Everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say a “good” bad movie. It’s something that is so over-the-top, so terribly acted, so aggressively BAD that it comes all the way back around to being great. I’m talking about movies like “Troll 2”, “The Room”, & “Birdemic”.
Movies like these are classics that I come back to time after time, but I would never call it a good movie. So what makes it so enjoyable? To me, it’s a combination of two things; sincerity, and imagination.
Sincerity is key to these movies. Without that genuineness, the movie comes off as cloying, or pandering. It’s like that guy at a party who, when he finally gets the joke that everyone has been laughing at, won’t shut up about it. This personification of an insincere bad movie makes it less enjoyable for everyone, because he just thinks it’s what we want. But it’s not. So much of the joy comes from laughing at the fact that these actors, that director, everyone involved looked at the finished scene and went “we did it. This is the one. Print it!” If George Hardy didn’t think he was being threatening when he yelled “You can’t piss on hospitality, I won’t allow it!”, it would have just been bad writing. But because he BELIEVED in his role, and the movie, it gets elevated to b-movie glory.
Imagination is a tough one. Some directors feel that the bigger a budget, the less constrained you are, and the less imagination is required in your movie. This is another reason why bad-on-purpose movies are typically just bad; they have more budget than the Tommy Wiseaus of the world, and the weird middling polish of the movie means it looks too good for a terrible movie, and awful for a good movie. And even Tommy Wiseau had a pretty substantial budget, all things considered. He made his movie for $6 million; “Troll 2” only had $200,000, “Death Bed, The Bed that Eats” had $30,000, and “Birdemic: Shock and Terror” had a mere $10,000! These movies all had to find ways AROUND these budgets, and that leads to incredible scenes like obvious green screen birds being fought off with a clothes hangar.
What I’m trying to say is that the worst thing a movie can be is boring. That’s why so many of these passion project movies are fun; we are swept up in the sincerity and imagination of them. So spare me from the “Quigley”s or the Uwe Boll films of the world. The insincerity oozes off those like stomach acid off a death bed, the bed that eats. I’ll be right here, watching action stars who only have a green belt do a sweet jump kick off a roof with no stunt doubles, because who can afford stunt doubles? And I hope you’ll join me in enjoying a good, bad movie.
so lifelike!
