You might know the situation all too well, and if you do, you have our sympathy. For it's happens all the time. The type of pub conversation where a friend has been discussing the merits of American Beauty when you utter the words "Another really classic film is Better Off Dead" or "Well, it may be good, but it's no Bitter Moon" and not only the room falls silent, but the rest of the world does too. But hide your shame no longer, my friend, because we too have occasionally worrying taste in film. And for that rather shakey reason alone, we've decided to come out of the filmic closet and publicly admit that whilst they may not be contenders for the best film ever made, we just can't help loving certain movies....

THE DEADLY SPAWN Dir: Douglas McKeown. Starring: James Brewster, John Schmerling, Elissa Neil, Ethel Michelson, Jack Piccuro Movies don’t get much cheaper than this. Shot for about $19,000 back in 1982, The Deadly Spawn is a Bad Taste-esque horror flick, though slightly less surreal or outrageous as Peter Jackson’s marvellous directorial debut and less tongue in cheek, but there are a lot of laughs here, though most of the time they're unintentional ones. Set in a small New English town where a meteor’s recently hit, three college students get together to revise for there exams, but soon end up fending off an alien invasion. As you do. All three of the students are hideously bad actors, the

dialogue's of the most mundane standard, but strangely it feels all the more real for this. It has a sort of reality tv feel, though certainly this is due to the lack of budget than any intentional reason, as is the lack of gore at the beginning of the film, but if you fast forward through the first thirty minutes (and trust me, you won’t miss much) soon blood is splattering many a wall, and the film becomes a lot more fun. Clearly a cash in on the success of Alien (infact it was later re-released under the title of Return of the Aliens to cash in futher), the little aliens look like a cross between a tadpole and a penis, which as you may imagine is slightly odd, whilst the large aliens bare a surprisingly strong resemblence to Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors. In general they look extremely cheap, but they're usually (but not always) lit carefully to maximise the effect, though it has to be admitted that they're onscreen far too much to ever be truly terrifying in the way that Alien was. But some of the effects are damn fun, ultra gross if not in the slightest bit realistic, and it’s this that makes the film worth watching. So yeah, technically this is an appalling film – The script’s mostly terrible, the acting truly horrendous (bar that of a Frasier-esque Uncle who’s supposed to be looking after the kids, but who sadly gets killed off way too soon), but the film’s made with a sense of fun, and, most importantly with this type of genre fare, the gore’s inventively shot and mostly pretty funny, and it’s all rather unpredictable over who lives and who dies. Oh, and its got a really badly animated shock ending which reminds of Tremors (another great horror flick, and one which I’m not embarrassed to like, hence it not being featured here) and which really begs for a sequel, which, alas, was never made. It’s never going to be anyone’s favourite film, but if you can track it down on video, or if it’s ever shown on ITV at 2.30am (the film’s only real chance of ever being screened really), then make sure you watch it, as it deserves to be seen far more than it ever has been. Alex Finch. More Film's We're Embarrassed to Admit Liking...But: Dude, Where's My Car? Freaked Hudson Hawk Bitter Moon Better Off Dead The Last Action Movie The Goonies Society Wilt Tapeheads

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