Max Knight: Ultra Spy (2000)

How bad is it? It's okay. The more you know computer jargon, the worse it is.
Should you see it? You could do worse. Don't believe that it's so-bad-it's-good, though.

Computer genius spy with arsenal of gadgets follows evil mastermind into cyberworld to defeat hm. Borrowing scenes from a video game, with dialog that is just babble, this tries to be both James Bond and The Matrix, but fails. The characters are cardboard, but not awful and, though it drags and falls apart, the story is watchable.

The Maize: The Movie (2004)

How bad is it? It's one of the worst-made films I've seen.
Should you see it? F#$% no. If anyone says different, slap them.

This film often comes up in discussions of worst horror films, worst sequels (it's not actually a sequel, but - unbelievably - has its own sequel), and worst films. It is quite bad; it's not very watchable, however, as the film consists primarily of a supposed-psychic wandering around a corn maze, searching for his daughters who have been possessed by the spirits of two girls who disappeared some time ago. The film goes in and out of focus, you can hear the generator that powers the set equipment and there's one spotlight used for all shots, making this very shoddily made. The acting is no better, nor is the plot.

The Magic Voyage (1992)

How bad is it? It's mediocre twaddle.
Should you see it? No.

I couldn't imagine why this was considered by some to be so-bad-it's-good, but it turns out to be another film lampooned by MST3K that wasn't really anything on its own. It's not even the worst ship voyage based animation; that would be "The Legend of the Titanic," where everyone miraculously survives.

Christopher Columbus discovers America with the aid of a worm who has his own plan to save a fairy princess. The characters are poorly drawn - as is the animation - and the plot devolves into a shouting match between an evil lord named Swarm and a suddenly gold-obsessed Columbus. It doesn't make any sense, the music doesn't help, the voice characterizations of Dom DeLuise and Corey Feldman are questionable at best and there seems to be some cultural issues between the German crew that made the film and the source material.

Can IMDB be used to find "so-bad-they're-good" movies?

Everyone who watches bad films has noted that IMDB's ratings have been heavily influenced by the followers of MST3K and that the ratings have an inherent problem of rating by quality vs rating by entertainment value. Can this be used to find undiscovered good-bad films?

Looking at the voting breakdown of films like "Birdemic," "Death Bed," "The Amazing Bulk," "The Room, "Demon Lover," "Plan 9," "Manos," "Troll 2," "Robot Monster," Asrto-Zombies," etc., I decided to look at films that:

1) Have a rating between 2.8 and 4.6 (rationale involves 5 votes, 2 of them being 1, 1 being 10)

2) Have a mode of 1 (at least 25% of votes)

3) Have at least 10% votes of 10

Starting at a score of 3.7, titles that I found  (from 1950-1990) were:

How to Make a Doll
Queen of Sex
Sam's Song
Captain America (1979)
Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars
Crocodile (1979)
All in Good Taste
Hangin' Out
Ragewar
Preppies
Munchies
Scared Stiff
Homoti
Delta Force Commando
Bruce's Fists of Vengeance
Dr. Alien
Houseboat Horror
Time Burst: The Final Alliance
The Dreaded

I've seen 16 of those and most are borderline choices. This might be a viable search plan!

Killing American Style (1990)

How bad is it? It's a poor action film by people who've been in more entertainingly awful films.
Should you see it? Keep your expectations low and it's passable. For Z'Dar fans only.

It's not an allergic reaction. He just looks like that.

Amir Shervan, who directed the great "Samurai Cop" made a bunch of actioners in a few years, this one with "Samurai Cop's" Robert Z'Dar and has a cameo by Jim Brown; unfortunately it isn't either good enough or bad enough to be interesting. There's a prison break by two bank robbers, who team up with the brother of one of them, take hostages and get pinned down on a large estate. One person needs a doctor, so one hostage is let go to find medical help, but he decides to come back and kill the bad guys before they kill his family. The clothes are ridiculous. The score is terrible. The Japanese doctor is decidedly un-Japanese. The film is too long, repetitive and dull, has one nasty gratuitous rape scene that destroys any fun tone and the characters are uninvolving. It's bad, but not so bad it's good. The cult of Robert Z'Dar, however, will enjoy it.

The Killer's Edge (1991)

How bad is it? It's a mass of cliches with little payoff.
Should you see it? The cast is interesting - if you're a fan of any of them, it's worth seeing.

Very tiny screen grab

Wings Hauser is good at playing psychotic chaotic villains, but here he's a cop, teemed with a chain-smoking FBI agent (Karen Black), seeking a counterfeiter played by Robert Z'Dar, whose face is too big to fit on this blog. Really - if you've never heard of Z'Dar, look up his photos [or check out my next review!]. Hauser and Z'Dar separately create mounds of dead bodies and Hauser recognizes the throat cutting as the work of a guy that saved his life in Viet Nam; that implausibility is typical of the film. There's a guy who looks like Tony Curtis, a lot of retro fashions, a rocket launcher and exploding helicopter (most of the budget), and scenes of Hauser falling in a pool and slipping on ice skates - which mimics the sloppiness of the film itself. The final confrontation takes place on an island, for no good reason, and absolutely nothing interesting happens in the final fight. This has the potential to be a cult favorite because of the cast.

Justice League of America (1997)

How bad is it? It's a TV pilot that never aired. That kinda says it all.
Should you see it? It has its moments, but not quite enough of them.

Among the terrible movies based on Marvel comics, there's one that was meant to become a TV show, but was so bad that even the pilot never aired. The Justice League here is minus Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and even Aquaman (too expensive), leaving The Flash as the only recognizable character. The Green Lantern is... blue. One costume consists of eye shadow, the rest of styrofoam padding and thrift shop leftovers.

The show doesn't really deal with the whole superpower world very much, but focuses on the humdrum daily lives of the cast, making it look like it was based on "Friends" or maybe "The Real World." The Atom, for example, rescues a cat. The Flash makes a poor housemate because he eats too fast. David Ogden Stiers does the best he can as a ridiculously fat Martian, but the rest of the acting is as bad as the dialog, plot and costumes. The tacked on happy ending, where everything just works out, caps off a ridiculous story.

The best moment is probably limbo-ing under a security beam.