best of the WORST films according to this Wikipedia listicle

Ha I remember how bad EXIT TO EDEN was and also someone later telling me about some Schadenfreude gloating from one of the director’s old friends

But the wit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wMwAtIMsNY

I may have also walked out on Wes Craven's Shocker from 1990

I only finally saw that the other year at an annual Halloween party that shows various horror movies of less than compelling quality. A friend noted during it "Yeah Wes said in later years he was going through a divorce at the time" and boy, could you ever tell.

i've seen

Reefer Madness
Robot Monster
Zaat aka Blood Waters of Doctor Z
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
The Swarm (1978)
Mommie Dearest (1981)

All bad movies. Exorcist ii and mommie dearest are the most constantly entertaining. I guess I'll go with mommie dearest for the axe scene and the coat hangers scene.

The Swarm is really the worst, I mean OMFG. If you took money to be in that film you are a whore.

Ha, I believe Michael Caine basically said as much on more than one occasion

damn, you left off a lot of my favorite picks

i guess out of what's left i gotta go with _fatal deviation_. y'all really should check out the whole list on wikipedia, though - there are some very worthy picks by very worthy creators on there

noteworthy bad films i can think of off the top of my head include:

the return of dr. x
boom in the moon
the wizard of oz (the 1925 larry semon version)
switch (2013)
devilman (2004)
space warriors 2000
ninja: final duel

The Swarm is really the worst, I mean OMFG. If you took money to be in that film you are a whore.

― Josefa

hey sex work is work

btw, a link between two of the films on this list: gore vidal was inspired to write "myra breckinridge" specifically to make fun of bunny breckinridge, a trans woman who appeared in "plan 9 from outer space".

i'm not overly fond of gore vidal. personally.

Ishtar is fucking brilliant, and people were idiots to bash it upon release. The opening establishing bromance scenes at the bar between Hoffman and Beatty are so funny you forget to breathe

New biography on Elaine May is out in a few weeks

North is wretched, excruciating, racist shit, and Rob Reiner had never recovered from it

The only film I walked out of was "Gold", Roger Moore. Because it was very boring.

I used to claim that Ecks vs. Sever was the worst movie I'd seen. I wonder if it "holds up"

Ecks vs. Sever is excruciating. It’s not even comedically awful

Voted Robot Monster, a great work. Good blu edition out now with a 3D capacity that makes some of the directing choices make much more sense.

The Apple has enough wild musical numbers to be worth seeing, though honestly I started feeling pretty uncomfortable in the last half when you start to realize that all the evil characters are black/gay/gender-non-conforming and the only pure characters are the straight Aryan types.
― JoeStork, Thursday, 2 May 2024 17:01 (two hours ago)

Its production came at a moment in the Disco chronology when the producers felt that, as well as cashing in on Disco itself, they should also cash in on the backlash against same, so it has this weird moralistic side to it, it knows you've come for the decadence but also wants to pretend it opposes this decadence. The Sgt Pepper's movie is imo an even more blatant version of this, trying to recast the Lonely Hearts Club Band as some sort of ragtime institution symbolizing America's lost innocence, though unlike The Apple it does pull the "some of my best friends" card by making Earth, Wind & Fire part of the good guys. Both movies are kinda illustrative of this boomer duality, they want the sex and the coke but in the end they wish it was still the 50's.

ctrl+f "Battlefield Earth", 0/0 results

😑

making Earth, Wind & Fire part of the good guys.

thus giving us their "got to get you into my life", the one good thing to come out of that film

nobody ever talks about the predecessor film, the "disco beatlemania" to _sgt. pepper's_ "stars on 45" - _all this and world war ii_, a compilation of 1940s newsreel footage set to covers of beatles songs

it even prominently features the bee gees on the soundtrack

i've never actually seen _all this_ or _sgt. pepper's_. casting the hottest disco group in the country as 3/4 of a "ragtime institution symbolizing America's lost innocence" in opposition to the hedonistic degeneracy of disco is certainly a... creative decision. because there's nothing more american than the beatles. not even the bee gees.

they want the sex and the coke but in the end they wish it was still the 50's.

― Daniel_Rf

also weird: the boomer belief that sex wasn't invented until 1967.

_the apple_ really gives me heaven's gate vibes. the ufo cult, not _other_ 1980 critically reviled film. it seems like the kind of film that would inspire someone to _really commit_ to america's lost innocence by, say, getting an orchiectomy. which is another weird thing to me. i know a lot of people who've had orchis, and the idea that getting an orchi is somehow an act of _chastity_ is utterly bizarre to me. in fairness, a lot of us also boof prog. i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that marshall herff applewhite never boofed prog.

-

if i hadn't voted for _fatal deviation_ i would probably have gone with _robot monster_.

By a quick count I think I've seen 6 of these in their original release? Am tempted to vote Cats bc of how much fun it was to see in a rowdy theater. But at the end of the day my heart belongs to Robot Monster

It’s me, the only person on ILX who liked the Thurman/Fiennes Avengers movie

I also liked Cafwoman but was primarily for Halle Berry in that costume

thus giving us their "got to get you into my life", the one good thing to come out of that film

Also arguably one of the few (only?) Beatles covers better than the original

Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out" wants a word.

Bat Pussy, a female superhero, defends Gothum City from a middle-aged couple making a pornographic film.

Porn parodies appear to have completely defied evolution.

The worst movie I've ever seen (strictly from the standpoint of viewing some incredible ineptitude) was the Jeremy Irons/Thora Birch "Dungeons And Dragons" movie from 1999 or thereabouts

Of this list, I genuinely think "Myra Breckenridge" is a fantastic film and a terrific adaptation and never understood why people hated on it so much, it has a proto-Oliver Stone vibe

See also Skidoo, in that vein

^ classic for the end credits alone

worst 'real' movie I've ever seen, in terms of "i can't believe something this amateurish is in general theatrical release", i think has got to still be Whatever Works, a movie so bad I couldnt bear to walk out

I saw Crash on video and Me and You and Everyone We Know within a couple months of one another back in '05 and I don't think anything I've seen since has come within spitting distance of that double-header of awful.

Whatever Works was definitely weird and awkward... iirc it was shot from a screenplay dating back to the 1960s which would partially explain it.

Also arguably one of the few (only?) Beatles covers better than the original

― Rich E. (Eric H.)

oh no watch out this is one of my special interests. i spent several years compiling my favorite cover of every beatles original released under the beatles name between 1962 and 1970. not all of them are "better than the original" but a lot of them are!

-

Porn parodies appear to have completely defied evolution.

― papal hotwife (milo z)

almost like people don't _actually_ watch porn for the lulz

as a rick sloane fan, hobgoblins the easy choice for me.

worst 'real' movie I've ever seen, in terms of "i can't believe something this amateurish is in general theatrical release", i think has got to still be Whatever Works, a movie so bad I couldnt bear to walk out

― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Friday, 31 May 2024 18:24 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Whatever Works was definitely weird and awkward... iirc it was shot from a screenplay dating back to the 1960s which would partially explain it.

― Josefa, Friday, 31 May 2024 18:32 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there are several late period Woody Allen films that are weird like this, but I don't think anything can top Cassandra's Dream (2007), where it's particularly jarring because it's meant to be a serious drama rather than a light comedy - every single element of it feels 'off', almost like an Ed Wood movie.

(I don't know how much of this is specific to being from the UK and the films version of the UK seeming wrong in a million small ways. It seems like the film received fairly positive reviews in the US?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQFSNyRLEiA

voted for Mommie Dearest, which is a fascinating film in retrospect that appears to have destroyed Faye Dunaway's career

It’s a shame that people discuss Mommie Dearest more than the truly brilliant films Frank Perry made like Last Summer, Ladybug Ladybug, Doc (also with Faye Dunaway, and easily the most underrated western of the 70’s), Diary of a Mad Housewife, and Play it as it Lays

I think THE SWIMMER probably rates a tiny bit higher in the cinephile circles than MOMMIE

I just saw The Swimmer on Criterion, had never even heard of it before... definitely Burt Lancaster's most impressive performance

I liked Frank Perry's David and Lisa but it felt very underbaked, and I liked Carrie Snodgrass in Diary of a Mad Housewife (although, was there ever a more early-70s film?)

The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster is his greatest achievement I think, it is at turns aspirational, absurd, and allegorical, with beautiful cinematography (I have to believe Slim Aarons was influenced by him) and is maybe the perfect 1968 film

(I posted that before remembering that my favorite film of all time was from 1968)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

MOMMIE DEAREST and ISHTAR should run away with this

― Rich E. (Eric H.), Thursday, May 30, 2024 5:54 PM (yesterday)

Nailed it!

I still need to see Exorcist II: The Heretic.

From Dave Kehr's original capsule review for the Chicago Reader:

"Everybody seems to hate this movie, and not without good reason. But John Boorman’s 1977 follow-up to William Friedkin’s shocker is a much more interesting film than the original, and Boorman deserves credit for trying out some new ideas, even if most of them backfire. Visually, it’s fascinating—sort of a blend of Minnellian baroque and Buñuelian absurdity—but the dialogue is childish, the story is incomprehensible, and the metaphysics are ridiculous. Still, an audacious failure is preferable to a chickenhearted success. More than worth a look, if only out of curiosity"

And of course Scorsese's take:

“The picture asks: Does great goodness bring upon itself great evil? This goes back to the Book of Job; it's God testing the good. In this sense, Regan (Linda Blair) is a modern-day saint — like Ingrid Bergman in Europa '51, and, in a way, like Charlie in Mean Streets. I like the first Exorcist, because of the Catholic guilt I have, and because it scared the hell out of me; but The Heretic surpasses it. Maybe Boorman failed to execute the material, but the movie still deserved better than it got.”

nobody else voted for things?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqwUqHmHSoY

The Sgt Pepper's movie is imo an even more blatant version of this, trying to recast the Lonely Hearts Club Band as some sort of ragtime institution symbolizing America's lost innocence,

I'm sure I've told the story already of going to see this at a late night show in a cinema in Dublin. After about twenty minutes, people started to walk out. By the time my boyfriend and I gave up on it after half an hour, there was a small queue at the box office looking for refunds. The staff apologised to everyone, acknowledged that they had booked the film without knowing anything about it, and gave us vouchers. They said they couldn't give a refund because there was nothing technically wrong with the screening.

I liked Carrie Snodgrass in Diary of a Mad Housewife (although, was there ever a more early-70s film?)

Quite true. Frank Langella!

My previous take on Sgt. Pepper's, in part:

'If the Voyager space probe had contained only the Beatles discography and was discovered by meth-head aliens who mistakenly believed that these albums comprised the root of earthling communication, this movie would be their attempt at a response. And it would be difficult to interpret their message as anything but a veiled threat.'

Also I forgot Things was in the running! Probably should've thrown a vote it's way.

I'm glad to say that everything I would've championed received at least one vote. Except Turkish Star Wars, dang it. Love that deranged piece of copyright infringement so much.

Here's how I'd rank those that I've seen:

Not even bad or weird, just good movies:
Robot Monster (1953)
Ishtar (1987)
Mommie Dearest (1981)

Delightfully weird or inept:
The Apple (1980)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Things (1989)
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saves the World) (1982)
An American Hippie in Israel (1972)

Made zero lasting impression whatsoever:
Highlander II: The Quickening (theatrical version, 1991)
Catwoman (2004)
The Last Airbender (2010)

Actual crimes:
North (1994)
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

I really need to see those last two crime movies

This was a good poll!

Burt Lancaster is excellent in The Swimmer, but I’m not sure if I’d put his performance in it above what he delivered in Conversation Piece, Local Hero, Ulzanna’s Raid, or Brute Force. He was the most unconventional and fearless actor of his generation by far

Seriously, though-how can you not see Last Summer? I saw the only 16mm print of it in existence at a screening with the great Barbara Hershey. It is just devastating. Play It As It Lays is an incredible adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel, and Tuesday Weld is amazing

Was it the uncut version? I've seen Last Summer a couple of times (on actual VHS rental, on bootleg, on TCM) and was never certain if I ever saw the original X version. But yeah the ending is devastating whether cut or not. Wish Cathy Burns had more of a career, not to mention a happier life.

Sadly still the case (taken from frank perry, film director):

Warner Archive used to--might still--field questions about projects on their Facebook page. They have the rights to Last Summer, and it seemed like every month they got a query about their ongoing restoration efforts. IIRC, they were basically making a new master culled from different sources--The Aussie 16 mm print (which is indeed the most complete surviving celluloid copy), a tape master which has the cut footage, and various and sundry negative/positive elements--none of which were in the greatest of shape thank s to both the shoestring nature of the production and original distributor Allied Artists poorly maintained archives.

― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, June 5, 2017 2:46 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink