Teen Witch (1989)

As someone who watches a lot of movies with questionable quality, I can tell you that there are highs and lows. No two highs are the same. No two lows are the same. But the mixture of them builds an entire landscape. The peaks and the valleys. Those bad movies that are enjoyable, and the others that feel like a chore to get through.

Over time, I’ve categorized movies into four different zones. There are the good-good movies. These movies look and feel professionally made, even if they were low budget and independent. Essentially, they are well done technically and emotionally. The bad-good movies were well done technically, but fumbled the stuff that would make a movie enjoyable. Good-bad were the opposite, where the technical side wasn’t particularly well done, yet the entertainment was up there. I don’t necessarily believe in so bad it’s good, but this would be the closest to that. Or something that’s poorly made and filled with heart could fit here. Then there are the bad-bad movies that were poorly done all around. The deepest valleys.

My goal in this post is to figure out where Teen Witch fits into this landscape. Is it a peak or a valley? Louise (Robyn Lively) was a fifteen-year-old girl who was basically an outcast at school. She skipped a grade and wasn’t seen as a peer by her classmates. When she turned sixteen, she discovered she had magic powers. Louise used this magic to gain popularity and love, before tossing the powers aside because Brad (Dan Gauthier) should love her for her, not because of a spell.

On the surface, Teen Witch was your basic coming-of-age story. With magic. It was reminiscent of a girl’s version of Teen Wolf. That makes sense. From what I found, it was originally intended to be a spin-off of the 1980s Teen Wolf before becoming its own thing. The structure of the story didn’t scream anything but decent.

The production value backed that up. The lighting was good, particularly in the dance dream sequence that opened the movie. The locations and sets were all good quality with solid set dressing and design. The costuming and hairstyling and makeup were all good. The foundation was laid for a solid little movie. Maybe it was a little underbudgeted, which showed through the cast, but otherwise, it seemed like everything was there for something solid. And you kind of got it, but quality is a funny thing.

You see, my mind and heart tell me that Teen Witch should go firmly into the Good-Bad category. Based on my definition, that means that the technical stuff was bad. I just told you there weren’t any major flaws with Teen Witch. But did I? I said that it looked fine. I said it had a good framework with the coming-of-age story. What didn’t I say? What did I leave out that kept everything from coming together? You’ll have to read between the lines a little bit to notice the glaring gap in what I wrote. The one piece on the technical side of things that brought the whole house of cards down. The story concept was fine. It was the details in Teen Witch’s script that took the movie off the rails. In a good way, though. It was entertainingly bonkers.

This might start sounding like a fever dream. I’m telling you that now. I’m going to get into the specific moments of the movie that felt a little… off. There’s no real order to these bits. I’m going to start with Louise’s brother, who showed up immediately after Louise woke from the opening dance dream. Richie (Joshua Miller) was introduced to audiences while solo eating a giant chocolate cake under Louise’s bed. In a later scene, their parents were out, and he made a disaster of food in the kitchen. This character was all about food. Richie and Lousie argued in the disastrous kitchen before she turned him into a dog while he repeatedly called her a dog. That was followed by the weirdest voicework I’ve heard for a dog in a long time. The last Richie thing I want to mention is when he popped up to serve Louise, then brought her a school assignment that he ironed for her. Yes, he freshly ironed her homework. Weird kid, that Richie.

Next up, Louise’s dating stories. There are two of them that I want to make note of. The first came when she hadn’t yet found popularity and was only starting to realize her powers. She got paired up with an obnoxious nerd type for the high school dance. All he talked about was wanting to get up in her while his voice was somewhere between Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds. After one too many advances, Louise told him to leave her alone and he straight up vanished from the car he was driving. Louise needed to quick think to make sure she didn’t die in the car.

The other bit of dating life wasn’t quite as magical. Louise brought Brad over to study. She was going to cast a love spell on him but chickened out. No magic was actually used. There was a little bit of manipulation, though. Louise wanted Brad to sit on the bed with her, so she hid all the chairs away in her closet. Everyone kept coming into her room to ask where the chairs were and she kept having to think of new excuses. It was another odd scene among all the odd scenes that made up Teen Witch.

You may be asking how Louise knew about the love spell that she wanted to cast on Brad. Well, she had a mentor. Zelda Rubinstein played Madame Serena Alcott, a witch who knew Louise from a previous life in Salem. She taught Louise how to harness her power, but also wanted to use Louise’s power for her own gain. Namely, she wanted to spruce up her house and turn her frog into a man she could bed down with. It’s not beastiality if the animal is a human now, right? In the end, Louise realized she didn’t want to be as superficial as her mentor and decided not to use her magic that way. She would be herself and not influence anyone.

Being herself led to strange things, though. Earlier in the movie, all the popular girls harassed her by doing a choreographed dance number to a song called “I Like Boys” in the locker room at school. It wasn’t a musical number because there was no singing. Just dancing. It felt like a music video had been inserted into the movie without any real thought. I wasn’t entirely sure why it was happening in that moment. I’m still not sure.

Louise’s teacher harassed her even more than her peers. He read her diary aloud to the class. He dug through her purse and showed everyone her belongings, including her birth control. The guy was a huge asshole. Until Louise humbled him, that is. She made a giant voodoo doll and used it to make him strip in front of the class. Yeah, there were some moments that felt ripped right out of an 80s sex comedy. The voodoo doll came up again when it fell down the stairs and the teacher then fell down a set of stairs. It made one more appearance when Louise’s mom threw it into the washer. The teacher followed suit by walking into a car wash. What a guy. What a punishment.

I almost forgot to mention the rap battle involving the song “Top That” and Louise’s best friend, Polly (Mandy Ingber). Louise didn’t only use her magic on herself. Polly had a crush on the leader of a three-white-man rap clique. These three guys would be standing in a corner anywhere, just rapping away. They rapped at Louise on her first day of school at the lockers. This scene had them rapping in the middle of the street, next to a parked car. Polly mentioned liking the guy. Louise used her spell to make Polly into a rap genius who went and duetted with the guy before getting on her bike and riding away. I don’t know if the two ever actually got together, but they had a memorable rap scene that anyone who has seen Teen Witch will talk about.

Teen Witch was filled with a whole bunch of insanity. The foundation of the story was a solid one. It was built as a coming-of-age story where the teenager had magical powers. The intentions were good. However, the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. There was a sex comedy style of writing that created a bunch of insane scenes and moments. It brought down the quality of the script. The technical side of Teen Witch wasn’t as good as initially thought. Everything was serviceable, but the script was bad. It was a bad movie, thanks to the writing.

I would still argue for the good-bad classification, though. The insanity may have brought down the quality of the script, but it made the overall movie much more entertaining and memorable. Based on the definition I gave off the top, that’s the correct category. The technical were good in moments and bad in moments. Nothing blew it out of the water. It was entertaining the whole way though. That’s some underwhelming technical and great entertainment. In the landscape of bad movies, it’s a peak. Not as high as Everest, but a peak all the same.

I’ve watched a lot of bad movies in my time, especially while writing this blog. I’ve come up with four categories that encapsulate 99.99% of the film landscape. I don’t know why I did this. I don’t know when I did this. All I know is that this is how my mind works, and this blog is my way to share my thoughts with you. The few people who actually read this. Thank you.

I’m going to leave you with some notes to finish things off here:

• Teen Witch featured Darcy DeMoss, who was previously featured in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! and Hardbodies.
• Not to be outdone, another three-timer was Jimmy Keegan, who was in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Over the Top, and Teen Witch.
• Then there was the other Jimmy. Jimmy Locust was in Teen Witch, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and She’s Out of Control.
• Two other actors from She’s Out of Control were in Teen Witch. They were Megan Gallivan and Gary Schwartz.
• Teen Witch featured Tina Caspary from Mac and Me.
• Rita Wilson made a small appearance in Teen Witch. You might remember her for her larger role in Jingle All the Way.
• Dan Gauthier played Dan in Teen Witch. He also popped up in Son in Law.
• Teen Witch saw the return of Brett Baxter Clark to Sunday “Bad” Movies, following a first appearance in Malibu Express.
• Blood Diner and Teen Witch both featured Jared Chandler.
• Finally, Zelda Rubinstein was maybe the most recognizable actor in Teen Witch. She was also in Southland Tales.
• Have you seen Teen Witch? What did you think of it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you don’t want to put them there, you can always find me on Threads or Bluesky as well.
• You can use the comments, Threads, or Bluesky to let me know what movies I should be checking out for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always open to suggestions.
• The final thing to do is give you guys a heads up for what’s coming soon to a Sunday “Bad” Movies blog near you. I’ve got two movies lined up. The first one is a little movie called War of the Worlds. You know, the one from last month. The one that everyone already says is one of the worst movies ever. That one. After that, I’ve got a little movie called The Octagames. Clearly a play on Squid Game. Yeah, I’ll be getting into the horror with that one. We’re close enough to spooky season and I never know when these posts will be up, so that’ll be the start of horror for a bit here. Or Halloween-ish stuff. Who knows if it will all be horror? Anyway, see you next time for War of the Worlds.

God's Not Dead: In God We Trust (2024) and the Franchise's Different Christian Persecution Storylines

I started writing Sunday “Bad” Movies posts in December 2012. That’s nearly thirteen years ago. Over that time, I’ve seen a myriad of bad movies, as well as some surprisingly good ones. I’ve watched one-offs and I’ve seen franchises. I’ve followed some actors through their bad movie careers, while there are some I still need to touch upon. It’s all in the name of learning about film in general.

One of the more enduring staples of Sunday “Bad” Movies has been the God’s Not Dead franchise. It took me a while to get into it. Over 200 posts, in fact. But once I was in, the franchise kept coming back. I was four and a half years into Sunday “Bad” Movies when I watched the first two. I watched each subsequent sequel as they were released. I guess you could say that’s my thing. I even ventured outside the franchise to check out Brother White, another religious movie featuring David A.R. White. Then I got around to what may have been his origin, Second Glance. There’s something about that man’s movie charisma that keeps pulling me back in.

The God’s Not Dead franchise are your stereotypical Christian propaganda movies. They don’t dive into historical Christian dramatizations. They aren’t that sort of story. God’s Not Dead and its four sequels are that type of Christian movie where people tell Christians they’re not allowed to believe in God. Yeah, this franchise is all about the persecution complex that flows through the entire Christian film genre. It might be the best at it, too. Sure, there are some missteps in each of the movies. Some things that might come down to ideologies being different. But they do a good job of coming up with interesting conflicts.

I’m honestly a little surprised that they managed to tell a different story within the confines of Christian persecution in each instalment. I’m even more surprised they managed to bring something interesting each time, too. I’m not going to outright say the movies are good. The persecution of Christians has never, in modern society, been as bad as the movies make it out to be. Or as miraculous.

God’s Not Dead began as a simple story that could have worked well outside the Christian audience if it were tweaked just slightly. And if all the surrounding “cancer cured by prayer” and “Christianity is better than Islam” stuff was removed. At its core, the first movie was about a philosophy professor telling his students that they could no longer believe in God, and the one student who refused to conform to this demand. Had the story positioned itself as a conflict about the freedom to believe, it would have been a perfect, captivating story. It didn’t do that. 

God’s Not Dead saw the student guest lecturing for three classes in a debate with the professor. These lectures should have been about the aforementioned freedom of belief. Allow people to believe in whatever they chose. That would have been a universal theme that could have garnered a bigger audience. It wouldn’t be a Christian movie, though. The Christian filmmakers had to position themselves as the sole victim. The student argued about why God was real, essentially turning his trilogy of lectures into sermons to convert his classmates. The basis was there for a strong story about a teacher infringing upon people’s rights, but the Christian part of the Christian persecution complex brought it down.

God’s Not Dead 2 might have had the strongest conflict of the entire franchise. There were still some flaws as the inherently Christian story was pushed too far into the persecution side of things. A high school teacher was in court because of a classroom incident. A student who was exploring her religious beliefs asked the teacher about a comparison between a historical event and a Biblical event. The teacher answered the question with the relation between the events. Another student reported it and BOOM! A court case was opened because the teacher didn’t respect the boundaries within the separation of church and state.

The thing that held God’s Not Dead 2 back was how hard they hit the Christian persecution angle. The movie would have been fine as a court case involving the use of religion in a public school lesson, even though the teacher was just answering a question her student had. They took it a few steps further, though. The opposing lawyer had to declare he was using the case to “prove once and for all that God is dead.” He demanded they prove the Bible was historically accurate. They weren’t going after the teacher for her lesson as much as they were going after Christianity for existing.

Another storyline in God’s Not Dead 2 was that the government wanted Pastor Dave to turn over his sermons. He refused to share them, which led to his arrest at the conclusion of the film. I don’t know how accurate that is to reality, but it only helped to reinforce the persecution of Christians. It also led into the opening of the third God’s Not Dead movie.

God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness may not have had the strongest conflict, but it put an interesting spin on the Christian persecution stuff that permeated throughout the franchise. It made the third God’s Not Dead movie the most palatable. Pastor Dave was released from prison in time to see his campus church be vandalized. An angry student threw a brick through a window and started a fire. This coincided with the college’s decision to remove the church from campus grounds. Pastor Dave hired his lawyer brother to help him fight the school so he could keep the church.

There was a self-awareness to God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness that wasn’t present in the rest of the franchise. Yeah, it was still a movie about a pastor fighting against a college that wanted to remove Christianity from their campus. That Christian persecution complex was still there. The self-awareness made it feel different, though. It ended up not being a story about stopping belief. The lesson was about people having an equal opportunity to find faith, rather than have one faith pushed upon them. Pastor Dave was in the wrong for most of the movie. They never shied away from that fact. He even assaulted the vandal. He was not a heroic figure in this story, which made things more interesting. God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness was interesting because Pastor Dave learned that all faiths deserve to have followers, and his followers would come to Christianity no matter where his church was. It was humbling, in a way, to the Christian persecution complex that plagued the series.

Three movies. Three different ways that people tried to keep Christians from worshipping God. Or so the Christian audience would have you believe. Surely, the people behind the franchise would run into some repetition if they kept going. Not so fast. God’s Not Dead: We the People took the fight to congress. Pastor Dave led a bunch of church-sanctioned homeschooling. When a federal representative deemed their curriculum not up to governmental standards, he headed to Washington to fight the government in the capitol for their rights to homeschool their way.

If I remember correctly, a lot of the conflict was based on the whole science versus religion argument. Evolution and that sort of stuff. God’s Not Dead: We the People felt like the most fabricated conflict for the sake of Christian persecution. Each of these movies pulled from real stories, exaggerating them to pull on the persecution complex strings to their fullest extent. There are real stories of students being told they can’t be religious at school, or teachers getting in trouble for talking about religion. Colleges are moving away from having only one religion on campus due to inclusivity. These things are happening, though not to the extremes that these movies made them out to be. There has not, however, been a targeted governmental assault on religion in homeschooling. Between that wholly fabricated story and this instalment being kind of boring, it was time for a change.

That change would come in the form of God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. The fifth film in the franchise would move away from the education thread that flowed through the first four movies, and dive fully into politics. Pastor Dave (David A.R. White) was enlisted to run in an election against Peter Kane (Ray Wise). Kane wanted to do all the right things. Tax churches, allow universal healthcare, make sure laws weren’t written in the name of God. But he went about it through mudslinging and manipulation. Pastor Dave, on the other hand, wanted to get elected to help his church, and he wouldn’t compromise his beliefs or his friendliness to do it. He thought honesty and openness was the best path. As much as his campaign manager wanted to tone down his religious side, it was a part of him. His honesty and openness required all of him. People would elect the real him, not a fabricated image of himself that hid key parts of who he was. And he wasn’t going to say anything bad about his opponent.

God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust changed things up in two major ways. First, it dropped the education thread that had been the backbone of every conflict in the series thus far. The other major change was that it didn’t attempt to play the story off as true. Sure, it somewhat satirized how broken the US political system is, and that things need to change. But it wasn’t some real story about how someone’s religious beliefs were being infringed upon. Outside of the bookend storyline about a church shelter that was being shut down. God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust mostly eschewed the Christian persecution complex and the education system for an election campaign storyline with a religious character. I guess, five movies in, the Christian persecution complex finally felt a little too tired to be the main focus of another movie.

The God’s Not Dead franchise has been going for over a decade. Five movies in eleven years. It is a franchise that has thrived off the Christian persecution complex. That hooked the audience the first time around. The Christian audience wanted to be the underdog fighting against the people putting them down. Somehow, the franchise kept finding new fights to be fought, mostly by the same pastor from the same Arkansas church. The fact that they’ve kept the franchise going as long as they have is a (new) testament to the Christian audiences’ appetites to watch movies where they can vicariously fight back against the anti-Christian forces that be. I’m curious how long it will be until they run out of causes for Pastor Dave to fight for.

I’ve been writing Sunday “Bad” Movies posts since 2012. There are only a few movies and franchises that have stuck with me then way God’s Not Dead has. It’s not that they’re great movies. There might only be two of them that I legitimately enjoy. And I don’t agree with the Christian persecution complex. Yet there’s something about them that has a grip on me. The conflicts have potential. David A.R. White has been a good presence as Pastor Dave. If they keep finding reasons to play victim, I’ll keep watching.

The last thing to do with this post is the notes:

• I mentioned God’s Not Dead, God’s Not Dead 2, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, and God’s Not Dead: We the People in this post. I also mentioned Brother White and Second Glance. They all featured David A.R. White, who made his seventh Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust.
• Vance Null was one of the directors on God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. He also directed God’s Not Dead: We the People.
• I would like to take a moment to welcome Ray Wise into the Sunday “Bad” Movies five-timers’ club. His five movies were Big Ass Spider!, God’s Not Dead 2, Brother White, Atlas Shrugged: Part II, and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust.
• Dean Cain returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. He was previously featured in A Nanny for Christmas, God’s Not Dead, and Futuresport.
• Duncan Phillips and Michael Tait have been in the same four movies. They were in God’s Not Dead, God’s Not Dead 2, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust.
• Brad Heller showed up in God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness. He was also in God’s Not Dead 2 and Brother White.
• Scott Baio returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies with God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. He had already been in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 and Zapped!
• God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust featured Isaiah Washington following up his role in God’s Not Dead: We the People. He was also in Exit Wounds.
• God’s Not Dead: We the People and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust each featured Vincent De Paul, who was also in Sex and the City 2.
• God’s Not Dead, God’s Not Dead 2, and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust each featured Tommy Blaze, Jody Davis, and Jeff Frankenstein.
• Mike Huckabee was in God’s Not Dead 2 and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust.
• God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust each featured Segun Oduolowu.
• Finally, God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust had Kevin Downes return from God’s Not Dead: We the People.
• Have you seen God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust? Have you seen any of the movies? What are your thoughts on the franchise? You can share your thoughts in the comments, or find me on Bluesky or Threads.
• You can also drop any suggestions for movies to watch for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts in the comments, on Bluesky, or on Threads.
• Let’s end things off with a little look to the future. I’ve got the next two movies picked out already. One was Teen Witch, which I had watched while finishing up the previous Sunday “Bad” Movies post. Another movie kind of fell in my lap. It’s a new movie that everyone has been talking about because of how accessible it is and how bad it is. Yeah, the brand-new War of the Worlds movie is coming up. I’ll see you soon for both of those.

Showdown (1993)

When you think of movies that inspired things that came after, there are a few that pop into mind immediately. Die Hard was followed by a whole bunch of copycats that were called “Die Hard in a…” movies. Jaws led the way for a bunch of animal, and one lawnmower, attack movies that followed. Porky’s kicked off a sex comedy craze, while Friday the 13^th inspired a bunch of slasher movies set at summer camps. Then there was The Avengers, which made every studio think it was okay to build a cinematic universe.

One movie I didn’t know inspired so many others was The Karate Kid. It was a 1984 movie about a high school kid who moved to a new town, only to be bullied by a local karate student for befriending the bully’s girlfriend. The new kid befriended an old man who taught him karate, before the kid faced off against his bully in a tournament. It was a fairly simple story with some key elements.

The first step to having a movie that influences so many others is to branch off into a franchise. The Karate Kid had that. There were three sequels to the original that saw the mentor go to his home country, saw them essentially rehash the first movie with a new villain who worked with the original villain, and saw a new Karate Kid come in. Then there was the remake. And, finally, a legasequel that brought the originals into the same continuity as the remake. Oh, and the show, Cobra Kai. That’s out there, too.

After the franchise has been established, the other movies can happen. People either consciously or subconsciously write a story with the same beats. Maybe they moved some stuff around. Maybe they removed something or added something else. But the same story is the same story. I always say that originality comes not from the story but from how the story is told. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the same story.

Look at a movie like Showdown. This 1993 flick had Ken Marks (Ken Scott) move to a new town and enroll in a new school. He immediately fell for Julie (Christine Taylor), the girlfriend of martial arts student Tom (Ken McLeod). Tom violently bullied Ken, but Ken befriended Billy (Billy Blanks), a former cop turned school janitor, who taught him martial arts. Ken eventually went on to fight Tom in a martial arts show, and earned his bully’s respect.

That was the same story as The Karate Kid. They even had the bully’s sensei be a needlessly violent teacher who only cared about hurting the enemy. They didn’t even try to hide it. Some of the movies changed details that blurred the lines a little bit. They tried to repackage the story of The Karate Kid to make their retelling feel a little more unique. Showdown didn’t care to do that. The people behind it basically took the story, added more violence, and called it a day.

Let’s break it down in more detail. Ken was the new kid in school. He just moved to town with his single mother. This was the same start as The Karate Kid, where Daniel moved from New Jersey to California with his single mother. The schools were a little different. Daniel’s felt like a regular middle-class, bordering on upper-class movie high school. Ken’s felt like an inner-city high school that needed a new teacher to come in and clean it up. It was a stark difference that only helped to build the violent atmosphere of Showdown.

There was a little difference with who Ken met when he got to the school. Ken got a best friend for comic relief and exposition that Daniel didn’t have. After that, things went about the same. Ken met Julie. Her jealous boyfriend, Tom, was a star martial artist at a local dojo. He began tormenting Ken for talking to his girl. He relentlessly beat Ken multiple times throughout Showdown. Put a pin in that. I’ll get back to it later. Now let’s look at The Karate Kid. Daniel went to a beach party where he met Ali. Her jealous boyfriend, Johnny, a star student at a local dojo targeted and tormented Daniel for talking to Ali. He bullied and beat Daniel throughout the movie.

Before I get into more detail about the beatings, I want to get into the dojo. John Kreese was the sensei in The Karate Kid. He was an emotionally abusive Vietnam veteran who only cared about winning, at whatever cost. He went as far as to tell his students to intentionally injure Daniel during a tournament. “Sweep the leg,” he said. Compare that to Showdown. Lee ran the dojo. He was a troublemaker whose brother had been accidentally killed by police during a house party he was harassing. Yes, he and his brother harassed an entire party. He opened a dojo where he taught his students to use violent force against others. Students who slept with his assistant, but that’s beside the point. Lee wasn’t just emotionally abusive, though. He set up sanctioned matches where he would beat up his own students. He was such a great role model for Tom. No wonder Tom was messed up. That’s two abusive sensei for you.

The bullies in both The Karate Kid and Showdown each had abusive mentors. The main characters also had mentors. However, their mentors were much less abusive. Daniel had Mr. Miyagi helping him throughout The Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi was the handyman at the apartment complex Daniel and his mother moved into. He taught Daniel the ways of martial arts through waxing and painting and sanding. Menial tasks helped Daniel build defensive habits. And let’s go back to that pin that I put in the beatings a little earlier. Mr. Miyagi jumped in and fended off the bullies when Daniel was being attacked. Protector and mentor. The same could be said for Billy in Showdown. He was the janitor at Ken’s high school. He taught Ken some basic martial arts and had Ken do some cleaning. Those two weren’t related this time, outside of the cleaning being a payment for training. However, it did lead to a direct reference to The Karate Kid. On the protection front, Tom and his friends chased Ken into the school gymnasium for a beating. Billy jumped in, fended off the bullies, and ran off. Aside from how the chores connected to the training, the story beats were essentially the same in both movies.

The final thing worth mentioning about the similarities between The Karate Kid and Showdown was the ending. The Karate Kid built to a tournament where Daniel would be matched against Johnny in the finals. Through that match, Daniel earned the respect of his rival. Showdown saw Ken join a martial arts showcase at Lee’s dojo, where he would be in a match against Tom. Through that match and what directly followed it, Ken earned his rival’s respect. Yeah, they essentially had the same ending.

Now you can see all the similarities between The Karate Kid and Showdown. That’s because The Karate Kid made such an impression on people that they couldn’t help but make their own versions of that story. Showdown was the extreme version. What other versions are out there? Two come to mind immediately.

Never Back Down was a 2008 movie that shared numerous similarities. A teenager moved to a new city with his mother and brother. He discovered an underground fight club involving a bunch of students using MMA. A local gym owner from Brazil trained him so he could face off in an MMA tournament against the school bully. That bully was in a relationship with a girl the main character liked.

The story of Never Back Down was a slightly reworked version of The Karate Kid. The characters filled the same roles. The new kid was there, as was the bully, the girl, and the mentor. The only one that was really missing was the bully’s mentor. The biggest difference was the personality of the characters. The main kid was aggressive in a way that The Karate Kid didn’t feature. He was much angrier than Daniel. It was understandable, though. His father died in a drunk driving accident, and he hadn’t handled his anger over that situation well. So that was probably the biggest wrinkle in this retelling 

The other movie clearly inspired by The Karate Kid was the 2006 entry into The Fast and the Furious franchise, Tokyo Drift. A high school kid was charged by police for street racing through a construction zone and sent to live with his father in Tokyo. He was introduced to underground drift racing and soon met the girlfriend of the best drifter. The rival then went out of his way to embarrass the new kid and make his life hell. The new kid found a mentor who taught him to drive, and he eventually earned everyone’s respect.

Tokyo Drift was essentially The Karate Kid with cars. There were a few major deviations in the plot, though. Some important characters died. That didn’t happen in other tellings of this story. The main character moved in with his dad instead of moving somewhere with his mom. And, yeah, cars instead of hand-to-hand combat. Yet the essential beats were still there. The main character was a fish-out-of-water who joined some sort of battle scene. He made rivals with the boyfriend of the girl he liked. He got a mentor. He gained people’s respect through a final battle. That was the story of The Karate Kid told through a street racing franchise.

I’m sure there are more movies out there that told the same story as The Karate Kid. There are only so many stories that can be told. These were only three of the subsequent versions of this story, the three that came to mind. What I can say is that The Karate Kid was influential enough that they got made. It managed to inspire a few different filmmakers to make movies with essentially the same story to tell. They told it their own way, though, which is the important part.

Think back to when you were younger. Not necessarily when you were a child, but it could be back then, too. Think more about your formative years. Those pre-teen and teenage years where you took in as much as you could. You learned social skills from the people around you. You listened to music, watched television, played video games, and watched movies to find your tastes. You built yourself into the person you are through what you took in. Surely, some of that inspired you.

Movies inspire a lot of people. They might push you to change the course of your life. A movie might inspire you to act a certain way, talk a certain way, or do certain things. A road trip movie could inspire you to travel more. When it comes to filmmakers, a lot of their style comes from the different movies they watched. A story might be inspired by something a character said, or it might be inspired by a whole movie itself. What’s important is that the newer generation doesn’t only take from one thing. They take from multiple inspirations to turn what built them into something that feels new. Kind of like what these movies did with The Karate Kid.

And here come the notes:

• The director of Showdown was Robert Radler. He also directed The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
• The principal of the school in Showdown was played by Brion James. He was previously featured in Cabin Boy, Return to Frogtown, and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
• James Lew returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Showdown, after appearing in Savage Beach, Martial Law, and Guns.
• Patrick Kilpatrick was in The Toxic Avenger, The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option, and Showdown.
• Finally, Billy Blanks played the good mentor in Showdown. He also popped up in Jack and Jill.
• Have you seen Showdown? Are there any other movies that used The Karate Kid story that I missed? If you have any thoughts, leave them in the comments, on Bluesky, or on Threads.
• Bluesky, Threads, and the comments are good places to suggest movies for me to check out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. Let me know about them.
• The last thing to do is look ahead at what’s coming up for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I already have a post for God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust written, but it needs some work. It should drop next week. Then I’ll write a little something about a 1989 movie called Teen Witch. After that, I’ll probably do a little something about the 2025 remake of War of the Worlds. I have no idea after that. We might be into October by then, so probably a little bit of horror. We’ll see. And I’ll see you when I get the next post up.