IMDB Bottom 100: No's 38 & 37 - The Touch of Satan and The Creeping Terror

Number 38: The Touch of Satan (1971)

Another horror movie to watch. I’ve watched so many horror films on this list (and spoiler alert, there are a lot more to come) I feel I must have become an expert in it, if just by osmosis. One frame is all I need to tell you what year its from.

This is however the first one that deals with Satan himself, whom as far as horror movies go is as big as it gets. Zombies and vampires are ok but for pure evil and menace you can’t get any bigger than Lucifer. Not that you ever actually see him of course as this is about soul possession. Sort of.

This is low budget from the 70’s, so that means very slow pace and very little action. And The Touch of Satan is slower than most. I can imagine the director Don Henderson’s meeting with the actors on the first day of shooting. He’d say to them, ‘Listen folks, we’ve only got 20 minutes of script here, I’m going to need you to pad this out to 90 minutes.’

And an admirable job they do, with a minimum 5 second pause between each line of dialogue, just like real conversations go. The director chips in with long sequences of cars driving and even just re-using footage. A fine job all round.

Speaking of the actors, they are remarkably unremarkable. None of them went on to anything of note after The Touch of Satan. I’d like to tell you there was a young Martin Sheen lurking in the cast as that would be something interesting to say but there just isn’t. Lead actor Michael Berry was a medic on the set of Being John Malkovich, how’s that?

At least I’m trying, which is more than these guys ever did when they made this movie.

Basically, you’ve got a guy driving to California, he stops off in some desert town. He meets a pretty girl, she invites him to stay in her house with her oddball family and crazy, homicidal grandmother. Who could say no?

Turns out they’re a little odd and the girl is actually 127 years old. Crazy grandma is actually her sister she had saved from being burned as a witch by making a deal with the Devil. Shock horror, the Devil can’t be trusted and they are kept alive to do his bidding. The guy Jodie breaks the curse but the girl Melissa is now dying, so he makes another deal with the Devil to keep her alive. Roll credits.

That’s the whole film summarised in two paragraphs with no major plot points missed out. They stretched that out to 90 minutes, these are some talented people working here.

And if you’re wondering how to summon the Devil yourself, just raise your arm over your head with a clenched fist. It’s that simple.

Number 37: The Creeping Terror (1964)

Back to the 60’s for some sci-fi action about an alien monster on earth.

Aliens come in many shapes and sizes in science fiction. Sometimes they are perfectly evolved killers, sometimes they are small creatures encased in killing machines, or sometimes they have slathering tentacles or have pointy ears. And sometimes they are plant-blob creatures.

Looking on its IMDB page, I noted this film was written by Robert Silliphant, whose other credits include The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies!!? And with that kind of calibre behind it, how could this go wrong.

Well, firstly it’s got a narrator. Anyone who has followed these reviews will know I have no truck with narrators. They are a device used by poor film makers who know their film is bad. I know there are bound to be good films with narrators but they will always be the exception rather than the rule. A little narration at the start to give background and set the scene is acceptable but having it all the way through is not. And this film is about 95% narration. It’s not even good narration, it really just gets in the way. This could have been ok, not great but when the narrator was added it just never stood a chance.

The actors must have been really bad in this. Maybe they all sounded like that guy from the Police Academy movies with the high screeching voice. There are scenes with characters talking but rather than hearing their conversation, the narrator tells us everything they say. The thing is, the characters do speak occasionally so why not let them speak the whole time? It doesn’t make sense.

Maybe I’m being unfair and there is a legitimate reason why they had to do it this way. Maybe there was a problem with the sound equipment, all the dialogue came out all garbled and there wasn’t enough time to fix it. Maybe.

The story is that an alien ship has crashed on earth and the weird tree blob creature escapes and starts eating people. It's a Triffid basically but nowhere near as menacing. And it's 'mouth' where it eats people, looks like a vagina. We know this film was from the 60’s because there is a party where all the kids are dancing in that hip-swivelling style that was so prevalent at the time. When the monster invades they try to escape. They…very…slowly try to get away.

After the army’s weapons all fail to take down the beast, it’s killed after getting hit by a car. There is a twist that the monster has actually been gathering information on humans and sending it back to its home planet. This leaves us with a somewhat ambiguous ending where we look out at the stars and wonder what future threat awaits mankind.

With a title like The Creeping Terror, this was never going to be fast paced action. The slow pacing might appeal to some as it’s rather reminiscent of old British sci-fi series. But personally, I don’t need to spend five minutes watching a housewife go through all of her household chores before a 30 second pay-off.

Watching The Creeping Terror is a real test of endurance. I couldn’t tell you if the actors are any good because we so seldom hear them speak because everything is told through the narrator so the audience won’t care anything for their predicament. The monster just looks ridiculous and lacks any kind of menace.

So my advice is to creep away from The Creeping Terror.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 40 & 39 - Son of the Mask and Glitter

Ok, I have slightly messed up the order here. Son of the Mask is actually number 42 but for some reason I omitted it from the last article where it should have been. Maybe I just want to pretend it doesn't exist.
It doesn't matter really, they are all as bad as each other.

Number 42: Son of the Mask (2005)

Ok, let’s get this over with.

In the mid-90’s, Jim Carrey ruled the comedy roost. Two Ace Ventura movies, Dumb and Dumber and The Mask. All massive hits. The Mask in particular was a massive success and as well as being a great vehicle for Jim Carrey’s zaney madcap humour it also launched the career of Cameron Diaz.

Talks of a sequel were inevitable and done the rounds for years. By the time Son of the Mask was put into production, Carrey and Diaz had both long since moved on, trying to get more serious roles. The only character from the original film in the sequel is Dr. Neuman (Ben Stein), the expert on Norse mythology but he’s only in the first few minutes. He knew to get out of there as quickly as possible.

The only thing Son of the Mask has in common with the original is Dr Neuman and the mask itself. Otherwise they look nothing alike. Just look at the world they live in. Stanley Ipkiss from the first film lived in a city that looked like an actual city where people lived. In this film, it’s like they live in Pee-Wee’s playhouse.

The story here is that Loki (Alan Cumming) is on Earth looking for the mask. To be fair, this is actually a good bit of continuity from the first film as Dr Neuman did say that it was Loki’s mask. That is the only bit of praise this film will get and is more than it deserves. And poor Loki would have to wait another six years before Tom Hiddleston would redeem his reputation.

Loki has daddy issues as his father Odin is constantly berating him as a failure.

The mask has found its way into the possession of a guy called Tim (Jamie Kennedy), who wants to be an animator. His wife wants a baby but he isn’t sure he’s ready for fatherhood.

He wears the mask to a work Halloween party and the kookiness begins when we get an awful rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’. In a twist on the bad song = bad movie formula, we have a good song made bad for a bad movie. The stupid rap and country segments, it’s only when you a hear a song ruined so much you come to appreciate the original.

A quick word on how the Mask character looks as well. Jim Carrey in the first movie looked perfect. He was crazy and off-the-wall but he had that slightly sinister, dangerous edge to him as well. Here, he just looks weird. He looks like a green skinned talk-show host. It is only when you watch films like this you realise just how good Jim Carrey actually is.

Anyway, after the party the Mask runs home to to his wife. If you are wondering what happens next, just look at the title of the film.

So yeah, because he was wearing the mask at the time his baby has the powers of the mask. Cue unfunny baby gags.

I think we’re supposed to like the baby but other than being a baby there’s nothing good about him. And to be honest, I don’t think being a baby is that great a thing anyway, it doesn’t impress me. 

Everything about him is horrific. His mum goes away for a week and he takes absolute pleasure in trying to drive his Dad absolutely mental. He is a sadistic baby. The CGI done on his body does him no favours either and will give you nightmares for weeks.

Loki kidnaps the baby, who is called Alvie, and gives Tim an hour to bring his mask to him and he’ll give him his son back. But Loki finds himself attached to the baby, who I guess you might argue is his son too. So we get the showdown between Loki and Tim wearing the mask which is the cartoon-fest you would expect it to be, so I guess in that way it doesn’t disappoint. But it doesn’t please either.

After finding they are too evenly matched they leave it to Alvie to decide who he wants to go with. Obviously he chooses Tim because the reluctant father has found he does love his son after all. He uses this new found knowledge to help Loki patch things up with his own father, Odin. If only he was around in The Avengers movies, all the problems could have been solved.

So, its happy endings all round.

To summarise what it’s like watching Son of Mask, well there’s a part where they show a bit of a Woody Woodpecker cartoon and it cuts away and I was thinking ‘No!!! I want to watch Woody Woodpecker! He’s a million times more entertaining than this film.’

There are no funny or clever jokes in this. It’s all just awful.

On the plus side, Jim Carrey’s reputation has been enhanced just by virtue of not appearing in this film.

Number 39: Glitter (2001)

Who doesn’t love Mariah Carey? Part human, part dolphin and the woman the phrase ‘diva’ was invented for.

Honest truth is, I’m not sure who is a fan of Mariah Carey. I’ve never met one and I don’t know anyone who has. Or at least, anyone who would admit to it but she must have fans somewhere. Someone is buying her albums and going to her concerts.

Unless it’s all just a conspiracy and she doesn’t actually have any fans at all. Those people who turn up at her concerts are just paid to go in order to make it look like she is a popular and successful artist.

They conned the producers of this film good, $22,000,000 was put into making this. That’s a fairly modest budget for a major Hollywood production in truth but Glitter still didn’t even come close to breaking even. Mariah was most definitely not on fire for this one.

It was doomed from the start of course, much like Gigli in that a lot of people weren't going to like it however good or bad it was.

Mariah from the block plays a young woman called Billie who has a great passion for arts and crafts. Not really, she’s a singer obviously. After being discovered by a DJ-Producer in a Milli-Vanilli situation (she’s been doing the vocals on another woman’s song), he buys her contract from another dodgy producer and then gets her a major record deal.

The producer called Dice, is played by British actor Max Beesley, putting on an American accent. I always hate it when actors do this because it always sounds so obviously fake, think Jason Statham in The Transporter. Beesley starts off ok but just gets worse as it goes on.

Billie goes through a meteoric rise to fame and has romance with Dice. But all is not great at the top, as Billie has to deal with sleazy producers while Dice has problems with the guy who he bought her contract from but hasn’t paid for. I use the word ‘problems’ but they never feel like challenges that need to be overcome, they just seem like things that are happening around them.

There is a variation on the narrator theme, which isn’t as common in films these days as it once was. In Glitter, there are snippets of Mariah Carey tracks to explain how a character is feeling. Singing it doesn’t make it better.

I won’t give away the ending for all the mythical Mariah Carey fans out there but I will say it might have meant a lot more if it was given just a bit more than 2 minutes build up throughout the entirety of the rest of the film.

How is Mariah Carey as an actress you ask? Put it like this, at one point in the film her character meets a film producer who asks her ‘Have you ever thought about acting?’ Well, this is about an hour in and she hasn’t done any yet so I would say, no. She is surprisingly good at standing around looking gormless though. I think she’s trying to convey emotion bless her, but it’s been so long since she had one she probably doesn’t know what one is.

Mariah Carey is a very talented singer to be fair to her but an actress she most certainly is not.

She won a Razzie for Worst Actress by the way.

To cement the legacy of this film (which was Carey’s concept as well) the sales of the soundtrack were so poor, EMI decided they couldn’t keep up the pretence Mariah Carey was popular anymore and she was dropped from the label.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 42 & 41 - Wild World of Batwoman and Zombie Nation

Number 41: The Wild World of Batwoman (1966)

Having watched this film I can’t say for sure what it is about but one thing I do know is what it isn’t about: this film has no connection to Batman.

But I would bet the makers of this film were relying a lot on people thinking it might. DC Comics did actually try to sue for copyright infringement. They were unsuccessful and probably helped the film make more money than it should have.

What this film seems to be about is a cult-like all female security force run by a masked lady known as the Batwoman. I don’t know what skills exactly either she or her bat girls have as it’s never really shown. They never show any martial arts abilities. They have guns but no demonstration of them ever actually using them.

As an example of their effectiveness, in the first few minutes of the film a man is shot by two random muggers and two of the bat girls watch the whole thing and do nothing to prevent it. There’s no reason for it. The incident has nothing to do with the rest of the film. Did the director just want to show they’re incompetent?

The only thing the girls do seem to be good at is dancing. I say good, I mean absolutely suck at but they do a lot of it.

Despite being demonstrably useless Batwoman and her crew are hired to protect an experimental atomic device. They fail obviously, because they are rubbish at their jobs, when they are given happy pills that make them dance hidden in cups of soup from three goons disguised in Groucho Marx masks. Yeah, it is as silly as it sounds.

To recover the device, Batwoman enlists the help of the dead by holding a séance to find out the location of the laboratory where the device would have been taken. This is where the film takes a racist turn when the ghost starts speaking in ‘Chinese’. Even not speaking the language, I can tell that wasn’t really Chinese.

The really stupid thing about this was Batwoman was trying to find the laboratory of the villain, Rat Fink, but SHE HAD ALREADY BEEN THERE. Yeah, earlier in the film she’d had to rescue one of her girls from the villain but she didn’t pay any attention to where it was she rescued her from. Oh it was dark? No, you're just incompetent. Did I mention how rubbish she is at her job?

She does find it eventually and then the film turns from silly to ridiculous. A spontaneous romance evolves between one of the Bat Girls and one of Rat Fink’s goons. You have atomic monsters wondering around. There’s a hunchback assistant for the crazy scientist. They have a Benny Hill sequence with villains and batgirls running around after each other.

This all leads to the Scooby Doo ending where we find out Rat Fink was really the stuffy old scientist who was trying to stop his invention falling into military hands.

From what I’ve learned, director of The Wild World of the Batwoman, Jerry Warren was a notorious hack director, so I shouldn’t have expected much from it really. It’s a cynical attempt to cash in on the success of the Batman brand, despite having no connection to it.

The film is only just over an hour long, so can’t complain about that. But it’s not a film really, it’s just an excuse to have lots of scantily clad young women dancing to 60’s beach music with a half-arsed attempt at a story stuck in between. Make of that what you will.

It's cheesy as hell but somehow a little endearing.

Number 40: Zombie Nation (2005)

A Zombie Nation with not many zombies and what can hardly be called a nation.

I’ve said before, one of the reasons horror movies are so prolific is they are cheap to produce and require little to no effort. You just need a handful of actors to play victims and one guy to play killer. Take five minutes to think up the killers back story. Now just choose your location and congratulations, you’ve just wrote your first horror film!

Of course, there are some original horror titles out there but despite its title, Zombie Nation falls very much into that traditional category.

The first 40 – 50 minutes focuses on a police officer called Singer, who picks up young women for minor offences, brings them back to his warehouse, kills them, puts their bodies in a duffel bag and dumps their bodies. His new rookie partner thinks it is slightly strange this guy goes into a warehouse with a girl but always comes out alone with a large bag in hand and I wish to God I was making that up. But he tags out with another guy anyway, so…nice meeting you!

The new rookie also thinks it’s strange he does this. They’re clever ones, the cops in this city.

Officer Singer appears to have issues from his childhood to do with his mother and growing up around a mental hospital. It’s alluded that he also served in Iraq and Afghanistan too, though he looks a little too old for active service to me.

Singer’s police buddies don’t seem entirely oblivious to Singer’s lady murdering but they can’t keep covering for him and Internal Affairs become involved. So he is suspended from the force.

He then has a psychiatric examination from director Ullrich Lummel, who wants to recreate the dental torture scene from The Marathon Man, repeating the line ‘Is it safe?’ over and over. I’ll reference all the better movies here, pal. He leaves and we never see him again. Nice meeting you!

You may have noticed I haven’t said anything about zombies yet, well you’ve waited long enough. And you’ll have to wait some more because they come in at the 50 minute mark and they aren’t zombies anyway. At least not in the way we’ve become accustomed to seeing them.

All those girls who have been killed by Singer are brought back to life by some voodoo ladies. They aren’t the slow moving, brainless monsters we are used to seeing in zombie movies though. They have the taste for human flesh sure but they still have their memories and intelligence from when they were alive. They can drive cars. Apart from some black eyes, they all look pretty good. Overall, you’d say they are up on the whole deal. But five people does not a nation make.

They kill Singer really unclimactically and for some reason all take jobs as police officers afterwards. Being dead is not the career handicap it used to be. End of film.

There are films that are cheap and then there’s this. You might notice a lot of the sets look similar in Zombie Nation, that’s because they are all the same place. They clearly just had one studio lot to work in so the warehouse Singer takes his victims to also acts as his house, the house of one of his victims, the mental hospital and the police station. The police car they drive in is clearly not a police car (it’s red for a start), their uniforms were bought from the local fancy dress store and they had to share. 

Although to be fair, according to IMDB this film only had a budget of $1500 so I guess I can cut it some slack.

Not good but I suppose for a film made for next to nothing, I can give it a pass.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 44 & 43 - Prince of Space and Track of the Moon Beast

Number 44: Prince of Space (1959)

Back on track now with my original list after a detour and it’s a Japanese sci-fi/superhero movie from the 1950’s. It seems like an age since I last watched some science fiction on here, so God help me I was actually looking forward to this.

Japanese cinema isn’t all about gory horror films and men in giant rubber monster suits (though ironically there is one here). They also make rubbish sci-fi movies.

And this is a rubbish sci-fi movie.

Aliens are invading Earth as humans are about to test a new rocket fuel that will allow them to travel into deep space. This is quite common theme in sci-fi where aliens don’t want humans travelling out from there planet. Usually this is because of mankind’s destructive attitude but in this case they just want the rocket fuel formula. Not sure why since they can already travel between planets but hey ho.

So the aliens show up to take over but get chased off by a mysterious man in a costume, known only as Prince of Space. The alien’s weapons are useless against him and he defeats them with ease. This is the pattern for the whole movie and happens three times throughout. Aliens attack, Prince of Space turns up, they run away with their tails between their legs. The aliens are pretty useless.

Speaking of the aliens, they have an odd look to them. They’re people with long pointed noses that makes them look like birds. Their leader is General Ranchor (say that five times fast) who has a laugh that reminds me of The Penguin from the Batman TV series. I wouldn’t be surprised if Burgess Merideth had done the English dub but I can’t verify that.

Prince of Space usually shows up when some kids get themselves in trouble with the aliens and he has to come and rescue them. The children are very prominent in the story despite doing absolutely nothing of worth other than get themselves caught.

The identity of the Prince of Space will come as surprise to no one but where he got his suit, weapons and space ship from is never revealed. Is he an alien himself? Did he make this stuff like Batman? This stuff bothers me. It’s like the writer is saying it doesn’t matter how this guy has technology that can fight off an advanced alien civilisation when man’s best weapons have failed, he just can. Sorry but it does matter, you want me to invest in this character but you give me no reason too.

The PoS eventually beats Ranchor for good by going to his home base, killing his giant guardian creature (who reminds me of Dobby from the Harry Potter films) and blowing up his base.

Now this film is very poorly produced with alien ships on strings levels of special effects. It all makes me wonder if Ed Wood ever spent any time out in Japan.

The Prince comes over as being a little too powerful, so it never feels like he is ever in any peril which in turn makes the aliens seem weak and difficult to take their threats seriously, even when they claim to have enough power to wipe out an entire city in an instant. These guys couldn’t beat an egg, in fact they would probably run from it.

Still, it’s always fun to watch 50’s Sci-fi regardless of what country it is from. There are major plotholes, cheap special effects, under-developed characters, poor direction and stiff acting. But apart from that it’s perfect.

Number 43: Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

I like to try and find interesting angles for these films but it’s not always easy.

I looked at the cast and for many this was the pinnacle of their careers. This was the only film Richard Ashe ever directed. The most interesting thing I’ve been able to find out is that one of the writers Bill Finger, apart from having a funny name, convinced Bob Kane to change the design of his superhero Birdman into a bat instead. I wonder if anything ever became of that character?

So after that career high, comes this career low. I’ve mentioned before that studios love making horror films as they are very cheap to make and require little to no effort. They money they make can then be funnelled into making the more expensive films the studios actually want to make.

An asteroid collides with the moon which causes a meteor shower to fall to earth. There’s a scientist called Paul (a mineralogist I believe they said) who gets hit by the debris and has a particle of meteor lodged in his brain.

Soon people start turning up dead, killed in brutal savage ways. Paul begins to suspect he’s responsible and has this confirmed by his native Indian friend John Longbow (yes, that is his name) when he keeps him restrained overnight. So it’s your basic werewolf movie set up. Except it’s not exactly a werewolf. It’s implied throughout its more like a dinosaur. A wereraptor if you will.

Paul decides the best course of action for him is to go out to the mountains and kill himself. Chief Longbow decides he should go out and kill him by shooting him with an arrow tipped with bits of the meteor. Apparently, as regular bullets have no effect, this will cause a reaction that will cause his cells to break down. It makes no sense and all the audience can see is the moon beast flashing red.

There is a romantic subplot going on but it’s really not that important and makes no difference to the overall enjoyment of the film.

It has all the trademarks of 70’s low-budget movies: cheap film, bad actors, sterile sets, that hissing sound you often get making the dialogue inaudible, slow plodding pace because they only have 30 minutes of real material but they need to stretch it out to make it feature-length.

Oh, and we get a song too. Absolutely no need for it but it seems to be an emerging theme that bad movies have bad songs in them. Just to cement how bad a movie it is.

It goes without saying this was bad but to be fair it never had a chance. Supposedly the script was written in one weekend.

I find it hard to believe that much time was spent on writing this.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 46 & 45 (Kinda) - Surf School and Danes Without a Clue

Number 46: Surf School (2006)

Yeah, brah. It’s teen surf comedy, brah. How could you not like that, brah?

Well, if you have half a brain actually. I’m sure surfing is great fun and all but it doesn’t make for the best movies. Couple it with sub-American Pie ‘humour’ and you get a real shit pile on your hands.

I don’t know why, but every time I watch a new film I always think ‘Well, it has to be better than the last.’ Which is idiotic, since I’m going down the list from 100. I’ve already seen the best IMDB’s Bottom 100 has to offer but somehow I live in hope that I’ll find some hidden gem, really undeserving of its placing. Surf School is not that gem.

I’ve already alluded to American Pie, so now let’s tackle that head on. American Pie was a decent enough teen comedy released in 1999. The problem is that it was a massive success. There were teen comedies before that of course but they weren’t quite as explicit as American Pie. In Hollywood, if something works once they’ll try and make it work a hundred times over. So films like Road Trip, Van Wilder and American Pie’s own sequels all came out in quick succession. There was an idea for a while American Pie could become the new National Lampoon, a whole glut of films only loosely related to each other. That experiment died quickly but Surf School was the latest in that line but probably missed the boat by a couple years.

So you get the usual horny teen jokes throughout. Sisqo is probably the biggest name involved in this but I’m pretty sure that’s just to make one joke. They’re on a beach looking at a woman in a bikini and he says ‘I could make a song about that thong.’ Ooh the irony (and pain) of it.

So story, Jordan moves to California in his senior high school year but finds himself pushed to the social fringes with the goth girl, the nerd, the horny punk kid and there’s no good way to put this, the black guy. I’m sure that’s not the intention but that is the only thing that marks Sisqo’s character out from the popular crew.

The bullies are surfing champions and are competing in a competition in Costa Rica. Jordan and his gang of misfits decide they are going to compete as well, despite the fact none of them have ever surfed before.

They fly out to Costa Rica where they stay in a hostel run by a hippy couple keen to espouse their hippy wisdom to their young minds. And we get, goddammit, more singing. I’m sensing that’s turning into a thing with these films. Bad movies have bad songs.

It turns out Goth girl is a good singer. Not as good as the film characters make out but decent enough. She goes on an arc where we find out her black hair is actually just a wig for her blonde hair and she is at heart a Valley girl. Superficiality wins again.

Jordan and his gang meet a guy called Rip, a former surfing champion now alcoholic, who is going to teach them to surf. It turns out he’s actually a good teacher and they are quite good at surfing. And that’s a problem. It is all too easy for them. Surfing from what I gather is not an easy thing to do and they all pick it up really quickly. Just going to Costa Rica was way too easy, no one had to worry about how they were going to pay for it or if they were going to be given permission. There’s no real hardship to make their eventual triumph mean something.

The competition comes, they struggle at the start but come back, blah, blah, blah. You already know they’re going to win, its typical Disney stuff in a non-Disney movie.

Predictable story, puerile jokes. Just like an American Pie spin-off movie. Brah.

Number 45: Danes Without a Clue (1997)

Forget about those clueless Danes, let me tell you about what I’ve had to go through here.

I wanted to find the 100 bottom films but it can’t be done. I have spent days searching for this and I just can’t find it anywhere. I’ve found a couple clips but nothing substantial. I searched under both its English and original Danish titles with no luck.

I thought I could maybe import a DVD copy of it but no luck there either. So, I’ve come up with a solution: a substitution.

I first started this list on 31^st August 2015 and that is the list I work from. But the IMDB Bottom 100 exists in a state of flux, with new entries coming in all the time so I’ll take a film from there that wasn’t on my original list and swap it with Danes Without a Clue. A compromise maybe but I will still have seen 100 of the worst films.

You got lucky this time, Denmark but I don’t want to see you around here again.

So, without further ado…

Number 45: Troll 2 (1990)

As a delightful treat, Troll 2 has made its return into the IMDB Bottom 100. Currently number 93 on the list, this is too good an opportunity to pass up.

A long time holder of the uncoveted number one spot, Troll 2 has quite the cult following. It is the subject of its own documentary, Best Worst Movie. It has an awful director, terrible actors, a horrible script and a ridiculous story. It’s as if someone was playing The Producers in real life.

To start with what’s wrong here you only need look at the title: Troll 2. There are no trolls in this movie, this is actually about goblins. Goblins disguised as people, as is well established in goblin folklore.

Story is about a family who go to take a vacation in a town called Nilbog (its Goblin spelt backwards, you see? Isn’t that clever? Well, it’s the cleverest thing you’ll see here). The goblins are turning people into vegetables and eating them. Again, as is well established in goblin folklore. Just like Tolkien used to write.

But this isn’t about the ‘story’. Because you’ll be spending most of the time trying to decide just who the worst actor in this is.

The kid, Joshua, is bad but child actors are pretty terrible in general. The mum doesn’t have much going for her. The Dad is pretty bad but does at least have some memorable moments (‘you don’t piss on hospitality’). For a while I was convinced it was the teenage daughter, Molly. But there was a clear winner, it couldn’t not be this guy:

There are some hilariously bad moments amongst the just generally bad acting on display. Moments such as:

-         - The above scene where people are turned to vegetables and eaten

-         - A man being dragged across the floor in a flowerpot

-        -  A guy being drowned in popcorn

-        -  The family holding a séance and then having it dawn on them that none of them know how to hold a séance.

There are too many things to list here but I fully recommend you watch this. It is the perfect example of a ‘so-bad-its-good’ movie. You’ll laugh so hard until you realise it’s not a comedy.

George Hardy, who plays Michael, the father in the family, has said that when they were making this the actors would often talk to each other about how strange the script seemed to them but they trusted the director who told them it would all make sense. Their trust was clearly misplaced.

I wasn’t supposed to be watching this but thank you Denmark. I can guarantee that whatever your film was about, it wouldn’t have been as much fun as this was.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 48 & 47 - Girl in Gold Boots and Eegah

Number 48: Girl in Gold Boots (1968)

Girl in Gold Boots. Well, it does have a girl in gold boots in it, so at least it delivers on that count.

It’s a low budget exploitation film from the 60’s. The main character is a lady called Michele, working as a waitress in a diner but with dreams of being a dancer. But you know, all the characters are so dully generic in this I’m not even going to bother naming them. And I think this will make the film seem at least a hundred times more exciting than it is.

Shady Guy comes in and offers her the chance to go out to Los Angeles. Dancing girl accepts his offer after a conversation with her alcoholic father doesn’t go so well.

One problem, Shady Guy doesn’t have money to get out to LA so needs Dancing Girl to pay for it. They pick up Hippy Guy along the way, who we learn later is a draft dodger.

Shady Guy doesn’t like Hippy Guy as he thinks he’s making moves on Dancing Girl (which to be fair, he is).

They do make it to LA and see all its bright lights. They manage to make Los Angeles look a lot like Las Vegas, just minus the casinos.

Shady Guy introduces Dancing Girl to his sister, Gold Boots Girl. She’s the premier dancer in a nightclub owned by Mobster man. Gold Boots Girl is able to get Dancing Girl an audition to be in her chorus line, so at least Shady Guy was being honest that he could get her an audition.

Despite the fact that Dancing Girl sucks as a dancer, Mobster Man puts her in anyway.

Shady Guy has his own deal going on with Mobster Man selling drugs and Hippy Guy becomes a cleaner in the nightclub. Hippy Guy goes through the most character development out of all the characters in the film. And by development, I mean he shaves off his beard. Hippy Guy finds out about the drugs being pushed from the nightclubs and tries to get Dancing Girl out.

But Dancing Girl has been promoted to New Gold Boots Girl as the old Gold Boots Girl is a junkie and can’t go on anymore. The Artist Formerly Known as Gold Boots Girl persuades the new one to get out while she can but Mobster Man isn’t keen on letting her go so Hippy Guy beats everyone up and calls the police.

The former Dancing Girl and Hippy Guy go to the beach and she does more ‘dancing’.

That’s it.

Just a poorly made film where it’s hard to follow because the sound levels are all messed up so the background music drowns out the dialogue. The characters are as generic as they come, with no interesting features about them.

You might enjoy some of the songs I guess, though the dance routines look incredibly basic. Skip through Hippy Guy's pretentious country music though.

Number 47: Eegah (1962)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if a caveman was still alive in the 1960’s? Well, wonder no more, Eegah has you covered.

And it’s not all that interesting really.

So it starts with a girl, Roxy, driving out to meet her boyfriend in the middle of a deserted road because that’s where all the cool kids hang out. Anyway, it’s here that she first encounters the caveman but he’s scared off when her boyfriend’s car arrives with its fancy, flashing lights.

She convinces her Dad and boyfriend about what she saw and they go off looking for our Eegah. After messing around with boyfriend Tom listening to his awful songs and mucking about in a dune buggy, they go off looking for the caveman.

Roxy gets caught by the caveman and brought back to his cave in the mountain where he has already caught her father. In a sequence that seems to go on forever, we spend time inside the cave learning all about the giant Eegah. Eegah by the way, is played by Richard Kiel better known to movie fans as Jaws from the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Eegah gives them dinner which consists of a raw animal bone and sulphur water. His guests aren’t too impressed by this but try to stomach it anyway because they don’t want to upset him. I like to imagine Eegah is well aware of this and has a store of cakes and sweets in the next, erm, cave.

He introduces him to his relatives who are now long dead. It’s rather like Red Dwarf when they first meet Kryten and he’s in denial that his crew have been dead for thousands of years.

They give Eegah a shave for, reasons. It would have been easier to have just pulled off his obviously fake beard. This is the second film in a row where a character loses his beard, what did the film industry have against beards in the 60's?

Now, with a caveman who has been on his own for a while and an attractive young woman, we know what this is building to but before Eegah gets his chance to get some, he is tricked into letting them out the cave and the girl and her father make their escape.

Eegah follows them into town and typically he is bemused and doesn’t understand what is happening around him. Which makes him angry and destructive as he goes on a rampage through the town.

Eegah eventually finds Roxy at a party where terrible music is being played and gets shot by some cops. I think they were trying for a King Kong vibe where Roxy tries to protect Eegah, as he doesn’t know any better but it fails on all levels.

The really sad thing about this film is Richard Kiel is probably the best actor in it. And he only speaks in grunts.

I found myself wondering how Arch Hall Jr, who plays Roxy’s boyfriend Tom, was ever able to get cast in a movie. Then I looked at the credits and all became clear. This film was directed by one Arch Hall Sr, who also plays Roxy’s Dad, and now it all makes sense. Look at the acting credits for Arch Hall Jr, cross reference them with films written by Hall Sr and see that nepotism was very much alive and well. That wouldn't be so bad if only we didn't have to listen to his awful songs as well. Two movies in a row where not content with denying us beards, they insist on inflicting bad music on us too.

I sense they were trying, bless ‘em but unfortunately they were let down by a general lack of any talent. Hate it when that happens.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 50 & 49 - Dream.net and Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Number 50: Dream.net (2009)

Another film from Hungary, what do the not-so-Magical Magyars have to offer us this time?

I suppose the best way to describe it is Mean Girls meets Bring It On. Mean Girls Bring It On would be a good title.

Regina is a spoilt, rich girl, the most popular girl in school and entirely superficial. Then one day her parents change her school. I don’t really understand why, they haven’t moved anywhere. I guess they thought it would be good for her?

Naturally, she doesn’t fit in at her new school and falls foul of the schools current reigning queen bee, Lívia. The only person who seems to like her is Mark, a musician who also happens to be Regina’s neighbour and has a crush on her. To help her fit in, Regina starts a new cheerleading squad and wins over her former enemies.

This puts Regina in an awkward position, caught between her old friends and her new ones as there is an upcoming basketball match between the two schools. She is also caught between Mark and her former boyfriend, David who is the spitting image of Chris Evans (the Captain America one, not the TFI Friday one).

So the game comes and they have a, erm, cheer off and Regina’s new school go on to win the game. Which I guess means they won the cheerleading as well and Regina is most popular girl in school again. There's a prom, Regina and Mark reveal their feelings, she gets crowned prom queen. High school in Hungary is a lot like high school in America it seems.

And there’s a gag reel in the credits. Well, you’ve got to find something to laugh at I suppose.

Should say a little something about the title, dream.net (or Álom.net) is a mysterious social media website that seems to act as a Cupid service.

One of my main gripes with this film, is that it rather puts me in mind of Chris Lilley’s Ja’mie: Public Schoolgirl. It’s nowhere near as clever or funny as that but it’s the point that just like Ja’mie, you never get any sense that Regina has learnt anything from the experience, she is still just as shallow at the end as she is at the start. Which makes the whole thing a waste of time, superficiality conquers all.

The principal looks a lot like Vladimir Putin too.

Number 49: Titanic: The Legend Goes On…(2000)

If you have a film that is wildly successful, it is inevitable there will be imitators looking to cash in. In this case it’s James Cameron’s 1997 epic Titanic.

There is a problem with adapting the Titanic story into a children’s cartoon of course, namely that most of the people on board died.

Now, don’t get confused when watching this because though the animation looks like it comes from the 1940’s, this was actually made in the year 2000.

The quality of the voice acting is abysmal, as if they just grabbed people off the street, didn't give them any context and just told them, 'Read this.'

They do keep the main romantic story from Cameron’s movie but they switch it around so now that Jack (called William in this) is the wealthy socialite and Rose (Angelica) is the poor, working class one. Angelica actually has a Cinderella story arc where her wicked step-mother and two ugly step-sisters won’t let her go to the ball. No seriously, that is a thing here just that instead of a fairy godmother it is her new animal friends who get her a dress so she can go to the ball.

Apart from William and Angelica, all the other human characters are dodgy in some way or other. Everyone seems to be either a thief or a scammer. Seriously, I think to get on board Titanic you needed to have committed at least five felonies.

There’s all the animal characters as well you have to put up with, brought in to cutify this tragedy in which 1517 people (wiki) lost their lives. And it is a case of putting up with them, they are real Disney rejects.

The good thing about watching a movie about Titanic is knowing what is going to happen and by the time the iceberg hits, you have been praying for it. And when it does happen, keeping in line with the rest of the movie, it is entirely underwhelming. The ship doesn’t so much hit the iceberg, as gently breeze a few metres away from it.

This is still enough to cause the ship to sink of course and everyone makes their escapes. Apart from the captain who goes down with his ship. As some of you may know, Captain Edward Smith was believed (but not substantiated) to have killed himself on the bridge of the Titanic, shooting himself in the head. In a harrowing scene, this is fully depicted here in gory, graphic detail…of course it isn’t but imagine if it was, it would have made a much more interesting film. Imagine having to explain that to your kids.

William sacrifices himself so Angelica can get away on one of the lifeboats. Once on the lifeboat, Angelica sees someone floating in the water and thinks it might be Will but it isn’t so she throws him back in the water. No she doesn’t but she thought about it I tell you. She does find him in the end though.

All the animals get off too though and are brought back to land by dolphins. Well why not?

The film ends telling us what happened to all the characters after Titanic. So, it’s a happily ever after ending.

If you forget about the 1517 people who died.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 52 & 51: Ator the Invinvible and The Bat People

Number 52: Ator the Invincible (1984)

Oh alright, I love Conan films.

‘What is best in life?’

‘To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.’

Although, Arnie looks a little smaller here. His hairs longer than I remember and I don’t remember him having a mute sidekick before. Wait a minute, this isn’t Schwarzenegger at all and this isn’t Conan at all. It’s just a cheap rip-off.

A very cheap rip-off. I’m not even being cute. Also known as The Blade Master, Ator is a trilogy of Italian films made for the sole purpose of cashing in on the success of Conan the Barbarian.

You realise early on how little money was spent on this when the heroes are running across a field and their enemies are chasing after them on foot. The budget didn’t extend to horses.

This being the second film, we are given a recap of the events of the first film. Which is a nice acknowledgement from the makers that no one would have seen it.

Ator’s old teacher Akronas has discovered a new devastating explosive power but a former student of his, Zor, wants his secret for bad purposes. And he wants to show off his impressive moustache. Or it would be impressive if I wasn’t so sure it was stuck on. Akronas’ daughter Mila escapes and goes to find Ator to sort everything out. As is tradition with all attractive women in fantasy movies, she is wearing a very short leather dress but has complimented it with a hubcap across her chest.

It is here where the fun and frolics begin. Well, frolics anyway.

After fighting off standard goons, they fight invisible enemies (did I mention the cheap budget?) and cave people. The film gets distracted for a while as I guess the director realised they didn’t have enough material for a feature length film so go on a side-quest to kill a cult of snake-worshippers. Remember the great scene in Conan the Barbarian when Arnie fights the giant snake? This is nowhere near as good as that but if you have ever wondered what it’s like to see a man wrestle a giant cuddly toy in a film, look no further.

We get back on track when Ator makes up for lost time when he rushes to the final battle by flying a hang-glider (yes, a hang glider. Kurt Russell surfing in Escape from LA doesn’t seem so silly now, does it?) to Akronas’ castle. Where did he get it? Who knows, by this point I’ve already seen Ator fight thin air, wrestle a toy and heard snakes growl. What does a hang-glider matter now?

The final fight between Ator and Zor is very underwhelming. Just a regular sword battle and Zor is killed. After everything before it’s a big disappointment. There should have been a swarm of bees involved or something.

So, to summarise Ator the Invincible. Well, he’s no Conan that’s for sure. Conan movies might be silly but at least make sense within their own universe. Nothing makes sense in Ator. Cavemen, barbarians and medieval architecture all exist within the same universe. Miles O’Keefe as Ator is a worse actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ll repeat that: Miles O’Keefe as Ator is a worse actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There is another Ator film. But that’s another story…

Number 51: The Bat People (1974)

I’m struggling with this one.

Purely because I’m struggling to find anything interesting to say about The Bat People.

It is remarkable just how unremarkable this film is. The bad acting and poor production goes without saying but there are no big names in the cast to vent over. It’s just a nothing TV movie.

It’s a basic vampire film, just they transform into man-bat creatures at night instead.

You have a couple, John and Cathy, on their honeymoon but unfortunately John gets bit by a bat. I guess it must have been radioactive or something because it causes him to turn into a bat creature at night. If comics have taught me anything it is that animal bites always cause you to take on characteristics of that animal. It’s implied it’s a reaction to an experimental serum he’s been taking but I think it is definitely the bite. Anyway, it puts a bit of a dampener on their honeymoon.

Naturally, nobody believes it when John says he turns into a bat. Apart from one scientist, who says, ‘He believes it, so it must be true.’ Because that’s how science works. Don’t waste your time with research and experiments, just believe in it and it is so.

People start turning up dead in unusual circumstances so they start taking his claims more seriously. When I say more seriously, I mean they think John is the killer not that he turns into a bat.

There’s a cop on the trail who I guess is supposed to be a villain but doesn’t really do much other than have hots for John’s wife, Cathy. He tracks John down to a cave where he witnesses John make his ‘transformation’, which is basically putting on a gorilla mask.

The cop tries to use Cathy to lure John out but in a twist a four year old can see coming, she’s a bat person too. The spoiler is in the title.

The one interesting thing in this is the expression on the faces when a transformation is about to happen. Let’s just say, they look excited.

This film happened. It exists, that is as interesting as you can say.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 54 & 53 - Ghosts Can't Do It and Zombie Nightmare

Number 54: Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989)

Sometimes, mistakes get made, even here at Bad Movies HQ. I’d watched the film, had my review all written out until I found out there was one small, tiny little problem: I’d watched the wrong film.

It turns out there is a film with a very similar title to this called Ghosts Can Do It, a strange Australian comedy film with Pamela Stephenson. Watching that was my first mistake. My second was finding the right movie to watch.

Ghosts Can Do It is by no means good but Ghosts Can’t Do It is just plain terrible and fully deserving of its four Razzie awards. If you aren't aware of the Razzie awards, they are like the Oscars for bad movies and usually happen about a week before. Most actors don't turn up to receive their awards but some are game for it. They create good bits of trivia such as Sandra Bullock being the only actress to have picked up the Razzie for worst actress and Oscar for Best actress in the same year.

What happens in this film is you have married couple Scott and Kate, very much in love but Scott is at least 30 years older than his young wife. Scott is played by late Anthony Quinn, another Oscar winning actor on the list, while Kate is played by Bo Derek, who just sucks as an actress. Sure Ten was a success but that was nothing to do with her.

Scott has a heart attack and rather than wait to die, he commits suicide. In the gateway between worlds he meets an angel played by Julie Newmar. She gives Scott the opportunity to return to life but he needs to persuade his wife to kill a man so he can possess his body. So Scott comes back as a ghost to convince Kate to find a body for him.

When people hear Kate speaking to her dead husband they naturally assume she’s gone loopy but now that she’s single, lots of menfolk are now making plays for her much to Scott’s chagrin.

The film takes a break in the middle from the main plot to give us a story about sorting out Scott’s business affairs, which includes bartering with Donald Trump. And as the credits point out ‘yes, that really is Donald Trump!’ Wow, what a scoop! We are so lucky. At the time of writing, Donald Trump (who won a Razzie for his cameo here) is running to become the Republican candidate in the US Presidential election and I can’t decide if his hairpiece was more preposterous now or then?

After Kate has a very casual conversation with a hitman (who has been sent to force her to miss an important business meeting) about whether it’s worse to be raped or murdered, everything is sorted out. I think I must be missing a few minutes because Kate just switches about locations with no explanation how she got there or how anything was resolved.

Now that’s all done with back to the main plot. Scott and Kate find a body to takeover but Kate gets cold feet about committing murder. Apparently a body has to be near to death before Scott can take control of it which allows a moral loophole, where Kate saves the young man from drowning and as she is resuscitating him this gives Scott the opportunity to return to life.

Everyone lives happily ever after. Apart from the man whose body Scott took over. He’s still dead.

It gets really sickening listening to Scott and Kate being so lovey-dovey all the way through because firstly, Bo Derek is such a horrible actress and two because Scott just never comes across as being likeable character. They try and justify it all by making out the guy whose body they took over is a shallow opportunist but at no point are you rooting for Scott.

There’s no doubt to me this was a vanity project from writer and director, John Derek. He was married to Bo Derek and coincidentally, he was 30 years older than her. To show there is some justice in the world, this film won the Razzie for Worst Film and Worst Director.

So, don’t watch Ghosts Can’t Do It. Watch Ghosts Can Do It instead. Or better yet, don’t watch either.

Number 53: Zombie Nightmare (1987)

Zombies. Heavy metal. Adam West.

That’s it really. And Tia Carrere. I’m a big fan of Tia Carrere, I must have seen at least five episodes of Relic Hunter.

Writing this in 2015, the last decade has seen a zombie explosion in films, TV, comics and video games. It may be a little unfair on Zombie Nightmare as it came before but this over-saturation makes it difficult for me to get hyped about another zombie film.

Coming to us from Canada, the film starts with a guy being stabbed and killed while trying to protect a black girl from a pair of teenage thugs. His son Tony grows up and is also stabbed by another gang of teenage thugs, including Tia Carrere (shwing).

This is too much for his mother to bear and she goes to see a voodoo lady who brings him back from the dead as a zombie, who cannot rest in peace until he has taken revenge on his killers.

So predictably from there, all the gang members are slowly picked off one by one. Adam West, with a terrific moustache, is a police captain who just wants all the deaths swept under the carpet. Unfortunately for him, he has a new, young detective on his force who just won’t let things lie.

With the gang members all taken out there is one loose end and in what is actually a pretty good call-back, we learn Adam West was the thug who stabbed Tony’s father at the beginning of the movie and the voodoo lady who raised the zombies was the girl he had attacked.

West gets his comeuppance and is quite literally dragged to hell.

It’s occurs to me I’ve watched a film with Julie Newmar in it and then one with Adam West right after. A weird cosmic fate that has brought Batman and Catwoman together once more. For the record, despite the overall campness of the 1960’s Batman TV series, there are still those who proclaim Newmar to be the best on screen portrayal of Catwoman. If only they were both in one of these films together, one of them could have been a little less awful.

Not much else to Zombie Nightmare. Heavy metal soundtrack might be good if you like that sort of thing. Some shockingly bad acting on display throughout. When you are looking to Adam West to add some grit to proceedings, you know you are in trouble.

Some funny bits of dialogue, such as when a young woman tells one of the guys she is ‘old enough to be your sister.’ Erm, wouldn’t any woman be old enough to be your sister?

It’s watchable but if you must watch one zombie film, do yourself a favour and watch Night of the Living Dead. Not only the best zombie movie ever made but arguably the best horror film ever made.

IMDB Bottom 100: No's 56 & 55 - The Incredibly Strange Creatures...and Legend of Drona

Number 56: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)

There is a school of thought that less is more, that film titles should be short, snappy and to the point. Examples of this would be Star Wars, Gladiator, Snatch. This is not a philosophy shared by Gene Pollock and Robert Silliphant, the writers of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue?

You’d think with a title like that, the film would be pretty self-explanatory wouldn’t you? But actually a more accurate title would be The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies but They Don’t Turn Up Until 10 Minutes Before the End and They Aren’t Even Really Zombies Anyway but You’ll Have to Sit Through 70 Minutes Of Tedium Before Then By Which Time You Would Have Forgotten All About Them Anyway.

The carnival is in town so there are lots of fairground rides and fun to be had. The fortune teller is the villain of the film and seems to have it in for all the dancing girls and wants them all dead. Why? No idea but everyone needs a hobby I guess. She hypnotises a young man called Jerry into killing one of them for her. But Jerry figures something is up and goes back to see her but she throws acid in his face.

The fortune teller tries to put Jerry in a cellar with all her other deformed creatures but they all break out, kill her and go on a rampage. The police show up and kill them all, Jerry gets shot off a cliff.

And that is really the whole movie in two short paragraphs, maybe 30 minutes of screen time. The rest of the film is taken up with nauseating shots of fairground rides and lots of song and dance numbers.

Some of those dance routines are of questionable racial sensitivity but it was a different time. Ignorance was perfectly acceptable back then,

The overly long title isn’t even accurate about the creatures you see at the end. They aren’t zombies, they are alive and they’re not even creatures really. Just slightly deformed people.

There is a bit of 60’s psychedelia vibe running through it and the camera often just films whatever it wants to, creating a feeling of nausea. But truthfully, apart from its stupid title, its just not a lot of fun.

Number 55: The Legend of Drona (2008)

Back to Bollywood now. Their films are always so colourful and fun.

As with my review of Khan the Con, I’m steering clear of the songs and trying just to focus on the film element.

How to summarise The Legend of Drona, well it’s got elements of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and Superman all mixed up in there. And yeah, a fair bit of the Prince of Persia games too.

It starts with a back story about the Drona, Guardians of the Universe. Which is pretty big-headed given they never leave Earth. Aditya (Abishek Bachchan, son of Amitabh Bachchan who is arguably the greatest actor in Bollywood history) is the latest in the line of Drona but is sent away at a young age to protect him from a demon called Riz Razaida. He lives with his Aunt and cousin who don’t seem overly fond of him (but his uncle is ok) and he has a room in the attic to sleep in.

He grows up working in their shop (which IMDB synopsis says is in Britain but it was filmed in Prague) and takes blame for everything. Poor guy is all lonesome and knows nothing of his heritage. Then one day he has a chance meeting with Riz, who is delighting the crowds with his magic. He is what will happen if David Copperfield ever turns bad, so keep an eye on that situation people.

Riz tries to capture Adi but this is where he finds out he’s not alone but has had people watching over him his whole life. That’s the Harry Potter sequence over with and we move into The Matrix portion of the film as Adi discovers he is The One. Sorry, Drona, he is Drona.

He is helped along by Trin…Sonia (Priyanka Chopra) as he discovers his destiny and learns the skills he will need to defeat Riz.

Riz is searching for the nectar of life that will grant him immortality. Though he seems quite long lived anyway so I’m not convinced he actually needs it. To find the nectar he actually needs Drona to take him to it, which ironically means the best course of action the good guys could have done is to do nothing and have just kept Adi in the dark about everything.

The rest of the time is taken up with a lot of travelling across the desert with some decent fight sequences against the Nazgul to break it up. Adi goes to see Gandalf (seriously, it’s not even subtle) to collect his Excalibur sword before his final fight with Riz.

They have a bit of a barney before Drona slays Riz and ‘saving the universe’, though I really didn’t see anything to suggest the universe was in any trouble. I’m not even convinced Earth was in much danger.

It’s a decent enough film give or take a few dodgy cgi effects and cardboard sets. After the last few films I’ve watched, it’s a pleasure just to see something made by someone who knows how to hold a camera.

What really lets this film down though is the acting. I appreciate Abishek Bachchan is supposed to be playing an everyman character but he’s too ordinary looking, I just can’t buy him as a superhero. Priyanka Chopra might actually be a tree. Kay Kay Menon just isn’t menacing enough as Riz to come across as a legitimate threat.

It’s ok but nothing more.