A documentary about the worst movies ever sounds like a fun concept. Imagine: the makers get to research history on some of cinema's most dubious entries, and audiences are educated on why and how some films turned out the way they did. Sadly, the creators of this documentary were apparently obvious to that idea, as I can barely even call this waste of time a "documentary" to begin with. This is a documentary in the same way that a 20 minute tour guide playing in default on your hotel TV is a documentary on culture.
So, what is this all about? An overly-cheesy narrator lists 50 horrible movies in descending order, that's it. How did they compile this specific list of 50 worst movies? Was it from a census vote? Was it from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, MUBI, or any other movie site? Was it taken from a book published by a highly respected and educated film historian? From what I know, this list is entirely opinionated from the makers of the film. Most of the movies listed are unknown, exploitation, and produced before the 70's, and the list of movies overall is actually quite atrocious. Classic bad movies such as Manos, Monster A Go-Go, The Beast Of Yucca Flats, The Wasp Woman, Attack Of The 50 Foot Man, The Giant Gila Monster, and Troll 2 somehow aren't on the list but appreciated and even critically acclaimed films like Black Belt Jones, Greetings, Bloodsucking Freaks, and The Maddest Story Ever Told (which has a 7.1 on IMDb and an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) do make this list. Speaking of Troll 2, the original movie somehow makes the list at #7 but the infamous and more recognizably awful sequel is never even mentioned. Spoiler alert, but the #1 worst movie of all time, according to this list, is The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, a movie that was obviously only picked for its laughable title.
So, even if the film selection sucks, what about the critiquing and explanations discussing the movie's production and why the final outcome became so awful? Sadly, this is where the film truly collapses. The "critiques" are simply 20-second, two sentenced summaries that explain the plot before moving onto the next entry. No history of the film, no production stories, no critic interviews or cited written reviews, and sometimes there's not even an explanation as to why the film is considered bad at all. Here is the word-for-word transcript of their review for #35, Hillbillys In A Haunted House:
"When country legends Merle Haggard, Sonny James, and Ferlin Huskey encounter the villainous Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine, and Basil Rathbone, a dubious hoedown of lame thrills and bogus chills ensues. One of cinema's biggest missteps."
Wow, excellent review. Now I know exactly why this movie is considered to be one of the worst movies of all time. Oh wait, it isn't? What a shocker. On top of that, the clips playing in the background aren't even from the movies being displayed, but are instead excerpts from the trailers. Were the filmmakers of this "documentary" just too lazy to buy the movies they were making a presented on? Most of the entries don't surpass the 30 second mark before moving on to the next entry and only one of them actually educates the audience on the movie's backstory and production problems, being The Creeping Terror.
Each "movie review" ends with the same tedious cut scene of a theater throwing popcorn at the screen, over and over and over and over and over and over again. It becomes irritating after the third time it plays, and it makes one wonder why they couldn't just use multiple cut scenes or cleverly twist the scene of the movie being featured into saying something negative towards itself? Oh wait, that would actually mean the makers of this film actually had to buy the films being featured.
I don't classify this a documentary, but if I were to, it'd easily be the worst documentary I've ever seen. I genuinely believe this to be some sort of glorified college project that somehow found itself on DVD. This is something that deserves to be free on YouTube, which it is. I'd buy Hillary's America on DVD before this, at least that film had production and some form of interesting commentary on its subject matter, although still horrible. This film is the same as just copying the IMDb summary of a movie and pasting it into Microsoft Sam for him to read aloud while you play the movie trailer in the background. Sound interesting? Well good, I just saved you money.
8 out of 12 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink