Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

An Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirot sticks his nose into the show and tells us our business, uninvited! Well told him all the problems with his "detecting".
So this is clearly Cannon Group's best produced movie. The production design is good. The costumes are fine. The locations are expensive and fitting. The casting is good. And that's where the compliments stop.
The plot is far from diabolical. In fact, it's blatantly obvious and with and incredibly stupid motive. Then there's the backstory to the motive which is even more stupid. So because the villain of the film is so painfully obvious (mostly just due to a major actor in the role, hint, hint. Its not like Kevin Spacy just suddenly appears out of nowhere with no mention in the credits) 50% of the movie is just the cast tutting around waiting for the plot to start and then the next 40% is Hercule Poirot tutting around and wasting everyone's time. Its not that its tedious because most of it is stupid but it is completely unnecessary and defeating when the reveal finally happens. You're left saying "why did I have to sit through all that build up for that?"
It's not that its really that bad, but unless you love ALL whodunits or you're an Agatha Christie completionist (I guess that's redundant), you can skip this one.

Zardoz - Rerun

We had a bit of an audio kerfuffle as Jackie didn't record any of her audio after doing the whole episode. We'll have to redo it this week and get it out next week. Sorry. So instead you get a treat of Sean Connery being randy in dystopia in Zardoz. Original date of release was back in January of 2018 in the "before time". Enjoy!

American Ninja 4 - Ninja manliness wars!

Dudikoff returns as Joe Armstrong but does any of the magic of the first 2 films come with him? And can David Bradley match up to his Alpha Ninja? And can Karl stand in for Steve James? Nope, uh uh and wowie no way man.
So basically, our boy from AN3 Sean (David Bradley) pairs up with his buddy to save some POWs held captive by a snobby Colonel Neil Diamond and his terrorist pal Shah-Blah-Blah who want $50 million and blow up a nuke in NYC. Well Sean and Carl get nabbed and tortured so the USA calls in ol' Joe Armstrong to ninja up and kick his way through a ninja training camp to free them all. The usual stuff here. Along the way he travels to Barter Town, fights in Thunderdome and recruits a horde of barbarians to invade the baddies fortress. Joe then finds the captives, proves his superiority to Sean, kills Sean, finds out dead Sean is an imposter (because?) and then wanders off.
So its the worst of the AN series and by quite a ways. There's very little remarkable in it outside of the lunacy that I mentioned last paragraph. The ninjas are dumb. The stunts are boring. The fight choreography is mushy. And the villains suck. There's also a ton of filler with the middle section mostly consisting of Sean, Karl and Sarah (Robin Stille) getting smacked around, Joe sharpening his sword (which he never uses) and the baddies cackling ala Dr. Evil.....for 40 minutes.
It's still a do, but just barely and not for anyone that isn't a baloney ninja action movie fan.

American Ninja Rerun

We go WAY back to 2016 (ugh, do we have to?) and revisit our first episode of the American Ninja saga (tee hee) with special guest Joe Fulgham of the Caustic Soda Podcast. Enjoy!

The Dirt - Whose wiener is this anyways?

Its pretty much a VH1 Behind The Music episode but with a lot more naked chicks.
Look, if you like Motley Crue (insert the umlauts on your own, bub) good for you. I'm not here to bash your taste in music. I think they have some ok jams and some terrible ones as well but that can be said about anyone (including The Beatles and Led Zeppelin) so enjoy your cassette tape of Decade of Decadence and rock on. This however is a podcast about bad movies and so this whole thing will be about the movie. And this movie sucks.
My problem with The Dirt is that its not a movie. There's no plot. There's no character journey. They start out as "fucking idiots" and end as "fucking idiots". "Well, its a biography pic", you might argue. "Sometimes people don't have any character arcs because they aren't characters, they are people." Ok, good argument. Except...
It isn't a damn biography. They movie even comes right out and says its all bullshit (delivered by Iwan Rheon's Mick Mars). Which is fine...if you're sitting around talking rock folklore with a dude wearing a Motorhead (stop it with the umlauts, dammit!) t-shirt. But this is outright revisionist history and by declaring some of it is bullshit so that it looks like a movie makes ALL of it bullshit and then what's the point of it anyways?
I'll tell you what. A celebration of infantile misogyny and entitlement. This is a man-boy jerk-off fantasy. "Wow, look at those guys shit on everyone they ever met and smack women around. Sure wish I could do that." said a future election denying mom's basement dweller. I'm over the romanticizing of hair metal excessiveness. None of it should be looked on fondly or celebrated. They were shitty people then and they are shitty people now.
Watch if you like excessive nudity though. I could use my time better though.

Primal Rage - Sasquatch is so lonely

Sasquatch finds the love of his life and then her husband smashes his head with a rock. Shakespeare it is not.
So a couple get hit with rocks and get lost in the woods. What ensues is Squatch gets a crush on the lady and wants to have some alone time with her. Standing in his way is some rednecks, her husband and a local sheriff that's coming down from a bad peyote trip. And its way weirder than that. Its a tiny little indy-budget movie that is like the John Wick of DTV horror films as in someone that is GREAT at makeup directs and writes a movie. The makeup is great (like the stunts in JW) but the story is baffling (unlike JW) with the world of Bigfoot being very confusing and dubious. Throw in some Native American weapons and some bark armor and Bigfoot just gets weirder and weirder.
Apparently, what Squatches are, is the spirits of deceased Native American chiefs. So there is no lady Squatches, I guess. Much like the Catholic clergy (too soon?) that's a problem as our Squatch is a randy bastard who stalks our heroine for the sake of making some squatch/human baby hybrids. Oh, it gets weirder. A bog witch becomes involved and we're still not sure whose side she is on. 
Eventually, there's much murder of rednecks and buckets of gore with Squatch bouncing off trees like a ninja. Which is all fun. But there's too much not that surround this that makes it not awesome.
It's bizarre and dumb but it still may not be for everyone. If you like creature-features its a do. Everyone else might want to take a pass. 

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt - Wanna hunt some blood this weekend, Phil?

Is there a Blood Hunt? Are there actually ninjas? Is there anything in this movie at all? Hopefully we have answers but its not looking good.
So I'm gonna try to sum up the plot here. A pair of criminals launch their criminal empire by stealing the box office of a local karate tournament. Ten years later, they plot to create a super-virus to sell to terrorists but in order to prove it works, they must inject it into the world's toughest ninja and watch him die. To do this, they have their lead ninja disguise herself as his adoptive karate dad and the secretary for the Ministry of the Interior....nope I can't do it. This crap makes no sense.
I mean this plot is nanners. Its not the idiot plot because the idiot plot requires an clear and achievable goal by either the protagonist or the antagonist. I literally have no idea what these guys are going for here. I mean its the kind of thing you write on a bedside notepad after a wild dream and think you've got the next Academy Award for screenplay on your hands and then you wake up and attempt to read it and all you can manage to decipher is "banana dogs". You then throw that note away. Well not for Cannon Films. They made that dream into reality and it stinks.
Aside from that is the ninjas. They are awful. These are probably the worst ninjas in film. They are bad at martial arts. They aren't sneaky. They appear to just be hourly employees that aren't ninjas but are dressed as such because the uniforms were cheap. Our heroes aren't much better. Steve James at least looks like he's done action scenes before but he's the sole bright spot in that dept.
I may be making this sound unwatchable but really AM3 is pretty fun. Its doesn't hold a candle to the first one but its a great bad movie Sunday especially in a double feature. Its a do!

211 - Swirlie receiver takes down international crime

Nic Cage has to team-up with his partner "Dead Meat" and a 16 year old bullied teenager to take down a team of bank-robbing mercenaries that have a combined IQ of DUUUUMMMMBBBB. Here comes the idiot plot.
Yes its a DTV Nic Cage movie. You probably know what you're getting into with this. Is it his worst? No. Is it fun? Well.....If you like the idiot plot (all drivers of the plot must be total morons or the movie doesn't happen) then yes. You'll like this. Is it the movie we wanted to see out of this premise? Nope. The thing is that the heisting aspect and subsequent danger our protagonists are put into is so incredibly trite and somewhat uninteresting that 3/4 of the movie is checkout time. We've seen it all before. Guys go into building, take hostages, unprepared police find a way to take them down. What is different is that the villains are absolute idiots. Their entire plan appears to have hinged on illegal parking. 
"Oh no, we've lost our parking space. What do we do?!?!"
"Only thing we can do. Kill the hostages and then walk out the front door into a hail of bullets."
"Good thing we put you in charge because my plan was to try to use leverage to get a chopper or even just go out the back of the building. Man, am I stupid."
Its really hard to root for the good guys here because the bad guys are so completely worthless. Which completely takes you out of the movie and leaves you wishing you'd just watched Kenny go on a ride-along and find a new father figure who takes care of that bully problem. This is a don't bother.

The Gingerdead Man - Three key ingredients of murder cookies

Gary Busey does some crimes, gets the chair and with the help of his momma hatches a very dubious but tasty way to enact his revenge against those that he did crimes against. I don't know. Look he's a talking murder cookie. What do you want here?
Ok this isn't exactly Macbeth here. Its a Charles Band movie called The Gingerdead Man. Its ridiculous. I think you know the level of intellect that is being tossed at you. You shouldn't be that surprised to know that this movie is a stinker. But what you might not expect is...that its kind of fun. Well why wouldn't it be? Well because of a slew of similarly stupid movies that have come out in the last 20 years. Some gimmick like Sharks From Mars or Tiny Tim But He's a Murderer or Octopusindomikhan or Dead People Who Are Famous Fight Vampires or... well you get the idea. The Asylum is especially to blame for this and you all know how we feel about their lazy garbage. So The Gingerdead Man likely has been on your radar in the same vein as their crap. But...its really not like their crap.
The Gingerdead Man is a terrible movie. Its a Chucky knock-off for the most part with its afore mentioned gimmick. BUT because its Charles Band, there's always some level of vaudevillian charm to it. Its hokey but cute. Its dumb but silly. And at no point is it the lazy crap that relies solely on its title to get you to watch it and instantly regret picking up a copy of Tornadodactyls vs Mittens, the Robot Cat.
Its a do from us.

Feeders 2: Slay Bells - Jeff Goldblum has nothing on Santa

Yeah these guys aren't taking over a mound of dirt. A handful of little and very inept ETs come to Earth to mess up the holidays for a family. Little did they know, they aren't good at anything.
So its a super 0 budget film that is put together by the Polonia brothers as part of their long running series of hobby films. That might turn quite a few people off but somehow this one that should cause some nausea manages to maintain a level of charm throughout. There's no sense of "I'm making the next Gone with the Wind" ego that comes with similar film makers, like Neil Breen or Tommy Wiseau. There's also no garbage hot take like you get with James Nguyen. There's just this sense that they wanted to have fun making a movie and that comes across very clearly.
The acting is probably the best/worst (says you!) part of the film as everyone cannot deliver a single line. It's not Troll 2 bad but it nears its level and is just a few really bad lines of dialogue away. There's just not enough opportunity for anyone to really blow it. But blow it they still do and its great. Second to that is the nonsensical plot that leaves the viewer wondering what the heck the aliens goal even is, let alone how they mastered interstellar travel. I'm these little buggers are so incredibly stupid and manage to get themselves killed more than anything. How its possible there is a body count of 3 here is beyond me as its not really clear how these guys harm anyone. I guess they are bitey? Also are they eating people? Who can tell? Lastly, the effects are atrocious as the aliens themselves look terrible and the post-production done with Video Toaster is the stuff of your local TV station making car lot commercials 20 years ago.
Its not for everyone but this will fall into the "its so bad its good" category for many fans of the genre; myself included.