Foolish (1999)

How bad is it? Comedy with maybe three chuckles.
Should you see it? Not unless you're a huge fan of the stars.

Having done stand-up, I'm a hard audience for a film about a stand-up comic, so I was willing to go the extra mile for this, but it's not worthwhile. Two brothers, stand-up Eddie Griffin and criminal Master P, chase after Amy Petersen while grandma Marla Gibbs tries to give them advice. Griffin does a stage routine a few times, with the audience laughing way too hard. He rejects a film offer because it requires him to play a drag queen and he has integrity. The one good idea is that the ghost of Redd Foxx shows up as his muse, but only in restrooms.

Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid (1986)

aka Zeisters

How bad is it? Only the title's good. Worthless drivel.
Should you see it? No.

This is one of those low-budget films Troma bought, retitled and released. Two brothers take a large learning-disabled man from a camp to Manhattan for fun, which leads to vomiting in a fancy restaurant, ruining a wedding, lots of fart jokes, getting shot in a phone booth, being institutionalized and then being broken out by helicopter. Joan Allen appears, between her roles in "Manhunter" and "Peggy Sue Got Married" and the soundtrack is by the excellent Leo Kottke. The film is dull, pointless and misleading, as it tries to be heartwarming when one expects a romp.

Future Zone (1990)

How bad is it? Unwanted sequel to a terrible film with a small cult following.
Should you see it? Not really.

David A. Prior directed this sequel to his film "Future Force," which ignores all connections to that film, except having David Carradine and a robotic glove that can fly remote-controlled and shoots lasers. Ted Prior plays his son, who comes back from the future to save his life (and wears a shirt that will burn into your memory). Charles Napier shows up. The score is truly awful and intrusively goofy. This got satirized on RiffTrax, which is why some have given it high marks; on it's own, it's slow even though it runs just over 80 minutes.

Future Hunters (1986)

aka Deadly Quest, aka Spear of Destiny

How bad is it? Kitchen sink mess.
Should you see it? I give it the mildest possible approval.

This Roger Corman-produced, Cirio Santiago-directed Philippine film has been touted by both Svengoolie and Joe Bob Briggs. In the post-apocalyptic world of 2025, a man finds the spear used to pierce the side of Jesus, which lets him time travel to 1986. His plan is to re-unite the spear with its shaft, which supposedly will stop the holocaust from happening. Then he has to save a girl from a biker gang. Then throw in Shaolin monks, dwarves in caves, Amazons, Nazis, an earthquake, a car chase, helicopter sabotage and alligators. Whew, that's a lot of crap to fling at the screen! Nothing makes sense, the budget is styrofoam boulder-sized and there's no acting or writing to speak of. The constant action might - just MIGHT - be enough for some viewers.

Future Fear (1997)

aka Space Virus

How bad is it? Rock bottom effects and terrible editing make a tedious 77 minutes.
Should you see it? No.

This got some traction in the so-bad-it's-good world, but it's largely unwatchable, even though Maria Ford does undress. In the future of 2017, space viruses on a probe crash to Earth, dooming humanity. A scientist has embryos that are resistant and he wants to use them for a vaccine, but his wife wants them brought to term - so they have a plunger fight (I'm not kidding); in fact, this fight gets intercut with previous love scenes, just to make it worse. Oh, and the love scenes include a Mad Hatter tea party recreation. Produced by Roger Corman, this has some of the cheapest effects and some of the worst dialogue ("Eating just saved my life" says a guy who stops one of the few action scenes to make a sandwich). Stacy Keach does the bare minimum for a paycheck as a racist who wants to repopulate the Earth in his own image. This sounds more entertaining than it is.

Funnyman (1994)

aka Funny Man

How bad is it? Attempted cult film is very hit-and-miss.
Should you see it? If you're more into unique than good, maybe.

This is a British attempt to create a Freddy Krueger/Jason Voorhees type character and it has its devotees, mostly British, so maybe it's a cultural thing (like: a man in a dress is always funny in England and not in the U.S.) Christopher Lee loses a mansion in a card game, so he conjures up a killer court jester and then disappears to collect his paycheck. The cast is just fodder for the evil clown, who kills in admittedly inventive ways, sometimes quite surreally, and then makes a joke (which never lands). There's a duck gun, a puppet decapitation, a high heel to the eye and, in the best sequence, a hand becoming a rocket launcher. One character is an impersonation of Velma (named "Velma!") of "Scooby Doo." It's a real mixed bag, odd just to be odd and so might merit watching just to see something different.

Freeway Maniac (1989)

aka Breakdown

How bad is it? It's pretty amazingly bad.
Should you see it? Yes. It's one of the more entertaining bad films.

Written by Gahan Wilson, this makes fun of low-budget filmmaking, while being one of the worst-made low-budget films; how much of this was intentional is hard to say. A boy kills his mother and her boyfriend, escapes prison as an adult and gets stopped by an actress who parlays the notoriety into a role in a sci-fi film being shot in the desert. He then escapes again and hunts her and the film crew. Funniest scene involves eating a rattlesnake. There's a cheapo wooden spaceship and rock monster, a plastic bear claw attack, a chainsaw attack, a fall broken by a victim's belly, visibly breathing dead people and some awful 1980's clothing (including a plaid suit) and hair.