It’s raining chaos in the MRFH offices. Kyle’s sulking under the conference table, refusing to come out even for moist Fig Newtons. Clare is on top of the table, marching up and down it like an unholy Joan of Arc, ready to do battle with whoever calls her a heretic once more. Bobby and PoolMan are in the Circle Of Death, pounding on each other and giving out noogies like no one’s business. Justin’s in the corner with a black crayon, drawing crosses on the walls, himself, and anything else that gets within range. Snoozing away in a straightjacket, Rich is dreaming and drooling of a time where movies made sense to him. And — as usual — Alex is clad in pure black leather, banging her riding crop against a blackboard, trying to teach everyone about Danish heritage and geography.

Yeah, it’s that time of year again.

As with each year since the Annual Mutant Awards began, the MRFH staff has tried to reinvent the idea of stuffy, back-patting awards shows by giving our own take on what really should be awarded in films. These eight all-new categories were hand-picked by the Head Mutant out of a massive list that included such actual gems as “best use of breakfast cereal” and “strangest use of blood.” And those were just some of Kyle’s ideas. We thought up the categories, each staff member having the option to nominate up to two movies/things per category — but the decision came down to the readers. The many, the weird, the trying-to-do-anything-but-work crowd. Their voice was heard over the month of October 2003.

Most Confusing Movie Poster Award

Clare: Let’s say, for the sake of argument that movie theaters are like small towns. They’ve got police, politicians, waiters, sanitation workers and toll collectors. There is a town square where people congregate, talk, look at each other and spend $4.50 for ½ gallon servings of soda that cost three cents to produce. And like all small towns, movie theaters have a seedy section, a red-light district if you will, where movie posters hang around, calling out to get your attention, trying to convince you that what they’ve got to offer is much better than all the other movie posters vying for your hard earned money.

Being a movie poster is hard and often thankless work. You have to be flashy enough to get people’s attention, but not so flashy that you give everything away to anyone who passes by. You have to make sure people know you’re offering top quality goods without letting them have any for free. You have to be eye-catching and arousing but leave everyone wanting more. It’s a very difficult balance to get right and since the Mutant Reviewers loves to point out the best AND worst of things about the movies, this year we’ve taken a poll to determine what our readers think is the movie poster equivalent of a toothless crack whore. The winner? A Clockwork Orange.

Worst Way to Die Award

Poolman: If there’s a universal theme in the movies, it’s death. Sure, sure, there’s all the good old standbys: love, betrayal, ostrich attacks, but really, the most serious of all subjects, and one of the most commonly used, is death. What’s interesting is the way it’s used. Death in a serious Shakespeare adaptation is very different than death in a Pee Wee Herman movie (the kind he made, not the kind he watched). Some onscreen deaths will make you cry, others will make you sick, others will make you bust out laughing. But one thing’s for sure, just like in real life, death is never good for the poor person doing the dying. So who had the best (or rather, the worst) death in the MRFH archives?

What a gruesome winner made it all the way to the top of the Worst Way to Die category. With 27.8% of your vote, top honours for nastiest way to bite it goes to the Lust Victim in Se7en. Hoo boy. There’s not a lot of setup to this death method, but man it’s a doozy. A prostitute is selected to die at the hands of a random John, who is held at gunpoint. But as with all the deaths in Se7en, this one is particular to her sin, and she is thus treated to the nastiest strap-on sex device in history: a butcher’s knife. If you’ve seen this, it’s legs-crossingly terrible to think about, and if you haven’t seen it, well, I’ve just described it, so I have a feeling I know how your legs are arranged right now anyways. Definitely not a fun way to go, and definitely worthy of Worst Way to Die.

Best Reason To Avert Your Eyes From The Screen Award

Rich: With a slew of recent horror movies going with shocking graphic imagery, you would feel that this category would be an ideal way to showcase the gory delights that have graced our screen. However, instead the nominees were repulsive for entirely different reasons; dredged from the darkest corners of our minds, these nominations reflect some of the most awful travesties ever to dare to visit our silver screens; and they have remained haunting and powerful enough to infect our very consciousness, giving us waking nightmares from which it seems we will never recover. Anyone who has seen the Poolman vacation video where the wind catches his kilt at just the wrong time will know exactly what I mean.

Our winner tonight is one of the more touching, memorable, and heartwarming pieces of cinema in recent history. Remember when you were 11, and there was the special girl/guy who used to pull your hair or push you over in the playground to show you how much they liked you? Well, those tender sentiments pale in comparison to the master of romance we herald here tonight. What girl’s heart wouldn’t melt when told ‘You’re not rough like sand, you’re smooth’ by some pre-pubescent angst-machine with a girly braid? That’s right ladies and gents, you voted “Anakin wooing Amidala, Attack of the Clones” as your Best Reason for Averting Your Eyes from the Screen.

I’d suggest averting your ears as well.

Most Gratuitous Swearing Award

Clare: The definition of the word “gratuitous” is “not called for by the circumstances.”

Everyone has different measures for determining in which circumstances swearing would be inappropriate. Some might feel that swearing is always uncalled for and inappropriate. Others may feel that swearing liberally is every human being’s God given right. It all depends on perspective. So we threw it up for a vote and asked our readers to tell us which movie scenes include swearing that is either inappropriate, uncalled for or in any other way wholly over the top.

The winner was Terrance and Philip’s Movie Song from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Considering that the whole point of the entire movie is centered on the fact that Terrance and Phillip’s R-Rated movie (Asses of Fire) is so vulgar and filled with profanity that it leads to a war between Canada and the US that helps Saddam Hussein and Satan attempt to claim control of the Earth, it’s kind of odd that “Uncle F***er” would be chosen as most gratuitous. It’s hard to argue that by sheer volume, Terrance and Phillip swear more than all our other nominees combined.

Worst Double Entendre Award

Poolman: As Seth Green once uttered in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “That’s great… you’ve really mastered the single entendre.” These things are TRICKY! The ability to weave a come-on or sexual innuendo with something seemingly innocent is tougher than you might think. So let’s awkwardly salute these heroes of saying one thing, but meaning something so deliciously different.

But come on, you didn’t honestly expect a non-Bond movie to walk away with this one, did you? No, first place, with nearly a third of the vote (32.1%) went to 007 himself, as Pierce Brosnan’s Bond in The World is Not Enough dropped a BOMB of a line about Christmas only coming once a year. And people wonder why I don’t even bother watching Bond films anymore. Eye roll city, and definitely a worthwhile winner (at least, as far as this topic goes).

Worst Summer Blockbuster Award

Kyle: This category dealt with the worst of the worst. The films that made the summer heat seem like less of a burden and more of a reassurance that natural space-time continued, despite the sickening celluloid void of nothingness that sapped hours of your life from you. Good films eased the burden, but you’ll always suffer flashbacks to those red raw wounds of summer innocence lost when you’re looking at rentals or flipping through movie channels.

Ultimately, it was Batman & Robin (20.4%) that won the coveted title of Worst Summer Blockbuster. Every actor aided in making this an eyesore, from Arnold Schwarzenegger overacting to Uma Thurman underacting, while Chris O’Donnell and Alicia Silverstone just plain annoyed everyone. But it was Joel Schmacher’s incompetent directing and flair for the visually improbable (Batsuit nipples, bizarre parties, neon lighting designed to burn out your rods and cones) that really makes Batman & Robin the Worst Summer Blockbuster. Because, hey, George Clooney was kind of cool as Batman. No, really!

Most Blatant Product Placement Award

Alex: As subtlety doesn’t exactly seem to be Hollywood’s bag, it’s not a rare occurance when these giants of industry swing their subliminal hammer a little too hard in the aforementioned medium and land themselves knee-deep in our 6th AMA category dedicated to Most Blatant Product Placement.

Of those who voted, not a one of ya remembered to buy your PPK assault rifles as a result of watching Dr. No (0%). Heck, I bet you didn’t even notice that Dr. No wasn’t mentioned in my little overview of the choices, now did you? I thought not. It was a fierce battle for third between cats and dogs when Rachel Lee Cook and her band of ironically advertising kitties in Josie and the Pussycats squared off against Sly Stalone and the Taco Bell chihuahua in Demolition Man (both scored 14.2% of the votes). Swinging into second with an oversized submarine sandwich (14.8%), Adam Sandler and the root of all evil – the sandwich artist – made Happy Gilmore an advertising tribute to Subway. Delivering the funny with purposeful blatancy while forerunning SNL’s jump to the big screen, Wayne’s World swept the majority vote with their hammy parody of product placement in films with a whopping 22.2%. What to conclude from this? Product placement makes us wanna hurl, dude… but party on, anyway!

Worst Movie Starring a Pop Star Award

Justin: Yes, I’m back once again, and this time to present an award which I believe to be one of the most sought after of the evening; it’s certainly true that there were enough possible candidates for this award to fill a whole bunch of hats. Even though this award is brand new this year, there seems to have been endless preparation for it by every member of the pop world. That’s right, it’s time to present the prestigious and important Worst Movie Starring A Pop Star.

As voted by you, the top two spots contained heavyweight contenders. Both pop princesses have made ‘semi-autobiographical’ ‘coming of age’ ‘movies’ (note all the quotation marks there? That because what they really meant to say was ‘medoicre to awful’ ‘wastes of your time’ ‘for the sake of publicity’). Between Mariah Carey’s Glitter, and Britney Spears Crossroads, the cause of terrible pop films has never been celebrated more fully. These two heavyweights battled it out to the last drop of cheezy pop fluff, but in the end, Britney was left flagging behind with 26% of the vote, while Mariah stormed ahead to a proud 33%.

I’d like to congratulate Mariah on her fine achievement, and hope that she treasures this award as much as I will be avoiding every film she ever appears in like it was dangerous infective diseases.

Cult Lifetime Achievement Award: Bruce Campbell

When we emailed Bruce about this reward, he sent us back a note (seriously!) that said, “Mutant Reviewers, I humbly accept! Regards, Bruce.”

Kyle: I came to the Cult of Campbell rather late in life. I had seen him as the final face of Darkman, the doomed fiancé in Congo, and was like “eh, whatever.” Then I saw Army of Darkness and was like “holy snikes! That guy sure can carry a cult movie!” And, like most of macho-posturing-loving America, I never looked back. I bought the Ash figure, I dreamed of chopping off my hand for a metal replacement, and I continue to drop his unique delivery of “groovy” into everyday speech and term papers. It’s unnecessary to list his movie accomplishments, because The Bruce with the Chin has become so ingrained in our consciousness that we trade our movie memories of him like prisoners trade cigarettes. I haven’t gotten around to reading his book yet, but for all that his quips and tricks towards overconfidence have done for my social standing, I’m happy to add my voice to the cacophony of “Give that man an achievement award!” Bruce, I salute you!