Badmovies.org Forum

I just discovered this pile of bad-movie-goodness last night, and felt like I oughta chime in.

I had to share one of my worst movie-watching experiences, partly cuz it's a movie which isn't reviewed here on the site:  Sorcerer

It all started when I was with a friend at the video store one night when I was in college.  Several friends were planning to waste an evening with a rented movie and some alcohol, and it fell to us to choose the movie.  I had a car, you see.  So my friend, after about a solid minute of searching, comes up with this gem, and says, "Hey, how about this one?  It has the guy from Jaws in it, can't be too bad."  I should have turned and run for my very life, but I just didn't know:  Never, EVER, let Chris choose the movie.

Yes, it has Roy Scheider in it.  It also involves a long trek through a jungle in a run-down jeep with a crate of nitro-glycerine in the back.  It does not, as far as I could ever determine, involve a sorcerer.  This one earns big Bad Movie Points for the title alone.

If you're sober and like your movies to make some sort of sense, avoid this one like the plague.  If you're a bad movie afficionado, check it out, but keep the liquor handy in case your brain seizes up while watching.

All right, since this is a "new topic" and all that... Who else has horror stories of letting the WRONG person choose the movie for the night?

I think on occasion I have been the wrong person to let pick a movie.

I fondly remember one halloween with a bunch of mixed company of friends watching in horror while I proudly treated them to ... (drum roll please)

SPLIT SECOND

The Rutger Hauer thriller about some kind of demon/alien/monster creature stalking people in the flooded streets of near-future London.  Truly a bad movie by any definition of the term.

The plot made no sense, was filled with gratuitous nudity and gore.  I had one friend actually walk out on me because of the movie!  I haven't seen it for years...Maybe it's out on DVD...

Aaron sayeth -

"It involves a long trek through a jungle in a run-down jeep with a crate of nitro-glycerine in the back. It does not, as far as I could ever determine, involve a sorcerer. This one earns big Bad Movie Points for the title alone."

Chadzilla respondeth -

"According to sources somewhere (interview with Friedkin?  Schneider? - who hates this movie as much as Sea Quest DSV) Sorcerer is the name of the truck Schneider is driving, WTF?!  I don't remember it ever being mentioned however."  

Eghads whatta piece of crud.  I have the do have the soundtrack though, weird score by Tangerine Dream.

Ha!  You think your friend chose badly?  I let my ex-girlfiend (intentional typo) pick once and had to see THE OTHER SISTER!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAack!

I suspect she felt the same way about your movie choices.  I'm going onto nine years of marriage with a wife who liked THE OTHER SISTER (and unfortunately I agreed to watch it with her).  I'm found that the key to a successful relationship in this kind of situation is to stay together where your interests coincide, and stay apart apart where they diverge.  She doesn't make me watch ERIN BROKOVICH, and I don't make her watch VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET.  It works.  I'm not saying this is the final solution to all relationship problems, but it will probably make your movie viewing experiences more enjoyable for both parties.  You just have to find something else to do together (the bedroom is always nice!) or find a movie you can both enjoy for that time together.

Listen to me...getting philosophical and it's only Thursday.

Gerry

Oh, and she (my wife) was one of the people I subjected to watching SPLIT SECOND.

Scream 3
Nutty Professer 2
The Cell
Batman and Robin
The list goes.

I suppose that depends on who you ask: me or my 15 year old teeniebopper sister.  We usually rent movies on Friday night for lack of anything better to do, and ALWAYS end up getting at least two or three movies, just so both of us can be appeased.  An excellent example was about a month ago, when I picked out Dead Alive, while she insisted upon Where The Heart Is.  I ended up watching both; Dead Alive because it's AWESOME and Where The Heart Is out of perverse curiosity.  It turned out to be about a pregnant chick who gets abandoned and lives in Wal Mart, gets rescued by a snotty library guy, befriends a nurse who has 5 kids with 4 different fathers, and names her baby Americus.  Then her mother shows up and takes all her money, so she goes to live with the welcome wagon lady, who is supposedly cellibate but secretly screws her brother on the kitchen table.  Her old boyfriend gets arrested, writes songs in jail, tries to get into the music industry, fails because of a retarded lawsuit, gets drunk, and has his legs amputated by a train.  I wanted to stop watching, but I couldn't pry myself away. . . it was like a flaming car wreck or Jerry Springer or worse.  By the time the heartwarming ending finally came, I felt very, very dirty.  Fortunately, I had DEAD ALIVE, which made everything better.

A couple of months ago my friends and I were fooled into going to a mystery movie by a couple of female acquaintances.  We were not made aware of what movie it was until after we were already in the theater and the opening credits began.  Since these girls know us and have pretty nasty senses of humor, we were expecting something awful like What Women Want or Miss Congeniality.  But then the words Dude, Where's My Car? came on the screen, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.  If only we knew.

Dude, Where's My Car? is the worst movie I have ever seen in a theater.  It is simply appalling.  Ten minutes into it we knew we were witnessing something tremendous and historic, something so unbelievably bad that words could not describe it.  

So one of these days we're going to tie those ladies down and force them to watch I Spit on Your Grave, Eaten Alive, Up from the Depths, Severed Ties, and Necronomicon: Book of the Dead all in a row.  Ah, to hear those begs for mercy...

Friends don't let friends pick drunk . .. .
*****
I've never seen the Roy Schieder remake of Wages of Fear -- aka Sorcerer -- but I also have the Tangerine Dream soundtrack & love the music.
Now as is so often the case, Wages of Fear (1953?), with Yves Montand, in the original French, is a very very GOOD movie -- genuinely scary and tension-building.  But, just as the original Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe in French is very very funny & the Tom Hanks American remake really is NOT, some films should simply not be allowed to be remade.
Remember the horrible remake of Diabolique a few years back?  
See the original whenever possible --
And Aaron, go rent Wages of Fear & see what they were trying to achieve --

The truly horrible thing is that when I caught Soceror on Speedvision's Drive In Theater, I recognized the soundtrack instantly.  It was used for years by radio personality Doug "Greaseman" Tracht for one of his ongoing comedy routines about his days as a wacked out Vietnam soldier.  I never knew where the music had come from until I saw the film.

As for Soceror itself, as it stands it isn't a bad flick.  The characters are all ciphers (they refer to each other as The American, the Frenchman, the Israili) but the setting of a South American jungle is the real star of the show.  Their descent into a nearly literal green hell is impressive to see, especially as they try and wrangle two trucks that look to be the size of 737s over a rickity rope bridge in the middle of a rainstorm.

It's a strange duck of a film.  Not enough about the characters is known to make it a psychodrama, not enough action to make it a thriller.  It's just damned disturbing.  Think of it in the same manner as "Aguire: The Wrath of God".

BTW Alas poor Doug Tracht.  After a couple of well-publicised incidents where he couldn't kill his back country hick personality to keep from making two illl-considered remarks about black people, he's bounced from a million dollar radio gig to having to *rent* a fifteen-hundred watt station to get on the air.