Andy Sidaris may be the Alfred Hitchcock of So Bad It’s Good movies. His “Bullets, Bombs, and Babes” style flicks all follow a fairly standard pattern. This sort of movie has a specific target audience: bored twenty something college males. The movies are direct to video and rented by folks tempted by the women wielding weapons on the box covers. The low budget surely means it’s easier for the film to make back its investment.

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The common denominator with bad horror movies is they’re simply not scary. In Ghost Ship, I found this true for two reasons. First, the characters are insanely stupid; and because they get themselves into dumb situations, it’s like, well, what happy place did you think you’d find on a dark, damp, abandoned ocean liner floating in the icy Pacific? Now you’re going to die; ooh, not scary. Second, the evil creature revealed as the mastermind behind the haunty stuff is quite non-scary. The result of un-spooky threats means that which is meant to be suspenseful ends up pro-boring.

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Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls can only be weakly described as psychedelic-musical-camp-soft-porn-satire. The wacky masterpiece was directed by Russ Meyer (admirer of top heavy actresses) featuring a screenplay written by Roger Ebert (yes, the movie critic with the up or down thumb). They were hired to create a sequel to Valley of The Dolls, a movie adaptation of a best selling book, but the author wanted nothing to do with the project. Hence the disclaimer at the start which denies any relationship to that also bad film.

The movie follows three women in a rock group that travel to Los Angeles for fame and fortune, documenting the hip, groovy, funky, heavy happenings they encounter in psychedelic late-sixties California. As with many bad films, the style oscillates wildly between genres. But this dream world - where no one blinks and is populated with big hair, bright smiles, and ample assets - I found quite hilarious.

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My eyes are really burning now, but there’s much laughter. Reform School Girls features tough women acting manly, senseless violence, a crayon-on-construction-paper plot, tortured emotion, cat fights, prison riots, ridiculous camera angles, over-acting, pointless underwear and nudity, a low budget, and cheesy soundtrack to boot. Did I leave anything out? Think 1986 on infinite repeat over night on some pay cable channel. It’s bad and badderer.

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Seems like most of the films entered in the contest have been horror movies. Still, Ghost Rider is the best out of the So Bad It’s Good movies I’ve seen, but not because it’s awful. It’s actually okay - although I’m glad I didn’t pay good money to see it in the theater. Even as a rental it’s a waste of time.

Based on a Marvel comic book, Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage), a stunt motorcyclist, sells his soul to the Mephistopheles in order to cure his father of cancer. Mephistopheles transforms Blaze into the Ghost Rider and commands him to fight the devil’s son, Blackheart who wants to create a hell on Earth. Along the way, Blaze’s lifetime love Roxanne (Eva Mendez) discovers and must come to terms with the fact that she’s in love with a burning skeleton that rides a motorcycle and fights off denizens of the underworld.

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Recently on Market Street I saw a mother shoving her screaming child into a stroller, hysterically shrieking all sorts of dramatics about teaching children to behave. Perhaps this was justified, but to an outside observer it just looked like a big person beating the crap out of a smaller, weak, helpless one. The added layer of public humiliation just made me feel terrible.

Well, if mom keeps it up, the child eventually grows up and makes a film like Mommie Dearest., and I felt terrible watching it. It’s based on a tell-all memoir written by Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, Christina. Joan Crawford, the famous actress, is played by Faye Dunaway (whom I really loved in Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown), but here, she plays a noxious hag.

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I’ve seen Plan 9 From Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood, three times now. It never gets any better. It is beyond suck, and truly crosses over the line into “must see” territory. Pretty much everything about it is horribly stupor inducing, and often laughable.

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Argh. After watching this flick I feel I’ve been blinded - my eyes picked out by ravens.

I’m not a horror fan, mostly because scary movie stuff has a bad habit of becoming funny if it isn’t executed well. Unconvincing costumes, fake blood, and terrible acting can all sink the threat of impending doom. Tombs of the Blind Dead is yet another entry in the Webomatica bad movie contest, and it’s pretty much both, and the film’s title could have also included “tone deaf” and “dumb.”

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Uh… okay… this movie made me angry. I actually gave up on it halfway, and only endured the rest for the sake of the contest.

First, I don’t know much about Tom Green except he pioneered an MTV style of “shock” humor, appealing to teenage boys the age of twelve. I am not twelve, but I can imagine the state of mind: everything representing adult life “sucks” and the coolest thing ever is one of your friends destroying a classroom while riding a skateboard, swearing profusely, hitting adults with a long phallic object (a stick, a sausage… anything long and hard) and chanting “bum bum” and “ding dong.”

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So… It’s time for another Webomatica Blog Contest.

The prize this time is similar to the last contest: $20 Amazon Gift Certificate.

The contest is pretty simple and somewhat self-serving, as I’ll hope to get several blog posts out of it. It’s a so-bad-its-good movie contest.

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