So Bad It's....

I’ve decided to start a new segment to my blog. But it requires a set of rules and ideas that need to be speculated. “So Bad It’s…” is going to be a dedication to one of my favorite kinds of film - bad movies. Bad movies make us laugh, they leave us speechless, they even leave us wondering who on earth would think this movie could possibly have been enjoyed by a human being. In the past few decades, the idea of movies that are so bad they’re good has gained an enormous following, from large budget pictures to straight-to-dvd bargain bin pieces of garbage. We love to hate them, but more importantly, we love to defend them.

But there’s a problem here. What makes a movie so bad it’s good?

It’s a phrase thrown around far too much. People go and see a bad movie and declare that you just HAVE to see it, you won’t believe how bad it is! But there’s an obvious distinction - will the film stand the test of time? Will you think it’s as funny the next time around? Will it be as fun to show your friends that one inebriated night? 

Obviously this all comes down to personal taste. I can’t argue with that. But I can argue a few things. There are absolutely traits that all so-bad-they’re-good movies have. Although they can break the rules, I have yet to find a movie that doesn’t follow most of these, if not all of them. They’re my guiding force. If I like a bad movie, I can usually point my reasoning back to these three key traits:

1. It has to work on SOME level

That doesn’t mean it has to have good qualities. But it MUST have the ability to do something. A lot of times, we go into a movie that makes us laugh because it’s bad. But if we’re laughing because it’s recognizably terrible, that doesn’t necessarily make it memorably bad. There are bad movies out there, like The Room, which do succeed as comedies from being absolutely terrible. But there are movies out there, like this years I, Frankenstein, that are ridiculous and campy but forgettably horrible. There’s not a laugh to be found. Plain and simple, it doesn’t work.

2. It has to be genuine. 

A lot of times, movies like Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Birdemic, Sharknado, etc., are all called “so-bad-they’re-good”. But I completely disagree. These movies to me monopolize on bad movies, that cater to the culture that loves to love bad movies. Frankly, they bore me. 

These films work on a title - that’s the only thing that carries the movie. Sharknado even has the tagline "ENOUGH SAID!". These monopolize on the popularity of bad movies like The room, hoping to cash in a bit using hilarious titles to pull you in. But if they’re made this way, there’s no heart to it, no man actually thinking he made a brilliant movie. That shines through a lot more than you’d expect. It has to be genuine.

3. It must be quotable.

“You are tearing me apart, Lisa!!!” - The Room
“Oh you like that don’t you?!?! GOOOOOOOD.” - Dungeons and Dragons The Movie
“We’ve got the kitchen sinks to spare, son!!” - The Giant Claw
“The baby he was baptizing, he almost drowned.” “He’s been under a lot of stress lately!” - The Devil Inside

Every great bad movie has at least one quotable line. Sometimes you get the rare exception, such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, where the sheer poor quality of the filmmaking is laughable. But I think quotability is one of the most important parts of a so-bad-it’s-good movie. It lets us keep talking after the movie, lets us have our fun by mimicking the actors. 

4. It must be rewatchable 

Any movie that’s only funny once is not so bad it’s good. It’s happened plenty of times to me, I find a movie I laughed super hard at and get my hands on it to watch it with all of my friends. We start watching it and…where’d the laughs go? If it’s not rewatchable, then whats the point of a following? The point of a great bad movie is to be able to show it to others and convince them of the horrors.

These are my own thoughts on a so-bad-it’s-good movie, and this will be my guiding structure to discuss movies that cross my path being called “so-bad-it’s-good”. And from there, we’ll see what I think of them by giving them a rank! However, the ranking system will work on a scale of three rather than five. Those ranks are -

Good - If it’s “So bad it’s…” “good”, then that means I found entertainment out of it. I don’t want to get into nitpicking of these movies as they mean different things and different comedic levels to everyone. But if I find value in it, then it’s So Bad It’s “Good”

Forgettable - If a film is “So bad it’s…” “forgettable”, that means I didn’t find any value or anything that terrible in the film I was watching. It doesn’t mean that it’s good, ever. But it does mean that it’s a movie I’d walk out of the theatre forgetting pretty quickly. A forgettable movie is not a good movie in any respect.

Terrible - If I say a film is terrible, then that means it’s just bad. These are movies that are memorably terrible, but give me no sense of enjoyment at all. Movies like this don’t succeed on any of the levels that I discussed, and only serve as examples of how to not make films. If this is a “terrible” movie, then there is nothing worth taking away.

My first review in this style will be posted today, as I discuss one of the most obviously popular bad movies of all time - Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”! From there on, I’ll be picking a movie a week to watch, a movie that the internet has dubbed “so-bad-it’s-good”, and we’ll keep it going as long as I have material!