5 Hilariously Awful Sci-Fi Movies That You Need To Watch
Believe it or not, science fiction tales are hard to get right. Sure, any story is difficult, but when you add a layer of non-reality to the mix, it has the potential to alienate the audience more than a grounded story could. Add in the fact that lots of science fiction fans can’t tell the difference between good ideas and worlds and good stories. Very often one is nixed in favor of the other, and the result tends to be embarrassing.
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Sadly, not all science fiction movies could be deeply moving or beloved as Blade Runner, Arrival, Interstellar, or The Matrix. However, that’s not to say they’re not worth your time. Sometimes movies can be so bad that they reach a whole new level of enjoyment.
Today, we figured we’d celebrate the release of Blade Runner 2049 with 5 hilariously awful sci-fi movies you need to see.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzrzxnPKLtA
This one is the granddaddy of all bad sci-fi movies. Written, produced, directed, and edited by the infamous Edward Wood Jr., this stands as a testament of terrible films. Where to begin? Plan 9 From Outer Space tells the story of extraterrestrials who come to Earth in hopes of convincing them from creating a powerful doomsday weapon. When negotiations fail, they resort to “Plan 9,” which entails resurrecting the dead.
Despite the silly plot, the film still managed to take itself way too seriously. Plus, even setting that aside, its production quality was awful. Sets were flimsy, lighting was terrible, the acting just as bad, and the way it was cut together was nonsensical. There was a jarring juxtaposition between Wood’s footage and stock footage, and most distractingly, it contained random footage at the beginning of actor Bela Lugosi, who died prior to the film even getting shot.
Rather than scrap the Lugosi footage, Wood decided to used it, and decided to have the character live on with another actor who spends the rest of the film covering his face with his cape. He almost tricked us.
They Saved Hitler’s Brain
Honestly, the story behind this one is more interesting than watching the film itself. The movie takes place after World War II (obviously), and follows the interesting idea of “what would happen if the Nazis saved Adolf Hitler’s head and tried to bring back the Third Reich decades later?” That old story. The film was originally produced as Madmen of Mandoras (Mandoras being the fictional South American country where they decided to take Hitler’s head), and it was only when the film was adapted for TV five years later that it found its new name.
Even more interestingly, the distributor wanted to make the movie longer, and in order to do so on the cheap, they hired a bunch of UCLA students to shoot it. Somehow, the footage the students shot looks like it was shot on video — long before video was even a thing. They don’t even try to match the style the original, and it only adds to the oddity of the whole thing when you cut from shots of the reshoots to shots of the real film.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-y53CRSF9Q
Now time to get a bit more modern. Have you ever watched The Birds and said to yourself, “I want to see this remade in the present day, and I want it to be unbearably awful?” If so, this is exactly what the doctor ordered. The film plays as half like an stupid romance, and half like a haphazard cautionary tale of global warming.
In addition to the wooden acting and hilarious script, b features some of the worst visual effects this side of Reboot. It would be one thing if they were taking a Jaws-like approach to the birds here, but director James Nguyen allows the camera to linger for awkwardly long periods of time, allowing for viewers to see full well that these birds are super fake.
The film got a sequel, but it never reached the same mammoth success of the original.
If you’re interested to hear more about the film’s production, Vice did a great documentary on it last year that you can check out below:
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The Happening
![The Happening Trailer [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bCyLcrYDAgQ/hqdefault.jpg)
Many people point to either The Village or Lady in the Water as the films where M. Night Shyamalan’s career took a nosedive off a cliff. I point to The Happening, which was a film that chronicled a “happening” where people all around the world start to mysteriously commit mass suicide. Unlike most people, I actually really enjoyed The Happening, but for all the wrong reasons. With the exception of the production value behind it, everything about it just reeked of an amateur B-movie director. The dialogue was oddly written, his actors (great actors) gave strange performances, and the plot made little to no sense. It basically checked all the boxes of my favorite horrible films.
Looking back on it now, I’m not convinced this was a complete accident. At the time, Shyamalan repeated that he really was going for a B-movie, and it something he still sticks to. Some may think this is him covering up his mess, but I’m not convinced. The choices made by some of the actors (including Mark Wahlberg and his infamous “What? No!” line were just too out of left field to be an accident, right? I’d like to think that Shyamalan has good enough taste to realize when it borders on incompetence. Perhaps the joke was just too tongue-in-cheek to be successful here. At least that’s what I hope.
Transmorphers
Back when video rental places were a thing, you’d always stumble across those movies who were made as nothing but cheap cash grabs to prey on unknowledgeable moviegoers who picked them up thinking they were the real deal. I remember coming across plenty of films that made their covers look like Lord of the Rings or The Matrix, and I can only imagine what happened when the poor saps took those movies home with them. One of my favorite films was Transmorphers, which was made to capitalize on Michael Bay’s Transformers film (in case you couldn’t tell).
But if you thought the plot was made to even resemble Transformers, you’d be wrong. No. It’s far worse. It takes place either 300 or 400 years in the future (the film and the trailer can’t seem to agree on this point) after humanity has been driven underground by robot-wielding aliens, and follows their attempts to regain their planet. While ambitious in nature, it’s ultimately too hard to take seriously. Its visual effects look more at home on a PS1 than in a movie, and the story has virtually no heft to it, though it’s not for a lack of trying. If you check this one out, I highly recommend you do so with a good drinking game in mind.
Honorable Mention: Post Impact
Do you like disaster movies with overly-serious plots and sex scenes that are of no consequence to the narrative? Post Impact may be up your alley then. The reason it didn’t make this list is that despite being a bad movie, it’s kind of boring to watch, which is a shame. Sure, there was one character who popped up, and was incredibly interesting, but then was killed off two minutes later. Ultimately, it was forgettable, but for one reason or another, this one still stuck with me. Perhaps it was seeing Dean Cain in action after so many years. Oh yeah. Did I mention Dean Cain was in this?
What are some of your favorite bad sci-fi movies? Let us know down below!
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