The Time Machine (I Found at a Yardsale) (2011) User Reviews

LOL. This is a movie?

[serina25801 · 1/10 · 15 December 2013]

This is a parody of bad movies, not a movie itself.

I refuse to believe this is an actual film (or supposed to be one). All I did was laugh the entire time. And can we PLEASE talk about that "dinosaur"? OMG. I haven't laughed that hard is YEARS.

I saw Phelous' review on the film and, after dying of laughter, decided to try to watch the movie itself. And it was even funnier. It's so bad! Like...there is NO WAY these people thought this was a good idea or thought they could even act. The only half-decent actor in the entire film is drowned out with background noise.

Plus, you think this film has a plot? HA! They ditch the "plot" and, if you somehow make it to the ending, you'll just be like, "LOL. What?" I mean this movie is beyond bad. That's what makes it so funny.

How NOT to make a movie 101

[CapnKaos · 1/10 · 29 November 2013]

Where do you even start with a movie this bad? Even in the worst movies I have ever seen there is some redeeming factor or one bright spot you can point to. In this movie however there is none of that. This is "The Time Machine (I Found at a Yardsale)" or as it should be known, "The Time Machine: The Anti-Movie".

Scenes are framed incorrectly with most of the background taking up the shot. There are rules and ways of framing involving thirds. This movie thinks that if something is centered on the screen, then it must be okay.

Use of static shots. Movies are a visual art form. People are supposed to move naturally. But not in this movie. No, they stand completely still for minutes at a time and spout tired dialogue in front of green screens. One shot of the hero takes two minutes while he drinks a glass of orange juice. Not a moment is wasted from him getting the glass all the way to him drinking the juice and putting the glass in the sink. And while he drinks it, he just stands there, looking blankly ahead and not moving. A truly riveting performance I must say.

But he's not the only bad actor, no the movie is full of them. From the bland lead who speaks every line in a bored monotone to the bland female lead who speaks every line in a bored monotone. Watch as they speak to each other in front of a green screen. Marvel at how they don't show any emotion or facial expressions as they do. Cower in fear as you feel your sanity slowly leave you.

The special effects are pathetic and this is possibly where the majority of the budget went. Anything they couldn't show was done in post as the leads stand in front of a green screen. Even a lot of the outdoor shots were done this way, possibly because they had terrible sound and lack of a boom mike.

But the worst part of this is that they have a time machine yet act as if they're still affected by time and it's linear effects. If you had a time machine you could literally take as much time as you wanted to do whatever you wanted then travel directly to whatever point in time you wanted. Let's say you need to be at your sister's wedding but you have a concert you want to see that night. No problem. Go to the concert, then use your time machine to go back in time and attend her wedding. At no point do they say this is not possible to do.

And yet, at the most opportune time or when they couldn't figure out any other way to get around a problem, they simply use the time machine to fix the problem. Consistency. You need it.

So yes, this movie is not a good one and I don't even know if I can recommend it to lovers of bad movies. It is just a mess from start to finish. Even a movie like "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" has it's riffable bits and it's enjoyably bad. This one I don't think you can even enjoy it ironically.

You've been warned.

Disasterpiece

[JackFamine · 1/10 · 9 July 2016]

This movie makes Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" look like a genuine masterpiece. This wouldn't even be considered okay for a high school project. If a teacher received this "movie" as an assignment in school, the students wouldn't just get an obvious F, they would be expelled!

Some movies try hard to be "so bad it's good". This movie doesn't even fall under that category nor does it looks like it attempt to. It's just bad. So bad it's bad...

An entire movie shot in front of a green screen projected with stock photos and people who so obviously just paying back a debt to the director by starring in his disaster...

I usually don't get upset over movies, since they're subjective matters. But this movie made me boiling. It's so bad it shouldn't be allowed to exist. And frankly, I'm still not convinced that it does (even though I just watched it).

There isn't a Rating Low Enough for this One

[james-877-826225 · 1/10 · 26 August 2013]

The video quality is the only decent aspect of this film. As for the audio, all the sound seems to be coming from wrong directions and speaking can barely be heard at times because of the background noise. Everything about the story itself is useless in discussing, because it's not even at the level of an amateur - whilst keeping in mind this movie had a $3500 budget. Watching this film leaves the viewer with the feeling that they also need a time machine to get back the 84 minutes they wasted on it. Somewhere Ed Wood is rolling in his grave because somebody has officially outdone his bad films. This movie has to be the modern day equivalent of "Manos: The Hands of Fate".

Rating: "Birdemic" out of 10

...but it was on a Red!

[CorbanNoah · 1/10 · 17 September 2015]

I watched this on YouTube and was amused that, in the description, they made a point of telling people the film was shot on a Red. It seemed like the idea was that better camera = better movie, but that sadly is not true.

Virtually the entire movie is comprised of static shots of the actors in front of a green screen. The lighting doesn't match, and the picture is completely flat. Most of the time, the actors appear to be reading their lines from a cue card with the emotion and presence to match. There is also a lot of "Oh my gosh! Look what's happening just off screen! We can't afford to show you anything that's happening, but trust us! It's amazing!" Probably the most astonishingly awful scene was the shovel scene: The actor was standing in frame; the actress walked into frame; they both looked at the camera for the cue from the director; and then they began their lines. There are also several shots of them drinking where you can tell that they're watching the director, waiting for a cue to drink at the same time.

There's also the "CGI" that is completely awful and flat. The dinosaur. Good God, the dinosaur.

As far as the story goes, the plot drifts incoherently, while having absolutely no character development whatsoever. A guy finds a box containing a magical vocoder that takes him anywhere in time. So he goes far into the future to find a flock of female slaves dressed like purple nuns. He rescues one in another breath-taking scene involving more standing around. They go further into the future to find an abandoned spaceship that the actor (who has never seen a spaceship before) instantly becomes an expert at flying. He then tries REALLY hard to be the coolly-detached stud hero, but only manages the detached part.

For almost the rest of the movie--except the very end--they completely ditch the whole time travel idea and instead focus on helping a group called The Resistance simply because a voice recording they discovered on the stolen ship told them to do it. It was never established who The Resistance is, why they're fighting, or if they're people you'd want to help in the first place. The good thing is, the members of The Resistance that they do find openly help them without question. So trusting for rebels!

---Galactic belly dancing. 'Nuff said.---

After that they find treasure and stuff while walking in front of stock Windows desktop pictures. They also blow up poorly-animated spaceships that look like they came right out of a 1990's PC game. Then he tells his family that he's going steady with Slave Girl. And then--SPOILER ALERT--they do a coin flip on a beach. Yup. Pretty much.

I never thought I would find a movie worse than "Birdemic", but I now have. (Hell, meet frost.) But at least this film was shot on a Red!

Amazing as a background relaxing noise for work and relaxation

[ivan_dmitriev · 3/10 · 20 January 2019]

Horrible acting, horrible SFX, but really NICE audio great scenic still shots of ladscapes, space and planets, courtesy of a stock photo website and NASA, I guess.

All the actors look like they're one family - like "George" just invited his girlfriend , her mom and sisters to act there along with his own dad.

This movie is a huge waste of time! It's really awful! HG Wells would be rolling in his grave.

[ironhorse_iv · 1/10 · 24 May 2017]

Imagine a movie so bad, that every conceivable error has been made, while making it. That's what we got here with this film. I don't care, if this movie was initially intended to be a bad film to get some laughs or not; no amount of time-travelling, will ever change the fact that this movie is probably one of the worst movies, I ever seen. It's not funny. It's not entertaining. It's not even watchable. Written and directed by Steven A. Sandt, the film tells the story of Robert Moore (Johnny James Gatyas), an ordinary man whom goes on a series of adventures, through time & space with a futuristic slave girl, Sheba (Amy Henry), when he buys a time machine at a yard sale. If that sounds like a plot that a low budget television show would make, over the span of 12 episodes, you would be correct. This movie story sure does feels like one. On the other hand, a plot like that, does not work for a film like this, because it jams way too many subplots like time travelling, treasure hunting, planet exploring, and others in a limited runtime. One hour and 24 minutes is far too little time for any of that. So, it was no surprised that the ending was very disappointing, as the movie didn't resolved anything. Another problem with this film is the fact that it wasted a lot of time, on pointless filler. It's so slow paced. One good example of this, is the real time scene, where the protagonist get home and takes a while, drinking a glass of orange juice, before opening the box that holds the time machine. Did we really need to show that or the scene with the intergalactic belly dancer (Elise Caloca)!? I get that the actress is on the cover of the DVD, but her performance doesn't play, any major part in the story. It felt like time-wasting. Even, with the scenes that needed to be established, the filmmakers took a little too long. Why is there, five to ten shots of them, landing on a planet!? Also, why are some of those scenes, framed so incorrectly with most of the background taking up the shot? Have they never heard of centering!? Also, what was the deal with the actors, walking through a number of stock desktop locations pictures on a badly-done green screen? Most of those scenes could had been, shot in real locations. It's not that expensive or dangerous. I get that, filming on location, sometimes, give off, terrible sound due to the lack of a boom mike, but it's a risk, worth taking. Especially, when you already filmed some scenes in a real-life forest with really bad sound. Don't get me wrong, some green screen is indeed needed for this Sci-Fi film, but why couldn't the director get the actors to react to their surrounding a lot, better. The two leads, acts so unnatural, when they come across something like walking around on an ice planet with no jackets, meeting dinosaurs or delivering goods to some resistance fighters that was never established. They're so horrible! It's even worse, when they stand completely still for minutes on time, doing nothing in static shots with no music. I can't stand, looking at sad, fat woman's face or 1950s greaser guy, any longer. The characters look so stupid & braindead. The chemistry between these two is equally, six feet under. The worst part about this, is the fact, that the characters forgets that they have a time machine, yet they act as if they're still affected by time and its linear effects. Regardless, the dialogue is so awfully written that it seem like a foreign movie dub in horrible English could had done, better. Overall: This movie is travesty, horrific, absurd, ridiculous, and mind-numbingly stupid. I don't even know if I can recommend it to lovers of bad movies. It is just a mess from start to finish. Even a movie like 2010's "Birdemic: Shock & Terror" at least, had some enjoyable moments. This one I don't think you can even enjoy it ironically. It makes 'Birdemic' seem like a Sci-fi masterpiece. It's that bad. If this was a student film, like it could, very well-be. It would be F. This is one film, you show your students, on how not to make a film. It's a big fat failure. No wonder, why it was never released at theaters. Even on Youtube. This is still one of the biggest crap movies, out there.

0/10 Review (If I could give that low a rating)

[benjaminweber · 1/10 · 5 April 2018]

Everything about this film is wrong. The editing stands out among other bad films as abysmal. The acting is bad. The story is bad. The special effects are terrible. Nothing goes well for this film.

Acting and dialogue: Most of the time when the two main characters are conversing, it cuts back and forth between static shots of them facing the camera while in front of a green screen. The delivery of these lines is average at best, and the dialogue is often boring and repetitive. The general impression these scenes leaves is that they were written purely to pad the run-time.

Editing: This is by far the worst aspect of the film. Shots start earlier than they're meant to, or go on for far too long while absolutely nothing happens. Again, it feels like the director was desperate to pad the run-time. There are some cuts between scenes that feel like five minutes of the film have just been omitted. Occasionally there's a scene that wasn't in front of a green-screen, and the colour balance is noticeably wrong.

Special effects: Technically this is also under editing, but this deserves a paragraph of its own. Almost any scene involving actors takes place in front of a green-screen. This can work if done correctly, but not when the background is a basic 3D computer model, or a picture the director took with his camera while out hiking. Some of the time it's 100% obvious there is nowhere that the actors could be standing in front of the given backdrop. There are also moments where a reflective surface either disappears, or reflects the wrong pattern, because it was reflecting green during the shoot, so just had the background plastered over it. Aside from the green-screen issues, this film also makes far too much use of CGI, considering they clearly had no one who could competently use 3D animation. There are numerous untextured shapes lazily slapped onto the flat backgrounds throughout this film.

Plot: The plot is directionless. It's just a series of events that don't go anywhere, then as soon as something interesting might start to happen, the editor simply wipes that scene out of existence. It feels like when writing this film, lots of people yelled out ideas for a plot, but instead of choosing one idea and developing it, they just stitched together the build-ups to those ideas and called it a 'script'.

Honestly, this is about as poor a film as you can get, without going full "Fun In Balloon Land". The goofs section for this film might as well be the entire script, or a link to the film on-line.

Utterly Abysmal, The Lowest of the Low

[seanmurrayi · 1/10 · 5 May 2019]

It should already speak volumes that the IMDb rating for this title is nearly as low as can be mathematically possible (1.1, as of May 2019), considering that users on this site cannot rate anything below a single star, and several other reviewers have already said plenty about how much of an understatement the description "dreadfully terrible" can be.

What really unnerves me, though, is the production title card from some (alleged) studio calling itself the "Actors' Theatre Production Company." Setting aside all of this movie's other numerous faults, failures, crimes, and shortcomings, that production title card (which is the first thing that anybody who'd dare to ever watch this movie would set their eyes upon) gives the impression that this is a vehicle for regional, aspiring ACTORS.

"Sure," I think to myself, "I'm not exactly going to be seeing Sir Lawrence Olivier or Meryl Streep in this thing, but at least the performers on screen would be giving a try, if only for their own sake." I mean, would I be crazy to assume that the good people with the "Actors' Theatre Production Company" would have any regard for ACTING?

Well, surprise! Unless the "Actor's Theatre Production Company" actually happens to be a non-profit whose mission statement is to provide acting gigs for asocial individuals with mental deficiencies and no previous theatre experience, this company couldn't even competently put on a community production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."

The acting alone defies comparison to any other "legendarily bad" movie anyone can name. Never before have I seen two people (Johnny James Gatyas and Amy Henry) on screen look less convincing as human beings and lack as much personal chemistry. At least the likes of Tommy Wiseau or even Neil Breen can make an honest attempt at conveying an authentic emotion or make an on-screen "connection" with their cast mates. Here, however, that is a luxury which this film's $3,500 budget cannot afford.

The principal cast of ''The Time Machine (I Found at a Yardsale)'' cannot possibly be comprised of people who have any interest trying to act (for stage or screen), and they cannot even be bothered to hide that fact. About the only person in this entire movie who appears to be an authentic performer is a belly dancer (A belly dancer!), and even she's not worth looking at.

Treat this movie as toxic waste and keep far away before you start growing tumors on your thyroid.

this movie wants what Birdemic has

[digit420 · 1/10 · 20 December 2020]

Let me preface this by saying this movie is exactly what I wanted it to be, and I was entertained the entire time simply by the absurdity of it all. If you liked Birdemic, this is maybe a step or two below that, and I highly recommend it for bad movie lovers like myself. Be warned, though, the unanimous 1 star rating is well earned.

Before I watched, I thought the reviews I'd seen roasting the acting were mean. I was like, the actors can't be THAT bad. I'm a simple man, I have pretty low standards. Man, these people went backwards from not acting at all. A person who isn't acting still expresses emotion and they expressed literally next to none. In their defense, though, it was probably incredibly boring to film, and I imagine the whole thing was done in some guy's living room in a single afternoon. It's basically a stock photo & screensaver compilation with some dialogue. Lots of things allegedly happen in this movie, but we don't really get to see any of them. You gotta use your imagination.

The best part of this movie to me is that these two lifeless individuals travel across space, in the future, and they buy some new clothes (in space, in the future) and undergo a wardrobe change but the clothes are just regular shirts from like. Target or something. I never got over that. There's a point where they go to some kind of space nightclub??? for which the sign is in papyrus font. They also encounter what may be the greatest dinosaur in cinematic history. So it definitely has its shining moments.

Anyway, as I said, if you enjoy laughing at bad movies, go for it. If you prefer a good movie, I think watching this will give you mesothelioma

Best Movie Ever - Not to be Missed

[adambridge-58451 · 10/10 · 2 March 2021]

Ok it isnt but if others can give bad movies high scores then this totally deserves 10 stars.

The movie had me laughing all the way through because it is everything a teaching aide in "Making Mistakes in Your First Movie" should be about. Because they make every single one and even some that no-one ever imagined.

Makes Manos the Hands of Fate look like Tarentino

[adionisos · 1/10 · 26 October 2020]

Oh god. Everything about this movie is terrible. Acting felt like two corpses with people dubbing over them. Effects... are non existent. The plot is: Guy finds time machine at yard sale (hey look it's the title!) goes into the future, finds a slave, who looks like a nun...and then they just travel from pointless scene to pointless scene. For 90 minutes. Theres no rhyme or reason to anything anyone does and the last scene is the guy asking the girl for a sandwich. This movie doesn't even fall into the 'So Bad Its Good ' category, home of your Neil Breen's and Tommy Wiseaus of the industry. This is just torture.

Why was this even made?

[Java_Joe · 1/10 · 13 July 2018]

Every movie that has ever been made had a reason behind it. This could have been it was a passion project. Or they felt a story would work great on the big screen. Or maybe they just wanted to make a lot of money. The problem is that none of these seem to be why this movie was ever made.

This was made by "The Actors' Theater Production Company" which I literally can't find any evidence for. No website. No listing. Nothing. It's like they made up a name and just went with that. No other productions were ever made by them. I'm guessing that after this, they realized that they were never going to make it big so just decided to stop while they were ahead.

The story itself is dull. It's plodding, stupid and nobody can act. The male lead is bland and can't show emotion. The female lead is bland and can't show emotion. I'm convinced that these are just two people that answered the casting call and were the only two that showed up thus garnering them the lead roles.

The directing must have been non-existent. I'm not kidding when I say there was a 2 minute long scene of the male lead drinking a glass of orange juice from start to finish. Why? It doesn't add anything to the story. We see everything that leads up to an event even though it's not necessary. Entire scenes show them walking in front of a green screen for minutes on end. And of course half the time they stand in front of a green screen, face the camera and deliver dialogue as if speaking to the other person. This is a movie. You're supposed to move and be animated, not stand there and blather.

Plot points lead nowhere. It's just they need something to happen so it happens and later on they forget about it because it's no longer relevant.

In the end it's just a bad movie that isn't even enjoyable in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. It's terribly dull. Avoid it at all costs.

Han solo and princess leia really let theirselves go

[jjdynamic · 1/10 · 26 September 2022]

If it hadn't of been for a couple of way more entertaining movie reviews on this, i wouldn't have known this movie's existence. This is like star wars and star trek's deformed child that they abandoned at some orphanage.

Everything is god awful. Usually even bad movies have at least one redeeming quality about it, but this has none. The only thing it helps with is helping people with insomnia fall asleep. You can barely hear the actors voice for one. And let's not talk about the acting, wow! If it's one thing that did get right is that if they wanted 2 of the most boring, flat and non-charismatic people for their male/ female lead roles, they found the perfect ones. The guy looked like some 1950's outcast while the lady acted like that was first time out in the real world.

The editing is atrocious. Matter fact, scratch that. It wasn't any editing at all. If you're the type of person that needs to see everything in a scene, this is the movie for you. The epic "orange juice" scene was just the beginning of what was yet to come. Dont let me get started on the "special effects". Dang near the whole movie is shot on green screen & stock photos. I felt like a youtuber could have came up with better content than this. & the "dinosaur" part....well yeah.

Anyways the only thing that you can only wish from this movie is the time you wasted that you took when watching it. Too bad we don't have time machines for that. It does serve as nice ASMR though.