Nothing But Trouble (1991)

This is a movie that is definitely one of a kind. It's a unique blend of horror and comedy with bizarre cast, some really colorful characters,great sets and lots of special effects. To give a small taste of how weird this movie is you need not look any further than the cast list: Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John candy as two characters (one being a woman), a cameo from a very young Tupac Shakur (as a backup singer in the Digital Underground), and Dan Akroyd as three different characters in tons of heavy makeup. Dan Akroyd wrote, directed produced, and starred in this film as a 100 year old puritanical judge, and two morbidly obese redneck babies. The movie contains a spooky house full of booby traps and junk everywhere (think History channel's Hoarders), weird gadgets (including a train that delivers food and shoots pickles), and a deadly rollercoaster death machine called "Mister Bonestripper" that even has its own theme song. Other than what I just described of the film, it's plot can be very difficult 

to describe due to its constant shift in mood, tone, and genre at times, so I will not try describe the plot here any further. I will add however that this film is essentially a Tim Burton comedy version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How anybody thought any of this movie up on their own, let alone combined it all is a feat in and of itself. The even more amazing accomplishment is that somehow somebody green-lit Dan Akroyd's bat-shit insane story and gave it a large hollywood budget. The movie was a huge box office flop on its initial release and indeed it is hard to call this film a "good" movie. There are a lot of hollywood cliches here in the form of forced romances, actors playing racial stereotypes, some overly annoying characters and other factors make the film indeed less than perfect. That being said though I have seen this movie three different times and watched it with four different people and have yet to find people (who already enjoy weird and unusual movies) that did not have fun while watching this. The movie's feel is so unique and it's such an oddity that it's uniqueness seems to be redeeming enough so that you can overlook its cheesiness and at times terrible jokes or gags. If you enjoy the weird and unusual, cult movies, or any of the film's stars, I recommend Nothing But Trouble, and I think this movie is ripe enough for a comeback as a cult classic. I give it 4/5. You can watch the trailer here.  P.S. someone please help me turn this amazing still of dan akroyd eating a hot dog into a gif or meme, thank you.

Suburban Sasquatch (2004)

I can honestly say the quality of this cover art is better than the whole film.

I usually review good movies here on my blog but lately I saw gem so horrible it deserves to be as beloved as other horrible films like The Room, Birdemic or Troll 2. This is basically people fooling around with a camcorder with spectacularly horrible results. Every possible error you could ever have in a film is present in this. And every time you think something clever might happen in this film it shatters all hopes and expectations. The movie is about Big Foot causing a ruckus in suburbia. The plot is so poorly constructed though that stuff just sort of happens and there is no real flow to this movie, most of the characters don't even have names. The Sasquatch costume is very clearly a cheap Halloween costume, and all other props were very clearly bought from a Halloween store as well (severed limbs and whatnot). Pretty much whenever there isn't a bat-shit insane sasquatch attack happening there is horrible boring dialogue that makes no sense that sounds like the stupid crap people think sounds super intelligent when they're stoned out of their minds. There are some fantastic lines in this film though like a child's mother trying to reassure him that bigfoot isn't real: "He's not real timmy that's why he's never around, like the Boogeyman or your father." Also the sasquatch somehow has supernatural powers and can teleport anywhere (and apparently he can grow taller for some reason?). The hilariousness of how horrible this film is cannot be underestimated: during driving sequences character very clearly drive around in circles, in certain scenes they reuse the same shot five times, there is a fabulous attack scene 

"I don't believe, I sell!"
actual line from this man.

where the sasquatch attacks a stopped car  and during the scene the editor mixes shots of both the car moving and stopped, the sasquatch's growl sounds like an upset stomach, there are many scenes of the sasquatch goofily flailing his arms around, the "cave" where the sasquatch lives is very clearly someone's garage or basement with a black garbage bag draped on the wall, and the film's racist stereotype of a Native American woman who is supposed to be a mystical archery expert hits the sasquatch fifty times  

throughout the film (sometimes with Nerf arrows, sometimes with horrible CG arrows) and they never have any affect. Also this movie has continuity and editing errors up the wazoo, most of the time you can tell they just used the camera's external microphone. The movie also has atrocious CG effects. The police officers have worse costumes than the cops in Scooby Doo, and most of the time they never drive a cop car, not to mention they talk directly into a fax machine because somehow the makers of this piece of shit couldn't even afford a damn Walkie Talkie! Not to mention the Newspaper office and the Police Office are very clearly shot inside of an elementary school building. The movie does have some amazing death scenes though. There is one scene where the yeti rips out a man's own intestines and feeds them to him!  This is the perfect movie to rip apart and do commentary on with a group of friends. The worst kind of movie is one that is so horrible that there is nothing entertaining or enjoyable about it what so ever, and there are a lot of movies that fall into that category that actually have decent production values and actually follow the rules of cinema 101 very well. There are also movies that are designed to intentionally be horrible. And then there is the best kind of horrible movie, the one that is so bad it is unintentionally hilarious like the play "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers. Suburban sasquatch falls into the latter category and for that reason it cannot be judged or evaluated in the same sense that one uses for "good" movies. Therefore as a "So-bad-it's-good" movie I give Suburban Sasquatch a 5/5, but in a traditional sense I give it a -9001/5. Here is a video review and some clips of the movie's best moments.

They look more like UPS men than Cops.

Maniac Cop (1988)

I picked this one up because of its rep as a big cult classic and I heard it was a "so bad it's good" movie, but overall it treaded the line between being an actual "good" movie and a "so bad its good"  movie. So overall I would say it's just a "bad" movie, but one did have some entertainment value to it. The film is about exactly what it sounds like, a "maniac cop" that goes around killing innocent people, but what's interesting is that the killer may or may not be an undead former police officer (that is what attracted me to this film). The film has somewhat of a traditional 80s slasher feel to it, but it tries to hard to be an intelligent mystery with a twist (which it's not), the twist and overall "mystery" are pretty predictable and have easily found solutions (they actually show you the name tag on the uniform of the killer in the movie's opening sequence). Tom Atkins plays the cop who is on the trail of the maniac cop throughout most of the film, and Bruce Campbell (who appeared in this film and it's 1st sequel in between filming Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness) plays the prime suspect who claims he's innocent. I loved Tom Atkins in The Fog, Halloween III, and of course Night of the Creeps, he's still good in this film but I think the writing was a little hokey overall for everyone in this film. Bruce Campbell really shines with his typical slapstick style towards the end of the film, and that quite frankly is the best part of this movie. In the last 15-20 minutes or so is when the most action occurs, Bruce Campbell starts being Bruce Campbell, the maniac cop is revealed and all the good stuff happens, the rest of the film is not as entertaining as the ending. Also another problem with the film is when they finally do reveal the killer's face the makeup is so bad and actors face is so bizarre that all the ominous scary atmosphere of the film and persona of the killer gets washed away with the first glimpse of the killer's face, which needless to say is a big let down. The titular cop is played by cult and B-movie veteran Robert Z'dar (along with his inhumanly large jaw, which is all natural by the way), and he went on to reprise his role in the film's following two sequels. The film itself is directed by William Lustig who aside from this film and its sequels is most known for the infamously gorey 80s slasher Maniac. Overall the film was alright but it could've been so much better if it made up its mind and went with full on seriousness, or full on wackiness, it was too in-between for me so I give it a 3/5. It did have a great tag-line though: "You have the right to remain silent...forever!"  You can watch the trailer below:

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

I finally decided to see this one, after years of hearing about it. For those who don't know this film has claimed the title of "worst film ever made" for the last 50+ years. While I personally don't think this is the worst film ever made (or that I've ever seen) it is pretty dang bad. This is the film that would make Ed Wood a star (albeit ironically). Ed Wood made a number of horrible B films throughout the 50s but this is his most famous/infamous. Less than 20 years after his death he would be immortalized in a critically acclaimed film made by Tim Burton, but during his lifetime Ed Wood would never see such positive acceptance of his work. Plan 9 is about aliens that come to earth and plan on taking over the world by raising the dead (don't worry if that doesn't make sense, Ed Wood never makes sense). The film has so many errors that it, Ed Wood, and his other films have all become ironically inspirational, people see his films and think "If somebody can make a piece of crap like that there's hope for me in the film business!" There are continuity errors up the wazoo, wooden acting, horrible sets and lighting (most notably in the airplane scenes) and Cadillac hubcaps on wires posing as flying saucers. The film has one of the biggest cult followings of all time for any film though. The entire genre of "so bad they're good" movies was basically created because of this film, it is still enjoyable to watch and laugh at because of how amazingly bad it is. There are a few things that should be mentioned about the film for those who don't know anything about it: 1). this was Bela Lugosi (the legendary horror actor most famous for playing Dracula [1931])'s last film. Lugosi was one of Wood's heroes growing up and he managed to meet and form a unique friendship with the man, and give him the last few roles of his career. Lugosi died only managed to film about 15 minutes of footage (or less) before he died leaving Wood to find a replacement for him for the rest of the film. His replacement ended up being a 

dead ringer for Lugosi... from the eyes up that is, Wood forced the replacement to walk around the set covering his face with his cape (like classic Dracula) so only his eyes nose and above were exposed. 2). Vampira, a 1950s horror TV host who would introduce B horror movies late at night, (the original Elvira, also think SvenGhouli) makes her most famous film appearance in this film. In my opinion the best scenes of the movie are when Vampira and Tor Johnson ( a 400 pound Swedish professional wrestler with very limited acting ability) are walking through the graveyard together. Both Johnson and Vampira are unusual characters in personality and lifestyle and they are even more unusual in their appearance, seeming practically otherworldly (Vampira pretty much invented the "vamp" look for women, and she had an unusually small waist). 3). Lastly Ed Wood was a master at collecting and using stock footage. Basically anything you see of unusually high quality compared to the rest of the movie is stock footage, which as I mentioned before could 

stand out like a sore thumb, but in other incidents he was extremely creative with it and you wouldn't necessarily know it was stock footage. The worst part of the film however is the last quarter or third of the movie, when the plot just kind of goes out the window, and the dialogue becomes so verbose and lengthy that it's incredibly hard to understand what is going on, and thus it drags and people (like myself and a friend) can tend to dose off at that point. Obviously I have to give the film a very low rating for quality ( I won't even mention how low) but as for pure enjoyment and campy entertainment value, I give it a 3.75/5. The movie is enormously influential, and if you enjoyed it I recommend The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, it's a 2001 film that spoofs 1950s B movies like Plan 9, and it is available to stream on Netflix. You can view the trailer below:

Shock Waves (1979)

I don't have a lot to say about this one. It's about a small cruise of people (think Gilligan's Island) getting stranded on an island that was once used to experiment on Nazi soldiers to try create the perfect soldier that couldn't die, and could also survive/attack underwater. So yes this could quite possibly be the only film about underwater Nazi zombies, and Peter Cushing (Star Wars episode IV, Horror of Dracula, Dr. Who) is the Nazi commander who used to be in charge of the zombie operation. The only other notable names in the movie are John Carradine (Grapes of Wrath, The Howling, The Sentinel [1970s version] several dracula films), and Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven, The Dead Zone). The movie is a low

budget flick with a similar feel to a Roger Corman flick from the 70s: very gritty, limited makeup or costume effects, and film mostly during the day. The movie has some pretty good POV scenes as well as zombie stalking scenes shot underwater. The zombies are always creepy whenever they're shown too because they do everything in unison. The acting is all pretty well done considering the plot's premise and the movie's budget. The last notable thing that should be mentioned about the film is how wonky its soundtrack is. The film has a lot of very ominous unusual synthesizer tones that are at sometimes very slow and heavy, and at others super frantic and high pitched creating a near fever-dream of an atmosphere that is very effective for creating a very fitting atmosphere for this film (it's really similar to another little known classic 70s horror Let's Scare Jessica to Death[1971]). My only problem with this film though is that it does tend to drag in some spots and seem rather boring at times, so I give it a 4.25/5. You can view the trailer below:

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

There are tons of classic movies based on works by Stephen King; Carrie, Cujo, The Shining, Christine, Pet Sematary, Firestarter, Creepshow, Children of the Corn, The Dead Zone, Salem's Lot, Silver Bullet, The Green Mile, Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, Hearts in Atlantis, IT, Misery, and The Running Man, to name "a few". But until 1986 Stephen King was just a writer and every movie adaptation of his work to that point had been made by other people, this movie changed all that. Now imagine you were a producer in 1986 and Stephen King came into your office saying "I'm not happy with any film versions of my work so I'd like to direct my own film, adaptations of my work have been so successful, just think how good this one'll be! And it will be starring 80s young hunk Emilio Estevez, and it will have soundtrack done by my favorite band AC/DC!" Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Well you're right, it has all those elements but Stephen King is what he is, a writer, plus he tends to prefer the worse movie

versions of his work, (He hated Kubrick's version of the Shining and prefers the made for TV Tim Roth version). This is the first and only movie King himself has ever directed. This movie has become a cult classic primarily only because of how bad it is. It does have some things going for it, the cars are cool, the special effects and explosions are cool and stuff like that. The film's plot is very confusing as the movie progresses, at first all technology on earth goes crazy because earth is passing through the tail of a very unusual comet, but as the plot goes on it becomes clear the machines have minds of their own and aliens are somehow involved, taking away most of the story's believably. Everyday objects are running on their own and they're all deadly too, this is meant to instill a fear of the stuff we take for granted, and it partially works. The trucks are scary, an electric knife/saw goes nuts, and a man is fried by a pinball machine, but it reaches a point where it all becomes laughable. A man is killed by a soda vending machine shooting him in the crotch, seen here:

 There's a killer ice cream truck, and a man is laying dead on his front lawn having been run over by his own lawnmower, and the very first scene of the movie is Stephen King himself trying to get money from an ATM and instead of giving him the money the machine calls him an asshole repeatedly, seen below:

 Plus the film is just plain gross at times, there's a scene where Emilio Estevez is talking to a man on the toilet doing "his business" which is unfortunately audible. The music is great though, the explosions and stuff are cool, the main truck has the face of the Green Goblin from Spider Man on it, but that's about it for this one. I give it a 3.25/5. I do recommend the trailer though, Stephen King is hilariously crazy in it, seen below:

The Beast Within (1982)

The Beast Within is part latter-day southern gothic, part monster movie, part amateur-detective film, and part coming of age film, The Beast Within is very well written and very well executed by director and cast. The film contains one of the longest and most elaborate transformation sequences of all time, which often gets it confused as a Werewolf film. While I'll say it's not a werewolf movie I won't say outright what the monster is, except that it's based on some form of insect and the writers did a wonderful job tying scientific

knowledge to the monster and the overall story of the film. Here's the plot: 17 years after a woman is raped on her wedding night by something "not human", her 17 year old son starts undergoing strange changes, so the parents go back to the scene of the crime to try to figure out what exactly happened that night, as well as what's happening to their son. This is a weird one, but it's very well acted and put together considering its low budget. This film was also directed by Philippe Mora, the director of another film I reviewed called Communion (1989), and this film was written by Tom holland, the man who wrote and directed the original Fright Night (1985) and Child's Play (1988).  Both this film and Communion happen to be in Rue Morgue Magazine's book of 200 Must-See Alternative Horror films. I give it a 4.5/5, view the trailer below:

The Crawling Eye (1958)

Though some may love the name it often gets overlooked by serious moviegoers for obvious reasons. Those who look for and enjoy serious dramas the likes of Schindler's List, won't necessarily lean towards a film titled "The Crawling Eye". But here's what you should know about it and why those other people are missing out: The Misfits wrote a song about it, Stephen King is a fan and referenced the film in IT, and John Carpenter said it was a main inspiration for The Fog(1980). The movie was developed from the ruins of a failed British TV series (The Trollenberg Terror) The film is about aliens that hide in a mountain pass always hiding in fog. The aliens start decapitating mountain climbers and prepare for a descent to the village below. The plot is centers around a woman medium who has a psychic connection with the aliens. The film is very well acted, superbly filmed from a cinematography standpoint, and unlike most 50s "B-movies" it is very logically sound. The movie's feel is similar to Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) or The original version of The Thing (1951 aka The Thing from Another World). Just like classic creature films like Cat People (1942) rarely do you ever see the monster, until the end. This is also probably one of the first films to cover the subject of decapitation, and it did a really good job with the special effects (ahead of most 1950s standards). Mystery Science Theater 3000 did do an episode on this movie, but trust me it's still legit. I give it a 4.5-5/5, I'd advise against watching the trailer because it shows the monster, and in my opinion knowing what the monster looks like is worth waiting for. This film is featured on Rue Morgue Magazine's list of 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See.

Critters (1986)

Not much to say about this one, it was ok but I don't see why it had 3 sequels. Special effects were good but there are better 80s creature horror comedies out there like Gremlins (1984). I give it a 3-3.5/5 (trivia: Leonardo Dicaprio's first movie was Critters 3). Trailer is below: 

Humanoids from the Deep (1980) original

Roger Corman's Humanoids From the Deep (1980) I've never before seen a movie of Roger Corman's (the king of the B-movie) that I would truly consider a B-movie quality wise, but this certainly fits the bill. The movie was very controversial at the time because of how Feminists thought the women were being portrayed in the sense that only the men died and the beasts went after the women to mate with them, so there was an argument that there was racist undertones to in the sense of the age old fear of "they're going to take our women!", but Corman and the writers insist they were just reading too much into it and it was a straight up monster movie, also the movie was directed by a woman. The acting and writing are pretty bad at times, some hilarity is caused by that though at times. The monsters were designed by a guy who went on to win awards and do special effects for The Fog, The Thing and Se7en, as well as having it's music composed by future Oscar winner and composer of the music for Titanic (1997) James Horner. The movie would eventually be remade in 96. The original is hard to find but is now on instant streaming on Netflix. I give it a 3.5/5. This movie is also featured in Rue Morgue magazine's book 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See, the book also includes an interview with Roger Corman about this film. You can view the trailer below, warning it is NSFW (not suitable for work):

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

The Toxic Avenger (1984) the king of 80s stereotyped, cult and so awful they're amazing movies. The Toxic Avenger is the movie that launched the creation of indie/cult movie company Troma Studios, an extremely successful movie franchise with 3 sequels a children's cartoon series (similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and a confirmed upcoming remake starring Arnold Schwarzenegger!, and the career of its creator and head of Troma studios, Lloyd Kaufman. Idk if this movie was made to be horrible and have people overact on PURPOSE, but it is almost inconceivable that the quality of this film could be so low without making it that way on purpose. At first glance it would look like a movie you and a group of friends could easily make with your own camera, heck with the quality of phone cameras you could probably make a BETTER looking film with your phone, but where this movie does spend it's money is on it's incredibly over the top gory death scenes. How this movie (easily one of the most gory movies I've ever seen and ever made. The violent aspects of the film, and the relationship some of the characters have with violence are seriously messed up) got a successful children's TV cartoon is beyond me. Also I'm not a fan of gore so IMO what makes this movie great is it's references and tributes it makes to Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, The Three Stooges, Abbot & Costello, A Clockwork Orange, and Dr. Strangelove, and it's general over the topness in every way possible that makes it HILARIOUS, It also has the most stereotypes I've ever seen in one movie it I'm assuming that's part of the humor (but who knows?  ). The mexican restaurant is called "The Mexican Place" and they have samurai swords on the walls and a pizza oven in the kitchen lol. This movie is also so 80s it hurts, with random people dancing for no reason in most of its scenes, and MULTIPLE 80s montages. The film also has MILLIONS of noticeable errors (jump cuts continuity errors, over exposed lighting, bad lip dubbing, etc.) but they add to the fun of it, even though the quality is damn awful, this is seriously the most fun I've had watching a movie in a LONG long time, it's not hard to understand why this became as successful as it did (it's also referenced in TONS of movies and TV shows). So note I give this one a 5/5 not for quality by any means, but just because of how enjoyable/fun it is. 
P.S. the movie's available on instant on Netflix.