This week in the Deep Hurting Project, one of the worst films ever made, co-starring one of the worst people ever made: Ghosts Can't Do It. Brad "The Cinema Snob" Jones considers it (or at least he did when he reviewed it six years ago) one of the worst movies he ever took on, although six years' worth of movies might have changed that. I know I've done this three years and a day, and I've already had to revise my opinion on the worst movie ever multiple times. And this movie about a trophy wife who has to kill a guy, have her late husband possess his corpse, and humour Donald Trump just enough to let you film in his hotel got me intrigued. And with the one-year anniversary of his attempted Self-Coup coming up, I may as well do this film.
- Why does it look like they roped in Ralph Steadman?
- And why is there no music in the opening credits? Or does this cattle drive count as music to John Derek's ears?
- Is there a reason they're doing this cattle drive in the middle of winter?
- Great One? I know that there was a lot of morally questionable shit early on in John and Bo Derek's relationship (to the extent that they briefly moved to Germany to avoid statutory rape laws, and moved back to the US when she became legal), but I hope it was never that domineering.
- You will not cry, and you will not wear black. Gee, that sounds like that's setting up some shitty foreshadowing.
- Was playing King Kong ever an option? Are there even that many tall buildings where the Hell this movie's supposed to be set.
- 60 is the upper limit for heart transplants? I just looked it up, and the traditional limit was about 65, and now it's about 70, and even that isn't a hard limit.
- And is there a reason Bo's doing charades outside while her husband's recuperating from a heart attack?
- Don't Go in the Room where my husband killed himself! I still need to fuck him one last time?
- "Love me, Great One, you Sonofabitch!"
- The very first person to say that they hate the rules for the afterlife?
- Wow, you suck at this, Angel. Your first charge convinced you to abandon your duty and banish him to this black Negative Space where it looks like he's underwater for some reason.
- I wonder if the other people at Anthony Quinn's funeral are asking "Bo, who the fuck are you talking to?"
- Great... Scott. Is that why they're calling him "The Great One?" Because it's just one step removed from "Great Scott?"
- "You Could have taken pills," "Real Men Don't eat quiche?" I usually watch movies with subtitles, and, because they're not available here, I don't know if I'm mishearing the dialogue or if it's just that shit.
- Yeah, I'm sure Anthony Quinn was just a piece of meat to Bo Derek and not the other way around. In fairness, the real relationship between John and Bo lasted for 25 years, so I guess there was something legit between them.
- "I can hardly feel it when you touch me." No shit, you don't have a corporeal form. And arguing about whether or not relationships between the corporeal and incorporeal are the perfect time and place to remove your swimsuit and sunbathe naked.
- "I can't talk to you here, people would think I'm crazy." And this wasn't a concern during the funeral?
- Why does the owner of this island look like he's an amalgam of at least three supporting actors from Casablanca?
- Fausto? That's apparently a name now?
- You know, that goldfish has to be going crazy with nothing in that chandelier tank but the pearls at the bottom of that tank which seems precariously suspended.
- Okay, seeing Anthony Quinn doing most of his performance in isolation reminds me of the film I watched before this: Mysterious Skin. It's a film about child molestation, and, to limit the trauma in the child actors, they did the scenes where each boy was being "seduced" with both the abuser and the survivors in isolation.
- Well, it's nice that Anthony Quinn has a fitting victim in his possession: a hunky cipher of a man. Also, Bo is bizarrely open about her plan to have her dead ex possess him.
- The irony of Donald Trump working in Hong Kong is exquisite given that 30 years later, the most substantive measure Donald Trump did in relation to the COVID pandemic was call it "The Chinese Virus." Then again, Hong Kong is still its own separate little thing apart from the PRC, and would definitely have been more so when this was made, since it was still a British territory then.
- Bo Derek as a late-thirties virgin? This has to be preposterous.
- It's halfway through the movie and this plot is going nowhere.
- Bo, is there some part of "incorporeal" you don't understand?
- Huh. I'd have suspected Donald Trump would be the one waiting in the shower to rape Bo.
- So, that goon's coming to kill Bo? Why the fuck didn't he shoot her when he had the chance? And why the fuck is he giving her some pills?
- Why the fuck is she in bed, assuming the position all of a sudden? Are they implying the goon raped her?
- Since when is Trump capable of accepting defeat?
- And am I the only one disappointed that we don't get a good chance to see Bo's feet, especially given that she's barefoot for much of the film? There's hardly even much on Wikifeet!
- "They're desecrating the Sabbath" "It's Friday." And it's a Friday night (unless it's after midnight on Friday), which is the traditional Jewish start of the Sabbath.
- "Great Scott loves Katie O'Dare," so why the fuck didn't they call him Great Scott when he was alive?
- Well, Bo's bizarrely cavalier about her plan to kill Fausto with rat poison. And to think it took the last 25 minutes for this plot to go anywhere. And that revelation that he's a thief just came out of nowhere.
- Why do I get the feeling that smashing Fausto's face in would ruin a good portion of the possession plot?
- Well, it's nice to know the other woman likes to let it all hang out. It would have been nice to see more of it, but then again this isn't her vanity project.
- And that was bizarrely convenient: Fausto dies, and Anthony Quinn gets to possess him. He even has Anthony Quinn's voice for some reason.
- No, that's "magnificent Bastard," not "Awesome Bastard," get it right, Bo.
- And here's how it ends:
Well, that and a trip back to Wyoming, where it's still in a foot of snow. And, yes that Really Was Donald Trump. That's how he's even credited. Then again, the credits get a bit descriptive. At least from what little I could tell before Tubi decided to cut to the next movie.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.