The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made

It was fun watching the clips from these fifty movies, many of which I have not seen, but which appear to be great BadFilm. In fact, apart from actual trailer compilations like Something Weird Video's Extra Weird DVD, I haven't seen this much BadFilm outside of Arise! The SubGenius Video.

However, this compilation is only sixty minutes long, so little more than a minute can be spent on each one. Some clips run longer than others, so some movies barely appear. The running time could have stood to be doubled! However, from the end credits, it seems many of the clips came not from the movies themselves, but from the trailers for the movies (they credit Trailers on Tape).

There's also an irritating animation of silhouettes throwing popcorn at a movie screen which punctuates every entry on the countdown. This also really cuts into the amount of time they can spend showing clips from the movies.

There are no really surprising or bold choices here, and some obvious ones like Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Ishtar. I don't know that I would agree that these are the 50 Worst Movies Ever Made, I'm not sure if any of them are, honestly - but they are certainly mostly pretty bad. I'll stand up for Spider Baby as not deserving to be on this list; I think it is not a bad film, just a weird good one.

There is some brief nudity in it, and due the the heavy representation of horror films, some gore. And we can marvel at how many once-popular (even award-winning!) actors would up in these movies.

50 Worst Movies Ever Made, The (2004)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Whenever a magazine, critic or documentary tries to come up with a "Best Of" list you know controversy is going to follow. I think this documentary takes quite a bit of heat so let's just get some of the issues out up front. If you're looking for talking heads to explain why these movies are so bad then this isn't the film for you. We really don't even get clips showing us why the films are so bad as this is clearly a public domain documentary as it uses clips from the trailers and adds a few comments over them. The film runs just under an hour and when you consider there are fifty-movies that makes it very clear that not too much time is spent with any of them. I understand why many see the dumbness of any list but I've always enjoyed them simply because I enjoy reading other opinions on films. This one here has the obvious selections like GLEN OR GLENDA?, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, ROBOT MONSTER, KILLERS FROM SPACE, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, TEENAGE ZOMBIES, THE WILD WOMEN OF WONGO, EEGAH, THE CRAWLING HAND, TROG and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER. Now, the debate will always be how many films are worse than what's selected and that's certainly true here. I've seen countless Al Adamson films and God knows he's made many, many bad ones but only Dracula VS. FRANKENSTEIN gets mentioned here. I think many people would agree that this film is one of his better ones or at least more entertaining ones. Ed Wood's PLAN 9 cracks the top five but is KILLERS FROM SPACE really a better movie? I don't think so. Is SPIDER BABY really one of the worst movies ever made? Not to me. We even get some Italian films like GREAT WHITE and THE GREAT ALLIGATOR but anyone who is familiar with the genre will know there are much worse out there. So, there's a lot to disagree about but if you asked 1000 people to name the fifty worst movies ever made then every list would be different. There's certainly a lot more that could have been done with this thing but if you're a fan of bad movies then you'll get plenty of nice rentals here.

The content of the documentary itself is interesting. As a film fan I always am interested in bad films as well as good ones. The problem with this movie is just how it was done.

First of all, there's no rhyme or reason to the order. They're not in order of box office, Rotten Tomatoes rating, or IMDb score. It's just like some guy with Final Cut Pro made an hour long video from some cheap movies he bought and ordered them to his personal opinion. It's little different from the numerous lists on YouTube.

Then, there's no real discussion for the movie. Each segment is basically a minute or two of revealing the movie then pointing out the problems with it. It's almost like whoever made it just went through the Goofs section on IMDb.

Finally, the original content is pretty poor. It's the same lousy animation with the same library sound effects between each segment. Again, nothing that no ordinary person couldn't do with FCP.

It's an interesting subject matter, but I wish whoever made this put some more thought into it.

This abomination of a list makes WatchMojo look like Siskel and Ebert. The announcer is clearly being overly ecstatic and it's horrifyingly bad. Trash.

I love watching bad movie and have gleefully done so since I received Harry Medved's great book "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time". However, despite the same title, this film is not based on Medved's book. Some of this is good--after all, the book came out in the late 70s and there have been a lot of bad films since. However, it also seems like the makers of this film were cashing in on Medved's idea and made no mention of him or his book and that just seems a bit sleazy.

What also didn't impress me is that although the film was about bad films, the overall look of the documentary was incredibly cheap. For instance, the same exact cheap animation of an audience throwing food at the screen was used again and again and again. Also, while the narration wasn't too bad, the same guy did everything and the film would have benefited from a panel of experts on bad films--something to make it more interesting.

I have a few other negative observations. There was too strong an emphasis on 50s-60s cheap drive-in horror films. A more well-rounded list would have been more interesting. While most of the picks were fitting, a few of the films weren't quite bad enough to merit inclusion. Now I am NOT saying that THE KILLER SHREWS, TROG, THE APE and SPIDER BABY were wonderful films, but they just weren't that bad and several had excellent "camp value". Also, while THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK definitely deserved inclusion, the clips they showed were all pretty good. None of the over-the-top wretched scenes were included (such as the kid with a claw hand chasing a pet bunny as the evil national guard shot him down). Finally, there also is a fair amount of nudity, so parents are cautioned about letting little ones watch the film--and that all seemed a bit unnecessary. I'm not upset that some rather adult films were chosen, just baffled why they chose to include some clips that make this a very family-unfriendly film.

However, despite my complaints, the documentary certainly was enjoyable, albeit the pace is a bit rushed to get it all into just 60 minutes. As I sat watching, I wrote down titles to watch. Most of the picks were NOT included in the book, so it gives me a lot of ideas. Plus, many of Medved's choices of films are simply impossible to find today (being unavailable on VHS or DVD)--so it's nice to find that most films listed in the film are available. In general, the clips and commentary were well done--making this a must-see for bad film fans like myself.