Short Ends and Leader’s 10 Worst DVDs of 2011

Actually, an alternative title for this particular list could be “the worst homemade hack horror films of all time.” It seems that every year, like calculated clockwork, fans from all over the hemis-fear log into their own particular brand of macabre and make movies, thinking they are the next Wes Craven — or more likely, Sam Raimi. They believe so much in their muse that they leave things out such as talent, creativity, acting ability, characterization, storytelling and technical competence. Of the ten DVDs discussed here, five are part of this particular category. A few come from decades back, when proficiency was countered by available outlets, but others come right from today, when digital determines capability – or at least, should.

As for the rest, the determination is a bit different. In fact, every year, it’s the same argument – is this a worst FILM list or a worst DVD list… and better yet, what the Hell is the difference! If you added up the number of comments and emails, questions and complaints, you’d have a stack of suggestions higher than a college slacker. The truth is, this category comes a close second to the “unknown film” compilation. Instead of focusing on the obvious choices we move slightly beyond the mainstream to seek out those titles which, in all honesty, didn’t need to be on DVD in the first place.

As the medium moderates and dips, as streaming and the high-def delights of Blu-ray overtake the home theater domain, the original aluminum disc format seems destined to be the last bastion for meaningless, mediocre product. Just like VHS before the end, DVD appears destined to serve the lowest common cinematic denominator, and then simply fade away. So without further alliterative ado, here are Short Ends and Leader’s choices for the most miserable DVD experiences of 2011, beginning with a problematic political screed passing as entertainment:

If she believed in such nonsense, Ayn Rand would be rolling over in her grave. As a thinker, she came up with some decent ideas. As a novelist, she was wooden, leaden, and leaning toward the soap operatic. So naturally, she should be championed with a three part adaptation of her most “difficult” work. As the lifelong dream of a confirmed member of the Tea Party movement, the realization of this particular cinematic aims earns kudos for trying. Sadly, what it accomplishes (and then tries to pass off onto home video) is a violation of all that is fresh, engaging, and dramatic.

What can you say about Passion Play? What good can you say about this sloppy, sometimes incoherent parable? It doesn’t really matter that writer/director Mitch Glazer made his name with Mr. Mondo Michael O’Donoghue from Saturday Night Live or helped co-script the now-beloved Bill Murray holiday farce Scrooged. He’s a billion miles away from such blackly comic beginnings. What this really is, however, is a soulless, heartless shadow, a mere specter of cinema that can’t stand up to scrutiny, explanation, or interpretation. When you try to scratch beneath the surface, all you get is the aroma of failed ambitions.

Mae West’s sourest swansong. Apparently, the star’s struggling ego was so big and her demands so irrefutable that no one could say “HELL NO!” to her, resulting in a movie, which tries to hide the fact that the romantic female lead is a stumbling octogenarian. With horrifically cliched comedic ideals, the lamest of double entendres, the most bizarre and surreal supporting cast in the history of hack Hollywood, it’s awful. To call it an affront gives it an implied power it definitely lacks. To somehow spin the experience over into something akin to likeable questions your very sanity.

In one of those typical low budget circumstances in which a great idea, under financed, starts out promising and then goes nowhere interesting or intriguing, Vanishing quickly wears out its already limited welcome. When we see our inert star, wandering the empty cityscape of an evocative Motor City, we anticipate something special. But then director Brad Anderson and writer Anthony Jaswinski draw the scope in around them. The result is a sheepish one act play where a group of noted thespians on a single set (more or less) try their best to salvage some shoddy dialogue.

Want to know how many bad ideas went into the making of this Tchaikovsky ballet classic? (1) there is no dancing offered here whatsoever; (2) characters instead sing songs based on the material with lyrics provided by Jesus Christ Superstar‘s Tim Rice: (3) the Uncle character looks like Albert Einstein, while another resembles Sigmund Freud; (4) the main character is rendered in subpar CGI, while a collection of animated toys are costumed nightmares; (5) the Rat King looks like Phil Spector, while his army resemble Nazis; (6) disgruntled citizens are placed in forced labor factories…and we’re just getting started.

5 – 1

A found location can be a low budget filmmaker’s salvation. Production value is a tough commodity when you’ve got limited funds. In the case of this flaccid frightfest, the Chippewa Lake Amusement Park, long out of business and falling apart, is used as a means of telling an urban legend ghost story. Like many of these places all over the world, time and lack of interest have turned the once vital playground into a cemetery of forgotten fun. Unfortunately, like several contradictory conversations going on at once, this movie only makes sense to the person behind all the bedlam, and he’s clearly incapable of rational thought.

Things is often called the first shot on Super 8 Canadian gore film ever released on VHS. This is 1989 mind you, years after the VCR was a household staple. Perhaps the cover art got it wrong, or Great White Northern film historians are tweaking the timeline. Whatever the case, this unhinged bit of blandness offers nothing the modern fright fan could love. Instead, this is errant nostalgia fitted onto a ‘deserves better’ digital medium and so baffling in what it’s trying to achieve, it’s almost so bad, it’s good. In reality, it’s so terrible, it’s taxing.

You know you are in trouble when the person behind this production decides to call themselves by the goofy horror host name of Creep Creepersin. Real scary, right? More like real stupid…just like this film. Supposedly shifting the standard slacker film to the sales floor of a competitive group of company trolls, we end up with a 70 minute running time which starts out with almost 13 minutes of credits, followed by horrifically bad acting and very few onscreen kills. Sometimes, a novice filmmaker deserves some slack for at least trying. Here, MC Creepersin deserves nothing short of exile.

It’s quite a lineage the daughter of famed painter (and now critically acclaimed filmmaker) Julian Schnabel has. It’s also quite experimental to enforce a non-linear, almost adlibbed narrative on the viewer, walking them through the various trials and tribulations of a struggling Manhattan actress at her wits’ end while bouncing back and forth between a psychiatric interview and her various bed-hopping, shoe-gazing adventures. What we end up with is a snarky and disaffected bit of meandering that can’t quite make up its mind about what it wants to be, aside from as unentertaining and insufferable as possible.

Wanna know what’s worse than a wannabe fright master who picks an incredibly dumb pseudonym? How about one that picks a problematic tag, and then can’t decide on the look he (or she) wants to achieve. Such is the case of Mr. Scarlet Fry. Aside from the god-awful nature of his scare anthologies, which often play like a poor adolescent’s night terrors, his onscreen persona goes from redneck zombie to monster mash-up to Victorian dandy – and none of them work. It’s bad enough not to know what you want out of your aesthetic approach. When you can’t make up your mind what to look like…