My posting as of late has been sparse due to the relentless nature of life (not to mention my own work ethic–about 70 percent of which could be called whimsical at best), but it’s all finally calming down again. All of this leads me into something somewhat unorthodox for my section of Unwind, since all of my previous posts have been solely about books. But with this post, I wanted to talk a little bit about movies. Particularly, delightfully terrible screenwriters and filmmakers who somehow managed to continually get studios to fund their projects, despite the fact that there are surely snuff films with more artistic integrity.
The king of terrible filmmaking is of course Ed Wood, whose magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space, is so poorly executed that I often wonder whether or not scenes depicting Bela Lugosi weeping were actually scripted. I imagine his inconsolable tears likely came about due to the realization that he was actually participating in the making of this movie. If you’re unfamiliar with the film, it’s about an alien race attempting to take over the world by unleashing three zombies to wreak havoc on a cemetery. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, I wouldn’t worry–I don’t think it made much sense to Ed Wood either. Nor did it have to, really.
I would be doing myself and everyone else a disservice if I didn’t mention Troll 2, which is probably the worst (and greatest) movie ever made. Ed Wood looks like Francis Ford Coppola compared to the guys who made this movie. First of all, Troll 2 is inexplicably about goblins. This discrepancy is never addressed, so it’s pretty safe to assume that the filmmakers don’t have a lot of concern with continuity. The aforementioned goblins are vegetarians who live in a heavily wooded town (lazily called “Nilbog” which is goblin spelled backwards) filled with all sorts of plant life. Yet, the goblins turn people into plants for the sole purpose of eating them.
The author of the movie’s Wikipedia page is clearly a master of the wild understatement: “Troll 2 is widely considered to be of poor quality,” he or she writes.
Really, this entire post has been an excuse to expose people to these movies. Please, put them in your Netflix queues. In the meantime, enjoy this short clip from Troll 2 along with this trailer for Plan 9 from Outer Space.
15/12/2009 at 8:53 pm Permalink
To add a recommendation to the horrible you-gotta-see-this-crap movies list, I say GingerDEADman. It’s about, you guessed it, a homicidal gingerbread cookie come to life! It’s just so bad you have to laugh. And it even has a sequel!
Here’s the trailer: (warning, contain cursing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiWyiA77qzg
How people get budgets or actors for this stuff, I’ll never know. Oh, and I can’t wait to see Troll 2. I almost died laughing at that 21-second scene and the actor screaming “ooooohhhhh mmmyyyy ggggooooddd” instead of running.
16/12/2009 at 10:10 am Permalink
The Gingerdead Man truly is Gary Busey’s finest hour.
And you’ll be repeatedly amazed at how incredible Troll 2 is.