BAD CINEMA: THE APPLE

The forgotten but campy The Apple is often considered the worst musical of all time. Apparently 1980 wasn’t exactly the best year to try a musical. Director Menahem Golan co-owned The Cannon Group with his cousin, Yoram Globus. They made some cheesy but popular films, like Breakin’, American Ninja, and Missing in Action. They were also responsible for disasters like Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and the famously bad 1990 version of Captain America that never made it to American theaters. 

The Apple somehow tries to combine a future version of the Eurovision Song Contest (here, the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival) and a parable of the dangers of the entertainment industry with, wait for it, The Bible. You have analogues for Adam, Eve, and The Devil (Mr. Boogalow, who owns a label, of course). You have variations on temptation scenes (title song The Apple, which includes a sort of tour of Hell with dumb as anything lyrics “It’s a natural, natural, natural desire/Meet an actual, actual, actual vampire”). The climax of the film is The Rapture. Seriously, this is a real movie. Utterly crazy doesn’t even really cover it. But sadly, it’s not an eminently rewatchable kind of crazy. It’s just terrible.

This futuristic retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, set in the distant year of 1994. Mr. Boogalow is a record company executive who is symbolically the devil. Catherine Mary Stewart and George Gilmour are two Canadian ingénues who try to revive the long-dormant art of the love song (so 1970s!). Mr. Boogalow quickly puts a stop to that by tempting Stewart to the disco scene. The movie pretty much hits its record industry target, and predicts American Idol (except that, instead of soulless disco songs, for the most part the contestants on that show sing soulless ballads). It's not the stupidest movie in the world. On the other hand, it is one of the most garish imaginable, with its goofy futuristic clothes (people in the future always tend to like shiny things a lot), and the songs are beyond horrible. I do not recognize any stars in the film, and maybe that is for the best for all involved...

MY BAD RATING: 9 OUT OF 10

BAD CINEMA: WICKED STEPMOTHER

One of the worst movies that I remember seeing is 1989's Wicked Stepmother. The film is a poorly made black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Bette Davis and Barbara Carrera. Wicked Stepmother is best known for being the last film of Bette Davis, who withdrew from the project after filming began, citing major problems with the script, Cohen's direction, and the way she was being photographed. Cohen later claimed she really dropped out due to ill health but avoided publicizing the truth for fear it would affect potential future employment. Davis disputed this claim.

The original plot cast Davis as the title character, a chain-smoking witch named Miranda, who has married Sam while his vegetarian daughter Jenny and son-in-law Steve are on vacation. They return to find their new stepmother has filled their refrigerator with meat and played havoc with their collection of herbs. To explain Davis' absence, the script was rewritten to introduce Miranda's daughter Priscilla, a witch who inhabited Miranda's cat. They both share one existence in human form and while one is human the other must live in the form of a cat the rest of the time. Priscilla takes on a human form while Miranda's spirit inhabits the body of the cat. Priscilla then sets out to defeat Jenny who has figured out that there is something going on. Priscilla uses witchcraft and deception to convince everyone Jenny is wrong. The entire time she refuses to switch bodies with Miranda. Jenny then figures out that they're witches and tries to stop them from ruining her family.

The cast included some familiar faces in addtion to Bette Davis. Old supporting actors like Lionel Stander, Evelyn Keyes, and Seymour Cassel make appearances in this dreadful film. Joan Crawford appears in a photo as the deceased wife of Sam and mother of Jenny. The estranged relationship between Jenny and her late mother is a reference to the exposé memoir Mommie Dearest, written by Crawford's adopted daughter, Christina Crawford. Crawford was also known for her feud with Davis during the filming of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.

The movie surprisingly cost $2.5 million to make and initially only took in $44,000. Had Bette Davis stayed in the film, it might have been different. Sadly, this is the last movie that Bette Davis was a part of, and it ranks up there as one of the worse movies of all time...

MY BAD RATING: 10 OUT OF 10

BAD CINEMA: A CHORUS LINE

As many of you know, I was raised on liking musicals. My Grandfather instilled in me a love of the song and dance movies of the 1940s and 1950s. I go through phases when I am more into musicals than at other times. I have Pandora streaming on my phone, and I have a musical station where I have been discovering some of the more modern musicals that I never really got into. I recently discovered the music of A Chorus Line. It is really out of this world. I have never seen a performance of the show, but I recently picked up a copy of the 1985 movie version. To say that this did not transfer to the screen would be an understatement!

In this poor cinematic retelling of the Broadway classic, dancers auditioning for a famous choreographer (Michael Douglas) show off their skills. But for the finalists, the dance steps quickly give way to more personal, and affecting, confessions about life: wayward fathers; embarrassing moments; and the hardship of constantly hustling for chorus jobs, among others. In the group is Sheila (Vicki Frederick), a thirtysomething dancer who proves she’s not past her prime; Diana (Yamil Borges), who sings of an acting teacher who made her feel nothing; and Cassie (Alyson Reed), a stage actress who sought Hollywood fame, only to return and start over.

Let’s start with the complaints: Though the Broadway version does somewhat hint at its age, this one outright screams it -- the lighting, the leg warmers, the cheesy keyboard and guitar riffs. And it’s not exactly faithful to the original, with flashbacks to bone up one romantic storyline, though it’s close. As for the actors, though they do a fine enough job, especially with the dancing. But one gets the feeling that, with few exceptions, they’d be understudies if they were onstage. There’s little electricity, no momentum. And the show’s signature song, “What I Did for Love” is sadly misused.

Nevertheless, one can’t argue with the brilliance of the show itself, whose basic essence is intact (though some songs, sadly, haven’t been transferred to the screen). The stories of triumphs and failures, of lives perpetually on the brink between stardom and chorus-line anonymity have survived, and, with some major caveats, so has this movie.

Michael Douglas looked bored in his role and had little enthusiasm. Seriously, Audrey Landers in a movie musical? For those that don't remember Audrey Landers - she was not know for being a Cyd Charisse! The film looks drab, the musical number uninspired, and now I understand why audiences stayed away from the movie. The film surprisingly cost $25 million to make and only made about $14 million in its initial run. I'm surprised that it made that much! Check out A Chorus Line if you are dare, and let me know if you agree with me. This is one of the worst musicals ever made! It makes Lucille Ball's Mame look like Singin In The Rain...

MY BAD RATING: 8 OUT OF 10

BAD CINEMA: POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD

My friend is a guru of bad B-movies, and he has instilled in me a love of this genre of films so bad they are good. A couple of weeks ago, we went to a midnight viewing of the film Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead. Yes, that is the name of movie - it was everything I thought the movie was and more!

The film is a 2006 black comedy musical-horror film from Troma Entertainment, directed by Lloyd Kaufman and co-directed by former long-time Troma editor Gabriel Friedman from a screenplay by Friedman and Daniel Bova. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead was released in 2006 in theaters and in 2008 on DVD. Poultrygeist follows a group of consumers and ordinary citizens who are trapped inside a New Jersey fried chicken fast food restaurant – the American Chicken Bunker – which is being attacked by a chicken-possessed zombie demonic alien spirit because the building is erected on top of a sacred Native American burial ground. The protagonist is Arbie (Jason Yachanin), an ACB employee trying to win back the heart of his ex-girlfriend Wendy (Kate Graham), an activist protesting against the restaurant, who has left Arbie for another woman.

Poultrygeist first began as a spec script of the same title submitted to Troma Entertainment by Daniel Bova around 2002. After a number of re-writes at the hands of several Troma employees, the script reached a final draft in 2004, completed by long-time Troma editor Gabriel Friedman. Then given the title Poultrygeist: Attack of the Chicken Zombies, Troma heavily promoted the film in the mid-2000s in an attempt to gain funding, though ultimately failed to secure adequate financing.

The budget for Poultrygeist was roughly around $500,000, a typical budget for a Troma film. A large part of the film's financing came out-of-pocket from Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, while Kaufman and his wife, Patricia Swinney Kaufman, dipped into their personal retirement savings to help fund the film.

Much of Poultrygeist's crew was made up entirely of volunteers who had answered advertisements posted by Troma on such websites as Craigslist and horror-based message boards looking for available crew members. According to Fangoria, hundreds of people applied, and volunteers traveled from as far as Sweden, Germany, Australia and numerous parts of the United States to work on the film, serving in various crew positions or as production assistants. Duggie Banas, who composed the movie's musical numbers, became attached to the film after answering an online ad looking for composers who'd be willing to work on a film for free. Many of the props and masks featured in the film were donations from special effects studios from around the world.

Shot on 35 mm film by long-time Troma cinematographer Brendan C. Flynt, principal photography for Poultrygeist took place during the summer of 2005 at an abandoned McDonald's in the Bailey-Kensington neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. Over 80 crew members and 300 unpaid extras worked on the film. A nearby abandoned church was rented out by Troma, where over 70 cast and crew members resided for the duration of the shoot, despite only housing one working bathroom.

As chronicled in Poultrygeist's making-of documentary Poultry in Motion: Truth Is Stranger Than Chicken, the production was plagued with numerous problems, including malfunctioning special effects, delayed and over-scheduled filming, pay disputes with the actors and even the restaurant set being prematurely deconstructed on the last day of shooting. Despite the production hardships, Poultrygeist managed to successfully complete its principal photography by August 2005.

The film is no Citizen Kane, and I was worried I would not make it to stay awake seeing this film at midnight, but the film kept me captivated. The musical numbers were great, and even though the acting was cheesy - I laughed a lot and just simply enjoyed this crazy movie...

MY BAD RATING: 10 OUT OF 10

BAD CIMEMA: BAD TASTE

This will hopefully become a new feature on my blog where I review a "bad" movie. In reality there are no "bad movies" as this review suggests...

My friend loves bad movies, which I do to, be he takes it to another level. We had movie night a couple of months ago, and he showed me Peter Jackson's first feature movie Bad Taste from 1987, and I admit is was so bad it was good. Bad Taste was basically a  splatter science fiction horror comedy film directed, written, produced, photographed, co-edited by and co-starring Peter Jackson, who also made most of the makeup and special effects. Produced on a low budget, it is Jackson's first feature film. Jackson and friends take on most of the key roles, both on and off-screen.

The plotline sees aliens invade the fictional New Zealand village of Kaihoro to harvest humans for their intergalactic fast food franchise, where they face off against a four-man paramilitary force, of which at least one member appears to have gone insane. It was a film that provided Jackson with the necessary leverage needed to advance in the industry. Since its release, Bad Taste has become a cult film and has received generally positive reviews.

Much of the film was shot in and around Jackson's hometown of Pukerua Bay, north of Wellington, New Zealand using a 25-year-old 16mm camera. Originally begun as a short film, Bad Taste was shot primarily on weekends over the course of four years, at an initial cost of around $25,000. Toward the end of the shoot the New Zealand Film Commission invested around NZ$235,000 into the film to ensure its completion. Heavily influenced by special effects pioneer Tom Savini, Jackson incorporated many absurdly gory special effects.

Jackson himself plays at least two acting roles, and his friends and workmates play most of the rest. In one early scene halfway down a cliff, careful editing, utilising shots taken months apart, makes it possible for the two characters, Agent Derek and the alien Robert (both played by Jackson), to fight one another (Robert has a beard, Derek does not).

Bad Taste begins Jackson's penchant for using the Morris Minor in his films - Giles drives a Morris Minor. Subsequently, every car in Meet the Feebles is a Morris Minor (including a limousine) and several are seen in Braindead.

The firearms used in the film were all fake. They were made using aluminium tubing and the actors had to shake them to simulate the recoil. A flash and sound effect was added later during post production.

All the alien masks in the film were baked in Peter Jackson's mother's oven.

The first few minutes of the movie got me hooked, despite the whole absursidty of the whole plot. It is hard to imagine that the director of this film would go on to direct The Hobbit movies and King Kong (2005), but the film is great for its genre. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see director Peter Jackson in the breakthrough movie of his career or anyone that loves "bad" movies. I am not giving this a rating as if it is The Shawshank Redemption, but I am giving it a rating for what it is...just stupid fun!

MY BAD RATING: 9 OUT 10

BAD CINEMA: VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS

Last night not much was on television, so my go-to channel is always Turner Classic Movies. They had a movie I had never seen before, and it was so awful I could not turn away. It was amazingly bad. The movie was called Village Of The Giants.

Village of the Giants is a 1965 science-fiction/comedy movie with many elements of the beach party film genre. It was produced, directed and written by Bert I. Gordon, and based loosely on H.G. Wells's book The Food of the Gods. The story revolves mostly around a chemical substance called "Goo", which causes giant growth in living things, and what happens after a gang of rebellious youngsters get their hands on it. The cast was mostly teens, or young actors playing teens, and The Beau Brummels and Freddy Cannon make musical guest appearances.

The movie was a low-budget exploitation film and not a huge hit (released mostly to drive-ins as part of a double bill), but had some notable use of special effects and undoubted sex appeal, and went on to become a cult classic. The movie proved far more successful years later, when released on home video.

The movie's instrumental theme song, by composer and arranger Jack Nitzsche, was originally released as "The Last Race" on Reprise Records, months before the movie appeared.

The Beau Brummels, singers Freddy Cannon and Mike Clifford all make appearances. Cannon enjoyed a string of hits during the Sixties (including "Palisades Park" and "Tallahassee Lassie"), and performs "Little Bitty Corrine" in his signature style (wearing a cardigan sweater in the summertime!), while Mike Clifford (veteran of The Ed Sullivan Show, and later an actor) croons the movie's obligatory slow song, "Marianne". (Clifford is also credited with another song, "Nothing can Stand in my Way", but this does not appear in the film). There was no official soundtrack release for this movie.

Debi Storm completed her role as the Sheriff's daughter in just three days. Vicki London, who played Georgette, is absent from the screen for most of the giant scenes in the movie. Robert Random and Joy Harmon each also appeared in episodes of Gidget, which debuted in the fall of 1965. (Their height remained normal.) Other notable cast members include Beau Bridges (big brother of Jeff Bridges, son of "Seahunt" and "Airplane" Lloyd Bridges and an A-list actor in his own right), "Ronny" Howard, Academy Award winning director, actor and producer, Johnny Crawford (Chuck Connors son in "The Rifleman)and Toni Basil, choreographer (The Lockers), dancer, actress and one hit wonder ("Ricky").

The cat appearing in this film was named Orangey (later renamed Minerva), and Village of the Giants was the second time he played the role of a cat larger than a human, the first being Scott Carey's (actor Grant Williams) pet in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). His most famous roles were as "Rhubarb" in the film Rhubarb (1951) and the cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).

In January 1994, Village of the Giants was featured as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (episode 523). The episode was dedicated in memoriam to the recently deceased Frank Zappa.

I can't believe I watched the whole movie, but I did. I actually recommend this movie to anyone who wants to say they saw one of the worst movies of all time...

MY BAD RATING: 5 OUT OF 10