The Starfighters is boring and certainly not at all entertaining. If you rank all the movies run on the show in order of quality, it's pretty near the bottom. But I've never found it to be offensively bad. It doesn't make me angry, if that makes sense.
On the other hand, the Coleman Francis movies are just such amazingly ugly, unpleasant little films. And Red Zone Cuba is the pinnacle of his dark and muddy vision. I mean, if you squint you can kind of see what sort of story he was going for... but in practice his three "antiheroes" are just poorly acted, horribly written assholes who kill people, in and out of Cuba, before being arrested and/or killed at the end. Even taking away the incompetent editing, directing and general film making, what we're left with is a pointless story that is only halfway about Cuba, populated solely by depressed, loathsome criminals that have nothing in the way of redeeming qualities. Not even the actors themselves come off as likable, and one of them is the writer/director of the movie. If it wasn't so utterly botched as a film, with truly hilarious gaffs cropping up left and right, it would be downright depressing to sit through. The fact that it is so bad is the only reason it isn't worse.
And Beast of Yucca Flats and Skydivers suck too.
"Manos" by comparison at least has a story you can follow. A vacationing family gets lost, is forced to stay at a place they (stupidly) believe is a safe place to lodge, but is in fact a murderous cult run by a madman who worships a dark god named Manos. Everything else about the thing is done flat out wrong, but it has some theoretically sympathetic characters and a story. Which may be somewhat generic but at least it's *there*. I certainly cared more about the little kid than I did anyone in any Coleman Francis movie. Hell, I cared more about Torgo than I did a Coleman Francis character.
And of course I've seen all of these episodes more often than I should admit, which is why I think about these things. Personally though, I prefer the episodes with weird and wacky movies, like Prince of Space, Horror of Party Beach or Deathstalker III.
On the other hand, the Coleman Francis movies are just such amazingly ugly, unpleasant little films. And Red Zone Cuba is the pinnacle of his dark and muddy vision. I mean, if you squint you can kind of see what sort of story he was going for... but in practice his three "antiheroes" are just poorly acted, horribly written assholes who kill people, in and out of Cuba, before being arrested and/or killed at the end. Even taking away the incompetent editing, directing and general film making, what we're left with is a pointless story that is only halfway about Cuba, populated solely by depressed, loathsome criminals that have nothing in the way of redeeming qualities. Not even the actors themselves come off as likable, and one of them is the writer/director of the movie. If it wasn't so utterly botched as a film, with truly hilarious gaffs cropping up left and right, it would be downright depressing to sit through. The fact that it is so bad is the only reason it isn't worse.
And Beast of Yucca Flats and Skydivers suck too.
"Manos" by comparison at least has a story you can follow. A vacationing family gets lost, is forced to stay at a place they (stupidly) believe is a safe place to lodge, but is in fact a murderous cult run by a madman who worships a dark god named Manos. Everything else about the thing is done flat out wrong, but it has some theoretically sympathetic characters and a story. Which may be somewhat generic but at least it's *there*. I certainly cared more about the little kid than I did anyone in any Coleman Francis movie. Hell, I cared more about Torgo than I did a Coleman Francis character.
And of course I've seen all of these episodes more often than I should admit, which is why I think about these things. Personally though, I prefer the episodes with weird and wacky movies, like Prince of Space, Horror of Party Beach or Deathstalker III.
