Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (2001)

How bad is it? Not bad at all, unless sacrilege bothers you.
Should you see it? Yes.

One-upping Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, I guess, this film has the Son of God in the present day, teeming up with Mexican wrestler Santo (sadly, not the original Santo) to fight vampires who attack lesbians in Canada. There is, wait for it... a musical number. The film has energy to spare and enough laughs to keep the movie going, though the premise is pretty thin. Messages from bowls of ice cream, sand castle representations of the universe and a clown car full of kickboxing agnostics are just some of the things that make an appearance. I think this film's too good to be considered "so bad it's good," but it has a large number of detractors who found it tiresome after a while.

Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)

How bad is it? It's one of the more enjoyable SyFy originals, which means it's bad.
Should you see it? If you're in the mood for a shark attack film, sure.

Unlike the standard SyFy shark film, where there's only the inherent cheapness and attack scenes, this film aspires to be a lampoon of Jersey Shore and it does a creditable job! Shore's Vinny has a role, as do other New Jersey Italian stalwarts like the Sopranos' Paulie Walnuts and Joey Fatone and even Paul Sorvino. The story has a drilling company's vibrations stirring giant albino bull sharks from the ocean depths to attack people. Interestingly, there were famous shark attacks on the Jersey Shore in 1916, so there's something to this idea beyond ripping off "Jaws," which is followed so closely that the mayor refuses to close the beach on July 4th. The guidos aren't just chum for the sharks, but they're the heroes, battling preppies, the drilling company and the sharks - which they attack with fireworks and shotguns. Yes, it's stupid and crudely made, but having extremely low expectations going into this, I was pleasnatly surprised.

Jailbait Babysitter (1977)

How bad is it? Imagine porn without sex and you're about right.
Should you see it? No.

This film would be forgotten, except that John Goodman makes his first screen appearance, in a rainbow afro wig at a Halloween party, in it. There's been debate about this point, but Goodman himself once said he was in it. It also got paired with SuperVan in a release.

A 17 year-old (played by an older actress) refuses to sleep with her boyfriend. Then a group of his friends show up and start partying. There's some action, some stuff gets broken, she hits a guy with a blunt object. The girl runs off and for reasons impossible to elucidate, ends up living with a hooker. She ends up hooking - yes, the same girl who wouldn't sleep with her boyfriend. Her first client dies of a heart attack and she gets scared straight. She runs back to her boyfriend and he saves her from revenge from the guy she hit earlier.

Some of the film is shot adequately, but most is not, suggesting more than one cameraman (and equipment). The whole thing suggests it's going to turn into porn, but doesn't. The director also made "Grave of the Vampire," which is pretty good, but also made a bunch of uninteresting trash; this is borderline.

International Guerillas (1990)

aka International Gorillay

How bad is it? It's so bad I can't tell if it's a parody or not.
Should you see it? If you speak Urdu and aren't an Islamic militant and have three hours, maybe.

Three men in Batman costumes chase identical Salman Rushdie clones, get crucified (with their mom!), are rescued by divine lightning and then Rushdie is attacked by Holy Books.

Really.

After the fatwa on Rushdie, this film came out marking him as a mastermind out to kill all Muslims. The three brothers who are criminals at the start of the film are made heroes. There are also five musical numbers. The film runs almost three hours - and the credits come in 1/3 the way through - and there are the usual boom mikes and continuity errors. The strangest thing, and this is a very very strange movie, is that the women are all portrayed as sex objects, which seems to be contrary to the philosophy of the film.

Inbred Rednecks (2001)

How bad is it? It's very bad, but some (some) of the badness was intentional.
Should you see it? If 2 1/2 hours of farts and boogers with 4 good laughs is enough for you, yes.

Joseph P. Warren wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in this film, which he hoped would be the next generation of bad taste film after John Waters went semi-legit. It's about cockfighting and a giant rooster created by, ahem, rustic "gene-splicing." The "that's the biggest cock I've ever seen" jokes get tiresome, but there are moments that are really funny. The death of the little person, "Sweet Meat," is probably the best and I love the fact that he's played by a man walking on his knees. The gross-out humor is extreme, but not particularly funny and the movie just... never... ends, clocking in at 135-140 minutes. The most remarkable thing about the film is that the characters, while sketchy in every sense of the word, are somewhat endearing.

The Immoral Three (1975)

How bad is it? For a Doris Wishman film, not bad - in other words, terrible.
Should you see it? Sure.

The TV show "Charlie's Angels" seems to have borrowed from Ted Mikel's "The Doll Squad," but there was another film about three attractive detectives that came out at the same time. When I heard that there was a sequel to Wishman's "Double Agent 73," I'd always assumed that people thought "Deadly Weapons" was meant; I seem to be the only one who didn't get the DVD package with all three films. My confusion was caused by Chesty Morgan not appearing in this one.

Chesty Morgan was apparently a nightmare to work with, besides being a terrible actress, so her being omitted from the film could've improved it, had Wishman put any effort into her film after writing it. The film starts with a funeral for the character played by Chesty, now played by a woman who looked nothing like her (particularly in the size of breasts), who also ends up playing one of her three illegitimate daughters, who meet at the funeral.

The plot revolves around trying to solve their mother's murder, with an attorney and a gardener as about the only suspects. To get information, there's fellatio on a banana, sex in an elevator (with what might be the woman's father!), a handstand in a swimming pool and a couple of shoot-outs. There's one bra in the film and it's drawn on a picture with a pen. Once again, most of the film was shot inside Wishman's house, with one small room being the entire funeral parlor. Also once again, the camera just shoots inanimate objects - or, say, a foot - for no discernible reason. The film has a surprise ending, which actually kind of works.

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1974)

How bad is it? It's one of the worst by one of the worst directors.
Should you see it? Yes!

Ron Ormond is best known among bad film enthusiasts for directing The Mesa of Lost Women with giant hypnotizing spiders and flamenco. He directed a huge number of other films, including the Lash LaRue B-western "King of the Bullwhip" (which is pretty good) and some obscure terrible films like "The Monster and the Stripper." In his later years, he became a born-again Christian and made films for his (Baptist) church; of these, "Footmen" is the only one to surface and I expect it's probably the only one worth seeing. The release date appears to be 3 years after the film date. Its soundtrack was sampled by the band Negativland.

The film has three story arcs and jumps between them somewhat haphazardly. There is a long sermon by Estus W. Pirkle about how people are being distracted from reading their Bibles by modern life and that being overrun by the godless will inevitably happen unless we all adhere to his particular flavor of the faith. It's nice to see one woman prominently displayed sleeping through the sermon. There's part of a sex-ed lecture, but not enough (the drawing of a female figure is in itself amusing). The second part is about how the communists will treat people in their totalitarianism: children forced to pitchfork their parents, a child has a stick pushed through his ear into his brain and he vomits (with added retching sound effects that don't work), speakers intone continuously "Christianity is stupid. Communism is good," children are shown how Castro is better than Jesus because if you ask both for candy only Castro gives it, there's extended scenes of bloody bodies - decapitation, knifings, shootings - making this a Christina gore film to rival "Blood Freak." The last story is about a wayward woman who goes to the sermon just to keep up appearances and gets converted. The best moment is probably when a Russian lapses into a noticeable southern-US accent. The title comes from the book of Jeremiah, I think, and makes for a clumsy metaphor, which is about par for the film as a whole.