Alien Beasts, aka Mutant Massacre (1991) – I very rarely give full commentary on movies that I don’t finish, but in this case I must make an exception, for this — YES, THIS — is officially the worst movie (by the definition of “audiovisual presentation that continues for a feature’s length”) ever made. Worse than The Star Wars Holiday Special. Worse than Bad Magic. Worse than I Stand Alone. Worse than Zombie Gangbangers. Worse than Unnaturally Born Killers. This is truly the nadir of cinema.
What makes it so, you ask? An entire absence of ability in
- Cinematography. I don’t expect soaring visuals from camcorder epics, but the ability to aim the camera at what you’re trying to show is a baseline.
- Editing. Images with no relation are juxtaposed without explanation, except for those times where a minutes-long shot nevertheless tells us nothing.
- Screenwriting. Dialog is kept to a minimum, which is good, because the words spoken (in the stilted tone that tells you that they were memorized from a script, not simply blurted out under the influence of Tourette’s Syndrome) convey no information, either about the story of the characters speaking them.
- Acting. Given how much of it is looped in post-production, you might we willing to give some of the acting a pass, right? No. In situations that are supposed to be dangerous and violent, the actors — both assailants and victims — show all of the thespian ability of someone with two left feet trying to follow a waltzing foot chart on the floor for the first time.
- Narrative. Within the first half-hour, you should have learned something about the story premise. Or possibly who the protagonist is. Or maybe who the antagonists are. Or why you should care.
- Even spelling. Frequent title cards (which are stumblingly read for us TWICE each time — “Repeat!” — showcase only that nobody cared enough to correct typos, or to look up how a word is supposed to be spelled.
I lasted a full twenty-nine minutes before realizing that no good would redound to myself personally or the world as a whole from exposing myself to it further.
Do you think I’m exaggerating? This is the trailer. This is supposed to make people want to watch the movie.
Unlucky Stars (2015) – And yet, after that ordeal, the universe turned around and did me a solid. This is a little action-comedy about a private eye who also does some bounty-hunting on the side for a local crime boss; also about a Peruvian action star trying to make the leap to American movies, and his number-one fan who fancies himself a martial-arts champion without any training; also about a Big Brother-style reality show about a house for of hair-triggered former action stars.
And here’s the kicker: Every single one is a stupendous martial artist. (Except the number-one fan.) It’s like every fit young martial artist in the San Francisco area decided to collectively make a movie in which their chops could be shown off.
It sounds like it should suck. But the fights are energetic and fun, no one is put in a role beyond his or her acting chops, and the jokes land as solidly as the fists.
Even more amazing, it’s revealed in the closing credits (in between the bloopers and retakes showing actors slamming face first into the ground repeatedly) that the cast were also the camera operators, with whoever wasn’t performing apparently grabbing the camera. AND IT STILL LOOKS GREAT.
My recommendation is unalloyed.
Reptilian, aka Yonggary (1999) – At the time of production, this movie (a pseudo-remake of a 1967 Korean-made kaiju movie) was the most expensive South Korean film ever. That fact is startling, because that money ended up somewhere other than on the screen. Even before talking about the special effects, lighting and cinematography are par for a low-end TV movie, and then the CGI… Oof. Solidly in the SyFy Original quality bracket.
Then throw the script, which could have been written by a couple of twelve-year-olds, to a bunch of nobody non-Korean actors (I recognized exactly one of them, “Ryan as Old Man” from Saving Private Ryan), with the rest of the cast filled out by whatever foreigner in Korea could pass the audition for the non-English-speaking director…
It should surprise no one that the sequel, originally intended to ride the tide of all that anticipated international box-office money, failed to materialize.