Chevy Chase Knew This Comedy Would Be ‘The Worst Movie I Would Ever Make’

There’s plenty of competition for the worst Chevy Chase comedy of all time. But why take anyone else’s word for it? According to Chase's own memoir, he knew that a reunion with a former Saturday Night Live cast mate would result in “the worst movie I would ever make.”

The movie in question was Nothing But Trouble, a 1991 comedy so terrible that it gets its own chapter in the book Box Office Poison, an ode to “the film industry’s most miserable failures.” It’s a mess of a movie, a horror-comedy written and directed by Chase’s old pal, Dan Aykroyd. He botched it so badly that no one ever let him behind the camera again.

Aykroyd based his supremely weird script on an incident when he was stopped for speeding in a small town in Upstate New York. He was hauled into court, where an 88-year-old judge gave him a $50 fine. Even worse, she made him stay for tea — a four-hour detour in the comic’s day. 

That inspired him to write his terrible comedy, alternately named Git, Road to Ruin, Trickhouse and Valkenvania before the movie studio went with the generic Nothing But Trouble. The studio insisted on Chase as the unctuous yuppie who gets pulled over in the small town. Oscar nominee Demi Moore is along for the ride, a stranger who gets picked up by Chase’s character because she’s hot. They end up in a house of horrors run by an ancient judge (Aykroyd), with a too-good-for-this John Candy playing multiple roles.

Chase claimed he only agreed to make the film because of his loyalty to Aykroyd. He also got paid triple the amount that co-star, writer and director Aykroyd got, which might have had something to do with Chase’s decision. 

It wasn’t much of a favor, as no Chevy Chase story is complete without adding another chapter to his History of Being Terrible. He reportedly bullied old pal Akyroyd throughout filming, contributing to Aykroyd being admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital for fatigue in the middle of shooting. According to Box Office Poison, the crew hated Chase for his a-hole behavior, with one guy threatening to drop a brick on Chase’s head if he didn’t knock it off.

Moore couldn’t stand Chase. She found out that he was complaining about her skimpy outfits behind her back, for one thing. They got into terrible on-set fights, then fought even more about who was to blame. “He said, ‘You apologize to me,’ and she said, ‘I wouldn’t apologize to you goddamn turd shithead,’” according to co-star Taylor Negron. 

Box Office Poison calls Chase’s performance “plain lazy, doing the bare minimum of eye-widening. …You get the impression Chase was just pocketing the check here and holding his nose. But then, this isn’t too far from what his character is all about, a callous opportunist only looking out for himself.”

As for Aykroyd, the guy for whom Chase was supposedly helping out? “I love Chevy,” he said years later. “We were great brothers and collaborators. But there were times when it was like hauling ore up a hill with a bad mule.”