Star Crash (1978)

 "Time for a little robot chauvinism!"

What's that you say?You suspect this hilariously low budget space opera, clearly based on the style of old movie serials, may not be entirely uninfluenced by a certain Hollywood blockbuster of the previous year? Really...?

In one sense the contrast between this film and Star Wars is hilarious. The star fields and models, while trying to evoke Star Wars, are rubbish. The script and acting are gfloriously cheesy, although Caroline Munro is genuinely charismatic and awesome. David Hasselhoff's hairstyle is not merely awful, but the most awful of all possible hairstyles.

I'll cut to the chase: this is a terrible film. But there are two types of terrible films- boringly terrible and hilariously terrible.This is a hilarious episode of the second kind, with absurd concepts, dialogue and plot twist. The emperor (played by a visibly embarrassed Christopher Plummer) at one point just stops time for plot convenience. Even better, at one point Akton seems to know things he wouldn't obviously know, and Stella immediately makes the leap of logic that he can see the future. But Akton then explains he can never tell her what's to come because she would try to change the future that's "against the law, so therefore I can tell you nothing"... all while he's merrily changing the future himself. Perhaps I ought not to be applying logic and reason here.

This is also a fascinating halfway house between Star Wars and the previous generation of space operas. This may be obviously influenced by movie serials, but there's none of the Joseph Campbell fairytale vibes. And we also have moments of stop motion animation right out of a Ray Harryhausen film. This film may be awful, but gloriously so.

Baywatch (2017)

“You got your beef and your biscuits stuck down there...”

I know. What can I say? It was a moment of madness. I can certainly reassure you, though: I certainly won’t be blogging the TV series. No one wants that.

Well, let’s make clear from the outset that, a few good performances aside such as, yes, Dwayne Johnson, Mrs Llamastrangler and I are both united in the view that this film is, unsurprisingly, pants. The plot is as predictable as clockwork, with cartoon baddies and a secondary hero who has to prove himself, and there are the obligatory knowing winks and amusing cameos from both Pamela Anderson and a shockingly old-looking David Hasselhoff. Mercifully unexplained is why both mentor and protege are called Mitch Buchannon.

We have a nerd character (we know at the start he’s a nerd because he wears a Donkey Kong t-shirt) who ends up getting the sexy chick and, yes, you’re not going to get a movie like this without, well, not so much the male gaze as an awful lot of perving on scantily clad women by both the camera and the script.

There are some funny one liners, especially at the start and end, but unfortunately the middle of the film is all plot and action and this is really rather dull in the way rubbish films tend to be. Yes, this film is done with a knowing wink, the fourth wall is somewhat unstable throughout, but let there be no doubt that this film is utter, absolute pants.

Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998 TV Pilot)

"Guys like you tend to stick to the bowl no matter how many times you flush!"

I'm stuck at home with a sprained ankle and, alas, am reduced to watching this. Yes, this was indeed made as a TV pilot in 1998, probably the last of the, er, less than stellar Marvel films and TV pilots that were made before it all took off with Blade and X-Men. We shall never see it's like again. I think.

The casting of David Hasselhoff says it all; they're going for the same camp feel of the legendary 1960s Batman series but not pulling it off; instead we have a bog standard, cliche-ridden 90 minutes of action adventure. We have the hero being grudgingly coaxed out of retirement. We have a splendidly over-the -top baddie in Sandra Hess as Andrea Von Strucker, for some reason conflated with Viper, who appears to have an orgasm at one point while shooting a bloke dead. We have conflicts with pen-pushing superiors, we have James Bond gadgets, we have an android duplicate of Fury being used for the predictable plot function of making us think that Fury is dead. We have a poisoned hero going into action to save his life. And, yes, we have Andrea Von Strucker threatening to unleash a deadly virus over Manhattan in return for "one billion dollars". This in a pilot made after the release of Austin Powers.

Thing is, though, the script isn't actually that bad. With better actors and a bigger budget (the helicarrier, in particular, is rubbish, and the whole thing looks like an episode of Knight Rider), the same script could have sparkled. The self-consciously camp directorial style, especially, fails utterly to serve the script.

Hasselhoff himself is exactly as arse-clenchingly embarrassing as you might expect, but everything else sets a tone to patch. We have a character, Alexander Pierce, who seems to be modelled on Hugh Grant and looks utterly implausible as a SHIELD agent. And why, for crying out loud, does Andrea choose to kill Fury by kissing him with poisoned lipstick instead of, you know, shooting him?

This is, basically, rubbish, and should be watched for ironic purposes only. You have been warned...!