Category Archives: Bad Movie Monday

BAD MOVIE MONDAY: COMMUNION (1989)

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Today’s review is for one of my favorite movies of all time. (I know, I know… I’ve said this before, but in my defense I’m old and I love a LOT of movies.) COMMUNION stars Christopher Walken as Whitley Strieber, Lindsay Crouse as Anne Strieber, Frances Sternhagen as Dr. Janet Duffy, Andreas Katsulas as Alex, and Joel Carlson as Andrew Strieber. It was directed by Phillipe Mora based on Whitley Strieber’s best-selling nonfiction book of the same name. Now, perhaps I’m completely in the wrong here, but I am legitimately baffled as to why this movie isn’t more popular. It is FAR superior and FAR scarier than the similar FIRE IN THE SKY, which is usually what people bring up when they’re talking about terrifying alien abduction films. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If I like it so much then why am I reviewing it on BAD MOVIE MONDAY? Well, because for some insane reason it’s considered a bad movie. Most critics at the time dismissed it and audiences have been ignoring it for over thirty years. So I suppose this review is my attempt to remedy that.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE (1987)

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Can a good movie be bad? I like to think so, yes. There’s plenty of examples of award winning critical darlings, like Forrest Gump, that are considered utter trash today. Conversely, a bad movie can also be good. Take something like Zardoz. Everyone hated it at the time, but now it’s mostly seen as a bold artistic and challenging film. With this paradox in mind, today I’ll be reviewing TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE starring Ryan O’Neal, Isabella Rossellini, Wings Hauser, and Lawrence Tierney.

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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: THE SWARM (1977)

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I thought I’d do something a little bit different this week. Until now, I’ve only been reviewing stuff that I’ve watched with friends. However, this time I was thinking of reviewing a bad movie that I like very much but don’t think is appropriate to watch in a group. So today we’re going to tackle the buzzing bullshit that is THE SWARM.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: SPOOKIES (1986)

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My favorite bad movies are always the ones that tend to combine a “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS HAPPENING???” factor with a certain level of competence. It can’t just be a confusing mess made by cynics or overconfident nincompoops because that’s not fun. No, the fun part for me is when the filmmakers love what they’re doing and know what they’re trying to do, but still find it difficult to relay that to the rest of us.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987)

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Around the time that I started having BAD MOVIE MONDAY three years ago, my wife invented the term “Gratuititties” in order to describe the often gratuitous but always welcome presence of uncovered female breasts in a trashy movie. I’ve used it in as many reviews as I can, mostly because I think it’s a funny word. However, never has it been more appropriate to use than in this movie’s review. It only takes a little over one minute and thirty seconds before we see the first “gratuititties” in the film. Don’t worry though because they’ll be back again and again, and I felt like that boy at the end of ANIMAL HOUSE when a pretty girl crashes through his bedroom window onto his lap and he goes “THANK YOU GOD!” except I was thanking all the women in this movie pretty much throughout the entire movie.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: THE CHILLING (1989)

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Do you like movies that look and feel like they were written during a weekend bender that might have included the sort of drugs that Rick James often used? Do you like movies that star actors whose fortunes have fallen so low that they’d have to rise up a few notches on the cinematic food chain in order to merely be considered “washed up”? Do you like movies made by people that seem to have seen a lot of movies but don’t seem to know how to make one themselves? Well, you’re in luck! Because today I’m reviewing THE CHILLING and it’s a Grade A quality turd.

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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: BLOOD FEAST (1963)

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The film I’m reviewing today is the granddaddy of low budget trash. There had been low budget movies before, of course, and many were pretty trashy. However, none of them had been quite as shameless in their crass exploitation of sex and violence as this one. I can only imagine what the crew cut and beehive hair crowd of 1963 must have thought watching this for the first time.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: NEW YEAR’S EVIL (1980)

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Today’s BAD MOVIE MONDAY column is about a film called NEW YEAR’S EVIL. It was released in 1980 and was directed by Emmett Alston. It stars Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Grant Cramer and Chris Wallace. The film is a pretty good horror movie, but… is it a slasher? I’ve always said that from 1979 to about 1983 every horror movie was trying to force itself into the slasher subgenre, often with poor results, and NEW YEAR’S EVIL is the perfect example of a movie that feels like it was hastily rewritten to fit the trend. So you know what? Instead of a review, I’m going to answer the question of whether or not NEW YEAR’S EVIL is a Slasher Movie, and my answer will be definitive.
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