Board 8 > Board 8 Film Ranking Squad Presents: So Bad It's Good Movies - The Ranking!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Maybe it's Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 since the main guy is 3 shitty child actors in a Santa suit

Maybe it's The Room since Denny is a child actor trapped in a fully grown man's body.

23. Mac and Me (1988)
Directed by: Stewart Raffill
Score: 161

Karo: 8
Suprak: 9
Forty: 10
Inviso: 10
Seginus: 18
Bitto: 25
Red: 25
Evillord: 27
Johnbobb: 29

Karo:
A quartet of aliens on an unspecified desert planet encounter a NASA probe, and are sucked into to it by a vacuum so powerful it can warp the very fabric of reality. We're seriously talking Kirby levels of eldrich suction force here. So anyway, maybe I missed when humanity got the technology to send research probes to other solar systems, or maybe the movie is just stupid. The probe then returns almost instantaneously so that its impromptu passengers are somehow still alive. Seriously, it wouldn't even be fast enough coming from Mars, given how quickly the aliens will die without coca-cola intake, so I guess we now have FTL travel too.
So after many government people fail at basic coordination and brain function, Mac the alien comes into the care of Eric, a little kid who can act almost as well as he can walk.
His mother doesn't believe him (of course), and evil FBI goons are after Mac, likely looking to harness his ability to power earth technology just by touching it, or possibly his secondary ability of highly advanced dick sucking.
Its not even trying to hide the fact that it is a blatant ripoff of ET, it is so completely devoid of any originality that they have the fucking alien eat Skittles in one scene.
A McDonald's dance party and a lot of misunderstandings later, Eric ends up shot and killed and the aliens use their fantastical healing powers to bring the boy back from death... and still leave him a cripple. A for effort, guys. Then the government forgets they are evil and makes them all into US citizens? Uhh.... sure.
Like, this is not good at all, but there is certainly far more offensive things on this list.

Suprak:
D-

You have no idea how happy I was that Mac And Me happened to come up at this point in the rotation for me. I dont mean that as a compliment. Well, maybe barely. This movie is so bad but it is at least a different kind of bad from what I had just seen like five times in a row. Five of my write-ups were variations of the exact same thing. This movie is the result of someone getting together all the dumbest people they know together in a room and going lets make a movie and then all of them going but we dont know how to make a movie and the first guy going perfect! Thats what so many of the movies on this list are, but Mac and Me isnt that. This movie feels less incompetent and more genuinely insane. Like, this actually feels like a movie put together by a group of professionals. Well, not professionals, but semi-professions high on some pretty powerful opiates. Thats still a step up from other movies on this list though.

There are so many absolutely bonkers choices in this movie it is almost impressive. From the start, from the very beginning, the movie is just straight up crazy. The design of the alien costumes is just almost unfathomably crazy. The choice to make the extremely humanoid, the general skin color of white people, and completely nude makes them so unsettling. They are too close to fully nude humans outside of the goofiest mask you can possibly imagine. The first scene, the very first scene, in what is supposed to be a childrens movie mind you, is what appears to be three nude methheads wandering the desert looking for spare change and catalytic converters. Thats how the movie starts. Thats how kids are introduced to this movie. It almost feels like it is going to be a Trump campaign ad. Just these four lumbering meth heads staggering through the desert and then the words THIS IS THE AMERICA JOE BIDEN WANTS appears on the screen.

Someone on set had to have eyes, I assume. Someone had to have been able to look at that and go yknow, actually lets not do that. The alien costumes are so, so stupid. So unbelievably dumb looking. They walk like they are drunk as hell and desperately trying to trick the rest of the office that theyre actually sober. They walk like my toddler trying to hide the fact he has a full diaper. And then the faces are so goofy. Their mouths are in this perpetual pucker like theyre going OOOOOOOOOOOO because someone talked back to the teacher. They have these big googly eyes and weirdly weak jaw. It looks like someone drew eyes on a butthole. I feel like Im looking at a create-a-character someone made as a joke. It is crazy someone looked at these costumes and they went great! and didnt immediately burn them in a fire.

The overall concept here is so strange. It is like someone saw E.T. and was like hm yes, yes, I mean I like it but wouldnt it be better if it was just an 80 minute ad for McDonalds? and this movie was born. The sad thing is you know they had a hit on their hands. They thought this was good. Im not even talking about the last scene where he blows a bubble and it says dont worry, well be back! Oh you most certainly will not. Nuh uh, Mac. This is it for you. Your bulbous rubber head is decaying in a Hollywood dumpster somewhere. Beyond that though, you know this was a hit because they somehow managed to con multiple brands into appearing in the movie. Poor Skittles. Poor, poor Skittles. E.T. gets Reesees Pieces and Skittles is stuck with fucking Mac and Me. I might never eat another Skittles again. You have a Coke product in what feels like every scene. Hey we havent had a Coke product on screen for five minutes Im worried people might be forgetting what this movie is really about have the girl in the car hold up a Sprite within camera frame. I did laugh when she holds it up and then awkwardly adjusts her arm in a position no human would ever use just to make sure we could see the label. And then, in what has to be one of the top two worst product placements in movie history, the kids use Coke to literally bring the alien family back to life. These aliens are dying quick get them some soda! I wish we got the more realistic version of this scene where they give the aliens some soda, they gurgle for ten seconds, then their stomachs literally explode and die because were poisoning them. COKE: NOT EVEN ONCE.

The product placement in this commercial er I mean movie is shameless. SHAMELESS. Ive seen parodies making fun of this sort of thing that arent this brazen. Ronald McDonald literally shows up because someone is having the most amazing McDonalds birthday party in the history of birthday parties. Ive been to a McDonalds birthday. It is not that. It is you and three friends eating a hamburger and hoping your mom picks you up soon because your shoes are sticky. Here they seem to have competing dance troupes all over the parking lot and interior of the store. They have all these choreographed numbers and theyre jumping and spinning and everyone is smiling and you see the McDonalds logo like 46 times just in case you forgot where the most fun place in the entire world is. Even the characters name MAC. Like, that is intentional, right? I feel like there is a rough draft somewhere where his name was Doublequarterpounderwithcheese but they thought that was just slightly too on the nose so they brought it down one level and just made him Mac. Regardless, it is just so awful and borderline insulting. Like, E.T. liking Reesee Pieces is product placement but it was also a cute part of the character. Here it feels like all of this is just a way to get as much of the sweet corporate cash as possible. My only solace is this movie was such a flop that I have to assume McDonalds stock plummeted as a result.

I was familiar with Mac and Me only because of the running joke of Paul Rudd playing the scene with the wheelchair kid careening off of a cliff and the stupid alien puppet popping up on a green screen of look directly at the audience like yep, thats me youre probably wondering how I got in this scenario. I had assumed that was edited in some way but it is really in the movie! He didnt change any part. Someone filmed that and was like yes this is a scene I want in the film. It is crazy to me some of the scenes that made it into the film. You have a lot of pretty normal stuff and then some of the most bizarre segments in movie history. Like that part where the kid comes up with a plan to suck the alien up with a vacuum. Now, we know the aliens have been sucked up with a vacuum before because they show it in the opening scene. What I dont know is how the kid knows the aliens can be sucked up with a vacuum. Like the kid and his friend are old enough that when the he tells the friend his plan, she shouldve of gone, Hold on. Are you sure you know what a vacuum is? The fact he gets sucked up like Tim Allen in The Santa Clause is really lucky, and then the ensuing vacuum chaos scene is amazing only for the insanity. When they cut to the little girl and shes spinning at a speed that would kill most astronauts, I was fully onboard with whatever other dumb thing was coming. Yes. Great. Amazing. Vacuum riding up the ceiling? Sure why the hell not. Nothing is off limits now.

I think the craziest scene, and it is so hard to pick, is the ending where the aliens are lumbering around a parking lot with a fully loaded gun. That whole scene is absolutely crazy. There are like eight different crazy parts and there had to be an easier way to get to the part they wanted to get to, which was them showing the aliens bringing the kid back to life. Thats the whole reason for the scene, and there are infinite ways to pull that off that didnt involve the dad alien stealing a gun from a security officer and firing it off in the middle of the store. I did laugh when the kids were like HES NOT GOING TO HURT ANYONE like five seconds after the alien accidentally fires a shot down an aisle. Im assuming theres a woman bleeding somewhere over in the frozen food sections that we cant see. And then a cop tripping and accidentally firing, resulting with every cop in the area getting scared and firing off forty rounds irresponsibly in the direction of a gas station resulting in the worlds largest gas station explosion? Thatok that part is probably pretty realistic. But still, the cops literally exploding a gas station with their bullets is a crazy way to end a kids movie.

And what does the kid die from? He looks like hes in good shape. I dont see anything wrong with him. He isnt bleeding or burning or anything. As far as I can tell, he died from being somewhat close to the explosion and thats it. Want to know something crazy? Something absolutely bonkers I found while Googling this? In the original version of the movie, the kid gets shot at this part. Like there is a version that was released in Japan for some reason and you see he dies due to an errant gunshot. For some reason, that didnt test well so they removed it and instead he dies of getting the vapors. But still OF COURSE THAT DIDNT TEST WELL YOU IDIOTS. You cant have a group of cops shooting a kid by accident in this feelgood family movie. How did that even get to the test audience phase. And, also, there was a test audience phase? This was the only thing the singled out? Or was it just sort of look, there are a lot of problems but we cant get over the child murder and in fact I dont even remember the rest of the movie at this point so please just take that part out.

I will give this movie credit where credit is due and say this is one of the best depictions Ive seen of a child with a handicap in film. Im not even saying that ironically. I feel like most movies would make the wheelchair a plot point. Like hed want to make friends with Mac because he felt different or was bullied at school or something. Here theyre just like hes a normal kid doing normal kid things so props for that. Now, I will also say I think the director of this film mightve hated people in wheelchairs and this was his way of getting back at them. I mean, it is usually a very good sort of depiction but then occasionally someone throws the kid over a cliff at high speeds or slams them face first into a fence while barreling downhill at 50 mph. When that kid slammed through the fence with the entire FBI chasing after him and the fence explodes into pieces and the kid does not react at all, I burst out laughing. That shouldve killed him. The scene we shouldve gotten is him flying down the cliff at terminal velocity, hitting the fence, and then an explosion of blood. And then hes just flying down the highway outracing two dozen government agents in cars. It is equal parts hey good for them for treating the kid in the wheelchair like an actual hero that could do cool stuff and oh wait were they trying to kill that kid in a way that would give them plausible deniability?

This is a very, very bad movie but honestly it is so much better than some of this other stuff. Theres definitely some so bad its good stuff here but theres also some stuff that is genuinely just okay in general. I feel like this was maybe fixable. Maybe dont be a direct ripoff of ET and cut the product placement and make the aliens not horrific and you have a perfectly mid family adventure movie. I do feel like it needs more of a central arc for the characters here. The dad is just gone and they show him looking at a picture longingly but they never really get into it. Just make the kid have a hard time with the dad being gone or whatever and Mac is this key friend he makes and boom, suddenly I feel like there is more of a core to what is going on. Instead it feels like it meanders around a lot (probably so it can show us another scene of Mac drinking Coke). It is at least mildly competent which compared to some of the other movies on this list is a miracle. I laughed at some parts (that I was supposed to laugh at) and the neighbor girl was shockingly ok as a kid actor. It is a fully made, mostly coherent movie. And we get to see a kid in a wheelchair getting flung off a cliff while he screams in terror. Thats somethingright?

Scene that couldve made the movie better: You know that crazy McDonalds party? Where every is dancing and singing and there is an alien in a bear costume jumping around on the countertop? I really, really wanted them to slowly pan over to the angriest 74 year old man youve ever seen who is just smacking his lips in frustration for a couple of seconds before yelling out CAN I JUST GET SOME GODDAMN FRIES, PLEASE!

Forty:
Today I learned that MAC stands for mysterious alien creature, or so they would have you think, but more on that later. This movie had a couple of things in its favor going into it: the long running Paul Rudd bit where he showed the same clip from Mac on talk shows, and the fact that I watched it right after Extra Terrestrial Visitors. Almost anything alien related was going to be better after that. This is significantly better than ETV and I actually think its not that bad of a movie. Its competently acted (again, this might be comparing it to other stuff on the list that has tainted my mind), the music is well done (if generic) and it has a decent amount of charm to it. Obviously I have to address what are considered two gigantic problems with this movie. First is that its an E.T. rip-off. Second is that its basically a 90-minute commercial for Coke and McDonalds. Yes, both are quite blatant (Mac = Big Mac if that wasnt apparent), but for whatever reason those things didnt bother me that much. Theres some incredibly dumb stuff like the McDonalds dance party and the car driving aliens being given citizenship, but I didnt hate it overall.

Inviso:
Have you ever seen E.T.? I havent, yet by watching this film, I feel like Ive practically seen E.T. in its entirety, since it pretty much copies EVERY cultural touchstone that the original classic (that, again, Ive never seen) is known for. And holy shit does this movie feel like a blatant cash grab as a result of its complete creative bankruptcy. However, this is not a bad thing; this list is meant to highlight movies that are bad, but become SO bad they loop back around to being hilarious. Through sheer incompetence (or perhaps just not giving a shit), Mac and Me manages to create a ripoff of E.T. that lacks ANY of the heart from the original film, while spawning nightmare fuel in the meantime.

E.T. the alien is not visually appealing, but its ugly in the way a pug is uglyto the point that it loops back around to being kind of cute. Mac (Mysterious Alien Creature, because even with his product placement name, its still ripping off E.T.) is not pug ugly. Mac and his family are these humanoid, flesh-colored monstrosities that are JUST normal enough that they look like deformed humans rather than aliens. And they spend the entire movie wandering around naked, which is disturbing to me on a personal level (particularly since two of the aliensMac and his sisterare effectively children-sized). For whatever reasonthe producers thought this would be aesthetically appealing toANYONE. I hope whoever greenlighted that decision was fired.

But yeah, were introduced to these hideous aliens on a moon of Saturn, where a NASA probe touches down and manages to vacuum up all four aliens of the family into their sample case. Bad late eighties special effects, surebut even THAT is stupid. You couldnt even have the aliens just crash land or something? You HAD to have them effectively kidnapped by NASA? And then when the probe gets back to Earth, the aliens break out and escape. WellI say escapethe parents and the sister just leave, unimpeded. Mac, meanwhile, is chased and hunted down by government agents, becoming a fucking rubber toy that gets splattered onto a highway and causing a hilariously over-the-top crash sequence, complete with a pick-up truck ramping off one car to crash into another. That whole sequence is insanely stupid and kind of fun in its campiness.

This introduces us to our main cast, where Mac sneaks into a family van as theyre driving across country to move into their new home in California. Where are they from? Why, Chicago. Its subtle, but you pick up the hints along the way. Likethe fact that Eric (main child character) is always wearing a Bears jersey, Cubs jersey, Bears hat, Cubs hat, lot of Chicago sports team posters on his walls. Just REALLY advertising Chicago athletics. And beyond product placement for the city of Chicago (whichits not even like you couldnt have chosen a different cityChicago has no plot relevance on its own), you also get immediate product placement for Coca-Cola . Mac winds up stealing Erics Coke , which causes an argument in the car because he wanted that Coke SO BAD. And sothe great product placement showcase begins.

Now, I will fully acknowledge that the first half of the movie is not GREAT. Even by so bad its good standards, its not all that enjoyable, because its largely BAD child actors acting out a plot that is so stupid and poorly-written that I cant, in good conscience, approve of it. Heres the thing: Mac makes his presence known to the neighbor girl across the street, and then to Ericpretty early on in the film. Yet the writing still needs to maintain that the mother and older brother are oblivious for FAR longer than makes any sense. Seriously, Macs powers involve being able to bloom plantlife, and he converts the familys new living room into a meadowand the mother sleepily dismisses this as the kids having done something? Its dumb, and I think the mom is probably the part of the film that annoyed me the most.

However, there are some GOOFY moments in this early half of the movienamely the famous wheelchair hill scene. Yeah, E.T. had a lot of bike riding, particularly while fleeing government agentsso to replicate that, Mac and Me cast a wheelchair bound child who could roll around at the speed of sound with places to go and a need to follow his rainbow. While looking for Mac, Eric winds up heading through his backyard, to a hill that leads down to an unprotected cliff and a pool of water down below. And in a moment of cinematic beauty, the audience gets to watch a terrified child lose control of his wheelchair, careen down this hill, hilariously fall off the cliff in a shot of this wheelchair just dropping like a stone, and then splash into the water below. Thank God that pool was there, or this could have gone much, MUCH worse.

I think the point where the film hits it stride and becomes so dumb that it turns hilarious thoughis the vacuum scene. In E.T., theres a whole deal with leaving a trail of Reeses Pieces for E.T. to follow (I thinkagain, never seen it). So what does Mac and Me do? Well, its advertising Coca-Cola , so Eric sets a trap where he leaves cups of Coke around, with a trail of strawswhich is the dumbest plot point imaginable. LikeReeses Pieces make sensetheyre individual foodstuffs. A straw is a straw, and even if its meant to guide from one cup of Coke to anotherlike, youve already had blatant SKITTLES product placement in the movie (theres a whole scene with Eric holding a bag of Skittles in his lap, and theyre on his nightstand later on). Just use SKITTLES .

But I digressthe point is this all leads to the kids capturing Mac in a vacuum cleaner, with the same shitty graphics from the opening scene, but Mac in the vacuum goes crazy, and we get to watch a little girl (who seems to turn into a dummy) getting spun and flipped around a room with reckless abandon. Its so goofy and unnecessarily wacky that this is the scene where the film starts to become hilarious in just how stupid it can get. From this point on, were looking at absolute comedy gold, but not the kind of comedy the producers were trying to create.

The best scene in the movie is soon after Mac is captured and revealed to Eric, his friend, and his brother. Everyone except the mom is in on the secret, but this is also when the government finally shows up to investigate and try to hunt down Mac. To prevent Mac from getting caught, Eric stuffs him into the skin of an old teddy bear, and takes him to a birthday party for kids thatI feel like he would not know. If Im understanding the movies timeline, Eric has lived in this new city for like, three days, and already he has been told to attend a party, AND given a birthday gift to pass off as his own. Its dumb, but its all in service of the ultimate product placement centerpiece of the film.

The party scene starts with a weird group of adult b-boy dancers just dancing while kids clap near themand then we go into the party itself. Now, prior to this point, weve had multiple REFERENCES to McDonalds as a popular dinner destinationbut the birthday party is taking place in a generic McDonalds . A generic McDonalds that does not even seem to have a Play Place, mind you. Meanwhile, I think it might be the legitimate Ronald McDonald is in attendance (or at least its a REALLY accurate make-up job), and more b-boy dancers. Thats what this party at McDonalds has to offer, and I started laughing at just how blatant the product placement was. But keep in mindthis is part of the movie IMMEDIATELY after they introduce the government agent hunting for Mac plot point. Its a plot point completely absent from most of the middle of the movie, yet its brought back JUST before this scene.

And thenwe get to Mac, still in his teddy bear disguise, hopping up on the McDonalds countertop and leading a raucous dance party for the entire partys worth of attendees, which include three football playersfor some reason. It is BAFFLING and it SO random that I laughed my ass off when this cotton candy fluff nonsense scene kicked off, all in service of allegedly providing a distraction that then allows Mac and Eric to escape in an epic wheelchair chase. Yeah, Eric, the wheelchair-bound child is able to evade federal agents because thankfully they moved to San Francisco, and can use the hills to his advantage, before hiding in Sears (more product placement) and breaking the doors to buy time to get away. Those agents do NOT stop running though, and good on them for their cardio; theyre only thwarted by Erics brother showing up with his van and hauling Eric inside, wheelchair and all.

So yeah, THAT was insane, but it continues. Because this is the point in the film where Mac has psychically whistled to his family and knows where they are. So Mac, Eric, his brother, his neighbor, and his neighbors sister all go into the desert and find Macs family dying of hunger in a cave. Oh notheyre too late. But waitwait a second. We established earlier in the movie that the water on Macs home planet is like Coca-Cola ! Welllets just give some Coca-Cola to the dying aliens and save their lives. Yes, Coca-Cola saves the day. And now weve got a family of aliens just piled into a van, without any real GOAL at that point. They go to get groceries and gas, and the father alien steals some girls Sprite , before wandering into the grocery store, disturbing the entire store.

Naturally, the aliens start fucking with the Coca-Cola display, and this leads to security getting involved, and somehow, the alien father gets ahold of the security guards gunwhich leads to a tense stand-off with the police where this goofy-ass alien is just waving a gun around all willy-nilly, while the police are doing standard cop stuff like shouting orders at the clearly unresponsive alien creatures. Which leads to a moment I should not have laughed atbut holy shit I did.

Eric is begging and pleading with the police, and says I can talk to them! before managing to evade the police in his wheelchair, starting to wheel towards the aliens. And then the father alien accidentally shoots his gun, making the police starting blasting everything they can. And for NO REASON, one of the bullets manages to blow up an entire store. I dont think its the grocery store, but the other building on the opposite side of the plaza. And youre watching this completely unnecessary explosion, and you realize that the editors of the movie took the silhouette of a crumpled and wounded wheelchair child, and just superimposed it over the flames. Its SO dumb, and its fucking HILARIOUS to realize that this is ALL in service of murdering a child in a wheelchair. Apparently he was meant to sustain a gunshot wound during the crossfire, but even THESE producers realized that would be bad, so they instead made him just randomly die of proximity to an explosion.

Remember E.T.? Remember E.T. healing Elliot? Yeah, that whole scene was meant to kill Eric so that the aliens could gather around him and bring him back to life with their magical healing powers. And everyone lived happily ever after, with the aliens attending a U.S. citizenship ceremony (which seemed kinda fucked up to me, since they were kidnapped and not here willingly, yet were still told to renounce their homes). Its SO insanely shitty and incomprehensible, and I was just awestruck by the entire back half as it just got crazier and crazier, with more and more awful product placement. Well done.

Good, Bad Movie Grade: B+
Best Bad Aspect: The blatant product placement, whether the McDonalds birthday party or the life-restoring power of Coca-Cola makes the whole film feel THAT much stupider in the best possible way.

Seginus:
I've seen the clip for years on Conan, so I was hyped to finally see this in full. And right away in the intro sequence I notice that the music is surprisingly good, like there's a full orchestral score - and then it hits me with the credit - Music by Alan Silvestri. What! One of the best film composers working, I had no idea he was involved in this mess. And he's not half-assing it either, there's some respectable material here. It kind of reminds me of James Horner's score for Krull, in that it's a shame it's trapped in such a bad movie. A for effort to Mr. Silvestri, his contribution is keeping this from the bottom of my list.

I knew going into this it was another E.T. knockoff, what I didn't realize is that it's *entirely* an advertisement. When the kid first said "Mysterious Alien Creature" I thought to myself "ahh, so that's why it's called Mac and Me". But no, that's not why it's called Mac and Me. It wasn't until the movie swerved into a full dance party at McDonalds where the actual Ronald MacDonald showed up that I realized what the title really meant. A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch. I guess McDonalds and Coke saw Spielberg moving all them Reese's Pieces and decided they wanted in on the action, so here they are shoving happy meals and soda into their own goober alien like it's the water of life. And it revives them. Because you don't know. You don't know that a coke won't nourish an alien. Maybe it's universally refreshing, you can't know. It's aliens.

Bitto:
It's a subpar ET clone. Not a bad movie, but a boring one. That said, the aliens' design are truly, truly awful. Like appalling every time I saw it. Even moreso when you got the whole family together. The one good part of the aliens was when they went into the market at the end and held a gun. That was so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh. The kid getting fucking shot by the aliens gave me the biggest laugh of the entire marathon because it was so insanely off-tone. Also I love that called shot in the ending promising a sequel.

I know the advertising is a big thing in this movie with the McDonalds scene and the many references to Coca-Cola. Maybe it's a sign of where the times went since this movie that it didn't even phase me at all. I actually thought the McDonalds scene was one of the better scenes in the movie too.

Genuinely Good: The protagonist being in a wheelchair is a pretty nice surprise and he does a good job. Outside of a few silly scenes like the kid falling off a cliff in his wheelchair, I thought the movie didn't really demean him for his disability.

Red:
Did you like ET? You did right, so totally see this movie because it is definitely just ET. Except you know, similar in a way that is completely hideous. Also ET had a big successful sponsorship, so lets get some sponsors and tell them they can sponsor our ET movie. Honestly, they actually went kind of big, Coke put some money in here and McDonald's threw in an entire commercial. The McDonald's commercial honestly had an impressive amount of choreography and probably had more effort put into a few minutes than the entire rest of the movie combined.

Evillord:
This one really bored the pants off me. The aliens were very ugly and very naked looking. It ruthlessly ripped off every single aspect from E.T. but did it as incompetently as possible. The highly choreographed dancing at McDonald's was probably the highlight. The protagonist being a kid in a wheelchair was nice, if only the treatment of it wasn't for such a ruthlessly terrible and derivative film. Exceptionally poor child acting. It is funny that the film ends with the aliens taking the pledge of allegiance and becoming citizens of the USA.

Johnbobb:
"shitty nearly two hour commercial with terrifyingly bad prosthetics and a direct ripoff of the Back to the Future score. Hated every kid almost as much as I hated those ugly alien shits. There is not an original idea in this movie. Why are we here

Favorite 5 star Letterboxd review:
As a God-fearing Baptist man, I keep my household away from the Satanic influences of modern media. I was absolutely sickened when I discovered that my sons homeschool co-op group had led him away from God, and into the arms of Satan by showing him the film, Mac and Me (Raffill, 1988). I immediately withdrew him from the program and reported the co-op to the Southern Baptist Church Commission. I prayed long and hard as I fasted for 4 weeks, searching for answers and begging the Lord to forgive my son. Due to the Soul-crushing guilt I experienced for entrusting my son in the arms of sinners, I contemplated Mans worst sin: su!c!de. As I sat outside the co-op, fully-automatic AK 47 in hand, I was called on by the Lord. I felt his hot breath on my neck, and my heart raced, my toes curled. It felt as though the Lord had lifted me up with his big, strong arms and pushed against me tightly. His soft lips traced my ear as he whispered, Mac and me I felt a warm explosion. I knew what had to be done. I sped off to the local Blockbuster, somewhere I hadnt been since I was a wee boy. My father would take me after he beat me in his alcoholic rages. I glanced out the rearview mirror, and saw the local Blockbuster bathed in the Lords sweet, creamy light. It was time. I walked in and realized that I had left my wallet. But as Jesus always says, Your Word is a lamp for my feet. My toes wiggled in anticipation. I pointed my fully-automatic AK 47 at the cashier, and he handed over the 1988 film, Mac and Me. I wanted to fall to my knees with utmost gratitude, but the stench of urine was so powerful that I had to immediately depart. For that, I repent.
I instructed my wife to prepare my TV dinner for this occasion. I took a bite. Ice cold. I removed my belt and beat my hore wife. My pants started to slip down, and again I felt the Lords presence. I slipped in the VCR tape, and it fit in effortlessly. I gasped. As I heard the first few notes of the intro score, a soft moan escaped my lips. And when I first rested my eyes on Mac my anticipation reached its climax.
I cant even begin to explain the joy this film has brought into my life. I felt the thrust of the Lords love throughout every scene, entering me rhythmically. It started as a gentle pulse, but as the film progressed, I felt His love grow inside me. By the time the credits rolled, I was breathless in exhilaration. I ran to my son to apologize, for something influenced by Satan could never imbibe so much pleasure. It is clear that God came to me in this film. ;)"

Outlier Leaderboard:

Johnbobb - 70
Bitto - 68
Inviso - 63
Evillord - 62
Forty - 60
Suprak - 60
Karo - 55
Red - 44
Seginus - 43

Johnbobb retakes the top spot on this list as his unjust hatred of lovable alien families is just SLIGHTLY more off-beat than Bitto's. Meanwhile, I jump up into third place, in close proximity to Evillord, Forty and Suprak. And Red continues to inch towards the bottom of the list, while Suprak just barely holds onto his position.

Hint for #22: Up until now, we've had some 10s, some 9s, and some 8s. But this next ranking features not one, but TWO top five placements.

McDonalds commercial probably had more good effort put into it than 99% of the things on the list.

Most divisive one yet, understandably.

I almost forgot I've been sitting on this to share:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a9eccc40.jpg

Suprak and Inviso's reviews of this genuinely made me want to watch Mac and Me, which is an impressive feat considering we're still in the mid 20s.

Also there was a sweet spot of McDonald's birthday parties when they started to have those giant elaborate indoor playplaces. They were great.

Blaziken posted...

I was familiar with Mac and Me only because of the running joke of Paul Rudd playing the scene with the wheelchair kid careening off of a cliff and the stupid alien puppet popping up on a green screen of look directly at the audience like yep, thats me youre probably wondering how I got in this scenario.

I figured you'd like to know that this sent me down two separate rabbit holes spanning about an hour.

red13n posted...

Also there was a sweet spot of McDonald's birthday parties when they started to have those giant elaborate indoor playplaces. They were great.

Yeah this, dang thing was a cultural touchstone once! I have seen the MST3K episode twice. Movie feels like an extended version of E.T.s third act.

Sheep007 posted...

Suprak and Inviso's reviews of this genuinely made me want to watch Mac and Me, which is an impressive feat considering we're still in the mid 20s.

Dawww. Appreciated.

I think we did Mac and Me slightly dirty. This is a dumpster fire but it is an enjoyable dumpster fire at least! I know it is a big long stupid commercial for McDonalds and Coke and Skittles and whatever material the kids wheelchair was made out of, but there are so many insanely funny dumb choices here that it really does fit into that sweet spot of so bad its good for me. This is such an interesting list overall because I feel like we're all looking for slightly different things there, but I laughed quite a bit at this. I said it in my write up, but the chase scene where a seven year old kid literally explodes through a solid wooden fence at 50mph is hysterical. Like Inviso said, that whole back half of the movie (post vacuum scene, really) is consistently funny for all the wrong reasons.

Sheep007 posted...

Suprak and Inviso's reviews of this genuinely made me want to watch Mac and Me, which is an impressive feat considering we're still in the mid 20s.

It is funny that Inviso and I basically wrote the same review, twice, and then ranked it at almost the same spot.

sergiocornaga posted...

I figured you'd like to know that this sent me down two separate rabbit holes spanning about an hour.

This is fantastic! I'm super curious what the second one was? First is the Paul Rudd interviews themselves I'm assuming but I don't know what the second one would be.

Holy shit, that art. Great work, forty!

I found the teenager actors way more annoying than the children. Maybe I just give more leniency to children for being children.

Ill guess Dangerous Men.

Bitto posted...

Holy shit, that art. Great work, forty!

I found the teenager actors way more annoying than the children. Maybe I just give more leniency to children for being children.

Ill guess Dangerous Men.

The teens aren't GOOD, but they're also not the focus of the movie the way Eric and Debbie are (and Debbie is REALLY bad).

Also, the thing that really made Mac and Me fun is how MOST movies have some level of product placement. You're rarely going to see a film where they've somehow covered up all logos to create a generic and honestly unrealistic experience. But in a GOOD movie, you can often overlook that sort of stuff. Someone is drinking a Coke because the scene called for them to drink something, and Coke is a common beverage. But the hilarity of Mac and Me is JUST how blatant everything is. Some of the write-ups mentioned EATING Skittles. I don't recall that. I just know that Skittles were often prominently displayed despite not being consumed in any capacity. Plus the Coca Cola being a life-saving beverage for our alien heroes...and a full birthday party scene at McDonalds. It just goes over the line into absurdity in the best possible way.

Sidenote: special shoutout to ETV, in which EVERY establishing shot of the cabin features a prominent and honestly out-of-place logo sticker for Sprite.

Inviso posted...

Some of the write-ups mentioned EATING Skittles. I don't recall that. I just know that Skittles were often prominently displayed despite not being consumed in any capacity.

https://youtu.be/u0Nhu3dc5aQ?si=Lmt6-VIzvvamOhxq

I wish I could take credit for the art, but it's from Deadly Prey Gallery. They're based in Chicago and work with artists in Ghana, of all places, that make awesome movie posters like that one

I actually thought Debbie was by far the best of the group of kid actors. In terms of kid actors on this list, I don't even think the group of four here is that bad. Like they're not great obviously but in sort of a normal way that most kid actors aren't great. There are a couple other standouts that are much worse and usually involve a grown adult trying to do their voice in post.

I'll take a WILDCARD guess here and go with Suburban Sasquatch. That feels like a movie that could have a big split at the top and bottom.

Johnbobb posted...

https://youtu.be/u0Nhu3dc5aQ?si=Lmt6-VIzvvamOhxq

For better or for worse, watching this video was a life-changing experience.

Wait, wait, wait, wait....wait....

That Skittles scene is actually, for real in Shazam?!?

Johnbobb posted...

https://youtu.be/u0Nhu3dc5aQ?si=Lmt6-VIzvvamOhxq

This is amazing. They even BLATANTLY use the tagline.

22. Suburban Sasquatch (2004)
Directed by: Dave Wascavage
Score: 159

Red: 3
Inviso: 5
Johnbobb: 15
Seginus: 15
Forty: 19
Bitto: 20
Evillord: 26
Suprak: 27
Karo: 29

Red:
A bunch of people stand still while someone in a sasquatch suit with boobs for some reason flings its arms and rips their appendages off. Also it has magic powers sometimes for some reason. And sometimes has mind control. I think. It can't make up its mind. But watching the incredibly, I cant even begin to describe, low budget murderings ended up being completely hilarious. I probably got more laughs out of this movie than anything else on the list. It was just hilariously bad.

Inviso:
One of the funniest things about this movie is how its very clearly trying to take itself super serious as some sort of commentary on spiritualityand it does this in the form of the shittiest student film imaginable. Seriously, this movie is basically a tale of two halvesand I dont mean split right down the middlerather the movie feels like it has an ABABABABA scene structureand one of those halves is poorly acted and meandering to the point it started out funny, got lame and boring, and then rounded back to being funny again because of just how lame and boring both the acting and the dialogue are.

Effectively, there are two main characters (and a cop who SEEMS like he should be important, but gets no real closure to his story arc). You have a native American girl who has been sent on a spiritual mission to cleanse the titular sasquatch from the land, and you have this schubbly loser who looks like Daniel OBrien, whos trying to be a reporter while wearing the shittiest outfit imaginable. Not outfits pluralthis guy has one outfit that he wears for the duration of the film, and its awful. The girl is trying to stop the sasquatch, and the guy is trying to get the inside scoop on a series of murders that he eventually learns are being committed by the sasquatch. As stupid as this soundsyou COULD make it workif either of the actors could deliver dialogue with any sort of emotion.

Those characters are effectively plot A, which is the more coherent plot of the two. You get most of the dialogue in conjunction with plot A, and its all bad. But theres just something so funny about it, because this script had an editor. I watched the credits (and trust me, theyre worth watching), and this script HAD someone edit it. And it STILL turned out a complete piece of shit. Theres a scene where Goofus (I cant be bother to learn his actual name) is meeting with a newspaper editor, who is VERY stereotypically hardassed, and hes begging for work and gets shot downand its like the scene is on a loop, because he repeats his begging, the editor says no and insults him, and he repeats his begging again. At a certain point, I was exhausted by the scene because of just how rambling and unimportant it was. And this happens multiple times in the film, because sometimes you have to pad that runtime as much as possible (again, watch the credits).

But the real meat and potatoes of this movie that make it stand out is plot B. There is a RIGID structure to this movie, and that is for every one scene of attempted plot A, you then immediately switch to a disconnected scene from plot B. And Plot B is just a series of increasingly hilarious Bigfoot attacks. The introductory scene with the horrible Bigfoot suit and repetitive growling is funny on its own, but its just so incompetent overall. He kills two drivers, one of whom dies from a crushed skulland then when we see the body later one, the body is sprawled out, completely intact. Also the other victim has multiple hands and limbs torn off (by which I mean shittily digitally added in post), only to be completely intact when the police are investigating later on.

Every scene is like this: shitty Bigfoot costume, weird growling, mauling and flinging digital limbs around. But its the differences that make it fun.

You have a scene of feeding a fisherman his own guts and then flinging his amputated arm at a second fisherman so hard hes knocked unconscious in a creek for several hours afterwards.

You get a mother flailing a broom at Bigfoot and getting her ass kicked while the camera keeps cutting back to the same shot of her trembling child as he looks on.

You get a pair of hikers chased through the woods, only for Bigfoot to murder and eat one victim whole during a cutaway (while holding the same dismembered limb at the end that he was holding at the beginning of his meal.)

You get a pair of rich women chased in their SUV (after one of them was eating a plain hotdog while driving) and hunted across a field

You get one of our major cop characters attacked in his car, when a fucking clipart shot is inserted of Bigfoot lifting the car with him inside it.

Theres a scene of a guy looking for his lost dog, but dont worryBigfoots got it, and it turns from a live animal into a stuffed one when it comes time to get ripped in half.

Bigfoot attacks a pair of mechanics who are dicking around with giant springs for some reason, including ripping ones leg off and then beating him with it.

A group of hunters are called in to take down Bigfootand all of them are wearing the same kind of ill-fitting bullshit that Goofus has, all while acting like douchey frat bros. And after a series of repeated shots of gunfire, they get swatted away one-by-one, and their leader pisses himself before getting his head crushed.

One of his last attacks involves a woman watching her husband drunkenlydance? I think? But then she hears a noise and goes to call the cops. She does this by moving next to an obviously-placed window, where Bigfoot of course reaches through and grabs her. Screaming, she breaks free and the couple try to run, and we get just an amazing shot of the husband going to the front doorbut its a glass door, so you can literally SEE Bigfoot standing on the other side. But the husband opens it anyway. Its hilariously dumb.

And of course, you have the climax, where Bigfoot attacks Goofus grandmother by breaking through a CGI door while the open door itself is still very clearly in the shot.

And this doesnt even mention the fact that apparently Bigfoot is able to teleport, so that justifies just about any of the random nonsense hes able to pull. Oh, and the fact that the movie is so bad that our cop characters dont have belts, so they just hook their handcuffs to their belt loops, and carrying their unholstered guns in their hands at all times. Or the overreliance on CGI for shooting arrows and throwing axesinstead of just shooting arrows and throwing axes. THAT started from the first minute, with a CGI title sequence with utterly inane font choice. Its all SO bad that I couldnt stop laughing at the sheer incompetence. Wonderful job.

Good, Bad Movie Grade: A
Best Bad Aspect: Every Bigfoot attack is great, and theyre only improved by the hideous Bigfoot suit and the terrible sound effects.

Johnbobb:
"90s PC game sound effects. The two buddy cops look and act like juggalos sans makeup and are pretty clearly in love with each other. Racist caricature of a Native American woman sleeping in a Dick's Sporting Goods-ass tent and forming a relationship with the blandest white dude to ever exist. Even the arrows being pulled back in a bow are poorly edited in. A big, flopping dong, giant nipped bigfoot that somehow makes Cry Wilderness look like good hair and makeup work. Bigfoot walking off into nothing like some freaky Jason Voohees and then making that Shy Guy aoowwooaww growl.

Favorite 5 star Letterboxd review:
Bigfoot is a teleporting madman with big ol boobies so 5 out of 5 stars."

Seginus:
I'm gonna be soft on this one because it reads to me more like a class project than an actual movie. I mean it appears to be shot on consumer grade video, old-school home movies style. It looks less like it bombed in theaters and more like it was the smash hit of a senior year film elective and became the buzz of the school for a while. "Did you hear about Dave's final project for film class? Yeah he got a camcorder and made a whole bigfoot movie, it's hilarious, you gotta check it out". Here's where I'm actually gonna give it credit - Suburban Sasquatch does what it says on the tin. It keeps its eye on the ball. A lot of movies on this list are prone to derailment and aimless wandering, and I don't think Suburban Sasquatch falls into that trap. It's just a cheap movie about a Sasquatch wreaking havoc in the suburbs, and the local law enforcement trying to cover it up. They hit their mark.

Forty:
This is exactly the kind of movie that dudes in their early 20s wearing Volcom hats and ball chain necklaces sat around and talked about making in 04. Some of them even attempted it if someone had access to a camcorder. This legend of a director actually pulled it off and got the damn thing distributed, so I totally respect that. Its really, really bad but everyone is in on the joke (I think) so its kind of charming in its ineptitude. With a budget that makes Birdemics look like a Hollywood blockbuster, I admire the love that went into creating this with bare minimum resources. With that being said, SS is downright exasperating at times. Squatch ripping people limb from limb is funny at first but that along with the other plot points are recycled ad infinitum for an hour and a half that feels way longer. Overall, for whats supposed to be a horror comedy, it isnt very funny which is probably the biggest problem. Somehow this isnt the worst movie on the list, so its got that going for it, but I think Id rather encounter sasquatch in my backyard than watch this again. One sidenote: I saw someone call the Native American girl Tacohontas and I had to share that.

Bitto:
This could have been a pretty funny watch. The many bit characters are absurd in costuming, dialogue, and overall presence. The plot decisions like adding this indigenous huntress named Talla in a suburb being the only one to defeat a teleporting sasquatch is wild and even moreso when the victims include a literal kid playing kickball in the backyard. The visual effects are both bad and hilarious. The costuming is so, so bad with the Spirit Halloween huntress outfit somehow being one of the better ones in the costume.

What really hurts this movie are the protagonists. The reporter named Rick is apparently the hero, but I really have no reason why. I have no real reason to sympathize with him. His characterization is all over the place. People say he wants to be "in the big city" but he has no money and dresses like a high schooler. He's supposed to want the truth over anything, but seems annoyed at anything Talla tells him. He falls in love with her despite basically badmouthing her way of life and perspective all the time. Talla is a bit better, but speaks in vague truthisms that makes her characterization confusing too. It also bothers me immensely that Rick kills the Sasquatch while she just does bit damage all the way through. That kiss at the end probably knocked this film down like 5 ranks. God awful way to end.

The Sasquatch is the real star of the show. The visual effects are always at their best/worst when he's around. The way he teleports and is supposed to represent nature preserving itself probably gives it the best characterization of any character remaining.

There's a bunch of small things that are great about the movie too. I particularly like the shot between the driver eating her hot dog while Sasquatch is eating a human leg. It's artful in the shittiest way possible. I also like Rick's mom saying "Remember: I don't like you!" as a way to say "I love you." Same, I also don't like him.

Genuinely Good: All the Sasquatch's kills are like really shitty Mortal Kombat fatalities. The one where he just grabs someone's limb and slightly pulls out, causing it to rip with a sound effect is actually fairly good. It gives the impression of the sheer power the Sasquatch has.

Evillord:
It's funny seeing how the 90s brought us the first truly big-budget "so bad it's good" films of the list with Showgirls and Battlefield Earth, only for the 2000s to bring us back to movies like this. Suburban Sasquatch might be the film that does the most to create unintentional comedy through sound design and special effects, and on watching the opening scene where the Bigfoot creature comes in and kills two people while making minecraft-ass growling noises and blood spatter edited in via movie maker splashes over the screen, there is simultaneously a sense of "ah, this is more like it" and "you know picking on this $20 budget disaster is almost mean." While the frequent, narratively meaningless Bigfoot scenes start out funny for these reasons, once the charm wears off you have to settle in for 100 minutes of a competitor for the list's most unwatchable movie.

Suprak:
F-

I mentioned this in another write up (I think my brain doesnt work right anymore) but we really need to regulate who is allowed to make movies. We need a Department of Creativity where you have to go and talk to someone before you make a movie. Theyll ask you questions like are you ok? and how many head injuries are you suffering from? and if you dont pass these tests the government is allowed to show up and stomp on your camera equipment. I cant keep watching movies like this that look like they were filmed using someones Nokia flip phone. You have to have some sort of basic level of competency before you make a movie, and whoever made Suburban Sasquatch does not pass that low bar.

I get the sense the person who wrote this movie was working through something with his friends and family. There are multiple scenes in this movie where our hero, an aspiring writer, sits down with someone and they basically go you suck your dreams suck your writing sucks, you need to quit and do something better with your life. I was half expecting the main character to stand up and yell SHUT UP MOM I CAN DO WHAT A WANT. The say to write what you know, and what this writer apparently knew was the disappointment of everyone they ever talked to. This is one movie where everyone is absolutely right to tell the main character not to follow his dreams, because he is terrible at his job. His entire workday appears to be going to exactly where his cop friend tells him the biggest scoop of all time is occurring at, doing absolutely nothing, and then complaining to people about how bad he is at his job.

This is also the fourth (fifth?) movie where my working theory is the person who made the character was the male lead and he only made the movie so he could make out with the female lead. It has not been true one time [authors note: it would later prove to be true two separate times but I watched those films later], but I feel like it should be because it is the only thing that explains the casting. The female lead is doing all the work here. She isnt a good actress, but she is so much better than Rick who is what happens when an evil wizard creates a void to suck out all charisma in the room and then turns that void human. She is also very attractive and Rick looks like the after shift manager at a Red Lobster. Like, this very much feels like a thing where someone made a movie specifically to get a chance to make out with the most attractive women they knew and the fact that wasnt the case and someone willingly cast Rick for this is just utterly baffling to me.

Ive said this before, too, but this is yet another movie where I cant go over what is wrong with the story. Itll take too long. I get angry. It isnt good for my blood pressure. There are a lot of reasons but the most important of which is the fact that it is quite obviously bad. It makes no sense to dissect something this bad. It is like if a body falls off a skyscraper and they bring it to the coroner. The coroner is just going to go yeah they exploded. This is the movie version of that. It exploded. There isnt need to go over specifics because everyone can look at this and agree that it is a huge mess and were better off just sending in the cleanup crew to scrape it off the concrete.

Everyone in this movie deserved the death they got. 100%. There was not a single person in this whole movie that wasnt a complete idiot. Multiple people run into sasquatch gun first. They are holding a gun and their plan of attack is to run into sasquatch with the gun. Im not a gun expert but I am 99% sure that is not the way you use a gun. At one point a woman gets attacked by sasquatch through an open window and yells that sasquatch is outside. Her husband walks up to the door and you see sasquatch just politely standing there. He is waiting at the door like he is there to ask Billy to come out to play. And the guy, seeing the huge ape monster that just attacked his wife, opens the door and lets him in. And then gets murdered. Good. They say never to victim blame but this specifically victim deserved it and Im glad it happened to them. Sasquatch can disappear and apparently teleport and he never seems to need to use these powers because everyone around him is the dumbest human being alive. People will see him and go oh is that a dear? and then walk up to him so he can murder them. A woman gets lost in a culdesac because there isnt a sign up and she drives around in circles so sasquatch has enough time to get on the roof and kill her and her friend. Everyone is just so impossibly dumb and you just have this continuous cavalcade of corpses begging for sasquatch to kill them. I feel bad for sasquatch because he has to be exhausted by the end. Theres only so much limb tearing off you can do before you need a break and he never gets one because there are no shortage of murder volunteers chucking their body directly into his hands.

The movie is also incredibly repetitive. I dont even know how many victims there were by the end. There will be a group of two (it is always a group of two the safest thing to be in this movie is alone unless you have a dog with you) and theyll go ugh why does it smell and then sasquatch shows up (probably in tears because of how every single character comments on how smelly he is). Then they loop the same three second clip of him roaring, he tears up arms and legs, and then the cops show up so the one cop can call the reporter and go jeez this is bad you got to get over here. Or if it isnt the cops making a phone call, then its the native American woman (whose last name is Sanchez so I should really say Native American woman) showing up so she can miss an arrow and sasquatch will run off. It keeps going like this! Over and over and over again. I was so fucking bored by the end. I, and this isnt a joke, I had to watch this twice. Two separate times because I realized during the first one my mind had wandered for like twenty minutes and I didnt know what was going on. Not that you need to, but to be fair I rewatched the whole second half of the movie because my brain got so bored during my first watch that it just shut off and went into screensaver mode for a while.

Beyond being dumb and boring, Suburban Sasquatch is also one of those incredibly poorly made movies that seem to be crowding up the list. I dont know what this was filmed on, but I do know it should not have been filmed on that. It looks like the sort of visual quality youd get from a Game Boy Camera and there is certain lighting here where you just cant see what the hell is really going on. The sound design is hilarious, with the highlight being the roar of the sasquatch that is almost impossibly bad. It sounds less like an ape monster and more like a rumbly tummy. And I think they only have one sound? One single rumbly tummy sound they play roughly 300 times throughout the entire movie? They didnt want to switch it up at all? Sometimes they play it like six times in a row and its all the same sound. Also, sasquatch has both a penis and breasts so Im not sure what the hell is going on with this costume. The sasquatch boobies are out of control. I dont know who did the costume for this, but theyre a crazy person. Those sasquatch boobies were a choice and it is the choice of an insane person that needs to be put on some sort of watch list.

There are also a couple of parts here that veer way into gross territory and kind of undermines all the stupidity going on otherwise. They rip a dog in half, and while that didnt bother me a ton I think there might be a couple of list makers that rank this movie last for that alone. Maybe not. The special effects are so egregiously bad that you can see theyre basically ripping up a roll of paper towels so maybe no one was too heartbroken about the dead dog. But a major plot line in this movie involves what I think is supposed to be sasquatch rape, which is an insane subplot to put into the movie. You can tell they think it is inane because they themselves dont even want to talk about it. They are like wow why does sasquatch keep stealing all these women? uh I sense a desperation need an urge in him hmm. And then theyre in the awful cave and the one woman is about to say it and the fake Native American is just like I AM SO SORRY PLEASE DONT EXPLAIN FURTHER. It is a crazy thing to include but it is almost crazier that they seem to know its a gross thing to include so they keep hinting at it rather than saying it out loud.

Ive lost track of how many times Ive said this now but there are movies that are so bad theyre good and then movies that are so bad theyre good with friends, and this is one that maybe kinda fits in that second category but definitely not in the first. It is an incredibly boring movie, and really poorly made, and just not fun to watch. It is probably ok to make fun of but even that is sort of a stretch. It is honestly a bit too boring for that. Like, there are parts you can giggle at but there are a lot more parts that are just incredibly boring to sit through. Even the interesting stuff gets boring because it keeps playing out the same way over and over. It is just too sloppy and is one of the less interesting movies to make this list. Im honestly a bit surprised it made the cut. I dont think this even reached cult classic status at any point, and there are literally thousands of awful movies just like this. It just doesnt have enough personality or charm or anything to be memorable enough to warrant a spot on a list like this. I hate Suburban Sasquatch and you should too.

I should say as a final aside the one and only one part of the movie I liked was the mom to the boy playing outside. She was great and I wanted more of her. I had an actual giggle at the part where the kid comes in and says he saw bigfoot and she goes on a rant about how bigfoot isnt something thats real and isnt really there, like his father. Thats a hilarious character trait to put into this movie for characters that are going to be offscreen in fifteen seconds anyway. I only wish that as sasquatch was carrying the mom away she yelled out help Im being taken away just like your father took away my best years and left me with a child to raise by myseeeeeeeelf!

Karo:
A suburban neighborhood populated by people who have never done an ounce of acting in their lives is menaced by a man in a cheap gorilla suit is this bout of unconvincing monster stupidity.
For some reason THIS bigfoot is master of the mystic arts and advanced psionics, though he usually just forgets about all that and does things like ripping off a man's leg and beating him to death with it.
Here's how things go: a cheap camera pans through the suburbs, accompanied by weird random noises and scuffed native drums that I guess is supposed to be a soundtrack. A wild Sasquatch appears and everyone goes oh god oh god oh god at least a dozen times, he lightly brushes his victim with one of his paws which somehow ends up spraying blood and entrails everywhere.
Chasing after Bigfoot for various arbitrary reasons are a 'native' girl who continuously spouts out weird spiritualism mumbo jumbo and this absolutely forgettable reporter guy. They also fall in love for some inexplicable reason. You want a worse romance than Padme and Anakin? Well, you got it.
The movie is just a trainwreck of talentless no-budget nonsense that features MS paint special effects and Sasquatch vocalizations that are just the same short audio clips repeated over and over on loop. It is something that is unremarkable even in its badness, and deserves to tossed in the garbage bin like the flunked student film it wants to be.

Outlier Leaderboard:

Inviso - 80
Johnbobb - 77
Bitto - 70
Evillord - 66
Suprak - 65
Forty - 63
Red - 63
Karo - 62
Seginus - 50

And with a big leap, I've managed to claim the top spot on yet another list, with only Johnbobb in close contention and even former top spot Bitto now ten off from the top of the leaderboard. Meanwhile, form bottom spot Karo makes a leap up into the sixties, where he's in a three-way tie with Forty and Red, and has Evillord and Suprak close at hand. But Seginus now stands alone, with a big gap between him and second-lowest after his outlier was on the lower end of the spectrum compared to most.

Hint for #21: The previous 80s movies eliminated were both E.T. ripoffs, but this is the first 80s film to NOT be a blatant E.T. ripoff.

Seanchan posted...

Wait, wait, wait, wait....wait....

That Skittles scene is actually, for real in Shazam?!?

unfortunately yes, it's like on par with the worst of this list as far as bad product placement goes

Blaziken posted...

Hint for #21: The previous 80s movies eliminated were both E.T. ripoffs, but this is the first 80s film to NOT be a blatant E.T. ripoff.

ooh are we getting back to back bigfoot drops?

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

This is fantastic! I'm super curious what the second one was? First is the Paul Rudd interviews themselves I'm assuming but I don't know what the second one would be.

The second was hunting down the origin of the yep, thats me trope!

Could easily be Mommie Dearest, an hour and a half or so of whatever shrill caricature of Joan Crawford was being attempted.

I do get why you'd find Suburban Sasquatch funny but man is there a whole bunch of nothing to see in a lot of those scenes. And you get so many that play out exactly the same way that I was just suffering by the end. I do like how almost all of us commented on the insane sasquatch boobies.

Back to back sasquatch drops feels right so I'll guess Cry Wildnerness. There are a handful of ones it could be though so this is tough.

I will guess that The Instructor drops next

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

I do get why you'd find Suburban Sasquatch funny but man is there a whole bunch of nothing to see in a lot of those scenes. And you get so many that play out exactly the same way that I was just suffering by the end. I do like how almost all of us commented on the insane sasquatch boobies.

Back to back sasquatch drops feels right so I'll guess Cry Wildnerness. There are a handful of ones it could be though so this is tough.

It's the subtle differences that make the scenes stand out. The only one that REALLY feels repetitive is the car mechanic sequence.

Oh! And I meant to say this earlier: Forty, Tacohontas is a nice pun. Good job.

21. The Instructor (1981)
Directed by: Don Bendell
Score: 155

Inviso: 3
Seginus: 3
Bitto: 6
Suprak: 19
Forty: 20
Johnbobb: 24
Evillord: 25
Red: 26
Karo: 29

Inviso:
I put this on the list because when it showed up on RedLetterMedia, just about every clip they showed was some level of crazy. And then I watched it as an actual movie, and it is so amazingly incompetent that Im glad my initial assessment was correct, and Im glad I put this on the list. There are just so many choices that make NO sense, and I love the writer/director (and only SUPPORTING actor) for them. Like, the movie opens with two guys jogging in track suits, and then SMASH CUTS to a random gang that is fight with trash can lids as shields (makes perfect sense) and medieval weapons. Seriously, the woman in the fight scene has a legitimate battle axe. For NO reason. And that would be weird enoughexcept this gang ultimately does not matter to the plot whatsoever. Its the first in a series of pieces that tangentially form the concepts of a plot.

So the coliseum gang happens, and then we cut back to the track suit runners, then cut to a mysterious guy in a ninja mask, then track suits, then back to ninja mask, who is harassing a group of soccer-playing children. But these children are learning karate from the track suit guys, so they wind up kicking the ninjas assbut the track suit guys still want to find the ninja, so they chase after him and find him getting attacked by the coliseum gang. And this is likeall the first twenty minutes of the movie, culminating in our hero (who is a very short white guy with an afro) beating up the entire gang as they VISIBLY do the whole attack one at a time and wait your turn thing. Its SO stupid and SO goofy. And NONE of it matters. That gang NEVER shows up again and arent relevant to the rest of the plot.

With that opening sequence done, the ninja turns out to be a mentally unstable guy who wants to learn karate, and we get to the bare bones semblance of a plot for the film. Our hero is the main instructor at a karate school, and theres a rival karate school made up of douchebags that are constantly starting shit. You get a couple instances of confrontation (with the good guys always winning and making the bad guys look like amateurs), before this BIG karate tournament that the good guys win. And this is where our secondary protagonist (the director) wins the tournament, and winds up getting beaten into unconsciousness with his own trophynot by the evil karate school, but by the insane ninja. This all leads to one of the FUNNIEST screams of agony Ive ever witnessed, as our lead actor discovers his friends brutalized body.

From here, the movie ramps up to a whole new level. Keep in mind: the attacker was the ninja. Our hero goes after the evil karate school, who had NOTHING to do with his friends assault. And we get our hero (and a partner) showing up at a barbeque and proceeding to kick everyones ass in attendance. Then one guy whips out some nunchuks, and the partner stays behind while our hero just drives off in his sports car in the background of this fight scene. Yeah, the partner winsbut hes then left looking around like he didnt expect our hero to leave him behind.

Then we get a stunningly competent (and honestly kinda crazy) car chase, complete with crashing through an obviously-fake fruit stand, crashing through a truck, swerving all over city streets, and eventually crashing into a field. Then both hero and villain steal motorcycles and continue the chase into a WATERFALL, where they lose the bikes and just start fighting in the waves. The fight continues with a conveniently-placed chainsaw, an even MORE conveniently placed axe, and then some INSANE editing where our hero knocks the villain off a cliffOFF-CAMERA. And again, I want to make it very clear: this brutal manslaughter was the result of an attack that the VILLAIN DIDNT DO.

Seriously, our hero turns himself in to the police, where he realizes Oh shit, the ninja was the real bad guy all along. Yeah, that plot point is entirely resolved off-screen, without our heros assistance. And then he winds up getting away with murder via paying a very small fine. Hooray? Its all so wildly bizarre, and indicative of someone who has NO skill at script-writing or coherent thought whatsoever, and I loved being along for the ride the whole time. Finally, I have to point out that the last little charm of this movie comes from JUST how shitty the video quality was. Its likeshot on a home camcorder, and the audio drops out a bunch, and its like they were forced to use EVERY goddamn second of footage they shot. Absolute trainwreck in the best way possible.

Good, Bad Movie Grade: A
Best Bad Aspect: The end chase scene starts awesome and gets hilarious, but I think that scene is in service to the films complete lack of a coherent narrative.

Seginus:
Tension, grit, drama, tragedy, redemption, martial arts. What The Instructor lacks in budget it makes up for in blood, sweat, tears, and soul. This movie features a car chase that turns into a motorcycle chase that turns into a foot chase concluding with a cliffside karate kick ringout. I don't know what the hell the story was and I don't think the filmmakers knew either, but I can't say I was ever bored with it, I found it remarkably entertaining for how little they were working with. The Instructor is seriously badass, a raw snapshot of the post-Warriors pre-Karate Kid fighting landscape from the ground level.

Bitto:
It's a shame this movie is in potato quality only, because it's really entertaining. The fights are really stupid and funny. The dialogue is hilariously bad. The setting they chose for their scenes are wild. The characters are entertaining, but not annoying to look at on-screen.

There's just something about this movie. It's one of those vanity projects that shows up a few times here. The main character and director, Bendell, clearly thinks he's great at martial arts and wants to show off how cool he is while being woefully inept at film making. That's not unusual. What's funny is how inept he paints his own character. Again, this Vietnam War vet is fucking wild. They literally met him dressed as a ninja trying to attack literal children with shurikens. And he decides to take him as a student! And he still sucks as a student! He gets these wild delusions that people want him to steal a trophy and when Bendell's right-hand-man tells him "no", he fucking murders him while thinking "I'll mangle you, you turd."

Then Bendell gets so mad that he thinks it's the rival that's been doing kinda shitty things like attempting to rape Bendell's student/girlfriend or beating up people in a zoo(???). He literally road rages his way to the rival, who is freaked out of his mind because he has no idea what goes on. What commences is a 10 minute car chase that's...well, it's clear Bendell thinks car stunts are cool. Then the car crashes and they do another 10 minute chase on foot in the woods. They have not talked once about this whole thing and the rival fucking responds by attacking cops and trying to kill Bendell with a chainsaw???? Then Bendell knocks him off a cliff, but still tries to save him by reaching out a hand and the rival falls and dies. Then Bendell goes to jail, but learns his Vietnam student was the one that committed murder and Bendell's like "oh whoops, what a misunderstanding!" and it ends. I...what.

That's only the last third of the movie! The first two-thirds are still pretty entertaining, but more "typical" for these sorta movies.

Genuinely Good: The chase scene is actually quite good, especially when they're in the woods.

Suprak:
F

I feel like I just wandered upon some sort of cursed video. How the hell did this one even make this list? How did you find this, Inviso? It isnt on any streaming services and it is only available for purchase on all these weird second hand sites. Is this a curse? Am I cursed? Or is Bob Chaney maybe directly related to Inviso? This is the first film Ive done for any of these projects that I had to watch what was clearly a VHS rip on Youtube. Im going to try to not deduct too many points for that because some of the issues I have here are likely due to the fact that I couldnt see or hear exactly what was going on all the time because I was watching a bootleg version of a thing no one cared to preserve.

I had very little idea what was going on for entire chunks of the movie. The first like twenty minutes is just a random assortment of madness where I had no clue what the hell I was even watching. Theres like a Mad Max style gang just beating the shit out of each other for no reason. A woman is using a trash can lid as a shield and then eats the crumbs out of someones mustache. This whole scene doesnt matter other than the fact our hero shows up to kick all their asses in five minutes before they disappear out of the movie entirely. Theres these two guys running who wind up being the karate heroes of this movie, but we dont know that. Instead we get like fifteen minutes of them running through town, interrupting a kids soccer game, and then trying to run back because the hero has premonitions of a ninja pedophile causing trouble. There is a real scene in this movie where a 47 year old accountant gets the shit kicked out of him by a group of kids playing soccer. Then the group of wasteland douchebags from the start frame him for sexual assault by throwing him on top of the female member of the gang, seemingly to draw in other people to save her so they could then beat them up. All of this is done on this bootleg VHS rip where there are these audio and visual issues and I was really contemplating giving this movie an unratable and leave it at that.

After that point though, you can sort of figure out what the overarching narrative is supposed to be. And, from what I can tell, the plot of this movie is essentially The Karate Kid if the two rival dojos werent a group of kids and were instead replaced by two groups of 40 year old losers going through a mid-life crisis. The hero is a LEGO figurine that wished to become a real boy and I cant remember a movie where the action hero is a good two feet shorter than the next shortest person. And hes the coolest one. Everyone else in this movie is somehow more ugly and less cool than that guy. It is this weird cast of lumpy nobodies doing these poorly choreographed fight scene against each other. The highlight for me was the one woman fighting off her attackers. Ive seen way too many almost successful rapes on this list (thanks Inviso) so it was nice for one of the women to just kick the shit out of everyone. She stabs one guy in the armpit with a pencil and then the main character shows up to beat up the last guy in front of 40 cops with their guns drawn.

It doesnt help the script is just sort of all over the place. The actors here are all awful (other than the ninja pervert obviously) and the fight scenes are painful, but I mightve been a bit more lenient if there was actually something interesting happening. They try to give the lead character some sort of backstory here but that backstory is just someone occasionally going hey remember your wife is dead followed by jeez mister you sure are strong. We get these occasional meaningless flashbacks of him and his wife riding horses or something, and I think that is supposed to make us feelsomething for the main character here. I dont know. Im not sure if this was their attempt to humanize the LEGO figurine were watching or what, but it doesnt work because you never really see anything to see what makes him a good guy or even a quick scene showing why he loved his wife or something like that. You have things like the big karate tournament just dropped in the story out of nowhere, and it really feels like they didnt really care about continuity or pesky little nonsense like that.

The conclusion to all of this is equally insane. I dont even know whats craziest. The hero straight up murders a guy that had nothing to do with the assault hes seeking vengeance for? The fact that he kills a guy, steals two vehicles, recklessly endangers entire crowds of onlookers, and causes damage to police property and then he shows up at the end of the movie like lol I just had to pay a $500 fine. Is that it? Is that the punishment for murder? I think maybe it is the fact that the hero and some random guy Im not even sure was in the movie before this scene drive up to what looks like the rival karate dojo BBQ and picnic after the tournament. All the goons are there sure, but so are what look like their wives, and theyre all just sitting and chilling on a patio. How many in-universe divorces do you think this scene lead to? I mean, imagine your idiot loser husband joins a karate dojo for his 51st birthday. Then imagine you have to watch the shit get kicked out of him by a 5 foot tall man with LEGO hair. That would give even the most devoted wife the ick. No one screams or yells for help or anything like that, either. They just all watch their husbands get the shit kicked out of them like dammit Gary this is why I told you to take up golf.

I do think things somehow slightly get better in the back third of the movie. Not like good but better. Im extremely interested in the life and times of karate psychopath. I want an entire movie following him around. He starts the movie harassing kids in a ninja costume even though hes not a ninja, and then ends the movie brutally murdering (well almost murdering) a guy with a karate trophy that drives him mad with power. It was like Gollum when hes near the ring. You could drop Gollums internal monologue on top of this scene and it would have made just as much sense. Thats a character I want to follow. Theres no one else even mildly interesting in this movie. I dont even know who like 75% of these people even are. Its good because the last thirty minutes are just various car and motorcycle chases so we dont have to pretend to be interested in them any longer. You have no idea how disappointed I was when the bite sized hero gets out of his car because I was afraid we were going to have to watch more terrible fight scenes. Fortunately they just grab a motorcycle and continue the chase for another five minutes before finding a fully functional chainsaw in the middle of the woods.

I am shocked the car chase scene was as good as it was. Again, not good, but like actually tangentially competent. I wasnt prepared. Most of the fight scenes look like they were done with choreography or practice, so the fact the car chases actually look real was a shock I wasnt prepared for. How did they get a town to shut down its streets for this? Can anyone with a film camera do that? Wasnt the mayor of this town looking over the script and going like eh actually the 130PM lunch crowd can be a little much and I dont want to disturb them well have to pass. The one car (an amazing car by the way) literally ramps up and over truck. Its like oh this is a real chase scene which I wasnt expecting. The motorcycle chase is way worse. I dont know if they had actual stunt drivers for the cars but then figured they couldnt hide their faces on a bike so they just had the actors do it or what, but Bob Chaney spends most of the bike chase continuously falling off the bike. I dont know why it made it to the final cuts but they kept showing him fall off and have to reset the bike. I actually have a theory they shot this scene first and Bob Chaney spends the rest of the filming concussed because of how many times he fell off his bike, which explains why everything else in this movie looks so bad.

This is one that isnt the worst movie on this list, but it is definitely hovering around that tier. I wouldnt be surprised if this dropped in the bottom five. It is borderline incomprehensible at times and the fight scenes, which are supposed to be the saving grace of something like this, are laughably incompetent. I wasnt completely falling asleep though which is why I have it ranked above a handful of other movies on this list that were pretty much elephant sedatives. Things happen. What things? Im not always clear on that but theres at least stuff happening on the screen at all times. It is still a mess and probably one of the movies on this list that I wouldve swapped out if I was trying to put something like this together. It isnt fun enough to make sitting through it enjoyable and it is so forgotten that there had to be better, more well known options. I think this pretty clearly fails the cult classic test when you cant even find the movie anywhere.

Forty:
Despite being nearly unwatchable at 480p with horrendous sound, this is somehow a contender for the best movie involving martial arts on the list (scratch that, going back through its Undefeatable). That speaks more to the badness of the other movies though. The plot of this movie is thinner than the pencil that one guy gets stabbed with (OK, I know thats really bad but were embracing bad here, right?) Its thinner than the hairline of that guy who steals the trophy? Not any better, sorry. The point is, the synopsis says students from two rival martial arts schools face off in a winner take all fight. Yep thats about covers it, and thats all you can expect in addition to one ludicrously long chase scene. What winner takes all means I dont even remember, partly because Im finishing this writeup a few weeks after watching it and partly because it was completely unmemorable and inconsequential. This is another one of those vanity projects where the writer/director/actor gives way too much credit to their own abilities. Stephen Chow this is not.

Johnbobb:
"Going to ignore the fact that the only version of this movie I could find looked like it was filmed on a potato as best as I can. This movie had so much unresolved sexual tension and almost zero of the creative decisions made had any sort of reasoning behind them. I honestly couldn't tell you what it was about beyond vaguely ""karate"" (NOT kung fu, we don't teach that here). +1 bonus point for knocking out a cop the fuck out with a weak slap.

Favorite 5 star Letterboxd review:
Packs a buzz similar to that of sharing a formaldehyde soaked roach and a piss warm bottle of peppermint schnapps with a violent hobo underneath a highway overpass."

Evillord:
Definitely a 1 out of 10 film. What was even supposed to be happening at any given moment? It starts with 2 seconds of some guys running down the street and talking, then jump cuts to some unrelated gang two members of which are engaged in a power struggle, who then either try to rob the two karate dudes or just beat them up for the fun of it, then get their asses whooped and never appear again. The closest thing to a throughline this has is about some loser who dresses up as a ninja to try and harass children, gets *his* ass whooped, and then later murders a man for foiling his plot to steal a karate trophy. Then the main character chases him for like 30 minutes across several different means of transport and the bad guy falls off a cliff and dies, the end. It was such a collection of nonsense strung together and was mostly just very irritating to watch because of the excessively noisy sound mixing (i.e. there was none and every other scene is just 30 people talking over one another.) There was a fixation on men getting kicked in the balls, perhaps the director has a CBT fetish? Anyway, I would've rather just watched a youtube video of the goofy fight coreography than sit through the whole 90 minute slog of a movie.

Red:
Plot? Nope, none here. Characters are going to show up, growl a bit or something, and then they fight. And fight. And fight. And fight. And fight some more. And all through this time they are going to warp around Power Rangers style because this movie doesn't have time for plot everyone must fight.

Karo:
This is a bizarre, barely written, incompetently edited martial arts 'epic' that feels more like someones shitty backyard fighting home movies right off a VCR camcorder.
I don't even understand what the hell is going on, everyone just keeps karate kicking each other for no reason, as many out of shape men fail around in sort of a vague approximation of karate. I gathered that someone's wife was killed somehow and that there was a karate tournament, but good luck divining anything else out of this atrocious bottom of the barrel dreck that isn't worth the data it would take up on your hard drive.
There isn't even any real indication of who is the good guys and who is the bad guys because every single character is a violent psychotic prick who punches first and asks questions never.
Indeed, traditional Japanese honor seems to be MIA here, as a karate instructor demonstrates moves that involve head stomping and grinding someone face against the pavement. A tournament is won with a clear heavy blow to an opponents crotch. Someone is beaten to death with a martial arts trophy for no real reason that I can see.
This is a grave insult to both cinema and martial arts and the fucking idiot who directed this is the one who needs an instructor. Or seppuku.

Outlier Leaderboard:

Inviso - 98
Bitto - 85
Johnbobb - 80
Karo - 71
Evillord - 70
Red - 68
Seginus - 68
Suprak - 67
Forty - 64

Man, remember those days when I was in contention for the bottom of the outlier list? Those were nice. I just keep extending my lead now that favorites are going on. Big leaps for Seginus, who shared an affinity for The Instructor with me, and Karo...who did not. That shifted the board a bit and allowed Forty to sneak his way down into the bottom slot, while Johnbobb came close enough to stay relatively consistent compared to Bitto's big leap with a top ten placement.

Hint for #20: The first film on our list without any bottom five placements (which is partially how it lost the tiebreaker with #19.)

I'd like to point out the The Instructor was actually my 30 and not my 29.

You're right. I fixed that somewhere else ('cause I realized I had Sasquatch and Instructor swap) but must not have fixed the post before posting it.

That part when he kicks the guy off the motorcycle is the culmination of one of my favorite scenes in all of these movies. The bad guys in this have the worst case of attack-one-at-a-time syndrome ever.

I was for awhile not convinced Instructor would land anywhere but 30 for me.

Also, Bitto, I need to point this out because it makes it even funnier: while he is the director, Don Bendell is NOT the main character. Don Bendell is the friend who gets his ass kicked by bald fat ninja. The main character is just some other guy, which shows a stunning amount of awareness for someone making a passion project.

Wow. Thats hilarious. Makes me feel even better having this as a top 10.

Its a real shame about the quality. I would love to watch it again with my partner but its so difficult to figure out whats going on.

Regarding Suburban Sasquatch, Rick the reporter is one of my least favorite protagonists of this list, which is a real accomplishment. Just a terrible character combined with terrible performance.

For the next one, I will guess Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.