Les Crados, le film

As a lover of movies, I sat down to see The Garbage Pail Kids Movie after hearing from so many people how bad it was. Sometimes when I see "bad" movies, they are not so bad if mediocre,or movies that are so bad they're good, but there are other times when the movie that is supposed to be bad IS bad. This garbage belongs in the latter, it was so awful(in my opinion that is) that I didn't know whether to vomit or cry. I will give credit and say it is not quite the worst movie I have ever seen, but that isn't saying much.

Firstly, I do have to agree with other reviewers that this is one of the poorly written kids movies out there. I know this movie is supposed to be bad and mindless trash, but the dialogue alone makes it not only bad, it makes it garbage. The dialogue is mega lame and not quotable at all, and I didn't laugh once. The humour was also very grotesque, I know the cards are quite grotesque, and movies like Freddy Got Fingered had grotesque and very unsubtle humour, but The Garbage Pail Kids Movie takes the whole meaning of the word "grotesque" to a whole new level and in a bad way. Plus the pranks are very mean-spirited, as is the knockabout violence.

Then there is the story. What was the story again? To me, it had those talentless hacks Friedberg and Seltzer written over it, it is one of the most poorly constructed stories in a movie, with drawn out scenes, plodding pace you name it. Next, the production values, am I the only person who thought they were appalling? The sets were poor, the lighting was dim, the camera work was like direct to video quality, the special effects were laughable and the costumes were horrible. Don't get me wrong, I like 1980s fashion, it is funky and cool, but the costumes here made me want to gouge my eyes out.

Even the soundtrack was awful. Generic, lifeless and uninspired, even worse than the music in Disaster Movie, which sounded like it had been made up on the spot at last minute. Not to mention it is the epitome of cheesiness. And the acting was atrocious. Anthony Newley was wasted as Captain Manzini, and MacKenzie Astin is a bland and inept child protagonist. Juice and Tangerine are underdeveloped and clichéd, and Ali Gator, Greaser Greg and Nat Nerd are unlikeable and I think ugly characters with voices that have haunted me in my sleep since seeing the movie last night. And they wasted Jim Cummings completely here, the immortal voice actor who gave us Darkwing Duck, Dr RobotNik and Don Karnage has sounds utterly embarrassed here, it makes me want to cry.

Overall, absolutely awful. When I finished watching it, yes I watched the whole thing, I was like what was that? 1/10(and that is being kind, I could tell even from the title it wasn't going to be good). Bethany Cox

You people are insane and m' toissing the point.

When I was a teenager I used to take my friends out to the worst movie I could find on my birthday. I subjected them to everything from 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' to 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'

My piece dah rezistence was 'The Garbage Pail Kids Movie'.

This movie is so bad, it is almost impossible to find.

It makes 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 look like Citizen Kane'.

Please release this on DVD. In a universe where it's easier for me to buy 'Erin Brokovich' than 'The Garbage Pail Kids Movie' there is no god.

I can make a solid case on it being the worst I've seen because at least other movies can turn into "So bad it's good" or "So bad it's hilariously bad" or have multiple features that generate enjoyment. This movie had Anthony Newley. That's it. It encompasses the worst of the 80s, complete with unlikable characters, repulsive aliens who move their mouths with minimal effort, repetitive gross-out gags, the antithesis of warmth, joy, empathy or entertainment and one of the worst original songs spawned by rejects of Satan's orchestra.

Everyone involved in the making of this movie, from the coke-vacuuming, muckraking scum who financed it to the gaffer's newest apprentice, is going directly to hell.

This isn't just a bad movie. It's a psychotic, surreal journey into the realm of the profoundly grotesque. The Garbage Pail Kids themselves are terrible in their deformity, with exaggerated facial features and apparent elephantitis of the cranium making them hurtful to witness. Poorly-done animatronics make them all appear as if their facial muscles have been injected with lidocaine. They have a collective IQ of approximately 58.

It's not pleasant to watch. It's not funny, it's not kitschy, it's not camp. The dialogue is pat and smarmy, the characters stupid and forgettable, and the whole slimy mess reeks of greedy bastards trying to make a fistful of money on the flavor of the week. TGPKM is another example of how depressingly low the common denominator really is...and this was BEFORE the reality TV craze.

It hurts.

I already knew this movie was legendarily bad, so I only have myself to blame for sitting down and watching it when it came on TV. To understand how this atrocity came to be, you have to understand what they were thinking when they were making it. Garbage Pail Kids was a trading card parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids that was basically a gross or ridiculous take on them. They were so popular that someone somewhere thought, "What if we took this shallow concept completely dependent on making fun of another property and turn it into a feature length film?" It's notable that the Cabbage Patch people never actually tried to go that far (or at least, never succeeded).

What we got was an ill-conceived dumpster fire that is an abject failure in every way conceivable. I could spend all day talking about how the story is nonsensical and aimless, how the suits/animatronics are creepy and nightmarish, etc. But that stuff's been covered a million times, so I'm going to focus on the real odious aspect, and that's the characters: a collection of paper thin, unmotivated tropes. Dodger is your typical bullied kid daring to look for bigger and better things. He's antagonized by a bunch of bullies for no reason other than for us to feel sorry for him (though if they bullied him because of his stupid name, I'd understand). Then there are the Garbage Pail Kids themselves, who are bizarrely portrayed as protagonists despite being repulsive physically and personality-wise. You can imagine the type of comedic depth you will encounter with characters like "Valerie Vomit" and "Windy Winston." When the characters aren't constantly farting and peeing on themselves, they're at each others' throats or even aggressively stepping to Dodger. I can only imagine the audience's reception to E.T. if he repeatedly threatened to shank Elliott if he didn't get to phone home. We're supposed to be rooting for these guys?

The most bizarre part of an already ridiculous movie happens when the bullies kidnap the kids and send them to the "State Home for the Ugly," where people deemed too ugly are executed. Wait, what? What is this twisted, alternate Earth where they kill off ugly people and why is it so out of place in what was beforehand (and after) a disgusting, cliché 80's mess? Lincoln and Gandhi are locked up here so I guess it's insultingly implying the Kids are unconventional in appearance but important for their contribution to society, some sort of misplaced Aesop about true beauty coming from within...despite the Kids being genuinely horrific on the inside. The kids are rescued (unfortunately) but their execution would have been a fitting end to this disaster. There's also a silly romance plot with a girl named Tangerine of all things, facilitated by the Kids' sudden ability to sew fashionable clothes for her fashion show.

So yeah, it's offensively bad. Don't make the same mistake I did and waste you time with it. There's nothing here for you but tears and fecal matter.