The Top Three Best Bad Movies

3. Dark Star “Don’t give me any of that intelligent life crap – find me something I can blow up!” Considering that this was directed by John Carpenter (The Fog, The Thing) and co-written and starring Dan O’Kannon (who wrote the script for Alien), this is a bit of a surprise. Four mismatched astronauts are floating many light-years from Earth, mostly idling around the ship, getting increasingly irritated by one another and occasionally nuking unstable planets. Unfortunately, current DVD production is pretty poor; the sound and picture quality hasn’t been cleaned up at all, so it may be worth waiting for this to be done. Highlights include; The cheapest alien you ever saw; it’s a beach ball. It’s just a beach ball with a bit of paint on it. A man trapped in an active lift-shaft. Not only is there nobody using the lift as everyone’s accounted for but this lift shaft has no doors in it. An atomic bomb undergoing an existential crisis. 2. Plan 9 from Outer Space “Future events such as these will affect you in the future.” Plan 9 from Outer Space comes top of a number of polls of the worst films ever made, but undeservedly so. Having gained its title because the Baptist sponsors considered “Grave-robbers from Outer Space” a little problematic (the entire cast and crew had to be baptised in order to gain funding), Plan 9 is a plan whereby the aliens, frustrated by their failure to get the Earth’s attention, decide to start resurrecting the dead - come on, their logic is undeniable. Director Edward D. Wood Jnr (subject of Tim Burton’s bio-pic Ed Wood) was doing a bit of resurrecting himself, mixing random silent footage of the great but by then deceased Bela Lugosi with footage of his, somewhat taller, chiropractor with a cape held over his face. Highlights include; A graveyard with extremely wobbling gravestones. Iconic flying saucers over the Hollywood hills. A peace-loving alien with far superior intelligence throwing a tantrum. 1. Tongan Ninja “That fish looks just like the one that ate my father.” I am on a personal mission to make this New Zealand based Martial Arts spoof a cult classic. I honestly can’t remember having laughed so constantly throughout any film, although I expect some of you may sit through it straight-faced. Tongan Ninja is sent from his home on some South Pacific island to New Zealand in order to protect Uncle Lee’s restaurant from being shut down by the So-Called Syndicate. A number of assassins are sent to prevent him including the appropriately named Knife Boy, Gun Man and finally his boyhood enemy, Action Fighter. Highlights include; Some of the worst CGI effects ever put on general release. Parodies of Crouching Tiger, the Matrix and every Jackie Chan film ever made. The climatic fight on The Patio of Death – an impressive open-air temple-like structure with writing carved into the stone, something like In memory of those who gave their lives, 1940-45