For the eleventh year in a row (the first few years are locked in the BMT Vault, they get a little dicey) it’s the awards show that people definitely didn’t forget about because we neglected it for four months. Since BMT will go on forever, until the days in which our brains are rotting in our skulls, we must take the time now to reflect on the year in bad movies. Truly, the award with the name as bad as the films it honorsTM, it’s ….
Smaddies Baddies! Smaddies Baddies! As always, an incredible year at BMTHQ. The pandemic was over, theaters were open again, and … what’s that? The pandemic wasn’t over? There still wasn’t that many films released? The big BMT bucks from the Bad Movie Twins Media Empire / Metaworld / NFT / Crypto startup dried up? We had to fire our personal chef, sell several mansions, and cancel our trip to the moon? … Welp, as evidenced by Moonfall, the moon sucks anyways, it is filled with robots. Still a good year! While waiting out the pandemic in our B(MT)unker we managed to finished the Nightmare on Elm Street series, the Police Academy Series, and watch a boatload of erotic thrillers. Who needs hope and dreams when we have BMT challenges galore!?
We’ll start with the BMT awards which were presented during the commercial breaks of the 5 hour long Smaddies Baddies Prime Time Spectacular (streaming on the dark web exclusively): the 6W awards. Let’s go!
The Joey from Hackers Best Planchet Baddie (Who?) goes to Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. It is pretty rare for a BMT Live! to capture the hearts and minds of the Bad Movie Twins enough to catch a superlative, but there is just something so plucky about Raccoon City newcomer Leon S. Kennedy. When the other police officers aren’t dunking on him, Leon tends to be a witless rookie coasting on his family name and trying his level best not to get assignments. That sounds like a Planchet to me. He just can’t do nothing good! But when the going gets tough, the Planchets get going … out the door, and try to escape. But after that they inevitably fall in with the hero of the story, survive in the unlikeliest of manners, and in the end redeem themselves by exploding the big baddie with a bazooka. You heard that right, we have a true blue Planchet-saving-the-day-for-the-musketeers storyline! In a year with depressingly few nominees for the category it was wonderful to catch what is in essence a perfect “Joey” to Racoon City’s “Zero Cool” right at the last possible moment. The only more shocking thing is that either of us remembered anything about Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.
The I Know Who Killed Me Best Twins Ever Baddie (Who?) has to go to Problem Child 2. Full disclosure, I think this might have been the only twin film of the year. That doesn’t take anything away from twin neighbors Dolly and Madison whose sole purpose is to serve up Junior’s urine as lemonade in sunny Orlando, Florida. … Fine, it takes a little bit away. It isn’t the biggest or baddest of twin film entries, but I mean, something has to get an award. And why not Problem Child 2, I say? It has everything you want in a comedy (if you are a 10 year old boy): barfing, cougars chasing Junior’s dad, and dogs taking giant dumps. Those are the BCD’s of comedy for 10 year old boys if I’ve ever seen it! The Problem Child series was an amazing product of its time, a parody of The Bad Seed (kind of), so it needed an award of some kind. And boy howdy is Junior creeped out by these twin girls. And who wouldn’t be? Twins are creepy. Weirdo real life clones. Creepy as shit.
The Adam Sandler Memorial Product Placement Baddie Brought to You By McDonalds, Ba-da-ba-ba-ba, I’m Lovin’ It! (What?) And the winner is Little Nicky which features yet another amazing fast food product placement with Popeye’s Chicken. When Nicky comes to Earth he find’s that sweet ambrosia, the manna raining down from Times Square, that big bucket of fried chicken with two sides and a biscuit. What a deal! And ultimately when he needs to defeat the bad guys he conjures up a giant living bucket of chicken that the grim reapers just can’t resist. They run (Louisiana) fast after it and mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmm, that chicken is the shiz-nitz! A real line from the movie. That all actually happened. There is a reason this award is named after Adam Sandler. Lots of extra Bonus Shoutouts here: The oddest of the bunch is Mr. Wrong which features 1-800-FLOWERS in its Valentine’s Day plot. Obviously Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare features Freddy killing someone with a Power Glove (the second most famous use of the Power Glove in film). And I can’t resist erotic thrillers on motorcycles with Wild Orchid channeling its inner Fahey by featuring Mickey Rouke’s one true love: sweet Harley Davidson ‘cycles. What a year for the category.
The Bangkok Dangerous Setting as a Character Baddie (Where?) Last year we went for the exotic locales of Africa. This year we went for the exotic locale of Orlando, Florida. I suppose we moved from being attacked by a lion to being attacked by a cougar, heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyoooooooooo. That’s right, the second award for Problem Child 2. You might think they don’t make it explicit, but not only is Orlando featured prominently in a phone book during the film, but naturally all of the cougars are just jonesing after that sweet hunky bachelor Little Ben. Yeah, that is 100% real, the entire setting for Problem Child 2 is a giant joke about cougars which they don’t even really make all that clear in the first place. It is so unclear, in fact, that Wikipedia claims that the film takes place in Mortville, Oregon … what?! That isn’t even close to true. Rest assured, we never botch award, ever, so obviously Problem Child 2 is definitely set in Orlando … I think. Anyways, again, a bunch of Bonus Shoutouts in this category: The best A+ Setting of the year is Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach. The best Niche Setting of the year with Never Talk to Strangers being explicitly set in Syracuse, New York. And the Oddest Setting of the year for Mannequin: On the Move being somewhat inexplicably set in Philadelphia. Philadelphia? More like Philamannequinia! Amirite?
The Marion Cobretti Memorial Super Secret Holiday Film Baddie (When?) Sometimes we have to cheat a bit and give this award to not-so-secret Holiday Films. Not this year. Highlander: Endgame is a real deal Secret Holiday Film because the climax of this film is set during Christmas in maybe the best way possible! There is an extremely quick moment where a guy is going to interfere with the immortals, and you can see Christmas decorations in the background, and then another guy shoots him and is like “Merry Christmas”!!!!!!! Great stuff. You see that is the kind of thing I want, not Christmas songs, or Arnold jingling all the way. Just that moment where the director and set designer looked at each other and wondered if the film could maybe be set in winter because it would be ultra rad for someone to say “Merry Christmas” after killing someone in this scene. They ain’t wrong. It is ultra rad. Some more Bonus Shoutouts for: Mr. Wrong which is the surprisingly rare Valentine’s Day film. Bio-Dome starts and ends on the ultra-rare film holiday of Earth Day. And then naturally our two A+ Holiday Films of Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch. We were all over the calendar this year. I wonder what the best Holiday cycle we could make? Probably pretty good at this point.
The Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li Best MacGuffin Baddie (Why?) We. Love. MacGuffins. It is too bad, this year we don’t have actors talking about Cradles of Life, or Comic Keys or anything like that. But Snake Eyes (2021) did feature a glowing orange gem which, it turns out, lights people on fire. I would give Jamie a million dollars if he could name that gem off the top of his head. There is a zero percent chance he’ll remember it. It is apparently called the Jewel of the Sun … but that ain’t important. It lights people on fire and Cobra for real wants to get it and rule the dojo, like for real. You don’t have to know any of that though. And that’s the beauty of MacGuffins. They don’t actually need to do anything. They just need to do something, and the bad guys have to want to do that something real bad. If you have those two ingredients you better believe the heroes (and the audience) will care whole bunches about the (checks notes) Jewel of the Sun and whether the bad guy or the other bad guy (or the real bad guys) possess it at the end of Not-G.I.-Joe-3. MacGuffins need to be possessed by someone, it is really really important.
The 88 Minutes Starring Leelee Sobieski Worst Twist Baddie (How?) Twist’em’ups are a staple of the bad thriller. How are you to be thrilled if you already know who the murderer is? The only solution, of course, is to make the murderer the person you least expect … even if that makes no sense. Sliver is a high intensity techno-thriller where one of the Baldwins is definitely the murderer in the high-rise apartment building he owns, and where he gets his kicks spying on the various inhabitants. But wait! What a twist!! It is actually … Tom Berenger? Are you sure? Are you really really sure that Tom Berenger is the murderer in this film? No wait, I get it, like Baldwin framed him right? … right?! Nope, as is common in the twist-a-minute genre of thrillers Sliver paints itself in a corner with its wild machinations and twists. And much like an animal caught in a snare, it gnaws its own leg off in order to escape. And thus Berenger, a man with no motive or even really opportunity, ends up being the murderer in a film where Baldwin is DEFINITELY the murderer. Why couldn’t you just end with the volcanos like you intended Sliver? That would have been the kind of lunacy we love at BMTHQ.
Now onto the big awards, officially based on The Good, The Bad and The BMT (plus Live!). And without further ado:
The Freddy Got Fingered Surprisingly Good Baddie (The Good) Nominees: Toys, Days of Thunder, The Bodyguard, Fire Birds, Wishmaster
And the Winner is: Toys! For the third year in a row the award goes to a film I had seen previously and already kind of liked. Toys is fueled mostly by nostalgia. Nostalgia for a time when a film ostensibly about awesome set design could be made on Robin Williams’ name alone. This film is a mess. It is nonsensical, oddly cast, and with very dark undertones that clash horribly with its very kid-friendly facade. It’s a passion project for a director with a blank check and in the end it ends up being a very neat film. Even if it doesn’t always work, it works just enough to beat out the other good-but-flawed films on the list.
The Strange Wilderness Unpleasantly Terrible Baddie (The Bad) Nominees: Exit to Eden, After We Fell, The Rage: Carrie 2, Problem Child 2, Highlander: Endgame
And the Winner is: Exit to Eden! Wowza, sequels please indeed! So how did Exit to Eden beat all that sweet IP to take the top spot? Well, first step is to create a convoluted B-plot about (checks notes) … diamond smuggling? Yeah, I don’t remember all that. What I do remember is the main character is terrible, the jokes aren’t funny, and the entire film looks like it was made on a budget of a million dollars. Jamie, unfortunately, read the book this film was based on and, to use his words: the film is a travesty. That’s right, we have a true blue Slap In The FaceTM film! With zero interest in courting the BDSM crowd, the film is held together by slapstick and ends up feeling like more of a parody of BDSM than anything else. Terrible film. Just terrible.
The Here on Earth Most BMT Baddie (The BMT) Nominees: The Quest, Mannequin: On the Move, Never Talk to Strangers, Half Past Dead, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
And the Winner is: Never Talk to Strangers! No, no, no (I hear you scream). It cannot be! Not The Quest? But surely this decision is based solely on defying Las Vegas odds and raking in ill-begotten gains on the Smaddies Baddies betting market! Well, when you are dealing with an erotic thriller where the lead actress has all the creative power and hires the director and owns the IP, things can get a tad bit wonky to say the least. But really there was one thing that stood out to both me and Jamie about this film: the non-twist. This might not have won the worst twist this year, but that is just because it like … isn’t a twist? But it is. It is clearly intended as a twist. The poster features Banderas looking sinister. Banderas himself acts all sleazy throughout the film. But literally right at the beginning of the film our psychologist “hero” is like “Multiple Personality Disorder is marked by bouts of amnesia and is a result of childhood trauma … oh, I have a meeting with my estranged father I hate in five minutes? I didn’t remember making that appointment. And why would I? I hate my father for what he did to me as a child …” That is about how “subtle” the “twist” in this film is. So yeah, spoilers, she’s the murderer. Combine that with what was intended to be an epic 3 hour thriller being cut to a svelte 86 minutes flat and you have a recipe for BMT-delights.
The Jack and Jill Worst of 2021 Baddie (The BMT Live!) Nominees: After We Fell, Space Jam 2, and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
And the Winner is: After We Fell! The After series is a true anomaly. We’ve now watched each one for BMT. But the middle one wasn’t released to theaters so we had to watch it as a friend. So how did the third one manage a theatrical release in 2021? There is an entire production company built around the After series, and they are planning at least two more films (somehow). The films are horrible. Chockablock with schmaltzy nonsense drama and advertisements for Amazon products and what has become a tired storyline involving alcoholism and parentage. But … we just can’t stop watching them. It could ultimately be the BMT series. A series of films where, right on schedule, we are forced to watch yet another installment every few years for all of eternity as we ask ourselves “seriously though, we’ve watched this film before right? Is something new actually happening in these films?” The After series is a testament to making films without scripts based on books about nothing.
Smaddies Baddies, Smaddies Baddies. As usual we smashed it this year. Good job guys. Once I release this to the web I’m sure the VC money will be flowing right back into the Bad Movie Crypto-space. For those who fell into a deep Rip Van Winkle-esque slumber during the awards the bottomline is: miss Sliver, After We Fell, and Exit to Eden and kiss Problem Child 2, Toys, and Never Talk to Strangers. Just joking, as usual, kiss all the bad movies. Just to be clear, by kiss I mean watch, and by all I mean all 650 BMT films. You know you want to!
Bad Movie Twins 