Eric's Bad Movies
Weekly columns written 2008-2014 -- the first 245 for Film.com, the last six for GeekNation. The point was to be funny rather than fair, and they're full of spoilers, so I don't consider them "reviews." What do I consider them? Delightful.
Chatroom
Hey, teens of today! You know what's super cool and dope? The Internet! But you know what's totally whack? Suicide. That's the rad message of the wicked awesome "Chatroom," a thriller aimed at you, th...
No Holds Barred
Many of our most talented and charismatic movie stars came to us from the world of professional wrestling. For example, there's Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! Actually, he is the only one. But Hulk Hogan ...
Stage Fright (aka Nightmares)
Many years ago, after Halloween introduced moviegoers to the pleasures of seeing horny young people stabbed to death by masked voyeurs, Hollywood was quick to meet the public's sudden demand for deriv...
ATM
Within the broad category of Thrillers there is the subsection of Thrillers That Are Set in Small, Confined Spaces That Only Require One Set and Can't Hold More Than a Few Characters and Are Therefore...
Amityville 3D
When I say "cinema's scariest haunted house," what do you think of? No, not that one. Not that one either. Try again. Yes, the Amityville house! That's right! The Long Island home where a man killed h...
Red Scorpion
Dolph Lundgren may not have been the most popular of the muscle-bound action stars of the 1980s, but he was definitely the most Swedish. Nobody else even came close, not even Van Damme, who was almost...
Texas Chainsaw 3D
"Texas Chainsaw 3D" was rushed into production when a Lionsgate executive realized that the six existing "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies all suffered from a tragic lack of being in 3D. Also, none of ...
A Dennis the Menace Christmas
Hey, kids! How would you like to see a holiday movie featuring your favorite li'l scamp, Dennis the Menace? Sounds great, right? No, not tennis, Dennis. Dennis the Menace. You know, from the comic str...
House at the End of the Street
Everybody loves Jennifer Lawrence! She gets giddy when she meets celebrities, she fell down at the Oscars, and she recently got a haircut. She's just like us! We recently got a haircut too! We are so ...
The Skulls III
Nobody remembers "The Skulls," the 2000 thriller about an Ivy League university's secret society that starred Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker. As with most things in which Paul Walker appears, all memo...
A Demon in My View
Anthony Perkins will forever be remembered as the man who played Norman Bates in "Psycho" and an improbable number of "Psycho" sequels (three). But he also left behind a rich, oily legacy of lunatic c...
Hammer of the Gods
Like many people, I have little interest in historical wars not involving Nazis or orcs, so I don't know much about the battles between the Vikings and the Saxons in England in the ninth century A.D. ...
The Quest
In 1996, having established himself as a poor actor with limited range, Jean-Claude Van Damme set out to prove he could also be bad at directing. The result of his quest was "The Quest," an semi-coher...
Dead in the Water
Hollywood is a land of wish fulfillment and never is that more true than in films like "Dead in the Water." This dim-witted quasi-thriller presents us with three vain, petty characters who deserve to ...
Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls
"Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls" has an impressive bad-movie pedigree behind it. First of all, it's from The Asylum, the straight-to-video quasi-studio (it's actually just a couple of guys ...
Munchie
If you took all the lousy movies about kids who befriend magical creatures and laid them end to end, that would be weird and useless. That's not how movies are measured. But there would be a lot of th...
Dinosaur Island
Some bad movies were inspired by specific other movies, usually good ones (although sometimes bad movies borrow from other bad movies, which seems like an obviously bad idea, but what do I know, I don...
BloodRayne: The Third Reich
Several years ago, you wisely chose not to see a movie called "BloodRayne," directed by German dummkopf-provocateur Uwe Boll, in which a 1700s Romanian human-vampire hybrid lady named Rayne went aroun...
The Devil Within Her
"This one doesn't want to be born!" That's what Dr. Donald Pleasence says at the beginning of "The Devil Within Her." Is he talking about the movie itself? No! The movie itself wants very much to be b...
Dracula 3000
"Dracula 3000" doesn't have anything to do with "Dracula 2000." They're both just bad movies about Dracula with the year they take place in added to the title to distinguish them from the other bad mo...
Shakma
Monkeys! They're Hollywood's favorite animal. Monkeys and their relatives (apes, gorillas, Clint Howard, etc.) have been featured in more movies than any other creature besides man, according to the B...
Silent Hill: Revelation
The movie "Silent Hill" has been a thorn in my side ever since it was released -- first because it wasn't good, and then because people kept citing it as the one video-game-based movie that was good. ...
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
Imagine you have settled in to watch something called "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn." Such a scenario may be difficult for you to conceive, but humor me here. Knowing nothing else about th...
Battlefield Earth (Eric’s Bad Movies)
It would be cruel to force anyone to make such a distinction, but if you HAD to compile a list of the worst movies John Travolta has ever been in, "Battlefield Earth" would definitely be in the top 50...
The Freedom of Silence
It's not considered "hip" or "groovy" to be a churchgoing Christian nowadays in these United Heathen States of America, especially with that Muslim atheist Nazi socialist Kenyan fascist devil-worshipp...
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
Do you remember Brandon Routh? He was the new Superman the last time they chose a new Superman, before the current new Superman. He made one movie, "Superman Returns," and then the Superman people wer...
Suburban Commando
In 2012, professional wrestler and long-haired bald man Hulk Hogan was embarrassed when a video surfaced of him doing sexies with a lady who had the good fortune not to be his wife. I didn't see the v...
Sasquatch (aka The Untold)
"Sasquatch" is the less imaginative but more descriptive title given to a schlocky horror film originally called "The Untold," in which Lance Henriksen and some people who are less famous but more che...
Misbegotten
"Misbegotten" is a sleazy, stupid direct-to-video thriller from 1998 playing on the fears and insecurities of couples who have babies via artificial insemination from anonymous sperm donors. What if o...
Sudden Death
"Sudden Death" is considered by many to be Jean-Claude Van Damme's best '90s movie, which it could very well be and still be a bad movie. This is the one where he plays a beloved hockey arena fire ins...
C.H.O.M.P.S.
I like it when children's movies have plots that involve events that would be very grave if they happened in regular movies, but because they're aimed at kids, the seriousness has to be glossed over. ...
Barney’s Great Adventure
Even the most desensitized aficionados of cinematic perversion cringe at the thought of "Barney's Great Adventure," a terrifying drama about three children who foolishly tamper with the dark powers of...
Chain Reaction
People have made fun of "Chain Reaction" for being the movie where Keanu Reeves plays a rocket scientist, but this is inaccurate and I won't stand for it. Keanu's character works with physicists, not ...
Casablanca
(Note the publication date.)
I'm too young to remember it, but you know what was apparently a big deal? World War II! It was such a big deal that while it was going on, most of the movies that came...
Lords of the Street
Our subject this week is "Lords of the Street," which was previously called "Jump Out Boys" for its theatrical release, which turned out not to exist. It stars DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, an...
Mr. Hush
If all I did was tell you what happens in "Mr. Hush," you might think it was a profoundly unsettling horror film in which the main character endures awful torment and heartbreak. You might think there...
Land of Doom
"Land of Doom" was made in the 1980s, which means there was a 35 percent chance it would take place in a post-apocalyptic future. This sort of movie was very common in the '80s, partly because of Cold...
A Talking Cat!?!
There is no universally agreed upon translation, but my best guess at interpreting the title of "A Talking Cat!?!" is that we are initially astonished by the idea of a cat who talks; this is quickly f...
Setup
What little marketing there was for "Setup," a 2011 straight-to-DVD crime thriller, focused on the presence of Bruce Willis, who has about 10 minutes of screen time. I understand why you'd take every ...
The Octagon
As you no doubt inferred from the title, "The Octagon" is about Chuck Norris saving his friends from terrorist ninjas. What else would you call a movie like that besides "The Octagon"? The film came e...
The Wraith
"The Wraith" is like "The Fast and the Furious" mixed with "Ghost Rider," except that that sounds amazing and "The Wraith" isn't. This meaty supernatural teenage melodrama stars Charlie Sheen, and com...
The Curse
Way to go, "The Curse." You get me all excited for a horror film about witches, or maybe about a girl getting her first period, and then you turn out to be about a meteor from outer space that makes p...
Creature
Louisiana was the first U.S. state to try to boost its local economy by offering tax incentives for film productions. "Come make ya movie down hyeah in Looziana!" the state's lawmakers said, all folks...
Joysticks
There was a movie in 1982 called "Porky's" that exposed a startling fact long hidden from public view: Teenage boys like to see women's breasts. With that cat out of the bag, filmmakers rushed to capi...
.com For Murder
As soon as the Internet started being used by mainstream society, people began looking for ways to make it terrifying and dangerous. This led to such horrors as the hamster dance and Geocities, as wel...
Mask of Death
Despite the impression given by movies and TV, most police officers go their entire careers without having to shoot anyone. That's fairly common knowledge. But did you know that it's also rare for a c...
Give My Regards to Broad Street
Paul McCartney was an extraordinarily wealthy man, one of the most successful songwriters in history and a charter member of rock 'n' roll's greatest, most influential band (Wings). Yet this was not e...
Carnival of Souls
"Carnival of Souls" was a low-budget horror film from 1962 that developed a cult following and influenced other directors in the genre. Since it was so well-regarded, the only reasonable thing to do w...
Children of the Corn
Since the dawn of cinema, filmmakers have strived to convey the important truth about kids, which is that they're evil and should not be trusted. Yes, "children are our future," as the great prophetes...
Jaws of Satan
In the olden days, if you wanted to make a horror movie about animals killing people, you basically had two options: the animals could be bigger than they're supposed to be, or there could be too many...
Case 39
"Case 39" has an interesting story behind it. Not in it, behind it. The story in it is stupid. The story behind it is interesting in that the movie was made in 2006, but then it fell behind a desk or ...
The Minis
The message of "The Minis" is that you can accomplish anything if you believe in yourself. I know this is the message because that platitude, or some variation of it, is spoken by the characters at le...
Abduction
As soon as plasticine llama-human hybrid Taylor Lautner became a household name in households where teenage girls live, the young "Twilight" star set out to prove that he can do more than take off his...
Terminal Velocity
A good way to come up with an action movie if you don't care whether it's any good and it's the '90s and Charlie Sheen is going to star in it is to just think of a cool-sounding title and hope for the...
The Phantom
The Phantom was a popular comic strip and movie serial in the 1930s and '40s, so it makes sense that Hollywood would produce a big-budget feature in 1996, after the target audience was dead. Making a ...
Wishmaster
For a horror fan, watching a movie that begins with the words "Wes Craven presents..." produces the same sense of despair that a comedy fan feels when a movie starts with "National Lampoon's." In both...
The Apparition
"The Apparition" marks a bold step forward in filmmaking. After decades of stubbornly resisting the influence of lobbyists and special-interest groups, Hollywood has finally made a movie about people ...
Lock Up
Throughout the 1980s, whenever Sylvester Stallone wasn't busy making a "Rocky" or a "Rambo," he would dial his agent's phone number, hold the receiver up to his mouth, and make a series of unintelligi...
King of the Camp
You probably remember the first time you saw "High School Musical," the way it thrilled you and changed your life and filled your heart with Hudgens. Some people in Canada saw it, too, and were inspir...
Chill Factor
A lot of people have joked about Cuba Gooding Jr.'s post-"Jerry Maguire," post-Oscar career, and how he's made almost nothing but bad movies since then. In the interest of fairness, I should point out...
Double Trouble
One of several grudges we have against Arnold Schwarzenegger is that his success in Hollywood made a lot of bodybuilders think that they, too, could be movie stars without being able to act or pronoun...
The Mod Squad
Something that used to happen a lot in the 1990s is that an executive at a movie studio would be rummaging around in the studio's attic and find an old trunk with some keepsakes in it, and one of thes...
Theodore Rex
Whoopi Goldberg is best known today for being one of the hosts of "The View," a show you never watch yet somehow keep hearing about. Before that she held the coveted center position on the political d...
Hot to Trot
John Candy did a lot of funny things in his life, like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Uncle Buck," in addition to the many sad and tragic things he did, like "Nothing But Trouble" and dying. Bu...
Cherry 2000
Of all the post-apocalyptic films made in the 1980s, only "Cherry 2000" dared to explore the effects that the collapse of civilization would have on the supply of sex robots. The prognosis is grim, my...
Ice Cream Man
One of the ways that unimaginative people come up with ideas for horror movies is to take something normally perceived as harmless and have it start killing people. That's why there are movies about k...
Karate Dog
When parodying bad movies, no intentionally terrible idea is so absurd that there does not already exist a real movie that is worse. I had known in this in my heart for a long time, but it was only re...
C Me Dance
One of the problems facing modern-day Christians is the fact that so many of their fellow modern-day Christians make them look bad. For every humble soul who genuinely tries to do good to others, care...
The Initiation
The stereotype about 1980s horror movies is that they're all about horny, dumb teenagers who get stabbed to death by psychopaths, and that the movies are full of gratuitous female nudity that was clea...
Ringmaster
Did you know that "The Jerry Springer Show" is still on the air? It is! The syndicated trash cavalcade is just wrapping up its 21st season and is contracted for two more. This surprises me -- not beca...
BMX Bandits
Today Nicole Kidman is known as a translucent ice-based life form who occasionally stars in movies and briefly pretended to be in love with Tom Cruise. But in 1983 she was just a frizzy-haired 16-year...
The House on Haunted Hill
Among the many disappointing things about "The House on Haunted Hill" is that it promises a haunted hill and doesn't deliver one. Oh, the house is haunted, sure. The house is haunted from here to next...
Color of Night
"Color of Night" begins with a pretty woman in a nice dress sobbing while she applies her makeup. She looks like she's getting ready to go out on a date. But then she smears on her lipstick in a comic...
Spellcaster
Back in the 1980s, before there was YouTube or the Internet or electricity, a major way for young people to amuse themselves was to watch "music videos" on a basic-cable channel called "Music Televisi...
Slappy and the Stinkers
Not to judge a book by its cover, but when you write a column about bad movies and you stumble across something called "Slappy and the Stinkers," you tend to feel like half the work has been done for ...
Tentacles
"Tentacles" is a cheap "Jaws" rip-off about a giant octopus. It was made at a time when everybody was trying to think of which giant sea creatures other than sharks could theoretically terrify moviego...
Bulletproof
Today's moviegoers know that Adam Sandler stars almost exclusively in unbearable comedies that are devoid of wit, humor, and all that is good, and that these movies are always "written" (to the extent...
The Dungeonmaster
So there was a cheesy sci-fi/fantasy movie in the mid-1980s called "Ragewar," but when it was released in theaters they changed the title to "The Dungeonmaster" to capitalize on the current popularity...
Hard Target
A lot of bad movies star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and a lot of bad movies are ripoffs of "The Most Dangerous Game," but "Hard Target" is the only bad movie that is both of those things. It's also one of...
Lisa
You kids today are spoiled. If you want to watch a dumb movie about women being terrorized by men, you can just turn on the Lifetime Movie Network. But such conveniences did not exist in the ancient t...
Double Dragon
Here's a good example of how the movie business is an unpredictable crapshoot. On Nov. 4, 1994, an adaptation of the video game Double Dragon was released in theaters. It was terrible, and it only mad...
Standing Ovation
I almost feel bad making fun of "Standing Ovation." Not that it isn't terrible. It is terrible. Sweet merciful mangos, is it ever terrible. It's about a bunch of screeching New Jersey tween girls who ...
Hunk
There is an actor you have not heard of named John Allen Nelson who appeared in the TV soap operas "Loving" and "Santa Barbara" in the early 1980s, playing such men as Duke Rochelle and Warren Lockrid...
Under the Cherry Moon
Prince's 1984 film "Purple Rain" was successful with audiences and critics because they accepted it for what it was: a 110-minute music video featuring music they liked. It didn't matter that the stor...
Steel Dawn
One of our favorite pastimes is imagining what things will be like after the inevitable breakdown of society and the annihilation of most of the world's population. It is fun to speculate about our do...
The Net
One of the things Hollywood is really good at is rushing movies into production to capitalize on hot new trends. In the late 1970s, for example, there were tons of movies about disco. The 1950s had a ...
Body of Evidence
Pop superstar Madonna has always been more interested in maintaining a provocative image than in singing songs or using her real accent, but her emphasis on sex became especially pronounced in the ear...
Roller Boogie
In the past, when people have asked for suggestions of movies they should watch to satisfy their cravings for roller-skating, disco, bony teenagers, and the girl from "The Exorcist," I've been at a lo...
The Gate
One of the reasons for those "call before you dig" signs is to keep people from inadvertently cutting through power lines, but the main reason is to keep people from accidentally opening portals to he...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Within the category of adolescent reptilian comic book characters who are horrifying freaks of nature and skilled in ancient fighting arts, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are by far the most importa...
The Allnighter
I have nothing bad to say about The Bangles, the '80s rock group that consisted entirely of women and wasn't The Go-Go's. "Walk Like an Egyptian," "Manic Monday," and "Eternal Flame" are perfectly acc...
Molly
After being nominated for an Oscar for her performance in "Leaving Las Vegas," Elisabeth Shue called her agent and said, "Now is the time for me to play a retarded woman who falls in love with her bro...
Solar Crisis
"Solar Crisis" bravely assigns itself a plot with the highest possible stakes -- the destruction of every living thing on Earth! -- and addresses it by having a lot of men stand around a spaceship bri...
Happy Birthday to Me
Slasher films were all the rage in the early 1980s, probably because of the pent-up hostility left by Jimmy Carter and disco music. Some of the entries in the genre were scary and entertaining, like a...
Hercules in New York
Some of our younger readers might not be aware that Arnold Schwarzenegger, famed governor of California and impregnator of maids, was once a movie star. Yes! It may be hard to believe, given his trick...
Top Dog
When I heard that Chuck Norris had made a movie about a loose-cannon cop who gets partnered with a dog, I thought: Well, sure. They made a lot of cheesy movies like that in the 1980s. Then I found out...
Cyborg
What's that you say? You've got a brutally violent movie called "Cyborg" that stars famed oily Belgian Jean-Claude Van Damme? Count me in! I'd love to see Van Damme play a cyborg! Oh, he's not the cyb...
Butterfly (1982)
Give the people what they want! That is Hollywood's mantra. In 1982, what people wanted was a gross story about a teenage harlot using her feminine wiles to seduce her own father. Goodness knows why t...
Magic in the Water
Every year, Hollywood produces several hundred family-oriented movies about workaholic fathers who vow not to neglect their children anymore after something zany happens, often involving an animal. Th...
Furry Vengeance
Tragically, "Furry Vengeance" is not a movie in which people who derive sexual pleasure from dressing up as animals execute deadly revenge on their oppressors. I think we can all agree that such a mov...
