Do You Enjoy Watching Bad Movies?
I think I may have asked this question a long while back, but since I’ve been watching several bad movies lately I thought it was prudent to ask the question again. There are a lot of bad movies out there, and there are a lot of articles out there lambasting those same movies. Many of them appear to obviously have been a bad movie before the writer ever decided to watch the movie, so the question becomes “Why did you watch the movie if you knew it was going to be bad?” I can’t answer that question for everybody else, but for myself, it’s because I still enjoy watching them. Even a movie that I wasn’t really looking forward to going into, the Host, I still greatly enjoyed watching it because when those awful moments in the movie showed up, it made me laugh harder than some of the best comedies around. Besides superheroes and sci-fi, there are also plenty of horror movies out there that are atrocious and plenty of sites that are devoted to watching these low budget, occasionally good, but often just plain bad movies.
So my question to you is actually twofold. One is the simple title question “Do you enjoy watching bad movies?” and feel free to qualify that any way you want to. Which brings me to my other point. What is the difference between an enjoyably bad movie, and a movie that you just plain don’t enjoy watching? For me, I think the worst sin a bad movie can make is being boring. And while I can’t think of a specific example, I also don’t like being made uncomfortable. And I don’t mean sitting in a hard chair during a long movie type of uncomfortable, I mean the sex talk with your parents type of uncomfortable. Another movie I watched recently was Summer’s Moon (or Summer’s Blood depending on something or other). It’s a weird little horror/thriller starring Ashley Green made around the same time as the first Twilight movie. It starts off as a hostage/torture movie, where Green gets captured by the smooth talking guy at the bar and put in his “garden” in the basement. But there’s also a weird uncomfortable incestuous relationship thread where the guy’s mother starts getting hot and bothered while listening to the guy and Green going at in in his bedroom. And when he finds out that she’s his half-sister, he continues the sexual relationship with her. Combined with the fact that it’s not a great movie at all, just made me wish I wasn’t watching the movie. Oh, and one more quick question to wrap things up, what is your favorite bad movie to watch, and your least favorite bad movie that you never want to see again? Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.
Posted on May 8, 2013, in Blogs and tagged Blog, discussion, horror, movies. Bookmark the permalink. 33 Comments.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 
My favorite bad movie to watch? Easy, THE GIANT CLAW (1957):
My least favorite bad movie that you never want to see again? Again, my standard answer since I projected first-run back in 1976 – SNUFF.
Man, that is a hideous looking bird. Been a long time since I’ve seen a good old fashioned black and white creature feature.
I do yes. My tagline on my Twitter pages is “I adore bad films as much as the good ones…it’s the ones in between I can’t stand.”
🙂
Nice, I don’t mind mediocre movies as long as they’re entertaining and not boring.
I love bad movies. I have a whole series on my blog called “Classics of the Corn” dedicated to glowing reviews of bad movies. For me, what makes a “bad good” movie different from a just plain bad movie is that it’s still entertaining. Some movies are both corny and dull. To paraphrase Ghost World, they’re so bad that they go past good and back to bad again. If a film is corny but hilariously so, on the other hand, it’s well worth watching!
If I had more of a graphic design background, I should really make a graph showing the level of a movie’s badness vs. the entertainment value of that badness. I’ll take a fun bad movie over an average movie anyday.
Sometimes I do. I enjoy seeking out the cheesy-bad types of films; it’s the main reason the Morbid Curiosity Files on my site exist. Movies that are inept but really earnest can be a lot of fun to watch.
What I can’t stand are the films that are simply dull, or deliberately awkward, or which are just plain insulting. The ones that think they really are the greatest thing in cinema, or at least their genre, but which use every cloying cliche that anybody with an ounce of maturity has discarded decades ago.
It’s kind of funny to talk about a movie like it knows what it is, and yet a movie that knows it’s bad can be great, but a movie that think’s it’s great is just annoying.
If a film is really bad I can enjoy having a laugh at it, I actually hate average films a lot more because I find them boring. One way or another I want to be entertained 😀
I totally hear you. The worst crime a film can commit is being boring. Good or laughably bad are both fun to watch.
Indeed 😀
Totally agree that average films can be worse than really bad films.
I do enjoy watching some bad films. Not all bad films are enjoyable though. Some bad films are just, well, bad.
A friend and I regularly like to check out cinematic turkeys in the cinema. Sometimes we have a superb time, other times it’s just a grim and expensive experience.
We’ve often debated what makes a classic bad film. We’ve concluded that the ‘good bad films’ are all about the gap between ambition and execution. The further the gap between ambition and execution the more likely it is to be a ‘good bad film’.
It needs one or a number of elements. It needs a director who is in some way over-reaching themselves. It needs actors who are giving performance utterly out of keeping (either by overplaying or underplaying) with what the role demands.
Again, thinking about the gap between ambition and execution, the central idea of the film also needs to be out of keeping with the concerns of the characters. So for instance, a film where the world’s about to be destroyed and the lead character’s obsessed about finding their dog.
You’ve obviously put a lot more thought into this than I have. I often thought that there’s this undefinable quality that makes a bad film good, when there’s enough failure in a movie to build it into a train wreck you can’t look away from.
Of course! Discussing bad movies is much more fun than discussing good ones. It helps if you watch with a friend and make funny comments throughout, like MST3K but funny.
Discussions of bad movies are definitely easier to create. Often times discussions of great movies amount to “Wasn’t that movie great?” “Yeah, it was really great!” But there’s so much more to talk about when it’s just awful.
Very much so. I find there’s nothing more fun than ragging on something vile. Those posts also tend to get a lot of discussions in the comments sections which make it even more fun.
And, of course, tons of fodder for my film festival : )
Yeah, nothing brings out discussion like a really bad movie. Been enjoying a lot of the posts in your film festival so far.
You and me both!!
I don’t really enjoy bad movies, I do enjoy good movies that most other people would think are bad 🙂 Hey Le0pard13, that is one stupid looking bird… and that is one bad movie!!
That’s one way to put it, though I definitely make a distinction between a movie that I enjoy because it’s good and a movie I enjoy because it’s bad.
yeah, your right. There are some bad movies I like because of how bad and cheesy they are. But I’m not a huge fan of that.
I love “so bad they’re good” movies like The Room, Troll 2 and Samurai Cop. I have issues when a film is just so bad it’s boring, i.e. Showgirls. I really wish I had been drinking for that movie — no amount of nudity could save that one.
I’ve heard from many people who love Showgirls in a so-bad-it’s-good way. Haven’t seen any of those myself yet, though I think I would love the Room.
There’s “good-bad,” which let’s you laugh at how ridiculous it is despite it’s sincerity, and “bad-bad” which is just lazy film-making. I LOVE “good-bad” movies from “The Asylum.” Especially enjoyable are they’re “mock-busters” of popular movies out.
I think you actually hit on an important point. “Laziness”. It’s the lazy movies that tend to be bad and boring, but when people pour their passion into a project where they lack the talent, it creates a vortex of terrible awesomeness.
Talking about the distance between passion and talent, you’re in the same territory as “gap theory”.
I completely agree about “lazy movies” they are bad and boring
I love “bad” movies, as long as they’re entertaining. My own tastes lean towards low-budget films because I enjoy seeing what people are able to accomplish without grand resources. I also like these movies because oftentimes I have no idea what to expect, and they usually offer some good laughs. But I really respect B-Movies and many of them are better than people give them credit for, so I always try to laugh with the movie and I rarely think of them as “bad” movies.
I generally stay away from mainstream bad movies, though, as I find those largely uninteresting. Like the Twilight films, I will never watch. I can’t even imagine it.
Yeah, I often try to stay away from the big budget bad movies, like Battleship. Though I did somewhat enjoy John Carter. I’ve seen a lot of amazing low budget movies that I enjoy on a variety of levels, but there are so many more that just stick with the so-bad-they’re-good mentality.
That’s a good question. I think it depends entirely on my mood.
Good to see you doing well Bubba.
Yeah, there are definitely times when I’m not in the mood for a bad movie, even a good-bad movie. Thanks for stopping by, love the new look on Mezzanine by the way.
If the movie is so bad that it’s good, then yes. I love me some terrible movies. For example, I love watching Uwe Boll’s House Of The Dead whenever I can. Another favorite: Resident Evil: Afterlife. There are tons of giggle worthy scenes there.
I’ve yet to watch any of Uwe Boll’s ouvre. I’ve generally enjoyed the Resident Evil movies though I’ve only made it to the third title in the series. It’s a completely different experience watching the terrible movies, but sometimes it’s worth it.