Customer Reviews

Fifty Worst Films of All Time

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THE 50 WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME will give movie buffs a good laugh. It was worth reading just for the review of "Trouble Man." Seek it out and keep it on your coffee table.

Unlike most "best of" or "worst of" books, this one takes the time to really delve into what happened to the film, why it was made, and so forth.

For instance, "Eegah!" was a cult-hit in California -- and the cast would barnstorm with it to packed houses (Richard Kiel even wearing his caveman toga!)

Never ever has a book made me laugh so hard and so much. Also, I am in love with old movies. That makes this book one of my favorites.

Rarely has a book given me the continuous laughter that this one provided! The wry wit and "courage" to take "classics" and show their glaring deficiencies was a constant delight. My only regret is that there was no later edition.

I am a sci-fi "B" movie fanatic. This is a great listing of some of the best of the worst films. There is a Plot Summary, Immortal Dialogue and Critic Reviews for each movie. There is quite a bit of information for each film. I have a couple of books like this and was pleased to find out that there wasn't a lot of duplication from one book to another.

...read this online review.

This book might have been good if it had been written when MST3K was on the air. Unfortunately, this was published 10 years before the series pilot. Keep reading!

This book is just SO Subjective. It's partly due to their ground rules. The ground rules eliminate Mexican productions (the 1959 film "Santa Claus") as well as porno flicks (Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [1964]), movies made for television ("A Charlie Brown Christmas"--anybody who thought that had charm obviously had not taken the time to sit down and watch it), films about the Army ("The Green Berets"), and training films ("Faces of Death").

OVERRATED ART FILMS. I have never condemned the inclusion of heralded classics in a book like this if the author makes a convincing argument. He does not.

OLDIES BUT BADDIES. I agree wholeheartedly that bad movies have actually been around almost as long as motion pictures themselves. That's what makes the selections here all the more tragic. They include the 1937 biopic "Parnell" (considered the worst biography ever made at the time of the book's publification); however, the ground rules do not state it, but they also apparently exclude Depression-era cautionary films such as "Reefer Madness" and "The Struggle." These are crucial because the actors are laughable in their failure to convince. It is also crucial because these films commit others to the sight of death or ruined lifes with no care.

GRADE "Z" ATROCITIES. The only ones of those are "Robot Monster," "Eeegah," and the Roger Corman-New World-produced "Swamp Women." If those can be the only ones eligible for inclusion, I am lost for words. The book could also benefit from Ed Wood's and Coleman Francis's creations as well as "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" and "'Manos' the Hands of Fate."

This book has inspired me to write a less subjective sequel; however, I will still exclude silent films, Chinese and Polish productions (Have the Chinese ever made a bad movie? No really, have they? There's "Surf Ninjas," but that's ABOUT the East), and travelogues (how can these be bad?).

As for this, 4 words: Avoid...at...all...costs.