As there seems to be a demand for information and caustic commentary regarding movies which are so bad that they somehow attain a certain level of grandeur, I will employ this ongoing feature to present some of the dopiest and most absurd movies imaginable.
Monster From Green Hell (1958) ✪
Perhaps the most absurd of the “giant insect” cycle of the 1950s is this endearingly goofy but very dull tale of giant wasps loose in Africa. Scientists shoot a monkey, wasps, crab spiders and a guinea pig into space to test their reactions to space radiation. The rocket stays in space for some forty hours before landing in Africa, and six months later Africans are being slaughtered. The scientists (Jim Davis and Robert E. Griffin) travel to Africa, evade some angry villagers — in very impressive scenes “borrowed” from 1939’s Stanley and Livingstone — and try to destroy giant wasps (with no mention of the other animals) with grenades.
The wasps themselves look awful; they change scale and are never convincing. Most of the time they can’t even fly! There is one stop-motion animation sequence in which a wasp is attacked by a python; it is brief, underdeveloped and compares badly to the similar scene in King Kong that so obviously inspired it. The ending sequence is color-tinted and double exposed, but it still looks ridiculous.
Can’t Stop the Music (1980) ✪
Producer Allan Carr attempted to duplicate the success of his 1978 musical Grease with this witless malarkey about the origins of the singing group “Village People.” It would be one thing to make a movie about how the group formed and found success, but the movie isn’t really about them at all (some of the members aren’t even named), and ignores the obvious fact of their gay lifestyle and fan appeal.
No, the stars of this musical are young disc jockey / song writer Steve Guttenberg, retired model Valerie Perrine and tax lawyer Bruce Jenner. Also, Paul Sand, Tammy Grimes, June Havoc, Barbara Rush and Marilyn Sokol. Thankfully, none of them are called upon to sing. Bruce Jenner? Yes, the handsome Olympic athlete who proves that he can neither act in any realistic manner nor keep a beat.
Five or six songs are performed by Village People, who were at the height of their popularity at the time. They do perform “Y.M.C.A.” in a gymnastic, homoerotic setting, in which there are glimpses of nudity, both male and female (the film is PG). The final, title song is interminable and makes one wonder whether the real title of Nancy Walker’s film should have been Can’t Stop the Movie.
John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1964) ½
Movies created to capitalize on timely subjects can lose their appeal very quickly after the fact, particularly if they are as dumb as the Cold War comedy John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! U-2 spy plane pilot Richard Crenna lands in the Middle Eastern country of Fawzia, where the mumbling king (Peter Ustinov, in perhaps his worst-ever performance) recruits him to train a football squad to take on that of Notre Dame University (which sued the filmmakers after seeing the film!). Shirley MacLaine adds her frenetic humor and is very easy on the eyes, and the supporting cast boasts Harry Morgan, Jim Backus, Telly Savalas, Jackie Coogan, Scott Brady, Charles Lane, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Jerry Orbach and others. Look fast for James Brolin and Teri Garr in bits. Written by William Peter Blatty years before he hit paydirt with The Exorcist, this comedy barely rates a chuckle.
Meet the Hollowheads (1989) ✪
There aren’t many movies as downright weird as this futuristic / alternate universe comedy. The plot is simple: a working man (John Glover) brings his new boss home to dinner to meet the family. But this is no ordinary world! Everything is delivered through tubes, meals are made from disgusting organisms, and Bobcat Goldthwait shows up a police officer! Moreover, the boss (Richard Portnow) is a sex fiend who goes after Glover’s wife (Nancy Mette) and his young teenage daughter (Juliette Lewis). Although this film is seriously disturbed, it’s rated PG. The set design is really quite imaginative, and great care was taken to create an alternative reality, though it seems rather pointless.
The Devil’s Rain (1975) ✪ ½
This kooky, all-star entry into the occult is neither scary nor spooky. A devil worshipper (Ernest Borgnine, at times wearing a ridiculous ram’s head costume) wants his directory of believers back so that he can free them from “the devil’s rain” — a big bottle with ram’s horns — where they have been confined for some three hundred years. Does this make any sense at all? It doesn’t matter, not with William Shatner, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Eddie Albert, Keenan Wynn, John Travolta (in his first film, barely recognizable) and, of course, Borgnine chewing the scenery. “They had no faces!” whispers one frightened witness. Actually, they have no eyes (behind unconvincing masks), and in an eight-minute bravura finale, they all melt when exposed to “the devil’s rain.” Released at the height of the occult film phase, this relic is just plain goofy.