Something for the weekend?

Four films I guarantee will have you performing a lobotomy on yourself

I’ve seen some terrible movies over the years, so bad you’d want to beat your own brains out with an empty carton of Kia-Ora if only it’d make it stop. So as we’ve a bank holiday weekend (for those of us in the good ol’ UK) you might want to curl up with a loved one or two on the sofa and watch something incredible, something moving, something fun. You plan to? Then avoid these films like a plague of pustules…

Eegah (1962)

Notable only for the presence of Richard Kiel – the metal-toothed baddy from James Bond last seen floating off into space with a pig-tailed putzy – who plays a giant cave man without any discernible dialogue or acting direction.

One night after shopping, Roxy Miller is driving to a party through the California desert when she nearly runs her car into Eegah (Richard Kiel). She tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson, and her father Robert Miller about the giant. Her father, a writer of adventure books, decides to go into the desert to look for the creature and possibly take a photograph of it. When his helicopter ride fails to show up at his designated pickup time, Tom and Roxy go looking for him.

Roxy is soon kidnapped by Eegah and taken back to his cave while Tom searches for her. In Eegah's cave, Roxy is reunited with her father, who tells her that he has begun to communicate with the caveman and has developed a theory as to the creature's astounding longevity. When a frisky Eegah expresses what seems to be romantic interest in Roxy, her father, fearful that the creature may kill them both if he is rebuffed, suggests she put up with as much of it as she can bear. Eegah never tries anything too explicit, though, and Roxy even ends up giving him a shave (behold the infamous “shaving foam licking” scene!) before Tom arrives and helps the Millers escape. Crushed, Eegah follows them back to civilization, and a final confrontation ensues.

Directed, produced, starring and filmed partly in the home of Arch Hall Sr., the film was meant to launch his son, Arch Hall Jr., into movie stardom. It failed dismally. But treat it as the epitome of ‘60s home movies and you’ll appreciate it loads.

The Fifth Element (1997)

In 1914, aliens arrive at an ancient Egyptian temple to collect the only weapon capable of defeating a Great Evil, which appears every 5,000 years. The weapon consists of four stones, representing the four classical elements, and a sarcophagus that contains a Fifth Element in the form of a human, which combines the power of the other four elements into a "Divine Light" that can defeat the evil. The aliens promise their contact, a priest, that they will return with the Elements in time to stop the Great Evil, which will occur in three centuries.

350-odd years later, the Great Evil appears in space in the form of a giant ball of black fire and destroys an attacking Earth battleship. The current alien contact, priest Vito Cornelius, informs President Lindberg of the history of the Great Evil and the weapon that can stop it. As the aliens return to Earth, they are ambushed by another alien race hired by the industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, who was instructed by the Great Evil to acquire the stones.

Somewhere Bruce Willis appears as a futuristic taxi driver who used to be some kind of special forces all-action hero. Allegedly.

Having suffered through the film several times, re-reading the above still sounds new to me. Maybe I was too bemused at the time by the weird character names (Korbern, Leeloo, Ruby Rhod to name a few); I’m guessing the writer had his tongue so far into his cheek it was in danger of poking out of his ear.

How can anyone cast the sexy Milla Jovovich into a sci-fi battle of good versus evil extravaganza and come out with “Panto Dames in Space”?

Jack and Jill (2011)

Why oh why did they subject Al Pacino to this drivel? Throughout the entire film you can see the inner war between his acting ability and a script which I can only assume a 3 year old scribbled all over in green crayon before puking up on every page.

If you can stand that then surely the screechy hysterically tinged voice of “Jill”, played by Adam Sandler deliberately badly as a cross-dresser who gives others of that ilk a bad name, will have you burying your head in the cushions and wailing, “My ears, oh my ears!”

The film opens with homemade videos of fraternal twins Jack and Jill growing up. As the videos progress, it seems that Jack is the more gifted twin, with Jill constantly trying to get his attention by hitting him, hurting girls around him, etc. The story shifts to the present, where an adult Jack is a successful advertising executive in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife, Erin, and two kids, Sofie and Gary, while Jill never left the working-class neighbourhood they grew up in and continued to live with their mother until she passed away about a year before the events of the film (and can you blame her?).

Jack's agency client, meanwhile, wants him to somehow get actor Al Pacino to appear in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial. Jack isn't sure how he's supposed to make that happen. Jill tries online dating, but doesn't get much of a response until Jack poses as Jill (oh how funny. Not.) and alters her profile, leading to more than 100 responses. When her date, "Funbucket", meets her, however, he hides in the restaurant bathroom.

Feeling guilty, Jack takes her to a Lakers game where Pacino is supposed to be. Pacino pays little attention to Jack, but, amazingly, develops a crush on Jill. Jack is hoping Jill would leave by New Year's Eve, since the family is going on a cruise. Friends throw him a birthday party and extend it to Jill as well, having never known that he even had a sister (can you blame him for keeping mum?). Pacino invites Jill to his home but she resists his advances and abruptly leaves.

A proposition is made by Pacino that he will do the commercial if Jack gets him a date with Jill. Jack disguises himself as Jill and goes on the date in her place. Jill starts to suspect that the only reason Jack invited her on the cruise is to persuade Pacino to do the Dunkin' Donuts commercial. When she phones Jack he answers as Jill, and then she hears Pacino, confirming her suspicions… I’m sorry, I can’t continue with the synopsis as a non-entertainment induced coma has been induced.

In the Golden Raspberry Awards “Jack and Jill” was nominated for every single category, and twice for Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress, winning all 10 awards.

Sharknado (2013)

What do you get when you mix sharks with a tornado? Some of the worst made for TV movie-making in history.

A freak hurricane hits Los Angeles causing man-eating sharks to be scooped up in water spouts and flooding the city with shark-infested seawater. Surfer and bar-owner Fin sets out with his friends, Baz and Nova , to rescue his estranged wife, April, and teenage daughter, Claudia (from what I remember it was obvious Fin had no idea where the fuck they were). While the gang is in Finn's jeep, the Emergency Alert System appears, announcing a tornado warning. He succeeds but in finding them but April's boyfriend is eaten by the sharks. The group meets up with Matt, the adult son of Fin and April (are you with me so far?), who is in flying school. They decide to try to stop the threat of the incoming "sharknadoes" by tossing bombs into them from a helicopter!

As Nova prepares to throw one of the bombs, she falls out of the helicopter and directly into a shark's mouth. Matt is heartbroken. Baz is also lost in the storm. After Matt lands on the ground, a flying shark plummets toward the remaining members of the group. Fin jumps into its mouth with a chainsaw and cuts his way out. He emerges carrying an unconscious but miraculously unharmed Nova. Matt is reunited with Nova and Fin gets back together with April…. Awwww.

Rubber sharks “eating” their way through metal, the same stock footage of real sharks repeated again and again, sharks which in one scene are 5 feet long are 20 in the next… If that’s your idea of a good film then download it now or, even better, wait for the sequel “Sharknado 2: The Second One” (catchy title huh?) set to premiere later this year.

Thanks to Wikipedia for allowing me to steal the movie synopsises (synopsii?) and insert sarcastic comments into them.