Stinker Madness - The Bad Movie Podcast

A believe it or not commercial success, but working more like a confused mess that doesn't know who they want watching it, Burt Reynolds teams up with a precocious scamp to take down a drug ring - because early 90's. Talk about 90's stereotypes and whatever rules to life. Of course, the kid doesn't have parents - it's 1993! Of course the cops cave to his demands to be a cop despite being 10 - it's 1993! Of course, Burt Reynolds drives over everyone's yards without consequences - its 1993! Pop Rocks for a drug prop? You betcha its 1993! Its a weird mix of Robocop, Kindergarten Cop and then a ton of crap that people thought worked in 1993 but in the end its just painfully boring and when its not, its painfully uncomfortable. This is a don't.

audio alert - Sam was on his webcam for the first 7 minutes so there is a weird audio shift when he switches to a good mic. Nothing painful to your earholes, just figured we owe you an explaination. Proceed! Knocking off Beverly Hills Cop while showcasing Gary Daniels as a cheaper JCVD but forgetting that he can't act past his gob being open, White Tiger can't figure out what it is or what it should be so it just manages to be mid-90s karate mush. Why doesn't the movie work or why did I absolutely wish I'd watched something else? Well I'll tell you who's fault it is. It isn't Cary Tagawa. He's fantastic, of course. And he's allowed to go to 11 so it's not director Richard Martin's fault either. It's not even Gary Daniels fault despite his lack of acting, as the big draw is the fight sequences which he co-choreographed with prolific stunt-man Lauro Chartrand. So whose fault is it that White Tiger is a total boring slog of a film? Well, I'm blaming the 90's. See all the big stinker makers were

A film that rips off Justin's novel 35 years before he wrote it. Its a prison film (obs) that gets fast and loose with the rules of early release - time off for punchin' dudes. Prepare for a short film review. I don't like it. It should be fun. It looks like it would be. The scenario lends itself to be fun. Its just not somehow. They get it right in the later films but somehow this just isn't really worth anyone's time. UNLESS - you're a student of film history, based on its budget, technical ability and how its a part of a larger movement in cinema.

Nobody crosses the bridge between Uptown and Jungleground! Except the dope pushers, of course. Oh, and the cops. Well we gotta give 'em a little action every now and then, right? Oh and the Feds, hookers, delivery companies, truckers and constructions workers. Seems like everyone does actually. What you've got here is fairly standard fair for a mid-90's DTV action movie with a few standout exceptions. Roddy is, of course, great despite his terrible dialogue in the script. The relationship between Roddy's "Jake" and his fiancé(?), Samantha, is unique in that its just a straight-up good relationship with no getting sidetracked in backstory or conflict between them. Even Samantha takes a few departures away from cliché' by supporting his copping, standing up to sexual harassment and not being a helpless damsel. The film also does one thing very well - it never loses focus. Its "get home, Jake, before they kill your love". No pauses in that goal. Even with the addition of a helpful hooker who just wants to start

Two truckers (an old hat and a young buck) and a waitress manage to defeat an army of the most unstoppable killing machines, which even the Predator wouldn't stand a chance against, using the rules of the space highway. Honk, honk, pew, pew! What you've got here is a decent stinker but gets bogged down by how awesome it SHOULD be. It's called Space Truckers. That should be enough to make it amazing. Then Stuart Gordon is directing. I'm no huge lover of Gordon and think most of his projects are just ok, but he's competent enough that he could helm a movie called Space Truckers and not make it not amazing. Tack on Dennis Hopper, who is honestly either great or terrible and either would work here.  Yet, there's hardly any of the space truckin' that I want. Now there is a large amount of actual "trucking" but not much "truckin' ". You see the difference? There's lots of talk about shipping rates, independent contracting vs employed trucking, fulfillment services, and contract negotiations. Its li

*Warning - Jackie's mic was backwards so her audio isn't perfect. Sorry for any inconvenience.* Want to save the environment but are only a Brazilian princess? Well, show off your pretend dance craze skills on American Bandstand! So long, climate crisis! The merengue is coming for you. So what you've got here is a basket of terrible sequences from the minds of Meneham Golen and Greydon Clark. As the pair rushed the film out in just 56 weeks (from concept to release) in order to hedge their bets against Yorum Globus' Lambada (which released on the same day), what was given to the public was exactly what it deserved. See the lambada was no such dance craze as we've been told. It was a made up craze, likely pushed by the Cannon Group boys so that they could sell tickets to, you guessed it, these two movies. You show us evidence of there being a lambada fervor pre-1990 and we'll eat our shoulder-pad shirts. So yeah, suckers, you bought into some baloney dance fad, you get this thinly put together film in r

Well I guess if you ever wanted to watch a movie where the cast and crew literally get eaten alive by the stars of the movie, well this is that movie. Its horrifying and terrible and likely contributed to the end of the world. I say that without exaggeration. What Roar is goes beyond anything that Tommy Wiseau, Neil Breen, and M. Knight Shamalyan had ever envisioned for a vanity-piece-gone-awry. There is volumes of material that are all worth reading about for this film, so I'll briefly sum up what you should know. Basically, Tippi Hendren and her husband Noel Marshall hatched an idea to make a film about living in peace with animals that are dangerous but misunderstood. Its about harmony with nature. So what they did was bought a large compound in the California desert and then brought in 150 big cats (and 1 elephant) to live with their family and then shoot a film with the lions, tigers, panthers and jaguars as the stars. Mind you this is all done with Noel and Tippi acting as head trainers, veterinar

He's a real tough guy, but almost everyone he deals with is just a bit tougher, but not tough enough to out tough his toughness. That was until he meets his weekly nemesis, Cat-Man! So Zach Kane is a character. He's a total loser. He's a washed up boxer that now is a borderline vigilante who can barely make ends meet. While that seems like a fairly cliché character model for a late 70s action movie, there's a nice twist to Kane's character; he believes he's still one tough guy. He's never come to terms with his loserness, either by denial or just complete lack of context. He keeps getting his butt kicked by life and his own decisions but he's oblivious. Imagine Johnny Lawrence in episode 1 of Cobra Kai but never having any sort of redemption. While this is mostly considered as an action movie, this is much more of a thriller with the plot centering around a man-hunt for a serial killer. The serial killer himself is quite the character as well. He's a rich kid with some serious mommy issues or at least issue

Yor does not come from the future. He comes from over there. Sorry for the spoiler. He is still awesome. The ladies love him, the men fear him and Yor believes himself to be the most rad dude of all time and he might be right. Yor is one of those wacky Italian movies that believes to be a good idea with a good story but is just a mess of silly business. Yor bounces smugly from scene to scene veritably stating directly to the audience, "Hey, did you know I'm awesome? Cause I am." His motivations aren't clear, his actions are bonkers, and his idiom is dubious. He's great. He even has his own awesome theme song (Yor's World) that rivals "Do You Want to Be a Hero" from Biggles: Adventure in Time and "Stargrove" from Never Too Young To Die. Yor: The Hunter from the Future is one heck of a good time and is required viewing for any fan of the swords and sandals genre, as long as you like stupid crap.  Individual Ratings: Over the top action:Cheesy effects:Horrendous acting:Laugh-out-loud

How do you follow up Wes Craven's directing? You call Jim Wynorski? And he totally shows Wes how its done? Wow. Fan-Fave Jim showcases how you have fun with a failed superhero property. Replace Zach Snyder right now, DC! The polarization between the two versions of Swamp Thing is night and day. It's known within the first 15 seconds as shown by the opening scroll: "Once upon a time....in the swamp!" Boom. Then 8 minutes later we get a real vision of what we are in for - a Swamp Thing costume that looks good filled with a dude that is a) confident in his coolness, b) stupid charming. You know he's giving a thumbs-up at some point. What is happening? The production level in the sequel gets a massive bump as well, from the sets to makeup, the lighting, cinematography, explosions, sound design....everything but the acting. Bad acting? Well yes, but it so works here. Fun is the top priority for not just the viewer but those involved on the set as well. Marlon Brando School of Method Acting takes a back seat a

Nothing says the follow-up to Superman like a budget movie, right? It's that weird mix of camp, bad costumes, a busty lady, and villians of dubious intent. Oh, and it's also a fairy-tale love story. WTF is Swamp Thing? It's surprisingly bad. Nothing can prepare you for how crummy this film is. You've got all the pieces that should make for an OK movie - the established Wes Craven only 2 years before his masterpiece. Adrienne Barbeau hot off her run of John Carpenter films, Ray Wise on his way to Leland nuttiness, Harry Manfredini ready to give the hot licks, Alan Moore's material, the backing of DC loaded up on cash after Superman. How did this go wrong?!?! The makeup is awful, the costumes are atrocious, the writing is beyond nonsense, the story is a big question mark and then the way the whole thing ends is just nuts. This truly is one of the worst comic-book movies of all time. That aside, it's a total blast - cheesy, cheesy fun. Swamp Thing is completely useless, despite having super-strength

Get ready to meet the most righteous dudes of movie villians and the most disappearing of protagonists. John Rad gives us one of the biggest and most glorious of trainwrecks in film. Black Pepper is coming your way, buster! What you've got here is one of those "hey we found this movie, does anyone wanna finish it?" Filmed in the mid-80s this wasn't released until 2005 with an assist from Drafthouse. Much along the lines of Miami Connection its a masterpiece in bad filmmaking by a nice person and cost everything for failure. Sadly the director, John Rad (or Jahangir Salehi by his true name) had this movie sit on a shelf for 20 years and not have it released to the right audience until it was far too late. John died before this movie could do so. But what a gift to leave the world. Thanks John! While on surface this may have a fairly cliche revenge/lady Punisher plot but wow does this get off course fast. Mina (who may be our protagonist if she hadn't disappeared for 1/2 the movie) goes on a murder

Olivia D'Abo shows up as not Red Sonja in one of the most loathed films from both Schwaz and the beloved Swords and Sorcery genre. I blame Dino....again. Is it worth $4 to watch this movie? You’ll have to make it to the end of the podcast for that full evaluation. Is it worth watching if you already have access to it? Yes. This was one of my most hated films. For years I’ve called it Conan the Babysitter. Against the first film, it certainly is but when removed from the “Barbarian” and gauged on it’s own, this stinker is worth a run. It also maintains our current theme of MPAA headscratchers. What says PG? A 14 year old in lingerie? Grace Jones’ whole butt? Bloody decapitations? I would say none of these things should be in a PG film. This one has all of that plus; wizard battles, lame pro wrestling, Schwaz noises galore and Sarah Douglas lusting after a statue.  Though a thorough failure to hold even half the weight of its predecessor, it may be so influential that the Zach Snyder's Justice League is

Albert Finney and Susan Day go on a misguided adventure into the dark dealings of a company that... wants to make more effective commercials and light guns? Is Digital Matrix the worst company ever? There I am, watching this movie, wondering what Sam was thinking by choosing this movie for an episode. Honestly, the first 1/2 of this is pretty solid - mostly because you don't know what is going on in the same way that Albert Finney's Dr. Larry Roberts is stuck in the middle of a murder conspiracy and trying to put the pieces together. Then the second half is you focusing on hoping that the movie explains why the evil corporation does what it does only to learn that you never learn. You're lost in the same way that Roberts is when he's zapped by a light gun. Light gun, you say? What is that? Well we'd like to know too. It's power is dubious. What it does is shoot out a white doily pattern that: blinds you makes you "lose time" makes your owner of the gun invisible for a brief time How would one thwart

That bad guy from Stargrove hatches a diabolical plan to steal all the dubious chips using bug-bots while Tom Selleck's mustache chases tail AND Gene Simmons. Maybe program your robots to only attack your enemies, Gene. What is Runaway? It falls into this weird pit where you can't really say its a stinker as there is a number of really well done things. Of course, Selleck is great. Gene Simmons is a great villain. Kirstie Alley and Cynthia Rhodes are competent. It looks good. The effects are solid. The "future" world (not sure if its the future as we never have a "Five Years From Now" card) is well crafted. The score is appropriate and subtle. Yet, somehow every bit of good is countered with pure cheesy stink. The robots... how do you build a Roomba to hold a gun? The movie tells us that the runaway that does so has been modified - so this family of 4 put a hand on it that can pull a trigger. It doesn't work. So because the families of America are too stupid to not put handgun holding hands on their du

Another massive video game adaptation comes to us in the form of a fighting game with massive jiggle physics. Somehow they managed to supplement the jiggle with one of the dumbest villain idiot plot we've ever come across. So let's get the obvious question out of the way - is DOA the movie as jiggly as the game - no. The sexuality in the movie is way toned down - due to trying to reach a mass audience including the sexually conservative Chinese market. Bummer. With that in mind, maybe that's a good thing (well good for us) because the focus shifts from bouncy boobs to ridiculous stunts. The male gaze of the camera is still there but the focus is shifted to medium wide shots to get the sheer magnitude of the stupidly ridiculous stunts and wirework. I mean wirework is a great tool for supplementing great stunts but this goes so far over the top that the stupid circles back and becomes awesome. However, as great as all the ladies are, Eric Roberts once again steals the show. Why anyone says, "Oh we've got Eri

Two "brothers" get chased around so that Robert Patrick's hair can capture the second half of the Double Dragon while teaming up with The Hyper-Color Gang. Patrick should have just drank more vodka. What works best in this movie is everything that didn't work for me in 1994. Everything sucks. The look of the film is vomit. The acting is gut-wrenching. The plot is corny. The action is hammy. The one-liners are a series of eye-ball rolls. Yet somehow, in post-2007, this thing is such an absolute mess of terrible ideas that don't really happen anymore. Most modern movies revolve around just one or two terrible decisions ie. The Great Wall's plot, making the tornado a monster in Hurricane Heist, the dialogue in London has Fallen. This movie is instead a showcase of nothing but terrible ideas and failed concepts that all become awesome now. Take for instance the Lee brothers played by Mark Dacascos (sure) and Scott Wolf?!?!? Why in the hell is Scott Wolf in this movie? Well with our 20/20 the film wouldn't be th

Ok, you know what happens in this film. You've seen it at least twice and then have it crammed down your throat anytime you watch anything about 80's pop culture. But ask yourself this: what is Top Gun actually about? Look, this movie is thing because of two reasons: Kenny Loggins and Tony Scott shot the hell out of it. If you remove those two things (or just the Tony Scott aesthetic) you've got Navy Seals again. Think of the world we could have had if Tony Scott sucked at cinematography. Tom Cruises doesn't become a huge deal, Scientology disappears and we never get The Mummy. Sure, Desert Storm might have lasted a few months longer but seriously Val Kilmer might still be funny and Katie Holmes life would have had less oppression/slavery in it. Why? Because this thing is devoid of content. Its Megaforce levels of nothing happening. Yes jets fly around and people have hang down contests with undeclared winners but absolutely nothing happens. When you're more invested in the story of 

Teenagers form up to take down an evil empire in their flying ships. Oh and rescue daddy. And get sage advice from an older veteran. Oh and act like a bunch of idiots along the way. So I had no idea how bad Iron Eagle actually is. I had a level of expectation that it was mostly dumb and corny but WOW Iron Eagle is over-the-top stupid. I mean its hard to describe. It truly has to be seen to believed. Between the plot of a teenager likely bringing about WWIII while rocking out to Queen to flying through Beggar's Canyon in a deathrace to Jason Gedrick's constant deadpan in the face of death AND bad grades, you can just read what a stinker this thing is. I guess if we had to complain, its pretty lackluster in the action department. The action in the front end takes about 3 minutes and there is a long complaining, training and failing sequence before about 15 minutes of action at the end. And by action I mean model airplanes suspended by fishline and strapped with firecrackers getting blown up for

Nicole Eggert goes part Robocop, part Wolverine, part Deadpool and all terrible in this cheese-fest from the 90s dark action bandwagon, while also managing to cram in Richard Grieco's true acting ability and still managing to be somewhat boring. This is another movie that has all the things that are required to make a bad movie awesome yet isn't because of the filmmaking elements of the time. The feel and tone of the film bogs down all the awesome crap that happens. Its like a delicious donut served only with Metamucil. Boy, you want to enjoy the donut but your stuck drinking your geriatric medicine. Do you pass on the whole experience? So outside of the clichés of mid-late 90s film, there's a lot of fun here. Richard Grieco is allowed to finally go full Grieco. That's not like letting Nic Cage off the chain, but its pretty close. Grieco would have won a best bad actor SMABFA if we had a podcasting time machine (plus all the evil that Sam would do to hot ladies). His performance alone is worth the price of