Top 6 Best Worst Movies (300th Post Celebration)

Put on your party hats and pop some champagne because this is the 300th post of Redmangoreviews! What an awesome journey it has been and thank you for being along for this wild ride. You – all of you – are 12 flavours of awesome sauce!

So I was thinking how to celebrate this monumental achievement. My favourite movies list? Who cares about that? Best movie by genre? Still a bit dry? A list of the best “so bad it’s good” movies? Now you’re talking!

Some films intentionally go for a cheesy, low budget feel look like Sharknado and much of the Syfy Saturday movie fare. But some filmmakers try to create a relatively competent film but fail in such an epic manner that it makes for a hilarious experience. Here are five films so uproariously awful you have to grab some friends, pop some buttery popcorn and laugh your collective backsides off:

#6 Birdemic Shock and Terror (2010)

Starting off our list is this “horror” movie about a group of people attacked by a random assortment of vicious birds. Well the only thing terrifying about Birdemic is the severely wooden acting and some of the worst special effects ever put to film. Just looking at the birds hovering in mid-air or the extremely fake blood effects is enough to make one spit out their soft drink. It does not get higher on the list because the first half of the movie is a banal romantic drama for some reason. Thankfully the second half is pure delicious terribleness.

#5 Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Some movies with a low budget try to do clever things to hide it. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space does not. It does not at all. They used a curtain and chairs to simulate a cockpit and it looks like a curtain and chairs. The flying saucers are also clearly hubcaps.

But the best worst part is the plot and dialogue of this wonderful mess. Aliens want to stop Earth from developing a solar device that could threaten their civilisation. Their ingenious plan is to turn humans into zombies. How does that help? Nobody knows. And the aliens only have a handful of zombies and spend all their time harassing a few people in a small town. It makes absolutely no sense and we love them for it. Here is one of the many gems of dialogue, spoken by an army general character: “They attacked a town. A small town. Nevertheless a town of people. People who died.”

#4 Troll 2 (1990)

First things first Troll 2 is not an actual sequel to the original Troll and does not feature any actual trolls. What it does feature is a group of goblins in some bargain-basement masks, a guy turning into a tree and a sex scene heavily featuring corn, both the popped and unpopped variety. The town the hapless family stays in is called “Nilbog” which is “Goblin” backwards. This film is as subtle as a gorilla dancing the macarena while wearing a pink tutu. But the very best part of this film is the nadir of acting that is the scene below. Do enjoy:

#3 Samurai Cop (1991)

You don’t watch a movie called Samurai Cop and expect an Oscar-worthy film experience. But you would at least expect there to be, well, samurai. What you instead get is a train wreck of a cop movie with cringe-worthy dialogue and a couple of scenes of amateurish sword play that look like it was choreographed by five year-olds. Star Matt Hannon aka Joe Marshall aka not-so-samurai “Samurai” had thought filming was completed and cut his long hair short only to be asked back for reshoots. This spawned an entertaining game of Spot the Real Hair, Spot the Obvious Wig.

Marshall is a scowling, overly tanned, overly horny dude who fights the Katana gang with his walking meme of a partner Frank Washington (see above). The cherry on the turd pile is camera work that would give a film teacher an embolism. There is a scene in a restaurant where the gang and the cops are clearly not in the same location and it is painfully, painfully obvious.

#2 Manos Hands of Fate (1966)

When a vacationing family in El Paso, Texas stops off at a weird house they meet the mysterious caretaker Torgo and become the prey of an evil cult. Sounds like your normal horror movie set-up doesn’t it? Oh there is nothing normal about Manos.  This shoe-tip budget cult catastrophe is a master class in how not to make a movie and you cannot help but laugh at all the ineptitude.

You have an annoying child character whose voice sounds like a dying cat trapped in a pipe organ. You have the villain Manos walking around with a robe with giant hands (get it? Manos is hands in Spanish. You get it) and a harem of white-robed women who regularly slap fight each other. But the star of this abomination is the lustful and creepy Torgo who has his own theme and is rib-tickling in his awkwardness.

#1 The Room (2003)

It has been called the Citizen Kane of bad movies and it easily deserves the title of best worst movie ever. The Room (not to be confused with the fantastic drama Room) is written, directed, produced by and starring possible alien life form Tommy Wiseau. It is supposed to be a romantic drama but it the best of unintentional comedies.

This movie has everything: belly button humping sex scenes, the hammiest of acting, incongruous laughter, characters that randomly appear, piss poor dubbing, multiple plot threads that go nowhere and Wiseau being all kinds of crazy. The film has achieved a cult status and regular screenings, and its making inspired both a book and the 2017 film The Disaster Artist starring James Franco. For the best bad movie experience, which I have enjoyed with my dear Trini Critics League, you have to watch The Room. And now I will leave with a scene from the master of disaster, the one, the only, Tommy Wiseau:

So what’s your favourite so bad it’s good movie experience? 

For a more in depth look into the utter ridiculousness of Plan 9 From Outer Space you can click here.