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Weekend Discussion Thread: REALLY Bad Movies

Alert reader Perry writes:

OK, we all love our “bad” movies, from “The Crawling Eye” to “Horrors of Spider Island”, with an occasional “Mighty Jack” or “Diabolic”, or even “Catalina Caper.” But what do readers think is so bad that it just can’t be tolerated? We’re talking modern movies made with a workable budget that are considered acceptable to modern tastes, but cause you, the Satellite News reader, to leave the room?

And don’t just say “chick flicks.” Be specific. Which one?

Me, I’ll sit through “Manos”, but not “Evita.” “Dirty Dancing?” Blech, I’m going to the garage to watch “The Final Sacrifice.”

I’m with you on “Dirty Dancing.”

Have at it!

82 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: REALLY Bad Movies”

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  1. jay says:

    Hallmark Channel –

    This may be the testosterone talking, but anything on the Hallmark channel is enough to send me looking for a sledge hammer. “Once Upon A Princess”. “The Sweetest Heart”. Those are actual movies. ROLF!! And I don’t mean roll on the floor laughing.

       16 likes

  2. duke of puddles says:

    ‘Pretty Woman’
    ‘Batman and Robin’
    any of the ‘Twilight’ plague
    ‘a Star is Born,’ ‘Yentle’ or any other Streisand involved war crime.

       13 likes

  3. My wife made me sit through “Twilight” at the theaters, and I spent ALL of the time staring at the theater ceiling and counting the holes in one of the large tiles (248, if anyone cares to know).

    Although I have to admit that later, when Rifftrax did it, I was able to not only sit through the first but all of them (even the snarkiness of RT was acceptable to me then, as those movies were pure putrid).

       9 likes

  4. skrag2112 says:

    The ‘Fast And Furious’ movies. I just don’t understand the appeal of them.
    Any of the ‘Transformers’ films.
    The live action ‘Chipmunk’ movies. Only a true masochist would love those.

       10 likes

  5. goalieboy82 says:

    the films of Sylvester Stallone.

       4 likes

  6. majorjoe23 says:

    Back in 2005 or 2006 I saw a movie called Smile, about a girl with a cleft pallet coming to America. It was so earnest and so terrible. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to walking out of a movie, but I was being paid to be there.

       3 likes

  7. DarkGrandmaofDeath says:

    Pixels. Seeing Pixels made me regret every life choice I’d made that had brought me to the moment where I found myself watching Pixels. Stupid, stupid, lame-ass movie, full of stupid, stupid ersatz jokes and lazy acting.

       8 likes

  8. I concur with the Transformer movies – it’s like listening to 10 operating jackhammers incessantly for 2+ hours.

       9 likes

  9. Misfit4242 says:

    The Mangler.

       2 likes

  10. profhackenbush says:

    The Twilight movies..Transformers movies..the Star Wars prequels..The Land of the Lost remake with Will Ferrell.Never could understand the appeal of him..Adam Sandler movies,like Jack and Jill,Grown Ups 1 and 2..Norbit..Movies that are based on board games,cartoons or old tv shows,like Battleship,The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake,The Flintstones,Starsky and Hutch;etc…and last and certainly least,Tyler Perry movies.Nothing but glorified Lifetime movies..

       8 likes

  11. March of the Penguins

    It was beautifully shot, interesting subject but yet I left the theater angry. They filmed a close up the death of a penguin. The French accented narrator was droning on how “the circle of life…” crap. All I could think of at the moment was “PUT THE FXXXXXG CAMERA DOWN AND HELP THE POOR THING!” I realize it was an excellent film but that one scene really put me off. My girlfriend felt exactly the same.

       7 likes

  12. Kenotic says:

    God will extract his revenge for God’s Not Dead — and I say that as someone who is participating in 4 Holy Week church services.

       11 likes

  13. goalieboy82 says:

    Kenotic:
    God will extract his revenge for God’s Not Dead — and I say that as someone who is participating in 4 Holy Week church services.

    any film like that (and i am a Christian)

       6 likes

  14. Blonde Russian Spy says:

    Any type of torture porn – Saw, Hostel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. I don’t care how much critical acclaim it gets, I’m not going to watch something that’ll give me PTSD just from sitting through it.

       18 likes

  15. “Falling from the Sky: Flight 174.” In principle this is about the Gimli Glider, an Air Canada flight that ran out of fuel over Saskatchewan and through some luck and piloting skill managed to land safely at an abandoned air base. Sounds like compelling drama, especially for an airplane geek, but turns out to be a real stinker. The director couldn’t think of how to tell the story except through endless voice-overs of everyone dealing with their internal angst. Blech.

       4 likes

  16. jay:
    Hallmark Channel –

    “Once Upon A Princess”.

    Wow, that sounds like a target for repeat applications of Rule 34. If they can make Oceans eleven, twelve, and thirteen, … . They’re probably way ahead of me.

       3 likes

  17. mando3b says:

    Any and all torture porn, which has no reason to exist in a civilized society; “Ted”, and anything with Seth Rogan’s leering, smirking mug; “Little Miss Sunshine”, “Juno”, and all other cutey-pie smugfests; a couple of ersatz classics: “Altered States”, “Nine to Five”.

       9 likes

  18. Son of Peanut says:

    I can’t say these are definitely “bad” because I am just not the target audience, but everytime another movie comes out where a YA protagonist and his/her potential love interest(s) rise up against the ruling class of a dystopian future, I want to scream!

       4 likes

  19. Farmland says:

    I’m an indie nerd who happily sat through a few films most people find “intolerable” (Gerry, The Brown Bunny), but Me And You And Everyone We Know was my limit. Not even riffing would save that piece of ****.

       3 likes

  20. Scott Strong says:

    Any of the old tv shows remade as movies: CHIPS, Baywatch, Dukes of Hazzard. For crying out loud, the original versions were torture enough!

    Sorry, meant TORCHA!

       19 likes

  21. RedZoneTuba says:

    I know this will get me in trouble because a lot of folks LOVE this movie, but: The Fifth Element

    From Willis in turbo-smirk mode, to the jarring switches in tone (serious sci-fi? camp? T&A? action-adventure? comedy?), to Gary Oldman’s oddball makeup, and finally to the drag queen of the future whose voice and mannerisms were like simultaneous microphone feedback while rubbing Styrofoam and scratching nails on a blackboard.

       11 likes

  22. Ro-man, aka one of several possible Steves says:

    Ok, I’m shooting at a really easy target here, but I relented and let my kids watch “The Emoji Movie” on Netflix a couple of months back.
    My head still hurts, my IQ dropped dozens of points, and I am struggling to fully recover my ability to think rationally.
    That and similar kid’s twaddle, churned out because it’s tied to some sort of pop-culture trend and people will flock to see it, clumsily injected with some “moral” or “positive message” to justify its existence, are simply deplorable, unfunny, irredeemable, and misbegotten.
    Um… IMHO.

       6 likes

  23. yelling_into_the_void says:

    jay:
    Hallmark Channel –

    This may be the testosterone talking, but anything on the Hallmark channel is enough to send me looking for a sledge hammer.

    And they start with the Christmas movies (Which are the same but have lines like “Christmas will be ruined!” “It’s a Christmas miracle!” “We/I saved Christmas!” and “That’s how I learned the true meaning of Christmas!”) on the last weekend in October and keep going until mid January.

       4 likes

  24. Ryoki Nor says:

    If it has the word ‘star’ in the title (as in wars or trek) or it’s based on anything from the Marvel or DC ‘universe’ I’ll avoid it like the plague.
    Why don’t they do a movie based on the Harvey comics ‘universe’? Just darken things up a bit. ‘Richie Rich vs Baby Huey in a battle to the death!’ Which side is ‘Hot Stuff’ on? Is he truly evil? With cameos from Little Audrey and Casper. Who will play ‘Lil’ Dot’ in the prequel?

       7 likes

  25. Ray Dunakin says:

    Adam Sandler movies.

    Also, I absolutely can’t stand the current trend in “comedies”, in which wit and humor are replaced with filth and raunchiness.

       19 likes

  26. kylehg says:

    Quite a bit to consider here… I’ve seen a handful of films like ‘The Happening’, ‘The Love Guru’, and ‘Crash (2004)’ that left me feeling lobotomized afterwards. I find the YA genre insufferable, so during my time working at a movie theater, when the first ‘Hunger Games’ came out, several co-workers kept urging me to see it because of its quality despite my disinterest, and when I finally did just to humor them, I walked out twenty minutes in.

    There also hasn’t been a single video game adaptation I’ve seen that’s left me feeling confused and angry. Same goes for the ‘Star Wars’ sequel trilogy.

       6 likes

  27. Scott Strong says:

    goalieboy82:
    the films of Sylvester Stallone.

    Man, I totally agree with you. I can’t even understand what the hell he’s saying most of the time. Acting skills rival those of David Hasselhof.

       4 likes

  28. thequietman says:

    The movie that immediately comes to mind for me is “Lethal Weapon 2”. Thought the first one was fine, and decided to check out the sequel. Started off okay, but had me ‘boo’ing by the end.

    Those of you familiar with the ‘women in refrigerators’ trope will know why…

       6 likes

  29. Jeff Barrow says:

    The SPIRIT, directed by Frank Miller (Seriously, Who told Miller he could direct this thing?!?), Oh, and any of the SPY KIDS films (they hurt my eyes.)

       3 likes

  30. SteveWithAQ says:

    So this is for FAPS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtDnqcs786Q) , right?

    All good choices here. I want to nominate, as a class, every single “remake/reboot” of a 70s/80s movie/tv series of the 2000s.

       6 likes

  31. I’ve walked out on only four theater movies in my life, and one was Avatar. (Not so much because it was bad, but just an uncomfortably impatient theater feeling of “Life’s too short, if you know every single plot development ahead of time just by looking at it.”)

    I was Gailileo’ed in my time for that, as for other shocking and heretical proclamations of their day that had me shunned and pelted with stones in the street, such as “The Shrek movies aren’t funny”, “Maybe we shouldn’t be so pleased that the Transformers films do well in China?”, “The Lego Movie needs Ritalin”, “Christopher Nolan hates superheroes” or “Anyone else think Moulin Rouge was a little too gay?”

    RedZoneTuba:
    I know this will get me in trouble because a lot of folks LOVE this movie, but: The Fifth Element
    From Willis in turbo-smirk mode, to the jarring switches in tone (serious sci-fi? camp? T&A? action-adventure? comedy?), to Gary Oldman’s oddball makeup, and finally to the drag queen of the future whose voice and mannerisms were like simultaneous microphone feedback while rubbing Styrofoam and scratching nails on a blackboard.

    As Valerian, aka Fifth Element II, taught us, do not let the French anywhere within a HUNDRED MILES of anything resembling “Hollywood style” science fiction. It’s bad enough being French to begin with.

    jay:
    Hallmark Channel –
    This may be the testosterone talking, but anything on the Hallmark channel is enough to send me looking for a sledge hammer.“Once Upon A Princess”.“The Sweetest Heart”. Those are actual movies.ROLF!! And I don’t mean roll on the floor laughing.

    That was a classic SNL sketch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSzytvDsPfo). :) And long in coming, even if it got a bit MaryJo’ed from one of the female writers.

       1 likes

  32. Sitting Duck says:

    Howl’s Moving Castle. Hayao Miyazaki takes the fun, slightly fractured faerie tale by Diana Wynne Jones and let loose a big steaming whiz all over it. This is the only time I can recall being so angry with a movie I cut off the DVD player halfway through.

       5 likes

  33. Megaforce – even Rifftrax couldn’t save that dreck. I can’t explain exactly what I hate about it, but I just find it incredibly annoying.
    Avatar – Mr. Plinkett alreay said everything about it for me. My addendum would be that dumb fake world music/”african music”? at some point; ‘cliché’ would be a compliment.
    Ghostbusters 2016 – argh blech barf . At least we got a new Mr. Plinkett review out of it.
    Hunger Games – I admit that I like the soundtrack during the cornucopia bloodbath but everything else is just terrible, weird scene choices, strange acting, jennifer lawrence’s voice is so grating, aaaaarrgh!!!
    Love Guru – to be honest, I could not finish it.
    The Witch who Came from the Sea – The title sounds like the film’s gonna be about something ‘paranormal’ or about witchcraft but is just a poorly made movie about child abuse.
    Silent Running – I watched it because Joel has said that it was one the inspirations for the robot pals, but wow, so many good ideas wasted and TERRIBLE folk songs destroy the whole thing for me. It coulda been better.
    Inferno – the second in the Dario Argento’s trilogy of the Three Mothers. Suspiria is very interesting but this one is just sooooo boring and dull, the only thing I like is the theme song, composed by Keith Emerson.
    Happy Birthday to Me – I LOVE the theme song, but the movie itself, not so much.
    I cannot understand the appeal of the Harry Potter movies, especially the fourth one, it just sucks so much I can’t even…
    300 – has a lot of shtoyle, but it’s empty inside, and that ending ? oy gevalt!
    How to Catch a Yeti – horrible all around, doesn’t have a reason to exist, stupid beyond repair.

    there’s a lot more I can’t remember, because my brain likes me, I guess….

       5 likes

  34. goalieboy82 says:

    some of the Peanuts Specials come under this topic:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBaLzmBfHgA

       1 likes

  35. Joel Lillo says:

    With its absurd plot twists, wildly inconsitent inner logic and putrid message (African Americans cannot trust any white person, not even those who love them) Get Out is not only an absurdly over-rated movie, it is morally repugnant (and horribly acted to boot). I cannot believe the glowing reviews it got or its oscar win. I say that even as a real fan of most of what Jordan Peele has done. Keanu is actually a much better movie and one that makes its points about race relations much better than Get Out.

       5 likes

  36. duke of puddles says:

    Jim Carey movies. pick one they’re all landfill material.
    ‘Titanic.’ much like it’s namesake was too large and bulky to live.
    pretty much any of the ‘kissmyas*ic park’ movies as well.

       3 likes

  37. skrag2112 says:

    goalieboy82:
    some of the Peanuts Specials come under this topic:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBaLzmBfHgA

    I’m a fan of Peanuts and Charles Schulz, but ‘Flashbeagle’ was just WTF.

       4 likes

  38. goalieboy82 says:

    skrag2112: I’m a fan of Peanuts and Charles Schulz, but ‘Flashbeagle’ was just WTF.

    there is an article in the Onion’s Our Dumb Century that says (in the 1970’s)
    Ziggy gets an updated haircut (or something that that) has Ziggy with an Afro.
    so the Flashbeagle is Peanuts trying to stay relevant. but still Peanuts never should have done that.

       2 likes

  39. skrag2112: I’m a fan of Peanuts and Charles Schulz, but ‘Flashbeagle’ was just WTF.

    That was from the dark 80’s, after Vince Guaraldi died, was replaced by the Garfield-cartoon composer, Franklin, Lucy and Peppermint Patty would start breaking into songs, and they wanted to plug-promote a Peanuts-aerobics album for kids. Consider it an isolated incident.

    Sitting Duck:
    Howl’s Moving Castle. Hayao Miyazaki takes the fun, slightly fractured faerie tale by Diana Wynne Jones and let loose a big steaming whiz all over it. This is the only time I can recall being so angry with a movie I cut off the DVD player halfway through.

    Oh, good lord. We would have gladly forgotten this one if not for the new generation of “I’m an anime fan!”‘s who rushed to see this in the mall plexes after just finding out about Miyazaki and anime after Spirited Away won the Oscar. If it’d been any other Studio Ghibli movie, we wouldn’t have minded the poseurs, but Diana’s clever book just flew SO far over poor Miyazaki’s head and confused his lil’ brain.

       0 likes

  40. rvoyttbos says:

    Any of THE MATRIX or TWILIGHT films. THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

       2 likes

  41. Cornjob says:

    I’m still getting over a horrible sick, so I’m in a great frame of mind for this talk. If there was one cinematic experience I could choose to erase from my mind it be Human Centipede. I even hate writing the term. I think I would rather watch Cannibal Holocaust every day of the week for a month than take another peek at the buttmunchers. I really thought the doctor was somehow going to fuse spinal cords together, not… . I really should have stopped watching when the slide show explained what was going on, but the movie was half over by then. It seemed like the damage was done and it would have been a waste not to see where it going to go. Not one of my better decisions. Peace all. Sorry if this was a downer but you did ask.

       4 likes

  42. Larry Ham says:

    I was forced to watch “St. Elmo’sFire” with my daughter and I have never seen such pretentious crapola in my life. Oh, if we could see Joel, Mike, the bots and anyone else, just skewer that pile of bilge.

       4 likes

  43. Cornjob:
    I’m still getting over a horrible sick, so I’m in a great frame of mind for this talk. If there was one cinematic experience I could choose to erase from my mind it be ***.

    There are things on the internet that have degraded my soul, even though I haven’t even seen them. That’s one. Another is ****. There are people out there who make us wonder whether whether the inquisition might not have been such a bad idea after all.

       4 likes

  44. My utterly intolerable genre is any pure musical, where every line has to be sung. I can occasionally stand the cast breaking out into song, and have even voluntarily watched “The Music Man,” “Singing in the Rain,” and “Fiddler on the Roof”. I was dragged perforce to see “Les Miserables” and can assure the reader that les plus misérables sont the audience. Fortunately for me I was in one of those theaters with the high backed seats, which enabled me to nod off about 20 minutes in and stay down until almost the end.

       4 likes

  45. EricJ says:

    I’m O.D.ing on quotation marks!

       0 likes

  46. EricJ says:

    The Original EricJ: That was from the dark 80’s, after Vince Guaraldi died, was replaced by the Garfield-cartoon composer, Franklin, Lucy and Peppermint Patty would start breaking into songs, and they wanted to plug-promote a Peanuts-aerobics album for kids.Consider it an isolated incident.

    Oh, good lord.We would have gladly forgotten this one if not for the new generation of “I’m an anime fan!”‘s who rushed to see this in the mall plexes after just finding out about Miyazaki and anime after Spirited Away won the Oscar. If it’d been any other Studio Ghibli movie, we wouldn’t have minded the poseurs, but Diana’s clever book just flew SO far over poor Miyazaki’s head and confused his lil’ brain.

    You’re such an insufferable snob. Just because you’re an old dork who got into Japanese cartoons before newer fans it doesn’t make you any better than them.

       4 likes

  47. Arty Bollocks says:

    “The Happening.” Helluva monster innit?

       2 likes

  48. Yeti of Great Danger says:

    Fortunately it appears that no one, or almost no one, is slamming anyone else’s choice, because a movie I will literally leave the room for is “A Christmas Story.” I hate it with a hatred that defies understanding, and was forced to watch it once. Never again.

    As for a genre, any Lifetime movie, aka Stupid Women Doing Stupid Things They Think Seem Romantic. Just the descriptions of those movies make me almost embarrassed to have two X chromosomes.

       2 likes

  49. mando3b says:

    duke of puddles: ‘Titanic.’ much like it’s namesake was too large and bulky to live.

    Actually, I like “Titanic” a lot, but think that James Cameron made a compelling movie in spite of himself: I would rather listen to the dialogue in “Red Zone Cuba” than what he wrote for most of the characters in “Titanic”; I came out of the theater thinking Kate Winslet was a horrible actress until I realized that Cameron had given her the worst of the howlers.

       3 likes

  50. edwardminges says:

    I’ve been hunting down and collecting bad movies since The Golden Turkey Awards named Plan 9 the worst movie in history (yeah, sure, as IF). After all this time, I’m STILL finding fresh hell after fresh hell, more than ten years after discovering “Night of Horror,” my reigning champion for years. But 99% of these bad movies are budget-constrained. I congratulate Alert Reader Perry for specifying, “We’re talking modern movies made with a workable budget that are considered acceptable to modern tastes, but cause you, the Satellite News reader, to leave the room…”

    WOW! Does that narrow the field! “Misery Brothers Y2K,” on Amazon (probably the only source, and only on VHS), also known as “The Misery Brothers” on imdb. MERCIFUL GOD IN HEAVEN.

    There is nothing like this on the planet. I won’t attempt to describe the “plot.” Go to imdb and read the three reviews, and look at the cast list. The key is Abe Vigoda as the Godfather. His character is “Don Frito Layleone.” HE PLAYS THE GODFATHER THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE IN FULL DRAG. Sides aching with laughter yet?

    It goes downhill from there.

    It took me FIVE tries to finally get through this steaming pile, and I had to be wobble-legged drunk on Rolling Rock to do it. A distant second would be “Skidoo,” but I blew through that in one shot.

    “Misery Brothers.” Remember the host segment (“Screaming Skull”) where Mike hits the white plastic Crow head with a variety of objects? Yeah, that.

       3 likes

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