WORLD'S WORST EVER MOVIES !

[Metr0Land]

Possibly a little but one that didn't get panned as much as I think it should was Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

 

The trailer shown in cinemas the preceding week was quite long by the standards of the day, and had loads of interesting bits in it so the anticipation was great.   When you get to the film it's  b o r i n g and all the decent bits were in the trailer the previous week, everything else was just filler.

[Big James]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but. Sharknado one of the worst films I've ever seen. Had the misfortune of watching all 3 on the sci-fi channel as my dad has a habit of watching literally what ever rubbish is on the tv at the time.

They also managed to spawn a whole sub genre of shame films such as sharktapus and monster shark vs giant octopus. They all fall into the so so so bad they are not even good category.

 

Big james

[Classsix T]

Written and Directed by John Waters.

 

 

Six words that'll test your mettle when it comes to taste and decency!

 

C6T.

[PatB]

Mad Max one was a dire film???

 

Hand back your Australian citizenship, your Aussie flag esky and your thongs* and report to Nauru ready for deportation at once, sir!

 

I recall being at the drive in in 1980 or 81 or whatever, when the ad for it came on and after it finished the whole place just erupted into flashing high beams and blasting air horns. The mostly male audience (because we were too lame to get chicks so went to the drive in with our mates)  just went into one big ecstatic eruption.

 

As a historian which I'm not, I reckon that the last time anything remotely like  that had happened was when Michelangelo released the preview shots of his Cistene  chapel.

 

What makes it even more poignant and therefore a classic movie is that back in 1980 or 81 or whenever it was   that I saw the ad, most of the cars AT the drive in could have been extras in the movie. Back then if you didn't have a V8 you were  a little bit suss. I had a straight 6, but it was a Torana GTR so I got way with it.

 

The first five minutes of Mad Max 1 has to be the greatest 5 minutes of movie ever filmed bar none not even the moon landing or  the bit where the marines raise the flag on Iwo Jima or something comes close.. The yanks reckon they can do cars and guns and cops but we are the quiet achievers.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOi1l_Dkl-A

 

Here are 2 interesting Mad Max Facts or as I call them Mad Fax:

 

Mad Fax 1: The bloke in the Monaro - the 'Nightrider" - couldn't drive a car. Did George Miller say "sorry mate, you can't drive a car and every  scene you are in has you driving a car like a bit of a mental, we;ll have to find someone else"? No. instead they get a stuntman to lie down between the front seats and work the wheel and do the peddle stuff all at insane speeds without being able to see where he was going

 

Mad Fax 2: To do the final destructive bit in the clip above, they attached a rocket to the car. Here is an amusing account of how they all nearly got killed:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/01/we-considered-ourselves-dead-the-explosive-tale-of-mad-maxs-rocket-car

 

* used here 'thong's are footwear, for you in the UK, see 'flipflops'. It does not refer to underwear that goes up your bum.

 

Great comment and brought my attention to a couple of things I didn't know. I particular like the first-hand description of the reaction to the trailer . As noted, I'm actually a huge fan of the series. The first two films are among the most significant influences on my taste in motor vehicles to this day. Not to mention the fact that the second was so iconic that advertisers are still ripping off the imagery three and a half decades later. It also has the distinction of being the first X-rated (as 18 was then) film I ever gatecrashed. At the suggestion of my school form tutor and with the assistance of my mother, no less .

 

However, I still maintain that the bits where assorted machinery isn't crashing/blowing up/travelling at white-line blurring speeds are a bit cheesy. Something that I think Dr Miller acknowledged by making Fury Road basically a 2 hour car chase without making the audience sit through half a film of questionable plot and stilted dialogue before getting to the good bit .

 

Back to the plot, though. I agree with jjb1970 about the terribleness of Wild Wild West. I actually spent money to see that, not to mention using up a whole babysitting favour. Disappointment writ large.

 

As for questionable creature movies, does anyone remember Tentacles?

 

 

Even when I was 10 I could recognise a bandwagon riding turkey. Even West TV, the place 70s movies go to die, doesn't show it

[allan downes]

Never did I think that this thread would be so  informative when I started it - I mean , some of the films you guys have brought back from the 'dread'  are enough to bake the brain.

 

Keep 'em coming chaps - the more the  merrier !

 

Allan

[allan downes]

Great comment and brought my attention to a couple of things I didn't know. I particular like the first-hand description of the reaction to the trailer . As noted, I'm actually a huge fan of the series. The first two films are among the most significant influences on my taste in motor vehicles to this day. Not to mention the fact that the second was so iconic that advertisers are still ripping off the imagery three and a half decades later. It also has the distinction of being the first X-rated (as 18 was then) film I ever gatecrashed. At the suggestion of my school form tutor and with the assistance of my mother, no less .

 

However, I still maintain that the bits where assorted machinery isn't crashing/blowing up/travelling at white-line blurring speeds are a bit cheesy. Something that I think Dr Miller acknowledged by making Fury Road basically a 2 hour car chase without making the audience sit through half a film of questionable plot and stilted dialogue before getting to the good bit .

 

Back to the plot, though. I agree with jjb1970 about the terribleness of Wild Wild West. I actually spent money to see that, not to mention using up a whole babysitting favour. Disappointment writ large.

 

As for questionable creature movies, does anyone remember Tentacles?

 

 

Even when I was 10 I could recognise a bandwagon riding turkey. Even West TV, the place 70s movies go to die, doesn't show it

 

 I 'd bet good money that the sequel ( and there always has to be one, even two and most definitely three depending on how skint the actors were ) was called 'Testacles' as a dire attempt to make up for the box office disaster of the first. Imagine, a giant pair of mutated nuggets on the loose through Los Angeles where it just couldn't help but  make it big time coast to coast, North to South and especially here in Grimsby (where I would be first in the queue... well, second behind the wife anyway.) 

 

Allan

[John M Upton]

'Battle Tanker' (also known as 'Super Tanker' although there is nothing super about it).  Worst £1 ever spent in a DVD bargain bin:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1776309/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt

 

Also 'Alien - Covenant'.  You know with Ridley Scott at the helm that visually a film will look spectacular, and indeed it did but the plot/script/dialogue was total and utter bobbins.  That is two hours of my life I am never getting back.

[BigMal]

A couple of dreadful films that have not yet been mentioned;

 

1. The Avengers - and I'm talking about the attempt to make a film of the wonderfully quirky British TV series of the 1960s. The TV series worked very well for the 60s but did not translate at all into a later full length film.

 

2. I Robot. I have read all of Isaac Asimov's robot stories (as far as I am aware) and the film had little resemblance to those writings although there was a wealth of material in the stories which could have been tapped.

As I understand it, Asimov refused to sell any film rights to his works when he was alive for fear of Hollywood turning his stories into turkeys. How right he was. It was only after his death that his heirs decided to cash in on his works.

[monkeysarefun]

Great comment and brought my attention to a couple of things I didn't know. I particular like the first-hand description of the reaction to the trailer . As noted, I'm actually a huge fan of the series. The first two films are among the most significant influences on my taste in motor vehicles to this day. Not to mention the fact that the second was so iconic that advertisers are still ripping off the imagery three and a half decades later. It also has the distinction of being the first X-rated (as 18 was then) film I ever gatecrashed. At the suggestion of my school form tutor and with the assistance of my mother, no less .

 

However, I still maintain that the bits where assorted machinery isn't crashing/blowing up/travelling at white-line blurring speeds are a bit cheesy. Something that I think Dr Miller acknowledged by making Fury Road basically a 2 hour car chase without making the audience sit through half a film of questionable plot and stilted dialogue before getting to the good bit .

 

Back to the plot, though. I agree with jjb1970 about the terribleness of Wild Wild West. I actually spent money to see that, not to mention using up a whole babysitting favour. Disappointment writ large.

 

As for questionable creature movies, does anyone remember Tentacles?

 

 

Even when I was 10 I could recognise a bandwagon riding turkey. Even West TV, the place 70s movies go to die, doesn't show itkilled it,

 

We sure did have a lot of car movies back in the '70's. The cars that Ate Paris, Midnight Spares, Running On Empty, Metal Skin, and then the Mad Max stuff.

 

I guess that reflected our car culture here back then, especially pre 1974 before the oil crisis killed it, along with the media beat ups about our death trap V8 suicide cars that were killing our kids  Looking back though, it was a bit mental. For instance I remember the little old lady next door to me when I was back in primary school. ( well at the time she seemed to 11 year old me  to be a little old lady but she was probably actually about 35) Her husband had died and she had to learn to drive his car. It was a bright yellow  XA Falcon GT coupe, which had a 5,8litre V8 in it. One of these -

 

 

But back then that didn't even seem strange that a litle old lady would have that kind of car. In fact I wanted her to adopt me because my dad was English and so our family car was a Wolsely 24/80 which he thought made us posh. It's big selling point was the Wolsely badge on the grill that lit up at night, but to me it was still an embarrassment and source of shame.

 

I've gone  a bit off topic, so to bring it back to bad movies  you did mention at the end of your  post a zombie movie that you can't find. That reminds me of another bad Australian movie from 1977  that is also not findable, other than in fragments on youtube etc Called 'Cosy Cool" apparently everyone who had anything to do with it was permanently stoned and just made it up each day as they went along. Here is a small snippet. interesting mainly because of all those great old 70's  cars and bad old 70's facial hair....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6OkaOMI_f4

Edited August 31, 2017 by monkeysarefun

[PatB]

As a general observation, a great many movies have plots that only "work" because characters or organisations in the movie's  universe are spectacularly, implausibly bad at even fundamental aspects of their jobs. I was reminded of this by mention of Alien-Covenant, where the colonists make a spectacular hash of approaching a situation which, you'd have thought, they'd have been thoroughly trained to deal with, given their mission of colonising a completely unknown and potentially hazardous planet.

 

Other examples exist. The repopulation of the UK in 28 Weeks Later, for instance, appeared to have been planned with the sole intention of creating a movieworthy disaster .

[PatB]

We sure did have a lot of car movies back in the '70's. The cars that Ate Paris, Midnight Spares, Running On Empty, Metal Skin, and then the Mad Max stuff.

 

I guess that reflected our car culture here back then, especially pre 1974 before the oil crisis killed it, along with the media beat ups about our death trap V8 suicide cars that were killing our kids  Looking back though, it was a bit mental. For instance I remember the little old lady next door to me when I was back in primary school. ( well at the time she seemed to 11 year old me  to be a little old lady but she was probably actually about 35) Her husband had died and she had to learn to drive his car. It was a bright yellow  XA Falcon GT coupe, which had a 5,8litre V8 in it. One of these -

 

xagt.jpg

 

But back then that didn't even seem strange that a litle old lady would have that kind of car. In fact I wanted her to adopt me because my dad was English and so our family car was a Wolsely 24/80 which he thought made us posh. It's big selling point was the Wolsely badge on the grill that lit up at night, but to me it was still an embarrassment and source of shame.

 

I've gone  a bit off topic, so to bring it back to bad movies  you did mention at the end of your  post a zombie movie that you can't find. That reminds me of another bad Australian movie from 1977  that is also not findable, other than in fragments on youtube etc Called 'Cosy Cool" apparently everyone who had anything to do with it was permanently stoned and just made it up each day as they went along. Here is a small snippet. interesting mainly because of all those great old 70's  cars and bad old 70's facial hair....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6OkaOMI_f4

 

I have to confess to enjoying The Cars That Ate Paris when I saw it for the first time recently, lo-buck Ozploitation though it might have been. It was fun spotting all the proto-Max bits, not to mention Bruce Spence in an early version of the "gangly, weird guy" role he's been playing, more or less constantly, for the 40+ years since .

[Reorte]

Anything with Francesca Annis in it is worth watching. Dune was visually stunning with a great soundtrack and some first class acting talent but I think it over compressed the novel and as a result felt a bit incoherent in places. Well worth a watch though. The original novel is a genuinely great book, not just a great sci-fi book but a great book period. The sequels were turgid to the point of being almost unreadable.

She was in Krull, which sometimes appears on bad movie lists. Whilst it's got a good dose of 80sness about it I rather like it, particularly for the soundtrack and scenery and isn't anywhere near plumbing the depths some of the other films on here are. Good for spotting a couple of other names before they were well known (Robbie Coltrane and Liam Neeson were there).

[allan downes]

We sure did have a lot of car movies back in the '70's. The cars that Ate Paris, Midnight Spares, Running On Empty, Metal Skin, and then the Mad Max stuff.

 

I guess that reflected our car culture here back then, especially pre 1974 before the oil crisis killed it, along with the media beat ups about our death trap V8 suicide cars that were killing our kids  Looking back though, it was a bit mental. For instance I remember the little old lady next door to me when I was back in primary school. ( well at the time she seemed to 11 year old me  to be a little old lady but she was probably actually about 35) Her husband had died and she had to learn to drive his car. It was a bright yellow  XA Falcon GT coupe, which had a 5,8litre V8 in it. One of these -

 

xagt.jpg

 

But back then that didn't even seem strange that a litle old lady would have that kind of car. In fact I wanted her to adopt me because my dad was English and so our family car was a Wolsely 24/80 which he thought made us posh. It's big selling point was the Wolsely badge on the grill that lit up at night, but to me it was still an embarrassment and source of shame.

 

I've gone  a bit off topic, so to bring it back to bad movies  you did mention at the end of your  post a zombie movie that you can't find. That reminds me of another bad Australian movie from 1977  that is also not findable, other than in fragments on youtube etc Called 'Cosy Cool" apparently everyone who had anything to do with it was permanently stoned and just made it up each day as they went along. Here is a small snippet. interesting mainly because of all those great old 70's  cars and bad old 70's facial hair....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6OkaOMI_f4

 

Another winner, Monkeysarefun.

 

Great read.

 

Allan

[rob D2]

Pearl - bloody - harbour !

 

Nuff said.

[allan downes]

One of my favourite 'actors' - Leo Gorcey.

 

His worst films, all of them.

 

Ugliest sod in Hollywood who drank himself to death after the Bowery Boys ended along with his career  though he did appear very briefly in " It's a mad, mad World " as a taxi driver.

 

Allan

[allan downes]

Pearl - bloody - harbour !

 

Nuff said.

 

 Agree Too many broads, not enough bombs.

 

Why do Hollywood directors always insist on filling their movies with talentless bimbo's when they run out of ideas ? and, one particular film, quite recently actually though I can't remember the title, was when a squadron of US fighter planes took out an alien spaceship where, after it had, a message came over the the squadron leader's headphones " Well done squadron leader, you've just saved the World " then the pilot took off a  high tech helmet only to reveal an 18 year old looking blond bimbo ! That done me. I switched  channels  immediately !

 

Then another recent movie - Battleship I think, or maybe not - "Meet my second in command " invited the battleship's captain to the obvious hero of the film, some unknown square jawed hunk, when at which point the camera swung round and came to rest on a perfect set of teeth and well established tits commissioned to try and burst free from within the confines of a US naval officer's uniform that was two sizes too small as was her brain. Once again, the remote saved the day.

 

Allan. 

Edited August 31, 2017 by allan downes

[Classsix T]

She was in Krull, which sometimes appears on bad movie lists. Whilst it's got a good dose of 80sness about it I rather like it, particularly for the soundtrack and scenery and isn't anywhere near plumbing the depths some of the other films on here are. Good for spotting a couple of other names before they were well known (Robbie Coltrane and Liam Neeson were there).

I don't recall Ms Annis in that one! Is she the "Spider Lady"?

I probably appreciate Krull more now than when released such is the subsequent success of the cast later.

As well as Messrs Coltrane and Neeson, other talent (depending on your point of view) from memory include, Todd Carty, Freddie Jones (Dune, The Elephant Man and ahem, Firefox, cough!) Alun Armstrong, Bernard Bresslaw and Lysette Anthony, who apparently had her dialogue (such as it was) overdubbed!

Funnily though, I couldn't tell you the name of the American lead who was probably employed to punter pull. Never seen him in 'owt else.

 

Around the same time was Ray Harryhousen's last hurrah with Clash of the Titans. Krull's whole budget might've covered CotT's stationery costs...or Dune's pencil sharpener fund.

I only shoehorn CotT in a tenuous link back to Dune, both of which co-starred Sian Philips! What an incestuous Web they weave...

 

C6T.

[Classsix T]

Allan,

 

Do yourself a favour and never watch Enemy at the Gates, a love triangle plot interspersed with those pesky Nazis attempting conquest of Stalingrad. Starring Marmite thesp' Jude Law in a loose bio of the Soviet Army's top sniper Vasily Zaytsev. Who probably was less concerned about getting his end away with Rachel Wiesz than plugging the Wermacht top brass from half a kilometre away.

Bob Hoskins as Chruschev is quite good though, and does illustrate the turn around of Soviet policy to take pride in itself following the purges and Finland fiasco.

But it'll be the love triangle that makes the money. Sigh.

 

C6T.

[Ian J.]

Krull - One of James Horner's best scores, and Francesca Annis played the 'Widow of the Web'. Tacky movie, but fun. The male lead was Ken Marshall, who played a recurring non-main character in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, who ended up being a baddie http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0550989/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

[allan downes]

Allan,

 

Do yourself a favour and never watch Enemy at the Gates, a love triangle plot interspersed with those pesky Nazis attempting conquest of Stalingrad. Starring Marmite thesp' Jude Law in a loose bio of the Soviet Army's top sniper Vasily Zaytsev. Who probably was less concerned about getting his end away with Rachel Wiesz than plugging the Wermacht top brass from half a kilometre away.

Bob Hoskins as Chruschev is quite good though, and does illustrate the turn around of Soviet policy to take pride in itself following the purges and Finland fiasco.

But it'll be the love triangle that makes the money. Sigh.

 

C6T.

 

It's the usual story, C6T.

 

When movie makers run out of ideas, they pad it out with slop by bringing in the token bimbo, stripping her half naked then throw her into bed to have urgent sex with the hero. Enemy at the gates was OK while they were bumping of Nazis  but you can only bump off so many before even that becomes boring - unless it was John Wayne of course who was contracted by the film studios to go forth and win the war, any war, on his own but, and whatever you do, don't ever watch him in the 'Flying Beegees' - what a right load of crap that was if ever there was ! 

 

Allan.

[jjb1970]

Allan,

 

Do yourself a favour and never watch Enemy at the Gates, a love triangle plot interspersed with those pesky Nazis attempting conquest of Stalingrad. Starring Marmite thesp' Jude Law in a loose bio of the Soviet Army's top sniper Vasily Zaytsev. Who probably was less concerned about getting his end away with Rachel Wiesz than plugging the Wermacht top brass from half a kilometre away.

Bob Hoskins as Chruschev is quite good though, and does illustrate the turn around of Soviet policy to take pride in itself following the purges and Finland fiasco.

But it'll be the love triangle that makes the money. Sigh.

 

C6T.

The first 20 minutes or so of that film are brilliant, the train journey to the Volga, crossing the river under fire and then the suicidal frontal charge with red army machine gunners behind to mow down anybody trying to retreat is fantastic. Then it goes downhill, and even more downhill..... Bob Hoskins were fantastic admittedly, and the ever reliable Ed Harris did what he could with his role but overall hugely disappointing movie. That said, I'd rate it well above the truly dire Pearl Harbour as at least it had a great first 20 minutes as opposed to the unremitting direness of Pearl Harbour.

[jjb1970]

I always find it a bit sad when excellent movies are tarnished by unworthy sequels. For example:

 

The Dirty Dozen, OK it isn't high brow artsy fartsy but it was a thoroughly enjoyable romp with a strong cast, the sequels made years later were devoid of any positive attributes whatsoever beyond being associated with a fine original.

 

The Magnificent Seven, OK it was a cowboy remake of the even more magnificent Seven Samurai but it was a fantastic film with an iconic cast, each sequel got steadily worse. Although in fairness I did enjoy the recent reboot which was a surprisingly enjoyable couple of hours of solid entertainment.

 

The French Connection, how did they go from the gritty brilliance of the first one to the turgidness of the sequel?

 

The Godfather 3, Godfather 2 is one of the very very few sequels to exclipse a great original, where did it all go so horribly wrong for Godfather 3? Dear God no......

[jjb1970]

Another in the hall of shame is this one:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Bilko

 

Why? Why-oh-why? Phil Silvers as Sgt. Bilko remains one of the greatest comic creations ever devised by TV or film (personally I'd argue THE greatest), a timeless character in a show with a wonderful ensemble cast that remains as funny today as it ever was. A genuinely timleless laugh out loud show. I like Steve Martin and with a good script he can be brilliant, but trying to re-invent Bilko was heinous.

[Classsix T]

Literally of course, there is no such thing as "bad" art. You like it, you don't like it. The connectivity is purely beholden to the artiste and audience. (Apart from Independence Day, which is , natch).

I've never been a great fan of Westerns per se, but discovery of Kurosawa's Japanese take (or the original in some cases, Kurosawa was admittedly influenced by John Houston's Westerns) on the aforementioned Fist full of Dollars, Yojimbo, starring the comparable talent of Toshiro Mifune against Clint Eastwood gave me much joy.

I never rated The Magnificent Seven, love Battle beyond the Stars and Seven Samurai though.

 

Of the old school, I'd put Shane up there as quite good.

 

C6T.

[Ian J.]

A sequel better than the original - Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. Still not bettered, either by any of the TV series or films. It's funny, but a number of the movies, both with positive and negative mentions in recent posts, have scores by James Horner. Coincidence...?

Edited August 31, 2017 by Ian J.