2000s Foreign Horror Part Fifteen

GONE
(2007)
Dir - Ringan Ledwidge
Overall: MEH

A frustrating outback thriller from director Ringan Ledwidge, Gone is low on momentum, null on convincing characters, and loaded with dopey plot contrivances in place in order to keep things crawling to their unsatisfying conclusion.  The film barely qualifies as "thriller" at all until the last fifteen-odd minutes when Scott Mechlowicz' calmly shady and unlikable American decides to become a raging psychopath, which presumably would have happened much sooner and with more agency.  Such a finale is not only undeserved and clashing, but it makes the movie's other two characters appear like easily-duped idiots; characters who have gone alone with Mechlowicz' behavior which is more odd than charming.  The problem largely lies within the premise itself as we have seen countless variations of the "new friend who clearly isn't up to any good" story before, so the viewer can guess what is to come long before the dim-witted victims can. Ledwidge is attempting drawn-out suspense here by unveiling his cards so gradually as to make the frightful jump in the closing moments seem both inevitable and surprising at the same time.  Instead, the movie could have leaned into its jealousy and paranoia, pulling off a nifty psychological trick by skipping such a whimpering bit of violence to close things out, but oh wait, never mind; probably bad guy was just an actual bad guy the whole time.

 

EMBODIMENT OF EVIL

(2008)

Dir - José Mojica Marins

Overall: GOOD

José Mojica Marins's blasphemous swan song Embodiment of Evil, (Encarnação do Demônio), is a diabolically absurd note to bow out on.  Returning to and ending the Coffin Joe series after forty-one years, (and the first directorial full-length from Marins in twenty-one years), it is a proper sequel to This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse and sees the infamous Zé do Caixão character getting released from prison after decades and having killed an additional thirty-men while incarcerated.  Naturally, he gets right back to business which is exclusively torturing people in a hell-bent quest to spread his wicked seed to any willing woman that is a third of his age who can survive his nihilistic spell.  While it is at first unnatural to see a much older and thicker Marins in the Coffin Joe garb without the youthful zeal of his earlier appearances, he certainly delivers on anyone thinking he could not keep up with modern day gore and nastiness.  Coming from a man who rather single-handedly championed such exploitative cinematic tactics so long ago, this in fact should not be surprising as Marins proves that "he's still got it" in the most classic sense.  Ridiculous, disgusting, heinous from front to back, and in on its own ungodly charm, this is an appropriate final chapter to Brazil's most maverick voice in underground filmmaking.

 

SPLICE

(2009)

Dir - Vincenzo Natali

Overall: MEH

If Vincenzo Natali's Splice was intended to be a bold, tonally bulletproof dark comedy, than its highly baffling aspects make some sort of "sense" on paper.  One of the most curious mad scientist romps in many a year, there is something persistently off throughout the entire film where so much illogical and inconsistent behavior, slapstick level goofiness, daft plot points, half-baked themes, and exclusively straight, committed performances combine together in something that is virtually impossible to make heads or tails of.  It seems to be saying a lot at once about corporate bio engineering, childhood trauma, nature meddling, infidelity, offspring attachment, Freudian psychology, "man playing god" whateverness, and who knows what else.  None of these concepts are properly explored though, with most being merely alluded to as a part CGI mutant/monster/human/baby/girl/man thing with a tail and wings is distracting everyone both on and off screen.  Natali deserves some recognition for such an unorthodox combination of thematic and genre components and the end result certainly leaves an impression unlike what anyone could expect.  Whether or not that is a bad, good, confusing, irritating, hilarious, or fascinating impression, (or a fusing of each), is definitely left to the more adventurous and forgiving of viewers to decide.

2000s Foreign Horror Part Fourteen

BRUISER

(2000)

Dir - George A. Romero

Overall: MEH

 

The last cinematic effort from George A. Romero before he finished out his career with the terrible, second Dead trilogy, Bruiser unfortunately proved that there was already not much creative gas left in the once legendary filmmaker's tank.  A French produced/Toronto shot yuppie slasher movie that is substantially heavy on the camp, Romero's penchant for social commentary is a bit vague in such an office politics/revenge setting where an unassuming creative director for a magazine "stands up for himself" and offs several acquaintances who cheated him out of either money, life, or both.  He also wakes up with a blank mask stuck to his face in representing his "invisibility" to his peers, because horror movies.  It is certainly no mistake that most of Jason Flemyng's victims are exaggerated caricatures of greedy scumbags, exemplified in the least subtle way possible by Peter Stormare's preposterous performance as the eccentric, cocaine-guzzling, misogynistic, one-none, millionaire boss villain.  The movie is probably worth it for Stormare's scenery-gorging alone, as well as Tom Atkins playing of course a police detective and The Misfits randomly joining the party.  Elsewhere though, this is pretty forgettable, B-grade stuff that seems to be trying too hard to be clever, humorous, and mildly shocking without persistently landing any of the above.

 

BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF

(2001)

Dir - Christophe Gans

Overall: MEH

The schlock-fueled, historical, two and a half hour, martial arts action horror movie that nobody asked for Brotherhood of the Wolf, (Le Pacte des loups), is far from an all-out mess, but it is unmistakably over-bloated.  Taking the "Beast of Gévaudan" fable for loose inspiration, French co-writer/director Christophe Gans creates something quite epic in not just length, but cinematic scope.  It is an impressive production to be sure with a hefty budget that lends itself to bombastic fight sequences, grandiose music, and detailed set and costume design.  Some practical effects by Jim Henson's Creature Shop are appreciated, but the CGI is much more prominent in several scenes and is absolutely appalling.  The much bigger issue though is the bloated running time.  There simply is not nearly enough story here to be stretched to such ridiculous proportions and the intimidating, monstrous wolf-beast that the characters arrive in the beginning to hunt down is not even teased on screen until a full hour in.  The very thin plot development between characters before that is not only largely unnecessary for the considerable amount of time still left, but also meandering and boring.  Gans tries to overcompensate for the lack of narrative material with a flashy, quickly edited pace and lots of laughably campy set pieces, but it sure is just a lot of genre mishmash window dressing in the end.

SHROOMS

(2007)

Dir - Paddy Breathnach

Overall: WOOF

 

Tonal problems, cliches, a messy narrative, and characters that are unlikable, stupid, and obnoxious all run rampant in Shrooms.  An international co-production between Ireland, Denmark, and the UK from Irish director Paddy Breathnach, the schlock factor seems to be more unintentionally funny than deliberately in place.  The concept of a couple of college kids vacationing in the remote woods so they can partake of nature's favorite hallucinogen brings forth the usual crop of one-note, bickering, douchebag protagonists whose behavior is anything but natural and often just plain idiotic.  Worsening matters is the backdrop of a creepy orphanage, deranged woodsmen, cell phones being taken away, and a dirty, supernatural figure in a black hood just to further cover the bases of derivative crap to play with.  Oh, and there is a twist ending because, duh.  Presentation wise, Breathnach limits himself only to every genre trope that has overstayed their welcome, constantly bouncing between loud soundtrack cues and quietness, vaguely unsettling images, an overly filtered color pallet, etc.  The premise of people violently tripping balls in the middle of nowhere does rather lend itself to some of these tactics, but there is just too much conflicting, tired nonsense mucking everything up.

2000s Dario Argento

SLEEPLESS

(2001)

Overall: MEH

 

After three decades behind the lens at this point in his career, Dario Argento proves that he can crank out another by-the-books giallo in his sleep with the therefor appropriately titled Sleepless, (Non ho sonno).  The completely retreaded nature of the film could be seen as an equally good or not so good thing depending on the viewer, as the exact same elements that make it satisfying are the same ones that make it dull.  Inviting Max von Sydow to participate brings a distinguished credibility to the proceedings as he turns in a typically solid, straight performance, this time as a retired police detective compelled back to investigate a violent killing spree involving dwarfism and nursery rhymes because Italian giallo movies are silly.  Argento puts on the black gloves again, slices and dices several victims, (most of whom are women of course), and throws red herrings at the audience until almost the last possible moment before the credits roll.  Everything in its right, ultra-violent place for fans of everything in its right, ultra-violent place.  For everyone else though, the structure is so predictable that it could even be seen as parody.  Also, the filmmaker's trademark flash only crops up in small doses and it all plays out more underwhelming than not.

 

THE CARD PLAYER

(2004)

Overall: MEH

 

Premise wise, Dario Argento's sixteenth feature The Card Player, (Ilcartaio), breaks up the formula sufficiency of merely another killer with black gloves and some kind of sexually traumatic past who stalks a bystander protagonist that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The gimmick here of an online poker player daring the cops to beat him at standard, five-card draw unless he mutilates and murders his victims on camera is a sufficiently disturbing one that gets introduced during the very first scene.  Unfortunately, the movie does not really have anywhere to go after establishing the stakes, meandering a bit until about the last half-hour when the inevitable, unsatisfying, and very silly twist reveal starts to kick into gear.  There is still the usual, unnaturally funny dialog, the expected amount of sadism, and a couple of preposterous kills, but even with a hip, techno soundtrack in tow to try and contemporize it, Argento certainly seems to be on autopilot as far as the presentation is concerned.  It is all visually competent, just with hardly any pizzazz, coming off like a stripped down version of the filmmaker's more ambitiously outrageous output that made him a legend in his field.

 

DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK?

(2005)

Overall: MEH

 

For whatever reason, Dario Argento found himself making a block of made-for-television films in the mid-2000s, beginning with Do You Like Hitchcock?, (Ti piace Hitchcock).  Similar to his Masters of Horror entries only in the fact that it delivers the unintended chuckles, this is otherwise a standard giallo that, (as the title would suggest), deliberately pays homage to the filmmaker that Argento has been classified as the Italian version of throughout his career.  Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and Dial M for Murder are directly referenced where a voyeuristic college student spies on his sexy neighbor and after her mother is brutally murdered, naturally suspects that a cockamamie scheme is underfoot that has everything to do with Alfred Hitchcock's film repertoire that most of the characters seem to have an equal admiration for as they routinely rent them from a local video store.  Elio Germano's protagonist studies both German Expressionism and early Russian silent cinema so footage from Der Golem, Nosferatu, and Man with the Movie Camera also make an appearance to further tickle the movie nerd that is watching.  Largely stagnant in the plotting, the usual hallmarks are in place like Argento having no idea how normal people actually talk so that everyone on screen comes off as a stupid asshole.  Most of the set pieces seem to be nothing more than the first haphazard idea that came to him, with a wet, awkward motor scooter sequence in particular being a goofy highlight.

MOTHER OF TEARS

(2007)

Overall: MEH

By the time that Dario Argento got around to wrapping up his Three Mothers Trilogy, his steadily declining cinematic output had established two stylistic modes that were becoming slightly more exclusive from each other.  One was the textbook, giallo-by-numbers which largely dominated his filmography, but the other more interesting and arguably far more terrible one was the bombastic supernatural yarn, which is the category that Mother of Tears, (La Terza madre), falls into.  On paper, the "good" stuff is all there; daughter Asia in the lead, her mother/Argento's one-time collaborator Daria Nicolodi making a cameo along with Udo Kier, a story focusing on the most terrifying and nasty of the witch sisters, and easily the most jaw-dropping "Jesus fucking Christ, guy" levels of gore in any of the Italian Hitchcock's movies.  A diabolical treat to be sure, but man is the result laugh-out-loud stupid.  Whatever flashy camera work and gorgeously designed visuals that Argento indulged in back in his heyday are long gone and in their place are horrendous special effects and dull looking sets.  The story derails into illogical absurdity almost right from the get go and it escalates madly to the point where uncontrollable laughter is the only possible response from any audience member.  It is a fascinating failure that goes full-tilt, stumbles hilariously, and ends up quite memorable for, (mostly), the wrong reasons.

GIALLO

(2009)

Overall: MEH

 

After a quick detour into supernatural terrain with 2007's ridiculous trainwreck Mother of Tears, Dario Argento settled right back into his comfort zone on Giallo; the first movie to actually be titled after the Italian sub-genre that the filmmaker has long been synonymous with.  This was a troubled production for Argento though as his daughter Asia and potential lead Vincent Gallo dropped out after the two's engagement went kaput, followed by producer interference and then Adrien Brody having to file a lawsuit in order to actually get paid for his work on the project.  The result is not as mangled and unintentionally nonsensical as much of the filmmaker's later output, which is probably due to the fact that the script was initially penned by Sean Keller and Jim Agne, both of whom have a comparatively "better" understanding than Argento does of the way that logical behavior dictates our day to day lives.  The trade off unfortunately is that the story is pretty dull, even though Brody delivers a half over-the-top/half reserved, dual performance that is far better than material such as this should ever deserve.

1990s Dario Argento

TWO EVIL EYES

(1990)

Dir - Dario Argento/George A. Romero

Overall: GOOD

 

Originally intended to feature four different filmmakers taking on an Edgar Allan Poe story ala various other such movies with a similar premise dating all the way back to the silent era, George A. Romero and Dario Argento ended up being the sole contributors to Two Evil Eyes, (Due occhi diabolici).  Shot in Romero's native Pittsburgh with a handful of the director's regulars appearing, (including Tom Savini who did the special makeup effects, as usual), his opening adaptation of "The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar" is the more streamlined of the two, bringing back Adrienne Barbeau and Tom Atkins from Creepshow.  Argento's "The Black Cat" has a few too many of the Italian Hitchcock's typical plotting malfunctions and unintentional goofiness, yet he also delivers another ridiculous, elaborate ending, plus Harvey Keitel seems to be in on the gag at irregular intervals.  Both stories being stretched to nearly an hour each does ultimately hurt them though as they meander and could have benefited from some tightening up that the proposed four installment idea would have allowed for.  Still, this is a mostly fun experiment, warts and all.

TRAUMA

(1993)

Overall: GOOD

 

The second American film that Dario Argento made in the early 90s, Trauma also serves as the first to feature his daughter Asia.  One of the more notorious moments in any of the director's movies involves a then seventeen year-old Asia appearing topless in a particularly gratuitous, (i.e. pointless), scene which is inadvertently creepier than anything else in the actual film.  Another typical giallo with a killer wearing black gloves and using a particularly inventive murder device, (a "noose-o-matic" which was devised by special makeup effects guru Tom Savini), it has plenty of flash, violence, and absurdity.  Five different people were credited with either the story or the screenplay and it rather drunkenly stumbles towards the finish line with some very half-baked plot points, all of which are as common for an Argento movie as is clever camera work and misogyny.  There are some wonderfully scene-chewing supporting performances from Frederic Forrest, Brad Dourif, and Piper Laurie playing yet another hilariously disturbed mother, (this time with a fake Italian accent).  It is all pure nonsense, but quite fun and masterfully done pure nonsense.

THE STENDHAL SYNDROME

(1996)

Overall: MEH

 

Dario Argento returned to Italy with the topsy-turvy The Stendhal Syndrome, (La Sindrome di Stendhal), a flawed yet conceptually wacky giallo.  Based off of a supposed real life experience that Argento had when he was young, it deals with concepts such as amnesia and split personalities in a typically far-fetched fashion though as was often the case for the director, the film is ultimately about violent, sexual trauma.  Asia Argento turns in a pretty visceral, memorable performance as the victimized police detective and while the musical theme by Ennio Morricone is purposely repetitive, it does create the right sinister mood.  Though the first act dabbles in the surreal and has a kinetic energy to it, the film quickly slogs its way though the typically poorly written script.  Things appear to satisfyingly wrap up about an hour in, only to plod on for almost another full hour as if two separate movies were crammed into one.  Even with several rape scenes in disturbing tow, the movie is less grandiose in its violence and plays things too straight to benefit the story's more goofy aspects, making the whole thing a bit of an overlong misstep.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

(1998)

Overall: MEH

Not making the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera deformed is like not making Dracula a vampire so in this sense, Dario Argento's interpretation of Gaston Leroux' frequently adapted novel omits something rather crucial to the inherent horror aspects.  Being an Argento movie, it of course makes up for the narrative tweaks with hilariously gruesome gore and weirdness like Julian Sand's romantically dashing title character being raised by rats, defying the laws of physics, viciously biting people, and being able to communicate telepathically with Asia Argento's Christine.  He does still play the organ in an underground lair and is obsessively smitten with Christine's singing voice so it has not all been unrecognizably re-calibrated.  When looked at as a comedy, parts of the movie work as there are several ridiculous set pieces, lines of dialog, plot points, and major narrative oversights like how is there electricity everywhere and how in the hell did the Phantom learn how to talk, read, write, and deck out his well-furnished dwellings?  Sans some embarrassing CGI effects, the film looks pretty fantastic though and the director's flair for the extravagant still lets itself be known.  It is certainly a messy endeavor any way one slices it, but also a fun one for "bad movie night".

1990s British Horror Part Five

THE WITCHES

(1990)

Dir - Nicolas Roeg

Overall: GOOD

 

This adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel The Witches was the only children's film that director Nicolas Roeg ever made and also doubles as the last one that Jim Henson worked on before his death, which occurred just a week before its release.  Shot on location in both Norway and at England's Headland Hotel, the extensive budget gives way to some of the best practical effects of the era, including an outrageously grotesque makeup design for Angelica Huston's Grand High Witch.  The mythology present in Dahl's source material is inventive, which includes witches being naturally bald, square-footed, having a purple tint to their eyes, and being able to smell children who they of course have an overwhelming disdain for.  While there are some macabre elements to the story, Henson and Roeg's tone is kept light, going far enough as to chirp up the ending against Dahl's wishes.  On top of the many memorable set pieces, (the best of which include young Jasen Fisher's transformation into an adorable, animatronic mouse and his proceeding escapades in such a form), Huston's camped-up performance is delightful and hers is easily one of the best overall screen villains in any such movie.

 

DARKLANDS

(1997)

Dir - Julian Richards
Overall: MEH

Julian Richards, (a filmmaker associated with the Cool Cymru art movement in Wales), made his first of a career's worth of thriller/horror full-lengths with Darklands, an acceptable if unremarkable, contemporary pagan mystery.  The usual hallmarks of blasphemous church desecration, gypsies being unfriendly, a dubious femme fatale, plus cult rituals involving child conception, human sacrifices, resurrection, and the usual lot of mumbo jumbo are all more or less perfectly in place.  Visually though, Richards is not the most flashy of storytellers as the movie has a flat presentation with unexciting camera work that is unfortunately fitting to the flimsy budget.  The attempts at Gothy, on-fire, freakshow aesthetics come off more dated than hip, but the story does rev up appropriately to an intense, conspiratorial tension in the finale.  For an updated, urban Wicker Man tale, there is definitely an all around better movie lurking in here somewhere, but the performances are sufficient, the premise nifty, and the ambition is admirable at least.

URBAN GHOST STORY

(1998)

Dir - Geneviève Jolliffe

Overall: GOOD

The lone directorial effort from English screenwriter Geneviève Jolliffe, Urban Ghost Story is essentially what the title would suggest; a contemporary haunted house movie except one that takes place in a low-rent apartment complex.  While there is some diabolical poltergeist activity present, it is largely underplayed in order to focus primarily on the story of struggling, poverty stricken single mothers whose desperate motives are regularly exploited.  When an already troubled teenager survives a car accident after being clinically dead for several minutes, the unexplained supernatural activity only causes a further wedge within her family, with phony psychics, paranormal investigators, gang thugs, and social workers piling on the not good times.  Jolliffe captures the less-than-ideal setting quite well, with unassuming, intimate cinematography that forgoes cinematic flashiness in a way that is certainly beneficial to the gruff, often heavy material.  It is definitely low on spookiness and even with some of the aforementioned horror movie tropes in place, genre fans looking for a by-the-books cliche fest may feel a bit mislead by the title and basic premise.  The differentiating, more grounded approach is somewhat refreshing though, even if the social commentary is as on the nose as it gets.

1990s Lucio Fulci

DEMONIA

(1990)

Overall: MEH

The direct-to-video Demonia from Lucio Fulci is not one of his best executed films, though this is hardly surprising as it was made at the turn of the 1990s, at which point the Italian gore-father was rather universally considered past his prime.  The concept of horny nuns who murder their partners in the heat of passion, get crucified by angry villagers, and then cause supernatural tomfoolery centuries later seems like ideal fodder for Euro exploitation such as this.  So what went wrong?  Well as a quasi-paring of nunsploitation and slasher genres, it pulls off nothing exciting in either as the flat photography, lousy story, and unmotivated direction contribute to the colossally boring pace.  There are a few moments of ridiculous violence such as a guy getting his tongue nailed into a piece of wood, another guy being split in half, and a newborn baby being thrown into a pit of fire, but these moments are surrounded by awful, cheap keyboard music playing over too many characters to keep track of who sure do a whole lot of standing around and talking.  Fulci himself appears as a gruff police detective, (badly and unconvincingly dubbed of course, as is everyone else), but you have to be fightidoorng off your eyelids closing to even notice him.

 

DOOR TO SILENCE

(1992)

Overall: MEH

 

Italian filmmaker/producer Joe D'Amato was no stranger to craptatular material so in this respect it is easy to believe that he saw something in Lucio Fulci's short story "Porte del nulla"; something to turn it into the lackluster Door to Silence, (Door Into Silence, Le porte del silenzio).  To be fair, the concept of some guy getting haunted by a hearse that seems to be carrying around his own body probably sounded much better on paper, lending some potential to being a supernatural reworking of Steven Spielberg's Duel.  Unfortunately, the resulting film is anything but.  As was sadly the case throughout most of Fulci's career, the biggest drawback is the inadequate budget which undermines what could otherwise be a more captivating idea.  Shot on location in Louisiana over an eight week period, nearly the entire movie is John Savage's protagonist driving around what seems like about a two block radius, getting out of his car, getting back into his car, talking to someone, entering a building, and other really exciting things like that.  There is virtually zero atmosphere at any interval though, with everything being shot incredibly flat and rushed, all in broad daylight.  One or two puzzling moments do eventually transpire, but the uncinematic presentation and sheer monotony of it all disguises such moments far too efficiently.

 

VOICES FROM BEYOND

(1994)

Overall: MEH

While Lucio Fulci's final theatrically released film Voices from Beyond, (Voci dal profondo), is a slight improvement over his crop of television or direct-to-video projects from the end of his career, it is still hardly a memorable horror outing.  The source material was a short story by Fulci and Danielle Stroppa which was published in the 1992 anthology collection Le lune nere, though screenwriter Piero Regnoli ended up collaborating on the script as he and Fulci had previously worked together on 1990's Demonia.  Fulci pulls off some fun nightmare sequences here, (one of which even features his trademark of slow moving zombies), but they are pretty few and far between.  This is one of about a billion stories where several shoddy relatives are bitter about the outcome of a will from a deceased financier who hardly seemed to be the world's greatest guy in the first place.  Since the audience fails to have any sympathy for him, his pleas from beyond the grave to his more understanding daughter, (the only not villain in the whole movie), produces pretty uninteresting results.  It is nice that Fulci had the means one last time to produce something occasionally atmospheric and macabre, but its enormous lack of gore and snore-inducing narrative are not likely to please.

1990s Italian Horror Part Three - (Claudio Fragasso Edition)

BEYOND DARKNESS

(1990)

Overall: MEH

 

The first of no less than three movies released in 1990 from Italian genre director Claudio Fragasso is the cheap, lazily derivative haunted house mess Beyond Darkness, (La Casa 5).  While things begin hokey if not altogether ridiculously with a creepy enough set up of a crazy woman wearing an embarrassingly obvious bald cap who is being led to the electric chair as she proclaims her love for the demon Ameth, it does not take too long for the screenplay to make its sole priority that of bulldozing itself through as many cliche-ridden set pieces as possible.  We are treated to a fog machine on overdrive, furniture moving by itself, a car that will not start, evil dimensions hiding behind walls, a priest whose faith is lost, a dramatic synth score throughout all but maybe five seconds of the running time, and of course an exorcism.  Having the feel that anything plot related was left on the cutting room floor to make room for nothing except arbitrary horror movie nonsense, it gets redundant pretty quick.  Individual, worthy to laugh at moments are a hoot, but that is about all it has to offer really.

 

NIGHT KILLER

(1990)

Dir - Claudio Fragasso/Bruno Mattei

Overall: WOOF

Fitting appropriately in the middle of Beyond Darkness and Troll 2 as far as "quality" goes, Claudio Fragasso's Night Killer, (No aprite quella porta 3), is worse than the former though of course not as monumentally terrible/unintentionally brilliant as the latter.  Easily deserving its own place in the bad movie hall of fame though, the plot is rather ingeniously stupid, revolving around a horny asshole in a zombie mask and pointy-nailed glove that can punch through people's stomachs, a woman who wants to kill herself, and another horny asshole who kidnaps her while eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Considering that comedically awkward performances and dialog that is too unnatural for even a six-year old to come up with both seem to go hand in hand with Fragasso's movies, one can logically lay the blame mostly at his feet.  That said, gore fans will delight in the fact that addition scenes were shot by director Bruno Mattei, additional scenes that add ridiculous violence while completely adhering to the nonsensical, Ed Wood-worthy, auteur aesthetic of everything else.  The point is, this is a winner!

 

TROLL 2

(1990)

Overall: WOOF

No discussion about the worst movies ever made can happen without Claudio Fragasso's unintentional masterpiece Troll 2 being brought up.  On the Mount Rushmore of "So bad its great" cinema and arguably the most deservedly memorable of such films in the horror camp, this completely unrelated "sequel" to the Charles Band produced Troll from 1986 does not just have all the hallmarks of laughably horrendous cinema; it has those hallmarks to the umpteenth degree.  As showcased in the equally essential Best Worst Movie documentary, Fragasso and his Italian speaking crew butted heads with the non-professional American cast throughout the production due to the language barrier.  This in turn helped produce a lightning in a bottle combination of oblivious people both behind of and in front of the screen working with no time, no money, and creating something that legitimately seems as if it came from another planet.  Everything from the Halloween masks, the fact that the monsters are goblins and not trolls, the largely non-photogenic cast shown in constant unflattering closeups, a script that seems like it was written by a five-month-old chimpanzee, intended humor that is so bizarre that it becomes unintentionally hilarious anyway, and performances, cinematography, and direction that should all be shown in film class to exemplify what should never be done, this is the ultimate crash course in laugh-out-loud, engaging awfulness.