Who, in your opinion, are your top ten (or so) worst directors? Please limit your list to people with at least more than one the one film, so they’re given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills (or lack thereof.) I tried to stick to directors who are/were sincerely and simply bad, as opposed to those who make popular movies I tend to not care for like Michael Bay. Once the topic stops moving, I will do a quick analysis to create a poll for the worst of the worst. I’ll take a stab at it to get things started:
Bill Rebane (Low Lights: Monster a Go-Go; Invasion from Inner Earth)
Larry Buchanan (Low Lights: It’s Alive (1969); Attack of the Eye Creatures))
Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Low Lights: Bride of the Monster; The Sinister Urge)
Charles B. Pierce (Low Lights: The Norseman; The Legend of Boggy Creek)
Coleman Francis (Low Lights: Red Zone Cuba; The Beast of Yucca Flats)
Bert I. Gordon (Low Lights: Beginning of the End; War of the Colossal Beast)
Herschel Gordon Lewis (Low Lights: Blood Feast; Monster a Go-Go (uncredited))
Phil Tucker (Low Lights: Robot Monster; The Cape Canaveral Monsters)
Ray Dennis Steckler (Low Lights: The Incredibly Strange Creature Which Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies; Rat Fink and Boo Boo)
Sydney W. Pink (Low Lights: Reptilicus; Journey to the Seventh Planet)
I’ll have to think about that, though I’ll take issue with Bert I. No way he’s worse than James Nguyen, I mean The Magic Sword and Tormented alone places him on a higher level than many of those folks.
Yeah, the Poe/Price films were pretty good, and Masque of the Red Death was very impressive, and I admired his lone stab at a socially aware drama (The Intruder)
I formally nominate Jerry Warren.
As much as I love the absurdity of The Wild World of Batwoman, Servo shouting “End! End!” demonstrates its poor direction better than anything.
Other noteworthy catastrophes include Teenage Zombies and Frankenstein Island.
Not on my list. I’m a big Corman fan. I think his worst film is The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. That movie is flat out awful, but it doesn’t kick him out of Vahalla for me. I think it’s when he produces instead of directing that “issues” tend to arise.
Jerry Warren (Bruno Ve Sota considered him the worst he worked with)
Coleman Francis
James Nguyen
Ron Ormond (Women of the Lost Mesa)
Larry Buchanan
Ed Wood
Brett Kelly (Jurassic Shark)
Donald G. Jackson (Baby Ghost, Rollergator)
Will Zens (Trucker’s Woman, The Starfighters)
Barry Mahon (Rocket Attack USA, The Wonderful Land of Oz, and the film within the film in Ice Cream Bunny)
Oh, if only Jahangir Salehi (aka, John Rad, Dangerous Men) had directed more than one movie
Wow. I was going to say that anyone who could look at the Rollergator script and say, “I can make that happen” is out of their mind. But, it turns out he was the one who wrote it! It’s worth watching with riffs, but it is bad. My 10 y.o. loved making fun of it.
FYI regarding lists in no particular order, when I do my my analysis for the poll, I’ll give them all five points to make the poll. Ranked lists and single nominees start at 10 points.
I struggled here, too. You could argue that Mr. Warren was not so much a director, as he was a salesman who directed a movie. However, I’ll allow it simply on the strength of how earth shatteringly poor his contribution is.
When the franchise you are known for has its best installment directed by someone else, you belong on this list.
I’ve yet to enjoy anything directed by Zack Snyder.
I’m sure there are others I can come up with, though a lot of good choices have been posted already.
EDIT: Ted V. Mikels is behind a lot of schlocky crap, but a certain segment of the bad cinema crowd love him. He’s in the same camp as Ray Dennis Steckler.
In fairness, he did win an Oscar for American Graffiti and directed THX-1138. Overrated as a director? Yes. Worse than, say, Charles B. Pierce? I don’t know about that.
That is a decent flick, yes. And you are correct, not as bad as Charles B. Pierce overall, though Charlie did direct The Town That Dreaded Sundown, so some minor props there too (depending on one’s opinion of that film).
I think the The Town That Dreaded Sundown is the best I’ve seen from Mr. Pierce. In my opinion, it succeeds despite him. You can kind of feel Ben Johnson and Andrew Prine fighting for the movie, which had an interesting story to tell. Lesser actors are lost in the Pierceness of it all. I know they made a sequel recently, but I think it’s one of those movies that’s worth a genuine remake.
