Types of Bad Movies . . .

[indianasmith]

How do you classify bad movies?  (beyond the actual genre of the film)

Here are the broad categories I use:

Bad good movies - these are films that were intended to be serious mainstream movies that wound up being awful and unwatchable.  That horrid fashion industry film, "Ready to Wear", for instance, or "Waterworld", or even (no one shoot me please) that absolutely  awful "Gangs of New York."

Deliberately bad movies - these are the ones most of us savor, deliberately awful, campy, low budget movies put out by companies like Troma and Brain Damage Films.  These I subdivide into -

  Good bad movies - these are just campy and fun, and accomplish the goal they set out to.  "The Lost Empire", "Toxic Avenger" (the original), "Cadaverella" - they are just so awful you love them.

  Bad bad movies - these films are so over-the-top in their awfulness they wind  up being unwatchable, or else they were filmed by someone on drugs who has no CLUE what they are doing.  Brain Damage Films did a piece of drek called "Pony Trouble" that falls into this category recently.

Anyway, just a random musing on a Wednesday.  How do YOU divide your bad movies up?

[DodgingGrunge]

Classification depends on whether or not I am trying to pitch a particular film to a group of people or merely file away my opinion to the recesses of semantic memory.  For my personal use, I really only use the terms "good bad" and "bad bad".  And really it only applies to my overall enjoyment, having nothing to do with budget, resources, or the intent of the filmmakers.  Obviously, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was made to be bad, but because I enjoyed it, it is "good bad".  Star Wars: Phantom Menace, which made me wish I had a chloroform hanky to breath into, is "bad bad".  I won't rewatch "bad bad" movies.  Plain and simple.

But when I'm trying to introduce friends or enemies to one bad movie or another, I tend to string a bunch of slapdash references together to serve as a single adjective.  "Oh man!  You've got to see Wild Zero!  It's a zombie-Guitar-Wolf-Rock-N-Roll-Highschool-Sans-Ramones-But-Aliens-Great-Hair-Transexual-Romance-Thriller!"  People don't tend to argue so long as I sound enthusiastic.  "Oh man, you haven't seen C.H.U.D.?!?!  That's by far the best Toxic-Homeless-Cannibal-Government-Coverup-Samurai-Sword-Decapitation-Soup-Kitchen-Daniel-Stern film ever made!"

And then there's Italian horror.   

[soylentgreen]

Ya know...I've never quite figured out just what everyones problem is with WATERWORLD.

Sure, it's no masterpiece....but it's also far from the cinematic mess everyone seems to say.  Granted, I know when someone is just parroting a 'poo-poo' from another source and most likely has not even seen the film themselves, but it's a bit frustrating when common sense says that the film is just nowhere near as bad as people love to claim.

[Fausto]

"Oh man!  You've got to see Wild Zero!  It's a zombie-Guitar-Wolf-Rock-N-Roll-Highschool-Sans-Ramones-But-Aliens-Great-Hair-Transexual-Romance-Thriller!"


You get a karma point just for mentioning Wild Zero; this was an awesome movie, and highly recommended. We watched it at a college b-film meeting, which probably saved our lives-we played the DVD drinking game with soda (where you take a drink everytime a line is said or a zombie gets killed or the guy brushes his hair, etc.); I'm convinced that, had we used actual alchohol, we would have died from poisoning.

[RCMerchant]

Personally...I hardly ever use the term,"bad"...for example:
BLOOD FREAK-If I was to describe this to my wifey...she would ask..."what are you watching?"." Oh-some guy turned into a turkey monster and is killing potheads and drinking their blood!" "
Tara Sue: "OH GAWD! One of your cheezy movies again!!!"
" No! It's GOOD! REALLY! No. Really. It is."
Or...if I'm watching some lousy piece of boring s**t like...ohhh...I dunno...I DISMEMBER MAMA( don't let the title fool you...it sucks.) 
I would saw..." Some lame ass sh!t.Maybe we could give it to Goodwill...or something."
And then theres intentional bad....movies that TRY to be cool by being "bad". Like...ROCKY HORROR. I don't care for these,because it seems like ...oh...I dunno...a faked orgasm? I dunno...it doesn't work for me. TROMA films are the big exception...of course,I've only seen a few of theirs...so whatta I know?

[ghouck]

Ya know...I've never quite figured out just what everyones problem is with WATERWORLD.

I've only seen part of it, and I didn't think it was that bad, it's been a while though, and I don't remember it other than I thought I'd watch it all some day. Obviously, it wasn't good enough for me to remember to pick it up, , but I didn't think it was THAT bad. . Kinda Mad Max in a boat, , with gills, , drinking pee. . .

[Coffin Joe]

*snip*
Wild Zero
*snip*

Tear for Base Wolf.

I don't even try to categorize them to my friends anymore. Now they usually know to ask "Is this one of your movies?".
And the brunet from Blood Freak is damn cute.

[DodgingGrunge]

I'm convinced that, had we used actual alchohol, we would have died from poisoning.

It is one of the most effective drinking games ever invented, to be sure.  Even something as modest as PBR will have you ranting and raving, rollerskating in the buff against traffic, chasing imaginary creatures with imaginary weaponry at 3AM, to the dismay of the friends trying to restrain you.

The first time we tried this, we alternated between Vodka and Tequila shots.  Plan was to watch three or four zombie films, but none of us made it beyond the halfway point of Wild Zero.  Haha.

[Oldskool138]

My favorite Deliberately Bad Movie is The Skeleton of Cadavera!  They captured the spirit and foolishness of low-budget sci-fi movies of the 50's.  Fay Masterson is HOT!    The dialog is priceless.  "....Oh well",

Ranger Brad- "Well again I didn't mean to throw a damper. Believe me that's the last thing I'd like to throw. I don't want to throw anything at all really. But when folks are horribly mutilated, I feel it's my job to tell others. We take our horrible mutilations seriously up in these parts".

Turgasso getting wasted.  Just funny, funny stuff.  I hope the director can find a distributor or exec producer for his "sequel" Trail of the Screaming Forehead featuring most of the cast of Cadavera but it's a jab at '60's alien invasion movies.

[peter johnson]

Psst . . . indianasmith . . .
Get another Avatar:  That one's Menard's . . .
* * *
     Another post on the elusiveness of a Universal Taste.  I actually think that the category divisions you give here are okay, HOWEVER, I could never ever put "Gangs of New York" into any "bad" category.
     I own the super-special-extended-director's-orgasm DVD of the film, and can and have rewatched the scene where Daniel Day Lewis confronts Leonardo DiCaprio in bed too many times to mention.  Speaking as an actor, that is one pure example of what actors are always told about "being in the moment".  In fact, Daniel Day Lewis is so freaking good in this that his performance overshadows other shortcomings the film possesses.
     While even Scorcese ultimately expressed some disappointment with the final product, there are just too many moments of high drama in there for me to classify it as "bad", in the same sense that "The Devil Wears Prada", another mainstream big-budget Hollywood film, is dead-animal-rotting-in-the-sun wretched.
peter johnson/denny crane

[indianasmith]

I tried to upload a personal avatar picture, but it didn't work.  Which ones in the set that's offered AREN'T taken?  I don't want to start my tenure on this board by alienating someone!

[Andrew]

I tried to upload a personal avatar picture, but it didn't work.  Which ones in the set that's offered AREN'T taken?  I don't want to start my tenure on this board by alienating someone!

I doubt you could ever actually alienate Menard (he hasn't been around yet, but you'll see) unless you chase him with a cross and holy water.  We're going to have some avatar overlapping at times, sooner or later.  I've been steadily adding avatars to the "Badmovies_Movies" set in there, but identifying an avatar that nobody else is using is probably not something to worry about too much.

If you tried uploading your own and it did not work, then it must have been larger than 100 pixels by 100 pixels or greater than 30 KB in size.  If you email it to me, I'll take a look and see if I can modify it for you to work.  About the only time I cannot is when they are animated gifs. 

[Newt]

Categorizing movies can be highly personal.

However, my main difficulty arises at the most basic level: my kids want to know why I call them "Bad Movies" when I so obviously like them.  It has become their standard question - a stand-in for the classic "Why is the sky blue?" type of diversion.  Bless their hearts.