1960s film
Space-Thing, 1968, USA DIRECTED BY BYRON MABE
I don't go out of my way to look for sexploitation movies; while I recognise their niche in genre history I find they're rarely worth watching. Space-Thing, however, is most certainly worth watching, in fact it may even be required viewing because of its widely recognised place at (or at the very least, near) the bottom of the tall pile of stuff that invariably gets labelled 'bad science fiction'. No one, not even its producer David F. Friedman (who died last month) calls this movie good, in fact Friedman claimed it "makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Citizen Kane" and "is without a doubt the worst science fiction movie ever made, I mean ever, ever, ever". He was also proud of it as being his most commercially successful film. Thankfully Friedman never made another SF movie, preferring to switch genres to avoid repeating himself, and he also believes Space-Thing was the very first SF sexploitation film (and Barbarella came along just a month later). His intention was to send up the genre and not particularly lovingly, and depicts a science fiction-obsessed man dreaming of being an alien who finds himself under human disguise on board a spacecraft, full of oversexed lesbians led by the whip-wielding Captain Mother. He then dutifully sets out to learn the human ways of lovemaking. One small claim to fame is that Space-Thing showcases the first ever appearance in a movie of the USS Enterprise: Friedman needed a couple of spaceships so bought toy models at a local store without ever having seen something called Star Trek.
So why is this the worst ever? Because it seriously looks like it had a budget of around $100 (and Friedman didn't credit the actresses with their real names as this meant they'd be asking for more money); because the tone is typically leering and it doesn't even try to be shocking, offensive or even make you think; because it's intention was clearly to not only ridicule (I have no problem with that) but at the same time to somehow cheapen the genre. It doesn't so much insult the viewer's intelligence as bypass it altogether, and the end result is completely bland and unstimulating. If you overlook the softcore angle it's still possible to enjoy this in a post-modern sense in the same way you can still enjoy Robot Monster, but, you know, at least Robot Monster was funny. This is indeed the z-grade nadir of all science fiction films, but if it could exhibit any kind of post-modern self-awareness at all it wouldn't give a damn either way.
( Cross-posted with cult_movie)