As promised way back in January, a belated chance to revel in the negative.
This took ages to write (largely composed whilst sitting on trains or waiting at the chemist, etc), and wasn't quite as enjoyable as I'd anticipated.
I'd always assumed that one star reviews must be the most fun for journos to write (they're certainly the most fun to read, let's face it) - but, turns out that tearing apart other people's well-intentioned creative endeavours gets a bit depressing after a while. Who knew?
Have pity therefore for those hacks from the old school music press, who used to pretty much do this for a living - how they must have suffered, venting their spleens for us on a weekly basis.
Anyway - this does not apply to the # 1 entry on the following list, which is not well-intentioned, so I feel no pain.
1. Tuxedo Warrior (Andrew Sinclair, UK/Zimbabwe, 1981)
Although this is ostensibly the most professional production included in Severin Films' recent Cliff Twemlow box set, it's also the worst (which is saying something.)
Director/producer Andrew Sinclair did some legit studio features back in the '60s / early '70s, but quite what inspired him to buy the rights to Twemlow's Mancunian bouncer memoir 'Tuxedo Warrior', throw out literally every single thing about it except the title, and instead make a homage to 'Casablanca' shot on a holiday resort in Zimbabwe.... god only knows.
Sadly for those of us who love 'Casablanca' though, this is a "reimagining" with all semblance of wit, atmosphere, character, intelligence or socio-political relevance systematically erased, marinated in a highly specific variety of pure, early '80s Thatcherite British naffness which doesn't even have the common decency to be sleazy or unintentionally amusing.
Under other circumstances, one might be apt to raise concerns about the inclusion of twenty minutes or so of safari stock footage and helicopter shots of Victoria Falls, but honestly, here it provided a blessed relief from the excruciating stretches of 'drama' which comprise the remainder of the run-time.
A definitive example of a “crass, ugly and deeply stupid work”, to borrow Chris Morris’s phrase, this would be a god-awful movie regardless, but the fact it chose to model itself on an esteemed classic, thus forcing us to compare each lousy scene/performance to its equivalent in the original iteration, makes for an unparalleled experience in cinematic misery.
Oh, and in case you're wondering about the racial politics of a movie shot in Africa with a predominantly white cast - well, yeah, there's that to contend with too I'm afraid.
In a decision reflective of the overall quality of the production, 'Casablanca's Sam is essentially replaced here with a caged monkey named Crap Shot (because "he shoots crap" - comedy, you see), whilst the only black characters represented on-screen are the local police, whose role is to strut around the protagonist's 'gin joint' (= hotel bar) menacing people. So yes, in the transposition of roles from 'Casablanca', black Zimbabweans = the Nazis. Classy!
2. Dracula 3D (Dario Argento, Italy, 2012)
Horror fans will recall the universal ridicule with which Argento's Dracula was greeted upon release, with images of the film's ridiculous CGI praying mantis briefly becoming an online meme, and even the director's most die-hard admirers expressing disbelief that their hero could have sunk so low.
Over a decade later though, I found myself thinking, well... I should probably watch it. I mean, even back when Argento was making good films, the sheer absurdity of his work was always a big part of its appeal, so... this is bound to at least be a laugh, right..?
Wrong. No laughs. it's simply awful. Production values are pretty much on the level of a porn parody, or cut scenes from a 90s video game, the script scarcely rises above the level of gibberish, and it's all so boring.
I won’t bang on about its shortcomings too much (saving that up for another time & place), but I do at least need to single out Thomas Kretschmann as a strong contender for the worst screen Dracula of all time, frowning his way through the role with all the charisma, menace and sexual potency of a mildly disgruntled call centre manager.
I mean, if you’re making a movie like this and your Count Dracula just reads on-screen as... some guy, you’d think that would be a problem to address..? But no, I suppose we were all supposed to be so wowed when he transforms into a poorly rendered CG owl, it wouldn’t even matter.
The only positive I could take away from this experience was to reflect that, if this is the level of work Dario was happy to sign his name to circa 2012, the fact that he managed to sufficiently muster his powers to actually make a half-decent film again in the shape of 2022’s ‘Dark Glasses’, is truly remarkable.
3. Starhops (Barbara Peeters, USA, 1978)
Is there anything in culture less enjoyable to witness than low-brow comedy which fails to be funny?
Honestly, I’d hoped for better from Corman alumni Barbara Peeters ('Bury Me An Angel' / 'Humanoids from The Deep') and screenwriter Stephanie Rothman ('Terminal Island' / 'The Velvet Vampire'), whom you'd think might have found some personal/professional resonance to explore within this thin tale of two 'car hops' (= the skimpily uniformed waitresses who serve food to assholes in cars in American fast food outlets) who team up with an appallingly accented French chef in an attempt to save their unappealing place of work from malign property developers... but alas, any feminist / meta-filmmaking sub-text buried within this ugly trash-burger of a movie was too well hidden for me to locate it.
I have zero insight into the events which led to this film's creation, or Peeters & Rothman’s motivation for making it, but sadly my assumption is that it finds them "dumbing down" for a teen/drive-in audience they assumed to be idiots, yielding results which reminded me of one of the core principles governing all creative work: aim for 'good', and if you're lucky you'll get something average; aim for 'average', and you'll inevitably end up with crap.
4. The Carpenter (David Wellington, Canada, 1988)
The people behind this independent Canadian horror effort had one job - to showcase the late, great Wings Hauser doing his nut as he chases people around with power tools.
They did not deliver.
Instead, we get a confused and inchoate attempt to make a 'Turn of the Screw' style psychological / ghost story movie, in which the titular carpenter essentially functions as an avatar of the troubled heroine's subconscious - a set-up which requires Hauser to embody a benevolent, calming presence when not stepping out of frame to violently dispatch people who have wronged (or merely annoyed) her.
Being a rock solid actor, naturally he carries this off perfectly, but... that's just not what you hire Wings Hauser for, y'know?
At the risk of being unkind, it doesn't help that the rest of movie plays like a catalogue of the kind of embarrassing mistakes which first-time filmmakers will hopefully learn not to repeat in their second film... which surprisingly, does actually exist, according to IMDB (followed by decades of TV work for director Wellington). So a happy ending of sorts for him, at least. Just not so much for those of us who choose to watch this film nearly four decades after the fact.
[For a primer on the wider wonders of Wings, perhaps try this obituary post, which I wrote on the occasion of his passing last year.]
5. The Apple (Menahem Golan, West Germany/USA, 1980)
A financially disasterous, religious-themed glam/disco sci-fi musical conceived by quite possibly the least spiritual man who ever lived (future Cannon Films CEO Manahem Golan), 'The Apple' has, inevitably, gained a bit of a cult following over the years.
Whilst it certainly has some memorably amusing moments though (eg, a battalion of glittered up hoofers stomping across the Wetherspoons-like carpet of a Berlin hotel lobby, chanting "LIFE IS NOTHING BUT SHOW BUSINESS, HERE IN 1994"), for the most part this struck me as the kind of misguided diasterpiece which is more fun to read about than to actually watch.
Indeed, the relentless churn of stupid ideas, bad acting and terrible, terrible music soon became exhausting, forcing me to close my eyes and pretend I was watching Phantom of the Paradise instead. (An effective strategy for dealing with most stressful situations, incidentally,)
Deciding to watch this on New Year's Eve was my own final stupid idea of 2025, for which I apologise.