Trump vs the Illuminati (2020)

Three and a half years ago, I watched Bigfoot vs Megalodon. It was a suggestion from someone who I was a mutual follower with on Twitter, who I’m still a mutual follower with on Bluesky. I knew nothing about it, tossed it on, and was immediately lulled into a sense of boredom. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t even entertaining in any way whatsoever. Well, aside from one specific moment. There was a point where the main character said “I’m a clone, not a cuck…” and I lost it. It was the single shining light in one of the dullest movies I’d seen in a long time.

I have a way of tormenting myself through Sunday “Bad” Movies, though. I’ve always been of the mind that no movie is not worth seeing. There’s always something to take away from even the most boring movies. There’s always something to take away from the most poorly made movies. Bigfoot vs Megalodon had that one perfect moment that I could take from it, as well as a big lesson in what not to do when writing or animating a movie. As much as I disliked the movie, it gave me enough hope to check out another of BC Fourteen’s animated movies.

A year later, now two and a third years ago, I checked out Van Helsing. It was his newest movie at that point and served as a prequel to what I had seen. It followed how the Van Helsing  clone I saw in Bigfoot vs Megalodon came to be such a famed space hero. The story of Van Helsing was a big improvement over Bigfoot vs Megalodon, having a coherent plot and a theme. That theme had to do with the general attitude of humanity being the reason that humans would die out. Self-destruction sort of thing. It felt like some depth was given to the universe BC Fourteen was building out.

That improvement convinced me, in the current day, to check out the movie that started the entire universe. Trump vs the Illuminati followed a Chinese clone of Donald Trump (Timothy Banfield) as he discovered his role in a prophecy about the saving of the human species. The world had been destroyed. Humanity was trying to survive in outer space. The alien Illuminati tried to control everything. And the Chinese clone was the only person who could stop them.

Trump vs the Illuminati was a little messier than Van Helsing. It wasn’t for the lack of a story. Having the Donald Trump clone be the prophet who would save humanity was a story, for sure. The issue was how the movie handled Donald Trump. It felt like BC Fourteen wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. He used Donald Trump as a character to poke fun at his mannerisms and attitude, even going so far as to have the clone disavow his roots. However, it also placed this Donald Trump clone as the savior of humanity, which went against the idea of satirizing the guy. It felt like they didn’t know whether they wanted to go against or for Donald Trump, and they decided that playing both sides would be the right course of action. It only muddied the political angle the movie clearly took by using him as the main character.

From looking up the couple documentaries that BC Fourteen made before diving into this animated universe, that stance made sense. He made two political documentaries, one about Trump’s first presidency and one about the campaign trail to get there. From what I can find about Trumpocalypse Now!, it was a collection of archive footage that made the early days of the first Donald Trump presidency into some sort of heroic time in American politics. His other political documentary, Uncivil War: Battle for America was seen as too pro-Trump and anti-Clinton. So it seems as though making Donald Trump the hero wasn’t something new to BC Fourteen when he made Trump vs the Illuminati. It looks like his career at that point was all about putting Trump in a heroic position.

So, yeah, the Trump of it all wasn’t the greatest, since Trump vs the Illuminati clearly came from a guy who appreciated Trump getting into office. Maybe hindsight is 20/20 and BC Fourteen doesn’t feel that way now that we’re a year into Trump’s second, and much more disastrous than the horrendous first time, term. But for the time when this was made, he put Trump in a heroic light, even if that Trump clone said he didn’t like what the real Trump did. That didn’t save the movie from being about Trump as the hero.

The humour surrounding the Trump character was weird throughout Trump vs the Illuminati. Most of the humour came from the vocal impression Timothy Banfield did, which was pretty good. I’ll give the movie that much. They could have had any old hack doing a Trump impression, but managed to get someone who, though they didn’t nail the impression, came close enough to make it believable.

It was the random moments that really made things weird, though. The fact that Satan was an alien in a wheelchair, a part of the Illuminati. That was strange. Or the part where the Chinese Trump clone had a one-man dance-off to show the Illuminati aliens… I don’t know what. He danced, though. There was a dance scene in the middle of Trump vs the Illuminati that I can’t explain. He just started dancing in front of a line of aliens. What an odd thing to happen in the middle of a movie about Trump saving humanity.

Trump vs the Illuminati wasn’t a great movie. It wasn’t even a good movie. But it was a fine middle ground between the previous two BC Fourteen movies I checked out. It had the crazy moments I hoped for, and a storyline I could follow. It didn’t do either element particularly well, but at least it had those elements. That’s all I could ask for, really.

I didn’t know who BC Fourteen was five years ago. I was five hundred posts into Sunday “Bad” Movies before I saw one of his movies. I had been writing these posts for nearly a decade before I even heard his name. Yet, I’m now hooked. I keep watching his movies because, though they aren’t good, there’s always some sort of insanity baked into them. His odd little moments get me to return for another.

Bigfoot vs Megalodon pulled me in with one single line of dialogue. It was the only saving grace of a disastrous movie, but it got me to come back for more. That more was Van Helsing, which told a better story, but didn’t quite have that single memorable moment. Now, upon watching Trump vs the Illuminati, I got another crazy moment. I got a Donald Trump clone dancing like a maniac. I got a wheelchair-bound Satan alien. I got a reason to come back for even more.

I don’t know that these notes will bring people back, but whatever, they’re here:

• BC Fourteen directed two other Sunday “Bad” Movies features. They were Bigfoot vs Megalodon and Van Helsing.
• Wes Bruff and Edson Camacho did voice work in Bigfoot vs Megalodon, Van Helsing, and Trump vs the Illuminati.
• Bigfoot vs Megalodon and Trump vs the Illuminati shared six other cast members. They were Simon Daigle, Carl Folds, Robert Forth, Marco Guzmán, Carrie Isaac, and Carlos Welos.
• Have you seen Trump vs the Illuminati? Have you seen any of BC Fourteen’s movies? Share your thoughts in the comments, or get a hold of me on Bluesky or Threads.
• You can contact me on Bluesky, Threads, or in the comments if you have a movie that might be a good fit for Sunday “Bad” Movies. Suggest away.
• Now for what’s coming up in the next post or two. We’re approaching Valentine’s Day. I’ve got some relationship movies ready to be written about. The one I’m for sure going to be writing about next is Twisted by Love. The other one I have in mind, I haven’t decided whether I want to write about it. But Twisted by Love will be written about. I’ll see you soon for that post.