I was having a conversation with a friend recently about our favorite bad movies. You know the kind--the type of film so poorly conceived and dreadfully executed that you can't quite stop watching it. On some level, you relish it not in spite of its awfulness, but because of it. That's the kind of terrible, horrible movie I'm talking about. The kind that you watch with friends and beer because there's no way you could watch it alone or sober. As it so happens, many of these movies turn out to be of the horror genre.
Rotten Tomatoes put together a list of 25 Movies So Bad They're Unmissable. Take, for an older example, Robot Monster (1953):
While Ed Wood's aliens looked suspiciously like fey middle-aged men in silver jumpsuits, Phil Tucker's ET invaders were even less likely, unless, that is, NASA's suppressing knowledge that our cosmic neighbors are gorilla-robots who wear diving helmets and wield genocidal bubble machines. Originally released in 3-D, Robot Monster actually made a small fortune relative to its paltry budget. Viewed today, it's hilarious, but, like Plan 9, compelling for its bizarre plotting and dialogue so dreadful it actually becomes like poetry.
Or how about one of my favorites, Troll 2 (1992):
This in-name only sequel to the 1986 horror has a family moving into the town of Nilbog (say it backwards, people, to discover this movie's original title) and encountering a tribe of little monsters in fright masks and potato sacks who do the radical-vegetarian bidding of a hag whose modus operandi is liquefying her victims into plant goo. Or something. Cheerfully idiotic, with universally terrible performances, Troll 2 was recently celebrated in an entertaining documentary called Best Worst Movie.
How can you not love that?
It doesn't make the list, but a much more recent example that always immediately comes to mind when the subject of bad movies comes up is M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (2008). It gets a whopping 17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and I imagine most of that comes from people just enjoying a good terrible movie. Looking back, I don't know what I was thinking when I thought this trailer looked good, but I thought the film had promise (and it was M. Night Shyamalan!):
The basic premise is that a mystery neurotoxin has seeped into the atmosphere, causing everybody who comes into contact with it to end their lives. If you're thinking, "Hey, maybe that could work," no, it can't. It was a terrible idea for a movie, made worse by some of the most unbearable, god-awful scripting and acting you've ever seen. A friend and I went to see it in theaters, and we actually bonded with people in the theater over how bad it was. Strangers talked, laughed, and made friends with each other over this movie. It was basically treated as a comedy, and the crowd roared in laughter throughout much of the film. The movie gets a 0/10 from me, but I'd happily watch it again just for this scene, which has stuck with me ever since I watched it:
No, that wasn't supposed to be funny. That was supposed to be a dramatic scene. The laughter in the theater after that "cheese and crackers" line didn't stop for several minutes. It's a trainwreck of a film, but definitely worth watching with some other people and drinks.
What's your favorite bad movie? Or kibitz about whatever you want below...
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