One of my favorite things in the world is a bad movie. I mean, a really bad, bad movie. I used to collect bad made for tv movies, especially the celebrity biopics, poorly cast and turning the lives of Madonna and the Judds into 90 minutes of drama... too funny. I mean, seeing a film depicting Madonna living in her first New York slum apartment, sleeping on the floor and a rat crawling beside her. Come on, does it get ANY better than that? I can imagine Madge just howling as she watched this.
Just the other day, I saw one of the best bad movies I have ever seen. It wasn't a biopic but an adventure film. It was called “Tornado.” Jason bought it for me at Hollywood Video for five bucks. He, knowing I love tornado's thought I would enjoy the movie. I had heard of this movie or so I thought. My first thought was that it was a made for tv rip off of “Twister” (which I thought was really cool by the way). We plopped it into the DVD player and sat back to watch. Immediately I knew it was going to be a cheese fest because of the DVD menu art. Really, really bad. Like, did it with Frontpage bad.
So now the plot of the movie is truly just ridiculous and apparantly the description of the film appears in three different versions that have nothing to do with the actual plot of the movie. It involves a guy and a female reporter going to Romania to investigate the legend of a gigantic tornado sent by satanic worshipers to destroy the gypsie population. Seriously. Brilliant movie.
So watching the film, indeed they go to Romania and I am at first amazed at their American accents. The worst american accents done by non-American actors I have ever seen. Where on earth are they from? Canada? New Zealand? Wha-? Turns out she was Canadian and he was Swedish. Then there is the glamorous gypsy girl (ofcourse) who's “broken english” effect was absolutely ridiculous. At times she can barely put a sentence together and then there are times she pulls words out of her ass that would not be in the vocabulary of some gypsy chick who can barely speak english.
Sexual tension is all over the place between this guy and the two girls and at one point we thought for sure this was going to be a soft core porn film. Nothing doing. All of the sexual tension was for no reason at all. You have to remember that this is a film void of any kind of realistic portrayal of any kind of relationship. Nothing makes sense.
In the first scene for instance, the father of the lead character in a flashback is chained to a giant plow tractor thing as he is filming a tornado heading towards him. The wind is so strong that it lifts him in the air, and yet he can hang on to the camera. Also, the lead character as a seven year old boy is just about a yard or so away from him and manages to not be blown away or sucked up into the twister at all. One of the best visuals is of the father being pulled into the tornado and whirling into the air ala “The Wizard of Oz.”
So, you'd think THIS film would have pulled the whole, “it's only a dream and you and you and you were there” gimmick... no, this is supposed to be something that really is happening.
So then we see gypsies. Lot's of stereotypical Gypsies dancing and playing music because that is all that they ever do apparantly. What blew me away (no pun intended) was that included in this film is a DOCUMENTARY about the making of it and in the doc, the director tells us that he used ACTUAL Romanian gypsies. So these people parading around like mid-70's Cher are AUTHENTIC?!! And one older woman in particular is always appearing on camera which is hysterical...
I am just going to blabber on and on about this movie... the very, VERY bad acting, the ridiculous special effects, the absence of a plot, the insane asylum scene... yes.... just great. But the very best scene I believe is when he is looking for this guy who had written a book with his father about the Tempesta... and he goes to what used to be the guys address in Romania (complete with house number whiched seemed amusing...) and the woman who speaks worse english than the gypsy girl tries to tell him that he is no longer living in the house...
Bottom line is you have to see it. Go find it, rent it... just keep watching because it just get's weirder and more and more stupid as it goes. It's fascinating. Try to imagine that this is a Christopher Guest thing and that everyone is purposely being bad, that makes it even funnier. I hope Parker Posey does the sequel.
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