Big Turkeys
Alligator
by Sergio Martino
with Barbara Bach, Claudio Cassinelli, Mel Ferrer
Notes: A crocodile movie that accumulates all the genre's stereotypes, plus suggesting an offending neo-colonialist ideology. Dull and stupid, an antipathic turkey.
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Body
by Uli Edel
with Madonna, Willem Dafoe
Notes: With Madonna. We were expecting a
Basic Instinct plagiarism or a good campy thriller. Boy were we wrong, we're just getting bored during this whole lengthy and boring turkey.
Labroche
Commando Squad
by Fred Olen Ray
with Kathy Shower, Brian Thompson, William Smith, Sid Haig
Notes: Industry amateur cinema sold in bargain boxes in Wall-Mart. The heroine of Robo CHIC stars as the main role (already a turkey here) in a vague detective story that screens dead cliché action scenes. No interest.
LeRôdeur
Diamonds of Kilimandjaro
by Cole Polly (Jesus Franco and Olivier Mathot)
with Katja Bienert, Dan Villers, Olivier Mathot, Antonio Mayans (a.k.a. Robert Foster)
Notes: Eurociné-produced all-rotten adventure movie. Slow, ugly, incredibly badly done, it is some sort of Z-grade series limit experiment, for strong viewers only. Everything is so lame that it sometimes becomes impressing, but the lack of rhythm of the movie is too painful. Too much camp kills the camp. Knowing that Eurociné launched this project after that
Raiders of the Lost Ark came in theaters is funnier than the movie itself. By the way, the two chicks on the movie cover never appear in the movie.
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Extreme Honor
by Steven Rush
with Dan Andersen, Michael Ironside, Michael Madsen, Olivier Gruner
Notes: An action movie almost without any action! There are campy elements, such as the hero, Dan Andersen, big beefcake who is incredibly moronic! As the villain, Michael Ironside is really overacting and makes every scene of his cheesy. Olivier Gruner, announced as the star, only appears at the beginning and at the end. The storyline is one of the most badly made one, an exceptional matter! But this cheap B-movie is too slow to be funny.
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Foxtrap
by Fred Williamson (with J-M Pallardy for some scenes)
with Fred Williamson, Christopher Connelly, Jean-Marie Pallardy
Notes: We have to admit it; good old Fred Williamson is a poor director when he is the one behind the camera. Despite the appearance of Jean-Marie Pallardy as a little crook called… Rico (!!). This story of a detective who investigates between Los Angeles, Rome and Monte Carlo gets really too slow. Whatever liking we have for Fred "The Hammer", we get damn bored.
Rico
Frogs
by Georges McCowan
with Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan von Ark
Notes: We hoped so much, seeing that awesome cover. We were even more disappointed: the movie is just about a bunch of unmotivated actors discussing uninteresting things; then after a hour and ten minutes, they remember they are supposed to shoot a horror movie and so they pretend to be afraid of some frogs released in a house. Awfully slow, even in fast motion.
Rico
Future Sport
by Ernest R. Dickerson
with Dean Cain, Valerie Chow, Wesley Snipes, Vanessa L. Williams
Notes: A fake ridiculous
Rollerball. Almost a camp, but it still belongs to the turkey rank. It still can be watched with a bit of pleasure (during a Sunday rainy afternoon when you have the choice between this movie and
Walker Texas Ranger).
Halloween 4
by Dwight Little
with Donald Pleasence
Notes: Mad killer Michael Myers who was missing in the third episode returns in this fourth volume, flabby as an overcooked spaghetti. Tasteless and uninteresting horror movie, it could even cut you off from watching the first one by John Carpenter, which would really be a shame.
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I Want to Get Even
by Maman Firmansyah
with Eva Arnaz, Clift Sangra, Nena Rosier
Notes: « Motorbikes and men, street fights and violence". Such were those dead original terms on our version of the cover, by the Ciné Budget editor. This movie was anyway probably directed towards the local market as it is alas too weird, even sordid, with a weak half-plot about rape and drug-use.
John Nada
Invisible Strangler
by John Florea
with Robert Foxworth, Stefanie Powers
Notes: A turkey with young
Hart to Hart heroine. It is the story of an invisible killer who is, luckily for his victims, particularly stupid (this big idiot dresses up as a frogman to kill people instead of staying invisible!). A boring show, with a shot-to-shot realization.
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Island City
by Jorge Montesi
with Kevin Conroy, Brenda Strong, Eric McCormack, Pete Koch
Notes: American post-nuke from the 90’s, a kind that is never distrusted enough. The two hairy and hefty dudes with torn T-shirts on the cover made me expect a least bit of fun. Alas, it is just an old lame crap formatted as a TV movie in the same way as the Stargate series. It apparently is the pilot episode of a series that was undoubtedly never produced.
John Nada
Juego Sucio en Casablanca
(trans: Dirty Game in Casablanca)
by Jess Frank (Jesus Franco)
with William Berger, Muriel Montossé, Ricardo Palacios, Lina Romay
Notes: Incomprehensible and rotten thriller, produced by Eurociné. Boring as death! NEVER TO BUY, NOT EVEN FOR 4 CENTS, NO RENTING, NOT ANYTHING! AVOID IT LIKE PLAGUE! Unless you have insomnia: you shall be healed instantly! Apparently, Jess Franco and his crew got some nice holiday under the budget of the production; then, at the end of the trip, they remembered they were supposed to be shooting a movie and then improvised it in two days. It is the only explanation possible. Totally unwatchable.
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Little Ninjas
by Emmet Alston
with Douglas Ivan, Steven Nelson, Jonathan Anzaldo, Alan Godshaw
Notes: Yeah, I know, I fool around too much. The adventures of three little frustrating American ninjas on the island of Rotonga – which oddly looks like the Philippines– confronting evil Sarak and his gang... Recommended for 7 years old and below (but did I really need to tell you?).
John Nada
Men of War
by Perry Lang
with Dolph Lundgren
Notes: A boring war movie with Dolph Lungdren. A must not-see, because we have really been had this time.
Labroche
Never Play Clever Again
by Jean Girault, Tony Aboyantz
with Louis de Funès, Michel Galabru, Claude Gensac, Maurice Risch
Notes: The last movie of Louis de Funès who died three weeks after the French release. The poor man was very tired and it is obvious on the screen. Besides, everybody was down: Jean Girault, the director, died during the shooting, which was finished by his assistant. The movie, very depressing, gives away the feeling of this general tiredness and only leaves an emotion of sadness.
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Ninja Academy
by Nico Mastorakis
with Will Egan, Gerald Okamura, Kelly Randall, Lisa Montgomery
Notes: Californian Z-grade comedy, oddly mixing
Karate Kid and
Police Academy. Lame, unfunny. The kind of bargain turkey that used to be screened on any cheap channel. You actually have to avoid most of Nico Mastorakis movies.
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No Time to Die
by Helmut Ashley
with John Philip Law, Barry Prima, Christopher Mitchum, Grazyna Dylong
Notes: What a shame, it had a good premise: after a delirious motorbike chase, this German-Indonesian (that's right...) coproduction film concerning the transport of a laser gun in the jungle gets quite quickly very mediocre despite a very Z-gradish cast.
Rico
On se calme et on boit frais à Saint-Tropez
(trans: Let’s calm down and drink freshly in Saint-Tropez)
by Max Pécas
with Luq Hamet, Eric Reynaud-Fourton, Leïla Fréchet, Brigitte Lahaie
Notes: The last movie from Max Pécas. Himself recognized that he could have done without shooting it. There really aren’t words to describe such a thing. Awful, unwatchable! We could find worse, but we’d have to make a research and I don’t feel brave enough to try. The title is fantastically lame but is by far more worthy than the movie.
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Oublie-moi
(trans: Forget me)
by Noémie Lvovsky
with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Emmanuelle Devos, Laurent Grévill, Philippe Torreton
Notes: Self-centering, frustration, depressiveness... All the stereotypes of French author cinema from the 90's are here. It is so complete that it almost becomes comical. But this first movie by Noémie Lvovsky is not bad enough to be funny, and reveals to be mostly annoying. A French movie to reasure those who don't like French cinema!
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The Rat Man
by Giuliano Carmineo
with David Warbeck, Eva Grimaldi, Nelson De La Rosa, Janet Agren
Notes: Z-grade Italian horror movie, with the South-American dwarf Nelson De La Rosa, "the world’s shortest actor" - but he was advertised as "shortest in the world".... The poster is promising
(“cruel as a rat, smart as a man…”) but the movie is disappointing, dull and doesn’t reach the bad taste level that we hoped for. The director tries to compensate by filming Eva Grimaldi’s big boobs. Let’s also note that De La Rosa plays a rat-man in
Island of Doctor Moreau with Brando, reviewed on this website.
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The Retrievers
by Eliott Hong
with Max Thayer
Notes: An American thriller that is so bad that it would have deserved to be Filipino. Not even this real hero of Max Thayer, unusually slim this time, can save it from boredom. It's just a painful movie, for Max fans only, and barely...
LeRôdeur
Robo C.H.I.C.
by Ed Hansen et Jeffrey Mandel
with Kathy Shower, Burt Cord, Julie Newmar, Lyle Waggoner
Notes: Female Robocop flick trying to be intentionally goofy, yet ends up being so in an irritating way. In the cast, a big collection of
has-been actors (such as Burt Cord and Julie Newmar, who respectively played Robin and Catwoman in the 60's
Batman TV series, and Lyle Waggoner, who played the soldier in love with Wonder Woman). The movie uses a lot of vulgar and lame jokes, plus some gratuitous nudity scenes. Cheesy and unfunny turkey.
Rico
Rockula
by Luca Bercovici
with Dean Cameron, Tawny Fere, Susan Tyrrell, Bo Diddley
Notes: A late 80's Cannon product. The French tagline we had is amusing (
At 300 years-old, he decided to create his own rock&roll band), the movie much less. Dumb music, dumb actors, dumb jokes: head-banging lame flick, so stupid that you'd rather blow your brain out.
John Nada
Soviet (a.k.a. Solo Voyage)
by Mikhail Tumanishvili
with Milhaïl Nozhkin, Aleksandr Fatyushin
Notes: This USSR movie has the undeserved reputation of being the "Soviet Rambo". It is actually an ultra-boring pitiful turkey, with ugly imagery and a sub-James Bond story, shot with the budget of a HMK telefilm. The only more or less amusing trait is the inversed manicheism, where the Americans are this time the villains. The hero's face looks like a mix between Lee Van Cleef and Richard Harrison, but that's quite all we can say.
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Spaced Invaders
by Patrick Read Johnson
with Douglas Barr, Royal Dano
Notes: What do you mean, listing such a movie here is stupid due to the fact that its big turkey nature is so obvious? Mmh... yes, that's right. Then why did we buy it and --even less forgivable-- watch it? Mmh... let's be snooty to keep it cool: it was a nihilist experiment.
John Nada
Speed Driver
by Stelvio Massi
with Fabio Testi, Senta Berger
Notes: This movie is originally called
Vértigo en la pista (Dizzy on the Track). Contrary to what the poster shows, this is not a motorbike race flick but a car race flick. Stelvio Massi, who also made
Black Cobra, is giving us once more a poor piece of crap, as exciting to watch as a Formula 1 race taped on a hand camera where we already know the winner in advance(the hero of course). SHAME ON IT!
LeRôdeur
Survival Zone
by Percival Rubens
with Gary Lockwood, Camilla Sparv, Morgan Stevens
Notes: After the bomb, a clean family is seized by evil cannibal bikers. Alas, except the cackling biker leader who looks like he belongs to Castellari's
The New Barbarians, the poor viewer is just seized by boredom from this predictable South-African-American post-nuke.
Rico
Thrauma
by Gianni Martucci
with Ronny Ross, Daphne Price
Notes: "Thraumatically" forgettable. We have the cloning of the worst slasher-movie clichés, with boringly endless filling scenes between. The beautiful expressionist photography and the “video art” opening credits could have given better expectations. The director's notoriety for making breast shots and twisted ideas could have made it worse. But it is a failure, shamefully…
LeRôdeur
Tycus
by John Putch
with Dennis Hopper, Finola Hughes, Peter Onarati...
Notes: Just a turkey. The plot's about a scientist who wants to save a part of the planet from the end of the world... Only amusing thing: the stock footage from the beginning of the movie is used again at the end!
US Commando
by Eddie Nicart
with Jess Lapid, Cristina Crisol, George Estregan, Melinda Mendez
Notes: A little Filipino turkey from Golden Films International, by the director of
For Your Height Only and
The Impossible Kid (two mythical camps with the dwarf Weng Wang as "Agent 00"). There isn't any commando or GI Joes, but just the little plain adventures of a soldier returning to his village which got messed by merciless villains, who'll make him cry for revenge during the last third of the movie. Oh predictable and oh too plain.
John Nada
Voodoo Black Exorcist
by Manuel Caño
with Alfredo Mayo, Fernando Sancho
Notes: Several titles in French (The Horror From the Grave, The Blood From Darkness, Revenge of the Zombie…). Inside, a damn unattractive Spanish turkey with some mummy story…
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Warlords of the 21st Century
by Harley Cokliss
with Michael Beck, Annie McEnroe, James Wainwright
Notes: Despite having that Michael Beck fuckface as a cheap Mad Max (c'mon, that guy still was in
Megaforce and
Xanadu), this Neo-Zelandese post-apocalyptic flick doesn't give much more than mere boredom. Everything's too plain and so damn deja-vu.
Rico
Wild Beasts
by Franco Prosperi
with Lorraine de Selle, John Aldrich, Louisa Lloyd
Notes: It was the time of "ecological message" movie fashion... Animals from Hambourg's zoo, rendered insane by the pollution, escape and go on a people killing spree. Franco Prosperi, who is really not the best Italian flick director, is putting here some depressing images of industrial harbours and some anemic circus animal attacks, without trying to make the overall thing exciting.
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Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II
by Charles B. Griffith
with Robert Jayne, David Carradine, Mel Welles, Lana Clarkson
Notes: Very cheap heroic-fantasy flick. Despite a promising beginning, the movie just isn’t worth it. If you are to see it, only do it so for the sleepwalking performance of David
“I’m just paying my taxes” Carradine and a few funny details (cardboard decors, cheesy monsters, missed out special effects…). Another amusing detail, the movie steals stock footage from two other heroic-fantasy movies:
Warrior And The Sorceress (with Carradine) and
Barbarian Queen (with Lana Clarkson).
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Too Good Movies
Agent on ice
by Clark Worswick
with Tom Ormeny, Andreas Katsulas
Notes: As the cover, we have an old cheesy kindergarten-level cut and pasting (see the movie cover section). Inside, a quite good Canadian thriller, close to the Alain Corneau style.
LeRôdeur
Clash
by Raphaël Delpard
with Catherine Alric, Pierre Clémenti
Notes: This movie chronologically comes after
Night of Death (reviewed on this website as
La Nuit de la Mort) in the works of Raphaël Delpard. Contrary to
Night of Death which was a nameless Z-grade camp,
Clash is a good suspense movie with a very absorbing fantastic atmosphere. One of the rare successes of French cinema in the genre. Therefore, not a camp.
LeRôdeur
Cohen & Tate
by Eric Red
with Roy Scheider, Adam Baldwin, Harley Cross
Notes: Two hitmen from the mob abduct a child who witnessed their last crime. Road-movie with a lot of car riding (80% of the movie is happening in the hitmen's car), this film noir was a terrible bomb and has a totally unjustified awful camp reputation. It is actually a very good and quite original B-movie with a well-directed suspense. Its bad reputation is therefore a mystery. Really deserves a watch.
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Mystery Men
by Kinka Usher
with Ben Stiller, William H. Macy
Notes: It isn't a very funny show, not campy either. In short, it's not worth the catch. The original version is still better than the French version. It's a shame, because we do like Ben Stiller here (well, apart from Mayonne...).
Soldier
by Paul W.S. Anderson
with Kurt Russel, Gary Busey, Michael Chiklis, Jason Scott Lee
Notes: Watch it only to realize how much an actor can be not speaking in a movie where he is actually the star.
Stuart Little
by Rob Minkoff
with Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones, Hugh Laurie, Jonathan Lipnicki
Notes: Children movies often are wonderful camps (such as
Power Rangers). That mouse flick is naive indeed, but there is nothing to comment here...
Vietnam, Texas
by Robert Ginty
with Robert Ginty, Haing S. Ngor, Tim Thomerson, Tamlyn Tomita
Notes: A Vietnam veteran who became a priest (Ginty) finds back his Vietnamese girlfriend from old times, now married to an Asian mob boss. Mwahaha, a movie by and with Ginty, isn't it camp for sure? Well, no. Half-thriller, half-drama, it is a little honestly made movie, though a bit long. Almost nothing camp except a few mikes in the screen or a quite unrealistic torture scene. Ginty himself is quite convincing, his "monoexpressive droopy" acting suiting his character.
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Nice Oldish Stuff
A Boy and His Dog
by L. Q. Jones
with Don Johnson, Jason Robards, Susan Benton
Notes: Don't get upset from the title (quite cheesy-childish) or its cover (a mushroom cloud) or even less the back text, weird but true (After the bomb, a boy mutates from his brain and communicates telepathically with his dog as they scavenge for food and sex!). The movie, which is the predecessor of
Mad Max in the genre, is an excellent American B-movie from the 70's with great humour. Good movie.
LeRôdeur
Armed Response
by Fred Olen Ray
with David Carradine, Lee Van Cleef, Michael Berryman, Mako, Laurene Landon…
Notes: A B-movie expert directing a 1986 action movie with a big B-list cast gives... a decent B-movie, that's right. David Carradine, Vietnam veteran, and his father Lee Van Cleef (well, I think), are tough but jolly bartenders until the day David's brother is kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the mob of Chinatown. Just imagine what happens next...
John Nada
Barracuda
by Harry Kerwin
with Wayne Crawford, Jason Evers, William Kerwin
Notes: It begins like a sub-Jaws, but the film leaves very quickly the killer barracudas out of the spotlight and gets in a X-files atmosphere with men in black and government scientific dark project. A dark and disillusioned movie that shows its age (1978) but that is still worth a watch.
Rico
Cocaine Wars
by Hector Olivera
with John Schneider, Catherine Witt, Royal Dano
Notes: Cocaine Wars, the product of a great Argentinean movie director with a bottom-of-the-barrel storyline. The blonde hero of
The Dukes of Hazzard is the leading star, with a great moustache but he is still convincing. It's also a Reaganian action movie (with Ronald Reagan's own daughter in a brothel scene!) where the American hero is working with a socialist leader! Good enough for any bashing action amateur.
LeRôdeur
The Dark Side of the Moon
by D.J. Webster
with Will Bledsoe, Alan Blumenfeld, John Diehl
Notes: Imagine that the Devil is living on the dark side of the moon and that he connected it to the Bermuda Triangle in order to corrupt planet Earth. Spaceship SpaceCore One will discover it by rescuing an abandoned space shuttle... With this crazy scenario, it is a quite nice and very well-done B-movie that is highly influenced by
Alien and
The Thing despite a limited budget.
Rico
Enter the ninja
by Menahem Golan
with Franco Nero, Sho Kosugi, Christopher George, Susan George
Notes: THE movie that launched the "ninja" fashion in the 80's, the career of Sho Kosugi (who plays here as the villain) and eventually the "moustache ninja" style which made the glory of Richard Harrison. It's a good old B-movie: campy elements (Nero isn't very believable in his ninja suit, good thing that he is stunted in the fights), but nothing to mention globally, the movie not being that interesting.
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Mako: The Jaws of Death
by William Grefe
with Richard Jaekel, John Chandler, Jennifer Bishop
Notes: A friendly but looney man is persuaded that he is able to communicate with sharks by the means of his sacred medallion. Offended by the greediness of the human species, he decides to throw whoever harms his new friends to his shark buddies. Although it is a bit too TV-formatted, this movie (which was released one year before
Jaws), is fairly absorbing.
Rico
Plain
Casino Royale
by Val Guest, John Huston, Robert Parrish, Ken Hughes
with David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Orson Welles
Notes: A failure in the purposefully campy flick domain. There's a crazy cast, some good scenes (Woody Allen appears at the end as the big villain boss) but this James Bond spoof from the sixties is not always funny: too scattered and just annoying after all. The movie is not at the same comical level as the shooting. Some parts are worth it, but overall, it's more turkey than camp. (But still with some camp!)
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Good cop, Bad cop
by John DeBello
with Lorenzo Lamas, Catherine Lazo, Daniel Zacapa, Marco Rodriguez
Notes: Evil drug smugglers are smuggling drugs at the Mexican frontier, taking advantage of the local superstitions to use magical hoaxes, but Lorenzo Lamas will kick their ass. Great job, Lorenzo Lamas! The first moments make us hope for a camp, but we have here a decent B-movie. Not interesting, but not lousy either. Nothing comical here. Still, that Lorenzo Lamas sure is strong!
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Howard the Duck (A.k.a. Howard, A New Breed of Hero)
by Willard Huyck
with Lea Thompson, Tim Robbins, Jeffrey Jones
Notes: This movie, based on a Marvel comics, was such a bomb that it almost destroyed its producer, George Lucas. The movie is not as bad as said, and even has some good jokes, but its quite vulgar humor makes it unpleasant overall. Despite Tim Robbins as a sub-Jerry Lewis and Jeffrey Jones as a ludicrous villain, the movie doesn't reach its expected comical value and is balanced between the turkey and the little silly comedy.
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Santa Claus
by Jeannot Szwarc
with David Huddleston, Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, Judy Cornwell
Notes: Family superproduction telling the story of Santa Claus fighting against an awful toy manufacturer who only thinks about money (like the movie's producers???). Huge commercial bomb of 1985: the movie is too slouchy and just isn't worth it due to serious rhythm problems. Not much big camp, despite John Lithgow as a ridiculous villain.
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Sci-Fighters
by Peter Svatek
with Roddy Piper, Billy Drago, Jayne Heitmeyer
Notes: A merciless criminal escapes from a space jail and returns to Earth, still bearing an alien virus... the beginning, with the Moon jail and its guards dressed in aluminium foil, plus the presence of little show-off Billy Drago make us hope for good big camp. But overall, it is little cheap and harmless B-movie. There are some campy details, such as the effects of the epidemy (alien octopuses develop inside the bodies!), but globally, nothing to cry about.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
by Steve Barron
with Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, James Saito
Notes: In the early 90's, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was at its full marketing... Ending in this! The live movie is a quite corny children movie, which doesn't seem to give much esteem to its potential audience.
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c'est pas mal trouvé mais je préfère The Prowler.