This past Saturday, a friend hosted dinner and a movie for around a dozen people. The plan was to watch a Halloween-season movie; something thematic but not necessarily scary.
I found it interesting during the discussion about what we should watch that almost every movie people proposed was over 30 years old (The Witches, The Thing, Hocus Pocus, etc). Nostalgia seemed to be a strong factor.
There were also some movies proposed because they fell into the “it’s so bad its good” category (like Evil Dead or the Cats movie). “Bad” isn’t entirely the right word–“campy”, “over the top”, and “weird” are more accurate and less subjective. There was quite a bit of enthusiasm for these types of movies among these friends.
However, I realized during the discussion that I would much prefer to watch a solid, good, or great movie. If I’m going to spend 2 hours watching a film, I want the appeal to be that I’m entertained in the way the director wanted to entertain the audience, not an unintentional ribbing.
We still ended up going with an older movie, Clue, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it held up. There’s plenty of silliness in the humor, but it’s all intended–we were laughing at the jokes created by the director, writer, and actors.
Do you like movies that are “so bad they’re good”? Or do you prefer to watch films that try to be good and largely accomplish that goal?
I don’t like “Bad” movies. To me they’re just bad. One of those movies I was convinced to watch was Sharknado. Was it ridiculously bad with some stupidly funny moments? Yes. Do I want those 85 minutes of my life back? Hell yes.
That’s how I feel about “Happy Gilmore” and “Swiss Army Man.” The latter being really disappointing because it stars Daniel Radcliffe.
I absolutely adore movies that are “so bad, they are good.” As a video gamer, I really enjoy the original Mario Movie and the Street Fighter movies, and Jeremy Irons makes the original Dungeons and Dragons enjoyable for me.
A good movie is just that, a good movie. But a campy bad movie gives you memories and quotes that last forever!
Usually I like watching better quality movies, but after bingeing The Handmaid’s Tale, I needed something less serious. I opted for Ready or Not (2019) which is about a woman who marries into a family that got its wealth from selling board games. It was OK.
We had fun with Ready or Not! For me, I wouldn’t put it in the “bad/campy” category.
My husband is the one who truly loves the bad horror movies, although I found “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” to be endearing in some spots – definitely comical as well.
My mother and I used to watch some off-the-wall movies. Some of the most memorable are “Eating Raul,” “Return of the Living Dead,” (a true fave of mine) and “Reanimator” if you want to see something that was supposed to be so violent and scary that it had an NC17 rating. That last one… I was out of school due to Mono, and my mom took me to see Reanimator in the middle of the day. I was only 13, but she was with me. We were shocked when we were turned away. We ended up going back the next day with Mom resolved to lie for me, which is something she never, ever did. Nobody asked a thing about my age that day, so we got in just fine. We laughed and laughed through that dumb movie. FFWD to now and I made my husband watch it a few years ago because I was floored he hadn’t seen “Reanimator.”
For me… I absolutely love “Ace Ventura” movies, the original “Dumb and Dumber,” “Wayne’s World,” and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” which are all fairly bad, but I love them.
I thought Tucker and Dale vs. Evil was really clever. 🙂 I also really enjoyed Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, and Wayne’s World. They’re silly, but they’re trying to make us laugh (I’d put them in a different category than movies that are “bad” in ways that the audience is laughing at the quality of the movie itself).