Bad Meaning Good case study #4: 'Time Barbarians'

Monday, November 02 2009

In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...

Bad Meaning Good case study #4:
'Time Barbarians' (dir. Joseph John Barmettler)

Summary:
Imagine for a second that you are Doran, the warrior king of the forest. You live modestly, in relative peace amongst a virtuous, salt of the Earth sort of people, in the kind of society where the children are taught from a young age to construct their homes by hand. The men are the hunter gatherers of your tribe and your women are somehow reminiscent of the D-grade, soft-core porn stars you watched on cable when you were 13. Actually, your women ARE the D-grade, soft-core porn stars you watched on cable when you were 13. And you... You are, more specifically Deron Mcbee, also known as 'Malibu' on the hit television series American Gladiators. You are one seriously chiseled, muscle-bound, loin cloth-wearing son-of-a-bitch. All things considered... Life is pretty fuckin' sweet.

One day you decide to head into the forest for your daily hunting duties. While away, your wife Lystra and a few of her buxom homegirl-hotties head off to the local hot spring to do a little bit of topless pond-frolicking because, you know, that's like, what women do and shit. Suddenly, amid their bare-breasted lagoon-romp, this hairy, Glen Danzig-meets-Tony Larussa-looking motherfucker named Mandrak shows up to crash the party and shit gets totally out of control in the worst kind of way.

You return from your hunt and are confronted with the devastating reality that Lystra and her girls have been raped and left for dead... But suddenly, without warning a mysterious woman manifests out of thin air (or rather from what could only be the artificial jetstream of a smoke machine) purely to tell you that it is up to you Doran, you alone to seek out the evil wizard Mandrak and avenge the deaths of your sweet, sweet womenfolk, lest you be labeled a punk-ass bitch by everyone in your kingdom.

You then manage to somehow break the space-time continuum and land yourself in current day Los Angeles (as opposed to the current-day studio lot your make-shift forest likely existed on beforehand) in search of the dastardly Mandrak (he himself inexplicably being of the time-travelling persuasion). You enter the new world just in time to save a pretty and helpless news anchorwoman (who looks suspiciously like your lost love Lystra) from a street-level assault at the hands of some unmistakably Troma-fied, gutter-punk looking bad dudes. In your new reality, this woman is to be your hot, hot tour guide. But let us not forget that you are a bad, bad man and you have your eyes on the prize. Potential sexual encounters-be-damned, you WILL NOT be deterred on your quest for vengeance and you proceed to pretty much beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who stands in your way.

How 'Bad Meaning Good' is it?:
I wish I could tell you. The audio track on this movie was of such piss-poor quality and so poorly mixed, its dialog so unclear that even its laughably elementary plot points (really the ONLY thing a movie needs to get right) were rendered unintelligible at best. I am of course in no way saying that the film is remotely difficult to understand (I'm quite certain a brainless sea-sponge could make sense of what takes place over the course of its merciful 96 minutes)... I am however warning all potential viewers to keep the rewind button within striking distance if they intend to understand every line uttered over the entirety of this mindless piece of shit.

In fairness to what was surely an unpretentious and simple little production though, I did manage a hearty chuckle during a scene in which Doran confronts a group of would-be attackers by saying "your swords match your manhood" in as stiff and dim-witted a fashion as humanly possible, and then proceeds to kick much, much ass. Shortly thereafter was a mildly humorous fight sequence where Doran uses Mandrak's severed hand as a weapon and back-handed, bitch-slapping device against Mandrak himself. Additionally, I found it amusing on a completely dork-minded, referential level to see a brief cameo from Jeffrey Culver (who you might know as the old man from the much-beloved cult flick and Bad Meaning Good mainstay 'Hobgoblins') but that is purely the stuff of the advanced nerds among us and truth be told, barely deserving of mention at all. The whole affair was incredibly short on craft and even shorter on laughs. The makers of this movie seem to have had no ambition for it beyond simply seeing it through to completion.

As a historical document, it remains a throwback to the days of low-rent, late-night cable fodder and beyond that, offers very little in the way of entertainment, be it intentional, unintentional or otherwise. If you happened to be an adolescent male around 1990-1991 (when this movie was traversing the after-hours cable airwaves), I imagine you may have found something to like about it given that there's nary a breast on any female character that goes unexposed over its total run-time.

Trust me though, YOU can sit this one out... Even if you're 13 years old RIGHT NOW. We have the internet now.

'Bad Meaning Good'-O-Meter:
4.3/10

Here's a sample of some of the action:

Tags: Bad Meaning Good, Bad Meaning Good Case Studies

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