The following is a list of 5 movies and their premises that made me squirm in my seat and made me less intelligent...
1. Zombie! Vs. Mardi Gras
The film seems to have been inspired in equal parts by George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space. The result is an embarrassment to both films. To be honest, I could not get through this movie in one sitting, as desperately as I tried.
The plot is borderline incoherent. It’s possible that a second or third viewing might have made things clearer, but there was no way I was going to put myself through that. Basically, the movie is about a man in bad zombie makeup stalking Mardi Gras revelers, most of whom seem to be naked women.
One question I am always asked about movies like this is, ’’Is it so bad that it’s good?’’ The answer is a resounding ’’No!’’ So-bad-that-they’re-good movies do not get zero stars. They work, although not always in the way their creators intended. Zombie! Vs. Mardi Gras is unwatchable by anyone who is sane, sober, and/or otherwise unimpaired. It’s too boring, repetitive, and irritating to have value as camp. Feel free to ignore this warning, but don’t expect me to be held responsible for the consequences if you do.
2. Freddy Got Fingered
I like to think that I have a fairly broad-based sense of humor (I suppose everyone says the same thing). I can laugh equally hard at Mark Russell, This Is Spinal Tap, American Pie, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Having said that, however, I have to report that this motion picture is arguably the worst piece of cinematic crap I have ever experienced theatrically. Freddy Got Fingered takes gross-out humor to a new low.
Green plays Gord Brody, a loser who goes to Hollywood to become a star cartoonist. When things don’t work out, he moves back in with his Dad (Rip Torn - whose reputation gets both ripped and torn) and Mom (Julie Hagerty), but a running feud develops between him and dear old Dad. Meanwhile, Gord gets a girlfriend, Betty (Marisa Coughlan in a career-killing performance), who’s confined to a wheelchair and is obsessed with performing oral sex on him. In the end, everything turns out all right - especially for those who have long since escaped the theater to do something better with their time.
I’m just sorry there’s nothing nasty enough that I can write in this review to suitably repay everyone involved in the ruination of 90 minutes of my life. I have gotten better entertainment value from a colonoscopy.
3. The Mangler
Admittedly, with a title like The Mangler, you’re not expecting the second coming of The Godfather. Or even Halloween, for that matter. Nevertheless, regardless of how silly the name sounds and how unpromising the cast looks, it’s difficult to be prepared for something this atrocious.
I won’t claim this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen -- there are plenty of worthy contenders for that honor -- but it’s certainly among a select group. I haven’t spent much time in laundry factories, but I’m sure there aren’t many of them with the near- gothic appearance of the Blue Ribbon in Rivers Valley, Maine. Presided over by the decaying Bill Gartley (Robert Englund with one of the worst makeup jobs in recent film history), the laundry has become the site of some rather unfortunate incidents.
People are being gobbled up by ’’The Mangler’’, the gargantuan machine that presses and folds sheets. One woman gets caught up in the workings, splatters blood all over the place, and comes out the other end, neatly folded. Nuff said... There’s not one element of the production worthy of even faint praise. The acting is uniformly terrible.
The direction is shoddy. Why are good horror films so rare? Take one look at the lack of effort put into The Mangler, and the answer will be obvious. It’s a lot easier to come up with lifeless, hackneyed drivel like this than to expend any real effort. Unfortunately, it’s movies like this that give the genre a bad name. In this case, a very bad name. Ultimately, sitting through The Mangler is about as appealing as getting squeezed through the machine.
4. The Pest
The poor quality of The Pest in almost every category -- humor, intelligence, creativity, and just plain entertainment value -- ranks it somewhere between a bad infomercial and a local cable newscast. Rarely do I consider the act of seeing a movie to be a chore, but this kind of experience is the exception. At least I have the consolation of recognizing that watching something like this will enable me to appreciate even a mediocre motion picture.
The plot -- if it can be called that -- introduces us to Pestario Vargas, a.k.a. ’’Pest’’ (John Leguizamo). When the Scottish mob, run by the gruff Angus (Charles Hallahan), calls in a $50, 000 debt, Pest is hard-pressed to come up with the cash. As luck would have it, a German big-game hunter (Jeffrey Jones) is looking for a Latino head to add to his human trophy collection, and he offers Pest a deal -- survive being stalked for 24 hours and earn enough to pay off Angus. So, in one busy day, Pest meets his girlfriend’s parents, attends a pool party, and imitates Scotty from Star Trek -- all while being chased and shot at.
This really isn’t a coherent movie -- it’s a bunch of juvenile skits strung together for a painfully long eighty-five minutes. In truth, this film has to be seen to be believed. It’s the kind of movie where every paying customer deserves to receive a handwritten apology from the producers. So, without further ado, let The Pest take its rightful place in the motion picture Hall of Shame.
5. Adrenalin: Fear the Rush
I have no idea how this film got its title, or why the word ’’adrenaline’’ is misspelled. (Actually, the fact that the movie was made in Slovakia probably has something to do with the error.) There’s certainly nothing in here that’s likely to jolt anyone, and even the typical, cheesy scares offered by low-budget horror flicks are ruined by heavy-handed direction. If anything, even at only seventy-five minutes in length, the movie is more apt to put viewers to sleep than keep them awake.
The tired premise, which uses a recycled post-apocalyptic scenario, involves a bizarre psycho mutant killer on the loose in 2007 Boston. Following some sort of radiation leak in the former Soviet Union, a plague-like contamination has spread throughout Europe, eventually reaching the United States via immigrants. In an attempt to contain the disease, the U.S. government has segregated all newcomers into concentration camps. Over a few short years, as the population of these camps has ballooned, they have developed into small cities, complete with governments, police forces, and overwhelming poverty.
Of course, this is all background. The real story is about a group of four intrepid cops in Immigrant Boston chasing a homicidal mutant through sewers, air vents, and dank, disused prison corridors. Attention to detail is not exactly Adrenalin’s forte, either. All of the police cars in Boston look like Yugos and have the word ’’Policia’’ stamped on them. Why ’’Policia’’ instead of ’’Police’’? Who knows. Who cares.
Christopher Lambert fans (are there such people?) aren’t likely to be happy, since he doesn’t get much of a chance to act heroic (he grunts, groans, shouts, gets shot, then grunts and groans some more). Natasha Henstridge fans will probably be equally disappointed, since, unlike in Species, she keeps all her clothes on.