The Film: Welcome Home, Brother Charles (1975) Jamaa Fanaka's cult exploitation flick deserves its status as one of those fabled so bad it's essential films, because it is terrible. But then, it's also so artfully terrible that it's impossible not to get whole-heartedly involved in it. Like Sweet Sweetback before it, Welcome Home, Brother Charles is a blood-minded response to racism, though Fanaka decided on a more literal tale of vengeance, including a monstrous animated penis with a thirst for murder. The film quite literally tackles the spectre of penis envy that was identified in some quarters as an underlying reason for racial prejudice, by making the enormous black penis of a man assaulted (and almost castrated) by white assailants the villainous threat of this monster horror flick and the rather blatant means to get vengeance on the white man. Obviously the name of the game here is provocation, so censor issues weren't likely to be top of Fanaka's agenda, but the fact the film remains watchable is a triumph for the most ridiculous moments in cinematic history. Whether it was sensible is another matter entirely. Did we miss any WTF moments that film-makers should never have got away with? Share your own picks in the comments thread.
