Worst Movie ever

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 03:20 PM

Yes, Taconius ~~ but the FIRST of them...

~M~

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 03:24 PM

Yeah I don't get adoration of The Searchers and True Grit #1 as great American Cinema. The Searchers is way over long and with True Grit, just OK. There are better John Wayne Westerns. Say what you will about John Wayne and his politics but he is iconic as a western actor. Red River, Rio Bravo, and Stage Coach are far superior to The Searchers as are The Three Cavalry films.

I believe that I could turn off the sound and just look at the composition of any John Ford film. He composed static scenes as if they were paintings. Just look at How Green Was My Valley, especially the wedding scene. The closing scenes of The Searchers as well, which was a paean to a silent Harry Carey western.

I have stated before that I am easy to accept film quality as less than stellar for purposes of entertainment. But I'd like to have the time back I spent on "Tess" and at least three attempts to watch "Gone With The Wind".

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 05:26 PM

'Visitors 2' was excrutiating, especially as 'Visitors' was rather good and 'Just Visiting' was surprisingly enjoyable.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 06:09 PM

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 11 - 09:29 PM

BrooklynJay, I don't doubt that The Beast of Yucca Flats was abysmally bad....but...can it match these two?

The Creeping Terror

From Hell It Came

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 09:04 AM

Little Hawk, I actually have a copy of From Hell It Came! It was great fun in a so-bad-it's-almost-good sorta way. Great fun! But the important thing I want to stress is that, IMHO, it was watchable. Maybe only once, but it was actually shot with professional actors, a professional crew, etc. It had the semblance and trappings of a real, live movie. The fact that it was a laughable piece of garbage was almost secondary - it was put together by professionals.

The Creeping Terror? I've heard of this one for years, though I've never seen it. Somewhere in The Archives, I have an old issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine from the early 1960's where they do a feature story (complete with photos) on this upcoming "epic." As the legend goes, at some point the film's soundtrack was lost during post-production so the film is entirely narrated. The monster itself was made from pieces of a carpet - that's the story I heard. The photos I've seen look positively laughable. Curiously enough, I'd actually like to see the film one day (masochist that I am) if it ever falls out of the sky and drops into my lap, but I don't think I would ever actively seek it out. (Or if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't admit to it!)

But I will stay on my soapbox and solemnly swear (or affirm) that, IMO, The Beast of Yucca Flats is a thousand times worse than From Hell It Came. Besides, I just love the scowl on the Tabonga's "face"!

Some other "also rans" in the Crap Horror Film Dept.:

Bloodsucking Freaks: Nauseating, misogynistic garbage. The leading actor was murdered right around the time the film was released (or escaped). Coincidence? Or just an over-zealous critic?

Monstrosity (aka The Atomic Brain): Positively horrendous sci-fi concerning brain transplants. But any film with Marjorie Eaton can't be all bad - except this one is.

Monster From the Surf (aka The Beach Girls and the Monster): Jon Hall's swan song. Sad, really.

I'm sure I can (and probably will) recall others, but right now my brain is starting to seize up from CineCrap Overload.

All systems shutting down...

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 09:13 AM

Best Film ever - Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.

Yea Yea lots of others but I was just making a point.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 09:18 AM

Just to clarify: I appreciate the links Little Hawk provided, but my ComputerSaurus is eleven years old, the OS is considered obsolete, the browsers cannot be upgraded, and it is impossible for me to watch movies over the Internet.

Other than all that, it runs perfectly well...

Jay
(Running on impulse power)

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Diva
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 09:58 AM

Anything with Steven Segal in it!

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 11:20 AM

"Bodies, Rest and Motion"
"Night Train to Venice"
"When a Man Loves a Woman"
and the worst John Wayne movie has to be "The Conqueror"

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 11:35 AM

The Conqueror was filmed in the down wind area of the US atomic testing program. The Conqueror proved pretty bad for John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dick Powell, Pedro Armendez, all of whom died of cancer. The radiation from the site is suspected in those cancer cases.

A few others lived long lives afterward however. William Conrad and Lee Van Cleef, Agnes Moorehead for instance.


Don

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 11:58 AM

BrooklyJay, I have attempted to watch some of "The Beast of Yucca Flats" on Youtube. I think you're right, it may indeed be the worst movie of all time. The unexplained opening scene with the sultry brunette coming out of her shower wrapped in a towel and then getting mysteriously strangled seems to be a complete non-sequitor with the rest of the plot, if you can say the movie has a plot at all! ;-) What were they thinking? I guess they had that piece of film and thought, "This is SO great! We've got to put it in somewhere. I know! Let's put it right at the begining, and the viewers just won't be able to stop watching..."

Who was that gal anyway? She doesn't look like the typical starlet of the time.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jan 11 - 01:35 PM

well... has anyone else here seen "Meet the Spartans"?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1073498/

and details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Spartans

Comcast offers a batch of free movies, and late the other night, I curiously opened it. I still have not decided whether it was horrendously bad...or good.... but it was beyond bizarre. One needs to know enough about both pop culture and history to fully...ummmm.. appreciate it, but if Mel Brooks made "Pink Flamingos" it might come close to the essence.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 04:58 AM

My vote goes to Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger despite it being Ray Harryhausen's dynamation, it just about saves the film. The acting from Patrick Wayne, Jane Seymour and the rest of the cast is so wooden including Patrick Troughton who I thought was quite ok in Jason and the Argonauts and many other things that I've seen him in. I am a fan of Harryhausen films normally apart from this one, I dread it whenever it comes on. I appreciate that the film was mostly about the effects rather than the cast's acting ability but it is pretty bad and can only assume that it was designed to keep children quiet for an hour on a wet Bank Holiday.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 06:25 AM

"I dread it whenever it comes on."
===
Why? Who forces you to watch it? How?

~M~

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 06:59 AM

I've always watched Harryhausen films with my boys and even now they are men we still watch them together comparing each film's quality from King Kong to Clash of the Titans even if it means sitting through yet another Sinbad again. It's just what we do.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 08:50 AM

Well, I think that is absolutely charming. Enjoy, Patsy, even in the midst of your dread!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 12:46 PM

And here I was thinking it was part of a divorce settlement or something... ;-)

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: CET
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 07:49 PM

Well, I wouldn't swear an oath that this is the worst movie ever made, but dishonourable mention, at the very least, has to go to Knights of the Round Table with Robert Taylor as Lancelot. The fight scenes could have been staged by a bunch of Society of Creative Anachronism drop outs. The scene where Arthur confronts a bunch of nasty warlords, including the King of the Picts, at Stonehenge is just priceless.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 18 Jan 11 - 08:26 PM

Worst movie ever is "Don's Party". Aussie flick (sorry!), circa 1980. I dare anyone to watch the whole thing.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 04:05 AM

The worst child's movie I've ever seen was 'Around the World with Dot' it's an Aussie film for children that mixed animation with 'live' animals in it but it was horrendous. I rented it out for my sons thinking that it would keep them quiet for an hour or so, so that we the parents could get an extra hours' lay in but within 10 minutes all I could hear downstairs was 'this is rubbish' I vowed to stick to the tried and trusted films like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from then on.

As far as adult movies go a while back I watched a gruesome film I think it was called 'Society' not quite sure of the exact name of the film which contained a scene that showed a man being eaten by the party guests from inside out. It wasn't so much a bad film it was the squelchy sound effects that turned my stomach. Normally I've got quite a strong stomach but on that occasion I had to leave the room.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 04:37 AM

I hated Todd Solondz's obnoxious and grossly overrated {Cannes Interntnl Critics' Prize!} 'Happiness'. Did anyone here rate it?

Subject: RE: Worst Movies ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 08:17 AM

Most attempts of transferring situation comedies to the big screen failed abysmally. From the early 70's onwards the UK film industry tried to put popular programmes like Till Death Us do Part / On the Buses / Bless this House / George and Mildred / Rising Damp etc. on film and it just didn't ever seem to work as a film. Obviously the canned laughter was missing and to add to confusion sometimes a particular character would be replaced by an alternative actor. The acting was either pretty basic or just plain bad.

MASH (USA) on the otherhand was great as a television comedy series and good on film.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 09:09 AM

Although the MASH film would have come first with the TV series being adapted from that.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 11:32 AM

Trailer Park Boys has remained equally good on film as it was on TV. There is never any canned laughter on that show, thank God! Canadians don't need to be told when to laugh, eh?

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 11:45 AM

Well, for Canadians it's a very thin line between hilarity and depression anyway. When asked about their favorite Ingmar Bergman movie, most Canadians sited the one where Groucho is a college Dean.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 12:08 PM

Take that back, you supercilious swine! I was in love with a Canadian girl in the 70s and she was mad about Ingmar Bergman films and had seen all of them. I was persuaded to view a couple of Bergman films in her company. I have to say I found them a bit tedious....but it was a worthwhile sacrifice. ;-)

Furthermore, we Canadians do not "site" things like film references. We "cite" them.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 12:19 PM

I remember that girl. I think I watched My Dinner with Andre with her. Ran into her about three months ago coming out of an art theater in Boulder where they were running a David Lynch festival. She was a site for soar eyes.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 12:26 PM

Yes, she loved My Dinner With Andre. Actually, I really liked that one too, but I just couldn't warm up to the Bergman films for some reason. You should ask her out to one of the recent Woody Allen movies if you get a chance, and really delve into those serious human issues.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 02:07 PM

For some unfathonable reason, I remembered Dennis Hopper's "The Last Movie" a couple of days ago. As near as I can figure, Hopper and some cohorts, including Kris Kristofferson, spent some time in a primitive Latin American village, fried out of their minds, shooting endless takes of nothing in particular. Then Hopper, or someone, spliced it all together with no actual editing, and somehow it got shown in theaters. I probably shouldn't knock it, though, because Hopper said it was significant.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 04:45 PM

I am not a movie person. However, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes had that reputation at one time.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: josepp
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 10:44 PM

Anything out of Hollywood blows donkey balls these days.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 10:58 PM

I wasn't aware that anyone blew donkey balls. It sounds like a pretty disgusting practice to me, but in Hollywood...I guess anything is possible. ;-)

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: J-boy
Date: 05 Mar 11 - 11:25 PM

Donkey balls. Yum. My local Libyan restaurant serves them with a lovely mint sauce.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:01 AM

I recall a Czech [or maybe Hungarian] film of 1960s-1970s, (when E European films such as Jancso's The Round Up [aka The Lost Ones in US, IIRC] were mainly well worth seeing), about a young man wandering around a city with an old cavalry sabre, attacking a car wrapped in black polythene, then lying in the snow in front of a tram which just stopped in time & a girl came along and said "Get up, you'll catch cold" - The End.

Rave reviews and about the most stupid inconsequential bore I have ever sat thru.

Anyone recall title/director? Tried to google but couldn't locate.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Clontarf83
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 01:02 AM

Love Story---spawned hundreds of disease of the month movies, which quickly degenerated in to thousands of chick flick movies and tv shows

Easy Rider--in retrospect

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: darkriver
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:35 AM

Red Dawn, in which a bunch of high school kids defeat the Soviet invasion of America.
Whatever else you say about Tim Burton, at least his plots are plausible...

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Van
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 04:38 AM

Anything with Tom Hanks in it. He always plays Tom Hank not the Character he is meant to depict.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:17 PM

Red Dawn was so utterly awful that it was almost unbelievable, but that was the Reagan era... ;-)

As for Tom Hanks, I kind of agree. Perhaps in the future there will be a whole series of "Tom Hanks" films where other actors play Tom Hanks and try to get it exactly right so that you can't even tell them from Tom Hanks. It could become a profitable sub-genre in movies, sort of like the Woody Allen stuff, but a little more middle-class in tone.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:29 PM

There are lots of actors who play themselves in film after film. The ones who DON'T play themselves are the ones that are harder to recognize until they end up in some breakout role so you at least recognize their face when they turn up in the next one. Good character actors are like that.

Last night I was working around the house and turned on the television for some noise. ABC was playing the 2005 Peter Jackson version of King Kong. Now that surely ranks with either the stupidist or silliest movie ever made. The CGI budget for dinosaurs battling giant gorillas may push it out of overall contention for "worst" movie ever. In that film, Jack Black played, you guessed it, Jack Black.

SRS

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 12:46 PM

I thought that Peter Jackson's "King Kong" was in some respects quite a good film of its type...in other respects it was excessive (the battle with not just one but THREE Tyrannosaurs was absolutely excessive to the final possible degree). But the relationship between the heroine and the ape was far more interesting, subtle, and better handled than ever before in a King Kong movie. The character who played the heroine's boyfriend didn't work so well as far as I was concerned. Jack Black DID play Jack Black in the movie, yes, but he was still just about perfect for the part of Denham, I thought. The atmospheric portrayal of the depression era in New York and the whole feel of the first half of the film was marvelous, visually gorgeous, very forboding, and appropriately dramatic for a story which is, after all, simply escapism...an adventure fantasy on a grand scale. The stampede of the huge herbivorous dinosaurs along the cliff edge was again simply totally excessive and overdone...as was the struggle in the pit with the creepycrawly insect things.

And the creepy natives were overdone.

But the scenery and sets were great.

So I think it was both a very good King Kong film and a pretty silly movie at the same time (mostly because of the WAY overdone action scenes on the island), depending on which part of it you choose to focus on.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 02:03 PM

Indeed, LH ~~ this was an instance of the "good bad film" ~ or do I mean "the bad good film"?

Either way, I think any of such would avoid the anti-accolade in this thread's title.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 03:50 PM

It was the creepy natives part that really repulsed me. Adrien Brody isn't someone I think of outside of kind of cerebral films (not that I've seen that many of his, I'm just aware of some of his early work), but there was an instance when he was bare-chested in the darkened ship passageway, talking to Naomi, and I experienced the classic feminine sit up and look moment: he's one of those skinny guys who can be quite buff in some of his films. I'm sure he had to work out a lot to be ready for that role, and to their credit, the parts of the film I saw after the natives raided the ship I didn't see them flaunting his bare chest. I was impressed the at the remarkable durability of the negligee and peignoir she wore as she was dragged around the island.

I think the term you're trying to land on as you weigh the features of this film is "over the top." It intentionally put itself in that territory, so as to avoid criticism of the number of T Rexes in the battle, and the apatosaurus (apatosaurii?) running around on those dodgy cliff edges. I was working in a couple of rooms of the house, and I put a different film in one room but the other room still had Kong on, and I saw bits of both as I moved back and forth.

SRS

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 05:54 PM

Well, I found it to be great entertainment, but the scenes with the 3 tyrannosaurs and the Apatosaurus stampede were, yes..."over the top"...to the extent that they became, in my opinion, far less effective than they could have been if kept within sensible bounds. A duel between Kong and ONE tyrannosaur could have been epic, as it was in the original film...but 3 of them??? Just ridiculous.

The modern young multiplex audience, however, seems to feel that MORE is always better when it comes to that sort of thing, so I guess Peter Jackson was trying to give them what they expect.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:10 PM

"Sensible bounds."

Interesting concept in a film about a giant gorilla that battles dinosaurs and dies when shot off the top of the Empire State Building.

:)

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:18 PM

Well, yeah...but that's the basic premise. ;-D Whatcha gonna do? I'm just sayin', let's keep it tasteful...

One thing I'd say...they did a great job on the attack by the airplanes, but they still somehow couldn't match the pathos of Kong's death in the original film, even though it was done in primitive black and white film and using miniatures. His weakening grip on the cupola, his sad and confused dabbing at the blood pouring from his chest wounds, and that final fall in the original film is just wrenching to watch, specially when you see his body glance off the side of the building part way down. It really stirs pity.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 01:21 AM

The Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange version was more sexy, as I recall. I remember reading that Lange was really squashed by the animatronic hand - I just looked it up - she ended up with a pinched nerve from one of the scenes.

I do remember how the pathos of the last scene really worked in the old film, and it also worked in the Twin Towers version.

SRS

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 04:32 AM

I thought the stampede in the newest King Kong was 'over the top' and a little bit 'Jurassic Park' which had been done in quite a few films by then so 1 tyrannosaurus would have done just to show the might of Kong because they had to demonstrate how powerful he was I guess. Or may be the odd giant spider thrown in would have been a bit more plausible.

LH I agree about the Empire State Building scene when Kong was attacked and shot by the airplanes, it always makes me cry and I always get angry at the girl too for putting him in that position in the first place.

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: C-flat
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 06:48 AM

One of the best "worst film" I ever saw I tuned in halfway through, at a scene where the top half of the cabin of a large passenger jet had been ripped off in some mid-air catastrophe. In true Star-Trek-under-alien-attack style the air-stewards bravely struggled up the aisles to comfort passengers, like bad mime artists pushing against the wind. Wind??? These guys should have been dragged into the ether and decorating the landscape below from the first instant!!!
It was so bad I could barely see through the tears of laughter. I looked in the TV listings to see what this masterpiece was.....
"Miracle Landing"!!!!
No prizes for guessing how that ended up!!!

Subject: RE: Worst Movie ever
From: C-flat
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 06:50 AM

Oh Yeah!!! Not forgetting "Eyes Wide Shut" a Tom Cruise turkey of epic proportion!!!
That was another hour and a half of my life I'll never get back!