Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Christmas Evil - I Saw Mommy get Santa's Beard on Her Knee

 When your mom has a beard on her knee from a man who may or may not be your dad or Santa, you're best option is to obsess over Christmas until you're in your thirties and then you go all Buffalo Bob so that you can become the actual Santa. Not just copy cat. Actually Santa.
Christmas Evil is arguably one of the strangest Xmas films ever created. It was made a time when horror movies tried to play on any holiday and the jingly time was no different. See (but don't watch) such films as Santa's Slay, Santa Claws, Don't Open til Christmas, Black Christmas, etc... However there's a complete banana-factor to this feature.
Unfortunately to get to that banana-factor you have to go through a fairly uneventful montage of a man going all Santa. The performances are all solid and the cinematography is competent especially considering this is a drive-thru film. So that leaves you with an hour of not really having much to do. It's quiet, slow-moving and leaves not much room for riffing. I wouldn't call it boring, per se, but if you're coming for a mover-this ain't the one.
However, in the end, you've been left with one of the most clear, "Wait, what?" moments in any genre of film, let alone a holiday film. We won't go into the final 10 seconds of Christmas Evil here, but it makes the whole experience worth it. 
Happy Holidays, Stinker Family!
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
I Believe in Santa Claus w/ Rifftrax on Amazon Prime
Christmas Dragon - Amazon Prime
Ator: The Fighting Eagle - Amazon Prime
Tarzan - TV Series on Amazon Prime

Jingle All the Way - Booster Sucks, yo!

When you think of the holidays, you always think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe you just think of Arnold all the time. Which fits perfectly into the Xmas spirit theme for this film -- don't learn any lessons of Christmas, don't change how you feel about life and commit heinous crimes in the search of consumerism that you fail to accomplish.
Beyond how unbelievably bad it is overtly, I mostly want to talk about its failures for being a Christmas movie (as is tradition for our holiday specials). The primary problem here is that it can't even be an Xmas movie. It's a movie that takes place during Christmas (kiss my ass, all who say Die Hard is a Christmas movie), but it fails to achieve any Spirit of Christmas themes (hell, even The Star Wars Holiday Special manages that). 
Here's where people will say it makes a Christmas movie:
It takes place during Xmas 
Howard (Arnold's character) restores his relationship with his son via Christmas
It shows the consumerism of Christmas and man's greed during the holiday season but Howard finds a way to be better than that.
Here's the rub in order:
1. So what? Troll 2 is about eating food, does that mean it's a Thanksgiving movie? This line of logic that says "A film takes place on X time so therefore it's a holiday film because a major holiday is shown within it" is garbage.
2. Howard does NOT restore his relationship with his son via Christmas because this is clearly not the first time their relationship has been damaged/repaired within the same day. It's quite clear that this crap happens all the time. It's just Tuesday.... and also happens to be Christmas. In order to make this message, the time of Christmas and all its "holly jolly - be nice to your neighbors and family" stuff must be the vehicle for learning your lesson, not just the backdrop of this weeks poor fathering/becoming a good father debacle.
3. Sure, it does show people being manic during the holiday season. However, Howard doesn't rise above it or even partake in it for the resolution of the movie. The film can't even make the (bad) statement that if you buy toys for your kids, they'll have a good Christmas. Because Howard doesn't even buy the toy. He falls bass-ackwards into the toy. Basically, someone mistakenly hands it to him and he hands it to his son and takes all the credit for getting it. Completely not the spirit of Christmas (even the cynical take of it's another corporate holiday). Bleh.
It stinks, really, really, really bad. It's cringe-worthy in points. The written jokes are terrible. The effects are worse than PumaMan. But it's a must do for all. It's a staple in holiday films and the one you can always go to when you're tired of all the traditional movies and the staples of the season. Watch this and try to hide your own cynicism from your grandma. Screw her. She's a blatant racist.

Double Team - Baby Grenades Ahead

Before he was the US Ambassador to Kim-Jong Un, Dennis Rodman had a dream of being a big Hollywood actor. The path to victory? A movie where he fights tigers, exploding babies, references that aren't related to basketball and U.N.C.L.E. Oh yeah, JCVD is there too.
Double Team is silly in the same vein as any Cannon/Chuck Norris joint. There's a reason that major action movies died for almost 20 years (thanks Fast & Furious franchise) and this movie may have been a huge part of that decline. JCVD led the 90s in super awesome punching bad guy films and here in 1997 film-goers were willing to say "I've had enough of that". A plot that doesn't make any sense, horrific editing, and too too too many basketball related jokes just put them over the edge.
The action sequences are about as "over the top" as you can get. There's truck jumping, tiger's packing heat, exploding babies, foot knives, a machine-gun toting, horse-mounted loon, Belloq as head of CONTROL, under-water lasers, combustible swimming pools, human basketballs, and death nannies. Its crammed pack with so much bonkers action that its hard to keep up.
Come for the "plot", stay for the bananas action. It's a 7 pointer!

Lady in the Water - M. Knight's "The Room"

Spectacularly over-rated director M. Knight Shyamalan gives us his vanity piece in the vein of Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau and not only shows us he stinks at film as badly as they do, but that he's a giant, narcissistic, arrogant, terrible person. Good job!
So it's a fairy tale that involves water people called Narfs, who want to help mankind solve their problems. Standing in the way is their lack of sense of meeting people and a solo grass dog, but also the rules of being eaten by one of Gandalf's eagles. Ok... Now we know that if you look too deeply into most fairy tales, you'll find plenty of problems within the logic and that's fine. However, that is not what this jackass is trying to get us to not do. He tries to put forward some moral about man's desire to destroy itself without some sort of altruistic outside influence as a vehicle to change. What he succeeds in, is to say that he is the greatest story-teller ever to live and if you feel differently you should be eaten by a monster green monster.
Then there's his martyrdom. He plays a character in the film who is the object of the Narf's musing. This person will change the world via his book. It will be read by the future leader of the world, thus inspiring him to make mankind peaceful and prosperous. Yet at no point does he make an attempt to declare what is contained within his "The Cookbook". His only reference to its content is "Its got things about leaders and governments and society and stuff". THIS is the words of the greatest storyteller according to himself. What an asshole.
Aside from his giant ego and his complete hatred for anyone that critiques his work and doesn't worship it, this movie is crap. It's shot poorly, breaks its own rules constantly, has a terrible performance by Paul Giamatti, and conflicting character motivations. It also has a mermaid who has no pants, Ariel's treasure cave, gorilla/ent hybrids, and an apartment complex that was built next to Sherwood without a parking lot. Despite all that lunacy it's terribly boring, hugely unfunny and well worth avoiding.

Pet Sematary - Lotta history in that film, yeah

"Don't do down that path, yah", the strange drunk man with dubious ambitions said to the new residents. Later he would take them on a wondrous adventure to bury a kitty-cat that he himself murdered. It was the strangest thing that week until the dead son came back as Little Lord Fauntleroy with super-powers.
Pet Sematary is just another in a long line of Stephen King movies that raked in the cash but not one theater attendee bothered to pay attention to what was happening on screen. The entire plot is bananas (and falls squarely into "the idiot plot") but that's the least biggest draw for fans of our show. It's all the elements around the plot, ie. the truckers who are clearly trying to break speed records, the undead cat that is just like any other cat, Gage acquiring super-powers upon being reanimated and that the family never asks "Who the hell is this Judd Crandall guy anyways?"
It's a beautiful disaster and truly pushes the boundaries of bad movie laugh-ability with horrific tragedy. I mean, think about it. You are laughing at a child getting ran over - the worst possible thing that could ever happen. Yet the movie is so bad and the production is so crap that you are laughing.... during the worst thing ever. That is one hell of an achievement in bad film-making. Hell even Tommy Wiseau didn't do that.
Brain ghosts, strange accents, random maid suicide, magical beaver dams, open areas that echo with magic briefly, funeral fist-fights, The Ramones, evil dead babies who like "Puttin' on the Ritz" and zombies who just knock over things. This is a top-tier stinker.

Phenomenon - Sure Ain't That

Here's a fun concept. Let's put together a film with heavy sci-fi elements and themes in the vein of Twilight Zone and mash it together with a poorly motivated romance and have John Travolta stare at trees for the majority of it. That sounds like punishment.
Guess what though? It killed it. The box office loved this film despite the critics apprehensions. Flocks of people wanting to see some feel goodie type jobbers fled to the theater thinking that John Travolta was making a huge comeback (it was over 2 years later) and that he was good at acting as he did great at looking confused in Pulp Fiction. 
That's neat and all but here's the deal with this film. It's a continuous set of missed opportunities to be something truly good. It seems that a writer had a fantastic concept in a man given super-powers and then can accomplish nothing with them but have his life ruined by them and a pariah to his former neighbors. That's good stuff. However, the studio clearly stuck their damn noses in and said, "Well we need to have an hour of it be taken up by a romance. That'll get the ladies involved." In this case they were right when it came to cash, but relegates this film to the folks at Stinker Madness to expose it's flaws.
So now you've got this romance crammed into a sci-fi film in post-writing. Now I just saw Passengers (Pratt, Lawrence - 2016) and it is very much a love-story set against a sci-fi space travel story and it's quite well done. Romance/sci-fi mashups CAN happen and be good. However, it needs to be part of the concept and writing from the start. This didn't happen here and this romance starts to fall apart before it even gets going. Their relationship does not have a point B in it. There's A) where she is not interested and then C) she loves him. When did that happen? Oh yeah we were trying to tell a different story during the usual B). 
Beyond that, the film is quite stupid and falls victim to the idiot plot thanks to Travolta's George being a true idiot and Robert Duvall's Doctor of Town not ever looking at a medical chart. Then there's the reveal of the source of his super-powers and completely defeats the entire moral that the film has tried to establish beforehand. 
It's not good and not worth revisiting. Stay clear of all but the most bold.

Friday the 13th V - WTF is this?

We wrap up our Spooktober with a staple from a staple franchise and one of the strangest big box office horror films ever made. This is just a strange film starring "Jason" with lots of head choppins, boobs and a cast of some pretty unusual characters.
So Jason V is one weird film and frankly astounds that it ever frightened anyone...even children. It's seriously gentle in its horror, the plot is not frightening, Jason is not intimidating, and the gore is pretty mild. The MPAA really didn't help out this film at all as it's seriously cut down.
None of it lines up, of course, with any one who cares about continuity or character motivations. The killer doesn't know how revenge works. The hero doesn't know how idolatry works. The film-makers don't know how enchiladas work. It's stunny how little anything works.
BUUUUTTT....that's not why you come to a Jason movie, right? You come for the gore and boobs. Well there's boobs in this one...but the gore is incredibly mild. Most of the deaths occur off-screen and there are only a couple not-worthy ones that still fail to execute fully. So its disappointing there.
However, there's still enough here that isn't part of the Jason staples to show up for. The entire plot and setting is super weird. The cast of characters is simply mind-bending and the single greatest scene in the Friday franchise appears here...in a metal shitbox.
Not great, but still a good revisit.

Sleepwalkers - Starring Clovis, Attack Cat

Cat people. It's a movie about cat people. Written by horror master, Stephen King, it's arguably the most comedic horror film ever made. You thought Dreamcatcher was rife with errors...buckle in, folks.
Sleepwalkers is absolutely bananas. We'll just say right now that this is a must-do film for fans of crummy movies. It's a laugh riot. For instance, let's just put it out there that the chief action star of this film is a house cat, named Clovis. Clovis rivals Chuck Norris, Schwaz, Stallone and Van Damme in the pantheon of 90s action stars. I'm not joking.
So the film is basically about these cat people-- Ancient Egyptian people that have no origin but all of the superpowers (teleportation, telekinesis, invisibility, shape-shifting, invulnerability, immortality) and one of the most dumb weakness of all, allergic to cats. They are cat-people (half-people, half-cat) and their one weakness is cats?!?! Right. So if you've got a plague of cat-people in your town, if you don't have a Clovis, supercop, you're screwed I guess.
So the plot's dumb. Check! Then there's the elements. The makeup is awful. The action is ludicrous (see Clovis). The cameos are constant. The dialogue is atrocious (Perlman - "It's a Polish Fire Drill!" when someone steps in a bear trap). And the effects are... well... a clinic on how not to do effects (with the exception of one great morph effect when the Mustang transforms into a Trans Am). Also, that Trans Am is seriously bitchin'.
It's one of Jackie's best picks of the entire series of our show. Sleepwalkers is a MUST-DO film. Fantastic.
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
Curse of Chucky - Netflix
Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - $2.99 on Amazon Prime
Ghoulies - Epix 

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