Cheese Galore

Cheese. As it relates to bad movies, cheese is the thing that makes otherwise horrific movies palatable.

Certain elements in a movie have to be reasonably good even in a Cheesy movie. For example, the film has to be well lit enough that you can normally see what is going on on the screen. While it is okay to have a chase scene that takes place in the dark where you can't see anything, if the entire movie is that dark it is simply not watchable. Sound quality also should be reasonably good. Again one or two scenes where you can hear the wind in the outside shots is okay, if you have to constantly struggle to hear what is being said, again you won't watch the movie.

Which brings us to the reason for this page. Contrasting old cheese vs new cheese. For the old cheese I will be using what is possibly my all time favorite cheesy movie; The Night of the Lepus. For new cheese I am hard pressed to find a better choice than Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Lepus is a 1972 epic starring DeForest Kelly, Rory Calhoun, Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh. None of these actors were really considered great but all had extensive acting experience, much of it in TV series. Shot before CGI, all of the special effects in Lepus depended on trick photography and crude film overlays. Shark was released in May of 2009 straight to DVD and stars Larenzo Lamas, Sean Lawlor and Deborah Gibson. Lamas and Lawlor have extensive TV-related acting backgrounds while Gibson was a teenage pop star. Sadly, Sean Lawlor passed away in October of 2009. Shark was made by The Asylum film group which specializes in made to order films. This neatly parallels the old drive in days when a few movie makers churned out cheap B movies for the opening film of a double feature. Now companies like Blockbuster (odd to think they are still a player in the movie rental business) will order a movie similar to what the big studios are releasing to have as a cheap follow up. Already watched Transformers? No problem, check out Transmorphers. Needless to say, I feel the world is a better place for Asylum's presence. The legacy of Roger Corman, William Castle, and Herschell Gordon Lewis lives on!

Acting can be cheesy in two major ways. The most common is bad acting from rank amateurs. Missed cues, wandering attention, flat delivery of lines, overdone delivery of lines, etc. The second major acting failure is when good actors (occasionally on their way up, but usually on their way down) are forced to deliver truly awful dialog. Oftentimes they don't even try to make sense of what they are saying, they just recite the lines which makes for inadvertent humor.

Stuart Whitman and Rory Calhoun. These guys are certainly capable of delivering good performances. Here a limiting factor is dialog. Rory is bit by a rabbit and Whitman informs him that Lepus is the latin word for rabbit.	Our three heroes in Shark face a similar problem. They are competent but rarely given good lines.
DeForest Kelly gets the less than enviable task of describing a big hole in the ground.	Lorenzo Lamas about to exclaim "That's faster than a jet".
The level of cheese for both movies is pretty much the same here. Really bad dialog delivered by competent actors kicks up the cheese factor because it sounds almost believable. At least for a moment or two. This is why John Carradine played so many mad scientists. His strong resonant voice carried conviction that gave whatever nonsense he was spouting more weight than it deserved. In Lepus and Shark the lines are delivered very straight forward and while they don't match Carradine's performances the cast does spout nonsense quite well. Both films are equally cheesy in this regard.

Stuart Whitman and Rory Calhoun. These guys are certainly capable of delivering good performances. Here a limiting factor is dialog. Rory is bit by a rabbit and Whitman informs him that Lepus is the latin word for rabbit.

Our three heroes in Shark face a similar problem. They are competent but rarely given good lines.

DeForest Kelly gets the less than enviable task of describing a big hole in the ground.

Lorenzo Lamas about to exclaim "That's faster than a jet".

The level of cheese for both movies is pretty much the same here. Really bad dialog delivered by competent actors kicks up the cheese factor because it sounds almost believable. At least for a moment or two. This is why John Carradine played so many mad scientists. His strong resonant voice carried conviction that gave whatever nonsense he was spouting more weight than it deserved. In Lepus and Shark the lines are delivered very straight forward and while they don't match Carradine's performances the cast does spout nonsense quite well. Both films are equally cheesy in this regard.

Dialog again can come in two forms. My personal favorite is technobabel. This is where a "scientist" will explain a situation or problem in "technical" terms that make absolutely no sense at all. Other types of bad dialog include the infamous "no one would ever say that" variety.

"I wish I new what this serum did. Hand me a clean rabbit." This may be one of my all time favorite lines. Basically it implies that scientist just randomly inject rabbits with shit to see what happens. I am pretty sure that most labs are not run this way.	And yet, 35 years later we see scientists randomly combining colored liquids. There are two "Science" montages in Shark separated by an epiphany. This means that during the first montage, they did not have a plan.
As this scientist frantically twists the knobs on a microscope, he insists the only thing that could have caused this damage would be a saber tooth tiger. I'm guessing he came to that conclusion based on the teeth marks left on the victims cells.	Emma looks at what would later turn out to be a tooth fragment. Funny I thought it looked more like a piece of 1 x 4 cut with a jigsaw and painted white.
When it comes to Technobabel Lepus wins handily over Shark. The scientists in Lepus occasionally try to explain things. In Shark nothing is explained. Once the tooth has been identified as belonging to a Megladon (prehistoric giant shark) no effort is made to explain why it might still be around. We saw it frozen in a glacier and I guess that is all the explanation we need. The giant octopus is never explained.

clean rabbit

"I wish I new what this serum did. Hand me a clean rabbit." This may be one of my all time favorite lines. Basically it implies that scientist just randomly inject rabbits with shit to see what happens. I am pretty sure that most labs are not run this way.

And yet, 35 years later we see scientists randomly combining colored liquids. There are two "Science" montages in Shark separated by an epiphany. This means that during the first montage, they did not have a plan.

saber tooth

As this scientist frantically twists the knobs on a microscope, he insists the only thing that could have caused this damage would be a saber tooth tiger. I'm guessing he came to that conclusion based on the teeth marks left on the victims cells.

Tooth Fragment

Emma looks at what would later turn out to be a tooth fragment. Funny I thought it looked more like a piece of 1 x 4 cut with a jigsaw and painted white.

When it comes to Technobabel Lepus wins handily over Shark. The scientists in Lepus occasionally try to explain things. In Shark nothing is explained. Once the tooth has been identified as belonging to a Megladon (prehistoric giant shark) no effort is made to explain why it might still be around. We saw it frozen in a glacier and I guess that is all the explanation we need. The giant octopus is never explained.

The plot of a movie is the logical way that the characters move from beginning to end based on the results of their actions. In a great movie one scene leads naturally into the next. In a cheesy movie, characters will say one thing and in the next scene do the opposite. Or they will do things that make no sense whatsoever.

In Lepus the sheriff heads off to the local drive in and informs everyone that giant man-eating bunnies are on the way and he needs their help. He also reminds them to roll their windows up, presumably this provides protection against giant rabbits.	In a spine chilling scene from Shark the sub plans to squeeze through a V shaped gap in the underwater mountain range that the shark can't fit through. Unless he goes up a little higher to where the gap widens out.
Both movies have really stupid plot points but at least the movies do move from point A to point B. Some of the plans don't make any sense, in Shark they decide to lure the monsters to shallow waters where it is supposed to be easier to capture them. They chose the San Francisco Bay and Tokyo Bay. Personally I would think that the population density of those areas would immediately rule them out as considerations, but no one in the movie even raises the slightest concern about this threat to civilian safety. It is a tie on which film is cheesier from this aspect; while they both do incredibly stupid things, there is at least a continuity of plot.

In Lepus the sheriff heads off to the local drive in and informs everyone that giant man-eating bunnies are on the way and he needs their help. He also reminds them to roll their windows up, presumably this provides protection against giant rabbits.

In a spine chilling scene from Shark the sub plans to squeeze through a V shaped gap in the underwater mountain range that the shark can't fit through. Unless he goes up a little higher to where the gap widens out.

Both movies have really stupid plot points but at least the movies do move from point A to point B. Some of the plans don't make any sense, in Shark they decide to lure the monsters to shallow waters where it is supposed to be easier to capture them. They chose the San Francisco Bay and Tokyo Bay. Personally I would think that the population density of those areas would immediately rule them out as considerations, but no one in the movie even raises the slightest concern about this threat to civilian safety. It is a tie on which film is cheesier from this aspect; while they both do incredibly stupid things, there is at least a continuity of plot.

Special effects cheese is pretty obvious. Being able to see the wires used to fly monsters, smoke coming out of a rocket ship and going up, etc. Bad props and boom mikes are instances where the director should have reshot the scene but didn't. In some movies it is bad enough to make a drinking game out of.

I guess the prop master had a teeny tiny budget for Lepus. We see many of the same props over and over. In this case a phone headset was used in a car.	In Shark a control panel was cobbled together out of various bits and pieces. Those buttons? When they get pushed you can see that it is just a piece of plastic that was taped on to the frame. Also there are three different types of screws used to hold things together; a machine screw, flathead wood screw, and a drywall screw.
I said it before and I'll say it again. A fucking Instamatic! Are you kidding me? Whitman goes into a cave with the giant man-eating bunnies and takes their picture with a $5 camera and uses a flash. This is like entering a Volkswagen Bug in a NASCAR race.	In Sharks this device is supposed to be a SONAR unit. What, don't all SONAR devices have a paper feed button?
Again I think we are looking at a tie on this one. Lepus's lab actually looked like it had some current lab equipment and might well have been a veterinary clinic. They at least had a reasonable microscope. Shark also had a microscope but it was not a stereo scope (only one eyepiece instead of two). The entire lab seemed to consist of a few test tubes and a view light (these are used to look at film x-rays). Honestly in Shark it really looks like they got to the set to film the "Science!" scenes and realized they had no props so they went to the local Walmart. I especially love that one of the colored liquids they used still had carbonation in it, you could see the bubbles and the foam on top. Still I keep coming back to the Instamatic in Lepus. Didn't anyone on the set have a real camera that they could have borrowed?

I guess the prop master had a teeny tiny budget for Lepus. We see many of the same props over and over. In this case a phone headset was used in a car.

In Shark a control panel was cobbled together out of various bits and pieces. Those buttons? When they get pushed you can see that it is just a piece of plastic that was taped on to the frame. Also there are three different types of screws used to hold things together; a machine screw, flathead wood screw, and a drywall screw.

I said it before and I'll say it again. A fucking Instamatic! Are you kidding me? Whitman goes into a cave with the giant man-eating bunnies and takes their picture with a $5 camera and uses a flash. This is like entering a Volkswagen Bug in a NASCAR race.

In Sharks this device is supposed to be a SONAR unit. What, don't all SONAR devices have a paper feed button?

Again I think we are looking at a tie on this one. Lepus's lab actually looked like it had some current lab equipment and might well have been a veterinary clinic. They at least had a reasonable microscope. Shark also had a microscope but it was not a stereo scope (only one eyepiece instead of two). The entire lab seemed to consist of a few test tubes and a view light (these are used to look at film x-rays). Honestly in Shark it really looks like they got to the set to film the "Science!" scenes and realized they had no props so they went to the local Walmart. I especially love that one of the colored liquids they used still had carbonation in it, you could see the bubbles and the foam on top. Still I keep coming back to the Instamatic in Lepus. Didn't anyone on the set have a real camera that they could have borrowed?

Monsters can be a great source of cheese. It is really difficult to create a believable monster. While certain movie makers rise to the challenge, B movie makers, not so much. This is actually pretty easy to understand. The cost difference is incredible. Truly good monsters that interact with the cast can consume a huge percentage of a film's budget and still have the potential to look like crap. Case in point, Howard the Duck. So, most B movie makers don't even try.

I'm sorry but I don't care how big bunnies are supposed to be or what they decide is food, they are cute.	Is it me or does Bruce look like happy in this picture?
The stuff of nightmares? Umm, no, I'd say it looks more like someone crammed a bunch of domestic rabbits in a dollhouse.	Ahh, the time honored too dark to see technique. It is a given that most cheap special effects look better if you can't see them clearly.
Lepus is much cheesier in this regard. Nothing I can think of is less terrifying than bunnies running around in a scaled down set. Okay, maybe the plastic bags with Mardi Gras beads that were stand ins for giant jelly fish in "Sting of Death", but they did not get as much screen time as the rabbits. By contrast the monsters in Shark were silly but at least a little menacing.

I'm sorry but I don't care how big bunnies are supposed to be or what they decide is food, they are cute.

Is it me or does Bruce look like happy in this picture?

The stuff of nightmares? Umm, no, I'd say it looks more like someone crammed a bunch of domestic rabbits in a dollhouse.

Ahh, the time honored too dark to see technique. It is a given that most cheap special effects look better if you can't see them clearly.

Lepus is much cheesier in this regard. Nothing I can think of is less terrifying than bunnies running around in a scaled down set. Okay, maybe the plastic bags with Mardi Gras beads that were stand ins for giant jelly fish in "Sting of Death", but they did not get as much screen time as the rabbits. By contrast the monsters in Shark were silly but at least a little menacing.

Wired Magazine recently did an article on The Asylum and interviewed Paul Bales, David Rimawi and David Michael Latt. Despite mixing up the captions (Dragonquest and Megashark were reversed), the article was generally positive. These guys are churning out entertaining movies. They are doing so on time and on budget and giving writers and directors a lot of creative control providing they stay within that time frame and budget. And they make money on their films. All of them. Of course every article about The Asylum references Roger Corman because, well you have to. American International Pictures' Roger Corman and Samuel Arkoff were very successful because they were businessmen who loved movies. On occasion their movies would actually be good and occasionally sparked trends. Their beach movies, motorcycle movies and Poe adaptations in particular created some classic genres that other filmmakers ripped off. At the moment The Asylum does not seem to be trying to be innovative, but that could change. Some of their movies are watchable because of the raw talent of the new directors and writers. "Death Race 2000" was produced by Corman after the AIP days, but look over the list of people associated with this movie sometime, chances are you'll recognize a significant number. We can only hope that The Asylum will someday not only match Corman for his ability to make money making movies but also give aspiring moviemakers their start. For a while I had hopes that Troma would provide some new talent, but I have been disappointed with their releases of late. Fred Olen Ray is still turning out good dependable movies, but as he does most of his own directing chores, he is not showcasing any new talent.

Perhaps one of the funnier comments in the Wired article is when Michael Latt talks about being a schlock filmmaker. He states that as that description had also been applied to Jerry Bruckheimer, he felt he was in good company. There is a fair bit of truth to this statement. Movies are primarily meant to entertain and we can forgive a lot of problems if we are significantly entertained. It would be hugely unfair to compare Shark to "The Core" in terms of special effects but in terms of story line or technobabel? That is a much more level playing field. I watched "The Core" shortly after watching Shark (making it the third movie in three weeks where the Golden Gate Bridge gets destroyed) and I can't really say which is dumber. Tom Rogers over at Insultingly Bad Movie Physics has an opinion and frankly I think he toned it down some. Compared to a giant Geode 1000 miles underground, I'm thinking giant prehistoric shark that spent the last 5 million years asleep in a glacier seems downright reasonable. "The Core" is a much more polished movie than Shark or Lepus, but they have a lot more in common than director John Ameil would probably like to admit.

When it comes right down to it, Night of the Lepus retains its title as my personal choice of Cheesiest Movie Ever. It is relentlessly bad without ever going overboard. This is not to say that Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus is not a cheesy movie. Trust me on this one, it is. In a major way. Virtually everything that happens on the screen will make you shake your head and wonder who that that was a good idea. What I love about Shark is that it is a B movie to its core. Everything about this movie from its reason for being to its horrifically cheap sets, to its wonderfully stupid set pieces screams B movie. I gotta think that Forrest J. Ackerman would have approved of this movie.

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