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Last year we made a hard decision that the classic Michael Crichton adaptation Congo was a must do for an episode and now we have reached the point where its time for such shenanigans. It's lasers, gorillas and greed and everything you want.

Streaming Do's and Don'ts

• Gantz:O - Netflix
• Supersonic Man - Rifftrax - Amazon Prime
• Super Inframan - Amazon Prime

The Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate

• Water Freeze Man - 8.75/10 Stars

About Congo - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

The novel Congo, written of course, by Michael Crichton in 1980, made a startling number of accurate predictions about future technology. When it came time make the movie, some 15 years later, those behind other Hollywood brain trust decisions, would include only two main technologies for the film version. These would most assuredly be the least intellectually palatable devices; the monkey talk box and, the by 1995 scientifically proven to be implausible laser gun. Another fabulous decision by the film-making team would be putting some hair on a brown trash can and making the declaration that it is a talking ape named Amy.

We all lost a huge part of our show and entertainment in general in the passing of Bill Paxton. He was a one of a kind type of actor and while that may seem cliche to say in the wake of someone's death in Hollywood, we'll stand by it. Bill had a depth that few possess, taking roles as varied as the pyschotic Severen in Near Dark (and is the only reason to watch the movie) to the silly Matt Owens in (Slipstream) to the model for a douche in Simon from True Lies (and steals the comedic show from Arnold and Arnold) to the warm but frightened Fred Haise in Apollo 13. The guy could play anything. 

So with that in mind, we tackle the 1996 disasterooney of Twister. With all its cliches and tropes that run rampant in the disaster genre, can the immensely popular film stand up to 20 years of time since its release? Who is this Helen Hunt lady? How did Phillip Seymour Hoffman become a thing? Is that a flying cow? All this and more revealed in our podcast episode. Listen to it!

We get straight to weezin' the juice as a caveman gets called out for being, well...a caveman. It's that old story of boy meets girl, boy gets frozen in a glacier and then boy meets potheads and learns the wonders of the doobage.

Encino Man is a movie that shouldn't be any fun at all. But it is. End of story. It has that strange ability to be not funny but fun throughout. It's outlandish, ridiculous, and stupid but never stops being a wild ride.

After weeks of pitching a fit, Jackie is subjected to a film she appears to be not much of a fan of. It's the story of a caveman frozen in ice for millennia only to thawed out in early 90's SoCal....what possibly horrors will he (or us) face in Encino Man?!?!

The Stinker Madness Academy Award Special!

We take a look at each of the films and share our meat and two bits with you! That makes this episode a bit on the long side but we had quite a bit to say about this years field. There will be spoilers so be careful!

Our second of back to back "stupid volcano movies from 1997" is the possibly the least disastery of any disaster movies ever created. Spoiler alert - body count is 5 and a tiny hick town gets cleared off the map. It's fine since they were just a bunch of smug buttholes anyways.

So if Volcano should have been named "Lava; Not Volcano Really", then Dante's Peak should have been called "Volcano; No Lava Really". It's a perfect mirror in opposite land. The volcano is HUGE but has very little lava. In fact the only thing that lava kills in this film is some truck tires. Very strange.

Hey remember that OTHER volcano movie from 1997? Well its here on Stinker Madness to finally help us answer that age old question: which 1997 volcano movie is the most stupid? Dante's Peak stars Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton.

Roman's Do's and Don'ts

• Ninja Busters - Bluray only $24.99 on Amazon
• Dangerous Men - $3.99 on YouTube
• The Barbarians - YouTube

The Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate

Extreme resistance to extreme heat but only from above - 3/10 stars

Tommy and Anne face off against some hot magma ("What's Magma?") in the first of two 1997 volcano movies. This one features a lead character who should be fired and never hired for his job, a slew of disaster movie cliches (Dog never dies, anyone?) and Stan, the Man-Chucking Man in possibly the stupidest movie we've ever seen on this show.

Let's start off by declaring how incredibly dumb this movie is. Every single bit of "science" is telegraphed to the audience because "Hey! They're stupid!" such as the definition of tectonic activity, gravity and magma. The volcano has a mind of its own and has Tommy Lee Jones sense meaning if Tommy is coming its sneaky and hides from him. The government officials of LA have no clue how things should work and it seems Tommy's Roark is the mayor as everyone calls him or reports to him daily even before the eruption. The Chief of Police even calls to obligatorily yell at someone, even if its completely unrelated to Emergency Management of which Roark is the director of. I can in no way define how stupid this movie is because in order to define something you must possess some semblance of intelligence. That would be a slap in the face of this movies lack thereof.

Surprise! Volcano! Tommy Lee Jones comes in to ask what magma is and see if his volcano movie of 1997 can be the dumber of the year. We all know its stupid, but how stupid can it be?

Roman's Do's and Don'ts

• Lust for Freedom (1987) - YouTube
• Furious (1984) - IMDB
• The Zero Boys (1986) - IMDB

Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate

• Electro-magnetic Telekinesis - 3.5 stars

About Volcano - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

As evidenced by the classic 1997 film Volcano, there are some disaster management professionals out there who do not know what magma is, I am then to infer that there are possibly people out there, disaster management professionals or otherwise, who don't know what volcanoes are. I will explain this phenomenon as unscientifically as possible; a volcano is a giant dirt cone that shoots fire sauce out the top, not the good kind of fire sauce either. You put this stuff on your taco and it becomes el taco de la muerte. 

Finally, we hit one of the most notorious bad movies of all time. At one point, Troll 2 was the #1 lowest rated movie on IMDB.com until people realized it's freaking awesome. Praised by many and loved by tons, it's a treasure of a film and we can't wait to dive into it.

Listener Feedback

A favorite cinematic guilty pleasure https://t.co/4JwTXRhIS5

Jim Wynorski makes his Stinker Madness debut with 1991's tale of a spooky phone hotline that gives you the confidence to mow on Bridgette Neilsen's box and gain super-powers so that you can stock a lady with a tall butt.

We're pretty confused on what this movie is about. Our best theory is that the dean of a community college has an obsession with his ex-office assistant. He's nuts and thinks that a 1-900 horoscope number will give him the powers to stalk her properly. So he somehow meets up with the proprietor of a spooky stuff supply store who if you give her cunnilingus you will be given the powers of Doctor Strange. Meanwhile, a guy who only has leather motorcycle gear to wear and who does not shower ever, thinks that the 1-900 number is somehow involved but they are just a red herring and are just a "phone company" with a really lame business model and a fairly bored CEO.

Jim Wynorski makes his very first and long overdue appearance on the show with 1991's 976-Evil 2, a film so important that they wouldn't even bring Robert Englund to direct it. Will Jim continue his fine tradition and increase his presence in the Stinker Hall of Fame? Spoiler alert - totally.

We'd like to say thank you to our fans that recently wrote in by sharing some thoughts from them on the show. If you'd like to join us in the bad movie discussion, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or write to us to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Paul Verhoeven had a vision for a caricature of a Fascist future society and totally nails it in the guise of a silly space battle movie. Toss in a 3 way love story with incredibly strong and easy to care for characters, exceptional acting and you've got one of hell of a good movie.

Why then is this movie on Stinker Madness? Well because in 1997 the critics and Sam and Justin made a single mistake; they didn't get this movie. The world wasn't ready for Starship Troopers. We were expecting a film adaptation of the Robert Heinlein science fiction novel of the same title. We weren't expecting a high school football game with backflips. We weren't expecting children smashing beetles and mothers laughing maniacally at it. We weren't expecting Robocop and Total Recall with a serious story and moral statement. So it was panned by critics. Thus making it a "bad movie". But it truly is a masterpiece in pop culture.

With this episode of the famed Stinker Madness Podcast we prepare for 1997's Starship Troopers from master of stuff, Paul Verhoeven. Despite having a solid IMDB user rating, the critics panned it. Does Johnny Rico get better with age? Can Denise Richards be more than just walking boobs? IS the only good bug a dead bug?

Streaming Do's and Don'ts

• The Runner - Netflix

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot? - How do they do drugs in film?

• Sniffing cocaine - powdered lactose
• Heroin cooking - sugar & baking soda
• Smoking weed - Wizard Weed - weed with no THC. Same things cops use when they go undercover.
• Crack rocks - Rock candy OR glue and baking soda
• Needle injections - prosthetic arms, trick needles, OR for budget movies - stunt guy just frickin' does it.

The Great Superpower Debate

• Face freezing power - 2.5/10

About Starship Troopers - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

My confused relationship with this film begins in 1997 when I saw it at the theater. It was as any of my confused relationships have gone. I take a girl out to tacos and then afterwards there is that “should I ask her to ice cream even though I am not that into her” moment. I don’t ask and two years later I find out she was allergic to tacos and she just wanted to tug me off in her Camaro. That is when I realize, holy shit, I didn’t get what was going on there, I would have totally got my wiener pulled in the back of an American classic, alas that ship had sailed and the tug boat headed down the stream to tow a different load into the bay of soiled upholstery. That is about what happened with me and this movie. When it came out I thought it was okay but kind of weird, totally didn’t get it. I read the novel about 5 months after seeing the film and would, for the next five years or so, hold Starship Troopers as the gold standard for how to fuck up a novel.

For 25 years, people have been celebrating a film about a FBI guy spending 3/4 of the movie trying to get fired and perhaps sent to prison, while steadily falling in love with a dude brah. Since its release apparently no one has watched it because this crap stinks and not in good ways.

I'm sorry to say everyone but this movie just isn't very good NOR is it very bad. It is as middle of the road and completely unremarkable as any movie has ever existed. What? It's not very good? 

Johnny Utah finally graces our presence in Kathryn Bigelow's second appearance on the show. Can it POSSIBLY be a good movie? Can it be a bad movie that everyone thinks is good? Or is it just the same as her Near Dark and just meh? Least Busey is in it.

Streaming Do's and Don'ts

• Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - Netflix (No longer available)
• The Thaw - Amazon Prime
• The Brain that Wouldn't Die - (with MST3K) - YouTube
• Darkman - Netflix

The Great Superpower Debate

Telekinesis limited to 8 ft range and 40 lbs. - 6.5 stars

It may be called Galgameth or it might be called The Adventures of Galgameth or it might be called The Legend of Galgameth; who's to say? Either way, it's the start of our "Monster Bud" 3 episode series. It involves a fantasy tale about a boy who gets a dragon who grows by eating metal. So we'll see how that works out.

Sorry about the awful audio quality. Our new mixer is total crap.

Before the flop of 2015, before the two turds in the early 2000s, there was 1994's The Fantastic Four. It's a film that was never meant to be viewed by the eyes of man but we are super happy that we can. We are joined by special guest, bad movie blogger and friend of the show, Brad Slager (@MartiniShark) who knows and loves this movie. Check out Brad's write up on FF at http://www.lifezette.com/popzette/the-first-fantastic-dud/.

While this film was meant to end up in the trashcan and only made in order to keep the film rights to The Fantastic Four (see also 2015), there is such a level of effort that is clear when watching this movie. All the actors are giving it their all. There's a real sense that the people involved really believed in this project rather than it just being a doomed project. Its a classic example of the Internet's definition of a good-bad movie of wanting to make a good movie and ending up with a really bad one.

Mark Hamill kidnaps a lady so that he can have his doctor zap her brains but first he must give slip to the husband, one Michael Dudikoff. It's a thriller/action/slasher movie where Hamill shows he's nuts, Dudikoff gives us his "whoa-face", we learn who Tommy Wiseau's mother is and Robert Mitchum is on set for about 2 hours!

This movie is pretty ridiculous. It never stops moving with absurdity. From Dudikoff getting strapped to the hood of a car in an elaborate death method to the explosion of a family in a station wagon to endless fog to the bad "Xtreme Sports" music choice. It's bat shit. 

We start this episode with a letter from Justin to Mark Hamill in the hopes he will become his best friend and replace Sam and Jackie on the podcast. We have yet to hear back.

We gear up for a fan pick from our Facebook fan:

When you take 70-bajillion characters with vague powers and zero characterization, toss in a very poorly cast James Remar who manages to act worse than Christopher Lambert, sprinkle with crappy, boring fight scenes with a side of the worst special effects ever, and then finish off with completely removing any bit of "Mortal Kombating" while still calling it Mortal Kombat, you've built a movie worthy of being called one of the worst movies of all time. Mortal Kombat: Annihiliation deserves to be in the IMDB Bottom 100, should have swept the Razzie awards and deserves to be mentioned alongside Birdemic and Manos: The Hands of Fate. It is a truly awful and painful film to view.

The story of the film truly isn't worth mentioning, mostly because it doesn't exist. The plot entails Shao Kahn (Bryan Thomspon) causing a "convergence" of all the realms so that he can't have power. We can't figure out what that power is or why smashing realms together causes that. So Raiden (James Remar) and team must stop Kahn and his cronies by using Katana as a key, Liu Kang defeating Kahn in a fight and Raiden becoming mortal. That's it. That's the entire plot. No other details are revealed.