Tribute to the Bad Movie
Recently, I have become enamored with bad movies. Movies so bad they will either drive someone to anger or pure silliness. Movies that one has to ridicule just to survive. Rumor has it that Gene Siskel was killed by too many bad movies, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is not far from the truth. Besides, you can get cancer from everything these days so why not god-awful entertainment.
For those of you unaware of the almost cultish bad movie following hovering somewhere out there on the internet, let me get you up to speed. There are several movies soooo bad that they have achieved near cult status. The most famous of which is Manos: The Hands of Fate. This film, produced for about 20 thousand dollars achieved god-awful status when it was screened for the unsuspecting citizens of El Paso, Texas. The audience began tearing the film apart within minutes of it commencement. Most of the actors escaped before the movie ended, and the actor of the infamous Torgo ended up killing himself. Apparently the movie was that bad. The only "watchable" version of the film was screened on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which comes with pre-packaged commentary tearing up this celluloid disaster. The story, if it can be called that, involves some idiot taking his family to house where some cult worships some guy with a mustache..er something like that. The house is watched over by Torgo, a hilariously awful actor in a hilariously awful satyr costume, while the master is away. This movie was a bad for several reasons:
1. The actors were amateurs
2. The director was a fertilizer salesmen (he didn't stray far from his trade since he was able to create shit on screen)
3. The camera could only film for 30 seconds at a time, making each scene choppy and disjointed
4. Torgo would make anybody squirt milk out of their nose even if they we not drinking milk. He's that bad.
5. All the actors were dubbed over using only 3 people.
6. The budget was well,.....pretty small
7. There's about 10 pointless minutes in the beginning of the movie with just driving and shots of sleep inducing countryside. Apparently the credits were supposed to roll during these pointless scenes, but someone (probably our heroic purveyor of fertilizer) forgot to add them in. Whoops.
Manos: The Hands of Fate stands a testament of not how to make a movie. It is so exponentially awful, every second you watch it, you know some angel is getting the crap kicked out of it. Jesus (HEY-ZEUS) himself would have a hard time turning this Baltimore city water of a so-called film into a fine red wine. Needless to say, it sucks.
In recent memory, the so-called worst movie of the 21st century scarred audiences with its awful direction, nonsensical story, and John Travolta. Battlefield Earth, based off a book by famed crackpot Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, brought a new meaning to the word awful. This film had a budget. This film had Forrest Whittaker. This film occasionally had tolerable special effects. In every way, this film should have avoided Manos territory, but in every way, plummeted to the depths of pukedom. John Travolta, being a crackpot scientologist, took it upon himself to create this film, probably as some homage to his god L. Ron. The story involves gold seeking aliens taking over the earth and somehow being beaten by cavemen 1000 years from now. This movie is bad for several reasons:
1. John Travolta is in it. Watch Face/Off if you don't agree.
2. The director uses sidewipes, tilted angles, and slow motion constantly to make things look cool. All he achieves is laughable dribble.
3. The story is based on a mediocre book by a guy who created his own "Religion."
4. The aliens, called Psyhclos, look awkward because they wear stilts. Plus their idiots. There idiocy makes the audience ask the question: "How in the hell did they take over the planet? These schlubs couldn't take over France."
5. Somehow superstitious cavemen learn how to fly 1000 year old harrier jets in a matter of days. It takes trained pilots years to become adept in such aircraft. Yet, somehow we are forced to believe that these cavemen can jump in these planes and just take back the Earth?
6. The aliens desire gold, but somehow in the course of 1000 years, they were never able to locate, let alone ransack, the repository of Fort Knox.
7. Forrest Whittaker, the only notable and respectable actor in this pile of shiite, failed to emit anything but laughs and jeers from audience members
8. The movie has John Travolta. Nuff said.
This movie was so bad that critics had to re-evaluate their lives after seeing it. I am pretty sure Roger Ebert sent Travolta a couple of death threats. Hell, I sent him death threats. God this one was bad. At least Manos had the MST3K crew to buttress the audience through the turmoil. A viewing of Battlefield Earth makes some feel like they have been through prison and war: thoroughly sodomized and thoroughly scarred.
So why then, am I even talking about such assaults on cinema? Well, for one, they are hilarious. With the right group of friends, and possibly some very stiff drinks, any bad movie can be turned into instant knee slapping, self-wetting comedy. That's the whole reason Mystery Science Theater 3000 existed. The bad movie itself had created an off-shoot form of entertainment: ridiculing the movie. As the MST3K boys proved, there is nothing quite as satisfying as an appropriate jibe at the appropriate moment, destroying ones suspension of disbelief and exposing the faults of the filmmakers.
In another sense, the bad movie shows the film industry what not to do. These movies are testaments to monumental hilarious failure. And lets face it, failure is pretty funny. Its like seeing someone drive a F-1 race car into an unsuspecting audience. It may be terrible, and awful.......and depressing but as long as you aren't involved in the failure it can be the funniest thing since flatulence.
Over the past year, Hollywood tried to capitalized on the bad movie idea by exploiting the cultish following. Snakes on a Plane, a movie bad enough to wear its crappiness in its title, opened to so-so reviews and dismal box office returns. The film industry thought it could formulate a bad movie and subsequently create a following. The net had been buzzing with the possibilities such a lame idea could bring to the screen, with fanboys giggling themselves into spastic fits over the very idea of Snakes on a Plane. I have not seen this movie, which I really do not want to pay to see. However, I do admit the inherently bad idea did appeal to me. But the dismal returns should serve as a lesson to Hollywood. You can't just make a bad movie. There is no formula. The stars must align and the Gods must sneer for the truly awful flick to be made. The right combinations of idiocy in so many places must exist in order for the awful movie to made. So here's to you bad movies. You are the lessons learned and you are the late-night giggle inducing entertainment and although you do make me shove pencils into my ears and forks into my eyes, you will always have a dark, evil, demented place in my heart.
For those of you unaware of the almost cultish bad movie following hovering somewhere out there on the internet, let me get you up to speed. There are several movies soooo bad that they have achieved near cult status. The most famous of which is Manos: The Hands of Fate. This film, produced for about 20 thousand dollars achieved god-awful status when it was screened for the unsuspecting citizens of El Paso, Texas. The audience began tearing the film apart within minutes of it commencement. Most of the actors escaped before the movie ended, and the actor of the infamous Torgo ended up killing himself. Apparently the movie was that bad. The only "watchable" version of the film was screened on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which comes with pre-packaged commentary tearing up this celluloid disaster. The story, if it can be called that, involves some idiot taking his family to house where some cult worships some guy with a mustache..er something like that. The house is watched over by Torgo, a hilariously awful actor in a hilariously awful satyr costume, while the master is away. This movie was a bad for several reasons:
1. The actors were amateurs
2. The director was a fertilizer salesmen (he didn't stray far from his trade since he was able to create shit on screen)
3. The camera could only film for 30 seconds at a time, making each scene choppy and disjointed
4. Torgo would make anybody squirt milk out of their nose even if they we not drinking milk. He's that bad.
5. All the actors were dubbed over using only 3 people.
6. The budget was well,.....pretty small
7. There's about 10 pointless minutes in the beginning of the movie with just driving and shots of sleep inducing countryside. Apparently the credits were supposed to roll during these pointless scenes, but someone (probably our heroic purveyor of fertilizer) forgot to add them in. Whoops.
Manos: The Hands of Fate stands a testament of not how to make a movie. It is so exponentially awful, every second you watch it, you know some angel is getting the crap kicked out of it. Jesus (HEY-ZEUS) himself would have a hard time turning this Baltimore city water of a so-called film into a fine red wine. Needless to say, it sucks.
In recent memory, the so-called worst movie of the 21st century scarred audiences with its awful direction, nonsensical story, and John Travolta. Battlefield Earth, based off a book by famed crackpot Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, brought a new meaning to the word awful. This film had a budget. This film had Forrest Whittaker. This film occasionally had tolerable special effects. In every way, this film should have avoided Manos territory, but in every way, plummeted to the depths of pukedom. John Travolta, being a crackpot scientologist, took it upon himself to create this film, probably as some homage to his god L. Ron. The story involves gold seeking aliens taking over the earth and somehow being beaten by cavemen 1000 years from now. This movie is bad for several reasons:
1. John Travolta is in it. Watch Face/Off if you don't agree.
2. The director uses sidewipes, tilted angles, and slow motion constantly to make things look cool. All he achieves is laughable dribble.
3. The story is based on a mediocre book by a guy who created his own "Religion."
4. The aliens, called Psyhclos, look awkward because they wear stilts. Plus their idiots. There idiocy makes the audience ask the question: "How in the hell did they take over the planet? These schlubs couldn't take over France."
5. Somehow superstitious cavemen learn how to fly 1000 year old harrier jets in a matter of days. It takes trained pilots years to become adept in such aircraft. Yet, somehow we are forced to believe that these cavemen can jump in these planes and just take back the Earth?
6. The aliens desire gold, but somehow in the course of 1000 years, they were never able to locate, let alone ransack, the repository of Fort Knox.
7. Forrest Whittaker, the only notable and respectable actor in this pile of shiite, failed to emit anything but laughs and jeers from audience members
8. The movie has John Travolta. Nuff said.
This movie was so bad that critics had to re-evaluate their lives after seeing it. I am pretty sure Roger Ebert sent Travolta a couple of death threats. Hell, I sent him death threats. God this one was bad. At least Manos had the MST3K crew to buttress the audience through the turmoil. A viewing of Battlefield Earth makes some feel like they have been through prison and war: thoroughly sodomized and thoroughly scarred.
So why then, am I even talking about such assaults on cinema? Well, for one, they are hilarious. With the right group of friends, and possibly some very stiff drinks, any bad movie can be turned into instant knee slapping, self-wetting comedy. That's the whole reason Mystery Science Theater 3000 existed. The bad movie itself had created an off-shoot form of entertainment: ridiculing the movie. As the MST3K boys proved, there is nothing quite as satisfying as an appropriate jibe at the appropriate moment, destroying ones suspension of disbelief and exposing the faults of the filmmakers.
In another sense, the bad movie shows the film industry what not to do. These movies are testaments to monumental hilarious failure. And lets face it, failure is pretty funny. Its like seeing someone drive a F-1 race car into an unsuspecting audience. It may be terrible, and awful.......and depressing but as long as you aren't involved in the failure it can be the funniest thing since flatulence.
Over the past year, Hollywood tried to capitalized on the bad movie idea by exploiting the cultish following. Snakes on a Plane, a movie bad enough to wear its crappiness in its title, opened to so-so reviews and dismal box office returns. The film industry thought it could formulate a bad movie and subsequently create a following. The net had been buzzing with the possibilities such a lame idea could bring to the screen, with fanboys giggling themselves into spastic fits over the very idea of Snakes on a Plane. I have not seen this movie, which I really do not want to pay to see. However, I do admit the inherently bad idea did appeal to me. But the dismal returns should serve as a lesson to Hollywood. You can't just make a bad movie. There is no formula. The stars must align and the Gods must sneer for the truly awful flick to be made. The right combinations of idiocy in so many places must exist in order for the awful movie to made. So here's to you bad movies. You are the lessons learned and you are the late-night giggle inducing entertainment and although you do make me shove pencils into my ears and forks into my eyes, you will always have a dark, evil, demented place in my heart.
posted by Blackthorne at 8:55 PM
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