Neil Breen, cinematic genius

So, has anyone else had the absolute pleasure of seeing any of Neil Breen’s movies? They’re kind of hard to find because you either need to be willing to spend $25 for absolute insanity or go through some less than legitimate channels, but I will say, they are totally worth it.

“Fateful Findings”, for in my opinion, is an absolute treasure in “so bad, it’s good” movie making. His others are definitely worth it at as well, but there’s so much to enjoy in FF.

For uninitiated- enjoy, won’t you?

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He lives in Las Vegas and you can work on his movies if you email him at the right time. Like when he’s about to go shoot one. Which you can email him to find out about. If that’s your thing.

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Okay, so….maybe….maybe my fandom has like, SOME limits. But if I’m ever in Vegas….

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Been subjected to several of them on our bad movie nights. They’re… they’re really something. Highly recommend as riffing material.

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Breen’s stuff showed up on Prime for a while.

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I wonder if the reason why his films aren’t riffed more often is because he owns the rights. Breen seems like one of those filmmakers who are overprotective of their work.

Then again, Tommy Wiseau’s like that and he let Rifftrax do The Room live, so anything’s possible.

Nevertheless, I would love to see his films riffed more often. Maybe our Gizmoplexian overlords will find a way for Season 14… :thinking:

(or we could get a Rifftrax “Just The Jokes” out of it at the very least)

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Rifftrax has tried, Breen isn’t interested in being riffed. The problem with doing a Just the Jokes isn’t his movies aren’t super available. You basically have to order them from Breen himself, or hope you find a copy uploaded to Pornhub (which has seriously happened).

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From what I understand, he gave them some trouble initially, when it was “Just The Jokes”. And I think he came after a lot of people doing online reviews (like Nostalgia Critic) for a long period of time.

He doesn’t strike me as self aware enough to realize just how insane his movies are. But I’m content riffing them myself.

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I got to see Fateful Findings theatrically at the Sie Film Center in Denver. That was a fun intro to the odd world of Neil Breen!:smiley:

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Jealous!! What was the audience like for that?!

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Right before the lockdowns, Len Kabasinski was putting together Pact of Vengeance which was going to unite himself, Leo Fong (Low Blow), Jon Mikl Thor (Zombie Nightmare), Matt Hannon (Samurai Cop), Robert Bronzi (Death Kiss) and Neil Breen.

Hannon had to drop out due to Samurai Cop 3 (which I think fell through) and there was an issue with Bronzi (language barrier?) but Kabasinski couldn’t even get Breen’s attention.

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It was fantastic! The whole audience had a great time! That was my first Breen experience and I need to see some more!

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I have very little experience with Neil Breen’s movies (only seen pieces), but when I read the title of your topic, this is what came to mind:

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Wait, there was a Samurai Cop II!!! Holy heffalumps, it must be riffed!!!

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Sequels so rarely capture the “lightning in a bottle”—probably les often when they’re sequels to bad movies than good ones.

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Very true. Often they are simply bad bad (i.e., not good bad) movies. However, I have a soft spot for run-of-the-mill bad bad. As long as they weren’t deliberately trying to make a bad movie I’d watch a riff. Have you seen it… is it bad bad?

Badbad sounds like a fictional town in a B-movie adaptation of 1,001 Nights.

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At least Wile E. Coyote is trying to make a bomb (badum shing)

I’ve never seen Samurai Cop II, but it has Tommy Wiseau in it, so I’m assume it’s “trying too hard bad”

I think of an old Penny Arcade strip with fictional places like “Double Hell” and “Scary Town” being the worst. Anyone? Just me?

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A lot of times that’s just the problem: They figure “We know this is bad but good, so therefore if we deliberately make it worse, it’ll be better!” They don’t grasp the degree to which sincerity makes something watchable.

I have not. I have heard that it tries to be bad, or at least absurd. The cast is kind of amazing—a virtual who’s who of has-beens and never-wases* that makes me think the director had ambitions of making a genuinely good film but when confronted with the difficulty of that (to say nothing of the cost), ended up using a “ha ha, not really” release valve.

That “release valve” is just a way of saying “we’re better than them because we know we’re making schlock” which doesn’t respect the fact that the best bad movies are just “somebody’s different mind working on full blast” as my son puts it.

Samurai Cop in 1,002 Nights!

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Your son is wise, and I’m gonna have to steal this particular pearl of wisdom.

OMG! Can we throw in Vincent Price as Omar Khayyam in an inexplicable abuse of history? Or better, it could be a Russo-Finnish retelling of the classic tales, with Wiseau as the ultimate black gift, a sampo!

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I feel like we need to have codified Laws of B-Movie Making, and this would be one of the laws:

  1. The we-have-them-for-one-day celebrity can play literally any character in any context.
    Corollary: Vincent Price can play any character or number of characters in any context and the movie will be improved a minimum of 60% by his presence.

I’m trying to grapple with the Russo-Finnish version of the Arabian Nights, and you throw in Wiseau? My mind, it is broken.

Well done!

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