I begrudge calling this list a top 5 because it's really a list of some of the worst films I've ever seen in my life; most of which don't deserve to be top of anything. Alas, some people enjoy watching bad films just to laugh at how bad they are. Those people should stop just before the top 2 though. At that point, the peculiar people with a love for extreme gore will take over and get their sick kicks.

5. Mexican Werewolf In Texas (2005)

Where do I begin. This is like any other werewolf horror film really, except the budget isn't there to make anything convincing; neither the prosthetics nor the fear in the actors. I'll be honest, if you're going to check out any film from this list, skip this one. It's just bad. I only like it for the name.

4. Gutterballs (2008)



A lovely little gorefest which features a woman involuntarily giving anti-birth to a bowling pin. Kind of has a Final Destination vibe to it, but nowhere near as polished. The killer is a guy with a ball bag on his head. Also, some people 69 to death.

3. Troll 2 (1990)



This film is notorious on youtube. Type in "worst acting ever" and you'll see what I mean. Not gory in the slightest as the killers are all vegetarian, this film is just plain funny, although it is apparently tongue-in-cheek, which kind of ruins it a bit. You need to watch this simply as a rite of passage into the world of bad films.

2. The Devil's Experiment (1985)



Now things get serious. Part of the notorious Guinea Pig series, this short Japanese film is supposed to depict an experiment in the human thresholds of pain. It's actually just a couple of men torturing a woman in some of the most disturbing violence on film. The gore is so realistic in fact, that everyone's favourite smack-head Charlie Sheen reported the film makers to the FBI because he was convinced it was real (I think his grasp on reality was a little firmer back then too!).

1. August Underground's Mordum (2003)



This is the only film which has truly inflicted on me physical empathy with the characters. I spent the entire 20 minutes I could actually handle, retching my guts up, in perfect harmony with the woman on screen. This is supposed to be a simulated snuff film. It's actually just a bunch of fucked up people with a video camera, torturing, murdering, raping, and vomiting on some tied up people. It's regarded as one of the most disgusting films ever made, but it's not a film. Not unless the plot only kicks in past the point I turned it off. It's porn for the depraved.

The Tree of Life, starring, most notably, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, won the Palm d'Or this year, and tells the story of a boy's relationship with his father.

The most succinct way of summing up this film is as follows: A brilliantly realistic, emotional story about a young boy growing up with his father, bookended with pretentious nonsense.

The first half an hour of this film is a convoluted mess that's supposed to represent the start of the world and evolution and everything else that happened before the start of the story. It does eventually settle down and get really quite good. Brad Pitt plays a father who's tough on his kids as he wants the best for them. As the boys get older, it becomes apparent that his attitudes are driving the family apart, and so he tries to correct the error of his ways.

The acting and dialogue is some of the most naturalistic I've ever seen, and really makes for a very touching (no paedo) story.

Definitely worth a watch as it's very different and very good, but not easy viewing by a long way. It's extremely 'art house', but I can't deny that I found it very entertaining. The middle part at least. The beginning and end are like the series Planet Earth edited by a Frenchman.

Machete is a film by Robert Rodriguez, the man who brought us such things as Spy Kids and the trailer for Machete, about a pissed off Mexican going on a vindictive rampage using 3 weapons in particular: a machete, a machine gun, and his penis.

Machete is an ex-federale (That's Mexican for policeman) who gets hired to assassinate a governmental candidate, only to be double-crossed and framed. He then goes and kills everyone.

A bit of background information: This film came about after a spoof trailer for it was included in the Grindhouse double-feature, produced by Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The trailer was so popular that it was put into production as a full feature.

Much like Planet Terror (Rodriguez' half of Grindhouse), it takes great pleasure in over-the-top violence. The trouble is that Machete doesn't stick to it's Grindhouse roots, so most of this seems out of place and just bad. While it is very funny on the most part, it stinks of just taking the most popular aspects of Planet Terror and quadrupling the quantity at the cost of plot.

The trouble is that when you try to make something that's supposed to be "bad", you tread a very fine line between being parodic and actually being bad. Machete seems to have fallen into the latter. The writing is shockingly bad in parts, which leads me to believe that Mr Rodriguez got a touch confused. You're supposed to be making a parody of a grindhouse-style B-movie, not an actual grindhouse-style B-movie.

The all-star cast includes the likes of Steven Seagal, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan. The fact that all of these people agreed to take part makes me think that no-one was really taking this film seriously; The first three for actually being in the film, and the last one because Rodriguez decided to cast her.

Ultimately, the film isn't so good. It seems to have been built around the trailer, with Rodriguez just filling in the gaps between each scene like he was connecting up the dots. Except instead of a pen he used excrement. Liberally.

Never has a title been more misleading. Happiness is a black comedy which revels in making light of the most lurid aspects of society. This is the darkest kind of humour. If you're laughing at anything darker than this, there's a reason you have no friends.

The film follows a variety of messed up characters, all of whom are connected in some way, as they face a crisis of sorts in their life. It takes place in a kind of psuedo-world where people don't have the filter that stops you saying things which you know will cut people deep. Add to this the use of clever contrasting cuts and inappropriately up-beat music, and you're left with an experience that's really quite unsettling, but in a more subtle way than a good horror film. It's unsettling because you're enjoying it.

Among the characters we have: a lonely middle-aged man who gets off by making dirty phone calls, a young woman looking for love but keeps finding it in the wrong places, an old married couple who have fallen out of love, and the crème de la crème, a paedophile who likes to rape his son's school friends. 'Crème' may have been a poor choice of words on reflection...

The way the film makes you perceive what's going on is very strange. It does the most shocking things you're likely to see outside of Lars Von Trier's filmography, but drags them out or words them or even just things as subtle as edits them in a way which makes them humourous. Not laugh out loud funny though. You find yourself trying to stifle the giggles because you know you shouldn't be laughing. And then you'll finally crack a chuckle and feel like a complete bastard for it. It's mean like that.

With a run-time of 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's pretty long, but there aren't really any dull points. My only problem with it is that a lot of the story threads never really seem to end; they just dwindle out. Having said that, it's a very good film. Definitely an experience as I've never seen anything else like it.

How can you not want to see a film which ends with a 10 year old boy announcing to his entire family "I came!"