2009-12-24

Worst Movie Idea Ever

I always have a hard time falling asleep at night—a direct correlation to the fact that I keep working in my head on whatever writing project I have lined up while trying fall asleep. After another five hour night, I decided to try another tactic. If I have to work out my thoughts before I fall asleep, why not work on something less stressful? This is how I came about trying to come up with the Worst Movie Idea Ever. What is less stressful than trying to come up with a pitch for what you know (or hope to be) the worst movie ever? Writers are always trying in vain to reach perfection (all the while painfully self-aware that perfection can never be attained), so why not ease the burden?

I do have several criteria for coming up with this hypothetical Worst Movie Idea Ever:

  1. It cannot be a recycled bad movie set in another place or with interchangeable characters. For (a bad) example: two tribes of warring Teddy Bears from a far off galaxy choose earth as their final battleground. So no transforming teddy bears allowed.
  2. It has to be high concept, easily explainable in a paragraph.
  3. It has to suck, but in such a sucky way that you could pause and think, “Hey, why hasn’t that been made into a movie yet?”

Okay, so with that prelude, here is my first attempt at the Worst Movie Idea Ever:


Cirque du Death

Circus performers all over America are turning up murdered. A clown in Topeka is found mutilated in the cotton candy mixer; a trapeze artist in Des Moines is found half-eaten in the lion’s cage; a bearded lady in El Paso is blown up in a clown car... The FBI knows that a circus serial killer is on the loose, but have no clue how to capture the culprit until a young agent convinces the FBI to stage their own circus, with crack performers from all over the world. The serial killer would have no choice but to take the bait… but the killer is more cunning than they could ever imagine. As circus performer after circus performer meets their doom, the young FBI agent—undercover as a lion tamer—must solve the crimes before the Big Top Killer preys on him.

Problem is, I think this is a little too good to be the Worst Movie Idea Ever (JLZ—formally JLG—even went as far as to say she couldn’t wait to see it in 3-D, and another friend said he would put money on it as the next big summer comedy…)… maybe I have to come up with something better (worse). Ideas (good and bad) are always appreciated.