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"What to watch, what to watch…" Vladimir mused. The Omega Hellions—plus Lina—were sitting on the couch in front of their base's living room TV. It was movie night and they were trying to figure out what to watch. They invited Lina to join them in the hopes of getting her to feel more comfortable there, despite being a prisoner.
"Not Newsies again!" Rodriguez snapped. "It's bad enough I get the songs stuck in my head for days on end, but if I have to listen to you make another analysis on 'the social power of the proletariat' one more time…"
"Yeah, let us pick something this time!" Semira agreed.
"Ha! You guys couldn't decide on a movie if your lives depended on it." Vladimir snorted. "Remember last time?"
"I knew you were going to throw that incident in our faces." Jacques muttered.
"Do I want to know—?" Lina asked.
"They spent three hours arguing which was better: The Great Muppet Caper or The Muppet Movie!" Vlad snapped.
"It's not my fault some people can't face reality and admit that The Great Muppet Caper is best!" Phelan protested, glaring at Jacques.
"Please! Everyone knows that—"
"Allah preserve us!" Amira groaned. "This is almost as bad as the 'Duck Universe' debate!"
"That what?" Lina gaped.
"Well," Rodriguez said. "There are a lot of cartoons that are focused around duck characters: Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Donald Duck…"
"After all, both Warner Brothers and Disney have ducks in supporting roles to their main characters. So what if all of those Duck shows happened in the same universe? A duck universe?" Phelan suggested. "Then we got into wondering that universe would be like. Maybe Darkwing is their answer to Batman. …"
"What would've happened if the Mighty Ducks had shown up in their reality instead of ours…" Jacques mused.
"That's enough!" Takashi said. "Listening to this was painful enough the first time around! I will not hear it again! Let's just pick a movie and be done with it!"
"Fine, so long as you don't choose it." Amira said. "I admit; Spirited Away was pretty good, but the rest of those old Japanese sci-fi flics and monster movies are awful!"
"They are not!" Takashi argued.
"Oh yeah? Remember the last one you had us watch? Prince of Space?" Jacques reminded him.
"It's a great movie!"
"Yeah, so great that Mystery Science Theater 3000 used it on one of their episodes to rip that movie to shreds! Which was the only way to make the movie bearable in any case…" Vladimir said.
"Yeah, like watching old Soviet propaganda films is so much fun! The Circus was such a great movie!" Takashi shot back. "Remember that one?"
"It wasn't the worst movie we ever saw." Semira admitted. "Remember The Apple?" Everyone groaned.
"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what any of you are talking about." Lina said. "What's The Apple?"
"This horrible movie we once made the mistake of watching." Phelan groaned. "Dear lord, it's a musical version of Adam and Eve, set in the world of popular music, and made in the 80s, happening in 'futuristic' 1994. The villain's name is Mr. Bugalow. Everyone wears little triangle stickers on their heads because he announced it's cool and he runs the world pretty much. We learned that in the future, there will only be only gender and one sexuality: ambiguous."
"There was hardly any need to make up jokes when the movie has a dance number called 'Eat the Apple!' Rodriguez snorted. "The good guy and girl realize that Bugalow is evil, drop out of society and become hippies in the parks and sewers. At the end of the movie, god (a.k.a. Mr. Tubbs) shows up in his flying car—a Deus ex Automobile—and saves the day by taking all the good people to a new planet to start over without Satan (a.k.a. Bugalow) and evil." Lina just blinked.
"You're kidding." She stammered.
"We wish." Semira moaned. "So many minutes of our lives stolen from us…Remember The Swarm?"
"Ugh, yes!" Jacques said. "It stared Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Slim Pickens, and Olivia de Havilland. This one was about huge swarms of African killer bees. It was so bad that the writer's name was Stirling Silliphant. It was WAAAAY too long, and the only way anything happened was when Michael Caine started yelling at people, and when that happened they'd always do what he said. The city of Houston gets burned down to kill the bees, but they don't burn it down from the air even though bees can fly. They just send guys with flamethrowers."
"Oy!" Vladimir said. "What about Three Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain? I can't believe we watched that crap!"
"How could the fourth 3 Ninjas movie be so bad, especially when it stars some ugly kids, a hideous Loni Anderson, Hulk Hogan, and Jim Varney?" Amira asked. "Maybe I should rephrase that: How could the fourth 3 Ninjas movie get made and nobody realize that it was the worst thing ever even though it starred those ugly kids - not the original 3 Ninjas kids, their replacements - a hideous, plastic surgery disaster Loni Anderson, Hulk Hogan often wearing a toupee, and Jim Varney in bad fake scars? Yiy."
"Yikes, just yikes." Lina flinched.
"You should have been here for Robot Monster." Takashi said. "Elbow-less aliens—well, actually they only needed one—in a gorilla suit with an antennaed fishbowl on his head kills everybody on Earth, except for: a scientist and his wife, their daughter and her boyfriend, and their two little kids. The folks look much too old to have little kids, but oh well. They were made immune because the scientist cooked up some serum that made them invulnerable to the common cold or something, and being an intelligent, ethical, caring man, he tested it on himself and his family first. The alien, named Ro-man, is supposed to kill the last remaining humans so the other aliens can come colonize Earth - did six people really pose that much of a problem? He kills the little girl, and maybe the boyfriend/fiancé, but falls in love with the woman and blows it. But it was all a dream anyway. Or a nightmare, if you had to watch the stupid thing!" He ranted.
"Or The Ice Pirates." Vladimir groaned. "Here's the plot: In the future, space has no water, so ice is precious. And they can fly around in spaceships to find it, but apparently lack the technology to create water. So there are Ice Pirates—Anjelica Huston is one, oddly enough—and there's a princess or something who falls in love with the hero...it's a total Star Wars rip-off whose script is to writing as the script of The Phantom Menace... is to writing." He finished.
"Don't forget about Breakin' 2: Electric Bulgaloo." Rodriguez said.
"I wish I could!" Semira moaned. "Now I can say that I've seen the worst-named sequel ever. Another 80s movie where the sexuality is kinda ambiguous. Not because it's futuristic this time, just because it's the 80s and everything is weird and very ugly. Inner city kids must use their amazing break dancing skills to save their community center, and a white girl helps. Life goes on, such as it is."
"Let's face it, we have a horrible track record with movies." Amira groaned. "Though Phelan admittedly has the worst."
"Hey!" Phelan protested.
"So what movies do you like?" Amira asked Lina.
"I always liked Princess Bride." Lina admitted.
"We're going to re-enact Corpse Bride if Amira doesn't admit that I have better taste than her!" Phelan snapped.
"Phelan," Vladimir groaned. "Don't make me bring up just who rented us Manos: The Hands of Fate?" Phelan paled.
"You promised never to bring that movie up again!" He shouted.
"Why? What—?" Lina asked.
"Don't ask." Amira said, holding up her hand. "Just…don't ask."
"So what are we going to watch?" Takashi asked. "Besides you two arguing all night?" He said to Amira and Phelan.
Naomi tugged on Vladimir's arm and said something in Hebrew. "Don't tell me." Vladimir said. "Let me guess; you want to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?" Naomi nodded eagerly.
"Why that?" Lina asked.
"Well, I did read the books to her." Vladimir shrugged. "Plus I think she just wants to see the scene where the dolphins start singing 'So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.' " Naomi nodded in agreement. Lina looked at Vlad.
"You are seriously warping that child." She said. Vladimir shrugged again.
"Hey, at least it isn't Flipper." He pointed out. "Anyone want to watch a Marx Brothers Film?"
"Again?" Amira groaned. "I swear if it isn't one Marx with you, it's another!"
"Hey, at least its better than anything Phelan's come up with!" Vlad noted. Phelan looked at him.
"Well if you want we could watch The Lion King…provided you don't start bawling again." Everyone snickered. Vlad turned red.
"DIE!" He shouted as he tackled Phelan.
"Knock it off!" Amira said as she pulled them apart. "Phelan, why don't you grow up you immature little…" Lina blinked as Amira dropped into Arabic. Vladimir laughed.
"I don't think he can be the offspring of a diseased camel and a goat." He chuckled. Phelan raised an eyebrow.
"I'm immature? Explain this then." He said as he popped a tape into the VCR. The TV crackled to life. "You're on Candid Camera."
"Phelan! YOU RAT!" Amira yelled when she saw what he put on.
"Nice undies." Phelan snickered at the film of Amira singing "I Will Survive" in her underwear.
"Wait a second, are those my boxers?" Vladimir yelped. Amira blushed furiously.
"Um….funny story, you see I, er…Phelan I am going to KILL you!" She yelled as she leapt at him.
"I've got something even better." Semira said as she took out the tape of Amira and put another one in. "Payback is a…well, you know."
On TV was Phelan singing "Shake Your Groove Thing" in the—supposed—privacy of his room. What he was wearing made even the film of Amira seem modest.
"I am so glad I don't sing or dance." Vladimir said as he blinked.
"I did not need to see that." Rodriguez groaned, looking vaguely ill.
"Oh shut up!" Phelan snapped.
"I'm having the strangest feelings of déjà vu." Lina said to no one in particular.
"Hey, what's this?" Rodriguez said as he found a tape with no label. "Want to watch whatever this is?"
"Why not?" Vladimir sighed. "Can't be worse than anything else we've watched before."
The title ran up: Plan 9 from Outer Space.
"Or then again." Vlad gulped.
"Wait, isn't this the movie called the worst ever made?" Lina asked. Vladimir nodded. "Oh boy."
The cheap, shoddily made movie was actually a source of great amusement. The scenes constantly kept skipping from indoors and outdoors and from night to day. The Omegas and Lina eventually took to shouting "Night!" or "Day!" whenever such a change happened. Whenever Bela Lugosi—who died in the middle of the movie—appeared everyone shouted "Bela!" His rather obvious replacement was "Not Bela!" The chants got even weirder when they started debating what furniture appeared in the movie, half of the Omegas shouting "Wicker!" and the other half shouting "Rattan!"
Whenever the cheaply made and obviously fake flying saucers appeared, they would hurl paper plates into the air and at the TV screen. And everyone shouted along with one of the most famous lines in the movie: "YOUR STUPID MINDS! STUPID! STUPID!"
All in all it was one of the stranger nights Lina ever had…and she was a Misfit!
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The Omega Hellions are © to me. Lina is © to Red Witch.
The longer movie descriptions are actually taken from a conversation I had with my brother after he saw all these movies at an event called B-Fest. These movies are real! So are the things people do when they watch Plan 9!
I'm not making this up.