16. Piranha 3D
It’s a crime to not watch certain movies in 3D, like Avatar, Life of Pi, and Piranha 3D. This particular movie uses the already existing franchise of piranha and invigorates it. A giant Earthquake under a lake unleashes a swarm of prehistoric Piranhas, and they are hungry enough to strip off flesh from bone. All of this happened to fall upon spring break as thousands of tourists flock to the lake and party like it’s nobody’s business.
The 3D used in this movie is used more of a gimmick but it works as the movie is not meant to be taken seriously. A literal assault on the eyes, the 3D does not immerse at all, but instead throws stuff at your face because it’s fun. However, the movie is an amalgamation of B-horror, teen punishment horror, and a spring break video from hell.
The movie also has Ving Rhames being awesome as he takes out Piranhas with a boat propeller while he himself is getting eaten alive. Piranha 3D is full of dumb teenagers who get what’s coming, and watching dumb characters getting killed off is such as joy to watch. The bloody effect of people getting eviscerated by the Piranhas is quite graphic and impressive. The movie is better than the original in every way by being unique and special, ironically by being a gimmick.
17. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The first Gremlins released shockwaves of complaints from parents due to its disturbing content, despite its PG rating. This time, the second Gremlins departs from its horror roots and goes absolutely nonsensical. Billy, now working at Clamp Enterprise, a large office building in Manhattan, is reunited with the beloved little Mogwai, Gizmo.
However, before everything was going to be in the clear, Gizmo gets wet again, and the whole fiasco with the gremlins start again, only this time, they’re causing havoc in the office building Billy works in.
This movie is much different from the first in that it is filled with meta humor, and parodies numerous other movies; including Rambo, The Phantom of the Opera, and even the first Gremlins. The gremlins at one point attack famous movie critic, Leonard Maltin, for criticizing the first movie, and the movie even alludes to a tragic incident during Lincoln’s birthday, a clever parody on the dark Christmas story in the first Gremlins movie that received complaint from parents.
One of the large differences in this movie as compared to the last is the new and diverse group of Gremlins. In the movie, the Gremlins raid a chemistry lab and transform into new and more dangerous gremlins; such as a bat gremlin, an electric gremlin, a female gremlin, and a gremlin that talks. It’s got great laugh, it’s not meant to be taken seriously, it’s more ambitious and funnier than the first movie, and if that doesn’t sink in for you, Hulk Hogan talks directly to the audience, and we should heed his advice.
18. Bad Taste
Bad Taste is a movie with barely a budget and was shot during the weekends over a period of four years. Set in a small town in New Zealand, a group of humans, called the AIDS (Alien Investigation and Defense Service) must stop an alien force from kidnapping humans for food. Although there’s not much of a story to work off of, this movie is more of what Peter Jackson could graphically show and get away with it.
Bad Taste is littered with gory scenes just for the sake of being gory. There are sick moments that are made to shock and to be funny. For a first movie with an extremely low budget, there are many impressive moments. Peter Jackson plays a bumbling hero name Derek, and a sinister alien name Robert. In one impressive scene, both characters fight on the side of the cliff.
The movie ends with a shootout confrontation between the humans and the aliens. This is such a huge task to pull off despite having very little money and a finite amount of actors. Yet somehow, this sequence is the most mind boggling scene, as well as the funniest. There’s vomit spewing, brain curdling, sheep blowing, chainsaw madness, and loads of bloody violence. It’s all done cheap, yet the end result is fun and impressive. This movie is the very definition of what an independent movie should be.
19. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
This movie is more so a reverse horror movie in that it takes familiar cliches and subverts them for humor sake. In most cabin in the woods story, a group of teens will come across a group of suspicious rednecks who heed ignored warnings. However in this movie, the rednecks are the main characters.
Out on a camping vacation spot, Two rednecks, by the name of Tucker and Dale, are shared with neighboring teens who think they’re serial killers. Through a series of misunderstandings, the teens are killed off either by an accident, or by each other and the rednecks are to blame. At the same time, Tucker and Dale are baffled as to why the teens are killing themselves.
Making light of horror movie clichés, this self aware horror comedy takes the formula of horror movies and mocks it. It’s a giant what-if scenario that works. The entire movie is a huge misunderstanding, making the scenarios much more funnier as the characters on both ends are baffled by what’s going on. And because these are quite possibly some of the dumbest teens to walk into a horror movie, the movie makes spotlights on their tragic but funny death scenes.
20. The Happening
The Happening happened during the ongoing dark age of M. Night Shyamalan. Despite getting a very mature R-rating for the first time, M. Night Shyamalan uses that rating to make what’s perhaps his most immature movie. This movie had great promise when the trailers showed a mysterious occurrence where people are committing suicide for some mysterious reason. When everyone rushed in to see this movie, their expectations were suddenly silenced when The Happening started explaining itself.
Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschannel’s performance were more wooden than the trees that are trying to kill them in the movie. The Happening works more as a bizarre B-movie plot. Although this movie makes an attempt with sending an environmental message, it feels more like a head scratching slasher movie.
The movie depicts the committing of suicides rather comical, and the twist of it all is due to plants? Like the movie Final Destination, minus the fear and suspense. It has a ridiculous premise, cringe inducing dialogue, and above all, the suicides are what highlights the comedy in the movie. When you have a scene where Mark Wahlberg, an Oscar nominated actor, talks to a plastic plant, there’s something deeply wrong.
21. Re-Animator
H.P. Lovecraft’s most recognized story turned movie comes from this science-fiction horror comedy. It’s an otherwise Frankenstein story with a different spin on it. . Jeffrey Combs plays mad scientist, Hebert West, and is simply mad with his portrayal. Knowing nothing of the boundaries of ethics, West discovers a serum for reanimation it but comes with great consequences as reanimated corpses go berserk and try to kill him.
Dr. Hill, a professor of West, wants credit for the serum, and chaos ensues when reanimated corpses rampaging, and a certain decapitated reanimated head eyeballing a naked damsel in distress. This particular scene is both disturbing, uncomfortable, and yet surprisingly funny all at the same time. The movie is littered with many over-the-top kills with overdone bloody messes. Re-Animator is a fun splatter film that takes a subject on death and makes it a joke.
22. Snakes on a Plane
Every movie can be saved from boringness once angry Samuel L Jackson shows up to chew the scenery. At his more tipping point, he shouts to huge disdain his frustrations he has with the snakes on the plane.
The movie starts with a guy who becomes a witness to a crime committed by gangsters and is escorted by Samuel L Jackson in a plane. However, the gangsters sneak a crate of snakes onto the plane. As the plane is in the air, the snakes unleash terror on the passengers and it is up to Samuel L Jackson to stop the slithery pests.
Snakes on a Plane is more of a Roger Corman movie with a budget and an A-List actor. The premise of the movie is ridiculous, and it is added with more ridiculousness when passengers are killed off in ridiculous ways. The material is much enhanced with Samuel L Jackson’s angry hot-headed performance that really belongs in a Tarantino film.
23. Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
Continuing in a long line of bad sharksploitation movies, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon does above and beyond the call of duty by making the biggest shark in this sub-genre. In it, a power cable is installed in the bottom of the ocean, causing a shark to attack people. Before he was recognized in Doctor Who, John Barrowman played as the main character, Ben. He teams up and Natural history researcher, Cataline, and goes after this shark, ultimately killing it. Little do they know that the shark they killed was only the baby shark and a massively bigger Megladon shark now terrorizes the ocean.
Perhaps the laziest film here on the list, there’s not a single shark that’s been built or done with special effects. Instead, everything is stock footage that’s spliced in or badly rotoscoped into the movie. Shark Attack 3 is most memorable for its infamous scene where a giant Megladon shark terrorizes a yacht party.
In it, the Megalodon swallows a person and an entire lifeboat of people. In a bizarre sense of poetic justice, the main bad guy, a greedy corporate businessman, gets swallowed up by the Megladon as he drives his jet skis right into the shark’s mouth. Shark Attack 3 also carries the tradition of having the shark growl and roar, like in Jaws: the Revenge (Because that was a good idea in the first place). Also, here’s a fun trivial fact..
In what’s probably the movie’s second most infamous scene, John Barrowman ad-libs what’s perhaps the stupidest pick-up line in cinema history that somehow in the movie, gets him laid in the shower. With so many bad special effects in Shark Attack 3, the movie really takes you out of the viewing experience.
You can simply laugh at the movie for how bad it really is, and it’s such a joy to find something funny in an idea that was stupid from the very start. It’s always great to make fun of movies for its bad special effects now that we live in a time where special effects in movies, for the most part, look good.