So Bad it's Bad
November 29, 2022 4:56 PM Subscribe
Plenty of movies rate a 0% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, but much rarer is the 0% audience score. Here is a list of 30 movies with a zero percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Inspired by this post on Fanfare.
Thankfully, this list also has a 0% seen-by-me rating as well.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:06 PM on November 29, 2022
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:06 PM on November 29, 2022
According to the art on the box, they got the title wrong on this one:
posted by pjenks at 5:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Once Upon a Time in China VI And Americaleaving out the last two words. Which really seals the deal for me.
posted by pjenks at 5:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’ve seen The Human Duplicators via Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s bad, but I wouldn’t have said it was outlier-ly bad by the standards of the show.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:56 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:56 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Number ten on this list, Left Behind, was so bad that it made 11 million dollars and currently has a sequel in post-production.
The movie is a reboot of a previous series of movies based on the 16 bestselling religious novels foretelling the Rapture and the following world apocalypse. Ugh.
posted by meowzilla at 6:09 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
The movie is a reboot of a previous series of movies based on the 16 bestselling religious novels foretelling the Rapture and the following world apocalypse. Ugh.
posted by meowzilla at 6:09 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I don't really get it. Some of the reviews seem surprisingly positive for a 0%. Are we just scraping the bottom of the user review barrel here? Do some of these movies just have a single negative review posted by someone's poor grandpa who, barely understanding what a keyboard is, has mistakenly typed out next week's grocery list in the review form?
posted by chrominance at 6:33 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by chrominance at 6:33 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are we just scraping the bottom of the user review barrel here?
Based on the repeated line of "Has not yet received a rating on the critic tomatometer", I'm assuming most of these are deeply obscure as well as bad. Probably if you got a hundred people to view and review each, very few would retain the 0% rating.
posted by solarion at 6:37 PM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Based on the repeated line of "Has not yet received a rating on the critic tomatometer", I'm assuming most of these are deeply obscure as well as bad. Probably if you got a hundred people to view and review each, very few would retain the 0% rating.
posted by solarion at 6:37 PM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
"The movie,(400_Days)which has a 22% Tomatometer rating, was described by The Guardian critic Leslie Felperin as, "like watching Solaris performed by sock puppets."
Ironically, the under-current theme of Solaris.
posted by clavdivs at 6:51 PM on November 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
Ironically, the under-current theme of Solaris.
posted by clavdivs at 6:51 PM on November 29, 2022 [8 favorites]
What this list is really lacking is streaming links.
A little searching found this:
here's a large (~400 films) letterbox'd list of 0% critical ratings (the film's pages have streaming links)
posted by 3j0hn at 7:08 PM on November 29, 2022
A little searching found this:
here's a large (~400 films) letterbox'd list of 0% critical ratings (the film's pages have streaming links)
posted by 3j0hn at 7:08 PM on November 29, 2022
*flails uncontrolably* OMIGOD FLESH FEAST IS ON THE LIST!!!!!
I have not seen this film - I have only heard tell of it. FLESH FEAST is, as the article says, is about mad scientists who have Adolf Hitler's body and plan to revive it through the use of...genetically-enhanced maggots. Somehow. 30's film star Veronica Lake makes her final film appearance here, as a Jewish scientist who infiltrates the lab in an effort to bring down Hitler from within or something.
This was produced by a Florida-based filmmaker named Brad Grinter; Grinter primarily made his living as a professor at a filmmaking school, but took that job primarily to get his students to work on his film as cheap labor so he could save the bulk of his budget for getting one single "name" to appear in the cast. For this film, that name was Lake.
Again, I haven't seen this film - but I have seen Grinter's second film, Blood Freak, repeatedly. That film was probably the world's only anti-drug mutant-monster horror film with a born-again Christian perspective. (If you want more, have a look here.) This time the only "name" Grinter could get was a guy named Steve Sipek, a Croatian bodybuilder who'd starred in a Mexican production of TARZAN. That film was similarly awful. But by this time Grinter had started to move away from his model of "blow the bank on one cast member and use my students for the labor", turning instead to making films celebrating his newfound passion for...nudism.
I have only seen one clip of the final scene of FLESH FEAST. I think that's kind of all you need. (And....honestly, it looks more technically polished than BLOOD FREAK does....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:10 PM on November 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
I have not seen this film - I have only heard tell of it. FLESH FEAST is, as the article says, is about mad scientists who have Adolf Hitler's body and plan to revive it through the use of...genetically-enhanced maggots. Somehow. 30's film star Veronica Lake makes her final film appearance here, as a Jewish scientist who infiltrates the lab in an effort to bring down Hitler from within or something.
This was produced by a Florida-based filmmaker named Brad Grinter; Grinter primarily made his living as a professor at a filmmaking school, but took that job primarily to get his students to work on his film as cheap labor so he could save the bulk of his budget for getting one single "name" to appear in the cast. For this film, that name was Lake.
Again, I haven't seen this film - but I have seen Grinter's second film, Blood Freak, repeatedly. That film was probably the world's only anti-drug mutant-monster horror film with a born-again Christian perspective. (If you want more, have a look here.) This time the only "name" Grinter could get was a guy named Steve Sipek, a Croatian bodybuilder who'd starred in a Mexican production of TARZAN. That film was similarly awful. But by this time Grinter had started to move away from his model of "blow the bank on one cast member and use my students for the labor", turning instead to making films celebrating his newfound passion for...nudism.
I have only seen one clip of the final scene of FLESH FEAST. I think that's kind of all you need. (And....honestly, it looks more technically polished than BLOOD FREAK does....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:10 PM on November 29, 2022 [15 favorites]
Okay, please do not say that I don't love you. I compiled this list of films on letterbox'd for you all, so that you can conveniently look up if they are available for streaming (mostly not).
https://letterboxd.com/3j0hn/list/0-audience-score-on-rotten-tomatoes/
Note, the hardworking people at Newsweek got the DVD cover wrong for #30. That cover is for 2005's Submerged staring Steven Seagal, the actual film referenced in the text of the list is 2000's Submerged starring Coolio.
posted by 3j0hn at 7:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
https://letterboxd.com/3j0hn/list/0-audience-score-on-rotten-tomatoes/
Note, the hardworking people at Newsweek got the DVD cover wrong for #30. That cover is for 2005's Submerged staring Steven Seagal, the actual film referenced in the text of the list is 2000's Submerged starring Coolio.
posted by 3j0hn at 7:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [9 favorites]
The past couple of years I've gotten in the habit of leaving a browser tab open to the 'Recent Uploads' page of my trusted torrenting site and occasionally refreshing it. It's been a great way to discover under-the-radar new filmmakers. It's how I got into the movies made by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, who make fantastic micro-budget sci-fi/horror/black comedy/mind-fuck flicks (incidentally, their 5th movie,a pandemic lockdown production called Something in the Dirt, just released last week).
But really more than anything what this has opened my eyes to is just how many damn movies are being released at any given time, and how goddamned awful and unwatchable so many of them appear to be. Scrolling down this list just reminded me of that.
All of which is to say, there is a movie out there called DickShark. That is all.
posted by mannequito at 7:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
But really more than anything what this has opened my eyes to is just how many damn movies are being released at any given time, and how goddamned awful and unwatchable so many of them appear to be. Scrolling down this list just reminded me of that.
All of which is to say, there is a movie out there called DickShark. That is all.
posted by mannequito at 7:23 PM on November 29, 2022 [11 favorites]
All of which is to say, there is a movie out there called DickShark.
I want you to know I have been laughing uncontrollably at this for a solid two and a half minutes now and counting.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:27 PM on November 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
I want you to know I have been laughing uncontrollably at this for a solid two and a half minutes now and counting.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:27 PM on November 29, 2022 [7 favorites]
I clicked on that link thinking of ha it's going to be a movie about a hard boiled PI named Richard Shark or something but no and I am so happy to have been wrong
posted by phooky at 7:39 PM on November 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by phooky at 7:39 PM on November 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
dick sharks might seem cool at first but have you ever seen one host a rockin new year's eve?
posted by Sauce Trough at 7:51 PM on November 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Sauce Trough at 7:51 PM on November 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
DickSharkNado
posted by LionIndex at 8:12 PM on November 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 8:12 PM on November 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
That cover is for 2005's Submerged staring Steven Seagal, the actual film referenced in the text of the list is 2000's Submerged starring Coolio.
Jesus.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:47 PM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Jesus.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:47 PM on November 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
Following the IMDb link to DickShark led me to a list titled "Sexually Weired", which is NSFW and NSFBrain. Most of the list seems to be the work of someone going by "Bill Zebub", which is the sort of nom de film that I might have used when I was 15, which scares me.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:48 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:48 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
And holy shit that cover picture of DickShark.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:49 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Literaryhero at 8:49 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Dickshark's run time is three hours and twenty minutes? Too long!
posted by away for regrooving at 8:53 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by away for regrooving at 8:53 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
you guys wouldn't shut up about dickshark so I had to look and now I have that in my brain. damn you all.
posted by Glinn at 8:53 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 8:53 PM on November 29, 2022 [3 favorites]
I feel like the point here is cheap, obscure, and bad -- if you've ever stuck around for the "Second Opinion" positive reviews section of How Did This Get Made, you are familiar with how generously people will judge absolute dreck, especially if it stars a favorite actor.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:34 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:34 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
needs moar rollergator
And with an audience rating of 8%, it is close enough to fit on the list.
That movie led me to a DickShark precursor called Manfish (0% audience rating), and a positively lauded movie (17% audience approval) called Gunan, King of Barbarians, which must have disappointed a lot of Conan fans at Christmas in 1983.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:37 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
And with an audience rating of 8%, it is close enough to fit on the list.
That movie led me to a DickShark precursor called Manfish (0% audience rating), and a positively lauded movie (17% audience approval) called Gunan, King of Barbarians, which must have disappointed a lot of Conan fans at Christmas in 1983.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:37 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's Once Upon a Time in China 6: Once Upon a Time in China and America. I'm not going to say it's a great film, but it's a stupid, fun Hong Kong film from the era when Hong Kong films were perfectly happy to be stupid fun and it has Jet Li and it 100% does not deserve to be on this list.
posted by aspo at 10:39 PM on November 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by aspo at 10:39 PM on November 29, 2022 [6 favorites]
I love baaaadd movies and have never seen or heard of any of these.
posted by bendy at 12:43 AM on November 30, 2022
posted by bendy at 12:43 AM on November 30, 2022
How did they get access to my Tubi account and post my watchlist?
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:32 AM on November 30, 2022
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:32 AM on November 30, 2022
Dickshark's run time is three hours and twenty minutes? Too long!
Yeah you can tell that a dickshark is too long if it starts bumping into the uh cervixhyrax sure
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:33 AM on November 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah you can tell that a dickshark is too long if it starts bumping into the uh cervixhyrax sure
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:33 AM on November 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Y'ALL.
I just got curious about Bill Zebub, and stumbled upon his web site and discovered that HE HAS A KICKSTARTER GOING RIGHT NOW TO RELEASE A 7 HOUR CUT OF DICKSHARK.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:39 AM on November 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I just got curious about Bill Zebub, and stumbled upon his web site and discovered that HE HAS A KICKSTARTER GOING RIGHT NOW TO RELEASE A 7 HOUR CUT OF DICKSHARK.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:39 AM on November 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Peace, Love & Understanding has a strong cast (including Catherine Keener and Jane Fonda), so I was surprised it had a 0% rating. It's actually 40% for audience, 30% for critics. So I think the 0% is interpreted rather loosely.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:10 AM on November 30, 2022
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:10 AM on November 30, 2022
7 HOUR CUT
Here in the golden age of television, we understand that some stories are so compelling, they need to be made into series rather than constrained within the brief confines of cinema.
posted by mittens at 7:16 AM on November 30, 2022
Here in the golden age of television, we understand that some stories are so compelling, they need to be made into series rather than constrained within the brief confines of cinema.
posted by mittens at 7:16 AM on November 30, 2022
The Kickstarter page for the extended cut of Dickshark led me to the IMDB page for a movie called Antfarm Dickhole. This thread is like the liminal space horror of crap films.
posted by PatchesPal at 8:42 AM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PatchesPal at 8:42 AM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Bill Zebub hosts/has hosted two death metal shows on WFMU, one as himself and one as "Professor Dum Dum."
posted by Devoidoid at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2022
posted by Devoidoid at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2022
7 HOUR
what is this, circumcision for sloths
posted by away for regrooving at 12:53 PM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
what is this, circumcision for sloths
posted by away for regrooving at 12:53 PM on November 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hold on a second. I think you’re all being too hard on Dickshark.
Wait, this is not a porn story. Rather, it is an absurd science-fiction movie that features a curious new species, the Dickshark. In some ways this story asks the same questions that Mary Shelly did when she wrote "Frankenstein”.—Bill Zebub
That’s writer/director Bill Zebub and he should know.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:33 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wait, this is not a porn story. Rather, it is an absurd science-fiction movie that features a curious new species, the Dickshark. In some ways this story asks the same questions that Mary Shelly did when she wrote "Frankenstein”.—Bill Zebub
That’s writer/director Bill Zebub and he should know.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:33 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have probably seen 'Moscow Heat,' via the Adrian Paul connection (I was/ am a big fan of the 'Highlander' franchise).
I have definitely seen 'Once Upon a Time in China 6: Once Upon a Time in China and America' via bootleg CDV (kind of like a DVD, but on CD media) - it's fine.
It has a very odd bit of racism re: physical depiction of native Americans, but they are cast in a good light. iirc (but my memory is very faulty), this is one of the very few - if not only - film where Jet Li plays a character who explicitly engages in sexual intercourse (in this one, with a native American woman).
posted by porpoise at 2:23 PM on November 30, 2022
I have definitely seen 'Once Upon a Time in China 6: Once Upon a Time in China and America' via bootleg CDV (kind of like a DVD, but on CD media) - it's fine.
It has a very odd bit of racism re: physical depiction of native Americans, but they are cast in a good light. iirc (but my memory is very faulty), this is one of the very few - if not only - film where Jet Li plays a character who explicitly engages in sexual intercourse (in this one, with a native American woman).
posted by porpoise at 2:23 PM on November 30, 2022
Having had the pleasure of seeing Rollergator with Panama Joe I would give the experience as a whole a big thumbs up.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:20 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Navelgazer at 4:20 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was seriously going to come in her and tip you all off to the trailer for something that just was released today - COCAINE BEAR - but then I saw there is a whole separate FPP just for that, and that's as it should be.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:54 PM on November 30, 2022
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:54 PM on November 30, 2022
OMG. Was reading this at work, so I obviously wasn't going to click through on DickShark.
Y'all.
I...... I don't know what to say. Hold me?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:08 PM on November 30, 2022
Y'all.
SPOILER!
My mental image had it totally backwards... I was think a shark shaped like a dick eating people up all jaws like. Not... a dick shaped like a shark going into someone's open jaw.I...... I don't know what to say. Hold me?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:08 PM on November 30, 2022
Having had the pleasure of seeing Rollergator with Panama Joe I would give the experience as a whole a big thumbs up
It did inspire a rather nuanced discussion about the nature of art that, to my knowledge, remains unsettled to this day.
posted by panama joe at 7:12 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
It did inspire a rather nuanced discussion about the nature of art that, to my knowledge, remains unsettled to this day.
posted by panama joe at 7:12 PM on November 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by Literaryhero at 4:57 PM on November 29, 2022