6. The Punisher (1988)
The Movie: I'm not completely sure why there's a
Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle, but there is, and you can see that it exists because I'm writing about it now. Look. It's real. I'm not
that good at Photoshop. If you're unfamiliar with the Punisher as a fictional character, he's basically this anti-hero who goes around killing bad guys, much unlike the superheroes we've become accustomed to these days, who opt to just beat people up until they just can't walk or die off-screen from a hemorrhage or something. This movie was "punished" (ha!) with a constant barrage of terrible reviews, all of which cited its awful special effects and cheese-ball fight sequences as something to be mad about.
The Overlooked Positive: If I came over to your house right now with a packet of frankfurters and six beers and said, "Hey, I have this movie from the '80s - it's crammed to the core with awful special effects and cheese-ball fight sequences," what would you say? Aside from, "Who are you and how did you find me?", you'd probably say, "Come on in, stranger. That sounds convincing." Great. I won't steal your stuff whilst you go to the bathroom, I promise. Thing is, we all know that sometimes it takes, like, twenty years for something to go from "bad" to "bad good," which is what has happened here in droves. Dolph Lundgren didn't know that at the time, of course: he probably thought this movie was going to make him a superstar. Fact is, it didn't, but
The Punisher is ready for a comeback. Check it out for its carnival-based shootout sequence (complete with bad guys ridin' slides), and a villain who wears a denim jacket. This might be one of the worst adaptations ever, but it doesn't suffer for it. It's far better to be one of the best bad movies ever made than the 87th best comic book movie ever made, right? Right. Basically, watch this and have an '80s-themed blast.