RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[M.10rda]

Thanks for posting that one! I remember when "kumite" was just a funny-sounding word that David Letterman would sprinkle into Top 10 lists now and then for a cheap laff. Good to know (I guess!) that it's enjoying its own legacy...!

[claws]

It's alright for what it is. I feel like a little wink-with-the-eye humor wouldn't have hurt, but according to Last Kumite interviews I've seen on YouTube, the majority of German fans who grew up with 1990s martial arts b-movies don't like to be made fun of 

[Rev. Powell]

THE 39 STRIPES (1979): Religious testimony based on the life of a man who came to Jesus in prison. It could've really been a great anti-establishment movie a la COOL HAND LUKE, sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed prisoner, but it's too blindly focused on getting to the conversion; it treats all the prison drama as necessary to pad out the film to 60 minutes. Strange how the pious warden condones all that vile, sadistic torture in his institution. Who would've thought the Ormonds would make even worse movies without the input of Estus Pirkle? 0.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

IT'S ABOUT THE SECOND COMING (1982): Preachers explain what will happen during the End Times and a disco-dancing hedonist with an Eric Estrada haircut imagines himself rejecting the Mark of the Beast; a lot of Biblical re-enactments are scattered throughout, almost at random. Tim Ormond takes over the backyard Biblical epic business from his departed father Ron, with the same sort of disordered scripting but more focus on STAR WARS-inspired special effects: this one has laser beams! And the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar's statue by an explosive asteroid is nearly impressive. It's actually the most entertaining of the Ormond's work since IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU. Watchable as a bad movie, in normal terms it's a 1.5/5.

[chainsaw midget]

I watched Werewolf by Night. 

It's short with not a lot of time for characterization, but it's got it's moments.  Man-Thing's appearances are great, and how Ulysses Bloodstone set up a machine to play marionette with his own corpse is nicely creepy.  The black and white was also a nice little nod to the classics of old horror. 

If I had a complaint theough it would be that for a movie called Werewolf by Night, there's not a lot of werewolf in it.

[M.10rda]

Yeah. So many of the recent Marvel movies are falling into that same trap. MADAME WEB = two-hour trailer for a sequel we may never receive (and that's fine) where the main character is actually called "Madame Web" and she actually leads an actual team of actually-costumed actual superheroes. I haven't seen WEREWOLF BY NIGHT yet but I imagine you and most other folks were hoping to watch a movie about a werewolf, not a movie about a guy named "Jack Russell".

[Rev. Powell]

THE SACRED SYMBOL (1984): A lecturer at an "Adventurer's Club" shows footage from around the world--snake charmers, a man on a bed of nails, Filipino flagellants--which for some reason convinces listeners that Christianity is the One True Religion. A lazy and senseless attempt at a Christian "mondo" movie, which blessedly marked the end of the Ormond Organization's cinematic mission. 0.5/5.

That pretty much wraps up the Ormond box set for me, although there are a few remaining extra features. I can hardly believe I subjected myself to this, I must be a real masochist. There are good bad-movie moments in the pre-Christian movies, with THE EXOTIC ONES being a worthy bad movie. IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU is a must see for bad movie fans, and the other Christian movies have goofy moments scattered throughout, though they'd probably feature better on a mixtape--even though they're all about an hour long, watching them can be a chore. Oh well, on to the Coffin Joe boxset soon enough, which I expect to enjoy on a much more sincere level.

[chainsaw midget]

Yeah. So many of the recent Marvel movies are falling into that same trap. MADAME WEB = two-hour trailer for a sequel we may never receive (and that's fine) where the main character is actually called "Madame Web" and she actually leads an actual team of actually-costumed actual superheroes. I haven't seen WEREWOLF BY NIGHT yet but I imagine you and most other folks were hoping to watch a movie about a werewolf, not a movie about a guy named "Jack Russell".

If they had called the movie Bloodstone, I don't think there would have been any complaints.  In fact, I'd guess that people would actually praise the inclusion of Werewolf by Night in that case.

[Rev. Powell]

A TRIBUTE TO HOUDINI (1987): Magician John Calvert performs a set (with some additional footage), of which only a couple of tricks evoke Houdini. Calvert isn't bad, but this is nothing special; best part is vintage footage of a young Mickey Rooney as an audience plant. Not really a bad movie, but it's an extra in the Ormond set so... 2/5.

JUNE CARR: THE VIRTUAL VAUDEVILLIAN (1987): An aged June Carr performs a few vaudeville routines in front of a clumsy green screen, with clips of her glory days acting alongside Bob Hope and Lash Larue. Intended by Tim Ormond as a tribute to his mother, who was more talented than her work with the Ormond Organization would lead you to believe, it's sweet but not especially engaging; on the plus side, she doesn't mention Jesus once. Another Ormond box set extra, only 30 minutes. 2/5.

[M.10rda]

DOPPELGGANGER aka JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN (1969):
One of the best things about getting older and having an immense stockpile of unwatched movies is that (increasingly) I stumble upon titles that I have no recollection of acquiring and positively no recollection whatsoever of ever hearing about or reading about in the past. JTTFSOTS - or its working title DOPPELGANGER, which I might as well use for the sake of (lol) simplicity - is one such amusing discovery. I just wish it was a better film!

Universal Pictures funded (and domestically distributed) this opulent UK production that can only have been greenlit in the wake of the success of Kubrick's 2001, which seems to have directly inspired at least a few moments in this DOPPELGANGER. Directed by Robert Parrish, who also helmed the attractive and totally nutty CASINO ROYALE '67, DOPPELGANGER truly looks like a million bucks, and I mean that in 1969 pounds sterling. The dialogue (by British kids-show creator Gerry Anderson) is generally intelligent and the acting is mostly solid, though leading man Roy Thinnes has about as much charisma as the marionettes that headlined Anderson's TV projects. So what's the problem?

The first problem is the pacing. I guess in 1969 audiences were still fascinated enough by space travel to potentially sit still for ten to fifteen minute sequences of astronauts flipping switches, pushing buttons, gazing out portals, and mostly sitting still. A decade later, I know for sure that tastes had changed, 'cause I remember (even as a small child) how folks would complain about the languorous and uneventful launching and docking sequences in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, and actually I still see people complaining about those scenes today, and yet DOPPELGANGER makes ST:TMP look like TETSUO THE IRON MAN. I don't have a clock on my DVD player and lost track of the time while watching DOPPELGANGER, and would swear to you it was no less than two hours long or longer. Nope - only 101 minutes.

The other problem with DOPPELGANGER could have been an appealing feature: the premise is so daft it seems like a natural hoot. Following a lengthy prologue where Herbert Lom plays a man with one cybernetic eye who has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, a bunch of British eggheads (led by shouty jerk Ian Hendry) enlist Thinnes to fly "to the far side of the sun" and try to identify a previously unspotted planet that seems to occupy Earth's orbit. After a loooooooong trip (they don't call it "the far side" for nothin', I guess), Thinnes returns to Earth with the inexplicable ability to read handwriting in a mirror.   That's right. (Hendry is completed puzzled.) If you've ever seen an episode of anything Rod Serling created or wrote, you can probably see DOPPELGANGER's twist coming from half a running time away. Should I spoil it? Okay.

*SPOILERS*
Yeah, Thinnes doesn't "return" to Earth, he arrives at a parallel Earth on the opposite side of the sun, where everything is exactly the same, EXCEPT it's....... backwards. Yup. I mean literally reversed. It's Bizarro Superman's dimension, but less fun. Thinnes' bathroom is on the opposite side of his front foyer, the light switch is on the opposite side of the bathroom door, British people drive on the wrong side of the road and American drive on the right side ('cause it's a UK production, natch)....... scientists write in English but backwards... ad nauseam infinitum.
*END SPOILER*

Okay, that could be fun, right? Nah. Anderson insists on taking the high road and denies us even a broad, schticky "You maniacs!" type reveal from the end of PLANET OF THE APES. The climax of DOPPELGANGER is understated to a fault. You ever watch one of the Shyalaman films that DON'T have a climactic "ah-hah" twist... like THE HAPPENING? Yeah, DOPPELGANGER feels like that: academic and deeply unsatisfying.

DOPPELGANGER has no sex or blood, but it does contain discussion of contraception and adultery; a fairly discreet scene of Thinnes joining his naked wife in the shower; Thinnes later slugging his wife in the face (!); and the kind of bleak ending that was de rigueur in the late 60s and 70s. It required cuts in the UK to avoid an X rating but it was rated G in the US! The MPAA ratings board never made any Goddamn sense.

2.5/5

The one consistent source of amusement here is that Thinnes' character is named "Glen Ross", so if you're not above doing Rifftrax in your living room, that's something.

[RCMerchant]

^ I seen that on TV in 1973. Don't remember it all that well- IE it sucked.

[RCMerchant]

Speaking of sucks- SSSSSSS (1973)

Christ. The only fairly decent part was the monster make-up. STUPID! Not in a "Fun bad movie time!" Stupid. Just stupid stupid.
Strother Martin turns Dirk Benedict into a snake. Not even a giant snake! The guy shrinks into a snake. FX are BAD too.
Uh! Why? WHY?

[lester1/2jr]

Daughter of the Mind (1969 Made for TV) - It's not quite as bad as some of the movies in this thread, but very underwhelmed by this one. I didn't expect a TV movie would be this crappy. What was the point?

The hook here is the ghost scenes, a guy's daughter apparently coming back from the dead to warn him about stuff. Maybe it was state of the art in 1969, but it looks pretty silly now. A 1920's style seance brings further shenanigans along these lines. Ed Asner and some other guy are detectives investigating the whole thing. There's even a cold war angle because the guy is a government scientist.

What made it even worse was having to sit through a "Creature Feature" type show someone (recently) made around it. There's an interview with one of the actresses so I guess if you are really curious you could watch that, but I just wanted to see the movie. It's a Scooby Doo type plot and has an utterly baffling number of superlative IMDB reviews *. The lead detective guy was competent enough and interesting title, I guess.

*edit: I think the image of the ghost child stuck out in a lot of young viewers minds.

2/5

[RCMerchant]

Daughter of the Mind (1969 Made for TV) - It's not quite as bad as some of the movies in this thread, but very underwhelmed by this one. I didn't expect a TV movie would be this crappy. What was the point?

The hook here is the ghost scenes, a guy's daughter apparently coming back from the dead to warn him about stuff. Maybe it was state of the art in 1969, but it looks pretty silly now. A 1920's style seance brings further shenanigans along these lines. Ed Asner and some other guy are detectives investigating the whole thing. There's even a cold war angle because the guy is a government scientist.

What made it even worse was having to sit through a "Creature Feature" type show someone (recently) made around it. There's an interview with one of the actresses so I guess if you are really curious you could watch that, but I just wanted to see the movie. It's a Scooby Doo type plot and has an utterly baffling number of superlative IMDB reviews *. The lead detective guy was competent enough and interesting title, I guess.

*edit: I think the image of the ghost child stuck out in a lot of young viewers minds.

2/5

^ I seen that on TV in 1969. Scared the s**t outta me. I was 7.
Later on the ghost girl- Pamyla Ferdin- would be in the TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978)

[lester1/2jr]

Yeah I think the opening scene in particular stuck with people, but the rest of the movie doesn't keep up