If memory serves, the premise of the CC era and the MST3k Movie was that Dr, F was looking for the worst movie ever to use for his world domination scheme. Question: did he find it before the whole end of season 7? and if so, in your opinion which one was it? For me: yes with Castle of Fu Manchu.
This isn’t really about the worst movie the Mads sent, but it’s more about: what movie, shown by the Mads or not, is THE movie that will allow them to take over the world.
Me? I’m going with “The Way We Were.”
You?
Don’t Let Duke of Puddles have ALL the fun! Keep sending those WDT suggestions.
Also, FYI- I tentatively plan to begin posting official season 12 episode guide pages once a week beginning Oct. 24. These plans may change (like, if I get a job), but that’s the plan right now.
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Anything on the Lifetime Channel –
They are all basically the same movie with minor details altered, so showing an endless stream of them would be enough to break the fighting spirit of whole nations. Also, be sure to include every single insipid commercial for weight loss, for profit “universities”, and wrinkle removers.
I raise you Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. They’re seasonal, but the season never ends.
I think Dr. F came close to achieving his goal with King Dinosaur and Fire Maidens of Outer Space. I certainly felt my desire to live slip away (but thank goodness for J&tBs, who pulled me back from the brink).
However, for THE movie that would have given the Mads global domination, I’d suggest Life, the 2017 mess with Ryan Reynolds and a bunch of other stunningly incompetent astro-scientists. At least, that’s the movie that sent my husband over the edge; he spent most of it yelling, “You idiots! You’re supposed to be professionals? Hah!” and “That’s not how science works!” It came close to breaking him, and me by extension.
The Coleman Francis Trilogy of Despair.
Looking forward to the season 12 episode guide pages, Sampo. Good Luck on your job search. Showing prospective employers this website will demonstrate your ability to work well with difficult people. Ha!
I gotta go with Mighty Jack.
I think Crow said it best.. What The Hell Is Happening!!
I know it’s an obvious choice, but you can’t get much worse than Manos. It is just a deep well of despair.
The movie that just about broke me is Birdemic. It’s so stunningly oblivious and incompetent on so many levels, and…. oops, I gotta go, I hear a mountain lion!
Beast of Yucca Flats. I can’t even get through it in one setting. Soooo…….much…… boredom! Kinda like watching paint dry.
“Sidehackers”
Or maybe “The Room”
Season 4 had a toxic sequence that should’ve been outlawed by the United Nations: the two Rocky Jones & Winky classics sandwiched around The Beatniks and followed shortly by Monster a Go-Go. If Dr. F had concentrated them a little more tightly–created an early “Gauntlet”, as it were–he would surely have reached his twisted, evil goals. I break into a cold sweat just thinking about it.
Speaking of “Gauntlet”, his daughter Kinga came very close by stringing together Mac & Me, Atlantic Rim & Lords of the Deep. I’m still in therapy after watching Mac & Me alone. Thank goodness she didn’t do the same with Starcrash, Carnival Magic, The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t and the two Wizards of the Lost Kingdom in Season 11! It would’ve been the end of the world as we know it.
Among the innumerable non-MSTied movies that could be used to subjugate humanity, I would suggest Altered States and 9 to 5, two highly-touted films that had me close to storming out of the theater in a trembling rage.
In this vein, I’d also suggest any holiday movie from The Hallmark Channel. There are various online plot generators for both Lifetime and Hallmark movies, and they are scarily accurate. “A big-city ad executive who just broke up with her rich boyfriend returns to her family’s Montana ranch for Christmas, where she and her sister both fall for the new ranch hand. Will ________ (whatever the trendy nom de l’année is, such as Emma, Harper, or Eva) realize that her heart belongs in sagebrush and not subways, or will she turn her back on love yet again?” Blah blah blah.
Second the suggestions of The Hallmark Channel & Lifetime. I would’ve loved to hear the CC/Sci-Fi ‘bots riffing on possible Hallmark titles the way they did on USA Network possibilities during the closing credits of Outlaw!
On a somewhat more serious note, any and all violence porn–The Saw, The Human Centipede, etc. I’m not sure there isn’t some real mad scientist hell-bent on world domination behind movies of that kind.
The Sound of Music. I missed it when it first hit the theaters, but a girl friend had me watch it later. “It won Oscars,” she said. “They must have been drunk,” I replied. A total waste of celluloid.
You can pick either Beast of Yucca Flats or Monster a Go Go or Castle of Fu Manchu or Manos and they would qualify to take over the world ..
Some of the movies shown during the sci fi era like Mole People,Revenge of the Creature,The Undead and The She Creature weren’t the worst they could find..Those movies can be watched without the riffing..I don’t know who was picking them,or maybe they didn’t have a big selection to choose from or get the rights to,but there are FAR WORSE movies out there…
I’d choose:
Birdemic
The Room
any movie by Neil Breen
Empire of the Dark
Provoked
The Brainsucker
any movie by Tomcat Films
Dr. F, Pearl, & Kinga found a lot of potential candidates, but for me, I’d say the Transformer movies. My son took me with him to the first, and the constant level of LOUD MECHANICAL NOISE DROVE ME TO STATE OF MASSIVE ANXIETY AND DESPAIR. And to add to that, there was insipid dialogue, no real plot to speak of, and Shia LeBeouf. Jackhammers to the ears, sledgehammers to the eyes.
Regarding Hallmark movies: If RT did a Patreon where Bridget and MaryJo did a mocking of a few of those things I’d pay top dollar to support them.
Speaking of Rifftrax: If only Pearl and Clayton kept going they would have eventually come across Whizzo and the Ice Cream Bunny. Lock a parent in a room and show those two things non-stop and soon they’ll be begging you to take over the world just to make it stop.
Christopher Plummer also didn’t care for it, always referring to it as The Sound of Mucus.
I agree completely! However, you left out the worst part of those movies — the “humor”.
To me the most painful of all movies are the ones starring washed up comedians who just ain’t got it anymore and an all-star supporting cast. The amount that it’s a let down is important to the pain generation, so maybe when weaponizing this film they have to be multi-features: a good one followed by a stinker. Eddie Murphy and Chevy Chase are good cores, but for the doomsday device I gotta go with the triple feature of “Caddyshack”, “Groundhog Day”, and then the drop the hammer on them with “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”.
Musicals –
For the ladies and ~ 20% of men who just l-o-v-e musicals I apologize in advance. There are excellent musical movies like WEST SIDE STORY and there are the other kind, but in either case multiple exposures in rapid succession will result in eye-watering, brain-liquefying, Wilhelm-scream inducing torture. A potential case in point –
MANOS THE MUSICAL. You’ve heard of light opera? There is NOTHING light about this production. We open with Torgo’s Theme, then drift into 4/4 variations heavy on the unchanging downbeat all the way through the interminable irrigated fields sequence. The lighthearted couple in the car engaging in “romance”? Perhaps a chance for a little Disneyesque twitterpation number, a la Bambi? NO! Instead, we get an endless series of piano arpeggios that will have the audience shouting “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it”. The entire libretto is sung in the unintelligible style of ToRgO requiring the audience to have programs in hand for translation or, more likely, as a shield to what is happening on the screen.
I must stop here for the sake of my own equilibrium before Poe’s “Imp of the Perverse” forces me to actually write the whole musical and release it upon an unsuspecting world. Oh, the pain, the pain…
Is that real? I can’t find it anywhere.
and i raise you TLC and the Sci-Fi Channel (no i am not calling by what they are calling it now).
If you’ll allow me to go on a tirade her, pretty much ANYTHING made by PureFlix (commonly known as “Christploitation” movies)
Badly acted, badly edited, incredibly ham-fisted moralizing tripe is the absolute worst of the worst as far as I’m concerned.
Especially if it is an attempt to compel one to conform to a certain worldview or religion.
Just… there’s nothing worse than propaganda disguised as entertainment
and I really wish MST/RiffTrax had the balls to take on those kinds of movies
But until they do, thank goodness for YouTube reviewers
i am a Christian and even i think they are bad (if they would to do one of those types of films, they should do these from the 1970’s)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thief_in_the_Night_(film_series)
Not all women/ladies love musicals. This one doesn’t (in general), although I know it’s a stereotype and I don’t mean to rag you for it. “The Sound of Music” was referenced earlier, and if you grew up in the 1960s you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting an overblown musical like it, “My Fair Lady,” “Funny Girl” (kill me now), and so on. Can’t stand ’em, although I agree with you that “West Side Story” is good, and my favorite over-the-top musical is “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” mostly because of the amazing, athletic dancing in both films. Or maybe it’s Russ Tamblyn. The barn raising scene in 7Bf7B is right up there with Astaire dancing on the ceiling.
i like Musicals, but you are right there are some that are overblown.
now here one (even if it is a classic), Gone with the Wind. i will also raise (its not a classic but) Titanic (1997). i’m gonna sink the Bitch is right (see the Oscar special from 1998)
I haven’t written it yet.
Totally agree with your sentiments about religious “entertainment” in general. Nothing I hate more than using religion to make personal profit. What lessons do people take from the story of Jesus flipping the money changers’ tables?
I had no idea that Pure Flix actually made movies, though. I thought that they just bowdlerized others’ copyrighted movies. Maybe that didn’t turn out to be profitable when legal costs are taken into account.
I call with Cartoon Network’s 7-14 hour daily Teen Titans Go! marathons.
Thing is, once J&tB knew that Castle of Fu Manchu worked on the Mads as it had ALMOST worked on them, why didn’t they use it more often?
And don’t give me that “We won’t sink to our enemies’ level” malarkey!
You saw the good one. Not the second one, that Michael Bay had to write HIMSELF, due to the Writer’s Strike of ’08.
I’ll just say “Pot brownies”, and see who’s harboring a traumatized tic right now. As Servo said, “Ohh, the humor, the humor…”
(Then again, there is the third movie, with John Malkovich and Deep Wang. Did the psychotic 5th episode ever reach down to those levels?–It’s on Amazon, but I’m afraid to look. And that goes for “Battleship”, too.)
As profhackenbush listed, a Neil Breen movie would likely destroy their will to live. I watched Fateful Findings and it was incomprehensibly bad. Like Tommy Wisseau or James Nguyen or Michael Scott on The Office, Breen has absolutely no self awareness. He also has a messiah complex, where in every movie he is the ultimate assassin/hacker/ladies’ man/alien twins here to save/destroy the world. The only redeeming value is that they are so bad that they cross over into “so bad it’s good” territory.
Unfortunately, the only legal way to get Breen’s movies is buying them directly from his website, which is apparently a convoluted process in itself. Fateful Findings was available on Amazon Prime for a while, which is where I saw it, but it’s no longer available there. You can find the trailers for Breen’s films on YouTube if you’d like a taste. RedLetterMedia’s reviews of Breen are also good, and will give you an idea of what it’s like to watch one.
I’m going to take the contrary position and say that the movie which would allow the Forresters to take over the world hasn’t been made.
Though I haven’t seen The Joker yet…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0YIJQ1jgEI
I laughed so hard at that the windows shook! Can I request a “But there was no…”?
I wish I could come by every weekend and “rap” about “flicks” again, but time has gotten tight. Still, I had to stop by on THIS topic.
There’s SO much worse out there than what I’m seeing above.
I’m not talking about movies like Alien Private Eye and Blood Freak. Those are Ed Wood-class bad movies: entertaining and a hoot to watch.
The following are Coleman Francis-class bad movies.
1. If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? – There’s the standard, worn-out VHS Terrible Print on YouTube, I’ve got a far better print from, I think, piratebay
2. Misery Brothers – Terrifyingly awful. Check out the imdb entry. The trailer is on YouTube, I got my copy from a video store screener years ago. Took me FIVE tries to stick it out till the end.
3. Dondi – No idea how to access this anymore. Actually makes people angry to watch this, particularly if you’re old enough to remember the source.
4. Inchon – Legendary. Maybe the biggest-budget bad movie ever. On Youtube.
5. Night of Horror – Dumbfounding. At one point, my VHS of this was a serious collectible. NIGHT OF HORROR IS NOW ON YOUTUBE, AND YOU’VE GOTTA. YOU’VE JUST GOTTA.
6a. Black Devil Doll from Hell – The original, from 1984. On YouTube. No comment. None.
6b. Black Devil Doll – The guys from Rotten Cotton funded this remake, in 2007. To quote Mr. Cranky, “Proof Jesus died in vain.”
7. ANYTHING by Todd Sheets. After a thirteen-year hiatus, he’s back, still cranking them out, still finding an audience.
The last three are seriously R rated. Just sayin’.
I’ve got to get back to the judo range. God bless, be well.
The 1964 Andy Warhol film “Sleep” (all 5 hours and 20 minutes black and white minutes of it).
Next to nothing to riff (Servo could do his “SLEEEEP!” command at the beginning though).
Plenty of time to take over the world, especially if everyone falls asleep from the utter monotony.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say they will never find it. Because it seems that once they find a movie that they think is the worst ever made, suddenly one even more horrible comes along. For the Forrester’s, the search for the worst is their elusive unicorn, their Sisyphean task, a mad compulsion that will keep them going for eternity.
That said, I think ‘Night Of Horror’ (1981) might kill us all.
The only musicals I liked are Cabaret & Chicago, where the songs are cleverly worked into the fabric of the story, so that it makes some sense when the characters suddenly burst into song. (Never saw West Side Story, though.) All the rest, however . . . Grease and its spawn certainly have pandemic potential. I’m surprised the Bee Gees in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band didn’t cause more damage than they did. And then there’s Nashville, that forgotten cutting-edge masterpiece of the ’70s, where we got to hear people like Lily Tomlin and Henry Gibson “sing” forgettable songs they were encouraged to write themselves. I myself am a musician, and so I well know the healing power of music, but in the wrong hands it can be a devastating offensive weapon.
Still think we should just drop the idea of THE worst. IMHO it all started with the Medveds declaring Plan 9 the worst movie ever made in the Golden Turkeys book. In those innocent days, you had to live in LA or NY to even have consistent access to any catalog of bad movies beyond what they showed on local TV as filler in the afternoon. Now, we can all experience as many pieces of cinematic crap as has FRANK CONNIFF, for the love of God. So we can recognize that entering Skidoo, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, At Long Last Love, Microwave Massacre, and If Footmen Tire You IN THE SAME STATE-FAIR PIG RACE is kinda silly.
That said, I also think that ‘Night Of Horror’ (1981) might kill us all.
i raise you this:
Empire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuSIOK5Jj8g
Here’s a thought: A lot of you have rightly pointed out that there will never be a single “worst movie ever made”–any one you could name is going to be outdone sooner or later. So Forrester et al. were never going to find that one magic poison bullet that would’ve enabled them to take over the world. But: What if The Mads had decided to show JUST ONE really horrible movie OVER AND OVER AND OVER? Would Joel, Crow & Servo have survived seeing Manos week after week, each time presented as something new? Or M&tBs, if they had had to watch Beast of Yucca Flats over and over? Could anyone survive living alone in space with wisecracking sentient robots while being forced to watch Mac & Me once a week, every week? All I can say is, Thank Goodness none of the Forresters ever thought of that! As the trolls (or whatever) said in The Day The Earth Froze: “Vat wuud huv becum of oos zen?”
Well, Ted Turner once tried that with “Beastmaster II: Through the Portal of Time”, and it almost worked–
But then he switched to “A Christmas Story”, and we all loved him again for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUmYcH1Vzss
Violence –
It is not entertainment. Voyeuristic violence is an aberration I avoid. Too bad, Tarantino.
Having made that negative comment I will try to balance it with a positive one. Frank and Dr. Forrester found some bad movies, but they mercifully avoided gratuitous violence so I nominate them for the Mad Scientist Nobel Prize in Movie Torture Kindness.
And the crowd goes wild. Yaaay.
“Just when I think I’ve seen the worst movie ever made, along comes the worst movie ever made”
-Crow
Someone already beat me to mentioning Warhol’s pretentious atrocities. Has anyone ever actually watched Sleep or Empire in it’s entirety? And I mean actively watch. Not just have it on while you read a book, do housework, or maybe watch a movie.
Between coming of age as an 80’s slasher movie fan gorehound and my mental health issues, I have a pretty high tolerance for cinematic yuckiness. I’m even a fan of the Saw and Hostel series. But some of the more recent hyper-realistic (often Asian) movies that lack cinematic detachment (the sense that you’re watching a movie and not the news) are too much even for me.
Maybe the most egregious example of too much realistic torture in a mainstream movie was Passion of the Christ.
Special mention should also be made of Funny Games. I’ve never encountered a movie that took such blatant pride in hating the audience. From an interview I got the feeling that the director had intended to make a movie so awful that any right thinking and sensitive person would stop watching or walk out of the theater. Thanks.
But I would rather watch Funny Games or Jesus being tortured all day long than sit through one viewing of a human centipede movie. I only saw the first, but if I could erase the memory of one movie from my mind it would be this one. If you don’t know what these movies are about, keep it that way. Trust me, you don’t want to know.
Going off in pedantic mode, the Medveds did not strictly speaking declare Plan 9 as Worst Movie Ever. At the end of 50 Worst Films, they asked their readers what they thought was the worst movie. Plan 9 got the most votes, edging out The Exorcist 2: Heretical Boogaloo.
Now that you mention it, this would be the lead in for another soul crushing doomsday combo: a Bob Clark-directed triple feature. Soften them up with A Christmas Story. Then you give them a comedy with Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd. (Christopher Lloyd! Doc Brown, Judge Doom, Jim from Taxi!) As if that wasn’t enough, it has Kim Cattrall. After this your victims will be howling in despair, thinking that the worst HAS to be over. Then you destroy whatever fragments of a will to live remain by lowering the boom with Baby Geniuses TWO.