Thesuperherogenre is now a billion-dollar monoculture: sleek, hypermanaged, and algorithmically calculated to maximize audience retention across demographics and continents. But just beneath that polished surface lies a grimy, glittering underworld of misfires—movies that tried to fly and crash-landed into something weirder and far more interesting. These are the films that never stood a chance againstMarvel’s airtight synergyorDC’s tortured self-mythologizing. They are passion projects, studio embarrassments, and what-the-hell oddities that—despite financial failure—found redemption in the chaotic democracy of cult fandom.
There’s something addictive about watching a superhero film that clearly shouldn’t exist. Whether it’s a radioactive janitor decapitating criminals inThe Toxic Avenger, or Dennis Rodman dodging explosions inDouble Teamlike a six-foot-five glitch in the Matrix, these movies are messy, unfocused, and often barely functional. But that’s exactly why they endure. They’re the B-sides of the superhero genre: strange, earnest, and occasionally brilliant. Watch them with friends, at midnight, ideally surrounded by snacks and sarcasm—and you’ll start to see the outlines of an alternate cinematic universe: one where failure is its own kind of superpower.
10‘The Toxic Avenger’ (1984)
The Toxic Avenger
The movie that launched a thousand midnight screenings—and maybe a few therapy sessions—The Toxic Avengeris the deranged origin story of a scrawny New Jersey janitor who falls into a vat of toxic waste and emerges as a pustule-covered superhero with a penchant for mops and moral vengeance. Released by Troma, the infamous B-movie studio synonymous with grotesque camp and bargain-bin gore, the film barely made a dent at the box office. But over the years, it achieved what most superhero films never even attempt: it became iconic without ever pretending to be respectable.
So Gross, So Good, So Toxie
What makesThe Toxic Avengerendure isn’t just its absurdity—it’s the purity of its chaos. This is a movie that delights in bad taste but somehow never feels cynical. There’s no sleek world-building here, no franchise-ready polish. Just violence, slime, and sincerity. In an era where superheroes are either messianic or meme-friendly,Toxiereminds us that sometimes the most relatable savior is the one who looks like he crawled out of a sewage pipe and still wants to do the right thing.
9‘Steel’ (1997)
In the mid-’90s, long before the MCU made spandex respectable, someone at Warner Bros. greenlitSteel—a superhero film starring Shaquille O’Neal as a weapons designer who builds himself a homemade iron suit and becomes a vigilante. No one involved seemed to know exactly what tone to aim for, and the result was a film that was neither serious enough for adults nor cartoonish enough for kids. Critics rolled their eyes, audiences stayed home, andSteelquietly rusted in the shadow of Batman and Superman.
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But here’s the twist:Steelis kind of amazing, precisely because of how wrong it gets the formula. Shaq, with his earnest delivery and baffling charisma, anchors the movie in a space where sincerity overrides style. He’s not a great actor, but he doesn’t have to be—he’s a symbol of a different kind of heroism: goofy, analog, weirdly warm. WatchingSteelnow feels like unearthing an alternate superhero timeline, one that didn’t get optimized by algorithms. It’s not good, exactly, but it is unforgettable.
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8‘Super’ (2010)
Before he directed raccoons into our hearts and blew up box offices withGuardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn madeSuper—a brutal, funny, and deeply disturbing anti-superhero film that feels like a nervous breakdown in spandex. Rainn Wilson plays Frank, a lonely fry cook who dons a costume and calls himself The Crimson Bolt after his wife leaves him for a drug dealer. What follows is less a redemption arc and more a violent unraveling.Superwas too dark for superhero fans and too superhero-y for arthouse circles, which is exactly why it’s perfect for this list.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Mental Breakdown
What makesSupersting is its commitment to emotional instability as the origin story. Frank is not a savior—he’s a symptom. And Ellen Page (now Elliot Page), as his equally unhinged sidekick, delivers a performance that’s both hilarious and alarming. There’s gore, sure, but there’s also something bleakly honest about how the film views heroism: not as noble, but as desperate. It’s a satire that doesn’t wink—it screams. In the cult canon,Superstands out as a film brave enough to ask what happens when the wrong person tries to do the right thing, and the answer isn’t pretty.
7‘Blankman’ (1994)
Damon Wayans stars as a painfully sweet, socially awkward inventor who responds to urban crime not by getting ripped or brooding—but by fashioning a bulletproof suit out of rubber bands, Velcro, and grandma’s bathrobes.Blankmanis an utterly bizarre superhero origin story, moreLooney TunesthanBatman Begins, and that’s exactly why it flopped. Audiences in the mid-’90s didn’t know what to do with a film that refused to take itself—or the genre—seriously. But that refusal now feels like foresight.
The Power of Duct Tape and Delusion
There’s a radical charm toBlankman’s complete lack of cynicism. Wayans leans into a performance that’s more pathos than parody, portraying a man who believes so deeply in justice it becomes endearing—and then slightly disturbing. The film plays like a child’s understanding of heroism filtered through adult absurdity, and in the age of $200 million CGI grimness, its handmade, silly sincerity feels genuinely refreshing. This isn’t a satire; it’s a love letter to the idea that anyone—no matter how uncool—can still want to save the world.
6‘Mystery Men’ (1999)
Mystery Men
BeforeThe Boys, beforeDeadpool, and long before superheroes were allowed to be absurd on purpose, there wasMystery Men—a chaotic ensemble comedy about fringe heroes with powers like “throwing cutlery” and “being really angry.” The cast is stacked (Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria) and the production design is genuinely gorgeous in a weird, Tim-Burton-meets-Joel-Schumacher way. But no one knew what to make of it in 1999, and it tanked harder than The Spleen’s digestive system.
Watching it now,Mystery Menfeels eerily current: a satire of branding, toxic masculinity, and fame-hungry heroics. The characters are deeply insecure, painfully earnest, and deeply weird—everything Marvel has since gently joked about, butMystery Menwent full throttle. It’s not sleek or snarky; it’s lovingly chaotic. And it offers a reminder that superheroes, when not sanded down into perfection, can actually be the most human of all. This was the multiverse before multiverses were monetized.
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5‘Orgazmo’ (1997)
Only Trey Parker could make a film where a Mormon missionary becomes an adult film star turned superhero and somehow make it… oddly tender?Orgazmois deeply stupid—in the best way—and thrives in the dissonance between the innocence of its protagonist and the graphic absurdity of the porn industry around him. It’s offensive, juvenile, proudly cheap, and absolutely not for everyone. But it’s also smarter than it looks, wearing its lowbrow exterior like armor.
What If Clark Kent Worked in Adult Video?
What makesOrgazmoendure in the cult canon is its complete lack of moral clarity. Parker plays Joe Young with such goofy conviction that the film slides into surrealism: the porn world is weirdly wholesome, the real world is grotesque, and somewhere in the middle is a man with a dildo-shaped ray gun who just wants to please God and his fiancée. It’s a superhero parody that doesn’t really care about superheroes—it cares about hypocrisy, repression, and how absurd the world looks when you’re trying to live by a set of pure, impossible rules. Which, come to think of it, might be the most honest cape story of them all.
4‘The Guyver’ (1991)
The Guyver
Take the spandex-and-spark format ofPower Rangers, inject it with pulsating, goopy body horror, and cast Mark Hamill for maximum ‘wait, what?’ factor—and you’ve gotThe Guyver, a truly deranged American adaptation of a Japanese manga that had no business going this hard. The plot follows a young man who merges with an alien biomechanical suit and begins transforming into a grotesque killing machine while battling mutant monsters called Zoanoids. The creature design, courtesy of Screaming Mad George (yes, that’s a real name), is half nightclub puppet show, half fever dream.
When Gore Meets Morphin’ Time
The Guyveroccupies a singular space in cult cinema: too gross for kids, too campy for horror purists, and too structurally incoherent for anyone trying to follow a plot. But that’s exactly what makes it so perfect. There’s a tactile, analog thrill to its rubbery monsters and practical effects, and the movie’s tonal schizophrenia—equal parts slapstick and splatter—feels like a VHS tape possessed by two very different demons. It’s not just a B-movie; it’s an out-of-body experience in fluorescent gore.
3‘Freaked’ (1993)
Imagine a circus of genetically mutated freaks curated by a cowboy sadist played by Randy Quaid. Now imagine it filtered through the brain of Alex Winter (yes,thatAlex Winter), co-written by a futureIdiocracycreator, and sprinkled with cameos from Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Keanu Reeves in uncredited dog-boy drag.Freakedis a berserk, genre-melting superhero comedy where the protagonist—once a Hollywood sellout—mutates into a gnarled, neon-pink mutant and learns how to save others by embracing his own monstrosity.
A Beautiful, Grotesque Mess
This film is less “narrative” than visual chaos stitched together by Gen-X nihilism and Pee-wee’s Playhouse aesthetics. It tanked at the box office and was buried by the studio, but over time it’s been rediscovered as a hyperactive work of anti-corporate, anti-aesthetic genius. Beneath the goo and jokes lies a film about bodily autonomy, performance culture, and what it means to be marketable.Freakedisn’t just weird—it’s defiantly unwatchable in the best possible way. You either vibe with it or recoil in horror, which is maybe what all great cult films ask of you.
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2‘Double Team’ (1997)
Double Team
No,Double Teamisn’t technically a superhero movie—but it also isn’t technically a coherent action film, so we’re letting it in on vibes alone. This neon-drenched, genre-agnostic spectacle pairs Jean-Claude Van Damme with Dennis Rodman—yes,thatDennis Rodman—in a plot involving cybernetic tigers, post-Cold War espionage, a surreal techno-coliseum, and dialogue that sounds like it was ghostwritten by Mountain Dew. Directed by Hong Kong action legend Tsui Hark in his Hollywood debut, the film was shredded by critics and ignored by audiences—but in the cult canon, it reigns like a fluorescent fever dream.
More Hair Dye Than Logic, and That’s the Point
WatchingDouble Teamtoday is like flipping through a ’90s Eurotrash fashion magazine while chugging Red Bull: it’s chaotic, overly saturated, and genuinely exhilarating. Rodman, with his rainbow hair and deadpan line deliveries, isn’t acting so much as embodying his own chaotic brand—and somehow, it works. The movie is full of gadgets, explosions, and gratuitous splits, but there’s also something gleefully unhinged in how little it cares about making sense.Double Teamis the kind of failure that transcends quality. It’s a camp object, a vibe museum, and a reminder that superhero energy doesn’t need a cape—it just needs commitment and a leopard-print parachute.
1‘Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie’ (1997)
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
If you were a child in the ‘90s,Turbowas the moment you realized not everything with explosions and helmets was going to make sense. Intended as a cinematic bridge betweenMighty Morphin Power Rangersand the upcoming TV series reboot,Turbois the kind of film that feels like it was storyboarded by very energetic children: there’s a pirate villainess, a wizard named Lerigot, a haunted volcano, and a ten-year-old boy who transforms into a full-grown Ranger without explanation. It bombed hard. It also rules.
Nostalgia with Nitrous Oxide
What’s remarkable aboutTurbois its total lack of shame. It barrels ahead with a kind of giddy sincerity that makes up for its incoherence. There’s no pretense of realism here—just absurd stakes, glowing swords, and a cast that looks like they’re simultaneously trying to act and not laugh. It’s the anti-Nolan: joyfully dumb, weirdly earnest, and made with the same manic spirit as an elementary school recess game. If superhero films today are burdened with meaning,Turboreminds us of a time when morphing was enough.
