A Movie Review

On Thursday, December 25, 2008, I discovered something that disturbed me to the core of my being. And I’m not even talking about the fact that, on the late night just leading up to midnight of that notable day, my 20th annual Santa Watch turned up a 20th consecutive goose egg in results. I am beginning to regard the story of that rotund dignitary with a similar amount of trust to that given by some segments of our population to Billy Mays, Bill Clinton, or CNN (not necessarily in that order). No, I say, that – though notable enough for its own lengthy posting here – is not the event of which I now speak. Every one of us, if we haven’t had one yet, will almost surely experience something that causes us to view life a little differently than we did just the day before. This was such an experience, and I will relate it to you now.
Yes, Virginia, though there may not be a Santa Claus (again, I’m not jumping to conclusions, but rather making allowance for a possibility), there most certainly is at least one remaining copy of The Hugga-Bunch, the worst movie ever made. Said copy was borne to our unsuspecting and previously happy house in an innocent-looking wrapped Christmas package by none other than David McLennan*, my sister’s fiancé and the long-sought other person who actually watched the film (this itself was a shocking revelation lost in the mental turmoil caused by the first). My sister Jessica was the first person ever to see the film, and that was in the early 1990s, well after it first came out on VHS cassette. She made up for all the millions of good Americans who never saw the movie by renting it literally every single time her small shadow darkened the entry of our local movie rental store.** I was occasionally in the room when she watched it, and my peripheral senses were faintly aware of being bombarded by something unthinkably dreadful.
I emphatically repeat that Jessica Wilkinson was the first person ever to see The Hugga-Bunch, and it is truly fitting that she is now engaged to be paired with the only other person (and the only male) ever to see it. I am firmly convinced that when the movie first aired as a made-for-television feature in 1985, no one watched it, and even if they began to do it, they quickly realized that the Huxtable family had to be doing something outrageously funny tonight, or at least that a M*A*S*H rerun was bound to be more entertaining. I don’t find it absurd at all to believe that on that evening many a family turned off the television and played Candy Land and liked it. The people that nominated The Hugga-Bunch for an Emmy award couldn’t have watched it, because if they had, they would never have done the deed, but rather would have renounced their chosen occupation and gone into another line of work, like stock market analysis. Allege to me that the makers of The Hugga-Bunch watched their own work, and I will lay before you many convincing proofs not only that they did not watch it, but that they also knew what they were unleashing on the public – and that various good-hearted but yet-unnamed collaborators in the conspiracy took their leave of the whole infamous “bunch” as a result.
My conscience protests at the idea of describing the plot of The Hugga-Bunch. Its two viewers know it well -- inquire at their door. Suffice it to say that any movie with dolls coming through mirrors for the sole purpose of hugging people, and little girls (whose lack of disbelief at such a scene is appalling) who go back through mirrors into the dolls’ own world to get more hugs and a magic youth-inducing food, qualifies (with room to spare) to go on a short list of bad movies consisting of itself and no other picture. And so The Hugga-Bunch indeed has done. And thus an American tragedy, thought to be long and happily dead, was revived on Christmas Day to haunt the dreams of a new generation.

*Author’s Note: According to Mr. McLennan’s own testimony (and I have no reason to question it), in order to transfer the VHS to DVD format (for it is logical there was no existing DVD of the movie), he had to send it off to South Africa. This fact alone will serve, for all but the most closed and biased minds, only to strengthen my argument. This is only conjecture, but I would guess that South Africa is largely blissfully ignorant of the atrocious quality of this film; after all, if they knew what had been sent to them, they would have thrown it into one of their diamond mines and let that be the end of it.

**Author’s Note: I will freely confess that when I myself was very young, I was a repeat renter of the 1936 film version of The Last of the Mohicans. However, since that title represents a noted classic in world literature, and since I had a long and deep interest in the world of American Indians, the reader will quickly conclude that my case was far different from the one described here.