Bad Movies We Love: Clue

20. Good news: Slapping women in the face is still funny.

Cue my favorite scene from Muppets From Space, because here's another movie where a squealing women gets decked. Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan) throws a screamy tantrum when Professor Plum (Chrostopher Lloyd, who had a very productive 1985) suggests that her brandy is poisoned. A heretofore calm Mr. Green slaps the daylights out of her, stunning the room. I LOL every time at the overblown foley art that accompanies the violence. Like a hard uppercut from Street Fighter II.

19. Professor Plum's necrophiliac tendencies

Professor Plum outs himself as a perverted psychotherapist who beds his patients, but he's even freakier than he lets on: After the mansion's cook is found stabbed to death in the kitchen, Plum helps move her body to a couch in the study. After he positions her, he finds himself stuck with his hand on her rather zaftig fanny. And he digs it. Sigh. Go on, Clue. Be that weird.

18. Mr. Green's frank homosexuality

Michael McKean, the august Christopher Guest comrade (and fine Twitterer!), appears as the neurotic and accident-prone Mr. Green, who reveals that Mr. Boddy is blackmailing him for being gay. His straightforward acknowledgement of his gayness ("I must keep it a secret or I will lose my job on security grounds. Thank you.") is atypical of funny '80s cinema -- though in that regard, it belongs in the same category as Lesley Ann Warren's other awesome movie, Victor/Victoria.

17. Unnecessarily fantastic and nonsensical cameo #2: WKRP in Cincinnati's Howard Hesseman

Dr. Johnny Fever appears as a door-to-door pamphleteer who warns of Armageddon -- before revealing himself to be an FBI agent at movie's end. If Clue were filmed in 2005 instead of 1985, he would be played by approximately Eugene Levy.

16. There's some pretty decent dude-slapping too.

Take that, fruity Green!

15. The replication of the Clue mansion's impossible architecture

It's bold for a movie jam-packed with dialogue, whizzbang, and redundant monologues to find time to appease gaming purists, but Clue works overtime here. Not only are the all of the rooms and weapons from the board game accounted for, but the house's secret passageways are exactly the same -- the kitchen is connected to the study, and the lounge is connected to the conservatory. Clue sacrifices spatial believability to mimic the game's convenient room-jumping loophole. That's called integrity, lambs.

14. Wadsworth's definition of a butler's duties

"I buttle, sir." Well, then.

13. Awww, they're all murderers.

I've heard people claim that Clue's first ending, with Scarlet as the killer, is the most satisfying, but it's just not feasible that one person could be responsible for a half-dozen deaths under one roof. And Clue is definitely all about representing reality, so I'm right. I prefer the splashy third ending with Wadsworth unmasked as the true Mr. Boddy, everyone going to jail for committing various murders, and Mr. Green tying up the movie with a cheeky bon mot about the laughable concept of heterosexuality. You sleep with that wife, Mr. Green! Annette O'Toole, you revel in Mr. Green's secret machismo!

12. The funniest shower sequence since at least Carrie.

In the blacked-out mansion, Wadsworth races to restore power to the house. He tries a few knobs, ends up in a space he doesn't recognize, and turns the knob. Oh, oops. It is a shower. But Wadsworth has a silly accent and goes deadpan when humiliated, so it's hilarious when he's doused. Clue logic is real logic. Towel off and go with it.

11. Give it up for the underappreciated befuddlement of Martin Mull!

Sabrina the Teenage Witch hero Martin Mull plays Colonel Mustard as a selfish man-child who also has a dirty past as a war profiteer. That's fun enough, but Mustard's moments of sheer idiocy are even more delightful. Example: He quizzes Wadsworth, "Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?" Wadsworth replies, "You don't need any help from me, sir." Mustard instinctively replies, "That's right!" The timing is spot-on, the dialogue is primed, and the Mustard is spicy.

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