There are two very distinct types of bad movies: the good bad movies and the bad bad movies. A lot of people, including myself, love good bad movies, but no one likes bad bad movies. Let me explain.
This was all prompted by two movies I watched last week – In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and C.H.U.D. Neither of them are ever going to win an Academy Award, but one is far superior to the other.
We watched In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale because it looked big-budget bad and because behind The Love Guru, it was nominated for the most razzies (anti-Oscars) this year. Uwe Boll, the director, really knows how to make terrible movies, but not terrible in ways you want to see. Nothing about this movie was redeeming, which is why it’s only fitting that he’s winning the lifetime achievement award at the Razzies this year. This is the type of movie that if I was watching it alone, it wouldn’t have stayed on the television (and I hardly ever turn off movies); watching with friends allowed me to pick on anything and everything in the movie.
On the other hand, C.H.U.D. was bad in a phenomenally good way. This isn’t the best example for a good bad movie (because it wasn’t actually too bad hen the monsters weren’t on the screen) but it still serves the point. There are lots of movies and filmmakers out there who don’t necessarily set out to make a great movie… either that, or they fail so miserably at making a good movie that you think they were making a bad movie. I don’t think the people making C.H.U.D. had any expectations that people would take it seriously, which is why it worked so well. It’s a cult classic for a reason.
The growing trend in Hollywood these days is to remake classic horror movies from the 1980s. These are bad bad movies. There’s nothing good about them. There’s no substance, there’s no entertainment value, there’s nothing. I can only wish that people made good bad movies instead of these bad bad movies. Maybe that way I’d go see them.
I think a perfect example of a recent good bad movie (and by good I mean incredible) is Grindhouse. It’s currently my favorite movie of all time – it’s not by any means the best movie I’ve ever seen (personally I think that’s Pulp Fiction) but it’s the movie that I’d put on regardless of what else was on TV. Anyway, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino did a great job (in this case, Rodriguez more so) of making a movie where they took nothing seriously and put out a fantastically entertaining product. They weren’t trying to scare people (like new horror) and they weren’t going for awards – they were just having fun with it, and that’s why I love it.
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