Little-Known Terrible Movie for Party
June 11, 2016 1:53 PM   Subscribe

Our friends host an annual weekend gathering for our geeky circle, and for the third year in a row I am in charge of the Bad Movie Showing and riffing. I'm on the search for this year's feature. Snowflakes below.

The two movies I've previously shown are the classic Bollywood Harry Potter/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory mashup/ripoff Aabra Ka Daabra, and the Japanese possibly-fantasy, possibly-postapocalyptic extravaganza costarring Steven Segal's son's hair, Death Trance.

I need something that will stand with these that is NOT well-known. This group of friends has been staffing science fiction and anime conventions for years so you can assume that all the MST3K movies are out, and so are things like Zardoz, Flash Gordon, live-action anime adaptations, as well as many cult Japanese and Thai horror movies, like Hausu.

I'd also rule out all anime because several members of this group will definitely have heard of it, and probably have copies already. seriously, I once mentioned that I'd heard of an anime with Poirot and Miss Marple as a crime-solving duo and I got the DVDs handed to me the next weekend

It's got to be available on DVD or Blu-ray for less than $30ish. In an ideal world it would also be available on Hulu, Netflix, or YouTube so I can pre-screen it and decide if I want to purchase. Preferably Region 1, but we can rip it and burn it if necessary.

Ideally it would be a movie where there's few or no parts with tedious pacing, because those are the points when people get up to go refill their drinks and forget to come back.

Subtitles OK. I'll probably put them on even if it's an English-language movie because of the riffing.

Preferably science fiction, fantasy, horror, or action.

I'm also going through this previous AskMeFi for suggestions, but a lot of them are too well-known for my purposes.
posted by telophase to Media & Arts (109 answers total) 40 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hard Ticket to Hawaii?
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:59 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Heh, which I now see is in the previous thread.
posted by RustyBrooks at 2:03 PM on June 11, 2016


I actually just came to recommend Deadfall, which has been by far the weirdest and most enjoyable installment of my workplace's monthly bad movie nights. I've been campaigning to see it again just to make sure I didn't hallucinate the whole thing.
posted by waffleriot at 2:10 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fateful Findings by Neil Breen is an excellent bad film, replete with awful acting and lots of snarkable moments. It's not entirely little-known but it's just enough below the radar that my friends who love bad films hadn't heard of it.

(It looks like Neil Breen as a filmmaker was mentioned in the previous thread, but none of his movies in particular were mentioned.)
posted by LSK at 2:12 PM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think you want Fateful Findings. I heard about it on The Flop House, a bad movie podcast, and they ranked it as one of their all-time favorite bad movies, in a "move aside, The Room and Birdemic" way. Here's a review from The Dissolve.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've never watched it, but I've heard that The Man Who Saves the World (Turkish Star Wars) is made for times likes these.
posted by lharmon at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2016


Hercules in New York, starring a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Watch it on the dubbed version. It's a masterpiece.
posted by sutel at 2:14 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Meet the Feebles is a Peter Jackson film that's like a raunchy version of The Muppets. So terrible.
posted by loquat at 2:20 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


My favorite bad movie is Empire of the Ants. Come for the bad acting, stay for the terrible special effects (ant farm ants poorly superimposed into live action scenes). Starring Joan Collins!
posted by mochapickle at 2:23 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


It doesn't exactly fit, except maybe action, but my favorite bad movie is Billy Jack.
posted by ReluctantViking at 2:24 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


You might want to have a gander at the episode list for the podcast How Did This Get Made. A lot of the films they do are notorious bombs that are probably too well-known for your purposes, but they definitely mix some quite obscure ones in there. And they do a ton of films in your favored genres. Gymkata or Gooby might suit your audience.
posted by Diablevert at 2:26 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Leprechaun 4: In Space or Leprechaun In the Hood are both hilariously awful movies.
posted by gnutron at 2:35 PM on June 11, 2016


Wizard of Gore would be my choice.
posted by sninky-chan at 2:37 PM on June 11, 2016


It may not be obscure enough, but Calamari Wrestler (trailer) is totally fabulous. Think Japanese Rocky, if Rocky had been a man-sized wrestling squid courtesy of an awful foam rubber suit.

It's actually not a terrible movie - it very much has its moments - but it's totally fucking bizarre, and the DVD with subtitles can be had for ~$10 on Amazon.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:38 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


The best of these sorts of movies that I recall watching is Incubus. Includes both Shatner and Esperanto.
posted by nat at 2:40 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


The Room is a classic so-bad-it's-good film, featuring Tommy Wiseau. Birdemic is one that's mind bogglingly bad, not just in plot and acting but also production value and just everything.
posted by mossicle at 2:48 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


The Blood of Nostradamus is my own personal favorite, and it is now available on DVD from Sinister Cinema, which is an excellent source for this type of thing. And thank you for asking the question because I had given up finding it, so this is a huge score for me.

It's been some time since I saw it, but I am pretty sure this is the movie that has a scene where someone is yelling "There are vampires running loose in the streets!" over stock footage of an elephant stampede. I don't 100% trust my recollection here, but that should give you an idea, anyway.

And these might be a little too well known, but Dwain Esper's The Maniac (available on Internet Archive) is a classic, as is The Thing with Two Heads, starring Rosie Grier and Ray Milland as two different heads on the same body (on YouTube).

If you have missed either one, though, I strongly recommend them.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:50 PM on June 11, 2016


From Hell It Came.

I wanted to recommend Siesta, with Ellen Barkin and Isabella Rossellini and Lies of the Twins with Isabella Rossellini, but sourcing them seems to be a problem. (Rossellini isn't the reason either of those movies is bad, especially. She's the reason I watched them.)
posted by BibiRose at 2:58 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Do you mind nudity?

My favorite bad movie is "Sorceress", a Roger Corman movie from 1982.

Leigh Harris and Lynette Harris are identical twins who play "The Two who are One". It's a sword-and-sorcery movie with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek and I love it.

They do their best; it's obvious they're trying really hard to give a good performance, but neither of them had any significant career in movies after that.

It's about what you expect from a Corman movie, which for fans of bad movies is a recommendation. It sounds perfect for your group, as long as they don't mind seeing topless women a few times. (It's in the rules that these kinds of movies have at least some gratuitous nudity, as you know.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:08 PM on June 11, 2016


This Beowulf. So bad.
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:09 PM on June 11, 2016


Oh nice, I was doing a weekly "bad movie" group watch with some friends for a while. Recent nerd-friendly favorites were the mostly forgotten 1986 post-apocalyptic rollerskating orphans vs. dystopian government Solarbabies, and the 1988 Roddy Piper cult classic (with surprisingly good animatronic prosthetics, but more likely to have been seen by your friends) Hell Comes to Frogtown.

Both are available to rent on Amazon for a few bucks, and it looks like Solarbabies is available on Blu-ray for under $20. Hell Comes to Frogtown had a limited edition Blu-ray release a few years ago that's out of print and impossible to get for a reasonable price, but can be had on DVD for cheap.
posted by drumcorpse at 3:10 PM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


The straight-to-video Brain Smasher: A Love Story is so wonderfully bad. It's Andrew Dice Clay as a romantic lead! It's a pre-Lois and Clark Teri Hatcher! The plot makes no sense - but there are Shaolin monks and a magic flower! There's no budget so everyone is clearly just wandering around the same three streets!
It definitely hit the bad movie sweet spot for me and my friends.
posted by bookgirl18 at 3:19 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The devil came from Akasava .
posted by vrakatar at 3:19 PM on June 11, 2016


FATEFUL FINDINGS.

oh god... Fateful Findings.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:29 PM on June 11, 2016


Monkeybone
posted by effluvia at 3:30 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is almost certainly well-known to your particular group of friends, but for anyone else in this thread who hasn't yet experienced it: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is my happy place best favorite bad movie ever.
posted by lilnublet at 3:37 PM on June 11, 2016


Drunken Tai Chi

This might be too well known, but Robot Monster is terrible.
posted by FencingGal at 3:41 PM on June 11, 2016


My favourite bad movie is The Story of Mankind, in which the devil (played by Vincent Price) and "the Spirit of Man" debate whether God should save mankind from the "Super H-Bomb". Also starring Peter Lorre as Nero, Dennis Hopper as Napoleon, and Harpo Marx as Isaac Newton.
posted by Chenko at 3:42 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ha, wrong link there, that is what I get for posting from the bus. Here's the trailer for The Devil Came from Akasava, here is the IMDB page. Pretty sure it is on disc with subtitles. It is a goofy, badly made spy/horror/sci-fi with the stunning Soledad Miranda, billed here as Susan Korda. It has some nudity. It is glorious.
posted by vrakatar at 3:55 PM on June 11, 2016


Kamikaze '89 is a spectacular mess.
posted by clockwork at 4:00 PM on June 11, 2016


Liquid Sky

I saw it when it was released. Still shake my head at the memory. Summary is from IMDB, where it's rated 6.1 in what must be an intentionally convoluted movie rating system.

Invisible aliens in a tiny flying saucer come to Earth looking for heroin. They land on top of a New York apartment inhabited by a drug dealer and her female, androgynous, bisexual nymphomaniac lover, a fashion model. The aliens soon find the human pheromones created in the brain during orgasm preferable to heroin, and the model's casual sex partners begin to disappear. This increasingly bizarre scenario is observed by a lonely woman in the building across the street, a German scientist who is following the aliens, and an equally androgynous, drug-addicted male model. (Both models are played by Anne Carlisle, in a dual role.) Darkly funny and thoroughly weird.
posted by she's not there at 4:01 PM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


Repo man is not a bad film, but it is good for the type of party you describe.
posted by mumimor at 4:02 PM on June 11, 2016


Left Behind III: World At War is a movie I'm preparing to make part of a FanFare series with some overlap with your requirements. It's incredible.
posted by rhizome at 4:07 PM on June 11, 2016


I was once in an unfortunate position and forced to watch the entirety of Devil Dog;Hound from Hell. It's a 1978 flick, avail on DVD on amazon for $23.

It was awful, really truly dreck.
posted by RichardHenryYarbo at 4:10 PM on June 11, 2016


Chicken Park. Though finding a copy might be hard, I saw it on VHS back in the day. It's sort of like Jurassic Park. . with chickens, no budget, no talent & no plot.
posted by wwax at 4:15 PM on June 11, 2016


The weird LDS evagenlical movie from the 1970s Cipher in the Snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_in_the_Snow
posted by PinkMoose at 4:26 PM on June 11, 2016


Knightriders:motorcycle jousting, camelot retelling, starring Ed Harris and Tom Savini.

Six String Samurai: post-apocalyptic Buddy Holly samurai heads to Vegas to claim Elvis's crown

This one might be too bad to be funny, but Frankenhooker.
posted by Brody's chum at 4:54 PM on June 11, 2016


My Demon Lover

Trailer

Buy!
posted by Confess, Fletch at 4:57 PM on June 11, 2016


Rubber.
I love this movie. My husband loves to hate it. You be the judge.
posted by Atelerix at 5:03 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Sorry for no links but Netflix has a plethora of terrible disaster/end of the world flicks.n I have shamelessly watched them all.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:04 PM on June 11, 2016


Robot Jox. It's super fun, but also cheesy and bad enough to goof on. A bad movie that's really not bad. Directed by Stuart Gordon!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:06 PM on June 11, 2016


I asked a similar question awhile back, as it is an annual tradition for me to get terrible movies for my sister. There may be some gems hiding in there.

From that I thread ended up getting "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" which was terrible (but good) and "The Terror of Tiny Town" which was also terrible (but not so good... it borderlined on creepy, and not in a good way).

In the past I have purchased hits like:
* Catman (Lethal Track)
* Catman (Boxer's Blow)
* Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
* The Apple
* Hard Ticket to Hawaii
* Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
* Zardoz (Haven't actually watched this yet)
* Battlefield Baseball (Also have not watched yet)

I look forward to mining more goodness from this thread.
posted by groovesquirrel at 5:15 PM on June 11, 2016


This might be too well known now since it had a reboot with Jason Statham but I don't think a lot of people know that it was a reboot.

The original Death Race 2000 is hilariously and awesomely bad and features a young Stalone and David Caradine.
posted by VTX at 5:24 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Man with Two Brains?
posted by cornflakegirl at 5:30 PM on June 11, 2016


Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960)...so very campy...at one point, one of the heroes is pursued by a crowd of horny amazons and, I kid you not, picks up one of them and uses her to bludgeon the other amazons. It's amazing. Also the costumes are really tacky.
posted by sexyrobot at 5:38 PM on June 11, 2016


Earth Girls are Easy, with Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum? Also featuring an incredibly young Jim Carey and Damon Wayans?
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Miami Connection has it all: weird friendships, martial arts, absurd musical interludes that will have the party pumping their fists. And virtually no connection to Miami.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The movie so bad, the lead actor apologized for it thirty years later: Rick Springfiled in Hard to Hold. The love scenes are so awkward and painful that it's hard to actually look at the screen while they're on. The clips above don't begin to do it justice because they don't include the love scenes. Truly the worst dialogue of all time.

Available for $10 on Amazon. Here's some of the Amazon reviews which are fairly accurate:

"Lot of butt shots of Rick Springfield"

"As if made by a bunch of third-graders suffering from some kind of aging sickness or something."

"I was embarrassed for Rick Springfield when it came out, of course it didn't prevent me from watching it several times over.(oh, and I was 15 at the time) I still cringe when I think back to the bad script, the worn-out story line and who the hell cast Janet Elber as the love interest, was she cut out of wood!? "

"Hard to stomach is the real title of this movie."

And it's most likely something your friends have never heard of.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:18 PM on June 11, 2016


Good Guys Wear Black. An early chuck Norris movie. I saw this at a drive in in the early early '80s and its wonderful awfulness has stayed with me ever since...
posted by Chrischris at 6:46 PM on June 11, 2016


idk how little-known it is but The Unborn was hands down the worst movie i ever saw in a movie theatre, featuring gary oldman as a rabbi
posted by poffin boffin at 6:55 PM on June 11, 2016


Boxing Helena is a truly awful movie, though I haven't seen it in 20 years and would hesitate to do so voluntarily. Really, really stupid stuff. Probably not funny enough for your purposes though.
posted by macrowave at 8:03 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Redline.

It's Fast and the Furious written by a moron, acted by people who have only read Wikipedia articles on human emotion, and with directing from the "lead paint is delicious" school of cinema.

I can't recommend it enough.
posted by -1 at 8:06 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Guy from Harlem is a fantastic, terrible martial arts blaxploitation film. (Wikipedia, trailer, RiffTrax)
posted by Woodroar at 8:09 PM on June 11, 2016


If you want to traumatize every guy at the party, Rock & Roll Frankenstein. It's a campy horror flick but so very wrong. It's bad in just about every way. Read the reviews and use your own judgement.

The plot is a music agent needs a new star and decides to steal body parts from famous musicians like Elvis, Hendrix, and Buddy Holly to create one. It all goes horribly wrong when they steal Liberace's penis instead of Jim Morrison's. The creature is a success but has to fight his homosexual urges to keep up his sexy rock star image and ends up killing people. Only one guy out of five I saw it with was able to make it through the whole movie. They all thought the women laughing had terribly bad taste.
posted by stray thoughts at 8:11 PM on June 11, 2016




Here's some 80s terribleness.

Night of the comet -- too well known?

My Science Project

Mac and Me is terrible!

Short Circuit

Millennium

Link

Solarbabies

Cloak and Dagger
posted by bluedaisy at 8:17 PM on June 11, 2016


I suspect these are not obscure enough, however I offer up:
Circuitry Man
The 1995 live action version of Fist of the North Star
posted by gudrun at 8:26 PM on June 11, 2016


Not sure how easy it is to find, but: Ninja of the Magnificence.

I discovered it in college, when one of my friends was sent into peals of giggles just from the name. I've seen it once since. It doesn't disappoint.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:14 PM on June 11, 2016


Dark Planet was god aweful. How did Michael York get roped into that turkey? Made in 1997, but special effects look like something out of the 50s.
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 9:28 PM on June 11, 2016


Forbidden Zone trailer and IMDB page. Good lord. It must be Forbidden Zone. Because who doesn't love a sing-along...
posted by little eiffel at 9:54 PM on June 11, 2016


Both SIESTA and LIQUID SKY are amazing and great. Plus there's zero chance your guests have missed either. These films are not for you.

Because Nic Cage is the tits, I'm going to recommend BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS.

posted by jbenben at 10:11 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Generation X, the Fox TV movie very loosely based on the Marvel X-comic series. It has a nonexistent budget, teenagers with attitude, disastrous '90s fashion, terrible Scottish accents, and Matt Frewer as the villain. Eleven-year-old me loooooved it.

Simply Irresistible, in which Sarah Michelle Gellar gets magical cooking assistance from a matchmaking crab puppet.
posted by nicebookrack at 10:23 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


OMG you guys, Eraserhead. Utterly vile, horrible David Lynch craziness. Only thing is it probably is fairly well-known and I know some people really liked it. However, it's the top of my list of worst movies I've ever seen.
posted by Lynsey at 10:24 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Adventures of the American Rabbit is both rightfully obscure and instantly recognizable from its regular 5AM schedule-filler airings on the Disney Channel in the '90s, presumably because Disney got the rights for like $2.
posted by nicebookrack at 10:43 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Showgirls isn't unknown but most people under 40 haven't seen it and its Fucking Amazing. You will never see anything like it.

The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn't bad per se but it's campy and entertaining as hell. Eminently quotable.

Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja. Popular bad movies from my college days that again, most people under 40 likely haven't seen.
posted by fshgrl at 12:02 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra! Although this movie has tongue firmly planted in cheek already.

Also seconded on Incubus with William Shatner.
posted by impishoptimist at 12:52 AM on June 12, 2016


You need to explore Ozploitation. Australia was the capital of really, really shit movies in the 70's and 80's. There's some good ones in there (Walkabout, Wake in Fright) but there's some pretty bloody awful ones as well (Alvin Purple, Howling III) which are worth seeking out if you're after a cerebral hemorrhage and want to share the joy with your friends.
posted by h00py at 3:36 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Consider "Scream for Help". Ridiculous movie about a high school girl in danger, with gratuitous sex and violence.
posted by Mr. Justice at 4:16 AM on June 12, 2016


Hell Comes to FrogTown

Rowdy Roddy Piper. Enough said.
posted by Thistledown at 4:50 AM on June 12, 2016


1978 was a bad year for film. A very bad year. In addition to Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (mentioned in the other thread), 1978 visited Sextette and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band upon an unsuspecting populace.

They may be too mainstream for your purposes, and be warned that the pacing (dialogue, acting, directing, editing, christ EVERYTHING) is painfully atrocious. However, if you're considering coke-fuelled 70s musical megastar extravaganzas, consider these specimens. They make The Apple look like Citizen freaking Kane.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:05 AM on June 12, 2016


The Wraith with Charlie Sheen is everything the 80's could do for you to make a film for this need.
posted by nickggully at 6:16 AM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Teeth. Absolutely ludicrous.

Also any of the campy 50's low-budget sci-fi flicks, such as The Wasp Woman.
posted by RRgal at 6:41 AM on June 12, 2016


Tapeheads has John Cusack and Tim Robbins in it and is utterly bizarre.
posted by kjs4 at 6:54 AM on June 12, 2016


I just read this article about a new Sci Fi film scripted entirely by an AI. A quote from the film festival judge: "I'll give them top makes if they promise never to do it again." Perhaps worth looking into as a short?
posted by deludingmyself at 7:14 AM on June 12, 2016


Alien Warrior. circa 1984, it's in the genre of what if someone just like Jesus came back as a homeless space hippie having wtf adventures on the streets of LA. totally grade Z with some truly astounding moments and now on VHS...
posted by ennui.bz at 8:12 AM on June 12, 2016


here's one of the reviews on Amazon:
its an alien prince (from another planet mind you) who comes to earth a planet so far away that the earth is as small as,, a really huge moon in its sky. the alien (who names himself buddy) comes here to defeat a great evil (any evil, he's not real picky) so he'll feel secure enough in his manhood to rule his father's empire. And he's got psychic powers. and a bum builds him this insanely cool car. and theres lots of naked chicks involved. i mean ALOT of naked chicks. so alien boy starts a gang. and a community library--with the help of his newly reformed latino rapist friends. and starts fight ing great evil, all with the eloquence of rain man. and the deep philosophies of a retarded version of buddha; and some kung fu skills he picks up along the way. and some really big hanguns. and his new girlfriend and; and he helps peole overcome their child hood traumas and did i mention he fights great evil? who turns out to be mister one, who is a gang lord/ pimp/ rapist/ drug dealer. and the cops are corrupt; and it takes about 50 bad guys in about 32 classic hot rod cars to pick up a $500 protection payment but if you break a piece of wood and yell "NO MORE!!!!" really loud in slow motion they'll all be your friends and,,i cant even go on...

if you thought escape from new york was fun.

this is like that but without making any sense
posted by ennui.bz at 8:16 AM on June 12, 2016


Spaced Invaders should be relatively obscure for recent generations, is quite awful, and available on Amazon.
posted by RobotNinja at 9:09 AM on June 12, 2016


Con Air. Nicholas Cage, Steve Buscemi, John Malkovich, and "Put... the bunny... back... in the box."
posted by Peach at 10:31 AM on June 12, 2016


What Is It? directed by Crispin Glover.

The Happiness of the Katakuris (intentionally cheesy).

Management starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn. Just bad. Like, legitimately bad, not good-bad.

fatso starring Dom DeLuise. Directed by Anne Bancroft.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 10:39 PM on June 12, 2016


Martians Go Home with Randy Quaid. I don't think it's well known? I found the dvd in a junk store for $2 and added it to my collection of bad space movies. It really stinks.
posted by Trivia Newton John at 1:18 AM on June 13, 2016




I always find these questions a bit hard to answer because one person's terrible is another's gold. Also it doesn't help that my brain is literally filled with movies that fit the bill for you. Regardless here's a few of my largely random suggestions:

Horror - something old:
Horror of the Blood Monsters [imdb] / [Trailer]
3 different movies in one - cheaply shot vampire themed intro, a space exploration film with John Carradine and a colorized Filipino about vampire cave men. Oh and Vilmos Zsigmond shot one of those parts.

Horror - something newish:
Boardinghouse (1982) [imdb] / [Trailer]
Near to my heart. Confusing shot on video horror vanity project.

80's kung fu
Furious (1984) [imdb] / [Trailer]
Piecemeal American kung fu movie with a plot revolving around the astral plane and some sort of Chinese restaurant chicken conspiracy. I think they were trying to be a comedy? Maybe? Hard to say exactly what they are doing. References Bob & Mackenzie, though.

Taoism Drunkard (1984) [IMDB] / [trailer]
Kung Fu comedy from fight choreographers the Yuen Brothers. Features a watermelon monster, battling demons and drunks.

Hollywood gone nutzoid:
The old:
Skidoo (1968) [imdb] / [Trailer]
Hollywood tries to make a drug movie but populates it with old comedians. Wanna see Jackie Gleason tripping? Well this is the movie you.

The new:
Old Dogs (2009) [imdb] / [Trailer]
Very noticeably retooled because it tested poorly. Remarkably they made it even worse. Simply terrible.

Literally any of the films of the other Baltimore director, Don Dohler would work. Or the gender bending films of sometimes gay porno director Tim Kincaid.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:01 AM on June 13, 2016


Ozploitation

Speaking of Ozploitation, if you have the ability to play discs from Australia I'd recommend 3 Barry Humphries' (Dame Edna) films: Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972), Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974), and Les Patterson Saves the World (1987) (which I like the least). If you look around it is possible you could find The Marsupials: The Howling III in Region 1, an over the top Aussie sequel in name only.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:37 AM on June 13, 2016


Well, if we're casting the net this wide: The Dentist
posted by rhizome at 11:57 AM on June 13, 2016


Bubba Ho Tep: Alternate future where Elvis didn't die. He has grown old and is now in a retirement home. JFK - who was kidnapped and dyed so he is now black - also lives in this retirement home. It is attacked by mummies.
posted by cacofonie at 6:29 AM on June 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Harlequin AKA Dark Forces. Traumatized me as a child. I think it's come up as an answer to an AskMe (I'm afraid to look) so maybe it isn't the most obscure movie ever, but it's certainly terrible.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:34 AM on June 14, 2016


Harlequin trailer and now I'm scared again, why did they show this at a children's slumber party, why
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:36 AM on June 14, 2016


I think you and your friends would be missing out if you didn't watch Sleepaway Camp.

You can rent it from Amazon, or buy it for $11.
posted by wocka wocka wocka at 2:03 PM on June 14, 2016


Terminus (1987) [IMDb ] [German trailer] [whole film in French], a costly French-German production that was supposed to be the European answer to Mad Max and featured French rock star Johnny Hallyday and actual movie stars Karen Allen and Jürgen Prochnow. It opened to great expectations that turned into an 115-minute long icy shower. It's not little-known. It's unknown, because it's nicer to pretend that it never existed for the sake of the talented people involved. There's a German-language DVD available on Amazon, for some reason.
posted by elgilito at 2:36 PM on June 14, 2016


Skidoo (1968) [imdb] / [Trailer ]
Hollywood tries to make a drug movie but populates it with old comedians. Wanna see Jackie Gleason tripping? Well this is the movie you.


Okay, seriously, this is the worst movie. The worst. I can't.... It's the worst. THIS MOVIE WAS DIRECTED BY OTTO FUCKING PREMINGER AND IS GROUCHO MARX'S FINAL FILM ROLE AND HAS MORE STARS AND GREAT CHARACTER ACTORS THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW DID ANY OF THEM END UP IN THIS

Jackie Gleason accidentally drops acid while in prison with Austin Pendleton. Mickey Rooney plays a mobster who does a tap number in a sink drain (in the acid trip, not for real). Frankie Avalon tries to seduce Carol Channing. Carol Channing does a striptease (for real, not in the acid trip). Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, and Burgess Meredith all co-star. Groucho Marx plays a germaphobic mob kingpin named God. Garbage cans turn into a team of naked football players. The mob is defeated by hippie flower power. The movie ends with Groucho Marx and Austin Pendleton in a boat in the middle of the ocean, smoking weed.

DID I MENTION IT'S A MUSICAL.
posted by tzikeh at 3:32 PM on June 14, 2016 [10 favorites]


So many actually good movies here. Makes me sad.

After Last Season is always my pick, but you kind of have to know someone to see it. Also seconding Wraith, I've been after the folks at How Did This Get Made to do it for a while.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:38 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Greaser's Palace.

Brilliant, surreal, and haunting ...
posted by Shadan7 at 3:55 PM on June 14, 2016


Dream a Little Dream was not just another body swap movie from the 80s, this one starred the Two Coreys.
posted by cazoo at 3:58 PM on June 14, 2016


2019: After the Fall of New York is absolute trash.

The Tenth Victim is older and may not have enough action for you, its interesting in that it is a clear forerunner to a lot of SF that followed it.

Have they all seen Lifeforce? I'd expect the UK versions of the people you describe to have done so, but have no idea how well known is might be in the US. If you think not then this would be a winner.
posted by biffa at 4:04 PM on June 14, 2016


Okay, seriously, this is the worst movie. The worst.

Sell it tzikeh!

Greaser's Palace.

I was gonna suggest that one... I think I've heard it described as El Topo meets Life of Brian, which isn't far from the truth.

How about this teen heart throb gone wrong double feature: Blood Song (1982) featuring Frankie Avalon as a psychopath & The Night of the Strangler (1972) featuring Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees as a psychopath.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:38 PM on June 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is something that you may find a 50/50 split of people who have never heard of this before in their lives, and people who have heard of it and shriek "OMIGOD YES I LOVE THIS!!!" - Blood Freak, an utterly wacked-out indie film from the 70's which I did an FPP about here. Mind you, this is not the Herschell Gordon Lewis "Blood FREAKS", it is Blood FREAK, singular, made by an indie producer named Brad Grinter. It is the only anti-drug mutant-monster horror film with an evangelical Christian undertone that I know of. In the comments on that FPP, Mefi's own Zippy sums it up best thus: "This is a movie made with love, desperation, and the sort of bad decisions only made in the middle of a Florida heat wave."

Even rarer, though - if you have a critical mass of people who've seen Blood Freak and you want to see something else - Grinter also made another equally bad and equally inept film, Flesh Feast, which as I understand it has something to do with a team of neo-Nazis who are trying to breed a super-enhanced strain of maggots to revive Hitler or something like that. He actually got the 30's star Veronica Lake to star in it - she is the lead scientist on the project, but is secretly a Jewish woman who's taken on the project to infiltrate the Nazis and bring the project down from within. (I have never seen this and I want to sooooo bad.)

Another final recommendation - which has nothing to do with Brad Grinter, and is something I have seen - The Terror of Tiny Town, a 1930's Western movie cast entirely with little people.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:38 PM on June 14, 2016


I'm tragically late to this party, so I'll limit myself to one suggestion: El caballero del dragon, or as the English version I saw was called, Star Knight. Among its many charms is the fact that Star Knight only speaks Star Knight, but the human princess can understand him for some reason, which leads to a lot of dialogue scenes that resemble the Peanuts cartoons:

Star Knight: EeeueeeuuueeeEEE!
Princess: What's that you say? You can't take your helmet off because you can't breathe our air?
Star Knight: UuuueeeeuEEu!
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:28 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


You ever wanted to see James Hurley as an aspiring rock star who loses his hands in a car accident, but still manages to rebound as the pulse-pumping DJ Cybersorm? Watch Vibrations and realize that you probably did not.
posted by codacorolla at 7:29 AM on June 15, 2016


Consider Cemetery Man. It's available on DVD, though it looks pricey so you might want to pre-screen per your post; I don't know if it can be streamed anywhere. I actually thought it was a kinda good movie (not like good good, but kinda good), so maybe that's not what you want, but it's certainly weird and obscure.
posted by nickmark at 9:51 AM on June 15, 2016


Slapstick of Another Kind. It's never been on dvd as far as I can tell, though it is on youtube. This is a terrible trainwreck of a movie. I remember seeing this on cable as a kid, it was the first movie I saw that made me feel like I needed a shower (or two) after. Not gory or violent, but very gross.
posted by Mr.Krotpong at 10:22 AM on June 15, 2016


The Neverending Story III (1994) - I think I bought it for $1 online, and it may have had hardcoded Chinese subtitles, but it's been a while since I saw it. But I have seen it, and it is amazing rubbish. Here's a sample, which doesn't ruin anything, except the complete surprise at seeing this song in the movie, because WTF? It doesn't fit into the movie. At all. It stars a young Jack Black as a villain/bully.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990) - described as "if the British tried to make a Troma film." Though it's been on my "to watch" list for a while, I haven't seen it, but that's not surprising, as it only has 615 ratings on IMDb (compared to 8,224 for NES III, but some of those might be from people who found the movie by accident and thought it sounded terrible). Trailer - the talking turd clip, which has more views than the trailer (248,111 views vs 90,555 views), even though the trailer was posted a few months before the trailer. More clips from the Vampire Motorcycle YouTube account.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:15 AM on June 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's not a "bad movie," per se, but Lord Love a Duck is a wild comedy by the writer of Manchurian Candidate and The Seven Year Itch.
posted by rhizome at 9:23 PM on June 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is The Abominable Doctor Phibes obscure enough?

How about its equally campy sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again?

Perfect for late night popcorn viewing.
posted by erinfern at 10:40 AM on June 17, 2016


The Baby (1973) : A demented woman prevents her son from maturing beyond infancy. I love this terrible movie. Ruth Roman snarling "You damn bitch" is one of my personal golden moments of camp.

The same wonderful year gave us Ted V. Mikels' Doll Squad, a cheap, weirdly-paced Charlie's Angels that predated the actual Charlie's Angels. Featuring the great Tura Satana from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
posted by Superfrankenstein at 11:53 AM on June 17, 2016


Glad I did not miss this. Please let me offer, to you and for posterity:

Futuresport starring Dean Cain, Vanessa Williams and a clearly only around for as many scenes as contractually obligated Wesley Snipes. It's about a sport, in the future, called futuresport. I think it involves rollerblading.

Here is, apparently, some kind of actual blurb for it: "In 2025, Futuresport is the organized sport of the planet. But someone else is getting organized and their game is war. Now superstar athlete Tre Ramazy[!!!!!] has more than the weight of his over-inflated ego to carry."
posted by StopMakingSense at 2:46 PM on June 18, 2016


We often use bad movies as mid-week material on MST Club.

How about Eldorado, which has some unexpected star power (Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, and a seriously slumming Peter O'Toole narrating), but is a bit irredeemable, and really quite atrocious. Don't watch if you can't handle random bad lip sync musical numbers, lame attempts at comedy, bad 3D CG, rape jokes, and ultimately (quite some ways in, in fact) gross out horror. After recent review, it is not what I would call "fun" bad. It was made as part of a British tax scam and has a cameo by Sylvester McCoy as a neonazi.

After reading the thread a bit, I dispute that Bubba Hotep is a bad movie.
posted by JHarris at 4:37 PM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Probably too late to the party on this, but since I very much love many of the suggestions already listed here I have to add one of my own. Actually two, and hopefully at least one of them doesn't fall into the too well known category: Super Fuzz and also The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

The first one resulted in many childhood fight scene re-enactments with my brother, the latter is is responsible for making me yell "Concepcioooon!" out loud in moments of frustration to this day. Which is probably very confusing for my work mates.
posted by pandalicious at 8:46 PM on June 19, 2016


From one of the previous threads...

My boyfriend has suggested Mammoth with Summer Glau.

(We have a running $5 bet about who will rent this first. And, yes, you need to refer to it as "Mammoth with Summer Glau".)
posted by pxe2000 at 12:03 PM on June 20, 2016


Oh god - Alien Warrior! that ennui.bz mentioned is actually on Youtube. It's so ...shittily bad. Go to any point in the flick and there's bad music, bad dialogue, bad sets, and why do all of the people in it sound like they're wearing tap shoes?
posted by Zack_Replica at 1:51 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


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