This week we sit Keith down to check out the infamous “Battlefield Earth“. Will he survive this scientology mess? Read on to find out!

As a “B” movie/bad-movie geek, I have a masochistic urge to seek out any and all films that have been tagged as the “Worst Ever” to watch and find out for myself if they’re really as bad as everyone says. In the case of 2000’s legendary flop “Battlefield Earth,” the critics and public were most definitely right on the money.

First, some background. I resisted checking out “Battlefield Earth” for over a decade till I recently picked up the DVD at a store that was going out of business. With the clearing-house prices going on there at the time, it cost me less than a buck. I figured at that price, even if the movie totally sucked, I could use the disc as a beer coaster and still feel like I got my money’s worth. A week or two later I sat down to watch and was so bored that I said “Screw this” and bailed out on it after about forty minutes, which is something I rarely, if EVER, do with a movie. My film-goer’s O.C.D. will not allow me to leave a movie unfinished, however, so I knew that I would have to go back to the film and see it in its entirety at some point.

Flash forward a few months. I’m home sick from work with an absolutely brutal stomach virus and praying for death anyway, so I figure since I’m already miserable, I may as well give “Battlefield Earth” another whirl. I did make it through the entire film this time, mainly due to the fact that I was too tired and weak to reach for the “stop” button on my DVD player. So how bad was “Battlefield Earth?” Absolutely wretched! If this movie supposedly cost upwards of $50 million, why does everything look like a cheap SyFy Channel Original? The story is ludicrous, the acting is terrible, sets and costumes are painful to the eyes, and the pacing is absolutely slug-like. The only member of the cast who looks like he’s having any fun at all is John Travolta (this film was supposedly a dream project of his for several decades; I wonder how he looks back on it now), as the alien bad guy “Terl,” who resembles a Klingon with boogers permanently hanging from his nose. We’re supposed to swallow the idea that after an alien invasion of Earth by a race of bureaucrats called the Psychlos, humanity has spent the last millennium narrowly avoiding extinction by reverting back into tribes of nomadic, moronic cavemen. Thankfully one of said humans, Jonny “Goodboy” Tyler (Barry Pepper in a career killing performance) believes there must be more to life than this, and leaves his tribe to see what’s out there in the big wide world. Naturally, he gets captured by the Psychlos within five minutes, and after spending a good chunk of the film getting thrown into a variety of cells, having a bunch of slow-motion fist fights with alien guards and other human captives, and going “ARRRRRRRGH!” a lot, Jonny’s lucky enough to get chosen by Travolta’s character for a special slave-labor chore which necessitates being educated by one of the aliens’ “Intelligence Machines.” Unfortunately for the bad guys, this gives Jonny the smarts to not only understand things like complex machinery and mathematics, but also the ability to teach these concepts to the other captive humans and inspire them to fight. Thus, in the last quarter of the film the rag tag band of Earthlings strike back against the Psychlos using long-forgotten, leftover human weaponry like Harrier jets, machine guns, and rocket launchers which amazingly still work just fine even though they’ve been sitting around for a thousand years. Oh yeah, suuuuuure. I take back what I said about the SyFy Channel earlier — even they would’ve passed on this idea as “too ridiculous.” The ending of the film (which, as I understand, only covers about half of L. Ron Hubbard’s original novel) leaves things open for a sequel, which thankfully will never come to pass.

So in the end, was “Battlefield Earth” the “worst movie ever,” as so many have claimed? No. I can say with some authority that there is much, MUCH worse out there. Was it the worst thing I’ve seen in a while? Oh yes, definitely. Do I ever want to sit through it again? Hell, no! This “Battlefield” is worth a look only for students of truly bad cinema, Travolta completists, members of L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology (though I bet even they’d find it a tough go) or the terminally out-to-lunch. Looks like I’ve got myself a new beer coaster.

Brought to you by Keith Abt, the Dollar DVD Guy. He suffers through these movies so YOU don’t have to!

Half a Headstone out of 5 (it’s quite bad)

“A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.
The Dornier 17 — thought to be world’s last known example — was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain. It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands. The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.
Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.”
via yahoo.

via Super Punch

Those of you that live in the New Jersey area, you better get your quarters ready. On March 19th and 20th The Kong Off will take place at Richie Knucklez’ Arcade Games, in Flemington, NJ.

“Celebrating Donkey Kong’s 30th Birthday with stars of the hit movie documentary “King of Kong”, the top 10 Donkey Kong players in the world will compete over a two day period, to determine who is the “real” King of Kong. To determine the “True” King of Kong 10 Machines, 10 Top DK Players and 1 Top Score in a live no holds bar event.”

“Event will be hosted by the infamous Richie Knucklez and “King of Kong” star, Billy Mitchell. This event will have a record number of participants, sponsors, and prize money, in addition to being broadcast live on Sirius/XM radio’s “Virus” station”.
Swing on over to Kong Off for more info.
Get ready to see some kill screens…

Check out this killer zombie design by illustrator Michal Dziekan. Bravo!

Check out this new Dead Island trailer!!!!!

In case you haven’t heard…Detroit’s mayor recently asked his tax payers how they can revitalise the motor city. Someone offered the suggestion of building a RoboCop statue and tweeted the following. “Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & RoboCop would kick Rocky’s butt. He’s a GREAT ambassador for Detroit.” Unfortunately Detroit’s mayor responded with “There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop. Thank you for your suggestion.”
Well, that set off all the fans into a frenzy and they set up a donation fund of $50,000 to erect a Robo statue. The internet is a very powerful tool and guess what…it’s official. Over $50,000 was raised and Detroit will be getting their cyborg guardian.

Spin on over to Detroit Needs A Statue of RoboCop to check out the brilliance of this concoction and to make your donation.

“Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.”

The Zombie Tabernacle Choir

It’s been a while since our favorite horror director, John Carpenter directed a feature length film. 2001’s Ghost of Mars was the last time and we all know how that crap-storm turned out. He also shot a couple episodes for the Masters of Horror TV series. Actually, I thought Cigarette Burns was the best of the series. But after seeing the trailer for his newest film, The Ward, I’m afraid he doesn’t have the touch this go around. The film looks like every other mental ward/ghost flick we’ve seen in the past decade. It has zero originality. It’s a crappy trailer too. Who knows…maybe the film is a lot better than the trailer leads us to believe…see for yourself at The Hollywood Reporter.

Check these out! Spanish artist Daniele Del Nero has gone the horror route and constructed some glorious works of art.
Del Nero goes on to talk about this abandoned buildings series; “A series of architectural scale models constructed with black paper and covered with flour and a layer of mould to create the effect of old abandoned buildings.
My purpose is to talk about the sense of time and destiny of the planet after the human species, through the sense of restlessness which abandoned buildings are able to communicate.”
I’d like to think that these miniature “haunted houses” were created for miniature ghosts. Excellent job Daniele, keep up the brilliant work! Check out the rest of spook central at Daniele Del Nero.