Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

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.

Battleship - Not a good plan - W/ Special Guest, Joe Fulgham!

Special Guest - Joe Fulgham (Caustic Soda, The Dreaming, Onlightened) returns after our American Ninja episode and brings his Canadian goodness to the podcast with all his wit! Find Joe and all he does:
You can find more on Joe and his projects at MoteofDust.com and follow him on Twitter @joefulgham
When you are completely out of original ideas and need to have your own extended universe (because the other guy's have one), just take whatever licensed property you have and make a movie about it. Don't worry about whether the movie is a good idea or not, or if people will even care. Just make it. Worry 'bout all that stuff later.
WRONG!
Battleship is arguably one of the worst decisions made by men is ties. Deciding to make a movie based off one of the most boring board games (the kind that makes you quite playing all board games) and THEN chuck $200 million at it, will not pay off. With the stupid concept aside, Battleship is really poorly done. The plot is awful, the motivations are awful and the acting is especially terrible. The lead (Tayler Kitsch) is not only a terrible character but he can't get a line right. Then you've got all the non-actors surrounding them that make Rihanna look like she's Meryl Streep.Beyond that the primary problem with Battleship is that the front-end is atrociously un-entertaining. The entire first half of this film is just establishing how much of a butthole that Tayler Kitsch's character is. Seriously. The aliens that do battle with ships, don't show up on Earth until minute 54! Minute Freaking 54! Then the game of Battleship doesn't even begin until 1 hour and 30 minutes! Blech.So with that, the last 45 minutes is a lot of fun and if the film had just been that stuff, we might have really enjoyed this film. Yet, unfortunately, that is not the case - the front half ruins this film completely and we have to give it a very tough - do not.

Red Sonja - More like Bed Sonja...zzz

Conan rides through your screen once again but this time he's named Kalidor and he's not the main character. Instead, a non-action star shows us what non-action looks like in the least adventurous adventure movie ever made. Swords & Sandals? Check. Visual Valium? You betcha.
I don't know how this movie stinks so bad. It has your typical lady-hero plot of sword & sandal genre staples. Revenge for burning down the village. Ok. Wait, the villain burned down the village for subtle lesbian motivations? Wow, that sounds super hot. Well....it's not.
This is "walking around" the movie. Look, Frodo & Samwise walk to Mordor for a vacation from paradise and you can't take your eyes off it. Here, the entire world is about to be destroyed by cracking apart (again because of a jilted lesbian) and you can't keep awake.
For the most part, this is the fault of two people: 1) Dino De Laurentiss and 2) Brigidette Nielsen. Dino edited forced this turd out because he apparently couldn't get anything made that didn't involve Conan. And then Nielsen's terrible line delivery and even worse sword-fighting. The entire time she looks like she's afraid of the script (with good reason) and her sword hitting her in the face. This is not an action lady, folks. See Geena Davis in Cutthroat Island for more realistic stunts. Blech.
So long story short, this is just folks walking around. At best this is fun only because of the incredibly dubious plot, the fantastic matte-work, and the bonkers costumes and set design. Hope you don't like things happening in a film!

Speed Zone - Come for the comedy - Revel in the stunts

When you really need to make a sequel to the worst sequel ever made (Cannonball Run II) you better not call it Cannonball Run III. Instead call it Cannonball Fever (where you legally can), get the folks from SCTV and let Jamie Farr make an appearance. Add fast cars and hijinks. Shake and then serve. The primary reason you want to come into this film is for the fast cars and ridiculous shenanigans when you mix cars and comedy. Well, this one delivers that in spades. From the very get go there are banana-stunts with cars all set to a comedic backdrop. See a Countach skip across a lake, see a BMW 5 series jump 30 feet, see a Jaguar XJS fly - really, really fly. We'll save the most insane stunt for the viewers at home but it involves a commercial airliner. While there are some serious duds for jokes here and there, there is legitimately good comedy here. The SCTV folks knew how to script a great joke about society and morals. You can see the difference between the chauvinism and grab ass comedy of the Burt Reynolds/Dom Deluise vision of the Great Gumball Rally to the mild, awkward comedy of John Candy and Eugene Levy. Speed Zone is a true gem of using a tight budget and spending it very wisely. This seems like they had $10 million to spend but in reality it was closer to $1 million. A great cast, lots of cameos, ridiculous stunts and laugh after laugh makes the illegitimate child of the Cannonball Run franchise a great view. Do it!

Gwendoline - Loses her clothes in the Land of Bananas

A French director, named Just Jaeckin, gives us a serious boobie movie with Tawny Kitaen, Brent Huff, and Zabou in which they find the land of the Yik Yak, an underground future society of topless women. Its got our record for the highest boob count to date! Well imagine a movie where there's about 100 different topless women. So I know you can just stop and be happy with that. But there's so much more to this film than a cavalcade of hot cans. Brent Huff plays a rogue named Willard (more of the name of a local weatherman, than a movie hero), who is a supreme butthole. This guy is pretty hard to like as a person. If you've listened to the episodes of the show for Tom Boy or Teen Witch, you'll understand the level of douche the 80's pervade. Willard takes the cake. What a complete and total horrible human that we are later told by the film that he's just got a rough surface. Oof. Then there's Tawny. She is gloriously awful in this movie. She can't act her way out of a paper bag. And her character is also your typical 80's lady archetype were said douche, Willard, does awful things to her and she thinks he's dreamy. Yet then there's her action and her topless scenes. Wait what? Tawny Kitaen is topless in this? Oh yeah and it's worth the 30 year wait I had to endure to have a good look and that lady on top of that car in "Here I Go Again". Zabou and the surrounding cast are all fantastic with endless silly scenes. Then surround them with one of the most outlandish settings, WTF plot, banana dialogue, and horrendously hokey action sequences (see Human Chariot Races). We loved it and you will too!