2,800th Post Special: The World's Worst Directors?

Can you believe that we are this point again?  Cue the Banner...

In lieu of a normal Review, let me do something different.  Let me talk about some truly bad Directors.  You may know some of them.  If you know all of them, I feel for you.  I feel your pain.

Some are dead, some are alive.  Some made 300 Films, some made 1 Film.  No matter what- the Films were bad.  Were they bad enough?

Who is the WORST?  That's going to always be up for debate.  Allow me to help out said Debate though...

- Jerry Warren: A 'dark horse' for this one as his Films are less 'famously-bad.'  However, his Resume includes Teenage Zombies, Frankenstein Island and The Wild World of Batwoman.  He has 11 Credits, so that was just about 1/4 of his work!  As a bonus, he was a Producer, Writer and Editor on many of these, so he can't hide behind someone else's mistakes.

- Ted V. Mikels: The work of a man who has been plaguing us with shitty Films since the 1960s.  His Resume includes The Girl in the Gold Boots, The Doll Squad, Apartheid Slave-Women's Justice, The Corpse Grinders Films (all 3?!?) and the Astro-Zombies Films (all 4?!?).  Even better, he's spaced these out from 1963 to today!  He has just refused to let his stop suffering.

- Coleman Francis: MST3K Fans know this man well.  All 3 Films he Directed were on the Show- The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba (aka Night Train to Mundo Fine).  As a bonus, he wrote all 3, Acted in all 3 (one as the Lead), Produced 2 and Edited 1.  He was all over these works and it is hard to 'pass the buck' to anyone else here.

- Scott Shaw: I'm sure he's going to get all over me for this.  Mr. Shaw is the man behind 'Zen Filmmaking' aka 'Shooting Without a Script.'  His choice to make Films like this has made him amazingly-polarizing in the Film world.  Unlike Coleman, he has LOTS of Credits (65 Films that aren't Shorts).  How many people can name their favorite?  Put your hand down, Mr. Shaw.

- William 'One-Shot' Beaudine: This man must have more Credits than anyone (372 to be exact)!  The late Director was nicknamed 'One Shot' because he would shoot so fast and cheap that he'd only ever take one shot (in general).  His Horror/Thriller output shows that.  He's behind infamous cheapies Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.  As a bonus, he did 2 Films from the Sons of Kong set- The Ape Man and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla.  Sorry again, Bela.

- Ed Wood: Do I need to explain this?  Come on.  Moving on...

- James Nguyen: Julie & Jack.  Birdemic- Shock and Terror.  Birdemic 2.  Let me put it plainly: the man barely knows how to make Films.  He can't figure out some major things like Proper Lighting, Blocking, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Casting and Direction.  He also has about 3 ideas and keeps reusing them in some form.  Those ideas aren't really good.  He doesn't care.  We do.

- Tommy Wiseau: He's that guy who made The Room.  Any questions?

- Mark Hicks: He's another who makes the list for concentrated awful.  As far as IMDB is concerned, he made one Film- Actium Maximus: War of the Alien Dinosaurs.  It is terrible.  He is also the Writer, Cinematographer, Camera Operator, Sound Effects Editor, Composer, Special Effects Guy AND he Acts in it.  If he's made another Film, it would have to be Citizen Kane to make up for this...this garbage.  No offense.

- Ulli Lommel: So many Films.  So many bad ones.  The sad thing is that the man behind a dozen Direct-to-DVD Serial Killer Films and The Boogeyman Films (the 80s ones, that is) started out so promising.  If he was just some guy who made shit, it would be less bad.  The man worked with Fassbinder!  What happened to you, man?!?

Before I hit upon the final, most obvious choice, let me hit you with some also-rans..

--Honorable Mentions: Uwe Boll, Lucifer Valentine, Jesus Franco, Godfrey Ho, The Polonia Brothers, Andy Milligan, Bill Zebub, Rene Cardona Jr. and Sr, Bruno Mattei, Tom Six and David DeCoteau.

- Harold P. Warren: Manos- The Hands of Fate.  The Film is infamous.  The Film is awful.  Even the Title is kind of stupid.  An untrained guy just says 'Yeah, I can make a Film.'  He Wrote, Directed, Produced and Starred in this one.  He used a crappy Camera that couldn't record for more than 32 seconds and without Sound!  He hired a visibly-drugged-out guy to play 'Torgo.'  He used a middle-aged woman to dub over a little kid's voice. The Film was so bad that only 3 Crew Members ever worked in Film again!  There are no right choices on display here.  Not one.

Is Manos: The Hands of Fate the Worst Film of All-Time?  No.  Is Harold P. Warren the Worst Director of All-Time?  Possibly.

These are just some of the choices out there.  I'll leave the final decision up to you...

Project Terrible (Second Opinions): D.C. Sniper

Since there is going to be a bit of a delay until the next official Round, Bob and myself are giving you guys out there a bonus.  We picked two Films each that had been previous fodder and swapped them out.  To begin, let me take a look at one of his favorites- D.C. Sniper.  For those who don't recall/never read the Review, it is a 2010 Film by Ulli Lommel, who has his hands all over this one.  He's a Writer, Director, Producer and Actor!  Joy.  The Film is based (kind of) on the real case in 2002 in (naturally) Washington D.C.  Two people went on a random shooting spree for a while and then were caught.  That's no SPOILER, since it was a pretty famous case AND the Film tells you that pretty much right away.  More on that later though.  Weirdly, the movie was released about a year after the lead guy- John Allen Muhammad- was executed for his crimes.  Did Ulli hear about this and decide to make the Film (likely) or is this just a coincidence?  Dunno.  The Film's big Star is Ken Foree, who also has a Co-Writing Credit.  My theory: he just made up a bunch of crazy monologues (which make up about 1/3 of the Film), so he got a Co-Writing Credit.  Hey, if Ben Stiller can 'Co-Write' Tropic Thunder by taking a completed Script and changing the Role made for Owen Wilson to fit Jack Black, anything is possible.  There are many, MANY problems with this Film, which will keep me busy for a bit.  If you like silly Editing, goofy Writing and an overabundance of Narration, you're in luck!  If you're a sane person, then you can at least enjoy my suffering.  Let's drive right in...

Before we even get real action, we get a ton of (later re-used) B-Roll of D.C.  Overlaid are the Credits, which provide you an overdose of Ulli Lommel!

After that, we get the first of what feels like 1,004 Scenes of the kid shooting someone at John Allen's behest.  Foree plays these Scenes by sitting casually in a chair and repeating the same 4 lines.

The same 4 lines every time!  This Film is like a vicious loop of mediocrity.

After that, we get the first of 1,337 Scenes of John Allen being interviewed in 'Prison.'  I used quotes, since it is clearly just a blank room with black drapes.

Real Sets- those are for pussies!

You also get about 744 Scenes of the two in their Car talking about random stuff/nonsense.  They also add nothing, but do push the film to its 75 (not 92, like the Disc Sleeve says) minute run-time.

Another big chunk of the Film is taken up by our two Heroes- an FBI Agent and a Cop.  One of them just wanders around and Narrates (since you can just add that in Post), while the other is...Ulli Lommel in a Cowboy Hat...for some reason.

I'm not going to tell you how to make Movies, Ulli (that's a lie!), but maybe don't cast YOURSELF as a Texan- since you're not even close.

Speaking of not even close, they introduce a sub-plot for the Lead Cop involving his missing daughter.  They never get close to solving/resolving it.  The point was....

Speaking of pointless, the Cop from The Amazing Bulk shows up for a few minutes, spouts some conspiratorial nonsense and then never appears again.  The point of that was...

Just for fun- here's a glimpse at how goofy and low-budget the so-called gore in the film is.  Don't you love how the blood on the glass is orange, but the blood on him is red?  That can't be natural.

After mixing and splicing any of the aforementioned elements together (plus the kid's one-scene Lawyer), we get the biggest anti-climax humanly-possible...

Lommel and the Cop are eating lunch and spot the car in the adjacent Parking Lot.  The two are literally just sleeping there and get caught.

As a bonus, the rear light they remove to do the shooting is also off (even though they are not about to shoot someone).  Lazy bonus!  The End.

Eegad, this is bad!  My last experience with an Ulli Lommel film (in 2011) was bad.  This one wasn't really any better.  I will say that the other Film was made up of about 3 things, while this was made up of about 5.  Yea?  This Film finds different ways to be terrible- don't worry.  The stupid monologues (in Color or in nWo Black and White) are annoying.  The repeated 'gore' shots are laughable.  The repeated shots of Foree doing all the prep work and wrap-up work for the shootings was annoying.  Would nobody question him if he was a black man wearing glasses and a tie?  Huh?  The Film is padded to the brim with cheap B-Roll or footage that looks like someone's Vacation footage.  Lommel and company just filmed the Cop (and himself) walking around landmarks in D.C. with no Sound or Dialogue.  Back in the Editing Room, they would splice in Narration to make them have a point.  That is lazy.  Here's another thing: their B-Roll is reused multiple times.  At one point, they play their 'Driving up the Road' B-Roll in reverse to get more use out of it!  As for the Narration, it is pretentious and laughable.  I watched an actual Mike Hammer Film (Starring the Author!) with less over-the-top Narration.  There is also his famous bit explaining how George Washington crossed the Potomac and acted like a terrorist (by killing all prisoners).  This is followed by him then saying that Washington was a hero and that he would act like him as a Cop.  My brain- it hurts!!!  As a Film, it sucks.  It sucks bad.  As a bizarre exercise in how to randomly cut your footage together with no rhyme or reason, it succeeds.  That wasn't his goal, was it?  In summary, don't bother or give a shit.  Kind of like how lazily they shot this guy 'being shot' (and pre-bleeding, it seems)....

Next up, we step back to proper Reviews (for now).  Famous rat Ben is now in his own picture and he brought the rat army with him!  Stay tuned...

Project Terrible: Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia

You probably should have stopped at The Boogeyman, Ulli.  Mr. Lommel is an interesting case in the video market, as his career has gone on far longer than anyone could have guessed.  In 1980, he made his most famous movie.  I should point out that this was three years before I was even born.  In the thirty-one years since, a good chunk of his films have been labeled as 'From the Director of The Boogeyman.'  Imagine if the next Steven Spielberg film said 'From the Director of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.'  Now imagine that every film he's done since then- including Jurassic Park, A.I. and Munich- were also labeled like that & you can see life as Ulli Lommel.  That brings us to 2006 when a mainstream film was being released called The Black Dahlia, attempting to address the unanswered questions about this famous L.A. murder.  That film was made by Brian De Palma- a man whose reputation helps cover for the fact that he's kind of a one-note Director.  A lot of people like that one note, so they excuse it.  Ulli Lommel, however, has no such luxury.  As a bonus, this film is not directly about the famous case, pretty much just trying to piggy-back on the famous film.  To see how Terrible this is, read on...

This young woman is clearly up to no good.  That binder just screams 'serial killer.'  Well, that or Dylan Klebold.  Too soon?

A good 70% of the movie consists of women showing up at an abandoned factory for their 'audition.'  They are subsequently-tortured and killed.  I could just do a whole review of these screen captures...

...but I won't.  There is so much more to mock, like our hero going to the All-Exposition Website.  How convenient!

Watch our hero take a nice nap in this Day-For-Day Shot.  Seriously, close the blinds or lose the candle!  How do you mess this up?!?

Okay, just one more shot of the victim showing up- honest.  This is also here to set-up my 'stinger' for later.  Don't cheat and look ahead, class!

Stop- dance break!  Stop- re-use this entire scene later for padding.  Stop- making movies, Ulli Lommel!

The finale involves the final girl (not capitalized for a reason) who is overseen by the gang and...this old man.  Yeah, if I actually explained anything here, it would just be stupider- trust me.  The End.

Seriously, stop making movies!  The plot of this film is just plain ridiculous.  It's a bunch of 'snuff-lite' scenes connected together by a lazy framing device: random cops investigating the crime.  The sad part is this: they really don't investigate it all that much.  The extent of the investigation is them standing around at crime scenes talking about Bangers and Mash.  The young cop- who I've deemed Officer Beiber- just goes home, goes on the internet to look up the story and goes to sleep.  After about four more murders, he finally goes to a different website and sees that people have an open Casting Call for a film about the Black Dahlia.  Yes, this is the murderers announcing the site of their murders and just waiting for someone to catch them!  That's amazingly-sad.  The film is not only redundant in the murder scenes, but in the random shit that they flash on the scene for no reason.  Woman doing push-ups in a military outfit- check.  The Black Dahlia murder (in random Sin City vision)- check.  That same Black Dahlia footage- BIG CHECK!  As short as the film is, it's padded to the brim and is made all the worse for it.  It would be the most Terrible film this week if it wasn't for Mummy Maniac.  You lucked out this time, Ulli.  Next time, you won't.  Take us away, only good part of the film (again)...

Next up, the final Project Terrible film involves transsexuals.  They're ticked off and now they have knives- yea.  Stay tuned....

Mondo Trivia: The Boogeyman

Uli Lommel is not a well-known name in the video market, but he should be. If you have ever rented a low-budget film about a real-life serial killer (why you would do that- I don't know), odds are that is by Lommel. However, his biggest bit of notoriety comes from directing the original Boogeyman film in 1980. This is a fact that is mentioned in 90% of Lommel's trailers. Think that I am exaggerating? Check out...

*Zodiac Killer (2005)
*Son of Sam (2008)
*Dungeon Girl (2008)

That's right- Uli Lommel is still living off of the hype of a film he made nearly 30 years ago! That's sad.