Some people like fine wine, Bergman and turtlenecks. Others prefer to rummage through society's trash can until their hands are filthy with wonderful mess. Film critic and Rotten Tomatoes' contributor Michael Adams belongs firmly to the second group. As if to prove his instability, he set out on a quest to find the Worst Film Ever Made, which involved watching more than 400 horrible movies in their entirety -- in one year -- while also finding time to host a TV show, work as an editor at Empire magazine and appear in George Romero's Survival of the Dead. The results are chronicled in his book, Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies. We spoke to him recently to find out what drives a man to such depravity...
RT: So... you set out to watch a bad movie a day for an entire year. I guess the question most people are wondering is, 'Why?' Why would you subject yourself to such madness?
MA: "For fun" -- just like Borat shooting bears. I genuinely thought it'd be fun to do, to write and to read. The question "What's the worst movie ever made?" occurred to me after watching Material Girls, which was at that time number one on the IMDb's user-voted bottom 100. Clearly, while it was hideous, it wasn't as bad as, say, Santa With Muscles. It had been nearly 30 years since Plan 9 From Outer Space was crowned "worst movie ever made" but it wasn't even on the IMDb's bottom 100. The question seemed a relevant one, given how many "best-ever" movie lists we have. It quickly became apparent there would be hundreds of really crappy movies to get through if I had a hope of answering the question. Doing at least one a day for a year seemed doable. It'd give me a far-reaching sample, and a compressed enough time frame so I was judging them each in more or less the same mind set.
You must be the first person alive to list Material Girls as an inspiration for anything -- do you look back upon it with fondness, given the crud you've sat through since?
Funnily enough, about two weeks after I finished my year of bad movies it popped up on cable. My other half, Clare, said, "Hey, Material Girls is on -- do you want to watch it?" I most certainly didn't. Not out of bad-movie fatigue but because Material Girls is horrible rather than any sort of schlocky fun. It's no surprise, given the title, and its cinematic crappiness, that it came from Madonna's production company. Thanks, oh mighty Madge!
Was there ever a point at which you thought, "This is insane, I'm being consumed by this ridiculous quest"?
Yes, often. Thing was, in the month before I started the quest, I committed thousands of dollars to buying up bad movies on DVD and VHS, so there was never really a question of giving up because then I would've wasted a lot of money. Money I didn't really have, by the way. But during the year, when I caught myself increasing my already maxed-out Visa's limit so I could pay rent and buy another dozen flicks from Al Adamson or Andy Milligan, I did question my sanity and whether I was becoming some weird sort of addict. And it did become obsessive. When I wasn't watching bad movies I was reading about them and investigating the subjects they talk about. It takes you down some odd pathways. I learned about locust swarming patterns from a scientist thanks to Exorcist II: The Heretic and the prevalence of cross-dressing in mid-1950s American in relation to Glen Or Glenda.
Then there the amazing stories of the filmmakers, such as Adamson or Milligan, or Tom Graeff, who made Teenagers From Outer Space before trying to change his name to Jesus Christ II, or Barbara Payton, a blond starlet whose drug-and-booze-fuelled decline into hell makes today's celebutards look positively innocent. To counter this obsessive watching and research, I did have to make sure I forced myself to do my day jobs properly and spend time with my family. Otherwise I might've gone right down the bad-movie rabbit hole and wound up homeless and penniless. And whenever it got frustrating, I at least had the consolation that these frustrations would become part of the story because the book is actually about the process, the research, the obsession, as it is deciding how bad each movie is.
Without giving away the ending, did you find the Worst Movie Ever Made -- and was the result what you expected?
As for results, I didn't know what to expect. In the first few weeks I did see a flick called Search For The Beast and think, 'There can't be anything worse'. What surprised me is that I found efforts every bit as awful and then, incredibly, movies that lowered the bar further still. I've found a few that'd startle anyone who thinks that Manos: The Hands of Fate is the worst movie ever made. These bad boys make the celebrated works of Ed Wood look like Orson Welles in comparison. I think there will be debate over my choices. I welcome it because if people can watch the 20 I nominate in the book -- or at least the worst few -- and find something they think sucks harder, I'd love to hear about it.
What surprised you the most in your journey? Were there films that emerged as genuinely entertaining, or not as bad as you'd expected?
The tales behind the movies intrigued me as much as the films themselves. When you see a bad movie, you think, 'Who? What? Why?' I was amazed at how many times I'd scratch the surface and find some story of tragedy or triumph, whether it was Shriek of the Mutilated director Michael Findlay's grisly demise or The Mighty Gorga star Megan Timothy's remarkable recovery from a catastrophic brain injury. As for the movies, there were dozens that were genuinely entertaining from some perspective from start to finish. Many of the others had enough moments of inadvertent comedy or oddball interest to help offset the boredom. And then there were those real stinkers with nothing to recommend whatsoever. Good ones? There are too many to mention. I have a lot of amount of affection for flicks like Maniac, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, The Room, The Giant Claw, The Oscar, Beyond the Forest, The Black Godfather, For Y'ur Height Only, Frankenstein Island, Teenagers From Outer Space, The Carpetbaggers, Road House... as well as the 'classics' like Showgirls, Plan 9, Battlefield Earth and Reefer Madness. There are dozens more.
What was the worst line of dialogue or scene you endured?
That's a tough call. Worst-worst? Or worst-best? As for the funniest, I'm saying the infamous line from Shark Attack 3. No! Scratch that. The best-worst if from Road House: "I used to f--k guys like you in prison!" Said as a threat, during a fight! Possibly the best line ever. Priceless. As for the worst-worst? Any line at all from The Room or Ben & Arthur. As for worst scene? That'd be the eight-minute digging-in-the-mud-puddle from my "winning" worst-ever flick.
If you had to name a worst-ever sequel, what would it be?
Another Nine And A Half Weeks. You could use it to chemically castrate sex offenders. It is so woefully dull and anti-erotic. There are also those "seemquels" where a movie is titled to cash-in on an earlier film, despite having little or nothing to do with it. Hollywood High Part 2 was one of those. Mind-bogglingly boring.
Many A-List stars get skewered in your book for their poor career decisions -- Stallone, Travolta, Arnie. Who do you think made the worst professional left turn?
It's hard to believe how Teflon-coated John Travolta is. He's well liked, loved even, despite his career being littered with turkeys. His first-ever movie was one -- The Devil's Rain, which is amusingly awful. And as soon as he became a star with Saturday Night Fever and Grease he went and made the insanely dull Moment To Moment. He became nearly unemployable after Stayin' Alive and Perfect and The Experts. Then, no sooner had he made his comeback with Pulp Fiction and become a $20m man, he used his new clout for Razzie-bait Battlefield Earth. It keeps going. He was brilliant in Hairspray but then he does rubbish like Old Dogs. I'd say he's the most erratic A-lister we have. I love him for it.
Just how obsessed with the Sasquatch are you? There's quite a hefty section dedicated to the hairy beast.
Man, you should've seen that chapter before it was edited down! There were pages of history about Bigfoot and interviews with Sasquatch hunters, one of whom told me he believed there were 200 such creatures living in the Pacific Northwest and they held Survivor-like tribal councils to govern themselves! I watched another movie, too, The Capture of Bigfoot, that had to be edited out for space. Yes, for a few days there I went deeeeep into Bigfoot. But then I'd move on to the next mini-obsession.
Who's committed the greater cinematic crimes: Bigfoot or Madonna?
Madonna, hands-down. What I'd love, though, would be for Madge to make a Bigfoot movie.
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on Feb 02 2010 03:12 AM
I think Home Alone 2 and Terminator 2 would be one of the worst movies that I have ever seen.
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on Feb 02 2010 08:50 PM
Avatar goes mighty close.
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on Feb 04 2010 09:57 PM
lol @ Shintaro, another Avatar troll! Sure, and Arabs committed 911 and Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, yeah yeah! Go back to your online gaming.
Avatar was a masterpiece.
Battlefield Earth was definately the worst movie ever made and T2 was a great movie.
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on Apr 15 2010 08:39 PM
Have not seen Avatar but I agree that Terminator 2 was awful. Arnold as a good
terminator? Ridiculous.
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on Feb 03 2010 02:56 AM
Terminator 2, are you frigging kidding me
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on Feb 04 2010 04:56 PM
Battlefield Earth by far is the worst movie ever made... I like show girls!
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on Feb 05 2010 12:45 PM
The Twilight movies are two stinkers that come to mind, definately on par with Travoltas Scientology Earth. Why on earth would anyone say Avatar and Terminator 2 are the worst, only that they are only trying to get a rise out of folks and
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on Feb 05 2010 12:47 PM
The Twilight movies are two stinkers that come to mind, definately on par with Travoltas Scientology Earth. Why on earth would anyone say Avatar and Terminator 2 are the worst, only that they are only trying to get a rise out of folks and are upset that there beloved sparkling vampires make most of the top 10 worst movies.
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on Feb 12 2010 02:13 PM
OMG, IRON MAN 2 JUST LEAKED!!!! WATCH http://watch-iron-man2.com
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on Feb 12 2010 04:31 PM
"...Terminator 2 would be one of the worst movies that I have ever seen."?!?
are you mad?!...
Terminator was an amazing movie...
Okay okay worst.......
yeaaaah True Avatar does come really close.
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on Apr 17 2010 10:06 AM
Avatar, hands down. Cameron is an embarrassment to his Canadian heritage.
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on Apr 17 2010 01:42 PM
I would have to put ZOOM, the Twilight movies, GI JOE: RISE OF COBRA, and anything with Miley Cyrus on the list.
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