The notice was up on the Lounge bulletin board on Monday morning:
!CONTEST!
FIND THE WORST MOVIE IN THE WORLD!
WIN FABULOUS PRIZES
(YET TO BE DETERMINED)
HAVE FUN SNARKING THE WORST OF THE WORST!
NOMINATIONS ACCEPTED UNTIL
"Can you read that date?"
"It says . . . the 23rd," Kit said, squinting at the blurry numbers.
"What month?"
"This month."
"OK. Let's go find out where to sign up. I know two or three movies off the top of my head that might just be contest winners."
"Really?"
"I just need to find them," Chance said, a slight grin on his face as he walked down to the main practice dojo, with Kit in tow. "Can we find our entries anywhere, or does it have to be something we actually own?"
"I suppose we could ask whoever's running the whole thing," Kit pointed out.
"Who do you think that is?"
"Well, you know them better than I do. Who do you think?"
"I think you'd better take that week off. Since, you know, you're allergic to bad movies and all."
The last time they had watched movies together, the feature was some horrible piece of trash involving demons or something like that. Kit had been okay until a particularly gruesome scene, at which point he jumped up, ran to the nearest bathroom, and threw up.
"So who's the sadist?" Chance asked, as they entered the dojo.
"Maybe he's a masochist instead. I mean, who said he's torturing me?"
The others were already gathered, sitting on the floor or leaning against the walls. Kit dragged over a mat, and he and Chance sat at either end. "Hey, Maya!" Kit called out, seeing her off to one side, doing something that resembled a series of aerobic exercises combined with a Tae Kwon Do routine.
She paused in her movements and said, "Kit! Hi!"
"Come to join us for the day?"
"Yeah. I'm trying to get some material for my next book. I'm hoping to at least get through the start of an outline before I get too bogged down in stuff and forget about my story. My whole reason for being here."
"I thought I was your reason for being here," Price said, moving closer to her.
"Well, that, too." She snuggled up to him and leaned her head on his chest. They looked so cute together that Kit wished he had someone to cuddle with like that. He wondered if Sara, Adam's girlfriend, had a sister. Or maybe those girls on the support staff were available.
As he was contemplating how to go about finding out, the door opened, and all the Riders suddenly stood at attention. Kit looked around for a second, and then he stood as well.
"Be seated," Master Eubulon said. Everyone sat back down and waited for the lesson to begin.
Kit tried to keep his mind on the lecture, but he kept thinking about the girl who cleaned his room. The cleaning staff were supposed to be invisible, but he had slept late one morning and had been coming out just as she was going in. He was quite apologetic, although she insisted on taking the blame, and refused to report her for the violation.
When it had happened again, he knew it couldn't have been coincidence that she'd come in just as he was about to get into the shower. He'd covered up and made some dumb joke about her timing that made her laugh. She had a cute laugh, actually. And red hair, like his mother, and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose . . .
Gradually he became aware of someone standing over him, and looked up. "Master?"
"I was just wondering if you were still with us," Eubulon said. "You seem . . . distracted. Is there a problem?"
"No, no, I . . ." Inspiration struck. "I was thinking about the bad movie contest that I saw posted on the bulletin board. Does anyone know what that's all about?"
"I saw that notice outside the main dorm," said Chase. "Sounds like fun. I wonder who's behind it?"
Everyone looked around, but nobody was willing to own up to being the one who had come up with the idea. It was only when Master Eubulon found a scrap of paper with "bad movie contest" written on it that someone finally decided to speak up.
"It's mine, Master," said a boy standing off to the far side. Kit couldn't remember his name; it started with a G, didn't it?
"Yes, Cam?"
Darn it, not even close.
"I thought it might be fun to share some dumb movies with everyone. Nothing too gross," he said, looking over at Kit. "And the usual suspects-the movies everyone accepts as being totally horrible-are out."
"Like Gigli, Ishtar, Hudson Hawk, that kind of thing?" Kit asked.
Everyone gave him blank looks.
"Okay, um . . . what are the usual suspects here?"
Len rattled off the names of half a dozen movies Kit had never heard of.
"You sure those are real movies?"
"They are, here. They're famously bad movies-one of them cost the studio so much money that they went bankrupt and had to shut down. Another film opened and closed so fast the popcorn didn't have time to finish popping. We won't subject you to any of those."
"Good." Although they couldn't be any worse than the demon movie. The mere mention of the word "eyeball" was still enough to turn Kit's stomach upside-down. He wasn't sure this was such a good idea, but if the others wanted to do it, who was he to be a stick in the mud?
Cam explained the rules, which sounded pretty straightforward, and then went to get a sheet of paper to take down all the suggestions everyone could throw at him. Within ten minutes, he had a list of over a dozen titles, more than enough for the contest.
"If you're all finished, could I begin today's lesson?" Eubulon interrupted.
"Of course, Master. I'm sorry." Cam took his seat, folding the list into a small square and tucking it into his pocket. Everyone fell silent, and the lecture began.
While Master Eubulon talked about how the most effective way to solve a problem is not always the easiest or most obvious way, Kit found his thoughts drifting back to the red-haired maid. The way her eyes sparkled under the fluorescent lights. He had to find a way to get her alone some time, and talk to her, even though he wasn't sure what he would say to her. He'd never been very good at talking to girls before, but he was sure he'd think of something.
He'd thought he was paying attention to the lesson, but all of a sudden he looked up and saw that he was alone in the room. Everyone else had gone already.
Almost everyone.
"You coming," Len called out to him, "or should I bring you back a plate?"
"What?" Kit blinked in confusion. "Oh, is it lunch time already?"
"If you hurry, we can get there before it's over."
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying."
They got to the dining hall just in time to snag the last two available seats. There were plates of hot food laid out, and Kit saw something that looked like pasta and meatballs. He grabbed it before it was gone.
"I'm going to go get us some juice," said Len. He went to the nearest dispenser, got two cups of juice, and was on his way back with them when a fragment of overheard conversation at one of the other tables distracted him.
"I'm telling you, that is obviously a hand! It's only one frame, but if you slow it down to one/one-hundredth speed, you can see the space between the fingers, clearly."
"And I say it could be anything! Didn't Drenk swear before the Supreme Court that it was another cockroach or something?"
"It was a Congressional committee, and Drenk was a total nutjob. He pushed his way onstage at the Academy Awards and tried to claim the Best Director when he wasn't even nominated!"
"Actually, he was before a Senate panel for something else, and then he was locked up in a mental hospital - until he escaped," said a third party. "Drenk was - is - is he still alive? Or did he finally kick the bucket?"
"He's still alive," Len said. "He's supposed to be in hiding somewhere. I thought we agreed that the worst offenders aren't eligible."
"Well, I think we should have a showcase of the Hall of Shame. And we all know that there are no films more shameful than the Cockroach series."
"You're right about that," Len said. The Riders often debated what made a good movie (explosions being the top criteria), but they were all in agreement about what made a truly bad one.
"Worse than Ernest Saves Christmas?" asked Kit, who had come over to see what was keeping Len. And more importantly, his drink.
The four of them looked at him blankly.
"Sorry. Cultural differences, keep forgetting."
"Forget it," said Len. "Let's just finish our lunch, and we'll talk bad movies some more after the afternoon practice session. What do you say?"
"Sounds like a plan to me." Kit went and grabbed his plate, and joined the others.
The first movie presented for the contest was something called Zombie Ninja Cheerleaders from Mars.
"Oh, come on!" Chance exclaimed. "I thought we agreed: nothing with a title like that."
"It's a cult classic!" Van defended it. "There's one part where someone in the sound crew actually walks on camera, stands there fiddling with something for a minute or so, then notices he's in the shot and bolts. And they left it in the movie!"
"Like the infamous hand scene."
"Yeah, but this is actually funny bad."
The movie was a standard Grade Z horror/sci-fi flick, the kind that Kit saw sometimes on late-night TV. If there was a plot, he missed it completely. The dialogue was wooden, the actors didn't know what they were doing, and there were frequent shots of boom mikes dangling down into the frame.
"Yeah, this is pretty bad," he had to admit.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," said Quinn, who had the next entry already picked out.
The one good thing about Zombie Ninja Cheerleaders from Mars was that it was only eighty minutes long. When it mercifully ended, the verdict was unanimous: this was going to be hard to top.
"Who's next?" Cam asked, looking around.
Quinn raised his hand. "I've got something in mind that I could put on tomorrow night."
"Sounds good. Same time, same place?"
Everyone agreed, and the evening ended on a hopeful note. After all, it couldn't get much worse, could it?
"Death Truck 5000?" Kit asked. "You actually found a copy? I thought they were all destroyed!"
Quinn nodded. "I had to shell out a hundred bucks on eBay to get this, but I think you'll find it's worth it."
"It better be," Chance insisted.
It looked like it was going to be a typical car chase movie. Nolan, who liked movies with car chases (and who had never heard of Death Truck 5000), sat watching it eagerly . . . until the first crash.
"Reportedly," Quinn said, "the director staged a real crash, to save on the special effects budget. Those are real people dying in that car."
"They couldn't do that," Kit said, staring in shock. "That can't be true, can it?"
"That's the rumor," said Len.
The body count kept piling up, and the camera lingered lovingly over the shots of people trapped in burning cars, screaming for help that would never come.
"God, how long does this go on?" Maya demanded. "This is horrible!"
"Here comes the hero," said Price. "In a white car, no less."
"Looks like the Mach 5," Kit said.
Everyone looked at him blankly.
"Oh, come on. Speed Racer? You've never seen it? Coolest cartoon ever!"
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
Everybody sat back and watched the rest of the movie. Death Truck went on a murderous, five-state rampage, pursued by Mr. White Car and his girlfriend, who was showing entirely too much cleavage.
Not that any of the guys were complaining or anything.
Finally the hero set a trap for the homicidal four by four, something involving dynamite and mud pits. And using Ms. Cleavage as bait.
"So the only thing she does in this movie is flash her breasts?" Kase shook her head. "I just love misogyny, don't you?"
"At least she's still alive," said Len.
"But what's the point? Her life has less meaning than all the deaths in this movie combined."
"Do you mind?" Cam hissed at them. "Explosions!"
Kase just rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah," she whispered. "Explosions make everything better."
"Well, they do!"
The explosion that destroyed Death Truck was satisfyingly loud, long, and huge, and the hero rode off into the sunset with his overly endowed paramour as the credits began to roll.
"I think we'll all agree," Quinn said as he ejected the disc, "that's a hard act to follow. Any takers?"
There was a long moment of silence as everyone looked around at each other. Then, finally, Nolan said, "Yeah, I think I can do better. Till tomorrow, then?"
"It's a musical?"
"It is probably the worst musical in the history of the world. It's the reason they don't make musicals anymore. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Serial Killer: the Musical."
It was every bit as bad as it sounded. What was worse, the actor playing Jack the Ripper was wearing the most outlandish costume ever before seen in a musical.
"It's like steampunk Carnaby Street," Kit said. "Like Austin Powers crossed with From Hell."
Once again, his audience completely failed to understand the reference. "I can see we need to have some more good movie nights," he said. "Once this insanity is all over."
The songs weren't just forgettable; they were utterly un-singable. The performers did the best they could, but since the music was written in a key that only dogs could hear, they struggled from one note to the next.
"Please tell me this wasn't released in actual theaters," said Maya.
"Unfortunately, it was," Nolan told her. "It lasted almost four days, and then it was losing so much money that they yanked it from all eight theaters. It's a big hit with community theater groups, though, in kind of an ironic way."
"Like, they know how bad it is, and they don't take it seriously?"
"Exactly."
Incomprehensible things were happening on the screen. It would probably have taken a CIA analyst months to figure out exactly what was going on. What was supposed to be the big closing number went on too long, and fizzled out halfway through. Eventually, the whole thing ground to a halt.
"Anyone think they can do any better than that?" Nolan challenged them.
"I do," said a kid way in the back. Kit didn't know his name, either. "It's called Attack of the Lemur People."
"Lemur people?"
"Yeah. It's a really old horror movie. Hope you don't mind, but it's in black and white."
"Okay, Chase, bring it on." Under his breath, Nolan muttered, "Lemur people. Give me a break."
Attack of the Lemur People was not only in black and white, it was in a completely different language. It had subtitles, but they were so small, even on the big-screen TV, that eventually the Riders gave up trying to understand what the actors were saying, and just made up their own dialogue.
"'Oh, help me, help me, big strong man with no pants!'" said Kase, in a high voice.
"'Not now, honey. I need to stand around looking manly,'" Len chimed in, and they both cracked up. Kit rolled his eyes at their silliness.
"'I'm in this for no reason at all,'" Chance said, voicing the other character currently on the screen. "'I'm the most useless character who ever lived.'"
"'Move out of the way, Useless One. I need to be strong and manly, with no pants.'"
"'I love it when you're strong and manly with no pants!'"
"'We should go and get a room.'"
"'But what about the Lemur People? We have to stop them!'"
"'They're only lemurs. What is a lemur, anyway?'"
The others were rolling on the floor, laughing. Nobody was paying any attention to the real dialogue in the subtitles. Even if someone had been reading it, they wouldn't have understood the badly-translated pidgin English, which looked like it had been run through an automatic translator several times by someone on LSD.
"'You must be bait, Useless One, because you are useless, and you are not strong and manly like me.'"
"'Oh, let me be the bait instead! Please!'"
"'No, darling, you and I must survive the end of this ridiculous film. But this one has no purpose. He will be the bait.'"
"Oh, man!" Kit said, in between helpless fits of laughter. "Too bad we're not recording this."
"The security cams will pick it up," said Price. "The cameras don't have sound, but if I edit the video together with the feed from the microphones, we should-"
"Wait a minute. There are security cameras in here?"
"Everywhere but the bathrooms."
"Doesn't that . . . bother you?"
"No. Should it?"
"'Here, lemur, lemur, lemur,'" Chance called, in the voice of his character, and everybody cracked up again. Kit decided to drop the subject for now and just enjoy the rest of the movie.
The end of the movie was so unbelievably absurd Kit thought his brain would explode from the sheer badness. "You can't be serious! How could anyone possibly think that this was a good idea? I mean, did you see that ridiculous pair of glasses the leading man was wearing? How could anyone expect those flimsy things to protect them from a nuclear bomb?"
"Is that what that was?" asked Chance. "I wasn't paying attention after I died."
"Well, Mr. No Pants used Useless to distract the Lemur People while he set off a whole bunch of bombs and escaped with just two seconds to spare. Then he and the girl kissed a lot, and then it was over. I guess."
"You guess? What does that mean? Is there a sequel?"
"God, I hope not."
"Actually," Chase said, "there were five sequels, but I can't find any but the last one. They've all gone out of print, I guess."
"Gee," Kit said, "I wonder why?"
"I suppose you have something better for your turn, smart guy?"
"Not yet, but I'll find something."
"Worse than this?" said Chance. "I doubt it."
"Oh, yeah? Wait till you see it. It will melt your brain!"
"We'll see about that."
"Trust me, this will be the worst movie you've ever laid your eyes on. I hope that prize is a good one, cause I'm taking it home!"
This was the last video store in the city, and if Kit couldn't find what he was looking for here, he'd have to give up and go home empty-handed. He scanned the racks up and down, looking for something bad enough to qualify.
As if by magic, a store employee appeared. "Can I help you?"
"Actually . . . yeah. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'm in this bad movie contest, and I need something really awful-"
"I think I know exactly what you need," the guy said, and led him across the store to a section labeled "Midnight Movies". "This one's really bad, but fun to mock."
Kit looked at the case, reading the brief description on the back. "I don't know," he said. "Anything worse than this?"
"Worse? How much worse?"
"So bad that it makes Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane."
"Whoa, that's bad." The store clerk was staring at him with a mixture of sympathy and incredulity. "Okay . . . let's try this one."
"That doesn't look so bad."
"That's the thing. It starts out okay, but then it takes a screaming left turn into godawful-land. It's so gradual that you don't even know it's happening, and then you look up at the screen and go, 'Is that a giant pickle?'"
"You're sure this will do it? Our last film was so bad we were on the floor laughing."
"Trust me on this. You can't get much worse than this."
"Okay, fine. How much?"
"We're running a special this week. Two movies for two dollars each, for seven nights. So go pick out another one, and I'll ring you up."
"Gee, thanks." Kit decided to get a better movie for his second choice - though admittedly that wasn't much of a problem, as just about everything in the store was better than what he was currently holding.
"Check the New Releases wall. We've got two copies left of that new action movie they've been talking about."
"Okay, thanks." He took a look at it, decided that it was the perfect antidote to the other movie, and brought both up to the counter and paid.
"And we'll see you back here next week," the clerk said. "Have a great night."
"Thanks, you too."
"So what is this blockbuster of godawfulness?" Chance asked the next evening, as they assembled in the Lounge.
"It's an animated movie about a mad scientist who builds this freaky machine that turns people into giant vegetables."
"Are you serious? You're sure this isn't a parody?"
"The guy at the video store told me it was a hundred percent serious," Kit said. "He said the director tried to pass it off as an art film, and failed miserably."
"Talk about delusions of grandeur."
"People keep shelving it in the wrong section, too. He said he keeps having to move it from the Kids' section, because some people think all animation is for kids. But this has got nude scenes in it."
"Nude . . . vegetables?" Ian blinked in confusion.
"Don't worry about it," Kit said, and started the movie.
As the store clerk had said, it started off okay. It even had a few little musical numbers that were kind of catchy. Then all of a sudden, just as they were getting into it, the movie suddenly turned very dark. When the mad scientist's assistant started dismembering a woman with an axe, all the while singing a creepy song about brains, Kit found himself wishing he had gone for something else. This wasn't funny bad, it was just bad. Disturbingly bad, even.
The promised nude scene came up, and it left nothing to the imagination.
"I never thought I'd be so offended by cartoon nudity," said Chance.
"This whole movie is offensive," Kase remarked. "And not in a good way, either."
"Maybe it gets better?" Kit said nervously.
"Dear God, I hope so," said Len.
It didn't get better, just more ridiculous. And yes, there was a giant pickle, along with a giant radish, a giant head of lettuce, and a whole army of giant carrots.
"Am I the only one seeing the phallic symbols?" Price asked. "There's a lot of long, pointy things up there, aren't there?"
"Well, yeah, now that you've pointed it out, we notice them." Chance looked like he didn't know whether to be amused or disgusted. Maybe both.
The movie ended with the Army (a group of faceless men in tanks) literally breaking down the door and shooting everything that was still moving. They rescued the nude woman and the assistant who'd tried to talk Dr. Mental out of his fiendish experiments, and rolled off secure in the knowledge that truth, justice, and so forth had prevailed, and evil would never again threaten this happy little community.
As soon as the closing credits started rolling, Kit popped the disc out and said, "Guys, I am so, so sorry. I thought it was going to be funny bad, not horrible bad. You can go ahead and disqualify this if you want."
"On the contrary," said Cam, "I think we have a winner. It just doesn't get any worse than this."
"You don't think it went too far?"
"Let me put it this way: the next person would have to really pull out the stops to beat that. Any takers?"
Kit looked around the room. No one seemed willing to try and top this horror.
"Okay, then. We're done here. I'll talk to you tomorrow about your prize."
"You want to know what the prize should be?" Chance said. "Destroy that thing with a sledgehammer. Removing it from existence, that's your prize."
"I'd do that," Kit said, "if it wasn't a rental."
Chance gaped at him. "You paid money for that?"
"Two dollars."
"Man, you got ripped off. I think you should get your money back."
"I'd settle," said Len, "for never having to see that piece of trash ever again."
"I'll take it right back to the store." Kit packed the DVD in its case. "And now," he said, "I think we've earned this." And he put on the second movie he had picked up, the action film.
And everyone was happy.
