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What is your favorite “so bad it’s good” movie?
We all have that one special movie that makes other people raise their eyebrows. Maybe it’s a movie they just don’t get, maybe it’s super campy, or maybe it really is bad but it still owns some real estate in your heart for your own reasons.
Mine is the obscure ‘Saturday the 14th Strikes Back’. It truly is awful. It has nothing to do with its horror parody prequel, the acting is uneven, the story is unmoored - but it’s zany. Lots of unexpected absurdities. I won’t force this movie on anyone, but it was a regular comfort rental for me back in the day.
So, what’s yours?
The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension. The title alone still makes me giddy. It is pure 80s sci-fi-spoof cheesy goodness. I wouldn’t even consider it bad since as a satire it is GOLD.
The title sounds AMAZING. Just looked it up - what a cast!
The music in the end credit walking scene is just amazing.
I remember a youtuber talking about how the movie is filled with lore. Even the title "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension" makes it sound like it's just another entry in the Buckaroo Bonzai franchice. Throughout there were all those things hinting a to earlier stories, only, those never were. The youtuber suggested that current Marvel/DC movies for a future audience would look just as outlandish, since those future viewers would see them out of context.
Gotta go with Starship Troopers. It's so corny and the acting is not great at all. All the propaganda cut scenes, the "football" game, the terrible romances, and gratuitous violence. But I love every second of it and will always recommend it to everyone. I have always described it as the best worst movie of all time.
"The enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand! Medic!"
I don't know that Star Ship Troopers is bad in the conventional sense, it is a deliberately campy movie made by an accomplished filmmaker. Your response is more or less what Paul Verhoeven was going for. He did RoboCop and Total Recall in the same vein. It's "bad" in the sense that many people subjectively do not like camp, but it's not bad in the sense that the movie fails to accomplish what it set out to do.
When I think "so bad it's good", I'm picturing movies that are poorly made, yet ultimately likeable for reasons not originally intended by the filmmakers. Birdemic is a good example.
I definitely see your point. Although I think Robocop and Total Recall were much better films, campy is a great word to describe them all. For some reason Starship Troopers will always be the that movie that is way better than it should be imo. There is certainly much worse out there, but other than shock value or laughs, I'd have a hard time recommending any of them. Although, Cocaine Bear is pretty close to that level lol.
I think it could be argued that the actors hired to play the main protagonists in SST gave extremely wooden performances. But I also believe that PV hired these actors deliberately for their lack of acting skill (I don't think the actors were aware of how their performances would be read) and blandly attractive looks to go with the themes of the film (and it worked quite well). So it qualifies for a "bad" film in one sense. Robocop,.however, I would not call bad in any way - everything was well done including the acring.
Almost any Paul Verhoeven film, really. Similar sensibilities or lack thereof.
The Core.
It leans heavily into the bad science and successfully comes out the other side. It may be slightly ridiculous, but it has lasers, magic spacesuits (earthsuits?), global peril and it’s by far my favourite film that features unobtainium. The material makes everything difficult in the film work - I can understand why future humans go to so much effort to mine it on Pandora (on the assumption there is an unobtainium-verse…)
Glad to see this one on the list. It's one of the most ridiculous disaster films ever made and I love it. I think it pairs beautifully with 2012 which even manages to top The Core for pure over-the-top apocalyptic insanity. 2012 follows the disney-family-film formula which makes the end of the world even more unintentionally hilarious. Woody at Yellowstone was peak disaster kitsch for me.
Easily one of the best Bad Science sci-fi movies, and I love how serious the performances are. The sillier the concept, the more serious the characters have to take themselves for it to work, and they all did a marvelous job. Like when Aaron Eckhart, after describing what's coming, says with absolute convincing desperation: "Feel free to throw up. I did."
I was an extra in the bar fight scene (although I was cut out of the final edit). When Jesus gets up on stage, he notices that most of the crowd are vampires since they don't cast a reflection in the mirror. I was one of the few non-vampires.
A friend of mine knew a few of the crew and let me know that they needed a few people to hang out at the Dominion Tavern until 5 in the morning for a movie shoot. I was going to do that anyway, so why not be in a movie at the same time?
This sounds like a mad libs movie description. And I am adding it to my “to watch” list.
I know it's a common answer, but The Room.
I cannot believe this movie turns 20 this year. Somehow this became the Millenial Rocky Horror Picture Show and I couldn’t be happier about it. Seeing it in a theater with all the heckling and throwing of spoons is a raucously good time. If there is a showing near you I highly recommend you attend (don’t forget your football! Can’t bond with your fellow males without tossing around the old pigskin)
I think the reason this is such an enduring classic of “so bad it’s good” is that for all that the The Room is, it is also genuine. It is one man’s (bizarre) vision, put to film, a true passion project. There is an authenticity to The Room that elevates it above the likes of other “SBIG” movies like Birdemic or Sharknado that are painfully aware of what they are. The Room, on the other hand, is blissfully oblivious to its own shortcomings, and considers itself to be a tense human drama. So when it fails, it fails spectacularly. It has that beautiful train wreck quality where you can’t look away (though you may try during the love scenes). It’s the kind of comedy you could never make on purpose, because doing it on purpose ruins the joke.
On that note, I’ve seen Tommy Wiseau’s directorial follow-up, Big Shark. I was worried going in that there was no way Tommy catch lightning in a bottle twice, I was convinced he was now too self-aware of his niche within cinema. He’d make it bad on purpose, and it would fall flat on its face. While Big Shark never hits the high highs of the The Room I am pleased to report that it is still a genuine trashterpiece. There is an inherent bizarreness and fundamental misunderstanding of what makes movies work that is rooted deep within Tommy’s brain, so here in his attempt to make a big disaster/monster movie he often focuses more on the interpersonal drama between his characters, with the titular big shark becoming basically an afterthought in its own movie. There are many, many scenes of the male characters hashing out there various relationships only to be interrupted by the sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of a shark that can navigate the urban landscape of New Orleans via flood waters that come and go, which no one in New Orleans, including our core trio of firefighters, seem to care much about, as the partying seems to go on regardless of the inherent danger of man eating shark capable of participating in car chases. There are still scenes that go nowhere, characters that appear for one scene never to be seen again (pretty sure one such actor is an underwear model for Tommy’s side gig hocking boxer briefs with his name on them, and may only be in this movie because they are in a relationship? Unclear!), female characters that exist only to be sexy or nag the male characters, an extended scene at a pig farm (the actor playing the pig farmer is clearly having the time of his life), a song that had the whole audience singing along, and just so, so many strange choices regarding the pacing, motivations, special effects, things a shark is capable of doing, etc. It has convinced me that what makes Tommy so endearing and unique is that he truly doesn’t get how movies work, even bad movies. He tried to make a Sharknado managed to get it so wrong it circled back around and became more than the sum of its parts. He’s a modern day Ed Wood, and I hope he never stops.
Hell Comes to Frogtown. The world has ended. The last fertile females in the wasteland have been captured by the frog people. Only one man can rescue them. That man? Rowdy Roddy Piper.
That would have to be The Last Dragon.
It's a movie I have loved since I was a wee lad. It's sooo bad, but I love it nonetheless.
Here is a recent (spoiler heavy) "review" if you're into that sort of thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k17RRZcgbLI
Who’s the master?
I once saw a person walking around a store with a "Kiss My Converse" shirt. I think I freaked him out a bit with how excited I was to see that in the wild.
Sho’nuff!
Well, this is nothing like I was expecting from the title (using The Last Unicorn as my template)! This looks soooooo hilarious!
I want to second this recommendation. It is definitely worth a watch at least once.
Also , No Retreat, No surrender Surrender fits this category.
The acting is like a live action Mentos commercial with horrible rap, breakdancing, and Kung Fu.
A friend of mine loves these types of movies so I've (mostly reluctantly) seen a lot of them. The ones that have stuck with me the most are are:
Ryan's Babe
Canadian movie that was literally rescued from a dumpster, so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. RedLetterMedia did a best of the worst episode featuring it, it's available for rent here as well. If you rent this you're not allowed to be mad at me, do it at your own risk. Ostensibly a sexy road trip comedy? thriller? movie about the misadventures of a young man named Ryan, following his journey as he flees his home and then tries to make his way back. It DOES have a plot but the bulk of the movie is just "stuff happens to Ryan". Many parts of it were so frustrating I shouted at the television.
Memorable moment: karate strip tease
Anything Neil Breen has made, but my favourite is Fateful Findings - source of this infamous clip
Neil Breen likes to play himself as the saviour of humanity and this is no exception. He is a hacker/novelist who is looking to expose the corruption of national AND international governments (his words). Fun drinking game: take a shot every time he destroys a laptop. Deadly drinking game: take a shot every time he talks about the secrets he is going to expose without elaborating on what they actually are.
Memorable moment: magic is real!
Southland Tales
This one's not really a The Room type, but it's Not Good. Features Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake among others. At 2h25m this baffling sci-fi movie is a true test of your endurance.
Memorable moment: Amy Poehler raps
Southland Tales is really bad and I love it. I think it's biggest problem is tone. This movie doesn't know what it wants to be, so it tries to do everything. But I love all of the over-the-top campy stuff. Watch it. Be confused. Watch it again. Still be confused.
The tone threw me off with the car commercials and all of the SNL cast. There’s a comic that explains parts of the story, but I think the movie works better standalone.
Props for being such a thorough & informed answer to this question!
I"ll add another vote for Southland Tales.
On my first watch I was amazed at the number of stars they had in it, including people I hadn't seen in forever. I really liked the established world and its back story.. I remember the music track being pretty decent/good.
But that ending....OOF (if you know, you know).
I fell into a rabbit hole of research about the people involved in that movie as a result, lol. It was also around this time that I swore off watching any more of Richard Kelly's work.
...that can cause earthquakes in the midair by hitting a plane.
"Assumption is the mother of all fuckups!"
... But that was a die hard script.. why it had a female hostage (supposed to be McClains wife) so they wrote in a niece part.
Die hard 3 was originally lethal weapon, with black side kick, that was re worked and lost the wife bit
Dude, Where's My Car. DUDE! SWEET! Or, "I said Brown." Even Zultan! I laugh so much watching that movie.
So my young child liked "Hey Jude," but being very little pronounced it "Hey Dude." So my family has started singing:
Hey Dude
Where is my car
I don't know dude
Where is your carrr
So on and so forth improved forever.
That is fucking adorable! I read your comment in McCartney's voice and it was so good.
Hey, Dude.
We now use the power of the Continuum Transfunctioner to banish you to Hoboken, New Jersey.
Classic non-sequitur.
Santa Claus conquers the Martians
It's awful! Truly awful! It has almost no redeeming features. The plot is ridiculous. The dialogue is clunky. The acting is abysmal. The special effects aren't special at all. Even for a kids' movie... it's silly.
But I like it. I like a good old Christmas movie (that isn't yet another romcom dressed up in Yuletide trappings). And I like science-fiction. And this movie combines the worst of both genres!
I watch it most Christmases.
And... the best thing is that it's out of copyright, so it's available to watch for free. :)
Oh my gosh, I know this one! Via MST3K, but still. It is everything you described!
The 1993 Super Mario Bros movie. I grew up on the classic Mario games and the N64 spinoffs like Super Smash Bros and Mario Party. As a kid, I vaguely knew there was a Mario movie that I hadn't seen yet. I liked the design consistency between the Nintendo 64 Mario games, so I always imagined that the movie must fit into N64 Mario shared universe. It wasn't until I was in college that I actually got around to watching it (with a few beers), and it felt like a hilarious joke to find it had barely anything to do with the games and that I had been unconsciously reserving space in my understanding of N64 Mario my whole life for this movie.
More recently I discovered the user-made VRChat world "Super Mario Movie Drive-In", which is a life-size rip of Super Mario 64's first level, Bob-omb Battlefield, modified to have a giant movie screen at the top of the mountain dedicated to showing the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie. A ton of Mario and Nintendo 64 characters are arranged in cars to watch the movie too. I get the feeling that the world creator had the same idea I had, that the movie was supposed to fit into the N64 Mario universe, and this world is their way to bridge the gap. This world is one of the places I like showing to people new to VRChat to show the weirdness of its worlds, and I've gotten pulled into watching the whole movie there maybe a half dozen times now.
The movie does have some charm to it. The sets are cool and the actors are all great. It's just filled with a lot of baffling plot and design decisions that make it extra hard to appreciate if you go in with different expectations.
As much as the plot is an acid trip that seems like it was transplanted from somewhere else, the amount of game references in that movie is insane. Virtually every background sign / text / voiceline / extra is a reference to some enemy / level / powerup. Mario does everything from go down a slide to a "kart race". CinemaWins did a video on it a bit a go and it made me want to watch it again.
Easily has to be Birdemic. Such a truly awful movie all the way through, but with a certain sense of humour, it might just be the best comedy film ever created.
slrpnls!
And the blatant shameless promotions for Imagine Peace
Frankenhooker.
A work of unsurpassed genius and exceptional vision.
Like some of the other movies listed here, it knows it's a comedy. It's playing in the space.
But it does it so goddamn well. Patty Mullen, in one of only two film roles, is a delight. Frank Hennenlotter, director of some of the finest crap in cinema, is at the height of his powers.
Frankenhooker is garbage. But it's the tastiest trash anyone could ask for.
I don't see a lot of reviews for Grandma's Boy and its my favorite movie. It has everything for me. I love the comedy and all the actresses/actors. For me it's a movie I can see times over. I never hear people talking about it so I imagine it's not a well perceived movie.
On the opposite end, the worst movie I have ever seen is Alita: Battle Angel. I wanted to leave the movie half way because of how everything was put together. I didn't understand the movie at all because they just rushed through things without getting to the real meat of the different and important scenes. I didn't leave because my partner really enjoyed it, so I kept my thoughts to myself. My family really liked it to and is a family member's favorite movie. That movie makes me mad.
Love Grandmas Boy
I purposely have a youtube clip of Jeff saying "So, yooou're dumb" to send to coworkers
Would Snakes on a plane qualify? It is by no means film masterpiece, if there wasn't Samuel L. Jackson in it, it would be straigh trash. With SLJ it is still trash, but with style!
Not sure if this would be a controversial pick for the "good" descriptor but I love it so I'm gonna say it anyways. Godzilla 1998 is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies. The movie is trying to be like at least 4 different movies at once, and the sheer absurd camp of it is truly a sight to behold. It's a movie I watched very young, so scenes from it are seared into memory, and it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. And I still think it holds up as a great "so bad it's good" movie.
Its got Matthew Broderick who as the main character is going through a Jurassic park style wonder-scifi-nature type flick, a romcom with his love interest, a survival horror flick in the later half, and a spy espionage kind of vibe as well with Jean Reno's character, and then straight thriller at the end. And all of this is wrapped in a layer of camp that's hard to tell if intentional or not, but I certainly lean towards no.
It's a bit of a mess, but I truly do love it all the more for it. And it's got that late 90s vibe that really hits in a visceral way for me. The hair, the New Yorkers, the clothes, the personas, all of it hits so well for me. In some ways it feels very similar to the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man, there's something about that vibe that I can't really put a word too but it truly fascinates me. Highly recommend giving it a watch if you have a few hours to kill and some beers or equivalent good vibes.
Ghost Ship is my jam. My wife think's I'm nuts. She has better taste...
Steve Beck ran special effects for the likes of Spielberg and McTiernan, then directed Thir13en Ghosts and Ghost Ship, and then just... disappeared?
I wish we had gotten more of his weirdo brand of ghost movies haha
Tammy and the T-Rex.
I'm pretty sure this movie was quickly scripted when a producer got unexpected access to a mechanical T-Rex prop. I'm ALSO pretty sure the movie knows it's bad and is having fun with a ludicrous script.
Have fun watching Denise Richards and Paul Walker in their 1st terrible movie.
Showgirls. For the longest time, I felt like it was just sleazy trashtastic cinema (if not a bit nostalgic for me) but as time has passed, I often wonder if it's satire disguised as trash. It's still crap, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely a guilty pleasure for me.
Have you seen Verhoeven's other work? Showgirls is without question satire & intentional.
Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers... Truly a baller run of marvelous, maximalist movies. Five perfect movies in a row over the course of ten years.
I remember being grossed out by Hollow Man as a teenager, because I could see myself in the characters shoes in a way I didn't like. Which I think was common, and therefore the movie became unliked. But I also haven't ever revisited it, and wonder if it is also lacking appropriate praise in retro.
That's entirely possible! I should probably revisit it as well.
His film latest film Benedetta just came out in 2021, and I thought it was fantastic.
So I gave it a rewatch tonight! While I don't think it compares to the other five that I listed before, it's definitely a lot more fun than I remember.
Bacon and Shue are just entertaining to watch. Everyone else is a little boring.
Some of the special effects have aged poorly, but some of them are still surprisingly effective.
Overall I had a good time watching it.
I've seen Total Recall and completely forgot he directed that (and Basic Instinct, too) so thank you for the reminder. I think specifically, as it pertains to Showgirls, I think I always knew it was satire but didn't initially see any artistic or creative value in it. That's started to change over time. First impression is that it's trashy mindless entertainment. But lately, I've been thinking, "...but is it though?" Like, maybe there is some cinematic merit to his work (I often see him being dismissed as a director) and some of us are just too distracted by the sleaze/silliness/campiness.
Master of Disguise. My family loves and quotes that movie so much, but it’s pretty terrible by most accounts.
Am I not Turtle-ly enough for the Turtle Club? But for real, it's like someone said to Dana Carvey: "You are really good at impressions and voices, so we're going to make a movie entirely based on that." Then they did.
I would add Velicipastor.
The synopsis sound like...
After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first horrified by this new power, a prostitute convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.
I admit i enjoyed it more than i thought in the beginning.
I once again ask you to remember Big Trouble in Little China. None of it makes any sense. There's a plot? Why are random people jump kicking across the screen? Why did that dude just explode? The main character is actually the idiot sidekick and comic relief.
Glorious.
One that I am surprised hasn't been mentioned yet is Troll 2. It's a 90s Italian-American horror movie that just makes so many bizarre choices that it's hard to stop from laughing throughout. It's built up such a cult following that some of the actors of it came together and made a documentary called Best Worst Movie. My friends and I used to watch it every year on Halloween.
Sharknado 1 and 2, although that's on purpose.
Storks is a terrible movie. It’s really just not good.
And I love it so much.
I was stuck on a plane with very limited options so I was watching Storks, definitely not enjoying it, right up until the wolves (played by Key and Peele). Then I realised the movie was supposed to be bad and ever since then I’ve enjoyed it a lot—much to the chagrin of my wife.
Have you seen Happy Feet 2?
The Happy Feet movies are surreal ambitious animated musicals directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame.
In the second one, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon play gay krill. They're not even a part of the main story. It just occasionally cuts to two gay krill going through relationship issues.
George Miller is a strange man. I kinda love those movies.
I’ll have to check them out. I’m not going to tell my wife they were recommended because I like storks though!
Surf Ninas. Such a dumb idea but exectued in such a fun way.
Nina Simone and Nina Dobrev are hitting the waves this summer...
It's quite hard to pick one, but I liked I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990). It's a little british splatter comedy which are both over the top and down to earth, if that makes sense.
And then there's Wild Zero (1999) which ... sure, the pacing is all over the place, but it got rock'n roll, a love story, cool hair, zombies, a (spoiler) sliced in half by a guitar-sword ...
Only the Strong. It's terrible and fun in equal measures.
Anything Neil breen (sorta).
The 90s Avengers movie with Sean Connery
Controversial take: The Evil Dead. I know it’s lauded as a hallmark of cult films and horror, but I feel that’s because Sam Raimi’s cinematographic work is absolutely OUTSTANDING in the movie. But, if you take out the exquisite and iconic camera work, the acting is sub-par acting (sorry Bruce Campbell), lackluster plot, and incredibly dated SFX I rate the movie as ‘bad’. Though those are exactly the factors that make it so campy it wraps back around into being good hahah.
Less controversial take: The Velocipastor. A movie that is aware of its campiness and fully embraces it. Not sure if a movie has to be unintentionally bad to fit the criteria posted by OP but this is a fun one to give a watch.
Bruce Campbell's audio commentary for The Evil Dead sets the gold standard for what an audio commentary should be.
Sharknado 3
It's the perfect mix between ridiculousness, humour and persiflage.
Tank Girl
A movie so bad i actually watched it twice because i couldn't believe what i was watching the first time
Tusk is a good bad movie. It's written and directed by Kevin Smith and has some well known actors in it like Justin Long, Michael Parks, and Johnny Depp.
I've watched too many things in this vein not to comment, even if the thread is a day old. Obviously there's The Room, Neil Breen's entire filmography, Samurai Cop, Birdemic, but I just want to shout out some obscure-ish ones, or at least ones I don't see people talk about, that I love. Any of these I recommend wholeheartedly: