#41 The Creeping Terror (Wes)

The Creeping Terror

If you’ve read any of our reviews, then you’ll know that generally the films that we have enjoyed the most are the old classic B movies. Some were familiar favourites (eg Plan 9 From Outer Space – see here), whilst some were new to us (eg Robot Monster – see here). Our next movie, The Creeping Terror, was a movie I know I’d seen years ago, but for some reason I confused it with From Hell It Came. So if this wasn’t the movie with the killer tree stump monster thing I fondly remembered, what was so bad that had my memory suppress it from me?

As Deputy Martin Gordon (Vic Savage – who also directed under the name AJ Nelson) returns from his honeymoon, he joins the Sheriff (Byrd Holland) to look at an alien ship that has crashed in Angel County, CA. The sheriff enters the ship and is heard being killed. Gordon calls for help and the military arrive who soon discover a slug-like monster inside which fortunately for them is chained to the wall. However another monster has left the ship shortly before and is now stalking the countryside. This goes on a murderous rampage eating several people (I say eating, they seem more to slowly climb into the monsters mouth), including attacking dozens of people at a dance and culminating with it attacking the cars and people parked in Lovers Lane (where it looks like it’s just humping the cars). After eventually realising that these monsters need to be destroyed the military finally decide to act. Will they be able to stop these creatures? Or at the very least slow them down (even more)?

When it’s written down like that, it sounds like quite a fun, quirky movie. Unfortunately the story itself could have been told in an episode of The Twilight Zone (25 mins) just as well. The movie has a short running time (75 mins), but it’s so badly paced that it drags along more than a dog with worms. The majority of this is due to the extremely slow pace of the monster, but even without that, there are a lot of drawn out pointless scenes and shots. I think the best way to really illustrate that, is to do the same I did for Gigli (see here), and share some of the tweets from when I originally watched this (Follow us for our tweet-a-longs here and here):

“Let’s show 20 seconds of empty scrubland, that’ll thrill the viewer”

“It’s ok, you have time to finish hanging the laundry, do the dishes, watch Roots, and make dinner before the monster gets you”

“I know how we can make this movie faster paced. Fishing! Maybe we’ll add some test match cricket later too!”

“Hootenannys were less hoot and more nanny back in 1964…”

“Quick the monster is coming! We’ve only time for this dance, the one next week and our spring formal until it gets here!”

“We’re in cars and this monster moves more slowly than the second season of The Walking Dead, how will we escape?”

“Someone actually RUNS in this movie and the first thing they do is remark on it and then follow him. No wonder nobody else ran.”

Of course the clue to all of this may lie in the title The Creeping Terror, which I’ll grant you does hint at what you’re about to watch. However there’s a major difference between creeping, and moving so slowly you make the line in the Post Office seem like the 100m sprint. You only have to watch the horror movie It Follows to understand the tension and fear that can be created by a slow, but unstopping monster. However the monster in this movie just moves too slowly to even create the slightest air of menace and relies solely on its victims standing there screaming instead of casually sauntering away stopping only briefly to smell the flowers.

It isn’t just its slow pace that makes this one of the worst monsters ever to appear onscreen. I used the term “slug-like” in my synopsis mainly as that seems to be the most widely used term to describe it. In fact it’s quite a good term, it’s slow, and unpleasant, it even has a shape much like a giant slug (if somebody had balanced a venus flytrap made from old plumbing supplies on the slug, and then glued the slug onto a Chinese Dragon that had undergone an unfortunate steam roller accident), but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a huge old rug. If you was to describe this monster as “rug-like” you’d be wrong, as I’m not joking in the slightest, IT’S A HUGE OLD RUG. It’s the monster from When Living Room Furniture Goes Bad. If only somebody thought to put the monster over a washing line and beat it with a large paddle all of this horror could have been averted…

Due to problems with the sound (either the soundtrack was lost, or according to William Thourlby the film was shot without sound to cut costs, with the intention of over-dubbing later) much of the film is narrated by Larry Burrell, including what the characters are saying to each other, whilst at the same time you can see the actors actually talking to each other. This really added to the sheer ridiculousness of the movie, making it feel like you’re watching a movie with an elderly relative who’s telling you what’s happening onscreen as you’re both watching it (this has happened to me in real life). It’s honestly one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in a movie, and can once again be best summed up with my tweets from the viewing:

“The actors couldn’t show amazement, so the narrator tells us they’re amazed instead… Brilliant.”

“Why won’t they let the actors speak? This is like watching an audio book with added moving pictures.”

“I wish the narrator would just tell us people danced really badly instead of making us have to watch it.”

If I’m being honest, I both loved and hated this movie. The sheer bizarreness of a narrator describing everything, coupled with one of the most pathetic monsters ever committed to celluloid should make for a great movie. Unfortunately the pacing is the thing that ultimately lets it down, and that’s a real shame. Then again it may be that I’m just bitter that this wasn’t made in the Soviet Union, and then I could have ended my review with one last tweet… “In Soviet Russia, the rug munches you”

#41 The Creeping Terror (1964) (Colin)

Cast - Vic Savage, Shannon O'Neil, William Thourlby, John Caresio

Director - Vic Savage

Genre - Sci-Fi, Horror

The next movie on our list is a B/W budget ‘B’ movie from 1964 called ‘The Creeping Terror’.  It is another movie which has featured on MST3K, but as I have not seen this episode, I know very little else about the film.

A quick read of The Creeping Terror IMDb and Wikipedia page and there are some fairly interesting facts about the movie.

Firstly, the opening credits were done by Richard Edlund.  He would go on to work on visual effects for movies such as Star Wars (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ghostbusters (1984).  However, he was also visual effects supervisor for our #67 movie Leonard Part 6 (1987), (see blog here), so actually his name is not a guarantee of quality!

Secondly, the ‘actors’ in the movie were mainly investors who thought they were buying themselves onto the Hollywood gravy train.   Based on the other reviews I have read about this movie, I think it is fair to say they missed the train and never saw their money again….

And lastly, the movie is written by Robert Silliphant who also wrote another movie on our list, #50 The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies (1964), (see blog here).  This is when the alarm bells started to ring in my head as this movie is only good for filling up minimum word counts on reviews and looking smart to your friends if you can remember the whole title.  It is a slow boring yawnfest of a movie and the thought of another ‘masterpiece’ from this guy feels me with dread.

Surely lightning couldn’t strike twice?  It was time to take a deep breath and find out…..

Deputy Martin Gordon, (Vic Savage), on hearing that one of his relatives makes an excellent rice dice, is on his way to see Uncle Ben.  En route he discovers a spaceship which has crash landed, (and which looks in no way similar to the spaceship which is depicted in the opening credits / scenes!).

Unbeknownst to Deputy Gordon, from the spaceship a creature who resembles a drunk carpet salesman who is covered in super glue and has rolled around in most of his stock has emerged and descended into Angel County.  An equally ridiculous monster is still in the spaceship, but is tied up and locked in the broom cupboard, (a stag do gone a bit awry?).

Uncle Ben, who also happens to be the local sheriff, decides to go into the spaceship to investigate.  He is promptly killed by the alien, (who incidentally looks like he has fallen asleep in a pile of vacuum cleaner nozzles).

Martin is made temporary sheriff and recruits the help of scientist Dr. Bradford, (William Thourlby) and Col. James Caldwell, (John Caresio), to try to work out a way to defeat the bad Chinese dragon lookalike creature.

But the team are not off to a good start as the alien begins gobbling up the local residents.  He nom nom’s some people at a picnic, (who didn’t look like they were having fun anyway and so probably did them a favour), chomps down some people who were doing some very bad dancing to some very bad music in a very badly lit hall and has a nibble on Grandpa Brown, (Jack King), and his grandson Bobby Bobbieeee Bobbahhhh Barbbbbahhhh, (I think that’s his name, at least this is the name Grandpa calls out whilst looking for him).

Somehow and in some way, (I really can’t remember as I was nodding off by this point), Dr. Bradford discovers that actually this creature was not mindlessly gulping up local residents, but was in actual fact consuming them to analyse biological make-up which it then somehow transmitted back to the spaceship who then sent a signal back to their home planet.  They are analysing us not using us as a tasty alternative to Pot Noddle……

What does this discovery mean for the human race?  How will Gordon and his crew stop the crawling monster?  And what happened to good old fashioned anal probing?

Watch The Creeping Terror and find out!

On paper this is one of those movies that should be so bad it becomes good.  It has bad acting, a cheesy script, a poor monster costume, shonky special effects and the sound is so bad it feels like it was recorded next to a boiling kettle.  But for some reason it does not work and there is nothing about this movie I like.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room or rather the very bad creature costume in the room.  It’s dreadful, shocking; simply awful!  It looks like someone has fallen asleep under a pile of coats, has woken up and can’t get the coats off.  It looks like a very bad caterpillar costume cobbled together by a 10 year old for their science project.  It looks like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout on Meth…..

……..it looks like many things, but it does not look in anyway like a scary alien!

This is not helped by the fact you can see the guy in the costume’s shoes at various points throughout the movie.  Nor is it helped by the fact that, (certainly for the first victim), it is clear that the creature is not eating his victims, but that the victims are climbing willingly into its mouth!

Then there’s also the fact that the creature can be outrun by an asthmatic fat bloke on a mobility scooter.  This leads to possibly the biggest plot hole in the entire movie; Why the hell don’t the ‘victims’ just run away?  Walk away?  Or even crawl away very slowly?

Nearly all of them could have escaped and with time to spare.  A slight tweak of the script and this could have been avoided.  Maybe the alien has some sort of tractor beam?  Telepathic power which stops his victims wanting to run away?  Omits a strange pulse sound which paralyses the victim?  Honestly, if a drunken bloke writing a crap blog full of toilet humour can think of a way out of it, surely some Hollywood writers could have done the same or better?

This maybe because most of the people who took part in this were not established Hollywood people, but wannabes, hoping for a fast track into the big leagues.  The movie definitely has an amateur feel about it and all I can say about the ‘actors’ who paid to be in the film is that I would have happily paid double for them to never appear in any movie ever again.

All the usual bad acting traits are there, mumbled lines, pregnant pauses, looking lost, confused looks, climbing into a bad alien costume’s mouth, it’s all there.  But it’s hard to get a full flavour of just how bad they are because for the majority of the movie a narrator speaks over the actors!  This is a little bit annoying to say the least!

Just as a character is about to explain a plot point, (not many, I grant you), their voice is faded out and an authoritative voice narrates over them and moves the story along.  This gives the movie a feeling of a 1950’s government educational film.  Many of these films are annoying after 5 mins, so keeping the audience hooked for 90 mins was always going to be a challenge!

Wikipedia explains that the original audio tapes were lost or destroyed and that they couldn’t get the cast back to re-record their audio.  To get over this Savage hired a local newsman as a narrator.  Whilst this explains the strange way in which the actors are spoken over, it does not explain why the soundtrack sounds like someone trying to swat a fly on a Hammond Organ.

At the top of the blog I mentioned that this movie was written by Robert Silliphant who also wrote the dull The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies.  So did lightning strike twice?  Unfortunately yes, this was another slow boring yawnfest of a movie

I really wanted to like this movie, it did have the right ingredients; the costume is awful, the script is bad, the acting poor and the narration is weird, but it just lacks any warmth or charm.  The overall experience is one of disappointment and boredom.

So my advise, I’m afraid, is to avoid this film at all costs!  Fortunately, dear reader, this won’t be difficult, as it moves along about as fast as the stupid creeping creature does……

#42 Boggy Creek 2: The Legend Continues aka The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek part II (Wes)

Boggy Creek 2: The Legend Continues aka The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek part II

You know who is one of the most famous of all the worlds monsters, but is hardly ever in any movies? Bigfoot. Sure he had a starring role in Harry and the Hendersons (also in its spin off tv series, which I personally see as little more than an ALF rip-off), but apart from that every movie he features in seems to be as low budget as a blurry film of a giant ape like creature taken in the American wilds. It makes me wonder if there’s a reason why Bigfoot is one of Hollywood’s most elusive creatures, or do people just really not want to see him?

Cryptozoology professor Dr Brant Lockhart (Charles B. Pierce), who with a name like that could have become a 80s soap opera oil tycoon, takes a pair of students, Tim (Chuck Pierce jr) and Tanya (Serene Hedin) and one of the students friends, Leslie (Cindy Butler) on a trip into the Arkansas swamps to look for a Bigfoot-like creature that has been seen by several local residents. After meeting with some unwelcoming locals, the quartet go to camp in Boggy Creek. Here they seek out a hillbilly called Old Man Crenshaw (Jimmy Clem) who is just as evasive on the subject as the townsfolk, but allows the group to stay the night when a storm closes in. During the storm Old Man Crenshaw asks Lockhart to help tend to an animal which he’s captured. When Lockhart looks he realises it’s an adolescent Bigfoot, whose capture causes the adult Bigfoot to attack the cabin. Will everyone survive the night? Will anyone get any footage of the creatures on film that isn’t from a distance so great that nothing clear can be seen anyway, so could easily just be a man in a Chewbacca costume? Will Bigfoot finally discover that there are several sires on the internet that sell shoes up to a size 20, meaning that just maybe it wont struggle to find comfortable footwear any longer?

Like Troll 2 (see here) this movie has a strangely misleading title. Boggy Creek 2 is actually the THIRD movie in the Boggy Creek series. Which does bring up my earlier line of thought, if this is the third movie, then why haven’t I heard of the first two? Is there really a shady underground of bigfoot movies that exist only for those willing to traipse through the Arkansas swamps to find a lost Blockbuster Video, that is still running unaware either of the creation of the DVD or that Blockbuster went under?

The fact that The Legend of Boggy Creek and more importantly it’s first sequel Return to Boggy Creek both seem to be overlooked/forgotten/ignored does give a lot of backing to my theory that a good portion of the IMDB Bottom 100 list is only on there because of the notoriety they’ve gained by featuring on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Return to Boggy Creek has at the time of writing an equally low rating (2.2), but it doesn’t appear on the same list. I won’t even pretend to understand the algorithms as to how the list is constructed (I don’t even understand how Colin put together our list), all I know is that films have to have at least 1500 votes to qualify. This does make me wonder what films we’re missing out on due to them being so unheard of.

But what about the movie itself? Well taking inspiration from the real life Bigfoot, the filmmakers decided that being elusive was an important aspect this movie needed to include. Unfortunately the things they decided to make the most elusive were any sight of a gripping plot or a convincing monster. This movie’s most entertaining scene is when the group run across a rabid dog that attacks them forcing them into an abandoned house. I’m not saying that it’s a good scene, but Tim opening a closet to find something to cover a hole in the floor only to find the rabid dog inside (due to the closet wall being missing) did make me laugh whilst imagining this to be the episode of Scooby Doo where Scooby gets scratched on the nose by a rabid bat…

The Bigfoot costumes look as though they were monkey costumes left over from previous Halloween parties, and patched up with excess hair from Jimmy Clem’s chest and beard (the man is so hairy he could have laid on the floor of his cabin whilst Bigfoot attacked and disguised himself as a bear skin rug). I’ve seen so many films with disappointing monsters in them, but if the cabin door was smashed in by Sal Minella from The Muppets it would have been scarier.

The acting in most of the movies by this point really isn’t worth mentioning most of the time anymore, as there usually is very little to none present. However I have to say that it would have been nice if maybe Chuck Pierce Jr. had at least attended the acting class where he was supposed to learn to act like someone who knows how to put a bloody shirt on. Still at least Charles Pierce (who not only acted, but directed, produced and wrote this movie too. Reports that he did the catering are unconfirmed) didn’t try to get his son to sing like our last father/son duo in Eegah! (see here), so there is that to be thankful for.

Boggy Creek 2 really is one of the dullest movies we’ve had to endure. I think it has answered my earlier questioning about a lack of Bigfoot movies though. Movies about creatures who shy away from humans and never show signs of aggression end up being movies about people going camping and the only times I want to watch films like that are when they involve psychopaths in hockey masks, snotty nosed students being terrorised by a ghost witch or Barbara Windsor’s bra flying into Kenneth William’s face…

#42 Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues (1985) (Colin)

Cast: Charles B. Pierce, Cindy Butler, Chuck Pierce Jr, Jimmy Clem, Serene Hedin

Director: Charles B. Pierce

Genre: Horror

I didn’t know much about the next movie on our list, so I had to do a bit of research.

The first thing I noticed is that this was featured on an episode of MST3K which I have not seen yet.  This is good because no matter how bad the movie is, I now have a new episode of MST3K to watch! 

The next thing I noticed is that the name, Charles B. Pierce, seems to come up a lot.  He is the director, writer and ‘star’ of the next movie on our list, Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues, (1985) and he was also the producer on the original movie, The Legend of Boggy Creek, (1972).  However, the odd thing that I discovered is that it’s not actually the 2^nd movie in this franchise.  Boggy Creek II is technically Boggy Creek III….

In 1977, the sequel, Return to Boggy Creek, was released, however, Charles B. Pierce was not involved in this movie.  Pierce seems to have decided to completely ignore the original sequel and no reference is made to the 1977 film.  Did Charles B. Pierce have a chip on his shoulder?

On the surface, this to me seems like a vanity project for Pierce and that he wants to prove to the world that it was wrong for him to be excluded from the original sequel.  Was this the case?  And were the makers of the 1977 version right to leave Pierce out in the cold?

When Dr. Brant Lockhart, (Charles B. Pierce), receives a phone call about a mysterious creature who is hairier than Richard Keys, he decides to investigate.  A professor of Cryptozoology at Arkansas University, he enlists the help of his students Tim, (Chuck Pierce Jr), Tanya, (Serene Hedin) and for absolutely no reason at all, Tanya’s friend Leslie, (Cindy Butler).

The group set off in the campest Jeep ever made and set up base near Boggy Creek.  Lockhart tells the group the many tales he has heard about the creature, each one less interesting and strung out than the last.

There was the rancher, who lost his herd and saw the beast running away.  Next was a man who came across the creature whilst changing his tyre.  He was so scared that he went into a coma and never woke up, (can you spot the plot hole here?).  And then there’s the’ hilarious’ story of the man who encountered the creature whilst in the outhouse laying a cable.  He was petrified, but at least he was in the right place to crap himself.

The last story is mildly interesting, (for those who haven’t nodded off by this point), as we discover that a sheriff saw the beast in his back yard, (ooer, sounds a bit rude), and that in actual fact there is a mini-beast as well.  There are 2 Boggy Creek beasts!  Well 1 and 1/3………

Lockhart’s investigations takes him to Hillbilly stereotype, Old Man Crenshaw, (Jimmy Clem), a man who is a cross between the sheriff from Smokey and the Bandit and a beach ball in a beard.  Lockhart learns that Crenshaw has seen the beast on numerous occasions and is keen to learn more.  Crenshaw then asks Lockhart as to whether he is a doctor which can fix people, Lockhart explains he is the type of doctor you can buy online and you can print out a snazzy certificate.  Unperturbed, Crenshaw lets Lockhart into a secret.

Crenshaw takes Lockhart into a room and in a cupboard he reveals that he has kidnapped, (beast-napped?), the youngest beast.  Lockhart synapses fire up like a turtle in treacle: Maybe this is why the beast is angry and maybe this is what he is looking for……..

Can Lockhart rescue the child beast?  Will the daddy beast discover them first?  Will Lockhart ever manage to explain anything in a couple of simple sentences?

The answer to the last question is no!  Or as Lockhart would probably explain: You see there are 2 different answers you can give to that question.  There is the positive answer, the affirmative if you will, which would usually be indicated by a 'yes', 'yeah' or 'yay', (although in some circumstances a 'yay' is more an exclamation of joy, it can be used, in some accounts, to verify the positive answer to a given question).  On the opposite side you would have the negative, (we will assume that an undecided answer would not be given in this case and that a shrug of shoulders, a 'maybe' or a 'not sure' is out of the equation.  Presumably the person asking the question knows the answer as he watched the rest of the movie and so would probably not leave it open ended.  Anyway, this is why we will assume that an either 'yes' or 'no', (which is the negative answer which could be given.  Other examples include 'Nay', 'no way' or 'non', (but probably only if you’re French, which we will assume in this instance that as the person setting the question sets it in English, he is probably speaking to someone who is English, or who at the very least has a good grasp of the English language and who would therefore give an answer in the Anglo negative rather than a more Gallic response)).  Anyway, given all variables to this answer and like I say, as the person setting the question watched the entire movie and that he is now typing this really long explanation as a parody, (mocking if you will) of how Lockhart would respond to such a tea-time teaser, we could naturally assume the answer would be of the negative persuasion and would probably, (in all likelihood), be 'no'.  Or 'yes'; he may be being ironic here……(I think you get the idea).

This rather long paragraph sums up this movie, it is full of scenes and dialogue which go on for too long and don’t really go anywhere.

For example, there is a scene which a young man falls off his jet-ski and plunges into the water.  A Jaws-esque scene is played out in which the creature, from his point of view, is slowly moving towards this guy.  The young guy gets………. back on his jet-ski and moves off safely.  No suspense, no drama, no point!

Then there is Lockhart’s very long winded explanation about how the tracker on his computer works.  He gives, (what seems like), a 10 mins over-elaborate explanation, where ‘the green box is us, if a blip goes near to the green box, then it is getting nearer to us’ would have done!

The fault for this lies with Charles B. Pierce who wrote this script and who seemed to have an OK idea, (the beast is angry as it’s son has been taken by a human), but just didn’t know how to build the suspense or plot around it.  What we end up with is a movie which could have been told in half an hour and did not need 90 mins of my life ruined.

So Pierce isn’t a great writer, is he a good actor?

The answer is no, the script does not help but it feels like he is reading direct from the page with no thought or emotion into what he is saying.  He has the screen presence of a glass of water and is just as exciting.  There is no way he can command a lead role and should really have cast someone else instead of going it alone.

Which leads me onto direction, was he a good director?  The answer again is no, Tim, who is actually Pierce’s real life son, clearly got the role because daddy wrote and directed the movie.  The girls are there for no other reason than to scream and smoulder and the townsfolk are clearly not actors and are just, well, townsfolk.

There are many mistakes in the movie.  For example, Lockhart clearly calls Tim by his real name, (Charlie), in one scene.  Surely a director should spot this?  Also I mentioned earlier the plot hole in which a man who slipped into a coma after he saw the creature, but Lockhart is reciting the story.  Surely director and writer should have spotted that there was no way that Lockhart could know the story if the man had been in the land of nod as soon as he saw the creature and so had not spoken to anyone since?!?!  Every review I have read references this mistake, so why the hell did Pierce not spot this?

So was this an ego project?  Yes, absolutely.  In actual fact it feels like a college media studies student who refuses to work in a team, goes alone and produces an arrogant solo project which interests no-one but himself.  You can’t help but feel that some of the problems with this movie could have been resolved had Pierce allowed others to take up roles and to double check things.

Were the makers of the 1977 version right to leave Pierce out in the cold?  On the evidence of this movie yes they were, although maybe he would have fitted in better as part of a team.  In many ways I wish he had been involved in the ’77 movie, because that would have saved us from Pierce thinking he had to prove himself and producing this lifeless movie.

Obviously Pierce believed in his talents and that he could write, direct AND star in the same movie, however, the evidence is like the costume for the Boggy Creek beast;  it’s not at all convincing…….

#43 Going Overboard (Wes)

Going Overboard

It had to happen on a list of bad movies. We had to watch an Adam Sandler film at some point. Honestly I was quite surprised that it was this far into our list though. I mean I know he’s made some bad movies recently, but are any of them actually any worse than some of the other crappy comedies we’ve watched, like Norbit (see here) or Chairman of the Board (see here)? Well there was only one way to find out…

Shecky Moskowitz (Adam Sandler) is supposedly a wannabe stand up comedian who works on a cruise ship. After the regular ship’s “comedian” Dickie Diamond (Scott LaRose) gets locked in the toilet, everyone naturally assumes he has fallen overboard and drowned. So instead of mounting any type of search and rescue operation, they just allow Shecky to tell jokes that were old when Bob Hope started his career, in the desperate attempt to distract the people on the cruise ship, and the viewer at home, from the poor life choices that led them to be in/watching this crappy movie (eg like getting drunk and saying that watching the worst movies ever made sounds like a hilarious idea)…

As much fun as it is to knock Adam Sandler, he has made some movies that I love. Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Punch Drunk Love and Hotel Transylvania are all brilliant. I’m even happy to sit and watch Little Nicky and The Waterboy, but he has made some absolute donkeys to counteract these movies though. What I didn’t realise is that he had set the bar so low at the start of his career, that no matter how bad a movie he makes now, it’ll invariably be better than Going Overboard.

Have you see or read any of the Harry Potter series? If you have then you should know what a Dementor is, if not they are magical beings that guard the wizard prison Azkaban. They do this by sucking all the happiness from the prisoners so they simply lose the will to try to escape; Going Overboard is a Dementor in movie form. This movie sucks all the joy from the world. It’s the movie equivalent of going to bed on a Sunday night knowing that when you wake up you have to go to work. It’s the movie equivalent of being given a piece of fruit for dessert. It’s the movie equivalent of being told there is no Santa Claus.

If you’re a Superman fan (hopefully not a Superman 4 fan though.. See here), then you’ll know who Bizarro is. If not he’s the Superman from another planet (htraE) in the DC Universe where everything is opposite to that on Earth. Well Going Overboard is like a Bizarro comedy movie. It’s actually an anti-comedy movie. It’s less funny than watching Bambi’s mother not escaping the hunters on repeat. It makes Mike Leigh’s most pessimistic movie, Naked, seem like a laugh riot. I listened to my Joy Division albums after watching this as I needed cheering up. It’s seriously that unfunny.

I honestly don’t understand how Sandler managed to stay acting after this movie. It is genuinely the worst comedy movie I’ve ever seen. The only way it could have been less funny would have been if someone dug up the remains of the Marx Brothers, fitted animatronics to their skeletons and made them remake a classic British sitcom for an American audience (OK, some have been good, but let’s not forget the pilots for Spaced or Red Dwarf, and trust me I’ve tried to, they just won’t go away).

Have I made it clear how unfunny this movie is yet? If you went to a stand-up show which was had your parents as the opening act who spent the entire time telling embarrassing stories about your childhood, whilst occasionally waving at you, who were then followed by a procession of various people from your past doing the same until you can stand the public humiliation no more, only to find out the night could actually get worse when Michael McIntyre walks onto the stage and announces he’s going to do a four hour set of his shit observations and they’ve locked the all the doors, including the ones for the toilet and you’ve just drank five pints of water, you’d still laugh more than you would at this movie.

This movie is the comedy equivalent of being told you have a sexually transmitted disease. This movie is the comedy equivalent of having to tell your children that Rover didn’t make it after being hit by a car. This movie is the comedy equivalent of doing your fly zipper up without being properly tucked away. This movie is the comedy equivalent to used needles in a children’s playground. This movie is the comedy equivalent of socks at Christmas. This movie is the comedy equivalent to finding out your babysitter is Jimmy Saville. This movie is the comedy equivalent to meeting the girl/guy of your dreams only to discover that their favourite Star Wars character is Jar Jar Binks and that they do the most accurate impressions of him, especially every time you have sex ("Me-Sah coming now!"). This movie is the comedy equivalent to learning that your child wants to become a mime artist. To put it in its most simple terms, this movie is the Nickleback of comedy!

This movie is without a doubt the worst comedy I’ve ever had to sit through. Which does make me worry slightly as it’s far from the last comedy on our list. It’s a shame that Adam Sandler couldn’t have used some of his subsequent wealth to sink this miserable movie to the ocean depths where it belongs. Avoid at all costs.

#43 Going Overboard (1989) (Colin)

Cast: Adam Sandler, Burt Young, Scott LaRose, Lisa Collins, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Zone

Director: Valerie Brieman

Genre: Comedy

The next movie on our list stars Adam Sandler, which was a big surprise to me. Not so much that he is on the list, but that it’s taken so long for one of his movies to appear!

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like quite a lot of Sandler’s movies. Happy Gilmore (1996) is to this day one of my favourite comedies of all time. But I have also found other movies such as The Waterboy (1998) and The Wedding Singer (1998) to be laugh out loud funny; heck I even enjoyed the slightly less slapstick, but very enjoyable 50 First Dates (2004) with Drew Barrymore. The problem however, is that for every Happy Gilmore, you have 10 Little Nicky(s)!

When Sandler gets it right, his movies can be funny, clever and heartwarming, however, when he gets it wrong they can be humourless, flat and dull. So when our next movie, Going Overboard appeared on this list I did start to worry. Was this another Happy Gilmore or were we in for a Jack and Jill?

Going Overboard is a movie inside a movie. We are watching a film which General Noriega, (Burt Young), is watching and is a movie made by a film crew who are following Shecky Moskowitz, a young comedian trying to break into the big time. (It all sounds very complicated and clever, but it’s not, please bear with me).

Shecky works on the cruise ships as a glorified lacky and is desperate to be the ship’s comedian. That position, unfortunately, is already filled by Dickie Diamond, (LaRose), a popular figure, (absolutely no idea why, he doesn’t manage to crack a funny gag all movie), whose spot is very established.

However, Shecky does gets his chance when Dickie wakes one morning to feel a bit, well, dickie! Stumbling around on deck, he loses his hat which falls in the sea and he makes a bee-line for the toilet. After making some disgusting noises, he realises he has locked himself in the loo and is trapped! The rest of the crew, worried where their unfunny clown has disappeared to, spot his hat in the sea and thinks he has gone overboard and drowned. Shecky is then promoted to ship's comedian.

Whilst all this drama is going on, there are several beauty pageant contestants on board who are giving vox pops to the camera. One contestant, Miss Australia, decides to use her time to slag off General Noriega, which, as he is watching this movie, hears and takes great offence to. He sends 2 more idiots to the ship, loaded with machine guns and with strict orders to take Miss Australia out, (as in kill, not date).

Will Shecky's routine get any better? Who will save Miss Australia? And will someone, anyone, in the entire movie tell a decent joke?

The answer to the last question is sadly, no.

Now comes the point of my blog where I would normally review the movie, but dear reader, this is going to be extremely difficult as there is really not a lot to talk about.  Going Overboard is just a 90 minute bunch of nothing.

We are told from the off that this is a budget movie and they are not kidding.  Filmed with what appears to be one camera, (Fisher Price’s My First Camera), and a microphone which used to be a dog’s chew toy, Going Overboard really does have a budget feel.  This is not necessarily a bad thing of course, budget movies such as Blair Witch Project (1999), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Mad Max (1979), were fantastic movies and rightly went on to become very successful, but the difference is they feel like proper movies, Going Overboard feels like a proper mess.

Those other budget movies also had a script, which is very important.  This movie has Adam Sandler standing in front of a camera, gurning and talking bollocks for 90 mins, (actually a bit like Blair Witch then....).  His narration usually makes no sense and appears to be designed to sound intelligent and witty but often is jumbled and confused.  Unfortunately the storyline can not come to Sandler’s rescue as the plot is so thin that you can put it over a comb to make an inexpensive kazoo.

As for Sandler himself, well this movie just feels like an audition tape.  He tries acting, it doesn’t work.  He tries delivering clever lines, it doesn’t work.  He tries displaying emotion and showing range, it doesn’t work.  The only surprising thing about Sandler’s performance is that some studio thought, ‘Hey, that guy’s good’, and promptly threw movies at him and made him a multi-millionaire.  When you think about it logically, it doesn’t work.

The other thing that doesn’t work in this movie are the jokes.  Absolutely not one single joke hits the mark, in fact they were so far off the mark that they startled a snoozing lion in Botswana.  But one thing this movie does have is irony, in abundance!  It is ironic that a movie which contains not 1 but 2 comedians who constantly tell gags, does not contain 1 single gag throughout the entire movie!  I am trying to think of 1 joke I can share with you just to prove my point, but I can’t, that’s how memorable they were.  This movie makes Michael McIntyre look like Bill Hicks!

So who on earth is to blame for this movie?  These days Sandler writes, directs, stars and makes the tea in his films and so you can quite confidently lay the blame at his feet when another (Sandler movie) flops spectacularly at the box office.  However, for once he is not to blame.  The blame lies solely with director and writer, Valerie Brieman.

I actually get the feeling that rather than this movie being an audition for Adam Sandler, it’s actually an audition for Valerie Brieman.  She is desperate to show the world that she can produce a top quality movie on a tight budget……she can’t.  She wants to show the world she can write funny material…….she can’t.  She even gives herself a small part in the movie to show the world she can act…….she can’t.

Her part in the movie involves snogging the face of a ‘rock star’ from a band called ‘Yellow Teeth’, (cos he’s British, geddit?!?!) and is pure cringeworthy.  It reminds me of a segment called ‘The Hopefuls’ on Channel 4’s 90’s anarchic TV show, ‘The Word’.  If you haven’t seen it, the idea is basically that people will do absolutely anything to get on TV and have their 15 minutes, (to give you some examples, one person licks sweat of a fat man, one drinks his own vomit and one lucky chap snogs an old granny, tongues and all).

Valerie is another ‘Hopeful’ who desperately wants to be famous and will, it appears, do anything.  This does not seem to have worked however and she has only made a few movies since.  They seem to come around every 12 years and the good news is that the last movie was in 2012, so you have plenty of time to prepare yourself for the next pigswill on offer.

So was this Happy Gilmore or Jack and Jill?  Without a doubt Jack and Jill, Little Nicky and Grown Ups 2 all rolled into one mass crapball!

This movie can only really appeal to die hard Adam Sandler fans and only for the reason that this is Sandler’s debut film.  But as soon as they get the idea of what his performance was like, I am pretty sure they will abandon ship.

#44 Girl in Gold Boots (Wes)

Girl in Gold Boots

Our next movie, Girl in Gold Boots, was once riffed on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Now whilst I may love that show, it’s an episode that I’ve never watched as Girl in Gold Boots really is an awful name for a movie. When I could watch Mike and the bots rip into movies with titles like Future War, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and The Deadly Mantis, what hope does a movie called Girl in Gold Boots have of being watched? Well I had to watch it now, but the question is was I right to dismiss it or was it another hidden gem in the world of bad movies?

Michele (Leslie McRae) works in a diner where she seems to spend most of her day dancing. When sleazy Buz (Tom Pace) stops in for coffee and pie he persuades Michele to leave the diner (stealing all the money from the till) and her drunken father behind and head to LA where Buz’s sister Joan (Bara Byrnes) works as a gogo girl. On the way they pick up hitcher Critter (Jody Daniel) and rob a convienience store. When they reach LA Michele gets hired at the club Haunted House and becomes the dancer she’s always dreamed of being, whilst Buz becomes a drug dealer and Critter becomes the janitor. As Michele’s career grows, Buz makes the move from a smalltime hood into the criminal underworld and Critter mops the toilets. How will all this end? Will Michele be a success? Will Buz become bigger than Tony Montana? Will Critter finally get rid of those stubborn understains?

Having only recently watched Showgirls (see here) it’s impossible not to make comparisons. Girl in Gold Boots is basically the 60’s equivalent to that movie. It’s much camper, and doesn’t quite have the glamour to occasionally mask the sleaze, but it’s so similar sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that Joe Eszterhas’s original title for Showgirls was Girl With Gold Boobs.

However unlike Showgirls, Girl With Gold Boots seems to have some sort of hidden agenda. Whilst it starts off like any other counter-culture movie from the era, with it’s anti-heroes (including the fact that Critter is a draft dodger) all heading straight down a path of hedonism and petty crime, it ends up with both a very “drugs are bad” and “crime never pays” message and Critter signing up to the US army just in time for the Vietnam War. You come out of the movie wondering whether the makers of this thought that by showing a rebellious teenage audience these, then maybe they’d see the error of their ways.

The other major difference it has with Showgirls is with its complete lack of decent choreography. The scenes set in Haunted House feature a group of girls who have all learned the same dance moves, but just haven't understood that they should attempt to all synchronise them. The head dancer Joan stands behind them on the same level as the band doing a bizarre combination of dance moves that someone has told her the name of, but that she’s never actually seen (when someone told her about the new hit dance called the swim, she decided to doggy paddle). Michele herself gyrates as though she’s attempting to watusi whilst standing on an electrified floor. You can’t help but think they would have been better off hiring Batman and Johnny Bravo as their dancers.

The music itself is a mixed bag. The main song is ok, but is over-used throughout the movie. As for the other songs, I really wasn’t that keen on them. The incidental music is great though, occasionally reminding me of a mix between the background music in a Hanna Barbera cartoon and the classic song The Detectives by Alan Tew.

The movie itself is quite well paced, and the acting, whilst hardly Oscar worthy is actually mostly ok, and no worse than your average 60s tv show. However whilst the acting may be ok, the characterisation is often flawed.

The villains of the movie are about as convincingly bad as those in the cop parody Police Squad. He may be using his club as a front for his criminal activities, but the most horrific thing that owner of the club, and crime boss Leo (Mark Herron) does is host a party where the entertainment seems to be a bongo player who plays the same fast rhythm throughout the entire party. Perhaps instead of trying to ram the drugs are bad message down our throats, it would have been more productive to society as a whole to teach the kids that ”Winners don’t use bongos” (taking this further, if anyone remembers the D.A.R.E. campaign, then I personally think that B.A.R.E. would have had a more positive impact on the world).

His henchman looks like the bastard child of Groucho Marx and Ortega from The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (see here), and seems about as menacing as Elmer Fudd. As for Buz, I’m not sure it’s possible to be intimidated by somebody who wears his trousers pulled up near his nipples outside of tv talent shows, which may also explain why Michele goes for Critter instead.

You may get the impression that I didn’t like this film, but honestly as terrible as it may be, I actually enjoyed it. I don’t believe it would have rated so low on IMDB if it hadn’t made an appearance on MST3K, but this far into the list I’m glad it did as it made a welcome change from some of the awful movies we’ve had to endure recently. This movie may not quite have danced its way into my heart, but it managed to flail its way there in way that some people may think is dancing and sometimes that’s good enough.

#44 Girl in Gold Boots (1969) (Colin)

Cast: Jody Daniels, Leslie McRae, Tom Pace, Mark Herron

Director: Ted V. Mikels

Genre: Crime, Drama, Music, Romance

When I heard the plot for the next movie on our list, I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

When I heard the plot for the next movie on our list, I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

The next movie in our list is about a girl who flees to LA in pursuit of her dream to become a dancer. She manages to get a spot in a popular LA dance show, but discovers that in LA, not everyone can be trusted and that betrayal and danger are never far away…..

I had to do a quick double take and re-check, because this plot sounds suspiciously like our #49(a) movie, Showgirls, (see my blog here). Had we listed the same movie twice? Was there a duplication? I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

As it turned out we hadn’t made a mistake. The next movie on our list was Girl in Gold Boots and was actually made in 1969; a good 30 years before Showgirls. But it can not be denied, the plots are very similar, so the question was, is Girl in Gold Boots the 60’s equivalent of Showgirls? Or is it actually a good movie?

Michele, (Leslie McRae), works in a roadside café in the middle of nowhere with her alcoholic abusive father, (Victor Izay). When the café is empty, (which seems like all the time), she likes nothing more than to stick on some music and dance, (I say dance, flap her arms and move slightly is more accurate).

Strange little man and Simon Cowell trouser wearer, Buz, (Tom Pace), arrives at the café with intentions of robbing the place, (judging by the amount of customers, there must be at least $3 in the till), but when he stumbles upon Michele’s dancing he has an idea. He tells Michele that his sister works as a Go-Go dancer in LA and that he can get her a job dancing.

Michele weighs up whether to stay with her drunken father or run off with a strange little man and decides it’s a no brainer, (like Buz), and the 2 set off for LA.

En route they pick up a hitchhiker called Critter, (Jody Daniels), who carries a guitar and bursts into song at opportune moments. Tension mounts as both Buz and Critter like Michele and they both launch into a dick measuring contest throughout the journey.

When they finally get to LA, they go to the Haunted House, a Go-Go club where Buz’s sister, Joan, (Bara Byrnes), is the lead arm flapper. They meet up with club boss, Leo, (Mark Herron), where Michele gets a job as a dancer, Critter gets a job as a janitor and Buz gets a job as a drug pushing lacky.

This is when the trouble begins as Buz spirals from petty criminal to slightly bigger petty criminal. Joan develops a drug problem and is promptly demoted and replaced by Michele. And in the most chilling twist of all, Critter’s cleaning effectiveness is cast into doubt as he realises they are working in a hard water area.

Will Buz learn the error of his ways and go straight before it is too late? Will Michele follow Joan’s path from Go-Go to No-No? And will Critter’s order of urinal cakes arrive on time?

The Girl in Gold Boots appears to have been recorded on a chewed up VHS tape and both vision and sound are fuzzy, jerky and of a poor quality. This off course may have been due to the version I watched, (which was on YouTube), but I have since seen the MST3K version and it appears this is not a one-off.

There are some crazy edits throughout which cut scenes short and abruptly start the next scene. One famous bad edit can be seen on the MST3K version in which Buz ‘teleports’ into a chair next to Michele in a bar. This is very funny to watch and gives the scene a ‘Bewitched’ moment as Buz appears out of nowhere, twitches his nose and invites Darrin’s boss for dinner.

The bad quality of the picture may also explain why the Gold Boot dancers who appear throughout the movie are actually wearing silver boots. Maybe the tape was put through a boil wash in error and the gold has bled into the rest of the picture?

The bad quality of the picture would not explain McRae’s bad dancing and why everyone seems to think she’s the next big thing. She swings her hips and arms, bends her knees and squats a lot and apparently this is top quality dancing?!?! In that case during my festival years, when needing a no.2 and the toilets were, shall we say a little full, the manoeuvres I had to do to successfully have a poo would have got me into the Royal Ballet!

McRae’s bad dancing compliments Pace’s bad acting. It’s not totally bad, but is as cheesy as Cheddar Gorge. He tries to be this bad boy, but I’m sorry, pouring beer onto a biker’s bike seat, when he is not around, is not particularly James Dean is it? It’s even less convincing when he’s trying to be mean and moody whilst his trouser belt is around his nipples.

I do like Leo though and whilst his portrayal of a baddie does have a certain whiff of brie about it, it is done in a good, 60’s baddie TV show kind of way. In actual fact it reminds me of Columbo, (a show which I absolutely love), and in particular Jack Cassidy’s role as guest killer(s), (he was guest killer on 3 separate occasions). Herron grits his teeth in the same way, has the same mannerisms and an identical moustache. OK so Herron is a budget Cassidy, but good nonetheless. Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time talking about Cassidy, I’ll move on now.

Oh, just one more thing ma'am, I am aware that Cassidy only had a moustache in ‘Publish or Perish’ and ‘Now You See Him’, so there is no need to point this out in the comments section :)

I also like the soundtrack, which has a good 60’s garage band vibe to it. I particularly like the title song, (Girl in Gold Boots), which is played several times throughout and is pretty darn catchy. You will be humming it for days after!

So, is Girl in Gold Boots the 60’s equivalent of Showgirls? Or is it actually a good movie? The answer to both of those questions is yes!

If you’ve seen Showgirls then the outline of the story above must have seemed very familiar and for that reason it is difficult not to compare the two movies. The obvious similarities are there, the dancing, going to LA to dance and the sleaze, dirt and disaster this can bring. This is Showgirls, make no mistake, but a Disney version. This may have been cutting edge in the 60’s but due to de-sensitisation, it feels Showgirls-lite.

Make no mistake though, I like this movie on its own merits. I like the storyline, the soundtrack is good and the movie moves along at a nice pace and manages to hold onto the audience. Yes there are some unintentional funny moments, mainly caused by the bad edits, but this just adds to the enjoyment and charm.

So if you watched and liked Showgirls, then watch Girl in Gold Boots, I think you’ll like it. But even if you haven’t, watch it or at least the MST3K episode featuring this movie, (which is a very funny episode).

This is one of those movies that is actually quite good and does not deserve to be so high up on our list.

This is one of those movies that is actually quite good and does not deserve to be so high up on our list.

There’s that deja-vu again………..