An Introduction to...

The Film Club for the Weird/Bad-Looking Netflix Instant Titles Daring You To Watch Them



I haven't always had what one would call a 'good' taste in movies. Several of my good friends may claim that I still don't, but I digress... In the infancy of my film obsession, as a teenager growing up near the metropolis of Knoxville, IA, I would travel on a near-daily basis to the video store Mike's Movies and rent a handful of VHS tapes on each visit.
Sure, I rented the occasional 'classic' or new release--but I was far often drawn to the back area (not that back area) where shelves of cheesy-looking B and below-grade horror and sci-fi movies.
Movies with names like 'Castle Freak' and 'Ice Pirates' -movies with covers often depicting sad-looking spaceships, cheap-looking monsters, or gratuitous T&A. If it had all three, I knew I had a winner on my hands.
I knew these movies weren't going to be good, but I watched them anyway. I've since evolved from watching solely 'so bad its good' movies into more of your typical cine-phile who would rather watch a Hungarian film about cheese-making than the latest Adam Sandler vehicle.
Still, whenever I'm browsing through the Netflix Instant selections, I often choose films that remind me of Mike's Movies for my queue---80s comedies, 90s direct-to-video schlock-fests, Star Wars knockoffs.

This 'film club' will not be for just those films.
I will let whoever wants to make a selection, make a selection--but I'm going to be upfront that my choices will often be of the 'why the heck not?' 5-VHS-rentals-at-a-time-variety.

How's this going to work?

Well, once or twice a month (at least on my end- I can't afford this to take up all my movie viewings) someone in the club will select something from the dregs of Netfilx's Instant selection and whoever wants to participate and can watch.

A week or so after the selection is named, the nominator gets to write at least a couple paragraphs about the movie and offer some talking points/questions for discussion (to be held in the comments section).

These aren't recommendations, I'll be watching these for the first time with the rest of the club. Because of such and because of the presumed quality (or lack there of) with a lot of these movies- I personally don't expect everyone to finish each movie. The fun will be just to check out enough of each selection to see its merits.

So what's the first selection? I may be guilty of following for an intentionally campy film here, but this description is hard to pass up:

"Duncan Jax (Ian Hunter) and his tank-driving baboon infiltrate a South American lair where a group of Nazis scheme to revive a cryogenically frozen Adolf Hitler. Armed with high-tech gadgets and joined by sizzling hot lady agents, Jax turns his mission into a wildly explosive crusade against the fascist baddies. Worth Keeter directs this over-the-top action flick."

The movie- 1987's Order of the Black Eagle.



How far will you make it?