In terms of action movies, Sylvester Stallone‘s filmography is absolutely dripping in high-octane, adrenaline-pumping quality. From the boxing heroics of Rocky and most of its sequels to the intense manhunt of Rambo: First Blood, it’s fair to say that good old Sly has more than delivered on the front of thrilling cinema.
However, like most actors, there have been a fair share of stinkers from across Stallone’s career. Say, the widely lambasted and ridiculously poor Rocky V or the strange career turn towards comedy in Rhinestone opposite Dolly Parton. But few of Sly’s bad films are quite as awful as the one the actor himself considers to be his lowest moment on screen.
“I made some truly awful movies,” Stallone once said. “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder, just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.” Stallone went on to admit that Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is “the worst film I’ve ever made by far”.
He continued: “Maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen… A flatworm could write a better script than Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. In some countries — China, I believe — running Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot once a week on government television has lowered the birth rate to zero.”
The film is the 1992 action-comedy starring Stallone and Estelle Getty, directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Stallone plays a tough guy cop whose professional life is greatly disrupted when his overbearing mother comes to visit and witnesses a crime in the process, soon joining her son in arms to take on the criminals.
Interestingly, Stallone’s main competitor for the throne of the best action movie star of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger, once admitted that he’d been offered the lead role in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, but could see how bad the film would end up and decided to pass up on the job, and it was through this rejection that it eventually landed in the lap of Sly.
“I read the script. It was so bad,” Arnie noted. “You know, I’ve also done some movies that went right in the toilet, right? That was bad. But this was really bad. So I went in. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to leak out that I have tremendous interest.’ I know the way it works in Hollywood. I would then ask for a lot of money. So then they’d say, ‘Let’s go give it to Sly. Maybe we can get him for cheaper.’”
Check out the trailer for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot below.