Worst Movies Bad Films Part 16 of 16 Review

Worst Movies Bad Films Part 16 of 16 — 

Wrapping up my Worst of the Worst Movies series with this installment.  These are movies that are worthless.  These are movies that are not fun to watch, not fun to laugh at, they are just wastes of time, so avoid them.  Whatever the cover promises, whoever is in the movie, avoid the temptation.  If you start watching one and you consider turning it off... turn it off, it's a bad move.

Avoid these and watch something else.

 Wheels of Terror (1990) Director: Christopher Cain

Joanna Cassidy stars in this rip-off of The Car. A supernaturally possessed black car is raping (yep) and killing little girls. So bus driver mom (Cassidy) with a bus load of kids goes after the car in the wilds of Arizona. It's ludicrous, awful and BORING.

 When Lightning Strikes (1934) A cheap rip-off of Rin Tin Tin (which wasn't expensive to begin with) is Lightning the Wonder Dog. Lightning stops the owner of a lumber company from stealing his master's land. He runs a lot, barks a lot, swims and oh yes.. smokes cigars too. If you try to watch it you'll be thinking it is the longest 51 minute movie you've ever seen in your life. Call the dog catcher and remove this one NOW.

 Whiffs (1975) Director Ted Post Starring Elliot Gould, Eddie Albert, Harry Guardino, Godfrey Cambridge, Jennifer O'Neal, Alan Manson

The song: Now that We're in Love from this movie was nominated for an Oscar. I wonder if that meant a lot of Academy members had to sit through this one or if they just had to listen to the song. A naïve guy is tricked into taking part in some germ war-fare tests the army is performing. He winds up with the intellect of a chimp. He then devises a plan to use the gas to rob banks. Once you get a Whiff of this one you'll shut your eyes, hold your nose and scream Stop THIS STINKIN' MOVIE.

 Wholly Moses Director: Gary Weis
Starring: Dudley Moore, Laraine Newman, James Coco, Paul Sand, Jack Gilford, Dom DeLuise, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, David L. Lander, John Ritter, Richard Pryor

You might not realize that this movie is essentially a very bad Americanized rip-off of LIFE OF BRIAN. It even blatently steals a scene from that film. Despite the very, very short cameos from the name cast the film stinks.

 Who's That Girl (1987) Director: James Foley Starring: Madonna, Griffin Dunne, Haviland Morris, John McMartin, Robert Swan, Drew Pillsbury, John Mills

It's very similar in several ways to the much better and wittier AFTER HOURS. The material girl has just been paroled from prison and she kidnaps a lawyer and goes after the nasty guy who framed her and sent her to prison. It's supposed to be kind of an update of a screw-ball comedy. Madonna has a terrible phoney tough Bronx/Brooklynn Bowery Boy kind of New York accent that's grating after about 30 seconds. It's awful and Madonna has even said it stinks. Hey if she says it stinks I think you better believe her. There are four Madonna Songs in the movie.


 Wicked Stepmother (1989)
Director: Larry Cohen Starring: Bette Davis, Barbara Carrera, Colleen Camp, David Rasche, Lionel Stander, Tom Bosley, Richard Moll

81 year old Bette Davis insisted on making changes to the script of this terrible movie while they were filming. Producer/writer/director Larry Cohen refused to make them so Davis walked off the film. She got sued for it but she did not return to work. So Cohen re-wrote the script figuring out a way to use the one week's worth of footage he had with Davis. Davis plays a witch who romances elderly rich men, shrinks them into tiny little doll sized men and steals their money. Suddenly she turns into a cat and her sexy alter ego played by Barbara Carrera picks up the rest of the story and takes her place. It makes no sense. Davis died before the movie was ever released or the law-suit went to trial. For Cohen's best stick with
Q,God Told Me To,Black Ceasar, It's Alive orThe Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover. Cohen recently wrote the surprise hit (and bad movie)Telephone Booth.

 Xanadu (1980) Director: Robert Greenwald
Starring: Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, Michael Beck, James Sloyan, Dimitra Arliss, Katie Hanley, Fred McCarren, Ren Woods, Sandahl Bergman

Olivia Newton-John plays Kira, the daughter of Zeus who is a muse who inspires art out of up and coming artists. She comes to earth to create a successful roller skate dance club. She aids an artist (Michael Beck) and a former Big Band clarinetist (Gene Kelly in his last screen role) and helps them open their disco dance hall. Ridiculous plot, awful dialogue, really bad tacky special effects.  Only Gene Kelly has any charisma.  Everyone else strains and so will you trying to sit through this.  The sound-track album with songs by John, ELO and Cliff Richard was a much bigger hit then the movie. It's not a fun baad movie like the movie released during the same summer called CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC with the Village People, Bruce Jenner and Valerie Perrine... that movie is bad but fun to watch.  Xanadu is just awful and of course they made a Broadway musical out of it....  Yikes...


 Zombies of Moratau (1957) Deep sea divers try to get diamonds which are guarded by zombies. You make it through this snoozer and you must be one of the zombies. Even Allison Hayes can't help this dull dull dull zzzzzzzzzzz

It is not possible to avoid all the bad movies out there.  Even for me.  Some of us need help.   I don't see many movie previews these days and I don't watch every DVD that is sent to me either.  If I'm not being paid to watch something I don't like, I turn it off, so most of the movies on this list are not from the last few years.

I still make mistakes, though.   I recently rented a movied called The Code.  2009 movie that looked like a pretty good action movie starring Morgan Freeman and Antonia Banderas with Robert Forster too..  I like these actors and I was in the mood for a decent Heist/action movie and would have been quite happy with a slightly above average action movie.  This was not it.  I should have known.  It was originally going to be released as Thick as Thieves but apparently when they saw the finished product, they knew it was a worse then mediocre movie. So it became a direct to video release in the U.S.   It was a walk through tired clichés and after 30 minutes I was wondering why these actors decided to be in this worthless piece of junk.  It's the kind of movie where the acting is decent enough, you might keep watching thinking the movie will get better.  It doesn't and a look at reviews of the movie from people who supposedly saw the whole thing reveals it's a mediocre movie at best.  I'm glad I turned it off after about 30 minutes.  If I didn't really like Freeman, Banderas and Forster I probably would have turned it off after 15 minutes.  No I won't review something I only saw part of.  I read a few reviews of it after I sent it back to Netflix and it doesn't appear the movie improves or has a good enough twist to justify watching it.  Should you avoid The Code?  Probably, but since I gave up after 30 minutes it is not officially on this list. 

Here's some more lousy movies from the years 2002 to the present.   Most of these are utterly worthless, a few may have something attractive enough about them to sit through, but with so many better choices out there... two words; Avoid these.

Year of release: 2002:  Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (1/2 the movie is like the t.v. show, the other is a third rate 70's Disney film missing Joe Flynn with a low rent Indiana Jones kind of chase sequence thrown in), All About the Benjamins (Dumb and Dumber thieves and bad guys including one guy we're supposed to like and find funny even though he's trying to do a second rate annoying Chris Tucker impression-turn this muthah out), Austin Powers in Goldmember (the first 5 minutes would have been a guilty pleasure, but after 15 minutes I wanted it to be over -oh and I got your mole right here...), Big Fat Liar (an interesting performance trapped in a movie whose script and direction keeps getting in its own way), Eight Legged Freaks (uninspired attempt to make a campy creature feature film but bad script, over the top slapstick silliness and mediocre performances ruin the fun), Death to Smoochy (Robin Williams is better than you expect, but Ed Norton can't save him or the movie in this one very long joke movie with some over-used and over-done swipes as show biz.  John Stewart's small role is embarrassing.), High Crimes (well at least there was a fun Morgan Freeman performance to enjoy in this mediocre cable t.v. film masquerading as a feature), John Q (What they thought Mad City--with Travolta and Dustin Hoffman-- should have been a better movie, so they changed a few plot points and hired Denzell?),  Stuart Little 2 (did they forget to write some funny zingers for the cat? Everything that almost worked in the first one, doesn't in this one), THE TIME MACHINE (one good special effect sequence and cameo performance cannot save this dull turd of a remake-Kate and Leopold looks like a classic compared to this one), Show Time (Okay it's not as bad as Norbit-nothing is--It looks likes Eddie Murphy's Bowfinger, and Dream Girls  performances were  the exception and the rule for him is I Spy, Pluto Nash, Dolittle 2; Daddy Day Care and this below-mediocre time-waster that also stars Robert (you looking at me) DeNiro who's much better than Murphy, but dull).

Worst Movies 2004  included:   Scooby Doo 2, Garfield, King Arthur, Club Dread,  Envy

Worst Movies 2005 included:  Domino, XxX 2: State of the Union, The Dukes of Hazzard,

Worst Movies 2006 included: Doogal, Click,

Worst Movies 2007 included:  Norbit, Are We Done Yet?, Saw 4, Good Luck Chuck, Epic Movie

Worst Movies 2008 included:  10,000 B.C., The Love Guru (I only watched part of it, however).

Here are another 50 plus movies for you to avoid.

Play it as It Lays 1972, Oh Dad Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad (1967) Decent play makes a bad, worthless movie wasting the talents of many , At Long Last Love (1975) Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepherd sing, a very painful bad idea, Lost Horizon (the musical 1973 version that's worse than a terrible junior high-school play), Jonathan Livingson Seagull, Tidal Wave the Japanese try to do a disaster flick and recruit Lorne Green to shoot some American scenes like the did with Raymond Buff in the American release of Godzilla, Dondi (1961) if Barney is too cynical  and not cute and cloying enough for -try this one, The Big Noise (1944) Atoll K (those last two are terrible Laurel and Hardy movies), Boy Did I Get a Wrong Number (1966) The worst of many bad 60s Bob Hope pictures, Che!, The Scicilian, The Ambushers, Amityville 2 The Possession, Amityville Curse just when you thought they had to be done making bad Amityville sequels, they make an even worse one!; Bad Medicine (Steve Gutenberg stars-nuff said), Basic Training Game show host Bert Convy proves why he wasn't in more movies, The Birds 2: Lands End horrible sequel to Hitchcock that wound up premiering on cable, The Blue Lagoon, Return to the Blue Lagoon the first one wasn't bad enough, they had to try again to discourage people from ever going to the movies again. ; Bolero even Bo Derek naked can't help; Bullies,  Cabin BoyChris Elliott is pretty annoying and David Letterman steals the movie with a cameo when he tries to sell a monkey; Cheaper to Keep Her Mac Davis had some country hits and made a few movies. Yikes. Child's Play 2, CHUD, Class of Nuke 'Em High 3: The Good, The Bad and the Subhumanoid (Troma junk), Clifford, The Conqueror, Crazy Fat Ethel 2, Die Laughing, Fire SaleAlan Arkin directs Rob Reiner in a very un-funny comedy. Ghost Dad Cosby tries to make a movie worth seeing. . . nope, Ghost Fever, Hawwmps (the camel comedy), The Island (1980- Michael Caine stars in yet another awful film based on a Peter- Jaws - Benchley book-he should stay away from Water--another bad movie he was in,

The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond and Laurence Olivier !!!, The Jerky Boys,Joy Sticks, Lipstick, Little Darlings, The Lonely Lady, Maximum Overdrive, Monster a go-Go, Night Patrol (the guy formerly known as The Gong Show's unknown comic takes the bag off his head and stars in a lame comedy with Linda The Exorcist Blair - get a big trash bad for all of it), 1990: The Bronx Warriors former Combat star Vic Morrow got convinced to do a bad Mad Max inspired low budget flusher; he then was making Twilight Zone: The Movie and was decapitated in a famous tragic accident.

Norman's Awesome Experience a bad Bill and Ted knock-off., On Deadly Ground How bad can a Stephen Seagal film really get? Let him direct and sing in one that tries to have a environmental message--that's how, Slugs, Stone Cold, Stroker Ace, Superchick, Tomboy, Under the Rainbow, Vasectomy: A delicate Matter, You Light up My Life, Never Ending Story 2,  Never Ending Story Part 3, Meatballs 2, Meatballs 3, The MeatEater

Gain from my pain and suffering of having sat through these films and spare yourself the agony of wasted time for no reward. I consider this essay a public service to film lovers. I don't know if many of these would tempt you to view them, but steer clear and you'll have more time to watch worthwhile films-- like the ones you'll find on my Best films of the 40s, 50s, 60s lists.

Here are the 1the last few parts of this series   (length prevents me from listing all:

Part 15 is here:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Worst-Movies-Bad-Films-Part-15-of-16-review-b48f1

 Part 14 is here:

http://www.viewpoints.com/Worst-Movies-Bad-Films-Part-14-review-4cc3

Part 1 is here:

http://www.viewpoints.com/WORST-MOVIES-Worst-of-the-Worst-Part-2-review-1e052

You probably would appreciate avoiding these lousy Sports Movies as well.

Worst Sports Movies  Part 3:

http://www.viewpoints.com/WORST-SPORTS-MOVIES-Ever-Part-3-of-3-review-5f8b0