Rented the worst film in the history of cinema. 14 years later, he was arrested

“I just saw this and find it hard to believe it’s true,” wrote the film’s protagonist, Tom Green, at the time.

In March 2016, James Meyers Jr.a resident of North Carolina, was pulled over by the police while driving his daughter to school.

Reason: a simple broken brake light.

But after handing over his driver’s license to officers, Meyers was shocked to realize there was a arrest warrant in your name.

And what was his great crime? Not returning a VHS copy from the 2001 comedy ““, with Tom Green — a box office failure once described as “the worst film ever released by a major studio in the history of Hollywood.”

“They were there talking to me, talking about how ridiculous it was,” Meyers told , after the incident. “And then they arrested me“.

Meyers Jr. was taken to the Concord Police Department station and charged with “non-return of rented property“, which he had brought from a video club 14 years before.

To make everything even more absurd, the store had already closed about 10 years ago at that time. Meyers had never been arrested, and considered the situation humiliating, as his daughter was with him at that moment.

News of the arrest reached Australiawhere Green was in the middle of a stand-up comedy tour. The actor wrote on Twitter at the time about how unbelievable the situation was and contacted Meyers to reassure him.

NEW: Local man arrested for not returning ‘Freddy Got Fingered’ VHS from 2002

— WSOCTV (@wsoctv)

Green began singing to Meyers on the phone and offered to help him with whatever he needed. “It was very nice, behaved impeccably. It made me feel so much better, with all the stress I was going through,” Meyers recalled.

The Canadian-American actor also made himself available to pay Meyers finewhich was 200 dollars, “just as a matter of principle“.

A month after his arrest, Meyers appeared in court in hopes of clearing his name. The Public Ministry ended up dropping the charges that same day.

Before the trial date, Meyers decided to go back to see Freddy Got Fingered. I said at the time that I thought the film was hilarious — and that I would definitely recommend it.

There are probably good reasons why this was considered the worst film ever made by a major Hollywood studio – and, as one user comments on Green’s Twitter post, “no one should ever return this film“.You are forgiven!

And in fact, the funniest part of the story is the list of comments that users left on the actor’s message — in most cases, in an amusing tone.

“I hope that now you have to read the book“, says Eric. “You better not give it back. Se discover that you didn’t rewind the tapehe still has to serve double the sentence”, writes Randy — a joke that some younger readers may not understand. In fact, Mia even jokingly asks: “what is a VHS?”

Some question whether the police should spend their time making collections for a rental company. But, jokes one user, “this arrest because of a VHS later led to the discovery of 22 dismembered bodies in your fridge.”

To the actor Jackson Davieswho was part of the cast in the film, left his joke: “I participated in this film and I would pay him 200 dollars so he wouldn’t see it. Was it still in its original packaging?”