Pick Three

[AndyC]

Imagine you're putting together a b-movie triple feature from the following list. You want the lots of variety, good examples of bad movies, and perhaps cult favourites for die-hards like us, but you also want the widest appeal and sufficient bad-movie laughs to draw in the uninitiated. Which three would you choose?

The Brain that Wouldn't Die
A Bucket of Blood
War of the Planets
Gamera the Invincible
The House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)
The Killer Shrews
Killers from Space
Little Shop of Horrors (Corman)
Eegah
Prisoners of the Lost Universe
Reefer Madness
Robot Monster
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
The Wasp Woman
Zontar: The Thing from Venus

And yes, this is not hypothetical. I'm helping some people put together a movie night, and this is the short list I've compiled from a list of movies supposedly in the public domain (making it cheaper and simpler to do things legally). My intention is to count up your votes, but an explanation of your choices would be useful too.

[Flangepart]

Hummmm....

ROBOT MONSTER.
WASP WOMAN.
THE KILLER SHREWS>
But, thats just me...



AndyC : Is the audience going to get lessons in "How to MST?" That might be fun. Pick some prospect from the group, and turn then in "Bots of the evening."

[Master Blaster]

Alot of these I still need to see. I'd say -

The Brain That Would'nt Die - The title alone is a riot
Reefer Madness - One of the earliest exploitation flicks and funny as hell
Robot Monster - This is the one with the guy in a gurilla suit and a space helmet right? I have'nt seen it but based on it's reputation and badass costuming I think it'd make a good cap on the night.

[Menard]

Reefer Madness
The Killer Shrews
The Brain That Wouldn't Die

Those three would cover exploitation, nature gone wild, and mad doctor movies, giving a pretty good coverage for 3 movies; not to mention that they are immensely entertaining, even to people who do not get into bad movies. Other than The Brain That Wouldn't Die, the other two are relatively short movies; this would bring the time just under 3 hours and 50 minutes which should not be too long.

[Gerry]

AndyC wrote:

> A Bucket of Blood
> The House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price)
> Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

1. Dick Miller as a beatnik psychopath!  What's not to like?

2. Great shocks from William Castle.

3. Mamie Van Doren and a Bevy of Beauties worship a prehistoric monster while hastling Russian cosmonauts.

[BeyondTheGrave]

1. Brain that wouldn't die-Pretty funny flim and think "Normal people" would enjoy it.
2. The House on Haunted Hill- Classic Vincent Price, can't go wrong with him.
3.Gamera the Invincible-  some kaiju would not hurt to get something different going

-------------------------------------
Ray,when some asks you if your a God you say YES! - Ghostbusters

[The Burgomaster]

* The Brain that Wouldn't Die - I chosae this one for its classic badness, plus its "ahead of its time" blood and gore (check out the uncut version, which is available on DVD).


* The House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price) - This may be the most "respectable" movie on the list.  This is the Vincent Price that we all know and love and it is one of the most memorable "old dark house" movies ever made.  And it still looks great in black-and-white.


* Little Shop of Horrors (Corman) - Who can resist this one?  Some of the dialogue is priceless and the casting director deserves an award for assembling a great group of actors to take on the many oddball roles in this movie.  Corman produced or directed so many B-flicks over the years, but this might be his most memorable.



Post Edited (07-20-05 18:54)

[akiratubo]

Robot Monster
Reefer Madness
Prisoners of the Lost Universe

All are fun and harmless.  I'd have picked House on Haunted Hill instead of PotLU, but three films in black and white might test some people's patience.

The others:

The Brain that Wouldn't Die - for HARDCORE crap lovers only!  This would turn off all but the most hardened veterans!  Some of your group may even want to kill you.

A Bucket of Blood - not seen so I can't recommend

War of the Planets - Not even heard of it.  I'm ashamed.  Can't recommend.

Gamera the Invincible - goofy monster movies can't go wrong, but Robot Monster is the all-time King of Goofy Monster Movies

The House on Haunted Hill - everybody knows the title, but few have actually seen it.  It would be a good choice if you think your people will tolerate three B&W movies.  The *cough* twist ending might frustrate some people.

The Killer Shrews - Robot Monster edges it out as the goofy monster movie of choice for the novice b-fan.  See also: Gamera

Killers From Space - not really that fun for the casual b-fan, more of an "I can't believe they did this" than a laugh riot

Little Shop of Horrors - lots of people love this, I think it's crap.  One of the worst movies EVER made.  Boring boring boring!

Eegah - A tough call between this and Robot Monster.  They are basically the same movie (people running around the desert fighting a stupid monster) but Robot Monster goes down easier.  Choose this instead of Robot Monster if your crowd is intolerant of B&W movies.

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet - a dud

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women - not heard of it.  Wow.  And with a title like that, to boot!

The Wasp Woman - oh, man, this movie sucks

Zontar: The Thing From Venus - might be good with a crowd ... maybe.  This is really something that only a few, deeply masochistic fans of cinematic agony should endure.

[daveblackeye15]

The Killer Shrews: Lassies with carpets on their bodies will always make a neat, but corny, monster. I saw this on MST3K and enjoyed it (I think I would watch it even if there were no bots making cracks at it) I liked the end when they're making a shelter to get off the island and the shrews are breaking in slowly. (Crow: Two weeks later....Three Weeks later) And I'm sure plenty of people can make jokes about the minibar character.

Little Shop of Horrors: I saw this in middle school and I remember enjoying it a lot. I don't know how it'd hold up today but-. The monster is neat especially when it get's big and it having the main character as his hopeless slave that brings him food was a cool idea. I loved the main character because he was quite the dumbass. Example are how he ended a conversation with a hooker, and of his very last act before his life ended. The last scene in the movie is kinda funny also.  A good movie.


The Brain that Wouldn't Die: As said before the title is funny as hell. I saw this one also on MST3K and I don't remember it having much action monster wise expect at the very end. At least the monster was kinda neat looking and it  did get interesting when we blood made it's entrance in the movie. Maybe watch this one first if we were having a entertaining B-Movie marathon because this wasn't as fun as the first two mentioned.

That's my list..



Post Edited (07-21-05 13:24)

[AndyC]

Good to see some of the same titles coming up again and again. That will make it easier.

When I put the list together, I was looking at a few things - variety of horror/sci-fi/fantasy/50s/60s/70s/BW/colour, etc., movies with interesting titles and titles that might be familiar to some people, movies with a cult following, movies that aren't constantly found on bargain-bin DVDs and specialty channels, cheesy monsters and/or special effects, movies I know (or at least have heard) are fun and not too slow, notable directors (Corman, Buchanan), movies that fit the classic b-movie definition, and movies that have familiar faces in early roles (Jack Nicholson, Peter Graves, James Best, Richard Kiel). Considering all that, I came up with 16 movies.

You guys are now helping me rank the movies. Once a few more people have picked three (much more useful than everybody picking one favourite), I can add up the votes for each, and have a list from which I can choose the top two, three, four or more movies.

I figure I'll get my hands on whichever of the top six or so that I don't have, then show them all to my wife. She seems to have about the ideal tolerance for this stuff. She gets the humour of a good bad movie, but she's not really into it like we are (that is to say, she won't watch absolute crap just out of curiosity). I consider her an average audience member. What she thinks is funny, I'll keep on the list. What she doesn't like, goes.

Anyway, keep picking.

[Gerry]

akiratubo wrote:

> War of the Planets - Not even heard of it.  I'm ashamed.  Can't
> recommend.

There are a couple of movies by this name, but I'm assuming this is the Italian Antonio Margheriti directed sci-fi movie about a bunch of astronauts who fight a green fog called The Diaphanoids.  It's fun but terribly slow...almost mind-bendingly so.  Not recommended for B-movie newbies or the faint of heart.

> Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women - not heard of it.
> Wow.  And with a title like that, to boot!

This is Corman's second recut of the Russian movie PLANETA BUR.  Not so much a sequel to VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET as another version of it.  This one is better IMO.  Plus it has Venusian bikini women.

[Archivist]

OMG.  I can't believe this, but I don't think I've seen ANY of those movies!

(Hangs head in shame...)

[AndyC]

Yeah, the Venusian women in clamshell bikinis were what got this one onto the list.

[AndyC]

The Brain that Wouldn't Die is the clear winner, but there is a four-way tie for second place.

Robot Monster
Killer Shrews
Reefer Madness
House on Haunted Hill

If everyone will list them from most fun to least fun (best to worst just doesn't apply), I can probably figure out a final list from that.

Of course, if I can do an all-night quintuple feature, I'm all set.

[The Burgomaster]

I would rank the 4 runner-up selectionsas follows:

* HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
* KILLER SHREWS
* ROBOT MONSTER
* REEFER MADNESS

By the way, I need to give BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS an honorable mention here!