When asked about the worst film ever made, it might be safe to take the easy road of listing cult favorites like 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', 'The Room', or 'Birdemic', but I firmly believe that films giving viewers the perverse pleasure of laughing through them, or indeed the type that invite midnight screenings, cannot truly be considered the worst. If you had fun watching it, how can it possibly be that bad?'The Lucifer Complex', on the other hand, is the worst film I've ever seen.It starts off promisingly enough: a man walks alone on the shores of a deserted island, rhapsodizing over the collapse of society and the fall of humanity. He returns to the confines of his man cave, full of futuristic tech that would've looked dated on 'Star Trek', and has a seat to reflect on the folly of his erstwhile descendants. Seemingly off to a great start, right?Then, he watches film of what life was like at the turn of the century. War. Newsreels. Concert film? Five minutes becomes ten, and the next thing you know your brain is slithering out your nostrils. The story proper finally kicks in as one of these films, featuring a tired and bloated Robert Vaughn as the world's least convincing spy, uncovers an island where existing members of the Nazi party look to revive the Third Reich using clones. Yeah, it's basically an unauthorized rip-off of 'The Boys From Brazil', but even a plot this outlandish can't save the film for the midnight movie crowd.Cheesy movies can be fun. 'The Lucifer Complex' is only cheesy enough to be depressing. Uninspired camera work, dialogue too stale to be droll, exhausted performances, locations that kind of work, editing that drains the energy from each scene... it's as much fun as waking up to discover that your arm is asleep.I won't spoil the film more than the description already does, but rest assured, the film within a film ends, leaving our terminally bored, island-locked protagonist to mumble some commentary on mankind that was probably insightful before the transgenerational degradation of bad writers borrowing from good ones reduced it from Arthur C. Clarke to L. Ron Hubbard to Stephanie Meyer; it's so bland it's useless to mock.On the plus side, it's a fascinating experiment in relativity. If you really want to make 90 minutes feel like forever, watch 'The Lucifer Complex'.

*Spoiler/plot- 1978, A Government spy is sent to investigate a strange occurrence of why many world diplomats are disappearing during an international meeting. A reborn/cloned Natzi terrorist group in South America has plans for world domination again with a Fourth Reich.*Special Stars- Robert Vaughn, Keenan Wynn, Merrie Lynn Ross, Aldo Ray*Theme- Just when you think the Natzi regime is destroyed, they rise. They are often too virulent for the world's worries.*Trivia/location/goofs- Hitler's clone sounds in his speech, too Jewish. This film was shot in and around Manhattan Beach area.*Emotion- A rather crazy 'stinker' direct–to-TV film with Robert 'Napoleon Solo' Vaughn playing a spy long after his prime. This time not very well without the UNCLE interesting locations, fellow cast members, writing, spy toys, and high production values. Most war-decorated veteran of WW2 Pacific theater turned actor Aldo Ray also tries his worst here. This is a film of has-been actor's sad performances. Yawn-- boring.

Make no mistake about it, The Lucifer Complex is a genuine contender for the title of worst movie ever made. The most remarkable thing is that recognised actors have been persuaded to appear in this dismal offering – it's quite depressing to see the likes of Robert Vaughn, Keenan Wynn and Aldo Ray appearing in such cheap, inept, amateurish rubbish. The Lucifer Complex bears all the hallmarks of a film that hasn't been fully completed, with irrelevant stock footage and additional scenes crudely inserted into the existing material in a desperate bid to cobble together a releasable film. Alas, everything is so clumsily done and so achingly inept that one is left wishing that the film hadn't been released at all.In the near future, an explorer on an island discovers a hidden cave containing computers full of old archives. After watching some war footage, he stumbles upon a film showing the adventures of a secret agent on a top secret mission. The agent Glenn Manning (Robert Vaughn) is sent to investigate something called the "Lucifer Problem". Manning crash lands on a remote island and discovers a camp emblazoned with Nazi swastikas, run by a gang of neo-Nazis. The island natives are kept as slaves, and a group of women are held prisoner there too. Manning soon discovers that the women's bodies are being used to give birth to genetically cloned foetuses of various world leaders. He befriends April (Merrie Lynn Ross), one of the women held in the camp, and together they try to stop the sinister plot. Their quest doesn't become any easier when they learn that their Nazi enemies have succeeded in cloning Adolf Hitler himself! Very little of The Lucifer Complex makes sense. For one thing, if our explorer is watching all this as if it is actual archived footage of a spy mission, then who the hell do we suppose filmed it all?? In fact, the whole explorer subplot seems suspiciously unrelated to the film and one is left convinced that it has been included as an afterthought to stretch the film's running time a little, and perhaps as an attempt to provide a way of linking the rather choppy main narrative. Vaughn tries to give a professional performance in the midst of all this, but his efforts are continually shot down by the very non-professional work behind the cameras. The characters are completely uninvolving, the audio poor, the camera work hopelessly wobbly, and the action sequences incompetently edited. Sometimes this sort of film becomes a cult favourite amongst collectors of bad movies (Plan 9 From Outer Space, Robot Monster, etc.) but this one slumps way below the level of "so-bad-it's-good". It is abysmal, pure and simple. It would receive a minus rating if this were possible, and even that would be generous!

But it has its moments. Not a great sci-fi flick, but not a total waste of time either. I thought the choreography was poorly done, and certain special effects, principally blowing stuff up, weren't done to well. But Robert Vaughn was, as always, cool. The "Nazi bitch" with the bride of Frankenstien hair style was kind of campy. Aldo Ray, and I've always enjoyed his work, didn't have much of a part or come across that well. The premise is okay but the plot, not to mention the characters, is never really developed. And the guy in the cave, watching all of this via computerized film footage? Well, lots of what he sees, which is what we watch with him, took place behind closed doors and in swamps and ... Who was holding the camera? Ahh, nothings perfect. This is OK sci-fi if you don't set your expectations to high. Its worth a watch.