7 Words That Only Bad Movies Have in Their Titles
You can tell a lot about a movie from a single word in its title, and that's lucky, because one is exactly how many words your potential audience is willing to remember. Some words in movie titles always fulfill your expectations. Words like "Rambo" or "anal." But there are certain words that make a promise of awesome and never, ever deliver. I went through every word and every movie that has ever existed and found the seven best examples.
Notes on Statistical Data:
In addition to duplicates being thrown out, I eliminated documentaries and short films. Japanese cartoons weren't included, since they were all named with a word blender and exist only to dissolve the viewer's genitals. In your face, already bullied innocents! I also left out titles that were intentionally silly. I didn't need wackiness clouding my data, and I was dealing with enough irony deciding whether a Steven Seagal film should be considered Awesome or Garbage. Speaking of, I of course accounted for the accidentally awesome in my data.
"Cop"
There's a reason there are 150 movies with the word "cop" in the title. They fight crime during the day and jump out of ladies' birthday cakes during the night. That should make a great movie, but look at these alarming "cop" title numbers:
For every insane idea any filmmaker has ever had, someone in Hong Kong has added the word "cop" to it and made it with a quarter of the budget and 30 times the stuntman casualties. As they said in Supercop, "Super cops in Hong Kong are cheap and plentiful like commodities in supermarkets." That's mostly because I don't think they know what that word means. Hardly any of their "cop" movies are about policemen. Shit, even my knockoff Zyprexa came with an instructional video called Laser Cop Precinct.
Oh, that makes sense. I guess in Cantonese the word "cop" really does translate to "Don't give a damn."
The problem with giving magical powers to cops is that cops have regulations to follow. And if for some reason they don't, then that is the focus of your movie. It makes no sense to have a cop that can turn corpses into puppets, be a dog ghost or teach kindergarten. They'd be fired the second the chief found out about it. This kind of dislogic leads to movies like Scanner Cop, where he can explode brains with his mind but fights the one guy whose brain can't explode.
Oh, you thought I was kidding?
"Beast"
With movie titles like The Beast With a Million Eyes and Attack of the Beast Creatures, the word "beast" never had a chance. They cast Frasier to play the superhero with that name, which was basically just an expensive way to call comic book nerds gay.
These numbers include all 34 versions of the most overmade film in history, Beauty and the Beast. Why did we need this movie 34 times? Well, the moral of the story is that women can see the good in an ugly man's heart and fall in love. But the other side of that coin, ugly ladies, is that even an actual donkey monster can do better than you. That's a truly insane moral to get pounded into our brains by so many different movies. My theory is that a vast conspiracy of ugly men control everything, and the fact that I have no proof can only mean I'm far too handsome to be let in on it.
Is there one that also includes the word "cop"?
Yes.
"Cyborg"
You know a word is in trouble when it's the name of the only bad Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.
Is there one that also includes the word "cop"?
Yes.
"Future"
Everyone knows the future will be great. Sex androids, jet packs, fewer pandas ... it sells itself. But it's bad form for a movie about the future to name drop right in the title. In fact, when you're naming a science fiction film, it's better to just find a couple words that have nothing to do with the plot and use those. Blade Runner has hardly any blades, and most people drive. Twelve Monkeys doesn't have anywhere near that many monkeys, and Troll 2 isn't a sequel or about trolls. And if that didn't blow your mind, wait until you see these "future" title statistics:
Putting "future" in your title is lazy, and anyone doing it probably took a few shortcuts in the script as well. I'll show you what I'm talking about with this scene from Future Force.
David Carradine's garage door clicker has one button on it. That one button opens both his car's trunk and his prosthetic hand's case. What kind of user design is that? Even in the darkest of futures, I imagine there will be a couple times when you need a prosthetic hand and an open trunk independently of one another. And it seems like the editor was making a special point to show that the same button is used to levitate the hand, pilot it through a junkyard and punch a man in the dick over and over and over. This film should give special thanks to German measles for infecting the prop designer's mother during pregnancy.
I'm as optimistic as anyone, but I find it really wishful thinking that mankind's future will ever include this interaction:
Is there one that also includes the word "cop"?
Yes.
"Robot"
There's a legitimate reason Hollywood makes awful movies with the word "robot" in the title. They're doing it as a preemptive strike in our inevitable war against the machines. After Robot Jox, Robot Holocaust and Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, every organization with "robot" in the title is going to sound stupid and corny. So thank you, bad pop culture. Because of you, when the first Robot Council forms, we're going to be laughing too hard to hear it demand our surrender. And if the robots turn out to be benevolent, it's not going to be any better. We'll laugh just as hard at the Robot Cancer Institute and Robots Against Drunk Driving.
Is there one that also includes the word "cop"?
Almost, but it's a pretty sweet almost.
"Karate"
The focused offensive power of "karate" makes it both the fastest way to destroy bricks and the absolute worst choice for a safe word. For instance, screaming "karate" during sex is how seven of my girlfriends lost the use of their legs, and I was only watching for two of those. Yet despite those promising karate statistics, almost every "karate" movie sucks.
Is there another one that also includes the word "cop"?
Oh my God, yes.
"Ninja"
Most foreign action movies get the word "ninja" added to them when they come to America. Yet strangely, when we export our own "ninja" movies, we change that word to "warrior" or "fighter." Probably because "American Ninja 3" is how you tell a stranger to suck your balls and asshole in Japan. Whatever the reason, America has ended up with more "ninja" films than any other nation, and you might want to think about that before you fuck with us, terrorists.
These movies might not be critical successes, but they're very educational. They show that a true ninja is more than vanishing and throwing stars. It takes witty banter and a headband that has both a picture of and the word "NINJA." I'll show you what I'm talking about with this dramatic scene from Ninja: Silent Assassin.
You'll never be as anything as Richard Harrison is Ninja.
Is there one that also includes the word "cop"?
Of course ther -- hold on, wait. No? No? There are ninja condors, cheerleaders, robots and thunderbolts, and there isn't a movie where ninjas are cops? My God, is there any single way in which ninjas aren't unstoppably mysterious!?
