Badmovies.org Forum

There are some bad movies that just come across in such a way as to make one wonder just what the hell those behind it were thinking or perhaps experimenting with at the time of its creation. Some of these films have elements that perhaps try and move a film into the realm of "art" or "artistic expression" but the end result just ends up being bizarre and leaves most viewers scratching their head going "what the hell??!!" or "WTF!" is up with this. Most of their film posters make these films look so much better than they actually are too. Feel free to add movies that left you wondering about your sanity watching them as well.

Some films that left me scratching my head wondering what the hell include:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/Fatspyposter.jpg)

The Fat Spy (1966): This one tries to mix in spy thrills via rival marketing companies after the fountain of youth with a beach party movie. Actually the beach party portion of the film proves a lot more agreeable, with some nice location scenery and some cheesy songs, than all the silly spy hijinks with Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard and Brian Donlevy all giving rather bizarre and downright embarrassing performances, kind of like aging over the hill beatniks. Jayne Mansfield is also on hand to provide some eye candy while the beach party teenagers are on a scavenger hunt almost in the background. Truly one of the most offbeat bad films you'll ever see but also oddly fascinating in that bad movie way.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/78/LittleShop.jpg)

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960): Actually Corman directed a few oddities that seemed to mix in elements of art film with comedy parody mixed with horror. This is arguably one of the very best of its type but is also truly weird and unquestionably strange. We see the common visitors who visit Mushnick's Flowers, a skid row flower shop and those in the surrounding neighborhood they are an odd group indeed. There's the man who likes to eat flowers - Burson Fouch (d**k Miller), the clumsy and clueless lead Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) who comes to serve his carnivorous plant Audry Jr. even after he learns it demands blood for food!, Seymour's mom Winifred (Myrtle Vail) who's obsessed with the idea she's sick and uses cough syrup and medicine as regular food and beverage, the equally clueless Audry (Jackie Joseph) who acts as Seymour's love interest and spends most of the movie just looking like a pretty deer in headlights who commonly mispronounces everything she says. And at the dentist office we get to see a young Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient named Wilbur Force, an early role that eventually led to Nicholson being mass marketed on most of the covers of cheapo DVDs for this movie despite his role being very short. And that's just some of the strangeness going on here which seems to be neverending really.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Creature_from_the_Haunted_Sea_poster.jpg)

Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961): Actually kind of similar on some levels to Little Shop, this one is more focused on a strange sea monster who terrorizes a group of criminals on a boat looking to steal the stolen National Treasury of Cuba. This one too is filled with strange characters doing bizarre things and an hilarious looking monster. Nevertheless, this proves tougher slugging that Little Shop and has more dull moments and its arty attempts at comedy feel more forced yet it does have its moments here and there.

(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMzg3ODg1NTU0OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODE3NDgyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR4,0,214,317_.jpg)

The Nasty Rabbit (1964): this one stars the one and only Arch Hall Jr. and is arguably the wildest and weirdest movie in which he ever appeared. For the most part it seems to make little sense but apparently the whacked plot involves Russian spies who let loose a "nasty" rabbit secretly infected with a deadly bacteria in the U.S. and its supposed to be get this - a comedy. It's horrendous awful but yet it's hard to take one's eyes off this disaster piece of bizarreness too especially if you have that acquired taste for terrible bad movies.

Well, I'll have to check out THE FAT SPY and NASTY RABBIT.  CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA gets pretty weird at times but I think I'd call LITTLE SHOP more "offbeat."

I have a whole category devoted to this stuff on my site: http://366weirdmovies.com/tag/so-bad-its-weird.

Too many movies to list individually but the highlights are SKIDOO (Jackie Gleason dropping acid), ZARDOZ (Sean Connery in a red diaper), MANIAC (cat skinning, eyeball eating, syringe catfight), THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS (Tor Johnson and haiku narration), BLOOD DINER (gore comedy with a Hitler fetish), and HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND (misogynists on Spider Island).

Fat Spy and Nasty Rabbit are both in the public domain I think and I'm pretty sure both are easily available to watch online, not sure about the quality though.

Agree with your picks, which are really quite fitting, too. I've seen all those except Ski-Doo and Blood Diner.

SKIDOO was released on dvd last year (I own it, but haven't looked at it yet...  :bluesad:)
It's cool. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFO-D3TInGg

I gotta go with SKIDOO.
It's the older generation trying to be hip.(never a good idea)

Should warn you Rev., Fat Spy and Nasty Rabbit are both really, truly awful (IMO anyways).

      This immediately comes to mind....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BY9cvgrP1c

     as does this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMSYYBMljQU

and this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Aab9nKxFU

The Ninth Gate. Maybe I was just too young when I watched it, but I seem to remember it as a movie that started off alright with an interesting premise...that then got pretty pretentious and symbol-laden without realizing that it had become kind of goofy. 

Alan, I have yet to see any of those but now my interest has definitely increased...

     There's these, too....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRLwV2xafpk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_dZEky0KAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKrgInjIOj0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kdpUSpGKE

(http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/chastityposter500.jpg)

Sometimes you feel sorry for her...sometimes you can't...and sometimes you just wonder what is this woman on? :question:

Thinking,

 Candy

Richard Burton, Ringo Star and an all star cast take us through the hippie years apexhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XghPOP2b9mw

There are some really good examples here, but what immediately came to my mind is "Sins of the Fleshapoids."

(http://www.badmovies.org/movies/sinfleshapoid/sinfleshapoid4.jpg)

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/sinfleshapoid/

Many bad movies from the 60's and 70's are flat out weird. The first two Coffin Joe movies come to mind. They are disturbing to me because they carry a message that is at times strangely logical, but at other times utterly depraved.

I have a 50 movie pack with quite a few films that could qualify.

The worst (so far) has been "They," a movie so bad that Bill Rebane decided to use a pseudonym!

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Gas-s-s-s.jpg)

Another Corman classic which kind of fits here, would make a good companion film of sorts with Wild in the Streets too...

Dr Caligari

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/26/265/

Liquid Sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9-n9gpFVpk

I love these movies, but they are weird.

Why "but"?  Shouldn't that say "because"?   :smile:

Haha!! Very true.  :bouncegiggle:

     A strange film based on a strange Keith Laumer novel....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbOneIfKf8c

A couple very obvious picks would be Eraserhead and Naked Lunch. Sorry I couldn't think of any more obscure ones at the moment.

Both are quite bizarre. I don't know that I would classify them as bad movies though, except in the purely subjective sense. I think both of the films are decidedly good.

Dwain Esper's MANIAC (1934) is still my favorite weird bad movie.

TCM recently ran something called POSSESSION (1981) that was absolutely INSANE. It starred Sam Neill as a guy who's wife was (or maybe wasn't?) having an affair (or something?) with a crazed German. She is so traumatized she sneaks away to a dilapidated apartment and finds (?) or gives birth to (?) a tentacled monster that lays around sighing. She has sex with the thing and she kills everybody who comes to the apartment, with everybody screaming and the top of their lungs and blood flying everywhere.  As a matter of fact all the characters are constantly screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and/or beating the crap out of each other, so the cast walks around in a bloody mess for most of the time.

This one apparently won a bunch of awards at Cannes, including 'Best Actress' for the screaming lady. I'm guessing lots and lots of cocaine was consumed before the vote.

The "screaming lady" was Isabelle Adjani.  She was nominated for 2 Academy Awards (not for POSSESSION) and won 5 Cesars in her career.  When she won Best Actress at Cannes she was actually in 2 movies that screened there, so she didn't win for POSSESSION alone. 

Personally I remember not linking POSSESSION but I really need to see it again.

She reminds me of a 'prettier' version of Sandy Dennis, another great actress who could scream bloody murder when the need arose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qHLurofiPs

That movie just messed with my head. :bouncegiggle:

THE SHOUT
I saw this on TCM about a year ago, and I didn't get it.
It's well made, but I couldn't figure out what was going on.

oN5mutjZxJE&feature=related

Hugo Pool. It's from the 90's and stars Alyssa Milano and Robert Downey Jr. It's considered a good movie because it won all of these independent film awards. It's weird and surreal and very serious, but I just find the whole thing uncomfortably funny.

ALUCARDA (1975)-No-it's not about vampires...it's about satanic possession. And Lesbians. And nuns dressed like mummies in bloody rags. And blood filled coffins. And decapitations. And just a lot of weird imagry. And screaming...lotsa lotsa screaming.

I re-watched it with my 17 year old son and my brother recently-neither had seen it before. My son's comment-"This is too weird. It makes me feel like a perv."  :bouncegiggle:

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l79/RCMerchant/18984__alucarda05.jpg)

PSYCHED BY THE 4-D WITCH (1972)

Rubber monster masks,booga-bogga plastic dime store vampire teeth,satanism,, goofy psychadelic effects,and absolutly NO plot or storyline that any sane person could follow.

I like the rubber Vampira mask,though...

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l79/RCMerchant/psyched_wtf.jpg)

Looks like they got they're props from the mail order section of Famous Monsters mag...

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l79/RCMerchant/3067081893_56cb66bd09_o.jpg)

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l79/RCMerchant/08_007_VampGirl.jpg)

Wow. I was in the hospital with spinal meningitis a while back...and I saw this too. Dang...being on heavy duty pain killers...and this. Quite a trip.  :thumbup:

Even though I didn't get it the movie has stuck with me. I'll definitely be in an altered state the next time I get a chance to see it.

Ah yes, NAKED LUNCH.  "I can think of two things wrong with that title."  :bouncegiggle:
SPIDER is another Cronenberg flick that's pretty out there.
Not a bad movie per se, but VALHALLA RISING is bizarre.
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS is pretty weird, very Lovecraftian though not based on any specific Lovecraft story (I personally love it but it gets a lot of flack)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_x4mc7kQqE

I suppose you could call VAMPYROS LESBOS arty..... :wink:

As bad movies go, I got none

However, there is a good movie that would fit into this, apart from being good, is The 5,000 Fingers of Dr.T, which has Dr. Seuss imagery, not surprisingly since he's credited in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgpfMxYFSmE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLldzheKJkA

I've had this on DVD for a long time, and after reading your post, finally decided to watch it. Every character in this is insane (except for the little boy). The scene in the subway though was epic! (and all done in one shot!) Actually all the acting was phenomenal.
I read that the director had a nasty divorce just before writing the screenplay.

Bat Without Wings is a crazy Shaw Brothers kung-fu movie. I think it's from the 70's. A legendary killer/thief named the Bat, who wears Gene Simmons style face paint, is thought to be imprisoned after an epic battle. The search goes on for his infamous Bat Blades, which not only have reputed special powers, but which also have a treasure map inscribed on them. 

  That's about as much as I can describe with 100% confidence. There are all kinds of plot twists, most of which don't make any sense, but epically so. The fights are strange, even for a kung fu movie and there are some bizarre characters running around, including a mad hermit who likes to practice taxidermy on victims of The Bat. The Bat himself may not be actually out of comission, since he is missing from his island prison. The prison itself is chock full of traps fashioned by a master of both science and taoist magic. Speaking of traps, at leat one trap of some kind is sprung every few minutes in this film. The visuals are very interesting, sometimes almost fantastical. At times I almost felt like I was in a painting.

  It's not a good movie at all. Most of what makes it entertaining is a factor of how recklessly scripted the film is. But it is fun.

Jean Rollin belongs in this thread. Arty, mildly surreal vampire movies that often contain "bad" exploitation elements. 

Here's a scene from THE NUDE VAMPIRE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svUdLiRNPzE&feature=related

So, waving a torch in someone's general direction will cause them to scream and  roll themselves down the stairs? Got it.

I had heard about Rollin's movies for years but 5 of them were just remastered and re-released. I found the 2 I've seen worth the wait; I wish I'd seen them sooner. Most of them are on Netflix, 2 or 3 of them are streaming.