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Weekend Discussion Thread: Your Favorite Non-MST3K B/Bad MovieAlert reader Stacy suggests:
Oh don’t get me started on this topic. I WOULD say “Blood Freak,” but that may be too weird, so I will go with “Frankenstein Island.” Your pick? 59 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Your Favorite Non-MST3K B/Bad Movie”Commenting at Satellite News
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“Night of the Comet” starring the luscious Catherine Mary Stewart. Cheesy, campy, 80’s sci-fi.
‘plan 9 from outer space.’ there, i said it. i’d say it again if i had to.
I can think of a few.
Deathstalker (The first one.)
The Sword and the Sorcerer
Quest for the Mighty Sword (which in at least one way is a sequel to Cave Dwellers. The hero is Ator, son of Ator. No Miles O’Keefe, though.)
Gor (The original Cabot movie.)
Hell comes to Frogtown
Spacehunter: Adventures in the forbidden Zone
Battle Beyond the Stars
When Worlds Collide (1951) –
For me it has to be a space movie and this one qualifies, plus it destroys the Earth and almost all of humanity blaming it all on our sinful behavior. “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the Earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the Earth.”
Sheesh! All I did was look at Barbara’s butt in third period!
Blind Fury, with Rutger Hauer. It’s very much a B movie, but not a “bad” movie, really fast-paced and entertaining.
Also, The Choppers, with Arch Hall Jr., and Monolith Monsters, with a bunch of killer rocks.
I can watch any of those, any time, over and over.
Attack of the 50-foot Woman
Perhaps the quintessential B-Movie. So good. So bad.
And–need I even say it? Allison Hayes!!!
“Future Hunters,” a 1986 action film served buffet style, so it changes genres every 15 minutes. It stars Robert Patrick as a T-1001 Liquid Terminator impersonating a late appearing FBI agent in a quest for – gold, or something, no one seems to know or care. A great kung-fu fight a little ways in deserves its own spinoff film, for sure.
Yes!! My wife and I saw that one when it was in theaters, and later bought the video. Very under-rated movie!
THE GIANT CLAW!
Well this isn’t a BAD movie by any stretch of the imagination but I guess it would be a “B” movie: SUGAR HILL, the 1974 blaxploitation movie. Zombies, funky fashions, sexual innunedo, black power, woman power, everything. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072225/?ref_=nv_sr_1 And the 1979 Roger Corman ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL with the Ramones. Probably my favorite teen comedy because it ignores the tropes. Girls are the main heroes and villains, the nerdy girl gets the boy in the end, and the main girl’s quest isn’t sex, but songwriting fame. [Well there may be a little sex involved too but not her main goal.]
‘Tarantula’ with John Agar. Actually one of the better giant bug movies of the 1950s. Featured a young Clint Eastwood as an Air Force pilot at the end.
Nice one: this would probably be number two on my list. Alas, no Allison Hayes. ;)
“13 Ghosts,” the 1960 b&w William Castle original, not the remake. You’re supposed to watch it with “special goggles,” but even without it’s so horribly bad-funny. Margaret Hamilton as the housekeeper! A daughter named Medea!
Empire of the Ants – Bert I Gordon’s last (I think) giant creature featute, complete with laughable effects, unlikable characters and a silly plot.
In the words of Kent Brockman, “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.”
Years before we discovered MST a friend and I rented “The Toolbox Murders” and “The Sadist” from our local Blockbuster Video just to “riff” on them. We just referred to it as “making fun of” at that point in time as riffing had not entered the lexicon as of yet.
The Toolbox Murders was first up and we couldn’t get halfway through its inanity before replacing it with The Sadist which had a beautiful cover featuring Arch Hall, Jr. looking sadistic and insane.
Long story short we were on the edge of our seats as Arch turned in a awesome performance as the titular Sadist. We were calling each other Big Talker for months afterwards. Just an excellent low budget movie.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Arch and the Sadist.
If you haven’t seen it do yourself a favor and watch it. You might recognize the woman who plays Judy, too. Though she doesn’t have much to say in the movie.
“Keep talking, Big Talker.”
Gymkata with no close second. That movie is a delightful trove of earnest absurdity.
“From Hell It Came”. A tree walks around, throwing scantily-clad women into quicksand? Perfection! And the Island Chief has a thick Brooklyn accent.
“Send it back!”, exclaimed one critic.
Titles courtesy of Yoda.
Seriously, another great choice. :)
The Giant Craw!
The Giant Craw?
Not the Craw… the CRAW!!
Well, now I know what I want to see next Arbor Day! :-D
…Oh, I had to give into temptation and use up all my Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf discussion on the “Werewolf” episode thread. Shoulda warned me.
Battle Beyond the Stars is one pretty darn good movie. :)
Just about any of the 80’s John Sayles B-scripts should be on the list (Piranha, Alligator), but if you had to pick one.
Supposedly–yes, listened to the disk commentary–it was just a Joan Crawford-knockoff spurned-wife potboiler story that American Int’l didn’t know what to do with, until one exec joked, “Maybe we should put a flying saucer in it and sell it to the teens?” Famous last words, but gives you some idea of how much actual Attack there is in the movie.
So many to pick from. I’ll throw a few into the ring that many probably wouldn’t consider: Frogs (Ray Milland) and Duel (Yes, the Spielberg TV movie). Dennis Weaver is so unintentionally funny in Duel that it is worth repeated watchings.
“You can’t beat me on the grade!!!”
Too many to pick from. Every Saturday night in Cleveland OH there are four shows with Horror movie hosts. Svengoolie, Son of Ghoul, Offbeat and Horror Hotel. Some of them show B movies MST3K did and others so bad even they didn’t do them. If I had to pick one there is She Demons(1958)with people stranded on an island where a Nazi doctor is experimenting on women to help his disfigured wife.
I second the two posts that nominate “From Hell It Came”! What a scream, and, according to Mary Jo, in the ACEG (p. 139), apparently in the running for Season 7. My favorite line was from the evil princess who was secretly in cahoots with the bad-guy medicine man: the heroine, the former girlfriend of the guy who is now a lumbering tree with a knife stuck in him, is pleading with the medicine man to help her and Princess comes up and gives them both away by saying in a nasal, sniveling voice, “I picked the poison berries for you!” My then-wife and I repeated that line to each other constantly, in contexts appropriate and not appropriate. I also recall a Japanese classic about the Salamander Men from Neptune (I think), whose costumes were so cheap you could see their actual hands working under the rubber gloves with their long, faux-newtish fingers. Then there was a Brit classic about a mad scientist type who has an ancient artifact (can’t remember what it was) that he keeps trying to pass off on other people, because whoever has it by such-and-such a time will be dragged off to hell by a demon who looked like the animated mucus globs in those obnoxious allergy-medicine ads. (I remember actually being frightened by it at the time–it appeared on the top of a moving train.)
Let’s not forget shorts: I wish the gang had had a go at the anti-VD film they showed us in junior high: Joe Straight-Guy has a one-timer with a floozy from another town and then gets it on with his innocent high-school sweetie after graduation, and his whole world comes crashing down when he discovers he now has an odd sore “down there”. Favorite line, after the doctor tells him what’s what: “Gosh, what am I gonna tell my dad?”
Hard Ticket to Hawaii: It has the most hilariously-bad dialogue of any movie that I’ve seen. Plus, the horrible acting and plot, and the hand-puppet snake, make this great to watch. The gratuitous toplessness doesn’t hurt, either. ;)
Wow, there are so many:
The Madmen of Mandoras
Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster
Dracula vs. Frankenstein
Silent Night, Bloody Night
…and so many more.
I am wearing out IMDB looking up these rightfully unknown movies. Madman of Mandoros. Who knew? A “Jan In The Pan” flick also known as THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN. Instead of a pan they have Hitler’s head under a glass dome like an old clock. Apply the internet acronym of your choice at this time.
You are referring to the masterpiece that is Invaders from Space. It was one of FOUR such brilliant cinematic achievements staring “the creature made of the strongest steel”… STARMAN!!!!
Starman began his life as the Japanese serial hero Super Giant, star of a series of theatrical short films that pitted him against human gangsters, alien invaders, and even a brain in a briefcase! When Walter Reed got his hands on Shintoho’s superhero, he became Starman, and his shorts were edited into four feature films that are truly insane sights to behold. (For reference, Walter Reed also distributed Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men from Toei, and as insane as they are, they were actually cash-ins on the insanely popular Starman films, so… you KNOW it’s gonna get weird…)
Atomic Rulers of the World pits Starman against nuke-crazy thugs, and the aforementioned Invaders From Space sees him beat the crap out of an army of Salamander Men (based on the mythological Japanese creature, the Kappa) from the planet Koolamon who love to perform acrobatic stunts, breath radioactive lightning, and get nutty with their jazz hands. Attack from Space features a race of Nazi-esque “Superions” who get despatched in their hundreds by Starman on their own space station! (Rifftrax tackled this title a year or so ago.) And finally, there’s Evil Brain from Outer Space. No synopsis I could possibly type can come close to describing this film adequately. It’s got alien ninja mutants with giant ears and Freddy Krueger claws, alien pathogens, yakuza goons, hordes of henchmen, and the evil, all powerful brain of an alien dictator that must be kept and transported in… a briefcase.
It’s glorious.
I unapologetically, unironically love these movies. If you like a good cheesy movie, you won’t find many that are as fun and insane as these.
Watch them… if you dare. :)
Oh, wow!!!!! Yes, yes, Starman!! How could I have forgotten? The treatment of Starman in that film makes “Prince of Space” seem as staid as a bio of Winston Churchill. One of the TV stations in Chicago had a veritable B-movie smorgasbord Mon-Fri starting at 4:00: Mon was sci-fi day, Tues was comedy (lots of Bowery Boys films), Weds (I think) was Westerns, and so on. That’s where I went everyday for ripe cheese after school. ‘Twas there I encountered Starman vs. the Salamander Men one magical Monday. (That English one about the evil artifact and globby demon, too. Anybody recall that one?) By the way, Jay, the quote I read from the irate critic reviewing “From Hell It Came” was: “And to hell it can go”!
That version was after the editor got hold of it. Ha!
“I Bury the Living”!
I remember that, back when home video was starting to catch on, my Dad mentioned that he hadn’t seen that movie in a long time. He asked me, who was more connected to such things, if I could track it down. It took a while in those days before I had steady Internet access (and the existence of TCM), but I found it available via Sinister Cinema. So, I bought a copy for him. And it turns out he was right; it’s a weird movie, but actually quite good.
He also asked me to get him a copy of “Seven Days to Noon”, an Oscar-winning British movie that may be the first movie to deal with atomic blackmail, and I found that for him, too.
The Flesh Eaters is a favorite which features silvery plankton like things that leave nothing but bones of their victims, and when exposed to electricity they fuse into a giant Lovecraftian monster. Pretty good movie.
Fiend without a Face is another favorite of mine with invisible monsters that are eventually revealed to look like huge brains with antennae and prehensile spines they use to move around and leap with. Creepy and silly both.
Absolutely, Cornjob, “Fiend without a Face”. That one totally creeped me out. Still don’t like things touching the back of my neck.
Lots of good ones so far. One I think hasn’t been mentioned yet, “The Manster”. A guy gets experimented on, grows another head, eventually a whole separate human-like thing (Hyde to his Jekyll?), splits off from him. As a kid, it was very weird, creepy, but fascinating.
Moving ahead a few years, while not sci-fi or monster or supernatural, it’s hard for me not to get drawn into “Mommie Dearest”; “Invasion U.S.A.” (Chuck Norris); the original “American Ninja” movie; and “Red Sonja” with Brigitte Nielson and Sandahl Bergman (and that guy who was The Terminator or something). Oh yeah, the first six “Friday the 13th” sequels too. (I don’t know, Doc, I just can’t seem to control myself.)
“B” movies usually denotes movies that lack big budgets, silly monsters and melodramatic scripts. One of the well made B movie that had great acting, strong script and actually very good special effects. Surprisingly, it showed the lead female as both strong and intellectual. Who can forget the little girl awakening from a catatonic state screaming “THEM” “THEM!!” Scared the hell out of me as a kid.
I loved Starcrash before it became an episode :)
I’ll second Battle Beyond the Stars.
And I’ve also got DVDs of My Demon Lover and TerrorVision. Picasso Trigger is another favorite (although it could be replaced by any other Andy Sidaris movie–they’re literally all the same).
Rat Pfink a Boo-Boo is gloriously insane, as is The World’s Greatest Sinner.
I’m sure I’m forgetting other favorites…
My latest favorite is Tarkan vs The Vikings. So, so awful in so many ways. It’s a real laugh riot, even in the original Turkish.
“Them” is absolutely the best giant-bug movie ever made. Even as a kid, I could tell it was several cuts above all the other monster movies. I hesitated to bring it up here precisely because of how well it’s made. You’re right–the kid coming out of the catatonic state is a chilling scene. My favorite B-moment in “Them”, though, is when the soldiers are shooting at the giant ants for the first time, and the old, bald scientist is screaming, “Hit their antennae! Hit their antennae!”
Gotta second “The Manster.” While most of it is predictably silly, the scene where the hero finds an eyeball growing out of his clavicle is chilling. Too bad it didn’t stop there, and he ended up getting a coconut head with bad teeth sprouting next to his own.
“Them!” scared me horribly when I was a child and literally gave me nightmares. I watched it again recently and agree with you that it’s the best giant-bug movie ever. The aerial shots of the little girl wandering the desert are chilling, and James Whitmore was excellent.
If you’ll pardon me being a bit pedantic, the way that sentence is worded makes it sound like you’re saying that B movies typically lack both silly monsters and melodramatic scripts.
For my, I’m going with Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon with Dana Andrews.
I don’t think Them! is a B-movie. It has relatively big budget and stars well known, well regarded actors. James Whitmore in particular won several acting awards. Just because it’s a science fiction movie, doesn’t mean it’s a B movie. Heck, it was nominated for an Oscar (Special Effects)
Personally, my favorite would be The Giant Claw.. It stars two of my personal favorites, Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday. The script is actually fairly well done, with good dialogue and the solution to the monster involves mesons, using it fairly accurately, too, which is something surprising in a movie. The special effects though, they are awful. Supposedly the director used all the budget so had to get a Mexican puppet maker to do the monster scenes.
Terrorvision! is another favorite. Deliberately campy and funny as heck. It uses a lot of the monster movie tropes and yet laughs with them, not at them. Also lots of other funny jokes.
It wasn’t soldiers. It was the cop and the FBI agent. And I don’t see what’s “b-movie” about that scene. The doctor was telling them their weak point.
THEM! –
A “B” movie? Perhaps. I have to love a movie where a moderately infirm entomologist specializing in social insects is as much the life saving hero as the Biff Beefchunk guys. We should listen to those science guys more often.
Knightriders: George Romero brings you Ed Harris as King Arthur on a motorcycle. Seriously.
Man with the X-Ray Eyes: The man who saw too much.
The Demon Seed: Scientist creates an artificial intelligence which proceeds to sexually harass Julie Christie.
Target Earth
Thanks for the correction–soldiers didn’t seem right. The “B-movie” element was the voice and delivery–my friends and I (who all loved the movie) enjoyed imitating both. (That’s a possible definition of “B-movie element”: if 12-year-olds laugh goofily while imitating it over and over, it’s a B-movie element.)
Knightriders is so good!
My pick is Zapped! Sure Scott Baio, whatever, but this movie is great
Second the love for Them!, Night of the Comet, and Monolith Monsters.