Written by Ken Hulsey
We begin our list of cinematic 'turkeys' in honor of Thanksgiving with a little film that even a hundred naked women couldn't save 'The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak'. Yes this movie which rolled onto the scene way back in 1984 has everything that this spry young teenage boy would want to see in a movie, action, bondage, Tawny Kitaen, hundreds of women in tight leather outfits, topless cat fights, and boobs boobs and more boobs. Alas, none of these things could save this movie. I can still remember thinking to myself, 'Oh my God, why did she have to take her top off?'. You really never want a fourteen-year-old perpetually horny male to be so bored by a movie that he doesn't even want to see breasts anymore. Yet that is exactly what happened. Even my best friend who was a bigger perv than me got tired of the endless parade of jiggling flesh. NOW THAT'S REALLY SAYING SOMETHING!
Here is your plot ... yes this movie has a plot, though I couldn't really remember it:
Gwendoline arrives in China in a box, and is helped out of her immediate predicament by a female contact and a devil-may-care adventurer. She's on a mission to find her father, who was last seen searching for a rare butterfly in the Land of the Yik Yak. They confront the evil Cheops in an attempt to find Gwen's lost father and the butterfly, and face many other challenges to their mission. - Written by Ed Sutton
The 1981 movie 'Soggy Bottom U.S.A.' holds a special distinction in my life. It is the only movie that I have ever walked out of.
As a movie fan who generally enjoys bad movies it should be noted that I sat through such cinema classics as 'Robot Jox' and 'The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak', yet about fifteen minutes into this 'turkey' my best friend and I looked at each other and headed for the exit.
Just how bad could this film be?
Well let's just say that when a comedy relies on dog flatulence to get laughs you know your in trouble. Yes, indeed the running joke of 'Soggy Bottom' is a hound dog farting, a gimmick that the film makers would go to every time the plot would start to lag. Since the plot of this one was thin to start with that hound must of let loose at least five times before I reached the parking lot.
The plot ... minus the gas:
Commotion and trouble abound in Soggy Bottom when the sheriff’s plans for the annual coon dog race are mucked up by the arrival of country songstress Miss Dusty. Meanwhile town inventor Jacob Gorch perilously speeds about in his make-shift airboat, and the town Treasury men plot to blow up the moonshine still.
Insert your own redneck jokes here.
It is given fact that some the greatest comedies of all time have come from the creative genius of film maker Mel Brooks. 'Blazing Saddles', 'Young Frankenstein', 'History of the World: Part 1' are just a couple of examples of this comedic genius and each is a true cinematic classic in their own right. That being said in 1991 Brooks asked the question 'What is funny about being pour and homeless?' and the answer turned out to be 'nothing.' After such a long string of hits the man behind 'Sheriff Bart' and 'Hedley Lamarr' dropped a bomb onto the cinematic landscape known as "Life Stinks" a film which unlike any of his prior efforts failed to garnish many laughs or connect with his numerous fans. It would seem that the only people who may have identified with the theme of the film unfortunately couldn't afford a ticket and it failed.
That last bit was a joke ....
Here is the plot:
A rich businessman makes a bet he can survive on the streets of a rough Los Angeles neighborhood for 30 days completely penniless. During his stay he discovers another side of life and falls in love with with a homeless woman. - Written by John Sacksteder
Cookie Monster Strikes!
Here at Robo Japan we like to feature some of the best monster films ever made, like "Creature From The Black Lagoon" and "Them!." To balance this out we also like to feature some of the worst monster movies ever made like "Green Slime" and our present topic "Creature From The Haunted Sea." Both types of films can be enjoyed on many levels for many different reasons. Creature From The Haunted Sea is no exception. The levels of just plain strangeness are far to numerous to be overlooked. Only famed "low-budget" movie maker Roger Corman could have concocted such a strange mix of camp, cheesy rip-offs, cliche characters and the most poorly designed movie monster ever. Hey at least the Ro-Man from Robot Monster had some charisma. Don't get me wrong. I actually somewhat liked the film for just these same reasons. Like I mentioned before bad movies have their enjoyable levels.
Corman actually made the film in three days. He had just finished filming "The Last Woman On Earth" and decided that the tropical local of the film would be great for a monster movie, so he took the money he had left over and the film's cast and hurriedly threw the production together. How "low-budget" is film made from the left over money from another "low-budget" film? To be honest the lack of funds really doesn't show to much in the production...well..not until you see the monster. The film's title character is a horrible combination of "Cookie Monster" and "Sigmund the Sea Monster." One can only assume that such a awful movie monster was the result of having only $10 left to make the costume.
On the outset the plot sounds very promising. An American Secret Agent is sent to investigate a band of mobsters who intend to steal treasure from a group of Cuban Military Officers who are fleeing Castro's revolution. The mobsters come up with a plan to knock off the Cubans and blame their deaths on a legendary sea creature that is rumored to live near the islands along their route. The mobsters soon learn that the monster isn't a myth at all and the whole group finds themselves marooned on the creature's island home fighting for their lives. Sounds like a pretty good monster plot right?
If the film had been left to work as a standard "B" monster flick the results might have been different, but Corman wanted the movie to be a comedy. Inserted into the monster story are a Humphrey Bogart rip-off mob boss, a henchman who only communicates in animal sounds, two separate love triangles, and more cliche dialogue than could choke a horse. The henchman who communicates in roars and growls is annoying enough, but he soon meets up with older woman who does the same. The other love interests only make the film a little more interesting at best. The Cuban College Girl loves the Secret Agent. The Secret Agent loves The Moll. The Moll loves Bogey. Bogey, of course, loves the treasure. It all really doesn't matter in the end because everyone becomes lunch anyway.
Overall the film doesn't really work as either a monster film or a comedy. The result is a just plain weird film. It is however entertaining for this reason alone. There are a few actual funny moments, but you really have to look for them. The monster really has to be seen to be believed. The film is a true testament of what can be achieved with $50 in your pocket and three days to blow.
My God!!! What Is It???!
The answer is carpet, straw and vacuum cleaner hoses.
The monster that appears in the cult classic 'The Creeping Terror' is one of the worst to ever appear on the silver screen, rivaled only by Roger Corman's Cookie Monster in 'Creature from the Haunted Sea' (See Above), Phil Tucker's gorilla with a space helmet in 'Robot Monster', and Fred F Sears' puppet buzzard in 'The Giant Claw.' With a head covered in old vacuum cleaner hoses, a body covered in carpet samples and a mouth that looks mysteriously like a vagina 'The Creeping Terror' is quite a sight to behold. According to reports, however this was not what was supposed to appear in the film at all. Only a few days before shooting was to begin, the original monster was stolen. Pressed for time and out of money, director Vic Savage and his crew hastily threw together the infamous "pile of carpets" monster that appears in the film.
That however was not the only problem that plagued the production of this cinema dud. During post production the producer lost the original soundtrack. Unable to get all of the cast back together for dubbing, they were forced to record a narration and use surviving alternate takes to replace it. It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that most of the cast wouldn't have wanted to come back in for dubbing due mostly to the fact that many of them (naive Hollywood hopefuls desperate to get into a film) had been duped into paying the producers for parts in the film.
Indeed 'The Creeping Terror' is a mess of cardboard spaceship sets with controls labeled in English, victims having to climb into the monster costume to be eaten, and a story that is all over the place.
The only good point in the movie comes shortly after the monster arrives at the dance hall where women in tight pants shake their booties, a woman who is trying to flee is thrown down by a man who grabs her arm. Her dress and brassiere are torn away, briefly revealing her breasts. The woman looks surprised, covers her chest and hides behind a man for the remainder of the shot.
That two seconds of boobies was about the only thing worth seeing in the whole film!
On that point not many people have ever seen 'The Creeping Terror' due to the fact that there is no evidence that the film ever appeared in theaters and moreover there is no evidence that the film ever appeared on television prior to 1976. In fact the movie may never have reached the public's attention had it not been featured on an episode of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000.'
Narrator: 'Despite Brett's inquiries about what Martin had seen in the spacecraft, he avoided specific details for fear of disturbing her more than she was. If the truth were known, Martin was more than a little disturbed himself.'
After seeing a giant vagina wrapped in carpet who wouldn't be a little shaken right?
After the sudden death of their father, four children — teenagers Chris and Cathy and 5-year-old twins Cory and Carrie — find themselves penniless and forced to travel with their mother Corinne to live with her wealthy parents (whom the children had neither met nor been told about before). Corinne informs her children that there has been tension between herself and her parents for many years, but does not elaborate and simply says they had cut her out of their lives for something she had done of which they disapproved. The children trust her, though Cathy is skeptical as she wonders what happened that caused the rift between her mother and her parents.
Corinne's stepmother Olivia, a religious fanatic, takes her daughter and her children into her home, though with the harsh condition that the children must be sequestered away in a locked room so that her husband Malcolm (who is dying) will never know of their existence. To that end, the children are shut inside one bedroom of the mansion, only with access to the mansion's attic via a secret stairway. It is on their first day there that the grandmother reveals the shocking truth of what caused Corrine to be disowned years ago: Corinne and her husband were really niece and uncle, making their love incestuous and their children the product of incest. When Corrine finally returns to the children that night, she is forced to show the children that she has been savagely bullwhipped by her stepmother as a punishment for her incestuous relationship and having children from the union. Corinne admits to the children that she and their father were niece and uncle, and her parents were livid as they believed Corrine disgraced the family; the children do not say anything but seem to accept it. Corinne tells the children that her parents made it clear that if she had any children by her uncle she would be disinherited, but because her father doesn't know about them she still has a chance to get the money when he dies. She says that their confinement will only be for a short time: her father is deathly ill, and once she is able to convince him to secure her inheritance, they will be free when he dies.
The plot focuses on the children's ordeal as shut-ins and their clashes with the ultra-religious grandmother, who loathes the children due to their incestuous conception. The children struggle to survive, even as their mother's visits quickly taper off. In particular, Olivia becomes obsessed with Chris and Cathy, out of the warped belief that they have become lovers and are repeating the same incestuous acts like Corrine and her husband did. Discovering them sleeping in the same bed one morning, the grandmother smashes Cathy's ballerina music box, given to her by her deceased father. After Olivia later discovers the two innocently talking while Cathy is bathing, she calls them sinners. Chris manages to chase her out, but Olivia later ambushes Cathy in the bedroom, locks Chris in the closet preceding the attic, and hacks off Cathy's hair with a pair of scissors. She then starves them for a week, and Chris is forced to feed Cory his own blood so he doesn't die of starvation.
As time goes on, the children are often sick, especially Cory and Carrie. Chris and Cathy manage to secretly remove the hinges from their locked door on a few occasions to sneak out of their room, and discover that their mother has been living a life of luxury as well as dating a young lawyer, Bart Winslow. She does eventually come to visit them again, and they confront her about not visiting them anymore and leaving them to suffer at the hands of their grandmother. Corinne is very defensive and acts insulted, cries that they are cruel to think that she is deliberately neglecting them or enjoying life while they are locked up, then storms out. Shortly after, Cory becomes deathly ill. The children ask Olivia and Corinne to take Cory to the hospital, which they do, but later Corinne returns to inform them Cory has died. The children are devastated, but not long after they start to suspect that Olivia has been poisoning them when their pet mouse is found dead after eating part of a cookie. Chris researches and concludes that Cory and their mouse were killed via arsenic poisoning, mixed in the sugar on the cookies they are served with breakfast. The remaining siblings decide to leave the attic once and for all.
No teenagers, no matter how much they love their mother, would spend years locked up in an attic living off each others blood and rats. The second the food stopped showing up, I would be downstairs raiding the refrigerator.
This one was neither suspenseful or entertaining. You find yourself screaming at the screen, "Just leave you idiots!".
Since a new 'Star Wars' movie is almost upon us, why not end with George Lucas' biggest misstep since having Greedo shoot first, 'Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace.' 'Episode 3' was okay, 'Episode 2' was decent, but 'Episode 1' is almost unwatchable. From horrible acting, mostly from Jake Lloyd, terrible dialogue, a plot that drags on and on, and the ridiculously unfunny Jar Jar Binks this film is a mess from the get go.
In fact if it wasn't for the climatic duel between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Maul there would be almost no reason to ever watch this one at all.
Here's your trivia:
The words chanted during the "Duel of the Fates" are from Robert Graves' poem "The White Goddess". "The White Goddess" is a translation of the original version, "Cad Goddeu" or "The Battle of Achren", an early Celtic work of great antiquity also known as "The Battle of the Trees," which was originally composed by Gwion and is found in the "Book of Taliesin", a Thirteenth Century Welsh manuscript . John Williams had the lines "Under the tongue root a fight most dread, and another raging, behind, in the head" translated into Sanskrit. The translation sung in the movie is as follows: "Korah Matah Korah Rahtahmah Korah Rahtamah Yoodhah Korah Korah Syahdho Rahtahmah Daanyah Korah Keelah Daanyah Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Korah Korah Matah Korah Rahtahmah Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah Korah" - IMDB
Now let me get this straight, Anakin has a horrible life working on spaceships and robots, has his own robot, races a pod-racer and he and his mom live in an nice apartment together. I don't know about you but I think any kid would cut off his right arm to have a life like that.
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