by Avril Brown

We all have them. The undisclosed DVDs we keep to ourselves, the films stuffed under our mattresses which we secretly heart but are too ashamed to admit to the general public. No, I’m not talking about porn. I am referring to those movies which are terrible yet titillating, undeniably awful yet we cannot resist watching them again and again. Personally, I got over my shame over loving horrendous movies a long time ago and proudly display my entire collection of films, from one-star duds to Oscar contenders. I originally planned to compile a list of my favorite bad movies from all sorts of genres, but I discovered my choices largely favored the Action and Adventure theme, so please enjoy the following assemblage of my own personal favorite crap-tastic creations.

Futuristic Sci-Fi - Demolition Man (1993, directed by Marco Brambilla) Sylvester Stallone plays a twentieth century cop wrongly convicted of a crime, cryogenically frozen and defrosted in the future. Wesley Snipes also stars as one of the most spastic, irritating and horribly dressed villains ever conceived. Both were put on ice when L.A. was a war-torn nightmare and thawed when the city had mellowed to a freakish degree. Sex has become virtual, swearing is punishable by fine, ATMs offer emotional pick me ups such as ‘You inspire joy-joy feelings’ and people somehow wipe their asses with three seashells. Absolutely terrible movie, of course, yet Demolition Man possesses certain nuggets of brilliance which consistently leave me in stitches, and one of my favorite scenes involves Dennis Leary delivering one of the best rants ever written: “You see, according to Cocteau’s plan, I’m the enemy, because I like to think. I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I’m the kind of guy who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, ‘Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbequed ribs with the side order of gravy fries?’ I WANT high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, and butter and buckets of cheese, ok? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-o all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, ok pal? I’ve seen the future, and you know what it is? It’s a 47-year-old virgin sitting ‘round in his beige pajamas drinking a banana-broccoli shake singing ‘I’m an Oscar Meyer Wiener.’” Classic.

Spy Thriller - Long Kiss Goodnight (1996, directed by Renny Harlin) An amnesiac PTA mom (Geena Davis) gets into a car accident with Bambi (whose neck she humanely snapped after she found it still alive and suffering) and slowly but surely her memories of being a covert assassin for the CIA begin to trickle back just in time for her to cut and dye her hair, kill a bunch of bad guys and stop a nefarious plan by greedy government officials to fake a terrorist attack in order to encourage Congress to cough up funding for national security. Abundantly absurd and by the end of the movie boring in its ridiculousness, this is a film which nevertheless boasts snippets of invaluable entertainment which keep me coming back. The concept of having repressed kick-ass skills is an appealing one, but what really makes this demented movie is the plethora of hysterical lines delivered by Samuel L. Jackson and Brian Cox, the later laying claim to one of my favorite movie quotes ever: “Alice. The dog, Alice. It and my appetite are mutually exclusive.” “What’s wrong with the dog?” asks dotty Alice in a vague British accent. “Simple. It’s been licking its asshole for the past three straight hours. Now I submit to you there’s nothing there worth more than an hours attention, and whatever he is attempting to dislodge is either gone for good, or there to stay. Wouldn’t you agree?” Absolute gold.

Vampire Thriller - From Dusk ‘till Dawn (1996, directed by Robert Rodriguez) Some of the ugliest vampires since Nosterafu are partying in Mexico as the fugitive Gecko brothers (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) and their hostages cross the border to deliver their latest pilfered bounty. With a slightly disturbing first half involving off-screen rape and murder, the movie progresses into complete ridiculousness as the vampires and the unsuspecting yet well-armed humans dive into a gory and outlandish fight for their lives. Boasting such gems as a super-sexy, tattoo-clad Clooney and Selma Blair performing the steamiest snake-and-champagne dance EVER, this is a bad movie which is hard to resist. Good things come to those who wait, and the best line in this movie is in the last five minutes as Cheech Marin (in one of his multiple roles in the film) confusedly asks if psychos were responsible for the death and carnage. An exasperated Clooney snaps back: “They look like psychos? Is that what they looked like to you? They were vampires! Psychos don’t explode when sunlight hits them, I don’t give a fuck how crazy they are!” True that.

Treasure Hunt - National Treasure (2004, directed by Jon Turteltaub) Nicholas Cage, the rather foxy Diane Kruger and many other familiar faces star in this wonderfully boisterous and completely impossible hunt for hidden treasure. From almost the first scene it becomes glaringly obvious how many liberties were taken in creating this flashy and fun ‘history lesson,’ but despite the obvious plot holes and some uber-cheesy scenes, this remains one of my favorite light-hearted tales of family quests, romance and doubloons. Justin Bartha as Riley Poole, the plucky sidekick, provides the comic relief and claims most of the amusing lines in the movie, delivering them with an adorably dorky air: “How did a bunch of guys with hand tools build all this?” asks the mindless muscle as the crew descends an ancient wooden staircase. “Same way they built the pyramids, and the Great Wall of China,” educates Cage. “Yea,” Bartha chimes in, “the aliens helped them.” Alas, despite the return of most of the original cast and the addition of a couple favorite faces (such as Ed Harris), National Treasure 2 does not make my list due to it sucking more ass than it kicked.

Creature Feature - Tremors (1990, directed by Ron Underwood) Gigantic prehistoric worms with advanced hunting techniques terrorize a small town by sucking people, trucks, tricycles and all, underneath the sand to be devoured. The band of battling survivors determined to escape and outsmart the beasts include a mullet-sporting, southern style Kevin Bacon and a gun-toting, prepared-for-the-end-of-the-world Reba McEntire. ’Nuff said. Well, except for one of the best scenes of the film: “Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t ya, you bastards!” Michael Gross yells as he and his equally armed wife unload an unholy amount of firearms into one of the creatures. Too cool.

The nineties undoubtedly hold the honor of creating some of the most entertaining flaming piles of shit ever to grace the silver screen, and I for one am thankful for their daring lack of largely intelligent scripts and believable plots. The cinema of the new millennium has certainly brought a slew of brain-numbing pictures, yet too many of them stop at ‘stupid’ and forget to incorporate a reason or two to stick around for the whole two hours of piss-poor story and laughable characters. So instead of being diverted by cheesy one-liners and over-the-top action sequences, more often than not I find myself saying ‘That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.’ Though I am disappointed by the stunted growth of good bad movies in this day and age, I can find solace in the fact whenever I am craving such a fix I can always return to my cache of crap and be almost as entertained as I was upon my first viewing, for some things, be they 30-foot carnivorous worms, trucker vampires or anal-retentive officers of the peace, never go out of style.