It’s all Jennifer Aniston’s fault.

At least, that’s what I’ve told myself for the last two years as I single-mindedly sought out, and sat through, some of the strangest, cheesiest and crappiest movies ever made.

See, this book would never have existed were it not for an accidental encounter with the 1993 horror Leprechaun while channel-hopping late one night. My wife was unaware that dear sweet Jennifer had once been violently menaced by a latex-clad Warwick Davis and, being one of those tedious movie nerds who has dedicated an entire cerebral hemisphere to the storage of such information, it gave me an excuse to reel off some more famous faces and the dumb movies they made before they were famous.

To my surprise, my wife actually seemed interested. Maybe, I pondered, other people are just waiting for this information to be catalogued and compiled in a painstaking fashion.

Thus, this site was born.

Or at least the idea for this site was born. Little did I know then that what seemed like a simple idea would become an ongoing quest that gnawed away in the corners of my mind, even while doing important tasks such as shopping, driving and fathering children.

My initial list ran to a mere fifty titles, mostly movies that I already owned or knew of from past experience. As I set about gathering these films together for the purposes of research, I sent word to fellow film-obsessed friends to see if they could spot any gaps in my line up.

More titles were duly added.

As the list grew, I was forced to admit that simply knowing the actor and film wasn’t going to be enough. Details were required. Dirty, juicy details. It’s all very knowing that Charlize Theron appears in Children of the Corn III for a few tantalising seconds, but a dedicated Theron fan would surely want to know precisely which few seconds they should watch out for – especially since the movie in question is staggeringly awful. It was clear I was going to have to find and watch every film, often squinting at the background to spot fleeting glimpses of baby-faced celebrities. What had started as an idle concept was fast mutating into a task of Herculean proportions.

I found myself paying undue attention to cast lists for old films with stupid titles, balancing a portable DVD player on my knees during my lunch break and spending hours clicking through the Internet Movie Database, searching the filmographies of every big name actor I could think of. I discovered that by restricting myself to films made before fame came a-knocking I was missing out on some true gems made by once-loved talents as their slide into obscurity picked up speed. The boundaries of the book expanded to encompass embarrassing appearances from throughout otherwise successful or auspicious careers.

And yet more titles were duly added.

I entered a strange Zen-like existence. I’d feel strangely compelled to check out a particular charity shop, only to find a battered VHS of some sought-after obscurity tucked away on a shelf. Several times I’d find myself channel surfing late at night, only to find one of the as-yet-unseen movies from my “to find” list about to start. On one occasion, several weeks after I believed I’d found all my movies, I stumbled across a wonderfully camp 80s horror film in an old cardboard box in a junk shop. My eyes instinctively flicked to the cast list on the back, where I discovered that a much loved British actor was one of the stars. The list was revived.

As the entries crested the century mark, with no end in sight, it became clear that I needed some sort of logical system for justifying entry to this sure-to-be-hallowed tome, lest it become a beast that consumed my entire existence. An actor should only be included, I decided, if the movie in question fulfilled at least one of the following criteria:

1. The Credibility Factor
The actor in question should have sufficient credibility that an appearance in a bizarre horror film would stand out like a squid in a kindergarten alongside their more respected works. That’s why Shakespearean megastar Patrick Stewart warrants an entry, while William Shatner does not.

2. The Cheeseball Factor
The movie in question should be entertainingly strange, awful or some wonderful combination of the two. This is why the list is ripe with science fiction and horror movies, as even the worst efforts in those genres can offer giddy amusement for the hardy (and drunk) viewer. There are plenty of crap comedies and dramas loitering in the closets of the famous, but only a fool would actually want to watch them for fun.

3. The Celebrity Factor
The actor in question should be recognisable to most people. There are lots of great character actors who could qualify purely on the movies they’ve made but unless you know who Miguel Ferrer is, why would you care that he explodes in Deep Star Six? No, it was important that I drew a velvet rope of exclusivity around this club, and restrict entry to those who the majority of people would know on sight, or would at least recall after being told their most famous role – such as That Guy Who Played Shaggy In The Scooby Doo Movies.

4. The Obscurity Factor
Any actors appearing in recent studio horror movies were usually dismissed, as the post-Scream boom made horror movies a canny decision for actors on the rise, rather than the reluctant rent-paying obligations they’re supposed to be. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s appearances in Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer, for instance, are neither surprising nor embarrassing. A nearly naked Jessica Alba being molested by a severed limb in the little-seen Idle Hands, however, will probably still come as a surprise to most.

5. The Wild Card Factor
As the entries piled ever higher, I found myself torn over entries that seemed too fun to pass up, yet didn’t really qualify under any of the existing criteria. Thus I indulged myself with a certain amount of wriggle room for movies that were just so fantastically weird that they deserved a mention, even if their token celebrity wasn’t ticking all the boxes.
Hey, it’s my site– what are you going to do about it?

Though this structure helped to trim the fat from my viewing queue, even with these caveats the list kept growing exponentially larger. Many times I thought I was done, only for fate to throw an additional ten movies in my path, all of them demanding inclusion.

When the time finally arrived for the last entry to be typed, rather than elation I actually felt a cold stab of sorrow thrusting between my ribs. I’d been living amongst ridiculous movies for so long, my home office lined with towers of ex-rental videotapes and out-of-print DVDs, that the thought of it all coming to an end filled me with a curious melancholy. Life seemed curiously empty without a stack of mouldering videotapes to pick from each evening.

No more quests around the charity shops, ticking off my mental checklist of films to find. No more nights hunting around the online auctions for that solitary copy of some forgotten monster flick. No more waiting for the mail to bring padded envelopes of joy, to be enjoyed on my own, long after my impossibly patient wife had taken the far more sensible option of retreating to bed.

And yet, for what it’s worth, it’s done. My odyssey of the odd is complete and so I invite you now to plunge wholeheartedly into the waters of celebrity shame, thespian desperation and career suicide that have been my domain for the past twenty four months.