Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies: A Film Critic's Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made

by Michael Adams

"Michael Adams's book is great fun! No one intends to make a truly bad movie, but when they do, Michael Adams will be there to watch it...and make it entertaining!" —John Landis, director of Trading Places and The Blues Brothers In Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies , film critic Michael Adams embarks on a year-long odyssey to discover the worst movie ever made, which Mystery Science Theater 3000 star, writer, and director Kevin Murphy calls "disturbingly comprehensive, joyously critical, and the best of its kind." From all-time cult classics such as Reefer Madness and Plan 9 from Outer Space to new entries to the pantheon such as Gigli and Baby Geniuses , no genre, star, or director is safe from Adams’s acerbic wit and hilarious observations. In the vein of A.J. Jacobs’s New York Times bestselling book The Know-It-All , and with the snarky sarcasm of television’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The Soup , Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies leaves no stone unturned. With a foreword by cult director George A. Romero ( Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead ).

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Media Tie In, Humor, Pop Culture, Cultural, Memoir

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2009

Reviews

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is for movie buffs. For a good period of my life that was me. I wonder what my average movie viewing was in College. It had to get close to averaging four a week, I would have to guess.

This has the feel of an AJ Jacobs book with author Adams dedicating a year to watching bad movies every day to determine the worst movie of all time. He used critics lists but then added user review sites to compile the worst of the worst.

There’s plenty of reasons a movie can be bad- blockbuster budgets that flop, low budget movies that wish they were good but aren’t, shock value movies, just plain boring movies and so on.

He categorizes these as the title says- you have sexplotation, horror and so on. Adams has a good sense of humor and though there’s a certain element that may make you want to watch bad movies, you are generally glad that he did it for you

He largely summarizes plots and why they are bad movies in an engaging manner. There’s Ed Wood and Reefer Madness and Pia Zadora and Police Academy 3 and all the usual suspects. He also talks to different directors and asks their favorite bad movies.

While I doubt diehards will find it definitive, I did appreciate the deep dive in those B movie directors that might fly under the radar.

If you truly like bad movies, then you will enjoy this. You can relate to the ones you saw and may add those to your viewing list based on your tastes.

There definitely a market for bad movies in the late 90s/early 00s. Adams does a fairly good job of trying to disqualify some movies for time or content (no porn for example) but as he digs deep into these recent zero budget films towards the end of the book, it does start to bog down.

Moving from well known films like Manos: Hands of Fate or Sylvester Stallone’s notorious debut Party at Kitty and Studs to fare like The Maize movies and Rollergator- I think he does too deep of a dive and repetition kicks in

Still, I quite enjoyed this book and it seems a decent addition to the book shelf of a movie buff

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to be a fan of bad movies (which I am) to appreciate this funny, irreverent book of the author's search for the worst movie ever made........not the usual "so bad they are good" such as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" by the beloved Ed Wood, but the "so bad they are bad". These are films that are almost beyond belief in their ineptness....terrible acting,, no comprehensible story line, hysterical "special effects". look like they were filmed in your grandmother's rec room on a telephone, and the list goes on. The author, who is an Australian film critic, ponders how they ever were released or why they were even made.

His quest was to watch one bad film a day for a year and he searched data bases, talked to directors and other writers to compile his list. He admits that by the end of the year, he was almost reduced to a gibbering idiot but he indeed decided on the worst of the worst, a film of which the majority of the public is unfamiliar. This is a must-read for the bad film fanatic but be advised that it contains some pretty raw language which might offend.

[Alex Bledsoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a longtime MST3K fan, I have a real affection for bad movies, the more sincere the better (stuff like "Sharknado," which is deliberately made to be bad, is just insulting). This is a fun book, weaving in just enough of the author's life to make you feel like you're taking his year-long journey with him. He writes about the individual films very well and without condescension or smugness. Where he can, he talks to the people who produced them, which I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do. If you enjoy "list" books, and/or bad movies, then this is well worth your time.

[Baal Of · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something fascinating to me about lists, and I can be very obsessive about completing tasks once I've set myself a course, so I have an ingrained understanding of how someone could end up making a quest like this. Occasionally I will browse through a list of bad movies, and sometimes, I'll think about clicking on those items to see how many I have seen, and so far I have always come to my senses and not done so because I realize that would lead me to indulging my inner completionist, whether I like it or not.

I will not be trying to see all the movies listed in this book.

I have something not entirely unlike respect for Adams for his passionate, oddly loving, desire to watch as many bad movies as he could in a single year. I like that he defined criteria including but not limited to 1) It can't be porn, 2) it must be a full length feature. It is necessary to place some kind of boundaries, arbitrary though they be, or the task would be impossible. Well, more impossible than it already is. There's really no way he could have found the worst movies ever. He didn't even see "Bone Disease" one of the worst, but gloriously gory, movies I've ever been unable to actually finish, because it was so boring.

I was entertained with his descriptions of the films, and I liked how he gave us the backdrop of his life along with the journey through the bad movies. His wife deserves some kind of award for putting up with his near insanity. I found the book quite entertaining, which might be partially because I will watch some pretty awful movies, though my dedication is nowhere even close to Adams.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dare anyone to find a more entertaining book about the artistry of awful films. The art of analyzing horrible movies is not as simple as you think. What constitutes shit to one person might be gold to another. However, I don't think a whole lot of people would protest what's good or bad with the films author and film reviewer Michael Adams researched. They're all bad. Real bad. Basically, every movie he analyzes (some of these films don't require much analysis) are all pretty much bottom of the barrel shit.
Still, other than rock and roll and literature, bad films is a definite passion of mine. A passion I've fed like a slimy rat in the basement since my teenage years (when I first saw the brilliant shitfest called "Q: The Winged Serpent.")
And, yes, while James Joyce might have had his archaic longings for a late nineteenth century Dublin, or Fitzgerald longed for the old singsong days in Princeton, I yearn for the lost golden years of the 80's when I could walk into my local video store and randomly pick up such luminary films as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" or "I Drink Your Blood," or have you forgotten, "Mommie Dearest," the masterpiece biopic of Joan Crawford in which a ghoulish Fey Dunaway beats her daughter with wire hangers and cleaning supplies. Such films opened my eyes to the psychosis of life. Yes, there are crazy fucking people out there and some of them are writers and directors... and even actors! This was a revelation I still hold very dear to my heart.
Anyway, I have read several books about bad movies, but none of those writers have the comical and sardonic chops of writer, Michael Adams, who set out to discover the worst film of all time in one month. Yes, he trolled ebay and garage sales and every other vendor you can think of to find these pieces of crap. And along the way he gives us small descriptions of these films, their history, the filmmakers behind them (including Ed Wood) and what consitutes their badness and basically, their hilarity. Anyway, it's a funny fucking book. Read it.
My favorite chapter was definitely about hot actresses in the 80s who were married to lecherous old men that made weird films about incest. Two such actresses are Pia Zadora, who was married to an Israeli tycoon who basically bought her a Golden Globe for "Best New Actress" for one of the most discomforting films I've ever encountered, called "Butterfly," about a hot farmer's daughter and her relationship with her... ahem... father. Yuck! The second star in this category is definitely Bo Derek whose scuzzy older husband directed her in a slew of crap movies that all had the underlying theme of incest. These films must be seen to be believed. And yes, I've seen them all. And yes, I said Yuck!
Thanks to Michael Adams however I have a list of horrible, wonderful shit to see! Adams' hilarious accounts of such movies as Vanilla Ice's "Cool As Ice," John Travolta's "Perfect," and other such steaming turds just make me smile. Hopefully they will for you too.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't enjoy crappy movies you probably won't enjoy this book. Luckily, I find a lot of appeal in fuckawfulness, so this is right up my alley. If you're one of those people who owns those 50-film box sets, this is pretty much tailor-made for you. Thankfully, it's not all out-of-copyright stuff reviewed, and modern crapola has an equal run. I mean, if the book hadn't included Gigli it would've failed at the first hurdle, right?

(Side-note: I know someone who was in Leonard: Part VI, so I did particularly enjoy seeing that get a guernsey.)

Some other GR reviews appear to take issue with Adams for not beating himself up over the quality of the dreck watched, which would lead me to believe they hadn't actually read the book. Watching a year's worth of bad movies is unquestionably displayed as a bit of a shit idea, albeit one that results in moments of Stockholm Syndrome happiness. The book isn't meant to be a searing critique of why bad movies are made; it's an example of what it's like to take a hobby to its furthest extent.

No, it's not a deeply sociological work, but it never sets out to be. It's a dude watching some terrible shit, making notes and then turning it into a book that other people (who also enjoy watching terrible shit, which FUNNILY ENOUGH includes people who make good movies) will enjoy. It's not rocket science, but neither is making a scarum flick.

I laughed, I recognised movies that I've seen (and am equally weirded by the fact that Manos is currently being restored) and I felt pretty positively towards the author, who seems to find the same stuff funny as I do. It induced enough laughter and YouTube hunting to make it well worth the effort. Anyone with a healthy respect for cinema's dodginess will enjoy it.

(As an aside: The King of Marvin Gardens takes my pick for worst film and it's not listed here. You know when you intermittently doze through an in-flight film and it's as if the movie is mocking you by being the longest thing ever? That, and BRUCE DERN'S TEETH. The fact that Scatman Crothers, Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn and the cinematography of László Kovács - apparently shooting through a vaseline lens the whole time - can't save it is proof of its collapsing-star suckage. IMDB loves it though, but screw those guys.)

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Adams watched one or more bad movies every day for a solid year as an experiment/endurance test. It's almost something Morgan Spurlock would try except there's no real social comment to be made. He watched everything from the Hollywood shit you can imagine (Ishtar, Batman & Robin, Superman IV, Jaws The Revenge) to stuff on VHS that was barely feature length and often had the boom mike showing. Adams also interviews various filmmakers for their picks, which adds to his growing list. It's because of the wide range of movies that the book is a kind of mixed bag. As it went on, I got as weary as he did and some of the movies sounded horrible not just because they were bad. Adams draws the distinctions we all do between so-bad-it's-good to just bad to offensively bad. I'm relieved that of the 400 plus movies watched, I've only seen about 15-20 and I aim to keep it that way. I do have to say that the inclusion of the 1976 King Kong is simply wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. This version is better than the original and much better than the Peter Jackson. So Adams has his head up his ass on that one point. King King Lives? Fine. A bad movie. Sorry, I don't have a blog and I'm tired of that movie being shat upon. But overall, I admire Adams for putting himself through this and providing a thoughtful analysis of why certain movies don't work. A really cool idea reasonably well done.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those types of books where an author sets up a quest of some kind and seeks to fulfill it, not unlike the Year of Living Biblically and other like-minded stunt books or movies. The set-up in Michael Adams' book is that he will watch at least one bad movie per day for a year in an effort to discover the worst movie ever made.

Of course, we all know that rating a movie as the "worst ever made" is a pretty subjective judgment, so in order for this book to be worthwhile, it had better be a pretty fun journey though the year, since we know there won't be much validity in the final result. Luckily, Adams is a funny and observant writer, and he peppers his discussion of bad films with anecdotes from his personal life, his job struggles, his relationship with his wife and child, and other bits of insight. Nothing about this book is world-changing, but if you have a soft spot for bad cinema, you will find yourself nodding along with Adams as he describes various terrible movies and tries to find redeeming features in them.

On the other hand, if you don't have much stomach for bad movies, I don't imagine there is much here for you. If you never spent a Saturday afternoon watching MST3K (or even better, giving some bad movie the MST3K treatment with your friends), then maybe avoid this one. But if you've sat through Manos: The Hands of Fate on more than one occasion, then this book is for you.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Australian movie critic Michael Adams did what few cinephiles have attempted to do: to discover the worst movie ever made. In order to do so, he resolved to watch an average of one "bad" movie each day after spending time compiling a comprehensive list of bad movies from all over the internet. He uses a bingo machine to randomly select his movies each week; the movies are grouped into categories in different ways, including content, filmmaker, starring actors, or production companies. He developed a rating system on which each movie can be ranked as he chronicles his quest to find the lowest score. Adams fills the account of his year with pithy statements about many of the movies as well as tidbits of trivia about the people who made them; he also tells about his work as a movie critic (in 2007, no less, a great year for movies) and some details from his personal life along the way. Adams' anecdotes are entertaining and illuminating, and it is fun to see how his impressions of bad movies change as he watches more of them; his encounters with various figures in the bad movie industry (both critics and filmmakers alike) also provide a lot of chuckles. If you're a fan of movies at all, good or bad, this is a great read, but even movie neophytes will find enough entertainment here to make it worth the quick and light read.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book but you can see that this is effectively a blog turned into a book. Adams has some interesting and at times funny things to say about the films he watched, however the frequent interpolation of personal life moments between the film critiques does little to improve the interest in the movies and his comments about them. There were some elements within the book that worked quite well and Adams does have the capacity to deliver enough content to make a bad film fan consider him worthy of an audience. I did however have an issue with his minimal reference to the pioneers of bad movie criticism, the Medveds, plus he missed out on two of the best worst auteurs of the genre, Ray Dennis Steckler and Herschell Lewis.

A solid read but ultimately you feel like this is the Kon-Tiki World Discovery tour of Z-Grade flicks, rushing too fast past through the films whilst being regaled with personal anecdotes instead of a deeper insight into the films.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super-fun. Adams really likes movies and people who make movies, so he approaches his project with a lot of good will. And because he's a film journalist, he's able to get people to talk to him about their movies. There is also much musing about what makes a movie bad, what counts as a "movie," film history, and so forth. It's a lot of fun discovering the "worst-movie" picks of people like John Waters and David Sedaris. I've read quite a bit about weird, bad, and "psychotronic" film -- and even so, there were movies here I hadn't heard of.

I could have done with a little less about his personal life -- he's trying to do this in the format of one of those "I spent a year doing some crazy thing" books and it kind of clashes with the film orientation of his project, because watching bad movies is not something that inflects your daily life the way that trying to obey the Old Testament or what have you does.

[P. Aaron Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, in an episodic sort of way. While the author's commentary on specific films and auteurs were often amusing and enlightening (and I was both shocked and horrified to find how many of them I'd seen myself), there was never any particular conclusion. I kept anticipating some sort of 'summing up' of either the experience or the author's insights into film. Something, perhaps, could have been made of the fact that many critics find movies like Titanic or Star Wars episode I or (my personal bogeyman) Forrest Gump to be just as awful as Corpse Grinders 2. But nothing was made of it, leaving all the real mental work up to the audience. Again, it made for interesting discussion with my wife, but I'm not sure how well it worked as a book. More like a blog with covers.

[Daria · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging read, because Michael Adams is a man who knows how to love a bad movie while still knowing it's a bad movie.

The only real proble with the book is the number of films he watches (compared to the length of the book). Given he spent a year watching bad films (and talking to professionals about them), of course there's a lot to cover. But sometimes it feels like his commentary on a film is just getting going when it's time to switch to something else. Some movies even get a few-word description that cries out for more detail that never comes.

The ideal presentation of this book would be to be able to watch the clips as Adams talks about them - of course, as he wrote it, this was a limitation of technology and money, not his witty writing ability.

[Pandora · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing I like better than reading about film is reading about BAD film. Michael Adams' does a stellar (if slightly dangerous) job in watching at least one bad film every day for a year in order to determine the answer to one of life's great puzzles; what IS the worst film ever made? Aside from the dud movies themselves, Adams also writes about film in general, film history, chats to some cinema greats and reminds us to be grateful for the patience of partners/husbands/ wives.(Maybe I should get Nat to read this.) A great read, and surely not the last word on the subject.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun look at all the terrible movies we love. I have a whole watch list now from this book.

[Maven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love year long quest books. Usually they inspire me, and while I enjoyed this book, there was nothing that inspired me to do a year looking for the worst of anything, Mr Adams is welcome to it!

[Yael · Rating 5 out of 5]

On New Year's Day 2007, Michael Adams embarked on what had to have been a quest so scary even Indiana Jones would have turned it down: the hunt for the worst movie of all time. The result: one of the funniest books of all time, not to mention the best instruction manual on how to get the most out of pop culture I've ever run across.

What can you say about really, really, REALLY terrible movies? For one solid year, Australian film critic Michael Adams watched at least one and, on some days, three or more of the world's great treasures of cinematic schlock, trying to find out which of them has to be the all-time worst movie ever made. A cross between "The Town Dump Goes to the Movies" and everything that went wrong on Apollo XIII, Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies chronicles the hilarious story of Adams on the hunt for the cinematic equivalent of Chernobyl. And what he has to say about his adventures along the way is one of the best reads which this reviewer has had in a long, long time.

Actual examples from the book:

target="_blank">Inchon (1980), produced by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church

"Nor do we care for Olivier's hewn-from-ham Colossus [General Douglas MacArthur:]. At the outset, the general has to get over the notion that, at seventy-one, he's too old for this war shit. His doting wife helps by saying things like, 'If there's anyone who can save this world you know it just has to be you.' Mac accepts his burden and parts with a hilarious blend of the historic and domestic. 'I know, don't say it, I shall return -- but not too late for dinner!" -- p. 53

target="_blank">White Pongo (1945)

"A full day of work beckons, then a screening for The Movie Show, then dinner with Clare and then, eyes bugging out, I watch 1945's White Pongo, a Poverty Row cheapie also recommended by Landis, this time as a bad-bad flick. It's directed by Sam Newfield of Tiny Town fame. No midgets this time -- just plenty of cheery racism as great white hunters track down an albino gorilla believed to be the missing link . . . because he's smarter than his darker-furred brethren. This brainy honky gorilla develops a kidnap-happy crush on the white girl in the expedition . . . despite the jungle being filled with luscious African babes. But it's the dark-skinned men who're really insulted, particularly the lead 'porter boy' whose name (I shit you not) is Mumbo Jumbo. This film is set in the Congo, meaning this is White Pongo from the Congo, featuring Mumbo Jumbo. If only Oingo Boingo had been around to do the soundtrack." -- pp. 128-129

One unexpected side-benefit was that Adams's heroic descent into the very bowels of Hollywood brought back fond memories this reviewer has of such treats as target="_blank">Bordello of Blood (1996), which, directed by Gilbert Adler and, erm, hosted by the Cryptkeeper, tells the story of a funeral parlor that moonlights as a vampire bordello, quite possibly the silliest fang-fest to ever hit the silver screen, and a Japanese-made plutonium turkey the title of which I have unfortunately (?) forgotten, the plot of which had to do with a crew of intrepid Heroic Astronauts dressed up in silver lamé and, in the case of the lady Astronauts, white and ivory tulle and lace who were hell-bent on forestalling the plans of the Evil Galactic Emperor, who was for some reason ensconced on Venus, from destroying the universe. Or whatever. (That second weird delight had one gorgeous visual effect that lifted it straight out of the Absolute Drek category and into some Empyrean of Misplaced Angels: shots of the spaceship flown by the Heroic Astronauts first descending from space onto the surface of Venus and then, after the Heroic Astronauts had defeated the Evil Galactic Emperor and banished him forever to Lower Slobbovia or maybe to whatever galactic haunt Lord Xenu occupied, ascending once more back into space. The visuals of Venus were absolutely beautiful, like something which target="_blank">Chesley target="_blank">Bonestell might have painted in his prime if he had then known what is known now about the actual conditions on Earth's Evil Planetary Twin. Damn, but I wish I could remember the title of the damned thing!)


This is truly a work for the ages, one copies of which ought to be placed in every time capsule we've ever created and buried for future generations to dig up. If nothing else, it would prove to our descendants, or, anyway, who- or whatever inherits our poor, battered world after we've all gone to whatever ultimate reward (?) is our due and left the planet to them, that we were honest about our most idiotic cultural follies. Even stupidly honest. And, above all, hilariously honest.

[Craven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy spent a year watching at least one bad movie a day in order to find the worst movie of all time. I'm usually a little put-off by the whole I'm-going-to-do-this-for-this-length-of-time genre of memoir. usually, it's just some aging hipster jerk-off who has an essay-length idea filibustering for 250 pages. However, Adams was a movie critic before he took on this quest and it's a subject that I am, in spite of my own intellectual shame, obsessed with (not because I like watching bad movies, but because I like watching bad movies enough to read about them). Just a while back I did a zine project where I watched at least a horror movie a day as a springboard to write about the subject. So, if I had just thought of this idea i would've had a book, but I also would have had to watch a bad movie a day, which, I am not willing to do and applaud Adams for. He actually, turns down interviewing movie stars and other movie critic resume building stuff just to watch bad movies that night, seriously...dedication.
I had some trouble getting into this book. There was a weird flow to the sentences that made me have to go back and read them over that I found frustrating. I'm not sure that if was because of the writing, the editing or just my brain works but I had a hard time at first. There were also times where Adams would give us fact or make a statement that was interesting and then he's abandon it altogether, either because he's assuming that reader knows what he's talking about or maybe just to keep things moving. This also really bugged me. Once I got into the flow, though, I had a lot of fun with this.
He doesn't just wax on about bad movies, he also hunts down directors and actors for interviews and does a ton of research. Whenever, he interviews an actor or director (for his daytime job as a critic) he asks them what they think is the worst movie and the best so-bad-it's-good movie and then hunts down these titles. He interviews bad movie obsessed directors like Joe Dante. It's great fun. I was kind of sad it was over.

[Jeffrey Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird hybrid that the author did not completely pull off. It's not a guide to bad movies Adams watched in a one year period, and some movies are skimmed over as he races to watch a bad movie everyday, but as a memoir it's top heavy with descriptions of movies he did watch and little about the effects this had on his wife and 18-month old daughter. He is funny at times and the list of movies he watched is fascinating in itself but I think this is a book that doesn't know what it wants to be. In the acknowledgements page Adams says his editor helped him pare this book down from a telephone book size to its current length. I realize memoirs have a general length of 300 pages or so. I doubt that is codified anywhere but it seems to be a rule generally followed. But it harms here as we seem to be missing more personal stories of how his family reacted to all of this. He says his wife was very supportive, but halfway through the year she loses her job. Later she finds employment, but we learn of her job loss and then blithely move on to the next rotten celluoid fiasco. WTF? It is neither hot nor cold, it is tepid and not very appealing. I would like to have read some of his wife's thoughts on all of this as well. It was fun to read but I did feel its lack all through. We certainly don't need another oversized guide-book to these movies and I would have liked less movies and more personal here. But that's just me.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

To me, this book drowned in its own premise. To watch a bad movie a day, comment on the movie while holding a full-time job was too ambitious. The book and the writing suffers from this resulting in too many blurbs about awful movies with little insight or comic undertones. Micheal Adams adds some elements from his personal life as a magazine writer and new father to try to change up the pace but it does not prevent the movies from melding into one another and getting lost in the journey. Maybe a movie a week would have been a more realistic challenge. The writing also suffers from this ambitious schedule and the book is full of errors making it difficult to follow some of the writers few thoughts or asides. The book does cover numerous decades and even some A-listers feature strongly on the list, so he is fair in his pursuits. But by the time he gets to the end of his quest and chooses the worst movie ever - decided by a complex scoring system - I was left not quite sure why this movie scored less than any other and really couldn't remember much about it. Making me wonder why I bothered to read so much about something so bad. In the end this book was like the movies it graded; started with good intentions but poorly executed and not fun enough to be good in it's badness.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This odyssey through a more than a year's worth of bad movies is interesting in its discussions of the movies, as well as how the project affects the author's life.
The book's focus on being a diary is at odds with its stated goal of finding the worst movie of all time, as it ends up giving shorter shrift to the movies themselves in exchange for covering the author's life. As well, there are references to his scoring system, with a brief description at the beginning, and some of the point scores for the movies throughout, but it's not consistent in its usage, and the subjectiveness of his ratings is confusing - is he looking for the best-worst movie (so bad it's good enjoyable), or the worst-worst movie (so bad it should never be watched)? Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other.
This is a journal, not a reference. If you go into it like that, it'll be more enjoyable - enjoy the movies vicariously rather than suffering through them yourself, or sympathize over the ones you've seen. It's an interesting journey, but it doesn't transcend its own limited goals.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adams does a MASTERFUL job of plumbing the depths of cinematic depravity, laziness, and mediocrity in his search to find the worst movie ever made. Covering a wide array of genres and subgenres -- from horror to exploitation to gross-out comedy to vanity projects -- and sparing no expense or effort, Adams makes good on his pledge to watch AT LEAST 365 movies in the course of a year. While doing so, he manages to discover some forgotten gems lost in obscurity, and other pieces of dreck that should have remained forgotten.

This is a MUST-READ for any fan of B-movies, SyFy Originals, MST3K, *or* serious movie fan. Only by experiencing the worst can we truly appreciate the great -- and sometimes the "bad" movies provide much more entertainment than the award-winning and acclaimed.

Written with plenty of humor and healthy doses of both bile *and* respect, "Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies" is great fun. A+, two thumbs way up.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The gf found this while browsing B&N randomly, and it instantly sparked my interest. My group of friends and I are big fans of bad movies, mainly ones so bad they transcend their own crappyness and entertain. Thankfully, it nice to see that we're not alone. For fans of terrible movies, this read will give you enough ammo to last your a long time.

For one year, film critic Michael Adams begins a personal quest of finding the worst movie ever created. Weaving parts of his personal life, research on the creation of some of these films, as well as actual reviews of them, this book can serve as almost a bad movie bible. From Troll 2, Breaking'2, to Plan 9 from Out Space, it's all there. What I appreciate is Adams understand that there are so bad that they are good movies, and just plan bad and he distinguishes them accurately.

If you are a fan of bad movies or simply curious, this is a solid read.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldnt recommend reading this to someone who doesnt like movies, or cant appreciate a bad movie. I can appreciate a bad movie. I wholly love bad movies. 30 days of night? BRILLIANT. Hot Shots 2? CLASSIC. SPice World? should be owned by every baby sitter in the world. Josie and the Pussycats. I dont even know where to start!. I also love to hate bad movies. Captain AMerica? Captain cheeeeeese. Pirates of the carrribean 3? when will it be over????.

If you appreciate Ed Wood, Burt Reynolds, Grindhouse, and ANYsploitation flicks, OR know a single line from TMNT or Super Mario Brothers? This book is totally for you. His writing style is affable and familiar. You really feel for him when he sits through three Paris Hilton flicks. But most of all? it kind of makes your bad movie obsession get worse as you consider seeing some of these movies (if you havent already).

Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. Fine Holiday Fun (yes, its a movie line).

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the course of an entire year, an Australian film critic watches the worst movies ever made, including "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "The Room," "Troll 2," several "Mystery Science Theater 3000" offerings, and the entire Uwe Boll filmography. He provides extensive research on some crazy directors, gets some interviews with repeat offenders, and acquires "favorite bad movie" recommendations from John Landis, Eli Roth, and some MST3kers themselves. The concept itself is pretty ambitious and he gets off a lot of good jokes making fun of them, but there is too much authorial intrusion describing how the bad-movie-watching affects his wife and baby, which probably added about 25 pages and I found annoying.

[Ruby Tombstone Lives! · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read this cover to cover, mostly because I collect these types of books as reference material. I like to have them handy and look up bits and pieces to add to my knowledge of whatever movie I'm watching at the time. This book isn't intended as a reference book though - it's one person's story of their experience in watching a whole lot of movies and determining which is the "worst". Adams has a very different sensibility to mine when it comes to films, his rating system isn't what I would use and the movies he chose wouldn't have been my choices.....so, not all that helpful to me! If I trawl through the narrative, I can find the odd tidbit of trivia that's worth knowing, but there are books that do this a lot better.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable and funny. Michael Adams is a reveiwer for Rotten Tomatoes (he was working for Austraila's edition of Empire at the time of his bad-movie binge) so not only do we get his take on >365 howlers but he also interviews some of the best "bad movie" auteurs around.

Confession: I have seen "Showgirls" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", two of the movies he saw that year. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is actually entertaining; "Showgirls" is pretty painful (I will never, ever get the image of Elizabeth Berkeley snorting the BIGGEST pile of coke off her giant faux fingernail; blech).

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a person who loves extremely bad movies, this book was super enjoyable. Not only did I find some fantastic recommendations for future bad movies, but I was also justified in my hatred for Ben and Arthur. The author also provided interesting bits about his life, and it helped me feel empathy for the book's author. The only problem would be the fact the book jumps around a bit, and I wished he had talked longer about some of the movies he watched. If you love watching bad but enjoyable movies, this book is for you. If you want to start watching bad but enjoyable movies, this is definitely a book you should pick up

[Terry Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant enough time-killer about bad movies that would normally have earned a three-star review, but I had to add another because Adams actually watched Rollergator and lived to tell the tale. Yes, Rollergator is just ... wretched, and shot on non hi-def video as well. The version I saw came with the Rifftrax trio of Mike, Kevin and Bill struggling to make fun of this abomination, and finally giving up in frustration.

Regardless, this is a fun book to read, but beware of some of the films the author chooses to write about - they sound more amusing then they actually are, so proceed with caution.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. A Mr Adams spent the year watching at least 1 "bad" movie, he started with the IMDB bottom 100. The book is split up over the 12 months, so each chapter gives us a little window into his life then we get mini reviews of each movie he watched. He is a professional critic so its not your average guy on the ground watching the movies. He is watching them with a professional eye.
My main complaint about the book is it gets kinda dry and a lot of the movies kind blend together. I wish he would have given us a more a glimpse of his life.