Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Swamp Thing - Budget in the Bayou!

Nothing says the follow-up to Superman like a budget movie, right? It's that weird mix of camp, bad costumes, a busty lady, and villians of dubious intent. Oh, and it's also a fairy-tale love story. WTF is Swamp Thing?
It's surprisingly bad. Nothing can prepare you for how crummy this film is. You've got all the pieces that should make for an OK movie - the established Wes Craven only 2 years before his masterpiece. Adrienne Barbeau hot off her run of John Carpenter films, Ray Wise on his way to Leland nuttiness, Harry Manfredini ready to give the hot licks, Alan Moore's material, the backing of DC loaded up on cash after Superman. How did this go wrong?!?!
The makeup is awful, the costumes are atrocious, the writing is beyond nonsense, the story is a big question mark and then the way the whole thing ends is just nuts. This truly is one of the worst comic-book movies of all time.
That aside, it's a total blast - cheesy, cheesy fun. Swamp Thing is completely useless, despite having super-strength and healing powers. He mostly just chucks guys out of boats, then lets them get back in, then chucks them out, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, Barbeau's Cable, is just getting nabbed over and over again. Useless.
The end...wow. Whomever thought that your epic climax would best be shown by a battle over a knight's sword between a man-pig and a guy in a loose rubber costume was going to wow audience's....yipes.
It's a must-do bad movie.

Collision Course - Not Rush Hour

Nothing says comedy team-up like when a street-wise cop has to be the American ambassador to a martial-arts packing fellow officer from the East to take down an international crime syndicate. Boy that sounds familiar. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this is NOT Rush Hour.
All uncanny resemblance to Rush Hour aside, there's not a lot here folks. It's very unfunny (groan-worthy) and pretty uneventful until the last 1/4 (when the movie shifts into a totally dark tone). Its a very slow and rough experience with just a sprinkle of fun, here and there.
HOWEVER, there is two show stealing scenes that ALMOST redeem the whole thing and definitely put it up in the fine-line between "do and don't". It still is incredibly close and depending upon the viewer is either going to give it a 50% (a do not) or a 51% (a do). It's that close.
So enter at your own risk.

Rent-a-Cop - Oh Burt...

We setup our tribute to the dearly missed Burt Reynolds with an examination of his first Razzie nomination as "bored actor who doesn't want to be in the same film as Liza Minnelli". It's like Sharky's Machine meets A Star is Born. Does that work for a bad movie "do"?
Let's get straight to the bad - the big bad is Liza. She's insufferable. It's not completely her fault as the script calls for the most annoying person ever as the "love interest" for hunky Burt - because that's how all cop movies should work right? So she is supposed to play an annoying person and she does that in spades or jazz hands or sea-urchin hair cuts. Whatever. It's awful and you can't put someone who is like nails on the chalkboard into a movie even if the role calls for it. You can't annoy your audience for 2 hours. Ugh.
Then there's Burt. Sweet, sweet Burt. He stinks. And it's his fault. It's a clinic on how to shoot an actor that in no way wants to be in your movie. Sadly this is the beginning of the end for Burt (until Boogie Nights) where he would take whatever role he could get. So he'd rather be in Cleveland than starring next to the most annoying character ever. It's a little tough to watch.
Aside from the bad, we come to the (not just good, but) GREAT James Remar. His villain, Dancer, is like a cut/paste from a Batman comic. He's so over-the-top for a cop movie (power-armor, knife-arm, the zipper-dance in the mirror) that he'd fit better in a 90's super-hero movie. It's fantastic and quintessential James Remar. Arguably, Dancer gets killed in the climax in the best way we've seen for years. 
So in the end, if you can cut through Liza's schtick you're gonna have a do here, but man is it tough to get past her. It's wall to wall jammering on and on and on and on...

Predator 2 - Murtaugh vs the teenage alien

In what appears to be a Predator version of a bar-mitzvah, Captain Murtaugh has to scratch his head and whisper to himself about things he sees in front of him to stop a bunch of gang-members with mega-guns and voodoo powers from getting their spines ripped out. Oh! AND Bill Paxton!
A movie with a 8 foot tall alien who rips people's spines out, Danny Glover, Bill Paxton and Gary Busey sounds like about the hottest thing that's ever existed. Sign me the hell up and lets get stupid!
Well hold on, kiddies. You've got the most destructive group in film you still have to account for. No, not The Asylum. The MFing MPAA. After extensive recuts (20 of them) to appease a group of soccer-moms with no knowledge of film study, Predator 2 is both lacking in imagination and luster. Its far too tame to work. Its like watching Volcano but with a Predator who's had his wings clipped by the MPAA. Its kinda just disappointingly boring.
It still has its moments here and there. Bill Paxton is put in the role he's made for - the slick Lone Ranger who wears clothes that are too big for him. Glover is as Murtaughy as he can get. The opening action sequence is way stupid and fun. But then everything afterwards is a disappointment. 
If you like Predator and haven't seen P2, then it's a do. But even then it's a one-time view. There is no need to revisit this one folks.

Slender Man - Not the trees! Not the trees!

A faceless board-room guy (probably the one that fired James Gunn) is also a tree-man, octopus, tarantula with very dubious motivations, but likely he's actually the ghost of Chalton Heston, arboriculturist.
Slender Man the movie was doomed before it came out the gate. There is no way to pay this much fan service to the original creepy-pasta while trying to make a sensical story. Once you put Slender Man into an environment that must have some sort of back-story and character motivations and that old bummer, the Protagonist/Antagonist diatribe you've got no choice but to make your new horror icon look about as clever as the bird in the desk of The Wicker Man.
The lighting is atrocious, the acting is middling, the writing is gadawful, and even the cat-stings are failed. It's like if someone hired the Asylum to helm their franchise hopeful. Yet beyond all that, there is some truly hilarious parts. There's a handful of lines that are so horrendously out-of-reality and out of place that you can be "that one guy" in the theater. Mash that up with two of the most hilarious "horror editing" (think The Ring) decisions and you have a great bad-movie.....almost.
While there is a smattering of hilarity sprinkled throughout, Slender Man is just this side of fun. There's far too much loose dialogue and wandering around being annoyingly moronic to put this into a "do" category. Expect it to rear its head when it comes time for the Stinker Madness Achievements in Bad Film-Making Award (SMABFA) awards. If you can manage to sneak into a very empty (I mean you, and two other people) and can riff this one out-loud you might be in for a good time.

St. Elmo's Fire - The Everest of Unholy Buttholes

When you look up pretentious, self-obsessed, socially awful, and completely uninterested in benefiting mankind in anyway in the dictionary (you can look those terms up, right?) then you see a picture of the "brat pack" from this clinic in deplorability.
I hate these people. Not one can be redeemed. Its horrifying how awful they are and how their awfulness is not the focus of the movie. This is one of those jobbers where people (who are just as awful) will say, "This is it. This shows the challenges of live after becoming a full adult and the struggle with transitioning between having no responsibilities and then suddenly thrust into the real world." No, this is just you being completely blind to how morally bankrupt these people are. ARRHSHSHGHGGH!!!!!
90% of the reason to show up for this is to see how shitty these people are and wonder why in the hell this movie was made (it serves 0 purpose). The other 5% is the random crap that Schumacher stuffs in behind the focal point of the POV. Weird clowns, puppets, a naked fat guy butt...etc. and then 5% of Judd Nelson and Rob Lowe completely flubbing their lines. 
It's not a great time folks. Don't enter into this thinking you're about to have fun. You're left at the end with a horrible taste in your mouth and the unanswered question of why it exists. Enter only ye of the toughest of stomach-strength. You must be a level 12 Stinker Tourist.

Miami Connection - Ninjas, drugs, music and fashion!

We take one of the most beloved stinkers of the last decade and find a new reason to justify the entire plot - a rumble to the death over the most important theme of the 1980's - high fashion.
Miami Connection is at the top of the list for most fans of crummy films and this is no accident. It's truly one of the most accessible bad movies of all time. Where some may struggle to view The Room and Fateful Findings there is something for everyone in YK Kim's masterpiece, especially those from the 80's or have 80's nostalgia. While those two items are helpful, they are not required. You can show this to just about anyone, from all ages and all walks of life.
Then there's Dragon Sound. In the usual vein of films like this you might catch a glimpse of the amazing band playing in the background but Dragon Sound is front and center throughout with two entire songs played without break in music video format. With some of the worst lyrics ever put to film and "Against the Ninja" showcasing the plot verbatim, Dragon Sound is the most beautiful train wreck set to video.
With a dubious plot (flushed out by us as about high fashion) you might get glued into the adventures of Dragon Sound and then nonsensical dialogue (at least the lines you can understand), but at the climatic scene you'll find yourselves inside of the hardest shift in direction of any film. Then last 20 minutes is a complete WTF as somehow YK Kim said to his cast-mates, "Hey, just go nuts" and they take it quite literally.
In the end, Miami Connection just gets better and better with each view and isn't just a pretender. It's a glorious example of why people love crummy movies and will go down as a classic and Hall of Fame material. It's a true treasure. Thank you, YK!

The Stinker Madness "Sorry about this Week, Get Ready for Next Week" Special

This week we manage to not be able to view Miami Connection thanks to randy critters. So instead Sam and Justin discuss drinking children, seagulls, #goatpocalypse, Neil Breen's Twister Pair trailer, a new Great Superpower Debate, reviews of Transformations, Hologram Man, WuTang vs Ninja, and Sam invents a drunk game called "Who is THE GUY?"

To Catch a Yeti - And a Child Murderer

We've got a monster-bud on our hands in the most notable work of Meatloaf's career. When the world's greatest hunter gets hired by a rich family to catch a yeti, he gets thwarted by a little girl whose clothes don't fit. Everyone is going to jail here.
One might go into this thinking that you're about to be tortured for an hour and a half, ala Mac and Me, or C.H.O.M.P.S., well you're sorta right. This movie is as expected godawful, but somehow it dodges being in the bottom of the barrel. It manages to stay on target throughout the whole thing. There's no scene where the little girl and the monster bud go to school and crummy hijinx ensue. There's no scene where the monster bud destroys the whole house while riding a vacuum and chasing the dog. It steers clear of all the usual pitfalls that monster-bud movies fall into.
Instead of where it typically could have gone, it is just a series of Meatloaf chasing a little girl holding the worst Furby prop for an hour and a half. There's a volley of crummy jokes here and there yet none are groin-worthy, they are just ignorable while you're riffing the film. It continually sets itself up throughout with some scattered big laugh moments (usually involving Meatloaf murdering a Francis (Pee Wee's Big Adventure) impersonator.
There's some very strange decisions made and some LOL moments but in the end it's still not that fun. With that in mind though, it might be the best monster-bud movie we've ever reviewed. Enter at your own risk though.

American Hunter - Don't date Jake. He's a jerk.

Robert Mitchum's kid freelances his way into a "get the ninja tape" situation and into Janet's heart all while being WAY above the law and murdering many innocent people. Expect some shenanigans in this super-budget movie out of Indonesia.
One of a kind in it's repetition and recurring themes, American Hunter (Lethal Hunter in Europe) is a classic super-budget action film with very poorly thought-out plot elements. Behold the final list of incredibly weird repeating onscreen events:
4 - The number of bad dives
4 - The number of times Janet gets kidnapped
3 - The number of times Jake survives after something that would kill anyone else
4 - The number of times someone shouts "Asshole!" right before killing someone
4 - The number of times a stunt car drives up and ramp and jumps
2 - Houses owned by the villain that are exploded by the villain
3 - Random species of critters the villain owns
Then there's sweet sweet Janet. Poor Janet has been put through unholy hell. She loses her job, gets someones brains all over her face, kidnapped four times, crashed into a gas truck, her car destroyed, dropped from a helicopter, shot in the shoulder, had her neck shaved (?), and then married to a man who clearly doesn't care about whether she lives or dies.
In typical 80's Indonesia tradition, life takes a backseat and no unions were involved in this wonderful little treat of garbage. How many stuntmen lost limbs or even their lives during the making of this? If you love dangerous stunts - you'll have a great time here.