10. The Toxic Avenger
Year: 1984
Director: Lloyd Kaufman
Genre(s): Action / Horror / Comedy
Troma have released some ridiculous, campy, hilarious, and trashy movies over the several decades they've been around, and of everything they've made, this is easily my favorite. A kind of bizarro spoof of superhero movies, this movie implements all the genre stereotypes of the cheesiest action movies and seamlessly blends them with the trash and low budget charm Troma films are known for. Never boring and infinitely rewatchable, even if the sequels are a bit dodgy.
Best Moment: Too many to count, but probably one of the scenes involving Melvin.
9. Near Death
Year: 2004
Director: Joe Castro
Genre(s): Horror
Rewatching this again just within the past week or two to remind myself of just ridiculous and hilarious this movie is, I was also reminded of just how few people have seen this movie. And not just that, how no one who has seen it ever seems to talk about just how funny this movie is. Some of the performances are among the funniest I've ever seen (one particular villain is about as subtle as Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending), the use of terrible visual effects is cringeworthy and hilariously relentless, and the awesome gore which I'm still fairly convinced is entirely made out of black cherry jello is just the nail in the coffin. For fans of the so-bad-it's-good genre, this horror masterpiece is not to be missed. Buy it on blurry...er, I mean Blu-ray.
Best Moment: Either the main chick's acting, or the super eloquent professor with a knife and his "RESEARCH!"
8. Birdemic: Shock And Terror
Year: 2010
Director: James Nguyen
Genre(s): Romance / Thriller / Horror
Yep. The greenest, most environmentally conscious movie of our generation. What can I even say about this movie? As far as pure filmmaking goes, this is quite possibly the most inept movie I've ever seen. I can legitimately say the James Bond ripoffs my siblings and I made as a kid were more clever and well put together than this -- and 90% of our location changes were just shooting the same room at the same angle with different colored blankets over the furniture. To see is to believe, and even then this movie is hard to believe. Honestly, even the sequel is funny how terrible it is, but not in the ways it was supposed to be either, despite its attempts to parody the original. Good stuff.
Best Moment: It's hard to even...just everything.
7. Vampire's Kiss
Year: 1988
Director: Robert Bierman
Genre(s): Thriller / Horror / Comedy
The was such a glorious discovery. Several years back, this movie hadn't quite established itself as the huge cult hit that it is now (even though that one meme had already been around for a while, no one seemed to know what movie it was from), but boy has it earned it's spot on every list of this variety. I honestly can't tell just how ridiculous and over the top this movie is trying to be, or if they kind of just said "screw it" once they saw Cage's acting and just went with it. Either way, this movie is just a total blast to watch, and that lead performance is one of the most entertaining in the history of film.
Best Moment: Nicolas Cage (knows his alphabet)!
6. The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra
Year: 2001
Director: Larry Blamire
Genre(s): Sci-Fi / Horror / Comedy
Ever since I first discovered this movie a few years back, I've been a fan of Larry Blamire. His style and Christopher R. Mihm's are very similar (he had a movie featured on this list a few posts back), but honestly Blamire handles the total absurdity even better. A black and white sci-fi horror hybrid with some of the finest aspects of just about every '50s films of those genres, The Lost Skeleton is packed full of fun characters, hilarious one-liners, and pitch-perfect interactions. The jokes come one after the other, and very few miss. One of my absolute favorite parody films of all time.
Best Moment: The super awkward dialogue, or maybe Animala.
5. Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes
Year: 1978
Director: John De Bello
Genre(s): Horror / Comedy / Musical
I was first made aware of this movie at the dawn of time, but it wasn't until just a few years ago that I actually went ahead with watching it. And man, oh man, this movie is just about everything I could have possibly dreamed it could be. Cheesy, lame, awful, random, and stupid are all words that I would not disagree with being attached to this, but there are a few more I would add to the list: hilarious, perfect, and masterpiece. One of the earliest ultra self-aware killer monster films I'm aware of, and still probably the best, there isn't a human alive that I don't think should watch this camp classic.
Best Moment: The noises the tomatoes make. Bzzzzzrrghghghgzzghhhhhrrrr
4. The Room
Year: 2003
Director: Tommy Wiseau
Genre(s): Drama
Yep, here it is. The aptly proclaimed Citizen Kane of bad movies, Tommy Wiseau's The Room holds up after countless rewatches and never fails to entertain me immensely. There's something to love in just about every scene, and especially the scenes which involve the lead character played by none other than the inimitable Tommy Wiseau. Now, I've seen him in a few other things (The House That Drips Blood On Alex and Samurai Cop 2) and he's funny enough in those, but this was the one that really worked the best. Hilarious quotes and memorable moments galore. This is one of the most important movies for conniseurs of this increasingly popular subgenre to watch.
Best Moment: Tommy freakin' Wiseau
3. Black Dynamite
Year: 2009
Director: Scott Sanders
Genre(s): Action / Comedy
Anyone who's watched any blaxploitation or just crappy '70s action movies at all will find plenty to love here. Michael Jai White (hey, he used to follow me on twitter!...until I deleted it) gives the perfect lead performance for this movie, being both physical as well as suitably cool with his one-liners. Until you realize this movie is a big joke, you might actually be fooled into thinking you're watching a movie that's 40 years old, thanks to the remarkable attention to detail and calculated "mistakes" that might be found in films of this type. This is another example of just totally amazing satire, and probably holds a place in my top 10 favorite films of all time. Granted, it's really not for everyone, but few movies on this list really are. I just know I personally love it.
Best Moment: The boomerang scene, probably..
2. Troll 2
Year: 1990
Director: Claudio Fragasso
Genre(s): Horror / Fantasy
Okay, I probably like Black Dynamite more than this movie, but while that movie is trying to be inept, this one just manages to fail so wonderfully completely by accident. Unlike Birdemic, the production quality of this movie is actually fairly decent, leaving the humor to be found more in the atrocious acting, dialogue, and just flat out bizarre choices made in the story. Also, I mean, this isn't even a sequel to Troll. Nor does it have any trolls in it at all. So that should give you at least some idea what to expect. A true, legitimate disasterpiece if there ever was one. And the best traditional so bad it's good movie.
Best Moment: No...no more popcorn...
1. Dead Alive
Year: 1992
Director: Peter Jackson
Genre(s): Horror / Comedy
Aaaand here we go. I almost feel like I'm cheating by putting this as the top choice on this list, because I don't think a lot of this movie is intended to be anything but comedic, but so much of the movie is so blissfully ignorant of what a film should be, and just goes all out in being the best at whatever the hell you want to call this kind of film. It's hard to even call this a bad movie in any way, but the poor production quality and ridiculous cheesiness don't exactly place this in the pantheon of "good", at least by traditional standards. The amount of stupidity, gore, and general trashiness of this movie mask it feel a lot more like Troma, and while it doesn't necessarily misfire like many of these other movies do, believe me when I say this is never anything less than a total blast to watch. A definite top 5 favorite of mine, and one of the movies that makes me wish with all my heart that Peter Jackson would ditch these Hollywood blockbusters for a while and go back to doing what he does best -- making some of the most entertaining, trashy, and cheesy movies ever made. And this one remains the king.
Best Moment: The freakin' monstrous baby.
So there we are. I think I'm done doing big countdowns for now, but I'll still be making more posts and lists, and doing more video reviews, since I've been enjoying that. Toodles.
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