The Substitute Franchise and Finding the Right Action Hero

Every action flick needs a good action hero. There needs to be someone to guide the audience through the chaos and mayhem they are about to witness. The action hero must have some action hero qualities. They should be smart or resourceful. They should be strong, but maybe not as strong as their foe. If they are not strong, they should be disciplined or have some other trait to give them an advantage. More important than any personality trait, though… An action hero must be played by the right actor to really bring everything together.

I have seen a few action movies in my day. Some have done a better job than others in the casting department. They nail that lead actor on the first try, solidifying a franchise for a decade or more. Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones. Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible. Franchises where you couldn’t imagine anyone but that specific actor in the lead role. Other franchises have taken a little longer to find the right actor to lead them into the promised land.

There are two main franchises that come to mind when I think of finding the right star outside the first movie. I’ll get to the franchise that inspired this post in a minute. First, I want to touch upon The Marine. We all think of John Cena as this big movie star. He has been acting since his days rising through the ranks in WWE. The 2000s were when WWE really branched into the film business, and they wanted the face of their television franchise on the big screen. However, he hadn’t honed his acting craft yet. He wasn’t good in The Marine. Ted DiBiase was even worse in the sequel. WWE eventually hit gold with The Marine 3: Homefront, when The Miz took on the lead role. He was more compelling. He took over the movie in a way that the other wrestlers hadn’t with their starring roles. This isn’t to say John Cena is a bad actor. At that time, however, he wasn’t ready for the role he had.

The Miz stuck around for four films. They varied in quality. His second outing wasn’t great. His third outing, The Marine 5: Battleground, was the best in the franchise. Whatever the case, he was a steadying presence in The Marine movies. The franchise probably wouldn’t have survived beyond the third film if he hadn’t been brought in. They found the right action hero for the series after the first two films missed.

A franchise that did it a little quicker, but still not on the first try, was The Substitute. Tom Berenger starred in the first film as a marine who took a substitute job at a gang-filled high school to find out who attacked his teacher girlfriend. It was an action movie of that 80s and 90s subgenre where a teacher or other authority figure in a school cleaned up the problems to make for a better learning experience. Stuff like The Principal, Only the Strong, and Lean on Me. Only, this had the same sort of vibes as Sniper. It was that mid-90s Tom Berenger influence.

The Tom Berenger influence was also what made The Substitute fall a little flat. It wasn’t so much the vibes that were wrong through most of The Substitute. One of the sequels had a vibes issue, but not the original. It was Tom Berenger, himself. He had the physique to pull off being a marine. However, he never felt like a teacher. Maybe because the character wasn’t a teacher. He pretended to be a teacher for the sake of undercover work. The problem was that Tom Berenger didn’t give off any teacher aura. The actor felt like he would never put himself in the position to be a teacher of anything. That made his character’s playing a teacher feel two layers wrong.

The other issue was that Tom Berenger’s action performance wasn’t good. He did a good job with reactions. There was a one-liner near the end of The Substitute that was perfectly delivered. I could believe it coming out of his mouth. His physical work, though… That didn’t work. Part of that was the editing, part of that was Tom Berenger’s movements. This was supposed to be a physically fit guy, fresh out of the military, doing some unsanctioned undercover work. Yet it felt like I was watching an out-of-shape 50-year-old trying, and failing, to throw solid punches.

When the sequel was in production, Tom Berenger declined to return. Thus, the production was moved to HBO with a new star. Treat Williams took over the franchise as a new character going through almost the same exact situation. He was an ex-soldier whose teacher brother was murdered by a carjacker. To figure out who did it, he became a substitute teacher at the gang-filled high school his brother taught at. That’s essentially an identical plot, only with a murdered brother instead of an injured girlfriend.

The recasting of The Substitute 2: School’s Out cleaned up the issues that Tom Berenger had in his outing. Treat Williams was believable as both a military man and a teacher. His performance as Karl Thomasson didn’t have that same dissociation with teaching that Tom Berenger’s performance as Jonathan Shale had. It felt like Thomasson wanted to teach the students, not that he fell into it. He wanted to help them in their futures rather than just clean the school of the gang problem.

Treat Williams was also a better physical performer than Tom Berenger. He looked like he was swinging and landing hits. He looked like he knew some martial arts, which really helped the action scenes. He also looked like he could take a few lumps. The Substitute 2: School’s Out didn’t feel like it had a man in his 50s who couldn’t fight. The action felt realer. That came from the performance as much as the editing.

Karl Thomasson would be the main character for the remainder of the franchise, The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option. His performances would be as solid through those two films as well. The third had a tonal issue from a new director coming in and trying to inject more comedy into the franchise. Karl took on a steroid scandal in a college football team that involved a comedic group of New York mafia characters. That didn’t work. That wasn’t on Treat Williams, who was still solid through that movie. The fourth got back into what made the second work so well, though, and it really solidified that Treat Williams was the right actor to lead the franchise. It’s a shame that it couldn’t continue beyond The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option, a quite solid movie about Karl taking down a racist military unit within a military school.

Treat Williams was one of those occasions where an action franchise found the right star after the first movie. Tom Berenger might be a good lead in some situations. His acting skills perfectly fit the Sniper franchise. Not so much with The Substitute. Swap him out for Treat Williams in the sequel and something special happened.

The Miz was the same case for The Marine. John Cena hadn’t built up his acting skill to pull the lead role off in The Marine. Ted DiBiase Jr. had whatever the opposite of screen charisma was in The Marine 2. When The Miz was brought in for The Marine 3: Homefront, things changed for the better. His natural charisma and his desire to be a professional at his craft helped drive him to excel in his role. It took three movies for the franchise to find the right actor to carry the movies.

Not all action franchises start with the right actor in the lead role. They could be lacking the talent to take on that kind of role. Their skills could be in different areas. One-liners, but not the physical stuff. A threatening presence, but nothing behind it. A change might need to be made to find someone to push the franchise forward. It’s either that or have no franchise. Where would the fun be in that? You always get some crazy stuff as a franchise grows longer and longer. We wouldn’t have that in The Substitute or The Marine without the change in lead actors. If the change works, it works. I’m all for it. If it finds a franchise the perfect action hero, it’s well worth it.

Now it’s time for some notes:

• I brought up The Marine franchise a couple times in this post. I might as well link to all of them. The Marine. The Marine 2. The Marine 3: Homefront. The Marine 4: Moving Target. The Marine 5: Battleground. The Marine 6: Close Quarters.
• I also want to link to all the Sniper movies I’ve covered. Sniper. Sniper 2. Sniper 3. Sniper: Reloaded.
• Another movie I mentioned in this post was Only the Strong.
• The star of The Substitute was Tom Berenger. He has shown up in a few Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was in Sniper, Sniper 2, and Sniper 3.
• Treat Williams was the star of The Substitute 2: School’s Out, The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All, and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
• Robert Radler directed The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
• Robert Harvey was in The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All. He’s been a mainstay in Sunday “Bad” Movies, being featured in five other movies. He was in Jack and Jill, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, Sandy Wexler, Amityville: A New Generation, and Ringmaster.
• The newest member of the Sunday “Bad” Movies five timers’ club is Ernie Hudson. He appeared in The Substitute after appearing in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta!, God’s Not Dead 2, and Battledogs.
• Luis Guzmán reappeared in Sunday “Bad” Movies with The Substitute. He was also in Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Sandy Wexler, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
• William Forsythe was another supporting actor in The Substitute. He was in Sunday “Bad” Movies in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Stone Cold, and God’s Not Dead: We the People.
• One of the villains in The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option was played by Simon Rhee, who was in Alex Cross, Kung Pow: Enter the First, and 3 Musketeers.
• Glenn Plummer was in The Substitute and was, apparently, an extra in The Substitute 2: School’s Out. He was a major part of Showgirls and Showgirls 2: Penny’s From Heaven.
• The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All featured George Fisher, who was in Jingle All the Way and Gotcha!
• A surprise in The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All was Claudia Christian, who showed up in Never on Tuesday and Maniac Cop 2.
• Money Train featured three actors from The Substitute franchise. Vincent Laresca was in The Substitute, Lawrence Gilliard Jr. was in The Substitute 2: School’s Out, and Bill Nunn was in The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
• The Substitute and Drop Zone both featured Steve DuMouchel.
• Kurt James Stefka was in both The Substitute and Road House.
• David Hayes returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in The Substitute after appearing in Hell Comes to Frogtown.
• Rodney A. Grant appeared in Wild Wild West and The Substitute.
• Cop and a Half and The Substitute both had an actor, the same actor, named Mike Benitez.
• You probably didn’t recognize Bryan Friday or his cool name in The Substitute. You also probably didn’t know he was in Abduction. But he was in both.
• Robert Rusler had roles in both Amityville: A New Generation and The Substitute.
• Now moving onto the sequel, The Substitute 2: School’s Out featured Eugene Byrd, who was in Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid.
• Owen Stadele returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in The Substitute 2: School’s Out. He was first in Airborne.
• There was a surprising actor return from Elves. D.L. Walker appeared in that Christmas classic, as well as The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All.
• James Black was in Godzilla and The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All.
• Alvin and the Chipmunks featured Erin Chambers, who was in The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All.
• The last actor from The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All who was a returning Sunday “Bad” Movies feature was Rebecca Staab from the 1994 version of The Fantastic Four.
• Now we’re onto the final movie of the franchise, The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option. Patrick Kilpatrick played the villain. He was also in The Toxic Avenger.
• Tim Abell had roles in both Mega Shark vs. Kolossus and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
• Finally, The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option featured J. Don Ferguson, who was in Maximum Overdrive.
• Have you seen any of The Substitute movies? What did you think? Share your thoughts in the comments, or let me know on Bluesky or Threads.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, drop the title in the comments. Or hit me up on Bluesky or Threads and let me know there.
• Coming up next, I don’t know yet. It’ll be something Christmas themed. I know that much. I just have to decide what movie I want to watch and write about. After the holidays, there will be a post about As Gouda As It Gets. But that’s for after the holidays. We’re getting into December, and I need to check out at least one holiday movie for the blog. I’ll see you whenever I write that post.

Looking Back - Top Ten First-Time Watch Horror in Sunday "Bad" Movies

Sunday “Bad” Movies began over a decade ago. I think it was late 2011 or late 2012 when I began my quest of watching one bad movie a week. The purpose was to highlight how the mistakes of the movies could give a clearer idea of what makes movies good or bad. I wanted to show that bad movies were more than bad movies. They were a way to learn about movies. They were a way to understand what it takes to make movies. It was a way to put some respect on movies that many people might throw away because they’re not respectable films.

I got away from that pretty quickly. Sort of. Sunday “Bad” Movies grew and changed over the years since I first wrote a post about Starcrash. But, no matter how far I got off that path of highlighting things in bad movies that could inform people about better movies, I always went back to one thing. I went back to giving respect to the disrespected. Aside from the, maybe, five movies that were so terrible I couldn’t bring myself to say anything good about them. That’s not the point of this post.

I’ve watched 650 movies for Sunday “Bad” Movies. A good number of those movies were pulled from the horror genre. Every October, I watched a bunch of horror movies for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I still watch horror movies for the blog every October. I just don’t watch as many because I don’t post as much anymore. Some of the movies have been better than others. Some weren’t as good, but were fun. That’s a lot of what I’ve heralded with all the bad movies. Fun matters. A movie can be bad from a technical standpoint. It’ll be forgiven for that lack of quality technical stuff if it’s entertaining.

What I want to do this Halloween season is go over my ten favourite horror movies I discovered through Sunday “Bad” Movies. There were a few rules I made for this. First off, it was a list of my favourites. It wasn’t necessarily the best. It was the ones I liked most. The second rule, and really the only other rule, was that they had to be movies I watched for the first time in Sunday “Bad” Movies. No Halloween franchise, no Friday the 13^th franchise, no The Happening.

If I were to give some honorable mentions to movies I had seen before Sunday “Bad” Movies, basically my favourites I’d already seen that I then put into the blog, they’d be these. The Happening. Sharknado 2: The Second One. Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! Jason Goes to Hell. Dead Sushi. Oh, and Tremors. Can’t forget Tremors.

Now we’re getting into the good stuff. The best stuff. My favourite stuff. My ten favourite horror movies that I’ve covered over the course of Sunday “Bad” Movies so far, that I hadn’t seen before featuring them in the blog. Let’s get it started with number ten.

10. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

There was a point early in watching movies for Sunday “Bad” Movies where I hadn’t seen too many new-to-me movies that were that special kind of bad movie. Sure, I started off strong with movies like Starcrash and Robot Jox hitting in the first ten weeks. In terms of horror, though, the closest I had gotten was either Big Ass Spider! or Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter just went above and beyond them.

It was a low-budget Canadian movie about Jesus Christ teaming up with a Mexican wrestler to stop vampires from targeting the lesbians of Ottawa. Jesus Christ used martial arts to take down the vampires’ minions. There were musical numbers. There was a fight scene where a bunch of henchmen poured out of a van like it was a clown car. They just kept coming and coming and coming out of the van.

I had such a good time with Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter that I held it high as one of the best bad movies I’d seen for a couple years. I recommended it to friends over movies like The Room because they already knew the bigger bad movies. I rewatched it and loved it as much the second time. I bought a copy of it somewhere along the way. I’m about ready for another rewatch, too.

9. Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust

Charles Band has created some memorable low-budget B-movie horror villains since the 90s and one of the more memorable ones was The Gingerdead Man. Eebee, the Evil Bong, is up there, too. But the Evil Bong franchise hasn’t produced any movies as good as Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust.

This was a sort of meta-horror sequel to what was essentially a Child’s Play riff. A serial killer’s spirit was transferred into a gingerbread man, and he continued his killing. Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust saw the blood-spilling move to a low-budget B-movie studio as they made a new movie. It added something new to a franchise that felt anything but new in its first outing.

Something about Full Moon Features’s willingness to poke fun at themselves through this movie made it all that more enjoyable. It was like Scream 3, but without the late-production script changes. It was a takedown of a Full Moon type of studio, with some blood and murder added for fun. And, boy, did that work.

8. The Velocipastor

A pastor who could turn into a velociraptor? What more do you want?

Some people don’t like when a movie is intentionally bad. Take the Birdemic series, for example. Birdemic: Shock and Terror was brilliant in how it was played straight. The director thought it was going to be good and it wasn’t. But the heart was there. The two sequels didn’t have that heart because the director was intentionally making a bad movie to follow-up the success he first had. You might think that The Velocipastor was like that because it was intentionally bad. The difference, in my opinion, would be the effort.

The Velocipastor was intentionally bad, yes. I’m not going to say it wasn’t. There were things in there that were winks and nods to the audience watching a bad movie. The velociraptor is one of those inflatable T-rex suits. Obviously, they weren’t trying to be serious with this one. But there was a charm and effort put into the movie. They weren’t trying to make a bad movie in the sense that the movie was going to be bad. They were making a movie that played up the bad aspects, with the actual filmmaking skill still being there. It was a well-crafted horror-comedy playing on qualities of bad movies. There’s a fine line and they didn’t cross it into the bad bad territory. They were still on the good side of bad movies.

I hope that all made sense. I’ll try and summarize it quickly. When a movie is intentionally bad, there are two ways that’s done. One, someone sets out to make a bad movie and it feels false. They try too hard. Two, they set out to make a movie that seems like a bad movie. But they make it well. They try to make it good while playing up the bad. That was The Velocipastor. Insert explosion here and all.

7. Remote Control

There are times when the toughest movies to find are the ones that stick with you most. Remote Control doesn’t have an easy physical release to get a hold of and there’s not really a streaming option, either. Well, not your normal streaming option. You could, of course, sail the seven seas of the internet to check it out. I’m not saying that’s what I did, but I’m not not saying it.

Remote Control was a very 80s sci-fi horror comedy. A couple of guys working at a video rental store discovered a VHS tape made by aliens to mind-control the people of Earth. It was a meta-humour horror movie a decade before that became the big thing. The VHS tape was of a 50s sci-fi movie, while Remote Control was essentially a 50s sci-fi movie with an 80s setting.

This was a whole lot of fun. If you’re into the alien conspiracy sci-fi horror type of movie, Remote Control is all that and more. It got me as soon as I started watching it. It has stuck with me since. I don’t necessarily have the biggest amount to say about it, but what I can say is that it was good enough an experience for me to know it’s one of my favourites.

6. Jack-O

Few movies manage to capture whatever it is that Jack-O captured. The best way I could describe it is to say that it took the vibes of Troll 2 and placed them on a horror movie about blood feuds and Halloween. That doesn’t even cover the half of it, but at the same time, it manages to describe it well.

There was a kid. The pumpkin man came for him. The pumpkin man had been banished by the kid’s ancestor. Also involved was the kid’s babysitter. She was introduced into the movie in a nude shower scene. She was played by Linnea Quigley, so the nudity was par for the course. The babysitter tried to get her friend to babysit so she could go to a party, but the friend dipped with her motorcycle-riding boyfriend to go get beer. Also, the kid’s dad constantly flirted with the babysitter. Oh, it was Halloween. The kid went for a ride on babysitter’s friend’s boyfriend’s motorcycle, without a helmet on. The last important thing was a teacher who insulted kids for even wanting to trick-or-treat on Halloween got murdered by the pumpkin man for no real reason at all.

That’s so much stuff. That’s nowhere near everything in the movie. Things got more bonkers than any of that stuff. A kid got buried alive while muttering “nooooo” in the most unbothered way. A lady got electrocuted with a toaster, accidentally. There was some other lady secretly trying to hunt the pumpkin man who was connected to the kid’s ancestor. That was where the blood feud came in.

Jack-O was bonkers and I’m here for it.

5. Hansel and Gretel Get Baked

One thing I’ve championed the whole time I’ve written the Sunday “Bad” Movies posts is that originality isn’t in the story, but in how the story is told. Hansel and Gretel Get Baked was a prime example of that. It was a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, which might not seem like an original idea. But it was turned into a stoner horror-comedy. The witch grew pot. She lured people in with her marijuana instead of with a house made of candy. I found originality in that storytelling, even if the story was a story that had been told many times before.

Another thing that should be noted about Hansel and Gretel Get Baked is that Lara Flynn Boyle looked like she was having the best time playing the witch. Her performance drove a lot of the fun of the movie. Michael Welch was also pretty good through the movie as the non-stoner brother who needed to come to his sister’s aid.

Notice that word again? Fun. Most of my favourite horror movies that were part of Sunday “Bad” Movies were fun. They didn’t have to be the best. They didn’t have to be wholly original. They had to be fun, and that’s what this one was. I’ve seen Hansel and Gretel Get Baked a few times now, and never has it lacked the fun that I had the first time I saw it.

4. Another WolfCop

Okay, this one might break the rule of “didn’t see it before covering it,” but follow me here. I saw WolfCop for Sunday “Bad” Movies back when it first came out. Around then, at least. I saw it in 2015 and it was released in 2014. I saw the sequel when it was released in 2016, knowing full well that I would include it in Sunday “Bad” Movies. It just took a while for me to actually schedule it because I was making schedules at that point in the life of the blog.

The difference between this and, say, Dead Sushi was that I checked out Another WolfCop having already decided it would be part of Sunday “Bad” Movies. With a movie like Dead Sushi, I had seen it and decided later to include it, based on that initial watch. I think my intention allows me to skirt around the rule with Another WolfCop on a technicality.

Another WolfCop took everything that the first movie had and turned it up to 11. Jonathan Cherry was back as a goofy best friend. Instead of someone discovering they were now a werewolf and dealing with that, Jonathan Cherry learned he had an alien parasite living in him. The villains were aliens instead of werewolves. There was another sex scene. Instead of it being a werewolf and a woman, it was between a werewolf and a werecat. There was a bunch of hockey, some Kevin Smith, some Gowan on the soundtrack and some Gowan on screen, and Yannick Bisson having the most fun he could have as a villain. This was a Canadian horror-comedy through and through. WolfCop might have had a better story, but Another WolfCop amped up the fun factor.

3. Killer Condom

I knew about this movie as I grew up. It was before I got my full interest in movies. I was a kid who watched movies to fill time, not to watch movies. The rise of the internet while I was growing up led me to, somehow, see the trailer for Killer Condom. I’m not sure how or where because I think it was before YouTube, but I saw the trailer. My brother and I used to joke about watching it without ever watching it.

Then I made Sunday “Bad” Movies when I was in my twenties. Eventually I was going to get around to Killer Condom. The idea. The name. It was a perfect movie to watch. Even if it was terrible, there would be something redeeming about it. Well, it surpassed by expectations. By a lot, actually.

Killer Condom was a German neo-noir horror comedy. I think that’s how it would be classified. A gay detective investigated a murder at a seedy New York hotel, only to discover that the culprit was a condom monster. Along the way, he fell in love with a male prostitute, while trying to avoid the advances of a trans woman singer. Everything about the movie clicked. The themes, the story, the acting. I really don’t have a bad thing to say about Killer Condom. It’s one of two movies on this list that I would call perfect. And it’s number three.

2. Blades

Here’s the other perfect one. How can a movie that’s not perfect be above this one? You’ll understand when I get there. As for Blades, you essentially got a Jaws knock-off in the most ridiculous way possible. Gone were the beaches of Amity and the shark. In their place were the eighteen holes of a country club and a possessed lawnmower. How could you not love a retelling of Jaws in that setting, that actually made it work?

The thing that really helped Blades exceed anything you would expect from a movie like this was that it played things straight. Aside from one scene that had someone dressed like Jason Voorhees, that is. The whole movie was played without people winking at the camera. It was played without forced jokes being inserted to make sure people laughed. The whole movie was a joke in that they were seriously battling against a lawnmower that was killing people at the country club.

It stuck as close as it could to the story of Jaws. The new golf pro was your Brody surrogate. His assistant was the Hooper surrogate. The groundskeeper was the Quint surrogate. His van was the boat. The groundskeeper had a story about the lawnmower in the past, just as Quint had a shark story. They kept track of the lawnmower with balloons, like they used the barrels in Jaws. There was even a mob of people who went hunting for the lawnmower. They found the wrong lawnmower, which the golf pro and his assistant realized by cutting open the lawnmower’s bag and checking what was inside.

The other thing I want to mention was that the whole story was essentially the same. I’ve listed a bunch of story beats, but the overall story was the same, too. The country club was going to host a golf tournament. The golf pro and the assistant wanted to close the golf course until they found the lawnmower, but the owner cared more about the money than the safety of the people. This mirrored the Jaws story of Brody wanting to close the beach until the shark was found, while the mayor wanted to keep the beach open to make that long weekend money.

What they did when they made Blades was perfect. It was a perfect movie. Aside from, I guess, the inclusion of a Jason Voorhees looking character in one scene. I don’t know why that was there. It made the Jaws parody feel that tiny little bit like a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof. Otherwise, it was a straight parody where they took the exact story and put it in another, ridiculous, setting and that was the whole joke. It worked so well it got to my number two spot.

1.  Elves

Like I said, the number two and three movies were movies that I thought were perfect. In terms of horror movies I’ve covered for Sunday “Bad” Movies, I mean. The number one movie was not perfect. Not in any way whatsoever. That didn’t keep it from being my favourite horror movie I’ve seen through all of Sunday “Bad” Movies.

You see, Elves was the most insane movie I’ve seen in all of Sunday “Bad” Movies. That’s including movies I’d seen before, and every movie outside the horror genre. Elves topped all of them. Every time you thought you had seen the craziest thing, something else would happen to top it.

Let me start at the beginning. The main character had a shower. Her brother spied on her. She confronted him and he said he liked her big tits and he was going to tell everyone about them. About a minute later, the elf showed up and attacked the brother, who called it “a fucking little ninja troll.” This kid was like eight years old. Next thing you know, the main character was at work at a department store. She sat on the store’s Santa’s lap and the Santa rubbed her leg saying he wanted her to give him oral. She got fired for slapping Santa. He didn’t get punished at all for the sexual harassment. Then her mom took all the money from her bank account and killed her cat. Oh, and her grandfather was her father through incest, and was also a former Nazi.

The mall Santa was killed by the elf while snorting coke. He was replaced by a former police officer played by the guy who played Grizzly Adams. This guy at one point said “A pack a day keeps your lungs nice and grey” while smoking a cigarette. He got involved in the elf story when he snuck into the department store at the same time the main character and her friends snuck in. Nazis broke into the store and killed two of the main character’s friends. New Santa started investigating what was happening, which led to him barging in on a professor’s family Christmas dinner, and diving from a car when a bomb fell out of the glove compartment.

Even the climax had its crazy moments. The elf was created to have sex with the purest-bred German virgin, hence the incest. If it impregnated the main character, it would create the master race. The main character could only defeat it by smashing a crystal into the ground or something. She and her brother fled from Nazis into the woods. She sent the brother back to their house to creep over dead bodies to get the crystal. Meanwhile, the elf tried to rape her. And it might have, based on the end credits. They rolled over what looked like a womb with a growing fetus.

I don’t know how this movie got made. I really don’t. Many parts of it felt like they would never make it into any movie, let alone all of them being in the same movie. There was no reason for any of it to happen, yet it all did. Elves went beyond anything I could have imagined and I’m not sure how any movie could top the experience of watching it. Elves shouldn’t exist. Yet it does.

 

 

It can be tough to remember every movie I’ve seen for Sunday “Bad” Movies over the past twelve or so years. There have been 650 movies featured, and I’ve watched a lot of stuff not for the blog. It’s not quite as difficult to whittle things down to my ten favourite horror movies. I haven’t liked all the movies. I don’t remember too much of some. That created some easy cuts.

However, I have enjoyed more than ten of the horror movies I’ve watched. As I said to start things off, there were a bunch of horror movies I had seen before. I didn’t include those, or most of my list would be them. The Happening, Tremors, Dead Sushi… To be completely honest, I forgot I had seen Dead Sushi before including it in Sunday “Bad” Movies and had it in my top ten until I realized. Oops. That’s what I mean, though. The whole list could just be movies I rewatched for Sunday “Bad” Movies and they would be as good as what I included in this top ten.

My hope is that some people, whoever made it through this post, might give these movies a shot. They’re all worth checking out, for what they do or what they are. Do you want quality? Check out Blades. Do you want Canada? Check out Another WolfCop. Do you want pure insanity? Elves is for you. Each of these movies are worth watching for their own reasons.

That’s the magic of Sunday “Bad” Movies. It’s not about putting the movies down. This blog is, normally, about finding the good stuff in movies that people would typically find bad. It’s about finding a way to enjoy something that people might think isn’t worth the time. I like to find the light in the darkness. You think a movie might be dumb? I think it might have some things going for it. I’ll tell you what those things are. I’ll promote those movies. That is the Sunday “Bad” Movies way.