Birds, gorillas, and Ben Affleck: 10 movies so irredeemably bad they demand to be seen
They say it’s better to be bad than forgettable, and while nobody wants to have their name associated with a black mark against the good name of cinema, it’s an inescapable inevitability of the medium.
Bad movies happen, and some filmmakers have even made a career out of it, but there are some that exist on an altogether different plane. Everyone has seen at least a handful of films so awful they never want to see them ever again, but on the other side of the coin, in certain cases it’s a necessity.
Never through design and always by accident, a smattering of features have somehow made it through development, writing, shooting, and post-production to arrive on the screen in such an abysmal state that they carry no redeeming qualities whatsoever but demand to be seen for those exact reasons.
The following ten flicks are all awful, awful things, but in their own unique way, they’re the sort of travesties that need to be watched at least once if to become enthralled by witnessing just how badly awry things can go.
10 movies so bad they must be seen:
10. Gigli (Martin Brest, 2003)
Martin Brest was left so traumatised by Gigli that not only has he never directed another movie since, but the Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Scent of a Woman helmer can’t even bring himself to mention it by name.
“I refer to it as ‘the G movie’, probably the less said about the better,” he admitted to Variety, but not without damning it as a “ghostly cadaver of a movie.” Those are harsh words to come from anybody, never mind the person who directed the thing, but can Gigli really be as bad as Brest remembers?
The answer is a resounding and unequivocal yes, but there’s still something fascinating about it. Beyond the infamous “gobble gobble” line, it’s possible to see Ben Affleck gradually realising that his career is in danger of evaporating in front of his very eyes, with Christopher Walken and Al Pacino slumming it, too. It’s a star-powered atrocity of the highest order, which makes it appointment viewing for anyone who wants to see what happens when a collection of top talents combine their might on a flaming dumpster fire.
9. Samurai Cop (Amir Shervan, 1991)
At first glance, Samurai Cop might appear to be a parody of the action genre that plays out with its tongue planted firmly in cheek. Except it’s not, and was designed with the intention of being treated as a serious movie, which is precisely what makes it a must-see.
Things were planned so poorly star Matt Hannon shaved his hair off under the impression shooting had wrapped, which it hadn’t forced him to sport a laughably unconvincing wig. The fight sequences were planned out a whole 15 minutes in advance, the tone shifts wildly from scene to scene, and director Amir Shervan botched the fundamentals so badly that he ended up doing an estimated 80% of the ADR.
The title is entirely self-explanatory, but Samurai Cop unfolds in such spectacularly cack-handed fashion that it’s become something of a midnight favourite, not that it was the intention of the creative team to concoct such a fixating exercise in accidental hilarity.
8. The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008)
There are merits to The Happening when it’s viewed as a comedy, which obviously wasn’t how director M. Night Shyamalan wanted anyone to approach his environmentally-themed thriller, but it does make for an inadvertently entertaining time.
The Lady in the Water hinted it was coming, but this is the exact moment Shyamalan bought too much into his own hype, disappeared straight up his own arse, and only emerged from the other side when he decided to rebuild his tattered reputation from the ground up. Even Mark Wahlberg can’t defend it, which is saying something when his filmography is littered with many steaming turds of cinema.
The leading man always looks as if he’s holding in a particularly dangerous fart, which hardly conveys that he’s supposed to be a teacher with an in-depth knowledge of science, while the famed ‘talking to plants’ scene has taken on a life of its own. The Happening is every bit as bad as its reputation would suggest, but play it for laughs, and it’s well worth checking out.
7. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (James Nguyen, 2010)
Many filmmakers have been inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, but few have besmirched the good name of ‘The Master of Suspense’ like James Nguyen, who spent no less than four years piecing together his passion project Birdemic: Shock and Terror.
For all that time and effort, the results are catastrophic. The sound equipment barely picks up a thing worth hearing, the lighting is non-existent, and the visual effects give off the impression that somebody had been plucked from the street and given the job despite never having even seen a computer in person before.
It’s filmmaking at the very bottom of the barrel, but it’s also kind of charming in its own way. As a work of art, it’s the drizzling shits, of course, but marketing it as a hybrid of science fiction, thriller, and romance is an especially ballsy move when the actors can’t act, the birds don’t look or behave like birds and the ‘Birdemic’ of the title doesn’t even begin until halfway through.
6. Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)
Before Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven‘s previous three features were RoboCop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct, so it doesn’t take a genius to discover the exact moment the wheels started to come off his prosperous Hollywood career.
Poor Elizabeth Berkley never recovered from being plunged into an NC-17 erotic thriller that was about as titillating as watching paint dry and half as exciting. Verhoeven and satire often go hand-in-hand, but he opted to leave his subversive streak at the door in favour of completely unintentional and uninhibited silliness, which evolved into becoming Showgirls‘ sole redeeming feature.
Watching people flap around like beached orcas during a hot tub-set sex scene, repeated – and increasingly sinister – references to jizz being made by the same character, sex scenes shot with all the gusto of an in memoriam segment, and dialogue so cringeworthy it’ll cause gritted teeth have all conspired to make it a kitschy, camp cult classic, with its incoherence on every level becoming a defining trait.
5. The Cat in the Hat (Bo Welch, 2003)
Mike Myers only made The Cat in the Hat to avoid being sued for breach of contract, but Dr. Seuss’ widow was left so horrified by the end result that she was left with no other choice but to prevent such a disaster from ever happening on her watch again.
From that moment on, adapting her late husband’s works for live-action has been strictly prohibited, with animation now the sole domain of the Seuss back catalogue. The Cat in the Hat is supposed to be a children’s film – possibly, it’s never entirely clear – but there’s something to unsettling and bizarre about it that it’s impossible to look away from.
A family-friendly flick loaded with sneaky dirty jokes and double entendres, it would take the most minor of plot developments to convincingly reveal Myers’ title character as a serial killer or creep of some sort. That’s not what The Cat in the Hat was supposed to be, but that’s what it is, and nobody has ever really been able to figure out why.
4. Congo (Frank Marshall, 1995)
When Steven Spielberg‘s adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel became the highest-grossing movie in history, it was all systems go for Hollywood to begin snapping up the rest of his bibliography. Suffice to say, dear reader, Congo is no Jurassic Park.
It’s got Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, and Bruce Campbell among its eclectic cast, Tim Curry is hamming it up for the cheap seats, and Delroy Lindo’s unforgettable bellowing of “Stop eating my sesame cake!” makes it worth a watch, even if it’s a jungle-set adventure with no suspense, tangible thrills, or excitement. The humour is entirely unintentional, but it’s glorious as a result.
Where else could a captive audience bear witness to a team of scientists going berserk and unloading on a small army of hyper-intelligent gorillas with laser-powered rifles? Nowhere else but Congo, baby, which is all it takes to make the seven-time Golden Raspberry Award nominee must-see nonsense.
3. Manos: The Hands of Fate (Harold P. Warren, 1966)
One of the first movies to capture the imagination of cinephiles everywhere solely through the means of being inexplicably terrible on every imaginable level, horror gem Manos: The Hands of Fate‘s very origins are indicative of the status it would go on to attain.
Director Harold P. Warren made a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant (who dodged a bullet not writing this one) that because he thought it was easy enough to do, he could make a horror movie all by himself. The story originated on a napkin then and there, which sums up Manos and its approach to filmmaking in a nutshell.
All of the dialogue is overdubbed, the storyline makes no sense whatsoever and pinballs all over the shop at random with no explanation offered, the acting is atrocious, the technical aspects are non-existent, and it beggars belief this thing was made with the intention of proving a point. It proved that Warren was entirely clueless and abjectly hopeless, at least, but there’s not a soul with a soft spot for bad cinema that doesn’t need to see Manos at least once.
2. Fateful Findings (Neil Breen, 2012)
Neil Breen has become something of a cult hero for continually making movies that are staggeringly bad with a completely straight face, to the point where some folks are genuinely starting to believe that he’s in on the joke and making avant-garde masterpieces. He’s not, but Fateful Findings should still be devoured.
Breen wrote, directed, played the lead role, produced, co-edited, and composed the score for the DIY sci-fi, as well as serving as its accountant, caterer, sound designer, location manager, production designer, set decorator, costumer, lighting designer, and makeup and effects artist. Like all of his films, it’s very much a passion project, and also it sucks tremendously.
He plays a famous author with a penchant for hacking who infiltrates government systems and uses his inherent gifts to single-handedly rid the world of corruption. He also develops psychic powers along the way because why not, with Fateful Findings standing tall as the magnum opus of a talent like no other.
1. Plan 9 from Outer Space (Ed Wood, 1957)
The posterchild for bad movies, Ed Wood’s sci-fi Plan 9 from Outer Space might be one of the most shoddily-constructed spectacles the medium has ever seen, but it’s also developed an enduring fandom for those exact reasons.
He was never blessed with even an ounce of skill as a filmmaker, but when it comes to sheer passion, there are few to have ever gone toe-to-toe with Wood. On an artistic level, Plan 9 from Outer Space is the pits, but as a camp classic that thrives on how dreadful it is from the very first frame to the last, it’s earned that reputation as a cult classic.
Being named as a contender for the worst motion picture that’s ever existed isn’t something the majority of filmmakers would consider an honour, but Wood would have probably worn it as a badge of pride, with Plan 9 from Outer Space standing out as the cream of an exceedingly crappy crop.
