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Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst Performance by an ActorLast week we did actresses. Ladies first. This time it’s guys’ turn.
Worst performance by an actor? My pick is a little rough, because he’s recently deceased, but I gotta say it: Ray Dennis Steckler, aka Cash Flagg in “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.” Whatever his merits as a director (and we’ll discuss that next week) as an actor he makes Hal Warren in “Manos” look like Lawrence Olivier. What’s your pick? 140 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst Performance by an Actor”Commenting at Satellite News
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Reb Brown as Dave Ryder in Space Mutiny. Screaming like a weakling won’t stop those laser blasts.
Anthony Cardoza of Skydivers/Red Zone Cuba fame. Man has less expressions than Keanu Reeves and a voice fit for Death itself. Just look at the highlights.
– Playing a guy who is breaking up with an evil lady named Suzie he’s been having an affair with.
“Suzy, you’re a broad. Get lost.”
– Playing a fugitive who’s being told by a mean guy to give up his ring.
“I can’t give you this ring. My Dad gave it to me.”
Only one performance comes to my mind — and now it’s stuck in my mind, so I’ll have to tell you to get it out.
Sure, MSTed movies have lots of underacting, plenty of overacting, and more than their share of bad acting. But there’s only one actor’s performance that had me actively wishing that the character would not only lose, but die a horrible death.
It’s partly the singing, partly the whining, partly the fact that his baby*-face only has that one, staring-into-the-sun, expression. But I simply can’t stand Arch Hall’s “performance” in Eegah.
* (That’s “baby” as in “that baby your friends have who is incredibly ugly but you can’t say that to their face)
Rondo Hatton from “The Brute Man”. Acromegaly is no excuse for his cardboard performance. It’s a rare case where dubbing would have actually helped.
Runner up is Daniel “I Am A Tool” Bernhardt showing off his ESL skills in “Future War”.
any dude trying to act in Alien from L.A.
kiss, kiss, kiss from the alien!
A very difficult choice, Sampo…so many choices! But to me it seems like there are “actors” who definitely aren’t, and actors who have really bad performances (like the main deputy in The Creeping Terror, who is obviously not an actor, and Beau Bridges in Village of the Giants, who can act but apparently chose not to in this movie.)
With those two categories in mind, I’m going to say that the “British” agent in Rocket Attack USA, who has a terrible accent and terrible delivery, qualifies for the worst non-actor performance.
Mark Richman, who was Adam Chance in Agent for H.A.R.M., wins my vote for worst real actor (at least, he was in lots of tv shows and presumably earned his living that way). His performance is painful and so smarmy; it always creeps me out. (Maybe that’s not fair, though, and he was simply miscast – I may have to rethink this…)
tony cardoza in skydivers. unless he was supposed to be acting like he didn’t want to be in the film, then he was great.
my runner up would have to be that camer geek in that movie, what’s with that guy.
‘will there be mashed potatoes!?!’
How could everyone forget Lance Fuller’s performance in “She-Creature”, where for the entire film he just looked blankly at everyone and smirked?
The worst I’ve seen is in Werewolf. Natalie Burke as Adrianna miles. “This is absolutely fascinating”.
It’s actors this week, Chris. Although I seem to recall that Natalie was a strong candidate last week. :)
Me, I’m going to defend Ray Dennis Steckler’s mediocre, but at least entertaining performance and point to Kim Milford as Billy Duncan in “Laserblast” as my contender for Worst Actor. Every line, every scene, every moment of his on-stage performance speaks of someone who woke up from a pot-fueled daze, stumbled onto the set, mumbled out his lines, and then flopped back down onto a mattress with a one-hitter. Some actors light up the screen with their electric performances; Milford causes a brown-out.
John Phillip Law. Pick either of his two performances; the stiff and awkward Diabolik, or the ham and cheese Calgon in Space Mutiny.
I pick (like last week) Tommy Bartlet from “Hobgoblins”. His whinny perfermance in this movie makes me wonder how he got the role in the first place without whinning to the director that he get a lead role.
A lot of ham and cheese has been done in mystie movies,
But I think the worst acting,overall, was in Killer shrews.The men were so bland..and so still..and so..agghhhhhh
Anotherbad performance was the teenager,i forget his name in TISCWDTSLABMUZ
For me, I think it’s gotta be the two soldiers providing “comic relief” in “Attack of the the Eye Creatures.” You know, the ones who were ogling the smoochers “surreptiously” via camera. I truly wanted to reach thru the screen and strangle them for attempting to be funny. They were just nauseating. Also, the guy in the sleepdress in the same ep. Truly gross and oily and awful. Good God, the acting styles back then…makes Ben Affleck look like Spencer Tracy.
An obvious choice: Harold Warren (Michael)
in Manos: The Hands of Fate. An example of
running the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Okay, NOW I can say, ANTHONY “TONY” CARDOZA. I mean, in Skydivers the man can’t even READ!
For me it’s Steven Boggs “the whole film down” as Kyle from Hobgoblins. All he does is act incredibly stupid the entire movie. Although Daran Norris as the Club Scum M.C. isn’t a whole lot better. Of course when it comes to terrible performances from that movie, anybody would do, really.
My vote is for Harold Saunders, who played Cook in Red Zone Cuba (“I think you’re supposed to strangle me til I’m dead”). He also made a brief cameo(?)in The Skydivers as the FAA inspector. In both films he showed the same indifference. Come to think of it, ANY male character in a Coleman Francis movie could nominated here.
Walter George Alton in “Puma Man”, hands down.
Honorable Mentions:
Chase Cordell in “Track of the Moon Beast”
Fred Cavalli, George Rivero and Joe Estevez in “Wurwilf”
Joe Don Baker in “Mitchell” and “Final Justice”
Miles (and Miles) O’Keefe in “Cave Dwellers”
Pernell Roberts and his smugness in “San Francisco International”
Arch Hall Jr. and Richard Kiel in “Eegah”
Urbano Barberini in “Outlaw”
John Allen Nelson in “Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell”
Wow, tough decision. But I’m going with:
– Tor Johnson as the “Beast”, “Lobo” and well “Lobo” again in Beast of Yucca Flat, Bride of the Monster, and the Unearthly.
– 1st Runner Up, who will take over in case Mr. Johnson can no longer fulfill his duties:
The Paper Chase Guy in Warrior of the Lost World. I think unemotional mumbling (kind of what he did in the Paper Chase as a matter of fact.) trumps emoting and carper chewing.
– 2nd Runner Up, with a $25 scholarship: The scene chewing patient in the the Unearthly.
Eddie Deezen as Froggy in Laserblast. I don’t think I need to explain myself any further.
Mitchell!
Cousin Billy from Giant Spider Invasion, aka “Charles Manson – Jeweler.”
He’s even more horrifying/repulsive in the original drive-in version.
Matthew Bruch sticks out in my mind, mainly because I watched Time Chasers yesterday and because he just tried to act like Richard Dreyfuss, unsuccessfully, early on in the movie. Of course the whole cast of that movie was just terrible, so it really could be any one of the actors in that movie.
Hal Warren of Manos fame or the entire cast of Monster A GO GO
I might eventually update my pick after having more time consider it, but I have to at least nominate Jonathan Ledford, our “peeping Corporal Culver” from Attack of the the Eye Creatures. His…unique interpretation of comedy offends me genuinely and deeply. From his head bobbing and smirking to the way he delivers every line, this was one truly garish, tough-to-squirm-through performance.
Cash Flagg was certainly out-acted by his co-star, Atlas King (Greek imigrant who learned his lines phonetically – see stinger) or even the mechanical monkey (“get your tickets here!”).
However, I’m going with Richard Kiel in “The Human Duplicators”. That being said….
I’LL TAKE HUGE UNTALENTED ACTORS FOR 1000, ALEX
…and whoever was mugging at us with him in those indefensible scenes deserves the same amount of time in the genital cuffs.
The idiot from Touch of Satan. I forget his name but I will never forget. Zaaa :lol:
Anyone from Manos.
Ross Hagen in Sidehackers.
I’m torn. For me, there’s two kinds of bad actors: (a)those who can’t act, and (b) those who annoy me.
For the latter case, the prize has to go to Bill McCutcheon in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Every scene he eats makes me want to throw things at the TV. But Dropo is supposed to be irritating, so I guess his “acting” is adequate for the part, so…
…We come back to the first case, where our so-called actor does nothing of the sort. MST3K is filled with these, but I’m inclined to give the nod to either Raul Julia in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank or John Carradine in The Unearthly, simply because those two really could have acted if they chose to.
Jorge Rivero from Werewolf gets my vote. I don’t know what was more distracting, his awful overacting or the fact that his hair changes style and color twenty freaking times.
My second vote is Richard Weber who played Lt. Makonnen in The Phantom Planet. He’s in the movie for ten minutes, delivers the lamest monologue in the history of cinema before he gets killed off in the laziest turn of events.
My second vote is Richard Weber who played Lt. Makonnen in The Phantom Planet. He’s in the movie for ten minutes, delivers the lamest monologue in the history of cinema before he gets killed off in the laziest turn of events.
And of course his scene-chewing as the angry Jewish scientist in 12 To the Moon.
The entire cast of Monster A-GO-GO including the monster that was’nt there, because we all know—there was no monster.
Definitely Aldo Farnese as Henry Krasker in The Dead Talk Back. That voice, the delivery, the misplaced smug self-confidence….terrible!
Paul Gilbert as Lt. Red Bradley has to be one of THE most painful performances I’ve ever watched. His pitiful attempt at comic relief only makes you feel embarrassed for him. He’s awkward and morbidly unfunny. On the plus line, he does deliver perhaps the most memorable line from MST3K: “HIKEEBA!”
Let’s face it, if someone is in a film because they are freakishly huge, like Richard Kiel, or freakish and huge, like Rondo Hatton, they’re a cinch to be the most noticeable bad actors wherever they are.
Then there’s actors who presumably kept getting roles because they were considered handsome, like Lance Fuller in The She Creature and you have to marvel that they were never strangled by a director for their super-massive lack of talent. I mean can you imagine Edward L. Cahn hearing him read lines like we heard in that movie and saying “Good enough.” instead of whaling on him with a baseball bat like Robert DeNiro in The Untouchables?
This IS a toughie! But, I have to go with my gut, on this one, and say Joe Don Baker; and I nominate Joe Don, not only for his pitiful efforts in Mitchell and Final Justice, but for being so delusional as to believe his roles were well-acted and worthy of praise. C’mon, Doe Jon! Are you f***ing kidding me?! Do you seriously think a stupid, doughy ogre with a badge and hilarious sport coat is seen as anything other than a stupid, doughy ogre with a badge and hilarious sport coat? And answer me this, DJ JD “Patty Cake” Bakersman: What were you thinking when you agreed to Final Justice? It couldn’t have been solely for the money; you did threaten the Brains, after they gave that little fiasco the savaging it deserved. What was it about a literal spaghetti western, starring a Texas lawman by the name of Thomas Jefferson Geronimo (who, by the way, prefers milk to hard liquor), that just screamed out to you, “This is it! The role of a lifetime! My masterpiece! My…opus!”
Both of those “performances” were pathetic. One’s a staggering, poorly acted, unlikeable oaf; the other is a staggering, poorly acted, unlikeable oaf with a hat. So, what’s the big, bad JDB got to say about that? You gonna’ beat me up, too? Yew think yew kin’ take me? Go ahead on!
But, in all seriousness, Jon Doe, you owe the film-going public an apology…and about $8.50 a piece, at current theater rates.
Isn’t Lance Fuller the only one who actually had a host segment dedicated to their horrible delivery?
My “favorites” have all been mentioned already.
As mdwileygrl suggested, the video voyeurs from “Attack of the the Eye Creatures” are completely slimy and loathsome, which isn’t good for a movie’s comic relief.
Adoptadog nailed the smug and creepy performance of Mark Richman, who as Adam Chance was truly an “Agent for H.A.R.M.”
But my vote would have to go to Lance Fuller in “The She Creature,” which I think was even worse than Wilford B. Wolf describes. He had a kind of hostile anti-acting, refusing to interact with other actors. He obviously hated every moment of being on that film, but did he have to take it out on his fellow actors and the audience?
About Richard Weber as Lt. Makonnen in “The Phantom Planet”: he didn’t write the film; you can’t really blame him for the monologue or how his character died. I found him a lot more tolerable than the roughly-hewn block of granite playing Frank Chapman.
so many good mentions already! this will be tough… the “comb over guy” in Soultaker and John Agar come to mind immediately. I’m going with those two :grin:
1. Carl Anthony, “The Sinister Urge.”
2. Dean Fredericks, “The Phantom Planet.”
3. Burr DeBenning, “The Incredible Melting Man.”
4. Thom Christopher, “Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.”
5. Tom Graeff (Lockyear), “Teenagers from Outer Space.”
And the winner is…
Carl Anthony in “The Sinister Urge.” He reads every line as if he were the computer voice from “War Games”. The one time he flubs a line, “Tell me, what’s, what’s on your mind?” is the one time he actually sounds natural and relaxed. (Tom Servo: “I’m really acting now! Come on!”)
Granted there isn’t much one could do with Ed Wood’s script, but at least Jean Fontaine was funny with her bad acting, and Dino Fantini at least pretended he was a character (even if he chewed the scenery). Carl Anthony was barely more than a wooden Ken doll, gesturing to indicate an “emotion” or walking stiffly from place to place.
Tom Graeff’s bad performance in “Teenagers” gets an honorable nod. It’s amazing how a director can be so bad in his OWN FILM. (Tony Zarindast in “Werewolf” comes to mind as well.)
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Robert Ginty (A.K.A. The Paper Chase guy) yet. I’ve seen Warriors of the Lost World countless times and i still can’t tell you a single word that goofy bastard said. :lol:
So many choices, even more than the lead actress discussion of last week.
Now, Tony Cardoza is bad, as is Cash Flagg. Reb Brown is merely embarrassing. However, I’m basing this choice on both bad acting and a man having no business in a leading role. And so, I give you, but who would want him anyway,
Bob Dornan from The Starfighters.
Lots of great choices, guys. Lance Fuller and Tony Cardoza are worthy of an anti-Oscar. But since they’ve been picked several times already, I’ll put my vote in for Peter Graves in The Beginning of the End. It may have been the result of bad directing (Mr. B.I.G. doesn’t appear to be all that picky when it comes to performances), but he was so wooden yet full of self-importance I really wanted the grasshoppers to make tobacco juice out of him. In the end, the girl only fell for him because the script said she had to. He gave no reason for anyone to like him, much less fall in love with him.
Along the same lines, I’ll give a nomination nod to John “never let the smile touch your eyes ” Agar in Revenge of the Creature.
i gotta say Alan Hale Jr.’s performance from the Giant Spider Invasion is terrible…from the carryover of his catch phrase, to the hammy acting and dialogue. What makes it worse is that he knew better. He’s moderately talented, and had more success than a lot of formentioned actors, and exposure to big studio production. I think he just squandered himself there.
Unless I missed something, nobody has yet mentioned the guy who played Truxartis in “Deathstalker.”
“I. Put the. BEATS! In my own lines and I like it that way!”
Lots of great nominations above, but what about the shorts? My nomination for Worst Actor in a Short would have to be the man who played Mr. Barnes, the shop teacher, who read his lines like Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore show:
Oops! That’s Mr. Barnes in “Why Study Industrial Arts?”, from “The Skydivers”.