The Ridiculous 6 (USA, 2015)

Nine Things About the Movie The Ridiculous 6

1. The biggest mystery of 2015 is why Netflix chose to make this movie. This is one of the worst movies of the year.

2. The first time I tried watching this movie, I couldn't finish it. I figured it was because I was sober. But when I watched it under more appropriate circumstances, it didn't get any better. I watched the whole thing, but not because I liked it. I was just daring myself to finish it.

3. The title is a shameless attempt to capitalize on the Quentin Tarantino film The Hateful Eight, but has nothing to do with that movie, except that it's a Western. The plot of the movie (like it matters) is that six dumb guys all discover that they are half brothers, and they try to find $50,000 so they can rescue their father, who is being held by a gang of outlaws.

4. The movie is really a series of jokes. It tries to be one of those movies that is so ridiculous that you can't help laughing.  I laughed about three times.

5.  It has a big cast of recognizable stars: Adam Sandler, Terry Crews, Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Nick Nolte, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Jon Turturro, among others. The second biggest mystery of 2015 is why any of them agreed to be in this movie. The only explanation I can think of is that they all sold their soul to Satan to become famous, and now Satan is calling in his favor.

6. I respect it when sexy movie stars take on roles to leave their sex-symbol status behind. But Taylor Lautner destroys his sexy reputation so completely that I will never be able to watch another of his movies without thinking of the scene when a donkey gives him a... well, never mind.

7. Vanilla Ice plays Mark Twain. Mark Twain says "word up." Oh, and one of the characters in the movie is a donkey with explosive diarrhea. This should tell you a lot about the movie.

8. The movie is kind of sexist and racist towards Native Americans. The women have names like Smoking Fox and Never Wears Bra.

9. Recommending this movie to anyone should count as a form of bullying.

The Houses October Built (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About The Houses October Built

1. I've seen some really bad found-footage horror films, but this movie is one of the worst I've ever seen. It is proof that just because you have a video camera at home and have an idea for a movie, that doesn't mean you should actually make it.

2. The idea of the movie isn't bad. It's supposed to be about a group of 5 people who are tired of the regular haunted house attractions that pop up before Halloween, and they go on a cross-country quest in their RV for a rumored real one that doesn't fake the things that happen inside.

3. Unfortunately, most of the movie is either pointless conversation between the characters (who sometimes read poems), or sloppy camera footage inside real haunted house attractions. I suspect that the script must have been written when the writer (and star of the movie), Zack Andrews, was stoned.

4. Nobody tries to explain why they need six video cameras (with infinite batteries and storage space) strapped to the inside and outside of their RV. How many times are they going to want to watch something from the position of their tire? Or what you can see behind the vehicle?

5. I think one of the main characters was supposed to be a serial killer, but nobody ever really seemed bothered that the dude brought girls to the RV at night, and then he wore their clothes the next morning after the girl disappeared. They were too busy discussing where they should go next while rolling up joints.

6. While walking toward one of their nightly haunted houses, one of characters said something to the effect that it looked like it was made by bored teenagers. Which is funny, because I had just thought the same thing about the movie.  I think most of the budget was spent on those rubber masks you can buy from Halloween stores starting about Labor Day.

7. Some of the footage inside the haunted houses had some chilling and unsettling moments. I think. It's too bad the person holding the camera was usually screaming and waving the camera around, so you mostly just saw blurs of light and plastic or plywood walls.

8. For some reason, a couple of the monsters in one of the haunted houses appeared again halfway across the country an another house. I'm not sure if this meant supernatural trickery was happening, or if the filmmakers just couldn't afford another mask.

9. This could have been an interesting movie. But once again, the no-budget found footage gimmick, combined with a rambling script that never answered any of the questions it made you ask, turned this film into something more boring than watching pumpkin seeds dry.

Creep (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie Creep

1. This is a found-footage horror film. People have been making found-footage horror films for almost 40 years, but for some reason film-makers still think they work.

2. This is not only one of the worst found-footage horror films I've ever seen, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's not even "so bad it's good". It's just a piece of crap.

3. It's about a guy named Aaron that answers a Craigslist ad to go film a guy named Josef for 8 hours. Josef says he's dying of cancer and wants to make a movie for his unborn son (in the only honest moment of the movie, they at least admit they're copying the Michael Keaton film My Life).

4. From Josef's very first scene, you know he's the title of the movie. There are absolutely no surprises (or scares) in the whole thing. There are a few lame attempts at jump scares, but I didn't realize I was supposed to jump until after it was over.

5. It was written by two guys named Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice. It stars Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice. It was directed by Patrick Brice. I never want to see a movie with either one of them ever again.

6.  The movie was originally going to be called Peachfuzz, but they changed it because they didn't want to confuse the audience. If you are one of the unfortunate people that saw this movie, you will understand why it was going to be called that. Personally, I think Peachfuzz is a better title because it gives a better idea of how stupid the movie is.

7. Any adult that calls feet "tootsies" and taking a bath "tubby time" is automatically not my friend. Neither is anyone that can be knocked unconscious with a little bit of Benadryl in their whiskey. Neither is anyone that carries their camera everywhere except to where they're going to be killed.

8.  My friend and I had a fun time adding our own dialogue to the movie, and laughing when the characters actually said it.

9. OK, I'll be honest - I guess if you've never seen a horror movie before, this might be a little scary. But if you have seen any horror movie in your life, then just do yourself a favor and go do laundry instead. Nothing serious or threatening or creepy ever occurs. The only thing that really happens here is that you waste 80 minutes of your life.

The Lazarus Effect (USA, 2015)

Nine Things About the Movie The Lazarus Effect

1. Wow, this movie is dumb.

2.  It's about a group of college students working on a serum to help coma patients. For some reason they use it to resurrect a dead dog. Things go wrong for the group, and of course they have to try the serum on one of their own members.

3. The first ten minutes are kind of intriguing. But once a couple of the college students bring the undead dog home with them, you can stop watching. You've seen the best part of the movie.

4. The film uses a lot of pseudo-scientific vocabulary words in quick conversations, to cover up the fact that what they are saying makes no sense whatsoever. It even uses the stupid "we only use 10% of our brain" myth, and I don't know why. It's not like the movie makes more sense by utilizing that concept.

5. I suspect the script was written a couple of stoned college freshmen, who threw in a bunch of random, disconnected ideas that they thought were cool and "deep". I can't even really explain what the movie was doing. It goes from being "scientific" to demonic with the flip of a switch.

6. This is one of the bigger movie roles so far for Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino). He's probably the best actor in the movie. I felt bad for him; he deserves better than this.

7. There are some interesting individual scenes and surreal moments. This could have been a decent movie, if somebody connected with the film actually knew what they were doing.

8. You know how in slasher movies, when the killer is chasing the people and they always make dumb decisions? This movie is like that, except the people make dumb decisions for the whole movie, whether somebody is chasing them or not.

9. As a movie belonging to the "re-animation" subgenre of horror, I think this movie should have stayed dead.

Cut and Run (Italy, 1985)

Nine Things About the Movie Cut and Run

1. This is the final movie of Ruggero Deodato's so-called Amazonia Trilogy (after "Jungle Holocaust" and "Cannibal Holocaust").

2. "Cannibal Holocaust", which is about a group of Western journalists being tortured and killed by savage natives of the Amazon, was so infamous that there was demand for a sequel. But Deodato didn't want to make "Cannibal Holocaust 2". So he made "Cut and Run", which is about a group of Western journalists filming drug runners being tortured and killed by savage natives of the Amazon. See the difference there?

3. The plot consists of about three different stories that are as lost and confused as the journalists in the jungle. One of the stories is about a father and his missing son. One of the stories is about the cocaine trade. And one of the stories is a cheap rip-off of "Apocalypse Now". None of the stories are complete, nor do they mix well.

4. 80's teen idol Willie Aames is in this movie. In clean-cut America, his good looks may have distracted everybody from his acting ability. But in Venezuela (where the movie was filmed), his terrible overacting made me laugh out loud.

5.  Actually, a lot of this movie made me laugh out loud. All the acting is bad, the story is ludicrous, and the gore is everywhere.

6.  Speaking of gore, this is Deodato we're talking about here. The only reason you watch one of his movies is to watch blood and guts and spears and knives. What's awesome is how elaborate all the decapitation and mutilation gore is, but when someone gets shot, they just fall over with no bullet holes.

7. The movie is perhaps most notable for having the best depiction of a man being ripped in half by a jungle rope trap.

8.  A young Eriq La Salle has a small role as a pimp, dressed all in purple. He later became the well-known and respected actor in the series "ER".  And the guy that plays the mutant Pluto in "The Hills Have Eyes" is here, too. He just pops up out of the water every now and then and kills someone.

9. Make no mistake, this is a bad movie. But for fans of bad movies, it's worth checking out. And while it doesn't have the kick of "Cannibal Holocaust", followers of Deodato's career need to put this on their shelf.

Into the Storm (USA, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie Into the Storm


1. This movie has some pretty spectacular storm effects. It's probably the best disaster porn I've ever seen.

2. The rest of the movie is one of the worst films of 2014.
    And if you combine these two things together, you get absolute magic.

3. For some reason, they decided to make this a "found footage" film. All the characters run around filming everything. It's kind of like "Paranormal Activity", but they see tornadoes instead of ghosts.

4. There are three separate mini-plots in the film, and the movie jumps from camera to camera, plot to plot. And sometimes it turns into a regular movie. But you can't tell really when that is, because all the cameras in the town are the same quality, whether they are high-end professional equipment, or cell phones.

5. I love the scene when the dad is standing in torrential winds and rain, looking in horror at something, but his hair and clothes are perfectly dry and still, like there was one spot of clear weather right above his head.

6. I also love the emotional, melodramatic scene where two teenagers are about to die so they film a goodbye to their parents. The girl tells her parents that she's dying next to a sweet boy that she hardly knows, "so it's kind of OK". And the boy tells his brother to stay awesome. And then the boy and girl hug each other, and I noticed that neither one of them is holding a camera.

7. But my favorite scene is about the amateur storm chaser. He's terrified of bad weather, and keeps wanting to go home. But when he sees a tornado made of fire, he grabs the camera and basically runs right into it.

8. Oh man, I can't even talk about the white-trash rednecks.

9. The script is clumsy, the dialogue is awkward and sometimes nonsensical. The "suspense" is built on laughable situations. And the only real purpose of the movie is to watch the destruction of a town that's so small it has one high school, but also has a big airport.
So what I'm saying is, this is a pretty great bad movie. I'm gonna be buying this one.

New Year's Evil (USA, 1980)

Nine Things About the Movie New Year’s Evil

1. This little cult film is one of those good “bad” films.

2. It’s about how radio and television’s hottest Los Angeles rock hostess Blaze throws a New Year’s Eve punk rock party and invites callers to vote on the best New Wave rock song.

3. The first caller proposes that the best New Wave song is “We Don’t Need No Education.”

4. The next caller identifies himself as Mr. Evil and tells Blaze that he is going to kill someone each time an American time zone hits midnight.

5. The New Year’s Eve concert is full of fake teenagers in a fake mosh pit to a band called Shadow. They dance like zombies, so I guess that means they are full of fake drugs.

6. Across town, in an insane asylum, the inmates are watching the concert and dancing like they have Down’s Syndrome.

7. My favorite murder in the movie is when Mr. Evil suffocates a gal with a bag of weed.

8. Since the psychopath is only trying to kill one person an hour, it’s not the most suspenseful slasher flick ever made.

9. I think the movie was trying to make a statement that when women work, it effectively emasculates their husbands.

I Spit On Your Grave 2 (USA, 2013)

Nine Things About the Movie I Spit On Your Grave 2

1. In 1978, the original, notorious film “I Spit On Your Grave” was released. 
In 2010, a pointless remake was made.

2. In 2013, the director of the pointless remake made this even more pointless “sequel”.
Even as a sequel to a bad movie, this movie sucks.

3. It has nothing to do with either previous version of “I Spit On Your Grave”. It’s just more of the same.

4. It’s about a Missouri girl who moves to New York to become a model. She runs into some sleazy photographers who kidnap her and take her to Bulgaria for some unexplained reason. Then they rape and torture her, and leave her for dead.

5. She survives and lives in the sewers under a church instead of going to the American Embassy which is like a block away. When she’s insane enough, she puts on her crazy face and takes revenge on her captors in the most cruel ways she can think of. Then the movie ends.

6. It doesn’t say anything new. It’s tedious and boring and less creative than the first one. The acting is terrible. Even the gore is kind of stupid.

7. I suspect the script was a reject from “Hostel 4”. Seriously, does everyone in Eastern Europe participate in slavery and sex trafficking?

8. It was released in one movie theater for one week and made $809.

9. For hardcore horror fans that just like to keep up with the various genres, it’s slightly interesting from a filmmaking perspective. But anyone else should just spit on its grave and walk away.

47 Ronin (USA, 2013)

Nine Things About the Movie 47 Ronin

1. This Keanu Reeves fantasy action movie was misnamed. Instead of “47 Ronin”, it should have been called “47 Things Wrong With This Movie”.

2. Spoiler alert: The biggest problem with the movie is that it's a trick. While it’s supposed to be about 47 renegade warriors on a mission of vengeance, they only appear in like the last 10 minutes.

3. To be fair, it’s not complete crap. It’s visually stylish and has great special effects. But… that’s about it.

4. The 47 Ronin actually did exist in real life. But I don’t think they fought witch dragons or magical swordsmen.

5. This big-budget movie was entrusted to a brand new director, and he is clearly out of his depth. This movie is inconsistent in every way possible. The pacing is terrible. And while it’s interesting visually, the style seems to compete with itself, like two different movies were being made.

6. The whole movie feels like it’s on fast forward. It rushes through the plot, so that you don’t have time to learn or care about the characters. Then it suddenly slows down for some stupid love story or discussion about honor.

7. For a movie about rage, vengeance, and doomed love, there is surprisingly little emotion in the film. It’s fairly cold and one-dimensional. It’s also not all that violent.

8. Sometimes the characters speak Japanese. Sometimes they speak English with a Japanese accent. Sometimes they speak English with a British accent. Keanu Reeves just sounds like Keanu Reeves.

9. The movie was supposed to have been released Christmas 2012. But they kept pushing it back to Christmas 2013 so they could re-do parts of it. That's always a bad sign, and the results are right on the screen. It’s a nice try, but it ends up collapsing under its own weight.

The Room (USA, 2003)

Nine Things About the Movie The Room

1. Oh hi!

2. Before I saw this film for the first time, all I really knew is that some critic called it "the Citizen Kane of bad movies". I thought the hyperbole was amusing. But whoever the critic was, they were dead right. That's the only way to describe this jaw-dropping cinematic black hole.

3. This is supposed to be a romantic drama about a man engaged to a woman who doesn't love him anymore and who starts sleeping with his best friend.

4. Like "Citizen Kane", this movie is the brainchild of one man. Tommy Wiseau wrote, produced, directed, and stars in it. And like Orson Welles, this is Wiseau's first film. But it's the anti-matter version. For everything that Welles did brilliantly, Wiseau does idiotically. It's like Wiseau (who obviously has a thing for Tennessee Williams) took a crash course in filmmaking... and misunderstood every lesson.

5. Wiseau also clearly has a thing for Tennessee Williams. He consciously tries to imitate the feel and story themes of the famous playwright. Too bad he makes a complete mockery of things.

6. Let me make this perfectly clear. There are not just a couple of things wrong with this movie, there are literally hundreds. From the acting, to the script, to the technical production, the whole thing is like an atom bomb waiting to go off. An atom bomb made of spoons.

7. There is no way to adequately describe this film. The main star, Wiseau, has the body and and acting ability of a reanimated corpse. Now combine that with the dialogue's rampant non-sequiturs, the anonymous characters, the plot holes big enough to throw footballs through, and the apartment's mysterious doorways. 

8. This movie must be experienced to be appreciated. It makes you feel drunk or stoned, even when you are totally sober. It will be tearing you apart before you know it.

9. The Room is famous in underground cinema circles, and has attracted a cult following not seen since The Rocky Horror Picture Show,  For better or worse, your life will not be the same once you've seen it.