Of course, Ed Wood is the most famous bad director, but I don’t really think he’s anywhere close to the worst. You could make an argument for Coleman Francis or Ray Dennis Steckler or Ted Mikels, and it would be hard for me to argue.
But for me, when it comes to sheer incompetence and total failure of vision, one name stands out: Hal Warren. Nothing went right, and just about everything that went wrong — and that was pretty much everything — can be traced back to him. He’s my choice/
What’s yours?
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
I’d have seconded #50’s assessment of Boll until I saw “Postal”, which is genuinely hilarious if you’re in the right frame of mind. He even had the decency to appear in it, as himself, just long enough for a disgruntled gamer to shoot him to death, elevating my opinion of him as a human being just a notch.
If all you are considering is the works on MST3K, then Hal Warren or Coleman Francis are worthy nominees. But, I feel that some are hampered by not knowing other works by other directors. My nominee for the the worst director is Jerry Warren. The Wild World of Batwoman is actually the best of the Jerry Warren films that I have seen. Attack of the Animal People, in and of itself, justifies the label of the worst director of all time. Taking a perfectly fine Swedish movie, made in English and injecting it with an incoherent subplot is not just terrible, it should be criminal. Then there is Teenage Zombies. This movie should have been done, but I’m afraid that Joel/Mike & the Bots would be sleeping by the end. No plot or pacing and it included Katherine Victor who couldn’t out act Dolores Fuller.
Er…right, worst director. Well, in turning so much of our hatred toward Coleman, Steckler, and Hal, I think we might be misjudging their directing merits (okay, de-merits) since it’s hard to seperate that from their contributions as writers, producers, and especially actors.
That’s why I focused on Jerry Warren, whose distinct style of incmpetence showed through without giving us a face to attach to it. In ‘Batwoman’, I understood what he was going for, and he seemed to have acquired the necessary elements to make it work, but he somehow made it drag so bad that it’s a chore to watch without the ‘bots. His unfeeling approach feels kinda’ like Roger Corman’s, but amplified to the point where some of Coleman Francis’s neck-snappin’ jump-cuts would be a welcome break to the monotony.
But then, I’m not being objective of his MST directing either; I despise him for bastardizing a competant foreign film for U.S. release, which was never touched by the Brains. According to an H.P. Lovecraft film guide, Warren reedited the mexican “La Marca del Muerto” (1960), THE first feature adaptation of HPL’s work (‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’) into ‘Creature of the Walking Dead'(1965). I’ve never seen either version, and the original is supposedly just decent and not great, but that kind of thing is just plain unforgivable in my book, Lovecraft fan or no. Not sure if he mutilated any other films in the same manner.
And I may as well be the first to criticise Bill Rebane’s directing of ‘Giant Spider Invasion’: he apparently skipped all of his film school courses on lighting. There.
Woah, synchronicity Mike! The end of my last post sure looks silly in hindsight, but I’m glad we’re on the same page.
Well, since in the oscars, best director and best film usually go hand in hand, I guess I have to give a vote to Hal Warren, since I voted for MANOS as worst film. I gotta give a nod to Ford Beebe and Saul Goodkind for THE PHANTOM CREEPS, though.
Yes Coleman Francis is dreadful as a director, but as he’s given me so much to enjoy despising, I instead have to give my top choice as Sam Newfield for ‘Lost Continent.’ I just watched it and while enjoyable overall due to the efforts of Joel and the ‘Bots, the pacing is ridiculously slow and as Crow points out the director seems unaware as to how to compress time via editing. And there is no excuse for Sid Melton aka Monkey Boy, let alone having to endure the sight of his pasty pudgy butt. Cesar Romero’s brief but painful Mae West imitation also rates high on the gag meter.
Bill Rebane for the incomprehensible ‘Monster A Go-Go’ is my runner up. He also gave us the bouquet of loathsomeness that is ‘Giant Spider Invasion.’ Dan Kester, the lactating Viking crap farmer and his visits to Helga and his evident lust for his sister-in-law; his drunken wife Ev begging Dutch for booze, promising to be very grateful when he arrives with it; Steve Brodie’s J. R. Vance’s wonderful misogyny; Cousin Billy. All beings incarnated from Rebane’s consciousness. What a place THAT must be.
I find Francis’ worlds of bizarre skewed misery to be oddly entertaining in their slow-motion car crash awfulness. His films are so bad as to become a sticky dark art form onto themselves. For me they have ceased to be movies, instead carving a black niche into the abstract.
@ Jerry #14, you’ve hit the nail on the head I think, Rick Sloane is the worst of the worst. Hobgoblins actually had enough money for professional looking film stock and for the most part, lighting and sound, yet it fails to entertain at every level. It’s an abyssmal film that makes you want to pull your own head off, even with the MST3K treatment. It’s virtually unwatchable and not even funny by accident at any place along the way. A horrid piece of dung.
Coleman Francis may have won this award for me except for Beast of Yucca Flats, which like Ed Wood’s Plan 9 is so bad it’s good or at least amusing.
Oh come now, everyone knows the worst director is the the one and only… ALBERT PYUN! Just look at this guys list of crappola (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0701597/)he’s “directed” if you want to call it that. :roll:
I wont hit ray for this one. I could sit through his movie and it still has some charm. I wont come down on hal warren again cause I did that last week. I’m going after Rick sloan. He couldn’t do it and it shows. What more can you say about his horrible ability at keeping his cast going. When the hose out acts you and it just gets worse from there you know the man at the helm can’t save this sinking ship.
Tempted to go with William “One shot” Beaudine for Robot Monster but I think I’ll pick Koji Ota for Neptune Men.
I meant Phil Tucker for Robot Monster. I was thinking of Billy the Kid Vs Dracula when I typed that.
I would have to say Larry Buchanan. I’ve seen some of his other non-Mstied movies, if you can call them that. He just didn’t care.
Professor Gunther (18): I for one am glad to have never met anyone who grew up watching Coleman Francis films. Now there’s a recipe for a sociopath if I ever heard one.
Damn. CaptainZappyPants beat me to the punch. Before I saw the MSTed “Alien From L.A.” I idiotically rented another Albert Pyun film. Try to imagine the dreariness of “A.F.L.A.” without the Golan-Globus budget. That’s why I always felt bad that Kathy Ireland took the rap for the film in these parts. I think the voice was Pyun’s choice; did Ireland ever attempt it in anything else?
Special mention should go to whoever assembled “Riding With Death.” I’ve never seen a TV series cannibalized into a movie so awkwardly. Unfortunately the person responsible is apparently as elusive as Robert Denby. . .
Oh crap, probably should have weighed in on the worst director thing. I’d go with Rebane. A basic requirement of storytelling is to develop a protagonist. Can anyone tell me who the lead character was in “The Giant Spider Invasion” (let alone “Monster A-Go-Go)?
Bronze: Vic Savage, AKA A.J.Nelson, for “The Creeping Terror” (the backstory of which is more amusing than the film itself); inventor of the “monster-vore ass-shot.”
Silver: Irwin Allen for “The Swarm” and “Beyond The Poseidon Adventure.” Oh, imagine the deep hurting had he directed “When Time Ran Out…”
Gold: PHIL FREAKING TUCKER for “Robot Monster.” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Honorary Lifetime Achievement Awards: W. Lee Wilder, Bill Rebane, and Bert I. Gordon.
What? Not one mention for Andrew McLagan- he of ‘Mitchell’ infamy? Yes, I know alot of the problem with Mitchell is mainly down to an unappealing story and a very unappealing central charcter. But surely somewhere in the planning stage the director must have sat in on discussions and decided- ‘Yeah, that’s how we’ll do the bedroom scene!’ He must also take th rap for the dreadful car chase sequence, which had Joel mocking its pace years before Mike’s better-remembered mocking of ‘Space Mutiny’. Speaking of which, why no mention of David Winters/Neal Sunderstom from the same movie?
As somebody’s alreday alluded to, the nature of many of MST3K’s featured films is that the director also wrote, produced and sometimes even starred in the film, so breaking down various percieved incompetencies can be difficult. For example, when we discussed Worst Film, I plumped for ‘Hobgoblins.’ However, judging the film purely on direction, then Rick Sloane probably gets a pass on that count. You can hear the dialogue, the shots are (to my untrained eye) correctly framed, and there’s no ‘Manos’-style gaffes. The worst you can says is that the cast were awful, and he must have been involved in that.
Ed Wood probably escapes based purely on films in the MST3K cannon. However, the Brains never featured his two worst legit films- ‘Glen or Glenda’ and, of course, ‘Plan 9.’ Some of the goofs in the latter are almost Warren-esque.
Then we come to unholy trinity of Warren, Steckler and Francis. To be honest, I think there’s very little to choose between them. The swinging factor for me was that wheras Warren knew while he was making it that Manos was bad, the other two thought they were making something glorious that only he had the vision to see. Steckler just shades it for me, as much for his holier-than-thou attitude towards the MST3K treatment as anything.
Hoo. Rebane was pretty awful. Bert I gordon, too.
The lead character in Monster A-Go Go was the monster.
Of course… there was no monster.
I’m glad a couple of people finally mentioned Rebane, thank you Libby. I haven’t noticed Bert I Gorden mentioned yet, and he deserves it at least twice. More so, thank you Dames Like Her!
Your obviously smart and probably cute. Huh. Ya, I’d like to think that. Anyway…Coleman Francis was obviously horrible and therefore a giveaway for best punching bag…but the awfulness and despair of his films did actually create some kind of dark, fun, please-kill-me before-I-absorb-this kind of camp value. Sam was obviously inept, incompetent and possibly dehydrated to the point of deliriousness when he let Lost Continent happen, but where i agree with you most is with Bill Rebane. I have actually not suffered through Monster A-Go-Go yet, but Giant Spider Invasion introduced me to the most loathsome characters I’ve ever seen on-screen, and all the runners up in that category DO come from other MST3K’d films. Dan Kester was the worst there obviously, but it was a group effort of the entire cast that made me promptly go wash my face with various acids after viewing THAT prize. All that said, Francis and Warren, Wood and Newfield were all blatantly incompetent, Rick Sloan deserves an eternity in hell being probed by large men in military fatigues, but I have to circle back to Bert I. Gordon for the nominee who hurt me most often while enjoying MST3K.
So many bad directors. I could do as I did with worst actor and actress and do a list of my nominees but let’s face it, for sheer awfulness it’s Hal Warren by a landslide.
Dishonorable mention to Ed Wood, Coleman Francis, Bert I. Gordon, Ray Steckler, Vic Savage, Bill Rebane and Arch Hall Sr.
@SchlockValue:
It always makes me a bit sad that I cannot meet the wonderful people that post here in person. I can’t find anyone who loves the show as much as I do in ‘real life’, so it is a treat to read what you all have to say.
Well- I have been described by others as cute and smart, though humility makes me blush fiercely at writing this. Too bad we can’t meet over a Mr. Mistie Burger and some fried cheese curds, or some meatloaf at Dutch’s cafe. Does Satellite News ever spawn ‘real’ friendships? I’d like to think so.
Mr. Newfield had no excuse as he had access to a high B movie cast [Caeser Romero], a decent film crew, decent film stock and obviously a gaggle of writers. He must have just needed to pad the film painfully, saving the fairly decent animated dinosaur sequences sprinkled in to spice up the tedium and to keep viewers from streaming from the theater. But nothing, nothing exonerates him from tormenting us with Monkey Boy’s overloaded butt- though it does provide lots of riff fodder for Joel and the ‘Bots.
I bet you are smart and cute, too! I am grateful for all the folks that post here, and especially to Sampo and Erhardt for giving us this wonderul site. My day is brightened by knowing I can share my thoughts, and read the thoughts by smart and funny folks on my absolute favorite thing, MST3K.
Dames Like Her (#71): that was very nice!
This one’s worth a Bottom 10 list.
10. Larry Buchanan – Attack of the The Eye Creatures
9. Jerry Warren – The Wild Wild World of Batwoman
8. Bert I. Gordon – Tormented
7. Roger Corman – The Undead
6. Ray Kellogg – The Killer Shrews
5. Sam Newfield – Radar Secret Service
4. Cy Roth – Fire Maidens from Outer Space
3. Ed Wood – Bride of the Monster
2. Coleman Francis – Red Zone Cuba
1. Hal Warren – Manos: The Hands of Fate
I’ve met just one other MSTIE in my neighborhood, a former co-worker and his wife whom I hadn’t seen in years. As we reconnected on various topics, I expressed some chagrin that the Packers had not made it to the playoffs, to which he responded with something like “Go Packers!” and a mini-MSTIE convention was suddenly in progress. His wife marveled that we had independently found this show and this particular episode. A happy memory indeed!
And thanks to Dames (#71) for your thoughtful words.
I’ll have to agree with Kris and anyone else who said Rick Sloan. While watching ‘Hobgoblins’ I felt a few of my brain cells evaporating. That was sheer garbage.
Awwwww. Dames like Her just touched my heart.
It was a bad touch.
Hi folks! Long-time site lurker…First-time caller (er…”poster”) here…
I heartily second the nomination of most of the n’er-do-wells listed above…each and every one, for their own individually distinct, personal methods of expressing what is obviously a deeply suppressed contempt for all movie-goers everywhere.
I’d also like to throw in a second nomination for the greasy, sleazy filmmaking artistry of Greydon Clark. To this day, I still can’t decide whether “Angel’s Revenge” or “Final Justice” wins the contest for immediately making me feel like I need a boiling hot shower with lye soap. I’d be facinated to learn what kind of credentials this dork was able to wave around in order to successfully “ensnare” some of the fairly (although faltering) well-known actors who’s careers he, no doubt, sealed the coffin lid on, finally and forever (scotch or no scotch!).
I mean, even the most fleeting thought of ANY part of that awful, third-grade mentality, porn movie-level of “dialogue” (and I use the term loosely) that permeates every second of “Angel’s Revenge” causes the very depths of my soul cry out, “EEEEEEWWWWW!
As far as displaying a lack of vision, I believe all the directors mentioned had a vision. More often than not, I am truly horrified by what it appears their vision actually is.
All are totally inept, vision or not. No one can convince me that any amount of money would have changed that.
Another thing, Charles B. Pierce. I don’t know what else there is to say. Apparently he had a little bit of a budget and wasted it on that piece of … called Boggy Creek.
What about the even-lesser direction of two of my personal endurance tests: Track of the Moon Beast, and the Bloodwaters of Dr. Z? They really have almost the same desperate depressing 70’s feel, and just sort of meander all over the place for what appears to be no good reason, then just end leaving the viewer to wonder if they just watched a bad movie or had some sort of fever-dream. Zat!
Oh, and Dames Like Her – you are the Wynn beneath my Keenan.
And by the way, I always have beer around.
The next weekend discussion thread should be about us, the people who post here. I’d like to know more about you folks. :cool:
I wonder how a Hollywood directors would do as a fertilizer salesmen????
They’d end up with a pile of Manos, too.
Its pretty clear that Coleman Francis, Hal Warren & Bill Rebane, et seq are charter members of the bad directors hall of f(sh)ame. I submit to you…..Tony Zarindast for the cataract-riddled vision he gave to “Werewolf”. Clearly it features some of the worst acting ever, but as the “auteur”, he must take some of the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view).
As others have mentioned, usually the vote for best picture is joined at the hip with best director. Well I voted for “Monster A Go-go” for worst picture. But my vote won’t go to the tag team of Lewis and Rebane. And that’s because of the circumstances of the making of the movie. Who can you blame for that train wreck? The man who started it, or the man who chose to end it? Or maybe it was just a perfect storm of stupidity.
No, for me, I go with a man who was obviously attempting to put his mark on American cinema. He had deep feelings about our world and wanted to share them. His magnum-opus would enlighten, entertain and provide a cathartic, tragic ending. I am, of course, speaking of “Red Zone Cuba”.
Coleman Francis had a vision and it took every last drop of his ineptitude to transform that vision into a series of fragmented images that adds up to one confusing mess. We know that something is happening, we know that we should be feeling something, we know that deep down there is a message – but it is entirely lost. And only the great skills of Mr. Francis make that possible.
The director’s job is to guide the story he wants to tell onto the screen. Francis failed in this – and did so spectacularly in “Red Zone Cuba”. I say, the award deserves falls to him.
Night train to the end of the world indeed. ;)
Coleman Francis, for Red Zone Cuba. Who does a film about a failed invasion during the Cold War…except for Coleman Francis. Plus, it wasn’t even about the Bay of Pigs invasion. It was about…about something. I’m still a bit hazy on the emotional center of the film. Was it Coleman Francis’s Curly lookalike character Griffin, or the two drifter guys, or the blind creepy woman playing the piano in limbo. Sad how she lost her sight because her husband went to war. Apparently, he blinded her beforehand so she wouldn’t have to see Red Zone Cuba.
Randy
I’d bet Manos was the best commercial film ever shot on that type of camera though!
I just wanted to make sure everyone is basing their opinion on the original ‘director’ cuts and not the MST3K cuts.
Believe it or not, sometimes the way MST3K cut the movies actually MADE THEM WORSE!
I didn’t even fathom this until I got the Eegah! DVD with both cuts.
Case in point – at the pool party there is a really weird edit where they cut out a musical number.
Let me make clear – cutting the crappy music didn’t make it worse, it just made the editing/story not make sense where the original cut actually made totally sense.
There is an IMDB thread (or was) that I started not too long ago about this.
Hal Warren? Really? He had one shot! Yes, it was appalling, but in more of a “Springtime for Hitler” way. Coleman Francis kept trying and kept getting it wronger and wronger. Francis brilliantly straddled the line between incompetent and unwatchable. His movies make me despair for humanity in a way Manos just doesn’t. Coleman Francis, all the way!
I gotta go with Corman the barbarian, for the same reason someone else picked B.I.G.: more movies that hurt me more. Sure Warren and Francis and Rebane etc. movies hurt me more than any single Corman film (with the possible exception of “Teenage Caveman”), but for sheer volume of excrement flung at humanity over a career, Roger Corman gets my vote. Plus, he has (somehow) been given credit as being a GOOD director(!) Just my opinion. (Bill Rebane and Rick Sloane are my runners up).
I’m not sure I agree that Corman deserves such a bad wrap. If we’re just going off of the films shown on MST, then, sure I’d agree. But the guy is so darn prolific that in amongst some of the films that weren’t very good, he also directed some extremely effective films. I’d cite his Poe adaptations with Vincent Price as well as Ray Milland in X. It’s pretty dated, but stands as one of the most disturbing(in a good way!) films I’ve ever seen. If you were to place all the films he directed into good and bad columns, I’d say he’s probably about 50-50. I’m also a sucker for A Bucket of Blood. :grin:
I agree with Cabbage Patch Elvis on Roger Corman: he made some terrific movies, like The Pit and the Pendulum and The Wild Angels. I can’t believe no one mentioned Jess “Castle of Fu Manchu” Franco. While I don’t think he was the worst director featured on the show–he’s put out beautiful stuff like Eugenia de Sade–he has made some truly gawd-awful junk (Oasis of the Zombies, anyone?)
To me, Hal Warren was the worst. Everything he had a hand it turned out wretched, from the acting to the lighting to the editing. And lets face it: even though he only had one shot to prove his incompetence, that’s all he really needed. :wink:
I guess for me it comes down to Larry Buchanan, Hal Warren, and Rick Sloane in an evil trilogy. My winner, or loser in this case would probably be Sloane. He wrote it, produced it, and directed it. And he obviously hates us.
How about Tony Zarindast director of the Joe Estevez vehicle ‘Werewolf’, I’m not really familiar with any of his other films, but I know in my heart of hearts that nothing he’s ever done or will do can make up for the scars left by ‘Warwoolf’, ugh and that ending always makes me want to barf.
Im lookin’ at you David Winters of Space Mutiny fame as worst director for the following crimes against humanity…
Numerous charges of rampant and obvious GTB (grand theft Battlestar for you laymen)
Allowing a middle aged “actress” parade around the Ralph Maccio nuveaux 80’s space bar like a lemur in heat.
Forcing the viewing public to endure hours of footage of Punch Slamjaw chasing greasy Canadians in their clown cars.
And finally waking up the Oak ridge boys for your stupid fake red alert!
nuff said
GTB aka Galacticide (in the first degree)
While I think that Manos is indeed the worst movie, I’d give Hal a pass for only having one film to judge on. We can never really know what his “upside” was as a filmmaker, although it was clearly very low.
For worst place I would have a pick’em between Coleman Francis, Bill Rebane and Larry Buchanan. Buchanan’s films are awful, but as a remake artist he is barely even a director. Rebane is interesting because in the 12 years (!) between Monster a Go Go and Giant Spider Invasion he seems to have learned almost nothing about directing. Most amazing is his mismanagement of sound recording (“good thing they mic’ed the keyboard!”) in both films. While he usually gets a pass for Monster, he really shouldn’t. How exactly was that film supposed to end? We have no indication from any of the footage that Rebane had any idea.
Still, Coleman Francis is the worst because he had three tries, and each of them (Beast, Skydivers, Red Zone) was arguably worst than the last. He showed no development as a director, the photography, blocking, and acting of Red Zone Cuba (with the exception of John Carradine) is worse than Beast, and the sound is only better because Cuba had some. Most of all, though, all of Coleman’s films were in the dicussion of the worst of all time, and that is pretty amazing.
I think the best testament to Coleman’s awfulness is to compare Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda to The Sinister Urge, and realize what technical strides Wood made. Sure, the Sinister Urge is still awful, but it is far superior to any of Coleman’s films.
i dont get the criticism of Rebane for Spider Invasion. strapping the giant spider puppet to the VW was genius!
I vote for Coleman Francis. A lot of folks have mentioned Hal Warren and Jerry Warren (long-lost brothers, perhaps?). There’s a strong case to be made for those two, but I think there’s a key difference between them and Francis. The Warrens seem to have had some inkling that their movies were bad, which is why they tried to spice them up with cheesecake scenes.
Now, admittedly, that was a cheap tactic, and the “Manos” catfight provokes laughter rather than the titillation that H. Warren wanted to achieve. However, the mere fact that the two Warrens resorted to such tactics suggests a level of awareness that their films needed help.
Conversely, I imagine Coleman Francis saying to himself: “This is film is so exciting! We had John Carradine sing and we re-enacted the Bay of Pigs with seven guys on Lake Mead. And most of them were even armed! So let’s slow things down a bit with a prolonged scene of three guys trying and failing to put up the top on their stolen convertible.”