My Year in Movies Part 2: The Horror! The Horror!

If there weren’t any bad movies, you couldn’t tell how good the good ones are, so I suppose they have a purpose. I don’t have the stamina to go over my 50 worst (most of them would be mediocre, anyway, and it’s difficult to find anything interesting to say about mediocre movies), so I’ll only do my bottom ten. Though, due to a tie, there’ll be eleven movies on the list. Look at the extra as bonus cheese.

3 Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow* [One of those movies where they film enough scenes until they get sixty minutes or so worth of usable stuff in the can. No discernable plot, although there’s some hugger-mugger about these hot-rodders who are going to lose their club house so they clean up this haunted house, which isn’t really haunted, but then, jeez, in the last moment you discover that it is. The climactic drag race with the bad hot-rodders takes place off-stage, maybe because they didn’t want to pay to film a real drag race. I give it an extra point for Sanita Pelky, who is an absolutely gorgeous brunette whose career never amounted to much, but who is a joy to watch throughout.]

Incubus* [Shatner! Speaking Esperanto! (As does everyone in this film.) A boring Bergman wannabee that devotes too much time to characters wandering about vaguely in the woods and fields. Though the climactic goat wrestling scene — or was it only a goat’s head? — is not to be missed.]

Phantom Planet* [Boring and absurd invasion movie about a phantom planet (asteroid, actually) which wanders near the moon while being chased by one of the goofiest alien races ever put on celluloid. For no good reason they destroy a couple of space ships and capture the guy sent to investigate, who immediately shrinks to the natives’ six inch height because of the asteroid’s high gravity and dense atmosphere — but don’t worry, he gets better. Perhaps the worst human/alien mano a mano tussle ever put on film. Talky, with extremely static direction. The lead is the most uncomfortable looking actor I’ve ever seen, always standing around with his body oddly twisted and his head and shoulders hunched angrily. Redeemed marginally by decent sets (except for the excruciatingly uncomfortable-looking rock slab beds) and a beautiful Elizabeth Taylor look-alike second female lead who unfortunately gets to say very little (she’s mute for most of the film) and does even less.]

Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet* [Corman cut’n’paste job, adding pointless Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue to a soporific and virtually plotless Russian film. Bad acting, bad screenplay, awful dubbing, and possibly the least attractive cast I’ve ever seen in a movie. Saved from a lower rating by a few decent SpFx sequences involving gratuitous dinosaurs and a very nice closing scene that lasts for about twenty seconds.]

2 Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep* [Awful SciFi Tv original. Terrible script which makes zero sense and consists of a bunch of cliches piled onto each other seemingly at random. Terrible acting, although it has a number of seasoned tv performers {Victoria Pratt; CLEOPATRA 2525}. Terrible cinematography as it’s filmed largely in confuse-o-vision {in the dark and with quick jump cuts so you can’t really see what’s going on} probably largely to mask the terrible SpFx. Being utterly incompetent but not offensive earns it a 2]

Lost Continent* [Reasonable effort that suddenly falls off the cliff when our heroes arrive at the “lost continent” (actually a Pacific island). The worst stop motion dinosaurs I’ve ever seen, and what’s with them all being herbivores that viciously attack our heroes at the drop of a hat? Gratuitous Acquanetta. Although, Whit Bissell is in it. Not that that’s a great thing, but I do enjoy saying “Whit Bissell” for some reason.]

Teenage Zombies* [Woefully lacking script, not to mention a woeful lack of zombies, make for an undramatic, unhorrific, and uninteresting tale of water-skiing teens — who are never shown waterskiing — captured and experimented upon by a communist female scientist who likes to wear evening gowns and cocktail dresses under her lab coat. It features the worst escape in the history of horror movies.]

1+ Invasion of the Star Creatures* [Absolutely witless “comedy.” Well, all right, the bits about the Space Ranger Club or whatever the hell it was, were a tiny bit amusing.]

Phantom From Space* [Possible the most pointless movie ever made. Alien crashes on earth. Removes spacesuit and is invisible. Dies because cannot breathe our atmosphere. Acting and photography did not help, though at least there were no reprehensible characters. I was a little worried about the dog.]

1 King Dinosaur [Just mentioning the innumerable stupidities of this movie this would make this the longest review in the list. Certainly the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen. This movie is so stupid that I scrubbed its very existence from my brain, only remembering at the last moment that I’d seen the MST3K version. I can’t bring myself to relist the stupidities in this movie, so if you’re interested you’ll just have to check my original blog post.]

Snakes on a Plane* [One of those films whose concept sounds a lot better than it plays out. Basically, you sit and watch people, a poor trapped cat, and a brave little dog die horrible deaths. Also, how the hell did the snakes, which were all purchased in L.A., get to Hawaii where they’re put on the plane? I would like to punch the person who wrote this. Even Samuel Jackson couldn’t come close to salvaging it.]