TUBI CONTINUED… THE 50 WORST MOVIES EVER MADE (2004) **

The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made sounds like something that would be right up my alley.  However, it’s only an hour long, so they basically spend a minute or so on each movie, which is disappointing.  (Some only get about fifteen measly seconds.)  It doesn’t help that the narration pretty much amounts to a couple of snarky soundbites about the film, and only a few clips from each flick are shown.  Ultimately, it’s more than a countdown than a documentary.  If you actually want to know something about the movies themselves than just superficial fluff, you’ll be severely disappointed.  As background noise for a party, I guess it wouldn’t be too bad.  

The list tries to give us a mixture of box office bombs (Ishtar, Howard the Duck, Xanadu), films that are “So bad, they’re good” (Robot Monster, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, Robot vs the Aztec Mummy), and ones that are just plain bad (Mesa of Lost Women, They Saved Hitler’s Brain, Leonard Part 6).  Sadly, you know you’re in trouble when they put Glen or Glenda at number 50.  That picture is actually quite fascinating, despite its technical limitations.  Many of the other films chosen are just low budget drive-in flicks that aren’t actually bad (The Crawling Hand, J.D.’s Revenge, The Killer Shrews).  Well… at least I like them.  Most of the clips were just taken from the trailers, so it makes me wonder if it would’ve just played better as a trailer compilation without all the unnecessary commentary.  

Some of the trivia tidbits will be old hats for bad movie fans.  (Phil Tucker, the director of Robot Monster attempted suicide after the movie was panned, Pia Zadora made her acting debut in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Smokey and the Bandit 3 was originally going to be called Smokey is the Bandit, etc.)  While there are worse ways to kill an hour, this “documentary” makes the cardinal sin of mistaking “B movies” for “bad movies”.  In fact, the only movies I would consider bad enough for a list like this were They Saved Hitler’s Brain, The Great Alligator (AKA:  Big Alligator River), Xanadu, and The Wild Women of Wongo.  Again, I wouldn’t go so far to call this terrible, but it’s more irritating than enlightening, especially when they’re dissing movies that are legitimately badass (Galaxy of Terror, The Crippled Masters, Bloodsucking Freaks).  Weirdly, there’s a lot of Jack Hill movies (The Swinging Cheerleaders, Spider Baby, and Sorceress) here that don’t belong anywhere near this list.  

AKA:  The 50 Worst Movies of All Time.