Bride of the Monster (1955)

aka Bride of the Atom

How bad is it? It's an Ed Wood film with Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson, in other words, BAD.
Should you see it? Yes, though it's lesser Woods

The story behind this film is that it was going to be pitched to a studio and real actors were slated to appear in it, but Woods got an offer from a guy to pay for the film if his son could star. His son couldn't act. The plot's less formless than most Woods films and the dialog's not as strange. There's one very funny moment, as Lugosi wrestles with a very obviously fake octopus.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

How bad is it? It's a classic bad movie.

Should you see it? By all means.

A woman has an accident and her boyfriend saves her - well, just her head, which he keeps alive in his laboratory, along with the obligatory mutant in a closet. He goes looking for a sexy body to reattach her head to (never mind killing to do it) and goes on a rather seedy, but entertaining search. Meanwhile, the head's pretty ticked off at him and has plans of her own.

The Abomination (1986)

How bad is it? It's one of the all-time worst.
Should you see it? Yes, though it's gonna hurt.

This is an unheralded piece of great garbage, shot on videotape. The three minutes before the credits roll show everything you're going to see, with a waking-up-from-a-nightmare shot repeated dozens of times, all with a terrible synthesizer soundtrack. If you survive this, you'll enjoy the film.

 A sick woman is watching a televangelist, then coughs up a tumor and is well. While sleeping, her son eats the tumor! It reproduces and grows and is soon filling the house, with the son finding new victims to feed the monster. Parts of the monster come up out of really unlikely places, which is most of the fun of the film, along with the H. R. Pufnstuf/Little Shop of Horrors monster.

Nothing really makes sense and the film doesn't appear to have a resolution until the final credits roll and all is revealed (or is it?), both improving and ruining the film at the same time.

The Brainiac (1962)

aka El Baron del Terror

How bad is it? It's surreal. I think it's a good film, though others disagree.
Should you see it? Yes, if you're a fan of the unusual.

A count has been living for centuries on an asteroid and returns, sucking out people's brains with his long forked tongue, which causes his inflatable head to expand. He's going after revenge upon the descendants of those who punished him during the Spanish Inquisition. If you buy that premise, it's a very watchable and even enjoyable film.

Bride of the Gorilla (1957)

How bad is it? It's slightly lurid trash.
Should you see it? If you have nothing better to do.

This is a film where Raymond Burr thinks he might be turning into a beast. He kills someone and gets cursed and his love of the jungle (potted plants) makes him more animalistic as the film progresses. Lon Chaney shows up long enough to get a paycheck.

It's a melodrama disguised as a horror film and it's a fair melodrama. It also is the only American film with Giselle Werbisek, whose real name was apparently Gisela Werbiserk-Piffl, a truly great name.

Blood Shack (1971)

How bad is it? It's cheap and very poorly acted.
Should you see it? No.

Having decided not to watch any more films by Ray Dennis Steckler, I still ended up seeing this one (there will be several reviews of his films to come). A woman moves into a house that is supposedly haunted by "The Chooper," who turns out to be a knife-wielding maniac, played by Steckler himself. In the climactic scene, while chasing people, he seems to skip at one point! The dialog is stilted, poorly executed and dull. Sometimes it's fun to see what outfits Steckler's wife, Carolyn Brandt (who stars), will wear, but even that's of no interest here. There's a lot of filler of Steckler's children playing.

Again: see "The Incredibly Strange Creatures..." and skip the rest of Steckler's films.

Bahian Cinderella (1998)

aka Cinderela Baiana

How bad is it? It's generally regarded as the worst film ever made in Brazil.
Should you see it? No.

This is so obscure that I was unable to obtain a print with English subtitles and had someone who spoke Portuguese translate for me. His most frequent comment was, "Why are you making me watch this?!"

This is a fictionalized biopic of Carla Perez's rise from poverty to stardom as a dancer, starring Perez herself, along with her then boyfriend and a few others who later became celebrities in Brazil. The actor who portrays her agent overacts to an almost impossible extent, while others underact. We see Perez's mother's death from tuberculosis and kids dancing in the streets. There are a lot of dance sequences, as one would expect, but they are all quite dull.

The film has apparently become a cult target for parody in Brazil, but it holds little of interest to people anywhere else.