I like bad movies.

A few months ago, I came across a movie that was about as wrong as humanly possible. It was called Child Brides. I had heard that it was bad from interviews with cast members of MST3K, and that it was far too bad to be on their show. I had originally planned to write a review of the movie here, but it turns out I was too ashamed to watch it a second time. Really. And you are talking to someone who loves bad movies. Loves as in "taught Plan 9 from Outer Space to college students." I'll take David Caruso, the worst actor ever, over Jack Nicholson any day. (Seriously, Caruso treats lines of dialogue like they are his prison bitches. He makes Keanu Reeves, who I saw walking affectedly in Much Ado About Nothing, look like Orson Welles.) Give me a screen adaptation of "Beowulf", and I'm as happy as a pervert. But this one, man, it even got me. I think it was the extended pubescent girl skinny dipping scene that killed the movie for me. I actually threw the movie away, I was so horrified. (Tagline: "A throbbing drama of shackled youth!") I think the worst thing is that it was made under the pretense of informing people about the dangers of child marriage. Yeah, right. It was purely exploitative.

Speaking of feeling uncomfortably like a pedophile (see video), last Sunday I got together with my pal and watched another awful movie that came out the same year, The Terror of Tiny Town (1938), an all-midget Western. And not just any midgets, mind you. These were Jed Buell's Midgets. The connotations of ownership in that collective moniker are galling. But at least there is nothing at all good about the movie, aside from the fact it is not much more than an hour long.

The story: Who cares? Rival ranches are a-feudin'. Each is losing livestock, and they blame each other. Sure it could have been a fun murderfest with the blood of midgets running in the street (an image that pops into my mind with frightening ease), but no, there is a love story. The son of one ranch owner, a midget in a white 4.5 gallon hat is in love with the daughter of the rival ranch. It's like Romeo and Juliet, but crap. Little midget crap. So, it turns out (surprise!) the midget in the black hat is playing the two ranches off of one another. So, he's like a midget Iago. Who deserves to be punted through the uprights.

Part of the problem is that the movie seems to have been filmed on a regular-sized back lot set. As such, the movie was a vehicle for humiliating sight gags--people walking under hitchin' posts and beneath the swinging saloon doors. Add to this the soundtrack, yes, every so often the entire little town breaks into idiotic song, and there is no dignity to be found anywhere in this horrid film. Lastly, when the buxom saloon coochie comes out and sings a little song, with her little midget breasts all heaving, you have the uncanny sensation that you are lusting after a 9 year old. Yeek. Don't get me wrong, I'd tap that midget ass, but you really feel like the background is populated with children, even though its not. Man, this post is politically incorrect.

Yoda has a guest appearance. I thought I'd warn you.

see more of HJ's internal trauma at his blog "Wrong Things I Have Seen"