There are so many avenues for a bad movie fan to explore today. From podcasts, to blogs, to theater screenings, to online rentals bad movies are becoming big business. But what are the reasons for such a following of something that isn't good. There's no clubs for bad music (unless you count Top 40), bad art (unless you count The Met), bad books (unless you count fans of Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey) but there is for bad movies. We love to celebrate them. But why are they so popular?

Here's why we believe bad movies are such a big deal:

So imagine you're sitting at make-out hill, getting a little R-n-R and then suddenly some guys (sorta dressed as cops) swoop down and steal you away to an underground facility where you must gladiatorial fight to the death for your right to protect your girlfriends virginity.

Well that's the entire plot for this little known 1990 stinker brought to us from Epic Productions. IMDB only has a total of 64 users having ever viewed it which makes it too rare to be on the Bottom 100, not that it should be.

Unlike Barbarian Queen, that was gratuitously chock full o' shirtless girls, this movies surprising achievement is a stark lack of nudity. I think their may be a brief man-ass, but its amazingly bare (phrasing) considering its very adult (and sometimes uncomfortable) content material. There is some pretty rough rape scenes and some very Stockholm Syndrome undertones with Alison (Camille Carrigan) that were very bold for the b-movie genre, which usually has very light-hearted subject matter.... as far as character development anyways.  In fact, if it wasn't for the silly plot idea, the screenplay might have been respected at the time.

I will warn the viewer this, stick with this movie.  3/4 of this film is pretty mediocre and has a few scenes where I had a hard time paying attention. The plight of poor old kidnapped Billy (Kevin T. Walsh (I assume the T stands for Top Notch)), was pretty uninteresting especially after his sole, overt motivation to win in battle (protect his girly's chaste underwears) is a moot point. A good chunk of this film is Billy being psychologically toyed with by the evil Queen Diana (Erika Nunn) to join with her as her gentleman-servant. Erika Nunn is easily the worst part of this film, as her character sucks and she is impossibly ugly. I usually try to avoid trashing people's looks but because she is meant to be a femme-fatale, who wears revealing "future" attire and strange headwear, that I believe is meant to make the viewer think, "Hey Billy doesn't have it so bad", I think she's fair game. When she was on camera, I spent most of it averting me eyes.  Yikes.

So Billy (who really is a wanker) befriends Lyle Wagner (Reggie De Morton) who is the facilities main trainer. Why, I'm not sure because Lyle's fighting style appears to be circle your opponent and give him a mean face and then wait for him to hit your sword; just like Barbarian Queen strangely. But either way Billy has a training montage, ala Gymkata and so he is ready to fight.

Let me break this down to you in one word - boobs.  So many boobs.  Oh god there's so many.  

Sounds great right?

Well......not really. It actually makes for just ok. But I'll get into that.

So the movie revolves around this group of women (in some unknown location and in some unknown time) that have their village and booties plundered but some guys in black, all on the day of the Amethea's (Lana Clarkson) wedding day to Argan (Frank Zagarino). Bummer. So this small band of women (only 2 of them actually do anything; Taramis only ever cares about food) set out to rescue Argan and get revenge.

Well they suck at it.  They are REALLY good however and getting captured, tortured and further raped.  Nice work ladies. Eventually they make it to the bad guy's castle/town thingy where everyone does nothing but wander around and then get captured.  Amethea eventually ends up on a torture "rack" (her elbows are nice and bent the entire time, very comfy).  Her torturer then attempts to awkwardly rape her but she must have been really (I mean REALLY) doing kegel exercises as she ends up ripping the guy's unit off and then pushing him into what I infer is a vat of acid.

Justin's The Top 10 Hall of Fame Stinkers

1. Troll 2
2. America 3000
3. The Room
4. Death Race 2000
5. Bad Taste
6. Deadly Prey
7. Hell Comes to Frogtown
8. Malibu Express
9. Gymkata
10. Unmasking the Idol

Honorable Mention

There are LOTs and LOTs of lists on the Internet about bad movies and which are the best. But really Stinker Madness isn't about "bad movies". We're about Stinkers.

For years, I've had trouble defining what exactly a "Stinker" is. Well with starting this project, I think I've figured it out.

stink·er 

noun\ˈstiŋ-kər\

That opens the door up considerably. Consider this: would you put Fast & Furious 6 on the same "bad movie" level as "The Room"? Would you say that "Birdemic" is just as good as "Ninja in the Dragon's Den".  No you wouldn't.  Some movies fail on multiple levels making them bad whereas others may only fail on one level thus making them just a Stinker.