The Best Worst Movies By Decade

The Best Worst Movie of the '90s: Werewolf, a.k.a. Arizona Werewolf (1996)

I actually rented this movie at a Blockbuster (remember those?) when I thought it would be a neat, campy horror movie. I got more than I bargained for. So bad were the acting and dialogue, which you could hardly understand anyway, that I stopped it halfway through and returned the damn thing.

I remember thinking Mystery Science Theater would have a field day with the movie, and lo and behold, a few years later, they did. It was featured in one of their shows, which still remains one of the fans' favourite episodes, including mine. My favourite scene takes place in a bar that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. In fact, there's a long, boring tracking shot of a painted wall mural featuring a group of dead Indians in the sky lovingly looking down over a few cowboys making a campfire.

Quips one of the MST3K robots, "Thanks for killing us and taking our land!" A scene that does have to do with the movie involves an evil businessman (who talks like the "Frito Bandito" for some reason) changing an elderly security guard - played by the director himself - into a werewolf so he can drive his car into barrels of fuel and explode. No, I'm not making this up. During that scene, the car passes the same gas station three times (I counted).

Even though the movie takes place in Arizona, hence the original title Arizona Werewolf, the romantic leads aren't American (no one knows their true origin), and their garbled English is side-splittingly funny: "Paul, you is waahrwulf." Then of course, Joe Estevez shows up ("one of the lesser Estevezes," as an MST3K robot wittily points out). None of it makes any sense, and you'll see the "twist ending" coming miles away.