Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)

As a bad-movie fan, I find myself conflicted by the cult phenom Birdemic: Shock and Terror. I certainly can appreciate why so many people would choose to celebrate it as a jaw-dropping example of cinematic incompetence. Even if you ignore its innumerable and somewhat mind-blowing technical failures, you’ll easily find yourself captivated by the “performance” of leading man Alan Bagh.

The first actor I’ve ever seen who cannot even be counted on to walk convincingly on camera, Bagh’s fidelity to writer/director James Nguyen’s incoherent script is nothing short of remarkable, especially since much of it makes him sound like an Asian man speaking in a second language he has yet to fully master: “I’d love to see you in those lingerie,” indeed.

That said, I am hesitant to rank Birdemic among such truly classic “bad” movies as Manos, the Hands of Fate, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Troll 2, because they all have in common a kind of dreamlike insanity that combines with their technical incompetence to create wholly original works — something you can claim truly to have never seen before.

And I’ve seen Birdemic before — not just because I’ve seen The Birds or the countless other animal-attack movies that Nguyen laughably riffs on, but because YouTube is filled to overflowing with similarly terrible homemade efforts, any one of whom could arouse the same cruel mocking laughter Nguyen’s folly inspires. Ultimately, Birdemic is every bit as terrible as you’ve heard, but unlike other memorably terrible movies, it lacks that crucial spark of misplaced demented genius. And without that spark, it ends up just being a really badly made movie I pitied rather than loved. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

I, Madman (1989)

Something of a minor cult classic, I, Madman stars The Lawnmower Man‘s mattress mate Jenny Wright as Virginia, a frustrated actress and employee of a used bookstore who’s spending dark and stormy nights with her nose buried in an all-but-forgotten pulp thriller by one Malcolm Brand, featuring a disfigured maniac named Dr. Kessler. She’s my kind of girl, not only because she reads for pleasure, but because she does so wearing only a satin half-camisole and white panties.

Anyway, once she’s through with Much of Madness, More of Sin, she seeks out Brand’s only other novel, titled I, Madman. This being the days before the magic of the Internet, she can’t track it down. Oddly, it shows up at her apartment door one day, but who left it there? In that follow-up book, Dr. Kessler continues a string of murders, seeking body parts from his victims in order to put his own disfigured face back together. These scenes play out before our eyes as Virginia imagines herself as part of the story, with Kessler played by the film’s makeup effects artist, Randall William Cook, later a three-time Oscar winner for The Lord of the Rings.

Much to the consternation of Virginia’s cop boyfriend (Clayton Rohner), the murders begin to play out in the real world. No one believes Virginia when she tells them it’s the work of this fictional Dr. Kessler, especially since he’s described as wearing a cloak over half of his face, and the scalp of a redheaded victim over his bald head.

There’s more than a little Phantom of the Opera flavor to I, Madman, and its bleeding of the garish murders on the page into the real world is an interesting idea. John Carpenter tried it — and failed — with his H.P. Lovecraft tribute In the Mouth of Madness, but here, of all people, The Gate director Tibor Takács succeeds. He didn’t have a lot of money to do so, but he appears to have a grasp on the cheap thrills that paperback thrillers offer, and approaches the movie with the same kind of go-for-broke attitude. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

The Machinist (2004)

Playing the title role of The Machinist is Christian Bale. Or is that Christian Rail? Yuk-yuk; the guy pulled a total reverse De Niro to shed something like 63 pounds to portray the sickly, skin-and-bones Trevor Reznik, the blue-collar worker who loses weight inexplicably and hasn’t slept for a year.

Stranger still, strange Post-it notes pop up around his apartment, like “Who are you?” and a six-letter game of Hangman. He’s a loner at work — even more so after he causes a bloody accident that costs a guy his arm — and the only real companionship he has is literally bought: regular rounds with a sympathetic call girl, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Which begs the question: Does Leigh have some sort of hooker-role punch card? There’s this, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Miami Blues — what does she get when she hits 10? An automatic Oscar? She’s good in this, as virtually always, but it’s Bale’s picture through and through. He’s totally believable as a paranoiac spiraling deeper into an abyss where reality and fantasy blur for him.

Director Brad Anderson seems to channel a good dose of Brian De Palma to drive this obsessive thriller, with Roque Baños serving as his Pino Donaggio/Bernard Herrmann for a score that has viewers on puppet strings. From an epileptic kid to a co-worker who looks Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix, The Machinist keeps you guessing for its whole; even if its twist is a bit of a letdown, all that comes before it is a stylish high. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

S.O.B. (1981)

The late Blake Edwards is probably one of the last filmmakers you’d ever think would dip his toes into the murky waters of post-modernism, but it’s impossible not to notice the meta qualities of S.O.B. (we’re told it stands for “Standard Operational Bullshit”), his ode to the crass insanities of the filmmaking industry.

How else would you describe a movie about a filmmaker who attempts to create a hit by baring the breasts of his movie-star wife — a famous paragon of onscreen innocence and virtue — that just happened to be made by a filmmaker who was attempting to create a hit by baring the breasts of his movie-star wife, who just happened to be Maria Von Trapp and Mary Fucking Poppins?

Unlike the film within the film, the sight of Julie Andrews’ breasts didn’t cause anyone to rush to the box office, but that doesn’t mean S.O.B. isn’t a classic satire of early ’80s Hollywood culture. While occasionally overly broad and at least 30 minutes too long (I would have cut most of the last 20 minutes and everything to do with Loretta Swit’s gossip columnist), the movie is often laugh-out-loud funny and features an amazing cast doing what they do best.

This includes William Holden, appearing as a slightly happier version of the same character he played in the similarly themed Network; Richard Mulligan as the crazed producer who decides to transform his G-rated flop into a X-rated hit; a young Rosanna Arquette, who doesn’t say or do much, but who is braless and topless just long enough to earn a mention; and Robert Preston, who easily steals the show as the laid-back physician who’s seen it all at least twice, and done it himself at least once.

And, because you are wondering, despite the fact that Julie Andrews was 46 when the movie was made, they’re real and they’re spectacular. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

Book of Blood (2009)

Well before the end-of-Bush-era housing market collapse, I had the damnedest time trying to sell a perfectly good home. We had spent thousands of dollars in updates; the neighborhood was safe; and the school district was solid. Took me 16 agonizing months.

But in Book of Blood, a young woman gets her face ripped clean off by an unseen force of malevolence in her parents’ home, and professor Mary (Sophie Ward, the little girl from Young Sherlock Holmes, all growed up!) is all like, “Huh, I think I’ll move in and see whassup. So long as it passed inspection!” She invites her hunky new student, Simon (Jonas Armstrong), to move in, too.

This being based on two Clive Barker stories, all is not well. Writing appears all over the walls of the upstairs bedroom, warning not to “mock us.” Plus, flesh carving (just how rough does it Barker like it, I wonder?) and forbidden sex, in which Ward’s nipples are so erect and pencil-eraser elongated, her partner risks ocular trauma.

Adapted and directed by John Harrison of the underrated Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, it has an ending that makes you think, “Who wrote this? Jeane Dixon?” It’s also not scary, unless you’re terrified of dragonflies, in which case you’re totally fucked. It’s no Candyman or even Midnight Meat Train, but it’s decent enough, if senseless. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Random Genre & Cult Movie Reviews