Bad Movie Thursday

Viewing Date: 11/20/25

Starring: David Carradine, Dick Miller, Monique Gabrielle

Plot: Burt has a cleaning company and hires four women to clean an isolated house. They find an old book, a dagger and a soul shred and when one of them, Megan, reads an incantation, she unleashes an evil beast in our world. (via IMDB)

Rules

• David Carradine lurking or flashing his cloak
• “Hell House” or “curse”
• References to the book
• Lightning

Quotes

• “I’m too scared, my brain won’t work.”

Viewer Quotes

• “They were so freaked out they left everything behind- even their cd player.”
• “I feel like that is my stomach late at night.”
• “We can move around a couple of boxes and call it a day”

What We Learned

• Only 90 seconds of a single “toon” is enough to call a movie “Evil Toons”
• The going rate for a full weekend of cleaning in 1991 was $100- and it was entirely normal to be confined to the dirty house all night as part of the job.

Final Take

We’ve seen worse movies on bad movie Thursday, but in some ways this was one of the most disappointing. It did have a lot of quintessential elements (some clever dialogue, lots of nudity, bit parts for semi-recognizable actors, campiness), but if you’re going to ride the premise of murderous cartoons, you should actually have some in the film.
Instead of a spoof of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fused with trashy late night B-film horror, you only get the latter. The result is one scene of the ‘demon’ toon, and the rest was standard demonic-possession as the cop-out antagonist (with lots of nudity).

Overall, it is entertaining, but be warned- it is egregious false advertising.

Viewing Date: 10/16/2025

Starring: Murderbots, Kelli Maroney

Plot: A group of young shopping mall employees stay behind for a late night party in one of the stores. When the mall goes on lock-down before they can get out, the robot security system malfunctions, and goes on a killing spree. (IMDB)

Rules

• Quintessential 80’s stuff
• Smoking (Advanced rule! Everyone smokes in the 80’s)
• T & A
• Product Placement
• Robot opens their robot hatch
• “Thank you, have a nice day.”
• Glass shattering.

Quotes

• “They remind me of your mother. It’s the laser eyes.”
• “Let’s go send those fuckers a Rambo-gram.”
• “I guess I’m just not used to being chased around the mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.”

Viewer Quotes

• “This movie’s pretty good.” – “Yeah, not bad.”
• “Why don’t they just run up the stairs?”
• “Why is this robot so inaccurate with its laser beam shots?”
• “That’s why he brought the propane cannister.”
• “With it being called Chopping Mall, shouldn’t there be more blades?”

What We Learned

• Robot’s have different colored lasers.
• Malls in the 80’s had entire rooms piled high with metal junk, like the trash compactor in Star Wars.

Final Take

This was a surprisingly good Bad Movie Thursday choice. I’d never even heard of it before, and it was definitely on the shorter side, but it held its own throughout. For those of us Gen X children of the 80’s, seeing all the mall shots brought a serious nostalgia wave. On top of that there was classic 80’s era T&A, ridiculous practical horror effects, and stupid robots. This was definitely worth a watch.

Viewing Date: 9/11/2025

Starring: Weird Al, Fran Drescher, Michael Richard, Victoria Jackson

Plot: An unemployed visionary becomes the manager of a local television station. The station becomes a success, with all sorts of hilarious sight gags and wacky humor.

Rules

• New Spoofs or parody (one drink per scene)
• Clumsy Slapstick
• Looking directly in the camera
• Dream Sequence
• “Channel 62”

Quotes

• “I don’t know the first thing about working at a TV Station.” – “Don’t worry, Bob, it’s just like working at a fish market. Only you don’t have to clean and gut fish all day.”
• “People like that should be put to sleep.”
• “After 15 years they just toss me out like an old bag of moldy tangerines.”
• “Hey, these floors are dirty as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
• “Badgers…Badgers…We don’t need no stinking badgers.”

Viewer Quotes

• “A hot dog in a twinkie with E-Z Cheese?” – “We’ve got to have a bet where the loser has to eat one of those.”

What We Learned

• The best way to eat a hot dog is in a twinkie wiener sandwich
• Owners of big TV stations are total A Holes.

Final Take

This was not too shabby. Lots of slapstick and the rules definitely paid off. Weird Al’s brand of humor isn’t for everyone, but if you like his songs then you’re probably going to like this.