Hard Ticket to Hawaii
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Considered one of the greatest B movies ever made, Hard Ticket To Hawaii is guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser at any bad movie viewing party.
Two operatives — played by actual Playboy centerfold models who are working undercover as local tourist guides — get caught up in an illegal Hawaiian diamond exchange and run afoul of a dangerous drug lord who becomes obsessed with getting his revenge. With the help of a couple of hunky male companions from “The Agency” will our plucky heroes be able to foil the bad guys while also making time to relax in a hot tub? And will they be able to avoid running into the giant anaconda snake that’s gotten loose on the island after it was infected with toxins by cancer-ridden rats? There’s only one way to find out.
Gymkata
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You have to feel for the production designer of this film. This individual was tasked with and ultimately failed to insert gymnastic equipment organically into the world of Parmistan, the fictional setting of Gymkata. What is Gymkata, you ask? It’s a fighting style combining karate and gymnastics perfected by our protagonist Jonathan Cabot.
Cabot is played by real-life Olympian Kurt Thomas who seems to be as great at gymnastics as he is bad at acting. Don’t bother trying to follow the story — the bones are there (win a deadly game, earn an incredible prize, save the princess) but it’s just an excuse for a couple of terribly fun action scenes.
Miami Connection
Rick Kern/WireImage
A film that was once thought lost but was re-discovered by a programmer at the Alamo Drafthouse, Miami Connection has now become one of the great midnight movies and is an absolute hoot. Directed and starring Korean martial artist YK Kim, the film follows the exploits of Dragon Sound, a band comprised of five college friends trained in Taekwondo. There are some silly musical performances, ninjas on motorcycles, and a dramatic monologue that is guaranteed to leave you in stitches.
The movie is genuinely bad, but it’s also incredibly sincere and charming in the way that only those very special bad movies can be.
The Stuff
studio/moviestillsdb
Another forgotten 80s classic, The Stuff is admittedly barely a movie in that there are scenes cut for time that helped the plot… you know… make sense. The movie concerns an alien substance that gets discovered and then marketed as the next big snack craze but turns out to turn consumers into body-snatcher-type versions of themselves.
At less than 90 minutes the movie breezes by, and while it doesn’t work as a pure horror movie there’s enough to laugh at and enjoy here that it’s worth adding to any “bad movie night” rotation. But be warned, when it comes to The Stuff, enough is never enough.
Batman and Robin
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Drawing more from the 1960s Adam West Batman TV show than the Burton films, director Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin is a cartoon come to life, brimming with garish sets and ridiculous costumes (yes, this is the one with the nipples on the Bat Suit).
Thankfully, the cast appears to be in on the joke. Sure, the dialogue is bad, but at least George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Alicia Silverstone seem to be having a great time. The former California governor in particular is making a meal of his two hundred or so ice puns. The Dark Knight this is not, but it’s a heck of a ride.
The Happening
Happy_Evil_Dude/MovieStillsDb
Years after it was a massive flop, M. Night Shyamalan has said that he always intended The Happening to have the vibe of a campy B movie from the 1950s. If that is the case and not some self-preservation-backpedaling then he succeeded.
Starring Mark Wahlberg as a high school science teacher, The Happening is the movie where (spoiler alert) plants begin to fight back against humans, causing them to commit suicide via some toxin. The whole thing is played completely straight, which makes watching a scene where a man feeds his arms to a lion much funnier than anyone producing the film probably intended.
Southland Tales
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After the massive success of his first film, Donnie Darko, director Richard Kelly used his newly earned Hollywood juice to produce an ambitious, edgy, politically-charged, big-swing science fiction multimedia experience called Southland Tales.
It is a singular experience. You rarely find a movie of this budget and scale where every choice the director made was the wrong one. It is genuinely impressive.
Recently people have attempted to rehab this film and put it in the category of “misunderstood but brilliant.” Do not listen to them. Southland Tales is an irredeemable mess. But if you like that kind of thing you have to see it.
Night of the Creeps
movienutt/MovieStillsDb
Writer and director Fred Dekker appears to have taken a maximalist approach with his debut film Night of the Creeps. It isn’t a zombie film, an alien movie, a slasher, an 80s boob comedy, or an homage to 1950s B movies — it’s all of those things and more.
While the story is ostensibly about the two college students who accidentally unleash the alien slugs from a frozen corpse that take over a fraternity, the real reason to watch the movie is veteran curmudgeon actor Tom Atkins who plays the surly policeman assigned to investigate the disturbance. You’ve never seen someone begrudgingly answer the phone more funnily, we promise.
Chopping Mall
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You might see the title Chopping Mall and dismiss it as another 80s slasher cashing in on the craze. But it is so much more than that.
The movie follows a group of teens throughout one night when a planned sexy sleepover inside of a mall furniture store is interrupted by a lightning storm that short circuits the two new robot mall security drones and turns them into slowly moving, trash can-shaped killing machines.
The movie is a total blast. At 79 minutes it does not overstay its welcome. It also features an all-timer head explosion to rival the one from Scanners.
