Dustin Whitlock
Special to Clarion Ledger
Published 10:00 p.m. UTC Jun 26, 2018
There are bad movies, and then there are awesomely bad movies. The movies on this list are not simply unintentionally funny. These get better every time you see them.
All of these come from the ’80s or ’90s. Once you get past the ’90s, cheap movies started using computer-generated imagery (CGI), which robbed them of their magic. And before the ’80s, you didn’t have VHS and the rental industry, which have let these movies live on in glorious cheese long after their theatrical release.
‘Xanadu’
Released in 1980 and starring Olivia Newton-John, “Xanadu” is a roller disco musical that’s a roller coaster of psychedelic singing, dancing and skating. The exposed lighting, lens flares and flashing lights make this flick a no-no if you are prone to seizures.
In one scene the characters turn into cartoon fairies for no reason. The term for how this movie was put together is feature-creep (the practice of throwing more and more “features” into a film or other product, often to excess). The final sequence has not only roller skating but bowling-pin juggling, tightrope walking and jungle girl and cowgirl costumes.
“Xanadu” is the first film on the list to have earned its own documentary (“Going Back to Xanadu”) — a true stamp of cinematic skankhood.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 36%; audience average, 58%.
‘The People Under the Stairs’
In 1991, Wes Craven made an urban fairy tale about rich white people who kidnap kids and imprison them in their fortress-home. The main character is a black boy named Fool who winds up at the home of the deranged couple, who are also his landlords. (The movie’s racial commentary is still relevant today, though hamfisted.)
In a reversal of “Home Alone,” the house is booby trapped and Fool ends up locked inside when the sadomasochist owners return. Fool escapes into the walls with a boy named Roach and discovers a girl upstairs who is kept as the couple’s daughter, with long curly hair and dressed like a doll. But things only get weirder.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 61%; audience average, 58%.
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‘Batman & Robin’
Ask Bat-fans to name the worst Bat-flick, and the answer is unanimously “Batman and Robin.” It gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, George Clooney as Batman and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.
Director Joel Schumacher took the franchise back to its colorful, playful presentation from the 1960s show, and at the time, fans hated the movie for ruining the franchise. But the movie has proved over the years to be so bad it’s good.
It has a blonde Valley girl Batgirl, even though the second most iconic female character in comics is a redhead; it’s filled with one-liners from Schwarzenegger that are as (hilariously) bad as if Rainier Wolfcastle of “The Simpsons” was playing Mr. Freeze; and of course there are those Bat-nipples on the dynamic duo’s costumes.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 10%; audience average, 16%.
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‘The Legend of Billie Jean’
Calling your main character a legend in the title is asking for failure. Fortunately, “Billie Jean” is legendarily campy.
The brother of Billie Jean is beat up and his scooter is trashed by a local meathead. Billie Jean confronts the jock’s dad at his store and demands money for the scooter’s repairs. The dad offers her the money if she will sleep with him. Her brother enters the store, a gun is drawn and the old man is shot in the shoulder. Billie Jean and her brother flee and spend the rest of the film on the run.
“Billie Jean” was Helen Slater’s first film after “Supergirl.” The two flicks were a one-two death-punch to her career. Unfortunately, there was only room for one Slater movie on this list, and “Billie Jean” is so bad it makes “Supergirl” look like a three-tier wedding cake.
“Billie Jean” is best known for the scene when the titular character watches a Joan of Arc movie on television, cuts off her long platinum blonde hair and films the world’s first viral video, in which she overzealously declares, “Fair’s fair!”
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 40%; audience average, 75%.
‘Friday the 13th Part 3 (3D)’
Like all of the “Friday the 13th” movies, “Part 3” is about a group of young people who go to Crystal Lake, break all the rules of a scary movie and get disappeared by Jason Voorhees one at a time. But “Part 3” is the only entry filmed in 3D, and it’s about the only red-and-blue (anaglyph) DVD you can purchase.
Being a 3D movie that uses the old red-and-blue glasses (which are cheap to purchase online), the movie works on any screen, which makes it the most watchable movie on this list. The 3D effect amplifies everything cheap in the movie and will make you wish every scary movie from the ’70s and ’80s was filmed in 3D.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 12%; audience average, 42%.
‘Road House’
Nobody puts Swayze in a corner. Attempts to do so, as we learn in “Roadhouse,” will only result in tiger-claw-to-the-throat-fu (as Joe Bob Briggs would call it in his “Drive-In Totals” segment during TNT’s “MonsterVision” movie marathons).
Swayze’s character, Dalton, is a martial artist who makes his living as a cooler/bouncer and takes a job turning around a no-holds-barred country bar. Everyone in town then proceeds to run into his fists, and when things get out of hand, Dalton calls in Sam Elliott and his silver moustache for help.
The good ole boy who owns the town hires his own kung fu assassin (they were in the yellow pages in the ’90s), who forces Dalton to use his ultimate, forbidden finishing move (which is pretty graphic).
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 38%; audience average, 66%.
‘The Garbage Pail Kids Movie’
When the He-man toy became a show, which became a movie (a movie that is awesomely bad but too good for this list), Hollywood apparently decided there was money to be made in toy-based movies.
There were numerous properties to choose from with developed narratives, like “ThunderCats” and “G.I. Joe.” Hollywood chose the Garbage Pail Kids, characters from trading cards and plastic toys.
The trading cards featured grotesque characters like “Valerie Vomit” and were mainly collected by boys, but in the movie the writers put the characters — who voluntarily soil themselves, vomit and possess superhuman flatulence — in a story about black market fashion design.
It proved to be a genius idea as “Garbage Pail Kids” found success as a video rental because it satisfied both brother and sister — a diplomatic choice at the video store.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 0%; audience average, 27%.
‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge’
The gay community has crowned the first sequel in the “Nightmare” series as the gayest horror movie ever. The star, Mark Patton, has made a documentary scheduled for release this year titled “Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street.” Patton, who is openly gay, has for years said that “Nightmare 2” ruined his acting career because of the homophobia in Hollywood and AIDS panic in the ’80s. But anybody who watched the film knows his acting killed his acting career.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 40%; audience average, 33%.
‘Troll 2’
Widely accepted in the internet age as the king of all bad movies, “Troll 2” is bad enough to join “Xanadu” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” with its own documentary, titled “Best Worst Movie.”
“Troll 2” follows a suburban family who swaps homes for a week with a family in a country town called Nilbog. “Nilbog” turns out to be “goblin” spelled backward (that’s the deepest thought in the movie). The trolls of Nilbog feed tourists food that turns them into puddles of green slime, which the trolls eat.
No one in this movie has any business acting. The trolls wear potato sacks and the masks look like sloppy paper-mâché. In the end, the family escapes by throwing a triple-decker bologna sandwich at the trolls.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings: Critics’ average, 6%; audience average, 43%.
Dustin Whitlock is a freelance writer for the Clarion Ledger and Scott County Times. He can be reached at l.dustin.whitlock@gmail.com.
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