In 2015, Christmas comes a week early – if you care about Wookies, Ewoks and whether or not Han shot first. In which case, you should stop reading now.

For the rest of us, particularly those that thought that Boba Fett was a type of cheese, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is just another sequel, and even though it won’t amount to anything more than two hours of special effects and chase sequences, it will still inspire an unreasonable amount of devotion from the people for whom the original was never “only a movie.”

Which, frankly, is a bit unfair. Neither particularly well directed, written (just ask Alec Guinness) or acted, Star Wars’ place at the top of the Sci-Fi heap is something of a mystery to the uninitiated. After all, there are plenty of other enjoyable B-grade Sci-Fi movies out there, but you don’t see anyone coming out for Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, do you?

This clearly needs addressing, and the people who will gladly pay to see more-of-the-same-only-different need to be introduced to such below-the-radar pictures. Understand, this is not meant as a list of “better” films, it’s just a list of alternatives to the mega-budget, hype-driven franchise due to take over the popular culture from now until Doomsday.

20. The Deadly Spawn (1983)

Directed by a former English teacher (whose students included David Copperfield and Vamp director Richard Wenk), The Deadly Spawn opens with a meteorite depositing an extra-terrestrial antagonist in Hicksville, but rather than a benevolent being in a rubber costume, these aliens resemble slimy, oversized pink worms with multiple rows of teeth, which they put to good use in the first five minutes, snacking on a pair of campers before moving on to the rest of the neighbourhood.

Somehow able to sneak around despite their alarming size and appearance, these toothy predators proceed to tear off faces, bite off heads and generally be a nuisance to the townsfolk, such as when they invade a vegetarian dinner party. Fortunately, there’s a young sci-fi fan on hand that knows aliens and electricity don’t mix well and sets about baiting a trap before the creatures can slime his collection of vintage movie posters.

Spawn has its flaws, all right: there’s too much talk, scenes go on too long and lack the punch they might’ve had, but heck, you could say that about several dozen pricier, supposedly better movies. The filmmakers might’ve had an Ed Wood budget, but they didn’t make an Ed Wood movie and the performances, effects and music are all pretty decent. As backyard filmmaking goes, you could make a far scuzzier-looking movie….

19. The Galaxy Invader (1985)

Even a low-budget sci-fi epic needs stars and good make-up to succeed, so when you’re shooting a picture in your backyard with your half-brother in the floppy creature suit, the odds are stacked against you before you burn a foot of film. For all its home movie production values, amateurish performances and third-hand ideas, though, this time capsule of vintage pleasure is mounted with such genuine, straight-faced sincerity that it’s worth its weight in goofy charm.

This was Don Dohler’s fourth such opus, and as in all the others there’s an ET loose in suburban Baltimore, only this time it’s a benevolent creature and the rednecks are the bad guys. He immediately regrets choosing Hicksville as a vacation spot when he meets the soft-bellied locals who, fortified by Dutch courage, establish First Contact through Messrs Smith & Wesson.

Dollar signs flash in their eyes when they come into possession of the glowing ball strapped around the being’s waist, prompting the rounding-up of a drunken posse for a hunt-and-capture mission, much to the dismay of anthropologist Richard Dyszel (aka horror host Count Gore De Vol), who argues that it’s an important scientific find. So they shoot him. Then they take off after the creature anyway and get picked off one by one etc etc etc.

18. The Being (1983)

At its core, Jackie Kong’s debut (which she also wrote) is an old-fashioned sci-fi movie where teenagers make out at the Drive-in and the Sheriff is the hero, even if he is a putz. Souped up with decapitations, gratuitous nudity and a tongue-in-cheek attitude, The Being is no great masterpiece but it is a ton of schlocky fun, despite being set in Idaho.

Toxic waste in the water supply causes a barely seen creature to run around killing folks, though to hear Dr Martin Landau tell it, TVs and wrist watches emit more radiation, words that return to haunt him when he comes face to face with what the contamination hath wrought. Meanwhile, Mayor Jose Ferrer, the cast’s second Oscar winner, is more interested in leading an anti-pornography campaign, which, bizarrely, the townsfolk all support despite the recent slayings. Nephew George Clooney must be real proud.

Thank goodness leading man “Rexx Coltrane” (producer Bill Osco, who was also Kong’s husband) is around to tie it all together, narrating his thoughts in a monotone while attempting to find the creature that’s been decapitating teenagers. “Something’s freaky around here,” he babbles over one scene. “Wish I could put my finger on it.” To give you a sense of what a putz this guy is, he says this after several headless bodies have shown up. And he’s the Sheriff.

17. The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)

Tasked with sabotaging the space mission, two cut-rate aliens take over the bodies of Jason Johnson and Katherine Victor during their Sunday drive, causing Johnson to lose control and wreck the car. He loses an arm in the crash, and his attempts to cope with the injury become something of a running joke, though it’s hard to tell if they were supposed to be.

When Victor reattaches the limb, a NASA guard dog undoes her good work and then trots merrily around the compound with the decomposing body part between its jaws, to the understandable surprise of the crew. Not one to cry over spilled milk, Johnson becomes a one-armed sharpshooter, somehow managing to shoot down two rockets with his “disruptor rifle” before the flying pancake he takes orders from tells him to kidnap “specimens” for their return home.

If Robot Monster was director Phil Tucker’s Plan 9 From Outer Space, then The Cape Canaveral Monsters is his Night of the Ghouls, the later, more obscure effort that’s slightly better done but still likely to amuse fans. Comparisons to Ed Wood are apt as both directors released their respective debuts in the same year, worked with the same people (producer George Weiss, actor Timothy Farrell) and laboured on Plan 9, with Phil giving Ed uncredited editorial assistance.

16. Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster (1965)

A Lily Munster-ish Martian princess and her bald, pointy-eared servant are seeking to repopulate their dying world, so they do what any Bad Movie Villain would – they kidnap bikinied ‘specimens’ from the beaches of San Juan and lock less-than-willing abductees up in a cage with a bad actor in a gorilla suit.

Meanwhile, our would-be Frankenstein, in this case a NASA scientist played by James Karen, has created a cyborg (named Colonel Saunders) and shot him into space only to see his rocket destroyed by the Martians, who think it’s an enemy missile. Surviving the stock-footage explosion with only third-degree burns, the Colonel malfunctions and goes on a lusty rampage, pursued (on scooter) by Dr Karen.

Sure, it’s cheap, silly and loaded with enough stock-footage to make Ed Wood proud, but the campy feel must’ve been intentional because producer Alan V Iselin’s resume also includes The Horror Of Party Beach. Here, the beach antics have been toned down, the number of pop songs reduced and there’s more going on whenever the antagonists are off-screen.

15. The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

“You’ve never seen anything until you’ve seen the sun through the rings of Saturn!” announces astronaut Steve West (Alex Rebar). Unfortunately, the viewer doesn’t share the sentiment because “the rings of Saturn” look a lot like public domain stock footage of solar flares, right down to the hair on the lens.

We’re once again in the realm of low low budget sci-fi, where what goes up must come down mutated (call it ‘Quatermass-itis’), or in this case, melted. Waking up in hospital, the removal of West’s bandages so freaks out the nurse that she runs through a glass door, after which our aeronautical antagonist rampages through the countryside decapitating fishermen and terrorizing chain-smoking ten year-olds while being pursued by colleague Dr Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning).

When a sleazy photographer and his topless model stumble across the fisherman’s remains, the film stumbles too, stopping dead for a misplaced ‘comic’ interlude involving Nelson’s mother-in-law and her partner, who stop en route to a dinner date and end up victims of Sir Melts-A-Lot. Eventually, the manhunt leads to an industrial plant where West dissolves into an icky mess before being swept away by a bored janitor, but doubts persist: did the filmmakers intend their movie to be funny?

14. Empire Of The Ants (1977)

Bert I Gordon’s film is basically a 50s monster movie, right down to the over-sincere, pseudo-scientific opening narration which informs us that the ant “may very well be the next dominant life form on this planet.”

They’re granted an opportunity when barrels marked Danger Radioactive Waste wash ashore and begin disgorging their load, transforming our humble ants into hungry ant-agonists that attack Joan Collins’ Real Estate developer and her prospective clients.

Perhaps aware of how ridiculous his creatures look, Gordon starts with scenes shot from their POV, then when he’s forced to use a close-up his camera goes haywire, swinging from left to right as actors tussle with these rubbery foes. Fortunately, Robert Lansing’s John McClane-ish boat driver is around to kick ass and take names, even keeping a cool head as Collins snaps at him. “You never did like working for me,” she says at one point. “Just because I’m a woman!”

13. Cat Women Of The Moon (1954)

Commanding a corrugated plastic spaceship furnished with hammocks, office desks and some army surplus equipment, Captain Sonny Tufts reaches the Moon only to find a matte painting, some polystyrene rocks and a pair of giant spiders on wires waiting to pounce, or at least be lowered by a crew member.

Not only are there arachnids on the Moon, there’s oxygen aplenty (“Wait till I tell everyone I was the first guy to breathe on the Moon!”) and a cardboard ‘palace’ inhabited by The Hollywood Cover Girls who, dressed in chokers and black leotards, sport garish make-up, widows peak hair and pointy ears to make them appear ‘feline.’

They’ve never seen a man before, never mind Sonny’s turn in Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers, but before he can regale them with hilarious anecdotes, the girls supply food and drink and perform a dance to pad out the running time.

Unaccustomed to receiving this kind of female companionship for free, Sonny’s suspicions turn out to be well founded when one of the cat women admits the crew were lured there for the purpose of stealing their ship. Never trust a Moon maiden in eyeliner and black leotard lest the cat have claws and plans to conquer Earth, although as The New York Times commented, “Considering the delegation that went up, it’s hard to imagine why.”

12. Contamination (1980)

Having previously helmed Star Wars knock-off Starcrash, the finest space opera ever to feature a lightsaber-wielding David Hasselhoff and a robot with a Southern drawl, Luigi Cozzi pitched to producers a story that brought Alien to Earth. When a freighter arrives in New York with its crew dead, police find a number of glowing, pulsating eggs (actually painted balloons) in the hold that suddenly erupt, spraying them with a substance that inexplicably causes their bodies to explode.

Are these the same eggs seen on an expedition to Mars led by Commander Hubbard (Zombie Holocaust’s Ian McCulloch)? Pulled out of retirement and teamed with a lady Colonel and a bumbling NYC cop, McCulloch travels to Columbia, where he uncovers a world domination plot led by a former colleague, who is of course being manipulated by a rubbery cyclopean octopus.

In another director’s hands, Contamination might’ve betrayed its fast-and-cheap origins, but not only does Cozzi know how to make ten cents look like a million bucks, he imbues the picture with the same fanboy enthusiasm he brought to Starcrash. Paying homage to everything from Them! and Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the James Bond films, the Italian maestro orchestrates another entertaining schlockfest that allows nothing – including the awkward dialogue and illogical plotting – to stand in its way.

Those who enjoy Spaghetti Schlock don’t enjoy it for its nuanced characters and richly textured narratives but for its sheer joy as escapism, and when it comes to monstrously entertaining b-grade fare, Cozzi’s one of the best.

11. Without Warning (1980)

Starring two future Oscar winners, shot by the cinematographer of Back To The Future and Jurassic Park and prefiguring Predator to the extent that it casts the same actor, Kevin Peter Hall, as its extra-terrestrial antagonist, Without Warning is some kind of B-grade classic.

Hall plays a polystyrene-headed alien whose arsenal includes Frisbee missiles that attach themselves leech-like to their prey, and Jack Palance is the old kook who warns a group of kids against going into the woods after dark, and before you can say “Disposable Teens”, they’re being picked off one by one.

They also encounter a character named Fred ‘Sarge’ Dobbs (Martin Landau), who addresses everyone as “Soldier” in between enough bug-eyed ranting to convince us he left the army on a Section Eight. “Aliens ain’t human, you know,” he rants while waving a gun around. Then he takes off after the creature, and you can guess the rest.

According to that indispensable tome Midnight Movie Madness by Ian Watson (now available on Kindle), if you want to see a really weird horror movie, you have to look overseas.

Bear in mind, we are not talking about those twee, underwhelming ghost stories that were popular in the early 2000s. You know: a young woman comes into possession of an object haunted by a vengeful spirit, typically a longhaired female ghost, that uses her as an emissary to wreak havoc in the physical world.

In Ringu, the object was a videocassette, and it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce which objects were being haunted in the films Mirrors, Cello, Phone and The Red Shoes. Most hilariously awful was The Wig, about a hairpiece that caused the wearer to become possessed. Platinum Dunes is planning a remake called Hell Toupee.

We are talking about movies where Mexican wrestlers fight mummies, Neo Nazis eat the living and genetically-enhanced gangsters encounter bikini-clad ninja androids – pictures that pull out all the stops in their quest to give the viewer the wildest ride imaginable.

These are the ultimate riposte to bland multiplex product, and if the following article leans heavily on Japanese cinema, that’s because the country produces the most extreme movies currently available.

See for yourself.

20. The Mummies Of Guanajuato (1972)

When a mummy murders a midget tour guide, Mexican wrestlers Blue Demon and Mil Mascaros investigate and discover that the mummy is a former wrestler seeking vengeance on El Santo. You see, a hundred years ago, Santo’s great-grandaddy beat this fella in the ring, and it stuck in his craw a little bit, so he had himself mummified and vowed to return from the grave to avenge himself on the luchador’s ancestor, who he somehow knew would also be a luchador.

For all the talk about El Santo, though, he’s barely in this one, and mostly sits the movie out until the final reel, when he appears out of nowhere and vanquishes the mummy menace in a few minutes. Until then, several bizarre musical numbers pad out the running time.

The Mummies of Guanajuato may have three of lucha libre’s biggest stars, but it doesn’t really offer three times the excitement, so if you can’t take troubadour bands, be prepared to fast forward.

19. Zombies: The Beginning (2007)

Imagine a cheap-looking rip-off that recreates entire scenes from Aliens, steals footage from Crimson Tide and uses dialogue from both films and you’ve got Zombies: The Beginning, the final film from Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei.

The “plot” is basically Aliens with zombies – the lone female survivor of a zombie outbreak returns to the remote island where her friends died with the marines in tow, and much ass is kicked.

Remember how Aliens had an armoured vehicle that was shoulder-high in exterior shots yet the cast was able to stand up inside? There’s no such discrepancy here because they have a van that must’ve been rented for the production – not only do the actors drive v-e-r-y carefully, there’s also a Caution: Driver Has Limited Vision sticker on the shotgun side.

Come the finale, our heroine encounters the movie’s take on the Alien Queen – a creature that uses a length of pipe to extract zombie foetuses from living hosts and is controlled by a talking brain in a glass case. If you’re going to rip off a classic, this is the way to do it.

18. Ebola Syndrome (1996)

No stranger to playing slimeballs, Anthony Wong pulls out all the stops in this would-be comedy, portraying a character who when he’s not shooting his load onto a steak he allows to be served to a complaining customer, wets himself in public, blows his nose on undergarments in a clothes store and berates hotel employees who’re unable to procure prostitutes for him. And he’s the hero.

While working in a restaurant in Johannesburg, Wong witnesses a Zulu tribeswoman’s collapse and, sensing an opportunity, starts raping her (“these black babes are great!”). When he falls ill, he’s eventually diagnosed as having contracted Ebola, which he shrugs off and casually passes on to most of Johannesburg and, later, Hong Kong.

Any film whose protagonist sucks out a woman’s eyeball before snapping her neck and grinding her and her family into hamburger (which he allows to be served in his restaurant) could not, strictly speaking, be considered a laugh riot. That said, watching Wong, transformed into a human torch by flame-thrower wielding cops, charge down the street while screaming “How dare you bully me!” is pretty amusing, and when was the last time you heard a film’s protagonist say, “Your wife bullied me, so I screwed her”?

17. The Machine Girl (2008)

When a girl in a movie directed by Noburu Iguchi, who gave us Zombie Ass: The Toilet Of The Dead and Mutant Girls Squad, informs her brother that “violence doesn’t solve anything”, you know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll avenge his murder by machine gunning everything in sight.

When the local Yakuza clan realize what she’s done, Ami (Minase Yashiro) has her arm cut off as punishment, so she seeks medical advice from her local mechanic (wouldn’t you?), who stitches up the wound with a needle and thread. Ami also gets a replacement limb in the form of a custom-made machine gun that can blast flesh from bone and blow gaping holes in its targets, which so terrifies the Yakuza that they hire a group of samurai warriors in bulletproof football helmets and shoulder pads.

Indefensible, senseless and as subtle as a chainsaw, Machine Girl exists for no reason other than to see how much gratuitous bloodshed it can squeeze into its running time. There’s really no reason not to like it.

16. Samson Vs The Vampire Women (1962)

Mexican wrestler El Santo was renamed Samson for this English dubbed version, which appeared on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in 1995. If you’re familiar with the film at all, that’s probably where you first saw it.

Made in 1962, Vampire Women emerged during a peak in popularity for horror films in Mexico, so the film takes visual cues from the Universal and Hammer Dracula pictures and even throws in a Professor in the Peter Cushing mould. He’s not the hero, of course, just a supporting character who recruits Santo to save his daughter from an army of vampires.

In common with the Hammer films of the time, the female vampires are all astonishingly beautiful, yet the men are about as far removed from Christopher Lee as it’s possible to get. Impossibly muscular and about 100 years too contemporary to be believable, the actors look ill at ease in their cheap rubber capes and don’t really come into their own until they attempt to take Santo in a headlock.

15. Junk (2000)

Following a bungled robbery, three men and their female getaway driver escape to a US Army facility in Japan, unaware it’s being used to store the “experiments” of a mad doctor who’s developed DNX, a serum that duplicates the “complex combination of chemicals” that create life but has the unfortunate side effect of turning the recipient into a flesh-eating zombie.

The gory mayhem kicks off with the arrival of the thieves’ bosses, whose planned double cross is interrupted by the arrival of an undead army. Fortunately, the doc is hip to the slaughter and leads an attack on the base, little realizing that the zombie horde is commanded by his late fiancée, the prototype recipient of DNX, who in death has developed a taste for fright wigs and pancake make-up.

“Torn up flesh, gouged entrails and splashing blood,” promised the Japanese press book, giving a fair idea of director Atsushi Moroga’s intent.

Like Robert Rodriguez, he can stage a gun battle and loves comic book violence, but his make-up effects are on a par with Zombie Creeping Flesh and the ‘acting’ of the English-speaking players, whose scenes appear to have been tacked-on to expand the running time, are mostly good for laughs. If you can put that aside, then Junk is everything a zombies versus gangsters movie ought to be – loads of fun.

14. Big Tits Dragon (2010)

It may not come as a total shock to you to learn that Big Tits Dragon is another of those movies where strippers with chainsaws save the world from the zombie apocalypse, but unlike Zombie Strippers and Strippers Vs Zombies, it never outstays its welcome and the jokes are surprisingly funny.

The director is Takao Nakano, who also brought us such immortal classics as Sumo Vixens and Killer Pussy, and being a Japanese production, it naturally features samurai sword fights and zombie sushi. The cast includes real-life porn star Sora Aoi, but get this – the film has more on its mind than exploiting its female leads (well, slightly more).

BTD just wants wants to give the viewer a good time, and Nakano throws in everything except the kitchen sink to make that happen. When they’re not fighting a disembodied head or a zombie that spits fire from between its legs, the girls joke about how cheap the movie looks and point out that Hollywood would never attempt something like this. They’re right, so if you’re tired of Fear The Walking Dead, say hello to your new favourite film.

13. Frontiers (2007)

Proving that French culture isn’t all Gerard Depardieu movies and Marcel Pagnol adaptations, Frontiers starts off as a blistering social commentary, takes a swing into dark horror and ends up in Texas Chainsaw Massacre country, only with the rednecks replaced by Neo-Nazi cannibals.

Making his feature debut, Xavier Gens (Hitman) takes no prisoners and delivers one of the best meat movies never to feature Leatherface. Better structured than Hostel and more palatable than Martyrs, Frontiers is one of the few “torture porn” movies to really stand out.

There are all the usual decapitations and characters who are eaten alive, but how many films have as their villain a Nazi war criminal who kidnaps women with the intent of breeding a new master race (and abandons them in a mine when they disappoint him)? It’s this kind of blackly comic material that makes you wonder if Gens is wasting his time in Hollywood.

12. Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky (1991)

No list of outrageous foreign movies is complete without this Manga adaptation, the first non-erotic Hong Kong movie to receive a Category III (Adults Only) rating. Though not as much silly fun as director Ngai Choi Lam’s The Seventh Curse, Ricky is just as cartoonishly excessive, with enough crushed heads, severed limbs, gouged-out eyeballs and exploding bodies for two movies.

It’s the not-too-distant-future – well, 2001 – and prisons are run as for-profit franchises by corrupt wardens that grow opium poppies on the grounds, use the inmates as cheap labour and terminate with extreme prejudice anyone who stands in their way. Business is a-boomin’ until the arrival of Riki-Oh, a seemingly indestructible martial artist who can tear off jaws, gouge out eyes, hack off limbs and punch holes through his opponents.

This makes Riki-Oh a fly in the ointment, so the warden hires an army of thugs to torture him. One of these fellas is so tough that, rather than admit defeat, he disembowels himself and starts strangling Ricky with his intestines. Prison Break, this is not.

11. Zombie Self Defence Force (2006)

Remember when Peter Jackson made zombie films that were heavy on the red stuff as well as the bad taste gags? Naoyuki Tomamatsu does, so here’s a movie that packs flying saucers, mutant babies, cyborgs and samurai zombies into its 76 minutes.

The plot is best described as “uncomplicated.” When a flying saucer crashes in rural Japan, it brings the dead back to life (“How unscientific,” remarks one character), causing a disparate group that includes a pop star, a soldier and a gangster to seek shelter at a nearby hotel, unaware that the owner has just killed his pregnant mistress. You can probably guess what happens next.

You don’t watch this sort of thing expecting to see finely nuanced characters delivering Shakespearean soliloquies but to see a zombie baby using its umbilical cord as a lasso while a cyborg soldier, the prototype for a proposed invasion of America, shoots up the place. As such movies go, Zombie Self Defence Force is top of the list.

Once you’ve seen enough bad action films, you acquire a taste for movies featuring bulletproof cops, invulnerable martial arts masters and disturbed, indestructible villains. These guys aren’t likely to be mistaken for, say, Douglas Fairbanks or Alan Ladd, their silly shenanigans are several rungs below Bond or Bourne, and the picture itself isn’t even “good” – that is, endorsed by critics – but so what? Most of us don’t go to the movies for Great Art, just Good Popcorn. A film doesn’t have to be Vertigo or Citizen Kane, just ninety minutes that doesn’t leave the viewer feeling they’ve been had.

You grow to love the clichés in all their cheesy glory, and these occasionally lame, often derivative efforts still pack a surprising amount of dumb fun, whether you’re watching a WWE brawler chasing the scumbags who took his wife or, if you want something more cerebral, a WWE brawler fighting a chainsaw-wielding frog-man in the post-nuke desert.

Besides, who said every action hero has to be as noble and patriotic as James Stewart? Gary Daniels may not have shot Liberty Valance (neither did Stewart – it was John Wayne, standing in the shadows) but in Fist of the North Star he has the power to make his opponents’ heads swell and explode just by tapping them. And who needs wholesome role models when you’ve got Chuck Norris? Takes all kinds to make a planet.

Whether you call the following films schlock or guilty pleasures doesn’t matter, just as long as we understand this: the simple pleasures of B-grade escapism are not to be sneezed at.

25. Virtuosity (1995)

Here’s the pitch: Russell Crowe (Best Actor, Gladiator) is Sid 6.7, a “Nanotech synthetic organism”, which in layman terminology means he’s a composite of Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Jack The Ripper, John Wayne Gacy and, for all we know, Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld.

You see, he’s part of a training simulation for LA’s finest, but unbeknownst to cop Denzel Washington (Best Actor, Training Day), one of Sid’s personalities is the psycho that butchered his family. So when Crowe escapes from virtual reality it’s one long cat-and-mouse game, but how do you tackle an opponent who’s impervious to bullets, doesn’t bleed and if tested could probably leap buildings in a single bound?

Think Demolition Man with the ethnicity of the leads reversed, some VR tossed in plus Louise Fletcher (Best Actress, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) as an ineffectual official and you’re almost there. There’s shades of The Hitcher and Die Hard as Denzel is set up for something he didn’t do, gets fired fired upon by a police helicopter and takes a very John McClane-ish rooftop plunge, then as if to prove originality is not this film’s strongest suit, it ends with Washington racing to defuse a bomb.

24. Executioner (1974)

For various reasons, Sonny Chiba’s ex-cop has to break a klutz out of prison and, together with a hitman, they set off to steal twenty billion dollars’ worth of dope from a New York gangster. Which is all the story that’s needed as for the rest of picture, Sonny’s content hurling bad guys through the air, tearing out rib bones and flooring henchmen by the dozen.

It may be light on plot, but the action never lets up and there’s some truly bizarre humour. During a car chase, Chiba refuses to ram the villain’s car because, he says, he isn’t gay (!), and when was the last time you saw a character ask their friend to look after their car payments before dying?

Chalk such silliness down to director Teruo Ishii, who delivers all the blood, nudity and bone-blasting, spine-shattering action you’d expect from the director of Horror of a Malformed Man (1969) and Blind Beast Vs Dwarf (2001).

23. Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone (1983)

Canada’s first 3D sci-fi epic, Spacehunter is another Star Wars/Mad Max copy, but like the Italian rip-offs it resembles, it’s diverting enough on its own terms.

Wolf (Peter Strauss), who in no way resembles Han Solo, is cruising through the galaxy when he learns of the reward offered for the safe return of three women who’ve crashed on Terra 11, a barren wasteland ruled by pasty-faced mutant Overdog (Michael Ironside).

Because he has alimony payments, rent arrears and 165 parking tickets, Wolf accepts and immediately runs into Washington (Ernie Hudson), who in no way resembles Lando Calrissian, and Niki (Molly Ringwald), who might’ve been intended as a Princess Leia-type but comes across more like Chewbacca – every time she opens her mouth, you want to cover your ears.

In plot terms, that’s all she wrote. Until their climactic encounter with Overdog, our heroes fight off Terra 11’s residents, including Amazon women, mutant children with Molotov cocktails, stunt performers in fat suits etc. Spacehunter may not have Return of the Jedi’s snap, but there’s no Ewoks, either.

22. Murphy’s Law (1986)

If you’re only familiar with Charles Bronson through his films with Michael Winner, you might find it hard to believe that he was also in The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen, among others. He’s a long way from his glory days in Murphy’s Law, but it’s still the pick of his 80s films.

Framed for the murder of his ex-wife, Chuck hightails it to a rustic cabin, where his ex-partner takes him in, gives him a weapon and says “take care, old friend.” So we know the guy’s as good as dead. Sure enough, when Chuck leaves to confront whoever set him up, along comes psychotic Carrie Snodgress who’s waging a vendetta against the men that put her away, including the partner, who she wastes on the spot.

All the expected clichés and caricatures are present and correct in this Cannon classic, but best of all are the eye-talian mobsters that Chuck tangles with. When one of them informs him of Murphy’s Law (“anything that can go wrong may result in a nosy cop taking a swim”), Bronson says: “The only law I know is Jack Murphy’s law. It’s very simple. Don’t f**k with Jack Murphy.”

21. Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Toho’s twentieth monster movie (their ninth to feature Godzilla), Destroy All Monsters is, by some distance, the liveliest and most outrageous of them all.

Set in an apparently alternate 1999, where rocket ships leave for the moon on an hourly basis, all of Toho’s creatures have been confined to a sanctuary called Monster Island. Naturally, they escape and start doing their thing, with Godzilla attacking NYC, Rodan trashing Moscow, Mothra invading Beijing etc., but the monsters aren’t acting of their own free will.

Turns out they’re being controlled by the Kilaaks, an “alien race” whose members just happen to resemble beautiful women in tight outfits. Thankfully, a group of astronauts are able to return control of the creatures to Earth, setting up one of the all-time-great monster movie showdowns as Godzilla, Mothra, Gorosaurus, Rodan, Baragon, Varan, Anguirus, Kumonga, Manda and Minira (Godzilla’s son) face off against King Ghidorah and the Fire Dragon, a flaming kestrel that turns out to be a Kilaak flying saucer.

20. The Adventures Of Hercules II (1985)

When his seven mighty thunderbolts are stolen, Zeus, the Greek God of fake beards, calls upon Hercules (Lou Ferrigno, apparently dubbed by Adam West) to battle extras in yeti costumes and rubber monster suits in order to retrieve them.

There’s more: Hercules’s nemesis, King Minos, has been resurrected by the forces of evil and sent to kill him. If that whets your appetite for a climactic swordfight, however, we’re sorry to disappoint you. But if you just thought, “I bet they transform themselves into animated dinosaurs – one yellow, one blue – and have a fight in outer space”, give yourself a cigar.

With its poorly choreographed fight sequences and scenes of skimpily attired maidens being sacrificed by a villain in a Ronald McDonald wig, The Adventures of Hercules proves director Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash, Contamination) to be the grand master of jaw-on-the-floor fantasy filmmaking. “If another threat emerges, the Earth is surely doomed,” announces Zeus. “Can mankind survive?” With Ferrigno and Cozzi in our corner, how can we fail?

19. 9 Deaths Of The Ninja (1985)

With its pre-credits action sequence, ‘epic’ theme song and flamboyant villains with silly names, as well as an appearance by Octopussy’s Vijay Amritraj, 9 Deaths thinks it’s a shoestring Bond movie, an ambition that’s derailed by saucer-eyed overacting, a supporting turn from Brent Huff (remember him in The Perils Of Gwendoline? Didn’t think so) and way too many unintentional laughs.

The problem with Moore-era Bonds was they often flirted with camp, what with all those comic strip villains and starlets named Chew Mee, but at least Roger’s smirk let you know the filmmakers were in on the joke. Here it’s hard to tell. There’s dwarf henchmen, naked female assassins, a villain that can catch a bullet, plus characters named Honey Hump and Madame Woo Pee, but it’s too earnest for it to be intentional.

Then there’s Blackie Dammett as Alby The Cruel, a wheelchair-bound Nazi in the Dr Strangelove mould, who when he can’t light his cigarette spits it out and shoots at it. You know Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis has watched this scene, if only to check out his dad’s acting.

18. TNT Jackson (1974)

Former Playmate of the Month Jeanne Bell fills in for Pam Grier in this Philippines-shot Blaxploitation action movie, playing a street-smart young woman who gets into fights every five minutes while searching for her missing brother.
Though game, Bell is no Pam Grier and certainly no martial artist, meaning her fight scenes are mostly good for laughs until her stunt double steps in to perform all the spine shattering bone blasting kung-fu kicks this one mamma massacre squad seems incapable of in close-up shots.

She does get one memorable fight scene, though. Confronted by gangsters, Bell plunges the room into darkness, removes her clothes (“You want it black, you got it black!”), and goes one on one with her assailants.

Produced by Roger Corman and co-written by Dick Miller, the film’s provenance alone guarantees it cult status, but it’s the unbelievable fight scenes and lively dialogue (“I’m gonna find ‘em, I’m gonna get ‘em and I’m gonna bust the motherfu**ers to pieces!”) that make it a must-see.

So you’re looking for a horror film to watch this October 31st, and you’ve already seen Halloween, Friday The 13th and every other film with a date in the title. You even sat through Halloween: Resurrection, and were stunned when Busta Rhymes kicked down a door with the zinger, “Trick or treat, motherf**ker!”

In terms of wit, verve and storytelling genius, Halloween: Resurrection is the second greatest horror film ever made. The first is anything else. What follows is a list of films that, while not necessarily the cream of the crop, still provide twenty socking reasons to dim the lights, fire up the jack o’ lantern and gorge yourself on candy this Halloween.

Also, it should be noted that compared to a movie where a bad rapper tells Michael Myers to “scoot, skedaddle, get the f**k outta Dodge”, and later fights him off with mixed martial arts, even the weakest of these films looks like a collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Dalton Trumbo.

20. The Burning (1981)

Had it been shot in late 1979, The Burning might’ve beaten Friday The 13th to the punch, been picked up by Paramount and become a phenomenon that spawned sequels, clones, a TV show, bath towels etc.

There’s plenty of talent in the movie: the effects are by Tom Savini, so throats are slit and fingers are hacked off, and the cast includes Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Fisher Stevens (Short Circuit) plus The Piano’s Holly Hunter in her film debut. The editor is Jack Sholder, who later directed The Hidden, and the producers are Brad Grey (The Sopranos), plus Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

Once again, a bunch of meddling kids get theirs courtesy of a barely seen psycho, this time a garden shears-wielding caretaker named Cropsey who takes revenge after being burned in a prank gone awry. Whenever Cropsey’s offscreen, though, the movie strays into Porky’s territory: the nerd watches showering starlets, jocks discuss masturbation while reading Hustler and the bully gets his comeuppance when he’s shot in the ass.

With its porno cinemas, prostitutes and blood-spattered walls, as well as a heavy breathing psycho who owns a subjective camera and a synthesizer, The Burning occasionally resembles Homecoming, Eli Roth’s fake Grindhouse trailer. That’s the film’s true home – playing to the rubes on 42nd Street, probably on a double bill with Don’t Go In The Woods.

19. Grizzly (1976)

When “eighteen feet of gut-crunching, man-eating terror” runs amok in his national park, Warden Christopher George attempts to evacuate the area but is overruled by his boss, who fears bad publicity, so he turns to an eccentric bear expert for help and together with an eccentric adventurer they venture into the wilderness to trap and kill the beast, ultimately blowing it to smithereens.

If the plot of William Girdler’s movie sounds familiar, that’s because it was patterned after Spielberg’s blockbuster to cash in on Jaws, a move that paid off to the tune of $36m in worldwide grosses, making it one of the most profitable independent films of all time and Girdler’s biggest success.

It was producer Edward L Montoro’s biggest hit, too, so a year later he reteamed the filmmaker with stars George, Richard Jaeckal and Teddy the “trained but untamed” bear for Day of the Animals, another nature-fights-back yarn. The movie was not a success, so Girdler and Montoro went their separate ways afterwards, and not amicably: Girdler had to sue the producer to receive his share of Grizzly’s profits.

With such unscrupulous characters behind the scenes, you might anticipate a fast-and-cheap exercise in hucksterism, but like most of Girdler’s output, Grizzly’s a perfectly solid b-movie. For the budget and schedule, it’s well shot, tightly edited and goes about its business with the kind of simplicity that seems lost on modern filmmakers. Sure, it’s a knock-off, but it’s not the worst of ‘em.

18. C.H.U.D. (1984)

Six years before encountering Macauley Culkin, John Heard and Daniel Stern prepared for Home Alone by accepting roles in a low-budget horror picture that required them to wade through sewage and fight a monster that threatened to steal the show. It’s called The Method, people.

With its New York setting and nefarious officials, C.H.U.D. could be a 1950s monster movie, retooled for Reagan-era America. Gone is the Reds-under-the-bed paranoia of the Eisenhower decade and in, courtesy of Ronnie’s demolition of the welfare system, comes a critique of the rise in the city’s homeless population.

Or at least that appears to be the film’s “subtext.” Before going down that particular road, however, and claiming that this entertaining, often silly film is really a condemnation of Reaganomics, let’s not forget that it also features rubber monsters, a gratuitous shower scene and John Goodman as a cop who fails to notice that the diner he’s in has been surrounded by creatures slathered in KY jelly.

NYC, 1984: On the surface, life for Heard and Kim Griest is, if not peaches and cream, then yuppies and condominiums, as all their photographer/model couple has to worry about is whether or not the perfume they’re hawking “smells like faeces.” Not so Stern’s soup kitchen worker who like the rest of the city’s derelicts is far more concerned with the radiation-spawned monsters in the sewers. Yep, radiation is still the #1 cause of monsters, but in this decade, more money is spent denying the problem exists than tackling it.

17. The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)

If you associate Vincent Price with any one character, hopefully it’s Dr Anton Phibes, a demented Biblical scholar (and organist) who, following injuries sustained during a car crash, wears a rubber face mask and drinks through a hole in the side of his neck.

He’s also conducting a vendetta against the surgeons who failed to save his wife Victoria (Caroline Munro) on the operating table. Not just any old vendetta, mind you – this one involves recreating the 10 plagues of Egypt from the Old Testament. So one character is attacked by rats, another is eaten by locusts and, representing a plague of hail, one surgeon encounters a machine that spews ice.

It’s unlikely that anyone other than Price could’ve pulled the character off – capable of speaking only through an electronic voice box he created, Phibes’s voice is seldom heard, meaning Price has to bring him to life via body language. In even his more sympathetic roles, the actor appears menacing, but here he really pulls out the stops to create a flamboyant supervillain.

16. From Beyond The Grave (1974)

According to Hollywood, anthology films never work and fail commercially, so it fell to Amicus to make the pictures that came to define the genre (Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors, Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood etc.), the most fun of which is From Beyond The Grave.

Clever, atmospheric and (at times) very funny, the film comprises four stories (based on the work of R Chetwynd-Hayes) linked by Peter Cushing’s antique shop, Temptations Ltd, which has “lots of bargains. All tastes catered to – and a big novelty surprise comes with every purchase.”

The guest stars include David Warner (who purchases a haunted mirror), Donald Pleasance (who shows a child “an act of kindness” by murdering his parents) and Ian Ogilvy (who installs a door that opens on another that opens on another dimension). Special mention, however, must be made of Margaret Leighton as Madame Orloff, a flaky clairvoyant who specializes in exorcising elementals.

15. Basket Case (1982)

Dedicated to Herschell Gordon Lewis, Frank Henenlotter’s $35,000 debut is as cheap and tasteless as its pedigree would suggest, but less ineptly made. Disarmingly inventive, and shot on the sleaziest locations possible, Basket Case brings to mind the early films of John Waters, whose 70s Baltimore was as scuzzy-looking as Henenlotter’s New York City.

Described by Duane Bradley (Van Hentenryck) as looking like a squashed octopus, Belial is in fact his Siamese twin, who he carries around in a wicker basket to the understandable puzzlement of strangers. Separated against their wishes, Belial survives being unceremoniously disposed of in a trash bag to convince Dwayne to take revenge against the doctors responsible as well as their father, who Belial personally despatches with a circular saw.

When the movie played 42nd Street, Henenlotter was thrilled to see stills from his picture adorning a garish plywood archway, full of spattered blood, even though the caption (“His brother is a deformed twin!”) gave the plot away. By Henenlotter’s own (somewhat harsh) admission, nobody enjoys Basket Case because it’s great filmmaking but because it’s a fun time. Considering its pedigree, how could it not be?

“Not funny enough, or dramatic enough, or sexy enough, or bad enough, to qualify as entertainment in any category.”

That’s Leonard Maltin’s verdict on Striptease (1996), a Demi Moore vehicle that proves not all bad movies are uproarious fun. Anyone who enjoyed Plan 9 From Outer Space or Troll 2 would go out of their minds if locked in a cinema during a screening of this turkey.

Maltin’s words also serve as a good definition of what makes a picture truly bad as opposed to enjoyably bad. Plan 9 may be a failure on every conceivable level, but it fails upwards (so to speak), whereas Moore’s film is so flat and forced you’ll check your watch every two minutes.

Tragically for lovers of good bad movies, the latter trend is now standard at the multiplex. Jack & Jill, Ouija and A Haunted House 2 weren’t just bad, they didn’t even have the decency to amuse, intentionally or otherwise. Everything is subjective, of course, but any viewer who cares to argue the merits of the following clearly has no love for their fellow audience members.

20. Leonard Part 6 (1987)

Lots of money, talent and product placements for Coca Cola went into Leonard Part 6, and the film certainly isn’t lacking for ideas or set pieces – they’re just not very good ideas or very clever set pieces.

Bill Cosby is spy-turned-restauranteur Leonard Parker, who’s brought out of retirement to track down a “vegetarian and former ecologist” with a formula for controlling the minds of various creatures. Said formula turns lobsters, frogs and gophers into crazed killers capable of throwing cars through the air, and only Cosby can save the day with his underarm rocket launcher and flying ostrich.

Which might sound like goofy fun, and in the hands of Barry Sonnenfeld it could’ve been another Men In Black, but every single joke lands with a thud. If you didn’t think Wild Wild West had enough half-baked ideas, you might enjoy it.

19. The Creeping Terror (1964)

Written by the director of a 3D softcore porno, directed by a conman and starring its own investors, this creature feature has little enough going for it even before the ‘monster’ appears on screen. Described by Harry and Michael Medved as “a man-eating carpet from outer space”, our antagonist is just that – a carpet draped over several students, whose feet we can see at the bottom of the screen.

The opening sequence sets the tone: bad acting, bad lighting and bad cinematography topped off with mismatched stock-footage and stale narration. Director Art J. Nelson (who also plays the lead under the alias “Vic Savage”) either shot the picture without sound or lost the soundtrack in post-production; either way, he brought in a local newsreader to narrate the picture, leading to several scenes where conversations between characters are paraphrased in voice-over.

Any movie where a girl wears a bikini for a picnic in the woods isn’t aiming for High Art, but that doesn’t excuse the level of technical incompetence on display here. Along with all the visible ropes, wires and crewmembers, we’re also treated to the sight of the cameraman’s cigarette smoke drifting into shot following an onscreen death, making you wonder what Nelson actually did.

18. An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1998)

While Flashdance, Jagged Edge and Basic Instinct made Joe Eszterhas notorious, Sliver, Jade and Showgirls turned him into a joke, so Burn Hollywood Burn was the screenwriter’s attempt to bite the hand that fed him, an ‘insider’ satire from the man most qualified to write it. It should’ve been brilliant. It’s not.

Endorsed by Roger Ebert as “a spectacularly bad film – incompetent, unfunny, ill-conceived, badly executed, lamely written and acted by people who look trapped in the headlights”, Burn centres on Trio, a $200 million cop movie whose director, Alan Smithee (Eric Idle), would rather steal the negative and hold it to ransom than attach his name to it. You see, he can’t adopt a pseudonym because the name used by the Director’s Guild when a filmmaker refuses credit is….Alan Smithee!

In fact, so desperate was Burn’s director, Arthur Hiller, not to be associated with this misfire that he took the Smithee pseudonym, making An Alan Smithee Film a true Alan Smithee film. No, really, this is the funniest ‘joke’ in the movie.

Shot as a pseudo-documentary, this might’ve worked had it eschewed cheap gags in order to build a credible story, but not only is Eszterhas only interested in sophomoric puns, the cast overplay at every available opportunity. When a picture’s comedic heavyweights include Robert Evans, Sylvester Stallone and Ryan O’Neal, you know you’re in trouble.

17. Blackenstein (1973)

Following Blacula and Dr Black Mr Hyde, another public domain horror title gets the Blaxploitation treatment, only this time the results are much less interesting.

Dr Stein, an evil genius who has “just won the Noble Prize for solving the DNA genetic code”, is puttering around his lab when a former student arrives with some news – her boyfriend Eddie, who lost his arms and legs in Vietnam, is coming home. Knowing that the Doc is an expert at limb reattachment, she requests his help, and you know what that means.

Don’t get excited, because half the movie is over before Eddie gets off his slab and begins lumbering about, punishing those that tormented him. In fact, there’s no reason to bother at all with this time waster, which looks cheap, is full of uninteresting characters and worst of all, doesn’t have the decency to be funny.

16. The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961)

A filmmaker with such appalling taste that he allowed John Carradine to sing the theme song to one of his movies, Coleman Francis achieved a dubious honour – each of the 3 films he directed was parodied on Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Francis’s debut feature, The Beast Of Yucca Flats, was shot MOS (“Mit Out Sound”) and dubbed in post-production, but instead of bringing in actors to dub in lines, Francis narrates the entire picture in deadpan style, and the results are at best mystifying. The “plot” revolves around a “noted scientist” (played by Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson) wandering onto a nuclear testing ground.

Francis’s debut feature, The Beast Of Yucca Flats, revolves around a “noted scientist” (played by Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson) who transforms into the eponymous monster after stumbling onto a nuclear testing ground. Which might’ve made for an entertaining B-movie if only Francis hadn’t decided to shoot the film MOS (“Mit Out Sound”) and dub it in post-production.

Instead of hiring actors to dub in lines, Francis narrates the picture in deadpan style, and the results are at best mystifying. As the police close in on Johnson, Francis says, “Find the beast and kill him. Kill or be killed! Man’s inhumanity to man!” When characters are shown puzzling over the beast’s disappearance, Francis says, “Flag on the Moon. How did it get there?” You can only scratch your head in wonder.

15. Eegah! (1963)

Reasoning that giants must exist because “the Bible says so”, a trio of idiots search for them in California’s Bronson Canyon and immediately encounter 7 foot 2 inch Richard Kiel who, clad in a loincloth and hilarious fake beard, looks considerably less menacing than he did in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Anyway, Kiel abducts a young girl and introduces her to his “family” (a collection of corpses she greets one by one with “nice to meet you”), then she introduces him to a razor and shaving foam before being rescued by her boyfriend. This doesn’t sit well with Kiel, who vows to get her back while screaming the one word he speaks during the film: “Eegah!”

Producer-director-actor Arch Hall Snr reportedly came up with the concept after meeting Kiel, cast his secretary as the female lead and attempted to create an Elvis-like persona for his son, hence the bizarre song I Love You Vicky – which is sung to a girl named Roxy. Incredibly, Eegah! Became a Drive-in hit, earning back its $15,000 budget at a single screening. “It was always sort of a subject of laughter,” Hall said, years later, “that the damn thing did so well.”

So there you are with your popcorn and your enthusiasm, waiting for lightning to strike, but instead of being blown away by $200 million worth of spectacle you get Transformers: Age Of Extinction.

Nobody goes to the multiplex for Great Art, but if you can’t get two hours of decent popcorn, what’s the point? You’re better off staying at home, watching the kind of films your local plex would pay not to show.

We’re not just talking about amateurish acting, dime-store effects and absurdly quotable dialogue, but also concepts so thoroughly bizarre you can’t believe anyone was willing to throw money at them. Ray Milland’s head being grafted onto Rosey Grier’s body? Only in the 1970s!

No matter how weird the going gets, though, these pictures never lose sight of why we go to the movies – we are there to have fun, not watch ice melt for two hours while feeling disappointed. It’s a lesson the makers of sequels, reboots and superhero movies would do well to learn.

20. From Hell It Came (1957)

A picture guaranteed to bring out the worst puns imaginable (“His bark’s worse than his bite”, “what a sap”, “surely knot” etc.), From Hell It Came convincingly depicts the “old legend” of Tabanga, the tree monster who, as any anthropologist will tell you “walked to avenge its wrongs.”

On a “savage island” in the South Seas populated by white English-speaking extras, a Prince named Kimo is sentenced to death by ceremonial dagger for supposedly murdering a chief, but every b-movie fan knows that when a wrongly-convicted man swears vengeance on his persecutors before being buried in a hollow tree trunk, it’s only a matter of time before he returns as another actor in a silly costume.

And what a costume it is. Unlikely to scare anyone except the film’s financial backers, who likely imagined the shirts disappearing off their backs, Tabanga was designed by an uncredited Paul Blaisdell which isn’t too hard to guess as the ambulatory antagonist possesses the same fluid grace as his finest creation, the conical cucumber creature from Roger Corman’s It Conquered The World.

19. Grizzly II: The Concert (1987)

All concert and no grizzly, this belated sequel to William Girdler’s 1976 killer bear opus was still shooting when financial squabbles caused the Hungarian government to shut the production down, leaving the unfinished picture in limbo until a leaked workprint appeared online in 2007.

Wish we could say this is The Greatest Movie You Never Saw, but Grizzly II is to Girdler what Jaws II was to Spielberg, only much, much less. It does however feature Oscar winner Louise Fletcher as a park superintendent who wants that evening’s Nazareth concert to go ahead despite the mauling of fellow Oscar winner George Clooney, who made the mistake of wandering past a sign reading CLOSED BECAUSE OF BEAR DANGER with pals Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern.

Then there’s John Rhys Davies in the Robert Shaw role as a “French-Indian” bear-trapper who claims that in order to catch a grizzly you have to act like a grizzly, think like a grizzly, smell with his nose and wander through the woods in daylight while the rest of the movie is taking place after dark.

Throw in Charles Cyphers (Halloween) as another grizzled grizzly hunter, Deborah Raffin (Death Wish 3) as head of “Bear Management” and Deborah Foreman (April Fool’s Day) as lead Teen In Peril and you have a ‘movie’ that’s irresistible to fans of watching famous faces demean themselves for a paycheck.

18. Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964)

Shot in a converted aircraft hangar by an inexperienced crew, with thrift store costumes and props made from household items, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is a perfect example of what happens when an enterprising producer attempts to make a children’s Christmas movie, but can only afford to mount it on a budget of half a shoestring.

The Martians here are not the malevolent creatures depicted in War Of The Worlds but unemployed stage actors wearing green costumes, green face paint and, for some reason, TV antennae, which prompts one Earth girl to enquire, “Are you a television set?”

Ironically, the Martian children have intercepted Earth television signals and, exposed to broadcasts from the North Pole, become despondent at the prospect of never meeting a well-fed alcoholic in a red suit. Considering what the lack of a proper childhood did to Michael Jackson, it’s understandable that the parents decide to kidnap Santa and bring him to Mars, but the mission is endangered by Voldar, who we know must be the epitome of evil because he has a moustache.

Called “the worst science fiction flick ever made” by The Monster Times, the movie marked the screen debut of Pia Zadora, who is here surrounded by cardboard robots, a guy in a polar bear costume and aliens armed with Wham-O Air Blasters. The future ‘star’ has precious little screen time and says next to nothing, but boy did she start as she meant to go on.

17. Rat Man (1988)

Any hope that this was going to be a superhero parody in the vein of Ray Dennis Steckler’s awesome Rat Pfink A Boo Boo was quelled by the tagline: “He’s the critter from the shi**er!”

In the main story, swimsuit model Eva Grimaldi is taunting her photographer (“The only thing he’s got that clicks with me is a shutter”) when an attack by the eponymous creature, who does indeed emerge from a latrine, forces them to seek help at a nearby doctor’s residence.

Unfortunately, the doc seems to know more about ol’ ratface than Ms Grimaldi is comfortable with, ultimately ranting about how his “Greatest achievement” was to fertilize a monkey ovum with the sperm of a rat, which he thought would win him the Nobel Prize but instead created a monster (what’re the odds?).

Intercut with this is the arbitrary sub-plot of sister Janet Agren (City Of The Living Dead) and writer David Warbeck (The Beyond) searching for Grimaldi by puttering about in dark, deserted houses and storming ideas for Warbeck’s new novel. Since they never do very much or share screen time with the other performers, their scenes feel like an afterthought tacked on in post-production, as does the abrupt, unbelievable ending.

16. Massacre In Dinosaur Valley (1985)

Directed by the auteur behind Women In Fury, Undergraduate Girls and the disarmingly titled A Policewoman On The Porno Squad, Massacre In Dinosaur Valley is loaded with gratuitous nudity, cheesy laughs, gratuitous nudity, fake gore and did we mention gratuitous nudity?

It’s your typical story of an Indiana Jones-ish adventurer and two lingerie models who, following a plane crash, are set upon by a succession of leering voyeurs. First, and most bizarre, are the tribesmen who force the girls into their birthday suits so they can dance for a claw-handed deity who emerges from a cloud of smoke.

Escaping with suspicious ease, they next encounter a perverted slave owner. While he attends to his illegal mining operation, the girls are “entertained” by his lesbian henchwoman, who whisks them off for a first date they’ll never forget.

The film also lends itself to a drinking game: take a drink every time the director comes up with another way of denuding his cast.

15. Dracula The Dirty Old Man (1969)

Had history played out differently, Dracula The Dirty Old Man would’ve been just another forgettable no-budget monster nudie flick. To the gratitude of bad movie fans, however, the director lost the soundtrack in post-production and decided to redub it as a comedy, turning a threadbare sex farce into a movie that must be seen to be believed.

For budgetary reasons, Count Dracula lives in one of California’s Bronson Caves and, after transforming a nosy journalist into a lycanthrope named Irving Jackalman, instructs him to procure young virgins. When the starlets are delivered to his cave, the Count ties them up, starts fondling them and….that’s when the movie goes mad.

Dubbed with the voice of a bad Bela Lugosi impersonator, the Count points out technical goofs and jokes about how cheap the movie looks. In between denuding starlets, he’ll look around his cave and say, “I’ve got to get a new interior decorator.” At one point, he says, “I am Count Dracula. Which is Alucard backwards. So you can call me Ali.”

Ask anyone who’s been to their local multiplex anytime recently and they’ll tell you that mediocrity is the order of the day: it’s all sequels, reboots and movies about Caucasian superheroes, most of which don’t have as much plot as your typical MacGyver episode.

You’d think that a movie with a nine-figure budget and Oscar-calibre talent would at least make some sort of impression, but if you want a truly memorable viewing experience, you’re better off searching out the kind of sleazy, cheesy, occasionally reprehensible films your local plex would pay not to show.

From masked Mexican wrestlers to Spanish vampires by way of Indonesian Terminators, gorillas in diving helmets and fish-men that want your girlfriend not for food but to mate with, there isn’t a movie here that won’t leave your jaw on the floor. So if you’ve ever sat in a multiplex with your popcorn and enthusiasm and been left underwhelmed by $200 million of nothing much, perhaps this list will introduce you to some below-the-radar alternatives.

Call them schlock, guilty pleasures or Z-movies (go ahead, we don’t care) but there’s a strange appeal to their lack of elegance and often baffling narratives. Anything can happen, and usually does.

30. The Twilight People (1972)

Distributed by Roger Corman, The Twilight People is The Island Of Dr Moreau done on the cheap in the Philippines. John Ashley is Matt Farrell, a “soldier of fortune” who’s kidnapped while skin-diving and forced to become a test subject for Dr Gordon (Charles Macauley).

Like any self-respecting mad scientist, Gordon has a comely daughter (Pat Woodell), a psychotic henchman (Jan Merlin) and a cellar full of “experiments”, including an antelope man, a wolf woman and a bat man. Naturally, they escape and….well, you know the drill.

Also among the creatures, but barely recognisable, is Pam Grier as Ayessa, the panther woman. Having achieved prominence (and prominent billing) in The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and Women In Cages, her non-speaking role here, which amounts to little more than a glorified cameo, could hardly be considered a ‘career move’.

Fortunately, following Black Mama White Mama and Scream Blacula Scream AIP gave her Coffy, and a Blaxploitation icon was born. Ashley moved on too, later becoming a producer on The A-Team, for which he provided the opening narration.

29. Hospital Massacre (1982)

A new benchmark for over-the-top direction, unbelievable storylines and performances so broad they qualify as camp, Hospital Massacre starts as it means to go on when Harry, one of those heh-heh-heh psychos capable of sneaking into your house without your knowledge, impales young Susan’s brother on a hat stand as punishment for rejecting his advances.

Years later, Susan has flowered into Playboy cover girl Barbi Benton, and Harry’s abuse of her medical records somehow results in her being detained by the medical staff and subjected to the kind of sleazy assessments Playmates usually receive in horror pictures. Not only does Barbi prove a great screamer, though, but she can take a nude prostrate exam with the best of them.

About halfway through the film, Susan’s boyfriend Jack, who’s been waiting in the car the whole time, finally comes to the rescue and….loses his head to Harry’s bone saw. Said noggin is then delivered to Susan in a bow-tied box, but when she summons help it’s been replaced by a cake, leading the too-dumb-to-be-believable nurses to restrain her. Then they start wandering off by themselves down dark corridors, and you can probably figure out the rest.

28. Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973)

Why do top-level scientists keep turning up dead due to “sexual exhaustion”? It’s something to do with a mysterious woman in wraparound sunglasses whose research project has created human/insect hybrids that, stuck in their reproductive cycle, continue mating until their partner expires.

Wait, it gets better: when the morgue fills up with middle-aged men who all claimed to be “working late”, the grieving widows are abducted and transformed into Bee Girls by being stripped naked, smothered in beeswax and left in a transformation chamber from which they emerge wearing black contact lenses. So the local Sheriff advises sexual abstinence, unaware he’s appearing in a movie where all the supporting female players are strippers, Playmates and porn queens, which renders his authority….impotent.

You wouldn’t know it from the nudity-heavy trailer, but the script is by Nicholas Meyer (The Seven Per Cent Solution, Star Trek II), who isn’t considered a grindhouse aficionado. Tellingly, there’s a credit for a “Script Consultant” (“Rewrite Man”), so whenever characters discuss psychosomatic death, it’s Meyer, and whenever a breast pops out….you get the idea.

27. Blood Diner (1987)

Years after their Uncle Anwar died in a police shooting when he was revealed to be The Happy Times All-Girl Glee Club Massacre Killer, two brothers resurrect him as a talking brain in a jar. He then tells them to resurrect the Lumerian goddess Sheetar by calling her forth at a “Blood Buffet” where her spirit must be summoned into a body stitched together from the cadavers of murder victims.

A film that delights in its puerility, revels in its cartoonish outrageousness and never goes over the top when it can ascend into the stratosphere, Blood Diner is a pseudo-sequel to Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast (1963). According to the Godfather of Gore himself, he was due to helm a straight sequel (which he did years later) but Jackie Kong, the picture’s director, had other plans.

A volatile director, dubbed “Queen Kong” by cast and crew, she often pulled colleagues aside for a “Kongfrontation” (a word seen on a billboard in one sequence), which perhaps explains the level of frantic energy that permeates the film. Blood Diner might be clumsy, mean-spirited and offensive, but you have to admit: it’s never boring.

26. The Human Tornado (1976)

Whether defeating World Champion martial artists with a single blow or extolling his virtues in the theme song (“Mules kicked me and didn’t bruise my hide/ Rattlesnakes bit me and crawled off and died”), stand-up Rudy Ray Moore is the whole show in The Human Tornado, which has a shot at being the most outrageous Blaxploitation movie of all time.

There’s no real story, just a succession of scenes where a comic named Dolemite (Moore, pretty much playing himself) tangles first with a redneck sheriff, then with a mobster named Caveletti. When two of his friends are kidnapped on Caveletti’s orders, Dolemite comes to their rescue with speeded-up kung fu (which must be seen to be believed), but before that the movie plays its trump card and delivers its most bizarre moment.

Attempting to obtain information from Cavaletti’s nymphomaniac wife, Dolemite displays a painting of a white woman wrapped around a muscular black body, the sight of which causes her to disrobe and hallucinate a number of naked, oiled gentlemen callers that emerge from the wardrobe to drop down a slide and land between her spread legs while Moore is, erm, pumping her for information. Did we mention this is a parody?

25. She Wolves Of The Wastelands (1988)

With the male population destroyed by the “bacteriological apocalypse”, evil dictator Cobalt (former Miss India Persis Khambatta) leaves the females (young, blonde, barely clothed etc.) to wander the Mojave Desert while she plots world domination from the plastic-draped soundstage she shares with the Reverend Mother, a wheelchair-bound hag apparently being kept alive by an army surplus radio.

When a genetic experiment known as “the seed” is stolen and used to impregnate Keela (Playboy model Peggy Sands), the Immaculate Conception brings forth the first male child born in decades, allowing the Playmate to show off her parenting skills by teaching him how to use throwing stars.

Kidnapping and sacrificing the child will somehow grant the Mother great powers, so Cobalt locks him up in a giant birdcage and hands Keela over to the Airwave Worshippers, who wear masks and burlap sacks and inhabit a graveyard strewn with broken TVs and skeletons in armchairs.

Surprisingly, director Robert Hayes (not the Airplane! Actor) seems more interested in catfights than narrative logic, so once the general idea has been sketched in he’s free to indulge his passion. And no, we never learn how they were able to procure headbands, hair dye and breast implants in the wastelands.

24. Queen Kong (1976)

Laughable in every respect apart from when it attempts to be funny, this no-budget sex comedy knock-off of Dino de Laurentiis’s King Kong (which itself was trying to capitalize on the success of Jaws) is so lame-brained and amateurish you can’t imagine anyone queuing up to see it. In fact, viewers never had the chance – “legal difficulties” meant it was never released theatrically and remained unseen until its DVD debut twenty-five years later.

Rula Lenska is looking for a “real man” to star in her jungle adventure film, but in 70s England the best she can find is Robin Askwith, who also played Timothy Lea in the Confessions movies. Venturing to “Lazanga, where they do the konga”, Askwith is kidnapped by the bikinied natives (led by Valerie Leon’s “Queen of the Nabongas”) who want him as a mate for their goddess, Queen Kong.

Portrayed by a female dancer in the World’s worst monkey suit, and looking even lamer than the creature in King Kong Escapes (1967), Queenie fights a plastic pterodactyl and, in a scene so bad it looks like a Saturday Night Live parody, a T-Rex that knocks over the “scenery”. Incredibly, the movie manages to get worse: witness the end credits song that includes the couplet, “You would stop yelling ‘rape’/ If I was just an ordinary household ape.”

23. Rock N Roll Nightmare (1987)

Jon Mikl Thor, lead singer of the real-life Canadian hair metal band Thor, plays “Triton The Archangel”, a heaven-sent ass-kicker who wears a cape and leather thong. He’s infiltrated a band that’re recording some tunes in a studio that, years earlier, was the scene of a multiple homicide.

The murders were committed by some hilariously unconvincing rubber demons, and it just so happens that they’re still around, so as soon as the band arrives, everyone except Thor starts dying in a series of gruesome set pieces.

This can only be building towards one thing – a confrontation between Triton and the Prince of Darkness. Sadly, budgetary constraints mean Satan doesn’t put in an appearance, so instead a hand puppet taunts Thor before announcing “You win this time” and vanishing in a cloud of purple smoke.

22. Madmen Of Mandoras (1963)

On the fictitious Caribbean island of Mandoras, a “leading scientist” is being held captive by Nazis interested in his antidote for G-gas, a lethal nerve agent they intend to release across the globe. This diabolical masterplan could only have been thought up by the still-living head of Adolf Hitler, which resides in a bulletproof jar and occasionally transforms into an unconvincing prop.

Unavailable for years, Madmen Of Mandoras was sold to television in 1968 as They Saved Hitler’s Brain (still bearing a 1963 copyright) and expanded to a Network TV-friendly 91 minutes with the inclusion of snooze-inducing new footage. Clumsily integrated into the narrative, the new scenes bring the movie to a grinding halt and serve only to jumble up the storyline.

In its original version, however, it’s a silly-but-fun B-grade thriller that doesn’t deserve the critical enmity it has inspired over the years. Judge for yourself.

21. Attack Girls Swim Team Vs The Undead (2007)

All a movie with that title asks is that you get on its wavelength, enjoy it for what it is and admire the cast in their swimsuits. Director Koji Kowano (Cruel Restaurant) knows this, so his camera lingers on every curve, erect nipple and pert behind as his actors swim, sunbathe, shower and fight off a zombie horde.

At an all-girl school in Japan, a virus turns students and teachers into flesh-eating monsters with an unnatural fear of chlorinated water, meaning that only the swim team is unaffected. This inevitably leads to scenes of swimsuit-clad girls fighting off blood-spattered aggressors, but is there more to the movie than that? Not really.

With its porno production values, cheap effects and emphasis on female nudity, Attack Girls has even less ambition than Zombie Strippers, but it’s better-paced and, in true Japanese style, so disarmingly gonzo it’s difficult not to be entertained.