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Star Crash (1979)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: An evil overlord seeks to overthrow the benign Emperor using a super-weapon that drives its victims insane before it kills them (perhaps it feeds the brain concentrated doses of this movie). Meanwhile, space action bimbo Stella Starr and her super-powered friend Akton are interstellar mercenaries on the run. They're captured by the Empire and forced to go on a search-and-rescue mission to find the Emperor's missing son. They are accompanied by Robot L, a Southern-accented automaton assigned to help them. They survive an attack of the super-weapon, locate the son (David Hasselhoff), and, with the help of the Emperor himself (Christopher Plummer), escape a death trap sprung by the evil overlord. Poignantly, Akton is killed in the process. Now the heroine must help the Emperor and his son storm the overlord's hand-shaped space station before an entire space city is destroyed.
- "Wanna Run That By Me Again?"
- ** Insert crummy description here. **
"You can draw obvious conclusions from a simple premise. You must be able to see into the future!"
- "Alas, Poor Yorick"
- Akton has proven very useful, since in addition to being able to "see into the future," he has the powers of an oscilloscope (we're supposed to believe that he can fire energy from his hands, but the special effects are really cheesy). When the heroes are trapped by a couple of robotic swordfighters, Akton and his "light-saber" powers vanquish the mechanical foe, but not before he's struck by one of them. As he lies on the floor, the other two rush over to him.
Stella: "Akton! You saved us!"
Akton: "Yes, but now I must leave you."
Stella: "Akton, you can't be dying -- you can save yourself."
Akton: "Yes, but the future tells me it's time for me to go."
Stella: "But Akton, you never die!" [HUH?!?]
Akton: "I'll be here always." [At which point, Akton disappears in a burst of cheap oscilloscope effects.]
If you ask me, the actor (Marjoe Gortner) probably just wanted to be written out of the idiotic script.
- Deus Ex Machina (I)
- Hoo boy. Okay, take a deep breath. Here goes.
The would-be dictator's super-weapon takes the form of crappy lava-lamp effects superimposed on the screen. It drives its victims insane and then kills them. Our heroes (Leela, Akton, and Robot L) are closing in on the planet where David Hasselhoff has landed, and the Evil One doesn't like that. He unleashes the weapon on them.
As the effect swirls about them, Akton yells "Fight it!" Strain appears on their faces. Robot L cries, "My circuits! My circuits!" and shorts out. "Fight it, robot, fight it!" yells Akton. They all fall down. The effect ceases. The heroes stagger to their feet, exhausted but unharmed. What? What crummy explanation are they going to come up with this time? They don't bother. Akton simply says:
"We've just survived an attack from the most powerful weapon in the Galaxy!" Leela beams.
- * Deus Ex Machina (II)
- All right. You may be wondering what could've topped the last one. If that didn't win, what did? Occasionally, we run across a film that just has to be nominated more than once in a particular category. Star Crash was just such a film. Okay. Another deep breath. Here goes.
Our heroes are stranded on a planet which the villain has mined with explosives. With Akton gone and their ship destroyed, they've got about a minute to live. All of a sudden, there is a fanfare and the door to the room slides open. In strides Christopher Plummer, Emperor of the Galaxy, with his entourage. David Hasselhoff (the son) rushes up to him.
David: "Father, you found us! But we must hurry! This planet is going to explode in thirty seconds!"
Christopther looks at his son fondly for a long moment. With the air of an old man reminiscing, he speaks, slowly: "Son -- I wouldn't be Emperor of the First Circle of the Galaxy if I didn't have a few powers at my command."
The Emperor steps imperiously to center-stage. With great pomp, he raises his hand and, addressing no-one in particular, bellows: "Imperial Battleship! Halt...the Flow of Time!"
Vworp-vworp-vworp! Cut to the ship in orbit. A green beam stabs out and engulfs the planet.
Back on the surface, the Emperor speaks again: "There, my son. We have all the time we need. But the green beam loses its power. Within the space of three minutes, all will return to normal."
Our heroes, the Emperor, and his cadre of guards all troop out of the room. The ship leaves orbit just in time for BOOOOOMMM!!! The planet explodes in a welter of (I kid you not) upward-drifting smoke and sparks.
- Inane Dialogue
- Leela and Robot L come upon a downed spaceship on a beach. It's buried maybe six inches into the sand and has a skid-trail of at most 12 feet.
Robot L: "Nothing could have survived that. Look! Those nuclear exhaust ports have been gutted by fire!"
What else would one expect "nuclear exhaust ports" to look like? Whoever programmed Robot L ought to be vivisected for the cowboy accent alone, but this?
- * Worst Editing
- There is a space-battle scene which is a perfect vindication of the rule "No Booze in the Editing Room."
** Transcript to follow **
- Worst Special Effect
- The Ultimate Weapon is just a red lava-lamp superimposed upon the film, with cheezy sound-effects added. See above for details of its "awesome" power.
- * Worst Acting (Christopher Plummer)
- The final scene of the movie is all Christopher Plummer. He's seated on his throne as the Emporer of the First Circle of the Galaxy (whatever the heck that is). During his stirring final speech, the camera dollies slowly back. ** Verbatim transcript to follow. **
"Once again, the stars...are clear. Oh--some dark power may someday once again rear its evil head. But for now...we can rest."
There's a languid half-smile on Plummer's face throughout the scene, as if he'd be having enormous difficulty in keeping from bursting into hysterics if it weren't for the handful of Valium he'd just swallowed.
- * Worst Picture
- ** Insert description here. **
Bryan Cassidy
Starflight One (1983)
Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land
Nomination Year: 1997
SYNOPSIS: Lee Majors pilots the maiden voyage of an experimental plane that uses rocket-based propulsion. But, something goes wrong (you knew it would, didn't you?). While avoiding a collision with missile debris, the plane's propulsion shutoff systems are damaged, sending the plane literally into orbit! Now, the cabin's pressurized and airtight, so they're all right for a while--but how to get down with next-to-no fuel and without burning up upon re-entry? This one could've been called Airport '83.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
Contributor
The Stuff (1985)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: A refinery security guard discovers a viscous white substance bubbling up from the ground. It's so smooth and tasty that soon it's the latest dessert sensation, The Stuff! It's truly addictive. Only a corporate spy, a young boy, and a female ad executive know that The Stuff is really a microorganism that eats you from the inside and takes over your body. With the help of an eccentric paramilitary leader, they must convince a skeptical and addicted world of the danger posed by...The Stuff.
- "Wanna Run That By Me Again?"
- "They don't process it--they're pumpin' that stuff right out of the ground and into those trucks. And the only way to prove that is to steal one of those trucks."
- Best One-Liner
- The protagonist, a corporate spy, introduces himself to his employers:
"Moe. Moe Rutherford. Do you know why they call me Moe? Because every time someone gives me money, I always want mo'..."
- Most Ludicrous Premise
- In this clip, the good guys, with the help of Colonel Grommet-Spears' regiment, have fought their way past the zombified human victims of The Stuff (called "Stuffies") and have taken over a radio station with the intent to tell the world what's going on. Since it sums things up so nicely, I'll let the Colonel fill you in:
"Ladies and Gentlmen, this is Colonel Malcom Grommet-Spears. I am not deceiving you, nor would I ever deceive you. America is under attack by an alien substance which represents itself as a popular dessert known as The Stuff. Do not, repeat, do not eat The Stuff. If you are eating it, stop eating it. If you are selling it, take the product off your shelves..."
Moe takes the mike: "If you have any Stuff in your home, cook it--repeat, cook it."
We're told by the advertising lady in an epilogue that "the people did believe..." Sure. Wouldn't you?
- * Acting Appropriately Stupid
- You're a security guard on your nightly rounds. At the back of the refinery lot, you find a puddle of sticky white goo, much like partly-congealed Elmer's Glue-All, bubbling up from the ground. What do you do? Of course! You stick your glove into it and eat a mouthful!
"Mm. Smooth and creamy. There might be enough of it here that we can sell to people!" he says.
Bryan Cassidy
Syngenor (1990)
Nomination Year: 1993
SYNOPSIS: "Syngenor" stands for "Synthetic Genetic Organism." A weapons-manufacturing company has developed the perfect soldier--impervious to bullets, tireless in extremes of temperature, utterly vicious and merciless. So vicious and merciless, in fact, that they're forced to keep the prototypes locked up in a vault in the basement. When one escapes, it terrorizes the neighborhood. A young woman and man must infiltrate the facility and find out where the Syngenors come from before it's too late.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Tarantula (1994)
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: A scientific experiment gone horribly wrong spawns a gigantic, two-hundred-foot-high tarantula, which goes on a rampage. Can the Air Force stop it before it reaches heavily populated areas? Well, yes, actually.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Teenage Caveman (1958)
Nomination Year: 1994
SYNOPSIS: It is a time of cavemen, of tribes, and of the Law. For thousands of years, the tribes have lived by the Law, but now the Lawgiver's teenage son is beginning to think and wonder. Why is it forbidden to do things differently? Why is it forbidden to cross the river, where game is rich and plentiful? When he breaks the taboos and takes a team of like-minded youngsters into the forbidden zone, he discovers danger at every turn: quicksand, dinosaurs, wild dogs, and...the Monster That Kills With Its Touch. Maybe it would've been better off if he'd just listened to Dad and the village elders.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: They came from beyond space! Well, from the moon, actually. I suppose, technically, there's space between the Earth and moon, so that counts. Anyway, these disembodied aliens come down to Earth and take over people's bodies, starting in England. All the people in a small town are taken over, except for one--our hero, who happens to have a silver plate in his head that prevents the takeover. He alone must stop the invasion in progress by convincing others. When he finally does get hard evidence, he assembles a team of alien-busting commandos, who raid the aliens' spaceship and confront the aliens directly. In the end, a peacable accord is reached.
- Crummiest Ending
- "You didn't have to try to take the Earth by force. We would have helped your people. You need only have asked." "You mean...we need only have asked??"
Contributor
They Live (1988)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: Roddy Piper stars as a regular guy whose life is turned upside-down when he discovers a pair of special sunglasses. The specs reveal that there are hidden, subliminal messages everywhere, things like "Stay Asleep," and "Marry and Reproduce". Furthermore, the glasses let him see that some people are really grotesque-looking aliens disguised as humans. These creeps from another planet are working covertly to take over the world, keeping humans docile through subliminal messages as they infiltrate. Soon it will be too late. He eventually convinces a friend, and the two join an underground anti-alien movement. With guns blazing, Roddy and his buddy destroy the main alien transmitter, allowing everyone to see the creatures as they really are.
- "Cutting Butter With a Chainsaw"
- In what's got to be one of the screen's longest and most pointless fight scenes, Roddy tries to convince his African-American acquaintance that he's not crazy by forcing him to wear the special sunglasses. The guy refuses. They fight each other to a standstill. Exhausted, Roddy says: "Put on these sunglasses, or start eatin' that trash can." The other guy still refuses.
They fight. And fight. And fight and fight and fight. Fight, fight, fight. Fight, fight, fight... "Put on these glasses!" (Bam!) "No!" (Biff!) All with the requisite pro wresting maneuvers.
After about ten minutes, we had to cut the scene short for presentation purposes. You know, if it were me, I'd have just put on the dang glasses, even if I thought I could kick Roddy Piper's butt.
Bryan Cassidy
Those Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1963)
The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: After a trip to the carnival, a young man begins to experience strange behavior and memory blackouts. Afraid that he's somehow been responsible for the rash of murders in the area, he returns to the carnival to confront the beautiful and exotic woman he'd met there, only to be re-hypnotized into committing more murders. The evil woman then disfigures him with acid and puts him in the dungeon with the other unfortunate men she's enslaved. Eventually, the police track him to the carnival, where the villainous hypnotizers have been torn apart by their own monstrous creations. The authorities pursue the zombified young man to the beach, where they shoot him.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Ticks (1993)
Infested
Nomination Year: 1997
SYNOPSIS: Deep in the remote woods, a cadre of marijuana growers have been dumping illegal and experimental pesticides into the water supply. This mutates the local population of wood ticks into a swarm of nine-inch terrors with hallucinogenic venom. A group of city kids are in the woods on a "get-them-out-of-trouble-and-back-to-nature" trip. Now they're surrounded by killer ticks and killers of the human variety.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
The Time Guardian (1987)
Nomination Year: 1993
SYNOPSIS: ?
- "Let's Up the Rating to 'R'"
- The female lead in this flick is one of those you just know is being groomed for the part of the male hero's love-interest. I guess they just decided at some point to drop all pretenses. The "Time Guardian" and this Australian lady are carrying some equipment through the outback, when out of the blue she announces, "I'm going swimming." She drops her equipment, then drops her clothes and dives into a nearby pool. The guy, fascinated, joins her soon afterward. It seems that some things never change, even if you're from the far future.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Time of the Apes (1987)
Nomination Year: 1993
SYNOPSIS: Little Johnny, his sister, and his favorite teacher are trapped in experimental cryogenic capsules during an earthquake. They awaken thousands of years later to discover the planet is run by apes (hmm...sounds familiar, but I can't put my finger on it). There is one wily human left: Godo, whom the apes have been trying to capture for years. One ape in particular has a grudge against Godo, whom he belives killed his wife and child. A spunky ape-child named Pepe introduces the time-travelers to Godo, and they team up to find out the secret beyond the mountains, where other humans are reputed to live in peace. When they get there, however, they find not other humans, but UECOMM, a super-computer with the power to alter time and space. Ulitmately, our trio gets sent back to their own time, to think and wonder about...the Time of the Apes.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Time Runner (1993)
In Exile
Nomination Year: 1996
SYNOPSIS: In the future, a race of aliens is taking over the planet Earth. Mark Hammill miraculously escapes from a beleaguered space station just before it explodes. Even more miraculously, he falls through a wormhole in time and travels back to the present. There, he seeks to stop the alien infiltration in its infancy by foiling the Presidential election of a corrupt politician, an alien in disguise. Using his newfound precognitive abilities and aided by a female doctor (an alien who doesn't agree with her superiors' plans), he struggles to save the future: the planet's and his own.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
A Time to Die (1991)
Nomination Year: 1996
SYNOPSIS: Traci Lords stars as a photographer who accidentally uncovers a ring of murder and corruption in the big-city police force. The only one she can trust to protect her and her young son is her detective boyfriend. She finds out just in the nick of time that the boyfriend is also in on the conspiracy and she must rush to save her son from his vengeful clutches.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
To Kill With Intrigue (1977)
Nomination Year: 1997
SYNOPSIS: ?
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: A classic disaster. A super-duper skyscraper catches fire due to cutbacks and shoddy wiring. Now those trapped on the upper floors must survive long enough to be rescued, somehow. I'm sure you've seen it at some point.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Twelve to the Moon (1960)
12 to the Moon
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: A team of a dozen international scientists is chosen to be the first to land on the moon. They get there and discover dangers. Several of the crew become casualties before they decide to return to Earth. On the way home, they learn via radio that their presence has pissed off some powerful moon-aliens, who retaliate by freezing Earth solid. An attempt to unfreeze Earth by dropping a nuke into a volcano proves unsuccessful. Earth is doomed to an icy end. But wait! The man and woman lost on the moon weren't killed, but merely captured by the aliens. Upon closer observation of the humans' loving behavior toward each other, the aliens decide that Earth may stand a second chance after all. Everyone and everything returns to normal (well, except for those who were killed).
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Untamed Youth (19??)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: A greedy cotton farmer with a huge forehead seduces a female judge (a true rarity when this film was made) into granting him greater land rights and cheaper labor than his competitors. It all comes to a bad end, as you can imagine.
- Oblivious
- "Of course I meant 'we.'"
Contributor
Vamp (1986)
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: A pair of young men find out that the town they're visiting is populated by real-life vampires.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Village of the Giants (1965)
Nomination Year: 1994
SYNOPSIS: Trouble begins when a group of young hoodlums gets hold of a substance that causes them to grow fifty feet tall. They isolate the town and take it over with force, causing much havoc and mayhem. Eventually, the boy genius (Ronnie Howard) who invented the "growth goo" invents an antidote. Then the giants are cut down to size. We're told it's loosely (must be very loosely) based on H.G. Wells' Food of the Gods.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
War of the Robots (1978)
La Guerra dei Robot
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: In the far future, and important scientist is kidnapped by aliens. An intrepid team of rescuers, led by a man named John, is dispatched to rescue him. Along the way, they encounter a race of aliens and they make friends. When they arrive on the enemy planet, it's discovered that the scientist faked his own kidnapping so that he and his ambitious lover could take over the galaxy with robots. The lover betrays the scientist (she really wanted John) and takes over herself. John must stop the robot invasion before it's too late.
- Worst Editing
- There's a space battle that confuses not only the audience, but the characters as well.
** Transcript to follow. **
- Worst Special Effect
- The main character must do a space walk from one ship to another. Amid stupid music, he lifts off--strings and all--into the vastness of, well, space (if you count the space within a darkened sound studio). They show the strings from various angles, and there are even tent-pulls on his spacesuit where the strings are attached. Then, just as he's reaching the other spaceship, he gently floats to its surface in an upside-down position. No strings are visible, for a change! However...the shadow on the craft plainly shows the crane that has him by the feet.
- Worst Acting (Antonio Sabato)
- This guy looks like a short, bushy-eyebrowed Bert Convy with bad teeth and a squashed face. He's supposed to be an Italian version of Captain Kirk, but is far too homely and hairy to pull it off. (This, I should point out, is in no way a dig at Italians in general--just this particular "specimen.") His meeting with the natives of a planetoid is lackluster in the extreme. And his facial expressions in moments of fear or excitement are, well, pretty much the same as the rest of the time, which is to say comical.
- Worst Picture
- The whole thing was truly cheesy. There was an escape scene where the heroes fight androids who, when they fall over, clearly become mannequins with wires taped to their abdomens. There's that terrible space battle, where things get confused. Then, to top it all off, we get this exchange between the male and female leads, once the evil space-queen has been atomized:
John: "Isn't life fantastic?"
Marcia: "Yes--especially after being so close to death."
Contributor
Waxwork (1988)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: ?
- Acting Appropriately Stupid
- A couple of high-school girls are on their way to school one morning. "Hey, this creepy-looking wax museum wasn't here yesterday," observes one. As they're about to walk away, David Warner appears out of nowhere ("Where did he come from?") and invites them and their friends to a special, private midnight tour of the museum. "Wow, that sounds like fun!"
That night, it doesn't seem quite as fun. All the kids are scared, but nonetheless they enter the grounds, walk up to the door, and go inside past the weird midget doorman. What do they teach these high schoolers these days?
Bryan Cassidy
Wheels of Fire (1984)
Desert Warrior
Fuego
Pyro
Vindicator
Nomination Year: 1997
SYNOPSIS: A hardened hero and his band of freedom-fighters struggle to overthrow an oppressive system in a post-apocalyptic world of the future.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
The Wicker Man (1973)
Nomination Year: 1997
SYNOPSIS: ?
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman (1966)
She Was a Hippy Vampire
Nomination Year: 1994
SYNOPSIS: When evil rears its un-groovy head, who can the city count on to save the day? Batwoman, and her swingin' team of rad Batgirls! The sinister Ratfink has heisted a weapon of awesome power. Batwoman must liberate her kidnapped Batgirl, find Ratfink's pad, return the boosted technology, and bring Ratfink to ever-lovin' justice!
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
Contributor
Witchboard (1985)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: According to the movie, a Ouija board can act as a spiritual gateway to your soul, so that if you Ouija alone, you run the risk of being possessed by an evil entity (hm...Parker Brothers never mentioned that on the box). Just such a thing happens to Tawny Kitaen in this flick. Only the love and perseverance of her boyfriend can rescue her soul from the brink.
- * Best One-Liner
- Tawny's boyfriend and another friend are on a fact-finding mission, trying to track down the identity of the spirit that's possessed her. They stop at a hotel for the night.
Boyfriend: "Did you bring an extra toothbrush?"
Friend: "No, sorry."
Boyfriend: "Damn. I hate talking to ghosts with plaque on my teeth."
- "Alas, Poor Yorick"
- Early on, a gum-chewing, punk-rocker psychic warns the protagonists that the Ouija has unleashed a malevolent spirit. She returns to her garishly decorated home to meditate on this and to try and divine the identity of the ghost. She gets more than she bargained for when the invisible entity bursts in upon her and hurls her out a second-story window, directly onto the fin of a metal sundial in the yard below. She dies, a victim of her own bad taste in lawn ornaments.
- Worst Cover Copy
- The kindest review quote they could find, which they emblazoned on the cover, was: "Smarter and better-acted than most of its competition."
Talk about damning with faint praise...
- Acting Appropriately Stupid
- The ghost has already killed about a half-dozen people. Brutally. So what's the hero do? He and a friend go to the graveyard which is supposedly the spirit's resting-place. Do they go at noon? No, midnight. The gate's closed and locked. Do they wait? No, they leap the wall. Do they bring flashlights, first aid kits, nuclear particle accelerator packs? Nah, they don't need all that stuff--they press on, uh, bravely. Yeesh, you'd think they'd never seen a Bad Movie.
- * Worst Special Effect
- Tawny's really possessed now. Her desperate boyfriend has a gun to his head, threatening to kill himself in the hopes that Tawny's true personality will emerge. But she's too far gone--in fact, that's what she wants. In a last-ditch weirdo maneuver, he shoots the Ouija board, which careens around the room crazily. Tawny yells "NO!" and lunges at him, sending him crashing through the window behind him.
Here's where it gets really weird. Time slows way down. They show the boyfriend "falling," but it really looks like an actor standing in front of a screen which shows a bird's-eye view of a parking lot. He's got his eyes closed and arms outstretched, waving them slightly as if falling, but comparing his shadow with those of the cars reveals right away that it's just a stupid attempt at cheap slo-mo. Or maybe they were trying to be "artsy" and failed miserably.
Bryan Cassidy
Witchboard 2 (1993)
Nomination Year: 1994
SYNOPSIS: Ami Dolenz is the victim this time. She played the Ouija alone, and now the spirit of her boyfriend's dead ex is possessing her more and more. Only the love and perseverance of her boyfriend can rescue her soul from the brink.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
Contributor
Witchery (1989)
Nomination Year: 1996
SYNOPSIS: Reports of mysterious lights in the window of an abandoned mansion bring David Hasselhoff and his marble-mouthed girlfriend to an isolated island in New England. They're joined there by a group of real estate agents and prospective buyers. All are trapped within the heavily haunted mansion, where they're variously raped, tortured, and murdered one by one. In the end, it's discovered that the one of the group is the focus of the possession: Linda Blair (like they couldn't see that one coming). Everyone dies except the marble-mouthed girlfriend, who discovers that her nightmare is just beginning.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Witchtrap (1989)
Nomination Year: 1996
SYNOPSIS: A feisty cop and his partner are hired to bodyguard a group of psychics attempting to purify a malevolent spirit from an allegedly haunted house. Though unbelieving at first, the cop comes to realize that there really are such things as ghosts. However, the spirit of the black magician proves far too powerful, and, after killing most of the group, physically manisfests by possessing the cop's love interest. Now the cop has to stop the evil entity--alone, and without harming the body of the one he cares about.
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
The Wraith (1986)
Nomination Year: 1992
SYNOPSIS: A murdered man comes back from the dead as a vigilante motorcyclist, out to destroy those who killed him and raped his lover.
- Most Ludicrous Premise
- The above synopsis just about covers it. The clip shows him in a hot-tub with a beautiful babe, having flashbacks about the rape and murder.
- Category 2
- Insert even crummier description here.
- Category 3
- Insert the crummiest decscription here.
Contributor
Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1982)
Il Mondo di Yor
The World of Yor
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: In the far, far future, civilization has collapsed and technology has reverted to the time of cavemen. Yor, a particularly cunning specimen, heroically rescues his girlfriend from the clutches of a brutal rival tribe. Later, he and his friends are captured by high-tech humans who live in a city out in the sea. Yor learns that his is the perfect DNA, to be used in crafting a master race of humans. Yor wants no part of it, and he and his friends show how a little old-fashioned derring-do can outmatch the plans of a twisted scientist any day. Every time I hear the title of this film, I want to respond "I am?"
- "WHAT?!"
- In this scene, Yor's girlfriend has been kidnapped by some nasty ape-man types. They have her in a cave with no easy way for Yor to sneak up on them (and they outnumber him many to one). Yor is discussing the situation with his old-guy friend (on a ledge nearby) when suddenly they both hear a strange sound. The old guy looks up, points, and says, "The Beast of the Night!" It's a ... um ... pterodactyl-looking thing, obviously quite feared for it to have such an ominous name. But our hero Yor stands up, nocks an arrow, and shoots the thing down. Straight down. It falls onto the ledge beside him, and Yor picks it up, holds it over his head, and uses it to hang-glide into the cave and kick the Lead Bad Guy Ape-man in the chest, all as Yor's theme song ("Just one decent man / just one decent man") suddenly blares from nowhere.
- Deus Ex Machina
- Yor and the rebels are running from the major villain's army of laser-blasting robots. Yor's old-guy friend trips, however, and cowers in a corner. The robots come closer and closer, raise their weapons, and then ... they stop. That's it. They've just stopped. To emphasize the point, the old-guy friend says: "They've stopped!"
Kevin Hogan and Bryan Cassidy
Zardoz (1973)
Nomination Year: 1993
SYNOPSIS: The world of the far, far future is divided into two camps--the savage, caveman-like Brutes and the lofty, cerebral immortals. The Brutes have no technology, and are provided with food and weapons from a flying head they call Zardoz. One day, a particularly crafty Brute (Sean Connery) stows away aboard the head and discovers it's not a supernatural entity at all, but a machine. He travels to the land of the immortals and discovers that they are a stagnant people, longing for the release of death. He gives them death by mastering and destroying the super computer/sustainer called the Tabernacle.
This is another of those films the plot to which becomes only somewhat apparent after multiple viewings. It's so long, boring, and complex, that the Smith-ka-teers invariably call it Zar-doze.
- "Wanna Run That By Me Again?"
- The scene in which Sean Connery "meets" the Tabernacle is an acid-trip on Quaaludes. He stares into a mystical crystal and gets the whole Story of the Immortals. That should explain everything, right? Wrong. It's done in dream-like snippets, the end of which shows the cast naked behind a wall of glass, with Sean running around aimlessly, firing a gun and shouting "Kill the Tabernacle!"
Bryan Cassidy
Zoltan...Hound of Dracula (1978)
Dracula's Dog
Nomination Year: 1995
SYNOPSIS: A stupid Russian soldier un"leashes" Dracula's pet mastiff on an unsuspecting world. Down, boy!
- * Acting Appropriately Stupid
- A Russian soldier takes refuge for the night in an old cavern, which turns out to be a long-forgotten crypt with a barely-discernable family name--"Dracula." Seems like a good place to bed down! In the middle of the night, an earthquake strikes, causing one of the walls to split open. A coffin crashes out from its eternal resting place. The soldier picks himself off the ground, walks over, and, curious, opens the lid. Would you give him the award based on this? We might have, too. But wait, there's more. Looking inside the ancient casket, he sees a shrouded corpse with a stake through its heart. In apparent fascination, he slowly reaches in and removes the stake ("Gee, I always wanted one of these!"). He stares at it, rapt, while the corpse begins to move. Moments later, evolution is served in the form of a huge vampire dog sucking on his jugular.
- Deus Ex Machina
- The hero of the film has finally been hounded nearly to death by Zoltan. Trapped, and with no weapons other than a wooden stake, he meaningfully pulls open his shirt, revealing a tiny golden cross picturesquely framed against a background of hairy chest. Zoltan whimpers and backs off. Oops! Zoltan falls off a cliff he doesn't realize is there, yelps, and impales himself atop a wooden picket fence that someone happened to build at the base of this cliff. He even manages to impale his heart on a picket--I give the dive a 9.3 out of 10. It would have been 9.7, but for the stuffed dog that stiffly tumbles through midair.
Kevin Hogan & Greg Pearson
Zombie Nightmare (1986)
Nomination Year: 1996
SYNOPSIS: When a young man is wrongfully killed by a gang of reckless hoodlums, the local voodoo priestess resurrects him as a vengeful zombie. The town cops now have a rash of unexplained murders on their hands, committed by someone with apparent super-human strength. A police detective eventually solves the mystery, only to discover the part he didn't figure out: his police chief (Adam West) was involved in a racially-provoked murder years ago, and the voodoo priestess was the only witness. Now the corrupt chief has them all cornered in the graveyard at gunpoint. What a nightmare!
- Category 1
- Insert crummy description here.
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