The 7 Most Ridiculous Movie Premises Ever

For those of you who don’t follow the Troma Pictures slate with a close eye, you might want to give them a look if you’re into movies that have insanely low budgets and high body counts. For some context, Troma was the production company behind the distribution of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical. Though they didn’t produce this cannibalistic romp through the pioneering Colorado territory, it’s evident that this is the kind of film Troma likes throwing their money at.

One ridiculous exercise in filmmaking that was in fact produced by Troma’s Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman is titled Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. The film is set in a fictional franchise called American Chicken Bunker, which was built over an ancient Native American burial ground, and becomes overridden by zombie chickens who want to reclaim their land with a vengeance after being slaughtered in “concentration coops.” Poultrygeist brings us gore in the form of extraneous appendages being bitten off by mutant chickens and sodomy by a broom handle.

Poultrygeist did great at the box office too! In fact, it pulled in $22,623 off a budget of $500,000.

If you love being quacked at by big-brained aliens wearing green spandex, then Mars Attacks! is just the movie for you. The premise is simple: aliens from Mars visit Earth in what is assumed to be a peaceful meeting, but immediately start vaporizing humans with their blasters and wreaking havoc with what can only be described as a Merry Prankster level of mischief. One of the more notable instances of alien chicanery comes in the form of swapping Nathalie Lake’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) head with her pet chihuahua, Poppy.

Luckily for planet Earth, these menacing space creatures can be taken out by yodeling, and “Indian Love Call” by Slim Whitman was the US government’s weapon of choice in blowing the alien’s brains out. Mars Attacks! is a violent and hilarious Tim Burton film that surprisingly boasts an all-star cast including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Jack Black, NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown, and even Tom Jones. But the film is not without charm, as it is clearly a homage to the science-fiction B movies of the 50s.

Speaking of paying homage to B movies, we figured now would be a good time to talk about Snakes on a Plane, starring the legendary Samuel L Jackson. Just like Mars Attacks!, Snakes on a Plane is a big-budget film with a B movie premise. The plot centers around FBI agent Neville Flynn (Jackson) in his efforts to transport Sean Jones, the witness of a gang-related murder, to Los Angeles so he can testify against gang boss Eddie Kim.

Kim has other things in mind and doesn’t want the plane to land safely. And how does he plan to take the plane down, you ask? By opening a time-released crate full of venomous snakes that are concealed in the cargo hold. To make matters much worse, one of Kim’s henchmen secretly sprayed all of the passengers with a pheromone that makes the snakes indiscriminately attack the passengers upon their release.

Hobo with a Shotgun is about… a hobo with a shotgun. But The Hobo (played by Rutger Hauer) aspires to much more throughout this film. After arriving in Hope Town VIA boxcar, The Hobo realizes that the troubled town is caught in the clutches of a crime lord known as “The Drake.” The Hobo just wants to purchase a lawnmower at the local pawn shop to start his own business, but he picks up a shotgun instead when robbers attempt to ransack the store.

Throughout the film, The Hobo takes matters into his own hands through violent vigilante justice as he kills robbers, gang members, and corrupt police officers with his shotgun.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space takes pages from your typical alien invasion storyboard, but as the title suggests, the aliens can be seen donning large red noses and harlequin makeup. The film begins when their spaceship crashes in the woods, revealing a large circus tent in the middle of the blast radius. And it doesn’t take long for these Killer Klowns to use shadow puppets, giant balloon animals, and other circus tricks to decimate the town of Crescent Cove.

The Killer Klowns incubate their offspring in tubs of popcorn, and their ray guns encase the townspeople in colorful cocoons. Much like the aliens from Mars Attacks!, these Klowns are known pranksters and love playing elaborate tricks in the wake of their wanton destruction. It’s best that you sit back and let this film happen to you rather than watch it critically.

There’s nothing quite like a great horror parody, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes gives us just that. Citing Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds as inspiration in the opening sequence, the premise is simple: what if tomatoes attacked people instead of birds? But as ridiculous as this movie sounds, it kind of works.

The best part about Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is just how much disbelief you have to suspend to enjoy it. As over-the-top the violence may be, it’s okay because it’s hard to differentiate between actual blood and tomato juice. It’s also worth noting that this film did well enough at the box office to generate a number of sequels. In fact, George Clooney even got his start in 1988’s Return of the Killer Tomatoes, so for that alone we thank John De Bello for leaning into this weirdness.

We saved the most ridiculous movie for the number one spot on this list. Sharknado is of a different breed when pitted against the other films on this list in the sense that there was never an attempt to make a “good” movie at any point in the film’s development. The cast and crew knew what the assignment was when they signed on for a movie that involved shark-infested tornadoes plaguing the city of Los Angeles.

There’s honestly not much more to Sharknado than what we have already said. Sharks literally rain down on the city as Fin, George, April, Nova, and Baz try to find dry land so they can save Fin’s family, and the city from certain destruction. Luckily, they have the perfect plan to save the day by dropping bombs out of a helicopter into the tornado, which is the 100 percent scientifically accurate way to approach such a situation.