[schlock films] so bad that they're good

Schlock, in this sense, means a movie that holds you spellbound in horror. The original plan was to do cult movies like Mon Oncle and La Cage aux Folles but the shlock seemed more of a challenge. Gigli, for example, was so bad it was bad and so it couldn't go in. The Creature from the Black Lagoon was just too good anyway.

My list has these, in no particular order:

1. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

The plot is simple: tomatoes suddenly turn into bloodthirsty monsters. Housewives are mauled while putting away the groceries, old folks stare in shock as a huge Brandywine gobbles down their grandson, and the police discover that buckshot is useless when a horde of rampaging Rutgers suddenly erupts from fields gone wild. The tomatoes even take out a helicopter!



2. Blood on Satan's Claw

Sort of like what a juvenile delinquent movie would be if it was a horror film set in seventeenth century England ... it's known for the nude scene and rape scene of Zoe from Dr Who. Not strictly in the bad category, the dialect sinks it.



3. Battlefield Earth

Using CGI effects of the sort now commonly seen on syndicated television shows, we zoom from an orbital view of Earth to a series of no doubt expensive helicopter shots portraying various mountainous settings. Here a last expositional sentence appears. "Man is an endangered species," it announces. This helps to clarify things for those viewers confused by the assertion, seen ten seconds ago, that Man is "on the verge of extinction."



4. The Hottie and the Nottie

James Berardinelli described the film's comedy as "about as funny as the anal rape scene in The War Zone". There are two girls. One is hot, the other is not. Paris Hilton is one of the two. Which one? A true horror flick.



5. Showgirls

Nomi is so unlikable and, frankly, untalented, that you never buy that all the other characters keep chasing after her. One guy thinks she's selling out her great dancing talent (!), Molly is afraid she'll "become" corrupt, and everyone else, male and female, wants to get her into bed. Frankly, considering the tons of attractive (not to mention naked) women in this flick, Nomi just really doesn't deserve all the attention she's getting.



Honourable mention to Ecks v Sever:

No one expects action movies to be brilliant, but Wych Kaosayananda's Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, which is based on a GameBoy game—A GAMEBOY GAME, folks, not even full fledged Nintendo—couldn't be more cartoonish if it were painted on acetate. It's loaded with two-dimensional characters, mindless violence set to pounding music, and a story so ridiculous, so incomprehensibly stupid, one can hardly find adequate words to denounce it. Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, have you no pride? Have you no standards? Have you no shame? Don't you pay attention to what's written on the papers you're signing?

So, which are your five "so-bad-that-they're-good" movies?
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