Mr Nanny (1993)

A friend persuades the former wrestling star Sean to do a job as bodyguard for the two kids of top manager Frank Mason - someone is threatening him to get the plans for a secret micro chip. But when Sean arrives at his house it turns out that he'll not only have to bodyguard the spoiled brats, but also be their nanny, since they again scared away their former one. From then on he's occupied more protecting himself from the kids than them from the villain. (Imdb rating 3.1)

"Oh no!" you cry, not another terrible vehicle from the world's most famous wrestler, Hulk 'Hollywood' Hogan. And Mr Nanny is probably the most well known of any of his movies, as it has the exact shape of a midday matinee for both television and movie theatres.

Unfortunately, while Mr Nanny was alright, it was no Suburban Commando and certainly no No Holds Barred. I should have sensed something when the first few minutes see Hulk having a nightmare about being beaten up by wrestlers Kamala, Afa, Jim Neidhart, and of course, longtime Hogan leech Brutus Beefcake. And there is *that* scene, the one everyone knows from this movie, Hulk in a tutu! Hilarity!

I guess this is pretty funny?

One thing I will say, is that the other people around Hulk are awesome. Seeing George Jefferson abuse people again is always great, and whoever casted David Johansen deserves more credit. This is a guy who basically invented punk, then re-emerged as a cheesy lounge singer to mainstream success. And now he is the villain in a child's movie, with a metal cap on his head no less?

Unfortunately, Hulk sort of lets us down. I'm a big fan of slapstick humour, but it just wasn't funny seeing all the punishment Hulk got at the start at the hands of the kids. And the kids were weird as well. When Hulk was finally going to give them the punishment their dad should have long ago, they got excited. Too excited. The kids were basically masochists.

There were some nice touches, like Jefferson pulling a three foot long lead pipe out of his pants somehow to give to the kid to beat up bullies with, and Johansen's henchman being a Arnie-sounding clone called 'Wolfgang'. But the movie kind of left me cold. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it... I just kind of nothing'd it. I'd go to the previously mentioned Hulk vehicles before I went with Mr Nanny.

Things I learnt:

• The best way to eat baked beans is "Out of the can, into the man!"
• Hulk Hogan can destroy exercise equipment with ease by simply overworking it.
• No one thinks it is strange when a ten year old calls someone a 'tough mother'.
• 'Badacious' is a word?

The Gingerdead Man (2005)

An evil yet adorable Gingerbread man comes to life with the soul of a convicted killer - this real life cookie monster wreaks havoc on the girl who sent the killer to the electric chair. (Imdb rating 3.3)

Gary Busey is a living, walking collection of crazy. Over the last twenty years, I think he's personally gone out his way to attach his name to every single piece of released lunacy he possibly could. Even on the rare occasion he's not a complete fruitcake on screen (Predator 2?), you can see something lurking below the enormous teeth and messy white hair, a sense of some shoddy wiring and screws loose in that brain of his. Here, he's the titular character, a killer gingerbread man. He's so unglued normally that when we see him at the start of the movie, the fact that he needed no changes from his everyday appearance to look like a serial killer and he says "something in here smells feminine!" doesn't make me bat an eyelid.

And who comes up with the concept of a killer gingerbread man? That's hands down one of the dumbest villain ideas I've ever heard of. After coming to life, the Gingerdead Man (it repulses me to even say that) seems more intent on arguing with rats and delivering half-baked puns (ha!) then killing people. Even when he does decide to attack, he'd much rather booby trap building exits and run you over with your own car.

But the puns, by God, they are awful. The villain spouts them constantly after dispatching victims, but the other characters are worse. One character calls him the "Killsberry Doughboy", then suggests they take him on Letterman because "how much dough can you make from a talking cookie?" He then laughs at his joke, as every single person watching this movie groans in disgust.

That 'joke' did flip my insanity rating closer to the sacred level of 'Gary Busey'.

Even moving away from the killer cookie concept (hard, I know), the rest of the movie is just as terrible. We get random gun violence against banners, plastic revolvers that can shoot twenty bullets before reloading and the world's most tame catfight ever. It was like watching two blind guys grope each other in slow motion. The composer even feels the need to occasionally let us know that a pun was had by putting in a "BM CHK!"-esque musical cue afterwards. What was just said means two things at once, which is funny, I get it.

I've blasted this movie pretty much this whole review, but it was amusing and made me laugh at times. It's also ridiculously short, clocking in at 60 minutes (with 10 minutes of credits!). It's a piece of lightweight fluff, something that is designed to draw you in based on the inane title/Busey combo, make a few doughy puns, and leave. It can't rightly judge it too harshly based on that.

Things I learnt:

• There's a beauty contest called "Ms Pretty Face of Waco".
• Visions of killer gingerbread men are a common occurrence when drunk.
• Bakeries and chain restaurants are in direct competition with each other.
  

Chinese Torture Chamber Story (1994)

A woman is accused of the murder of her husband. In order to extract a confession the court subjects her to a series of violent methods of torture. Most of the story is told in flash backs, recounting how the story leads to the ultimate gory death of her poor husband. (Imdb rating 6.2)

The Chinese/Cantonese produced a lot of insane shit in the 90's. The pseudo-genre "Cat III", named after a rating for films in Hong Kong, was in full swing, and the focus was on creating gory, disturbing and erotic stories, and unleashing them on the public.

Chinese Torture Chamber Story is one such... story. You know you are in for a rough ride when the opening five minutes are just people getting tortured in excruciating ways, like getting your penis chopped off (obvious) and getting an axe wound on top of your head and having boiling milk poured in it (not so obvious). The start and end of the movie are littered with broken fingers, ripped out nails, lashings and the like. It's not too shocking for a jaded viewer though.

But then around the middle of the film, the main female character has to marry a man with a huge penis. And I mean huge, we see him roll up his pant legs to urinate! Then characters see a couple flying through the forest having a heated sword fight. Suddenly, their clothes fly off and they are having sex in mid air, each trying to 'win' by pleasuring the other one more. Then the main bad guy takes a potion to make him invisible so he can rape the married girl, and just as he is about to 'enter' her, her husband slips his head in the way and gets a mouthful of semen for his trouble. So basically, it gets hilarious for the middle of the movie.

My mustache and I will win this flying orgasming contest!

The story itself isn't bad, the pacing of the movie is just unique. Harsh at the start, laughs in the middle, and harsh at the end. I enjoyed this movie. It may be a little heavy going for newbies to exploitation films, but it mixes funny and violent well. It does make me question once again just how crazy the Asian film makers are, no other countries in the world produce more completely random movies then China/HK/Japan. And I love them for it.

Things I learnt:

• Little Cabbage is the best name ever.
• "My little dickie" should never be a nickname for your male lover.
  
• Breast can be made larger by heating up herbs in a bowl and placing them over the breast. The larger the bowl, the larger the breasts.
• Back in the ol' days, blow up dolls were made from canvas and straw.
• Appealing to a higher court in China means rolling on a bed of nails naked.
  

Los Campeones Justicieros (1971)

Six luchadores (Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, El Medico Asesino, La Sombra Vengadora, Tinieblas and Black Shadow) face off against a mad scientist and his army of powerful wrestling midgets. (Imdb rating 5.1)

Hey, hey, slow down buddy, that plot is way too complicated. I have a more easy-to-follow mathematical formula that sums up this movie more succinctly:

"Super strong midgets + constantly rolling masked Mexican wrestlers = Los Campeones Justicieros."

The context of this movie is important to note. Wrestling in Mexico was never bigger then in the early 70s, with Los Campeones Justicieros and tens of other low budget useless wrestling movies released. Their masks are also important, as being de-masked in the ring was literally a career changing event. Hell, most of the time, no one knew who was even under them. It was a big deal.

But really, my formula should be explained further. The midgets are the confusing parts, especially when they look like this:

I guess the 'M' is for... midget?

Some scientist guy makes them 10x stronger with a machine, which leads to hilarious scenes of masked midgets slapping the shit out of Mexico's top six wrestlers. Even better, for absolutely no reason at all, the super power would stop working mid-fight, and the midgets would get destroyed. And it happened *twice*, even after the trial of 'power bracelets'. At least they realise their major weakness, with their leader stating "We are just useless midgets."

Next, a good comparison to make at just how much rolling the luchadores do, is to say they do it as much as Power Rangers do flips. It seems they can't block an incoming punch, do a pose, or eat an orange without rolling at least thirty five times, and ending with a tumble for good measure. The fighting scenes as a whole are bad; between the five wrestlers and the ten or so midgets, they know a combined of two moves, a weak slap and a sloppy armdrag. And who dropkicks in a fight?!

There is some thrown-in plot about stealing the luchadores' hot god-daughters as impetus to find this evil guy, but this movies is about as basic as you can get. I wasn't bored completely, but maybe someone with a better stomach for a cheapie 70s wrestling movie would like it more.

Things I learnt:

• Nothing is more amusing then midgets kidnapping women.
• No, wait, midgets beating up wrestlers easily is!
• Wrestlers know how to fly and land planes with ease.
• Wiring a transport vehicle to blow up will *never* kill anybody of note.
  

Fat Pizza (2003)

Fat Pizza the Film is yet another slice of life at a dodgy suburban Sydney take away. Bobo Gigliotti the psychotic pizzeria owner/pizza chef is awaiting the arrival of his mail-order refugee bride Lin Chow Bang, and a new pizza deliverer is on the block. (Imdb rating 5.5)

Maybe it's me, but extremely lowbrow movies and television shows are always funny. I don't mean unwatchable shows like Two and a Half Men or The Big Bang Theory which pretend to be 'clever'. I'm more talking about Married with Children. You know exactly what will happen, Al will finally get something going his way and it will evaporate due to sheer bad luck, Peg will beg Al for sex and not cook anything, Kelly will say something dumb, and Bud will sleaze onto girls and fail miserably, running back to his blowup doll. It's so completely cliched and lowest common denominator, it's hilarious.

Married with Children is a good American comparison to Fat Pizza, which could be the most Australian movie ever. Fat Pizza is the continuation of a low budget TV show that *everyone* in Australia watched for a few years of the early 00's, it follows Paulie, a delivery boy for a crappy pizza shop, and a man of so called "Choco" power, the power of street smarts and Mediterranean-ness. We follow him, as he beats up disabled people that locked him in a disabled toilet, accidentally siphons sewage, and kills the last of some kind of ferret because he was trying to look up a woman's skirt.

His co-workers are just as bad. Davo Dinkum, played by Channel V presenter Jabba, is the new guy, and a huge drug head. Sleek is quite possibly the world's worst rap (yes, worse then Shaq), but somehow scores a tonne of women. Rocky is the "Lebanese Rambo", and while he has sex with women in his car, his constantly horny cousin Habib tapes it and puts it on the Internet.

But I must mention their boss Bobo, the most frightening boss ever conceived. He rings up and yells at people when they are one minute late, tells employees to shut up and slaps their head when they ask almost any question, kills cockroaches and kneads the remains into the pizza dough, chops up mice with his knife, charges one dollar per square of toilet paper in his shop, and kills a guy for spending more then two minutes in the toilet. Oh, and he fights off complaints about his food or anything else with his chainsaw.

I'm sure we've all had a boss like this.

The amount of random cameos from Australian personalities in Fat Pizza is mind boggling. Eliot Gould, Kamahl, Jeff & Mario Fenech, Jabba, Angry Anderson, Tim Ferguson, Vulcan, Red Symonds, and best of all, Merv Hughes (as Ivan Milat!) all stroll in and out.

Of course, we have the usual amount of dumb shit, like Paulie fighting off 50 Greek Ronald McDonalds, and a gay guy, an old man, and two guys in a koala and sperm suit respectively. Sleek getting raped by three fat chicks. Davo blowing up a drug shed by smoking in it and running over cyclists in a video game ecstasy fueled drive. Habib and Rocky getting 'dutch ovened' by a prostitute in a closet. Paulie having a blow-up dolls as an airbag, and having sex with a pierced girl and ending up being conjoined at *ahem* sensitive areas.

Really, there is so much good stuff happening at any one time, the movie never gets boring or anything less than entertaining. I'd say more then any other movie, this is a definite 'leave your brain at the door', but no mistake, if you want a stupid movie about wogs, chicks, cars and drugs, this is it.

Things I learnt:

• Gandhi was originally a showboating boxer.
• White people are the opposite of 'Choco', they are "Anglecised".
• People that are attracted to both sexes are 'bothasexuals'.
• If you wake up on your wedding morning with a boner, it's perfectly alright for your mother to slap it back down.
• Midgets can be hard to combat in swarms.
  

Street Fighter (1994)

Based on the popular video game, "Street Fighter II", dictator M. Bison holds Allied Nation relief workers for ransom. Colonel William F. Guile leads his troops into battle against him. Chun-Li, Balrog and E. Honda are a news crew seeking revenge on Sagat. and his lackey, Vega. Ryu and Ken are two low-rent shysters who get caught in the middle between sides. Zangief and Dee Jay kiss up to Bison, who holds Dr. Dhalsim hostage to create Blanka, a genetic warrior. Cammy and T. Hawk second Guile. (Imdb rating 3.3)

I'm sure most people are aware of what could possibly be another one of my 'axioms of a truly bad movie', that is, if it's either based completely around a video game, or heavily features any type of gaming, it will be really terrible. It's impossible to even conceive that one day a 'video game motion picture' will be seen at the same level as anything by Lynch or Kubrick.

Still, I'll admit it; Street Fighter is probably the best we are going to get. There is a lot of nonsense involved in the translation from game to movie. Have a gander at the synopsis description above. I personally chose it to show just how much of a clusterfuck Street Fighter is. In an effort to cram every character from the Street Fighter II game, we have ridiculous changes. Chun Li is a reporter/ninja? Balrog a sound technician? E. Honda a fat Hawaiian guy? Jean Claude Van Damme playing All American Army Colonel Guile? Christ, even Dhalsim is now a middle aged, non-arms-and-legs-stretching scientist! (played by Roshan Seth of My Beautiful Launderette of all people, won't find too many more completely dissimilar roles anywhere else).

Don't ask about clogs, I'm full American, look at my flag!

But really, there was no other way to do it. People get angry when you mess with their beloved characters too much, or leave any out, so this was probably the best way to go. And going with the video game feel, when Bison is releasing water mines, he uses an arcade joystick and buttons to maneuver them. Cute. Raul Julian was a great fit to M. Bison as well, in what was sadly his last movie.

Lots of action, lots of fighting towards the end, lots of cheesy one liners, it is what you'd expected from this type of movie, and it's what you get. It doesn't set the world on fire, but I can't see anyone hating this movie too much. A just remember that you should listen to Zangief, so...

It doesn't look like Gorbachev is having too much fun.

Things I learnt:

• Old ladies love caged death fighting.
• "What's that? Son of a .... it's GAS!"
  
• Prison guards always go on loudly about how much they hate being prison guards.
• Capcom used to advertise on barrel lids.
• Sumos don't feel kendo stick strikes.
• "We'll see how smart you are when you aren't breathing!"
• Where was the Tiger Uppercut? The Hadouken?
  

Super Hell (2004)

The Devil has been kicked out of Hell and roams the Earth, causing everyone to go crazy! (Imdb rating N/A)

I'm a sad individual. Knowing just how bad movies from the Mortuary Madness boxset are, I stupidly delved once more into the abyss of shoddy amateur horror movies that are contained therein.

At least Super Hell was somewhat entertaining, the first half hour especially. And it had someone in it I've heard of! And it's sadly Robert Z'Dar, owner of the world's largest jaw, and mostly known for being a silent masked killer in Maniac Cop. He is amusing though, he randomly plays the piano a lot (and well at that), and gives terribly spoken monologues to an entirely invisible crowd (having a random guy off screen yell out 'Yeah' every thirty seconds and canned applause isn't fooling me, sorry).

Clap along with me, children, don't be scared!

As I expected, there is lots of goofy shit happening, lots of badly costumed characters running around acting like retards, guys having hot sex with hockey arcade machines, Italians/Samoans tellingsexual stories with f-bombs (there is *a lot* of swearing in this movie), children getting slapped, aliens and coffins made of cardboard boxes, killer clowns, zombies air guitaring, devils chasing and scaring ducks (twice!), and a hilarious cross-dresser trying to imitate a girl's voice, but sounding more like the Pimply Teenager from The Simpsons.

Of course the acting, camera work, special effects, editing and everything else is deplorable to the extreme. I must give a special mention to the sound, which it goes without saying is a fuzzy, soupy mess, but I confused as to who in their right mind would put a pig squeal metal band in their movie? I've watched quite a few Z-Grade movies now, and I think I have my two first axioms of a truly bad movie, which are:

• An excruciatingly bad band gets either a lot of screen time, or does a majority of the soundtrack, or both.
• The editor or another integral crew member either only has one name, or an obviously fake name, or both. (In this case, Scardavis?)

I'm also considering the whole "Magicians randomly inserted to do magic tricks for no reason, other then it's cool/wastes time", but I've only seen that a couple of times, so I'll wait before it'll be etched in stone.

I guess my main gripe with Super Hell is that there is so much completely useless things crammed into this movie, that by the half way mark, nothing this movie can throw at you will be at all shocking or unexpected. A demon struggles to do a shit in a toilet? Meh. A guy in a chicken suit is killed? Oh well. A women births a live iguana, before a guy machete's it? Fine. A nude overweight goth chick masturbates herself with a knife while one of the original police officers from Plan 9 From Outer Space looks on in utter enjoyment? Whatever.

Actually, I've made this movie sound really good, I want to watch it again, or at least, sigh, it's sequel.

Things I learnt:

• Dead devil clowns awake when you put on a red nose and squeeze it.
• "There is a Super Hell? What, Hollywood?"
• Giant African drums are an integral part of a pig squeal band.
• Negative shots are a good way of hiding awful special effects.
• Having a title card saying "Censored due to extreme graphic content" rather then showing a killing is both amusing and infuriating.