Good "bad" movies

[BJB]

(Havent posted here in oooh......two years? But the summer evenings are long, so here I am).

In my efforts to collect all the Batman movies, this meant buying the two infamous Joel Shumacher ones Batman Forever and Batman and Robin (which felt dirty for some reason, like I was buying porn). I watched them expecting the campy, over the top faire I remembered as a kid and.......thats exactly what I got. But I also got something else. I started to enjoy them for what they were. Don't get me wrong, there not brilliant movies, but there watchable I'd say, in that stupid, silly way. They may not be good Batman movie's, but there ok movies I guess. Plus, I get sick of all those people who treat Batman And Robin like it was directed by Hitler and starred Charles Manson and Myra Hindly. There are FAR worse movie's. At least batman and robin dosent bore you. It does many things, but it dosen't bore.

The point is: Are there any movies out there which are generally considered shit, but you enjoy regardless?

hmm, I went the whole post without using a term I hate: Guilty Pleasures. Oh.....

[Small Man Big Horse]

Here's a much edited review of The Deadly Spawn that I did a while back.

Movies don't get much cheaper than this. Shot for about $19,000 back in 1982, The Deadly Spawn is a Bad Taste-esque horror flick, though less surreal and outrageous as Peter Jackson's directorial debut. It lacks Jackson's tongue in cheek comedy too, but there are a lot of laughs here, even if most of the time they're unintentional ones. Set in a small New English town where a meteor's recently hit, three college students get together to revise for their exams, but soon end up fending off an alien invasion. All three of the students are truly awful amateur actors, the dialogue's of the most mundane standard, but strangely it feels all the more real for this. It has a sort of reality tv feel, though certainly this is due to the lack of budget than any intentional reason. You can easily fast forward through the first thirty minutes (and trust me, you won't miss much) but soon blood is splattering many a wall, and the film becomes a lot more fun.

Clearly a cash in on the success of Alien (infact it was later re-released under the title of Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn), the little aliens look like a cross between a tadpole and a penis, which as you may imagine is slightly disturbing, whilst the large aliens bare a surprisingly strong resemblence to Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors for some unknown reason. So yeah, it's all pretty shoddy, but the film's made with a sense of fun, and, most importantly with this type of genre fare, the gore's inventively shot and it's all rather unpredictable as to who lives and who dies. Oh, and its got a really badly animated shock ending which reminds of Tremors, though in a sort of good way.

Edited to correct film title. And yeah, BJB, I think so, hence placing it here. ;) But I have no doubt that millions would disagree with me.

[BJB]

That makes me want to see the movie. Is that a good thing?

Anyone seen Lisztomania? Ken Russell movie starring Roger Daletry as Franz Liszt.......hmm. Ever wanted to see Daltreys dick grow to cartoonish heights while extremly odd Rick Wakeman soundstracks play? Hell, you wont see it anywhere else

[chocolateboy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2HGoR8pSps

[Small Man Big Horse]

That looks like the greatest movie ever made. But as it's made by SyFy, and stars Eric Roberts, I imagine they fucked it up somehow.

[localhero87]

The Sinful Dwarf.

[biggytitbo]

Check out this jaw dropping ending to Rats - Night of Terror! and tell me this is not a truly great bad film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbtmGmzvIgI

[Epic Bisto]

Hey Small Man, I've just brought down my DVD of Deadly Spawn to watch, but the missus wants to watch something else. I bloody loved that film when I was a wee bairn.

I'll have to choose Nightmare City, Umberto Lenzi's powerful prediction of AIDS hysteria and a genuine influence on Tom Hanks and his Philadelphia movie. Radioactive zombie men who like to rip off ladies clothes before they start to stab 'em, run very fast with knives an' shit, and always remember to wipe the blood off their mouths when they catch normal people gawping at them. Features a beardy man and an Emma Kennedy lookalike running away from lots of those burnt-omelette-faced men.

Either that or the following: She Devils on Wheels (girl biker gang beating up men and looking awesome), Blast-off Girls (garage rock group swindled by sleazy manager).

Then there's my favourite good bad film of all time...and no, I'm not [banned troll].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agyuMM09yAE

[El Unicornio, mang]

Is that the one where the bunch of bad dudes rape the maid at the start?

[non capisco]

When my friend was in hospital a few months ago we sent her a get well package that included the cheapest looking DVD we could find, a film called 'Ratman' with the tagline "He's the critter......from the shitter!" I don't think she's ever going to watch it so I might ask for it back. Has anyone seen it and is it any good?

[Serge]

I've mentioned my love of 'Independence Day' on here a few times, and I can make no claims for it actually being a good movie other than - IT'S GOT SOME FUCKING BIG SPACESHIPS IN IT! Which are fab. I have a soft spot for Spielberg's massively flawed 'War Of The Worlds' too, pretty much because of the FUCKING BIG TRIPODS and Tim Robbins.

[Cohaagen]

My feelings about Death Wish 3 can be summed up in one simple picture:



There are so many high points in this modern masterpiece that it feels unfair to pick out any one in particular, suffice to say that:

-a creep heading out for battle armed with a plunger
-the creep CEO, who has a Peter Gabriel-style haircut and is played by Chuckie Cunningham from Happy Days, "ordering" extra reinforcements over the phone like Chinese takeaway
-a cash-in-hand buy at a used car lot that is so dramatic it merits a Jimmy Page synth sting
-a woman dying of a broken arm
-Bronson ordering rocket launchers through the mail
-old ladies and small children running out into the street and cheering wildly immediately after several men are clotheslined off their motorbikes with a wire and then shot in the back

...are not even the best parts.

To illustrate my point further, the highlight of the third act climax is not, incredibly, the solid ten minutes of a 66yr old Bronson jogging around New York in a leather jacket and hosing creeps with a WWII machinegun, accompanied by a faithful Hispanic neighbour at his side "feeding" him belts of ammo from a cardboard box. That tour-de-force of film-making is immediately topped when the hard-ass detective - who started all the trouble by arresting the Vigilante in the first fucking place - inexplicably pops up out of nowhere, aces Bill S Preston with a snub-nose pistol, shouts "I owed ya that one, dude!", and then joins up with Mr Buchinski to form a Streets of Rage-style buddy-buddy execution team for a brief but exhilarating sequence where at least 20 people are shot off rooftops.

Incredulity can be increased at any point simply by pausing the film and reminding yourself that the character committing these brutal murders is a supposedly mild-mannered, liberal architect who in the first movie could barely swing a sock full of coins without hitting a plant pot.

DW3 works because, I am sure, the cast and crew sincerely thought they were working on a worthwhile project and not the most entertaining piece of shit ever committed to film. As well as luck, a genuinely good bad film needs an absurd premise, poor acting, a pervading sense of the implausible, technical incompetence and, crucially, a total lack of irony or self-awareness. I believe the last point demonstrates why Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal is the film Snakes On a Plane desperately wanted to be.

Is that the one where the bunch of bad dudes rape the maid at the start?

That's Death Wish 2 which, although it loses points for that truly sickening gang rape (which is still funny in parts if you only look at the actor's contorted orgasm faces), almost hits a series peak when Laurence Fishburne takes one in the dome while trying to shield himself with a boombox. In fact, every movie in the series (with the exception of the original) definitely qualifies individually as a joyous masterpiece of cinematic dung.

Other films I would recommend without hesitation are: Prayer of the Rollerboys (preferably in a double bill with Airborne), Night of the Sharks, Deadly Prey (features at least one death by twig), Invasion USA (death by cocaine straw), any of Seagal's early 90s output, DNA, Soldier Terminators: American Force 4, Cobra, McBain, Undefeatable, McCinsey's Island (villains: Robert Vaughn and Grace Jones; hero: Hulk Hogan), Slugs, Bulletproof, The Core, Enemy Territory, Spitfire, Dead Aim, Spectres/Spettri, anything Bronson did for Cannon in the 80s, and everything from Reb Brown's CV.

_{(evidently my feelings about Death Wish 3 required more than one simple picture)}

[session9]

Fatal Deviation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUHSCNMH4wE

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488046/

[SavageHedgehog]

While like any sane person I am a big fan of Death Wish 3, I personally plump for Death Wish 4 as the high point of the series. The deaths are more novel, there are more one liners ("I was making a sandwhich") and the finale is at a roller-rink. Fantastic. Similarly I think Delta Force 2 trumps the first; it leaves behind the original's semi-realistic zionism to make the Bond movie the Broccolis could have made, if they weren't too damn concerned about being "respectable"

[localhero87]

Fatal Deviation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUHSCNMH4wE

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488046/

I spotted this on the Youtubes thread ages ago...and one hour later was on part 7. Its awful, but that right kind of awful. Also, Mikey Graham of Boyzone pretending to be some sort of Tony Montana figure in a rural Irish setting was quite the sight to behold.

[Rubismus]

When my friend was in hospital a few months ago we sent her a get well package that included the cheapest looking DVD we could find, a film called 'Ratman' with the tagline "He's the critter......from the shitter!" I don't think she's ever going to watch it so I might ask for it back. Has anyone seen it and is it any good?

I have, it's not that great really. It's an Italian movie from the late 80s starring the world's smallest man the titular character, a killer genetic experiment loose on a tropical island. It sounds like it should be great trash but it's actually fairly dull. In common with most late 80s Italian horror movies it's badly paced, obviously done on a poverty row budget, there's too much soft focus photography and there's not even that much sex and violence, which you'd reasonably expect from a grimy Italian straight to video movie from the period.

Thing is in the early 80s the Italians were making wonderful nonsense, but by the late 80s already low budgets had been slashed to the bone, their horror industry was just about dead and what was entertaining trash became boring trash. In Ratman's case, it's at least interestingly bizarre when the title character's on screen (it's pretty obvious the director used the actor as a kind of living special effect) but he's not even in it that much; the Ratman only turns up every 20 minutes or so to kill one of the supporting cast, and when he's not there the movie's tough going.

One of my favourite good bad films is Blood Freak. It's a 1971 film shot for almost no money in Florida and I think the DVD box put it best by describing it as the world's only anti-drug pro-Jesus turkey monster gore movie. It stars an Eastern European former Tarzan actor, Steve Hawkes, as a Vietnam vet biker with an Elvis quiff and muttonchop sideburns who hooks up with a devoutly Christian girl and lands a job at her father's turkey farm. The girl's druggie sister gets him hooked on marijuana, and when some hillbilly-looking scientists on the farm feed him treated turkey meat his head transforms into that of a turkey. Driven by his marijuana addiction he goes around dismembering drug users and drinking their blood; the film portrays this by having Steve Hawkes wear a completely immobile polystyrene turkey mask while gobbling noises are dubbed over the action. He's eventually saved by the power of prayer. Every so often a constantly smoking narrator, played by the director, interrupts to lecture about the evils of drug use and free-associate about "people as catalysts". The music score mostly consists of really bad acid rock, while the barely in focus camerawork and cheap film stock make the whole thing look like it cost about three quid and a petrol voucher. Now that's entertainment.

[Bob The Skutter]

I watched Not Another Teen Movie for the first time in eight years, and whilst it's a fairly obvious spoof on the teen movies of the 80s & 90s it does have some great one note characters and lines. The Prom Night ensemble song & dance is particularly memorable, particularly the line "I just jerked off in your french toast" which I remember often quoting as a 17 year old.

It helps that there's lots of gratuitous female nudity and a smoking hot and slutty Jaime Pressly throughout.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Big Trouble In Little China would be the exact definition of this kind of thing, were it not for the sense that doesn't really take itself seriously at any stage. I honestly can't understand why it received bad reviews, when it sets out and achieves its intentions with panache, as well as introducing some really unique weirdness to the screen at the same time. The only thing that lets it down is Kim Cattrall's 'acting'. I always thought Kurt Russell was the perfect actor for John Carpenter's movies because he isn't hammy, he is actually a good actor that lends a sense of believability to the most ridiculous situations.

I don't know what to make of stuff like Rambo/The Expendables which are obviously films that recognise that people enjoy incredibly simplistic clichéd tasteless action movies. When a movie exists like Commando that probably won't be bettered either ironically or unironically on this score, why bother?

[SetToStun]

I totally agree about Big Trouble in Little China - absolutely perfect of its kind. And again, shame about Kim Cattrel - although she certainly looks the part.

My favourite good "bad" film is Evolution (yes, the David Duchovny one). I love it to pieces and it never fails to put a smile on my face when I'm not laughing out loud. The cast is perfect, the premise is gloriously silly and the execution is superb. In fact, if it wasn't for the critical panning it took (in the States, mainly, admittedly) it would have to go on the list of good "great" films.

[SavageHedgehog]

I watched Not Another Teen Movie for the first time in eight years, and whilst it's a fairly obvious spoof on the teen movies of the 80s & 90s it does have some great one note characters and lines. The Prom Night ensemble song & dance is particularly memorable, particularly the line "I just jerked off in your french toast" which I remember often quoting as a 17 year old.

I remembered finding it surprisingly funny at the time, but this time round I found it disappointing. There are some funny moments, but the whole thing just seemed a lot more desperate than I remembered. I think the cliched observation about these things being a lot better when the actors play it straight early-spoof-period-Nielsen style holds true here; the guy playing the stalker kid, for example, plays his scenes way too far over the top for it to be funny, even when it seems like it probably would have been funny on the page. Still light years ahead of Epic Date Spartan etc. Movie though.

[TIAL]

Troll 2 is a bit of a classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KCct4RwLNM&feature=related

Although the trailer actually makes it look better than it is. It's fucking hilarious.

[Peru]

This. This. THIS. Just watch the scene that begins this part of The Manitou, with the old woman in Tony Curtis' apartment. Just wait till you see how it ends.  For me, this is the absolute high watermark of brilliant awfulness. When I first saw it me and my friend had to pause the dvd for about 10 minutes while we stopped laughing. Too much to choose from here - bad music, DREADFUL performances, and - well, just watch it and laugh loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWpv6JBN0bs

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I remember being confused by someone describing Dog Soldiers as a 'so bad it's good' film. It's just straight up good, slight misogynist streak aside.

[Mr Colossal]

Big Trouble In Little China would be the exact definition of this kind of thing, were it not for the sense that doesn't really take itself seriously at any stage.

Isnt that one of those films that did shit at box office, but literally made a tonnefuck of money due to its cult word-of-mouth status on vhs rentals throughout the 90s?


Its a great film.  Its like the goonies for grown ups.  In fact, I wouldnt even say it was a  'bad' film either- as I just assumed the wisecrack nature was deliberate, its kind of endemic of that era and present in lots of things like brewsters millions and smokey and the bandit... there was a slight gap in western martial arts films post bruce lee, and perhaps cashing in on the success of the karate kid, Carpenter just put an ancient mystery school twist on it.



Ive always had a soft spot for things like Cannibal! the musical and anything troma have put out. People seem to think you're being some kind of inverse film snob, but I thought a lot of their proper features like Sgt Kabukiman NYPD, tromas war, and the toxic avenger were quite good fun growing up.  Plus a lot of straight to video nasties like reanimator and basket case etc. and early peter jackson.

[Serge]

My favourite good "bad" film is Evolution (yes, the David Duchovny one). I love it to pieces and it never fails to put a smile on my face when I'm not laughing out loud. The cast is perfect, the premise is gloriously silly and the execution is superb. In fact, if it wasn't for the critical panning it took (in the States, mainly, admittedly) it would have to go on the list of good "great" films.

Yeah, I loved 'Evolution'. I don't think it should really be considered a 'bad' movie as defined by this thread at all.

[localhero87]

Yeah, I loved 'Evolution'. I don't think it should really be considered a 'bad' movie as defined by this thread at all.

A third fan of Evolution here. Again though, as Serge said I wouldnt consider it a good "bad" movie. I honestly found it funny throughout and well done. Yes, it was a good "silly" film but not bad.

[Blue Jam]

Velvet Goldmine. Not a guilty pleasure at all, I love it and genuinely can't understand why it got so many bad reviews, Brian Molko and Ewan McGregor's accent aside. Oh, and Eddie Izzard... apart from all of that it's great.

[The Boston Crab]

My feelings about Death Wish 3

Absolutely glorious summary, I laughed my head off reading that - peaking at the phrase 'death by twig'.

It sounds brilliant. I shall acquire and indulge forthwith.

Good man.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I consider Starship Troopers one of the greatest ever genre movies made. Although I don't think it's universally considered a 'bad movie', so maybe it doesn't count.

I'm also a big fan of Predator 2. Maybe that fits in with 'sequels that are better than the originals' rather than 'good' bad movies. Anyway it's a better film because Danny Glover is a much more convincing and charismatic lead than Schwarzenegger. Plus the setting of LA is a great parallel and extension to the originals jungle setting, and the gang warfare angle adds an extra dimension. A better supporting cast as well, and some great movie catchphrases that still reverberate today indicate a better script:

"Fucking voodoo magic man!"

"Want some candy?"

"But you know what? I tell you what I believe: shit happens!"

"OK pussyface, it's your move"

[Serge]

Velvet Goldmine. Not a guilty pleasure at all, I love it and genuinely can't understand why it got so many bad reviews, Brian Molko and Ewan McGregor's accent aside. Oh, and Eddie Izzard... apart from all of that it's great.

I quite like 'Velvet Goldmine', but Jonathan Rhys Meyers is appalling in it. And surely Molko isn't in it enough to be considered a reason for not liking it?