On December 17th, the guys at Rifftrax will tackle one of the worst films ever to see the light of day.
I love watching bad movies. Not the ones that come on the Sci-Fi channel every Saturday, mind you. Those are like Troma films – they’re made to be bad. No, the movies I love are those made with the best of intentions… those made with an expectation of greatness, or at least watchability.
I thrive on terrible movies made in earnest, but even I couldn’t sit through ‘Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny’. It’s one of those films that doesn’t even rate on the bad movie scale, because it’s debatable whether it even counts as a movie. It’s that awful. Don’t believe me? Try some, won’t you?
The movie – directed by Barry Mahon, who also doled out titles like ‘Sex Killer’ and ‘Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico’ – has been chosen by Rifftrax for this year’s holiday special.
Mike Nelson explains that during the Rifftrax screening process, each movie is watched and notes are taken. Most movies have a few pages, but ‘Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny’ has one single phrase: “Man’s greatest achievement.”
Just who or what the Ice Cream Bunny is can’t be ascertained from the film. Let’s just assume that he’s the only one who can get Santa’s sled out of the sand. Yes, that’s the plot.
‘Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny’ will be available to download in full from Rifftrax on the 17th in all its creepy glory.
William Henley
It also looks like the entire movie is available on YouTube. But I could only stand about 2 minutes of it. I was basically trying to figure out if they shot the whole thing with no sound and did all the voices in ADR. Either that, or its a really poorly synched video file. Or both.
Dick Ward
AuthorIt’s a real mystery, isn’t it? There’s even a scene about 20 minutes in where they use a shot of kids singing without the audio of kids singing. Haunting.
Terry Pasley
With all these kids trying all these animals, It could have worked as an Our Gang short….Except Spanks and the gang would have succeeded.
EM
The sad thing is that so much potential has gone to waste. The title is intriguing, and even the basic plot sounds like it could have been a springboard to something fun. Even the hands of amateurs with a pocket-size budget should have been able to create at least a mildly entertaining diversion. Can you imagine this title and premise realized by a Tim Burton or a Jean-Pierre Jeunet or a John Lasseter?