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IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: The Hottie and The Nottie

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The Hottie and The Nottie

Hottie_and_the_nottie

“The Hottie and The Nottie” has been sitting at the bottom of the IMDb Bottom 100 for quite some time. If it weren’t for the current “Gunday” situation, it would still be holding the #1 spot. Given that this is a Paris Hilton movie, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect out of this thing content-wise. However, I was curious going in as to how this movie compares to her other (many) appearances in the list, such as “Pledge This” and “The Hillz”. Oddly, I didn’t find this movie to be dramatically worse than those in any way.

Of course, the message in this movie is abysmal. Essentially, it is an “Ugly Duckling” tale that reinforces the idea that a character/person does not have value until/unless they are attractive. It also presents the audience with one of the most unintentionally reprehensible protagonists I’ve seen in a movie: the writers don’t seem to realize that they have crafted a complete scumbag of a character, and assumes the audience is on board with him throughout the movie.

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Despite the fact that they are standing on a boat, I am very much not on board with either of these characters.

The plot follows a guy (Joel David Moore, the fellow on the right above) who is attempting to land the girl of his (primary school) dreams, who is played by Paris Hilton. He is hindered by the fact that she has a protective, unattractive best friend, and by the mostly unaddressed fact that he compulsively lies constantly about everything. The plot wants us to believe that only one of those is a real obstacle. In any case, he spends a significant portion of the movie being grossed out by the unrealistically enhanced ugly friend while trying to scheme ways to dispose of her, all while continuing to lie his way into a pseudo-relationship with the Paris Hilton character.

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They go pretty unnecessarily above and beyond with the practical effects

The plot takes the predictable “Ugly Duckling” turn when the ugly friend has cosmetic/dental surgery, after which the lead suddenly realizes he prefers her to Paris Hilton’s character. Instead of having to deal with a realistic comeuppance for the shit he pulls throughout the movie, he pretty much gets exactly what he wants. I basically finished the movie by declaring: “What a fuckhead”.

hottie_and_the_nottie2All of that said, this movie’s failings were mostly limited to the writing and the makeup. I don’t recall any massive technical errors, like the sound editing and cinematography wackiness of “Pledge This!”.  As I mention in the video review, if this movie is put on mute without subtitles, most of the problems disappear (outside of what story you can pull from the visuals). Then again, I’m also definitely not re-watching this. “Pledge This!” had a couple of pure “WTF is happening?” moments to make it bizarrely entertaining in bursts, but “The Hottie and The Nottie” is devoid of any of that. All of the “humor” falls flat (as you would expect), Paris Hilton can’t act (as you should know), and the story is as sick as it is cliche. All of the mild technical competence behind the scenes can’t make up for the atrocious writing here, so even though this is technically a better crafted movie than “Pledge This!”, I’m tempted to say that “Pledge This!” is more watchable overall.

Still, I don’t think this deserves the top slot in an accurate Bottom 100 movies list. It was hard to sit through, but no more difficult than any of the “Movie Movies”, and it is certainly not as incompetently made as “The Maize” or “Birdemic”. I’m honestly not sure how this movie specifically drew the ire of the IMDb voters: while the writing and the story are abysmal, nothing made this movie stand out to me among the other IMDb Bottom 100 comedies. It certainly isn’t anywhere near being good, and I am definitely not recommending it, but I can’t help but disagree with the IMDb voting herd on this one. In my opinion, there is another Paris Hilton movie that deserves that kind of ire, but I’ll get to “The Hillz” later.

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All of the incompetence of “Birdemic” combined with the loathesomeness of “The Hottie and The Nottie” and “Pledge This”
IMDb Bottom 100, Uncategorized

IMDb Bottom 100: Red Zone Cuba

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Red Zone Cuba

redzone

“Red Zone Cuba” (or “Night Train to Mundo Fine”) is a devastatingly boring movie. I have had a more pleasant and entertaining time waiting in line at the DMV. Coleman Francis, the star/writer/director of this fine mess, is lauded as one of the worst fim-makers in history. Aside from “Red Zone Cuba”, he is also responsible for fellow IMDb Bottom 100 movie “The Beast of Yucca Flats”. Francis’s work is often justifiably compared in quality to Ed Wood’s features, though Francis doesn’t have nearly the same cult following as the “Plan 9 From Outer Space” auteur. Personally, I find Wood’s films far easier to suffer through, which gives them the upper hand if you ask me.

redzone1“Red Zone Cuba” follows a band of criminals as they elude the law, get wrapped up in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and get up to general criminal shenanigans. Even that brief synopsis makes this movie sound more interesting than it actually is. The premise actually seems promising at first glance (and might have made for a good movie in other hands), but the execution of this film is beyond disappointing. This is one of those cases where there is no ambiguity as to who is at fault for the miserable end product, because Coleman Francis did damn near everything on screen and behind the scenes of this mess. Predictably, his writing, directing, and acting are all massive weak spots in the film, which doesn’t leave a whole lot to be decent. More than anything, the pacing of the film is truly abysmal. Plot points don’t come quick enough, and there isn’t much sense of motion or urgency for a movie that features a prison break, a shootout, and outlaws generally tearing their way across the country.

redzone2There is no reason at all to sit through “Red Zone Cuba”. Even the MST3k riff doesn’t liven up the experience much. Surprisingly, this movie has recently fallen out of the IMDb Bottom 100, despite it being one of the worst (quality-wise) movies I have watched so far. The will of the internet masses is perplexing and strange.

The only thing about this film I can recommend is the theme song. It has been stuck in my head ever since I watched the movie, and is gleefully one of the few things I can honestly recall about it. Listen if you dare.

 

IMDb Bottom 100, Uncategorized

IMDb Bottom 100: Troll 2

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Troll 2

troll2

I don’t have to say anything about “Troll 2”. It is a stalwart of B-movie cinema, and an essential watch for anyone who considers themselves a bad movie aficionado. The culture and following around “Troll 2” is only perhaps rivaled in the b-movie world by “The Room”. I can’t recommend it highly enough, even to casual moviegoers. There is an astounding amount of entertainment to pull from this movie’s delightful incompetence.

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For those of you with Netflix and a healthy curiosity for the inner workings of incompetent film-making, check out “Best Worst Movie”. The child actor who starred in “Troll 2” decided to round up the central cast and crew, and fanned the flames of the movie’s cult status with a number of live events. “Best Worst Movie” follows up with all of the major players, and offers some insight into how “Troll 2” came to be. It also spends some time digging into the cult status of the film, and the passionate fans who have managed to raise the movie’s profile to near-classic status. It is a really well-crafted doc, and definitely worth a watch. It was touring the country with “Troll 2” at one point, which makes for a spectacular double feature I’m sure. Try to catch a live screening if you can, I bet the Q+A sessions are a blast.

troll21The “Best Worst Movie” documentary also brings up an interesting question, and one that looms over the IMDb Bottom 100. How does one rank “bad movies”? What actually makes a “Best Worst Movie”? There are some clear issues with the all-out democratic system of the IMDb Bottom 100, as is made clear with the current “Gunday” fiasco, and the Bad Movie Fiends Podcast team raised some good points about the ranking system’s other faults when I poked them about the list. As I have said before, I think what sets apart the upper echelon of B-movies from the rest of the pack are not just the over-the-top pieces of the puzzle (or else every Troma flick would be a treasure), but an honesty and earnestness on the part of the filmmakers.

troll24The common threads between “Troll 2”, “The Room”, “Manos”, “Birdemic”, and “Plan 9” don’t end at poor quality: Claudio Fragasso, Tommy Wiseau, Ed Wood, and James Nguyen all believed / believe that they made great movies. None of them set out to fail. Part of what makes their movies what they are is a precious mixture of genuine failure, the filmmakers’ often inflated egos, and collapsed aspirations all around added into the rest of the film’s concoction. The magic of good-bad movies is a sort of quantum intangible that can’t be replicated intentionally: Sharknados, Mega-Sharks, and Toxic Avengers be damned. Check out the excellent video below for more on this concept:

So, is “Troll 2” the Best Worst Movie? I’m not willing to go that far, but it makes a damn compelling case. It has contributed to setting a new bar for the next oblivious film-maker to limbo under. I think of “Troll 2” as part of the “new elite” of good-bad movies that has collectively set that bar: kind of like the new generation of X-Men introduced in Giant Size X-Men #1.

giantx

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I’d rather have the Colossus on my side than Claudio, personally

More importantly for this challenge, where does “Troll 2” belong on the IMDb Bottom 100? Should it just be locked in at the #1 spot to recognize all of the good-bad qualities we love? I don’t think so. “Troll 2” has been hovering towards the top of the Bottom 100, likely due to people giving it ironic 10/10 ratings. And honestly, that’s the nature of the list. Good or bad, the IMDb Bottom 100 ranking is unique. It is a chaotic wasteland of crappy movies that is ruled by the mindless internet mob, but that is what it is supposed to be. It evolves and changes with the will of the people, which makes it equally volatile and fascinating. It deserves consideration as a barometer of the zeitgeist of good-bad movies: there is a lot to glean from it, but it is certainly not sophisticated, just, or conclusive in its rankings. “Troll 2” is plenty incompetent enough for an authoritative list by almost any critic, but that isn’t the way the Bottom 100 works. I will be shocked if it drops out of the ranking, just because I am sure there are many fans who will contribute votes to keep it in for visibility’s sake (then again, “Plan 9” fell off the list), but I don’t see it rising to the forefront. There are other, more fitting lists for it to top out there.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Prince of Space

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Prince of Space

prince

“Prince of Space” was a nice change of pace for these IMDb Bottom 100 movies. Instead of Paris Hilton vehicles and “Movie Movies”, “Prince of Space” is something far more familiar and pleasant to me: a poorly translated, lazily dubbed, low budget Japanese sci-fi movie. I grew up on VHS tapes of Toho Showa Godzilla movies, so “Prince of Space” felt like pure nostalgia.

This is my shit.

All of that said, “Prince of Space” doesn’t quite have the same charm of those old Toho features. There is plenty of cheesy dialogue and an outstanding over-the-top villain, but I’ve never been able to suffer child protagonists very well, and there is a hefty dose of those in “Prince of Space”. Also, the plot certainly takes it time getting where it is going, and bad pacing is capable of killing far better movies than this. There is also a fair amount of repetitiveness in this feature, particularly in the encounters between the villain (The Phantom) and the mysterious hero (the titular Prince of Space). Prince of Space makes it clear early on that the weapons used by The Phantom and his minions can not harm him (and repeats this fact numerous times), yet The Phantom attempts to shoot him at every turn. At first it is pretty entertaining, but it gets old very fast.

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The Phantom also looks ridiculous

“Prince of Space” has a fair share of issues, but I’m not so sure it necessarily belongs in the Bottom 100. Not unlike “The Starfighters”, I feel like this movie is a single selection of a massive, forgotten collection of near-identical movies. In fact, there is another Bottom 100 movie that is nearly a carbon copy of “Prince of Space”: “Invasion of the Neptune Men”. Both of these movies I feel are only exceptional due to their inclusion in Mystery Science Theater 3000, and that otherwise they would just be two of the legion of poorly dubbed, goofy Japanese sci-fi movies out there. They are certainly low enough in quality for consideration here, and there is an argument that they are representatives of their genre, but it is hard to shake the fact that these two movies aren’t particularly unique. I even had to re-watch both “Prince of Space” and “Invasion of the Neptune Men” separately to keep from confusing the two: the movies are that similar to each other. The MST3k guys even re-use gags from one riff in the other.

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The Phantom shows up in the MST3k episode on “Invasion of the Neptune Men”

So, do I recommend “Prince of Space” to bad movie aficionados? I’m not so sure. I think that some old Showa Godzilla movies like “Godzilla vs Megalon”, “Godzilla vs Gigan”, and “Invasion of Astro Monster” are far more entertainingly bad than this, but “Prince of Space” isn’t devoid of fun. It might be a delightful/confusing double feature with “Invasion of the Neptune Men”, especially if you dig up the MST3k riffs for both of them.

 

IMDb Bottom 100, Uncategorized

IMDb Bottom 100: The Album!

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After reviewing “Night Train to Mundo Fine”/”Red Zone Cuba” recently (it’ll be up this week), it occurred to me that there are a lot of fantastic (read: awful) musical numbers in the IMDb Bottom 100 movies. So, here is a collection of a dozen songs from 11 IMDb Bottom 100 films. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but this should be a good sampling of what you can expect out of these movies as far as songs go.

Pod People

Girl in Gold Boots

Night Train to Mundo Fine

The Creeping Terror

The Starfighters

Titanic: And The Legend Continues…

Mitchell

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies

Puma Man

Manos: The Hands of Fate

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Disaster Movie

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Disaster Movie

disaster

I would like to say that “Disaster Movie” is exactly what you would expect it to be. For the most part, it is. However, it manages to set itself apart from the typical pack of “Movie Movies” that has flooded theaters since the success of “Scary Movie” in 2000. Even compared to fellow Bottom 100 parody “Epic Movie”, “Disaster Movie” is abysmal. In the case of “Epic Movie”, the over-arching plot lampooning “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” at least more-or-less tied the lazy jokes and sequences together, however loosely.

In “Disaster Movie”, in contrast, the connecting plot isn’t itself a parody of anything at all. In a movie so bloated with dated and unnecessary references, the plot of the movie itself fails to lampoon any specific film, instead opting for a dull and generic apocalyptic scenario. Worse yet, the framing just barely manages to move the action along from joke to joke. Essentially, “Disaster Movie” just follows a group of characters as they aimlessly run from location to location. They have a final destination in mind, but the audience has no sense of how close/far from it the characters are at any given time. It drags down the pacing, and sucks all sense of urgency out of the story. Not that anyone actually cared about the story in “Disaster Movie” anyway, though.

Everything else about the movie is generally exactly what you should expect from a “Movie Movie”. Lazy, crass humor is as rampant as the (dated) pop cultural references as they intertwine and mingle throughout the film. Yet, even the references are lazier than you might expect: the central MacGuffin of the plot is a crystal skull from that “Indiana Jones” movie everyone has tried to forget about. At one point, a man clad in a cheap Iron Man Halloween costume suddenly appears on screen, and is subsequently crushed by a falling cow. As best as I can tell, this is a reference to 1996’s “Twister”, a blockbuster that was released well over a decade before this film. The target audience of “Disaster Movie” may not have even remembered “Twister” when this movie came out.

disaster3Perhaps worst of all, towards the end of the film there is a sequence that references the animated movie “Kung-Fu Panda”. In lieu of awkwardly integrating an animated character into the film, there is instead a man dressed in a panda costume who engages in a martial arts fight. Not only is it an unnecessary reference to a children’s movie in an “adult” comedy, but the lazy costume just looks bad (not unlike the previously mentioned Iron Man gag).

disaster2This sort of low quality is basically even across the board in this movie, but most notably in the effects and the writing. The one instance where the movie tries to actually criticize one of its targets winds up being massively hypocritical and jarring. One of the central characters is a very thinly veiled caricature of Juno, the pregnant teenage lead character in the hit movie of the same name. While she is mostly used to make jokes about pregnancy, the writers also attempt to skewer “Juno” by pointing out the laziness of the movie’s humor and pop culture laden dialogue. It should be pretty clear at this point how that criticism is massively hypocritical for a film that consists entirely of pop culture references.

disaster1It should go without saying that I do not recommend that anyone see this movie. There aren’t any laughs to be had here. The most that you can possibly get out of the experience of watching this movie is the feeling of traveling back in time to 2008, and you will immediately realize that it wasn’t worth the trip.

 

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Ben and Arthur

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Ben and Arthur

benarthur

I haven’t seen a movie as thoroughly incompetent on every conceivable level as “Ben and Arthur” since I sat through “The Maize: The Movie”. “The Maize” is still worse by a long shot, but that is only because of all of the unintentional humor throughout “Ben and Arthur”. This movie is a treasure, the sort of good-bad movie that people are always digging for.

To start with, the acting in this movie is absolutely abysmal. All of the accessory characters are basically reading lines off of the page (in one case, I’m pretty sure they actually are), and the director made the incredibly poor decision to cast himself as the lead, despite not being able to act. The villain is played amusingly over the top, yet even he seems incredibly miscast as a extreme religious zealot. The fellow who plays Ben (a much smaller role than you would expect) is perhaps the only adequate acting performance, and he doesn’t exactly light up the screen. Given this was basically a home movie, there is no reason to expect top-notch acting here. I don’t want to put the movie against unrealistic expectations, but the acting is really laughable even with the bar set to limbo levels.

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This is actually the movie’s website: http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/benandarthur/

I mention that this is basically a home movie. I don’t know if that was the case, but it sure looks like it. There are no attempts at creative or interesting shots, so everything comes off as very basic and bland. Even some YouTube movies try to do interesting things with the camera. I imagine this has something to do with the fact that Sam Mraovich shared very few responsibilites on the movie, and would certainly have benefitted from a few extra sets of eyes on the shots. He is listed on IMDb as the writer, director, cinematographer, editor, producer, composer, casting director, special effects makeup, script supervisor, sound editor, and star. It sounds like he didn’t have to justify his decisions to anyone, which is not good when you are trying to make a movie. You generally need a lot of eyes working in tandem to make a good movie. A film almost always needs to be a collaboration. Whenever I see a movie with a name repeated constantly in the credits, it immediately throws up a red flag for me. Sometimes that is unavoidable with a low budget, but there is no excuse for doing essentially everything on a movie (like is the case here).

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Sam Mraovich: jack of all trades?

The plot to “Ben and Arthur” reminded me a lot of “Birdemic”, in that it is a message movie with no sense of reality or subtlety. Where “Birdemic” has environmentalism, “Ben and Arthur” has LGBT rights. Ben and Arthur as a gay couple who, as the movie begins, are planning to get married. A legal holdup for gay marriage in Hawaii throws a wrench into their initial plans, but they still ultimately tie the knot early on in the movie (making that obstacle mostly meaningless). The primary plot of the movie revolves around Arthur and his brother, a highly religious man who is determined to make Arthur straight. There are a lot of other things going on in the movie in no particular order, such as Ben’s ex-wife showing up for a scene to spout nonsense and wave a gun around, but primarily it follows Arthur and his brother as they become increasingly violent towards each other. I won’t delve too far into it, but it gets to the point where hitmen are involved and a priest gets set on fire. That sounds far more kick-ass than it is. Also, to say the least, the portrayal of Christians in this movie is not favorable.

The last third of this movie devolves into total chaos, becoming over-the-top violent and unrealistic. It reminded me of “Miami Connection” in how abruptly the otherwise more-or-less innocent characters became blood-thirsty killers capable of heinous acts. It is absolutely worth watching for the “WTF” factor alone.

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“Miami Connection”: Starts as a movie about an 80s rock band that sings about friendship. Ends with the mass slaughter of ninjas. Way better than “Ben and Arthur”.

This movie absolutely belongs in the IMDb Bottom 100, and maybe in even the top 10. It is easily in the ranks of “Birdemic” and “The Maize” in overall quality, and is a true spectacle in cinematic incompetence. Depending on your tolerance for bad movies, I think there is some great entertainment value here. It is kind of like “Birdemic” without the special effects. If that sounds like something you can handle, check out “Ben and Arthur”.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Gunday

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Gunday

gunday1

Here is a bit of an unusual situation: I’m going to write about a movie I haven’t seen.

“Gunday” is a 2014 Bollywood movie that hasn’t been made available in Region 1 (or in English) yet. However, it managed to sink all the way to the lowest spot in the IMDb Bottom 100 almost immediately upon release. Seems fishy, doesn’t it?

Well, the folks at FiveThirtyEight took notice, and used their beautiful data-mancy to dig into the story of how (and why) “Gunday” has taken a dominating position in the basement of the IMDb Bottom 100. Check it out here.

They are always handy with an interesting graph

First off, the high number of votes on IMDb for “Gunday” is the result of a social media campaign lobbied against the film. Apparently, there is a particularly offensive depiction of the Bangladeshi revolution in the movie that rubbed a lot of people in the wrong way. In order to bring attention to this (?), some activist Bangladeshis tanked the movie’s IMDb page with 1-star reviews by the thousands. From the FiveThirtyEight post:

“Gunday” offended a huge, sensitive, organized and social-media-savvy group of people who were encouraged to mobilize to protest the movie by giving it the lowest rating possible on IMDb. Of “Gunday’s” ratings, 36,000 came from outside the U.S., and 91 percent of all reviewers gave it one star.

This brings up one of the central issues with the democratic, open-to-all nature of the IMDb’s ratings and rankings. What prevents this sort of mob-influence situation from dishonestly inflating/deflating a movie’s score?

Although there have since been numerous complaints about the down-voting of “Gunday,” IMDb doesn’t seem to be discounting the plethora of low ratings, or at least not yet. IMDB’s head of PR, Emily Glassman, told me that while the site has several built-in safeguards to prevent ballot-stuffing, the policy is not to delete or modify individual ratings from registered users.

“Our approach is not to focus on individual titles or incidents, but to analyze this behavior whenever it occurs and to apply any new learnings to strengthen our voting mechanism, so that the resulting improvements affect all titles/votes in our system rather than just the ones specifically affected by these isolated situations,” she said.

That all sounds appropriately vague and mysterious for the IMDb. Their qualifications for the Bottom 100 are still generally unclear, and have apparently changed a number of times in the past based on the archived lists I’ve found. Currently, a set quota of 1500 votes is needed for a film to qualify for the list, but there are other vague qualifiers that are not explicitly stated. For comparison, this is the formula used to determine the other end of the spectrum, the IMDb Top 250:

W = \frac{Rv + Cm}{v+m}

where:

W\ = weighted rating
R\ = average for the movie as a number from 0 to 10 (mean) = (Rating)
v\ = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
m\ = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 25,000)
C\ = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 7.0)

The Bottom 100 likely utilizes a very similar formula, although I’ve found different rumors about variables. Just as the quote suggests, I imagine IMDb tinkers with their formulas and ranking system quite a bit, so it is anyone’s guess as to just how the IMDb Bottom 100 precisely functions. I am interested to see if any action is taken to prevent this sort of vote-bombing in the future, and whether “Gunday” will hold that #1 Bottom 100 spot long enough for me to actually get a copy of the film. Who would have thought that this shitty movie challenge would tie into geopolitical activism, algorithms, and statistics so heavily?

I’m planning on watching “Gunday” and reviewing it on its own merits once I can get a hold of a copy with subtitles, but I can’t say for sure when that will be. In the meantime, I figured its rapid plummet to the bottom was interesting enough to justify covering.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Hobgoblins

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Hobgoblins

hobgoblins

“Hobgoblins” is almost certainly the lowest of the low-budget “Gremlins” knockoffs. The cult-classic status it has now can mostly be attributed to Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I actually thought it was one of the better movies they covered on the show. It is clearly an amateur movie, with scenes going on longer than they should and the low budget making itself known at every opportunity. However, it is pretty far from unwatchable given the circumstances. Considering how cheaply this movie was made, it is hard to hold most of the big issues against it. Even then, there is still plenty to justifiably complain about here.

First off, the monsters themselves look horrible. They are clearly mediocre hand puppets, but that is probably the best they could put together with no money. There are some great hammy moments when the Hobgoblins are attacking or being attacked, but they look so goofy that there is no way to be afraid of them. In “Gremlins”, the gremlins at least looked disturbing and vile, and could be bought as evil creatures. The hobgoblins just aren’t convincing enough or treated with significant gravity by the characters for them to be frightening. Consistently, the hobgoblins fail to put up any kind of fight once they are discovered. The only thing they have going for them in the movie is that they are good at hiding, and can disappear(?) when it is convenient for the plot.

Yep.
Yep.

Speaking of which, the plot actually has some promise in this movie. If there had been a better director on board and some money attached, there are the makings for a mediocre movie here. I like the idea of monsters that can manipulate their victims’ perceptions, but the concept is poorly executed here. Something that doesn’t make sense in this movie is why the victims always die at some point in the fantasy. In the beginning of the movie, the first victim appears to die due to tripping(?) while in his fantasy. It is later explained that the victims just sort of mysteriously and coincidentally die while in their fantasies, but there is never any clear connection made as to why the hobgoblins are killing the people (always by proxy). Do the fantasies power them? If so, why kill the people? Are they predators? Then why don’t they eat the victims? Are they just sort of sadistic? Why? In an episode of the show “Supernatural”, the protagonists run into Djinn on a handful of occasions, who induce hallucinations / dream states to lull their victims, during which they are leeched of their blood. They do a much better job in the show of explaining why the monsters are inducing hallucinations (to steal blood), showing how the monsters create the hallucinations (a toxin), and showing how the victims are ultimately killed (exsanguination). Those things are all important for the audience to know, and are all missing from this movie. I think that was a pretty serious error for this movie that shouldn’t be excused as a rookie mistake or a result of the low budget, it was just short-sightedness or laziness on the part of writer/director Rick Sloane.

The Djinn also look pretty damn creepy
The Djinn also look pretty damn creepy.

I’ve already mentioned that there are a handful of scenes that drag on for too long in this movie, but apart from those (Club Scum and the Rake Fight, for instance), I didn’t think the shots were too horrible in general. There was a little bit of creative framing to fit in the hand-puppet monsters at times, but they didn’t exactly have any other options on the table. I do think the director made plenty of errors and failed to make a good movie here, but it did come out more or less watchable. I think the really shallow writing and thin plot were bigger issues (not to mention the budget/monsters), but since the writer was also the director here, all fault goes to Sloane. I am curious as to why there were so many attempts to inject humor into the movie (they all failed), and if that was initially in the script or added in as an audible after the monsters turned out so badly. All of the “funny” moments felt tacked-on / forced, so that would make sense to me. I’m not sure whether that’s worth applauding for trying to make lemonade from lemons, or criticizing for doing so poorly. If the humor was intended that way to start with though, then that is just jarring, crappy writing.

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The rake fight in this movie makes the Kirk/Spock fight look like “Crouching Tiger”

Speaking of crappy writing, the dialogue in this movie is miserable. All of the characters are unlikable and sound like they were written by a 13-year-old, all with juvenile motivations and the collective depth of a kiddie pool. Characters in this movie can be described as stereotypes straight out of “Cabin in the Woods”, which might be status quo for this kind of movie, but it lazy none-the-less. The actors are definitely not good, but turning any of these lines into something passable would be squeezing blood from a stone.

No actor in the world can make this look believable.
No actor in the world can make this look believable.

“Hobgoblins” may not be the worst of the MST3k features, but it is definitely bad. I’m tempted to say that it isn’t so bad as to justify a Bottom 100 spot in the IMDb rankings, but I think it cuts pretty close. The crappy monsters, bad dialogue, and generally lazy writing/filmmaking are all worthy of it, but I am tempted to give it the same lenience I would afford a Troma movie, just because it clearly doesn’t take itself seriously. That doesn’t excuse the flaws, but it might give it a reasonable pass as far as Bottom 100 consideration. Given that there are no Troma pictures in the Bottom 100, I’m tempted to think that the IMDb masses would agree. However, the MST3k label is guaranteed to take the rankings for any movie, so I think this one is primarily a victim of that stamp of disapproval.

IMDb Bottom 100

IMDb Bottom 100: Fat Slags

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Fat Slags

fatslags

I don’t think I’ve hated a movie with this kind of a fiery passion since “Pledge This”. Really.

“Fat Slags” is apparently a film based on a vile, vulgar, and popular (?) British comic. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it does have a following, because the fan base evidently didn’t like this movie very much. I can’t speak for the source material, but this movie is primarily fart jokes, fat “jokes”, sight gags, and sexual “humour”. It is astoundingly lazy and low-brow, yet manages to be regionally esoteric as well. There are constant references to British pop culture that international audiences just could not care less about, which is a bad idea when you are writing a script with the intention to make money.

Did I mention lazy effects? These are the shittiest fat suits ever.
Did I mention lazy effects? These are the shittiest fat suits ever.

I admittedly didn’t do much research on this movie before doing my video reaction to it (above), and I’ve been a little surprised by what I’ve found now that I have. I assumed that I watched an unrated DVD cut that came after a PG-13 theatrical release, which is not an uncommon tactic these days for sexual / gross out movies. It is nearly impossible to distribute or make money on an R or NC17 comedy in theaters, because it cuts off too much of the potential audience. So, to sell DVDs, the filmmakers / producers add in jarring and unnecessary nudity to the movie after the theatrical release and advertise it as “uncut” or “unrated”. Given how unprompted, unexpected, and jarring all of the nudity was in this, I assumed that was the case here. In fact, this film never made it to the US in any form. The MPAA never had the displeasure of sitting through this. If you have a Region 1 copy of this movie, it is a bootleg. This movie was so destroyed by critics upon release in the UK, it never managed to cross the English Channel, let alone the Atlantic. Thank goodness.

This movie, above everything else, is lazy. Everything about it reeks of minimal effort: the acting, the sound editing (goofy cartoon noises abound), the shots, and most importantly: the writing. The writing goes for every low-hanging fruit it can get its hands on. It makes “Car 54, Where Are You?” look like a George Barnard Shaw work by comparison. The plot tried to be satirical towards celebrity media and fashion at times, but it lacks any kind of subtlety or consistency. You can’t criticize fashion for being shitty to overweight people and then spend the rest of your movie laughing at fat people breaking scales and farting. You just can’t do that.
https://i0.wp.com/www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ref-you-cant-do-that.gifPerhaps worst of all, Dolph “The Punisher” “Ivan Drago” “Professional Badass” Lundgren debases himself by making a cameo in this movie. Here is the whole scene. Let me know how much you laugh. Also, please note all of the sound editing.

I absolutely hated this movie. The writing was not unlike the Paris Hilton movies I’ve seen for this challenge in regards to crassness, but it managed to be cluelessly esoteric for anyone not from the British isles at the same time. Also, “Pledge This” at least had a handful of “WTF” moments that oddly amused me. No such luck here. It was incredibly offensive for a multitude of reasons, and borderline infantile it its failed attempts at humor. Despite ok production values outside of the cartoonish sound editing, the general tone-deafness of this idiotic display merits it a spot in the IMDb Bottom 100. Worst of all, it nearly ruined Dolph Lundgren for me. Fuck you, “Fat Slags”. Maybe if I can find a copy of “I Come In Peace”, Lundgren can be fully redeemed in my eyes.

The biggest takeaway from this movie is that you have to put in some damn effort and use common sense sometimes to make a successful film. You will be happy to know that this movie killed writer William Osborne’s career, and director Ed Bye has been relegated to television work. Also, Dolph Lundgren has an amazing quote about his involvement in this film:

“How did I get involved in Fat Slags (2004)? That’s a good question…I’d ask that agent of mine, but he’s sunk in the Thames River.”

Ah, justice. You know what? I would watch a revenge movie where Dolph picks off everyone involved in the making of this wretched film. Sign me up.