Film's Best Worst Movies

5. "Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave"

Directed By: Doo-yong Lee
Starring: Bruce K. Lea, Deobrah Dutch

Before I begin to summarize this movie, please take a look at its title. It clearly says "Bruce Lee" in it, right? Now look at the lead actor's name: "Bruce K. L. Lea." Yes, they are completely different people and no, I have no idea how this movie got produced and released without a lengthy series of lawsuits. Bruce K. L. Lea's mentor, a fat man with a moustache, dies and leave his karate school to Bruce, who returns the favor by carrying a large wooden box containing his cremated remains and an 8x10" glossy photo of his mentor for the rest of the movie. Soon after moving to the great US of A, Mr. Lea realizes that this rough n' tumble country is chock full of nefarious villains who all helped kill his master. These evildoers include a Japanese guy, a black guy, an Indian, a white guy, a Mexican, and a cowboy.

Bruce must fight his way through all of these characters to avenge his mentor's death and determine why they killed such a valuable person with so much to offer the world (his moustache). Here's a little hint: it's something involving drugs. I wish I could be more precise about the motivation behind his death, but I honestly can't figure this movie out after having watched it at least 20 times. The action scenes are chock full of chicken sounds, continuity errors, terribly uncoordinated fights, and basically everything else which should absolutely not be included in an action scene. The movie's high point revolves around a mysterious man named "Wellby" who steals each and every scene he's in. This is partly because he's awfully gargantuan and takes up most of the screen, but also partly because he's got a magnetic, charming personality which rivals some of the most famous rabid hogs. (Full review here...)

4. "Dark Carnival"

Directed By: Eric Worthington
Starring: Miki Welling, Micail Buse

I have to give this movie credit: it is very dark. Very, very, very dark. Sure there is absolutely no carnival anywhere in the entire movie, but yes, it is very dark. Perhaps director Eric Worthington just had an eye exam before filming this movie and his pupils were dilating, which explains his extreme aversion to any source of possible illumination. Or perhaps the cast and crew demanded the entire movie be filmed as dark as possible, hopefully to conceal their identities and save them from future shame and missed job opportunities due to this horridly inept film.

A group of teenagers in their early 30s decide to create a haunted house for Halloween like they do each and every year, to entertain the various dullards who actually pay money to walk around in a poorly decorated interlinking series of wooden rooms inhabited by homosexual art school students dressed in modified Casper the Friendly Ghost costumes. Unfortunately, the volunteers at the haunted house are committing unspeakable acts of violence ranging from "yelling at each other" to "kind of wrapping their hands around some guy's neck until he whines with moderate displeasure." In addition, a mysterious killer dressed in a clown costume is running around attempting to cause people to stop living, making the chore of running a shitty haunted house even more unnecessarily complex.

Half of this movie is dedicated to showing the characters set up their haunted house, while the other half revolves around the characters running from one room to another so they may continue the process of running from one room to another. There's a lot of nonsensical scenes which just kind of happen for no reason, such as the psychic bum who lights his Burger King hat on fire as some kind of tribute to fallen comrades, or when two of the cast members are attacked by deadly tentacles and cannot escape until one of them casually remarks, "they're gelatin. You can eat them." So, well, they eat them and escape.

Although I don't want to ruin this movie for you, the antagonist of the film turns out to be the only character introduced in the movie who isn't a member of the haunted house staff. How's that for a surprise ending? The character you most expected to be the bad guy turns out to actually be the bad guy! This film also scores bonus points for the fact that after I reviewed it, the cast sent me a bunch of emails trashing director Eric Worthington in various amusing ways. Apparently us viewers aren't the only people who hate the guy. (Full review here...)

3. "Robo Vampire"

Directed By: Joe Livingstone
Starring: Harry Myles, Joe Browne

The most efficient way to mock this film is to simply describe it. A heroin smuggler experiences difficulties shipping drugs overseas because the narcotics enforcement agency continues to bust his employees and raid his drug production plants. The smuggler decides to start shipping the heroin in caskets of dead vampires which randomly come back to life and can only be stopped by sticking a receipt to their forehead. He then hires some magician to create the ultimate vampire, which takes the form of a man who wears a gorilla mask and shoots bottle rockets from his shirt sleeves while doing little bunny hops everywhere.

This naturally offends his dead ghost witch of a wife, who committed suicide because she was from the east and her gorilla vampire lover was from the west and this was a problem because "you Orientals are a stubborn race." So the magician weds the ghost witch and the gorilla vampire in a very touching ceremony. Later on, some DEA agents attempt to foil a shipment of drugs, and the magician breaks out the gorilla vampire who critically injures a very important agent named "Tom." The DEA decides to use Tom's corpse as an experiment to transform him into a robot dubbed "Robo Warrior."

Robo Warrior goes on a quest to kill the smuggler and his magician as well as the gorilla vampire and his wife the ghost witch. During this convoluted and bizarre plot, there's another movie apparently going on which has something to do with a guy in a wool knit cap and some lady who was captured in "The Golden Triangle." Robo Warrior is equipped with a M50 machinegun which is also a flamethrower, as well as the robotic ability to be reassembled after he's blown up with by a rocket launcher. Oh yeah, one of the bad guys wears a sweatshirt throughout the movie which simply says "racing" on it. I love racing!