Everybody loves bad movies. Search your heart, you know this to be true. Audiences cannot help themselves when they see ahot, flaming piece of garbagemaking its way to movies or streaming services. It’s like trying to look away from a car accident, or averting your gaze from a really disgusting bug. The worse, the better. We all simply must have it. But, just to make things clear, it isn’t just any stinky old movie that fits these criteria. No,when we say people love bad movies, we mean a very specific kind of bad. It’s a kind of trash that should be considered a genre of its own, that should have a separate section on streaming platforms, kind of like dramas andhorror films. We’re talking about a select group of movies that are usually known by the long-ish name of"so bad, they’re good.“Most recentlyrepresented byRich Lee’sWar of the Worlds, an Amazon informercial barely disguised as a sci-fi flick, this category of films is basically as old as cinema itself, and viewers just can’t enough of them.
From old-timey cult classics likeEd Wood’sPlan 9 from Outer Spaceto modern VFX fests likeCats, from action romps likeRoad Houseto would-be serious dramas like, of course,The Room, the world of “so bad, they’re good” movies is as vast as one can imagine. This owes to the highly individual quality of the genre, for while there are some films that are unanimous among the true admirers of “so bad, they’re good” films, each connoisseur adds their own personal choices to the canon. IsTomas Alfredson’sThe Snowmanso bad that it becomes a great watch, or is it just a boring detective drama? IsMark Waters’Vampire Academya secret stroke of genius or just another failed teenage rom-com involving the supernatural? While a line as brilliant as “Dimitri might be a god, but I’m an atheist with a big gun” might point us in some directions, opinions may vary. Still,that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a secret to making a movie so bad it becomes good again. It’s just that this secret isn’t an easy one to uncover.
There are, of course, many elements that help a movie become as bad as the ones we’re talking about here. However, none of them are quite what makes those movies tick — or, rather, not tick. One could argue that a low production value is what ultimately dooms a movie to “so bad, they’re good” territory, but that isn’t exactly true. In reality, audiences can forgive many a wonky costume or poorly-made special effects as long as they have a good story in their hands. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten years of amazing episodes coming out of shows likeStar TrekorDoctor Who. Besides, there’s no doubt that there was a lot of money thrown into messes likeMorbiusandMadame Web. The same goes for the absurdity of the plot. Sure, the premise ofCatsmay be enough to make your skin crawl, but in a world in which we are gettinga sequel to a story in which a dog becomes a basketball star, is making sense truly what matters the most? Of course not. Thus,while all these things may factor in when it comes to making a movie so bad, it’s good, none of them are key to the whole experience. The real X factor lies in how the people crafting the story handle its tone.
“So bad, they’re good” movies usually fail terribly in conveying the proper tone of the story, usuallyeliciting laughter instead of the reaction desiredby the writers and the director. In other words,we become fans of “so bad, they’re good” movies because they are turned from drama,horror, or adventure into comedy.This is why it’s so hard for a proper bad comedy to do this 180. Now, how this tonal deficiency comes to pass is another matter entirely. Usually, it is something that runs through all the film’s departments, but, sometimes, we can catch a glimpse of what exactly went wrong. Take, for instance,Road House, an ’80s classic starringPatrick Swayzethat has a story so flimsily built and fight sequences so over-the-top that it’s hard to take it seriously as an action flick. It’s a clearly different case fromThe Room,a movie doomed by its performances and its woe-is-me kind of plot. Both cases are different fromCats, a film based on a respected IP ridden with A-listers that just cannot get through to audiences due to its bizarre work of make-up and CGI.
All of those things are quite unlike one another. And, yet, they function virtually in the same way. Instead of cheering for Swayze’s James Dalton, crying alongsideTommy Wiseau’s Johnny, or brimming with hope asFrancesca Hayward’s Victoria learns about the Jellicle Choice, we laugh. Therefore, the movie becomes something else. Sure, after many watches, we may learn to recognize the earnestness that went into crafting such a film. We may even start loving it for what it purports to be. Butour initial reaction will always be to laugh, either joyously or in complete disbelief. It is that gut reaction, so contrary to what the film was hoping you would feel, that defines a movie as “so bad, it’s good.”
Sometimes, there is a performer or two that understands what is going onin the middle of principal photography. That’s when we get truly masterful, memorable campy performances, such asPaul Freeman’s in1995’sMighty Morphin Power RangersorMatt Smith’s inMorbius. However, more often than not, actors don’t know what they’re in for and try to give their best to a movie that didn’t actually deserve them.Faye Dunaway’s performance in the reviled cult-classicMommie Dearestalmost killed her career, and we can’t help but feel sorry forJennifer Hudsonas she delivers the most beautiful rendition of “Memory” in a movie in whichRebel Wilsondances with human-looking cockroaches.
Another thing that should be taken into consideration is thatsome films are bad on purpose. And, if that’s the case, should they even be considered “so bad, they’re good?” There is a lot of debate going on surroundingWar of the Worldsand whether Rich Lee and Prime Video messed up the job to create a buzz around his film, but, again, this is nothing new. Take, for instance, a movie likeSharknado, which was made with the least resources and the most absurd of plots in mind, and takes advantage of it by crafting what is actually a pastiche of a disaster film, poking fun atJawsandTwisterand everything else that might fall between these lines. When we look at such a movie, is it even fair to put it in the same box asCatsorThe Room? Or should we consider it a successful parody?
It’s hard to draw a line separating earnestness from irony when it comes to bad movies. And it is a fact that production companies might often put their money on purposefully “bad” projects. However, this doesn’t necessarily work. Upon realizing that people were starting to take an interest inMorbiusbecause of how bad it was,Sony tried to bring it back to theaters, but the movie still failed. This goes to show that not every “so bad, it’s good” movie has it in them to become a cult classic, and that executives don’t hold a secret recipe to creating a truly trashy success. In the end,“so bad, they’re good” movies still belong to the people. They are, after all, not a product of their inception, but of how they are received.
War of the Worlds
