The Best Worst Films Ever Made

[Noiretirc]

To be slightly clearer....

I don't hate this or think it is a bad film. I desperately want to explore it more and try to dissect it.

But apart from Brody and very few others, this baffling thing doesn't get much love, to put it mildly. (The '88 reviews are fun to read.)

I sense that this long overdue release is creating some reassessment. (I may be wrong, but even Brody took a long time to champion it?)

[Beloved Aunt]

Are you talking about Godard's King Lear? Jonathan Rosenbaum loves it, although maybe you knew that already, and although Rosenbaum's review (""), god love him, is one of his most inane and unpersuasive pieces, to me anyway, and I haven't actually seen the film. His piece doesn't really have any content at all.

[MichaelB]

The Taming of the Shrew is terrific—and I had to watch it multiple times a few months ago, so I'd definitely remember if it had become a chore.

Granted, it's perhaps more enjoyable as a rowdy snapshot of the Burton/Taylor relationship than it is a particularly faithful version of Shakespeare, but I can't think of anything in it that's unintentionally funny; Burton, Taylor and Zeffirelli knew precisely what they were doing.

[Murdoch]

This is not the best anything, even at being the worst, but the 80s slasher film Final Exam's final act is one of the most poorly executed twists ever put on screen and, at least, deserves honorable mention

Spoiler

where what started off as a bad college sex comedy suddenly (and unironically in its straight-faced execution) unleashes an escaped killer maniac onto campus, killing most of the cast in the last half hour or so.

[domino harvey]

Agreed. Here’s my write up from the Horror list

Final Exam (Jimmy Huston 1981) This early slasher at least tries to set itself apart from the more extreme post-Halloween ripoffs by devoting time to character development. A lot of time. Like, 2/3 of the movie is just the college kids with almost no threat of violence lurking in the corners. This would be great if any of the characters were the least bit interesting. Funnily enough, the film goes through such strains to make the victims into characters that it ignores the killer, who is the blankest cipher I've ever seen in one of these films. No name, no motive, no history, not even a good look at him (outside of his very bad haircut)!

While biding my time through the extended antics of the characters, another venue of value for these sorts of films occurred to me. I remember Henri Langlois saying in the Phantom documentary that he'd heard an interior design college had the world's largest collection of amateur porn because it provided the best insight into the living spaces of average people. In that same spirit, these slasher films, with their small budgets and minuscule resources, give a neat and extensive peak into the everyday fashion trends during filming, and I enjoyed taking in the various choices the cast made, all no doubt steeped in period authenticity. It's a weird thing to praise, but at least it helped me pass the time.