The Worst Film Ever

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Curse of the Headless Horseman (1972) BOMB (out of 4)Mark Callahan (Marland Proctor) inherits his uncle's old ranch so he takes his acting troop as well as various other hippies out there. It doesn't take long for them to realize that the legendary Headless Horseman is stalking the grounds.I kinda lied with my plot description because it did take a very long time to see the Headless Horseman because he didn't show up until the fifty-minute mark of an eighty-minute movie. CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN is the perfect example of why filmmakers shouldn't be dropping acid or other drugs whenever they're making movies. It might be unfair for me to accuse the filmmakers of taking drugs but that's the only logical way to explain this awful film.This film is pretty awful on all levels but it's just downright shocking at how stupid the entire film was. It almost seemed as if the director wanted to show off these various acts that range from acting shows to musical performances including one lady covering a Bob Dylan song. All of these scenes are just downright annoying and worst of all is the fact that the film drags so poorly. There's really not a single good moment to be found in this film so one can only hope that they manage to find something to laugh at.As I said, it takes forever for the Headless Horseman to finally appear and when he does it's very quick. I'm really not sure if they named the film this just to try and get people into the drive- in but as a horror movie it's pretty awful.

For my money, this is the worst movie ever made. I've seen Creeping Terror, Manos, Monster A GoGo, the Coleman Francis Trilogy and most of Ray Dennis Steckler's films (including some of his soft core flicks). I STILL think the Curse of the Headless Horseman is the worst movie ever made.For one thing, the dialogue is hard to hear. I do hear the narration which would be moderately evocative in a different setting (also if the voice didn't sound like it was on the Monster Mash song), but the dialogue is what's supposed to be advancing any kind of plot and from what I do hear, it does not. The picture quality is bad and while I admit to have seen a poor cheap transfer of the movie, there is no way this film would benefit from having a clean print. If anything, lousy picture quality almost helps give this movie a creepy horror feel which it fails to deliver on its own.What makes this movie on par with your average Coleman Francis movie is the script. The narration opens with an explanation of the ranch and hints at the fact that something horrible happened to the owner (only clothes identified him, closed casket). The movie leaves it at that and it ties the potential murder to no one.Another problem with the script is that there are no likable characters. NONE. I found myself rooting for the creepy old caretaker, Solomon. As the story develops...I mean as the movie continues, only three characters develop any kind of personality so it isn't hard to guess who is going to prove to be the villain. That ruins the suspense when it comes time for the big reveal in the end. Everyone else in the movie (I guess you can call it an ensemble cast) is just there on the screen. No time is spent to develop their characters and not hearing the dialog well ruins the feeble attempts to develop who they are and why they are on screen. In the end, these characters are faceless. The first death in the story happens to a woman getting hit by a truck. You don't know who she is. You don't know her significance. You don't even know if she is a part of this little hippie commune group. We are stuck assuming this is true and I guess the audience is supposed to find her death significant because the characters act like it for one scene right after it happens (they don't later).One of the characters that does develop a personality on screen is a guy named John who is introduced to the audience as a hothead at a party and later in what looks to be a brutal rape scene that happens with some of the I guess good characters are sitting back and enjoying to watch it. The relationship between John and this woman isn't established by that time in the movie and you're left thinking that apparently she wanted to be ravaged by this creep because she ends up walking around with him later. None of their back stories are explained. These are scenes of unintentional horror because the ugly rape scene wasn't meant to come across that way. The other characters that develop a personality are Mark and Solomon. Three characters have a face surrounded by faceless hippies. This is fine and dandy except when characters are being killed off, you don't care because they're nondescript. You know absolutely nothing about them. Two of the victims have no lines in the movie, NONE.There's some irrelevant scenes of people walking around on film. A chubby man is hanging around with an older woman. The 'star' is someone who isn't an actress named Ultra Violet. She has a lousy scene where she shows interest in buying the property but is scared off when she sees the caretaker. There's a bad hippy comedy scene and one song performed by a country singer I never heard of. These scenes tell nothing in terms of story and they say nothing about the character's themselves. Is that possible? Normally, no but it does happen here.People toward the end are killed while ARMED men out to stop the violence sit back and let it happen. This happens twice. After the murder, death and mayhem, the other characters engage in leisurely conversation, joking with each other as though they didn't care. They also seem to enjoy hanging around the ranch after all this happens.The only time the nameless ensemble cast of characters care about what happens is at the end for the big reveal. With only one developed character left, you can guess how big the reveal is. Also the menace of this ultimate villain is undercut by his excellent Don Knotts impersonation (see The Shakiest Gun in the West for reference) during his kill crazy rampage (he steals the gun off another guy but just happens to have a pocket full of bullets that fit so that he can reload) I'm willing to excuse poor fight choreography and bad special effects because this is about as low budget as it gets. I am even willing to ignore the fact that this is clearly not set on a ranch; it clearly was never a town which became a 'ghost town', but is what it looks like, an amusement park.What I can't excuse is the script and this cast which is filled with loathsomeness. The movie is a collection of stupid plot twists, clunkers for actors and pointless attempts at character devlopment. I enjoyed the song in the closing credits, the way the over the top caretaker character named Solomon (not sure if he dies or not; you get a feeling that what happened to him isn't taken very seriously by anyone; not sure if Solomon tries to save the second victim or not because the narration says "He tried to save her" without identifying who "He" is. The camera is on Solomon during this so I assume it's him? Is Solomon the nearest thing this dog of a film comes to a hero?) and the repeated line "IT WILL BEGIN AGAIN." I imagine if the Manson family made a movie, it would be exactly like this.

Amateurish and virtually incoherent with little sense, structure, plot development or solid narrative, there's very little to recommend. A voice-over tells us that Mark's uncle has died leaving to him a tourist ranch that he'll only fully inherit if he can turn it into a profitable concern in six months. Gathering up his hippie mates, he embarks on the ambitious task of converting the struggling backwoods amusement park into a viable business, with the aid of his willing friends -that is until a headless horseman appears to cause havoc in the commune.The acting is rank amateurish with only B.G. Fisher as the scar-faced old salt Soloman attempting to act, his mysterious ramblings and incantations warning of the imminent danger. Most of the cast looks like an amateur theatre company, excepting Marland Proctor, truly awful as the medical student Mark, while Andy Warhol's one- time muse Ultra Violet has a frivolous, marquee cameo as an eccentric French tourist. Lots of blood splattering but little actual violence, a mind-warping acid trip and some pop gun stunts set against a dreary folk song soundtrack offer little respite from the abomination. The concluding voice over promises that the curse will begin again (incessantly) to which I could only plead for mercy that the 75 minutes were up. Make no mistake, this is a howler but if it's your mission in life to experience it all, then I'm afraid you will need to see this dross.

Mark Callahan inherits a cowboy ghost town from his uncle.He takes his fiancée Brenda and a group of hippie friends there,but it seems that a legendary Headless Horseman is prowling the area and scaring people to death..."Curse of the Headless Horseman" by Leonard Kirtman is even worse than his earlier horror schlock "Carnival of Blood".The story is boring,the acting is amateurish and there is almost no blood.Still "Curse of the Headless Horseman" offers some jaw-droppingly psychedelic moments for the lovers of low-budget trash.The faking of headless horseman is priceless.4 decapitated heads out of 10.A chore to sit through.