The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Although what constitutes good and bad taste is a highly subjective idea, this refers to films that willingly embrace the crude, gross and often outrightly offensive.
Bad taste films frequently push an envelope in terms of featuring crass, vulgar and scatological humour; or humour that ventures into areas of very questionable taste, will feature caricatures or touch upon hot button issues in ways that poke fun at those likely to take offense.
In such films, there is a frequent fascination with bodily functions and often depictions of vomiting, urination or excretion. There is also frequently the depiction of Splatter and Gore, although here it will usually be in a comedic context.
Most of the output of Troma Films falls into this category. Although one could also consider the films of John Waters, Stuart Gordon and the early works of Peter Jackson, among others.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offered a horror version of the much loved children’s character. This is more of the same with a bigger budget
Yes, a film about an invasion by space chickens, which are represented by hand puppets. Words fail me on this one. This is painful to watch. My Worst Film of 2023.
Yes, someone made a horror version of the much loved children’s character. Imagine The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where Leatherface has been replaced by Winnie-the-Pooh
The famous children’s character gets a sarcastic puncturing in this amusingly gonzo OTT exploitation take
The sight of the normally super-offensive and un-PC Troma Films trying to adjust to the post-#MeToo and Cancel Culture era is a bizarre one indeed
Troma launch into their parody of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, producing what may be their bad taste masterpiece to date
Another zombie film that comes with a deliberately ridiculous title, even if the title ends up being a misnomer. This site’s choice for the worst film of 2020
A possession film set on an airplane. This sets out to parody exorcism movie cliches but makes a beeline for outrageous bad taste humour. It does include a great cast of genre regulars
Jim Henson’s son Brian trashes his father’s legacy, showing puppets getting up to very adult things we never saw on The Muppet Show. Peter Jackson did it even more outrageously in Meet the Feebles
Surrealism has a noble tradition on screens; on the other hand, there is student amateurism. This film from the rapper known as Flying Lotus, well and truly belongs to the latter – random plotless weirdness without any coherent rationale beyond serving up one gross-out effect after another
Positively the most insane, offensive and over-the-top film I have seen in some time. A bride finds she has a vagina possessed by Satan and uses it to go all I Spit on Your Grave on the gang who ate her husband on her wedding night, resulting in an outrageous splatter bloodbath
The most demented premise of the year – an animated film about the lives of the talking produce in a supermarket. This is crude, rude and guaranteed to offend (as might be expected from a Seth Rogen penned vehicle); it is also one of the funniest and cleverest films of the year
Film about a zombie-creating sexually transmitted disease that feels like it was made by a bunch of drunken adolescents trying to out-gross each other after an all-weekend beer party. A film that is readily ventures into bad taste and is prepared to offend
An outrageously demented low-budget film guaranteed to offend nearly everybody. This takes inspiration from Hobo With a Shotgun – although rather than a hobo we get a Catholic priest wielding a gun seeking revenge
Whether you loved or hated the crude and raucous, un-PC stoner/fratboy humour of Ted, Seth MacFarlane is back with exactly the same mix here. This manages to be offensive in an amiably inoffensive, even occasionally quite funny, way
Outrageous Finnish splatter comedy about a giant rampaging bunny creature. A film that in its better moments captures something of the sensibilities of early Peter Jackson films
Canadian horror comedy that feels like a warmed-over rehash of Oliver Stone’s The Hand. A film made in wilful bad taste that feels like it came along twenty years too late for the mid-80s heyday of Troma
Bill Zebub is possibly the most offensive filmmaker at work today. This largely plotless film features topless Nazi women fighting cannibal tribes, giant bugs and a Bigfoot
A comedy about a demon that appears out of a man’s ass!!! This has the dementia to be a potential midnight cult hit but misses the mark by a wide mile and stumbles around obvious targets in predictable ways
An anthology of comedy skits that sets out to be in as bad taste as possible – you are left astounded how far a film has to go to offend in this post-South Park era. That and wondering if the producers had kidnapped some of the stars’ family members to force them to participate
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different genre directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality and approach but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
Comedy about a foul-mouthed talking teddy bear. This gets its laughs from much scatological, decidedly non-PC humour that occasionally manages to be funny, especially when it comes to some of the 80s pop culture jokes
Aramis Sartorio (aka porn actor Tommy Pistol) directs and stars in this anthology, a trio of Hollywood horror tales where everything is aimed at the farcical bad taste/gross out level of a Troma film
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
Uwe Boll sets out to offend everybody in a film founded on making constant insults about its’ plus-size heroine’s weight and bad jokes about the Holocaust, including the Boll playing a comic Hitler
Troma film that ventures back into their regular bad taste territory. This often feels like a film that never coheses into a particularly clear idea of what it is trying to do, possibly the result of six different directors
Film about a penis-enlarging drug that creates zombies, this goes for an outrageous bad taste vein are rarely lets up
Another in the fad for 70s/80s remakes where Alexandre Aja for once captures the spirit of the original by planting tongue in cheek and wading in with mind-bogglingly gory enthusiasm
Bill Zebub is a micro-budgeted filmmaker who contends to be the most offensive filmmaker of all time. Yes, the film features a zombie Jesus who spends his time violating women who parade in a state of undress
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
A WTF am I watching film where a performing freakshow troupe led by Pervo the Clown are pursued around a farm by topless zombie women
Film about a series of gory deaths at a bowling alley, this really pushes an envelope of good taste. This gained attention for makeup effects artist Ryan Nicholson and was the cause of much censorship controversy
Another Uwe Boll videogame adaptation where Boll sets out to offend as many people as possible but somehow forgets to make any of it funny
Troma film that has maybe the silliest movie title ever. This sets out to be so persistently moronic and wilfully offensive that it eventually attains a delirious absurdity
Clearly inspired by South Park comes this satiric Claymation animated version of the Manson Family killings. The film quickly heads for some astonishing bad taste areas, flailing about before eventually finding itself in some bitingly black humour and songs
Troma film about a group of trampers attacked by a Yeti only for one of the group to discover gay love with the Yeti
György Pálfi directs an anthology mad up of three stories where the emphasis is on dark, gross-out humour
Christmas horror film with wrestler Bill Goldberg playing a demonic version of Santa Claus
The sort of film that might make Troma radioactive green with envy they didn’t make it concerning a giant rampaging ass. Mind-boggling and willing to be stupid and in frequent bad taste
Troma film in which Lloyd Kaufman turns his own autobiography into a Troma film where the results emerge as something akin to Ed Wood as remade by John Waters
Made to coincide with the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet, this Troma offering sets out to conduct as many bad taste variations on Shakespeare as it can
One of Peter Jackson’s early films, which is maybe the funniest zombie comedy ever made. This becomes a work of unparalleled genius in the glorious gore-drenched excesses it reaches for
The first sequel to the Troma hit and with all of the usual bad taste and moron humour you associate with a Troma film, but also better produced then most their films
Peter Jackson‘s second film, what might be called The Muppet Show by way of John Waters, an inspired work of puppet depravity that makes a beeline for bad taste
Hilariously adult and filthy minded retelling of the Marquis de Sade story using puppets. Quills crossbred with Meet the Feebles if you like.
Peter Jackson first appeared with this no-budget splatter comedy. A miracle of DIY filmmaking, the film plays out like a live-action Roadunner cartoon where the creativity of Jackson’s home-made gore effects is positively ingenious
Intended as a horror riff on the phenomenally popular Police Academy series, this sets a series of gags in as bad a taste as possible around the locale of a mortuary
Low-budget, almost entirely plotless film about a cheap liquor that starts causing the bums in the area to meltdown. A film that in lieu of anything else readily dives into bad taste
Classic Troma title that is more interesting than the actual film, although the film does eventually achieve a bizarre over-the-top lunacy
One of the essential Troma films, this seems to have been conceived as Rock’n’Roll High School with Evil Dead-styled makeup effects and lots of moronic bad taste humour
This was one of the classic 1980s splatter films. Stuart Gordon throws most of H.P. Lovecraft’s tone out the window and goes for hilariously black comedy served up with outrageously over-the-top effects
The film that launched the name of Troma Films. The world’s first superhero splatter film, this readily dives into bad taste just to see what kind of offence it can get away with
The third and last of the Monty Python films, a variety of skits that are variously outrageous and frequently leave behind all good taste