I have no one to blame but myself. Not only did I willingly invited suffering into my life, but I sought it out. And all it cost me was a piece of my soul. And $13. Free shipping, though!
parody
“It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws, it’s not!”
-Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)
I honestly didn't plan on this being a mini-event week. I started with 1966's Django, then found out about 2017's biography Django about musician Django Reinhardt, who the western gunslinger is named after. Then I went down a rabbit hole of all the unofficial sequels that had "Django" in the title and noticed Sukiyaki Western Django, an English language Japanese western by... Mr. Takashi Miike? The same Mr. Takashi Miike responsible for Ichi the Killer, Audition, Visitor Q, and The Happiness of the Katakuris? Well shit, I guess I have to watch it! And so here we are. No more "Django" movies next week, I promise.
The Ridiculous 6 (2015)
This was not the movie I intended to talk about today. See, in preparing for a month dedicated to the worst movies ever, I collected a bunch of links to visit later. One was for a movie called Daniel der Zauberer, AKA Daniel the Wizard, the #18 movie (as of writing) on the IMDB Bottom 100 and a film directed by my nemesis, Mr. Ulli Lommel (no I will never shut up about Diary of a Cannibal). It's a German film but it has to have subtitles, right? Well after spending $3 to rent it on Vimeo, turns out it did not have subtitles. And I couldn't find it anywhere else on the internet. Since I was annoyed and didn't want to spend any more money, I scrambled for a replacement. Just about every list talking about the worst movies on Netflix mentioned the Adam Sandler movie The Ridiculous 6, a vague parody of The Magnificent Seven, so that's... a thing we're doing now.
Taintlight (2009)
I love my friends, I really do. When I asked around about what people thought was the worst movie they'd ever seen I got some of the usual suspects, but enough of my friends are fucking weirdos like me that I got a few rare cuts as well. One of them was Taintlight, a cheap and ugly parody of Twilight (a movie I have now mentioned on this blog 6 times so I'm now contractually obligated to cover it before the new year is over). How ugly? Well...
A Recipe for Seduction (2020)
We're taking a short break from non-stop Christmas movies to review something special. This is a first on two fronts for this blog: the first review of a short film and the first review of a commercial. That's right, Lifetime and KFC partnered up to create A Recipe for Seduction, a living, breathing meme. And how could I not review it? It's just a few steps away from a televised Chuck Tingle adaptation, or a Super Bowl commercial actually making use of its budget. And it stars Mr. Mario Lopez as Harland Sanders? I'm delighted and intrigued!
Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (2005)
Last time I talked about Reefer Madness, AKA Tell Your Children, so me talking about the parody right after shouldn't be a surprise. I mean, I flat out said it at the end, but anyway. Based on the 1998 stage musical, Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical was a Showtime original movie with a truly ridiculous cast. Mr. Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler in X2) as the narrator! And he was also FDR! Kristen Bell as Mary! Steven Weber as Jack, Anna Gasteyer as Mae, and John Kassir (AKA the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt, including Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight)! And... uh, Neve Campbell's older brother as Jimmy. Wait, he's a year older than her, but here plays a much younger character? Well that's news to me...
Foodfight! (2012)
I don’t know about you, but I need a break from Batman. So let’s switch gears and watch something absolutely awful! Foodfight!–the title has an exclamation point so you know it’s quality–is infamously bad: it’s hideous, the story sucks, it’s shameless product placement, and it cost $65 million to make because they had no idea what they were doing and then the computers the movie was stored on got stolen. Oops! It eventually limped its way to a DVD release, and here we are. I own this. I make only the best decisions.
The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (2009)
We're back! Almost a decade after The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, just about everybody returns for The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. And I do mean (just about) everybody: the titular Lost Skeleton survived being thrown off a cliff but is missing his body; the dead evil scientist, Roger Fleming, is replaced by his twin brother, Peter Fleming, who is not evil; and Ranger Brad's twin brother, Jungle Brad, steps in. They have different last names, of course.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
There are–in my mind–three kinds of film parodies. The first are soulless cash grabs. Stuff like most of the Scary Movie franchise, Date Movie, Vampires Suck… really, anything by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The second are shameless knock-offs. Stretching the definition a bit, but these include Doctor Mordrid, Atlantic Rim, and most of the movies made by The Asylum that aren’t Syfy original movies. And the last are made by people who actually enjoyed the source material: Galaxy Quest, Young Frankenstein, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a movie Movie Night adores.