Project Terrible: Buttcrack (1998)

Yeah, you read that right. I watched a movie called Buttcrack. I guess I should know by now that there's no getting out of my Project Terrible duties as far as Alec is concerned, so here we go. This pick is from Alex Jowski, and as you can probably tell by the title and the cover art, it is a god awful Troma picture (though actually not directed or written by Lloyd Kaufman) that is a blessedly short 67 minutes long. It's available on YouTube if you're wildly curious, but your time would probably be better spent getting a root canal or something.

Brian is desperate to spend some time alone with his girlfriend Annie, whom he wants to propose to, but his overweight and highly annoying roommate Wade keeps getting in the way. Wade's biggest offense is the fact that he can't kept his pants up, constantly showing his buttcrack. One day Brian gets so mad at Wade that he accidentally kills him, and Wade's sister puts a curse on him so that anyone who says the word "buttcrack" twelve times in one breath will bring Wade back to life so he can get revenge.

To put my feelings in the most eloquent way possible... OMFGTHAT'SSODUMBIWANTTOKILLEVERYONEWHOMADETHISMOVIE. I don't even really know what to say here - how could one measly hour hold so much awfulness? The term "low budget" doesn't even cover the almost non-existent production value, the actors who don't even try, or the filmmaking techniques that look like a child was behind the camera. Had I been in a better mood before I started watching this, I'm sure I would have found Buttcrack hilarious, and I know that you're supposed to. It's so ridiculous and stupid that it's not trying to be anything but ridiculous and stupid.

As possibly the most annoying person on the planet, the actor playing Wade is quite talented. Not only is he physically repulsive with his overhanging gut and unibrow (not to mention the buttcrack), he also has a super-annoying voice which he uses to sing horribly and talk non-stop about playing Atari. The other actors aren't any better. Brian's friend Ken is probably the worst because he can't seem to show any emotion at all and spends the whole movie with the same blank stare on his face. Brian's girlfriend Annie and her scrunchy face don't help anything either, and Brian himself is unattractive and dresses like he still loves 80s. Some idiot named Mojo Nixon takes his role as Preacher Man Bob very seriously, acting like the quintessential evangelical religious nut who has to speak at least five octaves above everybody else and has no control of his hands. They're bad. They're all bad.

I didn't even know that this was going to be a zombie movie, but when Wade awkwardly brings into a conversation with Brian that his sister is into voodoo, I knew that it was heading into that direction. Even though the movie is so short, you still have to wait until the last ten minutes or so for anything zombie-related to happen. And trust me, you've never heard anything like this before. Wade's offending buttcrack, which in once scene literally makes Annie vomit all over him, is actually what makes the people around him turn into zombies. Yup, just one look at that disgusting butt cleavage after Wade rises from the grave instantly turns several people (actually almost the whole cast because there's only about six of them) into zombies who for some reason develop nasty wounds out of nowhere in seconds.

And actually, the zombie effects were better than I was expecting considering the production value of the rest of the flick. In just a few minutes, they manage to pull off a guy getting his neck ripped out, a woman taking several gunshots to the face, and poor little zombie Wade getting one of his arms yanked off at the shoulder. So I was mildly impressed by that. Not much else.

At the end of the movie we get the most unnecessary scene of some people visiting Wade's grave a year later because he's become some sort of local legend. They then proceed to give the audience a recap of everything that just happened in the movie. It was three minutes ago. Do you really think we could ever forget what we just saw??? They say "buttcrack" again twelve times and the last shot is Wade's hand coming out of the grave again. Oh thank goodness, it's over. If you know what's good for you, you will never, ever watch this movie.

Project Terrible: Meat Weed Madness (2006)

And just what, pray tell, did I ever do to deserve this? Do I seem like the kind of person who wants to watch pot-smoking cornballs just doing a bunch of crazy shit on camera and calling it a movie? Apparently, Alec of Mondo Bizarro thinks that I am, for he hath bestowed upon me the drugged out insanity that is Meat Weed Madness. That was an hour and a half that I could've spent, like, doing something way more productive on my day off, but it is my Project Terrible duty. And though I could've just lied, I actually watched this whole damn thing so you all better appreciate it.

I'm not even entirely sure that there was a plot to the, uh... the thing I just watched. If there was, I must have missed it in between the scenes of a purple, stop-motion, papier mache cow walking around a field, lying in a hammock and then getting hit by the main "actress"'s car. Don't believe me? Look to the left! That is an actual still from the movie! But hold the excitement for now, because purple papier mache cows are only the beginning with this movie, and they've still got plenty more time to bombard innocent viewers like me with more and more and more and more whacked out shit.

Let's see what I can remember... there's the papier mache cow humping a tombstone; an ape playing the piano; two knives having sex; a naked chick trying to make love to a painting; several naked people doing dirty things with lawn jockeys; a guy with a penis rocket; and a minotaur named Bullpucky who always carries around a giant cigarette. I'm still trying to block out the rest of what I saw. Anyway, the "filmmakers" somehow decided that all of this would go really well together in a movie. Ha, I said "filmmakerS" when really this Aiden Dillard guy's credit says "Produced, Written, Directed, Edited, and Music by Aiden Dillard." So basically it's this one fool behind a camera with a bunch of druggies for actors who didn't have anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon. Excellent cinema.

Wanna know what "meat weed" is? Of course you do. It's weed... with meat in it. But not just any kind of meat - no, it's human meat. The aforementioned Bullpucky (who is the son of a woman who had sex with a cow? Did I understand that right?) is apparently the muscle of Meatweed Manor, where all this wacky tobacky is created under the leadership of Lord Meatweed, and he kills people after letting them have a little bit of fun at the manor first. I was slightly amused when he kills one of the four main girls, Angel, and they make absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that they are using a crudely made papier mache doll (there's that papier mache again) for when he is stabbing her and pulling stuff out. I think at one point there is even a shot of the doll with a bald head - even though the actress clearly has long brown hair.

Now these four girls must be interesting people in real life to get themselves involved in this. For three of them, they're only job for most of the movie is to not wear clothes, make crude comments, and run around place as if they were bipolars having the most awesome manic episode of their lives. As one Netflix reviewer put it, "There are also lots of Troma's trademark naked girls who's [sic] mediocre looks are made up for by their hilarious enthusiasm." Couldn't have put it better myself.

There was about two seconds of the film that I actually liked - and believe me, that's saying something - and that is when Lord Meatweed is showing Jessy Belle around his plantation and there is a shot of these two older ladies in a greenhouse smoking the meatweed. They're dressed like they're sitting down to tea, but surrounded by a cloud of smoke. I thought that was hilarious. Those ladies had to have been somebody on the cast or crew's very loving, very understanding aunt or something to agree to do something like this.

Okay, I've already spent too much time on this movie. I'm sure none of what I just said (typed) makes any sense to you, but that's okay. That's how I felt when I was watching the movie. Meat Weed Madness is a Troma film for sure, and though we'd like to, I don't think there is any way to get those people to stop making terrible movies. Drugs are bad, people. Drugs are bad.