No.246 : W.M.D (2013)

W.M.D. at the IMDb

You won’t of heard of this film, and I bet it doesn’t grace the C.V.s of its principals, but it’s out there and I sat through the whole 80 crappy minutes of it.

The film opens with a trio of soldiers walking is a desert which is supposed to be Iraq but looks suspiciously like California. One of them steps on a mine and after five minutes of chat they engineer a way to free him without the device going off. This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the film so it must have been shot to bump up the film’s run time or to show why our men may be damaged having served in a war zone. Or maybe they found an extra $5 in the budget and fancied a day out?

Anyway the film proper opens at a Baghdad military base on Thanksgiving, where the President is coming to visit. He isn’t named but he is dressed up like George W. Bush and references are made to his father also being President so if it’s not him it’s a pretty unoriginal new character!

The President makes a few glib jokes before a soldier pulls a gun and takes the President hostage. Unfortunately the fat and bomber jacket wearing ‘Secret Service Agents’ aren’t really on the ball and soon the President and four soldiers are holed up in the kitchen where the majority of the film takes place. The five are soon joined by a lady reporter and a cameraman and so begins a drawn out conversation where the rights and wrongs of the Gulf War are explored. If that sounds a bit dry, then that’s because it is.

The leader of the kidnappers, Garrison, is large and overbearing. As well as a loud, annoying and devoid of acting skills. He also has a semi-reluctant lady soldier with him as well as a dull one and a shouty random one. Like ‘The Rock’, from where much of the film is lifted, a rescue operation goes on whilst the President is interrogated and tortured by the soldiers who want answers for the motivations behind going to war and why their friends have been killed.

Will the President be saved and what sin will the media put on the events?

I really disliked this film and it was hard to see it through. It’s agenda was clear from the start and it was almost like liberal wish fulfillment with a Bush clone being made to atone for his sins. He gets his face fried, shoes thrown at him and is water boarded and you could almost hear the long haired liberals high fiving each other off camera. Take that Republicans!

The film closed with the tired old staple of various news outlets spinning the story as a Muslim atrocity while the stock ticker on screen shows share prices rising. It wasn’t subtle and definitely not objective. It was also very low budget, poorly acted and had no redeeming features whatsoever. One to avoid!

Best Bit : ‘How do you like your face cooked?’
‘W’ Rating - 2/23

No. 135 : Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991)

Wizards of the Demon Sword at the IMDb

Some people will tell you that a film can be so bad that it’s good. These people, let’s call them wankers, say that if you watch with a sense of ironic detachment a great time can be had laughing at crappy special effects and funny costumes. Not surprisingly I don’t subscribe to this school of thought and if something is a pile of crap that’s as far as it goes from me.

With this introduction I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say that ‘Wizards of the Demon Sword’ is the poorest effort I’ve seen in some time. The film comes from Troma studios who pride themselves on low budget, offbeat titles such as ‘The Toxic Avenger’ and ‘The Class of Nuke ‘Em High’ but for my money they are better suited to frat style comedies such as ‘The First Turn On’ where their low budgets are less obvious.

This film opens with a warrior saving a busty wench from some bandits. After hearing her sob story and viewing her cleavage our hero agrees to help her in her quest. The titular sword is in the hands of some bad guys and if they figure out how to use it humanity will be enslaved or something. We also follow the trials of a young slave girl who may hold the key to unlocking the sword’s mystical powers.

The plot here is pretty much your standard sword and sorcery quest. The bare narrative is fleshed out with occasional tussles all of which are very poorly choreographed - that 'sword under the arm' death always looks so fake. To lend the film some epic scale dinosaurs are also involved but not in any way that involves interaction with the actors. For example the hero shouts ‘Look over there’ and we cut to some ropey footage of some plastic monsters eating each other. The film stock and back grounds are so different that it’s obvious that old footage is being used which could be OK if the monsters didn't look so poor in the first place.

The acting is terrible throughout with fluffed and stuttered lines kept in. The lead is as wooden as a cricket bat and although better, the lead female struggled uttering her dialogue which to be fair is awful. The only name actor in sight is Lawrence Tierney who played Nice Guy Eddie’s father in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. His part as a slave trader is OK and played for laughs but his delivery is poor and clearly he has no gift for comedy.

The dark realm where the film is set looks suspiciously like that desert outside LA which doubles as every planet in the universe in Star Trek. The sets are terrible too with the bad guy’s castle needing only the ‘Lego’ trademark to complete the look. I was also annoyed by the shrieking, jangly score and the clearly glued on beard sported by the wise man.

Of course it’s cheap and has the look of an amateurish student film, but the lack of a budget shouldn't excuse some of the worst acting, script and costumes you’ll ever see. A real 100%, 24 carat dud.

Beast Bit : Slave Girl’s Selling Points Revealed
‘W’ score : 2/23

No.131 : Walk Like A Man (1987)

Walk Like a Man at the IMDb


We have done some bottom feeding to keep the ‘W’ quest alive but we lowered our already non existent standards to sit through this pile o’ shite.

The film opens in an unconvincing snow covered wilderness with a gold prospector trying to get his family to safety before the weather closes in. We can tell from the off that his older son is a right bastard as he kicks the dogs when setting up the sled. As the family travel through the rather pleasant looking wilderness the bad son knocks his baby brother off the sled so he can have a comfy ride.

Luckily for the baby, and not for the audience, a pack of wolves find the tot and rather than eat it they raise it as their own. 28 years later a conservationist is in the woods studying wolves and she comes across the now grown baby who managed to knock himself out an a log cabin. Amazingly the boy hasn’t been declared legally dead and his $30 million inheritance is still waiting for him. This isn’t good news for his now grown sibling, Christopher Lloyd who has pissed away his share of the cash.

The wolf boy is invited into the family home and a predictable series of scrapes follow where the brother first tries to kill him and then tries to declare him incompetent so he can get the cash. As this is going on wolfie is being taught to talk by the conservationist who may be falling for him too. As the court date approaches we have to wonder if the wolf boy will get the money or whether it will go to the nasty conniving brother and his drunk wife.

I appreciate we’ve called a few films out as being the worst ever and really dreadful but this one really takes the biscuit. It is so unfunny you’ll cringe at the efforts at humour and the three acts are so defined it’s a surprise they didn’t put up caption cards. Howie Mandel, who now presents ‘Deal or no Deal’ in America and frankly this film is one offer he should have refused. He doesn’t utter a word for the first 45 minutes and that’s a blessing as when he talks it as a simpleton trying to elicit sympathy from an audience long since tired at his ‘antics’.

The innocent abroad angle is played to death with our man humorously trying to learn how to use an escalator and toys. The passers-by are amused by the antics while we watching hide behind our fingers at the embarrassment on show. The love angle with the conservationist is horrendous and when she tells him that teaching him has taught her more about herself I defy you not to barf.

Howie Mandel is shocking in the lead with his physical comedy basically amounting to crawling around. It gets worse when he talks, uttering crappy dialogue like..a..poorly…programmed…robot. Christopher Lloyd is also poor as the villain who exudes all the menace of a small plum. If he was a bastard as suggested why doesn’t he get a hit man? Instead he relies on a pisspoor lawyer who lets surprise witnesses talk for way too long in court.


I’ve nothing against bad films that tried their best but this lazy predictable and unfunny rubbish is just plain insulting.

Best Bit : Ongoing neighbour’s wrecked driveway gag.
‘W’ Rating : 2/23