A Field Guide to the Worst Movies Ever Made

There is bad, and then there is transcendent. A boring film wastes your evening. A properly, cosmically terrible film gives you quotes for life, friendships forged at midnight screenings, and the warm certainty that somewhere, someone spent six million dollars believing. This month we watched five of the most celebrated disasters in cinema history and reviewed each one at full length, with the seriousness they deserve and did not receive the first time around. Consider this your syllabus. Our friends at Worst Movies Ever Made, who have been cataloguing this genre since 2012 with the patience of monks, supplied the map. Let’s kick things off at the top of the mountain.

The Room (2003)

The Citizen Kane of bad movies, and the one entry here you can experience live. Tommy Wiseau’s six-million-dollar drama about a betrayed banker earned $1,800 in its first run and now sells out midnight screenings worldwide, where audiences throw plastic spoons at the screen in honour of its inexplicably spoon-themed set dressing. Rooftops are green-screened. Subplots vanish like socks. A football is tossed from four feet. Start here, because everything else in the genre is graded against it. Around $20 on disc, or free with a crowd and a bag of cutlery.

Troll 2 (1990)

No trolls. Goblins, and vegetarian ones, which is why they turn people into plants before dinner. An Italian crew who spoke little English directed Utah amateurs through a script performed exactly as mistranslated, producing the most lovingly recited bad line delivery in history. The town is called Nilbog. Read it backwards and you are already ahead of the protagonist. The father is played by a real Alabama dentist, and the 2009 documentary about the cast, Best Worst Movie, is genuinely one of the best films about fandom ever made. The archive review covers it and its unrelated namesake together.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

A Hitchcock homage made for under $10,000 by a Silicon Valley software salesman, in which clip-art eagles rotate menacingly in mid-air, explode on contact with gas stations, and are fought off with wire coat hangers. Half the film is a romance paced like a screensaver. The other half is a climate parable delivered by a hermit named Tree Hugger. The eagles arrive with dive-bomber sound effects from another war entirely. The 2012 write-up called it early, and the RiffTrax edition remains the gentlest possible introduction. Roughly $15 on Blu-ray, frequently free with ads.

Samurai Cop (1991)

An action film whose leading man cut his hair mid-production and returned in a wig so defiantly wrong it changes length between camera angles. Robert Z’Dar’s jaw provides the menace, the police captain provides the screaming, and the fight scenes provide clear daylight between fist and face. Lost for two decades, its star presumed dead until he cheerfully announced otherwise on YouTube in 2013, after which it earned a restored Blu-ray and an actual sequel. The forensic wig analysis lives at the archive. About $15 restored, streaming free most places.

Mac and Me (1988)

E.T. rebuilt around product placement, starring an alien kept alive by Coca-Cola, featuring a full dance number inside a McDonald’s and a Razzie-winning performance by Ronald McDonald as himself. Its runaway-wheelchair cliff scene became a 15-year running gag thanks to Paul Rudd bringing the clip to every Conan appearance in place of his actual work. The final frame promises a sequel. It is 38 years late. The full autopsy awaits, best consumed with fries. Rentals run about $4.

How to Watch Badly, Well

Three rules from our month in the barrel. Watch with people, because terrible cinema is a team sport and every one of these films doubles in value per additional viewer. Watch the real thing before any riffed version, so the jokes land on a first name basis. And go in sincere. Every film on this list was made by someone who believed completely, which is the ingredient no studio can fake and no parody has ever replicated. The deep catalogue runs far past five, and the full archive has been scraping the bottom of the cinematic barrel since before it was cool. Bring spoons.