Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

When a movie called Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus comes out, it is absolutely impossible to pass up. The title encompasses great bad movie subjects: sea monsters, arbitrary conflict, and the juxtaposition of the words "mega" and "giant." MSvGO begins exactly where you might expect something about an epic sea battle to start: a snowy mountain range.
Marine biologist Emma MacNeil (Debbie Gibson) tools around in a minisub to study humpback whales and hammerhead sharks (which both inhabit the arctic waters near Alaska). During her expedition, a lip-glossed helicopter pilot pouts his way through the skies, setting off an LFAS (low frequency active sonar) beneath the water for absolutely no reason.
This arbitrary act of environmental assassination comes back to haunt him, as the LFAS releases none other than MEGA SHARK from its icy slumber, who gobbles up the whirlybird like an aerial chum bucket.

On the other side of the world, an oil derrick off the coast of Japan is attacked by GIANT OCTOPUS, both as retribution for disturbing his habitat, and hamfisted environmental social commentary on the part of the director.
Racist, profane, and ignorant government agent Allan Baxter (Lorenzo Lamas) seeks the help of Dr. Debbie, her Japanese love interest (Vic Chao), and her extremely Irish former professor (Sean Lawlor), who takes time out of his craic at the pub pickin' feckin' fights, eating potatoes, and guzzling Guinness to find his own pot o' gold: the entrapment of these two global menaces. Despite asking for their assistance, Agent Baxter is needlessly mean to the researchers, regularly throwing insults at them for no reason other than to serve as a foil to their reasoned scientific minds.

After their plan to capture each respective creature using pheromones backfires, the trio determine the best hope at mutually assured destruction is to pit the two against each other for a "thrilla in Manila."

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus delivers in all respects. Firstly, the DVD menu rules.
Second, the two actually fight. The CGI is not terrible (though heavily relied upon). They destroy fighter jets, regular jets, bridges, derricks, subs, and destroyers. Most of the characters are unreasonably stupid for their respective positions. During the hunt, the marine biologists debate whether the sonar is picking up the shark or the octopus, as they stare at a distinctly octopus-shaped object on the screen.
There is not one but two laboratory sciencing montages: beakers of colored water poured into other beakers of differently colored water, initial pitfalls, computer readouts, gradual success, falling asleep mid-work, late night coffee, and hunching over microscopes.
Each interior shot features the same two party lights. There are numerous small continuity errors, like when it cuts from a nail-polish-less Debbie Gibson, to the nail polished hand of her stand-in.

Also, it's a good thing they blacked out the stem in the Apple logo, otherwise I'd never know which kind of computer she uses!
And why does the sonar display contain a swarm of tiny penises?
In the spirit of Snakes on a Plane, director Jack Perez (credited as "Ace Hannah") anticipated Internet buzz for a film so wonderfully titled, and assured its moderate success with the inclusion of numerous baffling non sequiturs. The oil derrick scene begins in the middle of a conversation about urinating on a coworker. Before Mega Shark destroys a commuter jet, there is a needless reference to a passenger getting married. When the trio is taken in by the government, Dr. Irish suggests the facility has the "same lighting as Guantanamo." First of all, I don't think Guantanamo has "lighting." Second, if it did, I doubt it would be purple-gelled stage lights positioned under the guards' hands.
But overall MSvGO is a rousing good time. Even though it's self aware, it contains just enough camp to ensure a fun viewing.

What to drink:

Miller High Life wrapped in a paper bag.

Quotable quotes:

American Derrick Worker: We have customs in the States too.
Japanese Derrick Worker: Like urinating on coworkers?

Flight Attendant: Please sit down sir. It's just an air pocket. Thank you.
Passenger: I'm getting married in two days.

Dick: Don't love the ocean so much. It doesn't love you back.

Baxter: Now clearly we're dealing with a menace that no one has ever imagined, much less counted on.
Dr. Shimada: Like Hurricane Katrina.

Baxter: (to Debbie Gibson) A lot of mouth coming from someone whose career is all washed up.

Arbitrary ranking system:

Four sequels and two sasquatch-related spinoffs.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Part of the comic book industry's attempt to cash in on every license ever, it's the 2007 box office smash Ghost Rider that was panned by critics and forgotten about exactly two weeks after it came out!

Remember kids: don't do what Ghost Rider does

After Last Season (2009)

Since I live a few miles away from one of the four theaters showing the Internet sensation After Last Season, I considered it my professional and patriotic duty as a bad movie blogger to see it. The movie ended its week-long run yesterday, and I managed to catch a matinée before it vanished from theaters forever.

I was one of two people at the screening. The other was a middle aged woman who spent the majority of the film knitting. When the end credits rolled she asked me "did you like that?" to which I replied, "I don't know what to think anymore."

Those of you who watched the trailer probably have a lot of questions. I'll do my best to explain as much as I can.
1. What is it about?

Mark Region provides the IMDb synopsis:

The end of another season has brought more than the usual change in temperature to the residents of a city. As they go through some tragic events, the residents, and especially a group of medical students, must reevaluate their lives and face new questions.

Some of this is true. I'm not sure what "city" he talks about. A vast majority of the film takes place either on a campus or in a medical research facility for the Prorolis Corporation. The medical facility resembles a residential home (for some reason there is a ceiling fan in the MRI room), and the campus resembles a series of interconnected Siberian maintenance sheds.
Really it's about the murder of a fellow student. One girl can see murders after and before they occur. At one point the murdered student comes back as some sort of ghost/invisible nebulous force. Or did he?

2. Is it really that bad?

Sort of. Picture something made by middle schoolers. Add computer graphics from that Dire Straits video, rambling dialogue about main markets, basement printers, and hot springs, pad it out even more, and you've got After Last Season.

However, a lot of this can be attributed to amateurism. The serial killer thread is slow, but coherent. There is some clever interplay between dreams and reality. I could see where Region was going. It's painful to watch, but ambitious for a novice.
3. Is this a joke?

I don't think so. If it is, someone put forth a lot of effort to make and distribute something that is incredibly bad, confusing, and poorly framed. Also, about 14 people saw it.

4. Seriously, is this a joke?

My theory is that Mark Region was in group therapy for a mild social or psychological disorder. As part of his treatment, one assignment involved a creative writing project dealing with his disorder in some way. Region wrote a short screenplay and, compared to the others, it wasn't too shabby. Ego boosted, he expanded it into a feature and spent the next 10 years hounding friends and family for money to produce it.

5. Did it really cost $5 million to make?

An interview with Region on Filmmaker Magazine expands on this a bit:

Filmmaker: In an earlier interview you stated that the film’s budget was $5 million, which seems like a high number considering that you had a tiny shooting crew and only shot for five or six days. Is this number correct?

Region: It’s correct. When we shot, the budget was $30,000 to 40,000, but to do those special effects and the computer animation, the budget went to that number.

Filmmaker: To $5 million?

Region: Yeah. And that also includes a few other things — titles, lab costs.

Filmmaker: But it doesn’t include theater rentals and the cost of distribution?

Region: No.

The $30,000 price tag sounds more reasonable. He states earlier in the interview that in order to save money on film stock, he would do a marathon line reading with each actor, one take apiece, of a random assortment of lines throughout the script.

I'm not sure how or why it would ever balloon to $5 million for the CGI, or where he got that money when his initial budget was so shoestring. Either he's lying, doesn't know how to count, or got incredibly ripped off.

Also, lab coats.
6. Do the lines in the trailer make sense in the context of the film?

No. They are just as bizarre. I imagine the fractious production process contributed to this somewhat, but as written, a majority of the scenes make no sense. Everything before and after the serial killer plot mostly involves people talking about places they or their relatives have been to (hot springs), places they haven't been to (the main market), things they or their relatives saw ("My husband saw a coyote over there once. It stayed for a little while, then it went away"), and other things that might contribute to characterization in a normal film.

The way the lines are written, again, feels like someone with a social disorder imitating how normal people interact. I'm sure that was part of the assignment as well.

7. Does she ever get to the main market?

Not in this one. You'll have to wait for After Last Season 2: Before Two Seasons After Last

The Nostalgia Critic: Bad for Everyone

Our astute, genius-level intellect readers no doubt recognize that we're not the only game in town when it comes to campy, cheesy, or otherwise bad movies. Probably the biggest game in town right now is the "Nostalgia Critic," a character, a web-site and practically a brand-name created by Doug Walker to cash in on a whole generation of people with warm, fuzzy memories of crappy movies. It's unfortunate that Nostalgia Critic sucks. Don't believe me? See for yourself.



Please note that you don't have to watch this if you don't have 15 minutes of your life to waste.

First of all, he's doing this backwards. His motto: "I remember it, so you don't have to," sets out his faulty mission statement in an easy to remember sound byte. His whole deal is mocking something you remember or at least know of but haven't seen in two decades. He makes jokes about how bad a movie is without really reviewing it, and the goal is apparently for you, the reader, to not watch the movie. That's stupid. We here at Your Stupid Minds want people to watch bad movies, to love bad movies, and to laugh at bad movies. But please don't post 15 minute videos of yourself mocking the bad movie while showing off your improv skills.

What really bugs me in a review like the one posted above might not be what you think. Yes, his jokes are bad, and despite like ten jokes about how gay He-Man is, most of his videocaptures really aren't any more homoerotic than Star Wars. It's not the incredibly lame attempt at political humor. It's not even that he has the name of the movie wrong and feels the need to explain that He-Man, in fact, had a cartoon. Seriously as much as I don't respect Ben Lyons, at least he doesn't give us FIFTEEN MINUTES of him driving home while he talks about movies he just saw.

No, what bugs me is how this guy feels like he has to be the star of the fucking show. Instead of laughing at the movie's shortcomings, we're supposed to laugh at this douchebag's capering? Why on earth does this guy feel the need to add sound effects, canned laughter, and pictures of John McCain for what's being called a "film review"?

Even more insufferable are all the other characters this guy plays: in "Bum Reviews," Doug plays Chester A. Bum, a loud, wig-wearing guy whose 'jokes' consist almost entirely of incredibly clichéd non-sequiturs. In "Ask That Guy," he plays an upper-class, loud guy whose 'jokes' consist almost entirely of clichéd non-sequiturs. There's a pattern here, but I can't quite grasp it.

I get that all of these creations are characters created by Doug Walker to give him some measure of celebrity on the Internet, but what bugs me is that he's done it at the expense of movies I like.

But even that would be forgivable if he was actually funny. But he just isn't. Try to sit through this. I dare you.



It's just painful to see him try to play a different character but then immediately fall back into his nostalgia critic voice, but without all the editing and gimmickry that attempts to hide his total inability to deliver a joke. This thing was only about six minutes but it felt like roughly infinity minutes because it was so goddamn awkward and flat-out bad. It was so bad even his private cheerleading squad recognized a misfire. Bad movies are the crutch this guy uses to hide his inability to entertain, and by making fun of them with himself as the feature attraction he's made a series of unwatchable, shitty reviews based on campy movies. Frankly, campy movies deserve better.

Don't get me wrong: making fun of bad movies is great. We all have fond memories of MST3K, but the robots and the human were in the audience, they weren't the goddamn stars.

To summarize: The Nostalgia Critic sucks. I'm glad there's a popular outlet for cheesy, campy, and otherwise bad movies, but I wish it was actually good. I'd settle for watchable.

After Last Season Trailer

While I'm sitting around blogging about robot murder porn, this student film fever dream got a 4 city theatrical release.



A cardboard MRI scanner? And whats the deal with the headroom? It's like the camera is allergic to the floor.

Seriously. Someone tell me how this is fair.

Exterminator City (2005)

We here at YSM pride ourselves in discussing the merits of bad films. Our reviews are less a judgment of quality and more a brief viewing guide to encourage the reader to see and enjoy the film. They are all bad movies, and placing them into some arbitrary spectrum of bad to worse completely misses the point.

However, occasionally a film comes along that is so terrible, so pointless, so devoid of any sense of storytelling, composition, cohesiveness, or sanity, that I cannot sit idly by. Up until today, I thought all bad movies had something to contribute. That is until I watched the nearly unwatchable Exterminator City.
I say "nearly" because I did, technically, watch the entire film. There were many times I wanted to stop. If you are determined to get through all of Exterminator City, it is a movie best watched in five minute chunks. And yet, despite the slow digestion, the movie never becomes entirely palatable. Like a big heaping pile of brussels sprouts, at no point does the next one taste any better than the first. Each is just another hurdle in your dead sprint toward the end (dessert).
There is no Stockholm syndrome with Exterminator City. Every single second is just as terrible as the one before it.

This is due primarily to its complete lack of progression, development, or clarity. According to the synopsis, the movie is about a robot detective and his psychologist partner determined to catch a robot serial killer on the loose in the dystopian Atro City. Sounds like a pretty entertaining piece of B-Movie schlock, yes? You would be wrong.

Here is a brief snippet of what I would imagine the script to look like:

Imagine these two scenes repeated over and over and over and over and over, with only slight variations inserted into each one. Maybe the porn star urinates. Maybe it's a crossbow instead of a knife. Maybe the robot detective places a superfluous "r" at the end of a word. Who knows? What we do know is that at no point does it progress into anything which might resemble a conclusion. For a movie so obsessed with porn stars, you'd think it would pay more attention to climax.

Exterminator City looks awful. The porn star footage was clearly shot by someone else at a completely different time for some kind of bizarre fake porno snuff film. They contrast wildly from the robot shots, which are in extreme close up, presumably to hide the fact that they were all shot in director Clive Cohen's basement.
The sound is also terrible. There is a jarring cacophony of royalty-free Garage Band sound effects at all times. Cohen places a needless stinger on the most innocuous of shots. Each robot sounds distorted to the point of incoherence. Each line is a pointless and strangely worded catch phrase, as if spoken by Starcraft units in the seventh layer of hell.

In addition to these abortions of filmmaking, there is also an extremely disturbing homicidal overtone. At one point the robot detective straps into a machine which allows him to look inside the mind of the killer. I felt like I was doing the exact same thing. Like Ted Kaczynski's "Ship of Fools," or Seung-Hui Cho's "Richard McBeef," Exterminator City feels like a cry for help. A voyeuristic and uncomfortable look into the mind of a psychopath.
There is one more reason to avoid this movie at all costs. I should note that this is NOT WORK SAFE (though I did censor it), and under no circumstances should anyone look at this picture ever.

DO NOT CLICK!

This woman chose to look this way. She deliberately altered her body, undergoing numerous painful surgeries, in order to achieve this body image. I want you to remember that.

What to drink:

Drano mixed with POISON.

Quotable quotes:

Executioner: Let's rock 'n roll, baby!

Detective: Oh my! Shit on me!

Partner: Damn! It's a real life Picasso!

Detective: He's an enigmer!

Partner: You pull this off, you're up for promotion, even a runtime extension.
Detective: Aren't I a blast?
Partner: You sound jaded, detective.
Detective: Hey, I'm just high on life!

Partner: Embrace the insanity!

Detective: I'll get him.
Partner: How do you know that?
Detective: It's my job, bitch!

Detective: "I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds."
Partner: You know Nietzsche?
Detective: I read the comic book.

Arbitrary ranking system:

Drano mixed with POISON.