- LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS (1981)
Paramount Pictures
- Godawful flick with Diane Lane (pulling off the same kind of shtick to
much better effect in Streets of Fire), Christine Lahti, Laura
Dern and
many other people who have never worked since. The story is about a
punk-rock band... sort of. Because if you know anything at all about the
music industry, you'll die laughing. MST3Kable on many levels. Lou Adler
(Rocky Horror...) produced.
Serdar, syegul@ix.netcom.com
- LADY IN A CAGE (1964) AIP
- Oooh, ooh, this one is way cool... Olivia de Havilland is this disabled
lady in a nightgown, see, and she gets caught in her elevator during a
power outage, see, and James Caan (I think!) is this like greasy hoodlum
type who breaks in and bugs her, see, and he has this like kicky druggie
girlfriend, see, and they're gonna rip her off, see, but they end up
with Caan getting his eyes poked out by Olivia, see, and he runs outta
the house and gets his head squashed by a car! Cool! A natural! Many
thumbs up!
aleq@spiritone.com
- THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988) Vestron Video
- Lair of the White Worm is Ken Russell's retelling of a
story by Bram
Stoker (you know, the Dracula guy?). It features a rich young woman
(L.A. Law's Amanda Donohoe) who goes about seducing and killing young
men when she turns into some sort of white worm. I must admit, there
were some decent special effects which elevates this film just slightly
above the average Roger Corman flick.
Rob Vicary, robvic@ebtech.net
- LAKE OF DRACULA (original title NOROI NO YAKATA: CHI O SUU ME)
(aka BLOODSUCKING EYES and BLOODTHIRSTY EYES and DRACULA'S LUST FOR BLOOD
and JAPULA and LAKE OF DEATH) (1971) United Productions of America/Toho
- Few things could be more terrifying than the idea of Toho films (the
Godzilla people) trying to create a Hammer horror movie... But sometimes
nightmares come true.
A descendent of the great Count Dracula moves from Transylvania to
Japan, where he proceeds to suck blood and cause kung-fu battles with
hospital workers. The plot is a bit confusing, but could probalby have
been worse. The really interesting thing about this movie is the vampire
himself... He's played by a Japanese actor, and dubbed with an accent
which is hard to identify... Perhaps the original Count moved to Romania
from Japan? :)
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
- Luther runs away from the old lady he kills and ends up at a remote farm
where he ties up the woman who lives in the house to her bed. Her
slutty, super white-trash daughter and her boyfriend arrive at the house
and after a brief check to try and find the tied up woman, have sex.
Whle going at it the dumb boyfriend hears Luther driving away in his
car. The boyfriend chases him and get killed, meanwhile, the daughter
finds her mother, cries, and leaves her there.
The daughter runs away, the mother untangles herself, and is chased by
Luther for the last hour and fifteen minutes of the movie before she
finally kills Luther.
This movie sucks. Local acting, directed by a college student, and the
opening scene (the parole board deciding Luther's case) is soooo bad
that I watched it twice just to make sure that I didn't dream it.
Tristan Abbott, wally@usa.net
- LAKER GIRLS (1990) made for TV
- Starring a pre-Baywatch Alexandra Paul and a
post-Family Ties Tina Yothers and cameo appearance of Miss
Jean Simmons!
3 plucky gals share a beach house and work together to attain the
ultimate goal in life--to be an L.A. Laker girl. Will Tina get to date
one of the Lakers? Will Alexandra reveal that she's actually a rich-girl
heiress? Will the girls all live in the glory that is the L.A.Laker
girls?
This was one of the worst movies I ever saw. I was held spellbound in
horrid fascination. It's ripe for viewing by Mike and the 'bots.
Jill Scurato, scurato@pucc.Princeton.EDU
- THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975) American International
Pictures
- More like "The Land of Plastic Dinosaurs". Well, I first saw this when I
was about four or five, and I thought the dinosaurs (what I remember
seeing of them, anyway) were pretty neat, being totally into dinosaurs
like I was way back then...
When I was ten or so, I found out that this little celluloid bikky was
based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan), about
some sailors who blunder into a mysterious island where dinosaurs still
survive, and coexist alongside primitive men. But the truly sci-fi
aspect of the story kicks in as the intrepid explorers venture further
north... and they note that the further north they go, the more advanced
and civilized the primitives are...
Jump to over ten years later. Dad rents the very film from Blockbuster,
and I sit and watch it. Oh dear lord, the dinos were so obviously
flopping around like the miniature puppets they are... The aspects of
the novel were barely touched on in the film... It was embarrassing to
watch... ugh. Just try to keep a straight face in the scene where the
submarine is attacked by sea beasts, and the heroes fend off one pesky
critter. And the island suffers a volcanic eruption, just as the
prehistoric islands usually do in movies of this sort, and all but the
main hero and his main squeeze are able to leave the island in time. But
the hero and his lady survive, and toss a message in a bottle off a
cliff, into the sea.
The people who made this bit of film made two follow-up films, also
based on Burroughs novels: At the Earth's Core (I saw a tiny
fragment of
this; lots of guys in rubber monster suits) and The People that Time
Forgot (some big 'ol dinos in this one, but barely).
Duncan Shea, sarazawa@hotmail.com
- THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN (1982)
- I couldn't figure this one out. Who's the
virgin supposed to be? My best guess is the droopy-eyed, slow-witted
kid playing the lead, but he and his friends visit a hooker in the first reel,
leaving the last 70 minutes for some dopey story about the kid falling in
love with Diane Franklin (from Better Off Dead and Bill
and Ted's
Excellent Adventure among others). She never really falls for him, and
instead, gets knocked up by some other kid. The first kid springs for an
abortion, only to have her blow him off later. So what? Interspersed
with this maudlin 30 minutes worth of plot are meaningless encounters
that the lead kid has with a nymphomaniac Charo-impersonator, and a
case of the crabs. Makes Porky's look like Shakespeare. Also
features nasally voiced Kimmy Robertson who later went on to star in all
kinds of other bad movies, not to mention "Twin Peaks".
Brian J. Bergevin, bergevb@bsk.com
- THE LAST DINOSAUR (1977) (TV)
- Although it was a made for TV movie in 1977, I think that you would be
hard-pressed to find a worse film than "The Last Dinosaur" starring
Richard Boone and Joan Van Ark. This film was made to be MSTed!!!
"DavCarIn@realppp"@concentric.net
- THE LAST SLUMBER PARTY
- [Y]our average 80's slasher flick
right?, wrong.
I think this movie was directed by steven tyler of Aerosmith, the acting
is horrible, the filming is even worse, and in one scene a girl hits her
head against a window on accident!
the ending makes no sense, theres a "dream within a dream" and
uh......they use words like queer-bag in it.
Doug Haddow, dhaddow@awinc.com
- LAUGH AND A HALF (1993)
- I made this movie when I was about ten years old with some friends of
mine. We did some "comedy" sketches, and we had some shoddy special
effects made by turning the camcorder upside down. Few people have ever
seen this, and I'm not going to show it to them.
Attmay, ansch002@acpub.duke.edu
- THE LAWNMOWER MAN (1992) Allied Vision Productions/Fuji Eight
Company Ltd./New Line Cinema
- In my humble estimation, the worst semblance of a film ever dredged
out of a
Stephen King story. The original plot was most likely run through something
much worse than a lawnmower, judging from the end result. A guy performs
virtual reality experiments on his Forrest Gump-type gardener, somehow
turning him into a super-genius with psychic powers. Filled with cartoony
computer animation, to boot, and the ending is left wide open for yet still
more degenerative sequels as the VR guy puts himself into a Space Camp
gravity trainer and in this manner manages to assimilate himself into a
computer system. The first thing he does is to make every phone in the world
start ringing. Perhaps in keeping with the, er, "plot," this film transcends
mere badness and achieves a higher level of loathsomeness:
Deep Hurting.
Erica Drescher, ADresc9197@aol.com
- LAWNMOWER MAN II
- I don't remember everything since it was a long time
ago but I remember it being very dumb, with bad graphics and bad
actors.
Juuls, Sharki24@aol.com
- LEATHER JACKETS (1992)
- basically, this is a 50s gang movie gone horribly wrong. for one thing,
it takes place in present-day. it's the whole "guy is trying to make a good
life for himself and his girl, but a friend from the past when the 2 of
them were in a gang, shows up and fouls everything up."
and this movie is truly foul. this is not The Princess
Bride for Cary Elwes.
Mike Leipold, leipold@ruth.butler.edu
- THE LEGEND OF ALFRED PACKER
- The Legend of Alfred Packer is about the story when Alfred
Packer went in the Rocky Mountains and was forced to eat his
colleagues. It is very slow and has really CHEESY MUSIC and no
interesting parts and as Mike and the bots would say is
HONKSHU movie as in Honk-Shoooo!
R.B. Nurse, nurser@jsd.k12.ak.us
- THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK (1972)
- This "docudrama" basically revolves around some guy in a surplus
Chewbacca suit (the Bogmonster) terrorizing a bunch of hicks in Fouk,
Arkansas. Some highlights include the fact that almost everyone in the
movie has the last name Crabtree (hmm, inbreeding, from hicks? naaa.) The
fact that it is pitch green out during the night, a "footprint" with
"three toes" that looks suspiciously like a handprint with five fingers.
A redneck who, when running from the monster, jumps headfirst through a
thick wooden door, and goes unconscious from "fright". Last, but
definately not least, is how, after the climactic final battle, the local
sheriff comes, inspects the area, and proclaims "there are panther tracks
under the house" to which the lead hick replies "You mean there was a
panther here too?"
This movie certainly needs MSTing, and my friend swears he heard
a reference to it in some other MST. A combonation of bad acting, a
cheesy monster, and shotgun toting hicks results one of the best (worst)
movies I've ever seen.
Patrick Nelson, pnelson@inet.net
- LEGEND OF DINOSAUR
- The movie Legend of Dinosaur, is yet another example of
your classic 1970's
Japanesse monster movie. I really have a hard time deciding what is worse.
The plot, the costumes, or the writers grasp of science. I can always tell
a good cheesy monster flick by how far out they reach for a scientific
explanation of the plot. the biggest brainchild of this movie is the head
scientist deduction after the appearence of a pleisosaur in a nearby lake
that "if there is a pleisosaur, there must be a pterodactyl' and a level 5
earthquake. The monster costumes are great too. they've got those great
painted on eyes like Gamara had except his were done better. One of the
best scenes in the movie is when the pleisosaur attacks some divers. It
was so funny I had to rewind it and watch it again three more times. The
whole mood of the movie was enhanced by the soundtrack. A movie of this
quality deserves a disco soundtrack this terrible. All in all, i'ld say
this is a hell of a movie and would definately make and interesting episode
not to mention a great rental.
Rob Hutchins, tinkbell@together.net
- THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER (1981) Universal Pictures
- This awkward attempt to fill the shoes of the original ranger , Clayton
Moore, might have been even half-assed if not for an awkward dubbing of
the new lead, Klinton Spilsbury. Spilsbury often sounds like a bad
imitation of 'Brawny'. Merle Haggard's voice-over narration doesn't help
much either.The plot culminates over an attempt by some bandits to kidnap
the President played by Jason Robards. Over-use of the 'William
Tell-Overture' and Spilsbury's unconvincing appearance as the 'legendary'
lawman doesn't amount to alot. At the time, this film was billed as
something of a hit waiting to happen, but then nothing ever really did.
Frank Lund, w.bate@sk.sympatico.ca
- LEONARD PART 6 (1987) Columbia Pictures
- A horrific plot involving animals taking over the world is the basis of
this movie. Bill Cosby and the ever-wonderful Joe Don Baker 'act' in
this movie, and not too well, I might add. It is ripe for riffing-it
seems to be a big ad for soap and Coca Cola. Even Bill Cosby told
audiences not to go. It's really stupefying that someone could be
responsible for manufacturing this piece of mind-boggiling crap.
Marc Munroe, marc_a@atcon.com
I saw this once, when I was about 12, and I still remember Bill Cosby
flying off a roof on an ostrich, a bunch of frogs making a car jump into
the water, and members of the villianous "Vegetarians" shrieking in
terror and yelling "Don't Beef Me" as Cosby threw hot dogs and
hamburgers at them. Any movie that memorable has to really suck.
Matt Davis, msdavis@ews.uiuc.edu
- LEPRECHAUN (1993) Trimark Pictures
- This one should be an obvious choice. Warwick Davis (aka Wicket the
Ewok) runs around shouting about how "Me want me gold!" while murdering
various people in sundry stupid ways (a pogo stick?!). How this could
generate two sequels is beyond me. The leads are that guy from the
late-80s hokey SF series Super Force and, believe it or not,
Jennifer Aniston of Friends, so those who are fans of that
show (myself not included) will have a little something extra to savor.
Brian Reubelt, reub6707@uwwvax.uww.edu
- THE LEPRECHAUN'S GOLD
- It is a short little Christmas kiddie movie that really is pointless...so
much strife could be avoided if the characters had brains. I think that the
bots could do a great job driving a Christmas MAC TRUCK through the holes in
the plot. If you value the mental stability of yourself and your children,
only watch this film with an MST-ish glow. ho ho ho...
sxs96@uno.cc.geneseo.edu
- LETHAL NINJA (1993)
- A Nazi bad guy manufactures chemical weapons on a
Southeast Asian island. Oh and he kidnaps our hero's dumb blonde
girlfriend. Our musclebound hero (everybody now: Slab Hardrock, Stump
Largehuge, etc.) teams up with a black guy to rescue her. The acting is
awful all-around, and the top secret chemical weapons factory looks more
like a water slide! Our hero and his sidekick crawl through a secret
passageway and end up in (dun-dun-dun) a roller rink complete with ninjas
on rollerskates! There's a weird torture scene with our lethal ninja
suspended over an electrified grate with a chain dangling from his belt.
Unforgettably bad!
danc@nb.net
- LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971) Paramount Pictures/The
Jessica Company
- The movie stars Zohra Lambert.
A woman and her "friends" try to scare a rich woman. That's all I can
really remember about the plot. The movie is bad because on film quality,
"slow" plot and, most of all, BAD ACTING!
[unknown]@nethost.multnomah.or.us
Rebuttal
- LEVIATHAN (1989) Gordon Company/MGM
- This movie tries to rip off the Abyss while attempting to
be scary. It's just
stupid. There is no point. Daniel Stern dies early. So does the plot.
Matt131232@aol.com
- LIFEFORCE (1985) Cannon Group/Golan-Globus/TriStar
- Based on what is reportedly a good book, co-written by Dan O'Bannon, who
did good movies like Alien and Return of the Living
Dead, and directed by Tobe Hooper, who did good movies like The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist. One would
logically think that these elements would all add up to a good movie. It
doesn't. Naked space
vampires traveling in a spaceship in Haley's Comet come to London and
turn its population into soulsucking zombies. Doesn't sound boring, does
it? It is, and extremely so. The lead actors are so wooden that you
could destroy the space vampires by driving *them* into their hearts.
With an exploding Patrick Stewart.
Brian Reubelt, reub6707@uwwvax.uww.edu
- THE LIFT
- I don't even know if this (Danish? Swedish? Something European) movie
needs MST. A friend and I rented it one night in hopes of finding truly
the worst film on the shelf (we missed the Nick Zedd collection that
night). After seeing the catchy tagline on the cover of this film about
a killer elevator ("Take the stairs! Take the stairs! For god sakes,
take the stairs!"), we knew we'd found our movie. Features horrible and
riff'able dinner family dinner conversation ("Daddy, when do I get
breasts?"), and a ludicrous plot about a computerized "intelligent"
elevator that gets some gremlins in its chips and starts killing its
passengers. Don't miss the incomprehensible scene where the computer
malfunction is explained by the professor, which features dialogue which
would put Edward D. Wood, Jr. to shame. Also has some of the worst jump
cuts and dubbing errors I have ever witnessed, often at the same time
(the heroic elevator repairman is having an argument with his employer
inside a factory while he walks towards the door. In the middle of a
sentence, suddenly they are outside the factory. However, the same
sentence continues uninterrupted). Not to be missed.
ishmael@gnu.ai.mit.edu
- LIGHTBLAST (1985)
- A mad scientist develops a deadly laser weapon which causes liquid
crystal to explode and melt people, blows up some large digital clocks
with it, and attempts to make millions in blackmail money. Fortunately
for the city, a hero rises to stop this menace, a hero who believes in
chasing people around in old cars and shooting until everyone is dead!
From the first minutes of the film in which Our Hero rescues some
hostages by cleverly concealing a silenced gun in a turkey, it's pretty
easy to tell it's going to be one of *those* movies. And in the genre
of *those* movies, this is an outstandingly amusing gun concealing bird
of a film. Between the ultraviolent attitude of the hero, the apparent
foot fetish of the camera man, and the tendency for people to get hit
by cars (worth watching for the VW Bug hitting a pedestrian) this movie
represents all that is bad (which is most everything) in the action
genre. Add to this some brilliant dialog ("Get those son-of-a-bitches!"
is that gramatically correct?), an attack nurse, and a ludicrous super
weapon, and you're still only scratching the surface of how bad this
film is. Watch it and feel the pain. Definitely good MST3K material,
though there are some graphic scenes of people melting, portrayed in
all the gritty realism of claymation. One last appropriate quote:
"That man's not too smart, is he Strike?" -- old man to his dog.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
- LITTLE MAN TATE (1991)
- I saw this movie years ago, but I still remember how bad it was. It
was about a child prodigy, which could be the subject of a good movie,
and when you add Jodie Foster, you'd think it would be good, right?
Well, even the best have their days off. The scene that stays in my
mind was what must have been the climax of the movie, in which the
child's mom saves a kid from drowning. I'm not entirely sure what it
had to do with the plot. The rest of the movie is basically the mother
and her son dealing with his intelligence and her lack of money to help
him develop his abilities. I can see the bots ripping on some of the
scenes, like when a group of gifted children is taking part in a
quiz-show type thing and answering questions that most people wouldn't
even understand. Of course, I couldn't blame them if they fell asleep,
either. I would have remembered more about the movie if I hadn't dozed
off myself.
Jonathan Peters, japeters+@andrew.cmu.edu
- THE LITTLE RASCALS (1994) Universal Pictures
- As a stand-alone, this absurd "remake" is simply not funny. In light of
the beautiful little children it seeks to enshrine (as if they needed
help from these lightweights) it is a desecration.
It is without question the vilest movie I have ever seen. It is far and
away THE worst film of any era. Period!
Jay Crosby, jcrosby@valleynet.com
- LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
- I only saw a little of this movie, but it was enough to tell it's ideal
MST3K fodder. Basically, it's the classic fairy tale turned into a musical,
with a few changes. For example, the wolf is actually a werewolf, and the
woodcutter is a prince (Craig T. Nelson) that's trying to kill the wolf so
that he may kick his evil brother (Nelson again) out of the throne. The
Evil brother is also a werewolf, for some reason. Oh, and I think Red's
cloak is supposed to be magical or something. Granted, this is a kid's
movie, but I can't imagine any kids watching this. Maybe this is one of
those movies parents put on when junior won't go to bed...
Craxton, sbelloti@loyola.edu
- THE LODGER (1926) Wardour Films Ltd.
- Talk about nauseating! Alfred Hitchcock (who DID direct, I am not
joking) should not be the one to blame, but the bad disgusting sights.
Sure of course it was done back in 1926, but ugh!! In this movie, it
looks like the main characters are suffering from a bad case of the flu.
You could just get sick watching this movie. I came across it on WYCC
(who did also show The Manxman, another silent film I sent in here
done by Alfred Hitchcock. Yes, I did say Alfred Hitchcock). However,
there was a lame remark in one of the few captioning scenes about a
toothbrush! (Crappy) Just have some Tylenol Sinus, Advil, Aleve. If you
watched this, you might need it! Not for the pain, but for all the
ailments you'd feel by watching it. Both this and The Manxman
have this nauseating feel when watching them.
Russell Christiansen, russ@megsinet.net
- THE LONE STAR KID
- It was on PBS in the mid-80s and co-starred James
Earl Jones. It's the semi-true story of a 12-year-old kid in
Houston who runs for mayor of his podunk town. It was badly
directed by Anson Williams (a.k.a. Potsie). The highlight of
this film, for me anyway, is the guy who is onscreen for about
15 seconds, dying in a car wreck. I like that part because I
am the guy. I was 15, young, foolish, and stupid, and I'm very,
very sorry.
Scott Repass, dcallaw@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
- LOOKER (1981) Warner Brothers
- Learn a new definition of "disaster" when Michael Crichton is allowed to
write AND direct! Starring Susan Dey as the world's greatest
supermodel, Albert Finney as her plastic surgeon, and James Coburn
as a power-mad bad guy who goes around paralyzing folks with a
strobe light. Vanna White also appears.
This thing is so cheap that they didn't even bother to build sets!
They just put the action at a television station, justifying shooting
lots of soundstages and obviously fake offices.
Curt Wiederhoeft, cjw9505@Jetson.uh.edu
- LOOK WHO'S TALKING TOO (1990) TriStar Pictures
- How did Hollywood ever get the idea that any movie with a baby in it is
automatically a big hit? They must have had that faulty premise in mind for
this stinker, because that's what tries to carry it. That, and about 80
potty training jokes. This movie has NO PLOT AT ALL, so don't waste your
time looking for one. The characters from the first movie are joined by two
new kids (the voices of Roseanne Barr and Damon Wayans.) in coming inches
away from utterly destroying their careers. Joe Bob Briggs actually gave
this movie zero stars. It should not be watched under any circumstances,
except at an MST3K party, and even then only if every other video is sold
out.
Craxton, sbelloti@loyola.edu
- LORDS OF THE DEEP (1989)
- This film, the last of the 1989 Abyss ripoffs, is by far
the worst.
In comparison, Deep Star Six seems a work of art.
In this particular
variation on the undersea base theme, a group of people are underwater
doing some experiments of a never-very-well-explained nature when they
encounter giant intelligent sting ray creatures which are able to turn
into goo or something. The miniature effects aren't too bad for a movie
of this budget, but the creatures are amazingly bad. They look like
papier-mache blobs painted blue, with lightbulbs inserted in the heads.
In any case, as it turns out, the stingray-goo-things are friendly, and
the only threats are Bradford Dillman and Producer/Actor Roger Corman
(gasp!). Amusing for fans of bad effects and overacting, but pretty
slow and uninvolving.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
- LOSIN' IT (1983) Embassy Pictures/Pan-Canadian Film
Distributors
- Shelley Long had already spent a year on "Cheers"
when this little gem came out. She's lucky it didn't torpedo her carrer
right then and there. Some greasy California kids are making their way
down to Tijuana to get (pick one): hookers, fireworks, new upholstery, a
purpose in life. They pick up Long, on the run from her husband, along
the way and convince her that she can get a divorce in T.j., so she
jumps right in. Then they hack her body to pieces on a lonely dirt road
and let the buzzards eat her. Actually, that doesn't happen, but it would
have made a better film. Instead, they have the standard comic
misadventures, get chased by a bunch of Mexicans, and Long rides a
donkey before everyone packs up and heads back to the U.S., none the
wiser. Long used this film as a learning experience, obviously learning
how to pick awful movies to star in.
Brian J. Bergevin, bergevb@bsk.com
- LOST HIGHWAY (1997) PolyGram/October Films
- Well, so far, the only David Lynch movies I could really follow are
Dune
and The Elephant Man. But last night, I finally saw Lost Highway.
Where should I begin?
It seems to be about some saxophone player named Fred (Bill Pullman) and
his sweet (stale) biscuit wife Rene (Patricia Arquette, or Mrs. Nicolas
Cage) who keep finding videotapes of themselves on their front
doorstep... They call the police. They hump, almost unenthusiastically.
They go to a party where Fred meets some creepy pasty-faced little man
with no eyebrows (Satan? No, Robert Blake, looking nothing like Baretta
(spelling?)) who is somehow capable of being in two places at once (he
proves this by having Fred call him at his (Fred's) home). Back at home,
Fred watches a tape of himself kneeling over his murdered wife... and is
summarily put on Death Row... somehow he turns into some guy named Pete
(Balthazar Getty) who is released from prison and returned to his
parents (Gary Busey and some lady whose name escapes me.) Pete hangs out
with his friends, makes out with his girlfriend Sheila (Natasha Gregson
Wagner... oh, who cares?), and all the while the police keep tabs on
him. Pete works on cars for some apparent mobster named Mr. Eddy (Robert
Loggia), who has a sweet (but stale) biscuit moll named Alice (Arquette
again), and soon enough Pete and Alice are making the two-backed beastie
a couple times. Alice fesses up that Mr. Eddy is using her to make porno
movies, and yadda yadda yadda. Pete and Alice make plans to split from
their situation and steal some stuff, and a guy with a thin mustache
winds up getting his head cracked open on a table. Pete and Alice flee
to the desert to this hut that burns in reverse, where they hump some
more, then while Alice walks away naked, Pete abruptly turns into...
Fred! Fred? Fred puts on Pete's scattered clothes (why do they fit him
now?), goes into the hut to find the creepy no-eyebrows guy there, and
Fred takes his revenge on Dick Laurent (Loggia again), aided by the
creepy guy. And then Fred screams off into the desert with the police in
hot pursuit, and abruptly something I can hardly hope to describe
happens... and that's that.
Well. This was rather like watching one of those oddball, long foreign
films you sometimes can see on Bravo... only this was in English. I
should know better than to dare to besmirch the name of David Lynch
(hell, I like weird stuff, but, well, er maybe David Lynch is too weird
for even me?), but this movie... it was like a porno with more plot and
less sex. The only good things this movie has going for it are the
soundtrack, Mr. Eddy's extreme way of dealing with a tailgater, and the
surprisingly short cameo appearance by apparently evil rocker Marilyn
Manson as a porno actor in a porno film (I had thought that his tattoos
would be covered up and he'd have a mustache and curly-haired wig
slapped on him, but nope)... and the whole bizarro dream-like quality of
the movie.
Otherwise, it seems like good MST3K fodder. Really. There's a lot of
dead air between the bits of dialogue. Well, cut out the sex scenes or
block out the nudity, and it's fine.
Duncan Shea, sarazawa@hotmail.com
I'd been warned about seeing a David Lynch film, and now I know why. The
first 30 minutes is absolutely without DIALOGUE. It opens up with some guy
at a night club blowing furiously, mindlessly into a saxophone, and then it
cuts to his house where he and his wife are sitting in their grey,
minimalist home. To break the thick veil of silence Lynch had the so-called
jazz "musician" ask his wife what she was reading. The bland
twentysomething giggled flatly and replied, "You always make me laugh.
That's why I married you." That's pretty much the sum total of the dialogue
the first hour or so of this fiasco. The couple, full of youthful piss and
vinegar, then proceed to have sex, showing nothing but the "musician's"
shoulder and the wife's bouncing tit- in slow motion. Later, the spicey
couple go to a naked pool party in which a made-up, powder-faced man
wearing black (ooo, gothic) approaches them and tells them he has been
taping them in their own home...probably catching on film the couple in the
act of sitting around and staring blankly and the cold, emotionless act of
copulation. This completely fucks the chance of an exciting plot...although
Lynch, as we soon find out, can make a murder, 2 sex scenes (to my
knowledge), a car-chase, and a naked pool party boring. Later, for reasons
unknown, the jazz "musician" murders his wife, and is sent to prison. After
that, the story-line goes to Hell. Something involving an auto mechanic and
a mobster. Don't ask me. I quit the movie after an hour of bland, grey
nausea. However, I went away with a valueable morsel of knowledge: as a
director and filmmaker, Lynch is a sick, boring bitch.
Jim Carroll, jcarroll@mis.net
- THE LOST WORLD
- I'm serious. One of our heroes steals the bullets out of a hunters gun
and lets some dinos free after they have been captured. The heroine
rescues a baby t-trex (so much for not interfering with nature) and mom
and dad come looking for him.
What are these guys bad? A hunter can't shoot a t-rex (stolen bullets)
and someone gets ate and the dinos set lose destroy a radio. The dinos
atack the womans trailer and destroy it (contanting the only other
radio) and eat a freind of hers trying to same here. Without radios
they have to gro through heavy grass and lose 6 more guys. Two heroes
indirectly lead to eight deaths because of their incredible stupidity.
Nothing the villian does leads to more than property damage when somehow
a dino is freed. This an an amoral and stupid piece of sh*t. Seeing
it is a waste of time.
Paul Varin, PAvarin@worldnet.att.net
- THE LOST WORLD (1960) 20th Century Fox
- Not the original silent classic, and not any of the versions made in the
Nineties. This one came to us from Irwin Allen, the disaster flick guy.
Some explorers and a dog land their helicopter on some huge plateau in
South America, and find dinosaurs and primitive men living there (isn't
that always the way?). A dinosaur wrecks their helicopter, they meet up
with a cute cave chick, dangerous natives, giant spiders, carnivorous
plants, and more dinosaurs (portrayed by lizards and alligators in
makeup consisting of horns and fins), before coming to their senses and
getting the hell out of there.
It was bad enough that instead of shelling out big coin to get really
primo special FX, Irwin Allen instead went on the cheap by using a bunch
of modern-day reptiles with rubbery appendages epoxied to their scaly
hides. But what was worse was when the main old dodgy scientist guy
(Claude Rains... sigh) boldly recongnized these dinosaur impersonators
as dinosaurs we know and love. Even a novice on dinosaur lore would say
"Geez, that's not a brontosaurus! It's a lizard with things glued to
it!"
And then the poor beasts are made to act... fighting to the death,
chomping unfortunate human figures...
I think there was also a subplot dealing with a hunt for treasure... oh,
never mind.
Duncan Shea, sarazawa@hotmail.com
- THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997) Universal
- Let's face it: the movie sucks. I went to see it on the premiere night and
I'm lucky I didn't get tossed from the theater. I was tearing this movie to
shreds. I'm not sure whether more people were paying attention to the movie
or my brother and I cracking on this piece of tripe. Anyone who wants to
argue that this was a good movie, I have to say only two words: Gymnastics
scene. And I won't even bother to point out that the movie was about 1%
accurate in comparison to the book. Joe vs. the Volcano was just as close to
the book, because it also involved an island (but not Pete Posthlewaite, or
as we all know him the lawyer from the Usual suspects.)
tskearns@aol.com
- LOVELY BUT DEADLY (1981)
- A film I saw on a ski trip in high school which proved to be so
memorable that it provided joke fodder for the next three years,
until all the people who had seen it graduated (we also saw some really
bad anime, but I don't recall the title of that.) Lovely But Deadly
features a mistress of Kung Fu who returns to high school to infiltrate
the drug ring that she blames for her brother's OD death. She is
occaisionally assisted by a crack team of female martial arts experts
who prefer fighting in skimpy leopard-skin leotards. It also features
two of the stupidest henchmen known to MSTies. There is some gratuitous
nudity which will have to be cut.
The highlight of the film is a catfight between the heroine and one of the
female villians. It takes place on a large buffet table, and is incredibly
poorly choreographed, poorly acted, and poorly shot. And amazingly funny.
sens@netcom.com
- THE LOVES OF DRACULA
- Also made for tv, as a pilot for the thankfully short-lived series
"Cliffhangers," this baby stars Michael Nouri (of "Flashdance" fame) as
Dracula. You don't even need Mike and 'the bots -- this movie is
hysterically bad. It features some of the all-time worst wardrobe I've
ever seen, and some truly undead actresses. My favorite scene is when
Dracula, trapped in a warehouse, attempts to escape the rising sun by
leaping for a skylight high above. Aided by his vampiric powers, he's
able to leap about twenty feet in the air, but he still misses and falls
back again... and again... and again...
mlb@cais.com
- LUGGAGE OF THE GODS! (1983)
- Ever see The Gods Must Be Crazy? Similar deal here.
A plane flying over some primitive-world people guys drops a trunk.
You'd think wacky hijinks would result. Of course, since this is a
bad movie, you'd be wrong.
The Gods Must Be Crazy had a voiceover to explain what was
going on in
the village of the untouched-by-modern-civilization people. This one
has nothing. No subtitles to explain what these primitivey people are
saying. No voice-overs. Nadda. Zilch. The entire script for this
movie was a collection of stage directions. The entire story, then, is
told by the physical interactions of the characters, which includes
walking around and standing around. I stopped watching it after a half
hour, and at that point the "luggage of the gods" had still been
undiscovered. Maybe it never was discovered. A lame, cheap rip-off of
the not-to-be discounted The Gods Must Be Crazy.
Edward Griffiths, griffite@msoe.edu
- LUNCH MEAT (1987)
- Opening with cheesily edited shots of your standard 70's movie
"We're all going to die" group of 20somethings, the movie gets worse from
there. It revolves around a family of rednecks who catch people in the
woods and either eat them themselves or sell their meat to a local burger
place. Plus there is your standard mutant son running around. All
around a complete mess. Whoever directed had no clue how to use his
equipment either. One scene cuts to a shot from across the street,
unfortunately they also cut the sound to the camera across the street and
all you hear are passing cars. All in all, an amusing mess to make fun
of.
Tim Patton, guinsu@udel.edu
- LURKING FEAR (1994) Full Moon Entertainment
- Poor H.P. Lovecraft; his work has been abused far too much. According
to an interview with the script writer, he originally wanted to make a
faithful adaptation of the story, then decided he didn't feel like it,,
so he wrote this mess. Monster killers and treasure hunters meet in a
church, fight monsters and each other, and die with amazing rapidity
(this is, after all, only a little over an hour long; people can't be
allowed to last too long). The only thing left of the original story
is the name Martense, though the members of the Martense clan, both
normal and monstrous, bear little resemblence to the creatures in the
story. Yet another waste of time to avoid.
Demian Katz, katz@netaxs.com
- LUTHER THE GEEK (1990)
- This movie was filmed in my former hometown of Sterling IL, that's the
only reason I rented it. I got to see a grocery store that I went to,
and I house that I'd driven by before, but that was the extent of this
film.
The plot goes like this: Luther Watts,(a really ugly guy with metal
teeth) is paroled after 20 years in prison. As a child he we strongly
effected after seeing a cirus geek bite the head off a chicken and
apparently that made him a murderor. He gets out of jail, eats a raw
egg, clucks like a chicken, and bites an old lady on the neck because
she dropped the egg he gave her.
Luther runs away from the old lady he kills and ends up at a remote farm
where he ties up the woman who lives in the house to her bed. Her
slutty, super white-trash daughter and her boyfriend arrive at the house
and after a brief check to try and find the tied up woman, have sex.
Whle going at it the dumb boyfriend hears Luther driving away in his
car. The boyfriend chases him and get killed, meanwhile, the daughter
finds her mother, cries, and leaves her there.
The daughter runs away, the mother untangles herself, and is chased by
Luther for the last hour and fifteen minutes of the movie before she
finally kills Luther.
This movie sucks. Local acting, directed by a college student, and the
opening scene (the parole board deciding Luther's case) is soooo bad
that I watched it twice just to make sure that I didn't dream it.
Tristan Abbott, wally@usa.net