The Loves of Hercules (1960)

aka Hercules vs the Hydra

How bad is it? Worse than average swords and sandals fare.
Should you see it? Don't go out of your way, but it's an okay watch.

Jayne Mansfield plays a good queen in a black wig and an evil Amazon in a red wig (there's a purple wig, too) and her real-life husband Mickey Hargitay drools over both as Hercules. The dubbing in this is atrocious and leads to most of the laughs not provided by a three-headed dragon that just stands still while being killed. There are also talking trees of the "Wizard of Oz" ilk and a cyclops.

The Life of Lucky Cucumber (2009)

How bad is it? Troma wouldn't release it (and they filmed Lloyd Kaufman saying so).
Should you see it? No.

Alumni of "Jackass 2" and "Orgazmo" create this "mockumentary" that supposedly started as PR for "J-Town" and quickly became a search for a local legend. That search takes 5 minutes.  Bathtub races get disrupted by Molotov cocktails. Then they find Lucky with his grandfather in a cave and there's a lot of talk. There's meth-heads. There's white guy rapping. There's old guys (including one that's a young guy in a drugstore Halloween old man mask) with young women. There's a whiskey bong. There's an unbelievable number of title cards - more than you would find in an old silent film. What there isn't is plot, character or visuals. This may have been an attempt to make a cult film by making the worst film they could.

The Legend of Awesomest Maximus (2011)

aka National Lampoon's The Legend of  Awesomest Maximus

How bad is it? It's not the worst film in the National Lampoon catalog, but it's not great.
Should you see it? If you love spoofs or gladiator films, maybe.

This is a spoof of "Gladiator," "300," "Troy" and, less consistently, "Braveheart" and is at least a decade late to the party, as there was already "Meet the Spartans" and "305" covering that territory. The star is Will Sasso [full disclosure: I used to know him a little] who plays a general who got the job because he married into the job. The characters have names like: Hottessa, King Erotic, Testiclees, King Looney, Minoritees, Milfia and Ginormous. Add a ton of dick jokes, some egregious gay bashing, a lot of breasts, a Trojan penis instead of a Trojan horse and torture by being sat on by fat women. The cast has some decent names: Rip Torn, Ian Ziering, Sophie Monk and Tony Cox. It's shot well, the jokes are lame at best and the plot not worth mentioning.

The Last Slumber Party (1988)

How bad is it? It's down there. Pretty far down, too.
Should you see it? Reluctantly, I say yes. Others enjoyed it more than I did.

This Minnesotan approves the sweet Tarkenton jersey.

Released straight to video, this was shot partly on film and partly on videotape and the switch between them is the least of the continuity problems. A bunch of girls go to a house where they're stalked by a guy in a surgical mask. I've seen this at least 8 times and it's always a race between boredom and confusion; in the end, much of the film turns out to be a dream and some claim that the weird discontinuity - the killer seems to teleport - and the affectless reaction of the girls to each death is part of the dream (that's giving too much credit). People sleep through murders committed right next to them, to then awaken just in time to get killed themselves. One of the dream sequences completely negates the rest of the film. And then it turns out that there are TWO killers, the imaginary one with several kills and a real one with just one. I always start out enjoying this film, it's delightfully tacky and cheesy, but then my eyes glaze over at some point as each death is exactly the same as the previous one; in fact, I think you can time one kill scene, multiply by cast members and get the run time.

Lust for Dracula (2004)

How bad is it? It's plotless porn masquerading as a horror film.
Should you see it? Only if you're a fan of Misty Mundae.

This is almost impossible to review - if you want a Dracula film, this ain't it, but if you want to watch a lot of graphic lesbian sex scenes, you couldn't do much better. I won't bother with the plot, because it's impossible to follow; even the actors can't explain the film in the DVD extras. One of the sex scenes involves real life sisters, which must make for awkward family reunions. It's well-shot and atmospheric and there's some interesting visuals. What sticks with me is a baby bottle full of blood.

Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds (1977)

How bad is it? Unusual kaiju with some very poor bits.
Should you see it? Sure! I liked it.

Japanese monster movies made by the smaller companies that didn't specialize in it tend to be weird; this one is gorier, but with much less action (the giant bird doesn't even appear until near the end). The dubbing is poor and the soundtrack is amazingly irrelevant - it actually distracts you from what's happening. Investigating the wilderness near Mt. Fuji, a woman falls into a hole and breaks a stone egg. Then cattle and horses start losing their heads. Soon there are reports of a sea monster and then it's the standard people vs. monsters stuff, except that this one rips off entire scenes of "Jaws."

Last Hour (2008)

How bad is it? It's almost a master class on how not to make a film.
Should you see it? No. It's largely unendurable.

DMX, Paul Sorvino, David Carradine, Michael Madsen and others are all wasted in this film. A man gets a letter from his deceased father inviting him to a house in the middle of nowhere in China. He goes. It turns out others, all notorious bad guys, have also received such a letter and are there. Once inside, they're locked inside, the police are outside, a killer is trying to pick them off and they start to suspect each other and yet nothing much happens until the last few minutes. The sound is not properly synched. There are scenes that are cut in mid-sentence. The shift between cameras is obvious because the film quality alters. The plot makes no sense. It appears that the film was unfinished, then cobbled together as well as could be done with what footage had been shot.