Welcome to the sixth (SIXTH?!) edition of Not On My Watch, the seedier side of TechRadar where we offer up four flaccid films for you to completely avoid.
You see, for all the good streaming has brought to the world - a bigger and better Jeff Bezos for a start. Have you seen the guy lately? He looks like he's smuggling ballon animals under his t-shirt - it's also opened the floodgates for some truly awful films. Movies you never knew existed until Amazon Prime and Netflix came along and slung them on the streaming scrapheap.
That's the thing with these streaming services, for all the amazing content they have, there's a ton of things you would never ever want to watch. But, my word, are their titles enticing.
Beast of Borneo (with box art that sneakily makes it look like you are about to watch a movie called Beasts of Porneo), Swarm of The Snakehead, Slaughter Island, Vacuum Killer (complete with tagline 'It will suck you dead'), Ghost Shark 1: Port Massacre, Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws... all of these are brilliant titles but terrible, terrible movies.
And here's four more awful films that need to be seen to be believed - the first being perhaps the most famous bad movie of all time...
- You deserve better: the best Amazon Prime movies and best Netflix movies around
- Get your free 30-day Amazon Prime trial
1. Troll 2
The Premise: A family goes on vacation to Nilbog, a 'wonderful half-empty town'. Except it's not, it's full of trolls (not trolls), damn trolls (definitely not trolls).
I had so far resisted putting Troll 2 into this column as it's, well, a bit too famous. But every time I seek out another bad movie, it's there staring at me with its troll-like face. That's right, I am being trolled by Troll 2.
Well, no more. You've finally got your way... this is why Troll 2 is one of the worst movies ever made.
- It's not even a frigging sequel to Troll, the 1986 movie. It has nothing in common with it. At all. Other than its name. So, it does have something in common with it.
Damn you, stop trolling me Troll!
- There are no trolls in it. They are goblins. Crap looking goblins granted, but goblins nonetheless. The reason: the film was originally called Goblins.
Damn you, stop trolling me Troll!
- One reason (of many) Trolls 2 sucks so bad, director Claudio Fragasso didn't speak much English while making a movie with an all English-speaking cast. Also, his wife (Rossella Drudi) didn't have much of a grasp of English when she wrote the script for the movie, in English. Despite the script reading - for some reason - like someone without much grasp of English wrote it, the actors weren't allowed to change any of the lines. Not even this cracker: "I'm the victim of a nocturnal rapture. I have to release my lowest instincts with a woman."
Damn you, stop trolling me Troll!
- Finally, there's a scene where Joshua, the boy who starts seeing the trolls/not trolls, pees on a table for no reason other than director Fragasso thought that would be a good addition to the movie.
Damn you, stop trolling me Troll!
Troll 2, it's a must-watch, seen-to-be-believed movie. One that's packed with the worst acting, costumes, set design, script, directing... the worst everything.
It did spawn a great documentary, though, called Best Worst Movie, directed by Troll's very own Joshua, Michael Stephenson.
Best watched when: Nope. I have nothing.
2. Robo-Dog
The Premise: A father makes a robot dog for his son, after his real dog dies because that's a completely normal thing you should do when someone goes through the grieving process.
Let's not beat around the bush here, the child in this movie kills his dog. It might be by some freak convoluted accent, but his dog dies because of him. He doesn't deserve another dog, let alone a robot one. He needs to learn how to stop killing dogs, not be given one that are invincible.
And that's just the first 15 minutes of this awful kids' movie. The rest of the film is essentially a dog killer doing doggy things with a robot dog that looks exactly like the dog he killed - except it can run super fast, talk and project home videos from his cold dead eyes.
Best watched when: When you want to know exactly what not to do when your pet dies, especially if they died because of your own ineptitude.
3. Prophecy of Eve
The Premise: Eve has some unanswered questions. With her parents dead and having grown up on the streets she wants to know just what the hell happened to her life.
You've got to hand it to the filmmakers of The Prophesy of Eve, they are so low rent they didn't even think to buy some audio equipment to make this movie with. It's probably a good think, though, as it means you can't make out much of the hackneyed dialogue. At least the plot tries to be different: Eve was abandoned as a child because some supernatural being whisked her parents away without so much of a goodbye note. Eve grows up, learns how to fight and goes on a mission to find out why her parents died.
This missions mostly consists of her wearing a sword on her back, her eyes occasionally glowing red and casting iMovie styled special effects from her hands.
Best watched when: You mistakingly think this is the long-lost sequel to the Oscar-winning All About Eve.
4. E-19 Virus
The Premise: There's a virus doing the rounds and the only cure is in two vaccinations bottles, which are given to a bunch of kids as they have super powers.
The world has been taken over by a virus that turns its victims from normal people into bad actors with rubbish prosthetic makeup, and the only thing that will save everything are three annoying kids who have special powers. Powers they never actually use because, well, budgetary reasons.
There's an amazing bit in E19 Virus, about 20 minutes in, when a mum tends to her sick daughter. It has all the makings of an Oscar-worthy scene, she's patting her head telling her not to worry because her mum is looking after her, while her daughter ravaged by the virus just stares into the distance. The only thing stopping the Academy knocking on the door is the fact the makeup team have made her look like she's wearing a pizza on her face, complete with stuffed crust.
Best watched when: you have the sniffles and you really fancy a Pizza Hut (other pizza companies are available).
Watch the E-19 Virus trailer on Vimeo
Marc Chacksfield is a former film journalist (and TechRadar's global managing editor) who is already regretting agreeing to watch terrible movies for the sake of his column Not On My Watch.
