The New Republic

As bad as this movie undoubtedly is, it cannot be worse than my all - time favorite, Eegah! (1962). I came across it somewhere around 1973 on a weekend night at my friend Gary W.'s house. It is about the one remaining trog in the world who meets - on a dark road - this college girl. He kidnaps her, takes her to his cave , shows her his ancestor's skulls and falls in love. It starred the immortal Arch Hall, Jr. and was directed by Arch Hall, Sr. The performance by Marilyn Manning has to be the campiest in filmic history. The shaving scene is the most hilarious moment in the movie. Not far behind is the party - crashing part. Gary and I were laughing so hard we could barely function. We still talk about that movie. By all means watch it, if you haven't already, Mr. Orr.

- liberal reformer

May 15, 2008 at 4:36pm

No.  No, no, no.  The worst movie of all time is "The Island of Dr. Moreau" starring Marlon Brando.  It's bad on a wonderful, grand scale.  It's also an interesting philosophical exercise.  At any given moment you can stop and say that it has gotten as bad as it can possibly get.  The writing, acting and direction are so unbelievably terrible that the mind cannot conceive of ways in which it can get worse.  And then, inexorably, it gets worse, on a steady curve of badness.

I've heard from a friend whose opinion I trust that "Battlefield Earth" may actually be worse, but I don't want to inflict the damage on my soul.

- drdannyu

May 15, 2008 at 4:55pm

Drdannyu: Have you actually seen Eegah!? I bet not. Watch it and then repeat your mantra. The Island at least had Brando. Eegah! had Arch Hall, Jr. And Marilyn Manning. And nothing else.

- liberal reformer

May 15, 2008 at 5:15pm

But libref, a movie titled "Eegah!" clearly is not meant to be great art.

Which is why "Shining Through" remains the worst movie of all time. It was meant to be a good movie. No, a Serious Movie. An Important Movie. It fails in every regard, from the ham-lipped "acting" of Melanie Griffith to the nonsensical plotlines to the brain-freezing editing to the pure corniness and ahistoricity of the details (right up to the end, in which the Nazi guards stop shooting at Our Heroes the millisecond they step across the Swiss border, not that it mattered because, being Nazis, they were unable to hit Our Heroes despite firing numerous machine guns at them for nearly a minute.) The trailer, preserved online as a warning to future generations:

www.youtube.com/watch

"Shining Through" is the rare movie where the experience of watching it actually reduces your IQ and your capacity for critical judgment. You could kill a man simply by forcing him to watch "Shining Through" again and again; eventually his mind would empty of all learned content, and on the next viewing the movie would suck the hardwired instructions out of his reptile brain, his body would forget how to circulate blood, and he would expire.

A close runner-up is "Arlington Road," which is redeemed only by ending with one of the more spectacularly realistic explosions in movie history.

- rhubarbs

May 15, 2008 at 5:47pm

Battlefield Earth is so bad it can't even be made more entertaining by mocking it, Mystery Science Theater style.  That's a high bar.  I'm pretty sure I saw Eegah on MST, and if you ask me it doesn't hold a candle to Manos: The Hands of Fate.  Now THAT is excruciating.

- adaglas

May 15, 2008 at 5:50pm

Soooo many comments.

1)  The presence of Brando in "The Island of Dr. Moreau" only makes it more tragic, because he has clearly lost his marbles and his performance is one of the grander disasters of the film.

2)  I haven't seen "Shining Through," though I really enjoyed the novel.  However, in the interest of fairness, I spent Passover at the author's house this year, so I'm inclined to be charitable.

3)  "Manos" doesn't count, because (if I recall correctly) it starred (as well as having been written and directed by) a Texas fertilizer salesman.  "Island," in addition to Brando, starred a matinee idol (Val Kilmer), a critically-acclaimed British character actor (David Thewlis) and a pretty, up-and-coming starlet (Fairuza Balk).  Plus, it's based on a classic novel, and was directed by John Frankenheimer of "Manchurian Candidate" fame.  It had no excuse for being as bad as it was, and yet it was a lurching train wreck of a movie.  

- drdannyu

May 15, 2008 at 6:06pm

Wow, rhubarbs.  That is a terrible trailer.

- drdannyu

May 15, 2008 at 6:09pm

I saw both Eegah and Manos on MST 3K, and they were masterpieces in their own special ways. But Battlefield Earth is really in a class by itself: If Travolta had merely put 73 million one-dollar bills in a pile, lit them on fire, and filmed it, he would have created a work of art more aesthetically, narratively, and philosophically compelling. It should be required viewing for anyone who doubts mankind's capacity for foolishness.

Shining Through is awfully worthy of mention too, though: the only film I can recall in which a World War was to be won with a grandmother's strudel recipe. But its greatest crime was perpetrated not by the movie itself but by the trailer, which borrowed, and forever besmirched, Carter Burwell's magnificent score from Miller's Crossing...

- Chris Orr

May 15, 2008 at 6:11pm

drdannyu, one should never hold the quality of an adapted movie against (or in favor of!) the quality of the novel on which it was based. I've only heard good things about "Shining Through" the book, and if it is a good book, then that only magnifies the badness of the movie. I've never walked out of a movie before, but I would have walked out of "Shining Through" had the group I saw it with not been the only people in the theater. Instead of walking out, we went "Mystery Science Theater" on it and mockingly catcalled the last half of the film.

It's a really, really bad movie. I'm sure the book does not have the lead character walk halfway across Nazi Germany in high heels overnight, after her cover as an American spy is blown, only to walk straight up to the leader of the anti-Nazi underground's front door in broad daylight to beg for his help. In the movie, that happens. It's that bad.

- rhubarbs

May 15, 2008 at 6:24pm

No.  No, in the book, that doesn't happen.  In the book, the main character has a pretty awesome scene where she ices a bad guy, though.  It happens to be my favorite literary bad-guy death.

And Chris, I've heard that "Battlefield Earth" is so bad, it hurts one's soul.  That every shot is canted, and every transition is a wipe.  But I love the dollar bill comparison.  

- drdannyu

May 15, 2008 at 6:46pm

Yes, but is THE HAPPENING bad enough to justify a book about how terrible it is?  

Did anyone here read THE MAN WHO HEARD VOICES, about the making of LADY IN THE WATER?

I actually kind of liked SIGNS, and felt really cheated and tricked by SIXTH SENSE.  UNBREAKABLE was good.  But, man, after THE VILLAGE, Shyamalan has been on a steep decline toward (into?) irrelevance.

- kerouac9

May 15, 2008 at 7:09pm

We made it through Battlefield Earth alive, but badly wounded, and for some reason attempted to watch the commentary track.  Let me tell you, if you thought watching the staggering height of John Travolta's bloated, Scientology-spouting, noseplug-donning wad of crazy (yes, with incessant star-wipes) was bad, try listening to a pretentious, weirdly-accented douche explaining why all of it is brilliant.  I think we lasted four minutes.

Overdrawn At The Memory Bank, inexplicably starring Raul Julia, was another noteworthy piece of crap-shaped crap.

- adaglas

May 15, 2008 at 7:37pm

As someone with loyalties to both the novel Shining Through and its author, let me be the first to hop on the bandwagon lambasting the movie adapted from it. It might be the only movie in which Melanie Griffith is less convincing than she is in A Stranger Among Us, in which she inflitrates that Hasidic community. It's morally repugnant, implausible, etc. Feh.

Although, really, Battlefield Earth (motto: No Camera Angle Left Uncanted!) and Island of Dr. Moreau are, I feel, in a different league of Big Budget Bad.

- epicciuto

May 15, 2008 at 9:41pm

Oh my God, ada. I had conveniently forgot I ever watched Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I curse you for reminding me.

- epicciuto

May 15, 2008 at 9:42pm

I'M INTERFACED!!!!!

- adaglas

May 15, 2008 at 10:17pm

I hated Sixth Sense, so I guess I should leave the rest alone.

I loved the MST3K of Eegah!, which I saw in the early nineties, but can still remember Arch Hall Jr. smiling and waving goodbye to the girl at the gas pump while Joel voice-overs "Sorry about the face!"

- psantillana

May 16, 2008 at 1:50am

Sorry to 'jack the thread, but that last line in the article really got me:

"I'm already telling myself that "The Last Airbender" will be fascinating because its an adaptation rather than an original creation. That'll help, right? Because "The Happening" just makes me want to cry."

Wait...wha'?  Ok, I like Shyamalan, even now, but I LOVE "Avatar", and if he's as bad as he's been lately, then I don't want him to touch it.  And what the hell is wrong with the show as it stands?  This isn't some Pokemon or Dragonball Z, where you have to make a movie so you can sell more toys.  It's far and away the best animated action series I've ever seen.   The premise is sound, as is the explanation of magical (bending) abilities.  The fighting is well-choreographed, by people with real knowledge of Chinese martial arts.  The humor is fresh and the characters well-fleshed.  Why do we need a movie at all?  What could it possibly add?

- dhauck

May 16, 2008 at 1:13pm