone marrow to his dying son. And guess what? He escapes! It is fun to watch Keaton being the bad boy, and they could've done a lot with that. But Garcia's character is very stupid. He can't kill him. So why doesn't he just shoot him in the leg? Or use a tranquilizer gun? Yet another bomb by Keaton.
Daniel Ray, nimr0d@webtv.net
THE DEVIL'S RAIN (1975)
[W]ith Bill Shatner. Don't remember much about the plot except there was a modern day coven of witches and in the final scene God rains over the coven and they melt into the ground. (I'm melting, MELTING!) Classic overacting from you-know-who.
thor, thorpe@csulb.edu

I believe the movie Devil's Rain, also starred John Travolta. Though I believe he redeemed himself in Pulp Fiction, anything prior to that, was of questionable quality.

Terri Love, tlove2@jcpenney.com

I rented this one because, hey, anything with Shatner -AND- John Travolta in it, in the horror section of the video store, -HAD- to be MSTable. A few Seagram's-and-Cokes later, it was deep, DEEP hurting. Mostly because I was laughing too hard to get off more than a few good riffs. Or, for that matter, breathe. Ernest Borgnine as a Satanist. William Shatner as a would-be hero who gets tortured, posessed, and melted. And worst of all, technical consultant -- Anton LaVey? Great. They're not just cheezball Satanists, they're --accurate-- cheezball Satanists.

I have learned my lesson. This is the last Shatner flick I subject myself to, drinking, sober, or otherwise.

Shard, shard@dimensional.com
DIABOLIQUE (1996) Warner Bros./Marvin Worth Productions/Morgan Creek Productions/ABC Productions
AAAAIIIIEEEEGH! Sharon Stone (no comment) and Isabelle Adjani (a rather cute French actress) star in this remake of an earlier French film as the respective icy mistress and fragile wife of some jerky guy (Chazz Palminteri) who secretly plot to kill him because he's a jerk, or something. I wasn't really watching this, it just happened to be on at the time... So they slip him a mickey (i.e. put some disagreeable stuff in a drink) and shove him into a bathtub... But then, even though he's supposedly dead, his corpse disappears... It's somehow made apparent that Stone did a double-cross on Adjani and is apparently in cahoots with the supposedly dead Palminteri to murder his wife... But things go wrong. Kathy Bates appears as some nosey detective and punches out Adjani before the movie is over (Dammit! I was hoping she'd belt Stone, but nope). Oh, and the backdrop of this film is a private school for boys. Not like it matters?

I'd recommend seeing the original version, if I'd seen it.

Duncan Shea, sarazawa@hotmail.com
DISCO GODFATHER (1979)
We found this movie one summer day, thinking it might be cool, but we were terribly wrong. Plot summary: Imagine if John Travolta was black and owned the disco club. the godfather dances around in his cool polyester suits, and is also apparently some kind of detective or ex-cop. A relative or something is sucked into the evils of angel dust, the godfather goes to rescue him and is forced to take the drug, cue REALLY bad special effects for the tripping out scene. And all with a funky seventies soundtrack. I can't believe this movie isn't already on the list.
Melanie Racette, mjr267@mail.usask.ca
DOLLMAN (1991) Full Moon Entertainment
Yet another Full Moon Production, blessed with the sacred touch of being "based on an original idea by Charles Band" (what movie by Full Moon isn't?), and starring Tim Thomerson (what movie by Full Moon doesn't?) as a cop who's "13 inches tall...with an attitude" (ooh!), this one's a sloppy, dull mess that feels twice as long as it is. The effects range from decent (Thomerson appearing 13 inches tall) to terrible (Thomerson's spaceship looks like a bad Star Wars model, a problem compounded by the fact that it's also the size of a bad Star Wars model and gets picked up by the normal-sized characters a lot). The plot is that Tim Thomerson plays a 13-inch tall outer space cop. That's about it. This one's even been referenced on MST3K occasionally, so see it if only to understand the recent riff about it in Escape from the Bronx--ah, er, I mean Escape 2000.
Brian Reubelt, reub6707@uwwvax.uww.edu
DOLLMAN VS. THE DEMONIC TOYS (1993) Full Moon Entertainment
Ok, I have seen a coulple of CRAPPY movies in my time but this takes the cheese.Ok the plot goes as follows.... The Dollman, an Intergalactic 13 inch cop crash lands on earth. For some reason this reporter gets shunken to Dollman size and they presumably have sex in a kitchen cabinet. They are off to stop the Demonic Toys for raising Satan(their evil master) from Hell. All they need is a sacarfice and the now 13 inch reporter does nicely! so then Dollman is forced to stop the world from ending!

Now if the plot alone doesn't convice youthe acting does. Also 50% of the movie is from the Seperate Dollman and Demonic toy movies that keep getting reffered to in cheesy "flashback" . The best is the Demonic toys "flash back" on why they are SOOOOO damn demonic!!! A must for MST-iers! Also it has a Midget that is the Satanic Demon servant of the Tous (Did I mention that ?) All in all a Painfull experience but look at it this way, you've now seen 3 movies!

Killpower6@aol.com
THE DONOR (1995) Donor Productions
The movie The Donor (1995) is crying for someone else besides me to make fun of it. The plotline is based on the stolen kidney urban legend. A stunt man awakens to find that he is missing a kidney, and spends the rest of the movie try to solve "whodunit." The worst twist is when a contact lens is found in the stitches of the wound, and the stunt man spends the rest of the movie recoiling in horror anytime someone mentions their contact lenses.
Amber, amber+@pitt.edu
DOOM ASYLUM (1987)
What a waste of some great and genuinely creepy sets on such an awful movie! It was actually filmed in a dilapidated old asylum.

Our story begins "20 years ago" - yep, it's another one of THOSE films - when a young doctor is killed in a car crash on his way to work at the asylum. Or so they thought! For some inexplicable reason, he haunts the abandoned building and kills off anyone who intrudes.

A group of <cough, cough> "teens" decide to have a picnic at the asylum. Lets see, there's the black kids - guess who gets killed first -, the obnoxious student radical, the brainy girl with glasses, the baseball card-obsessed nerd, and the dumb jock. They encounter a loud, untalented heavy metal rock group rehearsing there. Both groups refuse to leave, and before long, they're getting killed off by the doc, and blaming each other for the disappearances.

Bad movie! Bad! Bad! Bad!

Relatively gore- and nudity-free. (There's a split-second topless scene by the lesbian lead singer of the heavy metal group. Blink and you'll miss it. You'll be glad you did.)

A group of friends rented this around '89 thinking it would be a genuinely good film. (What were we thinking?!) We ended up riffing on it, long before MST3K was ever seen locally.

Dan, danc@nb.net
DOOM GENERATION (1995) The Teen Angst Movie Company/Desperate Pictures
I would rather go 24 hours straight watching an uncut version of Manos: The Hands of Fate than see one minute of footage of this poor poor movie. I saw this movie at a video store. I had never heard of it before, and the box looked cool. I should've know better to realize that this meant it was a "Direct To Video" movie. My next clue should've been that it was a "Teen Angst Film" and a "Heterosexual Production" It's the story of a pair of GenX losers (the fact that they are reffered to as an "average" GenX couple is an insult to begin with) who leave the local rave and decide to....well....Drive. No apperent direction or goal in life.....they're just freakin' DRIVING!!!! On this drive, a complete stranger of a man jumps into their car and rides with them. No questions asked. That is just the setup. The description of the movie compared it to Pulp Fiction. I'd like to meet the person who wrote that and beat them sensless for such a bold faced lie! This movie tries to follow the Pulp Fiction style with witty diolouge and unxpected turns of events. But these lamo's couldn't write an interesting conversation to save thier life. My friends and I counted 32 "fucks" in just the first half hour. After that we stopped counting. Thier idea of an interesting plot twist is blowing off an convenience store owners head...and have the head still talk at you in korean for a few hours. Wait there's more. Every town they go to, someone mistakes the girl for an ex-girlfriend and tries to kill the two boys for her. Every time they stop at a convenience store...no matter what they buy....the total price is always $6.66 or $66.60. I won't even go into the sex scenes. If I start on them...I'll probably start to cry again. If you're really that curious....go ahead and watch. But take heed...this movie is so unbeleivably bad that not even the razor sharp wit of Mike and The Bots could save it. Even the people at Best Brains would take a look at this and say, "There is NO WAY we could make this funny. Let's just do another Roger Corman movie. That's easier." Doom Generation is an insult to the film industry. I would support Child Pornography before suggesting this film to a friend. Yet I can't seem to stop myself from buying coppies for all my enemies. This movie is so bad that I have taken the time to go to my local Video store that rented to me and made a formal speech to every patron there; "Do not Rent 'Doom Generation!' It is a peice of CRAP!" I have decide to attemt to build a vast entertainment empire just to ensure that a movie of that kind is never produced again. I weep for those who performed in it....for now, thier careers are OVER!"
Jon "The Doc" Ems, SirBenedic@aol.com
DRAGON VS. VAMPIRE (original title JIANG SHI PA PA) (aka CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE VAMPIRE) (1986)
There was this absolutely godawful film we rented once called Dragon vs. Vampire - a chop-socky filmed entirely on location in Asia's version of deep woods Arkansas. It was billed as a martial arts horror romantic comedy.

The gist of it, which still escapes me, is that some young guy (or is it guys?) for some weird reason travels around with his friends (typical Asian jokes can be made of them slapping each other in the chest to get their attention before speaking, the dialog which was translated from Cantonese to Mandarin to Vietnamese to English, it seems... and the requisite attempts at humor basically involving analog synth "squirt" noises and fat oafish Chinese mimicking Kung-fu moves.)

One of the hero/heroes (I'm repressing the goddamn flick it was that bad) finds a golden swastika on some corpse at some point and puts it on. Later on he meets the vampire, this white haired Mandarin with eyebrows about twelve inches long... who stares at him twitching his eyes for five seconds and then thinks --- "my eye sorcery is not working!"

We fell asleep VERY QUICKLY into the movie. It was by far and away the most brain-numbing exercise in futility I have ever seen.

One of these days I am going to OD on uppers and try and stay awake and watch this thing from beginning to end.

Reverend Wholesomeness, reverendwholesomeness@rocketmail.com
DREAM MANIAC
This film, inspired by nothing-I hope, features a Succubus. A girl who does the unthinkable(OUCH) and then terrorizes the girl heroines. It's okay though her dad who must have had her at the age of two says he is sorry for "the inconvenience she caused" and they forgive her.(SNIFF) A must-see for BAD movie fans.
Roger Laing, rlaing@atcon.com
DUNE (1984) De Laurentiis
Directed by David Lynch, starring Kyle MacLachlan, with Jose Ferrar, Sting, Patrick Stewart and a cast of dozens, it's chock full of riffing material. To paraphrase a comment from that post: Twin Peaks references! Eraserhead references! Police references! Star Trek references! And annoying, stilted dialogue, to boot!
Pat Bowman, pbowman@aimla.com

Sort-of rebuttal

DUST DEVIL (1992) British Screen Productions/Channel Four Films/Palace Pictures
Some african spirit is possessing people and going on a rampage, killing people and leaving mysterious native drawing in blood and feces. Bob [Burke] plays the possessed drifter. Low budget, shot in Africa, the name alone begs comparison to Dirt Devil and its capacity to suck.
Chris Precht, sprokit@interport.net

Petréa Mitchell
pravn@m5p.com