Dextrousleftie Reviews

Criminal Minds: Identity (2007) Season 3, Episode 7

Ummm...no

[3/10 · 5 June 2015]

I live in Montana, and first of all that's not Montana. Second of all, we're not all a bunch of hillbillies and hicks. We might sometimes be about thirty years behind technology-wise, but we don't all hole up in bunkers clutching our guns and waiting for the government to try to invade. That would be Texas! :P Joke. This episode was laughable from the perspective of a Montana resident. The only thing they got right was the Montana State Troopers' uniforms. Looks like they shot it in the mountains of California or maybe Nevada, certainly not up near Great Falls. And the Old West look of the grocery store - I laughed so hard! We have lots of old buildings here, but few of them look like that. Most of ours are heavy brick or stone because of the cold weather. We're not exactly the Wild Wild West like the Southwestern states are. Or we don't exactly look like it, anyway. They didn't even try to make it look like Montana. We just don't have sagebrush and sand everywhere, especially not up near Great Falls which is up by the Canadian border. And the aggressive stances of the 'locals' didn't fit, either. Montana people are actually pretty polite, even the gun toting ones. Fail.

The Perfect Wedding (2012)

I loved this!

[9/10 · 25 May 2014]

It was so cute and sweet without being flamboyant or over the top like so many gay themed movies are. It also lacked the 'drowning in angst' that is the other extreme for gay movies, where it seems like there is simply no upside to being gay and all you can do is hate yourself before you commit suicide or die of a drug overdose. It wasn't just the romance I liked, though - I also liked the straight sister's fiancé and her little wedding in the backyard, and the parents dealing with a family medical issue. I understand why some people wouldn't like it, because they equate 'cute' with 'sappy'. And that's fine. But for anyone who likes cute and sweet and a little fluffy, I'd highly recommend this film. You can find it on Netflix to stream.

This Means War (2012)

So Bad I Want To Declare War on McG!

[1/10 · 5 September 2013]

Oh, my God. This film is staggeringly putrid, terrible, and creepy. The way this movie portrays the characters, you sincerely and truly hate each and every one of them by the end. So the plot here is this horrible woman decides to date two guys at the same time and not tell them - and when these bozos find out about it, instead of dumping her keister then and there, they decide to fight over her?! And the way they choose to do so is to misuse government resources to break into her house, bug her, spy on her, and use the info they gather to plan dates that make them look fabulous when they're really just lying sleazebags?! And she's OKAY with this when she finds out about it?! Not to mention the fact that these jerks almost get her killed, but it's all hunkey-dorey by the end. The low-life skanky woman chooses the worst of the two slime balls, and the other guy gets his idiot ex-wife back because now she knows he's a secret agent. Well, dim bulb, now EVERYBODY knows you're a secret agent, so much for field work! But no. The whole world having seen him on TV and knowing his identity means nothing - right back into the field he goes. Okay, whatever. The least believable part, however, of this complete pile of trash has to be when Tuck destroys a drone that is following Lauren's car - and there are NO consequences for him or his career, even though he destroyed something that probably cost about a million bucks to manufacture, and the tapes would show the last thing that it saw was him pointing a gun at it! Calling this movie trash, in fact, is an insult to trash. It's like something dredged up from the depths of a septic tank.

eCupid (2011)

Terrible

[1/10 · 30 March 2013]

I sincerely hated this wretched movie. It was as bad as some of the straight rom-coms that have come out in the last ten years or so, films so horrendous that you wonder if the writers weren't brain dead or smoking crack. It tried to be 'cute', but failed miserably. That is partly because I could not stand Marshall. Maybe it's the fact that he's a poor actor, but the guy playing him could not convey any real emotion. The guy playing his boyfriend did a fine job, but i didn't buy Marshall's so-called 'heartfelt' emotions at the end for even one second. Because when Gabe originally walks out in tears, Marshall shows no emotion whatsoever. Not only does he continue to show no emotion, he pals around with a douchebag from work. I seriously agree with the guy who wanted to date Gabe, Marshall and this ass were perfect for each other. I didn't want Marshall and Gabe to get back together, and seriously ended up yelling at my screen in frustration and disgust: "Gabe, get together with the other guy! Tell Marshall to go screw himself!" The whole movie was so contrived, moving from one scene to the next in such a forced way, that it felt stilted and not natural at all. And it portrayed gay guys as stupid, obnoxious, irritating, and often amoral. So, a typical rom-com only with two male leads instead of a male and a female. And that is exactly why I hated it, because i hate most rom-coms. They are, for the most part, so clichéd, so trite, and so formulaic that they tend to leave me feeling faintly nauseous rather than happy and uplifted.

The Beatniks (1958)

Somebody should be 'beat' for this stinker, all right...

[1/10 · 15 April 2010]

God, its awful. Yet in such an inept, cheesy, lame sort of way that I always end up laughing hysterically whenever I watch it. Moon is especially hilarious, with his drugged-up weirdness and schizophrenic behavior. Him screaming in that shrill voice: "I killed that fat barkeep!" Makes me laugh every time. The women are both mannish and homely as hell, the 40 yr old 'teen' is just pathetically amusing...and the music being sung IS very femmy and ridiculous, especially when the hood singing it is supposed to be a beatnik. Beatnik my booty...Eddy's just an idiot, who should have ditched his loser friends the moment he was offered a recording contract. The continuity errors are many in this film, including some terrible editing in several scenes and the appearance of the boom shadow on the wall in several others.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

Funniest movie of all time...

[1/10 · 24 August 2009]

I laughed like a loon while watching this on video. It was just so...bad! In a completely, wonderfully cheesy way. Menace was drab and dull, but Clones was hilarious. Not intentionally, of course, but that's what made it even funnier. Lucas thought he was making some kind of Godfather in space saga. You can see his pompous belief that he's the most amazing director ever in every scene. It's almost painful, and would be if it wasn't so very, very funny.

Where to start? God, the acting. I've seen trees that were less wooden. And the worst person of all was Hayden, who was supposed to be menacing and dangerous but just came off as whiny and spoiled. The plot - there was a plot somewhere in there? Don't believe it. Yes, Jar Jar was amazingly annoying, but he was only the worst example. Yoda was almost as bad, pontificating on about the Force until I wanted to smack him upside his little green head. God, poor Ewan actually trying! I felt so bad for him, he had so little to work with. I cringed every time he interacted with Hayden's character. And the romance...appalling. Simply and completely appalling. There is no way a person like Amdala would EVER hook up with someone not only younger than her, but a whiny little brat to boot. She would have ended up mothering him, which is grotesque. All in all, I watch it only for the entertainment value of a good laugh.

Fire Maidens of Outer Space (1956)

My cat could make a better movie

[1/10 · 25 April 2009]

You know, in spite of how bad this one is I really like it. It's one of my fav of the older MST3Ks, because of the sheer cheese factor and the very funny riffing on this travesty by the SOL crew. The sad thing is they took a few bits of interesting plot(they didn't even know if Jupiter had a 13th moon in the 50s!) and padded it out with the most ridiculous things - bad dancing, loathsome men leering at pretty girls, a really stupid 'monster'(which they never explain the origins of), men smoking and sitting around, an inexplicable cup of poisoned wine, and a sacrifice that never quite happens. The science part of this sci fi movie is almost non-existent. The 'astronauts' don't wear spacesuits; the ship is retarded looking and wouldn't even get off the ground; two levers control every function on the ship; the moon is identical to Earth in every way; the Atlanteans speak English with no explanation; and not only is the trip way too fast when they communicate with Earth there is no time lag whatsoever even though they're millions of miles apart. The Stranger in Paradise soundtrack is so repetitive that it makes you want to stick an ice pick in your ear after awhile so you don't have to listen to it anymore. Lots of padding, male chauvinism, girls in skimpy costumes, and innuendo. Horrible, to say the least. But wonderfully cheesy, which is why its so amusing in spite of all of these defects. MST3K just had so MUCH to work with! The movie isn't dull like so many Corman films, in spite of the padding.

Girl in Gold Boots (1968)

You dance like a clown...

[1/10 · 20 April 2009]

I absolutely love this movie, I don't know why. It's terrible in all of its parts. I've seen epileptics who have better dance moves than the title character and the girl Michelle. The songs are mediocre at best, the continuity and editing are both terrible, almost everybody in the film is oily looking and/or ugly, and there is no plot to speak of whatsoever. That said, for some reason despite these things(or maybe because of them), this movie is hilarious. The MST3K version is a delight, although something tells me that I'd still laugh a lot just watching it uncut. Michelle is not only the most untalented dancer that I've ever seen, she is dumber than a bag of hammers. 'Critter' is blandly good looking and not very talented at his chosen craft either. Buzz is a horrible little greaseball, and yet Michelle shacks up with him because he promises her that he can help her become a dancer with the aid of his drugged out sister(who also is a completely untalented dancer). But then, considering her disgusting drunker father, who she was still living and working with even though she had to be in her mid-twenties at least - Michelle does not have good taste in men or the brains to know when its a bad idea to shack up with a guy who carries a gun and pistol whips people with it at the drop of a hat. They all get mixed up with an oily drug dealer, and Buzz ends up killing a guy over heroin. He just gets better and better! The immensely lame 'plot' sort of trails off, as Critter goes off to fight in Vietnam after pummeling Buzz and Leo half to death. This after many, many horrible scenes of Michelle and/or Buzz's sister dancing. Stupid, completely stupid. But somehow, delightfully so. Makes me laugh every time I watch it.

A Word to the Wives... (1955)

Ladies - Learn to manipulate your husbands!

[2/10 · 27 February 2009]

Cripes. Makes me ashamed to be a woman to watch this short, in which two wives ruthlessly manipulate one of their husbands so that the poor dope will shell out a fortune to buy his wife a brand new house. The first one already did her manipulating, and preens at the beginning of the short all about how perfect her house is, lording it over the other one. Then she comes up with the idea to make her friend's husband also do what she wants. It's disturbing - this woman is a Svengali. Worse, this damn short is frankly urging women to be deceptive, greedy, demanding, and manipulative. Lord, but that era was scary. The endless urging for people to conform, and to be as fake and two-faced as humanly possible...it makes me shudder. No wonder our grandparents were so screwed up.

The Painted Hills (1951)

Lassie should hang her head in shame

[2/10 · 18 December 2006]

Pretty bad. This film about a grizzled(and frankly rock stupid) old prospector and his dog'Shep' i.e., Lassie, as well as an annoying kid whose name I can't recall at the moment. At the beginning of the movie, the old prospector has DELIBERATELY buried himself in some sand so that the poor dog will have to dig him out. Why? Did he hate the dog? Anyhoo, somehow or other this idiot has managed to strike gold, and goes to tell his partner. But the man has died, and his sleazy other partner is happy to assist old Jonathan in digging up the gold. The geezer tries to leave is dog with the dead guy's son, but not even the retarded mutt wants to stay with this kid. There's quaint old preacher(for quaint read smelly), and the oily guy finished off the old guy(surprise, surprise) and tries to steal all the gold. Plus he poisons the dog and tries to kill the kid, too. So I suppose its okay that a devilish and crazy Lassie..err...SHEP does this the guy in at the end, although its pretty disturbing in what is basically a children's movie. There are extremely stereotypical(to the point of racial slur) 'Native Americans' who speak without using verbs(as in, Me Make Camp Fire type speech). And that's pretty much the extent of the cast, because apparently Lassie's salary was too big for them to hire anyone else. Kind of dull. not very interesting, and a tad too dark. Not a great movie in any way.

The Hellcats (1968)

The Biker Movie from Hell!

[1/10 · 23 November 2006]

For those of you who noticed all the people from Red Zone Cuba in this horrid piece of trash movie, that is because this thing was produced and funded by none other than the talentless Tony Cardoza, who funded and 'acted' in all of Coleman Francis's horrible movies, as well. I guess this is the only way that Tony got to be an actor was to pay for the movies to get made, since he had zero talent. He probably put it in the contracts that he got to play a part in the film if he produced it. Put him together with the hideous Gus Trikonis of Sidehackers fame(thus the appearance of Ross Hagen as the main character)to make a movie, and you have a disaster of major proportions in the making. The incomprehensible, drug addled plot is only the beginning of the film's problems. The film used is grainy and watered down looking, there isn't one appealing character in the whole movie, and there are scenes that make no sense and trail off altogether. Lots of them. They make up most of the movie, actually. All one can think is that the film crew, including the director, were buying drugs from the biker gang and taking fistfuls of them before they started shooting. You can watch this thing over and over again, and all you'll get is a headache. It still won't make any more sense than the first time you watched it. At least Sidehackers had the crazed but amusing JC, and Red Zone Cuba had a so-called 'plot' that left you howling with laughter. Hell cats has neither of these things. Or much of anything else, either, except for lots and LOTS of drugs, booze, and scenes of motorcycle riding and chicks in bikinis.

Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

Sonny Chiba! Oh, My God!

[1/10 · 19 November 2006]

I just saw that SONNY CHIBA played the wispy, inept, muffiny-headed bachelor who turned into the truly loser 'hero' Space Chief to fight off the equally inept Neptune Men! Ahhh!!! If that is so, WHY are Space Chief's premiere fight moves mostly shoving, bitch slapping, and kicks that don't even connect? This guy looks like he should be in a show of Chorus Line, not running around being a hero.

This one is so bad that it makes Prince of Space look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, SIX horrible, whiny, omnipotent little brats running everywhere in tiny shorts? Why would anyone be that cruel, to inflict so many at one time on the viewing public? These kids are so awful that they make the repulsive Kenny from the first Gamera movie look like little Lord Fauntleroy. They shout insults at the adults, can go anywhere, and have no adult supervision whatsoever. You just want to spank every one of them very, VERY hard.

The plot is...well, almost non-existent. Something about these bullet headed 'men' or robots or whatever coming down from Neptune(Neptune! How could there be life on Neptune, which is a huge ball of super hot gases and perpetual storms?) to take over the Earth(i.e., Japan)and are foiled by some weird electro-barrier created by the ubiquitous boring old scientist dude. That, and their 'nemesis', the skinny and fey Space Chief. Where does this guy come from? What does he do when he's not fighting off Neptune men? Is he blind, thus the visor? That would make sense, since there is no way a sighted person would wear that ridiculous outfit. And last but not least - why is he SPACE Chief, since he never once goes into space? Hell, he never gets into the upper atmosphere!

There are so many hysterical touches in this one. The aforementioned 'Hitler building', which is obviously footage left over from WW2. The Rogi-Panti complex, which is as funny as it sounds. The retarded looking space ship, as well as the Space Chief's lame finned vehicle. The part where everything starts going backwards, including the train(Crow: do the Japanese practice 'just in time' railroad repair?), where the two idiot railroad workers stand around and scratch their heads in puzzlement. Crow: "Japan's only stupid guys", the stupid plot cul-de-sacs such as the weather changes, and the long shots of people driving around and running around in fields for no apparent reason. And that's just to name a few. The fact that the Neptune Men pretending to be human soldiers appear to be wearing tons of make-up is another hugely amusing part. This movie is amazingly awful, but it's also extremely funny and cheesy.

Swamp Women (1956)

Swamp Cubic Zirconia, is more like it

[2/10 · 13 November 2006]

Thisa has to be one of the best of the Corman films that I've ever seen. The plot is a little slow and silly, there appear to be only three sets, and th dialog is campy at best. But the things it has that other Corman films do not have - 1. Not one, but FOUR strong female leads. Corman films tend to have strong females in them, but usually only one at a time(or two at most). And while the girls do spend a bit too much time drooling over the one guy in the film, they're still smart, strong-willed, and(in the case of Beverly Garland's character) vicious, as well. 2. The color's not bad. Most Corman films are in black-and-white, but the thing is even the colorized ones tend to look gray because they're usually so drab and depressing(i.e., Gunslingers). 3. There is no stupid, ridiculous looking monster involved. True, Gunslinger doesn't have one either, but most of the rest of Corman's turds have the dumbest looking monsters ever put on screen in them. Look at It Conquered the World, which still has the worst, stupidest looking monster ever(at least in my estimation, anyway). 4. The plot's not bad, for a Corman flick. I mean it is thin, of course - the entire film is about these women wandering around a swamp while getting drunk, cutting their jeans into shorts, cat fighting, etc. But this is STILL more plot than in normal Corman fare.

Swamp Diammonds is brilliant for a movie made by the truly untalented Roger Corman. It's actually almost worth watching - almost.

The Leech Woman (1960)

The message of this movie....Men are very, very bad.

[2/10 · 13 November 2006]

In this story of a woman desperate to hold onto her youth, the men come off as the biggest collections of jerks, a-holes, and rotten users ever. They are all portrayed as being shallow, stupid, and driven by sex. Dr. Talbot, husband of the 'Leech woman' is the worst of them all, but none of them are any good. Dr. Talbot is cruel to his alcoholic wife just because she is starting to look a little aged - she is about ten years older than he is. Apparently he wanted her only for her looks. When an ancient black woman comes to his office and offers him the secret of rejuvenation which her African tribe knows, he takes advantage of his emotionally vulnerable wife so that he can take her to Africa and use this secret on her to make her young again. Then he'll be rich AND he'll have his good-looking young wife back. Disgusting.

Almost as horrible is the oddly accented guide in 'Africa'. As the MST3K crew says, this guy couldn't guide you through a petting zoo. And the moment the youth wears off, he tries to run away from June(the Leech woman)as though she has a contagious disease. This after he slept with her. Jerk. She uses his pineal gland juice(how does a woman who has no training manage to hit that tiny little gland straight on every time, I wonder?)after he falls in some quicksand. A death that is thoroughly deserved, in my mind.

June goes back to the states and preys on sleazes and scumbags of all kinds to stay young. Then she throws herself on the lawyer Neil, who is the third of the horrible trio. He throws over his long established fiancée just because he might be able to get laid with a slightly better looking woman. Unfortunately this rat DOESN'T get killed, which is too damn bad. I sympathize with June, actually, a woman living in a world where men appreciate her only for her looks. She's surrounded by these awful men, and she obviously adores men. These are the only things she's got to work with, so she does the best she can with a bad deal. According to this movie, men are just plain horrible. Maybe that wasn't what the movie makers intended to convey with this cautionary tale, but that's what it comes out looking like in the end.

The funniest parts of this film are the fake Africa sets and the ridiculous 'Africans', whose dance routines are just hysterical. And when they cut stock footage of real African tribes in, you're left howling with laughter at the difference. That, and the make-up job they did on the ever aging June are also quite amusing. The fact that this movie has some good ideas and information cut into what is a stock footage marathon and an abysmal acting-fest is what makes it the funniest of all, however. I love these old fifties movies that take a few pieces of factual information and surround them with ridiculous plots, wooden dialog, and laughable sets.

Teenage Strangler (1964)

Yipes! Cripes!

[1/10 · 10 November 2006]

Totally and utterly lame-o, with such a high cheese factor that it makes for hysterical viewing. 'Teenage' Strangler(never understood this one, as the killer isn't a teenager nor is he exclusively killing teens), is a vastly awful film, not quite on the level of Manos but pretty close. To start with, the 'actors' are all rejects from the local community theater. The worst example is not the over-dramatic Betty or the incredibly whiny Mikey, but actually the woman playing Betty's Mom. She is laughing and upbeat the entire time she is talking about the tragedy that saw her daughter's friend strangled right in front of her eyes, and she is so chipper to the cop that's come to talk to her traumatized daughter that one wonders what she had been smoking or popping just before she came on set. The dialog is horrible and wooden, and there are weird sound affects here and there. Not to mention that someone is clearly heard giggling in the background when the cop is standing over the dead body of a strangled girl while solemnly talking about the murder. Just who, one wonders, thought that this death was so funny?

The police station looks like it's in the boys' bathroom of a gymnasium, with pink tiles on the walls. The guy who comes to haul the first body away is dressed like a milkman. And what's with the girl dressed like a Swedish barmaid who introduces the horrid song 'Yipes Stripes'? The sets and clothing aside, the dialog ignored, we come to the tragic excuse for a plot. Some guy is strangling girls and women with pantyhose. Its obvious from the get go that it's the creepy janitor - I mean, come on, people! So the director decided to forgo all suspense, I guess. The only other suspects are the world's most mousy, politest 'gang', consisting of five respectful, well-mannered boys whose only claim to being bad is that they wear leather jackets with bulldogs on the back. And something tells me that they made those jackets themselves in Home Ec. I mean, the oh-so-bad Jimmy actually respected the grounding his Dad gave him! And he was polite to the cop, too. What kind of bad ass is this guy?

There's a hysterical drag race in which Grandmas on walkers could have outrun the cars, not to mention the sound of squealing tires on dirt. And the best part of the film, if Jimmy would have just hit and done in the horrible little Mikey, just didn't come about. Dammit! It's a toss-up as to who had the best histrionics, Betty or Mikey. The scene where they both whine and wail at the top of their lungs in the police station makes one want to rip one's hair out in sheer agony. When you're not laughing your butt off, that is. I feel sorry for the guy playing the cop, to have to be in the same room with those two while they were both 'emoting'.

The janitor finally gets it in the end, before he can finish off the annoying Betty. Double Dammit! When he gets shot, there's no blood or bullet hole. Maybe the sounds of the gun shots scared him into a fatal heart attack? And then there'a a painfully long closing scene of people dancing very, very badly. All in all, this film just didn't work on many, many levels. Not as a morality tale, not as a suspense thriller, not as a drama, not as a teen movie, and not as a film with a good soundtrack. And what was with the opening credits that looked like somebody had made them in wood shop? Teenage Strangler is good for many belly laughs, and should be must-see viewing as an MST3K episode.

The Skydivers (1963)

Skydiving - to the 10th power!

[1/10 · 21 October 2006]

Once again I blame Ray Dennis Steckler for the horror that is Coleman Francis. If that skinny, monkey faced twerp hadn't pulled Francis out of a ditch where he was enjoying a drunken stupor, so that he could give him a part in his own 'movie', then this guy would have died unknown and unmissed. Instead, Francis began to have delusions of grandeur in which he believed that he was a brilliant filmmaker, instead of one of the worst film makers of all time. He and Hal Warren should hold the title together, frankly. These guys made Ed Wood look like an auteur in comparison.

In this gray horror, endless shots of skydiving(at least five hours or so) are interspersed with the so-called 'plot', such as it is. A wooden guy named Harry(who could have been played with more life by a crash test dummy rather than Tony Cardoza) runs skydiving school with his wife, who has a hair helmet so stiff that she must have used a pound of concrete in it to keep it in shape. He's cheating on his blandly nice wife with a scary looking woman in town. This Nosferatu becomes angry when Harry refuses to see her anymore, and decides to get revenge by putting acid on his chute. The most disturbing scene of all is when she apparently has sex with an elderly druggist to get the acid.

There's a lot of things that don't make sense, and don't seem to tie into the movie at all. Like the dance that suddenly starts on the tarmac for no reason, with an inexplicable Scotsman wandering around in the middle of it. And plot lines that dribble off into nothing over and over again. And of course, people who wander in and out of the movie and are never seen again. Lots of them. A quarter of a town at least appear, read their lines woodenly, and exit stage left. In this case, it isn't just the Director's girlfriend who gets a cameo - it's his family, friends, grocer, etc. And Francis himself, of course. The chunky, greasy, completely unlikeable gargoyle makes a short appearance at the end of the film. Well, at least he didn't cast himself as the 'hero' like he did in the horrid Red Zone Cuba. That's the only thing keeping this film from being just as awful as that one.

Code Name: Diamond Head (1977 TV Movie)

Code Name: Boredom!

[2/10 · 10 October 2006]

Ahh, the dull t.v. shows and pilots that were slammed together in the 70's to make equally dull t.v. movies! Some examples would be Riding With Death(the most hysterically cheesy of the lot), Stranded in Space(confusing and uninteresting), San Francisco International(horribly dull and unbelievably confusing), and this turgid bit of Quinn Martin glamor.

Shot in Hawaii(although you wouldn't know it from the outside shots), it's apparently a failed pilot for a lame spy show. The real problem is that you don;'t like most of the characters, including the drab main character Diamond Head, who seemed half asleep for the entire movie; his boss 'Aunt Mary', who had a really weird delivery of his lines and shellacked white hair as well as the a tan that looked like it had been stuccoed on; Diamnd Head's girlfriend/fellow agent(hell, I can't even remember her name) a skinny, wooden woman with a flat way of speaking that is just not sexy or interesting; and the singing sidekick Zulu(again, i can't remember his character's name)who wasn't bad in small doses. The most interesting person in the whole production was Ian McShane, who sucked as a bad guy but still proved his acting chops. Alothugh the make-up jobs this so-called 'chameleon' used to disguise himself were just laughable. I have absolutely no idea what he was doing or what he was trying to steal from the lab that caused him to dress as a South American Dictator cum American General. Nor do I care. The plot simply wasn't interesting enough to hold your attention for even ten minutes at a time, let alone the hour and a half or so it goes on. Just call this one - Hawaii Five No!

Colossus and the Headhunters (1963)

I'm not your Cheese Steak!

[2/10 · 5 October 2006]

Lame, cheesy Italian movie(enough said) about a hugely buff David Hasselhoff wannabee who does just about nothing throughout the whole film except flex his pecs and walk around a lot. The 'plot' is about an island about to be blown up by a volcano, whose inhabitants just HAPPENED to be rescued by the over muscled pin head who shows up n a raft just in time! Either these folks have really efficient Gods, or this is all a dream sequence a la Dallas.

Anyhoo, these folk(most of whom are REALLY skinny guys in loin clothes) float around for awhile and then end up on another island. This 'island' has more land on it than the whole of Asia, but whatever. Cheese Steak...errr....Maciste...wandered around and then gets shot by some hunters, who apparently were following the grand centuries old tradition of getting completely soused before they went out to hunt. The survivors, meanwhile, are herded together by a bunch of guys wearing patterned table clothes on their heads and equally short, silly loin cloths(What is it with the Italians and their fascination with tiny loin cloths!). They all end up in the village of the Urius(I think that's what they were called, anyway), who are being threatened by a local tribe of head hunters. We're deep in HUH territory by now, because you're trying to figure out what Greeek island had that much mass, and was also infested with head hunters.

There's some fighting, which our 'hero' sits out of, but then this bloated puss actually does very little fighting throughout the film, despite the fact that he's the big, bad star. The people get taken by the head hunters, and their Queen is being forced to marry a bearded Kermit the Frog(okay his name is Kermes, but the way that everyone says it makes it sound like Kermit). There's long parts where nothing happened, and Colussus(or Cheese Steak, or whatever) wanders around a set with a gay guy. Then there's a climactic last fight, in which AGAIN out hero sits out most of it! Thn he leaves on his raft, and is followed by the Queen(so she likes gay men? Well, whatever floats your...errr....raft, Lady). He tells her that his life is nothing but danger, which is a laugh and half considering how little he actually did in this film. And th at's it, as they sail off into the sunset. I wish that they'd LITERALLY sailed off into the sunset, that would have been funny to watch.

Racket Girls (1951)

This film would make K.D. Lang turn hetero!

[1/10 · 22 September 2006]

Whoa. These have to be THE most unappealing, mannish, massive women that I've ever seen on film, and that includes the dancers from The Horrors of Spider Island. These women would make the most perverted, misogynist male in the world beg them to put MORE clothes on, preferably a mu mu. Watching them wrestle endlessly is both boring and unsexy. In between times(and there are't a lot, because this movie is mostly horrible scenes of wrestling)there's an uninteresting and incomprehensible plot about a wrestling promoter and a gangster simply called Mr. Big. Apparently Mr. Scally the promoter was keeping a lot of the money from the bets he was making on various sports events. I guess. I simply didn't care enough about the sleazy, bad tempered Scally to be interested in his eventual fate - which involved a 'car chase' and a shot in the dark. One of the main characters, a real life female wrestler named Peaches Page, is a large, Romulan looking girl with a bovine stupidity and vacuousness. But next to World Champion Wrestler Clara Mortinson, who looks like somebody's bony older maiden Aunt, Peaches is very feminine and sexy. And we are privileged to watch twenty minutes of Clara wrestling a woman from Mexico who screamed a lot and had Pippy Long Stocking braids. But Clara wasn't QUITE the least appealing female character - that award goes to the middle aged 'gym manager' woman, who wears tight little outfits although she's got the face of a grandma and chicken cutlet breasts. It seems that some guy funded this film as a jerk off film for himself, since I can't see any other reason that such a dull, plot less, horrible film was made. Especially when it doesn't even have gratuitously hot babes to leer at.

Red Zone Cuba (1966)

Dead Zone Cuba

[1/10 · 19 September 2006]

Curse you, Ray Dennis Stecker! If you(also a terrible filmmaker in your own right)had'nt found Coleman Francis drunk in a gutter and encouraged him to make films, we wouldn't have been inflicted with his three opuses, namely Skydivers, The Beast of Yucca Flats, and the epitome of dreadful, Red Zone Cuba. This 'movie' stuns you with its sheer awfulness. It is a senseless, horrible piece of crap. The main character, played with greasy flabbiness by the auteur Mr. Francis himself, is perhaps THE most unlikable character I have ever seen, and that includes the guy from Manos and Francis's mentor Ray Dennis who played an amazingly unlikable character in his Mixed Up Zombies movie. This jerk is first seen escaping from prison, and for most of the rest of the movie all he does is smoke, threaten people, grouse, and of course pointlessly beat up and kill people. I've always been amazed by 'filmmakers' you cast themselves as characters in their own movies, and then proceed to make the character someone so nasty and horrible that the audiences first reaction is to want to bitch slap them. Is that how you want to be remembered, Mr. Francis? As that horrid guy in Red Zone Cuba who sunk the human race to new lows? Well, okay, then.

The plot - okay, there is no plot. None. Nada. Zip. There's supposed to be an 'invasion' of Cuba, but there's maybe eight guys on the invasion team, because apparently Cuba(which looks like New Mexico for some reason) only has eight Cubans living on it. And one of them wears a terrible false beard for some reason. Then there's an incomprehensible escape, wherein the characters fly out of New Mexico...err....Cuba, and land in - where else? New Mexico. Then there's a weird bit about a really annoying blind singer and her very tall, very thin, very old Dad who gets stuffed down a well. After that, there's a ton of strung together travel scenes, and the idiots arrive at their destination, a ranch with a really depressed woman living on it. Then some High School age G-Men show up, Francis shoots the woman for no discernible reason, and he gets chased down and shot. The ONLY good scene in the whole movie, if you ask me. And that's it. Arrggghhh!!!

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

'Hands' down, the worst movie ever!

[1/10 · 1 September 2006]

There are no words for how bad this 'movie' is. It is mind numbingly awful. It's so bad that at least three of the cast members committed suicide after starring in it. What a shocker. I think that I'd commit suicide too if I'd been in something this grotesquely hideous, especially knowing that it would be foisted off on an innocent public as a means of torture.

The horror begins with a long, LONG shot of a pompous jerk weed, his wife, daughter and poodle all taking a vacation in Texas. The film appears to have been left out in the sun for several months, degrading it to a nearly unwatchable quality. They get stopped briefly by a cop, and one person does the voice work for both men. Talk about saving money...Although that's still not as bad as the shrill, weird voice slapped on the couple's little daughter. She sounds like she might be possessed like the girl in the Exorcist. They're looking for a hotel which is apparently down a road in the middle of nowhere. The hubby is such a cheap skate that he won't pay for a better hotel somewhere nearer to civilization. And didn't either of them wonder why any kind of hotel would have a HAND PAINTED sign put up beside a dirt road?!

Oh, well. It's getting dark - or the film is giving out entirely - so they stop at a weird house in the middle of nowhere and talk the caretaker into letting them stay the night. Torgo's gotta be the best character in the film, with his collection of facial ticks, his odd speaking voice, and his huge thighs that are apparently what tell people that he's evil. And these idiots decide to stay here WHY?! Ah, well. They're perfect victims, anyway.

Enter the master, a skinny be-mustached moron in a caftan with red hands sewn on it and a staff that looks like a rusty tail pipe. This guy's about as scary as a gas station attendant. In fact, I've seen creepier gas station attendants...he has half a dozen 'wives', a bunch of women who run around in their underwear when they aren't wrestling each other. As Tom Servo notes: "I think this is the whole reason that this movie was made, right here..." as he watches the 'full contact nightgown wrestling'.

Torgo wants the wife so that he can fondle her in his own inimitable way. Hubby is arrogant, stupid and useless, making you want to slap him repeatedly. Espciallyt since this oily jerk is actually the director and writer of this horrid piece of trash, as well. The Master makes a lot of faux mystical statements and spends most of his time yelling at his wives, which is what he gets for marrying so many. Torgo gets killed, which is a shame. The nightgowned women and their Lord and Master;) run around looking for the couple and their daughter so that he can marry her as well(perhaps this is a weird form of Mormonism?). And the little girl's poodle apparently dies from strychnine poisoning, since its body is stiff as a board. And the movie just goes on, and on, and on..or so it seems. It seems to take hours to watch it, rather than the standard hour and a half. And I break out in a cold sweat when I imagine the fifteen minutes of cut out footage that was removed when MST3K made it over for their show. Since the characters like to repeat themselves several times with every statement that they make, perhaps all of that footage is them saying things again and again...ARRGHH! The horror! This is the worst movie ever made, bar none.

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996 Video)

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Horrors

[1/10 · 1 September 2006]

Was this steaming pile of crap intended to be shown to children? And if so, why? To give them irreparable brain damage and nightmares? This so-called fantasy film(which is actually a horror film more frightening than some of the intentionally made horror films I've seen)is supposedly about Merlin coming into the twentieth century to open a kitchy little shop in California. With him is his annoying, shrill voiced wife Zarella(and where the hell did she come from, anyway?). The movie is supposed to be a Grandpa(meatily played by Ernest Borgnine)telling his grandchild about a script he wrote for t.v. about this shop. I think this was supposed to be something like the Princess Bride, with the exception of the fact that the Princess Bride is a good movie and this is a cut together mess full of bad acting, horrible costumes, and another early 80's piece of trash movie jammed into the middle because they apparently ran out of money.

The first story is about a loud mouthed jerk who writes for a newspaper and his barren, nearly equally shrill voiced wife. He insults Merlin, and so receives a book of magic spells. The whole thing is so that the cretinous idiot can turn himself into a baby that the woman can raise. Huh? Why the hell would she want to raise this guy, knowing what a bastard he'd turn out to be? And since the guy had been her husband, that means, technically, that she'd slept with her own son! Eewww! Of major proportions!

After destroying all of his grandson's joy and hope in the world with that first awful tale, Borgnine descends even deeper into the blackness at the heart of the world by telling the kid about an evil little monkey toy that was stolen from Meriln's shop. Here's where the cut together part begins, because the tale of the monkey toy is from another, much earlier movie. And a really bad one, at that, because who in hell would buy an eight year old a birthday present that consisted of a creepy used toy? Every time that the psychotic looking monkey clashes its symbols, something dies. Me, I vote that it should have been Borgnine for telling an impressionable child this story in the first place, but whatever.

There are some stupid in between scenes of Merlin wandering around looking like a Renn fest reject while he searches for the monkey. He eventually 'finds' it after the pasted in section comes to an end. I mean, its blatant right there because the 80's family don't notice the guy in the dress with the wool taped to his face in their living room! Then Merlin goes back to his shop with the toy, and that's it. No more tales of 'mystical wonder'. One wonders what would have been next - a tale of a little kid being shoved into a Cuisinart by a cutesy little magical bunny that he'd gotten at Merlin's shop? gah!

Invasion, U.S.A. (1952)

Invasion of the stock footage!

[1/10 · 31 August 2006]

A dull, horrible attempt to scare Americans with screamingly obvious propaganda and hit you over the head flag waving jingoism. But it wasn't this terrible menage of cut together stock footage and drab acting that mesmerized one when watching the MST3K version. For me, it was the immensely creepy short that preceded it, called 'A date with your family'. This has to be the most horrifying, Stepford children outing of the whole hideous collection of 50's shorts that MST3K showed throughout their ten year run. A repressed, obsessive compulsive family try valiantly to subjugate their personalities so that they can have a tepid dinner date with their family. Truly, spectacularly creepy moments include the narrator saying that the son seats his Mom at the table as though she were his 'best girl', and this same guy saying that son should compliment both his Mother and sister so that they will want to 'continue pleasing him'. But the funniest part of this whole bizarre thing is the part where said narrator comments that the two boys act as though they are genuinely glad to see their Father. At which time Mike says: "They're not, of course". The movie itself is so boring and chock full of stock footage that you have the urge to fall asleep in front of it, despite the quips. The only part I can remember with amusement is the fact that the invading 'enemy soldiers' speak English with barely a trace of an accent even among themselves. Ummm...were we being invaded by Canadians? The Maple leaf is the Red Menace, right?