RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[chainsaw midget]

Class of Nuke'Em High (1986)

This is a Troma movie.  This is perhaps the single MOST troma movie that doesn't have the words "Toxic" and "Avenger" in the title.  You already know if you like it based on that alone. 

A highschool half a mile away from the worlds worst maintained leaking nuclear power plant is terrorized by a group of 80s punks (that we're told used to be the school's honor society).  In addition, the radiation cause other mutations while continues to while the power plant continue to try to ignore it/and or cover it up.

Fun movie, but by no means a "good" one.

[M.10rda]

A Bond/Dredd team-up would be lit! 

I unironically enjoy and appreciate CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH and think of most of Kaufman's movies as "good" movies. 

[Dr. Whom]

Freak Orlando (1981)

Supposedly an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel. I haven't read that, but I doubt if it is anything like the movie.
Far too artsy for its own good. IMDB claims it is full of eccentric humour, I can't say I have found any. It is mostly just people doing weird scenes in strange costumes (on a very low budget).
The Freak is the title is a clear reference to Todd Browning, as it deals with sideshows and freaks. As such it has been hailed for celebrating people with non-standard bodies.
This has an amateurish and improvisational feel to it, from a time when competence was considered bourgeois. You get the impression that the troupe found an interesting location, brainstormed for a bit and then recorded some scenes. There is very little to hold the attention. Everything is very slow and painfully drawn out. Fans of 70s and 80s experimental theatre might like it.  It works a lot better in stills (which attracted my attention) than as an actual movie.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
The Legend of Hillbilly John(1972)
https://youtu.be/QwS46mr2kHc?si=Pzr_87AP1xT4Wlh4

Some guy in a heavy robe shows up, then transforms into a 19th century traveling salesman.... He starts walking through the woods pontificating about the devil, then wonders onto a modern day construction site (I think to let the audience know this movie won't stay committed to one time frame.....
We then go to a young mountain man, whom, after a night with his girlfriend walks down an old dirt road & plays guitar for a musical number, while locals express their disapproval... He ends up at the local bootlegger, who reveals his grandfather saw the devil the night before...
He runs home, where his grandfather reveals he made silver guitar strings from three Kennedy dollars, & is ready to face off with the devil... The old man plays his guitar at midnight, & the film burns up (He lost)...
At his funeral the next day, it's revealed the Kennedy dollars had no silver in them...
It turns out, the narrator from the beginning of the movie is the local dowser, & finds Spanish silver coins on the boy's property.... He makes new strings, & is challenged by a greedy undertaker to find gold his ancestors stole from a witch, thus starting three adventures....

Lots of scenes of the protagonist walking down the road playing guitar & singing.... Maintains a steady pace for the first hour, but drags a bit in the 3rd act....
Kind of hard to understand the backwoods lingo at the beginning, & most of the movie is poorly lit, but it's okay if you don't mind acid movies & folk tales....

[zombie no.one]

AVENGING ANGELO (2002)

A Sly Stallone movie I've never even heard of before, directed by the man himself, no less!

And hey presto, it's action revenge muscle flexxing and random explosions a go-go....

...except not.

 nope, our man opts to make a chick flick... why Sly? why u do dat? eeh sonnn, ahm kinddaa dishapointed, uhh, eeh.

this might actually be an unintentional chick flick, if such a thing is existable. he did that.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
The Wasp Woman(1959)
https://youtu.be/JpPAN6frZmU?si=hRrhjHruLR5yPXcA

A scientist studying royal jelly is collecting wasps on an orange grove.... But, he's supposed to be growing bees, so he gets the ax...
Cut to a board meeting, where the female CEO of a cosmetics company is inquiring why sales are plummeting... One man pipes up, & admits the CEO ( the "face" of the brand) is getting old..... Afterwards, she has a meeting with the scientist... She's skeptical at first, but when he demonstrates his serum on a couple of lab rats, she gives him carte blanche... This worries a couple of execs, so they ask her secretary to spy on her....
After a while, the scientist shows the CEO a cat that's turned into a kitten, & says his serum is ready for human testing..... He tests it on the CEO, & after three weeks, she looks five years younger..... But this isn't fast enough for her, so after hours, she sneaks into his lab, takes a stronger dose, & becomes twenty years younger.... But the cat regresses & goes rabid, & the scientist tries to commit suicide....

Even pace, builds mostly on suspense, short runtime....
Not great, but not terrible....

[Alex]

Underworld.

I've been finding a few 80s movies that had previously escaped my notice on Tubi. This one stood out slightly. Not because of the film itself. Despite a lot of good names in the cast (Denholm Elliott, Steve Berkoff, Art Malik, Ingrid Pitt and Miranda Richardson are all in this for example), the acting is subpar. One of the writers was Clive Barker, and I can see a lot of elements in this one that would emerge in his later material (especially Nightbreed/Cabal).

The first scene with Berkoff I found incredibly distracting. His "hair" brought back memories of Nichole Williamson as Merlin in Excalibur and not in a flattering way for Berkoff.

Not one I'd recommend, but I've seen much worse.

[M.10rda]

THE FATAL MALLET (1914):
This short takes the cake as most puerile silent slapstick comedy I've seen, which is some kind of statement. I should also mention it co-stars Charlie Chaplin, who FTR I've never thought was all that funny. I do think he eventually directed some striking dramatic sequences in his later silent features, and I greatly admire his later features with talkin' (MONSIEUR VERDOUX is some kind of masterpiece), but his legendary shtick has rarely made me laugh - and here, possibly less than anywhere!

Chaplin, Mack Sennett (who directed), and Mack Swain play three bachelors who all try to woo Mabel Normand (...away from one another). If this film is an accurate representation, early 20th century courtship was a barbaric and dangerous practice, because this 20-minute film is just an endless loop of one of the three guys kicking another one in the pants (sometimes into a body of water) or clubbing one of the other guys over the head with rocks, bricks, or eventually the eponymous mallet. No one is killed (so much for truth in advertising) but victims of said concussions are knocked unconscious at frequent-enough intervals that chronic traumatic encephalopathy is almost certainly in the futures of all three gentlemen (and actually - good, all of 'em have it comin'!).

What's most distasteful about THE FATAL MALLET, though, is how the juvenile plot objectifies Normand and denies her any perspective or agency. She passively observes all the aggravated assault (or giggles at it) and then seems happy to walk off with/get courted by whichever guy just bludgeoned the previous guy....... this in spite not only of their barbarism towards one another but also in spite of the fact that both Macks have the physiques of Roscoe Arbuckle and Chaplin is (of course) about five foot nothin'. It would be one thing if Normand was allowed to play her character as a gleeful sadist who enjoyed inspiring the carnage around her, and/or if she got fed up at the end and dumped all three of the men, but - no - she's an entirely blank slate just there to smile and blush. 

Technically speaking, some of the physical performances are impressive to watch (though I never laughed once).    2/5   

And Mabel isn't so fine that you'd kill a man to get wiv her... what, were there no other women in Hollywood in 1914? Mabel was played by Bernadette Peters in the 70s, and okay, I admit - I would club a dude for Bernadette Peters.