Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Geostorm - Where are the Geos?

It's a film that really can't figure out what it is trying to accomplish, other than showing some weather-related destruction and Gerard Butler talking out the side of his mouth. It's arguably the most anticipated stinker of 2017, does it hold up?
*Spoiler Alert - There are no Geo Storms in this film or geostorms*
As you can guess, science goes completely out the window in this one. The very first we see is that a weather controlling space net launches missiles into a storm above New York. Missiles. So the destruction of NYC by missiles is worse than the storm. Nice work. Follow that with space station hallways that are made of doors that only lead to space, frozen people who don't thaw out in the sun, wasting an entire shuttle launch to send 1 guy into space, the list goes on and on.
While this thing is VERY hot once it gets going, the initial 30 minutes do drag a little. It isn't until the movie's title is uttered does this thing turn into electric shit. So be warned on the beginning.
Once things turn into banana town, it's incredibly awesomely stupid. The disasters are so fantastic and complete bullshit that even Roland Emmerich is stunned. Then there is the entire plot (which qualifies as the idiot plot) and Ed Harris lack of understanding of geography. Supplement that with Mike Banning being played by (HOT!!!) Abbie Cornish, Mark Ruffalo's little brother's imposter, President Andy Garcia, Executive powers that include teleportation and tracking device bypassing and the last hour of Geostorm are an absolute absurd blast. 
Well done Dean Devlin and Gerard Butler. For us at Stinker Madness, we want more!

Saw - Happy 300th Episode to Us...

It was one of the biggest horror movies of the 2000s and created an entire style of film-making on the cheap for such studios as The Asylum and Blumhouse. So that should mean its good, right? Wrong. Saw stinks on ice. Happy 300th episode to us, I guess.
Where to begin with the problems of the film? Well lets actually start with a compliment. It only cost $1.2 million. Could they have used the money more wisely to make a better film and still raked in the cash? Absolutely. 
First there is Cary Elwes, who astounds at his lack of nomination in the Razzie awards. Rest assured, when we get our time machine built and right the wrongs of crappy movie award history, Mr. Wesley will be getting a big ol' SMABFA for either best or worst bad actor. He stinks. Then you've got Danny Glover working in mostly ADR in his usual befuddled whisper talk. It's a shame the two didn't get more screen time together because wow...So the acting is atrocious.
Then there is the story. Oh wait. Sorry. I mean the concept. There is no story. Just a concept of two guys stuck in an icky bathroom with a mystery to solve and limited tools to do so. That sounds nice in concept but then you've got to write something around it, otherwise you'll little film will be only 15 minutes long. However, what they packed around this thing is pure garbage. The killer's only motivation is.... nothing. Truly nothing. He has brain cancer and Cary Elwes character told him about it. So even if he had done so without bedside manner, why the hell did he murder all those other people who have no connection to anything. I'll tell you the connection. Why bother writing consistently when you can crank it out in an hour and not have the majority of people notice. Then there's the worst cop ever in Danny Glover's Tapp. If police of the world were like this, crime would run rampant as there would be no judge in the world that would allow any evidence this moron collects to be admissible. Then he ends up getting overpowered by a feeble hospital orderly who weighs 1/2 as much, is a foot shorter, just got whipped by a suburban mom and has a damn pair of scissors in his leg. WTF?
Lastly and most painfully, the film is impossibly boring. There is so much flashback and broken narrative to try to establish some context to the concept that gets mixed up, jumps timelines, has no perspective and still doesn't make any sense which is common in crappy films but this one delivers its inane ramblings via jumpy camera work, shakey editting, Rob Zombie style editing and the general post production distraction dumpy studios try to make to hide their awful film.
Not a good movie
Made the worst style of horror telling for the next 10 years
Painfully boring
Yup, this box office smash stinks.
Check out the trailer for the new Jigsaw film and let us know what you think of the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcb68kAOvt4
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
The Bermuda Triangle w/ Rifftrax - Amazon Prime
Cult of Chucky - Netflix
The Worst Witch - YouTube

Belly of the Beast - Yup, there's a wizard

A baked potato (and Fox News Russian Expert) puts on a bunch of stupid shirts and tries to sell us how much of an action-man he is by having a body double fill in for the entire movie. Also there is a wizard who helps fight terrorism and monks? We don't know.
Belly of the Beast is arguably among the worst of the action genre. What's the 1 thing you need to get right in an action movie? Well that one thing goes quite askew here. The fight scenes are so laughably bad. And yet as bad as the action is (and by bad we mean GREAT!) it isn't the only reason to show up here. 
Its such a strange production. Take this, the film skirts around nudity for 95% as if its PG-13 yet has incredibly gratuitous nudity in one topless scene where it appears a topless woman has a disappearing ink treasure map on her chest. And no, there is no treasure in this movie. So weird.
The dubiousness of putting a wizard into a Steven Seagal movie is one of the strangest decisions we have seen. It just doesn't fit at all and culminates in one of the greatest dumb climaxes in DTV film. 

The Barbarians - The Jersey Shore Invades Conan

Imagine a film where the biggest idiot you could ever find is the lead, make him do a ton of steroids, be a general dickbag to his co-workers and then DOUBLE HIM!!!
In typical Cannon Group tradition, this movie is what you call, "not good", yet also "completely unbelievable". It is beyond the realm of standard imagination and can only come from breaking through the doors of perception, AKA doing a ton of coke. From concept to final cut, there's no way you can do a good job here. And that falls fully on the muscly shoulders of the Barbarian Brothers.
These two idiots... I can't even describe them. I'm empty on words. I guess the best that can be done is that the Jersey Shore invades a swords and sandals movie. They are terribly unlikable in either form or character. However, if you can get past how much you hate these two and appreciate them for being the worst pair in cinematic history, well... you're in for a good time.
There's terrible effects and practicals, lead by a penis-dragon that doesn't just appear to be a penis but also behaves like one, the dangerous stunts, lead by getting ran over by horses, the silly costumes and hair, lead by a donut hair cut, and the nonsensical plot. At no point does it work but put together as a whole (insert donut joke) it's pure stinker magic.

The Lawnmower Man - Drugs and VR make you a genius

Once again we try to "go into the internet" by revisiting a film from the early 90's where people didn't understand how computers worked. This one delivered to us by stinker-staples Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan in this NOT Stephen King adaptation.
The Lawnmower Man when it came out was beloved and believed to be a great film by 12-year-olds. It no longer holds that majesty. This movie stinks. From all angles, most notably the special-effects and its dubious knowledge of how servers work. But notably as well is the acting from Jeff, Pierce and Dean Norris (of Breaking Bad fame and one hell of a Twitter follow).
The plot (as usual with Stephen King related business) is pretty all over the place and doesn't make any sense. Toss in that it's not based on Stephen King's work at all and you've got people just trying to say a thousand different things and trying to achieve a thousand different film motifs. You've got cybernetic super-chimp Universal Soldiers, playing God with science, bullies, omnipotence, super-powers, magic just being a form of science, corporate greed, and war for profit. All those items get bungled together with the completely dumb story-telling. So nice try guys.
While we cannot in good conscience recommend the "Director's Cut" version that we watched, we definitely recommend a riff-session with the original cut of The Lawnmower man. It's got too much banana-business and incredibly dumb points that it's a great revisit....when it's 108 minutes.
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
No Retreat, No Surrender w/ Rifftrax - Amazon Prime
Krampus - HBO Now
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II w/ MST3K - Netflix

Maniac Cop - Or Gross Face II

With a deep stinker cast and the classic script-writing of Larry Cohen, we've got all the elements for an amazingly awesome bad movie. Robert Z'Dar becomes a murderous Frankenstein in pretty nonsensical plot with lots of action and bad acting to boot.
In a double plot of framing another cop for murders (without any evidence) and trying to kill the Mayor (who doesn't have a role) and the Commissioner (Richard Roundtree), Maniac Cop fails to achieve both of these things. It also fails to tell a full story. If a story consists of a beginning, a middle and an end, this film appears to be only the middle. The beginning of the story is only told briefly in exposition and a tiny flashback of hardly any new knowledge and then the end of the film appears to be a setup for just the next scene...that doesn't come.
It's also pretty difficult to define exactly what Maniac Cop is, not the movie but the character. Is he undead? Or is he just so brain-damaged that he's immune to death? If he's undead, is he a zombie? What the hell is he? Well we figure it out but we're gonna make you listen to the podcast to find out what Maniac Cop actually is.
Laurene Landon paves the way as the best bad actress of the year as she struggles to deliver a single line. It's not really her thing though...the acting. So we'll forgive her as she's arguably the biggest riff opportunity of the film.
It's got ups and its got downs, slow pacing and fast action. Which may not work for all (one reviewer, Sam, barely gave it a do) but its loaded with enough stinky goodness for all.

Speed 2: Cruise Control

Some brainiac from Fox at one point, thought that making a sequel to Speed, take out Keanu, make 1/3 of it about failed marriage proposals, toss in the "idiot plot", and ADR every horrible dad joke you could possibly come up with. Speed 2 is a horrible, terrible, not enjoyable film.
What a horrible awful experience. None, none, none of it works. The effects, the acting, the action, the comedy, the romance, the music, the writing, the directing...none of it. It has zero redeeming qualities. That's a rare thing were not one person does their job.
It is notable for how much money they stuffed in the toilet. They spent way too much making this movie. If you can find a way to make the scene more expensive, they did it. From the daily rental of the cruise ship, to the helicopter fly over shots, the explosions, the early CGI, the overly elaborate crash scene at the end....endless tossing of money on stupid ideas.
Speed 2 is a complete waste of time and isn't viewable by anyone nor for any reason. Avoid this film. It sucks.

Real Men

Jim Belushi and John Ritter team up in a screwball comedy about the CIA's top agent enlisting a mild-mannered insurance salesman in order to bring a glass of water of extra-terrestrials to save the world. With a plot like that, what could go wrong? Well...millions of things.
But none of those things happen here. This is buddy-cop comedy perfection.
Sometimes movies need to be revisited to know that film-goers blew it when the film was in theaters. Sometimes we talk about those films and their reputation as crummy-movies. We call those episodes, "Bad Movies Debunked" and this is one such movie.
It's got your classic motifs that could be found in a bevy of crummy stinkers - aliens, trannies, shootouts, the Russians, Jim Belushi, John Ritter, you know...the usual. HOWEVER, something epic happened while making this film and people without major talent put it all together and delivered. Jim is hilarious with his dead-pan straight man and top CIA agent and Ritter's transformation from bumbling joe-schmo to tough-in-training is too much fun.
The writing is crisp, the jokes are delivered like a piping hot pizza, the chemistry of the buddies is top notch and it just gets sillier and sillier. This is a movie for all lovers of goofballery.

Return of the Living Dead - with Ronny Pascale

Special Guest Comedienne Ronny Pascale of the SH*T Show: The PoopCast stops by to give us insight on how a zombie horde can effect the amount of doo-doo in your undies. Be sure to check out Ronny (on Twitter https://twitter.com/ronnypascale) and the SH*T Show (on Soundcloud  https://soundcloud.com/shttshow) for a ton of laughs!
Hey remember that time that Louisville, Kentucky was overrun by party zombies, nuked and then became even more overrun by zombies? Yeah us neither but this is a true story! At least the film says it is. True or false, this film shows that the living dead in the 80s can be just as much fun as your average group of teens who like sitting around a cemetery. Party! 
Return of the Living Dead  is a rare and special kind of film. While being a straight up zombie movie, it breaks through the cliche's and genre staples to have a wild and fun time. The comedy is top notch and the almost Zucker Bros. style of introspection on the genre is appreciated. Combine those eliminates with dripping 80s motifs, a killer soundtrack, amazing practical effects and stellar performances by the cast and this is a can't miss film.
James Karan steals the show as the bumbling, but likable Frank. His over-acting is wondrously entertaining and should have birthed a career of this character for him. Frank is just one half of a duo (alongside Thom Matthew's Freddy) that could have spawned one of the most beautiful onscreen friendships, but sadly they were turned into zombies. Then there's Clu Gulager (say it with me) and Don Calfa's Burt and Ernie who try to steal the show as well. There's a lovable gang of punks showcased by the naked for 90% of the film Linnea Quigley (see Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) who draws up one of the most memorable scenes of on screen nudity for the entire decade.
It's silly, goopy, sexy, and chock full of riffable moments. Return of the Living Dead is a hallmark film in any genre, but takes the cake in the over-saturated genre of the zombie. Whether you like zombies or not, it is a film that you will enjoy.

Fateful Findings - ????

When it comes to vanity pieces that are made by the inept, Fateful Findings leads the rest in insanity. This is the model for a really, really, so bad its good movie. Thank you Neil Breen for giving us this travesty to film-making! This movie...wow. Nothing, nothing, nothing makes any lick of sense or resembles reality. Not even the idea of the film makes sense. How many plots can fit in one movie and how do you even come up with any of them? Even the shirts worn in this thing don't make sense. There is just too much insanity to describe. Neil Breen stars, directs, produces, writes, edits, et al. He does so many things in the making of this film that he even tried (TRIED) to disguise all the things he did (including catering & casting) in the credits but then tells us that he disguised the credits. What mind does these things? He's brilliant. I'm sorry Wiseau, you're a lot of fun, but Neil Breen is the true auteur of insane vanity. We won't discuss any plot points but here's some highlights of the "content" - magic? ghosts? astral projection? conspiracy? marital issues? teleportation? lost loves? murder? kidnapping? government coverups? wizards? transcendentalism? laptop destruction? Now why all the questions marks? Because we honestly have no idea if any of these things are actually in the film. It's that much of a mind job. Then there is the least sexy sex. Imagine Tommy Wiseau's sex scene in the Room. And then imagine a film that makes that scene look like a Vivid Ent. production. We are convinced that Neil Breen doesn't know how genitals work. We can't praise this film enough. It is immediately thrust into the discussion of greatest bad movie of all time and is a MUST
When it comes to vanity pieces that are made by the inept, Fateful Findings leads the rest in insanity. This is the model for a really, really, so bad its good movie. Thank you Neil Breen for giving us this travesty to film-making!
This movie...wow. Nothing, nothing, nothing makes any lick of sense or resembles reality. Not even the idea of the film makes sense. How many plots can fit in one movie and how do you even come up with any of them? Even the shirts worn in this thing don't make sense. There is just too much insanity to describe.
Neil Breen stars, directs, produces, writes, edits, et al. He does so many things in the making of this film that he even tried (TRIED) to disguise all the things he did (including catering & casting) in the credits but then tells us that he disguised the credits. What mind does these things? He's brilliant. I'm sorry Wiseau, you're a lot of fun, but Neil Breen is the true auteur of insane vanity.
We won't discuss any plot points but here's some highlights of the "content" - magic? ghosts? astral projection? conspiracy? marital issues? teleportation? lost loves? murder? kidnapping? government coverups? wizards? transcendentalism? laptop destruction? Now why all the questions marks? Because we honestly have no idea if any of these things are actually in the film. It's that much of a mind job.
Then there is the least sexy sex. Imagine Tommy Wiseau's sex scene in the Room. And then imagine a film that makes that scene look like a Vivid Ent. production. We are convinced that Neil Breen doesn't know how genitals work. 
We can't praise this film enough. It is immediately thrust into the discussion of greatest bad movie of all time and is a MUST WATCH. It's a stop what you're doing and watch this film. 
One note on the below ratings on Riffability. We have to give it a 0 when viewing it for the first time. It's just to insane to mock because it will melt your brain and turn you into an organ donor. Eventually it will become a 5 on Riffing but it will take you probably four viewings to get past the deconstruction of your mind.