I love bad movies. Only a monster wouldn't. I'm not talking about those movies that make the year end lists or that critics dump on. Those aren't true bad movies. Those movies are bad for reasons that are, in a lot of cases, secondary to filmmaking. They are morally corrupt, they shine ignorant light on serious matters, they are vile, vulgar, racist, or, maybe worst of all, lazy. But those movies are bad because of us, not because of themselves. They put ugly emotions into us, make us witness unpleasant things and waste our time as if time isn't precious.
The truly bad films I am talking about are the ones that are naively so insomuch as that they are trying so desperately hard not to be. There's a purity to those kinds of movies that makes you want to watch them over and over again; an honesty that someone, at some point in time, though that what they were doing meant something. They aren't the movies that we rail against and forget about, they're the ones that live on because there's something in their awfulness that makes them kind of endearing. These are the films that live forever.
I write this because yesterday I discovered Tommy Wiseau's The Room, a $6 million train wreck that has been playing in theaters for four years and is so bad that people have started participating in the experience ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. I haven't seen it, but based on the clips that I have, I know I desperately need to.
Because, if nothing else, those films are a riot. They become, not films, but either communal or interactive experiences. Their making becomes myth, their best scenes become legend and the joy that they provide is everlasting. Although I've seen it about 15 times, I'll never tire of the boat accident at the beginning of Sleepaway Camp (which begins at around the four minute mark of this clip and ends with the man on land stealing one of the unintentionally funniest moments in all of horror movies).
There are other films like this. Showgirls is a modern example, The Room is another:
And what about Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, which is often considered the Citizen Kane of bad movies? The list goes on forever, ending in what is maybe the grandaddy of them all: Troll 2. Troll 2 is so bad that it even inspired its own documentary The Best Worst Movie. That title just about sums it all up:
Now think about that title: The Best Worst Movie. It implies that, just because Troll 2 is an awful film doesn't mean that it doesn't have just as much value, on some level, as one of the best best films. When something succeeds at being the best at something, even it is at being the worst, well that's worth something isn't it?
The point is then that it baffles me to see when critics review these films seriously. Recently, just a couple months ago Castor at Anomalous Material reviewed Troll 2 and gave it an F, leaving me to think: what's the point? I'm not trying to knock Castor, who is a great critic and runs a great blog. But really, to give a film that has become famous for how awful it is an F is like calling a special ed. kid a "retard." It doesn't achieve anything.
In a way, writing a negative review of any of these films is like reverse elitism (and I'm generalizing here, not referring to Castor in any way): I don't just watch the best movies, I can't be bothered with the worst. Even though the worst, in a lot of cases, may be just as good as the best. They're just good for different reasons.
Ultimately what I'm coming back to is a belief about film criticism that I have always held: if we wait for movies to raise to our level, we'll rarely ever find satisfaction. It's the job of the critic to adjust themselves accordingly; to meet the movie of it's level and not the other way around. To get mad at The Room, for example, for being bad is a display of critic thinking himself above his material, especially when the film in question has become famous for that very reason.
I'll always remember that final scene in Tim Burton's Ed Wood where Wood is in the theater, waiting for Plan 9 to debut. "This is it," he says with a smile, "This is the one I'll be remembered for." It's the most endearing and bittersweet scene Burton ever filmed. Not because of the irony, but because Wood was absolutely right. His name would go down in history just the same as his hero Orson Welles. Just not quite the way he was expecting.
So, what is your take on bad movies, do they have their worth, or should they just be forgotten?
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