Undefeatable [1994]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

May I present to you our first Cynthia Rothrock movie, the female Van Damme but a better actor for those of you not in the know. This movie had been a chosen last week but the timing of our choice was paired up with a particularly big moment in sports as Ronda Rousey, formerly undefeatable, was finally beaten by Holly Holm in a UFC fight last weekend. So our pre-show for "Undefeatable" was watching the YouTube clip of someone who was formerly undefeatable, being defeated. Gotta love irony. Unfortunately, Keith and Grandma were not present to indulge with us but after this movie we can guarentee more Cynthia Rothrock films in the future.

Cynthia is part of a street fighting gang who challenges other gangs and makes money from it, something she does in order to pay for her sister's college tuition after the death of their parents. In the other plot, a women who is being raped and beaten by her underground street fighter husband leaves him and he has a complete mental breakdown. While Cynthia is trying not to get arrested by a kung fu fighting cop who wishes she would get on the straight and narrow, street fighter guy, called Stingray, is going around torturing and murdering girls who look like his wife and keeping their eyes in his fish tank. Eventually Stingray murders Rothrock's sister and revenge must be had. While the cop interviews Stingray's wife's psychiatrist (who was also a professor of Rothrock's sister), Cynthia goes out to beat up guys she knows who beat up women. When the psychiatrist also gets kidnapped by Stingray, they are finally able to track him down and have two separate fights at a warehouse after they save the psychiatrist once and she gets kidnapped again while in the hospital. At one point Stingray and the cop pause while fighting to rip their shirts off and flex. Also Cynthia's unnecessary split count is four in cause you wanted to know. The movie ends with Cynthia and her gang forcibly enrolled in college that they probably can't pay for so they all high five in a fake freeze frame where they all just stand really still for a few seconds.

This is a delightfully dumb martial arts movie with a nonsensical title, practice sequences for no particular reason (sometimes with hook swords!), and so many bad actors. When I said in the beginning that Cynthia Rothrock is a better actor than Van Damme, I'm really not exaggerating and she is also by far the best actor in this movie. There's plenty of bad dialogue but more than that, it's the inexplicable way that people say things. Every actor in this movie needs a pot of coffee and some ability at faking human emotions. All in all, would Rothrock again.

Quotes:
"Can I help you?"
"Sure. Your money."

"They were a bunch of punks."
"Now they're a bunch of crackheads and theydoanythingtheywant!!!"

"Where were you?"
[holds up sword] "I've been busy."

[After Stingray has both his eyes gouged out]
"We'll keep an eye out for you, Stingray."
"Yeah. See ya."

Eye Of The Tiger [1986]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Scenario: You've just made a movie. You're kind of proud of this movie in a "this will make me back the money I spent" kind of way. It's a classic revenge tale, the plot of which is mostly a ripoff of "Mad Max" (who doesn't love "Mad Max", you wonder), and it stars Gary Busey's giant teeth. It's violent enough to appeal to anyone's id and it's got the required family element since you smartly decided to skip the romance element because you want it to be somewhat believable with your choice of lead. You're pretty satisfied. But then you watch the finished product and realize, oh crap, this movie is awful. Well, it's too late to have less wooden side actors or a better, more original script, or even crazier effects but you do have a little money left in the budget. So what do you do? Capitalize on a musical phenomenon. Buy the rights to Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger", use it at least three times, and name your movie after it. Done. Pay me.

That's all just speculation, of course, agreed upon by a room full of movie fans who have been studying bad movies for three years. Here's what I can tell you for sure. The movie is about our Vietnam War vet main character, played by sketchy guy at the bus station Gary Busey, getting out of jail with a drug lord friend he made there and returning to his hometown to find it overrun with a motorcycle gang. His parole officer, the consistently Hawaiian-shirted and bolo-tied sheriff, does not give a damn about him or the gang (as long as they pay him) and his one friend in town tells him about how messed up everything has gotten since he left. After Busey saves a nurse from getting raped by the gang, in particular a man in a chainmail tank-top, they decide to get disproportionate revenge on him by wrecking his entire house and killing his wife, an experience that leaves his daughter kind of catatonic. Busey calls up drug lord friend who hooks him up with a pick-up pimped out with guns and then he goes on his revenge. And it is silly. He pulls a wire across the street, decapitating a dummy! He gives a rousing speech in a bingo parlor full of old people to try to get back up! He literally shoves a stick of dynamite up chainmail tank-top's butt and lights it! And then in a bonkers finale Busey's friend dresses like a 1940s era pilot and bombs the gang from his plane and Busey shoots them up with his gun truck. Cue "Eye Of The Tiger". Roll credits. Cha-ching.

If I can say one undeniably good thing about this movie it's that among the Bad Movie crew we had some of our funniest commentary in a while while watching it. We're hilarious.

Quotes:
"If you so much as fart and I get wind of it . . ."

"What are you looking at, black man?"
"I'm looking at a white man."
"That's right. A real white man. Take a good look."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "That was a five out of ten. Last week was a ten."

Road House [1989]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

So this is kind of a weird one. Yes, okay, a lot of the movies we watch at Bad Movie Night are weird but what makes this movie weird is the fact that defining it really and truly as bad is kind of difficult. It's not really a big budget flop so much as it's a cult classic with a lot of people who really enjoy it. It's got a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes which is way higher than what we usually deal in and the entire Bad Movie Night crew had already seen it under non-Bad Movie premises except for Kay who over the years would hear Adam mention it and then after asking if they should watch it he would respond with, "No, let's watch a good movie." In all technical respects this movie is good. So what makes it bad? The absolutely bonkers writing and acting that, while maybe typical of 80s action, is really no excuse to a critical eye. This movie is the holy grail of enjoyably bad.

Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer who is famously good at his job. How one becomes a famous bouncer is never explained. Either way, a guy who owns a bar in Nowheresville, Midwest comes to his swanky club and offers him way too much money to come to his bar and clean it up. The bar is the kind of place where you are way overdressed if you are wearing a shirt and/or have all your extremities and the band plays behind a wire fence to protect them from smashing bottles. After assuming control, in no time at all he has the place cleaned up and stylish and has met a doctor he's into and things are pretty swell. It turns out, the plot wasn't really about the bar so much as it was about this evil rich guy who controls the town through violence and destroys businesses, occasionally with monster trucks, that won't pay him a percentage of their earnings. Sam Elliot comes in as Swayze's cool bouncer friend to try to help and becomes the best part of the movie until he is killed by the rich guy's thugs. What we get then are a long pond-adjacent fight between Swayze and the top henchmen in which he rips out his Adam's apple and a showdown at the rich guy's house in which the guy is killed because all the major business owners in town show up with shotguns (it's the Midwest, remember). 

This movie is the pinnacle of 80s cheese. The only way to watch it is to assume it is happening in a parallel universe that mostly resembles our own because it is just madness from start to finish. I couldn't write down every crazy line or odd read because this post would never end but I gathered a few below. And although I said the technical aspects of the movie were good, there were still some real WTF directing moments including a scene where the knife on someone's boot was zoomed in on and had an artifical sparkle, a scene where Doc is screaming at Swayze and an explosion happens behind her in time with her shouting, and a scene where Sam Elliot is riding in Swayze's car with his face perfectly framed by a hole in the windshield. There are reasons this movie is well known but honestly, there are plenty of good reasons this movie deserves to be called "bad."

Quotes:

[repeated line]

"I thought you'd be . . . bigger."

"Why don't you and I get nipple to nipple?"

"It's a good night. Nobody died!"

"Do you like pain?"

"Pain don't hurt."

"Wanna know why you disgust me?"

[punches him in the nose]

"You're a bleeder."

"You found my trophy room. The only thing that's missing is your ass."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it."

Hercules In New York [1969]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Inspired by last week's "dubbed body builder in a low budget film", we decided to watch another one! Although we've seen plenty of movies featuring, say, Van Damme, we had yet to see a Schwarzenegger film (well, other than "Batman & Robin" but he wasn't the star of that one) and it was about time for that to be rectified. He was only a 22-year-old unknown when this movie was made and because of his accent, he was dubbed over by some other guy. Apparently there is a version where you can hear his real voice (Adam kept insisting there was and the internet confirmed it) but we ended up with the original dubbed one.

In "Antique Greece", Hercules is a whiny and arrogant demi-God who wants to chill with the lesser beings so Zeus sends him down to earth which somehow means New York in the late 60s. After terrifying (and possibly arousing) an old lady on a plane by flying outside it and then getting picked up by some sailors and refusing to do any work on the ship, he meets a New York stereotype who sells pretzels named, wait for it, Pretzey. Herc and Pretzey stumble on some college guys doing athletic stuff so Herc decides to show off and this somehow earns them an invite to some rich people's house. The daughter of the house ignores her puny boyfriend in favor of going out with Hercules and we get to see him wrestle a man in a bear suit of Ed Wood level quality. Meanwhile, Pretzey signs over Hercules' soul to some guys who will break his thumbs if he doesn't comply and Hercules ends up becoming a famous wrestler or something. He picks up heavy things and puts them down, progressively trying to pick up heavier things than his opponent. All is pretty swell for Hercules until Zeus decides he's an embarassment and sends Mercury to try to get Herc to stop partying and go home. When he says no, Juno, suddenly remembering that she hates him, decides to rid him of his strength with the help of Nemesis and Pluto (Greek and Roman names are interchangable in this movie). Zeus finds out and fixes everything and after Herc comes home, Zeus decides to peace for the mortal world himself with no lessons learned.

This movie is pretty spectacular. There's pretty much always something weird happening with the only explanation being Arnold's character shouting out "I AM HERCULES" in a flat but loud voice. There's also plenty of cheese to go with that ham with scenes like Hercules stealing a horse drawn carriage, Pluto entering New York via the depths of the subway, and the scene where he fights a bear which is worth seeking out if you want a laugh. All in all, yes, Arnold is right to be ashamed.

Quotes:

"When myth and history combine into mystery . . ."

"That's just for college guys. You're not allowed."
"I AM HERCULES."

"Watch your talk."
"I can hear my talk. I can't watch it."

[On seeing a poster for a Hercules movie]
"He doesn't even look like me. Look!" *rips off shirt*

Adam's Grandma's Review: [enthusiastically and without being asked] "It was good!"

The Seven Magnificant Gladiators [1984]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

I'm pretty sure it's a written law of the universe somewhere that if something becomes popular and iconic enough there must be a crappy foreign remake of it. A few years ago we watched "Russian Terminator" which had absolutely nothing to do with the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie so perhaps it was just a marketing thing to name it that. But this movie? Not at all. This movie is a rip-off in the truest sense. They changed the setting to ancient Italy, got cheaper actors including Lou Ferrigno with someone else dubbing his voice and a girl who was in "Malibu Express", and just lifted the entire plot of "Magnificent Seven" which is already a remake of "Seven Samurai." This is the kind of commitment we look for in our movies.

What can I say about the plot really? Go watch "Seven Samurai" or "Magnificent Seven" and then imagine it with way less technique or writing skill and you've got the plot. Okay fine: A guy in a high-collared spandex unitard claiming to be a demi-God terrorizes a town. Some of the women of the town bring a magic sword into nearby towns trying to find someone manly enough to wield it and discover chariot racer (and also gladiator?) Lou Ferrigno. Together with a group of bar fighters and random dudes they find hanging around, they go to save the town. One guy is only in it for the potential of chicks. One guy joins because he seems to have nothing better to do. The one girl in the group is hoping there will be gold. Really there's just a lot of fighting, at one point a character who looks like a grown up Bam Bam from "The Flintstones" fights Joey Ramone and Slash and it's very special, and the town is saved even though three of the so-called gladiators died. 

Overall this movie is exactly what you except from a low budget ripoff. The costumes are hilarious (one ruler is wearing an outfit that looks like a second grader's class project to design a "pharaoh Pope"), the music is from the Renaissance era, the sets are just the actual ruins in Italy which, you know, wouldn't have been ruins at this time, and at one point we get the privilege of seeing someone's safety wire appear in a shot that makes it look like he was suddenly stabbed. Also, even though this was the time when Italy dubbed over all of their actors to save money, this didn't help the acting one bit and more than once it looked like someone was reading their lines over someone else's shoulder.

Quotes:
"I've been thinking about those women we're gonna fight for. I hope they're pretty enough to be worth saving."

"I've got a funny feeling."
"Really? Where?"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Pretty good."

Also when Adam said "Pharaoh Pope" at one point it sounded like "Feral Pope" and we decided this is a bad movie that must be made so we can watch it.

The Giant Claw [1957]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

After the great reception we got from last week's movie, "Robot Monster", we decided to push our luck and try out another 1950s sci-fi horror fim: "The Giant Claw" apparently also known as "The Mark Of The Claw" which is slightly more menacing. While it wasn't quite the laugh fest that "Robot Monster" was there was still some comedy to be had as well as some really terrible conventions.

In a voice over that never fully stops a bunch of characters who work in engineering are introduced but the only two you need to know are the main character Mitch MacAfee, an aeronatical engineer, and the female mathmatician who he sexually assaults on a plane. Mitch sees an unidentified flying object and when people go out to investigate, including himself and the mathmatician, they are struck down by something. The two crash land in Canada and meet a French dude who thinks it's a monster in the sky. Then they go back to New York and, later, DC, convincing the military to go out to investigate and discover the truth: it's a giant chicken made of alien material that they think is antimatter. Why this thing didn't explode immediately when coming in contact with, oh say, air, is not explained. Considering the protagonists are an engineer and a mathmatician, they are clearly ill-equipted to solve this issue of extra-terrestrial biology and yet somehow they manage to make some staggering observations of the creature (that is gets energy from food and might reproduce) and then decide to kill it an antimatter destroyer which they are somehow able to make. The world is safe and Thanksgiving dinner has come early this year.

This movie has a couple really strange lines, a very bad puppet, blatant "King Kong" ripoff scenes, and some really hammy acting so it was a pretty enjoyable watch. However, we did start off the night with the best music video ever and ended it by introducing Keith and Grandma to the "Trololo" guy (and "Trolling Sauruman") so, it had some tough acts to compete with in terms of the best thing we watched that night.

Quotes:

"Get me the Pentagon . . . very fast."

"It has no element recognizable by man. Finding out was expensive."

". . . God foresaken antimatter galaxy."

"A nest? Eggs. More birds!"

"In a fantastic orgy of the destruction that the world has never seen!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "No."

Robot Monster [1953]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It has been a while since we saw an old sci-fi movie which is a shame because they are Keith's favorite in the bad movie canon. Amusingly, we all genuinely thought this was an Ed Wood movie based on the title and, well, pretty much everything about the production. We actually found it curious that Bela Lugosi wasn't in it. Alas, the movie is actually directed by a guy named Phil Tucker and it was originally in three glorious dimensions which we could only hope made this hilarious movie even funnier. 

The movie starts with two kids, a brother and sister, talking to two scientists, one young and one foreign, in a cave before we are treated to a total non-sequitur of a scene of alligators wrestling each other (one with a fin taped to its back) and a few brief shots of dinosaurs. Then we see the robot monster emerge from the now empty cave, a monster that is half gorilla suit and half stereotypical space helmet. In a conversation with his boss man using rabbit ears and a bubble machine on some old equipment someone found in a dumpster we find out that all the humans have been destroyed but eight: the two kids from earlier, their scientist older sister, their mom, her foreign scientist husband who was in the cave in the beginning, the younger scientist from the beginning, and two dudes on a space station thing. He wants to destroy them all. Because he hates human emotions or wanted to neutralize a potential threat before they attacked him or something. The eight are immune to the ro-man's (yes, that's what he's called) death rays because half of them are scientists and they made a serum to protect themselves. The two in space are blown up and the oldest daughter comes up with a plan that involves a vaguely sexual wiring scene with the younger scientist that helps nothing. After seeing her on 1950s Skype, Ro-man wants the older sister to come to see him but the little boy sneaks off to reason with him instead and accidentally reveals all their secrets.Then there's an intermission. . . in an hour long movie. Back to the film, the two young hot scientists fall in love and the dude one has an unnecessary shirtless scene. They make out in the grass and decide to marry. The little sister gets strangled to death by Ro-man, the older sister gets kidnapped, and her new husband gets killed. Ro-man has a conflict of not wanting to kill the older sister (why do aliens always think humans are bangable? So human-centric) and so his boss kills him and destroys the world. More shots (okay, the same shots) of alligators and dinosaurs and SURPRISE. It was all a dream in the little boy's mind. What. The. Fu-

This was an instant classic. Everything was perfect bad movie quality. The acting was odd, it was full of ridiculous quotes (see below), the direction was flat, and editing was full of recycled shots and weird errors. At one point electricity on a wire stopped moving and we had to play it again. In fact, we stopped this movie a lot to laugh or replay quotes. 10/10, would robo again.

Quotes:
"I want facts, not words!"

"For the first time in my life I am unsure."
"You sound like a hu-man!"

"You're so bossy you outta be milked before you come home."

"You know something? You're either too beautiful to be so smart or too smart to be so beautiful."

"Do you realize what you tried to do was impossible and you almost did it?"
"But I didn't."

"Calculate your chances . . . negative . . . negative . . . negative."

"I think you're just a big bully picking on people smaller than you."
"Now I will kill you."

"I cannot but I must. How do you calculate that?"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was good. Funny."