With nationwide quarantines in place, a lot of people have more free time than they know what to do with, leading to the growth of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. While most people tend to flock toward the highest-rated movies, the world’s cinematic greats aren’t the only movies that can entertain us. There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are movies with qualities so astonishingly low that you can’t help but laugh at the fact that someone agreed to pay to produce what you’re watching. While some low budget movies can completely surprise the audience with how good they are, the following films fall a little short of doing so. However, they still make for a truly underrated way to spend an evening at home.
After spending years of research watching the worst movies I could find, I’ve provided my picks for the top three best bad movies, which can all be found on Amazon Prime Video.
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“Tsunambee”
Contrary to what the title suggests, “Tsunambee” contains almost every natural disaster besides a tsunami. There are earthquakes, tornadoes, bees and zombies, but never a tsunami, which is somewhat disappointing. The film does, however, contain many attempts to convert the viewer to Christianity, as that appears to be the only way to fight off the well-named “bee-pocalypse.”
The biggest problem with “Tsunambee” is that the film tries to establish dark and tragic backstories for all of the characters, making viewers think it’s going to be a somewhat deep film with a good message but then has those characters played by apathetic actors who make bee puns every chance they get. There is one good actor in the movie though. Unfortunately, his talents are wasted on one of the most unbearably annoying characters in cinematic history: a disgruntled gangster who believes that any threat—including bees, earthquakes and tornadoes—can be defeated by shooting at it with a pistol. The filmmakers could have chosen to make “Tsunambee” a nice, coming-together movie where a group of people overcome their differences to unite against a common threat; Instead, they chose to have the characters argue over absolutely everything while being chased by a swarm of bees, with the only resolution to the arguments being the death of someone involved.
In most horror movies, the characters typically act in a mindless fashion, leaving the audience to question their decisions . The cast of “Tsunambee” really outdo themselves in this area, as they are the stupidest, most hate-inducing characters ever made. This sentiment seems to be felt by many “Tsunambee” viewers and is made evident through the film’s 2/10 rating on the International Movie Database (IMDb). Despite this, watching the film’s clipart animations chase people around for over an hour is a great way to spend any night in quarantine.
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“The VelociPastor”
After returning from his trip to China, a priest discovers that he has gained the ability to turn into a dinosaur and teams up with a prostitute to fight off an army of ninjas who run an underground drug ring. Unlike most movies, which fit into a single niche, “The VelociPastor” tries to fit into every niche. This movie truly has everything: religion, ninjas, dinosaurs, prostitutes, cocaine addicts, a pimp named Frankie Mermaid and a twist ending that not even the director saw coming. The movie’s post-production can be described as minimalistic, as there are multiple times when the camera keeps rolling after the scene has ended and the actors have broken their roles, and these scenes haven’t been cut out of the final product.
I do have to give the filmmakers credit for not using cheap CGI when the priest turns into a dinosaur, like most low budget movie producers would. Instead, these filmmakers chose to simply have the actor wear an inflatable T-Rex costume; it is truly brilliant. In addition to the action-packed fight scenes, “The VelociPastor” also includes a classic forbidden love story between a priest and a prostitute, which makes you think—just for a minute—that the film might actually have some depth to it. Of course, this thought quickly goes away when the cameraman drops the camera and can be seen struggling to pick it back up, which again, has made its way into the final product.
Overall, “The VelociPastor” is a solid choice for anyone in the mood to watch a bad movie; the only thing holding it back from true bad-movie-greatness is the fact that it almost seems like a well-produced movie in some scenes. Almost.
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“Shark exorcist”
IMDb
In the age of smartphones and affordable digital cameras, truly anyone can make a movie. Unfortunately for us, the result of this is films such as “Shark Exorcist,” which exhibit almost no redeemable qualities. We’ve all been to movies that are so packed full of action and storytelling that we refuse to leave the screen in fear of missing important details. With “Shark Exorcist,” feel free to leave to go to the bathroom, make a snack, take a nap and run a marathon, and when you come back, you will likely be less confused about the plot than someone who was watching the entire time. In fact, you could watch this movie seven times and still not have the slightest clue as to what it’s actually about. The movie is 80 minutes long; if every scene that contributed nothing to the plot were to be removed, there would no longer be enough footage left to fill a 30-second YouTube ad.
Although the movie’s storytelling is problematic, it’s nothing compared to the abysmal quality of the film’s post-production. Throughout the movie, the cameraman can be heard breathing heavily in the background, the sound editing seems to have been done by an 11-year-old kid learning how to use GarageBand, and at one point, the main character is dubbed so that the words he says are heard about a second after his mouth moves—but hey, we can’t all be perfect.
Despite these flaws, “Shark Exorcist” is still by far the most entertaining movie I have ever seen. Both the lack of care put into it and the apathetic nature of everyone on screen never fail to make me laugh, and anyone looking for a bad movie to watch will not be disappointed with this one.
