Legendarily bad movies

[dslartoo]

So datalopez has a taste for extremely bad movies -- that is, movies that are so bad they make your teeth hurt. For the past couple of months Netflix has been sending her cheesy 80s sci-fi/fantasy films and we've been viewing questionable entertainment like "Krull", "Conan the Barbarian", "Dragonslayer" and other such trash. This weekend, though, we were treated to a pair of films that were so incredibly bad that they inverted and came out the other end to be utterly fantastic.

The movies in question starred Lou Ferrigno in his turn at playing Hercules: "Hercules" and its sequel "The Adventures of Hercules". Produced by the legendary (in bad movie circles) Golan/Globus team over at the Cannon Group, these films are just.....they.....I can't find the words. The acting is terrible, the effects are cheesy, and the stories are just something out of the fevered dreams of a drug addict.

WITNESS!

-- The bemuscled Lou Ferrigno (who, admittedly, LOOKS fantastic as Hercules) struggling valiantly to change facial expression even once!

-- Hercules throwing a bear into space! (Yes, I said INTO SPACE. This is how we got Ursa Major, didn't you know?).

-- Women in amazingly skimpy outfits! (This is, of course, a good thing for us red-blooded males).

-- Robot dragons and centaurs! That shoot lasers!

-- A chariot soaring through space!

-- "Amazon" fighters who are clearly men with not even an ATTEMPT to make them look realistically female!

-- The legend of the universe being created by Pandora's urn!........Wait, what?

-- Recycled footage from 1933's King Kong rotoscoped with neon animation! For that matter, recycled footage from the first movie reused in the second one!

-- Myths and legends that bear no relation whatsoever to their original tellings! (Daedalus as a female God, Tartarus as a trident-wielding knight in a forest of spirits, King Minos as a madman obsessed with pure science and reason, Clotho and Lachesis as fairies ("The Little People") instead of the Fates, the Hydra turned into a robot, and oh so much more).

-- Trippy spacelike arcadey sound effects and visual effects!

-- Dialogue so bad that when a single line is actually thought-provoking and interesting, it shocks you out of a daze!

I cannot recommend these movies highly enough. They're available from Netflix, or on a single DVD from Amazon that you can get used for about three bucks. These are the best bad movies that I've seen in a long time.

-- END OF LINE --

[[The Oracle would like to know your favorite bad movie or movie series.]]

Comments

[arkhamrefugee.livejournal.com]

Ask her about Zardoz. I dare ya.

[9thmoon.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Oh man, thanks for the reminder. That one should be on the list too.

(In the queue upcoming, for example, are "Big Trouble in Little China", "They Live", "Ice Pirates" and similar ilk. I'm trying to locate a copy of "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn" but Netflix doesn't have that one for rental).

cheers,
Phil

[mpceccato.livejournal.com]

Metalstorm is the reason Richard Moll shaved his head for nine years. He had finished the film when he auditioned for "Night Court". The producers liked the look so much, he was asked to keep it.

For some odd reason, Universal hasn't released this one on DVD yet. Especially considering that they've come to terms with Howard The Duck, which got a pretty good (for what it is) treatement not too long ago.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

I wondered if you might know something I didn't about this. Looks like TWO things. Thanks for the word! I'll go on trying to locate a live torrent file for a downloadable version. :)

cheers,
Phil

[fairgoldberry.livejournal.com]

You're going to watch Zardoz?

On purpose?

Drink heavily. You'll be glad you did, because even if it doesn't make it any better, it'll increase your chances of forgetting the movie. I saw it sober. I still twitch occasionally.

Much love,
Rowan

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

I sat through "Manos: The Hands of Fate". After that I think I can deal with ANYthing. :)

cheers,
Phil

[fairgoldberry.livejournal.com]

I will not spoil anything for you. I will simply say, as someone who's seen both, "We shall revisit this conversation when you've seen it."

Much love,
Rowan

[mpceccato.livejournal.com]

"I saw it sober. I still twitch occasionally."

I know the feeling.

[9thmoon.livejournal.com]

I love bad movies. B. doesn't understand why I can watch things like Krull and Zardoz over and over and over again.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Because they're FUN! :)

(In the queue upcoming, in case you're curious, are "Big Trouble in Little China", "They Live", "Ice Pirates" and similar ilk. I'm trying to locate a copy of "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn" but Netflix doesn't have that one for rental).

cheers,
Phil

[teh-dirty-robot.livejournal.com]

Hercules throwing a bear into space!

AHAHAHAH I love it! I was watching old She-Ra episodes the other week (I should just post about it later, it's frigging hilarious), and saw one spectacular episode about her talking flying unicorn mount who was going to have a baby with his girlfriend, but she was captured off of Unicorn Island, and if the baby is born off of the island, it's just a mere horse so She-Ra goes off to rescue it, but first she needs to win the trust of the Unicorn King so she can fly him off into SPACE to move Etheria's TWO moons so that the tide will drop and Swift Wind's unicorn girlfriend won't drown.

This shit was like crack to little girls, I swear.


P.S. I love bad movies, too, but in all earnestness, stay away from 'Monsturd', which is a whole new level of awful.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

I had a feeling you would chime in on this. Never heard of the one you mentioned, but I'd stay away from a film with a name like THAT regardless. :)

datalopez was a She-Ra fan too. She probably remembers the episode you're talking about. Heh.

cheers,
Phil

[yud.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend Full Metal Ninja, but unfortunately I don't think they ever released it on DVD. In high school my friends and I used to rent it from Blockbuster all the time. You can see the trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaU-ZbKuGNM

The director took a perfectly good Japanese samurai movie, added horrible dubbing, and then chopped it all up to add in "ninjas" who are white guys in flamboyant ninja costumes.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, that's AWESOME. As a martial artist and martial arts enthusiast, I saw plenty of bad kung-fu and ninja flicks in the 80s, but that one somehow escaped my notice. I must now track it down. Thanks!

cheers,
Phil

[yud.livejournal.com]

Apparently the director, Godfrey Ho (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387301/), made a whole career out of creating such movies. From his IMDB biography:

He is considered a master of B-movie Hong Kong actioners. However, a number of his movies are Z-grade movies made with a "cut-and-paste" technique. He would shoot footage for one movie, often using Caucasian actors for exportation, then edit the scenes into several other movies, mixing them with footage from old, unfinished or unreleased Asian movies (using Thai as well as Chinese or Filipino footage), then trying to make the story somewhat coherent through dubbing and voice-overs. He would then have four or five movies (of rock-bottom quality, of course) while having spent the budget of one.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

........I guess if you're good at something, you should stick to it? Hell, it works for Uwe Boll. :)

cheers,
Phil

[slipdragon.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you need more.

First off, you need a copy of "Megaforce". After that, you need "Night of the Comet". Maybe "Solarbabies".

Finally, and, perhaps, most importantly, you need to watch the following, IN ORDER:

Seven Samurai
The Magnificent Seven
Battle Beyond the Stars

The latter is notable for Robert Vaughn also being in The Magnificent Seven. All three movies are the SAME STORY. :)

Enjoy!

--Brian

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

"Megaforce" and "Night of the Comet" I am unfamiliar with but I was subjected to "Solarbabies" when it was first released. Horrid thing. :)

The Seven correlation I knew about and have seen the first two (great) films. That last, though, I did NOT know about. :)

Thanks for the recs!

cheers,
Phil

[delathi.livejournal.com]

Don't forget: The Seven Magnificent Gladiators with Lou Ferrigno and Sybil Danning.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Oo, not familiar with that one. Have to go look it up.

cheers,
Phil

[ytsemaddy.livejournal.com]

Krull is awesome in its own special cheesy 80's way. We watched in Netflix On Demand (360) about a month ago. I looked up online what the main actor now looks like... I wouldn't recommend doing so.

My two favorite bad horror movies (not sure if they're officially B movies, per se): Waxwork, and Bad Dreams, with an honorable mention for Waxwork 2. I was greatly cheered that HBO aired Bad Dreams over the weekend.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Not familiar with any of those. We're looking for more cheesy than horrific, though, so I may give 'em a miss -- no offense. :)

I do agree that Krull is pure awesomeness. I actually never saw the movie until we watched it a few weeks ago -- but I remember playing the arcade game that it spawned. Weird.

cheers,
Phil

[ytsemaddy.livejournal.com]

Well, Waxwork is pretty damn cheesy, and Waxwork 2 is basically a spoof of itself (hence the line "You're in God's Nintendo game!"). Bad Dreams is just bad 80's movie, so maybe skip that.

I also had the Krull game for the Atari. Well, technically, my dad did. OR, to be entirely accurate, STILL DOES.

As well as ET. And Masters of The Universe.

[delathi.livejournal.com]

How dare you classify Conan the Barbarian as trash. Go watch it again.

Now, had you said Conan the Destroyer, well then, you'd be right.

Favorite bad movie? Hawk the Slayer : John Terry (yes, Jack's dad from Lost) as the hero and Jack Palance as the bad guy. Awesome cheese.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Hawk the Slayer is somewhere on the upcoming list, I think!

Conan, I'm sorry, is still trash. Arnold looks the part, but he can't act his way out of a paper bag. And Conan is supposed to have brains with his brawn. The movie makes him into just another dumb barbarian. :)

It's FUN cheese, but it's still cheese. And the sequel too. Although it is admittedly better than Hercules (still, that doesn't take much). :)

cheers,
Phil