Strange to be posting these lists after I’ve done my awards, but that’s just how it worked out. Doing so, however, means I can present these as a ranked list; otherwise I would’ve posted them alphabetically to avoid giving the results away.
These are my 10 worst films of 2019, ranked least-worst to worst-worst. And as with many recent years, it’s no comprehensive survey of the worst the year had to offer. I just don’t seek out bad movies like I used to. So the first half of this list in particular is more mediocre than truly terrible. That said…the bottom three are enough to make up for it. I didn’t see a lot of shit this year, but those three are really bad. The last one is a special treat because I highly doubt you’ve ever heard of it.
As is my custom, those films which I’ve already reviewed while have links to those reviews in their titles. Also, this post will contain spoilers, so proceed with caution.
The thing about this movie is that, no matter how you try to judge it, it falls short of the mark. The most obvious angle is to take it as a high-concept fantasy: what would happen if the Beatles were erased from history except for the memories of one man? Luckily our hero, Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), is an aspiring singer-songwriter and therefore qualified to preserve the Beatles’ discography, becoming an overnight sensation in the process. But after signing an incredibly lucrative contract with a powerful label, his conscience eats at him, and he throws his contract to the wind, making the songs freely available to the world, and living happily ever after in loving anonymity(more on that in a moment).
As a fantasy with that premise, it fails because of a consistent lack of imagination. I never thought much of that premise, to be sure—certainly not as the basis for a feature film—and I’m not surprised thatthe film doesn’t really do much with it. The absence of the Beatles (and, as are later revealed in jokey asides, Oasis, cigarettes, and Coca-Cola) from the cultural landscape seems to have changed nothing—the world is the same, just minus those elements. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how theworld would be different without all those things, so the film’s failure to imagine a truly different world is exceptionally frustrating and wasteful.
But the film also cheats itself in other ways. If they weren’t going to really explore how the world would be different without the Beatles, why not at least add a little tension by making Jack less perfectlyqualified to be their oracle? Wouldn’t it have been at least a little more interesting to see someone with no musical training trying to recreate the Beatles library? Wouldn’t it have been a little more dramatically compelling to have Jack actually get called out, rather than relegating the one moment where he’s so threatened to a dream sequence?
And wouldn’t it have rung more true if there was a real risk to his giving up fame and fortune to upload the Beatles discography to…I don’t remember exactly, YouTube or iCloud, I think? Because pissing off a major corporation is going to result in little more pushback than Kate McKinnon wanting to eviscerate you; Jack would be lucky not to spend the rest of eternity with lawyers up his ass.
But of course, some will say that I’m taking it too seriously, that the film is nothing buta light-hearted romantic comedy, and that Iam a joyless bastard. All of that may betrue, but I’m glad to say it’s not very good as a romcom either. Jack, you see, is managed by his lifelong friend Ellie (Lily James), who’s carried a torch for him and his career since they were kids, but He Doesn’t Even Notice Her. When his career takes off, she suddenly declines to be a part of it because of her obligations as a teacher, and she even starts dating some other guy!
Of course, in the end she and Jack reconcile and the other guy cheerfully steps aside. It’s so trite and contrived a romance that it’s hard to care. And considering that Jack is a mopey drip who can’t ever enjoy his success and Ellie is a winsome doormat who behaves according to the needs of the plot rather than like a human being, my emotional investment remained somewhere around zero.
Yesterday has its good qualities, and there are those who quite liked it. But it left me quite cold and if it’s the best film on this list, well…look at the title again. (Also, Ed Sheeran might be the least charismatic celebrity I’ve ever seen and giving such a big role was a huge mistake, in case I was going too easy on this one.)
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Given the pedigree—based on a best-selling novel, directed by Richard Linklater, starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, and Laurence Fishburne—you’d expect some level of quality, right? Well, you might if it wasn’tpushed back repeatedly, from May 2018 to that October, to March 2019 to that August, when it finally opened to weak reviews and box-office. And you might be willing to overlook those if the trailer didn’t also suggest something had gone awry along the way. But I gave it a chance, only to have my fears validated.
The simplest way to put it is: it doesn’twork. I haven’t read the book, but the film doesn’t make a good case for it beingespecially adaptable; the surfeit of bad voiceover (badly delivered by Emma Nelson, who’s pretty bad as the daughter of Blanchett and Crudup’s characters) proves the most damning evidence against that, but the muddled story and general heavy-handedness don’t help either. Linklater isn’t the most consistent director, to be sure, but there’s not much here to suggest his hand behind the camera, or to explain what drew him to the material to begin with.
It doesn’t help that the story isn’t all that compelling or well told. Blanchett is a once–famous architect who retreated from the public eye after a major professionalfiasco, and has since suffered from worsening neuroses, including agoraphobia. Following confrontationswith her neighbors and an attempted psychiatric intervention led by her husband, she decides to split and go on herown to Antarctica (where she and her family were planning to go anyway), where she eventually rediscovers her passion and is reconciled with her husband and daughter. I’m summarizing, but I haven’tseen the film since August and it’s not like I remember it that well. In any case, the story tends to feel like #firstworldproblems, especially since Bernadette‘s mental health issues are mostly treated as shtick and her creative frustrations never become relatable. (Her moderately racist memos to her supposed secretary in India really don’t help.)
The film has some redeeming factors; Blanchett gives a typically thoughtful and witty performance, not quite good enough to overcome the material (or merit that surprise Globe nomination), but certainlybetter than the script merits. And, given that it has an architect for a protagonist, the film boasts some clever production design, especially in the eccentric, ramshackle home Bernadette and her family live in. And it’s not a terrible film (it’s a low **½), it’s just a bland and forgettableone, possibly unworthy of the book and certainly unworthy of the talent involved.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
This was the last film I watched before doing my awards. And I was honestly shocked how little I enjoyed it, especially since I really quite liked the first film, which was a well-done, briskly-paced little fable. But that film had a solid basis for its story, re-telling Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the ostensible villain, who was naturally much more sympathetic than previously depicted. Mistress of Evil, on the other hand, had to create a new story from scratch, and it doesn’t work at all.
Right from the start, we can sense that something isn’t quite right, because the opening voiceover tells us how Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) was cheated of credit for saving Aurora’s (Elle Fanning) life, and made out to be the villain once more. All this, of course, takes place off-screen, because it only matters as far as getting the present story going. It’s a lazy undoing of the previous film, and a bad sign of things to come.
The film opens with some anonymous rogues kidnapping fairies from the forest ruled by Aurora (Maleficent having given her control of it), and plucking “tomb blooms,” which are flowers that grow on the graves of fairies, and which can be used against them if you combine their petals with iron powder.
See, it’s all part of a plot by the evil Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose son, Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson) is set to marry Aurora, to wipe out the fairies and take over the forest, mainly because of an old grudge which is laid out in a single monologue because it only matters as far as it can advance the story.
And in the process Maleficent is wounded and rescued by a fellow fairy, Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and taken to a fairy safe-haven where debate rages between those who want to try and ☪️☮️✡️i☯️✝️ with humanity (Conall) and those who want to wipe them out at least subjugate them, like Borra (Ed Skrein).
Despite being the titular character, Maleficent mostly stays silent and on the sidelines here, while Borra leads an attack on…Ulstead (had to look that up), which Maleficent eventually gets involved with, turning truly malicious for a few minutes after Conall is killed, finally being persuaded to turn good again by Aurora in time to have a happy ending in which Ingrith, all things considered, gets off lightly.
But that’s the kind of film this is, where the story mostly exists to move us from Point A to Point B, and the various other twists and turns along the way serve mainly to extend the running time (it runs almost two hours, a full 20 minutes longer than Maleficent, and for no good reason).
Yes, there are worthy elements here. Jolie is solid, especially when she actually gets anything to do, and Pfeiffer isn’t bad even if her character is as transparently evil as they come. The production design and costumes are lovely to behold, befitting the high budget, and the makeup is good, if not quite good enough to merit the Oscar nomination which compelled me to see the damned thing to begin with.
And the special effects are good when they’re good, though they’re surprisingly uneven, with the fairies appearing altogether too cartoony, especially Aurora’s trio of protectors, who are quite annoying as it is (Juno Temple’s Thistlewit being the worst offender). But all things considered, it’s just an overblown, empty cash-grab.
As I write this, you could go see Birds of Prey, a wonderful sequel to a rather terrible film. This is a mediocre sequel to a rather good one, and not worth the bother.
The Chaperone
I saw this film mainly to see Haley Lu Richardson playing Louise Brooks. Richardson had so thoroughly charmed me in the wonderful Columbus, along with doing quite well in the very good Support the Girls, that I was more than willing to give this a chance, even if the trailers weren’t all that promising. Richardson essaying one of the most iconic personages of the silent screen? Seemed like a winner to me.
Only here’s the thing: the film isn’t really about her, it’s about the titular chaperone (Elizabeth McGovern), who agrees to chaperone Brooks on a trip to New York (they’re from Wichita) so that she can investigate the mystery of who her birth parents were, a fact which has been concealed from her by the Catholic orphanage she lived in before being adopted by a Kansan family. She also needs some time apart from her husband (Campbell Scott), who’s struggling with his own homosexuality. She befriends an employee at the orphanage (Géza Röhrig), who helps her in her search…and soon helps her in matters of the heart as well.
It’s frustrating that the film baits us with Brooks’ story and then asks us to care about this fictional character instead, but that might’ve been acceptable, especially since McGovern is very solid in the film; some might find her overwrought, but I felt she was very convincing at playing a specific kind of suppressed desperation, barely masked by a particularly Midwestern pleasantness. (Richardson is good, but the script just gives her too little to work with.)
Unfortunately, there’s just not enough to McGovern’s story to compensate for the story we’re not being told; her attempts to discover her true identity are fairly trite, and if Laura Moriarty’s novel isn’t to blame, then Julian Fellowes’ vapid script is. The writing is stiff and ham-fisted throughout, with “Pandora’s Box haunted me for weeks!” in particular ranking among the clunkiest of the year. (Did Pandora’s Box even play in Wichita at the time? I honestly don’t know.)
Not helping is the generally cheap air of the production; although released theatrically, The Chaperone was produced by PBS and Masterpiece (aka Masterpiece Theatre), and feels like a TV production throughout, with sets and costumes that just feel artificial, brightly-lit cinematography with an awkward sheen, and direction by TV director Michael Engler (his first big-screen effort, as far as I can tell) which feels like competent, studied, and wholly obvious direction.
It’s worth nothing that Röhrig, who was so good in Son of Saul, is here hampered by some very bad looping which further removes us from the contrived story. And the romance between him and McGovern ends with them living in a weird kind of menage with her husband and his lover, if I recall correctly. Impossible in 40s Wichita? Maybe not. But it feels unlikely.
And yes, I said the 40s, because the film’s last few minutes are set over 15 years after the rest of it, with McGovern dropping in on Richardson/Brooks, who’s returned to Wichita after the demise of her acting career. Brooks, now in her 30s (no effort is made to age Richardson, making the whole scene vaguely absurd), is an alcoholic recluse, and McGovern gives her some inspirational words to encourage to get back out into the world, which Brooks eventually did, although in reality she faced some very difficult years before film scholars rediscovered her in the 50s and she ultimately became a noted writer on silent film.
But The Chaperone doesn’t care about any of that, because again, it’s not really about Louise Brooks, it’s about a fictitious woman (based very loosely on a real person) who happened to know her before she was famous. I don’t know why you’d really want to see that, and since it’s not a good movie, I really can’t recommend you do. Engler and Fellowes did much better with the film of Downton Abbey, flawed as it was.
I’ve already said a great deal about this film, which I went from being truly excited about (based on the fascinating trailer) to being concerned about (based on the lack of buzz or a release date) to being excited about (based on the blisteringly terrible reviews).
It’s just such a thoroughly misguided film in every way, from the mostly wasted cast (I still have no clue why Tig Notaro was cast when her role amounts to a glorified walk-on) to the wildly shifting aspect ratios to the fundamental failure to understand its protagonist. Even Natalie Portman’s performance is below her normal standard. It’s a trainwreck, albeit an oddly fascinating one.
There’s so little to actually say about this film. It’s an incredibly lazy rip-off of The Lego Movie, just without any of the wit or charm that made that film more than a craven feature-length commercial. It’s not even notably bad, just fiercely generic. There’s no reason whatsoever to watch it, not even to amuse your kids. They deserve better. And there’s no shortage of better out there.
Read my blow-by-blow and see how little you’re missing.
Serenity
Here’s what I said about Serenity after I saw it this past January; it was the first film I saw for 2019 (an auspicious beginning, no?):
I’ll be generous and say I can appreciate what Serenity was trying to do, but that’s as far as I can go. Because its ambitious premise (which I won’t reveal for those who want to go in unspoiled) requires a drum-tight plot to work…and the murky, meandering story on hand here just doesn’t cut it, with the cascade of revelations in the third act only adding to the viewer’s confusion.
Worse, the film as a whole has a low-rent feel, from the tacky cinematography which suggests mid-Aughts TV drama (the film as a whole feels like it’s been on the shelf for a decade or more) to the dodgy editing to the generally embarrassed cast (Jeremy Strong manages to roll with the punches of being in this film, but he’s arguably the only one); I feel bad for Anne Hathaway for having to do this shit post-Oscar, and bad for Jason Clarke for becoming Hollywood’s go-to jerk-husband-to/be-cheated-on. McConaughey keeps his head above water, but that’s about it.
It’s really hard to say too much more without giving it away, but I will say that it rivals The Book of Henry in terms of ill-advised attempts at grappling with extremely serious themes in ways that the trailer can only hint at. I’m not sure just what I would rate it at, since I did have some ironic fun with it, but suffice to say it doesn’t start 2019 on a particularly strong note.
I’m not sure what I can add that wouldn’t give too much away, other than to say the implications of the big twist are both unintentionally hilarious and unintentionally (?) creepy. I can sort of see how it would’ve worked on paper, but my God, does it ever not work on film.
I don’t think I can do better than cite the opening paragraph of my review, which I wrote in those dazed hours after first seeing the film:
Cats is every bit as bad as you’ve heard, a sorely needed oasis of wholehearted, fundamentally wrongheaded, jaw-dropping cat-astrophe (there’s no other way to put it) in a day and age when even bad films are more often than not generic lumps of cinematic dough that just didn’t rise.
If you want more, well, there’s a lot more in my full review of the film, encompassing my thoughts from both of my viewings (because I’m the kind of guy who saw it twice). But really, I recommend you just see it—and sober, because mind-altering substances are superfluous in the face of such madness.
Breakthrough
This is the kind of film which opens with a version of “Uptown Funk” which omits the phrase “Hot damn” (leaving a very awkward beat of silence in its place), but leaves the phrase “white gold” intact, because the absolute mildest profanity is verboten, but a reference to cocaine can be overlooked.
That tells you all you really need to know. But I’m not going to leave it at that, because to hell with this movie. The fact that more people saw it than even know A Hidden Life exists is fucking depressing, and the fact that it’s an Oscar nominee and that film wasn’t is even more so. Because this film represents so much of what’s wrong with faith-based cinema in this day and age.
If you don’t know, this film is based on the true story of John Smith (Marcel Ruiz), a teenage boy who was playing with his friends on a frozen lake when the ice broke under them and he spent 15 minutes underwater before he was rescued. He was unconscious and showed no pulse, but as his mother Joyce (Chrissy Metz) prayed over him, his vital signs reappeared and he began a fight for his life which ended in a remarkable recovery.
None of these facts are substantially in dispute. But the film couldn’t just tell that story and let the message come naturally, if a message was even needed. No, it has to underline the idea that Joyce’s prayer was what saved John, in part by having her not so much pray as scream at God to save him. Not that a desperate parent doing so is unreasonable. But it’s hardly sound theology. And that’s about the most concrete message the film even offers; otherwise it rests on the same vague “trust in God” pablum which is a fixture of bad inspirational cinema (The Identical, anyone?) I think Scripture is quoted maybe once in the entire film, which I think says a lot about the kind of film this is.
But even if the film weren’t dodgy as a piece of religious cinema (to put it generously), it’s no better as drama. Joyce, not John, is the real protagonist of the film, and that wouldn’t be an issue if she was a more interesting character, but she’s boring at best and tiresome at worst. She’s most relatable when she’s squirming at the sound of Christian pop being performed at her church’s Sunday services as part of the new preacher’s (Topher Grace) attempts to make them more “contemporary,” or something. (But lady, you live in Missouri; there’s probably a dozen other churches within five minutes of you, at least one of which is more “traditional.” Go there.) Otherwise, she mostly frets about her son and demands that everyone “speak life” around him, which doesn’t a compelling protagonist make.
It doesn’t help that Metz is frankly awful in the film, overacting horribly in her dramatic scenes and coming off as awkward and artificial even in more casual moments. The rest of the cast range from embarrassed (Josh Lucas as the doubtful father) to phoning it in (Grace, Dennis Haysbert as the doubtful doctor), to just there (pretty much everyone else), but Metz is front-and-center so much of the time that it doesn’t really matter.
Director Roxann Dawson (best known for playing Torres on Star Trek: Voyager) does little to help, as the film feels flat and anonymous throughout, with the all-important drowning sequence being actively badly staged. And it’s here where one of the film’s most problematic elements crops up, presumably courtesy of screenwriter Grant Nieporte (who gave the world Seven Pounds), since it doesn’t seem to have been part of the real story.
As EMTs search for John in the lake, responder Tommy Shine (Mike Colter, probably giving the best performance in the film) thinks he hears his chief tell him to “go back,” which leads him to find John. Only, of course, the chief didn’t actually say that, meaning it must’ve been God talking to Tommy. Only, of course, Tommy is an atheist. Now, I believe in some kind of a God. And I had a brief period when I considered myself an atheist. So I’m neither opposed to stories of belief or stories of belief rediscovered. And even if the real Tommy Shine wasn’t an atheist and the film really wanted to add a trite storyline to give the film that much more of a message…I can accept it, albeit reluctantly. (I’m not the target audience for this film to begin with. I’ll make allowances.)
But if you’re going to do that, put your back into it; the film just tells us that Tommy is an atheist without any exploration of how he became one or how long he’s been one, and spends virtually no time on actually exploring his attempts at coming to terms with the possibility of divine intervention in his life. It’s bad storytelling, bad proselytizing, and a fundamental example of the film’s laziness.
If there was a film in the story of how John Smith survived what should’ve been a lethal situation, it presumably would’ve devoted a little more time to his recovery and less time to his mother’s testy relationship with a preacher who dares to use bad pop and rap (bad rap, no less) in his services. But the film hardly cares about John except as a focus for everyone’s thoughts and prayers. So of course, once he’s remotely on the mend, we skip straight to his walking out of the hospital (unaccompanied by any staff, because whoever made this film has no clue how hospitals work), and we get a truncated plot thread where characters ask John why he miraculously survived when their loved ones didn’t survive similar situations.
But of course, the film does almost nothing with this, because it’s dedicated from the start to being as unchallenging as possible, A Hidden Life explores the subject of faith challenged with infinitely more intelligence and artistry. It’s not a perfect film, but if you want a film which will actually get you thinking, watch that. And if you’re open to something a little more troubling but even more thought-provoking, watch First Reformed. But don’t waste your time with this; it does credit neither to belief nor believers.
She’s Just a Shadow
This is it. The worst film of 2019, and it’s not even close. Breakthrough is crap, but this is deep-fried shit. I’m not going to give you a detailed overview of the film, in part because I saw it just once, back in July, and in part because the plot is such a convoluted mess that trying to recap it would take too damn long, and would probably burn out my brain in the process. Suffice to say, it’s an utter mess.
Instead, I’ll discuss a few of the most memorable scenes and give a general analysis of the film as a whole. Be advised that the scenes in question involve sexual assault, violence, and animal cruelty, so proceed with caution.
The film begins with a man (Ichi Omiya) dressed as a cop (he might actually be a cop – it’s not clear – but it doesn’t really matter) abducting a sex worker, stripping her naked, and tying her to train tracks, after which he masturbates on her. And when I say “masturbates,” I mean he blasts enough rope to moor an oil tanker. (This is not a subtle film.) He then steps back and lets a train run her over. He does this several times throughout the film, with increasingly complex set ups, and at no point in the film does anyone think to monitor the train lines, nor is he actually caught in the act, even though he seems to be standing near enough to the tracks that someone on the train could’ve easily seen him. (This is not a smart film.)
This whole plot thread is alternated with one involving some kind of turf war between various Yakuza factions, and we’re mainly concerned with the one run by Irene (Tao Okamoto, who really needs to fire her agent between this and Batman v Superman) and Red Hot (Kentez Asaka) with whom, as I recall, she has a violent relationship. Among her operations, she madams a number of sex workers, many of whom are among the “policeman”‘s victims. But she’s also concerned with eliminating her opponents by means of, if I recall correctly, a poison whose recipe is an old family secret, and possibly something to do with blue teeth. (This is not a coherent film.) There’s also the matter of Irene’s henchman (I think) Gaven (Kihiro), who’s disillusioned with the Yakuza life and wants to get away with his girlfriend Tanya (Haruka Abe). But his other girlfriend, Beth (Mercedes Maxwell) is jealous, as I recall.
I’m going to pause and give major credit to Simon Abrams’ review, which not only inspired me to see the film in the first place, but which is right now proving very helpful in refreshing my memory as to what actually happens in it. Anyway, you’ve got turf wars, serial killing, sex, drugs, doomed love, and all that jazz. But you’ve also got the single greatest scene in film history, worth the price of admission by itself.
To set the scene: a member of Irene’s entourage, Knockout (Marcus Johnson) passes by a wheelchair-bound urchin (Parker Ishigami) with a pet dog – a Shiba Inu, I think – and gives the kid some money. And the kid starts hanging out in front of Knockout’s apartment building, guilting him into giving him money every day. Knockout grows exasperated, telling the boy to find another place to panhandle, but no dice – he keeps popping up, day after day.
Towards the end of the film, as the general situation deteriorates and everyone’s nerves begin to fray, Knockout goes out and sees the boy yet again, and this time grows angry. He might start by yelling at him; I’m not sure. What he definitely does is first knock the boy’s wheelchair over and stomp him to death. According to the IMDb Parents Guide, he breaks his neck in the process, which seems gratuitous, but this film is fundamentally gratuitous.
But wait, there’s more: he then turns to the dog, who seems to be taking their master’s death fairly well, and screams “FUCK YO’ DOG!” He then punts the dog like a fucking football (the real dog is clearly swapped out for a dummy at this point), and it goes flying over a nearby fence, presumably to go live on a farm.
But we’re not done yet. Knockout then turns around to see a delivery truck barreling down on him, and it hits him full-force, at which point we’re given the driver’s POV and get to see Knockout’s blood spray across the windshield. And let me tell you, by this point I was laughing harder in the theater than I did at nearly any other point in 2019.
The best part? I wasn’t alone for it. See, I saw it at a local theater which specializes in indie films, especially genre films. So bless them for booking this; I can’t imagine it made them much money, and I was certainly the only person who bought a ticket to my screening. But some guy wandered into the theater, I believe for an unrelated event following the screening, and watched the last half-hour or so, including the scene above. At that point I thanked him for sharing in the experience with me.
I have to wonder how many people have seen this film at all. Certainly some critics have, and amazingly, some of them even seemed to like it! Here’s one particularly appreciative review which doesn’t deny the film’s crassness, but finds it to their liking. And other reviews at least give the film some credit for its cinematography (which is garish but still one of its better elements) and writer-director Adam Sherman’s sense of style. Even if they don’t praise the film, they stop well short of condemning it.
Of course, I will do no such thing, because Sherman and his film deserve so much more. Sherman, as far as I can determine, is not Japanese, and it shows; his conception of Japanese society and culture rings utterly false, which is to say it’s about the weebiest shit imaginable, at least allowing for the genre. It’s so bad it makes Only God Forgives (which was, to be fair, set in Thailand, not Japan) look better.
Only God Forgives was at least made by a talented director and came in at under 90 minutes, was consistently well shot, and featured capable actors, even if they had little to do. Shadow is made by a director with no obvious skill, has overwrought imagery (I have to mention the hideous makeup most of the sex workers in the film wear), and what members of the cast aren’t actively terrible are buried by the awfulness around them. Oh, and it runs just shy of two full hours, long enough that it manages to bore from time to time.
If Only God Forgives was oddly restrained in the realm of nudity, though (the one department in which it could be said to show restraint), She’s Just a Shadow is full of nudity, much of it extremely explicit. But between the film’s unpleasant atmosphere, off-putting aesthetic, and total lack of characters we can care about or story we can be invested in, absolutely none of it titillates. And if there’s anything more pathetic than an exploitation film that lacks even cheap thrills, I don’t want to contemplate it.
Have I made my point? Do you not know by now whether or not you want to see this? It’s not the most essential bad film of the year—that’s easily Cats—and it’s too much of a slog to recommend to the casual ironic viewer. But to the true connoisseurs of cinematic incompetence, it certainly comes with my heartiest recommendation. It’s not quite as devoid of quality as something like Dancin’ – It’s On!, but it’s damn sure the worst of the year for me.
Coming soon: my 10 best films of the year.
If You Want the Gravy... 