Unsolicited Opinion Of The Day

[bloodyrosemccoy]

For the past week or so, acrossthelake, i_blaze_the, and I have been debating the worst possible movie done by any iteration of MST3k. They are torn between Manos: The Hands of Fate—a movie that, like The Last Airbender, manages to be bad in every possible category* and Monster A Go-Go, a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie stitched together from the dead corpses of three different movies** and brought back not to life, but to a state of undeath so gruesome that the movie actually commits suicide at the end rather than try to wrap up the story.

I’d add to these The Creeping Terror, which is like Monster A Go-Go except you just wish there was no monster, and The Castle of Fu Manchu, which did have yellowface and also has the distinction of being the only MST I refuse to watch twice. But hands down the worst damn movie I’ve ever seen, no question at all, is Legacy of Blood, taken on by Cinematic Titanic in a riff that matched the Charge of the Light Brigade for both heroism and overall success.

I could enumerate all of the awfulnesses of this movie—the drive-thru quality sound, the lighting that only manages to be bright when the movie accidentally gives away its big reveal before—well, before the big reveal—the loathsome characters, the loathsomely creepy content, the loathsome acting, etc.. However, you could say that of a lot of movies. This one is unique, though, because while you hate this movie, this movie hates you back. Much as Manos or Monster A Go-Go or The Creeping Terror or even possibly Fu Manchu were awful, none of them was actively trying to put you off your dinner. Legacy is. Every single scene, by accident or design, manages to make me want to throw up a little. It is not badly entertaining. It doesn’t even contain that certain level of charm that comes from the really awful execution of something trying to be good. This movie is a fucking troll.

You may see acrossthelake’s rebuttal in the comments. I also invite you to submit your reasons why the movie you hate the most is, in fact, worse than Legacy of Blood.*** But remember that whatever movie you submit will have to be worse than the image of some ham-faced greaseball creep trying to mount his insane sister while their electrocuted in-laws lie gently smoldering in their bed and the guy with the people-skin lamp enjoys some delicious ham from a plate that recently had a severed head on it. I dare ya to top that. Go ahead on.


*I actually am willing to give Manos the favorable comparison here, because it at least had the excuses of low budget, bad/nonexistent source material, and lack of willful racism in what you could politely call its “casting.” (I know, it was whitewashed, but on the plus side it wasn’t yellowface.) TLA had a giant budget and excellent source material, but it was stubbornly racist and still failed miserably.

**i_blaze_the’s metaphor.

***Right now we are going to nip your automatic response of The Human Centipede in the bud, because while the movie’s premise makes me do the DDD: DO NOT WANT face every single time I think of it, it did supply me with the unprecedented entertainment of watching squirming movie reviewers trying to gently break said premise to their readers.

Comments

[sphynxle.livejournal.com]

Manos is seriously on the list of my favorites movies xD I'd actually have to vote TLA as it, beacause, as you said, at least Manos HAS an excuse of being miserable.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I used to run Northwestern's annual B-movie festival every year, so I have a soft spot for 'The Creeping Terror'. What's not to love? They lost the soundtrack, so they had it narrated instead. You can see the prop guys sneakers under the "monster" as it moves. The music, the horror, the terrifying dance sequence! We had audience members fashion a Creeping Terror out of their sleeping bags and lumber down the stairs and across the stage. On eyear there were two that either did battle or mated (we're not exactly sure, as it was hour 19 out of 24 that we'd been in the theatre)

That said, after years of B-Fest, I just never really got to like MST3K. If I have to listen to their stupid jokes, they should have to listen to mine!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly. Thre's something almost charmingly bad about it, and Monster A Go-Go, and even Manos, that makes it impossible for me to count any of them as the worst movies.

I grudgingly accept that you are not an MST fan. I do not understand, but hey, at least you know which movies I'm talking about!

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Darling, I OWN a copy of 'Night of the Lepus'!

As well as 'The Horror of Party Beach', 'Zombies on Broadway', and every Godzilla movie ever made. I actually stayed up late last Saturday because 'Mars Needs Women' was on channel 26 at 2AM.

My lack of appreciation of MST3K stems from a couple of items

1) We were doing it long beforehand
2) It works so much better with a live crowd
3) At NU we not only had very witty comeback lines but the freedom to do some prop stunts as well - I remember crawling along the catwalk above the audience so I could swing paper plates stapled to string over people's heads!
4) I actually don't 'get' a fair number of the MST3K comments because I am by choice ignorant of a lot of "pop" culture.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* Fair 'nough.

Honestly, I believe the birth of riffing came maybe half a second after the birth of performance art. (And to go back much more recently, apparently in the era of silent movies wiseacres took it upon themselves to fill in the dialogue themselves. Mel Blanc educates me!)

The prop stunts are replaced by sketch comedy (although with Joel especially, prop comedy featured greatly, too), which is a fine trade-off for me because I was never really into Audience Participation Time; I find it distracting and annoying, so therein our tastes differ. And I love the references for just that reason--I don't get all of them, but I get enough to know just how ridiculously obscure they are. (Everything from Walt Whitman to Talking Heads, history to Star Trek, finds its way in there.)

Night of the Lepus disappointed me because, c'mon, even the 50s atomic sci-fi had process shots! Bewildered bunnies gnawing on models just didn't cut it!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

(And to go back much more recently, apparently in the era of silent movies wiseacres took it upon themselves to fill in the dialogue themselves. Mel Blanc educates me!)

Jay Ward, of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame, even had a show of this: Fractured Flickers

(this icon has never been more apt)

[daiq.livejournal.com]

(And to go back much more recently, apparently in the era of silent movies wiseacres took it upon themselves to fill in the dialogue themselves. Mel Blanc educates me!)

One of the awesomest Aussie movies of all times is based on this premise, unfortunatly Hercules Returns is now out of print (or whatever they call movies that you can no longer buy on video or DVD) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107103/

[daiq.livejournal.com]

No, i lie, you CAN get the DVD, and i will be ordering it ASAP :D
http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-Returns-NON-USA-FORMAT-Reg-0/dp/B0013G0Y9M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1283086425&sr=8-1

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Castle of Fu Manchu has pride of place as my least favorite MST3k episode, at least, because the riffs can't save it from being mind-numbingly boring. Manos, on the other hand, winds up completely hilarious.

I haven't seen Legacy of Blood; the Cinematic Titanic I saw was War of the Insects (onscreen title: Genocide), and was a nonsensical and disjointed piece of crap (with a totally gratuitous downer ending), but I suspect it's not as terrible a film. At the very least it's less disgusting.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to say I just can't hate Manos. It's just too silly.

I'll have to see this War of the Insects to compare! (How are the live CT shows? I'm guessing they're pretty damn good.)

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I laughed so hard I cried. It was amazing.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Well, my favorite bad movie of all is Day of the Triffids. It's pretty awesome.

[nobleplatypus]

My favorite bad movie is "Hercules in New York," though it has not (to my knowledge) been riffed. I like how the DVD comes with extra layers of hilarity built right in (namely, the version where they dubbed over all of Ahnold's dialogue with a guy who sounds like he should be narrating a film strip about photosynthesis).

[packbat.livejournal.com]

...why did I look up The Human Centipede on Wikipedia? Why didn't it occur to me that "DDD: DO NOT WANT" was a warning?

p.s. DO NOT WANT :CCC

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was a REASON the reviewers were so reluctant to discuss it. (It got to be a running gag for me, actually--take a shot every time a critic tells you to STOP READING before they tell you what the movie's about.) Talk about movies playing troll, no?