In Depth:
The McGonagall Awards:
The Seventeen Worst
Movies Ever Made
William McGonagall, a poor
eighteenth-century bloke who fancied himself to be a talented
writer, is often regarded as the worst published poet in the
history of the English language. Yet it undoubtedly takes a
certain genius unto itself to be the absolute, undisputed worst
at something that you do. In the 1970s, Peter Sellers hosted
a competition to see if anyone could write a poem as bad as
McGonagall's awful opuses; dozens and dozens of people threw their hat into
the ring, and all were rejected. McGonagall was simply too
awful to duplicate. There’s a brilliance here that
seems nearly unattainable in its logic.
It is in the same, campy
spirit that I approach my list for the most atrocious examples
of cinematic “art.” I
suppose the first question I should answer is why the need for
a list of “worst films” is even necessary, as it
seems to do little but take cheap shots at mammoth cinematic
miscalculations that probably speak for themselves. I am content
letting the true turkeys be their own prosecutors, but I also feel
that a list might be necessary for pointing novice patrons of
bad cinema in the right direction for where to find the most
awful, most distinguished (or is that undistinguished) turkeys
of the lot. In a way, it is also a necessary list after my epic “Ten
Best Films Throughout the Decades” article, to let my faithful
readers in on the rest of the story.
Lamenting on my Top Ten Films
Throughout the Decades article that our society is obsessed
with “top ten lists,” permit
me a little rebellion for my Worst Films list (I almost said “Top
Worst Films,” but that’s a bit oxymoronic, don’t
you think?) by giving you a nice, round number of the seventeen most
abysmal films in motion picture history, at least in my not-so-humble
opinion.
It is a list that was perhaps
more difficult to compile than my “Top Ten” piece; indeed, how do you discern between
mediocrity and trash that is brilliantly bad? That said, I’m
happy with how this list looks—perhaps more so than its
predecessor—and I think that it is a fair balance of the “So
Bad It’s Good” and the “Unwatchably Bad” categories.
And there is a difference: In the former, you often howl in uncontrollable
laughter as the film—sincerely and accidentally—crumbles
before your eyes. You are no better for watching the trash, but
by God, you are definitely entertained. In the latter, you are
nearly crying in the pain; the film has somehow succeeded in
penetrating your senses with its awfulness, and watching it in
its entirely borderlines masochism. In order to appreciate the
fun garbage from the torturous ones, a healthy exposure to both
is probably necessary, and they are represented here about equally.
Which is which, however, I leave you to figure out. I don’t
apologize for that; it is a necessary step in appreciating bad
cinema.
My
rules for this list are simple: The films had to have had a theatrical
run, at least in some country somewhere. Otherwise, trying to
weigh in direct-to-video films would make this endeavor nearly
impossible. How do you differentiate between the badness of Night
of the Demons 3 and Champions, starring Ken Shamrock?
I’m also not including exploitation films on the list, as
those are on a level of intentional, erotic depravity that never
intended to compete with legitimate motion pictures. That’s
the deal, then—all the films here, no matter how awful,
were inexplicably shown in a theater house, somewhere, at some
time, that didn’t have an “Adults Only” sign
at the box office.
A character played by Kim
Novak famously said, in what is probably the most biting insult
a movie has ever received, “I could
eat a can of Kodak and puke a better movie!” That was in
the film The Mirror Crack’d, and such sentiments
could certainly apply to every film on this list (and watching
Novak hurl would probably be more entertaining that some of the
movies here). But I’m not one to have bad feelings—some
bad things deserve our praise simply because be are blindsided
by their badness. That’s what the McGonagall awards are
about. Without further ado, then, here are the seventeen worst
films ever made, at least as far as Film as Art is concerned.
Here is cinema in the true spirit of William McGonagall, and
as I recognize these films in his name, I sincerely hope that
he is spinning ceaselessly in his grave.
1. Pearl
Harbor, directed by Michael Bay. 2001
Complete,
unadulterated cinematic putrid. A film so vile, so offensively
disturbing, that it remains the most despicable anti-humanity
film that I am currently aware of—even more so than exploitation
films like I Spit on Your Grave and Beyond the Door because
at the very least, those films did not pretend to rise above
their depravity. What makes this film so offensive and disturbing
is that director Michael Bay seems to think that making it
is an act of patriotism. I’m not sure how patriotic Pearl
Harbor could ever be as filmed as a mindless Summer Blockbuster.
The film features the deaths of American soldiers in glorious,
action-packed slow motion. Surrounding these scenes of glorified
violence is a love story of slack-jawed banality that occupies
most of the film’s three-hour running length. It’s
all expertly shot and delivered, but do we want to see bullets
graphically enter into our troops in heart-pacing action sequences
as the action music swells? Has the attack on Pearl Harbor become
so romanticized that a movie about it is reduced to a mindless
action flick that finds its “depth” in a soap opera
between three fictional people who we couldn’t care less
about? This movie might look nice, but it is morally repugnant.
What next—a musical about the Trail of Tears? An adventure
movie about September 11? Has Hollywood sunk so low? Yes it
has. On the level of depraved, insensitive garbage, Pearl Harbor has
no equal.
2. The
Judas Project, directed by James H. Barden.
1990.
The
worst religious film ever made. Period. James H. Barden, a fundamentalist
preacher who felt “moved by the Spirit” to direct
this modern day update of the Christ story, does not direct
at all—he simply points the camera without any idea how
to use it. I’m surprised he remembered to take off the
lens cap (and, yes, it would have made a better movie if the
lens cap had stayed on). In addition, those “acting”
in the film are not actors—they are simply deadpanned,
boring people reading lines. As I noted in my review of the
film, it is “ninety minutes of complete incompetence -
a film completely devoid of talent, inspiration, or originality.
If Pier Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew
proves that films about Christ can produce some of the greatest
movies ever made, The Judas Project proves that they
can also produce some of the worst. I normally consider cheap-shot
statements to be below the dignity of a serious film critic,
but I can say that this is a film to be avoided the same way
that the plague should be avoided. I can't think of a single
reason why anyone would want to see it, or should have to. Anyone
who claims to have any grounds to take it seriously is, frankly,
wrong, and you should never ask them their opinion of any movie,
ever again.” God, forgive them—they know not what
they do.
3. 3
dev adam,
directed by T. Fikret Uçak.
1973.
A
true oddity—as bizarre as it is awful. Stop me if you’ve
heard this one—Spider-Man is really an evil serial killer/rapist/teepee-maker
with gigantic eyebrows who uses switchblades instead of his
webbings. Called in to stop him from committing any more evil
are Santo the Mexican Wrestler and Captain America. Did I mention
that this whole thing was made in Turkey on the budget of what
appears to be milk money? A TURKISH Captain America, you say?
Afraid so. Turkish films, of course, don’t have any copyright
laws, saving them from the wrath of Stan Lee while giving them
the liberty to corrupt these characters in any way they like.
Corrupt is a kind word to describe what happens here, not just
with our favorite heroes, but to our senses as we watch this
garbage. Do I even have to tell you that every aspect of the
film—every frame—is completely inane?
4. Dracula
vs. Frankenstein, directed by Al Adamson.
1971.
This film probably has
the greatest “bad” line of
all time: Dracula suddenly appears in the passenger seat of a
car, and tells the driver, “I am known as the Count of
Darkness, the Lord of the Manor of Corpathia [sic].
Turn right here.” This line is an indication of what to
expect in the rest of the film. The battle between the two iconic
monsters, by the way, is a true camp highlight—it takes
place in the woods and consists of kicks, tripping into bushes,
and groans. It is so dark that it is impossible to tell what
is really going on until the victor emerges into the light. Not
that we care.
5. Maniac,
directed by Dwain Esper. 1934.
This is that weird movie
that was evidently shot in someone’s
basement that ends with two women battling it out with hypodermic
needles. Before that happens, we get some incomprehensible
plot about a mad scientist who kills another scientist and
assumes his identity, and something about pulling the eyeballs
out of cats. Interesting in the worst way possible.
6. The
Wild World of Batwoman, directed by Jerry Warren.
1966.
Poor Jerry Warren is the
only director with two films on this list. A distaff
rip-off of Batman finds Batwoman and her—erm—busty
accomplices trying to save the world from what looks like
a WWE Wrester named Ratfink. That is, when they’re
not too busy Go-Go dancing. Cheap, filled with stock-footage
of other B-movies, the film is as god-awful as you’d
expect. Warren hired his cast from a strip club that
had been suddenly shut down. As the strippers exited,
he met them at the door, ready to recruit them. We can’t
be too hard on them—even unemployed
strippers have to eat, after all.
7. Zombie
Lake, directed by Jesse
Franco. 1981.
No Worst Films List is
complete without at least one Jesse Franco film, so let’s
just get it out of the way now. Of all of the low-budget,
European zombie films made in the wake of Romero’s Dawn
of the Dead, this is the absolute worst. The story involves
flesh-eating (is there any other kind these days?), Nazi
zombies who emerge from the bottom of a lake for revenge
against the small town that put them there. Because this
is Franco, expect plenty of what he’s famous more—gratuitous
nudity, buckets of fake blood, gratuitous nudity, terrible
production values, buckets of fake blood, sunbathing lovemakers
who meet gruesome ends, gratuitous nudity, green zombie makeup
that reveals the pink flesh poking out underneath, dialogue
like, “They
will only be turned into ashes in the fires of the Apocalypse,” and
buckets of fake blood. Oh, and gratuitous nudity.
8. Jaws:
The Revenge, directed by Joseph Sargent. 1987.
Oh, Michael. Oh dear, dear Michael. The straight face you kept
as the rubber shark roared like a lion should have earned you
an Oscar. Or rather, while you kept a straight face when the
rubber shark roared like a lion, you were in the process
of earning an Oscar (for another movie, of course). With
all due respect to Monty Python, this one makes Enzo G. Castellari’s
cheapie Great White look like an epic.
9. Yor,
the Hunter from the Future, directed by Antonio
Margheriti. 1983.
“Of course it’s terrible,” director Margheriti
has insisted. “Just look at it!” What more can I
add? Well, I will say this: For as common as the phrase might
be in satire, this is the first movie I’ve ever experienced
in which people literally walked out the theater mumbling, “I
paid money to see that,” in a sincerely depressed, betrayed
tone. Of course, what else could we have expected from a beefcake
adventure starring Reb Brown as a man named Yor? An outlandish
hybrid of Conan the Barbarian,Star Wars, and
Italian schlock. It was evidently a four-hour miniseries in Italy,
which is probably my idea of hell.
10. Glen
or Glenda?, directed by Ed Wood. 1953.
Bela Lugosi begins this
tale with a narration of supreme poignancy: “No
one can really tell the story. Mistakes are made. But there is
no mistaking the thoughts in a man's mind. The story is begun.” I’m
hard pressed to think of a better explanation for this movie,
except to say that a Worst Films List without Ed Wood is like
an Influential Civil Rights Leaders List without Martin Luther
King.
11. Heaven’s
Gate, directed by Michael Cimino.
1980.
The film that killed Michael Cimino, the poor chap, and he nearly
took Christopher Walken and Kris Kristofferson with him. Charlton
Heston once said that epics are the easiest type of film to do
badly. Heaven’s Gate isn’t just a strong
case for this claim, it is the central thesis! Watch out for
those tank-wagons!
12. The
Exorcist II: The Heretic , directed by John
Boorman. 1977.
The film that killed John Boorman. John Who, you ask? *Sigh.*
Well, to be fair, he had a moderately successful rebound with Excalibur,
but this one still takes the cake as the worst sequel in the
history of mankind. Incoherency is the least of this one’s
problems—Boorman evidently hated the original Exorcist,
and he wanted to create a more cerebral, surreal, postmodern
piece of intellectual spirituality (and all those other big words)
with the sequel. Postmodern surrealism is all well and good,
but why choose this tone for a sequel to the scariest movie of
all time? Richard Burton’s wild-eyed overacting is so embarrassing
that it is nearly unwatchable (“EVILLLLLLLLL”), yet
it’s the best thing about the movie, which also features
inane dialogue (“If Pazuzu comes for you I will spit a
leopard.”), a plot that at best makes absolutely
no sense, and chubby James Earl Jones in a toga.
13. Frankenstein
Island, directed by Jerry Warren. 1981.
Jerry Warren’s #2! This is the one in which John Carradine’s
floating head screams, “The power! The power!” I
think Roger Ebert had a rule of thumb at one time that any movie
that begins with a hot air balloon sequence is NOT going to be
a good picture. Well, this one begins with a hot air balloon,
and it most certainly NOT a good picture. The balloon, by the
way, quickly crashes on an island containing bikini-clad natives,
the daughter of Dr. Frankenstein, and a Monster that waves his
hands around and growls a lot because—well, he’s
Frankenstein! Perhaps they should have crashed on another like….maybe—
14. The
Island of Dr. Moreau, directed by John Frankenheimer.
1996.
Well,
perhaps not. On this mishap, I need only be brief:
The horror, the horror.
15. Battlefield
Earth, directed by Roger Christian.
2000.
Yeah, it’s really as bad as you’ve heard. L. Ron
Hubbard’s overlong epic novel is turned into a two-hour
film that’s about an hour-and-a-half too long. It’s
difficult to describe this one except to lament upon its incompetence
on every possible cinematic level. Post-apocalyptic films with
more asinine storylines (and plot holes) have worked before,
but where this one really fails is in its execution. And I do
mean ALL of its execution—what’s with all the tilted
camera angles, the alien dictators who look like a hybrid of
a Rastafarian and a Smurf, and that miserable, belting laugh?
I’ve always admired John Travolta as an actor, and as I
freely admit that Christopher Lambert is one of my favorites,
I know that you cannot judge an performer by his film. This was
a labor of love for Travolta, but something clearly went wrong
on a fundamental level. Clearly wrong. The film itself
doesn’t offer any clues on how it took a fairly competent
adventure story and turned it into a total train wreck, but wow—it’s
a train wreck.
16. King
Kong Lives, directed by John Guillermin. 1986.
Evidently, the pregnancy
of Kongs only lasts a day or so. Or else Momma Kong was involved
in some extracurricular activity prior to the films’ opening that her King didn’t
know about. And yes, I know I’ve said it a lot, but that would have
made a better movie—especially if they had ended up on
Jerry Springer.
17. Operation: Kid Brother,
directed by Alberto De Martino. 1967.
The black sheep of the Bond films (even more than Casino
Royale). Actually, it sounds like a fun parody on paper:
Hire the principle supporting the actors of the James Bond
films—including the original M and Moneypenny—and
cast the brother of the guy who plays Bond (Neil Connery) as
a magician who must save the world while his secret agent brother
is away on vacation. Wait—maybe that doesn’t sound
good on paper. Oh, and did I mention that this isn’t
intended as a parody? I can’t imagine the long talks
that Sean had with Neil about this stinker, but, yes (say it
with me now), those talks would have made a better movie!
