Bad Movies


When the Internet was young and pictures took 8 years to download, I used to have a little web site (which I wrote from a Unix terminal) called "The Web Page O' Rotten Movies". That page was lost in a big server wipe back in '02, but I scraped up part of it to share with you all now. This was the bottom ten of my list of bad movies. The worst of the worst. The 10 worst movies I've ever seen. Don't talk to me about your semi-bad movies like your "Gigli" or your "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" until you've lived through these babies.


#10
The Killer Shrews (6)
1959 Dir. Ray Kellog
Starring James Best, Ingrid Goude

This isn't about annoying wives, it's about a pack of "shrews" terrorizing an island. Fairly typical plot that lost a lot of points on the fact that the "shrews" were clearly afghan hounds, and possibly some border collies, with masks. I guess that makes this movie a real dog. (A groan is heard from all over the world.)


#9
Invisible Invaders (5)
1959 Dir. Edward L. Cahn
Starring John Agar, Jean Byron

Invisible Martians decide to attack the earth. Rather than use their invisibilty as the asset it would seem to be, they hide it by invading the bodies of dead humans, rendering themselves slow and visible. They deserved to be defeated. They were really stupid.


#8
The Wasp Woman (5)
1960 Dir. Roger Corman
Starring Susan Cabot, Fred Eisley, Barboura Morris

A scientist/bee keeper develops an anti-aging serum made from a wasp's royal jelly. Apparently royal jelly has DNA-altering effects. First it turns a guinea pig into a rat, then it turns a woman into a big bug. Anti-climactic and stupid. Has some laughably bad parts. (And why did that man call the male scientist "Honey" at the end?)


#7
Freakshow(5)
1995 Dir. William Cooke & Paul Talbot
Starring Gunnar Hanson, Victoria Carlson

To begin, a warning. This is not a kids' movie. It involves some really ugly nakedness. It's about two teenagers who go to a freak show and see some really pathetic and fake freaks, then listen to the "Freakmaster" tell the even worse stories behind them. My favorite is the evil baby story.


#6
The Creeping Terror (4)
1964 Dir. Art J. Nelson
Starring Vic Savage, Shannon O'Neil

A monster that looks like a big throw rug runs rampant in a city and eats people. The co-ordination of the actors is so bad that they never look like they're being eaten. They more often look like they're diving into a carpet for no good reason.


#5
Black Ninja (4)
19?? Dir. ???
Starring ???

This movie was so bad it had no credits. No one wanted to accept responsibility for this thing. With the title "Black Ninja" and the picture of a black man on the tape case, I expected this to be a traditional Blaxploitation film. There were no black people in this film with more than a bit part. It had no plot. Production quality so bad that one scene was edited in twice.


#4
Horror of Party Beach (4)
1964 Dir. Del Tenney
Starring John Scott, Alice Lyon

The "horror" of party beach that the director and writers intended was a bunch of creatures (that exist, of course, because of pollution) that are covered in paper-y cloth "scales" and have gaping mouths filled with what seems to be hot dogs. I argue that the real horror of party beach was not these weiner-mouthed pathetic excuses for special effects, but rather the scrawny men in speedos dancing and kicking their legs. That was truly horrifying.


#3
Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (3)
1963 Dir. Ray Dennis Steckler
Starring Cash Flagg (a.k.a Ray Dennis Steckler), Carolyn Brandt, Atlas King

If I've learned anything in my years of watching bad movies, it's that any movie starring the director is to be avoided. This movie was so bad I can't express it in words. It had no plot. It took place in what seemed to be a series of sideshows and nightclubs. Ortega (like the brand of taco shells) is the name of a character who could have been the in-bred cousin of Torgo (see "Manos"). Most of the movie was bad singing and bad dancing, with some drinking in between. I don't know if I'll ever fully recover from this film.


#2
"Manos" the Hands of Fate (0)
1966 Dir. Harold P. Warren
Starring Harold P. Warren, John Reynolds

"Manos" is a pointless and plotless film about Satan or something. It looks like some Jr. High kids made it after school and didn't have the equiptment to edit properly. Bad acting. No plot. And of course, who could forget Torgo, the twitchy guy with big knees and strange speech patterns (he was supposed to be half goat, but they didn't have the budget to do it right). Unforgettable. Like watching someone die. (And with a score of zero, this is the baseline film against which I measure all others.


#1, the Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen
The Beast of Yucca Flats (-2)
1961 Dir. Coleman Francis
Starring Tor Johnson

This movie is about a "noted scientist" named Joseph Givorski. He gets caught in a nuclear test, and for plot purposes doesn't die, but turns into a brainless monster. There's no dialog. There's no discernable plot. But there is a completely meaningless bunny rabbit hopping across the shot at the end. It is truly a horrible and emotionally scarring movie experience.





Help me pay my bills:




Alana Muir © 2005