The verdict is IN

[annathepiper]

Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene...simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness.

Well maybe not that bad, but lord, it wasn't good.

--Opus, Bloom County

kathrynt came over this afternoon for our Bad Movie competition, bringing with her a tape of Alien Express (with apologies from her and llachglin written on the label)--and an actual purchased copy of On Deadly Ground. That's right, folks, Q paid actual money for this movie. She wound up having to do this because she had no rental card at Hollywood Video, nor did she have a credit card. She relays to us that she had the following conversation with the clerk at the store:

"Hi, I need a copy of On Deadly Ground!"

".... Why?"

"I'm having a bad-movie-off!"

"Ohhhhh, okay!"

Then she discovered that she couldn't rent it, and the clerk said, "Y'know what? This is maybe kind of sketchy, but I'm just going to sell it to you out of inventory."

And Q said, "You sure that's all right?"

And the clerk replied, "Honestly, I don't mind if I never see that movie ever again."

With a lead-in like that, and with me on Percocet, we were absolutely in the right frame of mind for the bad movie competition!

In this corner: Alien Express, featuring Lou Diamond "I look badassed putting on my alien-attacking garb!" Phillips. Todd "I'm a Secret Service agent but still Gary Coleman's big brother" Bridges. Bad guy who can't stick to an English accent to save his life. Smarmy overweight Senator who's got his ex-wife AND a blonde bimbo mistress on board the train they're all taking to Vegas. Effects that look like they were put together in Photoshop, badly, complete with pixellated explosions. And, the crowning glory, aliens that looked like sock puppets.

And in that corner: On Deadly Ground, written by, directed by, and starring Steven "I really need to make the audience understand what a big badass I am, so I'm going to have two different characters spout off paragraphs of dialogue about how I'm everyone's worst nightmare" Seagal. Which is really all you need to say about this movie, and which now has led me to understand the true depth behind this quote out of The 776 Nastiest Things Ever Said:

On Macho, Not So:

I don't get why anyone takes this guy seriously. With his soft chin, black-shirted paunch, and ponytail the size of a chihuahua's penis, Seagal looks more like a schnorrer at a Hollywood party than like the toughest man in creation.

critic John Powers in a review of macho actor Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground

Now, spazzkat had a very good point going into this contest, which is that Alien Express is a "Sci-Fi Pictures original" and therefore has a very low quality bar to start with, while On Deadly Ground was actually a theatrical release. But that said, there was amazingly little distance between these two films' badness especially when watched back to back. And I did in fact have to call it a draw as to which was worse--because while Alien Express was overall a worse film, On Deadly Ground did in fact have several excruciatingly bad, fork-in-your-eye moments.

Alien Express wins hands down in terms of craptastic effects, almost universal badness in every cliched line of dialogue uttered by every character, the token black character biting it, an (well, we hope it is) unintentional allusion to Manos: The Hands of Fate, and a godawful setup for a sequel.

On Deadly Ground competes with the excruciating "slappy hands" sequence (complete with the pontification at the end of the fight), multiple characters sounding off about how badassed Seagal's character is (Mary Sue points right off the scale, making this film way more of a Mary-Sue wankfest than even Star Trek V), mizkit's "favorite" line of "Of course I can ride, I'm a Native American!", and the fork-in-the-eyes badness of the environmental speech at the end. Paul claimed it was fifteen minutes long. smeehrrr claimed it was twenty. I timed it; it was more like three. But it was interminable enough to feel like half an hour.

So yeah. It's a draw, and Paul and Kathryn now have to buy each other beer, a verdict they have both cheerfully accepted. Though Kathryn has to buy Paul extra beer because he recognized one of the lesser characters in On Deadly Ground and she didn't believe it was who Paul said. So Paul comes out ahead anyway.

Me, I'm just happy to have survived both flicks.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear your recovery is going well. :)

[annathepiper]

*giggle* It has to be, that I managed to hold up for both of these flicks. But yeah, Dara, Kathryn, and Paul all say that I'm way more coherent than I was after last year's procedure.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Yay. *virtual hugs* This is a goodness.

[annathepiper]

*hugs!* It is. :) Heh, I halfway wonder whether having the wonky thyroid gone entirely helps any. I shall have to ask my surgeon about that.

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

There's so MUCH bad with On Deadly Ground, it's hard to know where to begin! The horse-riding thing was truly awful. The lack of geographic knowledge was also atrocious (let's see, from Barrow to Valdez via dogsled, snowmachine and horse in three days flat? Shyeah...). Those two things are what really made me want to throw things- the rest was just all badness but not actually /irritating/.

Bad movie of all time, though: Troll 2. Gah.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Watch Alien Express first. I mean, really.

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

way more of a Mary-Sue wankfest than even Star Trek V)

Trying to imagine that just made my brain explode -

Bwahaha!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I just read your *entire* bad review out loud to the boys. *laughs and laughs* That was a thing of beauty. I'm so glad you watched these movies, so I could read this review. *beam* And I'm glad you're well enough to be writing such a funny review, too!

[annathepiper]

I'm glad you got a kick out of it! Go check out Dara's dissenting opinion, too. ;)

And I'm very relieved to be this coherent post-surgery, indeed. I'm almost certain that it's entirely attributable to my being in better general health going into the surgery this year, though I do also have to wonder if it has anything to do with my wonky thyroid being completely gone now, since mental sluggishness is supposed to be one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism and mental jitteriness is supposed to be one of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism! I shall have to ask my surgeon.

Because I can't imagine why the hell else I'd wake up at 6:30 this morning and actually be awake, that's for sure. ;) I mean, yeah, fine, I went to bed before 11 last night, but hell, I thought I'd sleep longer! :)

[annathepiper]

*bows* It's TRUE! Say what you will about Star Trek V, that movie never once had a character spouting off reams of lines about how Kirk is your worst nightmare.

[annathepiper]

Troll 2 would have to work really, really hard to top out either Alien Express OR On Deadly Ground, in my book! Granted, I haven't seen it, but it's got its work cut out for it. ;)

Also, all my reviewishness aside, NEITHER of these movies tops Event Horizon for me for Worst Movie Ever. Neither of them left me with that feeling of having been bludgeoned about the head repeatedly that Event Horizon gave me!

[kissare.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask! Because I don't think I've ever met ANYONE who has seen Event Horizon who has ranked anything worse than that. I personally have avoided Event Horizon like a plague-ridden, lice-infested, rabid raccoon.

[kissare.livejournal.com]

That's GREAT! You seem VERY coherent - and heck, being coherent after seeing both of the movies you just described while in NORMAL good health would be an accomplishment, nevermind post-surgery!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Before your prescription for the good painkillers runs out, you should rent The Forbidden Zone, the most goofily, brilliantly bad film ever made. It's sort of a home movie on steroids that Danny Elfman and his siblings masterminded before he made it big with Oingo Boingo and got into writing film scores for Tim Burton movies. No other film can boast: Herve Villechaize as the randy King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension; interludes of performance art in the style of German Expressionism; and Danny Elfman himself playing Satan, wearing a white tuxedo in a glorious horned imitation of Cab Callaway while filking the Hell out of "Minnie the Moocher." I am not making this up. If you want a film that will make you say, again and again, "Dara, was did I really just see that, or was it just the percocet?" then this is the film for you

I can top those movies..

[(Anonymous)]

"Battle Beyond The Stars"..Originally released in 3D..I think. "Spacehunter:The Forbidden Zone"-also originally in 3D. The only cool thing in the movie was his car...a modified Dodge WW2 troop vehicle. His spaceship's monitor was a 1970's Quasar TV(I had one just like it..) The pistols were off the shelf Crosman BB guns,with Estes Mosquito model rockets attached.
"Radioactive Dreams"- Post nuke disco-mutants..that was the peak..
My favorite Best Worst Movie: Rock and Roll Starship..a 90 minute home movie, filmed in 8mm. So *bad*it's fun to watch.
"Event Horizon"..I saw that..the Medeival-looking starship engine? IIRC, it went FTL by taking shortcuts thru Hell and picking up passengers.I saw it free-they were handing out tickets to it in front of the theatre..it's up there on the Lame Scale..
Glad to hear your surgery went OK...are you going to be on Thyroxin,or some sort of supplement? It would seem that now your thyroid is gone,it would be necessary. Scott

Re: I can top those movies..

[annathepiper]

Have you SEEN Alien Express or On Deadly Ground? If you haven't, you aren't prepared to say you can top them, I can guarantee you. ;)

And yes, now that my thyroid is gone, I have to take Synthroid. Right now I'm on a .05mg a day dose. This may get adjusted later by the endoc I need to go see, but we'll see what happens with that when the time comes.

[annathepiper]

I just read this out loud to Dara and she said, quote, "COOL!"

We'll have to see what we can do. ;)

[annathepiper]

Tell me about it. 'Cause I'm here to tell you, back-to-back Lou Diamond Phillips and Steven Seagal is a brain-melty experience. ;)

I'm low on energy but so far it's pretty much strictly physical. I just got back from a morning of running errands and am about to take a nice long nap on the couch. But I still have a surprising amount of brain left.

[kissare.livejournal.com]

Which means the zombies DIDN'T get it! Hooray!

Have your superpowers started to make an appearance yet?

[annathepiper]

*giggles breathlessly* Oh my, what an image!

And yes, you should continue to avoid that flick with every fiber of your strength. I'm not sure that even Percocet could dull the agony of Event Horizon. To this day, dianala's one-sentence review of it remains the best I have ever heard: "I'd rather have been cleaning my toilet."

[kissare.livejournal.com]

Hah! That is great! What a perfectly succinct review!

[annathepiper]

Concentrate though I might, Mr. Doyle has not yet shown up on my doorstep bearing a large bouquet of roses, a box of chocolates, and his bouzouki. Drat. No superpowers for me!

[annathepiper]

Ain't it just? :)

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

I think Van Helsing is actually worse than On Deadly Ground, but it's a close call. (And a matter of personal preference, of course!) The third Matrix movie is in there, too. And, oh my word, the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Kansas City is also pretty bad, plot and character-wise. (I don't consider a movie good if main characters die and I don't give a damn about it.)

But nothing I've ever seen compares to Troll 2. Not even the first Evil Dead movie, which was so bad that they remade it more exaggeratedly and it turned into a comedy. You can acutally see the camera boom in some shots. There's no plot. The special effects are like something 5th-graders would come up with when they're playing with their parents' camcorder. The acting is ATROCIOUS.

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

But oh! For bad movies that are fun to watch:
Evil Dead 2 (it's intentionally bad- it's a parody of Evil Dead 1)
Amazon Women on the Moon (... it's.. hard to describe. Very funny, though!)

[annathepiper]

Seen 'em! ;) You're right, they're quite fun.

[annathepiper]

Hmmmmm, haven't seen Van Helsing, but I do acknowledge that by all accounts it does suck!

Re: the 3rd Matrix flick... I didn't like it, and I thought it was incoherent and annoying, though I don't think I'd rank it among the worst movies ever made.

But oh my yes, the D&D flick. To this day, this moment stands out in my brain as the most delicious moment I have experienced in a movie theater ever:

Jeremy Irons, on screen: Now is the time to ACT!
spazzkat, in the audience: Yes, for the love of God, please START ACTING!

Three rows around us lost it, and from that point onward it was open season all over that film. ;)

Never saw Kansas City, though!

Troll 2, huh? Hrmm. Going to have to have a little chat with kathrynt to see what we're going to have to put up against another Sci-Fi Pictures Original. ;)