Seen any crappy movies?

[specious_reasons]

Zombie Fight Club (2014)

A large apartment complex gets overrun by zombies at the same time a police raid is happening, and we follow some people as they attempt to survive. One hour into the movie we jump 1 year later, and the remaining people are living in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, where some are evil warlords, and others are fighting for their enjoyment.

This is just a mess of a movie. It's exploitation at its most basic and boring.

[Miss Shelby]

It’s not a crappy movie, I just couldn’t find the right thread. It’s actually a very good movie. An old movie made in 1962 with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. The Days of Wine and Roses. Very good but holy fuck so depressing.

[specious_reasons]

M3gan (2022)

OK, so I'm a bit drunk, and I watched the unrated cut that just came out, and I loved it.

[specious_reasons]

I tried watching Skinamarink, but I was not in the mood for it, so I watched...

The Samurai aka Der Samurai 2014

Jakob is a rather timid police officer living in his rural hometown, where he takes care of his cognitively impaired grandmother, feeds a local wild wolf, and isn't taken seriously by the locals. He's a nice, repressed guy.

A package is delivered to the station, and he takes it to the owner, who turns out to be a man wearing a dress and lipstick. The package is a sword, and the man ("The Samurai") starts busting the town (and some townspeople) up. Jakob is both intrigued and horrified. Will he be able to stop this?

It's... interesting. This is the type of movie that has no interest in telling you who the antagonist is, or why they're doing this, but it drops a lot of clues and is probably happy with you coming up with your own answer.

[specious_reasons]

Since I got my Mom a TV that can stream movies from various services, and my Mom loves horses, the at-home care workers have been finding horse movies for her to watch.

Since I'm visiting, I have also been subjected to a few of them.

Hearts & Horses (2023) - A simple, god-fearing farmer discovers he has a 16 year old daughter when her mother dies. He takes her in and sets her to work taking care of abandoned horses.

Wright family films is literally the Wright family making films. All of the actors here are members of the Wright family. IIRC, they made a bit of a social media splash by making a Christian Bigfoot movie a while back. This is entirely incompetent, especially not providing a lot of horse screen time.

All Good Things 2019 - Two city-dwelling teen girls are forced to visit with their grandparent's remote farm over the holidays. The grandparents run a horse therapy farm, and the girls are quickly enchanted with the horses and eventually the whole farm. Unfortunately the grandparents are about to lose the farm to a corrupt businessman on Christmas Eve.

This was only marginally better than the one above. It did have the advantage of having Morgan Fairchild and Corbin Bernsen as the grandparents, and a competent cinematographer, but was otherwise terrible. Unfortunately, this movie forgot the horses for long stretches, and so it doesn't deliver enough horse screen time.

Midnight Stallion 2013 - Struggling farm owners and their daughter form a bond with an impressive wild stallion, and they literally bet the farm on it to win a race.

This is the most competent of the three. The plot is almost entirely predictable, but that's not a terrible thing - it knows what kind of movie it is. Kris Kristofferson is the crusty old farmer, and Kristofferson > Bernsen. This also provided the best on-screen horse time with lots of black stallion running through open fields scenes.

I wouldn't voluntarily watch any of these again, but if someone was looking for a horse movie, I'd confidently recommend Midnight Stallion as one that doesn't suck.

[specious_reasons]

It's St. Patrick's day, and Vudu had a sale for all 8 Leprechaun movies for $10. It's been a while since I've seen any, and so I bought the package and watched, Leprechaun and Leprechaun 2.

In Leprechaun, a old farmer comes back to the US from his mother's funeral with a Leprechaun's gold, but the Leprechaun has followed him, and attacks them. After causing serious harm, it gets bound in a box by a 4-leaf clover.
The main action happens 10 years later when a man buys the house and has his teen daughter and 3 painters help him over the summer. One of them accidentally frees the Leprechaun. It's looking for its gold, and will cause all sorts of havoc to get it.

Leprechaun is a light horror comedy. It's basically fine. Most of the enjoyment to be found in this movie is Warwick Davis enjoying the shit out of being a malevolent prankster making puns and spouting limericks. The lead heroine is a young Jennifer Aniston, who is only notable for being very cute.

In Leprechaun 2, the Leprechaun is prevented from "marrying" a young Irish lass in the past, so he curses the family's line to provide him with a wife in another 1,000 years. This brings us to modern day, and Bridget is that descendant. She's dating Cody, a young man who is stuck with a drunk, grifting uncle and a Hollywood touring business. This time, the Leprechaun successfully gains his "wife," but Cody and his uncle work hard to free Bridget.

Leprechaun 2 might have been a better movie if the two youngs leads were even half as interesting as Jennifer Aniston. The young lady playing Bridget is very cute, but can barely get through her lines. It's truly a shame, because the character is rather proactive - constantly trying to find ways to break out of her captivity. As it is, I rated this slightly lower than the first.

[specious_reasons]

Leprechaun 3

Continuity isn't a concern of the Leprechaun series. There's no backstory to this one, the Leprechaun here is introduced as a statue, held that way by a magic amulet. This time, we're given the idea that anyone with a Leprechaun's shilling is offered one wish. It's a great concept for the chosen setting - Las Vegas.

This is the movie which has the formula all worked out. Warwick Davis has got the balance between menace and whimsy just right. He only speaks in limericks or rhyming couplets. There's stupid jokes and some creative kills. I didn't find it any more enjoyable than the other two.

[specious_reasons]

Continuing the Leprechaun series, since I last posted:

Leprechaun 4: In Space
Leprechaun 5: In the Hood
Leprechaun 6: Back 2 tha Hood

Real diminishing returns here. #4 is a deeply stupid low budget sci-fi horror with the Leprechaun attacking space marines on a ship. It's all sorts of stupid science fiction tropes jammed into a Leprechaun movie. This movie ranks #1 for the all time most gratuitous topless scene in a movie.

#5 features Ice-T. He steals a golden flute from the Leprechaun and uses it to become a rap mogul. Years later, the Leprechaun is freed by young thieves who are trying to get cash to afford equipment for their rap careers.

#6 is about a young group of friends in the hood trying to make better lives for themselves. One of them stumbles upon the Leprechaun's gold. Soon the Leprechaun is after them.

#4 and #6 make the unforgivable sin in a Leprechaun movie: They don't have Warwick Davis speak in limericks or rhyming couplets. The general sense of enjoyment is significantly reduced when he's not rhyming.

# 5 and 6 are slow and poorly edited. #5 especially seems to have been cut to shreds. I'm pretty sure there is a scene in the middle of the movie to explain where his "zombie fly girls" come from, but it featured Warwick Davis rapping, so they just put it at the end as a bonus scene instead. Ice-T is working hard with his shitty part, so there's two people making an effort in this one.

It's so sad, these all could be much better with just a little more effort.

If you are at all curious, the only one I would even suggest is Leprechaun in Space. This one is just intentionally crazy and stupid, doesn't really give a fuck and just tries to be fun with it.

[specious_reasons]

Leprechaun: Origins (2014)

WWE films attempted to do a gritty modern reboot of the series, and it is not good.

It's a very basic creature feature - two young couples get trapped in a remote location by a vicious creature. It's mostly uninteresting, surprisingly sexless and not particularly scary or gory. It's almost a PG-13 movie.

Then they made it worse by saddling it with a botched Leprechaun premise. Instead of it being a clever, evil fey creature, it's simply a growly monster with a desire for gold. I'm not very familiar with "Hornswoggle", the wrestler, but he has a lot more personality on the WWE shows than he's allowed to give as the monster. The movie also doesn't have any faith in the monster's appearance, as it's only seen in glimpses, often while distorted or blurry.

This wasn't at all what I expected. It was much worse in most ways.

[specious_reasons]

Leprechaun Returns (2018)

A SciFi channel legacy sequel. This is a direct sequel to the first Leprechaun.

Lila is a college student who joins an eco-conscious sorority building a self-sustaining house. The house just happens to be the site of the leprechaun attack in the first movie. Ozzy - the not-so-bright handyman from the first movie - is the taxi driver taking her there. Ozzy accidentally revives the leprechaun, and the leprechaun goes back on a killing spree to get its gold. Lila also has a past connection to the first movie, which might give them a chance to survive...

I enjoyed this - it's not Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun, but Linden Porco is decent. His leprechaun is more menacing in its gleeful malevolence, but it's still gleeful malevolence - a crucial component to any Leprechaun movie. Plus, he mostly speaks in rhymes and limericks. The writing is decent. The story and action is mostly coherent, and there's some amusing kills. It's more than I expected from a movie in the Leprechaun series.

My final ranking of the eight movies:
1 > 8 >> 3 > 2 >>> 5 > 4 > 6 >>> 7

They rank from mildly entertaining to pretty awful.

Honestly, if anyone is at all interested in this series, watch the first. If you love Warwick Davis in this, tread carefully with the rest. If you like the concept well enough, maybe watch #8.

[specious_reasons]

Doing taxes and paperwork, I watched the "Puppet Master" series. Movies 1-5 to be exact. I think it veers off into weird Nazi shit after this, so I'm not sure I want to go further.

All the movies rely on this premise: Before WW2, a puppeteer named Andre Toulon learns the secret to give life to his puppets. He escapes Nazi Germany to the US, but they hunt him down to a hotel. He kills himself rather than revealing his secret to the Nazis.

Given that:

In the first, a shifty psychic calls his former psychic partners to the hotel, and they are hunted down by the puppets.

In the second, a paranormal research team is assigned to the hotel, only to discover someone else living there. The puppets resurrected Toulon because they are running out of the elixir that brings them to life, and Toulon needs people parts to make it.

The third is set during WW2. The Nazis discover Toulon has animated puppets, and the Nazis want to use his magic to create undead soldiers. Toulon's wife is killed during a raid on their home, and so Toulon uses the puppets to take revenge on the Nazis.

In the fourth, we're back to the 1990s and a young scientist has taken residence in the hotel. He's working on animating robots, and piques the interest of the puppets. This time, ancient wizards from another dimension want to stop the project. I think the logic is that this project will unlock the magic Toulon took from these creatures. The puppets help our protagonist fight the creatures sent to our world.

The fifth directly continues from the previous (apparently they were filmed at the same time), the scientist is arrested after the police come to the hotel. He's bailed out by his company, and after listening to the story, his boss sneaks into the hotel to steal the puppets, but the big bad from the previous movie has come to our world to finish the job.

For the first 5 movies, there's a surprising consistency in quality. They are all basically "OK" in my book. Puppet Master 2 is the outlier in tone and continuity (Toulon is evil in this one, but not in the others), but is also fine. None of them are really good, but they're all interesting enough.

My ranking: 3 > 1 > 4 > 5 > 2, but none stand out as particularly great or bad.

[LarsMac]

HBO is offering up all the James Bond flicks. I started with Dr No, the first one, which I remember seeing back in high school days, and enjoying immensely.

I don't recall it being so BAD! The story was kind of OK, but I forgot just how lame some of the filming and sound were, and the technology! It impressed upon me how far filmmaking as advanced in the last half century.

Next up, From Russia With Love.
Update: Well, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger seem to be missing from the collection. Disappointing.
So, Thunderball. Well, not a significant improvement in the technology in three years. That was a horrendous plot line.

Well, on to "You Only Live Twice."
sigh I have long held a notion that the Connery flicks were the best. (A legend dashed? hmmm.)

[specious_reasons]

Knock at the Cabin 2023

A family is staying at a remote cabin have their vacation disrupted by four strangers knocking at their door. They take the family hostage and make the craziest demand: The family must choose to sacrifice one of their own or else the world will end in a terrible apocalypse.

This is M. Night Shyamalan's latest, who is having a bit of a resurgence lately, and I'd say this is on par with some of his best. I have generally been reticent to get back into Shyamalan's work. I was burned by some of his middle-career work — I saw "The Happening" and I'm not sure I'm entirely ready to forgive him, but I might look at "Old" now.

[specious_reasons]

Hollywood Boulevard (1976)

This is a Roger Corman produced T&A comedy about producing Roger Corman type movies.

Candy (Candice Rialson) just moved to Hollywood from Indiana and she wants to be an actress. After a few stumbles, she gets an agent (Dick Miller) and a part as a stuntwoman in a low budget movie. Soon, she's in an acting role and dating the writer. Everything seems to be going well, but somebody is killing off her costars. Will Candy live? More importantly, will Candy become a star?

Not my favorite subject (movies about making movies), but this has a bit more charm and executed with more skill than you might expect in an ultra low budget comedy. That's probably because one of the directors is Joe Dante, and he gets Paul Bartell, Mary Woronov, and Dick Miller to class up his cheap movie.

[specious_reasons]

Lying in Wait (2001)

"Babee" is the son of a semi-famous actress. The actress had recently died, and he's living in her Hollywood house with bills piling up. Vera (Virginia Madsen) and Keith (Rutger Hauer) move in next door. He's a libertine, drinking and gambling and having affairs. Vera asks Babee to keep an eye on Keith, but he mostly gets dragged into Keith's lifestyle.

It doesn't stop Babee from obsessing over Vera, and while attending a party, Babbe hears Keith suggesting to his mistress to have sex with Babbe, and then Keith offers a couple-swap - Keith is hot for El, Babee's extremely young girlfriend, and he knows Babee is interested in Vera. In retaliation, Babee exposes Keith's infidelity to Vera, which leads to a drunken argument and they drive away and get into an accident.

Keith winds up in a permanent vegetative state, and Babee helps Vera take care of Keith. Keith starts talking to Babee, and is suspicious of his mistress and others in their orbit. This leads to some incredibly stupid murders - Keith knocks his mistress off the balcony with his power wheelchair, knocks another man in a pool and drowns him. Babee is torn between his attraction to Vera and his "friendship" to Keith.

This is generally a low budget, very tacky direct to video movie with a few crazy moments, but elevated slightly by Madsen and Hauer. It's not actually worth anyone's time.

[specious_reasons]

I am slowly going through the Insidious movie series, in preparation for when the latest one comes out to home video. I purchased a package license for all 5, with the 5th on preorder.

I have seen Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 now. These two stories follow the Lambert family, an otherwise normal family that starts getting haunted. In the first movies, one son goes into a coma, and the hauntings gets worse. In the second movie, the son has recovered, but there's fallout from the events of the first movie the family needs to handle.

I actually quite like these two films. Yes, they're cheesy and full of jump scares, but I find them scary and effective. The really cheap scare of a ghost popping up out of nowhere when a person turns around gets me every time.

[specious_reasons]

The Journey: Absolution (1997)

Set in an future Earth where an asteroid strike leaves most of the world an icy wasteland, Ryan Murphy (Mario Lopez) joins an elite military academy in New America. He's trying to navigate the difficult trials these recruits go through, find a missing friend, and learn what the insane commander Sergeant Bradley (Richard Grieco) is planning.

One of the bad movie podcasts I listen to is covering this, so I took the opportunity to watch this beforehand - I don't frequently do this, but sometimes a movie just cries out to be watched first.

The director of this is notorious for a few classic "bad" movies. When he wasn't doing adult film work, he started out working for cheapo producers like Roger Corman and Charles Band. One of the director's distinctive trademarks (look for the 1313 series) is fit men in boxer briefs, and this film is not an exception. When these cadets are off duty, they're stripped down to their skivvies. Even when they're not, there's a lot of shirtless dudes fighting and training.

This is low budget trash, but honestly it's better than a lot of low budget trash I've seen. Oh, and there's a Rifftrax version if you want to consume it that way.

[specious_reasons]

They All Laughed (1981)

I'll admit, this was added to my watchlist because this was Dorothy Stratten's last movie, the one where she fell in love with the director Peter Bogdanovich and her husband then killed her in his jealous rage.

The movie basically follows the detectives of the Odyssey Detective Agency. The agency splits its time between two targets, Angela (Audrey Hepburn) and Dolores (Stratten), two married women who have jealous husbands. The only problem is that two of the detectives are smitten. Ladies man John (Ben Gazzara) falls for Angela and pratfalling Charles (John Ritter) pines for Dolores. The third man on the street a rollerskating Arthur (Blaine Novak) hits on every woman he meets.

This movie is kind of great, but detectives are all awful people. The twist at the end of the movie is that these guys are manipulating the women around them, only to discover they've been plotted against by the women as well. There were only two people I liked, an up and coming country singer played by Colleen Camp who is loud, pushy, opinionated and fun, and is the one who beats the PIs at their own game, and Sam/Deborah, a muse in the form of a taxi driver played by Patti Henson.

Even though I didn't like many of the characters, the movie is still pretty captivating. It's all on-location shooting in New York which is both fantastic and gritty. Gazzara's character is a scumbag, but it's played with such charisma you don't want to look away.

Dorothy Stratten is fine. There's a scene where she's in a store with her group of friends, and Ritter is following her with Camp in tow. The two are interested in each other but separated, and so they communicate through quick glances. It's both cute and funny and handled really well by both actors. I had gotten the impression from Star 80 that she wasn't much of an actress, but this movie shows she had some promise.

This was better than I was expecting, with the real world events making it a sadder experience than it ought to be.

[specious_reasons]

It's weird that this thread is almost a dedication to how much I like Colleen Camp. (Actually, it's only like 3 times I've mentioned her, but I think she's a more notable actor in quite a few of the movies I watch.)

[viscousmemories]

Barbie

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Barbie

Objection. Not crappy. Unless ...

[viscousmemories]

It was aesthetically pretty and the acting was solid. Even the story was somewhat compelling. But I found the dialogue to be really shallow, ham-fisted white feminism*.


*I wouldn't have come up with "white feminism" on my own but it was a critique I heard from a Korean-American woman just before I watched the movie, and it seems fitting.

[specious_reasons]

Insidious: Chapter 3

Set a few years before the first two movies, the psychic from the first two movies (Lin Shaye, doing a great job in all of them so far), is mourning a loss and being threatened by a malevolent spirit, so she has quit the psychic business. She's pulled back in because she is contacted by a teen who is being harried by another malevolent spirit.

It's more of the same, which is just fine. It's still a lot of cheap jump scares, but I jump really easily, so it's a rather effective way to freak me out.

[specious_reasons]

Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

Lin Shaye is still really great, and cheap jump scares are a little cheaper but still effective on me.

This one is a prequel that leads right up into the first movie - Shaye's psychic has been working again, but this time it's personal. The haunting she's asked to investigate is at her childhood home, where she was abused by her father and attacked by a malevolent spirit.

A couple of interesting twists in this, but it's not quite as good as the previous installments, and the psychic's sidekicks (a turn of phrase used as a running joke in this movie) are more creepy, hitting on two younger ladies and acting more childish.

[specious_reasons]

Freeway 1996

Starring Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland. This is a very "90s edgy" thriller retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Witherspoon plays Vanessa Lutz, a functionally illiterate but charming(?) teen who runs away from her case worker to find her grandmother. The car breaks down on the freeway, and she get a ride from Sutherland's "Bob Wolverton" (get it?), a genial man who is a psychiatrist and a counsellor. He get her to talk about her troubles, but it's not to help, no, it's so he can make sure she's a "garbage person." He's the freeway killer that's been in the news. Only, Vanessa's not a garbage person, and she has a gun...

There's a lot of things happening here, and about every 30 minutes we're in a different kind of thriller. I'd hate to spoil it if it tickles your fancy.

This is High Trash, Elevated Exploitation. Everybody understands the assignment here. Witherspoon is the wildest I've ever seen her.