Zardoz (1984)

Forget everything you think you know about bad movies. I just saw the king of them all.

Yes, that is Sean Connery in a thong.

Overview: By all the old gods and new, I have no idea what the hell to say regarding what this movie is about. I can't even approach anything remotely resembling coherence right now, so let me just bullet point out what this movie is about:

1. Sean Connery shirtless and in a leather thong

   

   Yes.

2. A floating stone head that vomits guns and talks about the penis being evil
3. A society of immortals who manipulate the world but cannot self-terminate
4. The nature of erections
5. Sean Connery committing deicide
6. The arrogance and ultimately folly of playing god
7. Sean Connery in a wedding dress

   

   YESSSSS.

8. The impotence of democracy
9. The futility of violence
10. The gun is good
11. Finding a woman, raising a child, growing old, then dying
12. Spaceships
13. Old West-style revovlers
14. I don't know any more
15. Someone please help

I seriously cannot explain this movie. Basically, Sean Connery can kill people and fuck and that makes him unique. I've read tens of thousands of pages of awful fanfiction; watched hundreds of hours of mind-numbing, dumb movies; and dealt with people in customer service positions, but I have finally found the thing can break my ability to think in the face of how completely incomprehensible it is.

Its name is Zardoz.

Notable moments/quotes: By Athena, I don't even know where to begin. The movie opens with a floating head of an actor, with a mustache and beard very obviously painted on, breaking the fourth wall and talking about how he cannot die and he was a false god by occupation, magician by inclination. The movie then shows this flying down onto some tribesmen and delivering one of the most hilarious, nonsensical monologues ever conceived this side of Waiting for Godot:
Giant floating head: "The god gave you the gift of the gun. The gun is good."
Mostly naked savages: "The gun is good!"
Head: "Penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the earth with the plague of men. As once it was. But the gun shoots death and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill. Zardoz has spoken." Zardoz then vomits assault rifles and ammunition onto these people, who cheer and arm themselves. All of the above in this section happens in the span of perhaps five minutes.

In the course of his travels, Connery (whose name is Zed) comes across a woman who stares into space and doesn't move. He immediately gropes her. She has no reaction.

The immortals Zed encounters can't get erections, and they spend a good ten minutes discussing and testing the mysteries of why Zed can. They play porn? No erection for Zed. They play better porn with more tits? No erection for Zed. They show a Windows Media Player visualization effect with white noise? BONERTASTIC.

The immortals have left sexuality aside, yet everyone dresses like they're trying to show support for an alleged rapist who claimed the woman was asking for it. Yes, even the men. Hell, I'd say the men in this movie look more fem than a lot of the women do. Seriously, the entire male race in this movie save Zed are pretty much just prison bitches.

At one point, an immortal named Friend (yes, this movie is stupid, don't worry) and Zed come across a ballroom of old people. Friend explains that this is the immortals' most severe punishment: age someone and make them senile. Once the senile old folks learn that Zed can kill them, they all beg for death. This somehow manages to be equal parts comedic and creepy, yet not depressing at all.

Nothing in this movie makes sense. Embrace the confusion.

Guy who I'm pretty sure was a member of Monty Python as "Friend": "We wanna die! What's the trick?"

God: "You have penetrated me."

God, again: "You are within me."

And then there's the ending of the movie: out of nowhere, Connery gets a woman pregnant in three seconds, and then we're shown, time-lapsed, as their son is born, grows to a young man and leaves, while Sean Connery and his wife rapidly age, die, and their skeletons turn to dust. I, in fact, do not understand life.

My thoughts: This movie should not be attempted by the unprepared. Only enter into this movie with the aid of many friends to anchor your sense of reality or copious amounts of your mind-altering drug of choice.

My fellow Coloradans may have an edge here.

However, this movie is so insane, so incomprehensible, that it exceeds every other bad movie I've seen to this point. It's not as quotable as The Octagon, nor as rage-inducing as Mac & Me, nor does it have the kind of acting that elementary schoolchildren could outdo such as Miami Connection, but it stands completely alone as its own unique entity. You could view every creative human endeavor from the dawn of time itself, and you would never, ever find anything quite like Zardoz. I salute you, movie. You are the answer to my long quest. No movie will ever exceed you in being as Zardoz as you are.

To this movie, I give my highest possible rating, Nic Cage Watches a Man Breakdance out of five. This movie is the final boss of weird movies. It can and will ruin you if you come unprepared. But with a stout heart, plenty of courage, and the aid of trusted companions, you may be able to survive the onslaught that is Zardoz and survive, a little richer for having experienced one of the most baffling and beautiful creative projects any mortal mind has yet envisioned. 
See this movie if you ever have the chance.