The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Films with Deliberately Ridiculous Titles are works that offer an attention grabbing title in the hope that the sheer absurdity, amusement or novelty will get an audience to watch. A film with Deliberately Ridiculous Title may not necessarily be a Deliberately Bad Film, which are films made in a style designed to mock cheap production values, bad effects or cheesy dialogue of previous eras. Some of these are even serious films once you get past the title.
The fad began in the 1950s with films such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958). Assorted examples continue through to the present. In the 2010s, the Zombie Film and the Killer Shark Movie in particular have gained great mileage out of conducting deliberately ridiculous titles, pun titles or conceptual mashups that seem designed to mix their threat with as something as incongruously mismatched as possible.
While what denotes a Deliberately Ridiculous Title is subjective, below is what this site considers the most deliberately absurd titles to cross our reviewing desk.
A halfway decent Asylum film that emerges better than the film it is ripping off, the overblown Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The film does the historical crossover aspect with some ingenuity
This seems to be intended as a parody of a 1960s beach party film but with the addition of comic aliens. Well and truly a black star film, this is excruciating on every level
Film spinoff of the cult animated tv show. This feels like a film overtaken by the effort of trying to be surrealistic, wacky, scatological etc more than it is ever a film that creates gag that are funny
You feel that a film about lesbian Japanese schoolgirls vs zombies should have been more interesting. The zombies barely mount to a dozen and the director seems more preoccupied by his softcore predilections
1950s bad movie classic with Allison Hayes as a wife made into a giant by a passing UFO who rampages through town after her philandering husband. Painfully bad effects make for show that frequently slides into the laughable
Fred Olen Ray offers up a bimbo movie take on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Where the original was an early feminist parable, Olen Ray offers up a giant woman whose only motivation is wanting a bigger set of breasts
Yes, a film about an invasion by space chickens, which are represented by hand puppets. Words fail me on this one. This is painful to watch. My Worst Film of 2023.
There is a certain genus of films based around coming up with deliberately ridiculous titles. The filmmakers sell you instantly on the film from the title alone but have lavished little care or budget on the actual film
One of the original genre parodies, a very silly and amateurish film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny. Three sequels and an animated tv series followed
One has seen just a few too many wacky titled zombie comedies and this Austrian film seems another wannabe until the climactic scenes where it redeems itself with a completely demented bloodbath
Seemingly another ridiculously titled zombie movie but in actuality this is no more than a regular zombie film played straight that has been slapped with a gonzo title as a selling point
One of the more amusing titles in the gonzo zombie title mashup fad. On the other hand, this takes itself surprisingly seriously and, while well made, never fully goes for broke
Adapted from a Young Adult series of books, this is a bland and utterly superficial film about a secret society of monster-hunting babysitters
A deliberately ridiculous Charles Band production where students throwing their laptops into a lake causes an alligator to float through the air and become giant-sized
Prolific low-budget hack David DeCoteau directs what feels like a very softcore version of a Gidget film crossbred with Earth Girls Are Easy (albeit with the sexes reversed). A film that quickly sinks into awfulness
A gonzo post holocaust film that was put out under the National Lampoon label. Beyond having a great title, this represents as close to near-total ineptitude in filmmaking as it is possible to get
Strippers and zombies Japanese style. An entry into the Gonzo Japanese Splatter film fad. Cheaply made, with surprisingly little nudity and a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek splatter
This has a reputation as a bad movie classic. The attention grabbing novelty mash-up transforms the Western outlaw into a hero to combat Dracula (a hammy John Carradine)
One of the great deliberately ridiculous horror comedy titles of all time. The film itself telescopes down to an ordinary police procedural with no pharaohs, just an Egyptian serial killer
Another of the gonzo Japanese splatter films about a schoolgirl who tries to go about her schoolday while fighting off mutant cyborgs with the chainsaw she carries
Outrageous Finnish splatter comedy about a giant rampaging bunny creature. A film that in its better moments captures something of the sensibilities of early Peter Jackson films
A film that fairly much sells you in its deliberately ridiculous title concept – a cannibal who sets out to find success as a stand-up comedian.
The film that Bill Maher would prefer to forget. Beyond the deliberately absurd title, this is an amusing spoof of the jungle adventure and contains a far cleverer degree of wit than you expect
We’ve had Sharknado. Now comes Catnado, an anthology about storms of cats. This contains episodes so pitiful and ineptly made that this enters into the unwatchable
That rarity of rarities – a quite good Troma film. The zombies are not up to much but the titular girl motorcycle gang are surprisingly well rounded characters
Bruce Lee popularised the kung fu genre but then died. Welcome to the Brucespolitation phenomenon where for several years we had Bruce lookalikes appearing in copycat works. Several Bruce imitators appear here as his clones
The killer clown film has become its own genre niche since the remake of It, offering assorted wacky genre mash-ups. This is a better budgeted entry than usual from the director of the cult Tucker and Dale vs Evil
This may possibly win the award for the all-time most ridiculous premise for a film. It tries to outdo Sharknado by offering up a storm of killer clowns
Another of the films inspired by Cocaine Bear, this features an invasion by alien crabs that become wired on cocaine. It is hard to tell if this is being deliberately ridiculous or not
This gets you watching with its deliberately ridiculous title but once you do, you soon wish you hadn’t. Winner of this site’s Worst Film of 2021.
This gets full marks for an attention grabbing title – outside of that it has the cheap shabbiness of a Troma film, substituting a gonzo sarcasm and plentiful bad taste and gore for many of the filmmaking basics
Completely insane Japanese film about man-eating killer sushi. A film that has an anything goes lunacy, resulting in some of the most surreally crazed monster scenes this author has seen in some time
Yes, exactly what the title announces – a film about a possessed killer Christmas tree. A rather amusing Christmas horror entry from prolific low-budget British producer Scott Jeffrey/Scott Chambers
A possession film set on an airplane. This sets out to parody exorcism movie cliches but makes a beeline for outrageous bad taste humour. It does include a great cast of genre regulars
Another zombie film that comes with a deliberately ridiculous title, even if the title ends up being a misnomer. This site’s choice for the worst film of 2020
This was a Troma release during the period where they made a point of selling films with outrageous attention-getting titles. One only wishes there was a film on show worthy of such
The Asylum, the company behind the Sharknado phenomenon, made 2 Headed Shark Attack. Figuring the only way to top that was to keep adding more heads we had 3 and now 5 Headed Shark Attack
Frank Henenlotter of Basket Case fame modernises the Frankenstein film Here Frankenstein creates a body out of parts from Time Square hookers. Amusing but eventually a film where the humour is too broad
Another in the spate of gonzo Japanese splatter films. A cartoony OTT vigilante film with a Gothic schoolgirl avenger, featuring ridiculous action and splatter set-pieces
A film of legendarily bad proportions where a group of Country and Western singers end up in a haunted house. Despite casting some famous horror actors, this is more interested in its excruciating country performances
Another of the Grindhouse mock trailers gets it own film. This hits in with a wonderfully enthusiastic B movie energy and buckets of gore that remind of early Peter Jackson
Construed by prolific B movie hack Fred Olen Ray around its two stars – Gunnar Hansen, the original Leatherface, and Scream Queen Linnea Quigley, this hits a perfect note between bimbos, tongue-in-cheek and cheap gore
The gonzo killer shark film has gained its own genre in recent years, popularised by Sharknado. This concerns a shark that emerges out of toilets and prowls around suburban living rooms
A British venture into the gonzo splatter film about a motorcycle that develops vampiric tendencies after blood is spilled in its tank in a Satanist ceremony. Beyond an amusing title, this is crude and heavy-handed
Defying the sensationalistic title, this is actually a fairly reasonable entry in the 1950s alien body snatchers fad in which wives discover their husbands have been taken over by aliens come to Earth to repopulate their species
This was a hit in its dayo by tapping the burgeoning teenage market who had just realised they were misunderstood thanks to James Dean. Not a particularly great film but it is one that carries a great deal of primal ferocity
Obscure title that when seen is revealed to be a surprisingly well-made (in places) homage to the 1950s alien invasion genre and replication of the era’s style of filmmaking
Another shabby Troma release concerning the activities of a crazed cult. This features some nasty deaths but little else
One of the great ridiculous titles of all time. It’s a shame there’s nothing that comes anywhere near matching it in this tatty, poorly made film about a fortune teller turning men into disfigured, hypnotised slaves
Wacky South Korean comedy that seems like Species played with the sensibilities of My Stepmother is an Alien – the whole film plays out as a nonsensically charming seduction
Notorious Z movie made as companion piece to Billy the Kid Versus Dracula in which the famous outlaw encounters Frankenstein’s granddaughter and her creations
This is one of the great wacky titles of all time. The film has its deliberately ridiculous amusements but soon fails to provide an interesting enough show to live up to its title
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Beyond that, it is is otherwise a very strange and surrealistic film about spy shenanigans in Virtual Reality
Beyond the wilfully ridiculous title, this is a surprisingly entertaining and funny film that lampoons monster movies in general concerning a monstrous condom on the attack.
A New Zealand-made horror comedy. Oddly this is not, as the title might suggest, about a possessed sofa but a possessed recliner chair
This seems to want to do for the lesbian vampire film what Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie film. Alas, the film makes its appeal fairly and squarely into the crude, sexism of British lad culture
This had me watched on the basis of the title alone. An Asylum production, this is less a twisted take on the fairytale than one that turns Little Red Riding Hood into a werewolf hunter
This is intended as a deliberately bad parody of a 1950s SF film. It is a fairly silly effort that almost ends up being too well made for its own good to mimic the originals that weren’t even trying
Full marks for one of the great deliberately ridiculous titles of all time. The film itself is an oddity that almost seems intended to confound your expectations of it
The Asylum’s first venture into the gonzo shark movie that would spin off a series of sequels and culminate in the Sharknado phenomenon. Despite one of the great attention grabbing titles of all time, this is an unmemorable affair
This has a cute title pun but otherwise is a feeble SF comedy
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
This has to be the single worst killer shark film ever made and quite possibly the worst film of the 2010s. A shark film set in a Beverly Hills mansion where the nearest body of water is a swimming pool and where the appearance of the shark will reduce you to tears of laughter
An entry in the gonzo killer shark film fad from Mark Polonia, this has some undeniable amusement to its title mash-up as a team go in search of Noah’s Ark, which somehow has killer sharks involved
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
This holds the distinction of being the world’s first gonzo zombie film – oh and the first zombie musical too. Not many zombies (or nude bodies), the song lyrics are occasionally amusing but the film’s humour is schoolboyish, and the effort amateurish on the whole
Despite one of the great exploitation titles of all time, this bikini clad babes vs dinosaurs after the apocalypse effort lacks the cheerful cynicism of other Troma films and is just cheap, dull and unwatchable on almost every level
Another in the spate of deliberately ridiculous killer shark films concerning a ghost shark that emerges from an ouija board
Gonzo killer shark film that gets full marks for an entertainingly ridiculous title but is real bad movie material on all accounts
Troma film that has maybe the silliest movie title ever. This sets out to be so persistently moronic and wilfully offensive that it eventually attains a delirious absurdity
Based on the book that led a publishing phenomenon in which literary classics are mashed up with monsters, this has the difficult balancing act – that of making Jane Austen’s Regency romance sit alongside zombies – nevertheless manages to play both with an impeccably straight-face
The zombie film of the 2010s has become marked by a search for the most bizarre and incongruous title/conceptual mash-ups. True to its promise, the film pits several WWE wrestlers up against zombies, alas the creativity begins and ends with the mild amusement of the title concept
aka Jaws in Japan. A Japanese entry in the Gonzo Killer Shark Film fad
This is the one of worst films to come out in the gonzo killer shark fad – it is surely the killer shark genre’s equivalent of The Room. The effects hit a level of terribleness not seen since Birdemic, the rest is full of ridiculous continuity gaffes, bad acting and bad dialogue
Fascinatingly terrible effort from cult Z-movie maker Ray Dennis Steckler that appears to have been made as a parody of tv’s Batman but comes filled with a mind-boggling ineptitude and classic bad movie dialogue
Maybe one of the great exploitation titles of all time quickly telescopes down to a near-unwatchable film from Andy Milligan. A Victorian-set werewolf film with rats thrown in to capitalise on the success of Willard
Classic title from Troma Films, quite possibly the first ever gonzo zombie film, this also counts as one of the worst zombie films ever made
Excruciating and painfully unfunny attempt to make a deliberately bad SF film with alien vixens attempting to take over a high school
Part of the fad for gonzo Japanese splatter films we had in the late 00s, featuring absurdly over-the-top splatter effects and demented action sequences.; Concerning cyborg-enhanced geisha who wade into battle going through a deliriously silly range of bio-mechanical transformations
This comes with one of the great exploitation titles of all time. Despite the enormously entertaining possibilities inherent in the premise, the film misses all of them and falls down into complete amateurism within moments
Another gonzo killer shark film from The Asylum, makers of Sharknado films, this features the entertaining absurdity of evolved humanoid Soviet sharks living on the Moon
Another entrant in the fad for gonzo killer shark film. This gets some award for combining the killer shark film, the women’s prison film and the cabin in the woods horror standard
Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes a cheap and ridiculous variant on the gonzo killer shark film about a Nazi mad scientist creating a Franken-shark that comes with Hitler’s brain placed into it
This arrived as the same instant full-born bad movie cult sensation. Although you cannot help but feel that the people who ridiculed the film are missing out on the joke – in not seeing that it has been made as something intentionally absurd
Perhaps not the worst Gonzo Killer Shark film ever made but it would sit among the worst half-dozen involving a shark-worshipping cult conducting sacrifices to summon a shark god in the cornfields
Third of the Sharktopus films from Roger Corman, an entry in the series that is making no longer making any effort to take itself seriously
The Asylum’s Multi-Headed Shark Attack series hasn’t quite hit the sense of delirious absurdism that their Sharknado films did – the only gimmick the series has is to keep adding heads to the shark. On the other hand, a scene where where the shark emerges onto land walking on two of its heads will have you rolling on the floor in laughter
This has been conceived as the ultimate modern exploitation film featuring Nazi zombie piloting flying sharks. Think Iron Sky by way of Sharknado. The results are highly entertaining
Easily dismissed because of its deliberately cheesy title, this is a modestly enjoyable relocating of The Most Dangerous Game on another planet
A David DeCoteau film that comes with one of the great exploitation titles of all time but is otherwise a cheap Scream Queen vehicle about a demonically possessed bowling trophy
Part of the late 80s/early 90s fad for deliberately bad SF films, this has plentiful references to Plan 9 from Outer Space but little that is funny
I must admit to being drawn in by the title, but this proves to be a massive cheat. What we get is a painfully cheap future action film
A film that has been sold on the basis of its deliberately ridiculous title concept – that of alien invaders attempting to take over the airwaves by posing as televangelists
Probably the next logical move after Zombie Strippers! Alas, where we should have had a fast, funny and sarcastic genre entry, the humour in this British entry becomes painfully belaboured in its constant unfunny efforts to get laughs
A classic Troma title that is actually more interesting than the actual film, which concerns wars between surf gangs in a collapsed future. The film does eventually achieve a bizarre over-the-top lunacy
One of the all-time classic bad movie titles, this is cheap and dreary on almost every level, although does offer mild amusement when it comes to the provision of the title concept near the end
With the Mega Shark and especially the Sharknado films, The Asylum played the killer shark film as ridiculously as possible with delirious results. In this sequel to 2-Headed Shark Attack, they get the blend of the tongue-in-cheek absurdity to a point of near-perfection
Imagine Baise-Moi or Thelma and Louise by way of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – a film that hits a perfect note in terms of tongue-in-cheek spirit
Another in plethora of gonzo killer shark films viz Sharknado concerning a mutated shark that spews a plume of toxic waste. Not the bottom of the barrel, an adequately made B movie that takes itself relatively seriously
From Larry Blamire, a deliberately ridiculous spoof of the 1950s alien invasion film. Blamire’s dialogue and the deadpan with which everybody plays is frequently hilarious