What is the worst film you've ever seen?

[excoriator]

Recent discussion on the Sound of Music (which I haven't actually seen) made me think what I would identify as the WORST film I've ever sat through. I have two or three candidates and will have to ponder on which really was the worst.

In the meantime, would anyone else like to identify the worst film they've ever sat through and tell us why?

[everso]

There are two: Care Bears: The Movie (1985) - I took my children to see it and it was mind-numbingly awful. I fell asleep. The kids liked it though.

The other one was Point Blank (1967) starring Lee Marvin. A boyfriend, who obviously had a thing about violence in films, took me to see it. I was bored from start to finish.

Excoriator! How could you say that The Sound of Music should be nuked along with Switzerland if you've never seen the film? Get yourself along to Blockbuster and hire the dvd. Tsk!

[mrsonde]

Point Blank (1967) is marvellous, a classic! It would remain so without the violence, though of course it wouldn't be as much fun.

A girlfriend took me to see The English Patient once. After I think I managed to endure half an hour I made a speedy exit.

By the way, you're dumped, I said, on my way out. And give me back that popcorn.

[liberaljoe]

Brokeback Mountain
Two cowboys buggering around in tents

Death In Venice
Putative paedophile puffter poncing about in Venice

The Longest Day
Anglo-Saxons liberate ungrateful Latin country

El Cid
Spanish police evict Moslem illegal immigrants

Sound Of Music
Hideously Hunnish dysfunctional family sing f*****g awful songs

2001 -A Space Odyssey
Past its sell-by-date Space oddity

[excoriator]

You have to be careful. Some films are so bad they become a pleasure to watch.

I can recall at the age of 11 being shipped off on a school trip to a large cinema in cardiff to see the official film of the 1953 Coronation of our own dear queen. The auditorium was packed with thousands of 11 year olds who were noticeably unaffected by the movie and with Dimbleby, the inevitable commentator's unctous tones. At 11, it struck me as an appalling piece of work, but I enjoyed the continuous near-riot that took place in the auditorium as several hundred bored schoolchildren made their own entertainment.

I can also recall being dragged to see some subtitled russian Potemkin-like opus by friends of ours. (She was very keen on art cinema). I slept through about 30 minutes of it, waking to see a group of russian peasants trying to peer through the window of a grand building. One was able to see in by standing on the shoulders of his fellows. "What's going on?" he was asked.

"They are anathematising the regicide" came the snappy answer.

The art cinema fan's husband looked at me and made a gesture of a man drinking, and we left for the pub.

The worst film of all was, I think, a biography of Nixon. It dragged on for what seemed like days, absurdly respectful of american institutions. The protagonists didn't have conversations, they delivered mini-speeches to each other. If you ever get a chance to miss it. Do so!

[aubrey]

There are a load of bad-looking films on C5 in the afternoons, often about women with cancer who behave heroically.

I hate it when you're staying with someone and a film comes on TV and from the first few minutes you realise that you're going to have to sit through another 2 hours of it - something like those Biblical epics of the 50s and 60s (though that might be 4 hours - and they can have their own virtues if you're in the mood).


I liked The Blair Witch Project, though. And I think The Sound of Music would be OK - Robert Wise is a really good film maker - google him if you don't know, you'll be amazed.

I once saw a chunk of Point Blank, from about half an hour in - and I'd like to see it all, so I'd know what was going on.

I watch a lot of European Exploitation films - with someone like Jess Franco you have to have a different idea of bad than you would otherwise. A lot of his films are bad in many ways, but they also have virtues that a regular Hollywood film would never manage. Jean Rollin's the same.

Most films have something that makes them worth seeing, though (except those c5 afternoon films, and that production line stuff that gets released every week).

[excoriator]

"Battlefield Los Angeles" seems from the reviews to be a right turkey!

Whilst on the subject of destruction of that city, have you seen 'Volcano'? It's hilarious, although it doesn't mean to be.

[everso]

I've also hated every foreign language film I've ever seen, with the exception of the wonderful "La Cage Aux Folles" (which IMHO was miles better than The Birdcage - although that was still a good film).

Mr. E. dragged me to see a Danish film "Seventten" ("Sytten") in the late 60s. It was a must-see film about a boy's dawning sexual awareness and definitely a bloke's film. A complete bore to me.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0059775/

[aubrey]

Everso! If you cut yourself off from foreign language films you're missing most of what's out there.

I don't like dubbed films, but I have to put up with it sometimes.

[rjpageuk]

I am not sure it is the worst film I have ever seen but the one that always sticks in my mind is Meet Joe Black. I hated that film with a passion.

[Ned Long]

MAMA MIA! My God! It was AWFUL! No story to speak of, lousy acting, and even worse singing! And yet it became popular---nope, I just don't get it!

[Pink Betty]

mama mia was truly dia - really.

[ciggie stardust]

Mar 29, 2011 15:20:11 GMT Pink Betty said:

mama mia was truly dia - really.

absoeffinglutely!

fortunately i didn't waste time and money at the flicks on that one; i had to stop the dvd after about 20 mins..

[Pink Betty]

i saw it on dvd too - but i had to suffer the whole of it as i was not the only one watching.

grim viewing imho

[mrsonde]

Hmmm, Care Bears sounds like a treat. Aubrey is right of course, there's a wealth of "worst film" candidates if we're talking about female cancer victims wondering who they're going to dump their toothsome seven-year old kids on - pick the high-flying New York career woman who hates kids but always hugs you every second frame as their life-long best friend is my advice.

The "worst film" has to be an ironic clash between critical and popular acclaim and actual experience, doesn't it? Who expects anything apat from dribbling anaesthesia, spliff-assisted or not, from an afternoon C5 film? Aubrey needs to discover the world of porn, if you ask me.

Talking of which, Debbie Does Dallas or Deep Throat are prime candidates, according to the above criteria.

But let's not enhance my already sleazy enough reputation.

No, I still maintain The English Patient is the clear winner. It must have ruined many a life besides mine. Or Kate's. Winslett's, not Middleton's, I'm not that young.

I once met the director's parents at some function or another. They're rather famous here, luminaries you might say - the Ben & Jerry of the Isle of Wight. Ice Cream manufacturers, that is, not cartoon characters - that's Tom. I can't remember what the function was now, or how I slipped through - may have been the opening of the Famous Isle of Wight Film Directors Waxwork Museum, of which I'm the principal sponsor, naturally.

"My Tony, eez so clever, so symatico, you know, eezint it, senior Sonday?" said his mother, Gloria, appropriately enough.

"No doubt, che bella, no doubt. But why doesn't he make a decent film for a change?"