The Bad Movie Ultimate Cage Match #4

Man, last week's battle was crazy. It dethroned a champion and a new champ emerged. Does this week's challenger have what it takes? Let's find out!

IN THIS CORNER!!! Rachael M., a Mass Invader who decided to try her hand at this cage match. Her movie today is:

The Dark Backward! Take it, Rach!



"Adam Rifkin wrote the script for The Dark Backward when he was 19 years old. And it stars Judd Nelson. So, we’re already ahead of the game in this cage match. This movie will teach the young film student that you cannot out-Lynch David Lynch and win. It will never happen.

Judd Nelson plays Marty Malt, a nerdy and nervous and very sweaty stand-up comedian who is a garbage man by day. Bill Paxton is his accordion-playing garbage man friend, Gus. Why does Gus always carry an accordion? Unknown. Gus eggs Marty on to follow his dream of becoming a successful comedian. Even though the jokes are truly atrocious. (A man goes in to get a hair cut. The barber tells him he can’t cut his hair because the man is bald. So the man says, “Cut off my ears.”)

I’m getting bored just writing this.

Gus is obnoxious. Just completely in-your-face. He brings talent scout Jackie Chrome (Wayne Newton) to see Marty’s show and, of course, nothing happens. And when Marty thinks things couldn’t get worse, a strange lump starts growing on his back.

He is growing a third arm.

Jackie Chrome is actually looking for a three-armed comedian. And Marty’s career starts to swing. With the cloying Gus in tow, the stale and nonsensical jokes flow and it is just painful to watch.

The Dark Backward is apparently intended to be a satire of the film industry. However, it is absolutely uncomfortable and off-putting. It’s difficult to sit through the physical ugliness of the film and the overacting cheesiness of the main characters. There are absolutely revolting scenes with a corpse in the dump and obese women. The vile nature of Rifkin’s vision may be to shock the viewer, but it ends up more upsetting.

You can tell from the opening scenes that Rifkin intended for this movie to be a cult classic. But he tried WAY too hard. It is pandering, annoying, boring, ugly, and a clear rip-off of the style of David Lynch. With no redeeming lesson. Just gross people being gross for the sake of being gross.

I understand that young film makers get “crazy” ideas. And wait around for their big break. But this movie is simply an opportunity that went horribly awry. Instead of a meaningful commentary on the film industry or Los Angeles, it is a “how disgusting and avant garde can I possibly be” exercise in futility. It’s boastful. It’s obnoxious. It means nothing.

Over-reaching, over-acted, dismal and boring. The Dark Backward is the sad result of having too much time and money on one’s hands."

AND THE CHAMPION!! Travis of The Movie Encyclopedia with:

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever



"As a movie lover and someone who claims that "if no one else will see it, I will," I see my good share of really bad movies. I think that's why it was so hard for me to think of the worst movie that I have ever seen. I mean there are plenty of horrible B-Movies that I could have chosen from like Plan 9 From Outer Space or The Room but those, like Dylan said, are way too easy choices. Everyone knows how bad those two movies are and in fact they are so bad that I actually like them. I could have also chosen from any of the other B Movies that I have watched but most of them have already gotten the MST3K treatment and I think that's enough for them. I was half tempted to put Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin but...I actually kind of like it. Even though Arnold is a horrible Mr. Freeze, the Bat Nipples are distracting and there is even a BAT CREDIT CARD (AHH!! Sorry bad flashbacks), it kinda grew on me as an Adam West-esque cheesiness.

But there is ONE movie I can never forgive. One movie that makes me cringe just saying the name. Hopefully nobody has sat through this horrific mess but it must be said-Ballistic:Ecks vs Sever is the worst movie I have ever seen and probably the worst movie of all time. I mean the directors name is Kaos...which is what this movie is!

Ballistic:Ecks vs Sever should have been at least a decent movie. Antonio Banderas, as much as he butches the English language in this film by passing off as a red blooded American, is a decent enough actor and has done some good action movies (The Zorro series, Desperado) and Lucy Liu has too (Kill Bill, Charlie's Angels) but for some reason they can't even get action right. An action movie can either be one of two things: it can be a mindless shoot em up that is made awesome by its use of 1.special effects 2.over the top action sequences 3.amazing soundtrack 4.cheesy but awesome lines...OR an action movie can be a plot driven experience that is made better by the use of extensive action sequences with huge explosions. Films like Shoot em Up, Die Hard and even Terminator fill both of those kinds of action movie roles and they are all good movies.

But when a movie gets in trouble usually is when it tries to mix both together to make it "better." Well Ecks vs Sever doesn't do that. All the action sequences are really boring. I mean Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead had better action sequences than this, and Uwe Boll is considered one of the worst directors of all time! I mean at least with Boll it had a lot of slow motion and gore. This is just gun fight, gun fight, explosion, gun fight rinse and repeat over and over. You now your film is bad when Uwe Boll looks legitamite as a director compared to your film.

The story (I should put that in quotes) is your typical "we need an excuse to blow up stuff" plot with a kidnapping of a politicians son. Instead of just going with that though they had to put in a conspiracy theory involving Ecks (Banderas)' family being killed, which is only used to make us pity the character. Honestly everyone in this film is so morally corrupt and/or stupid that you really DON'T care about any of them. The title is also totally bogus since Ecks and Sever (Liu) WORK TOGETHER FOR MOST OF THE FILM. There really is no vs...I also got to mention the numerous amounts of plot holes, continuity errors and just one TOTALLY bogus plotline involving the FBI. Alright let me just say something...a lot of films are shot in Canada and they are made to look American. Well when you see street signs, monuments, and building signs saying that its VANCOUVER then bringing the FBI in to investigate just makes the film look dumber than it already is.

A weak plot, boring action, laughable acting and a total lack of effort from Kaos, the director, makes this in my opinion the worst movie ever made. This should be buried with all the copies of the ET game."

Holy crap, this is gonna be another good one! So VOTE VOTE VOTE!! Voting closes Friday morning and later that day the winner will be announced. And as always, I'm looking for people to participate in this, so if you wanna, this time is big bold letters:

Email me the movie and a description on why YOU think it's bad to invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com and it will be used in a future Cage Match! You never know YOU might win weeks in a row.

Good luck Rachael and Travis!
-Jason