Some movies are so awful, so clearly inferior to most every other film … and yet you love them all the same.
A few posters here at WWTW shared their qualified love for “Howard the Duck” – which only proves my point.
Which movies do you love despite yourself?
I’ll get things started: “Swamp Thing.” It’s a campy mess featuring a delirious Adrienne Barbeau and a silly French villain (Louis Jordan).
Ol’ Swampy’s outfit is so low budget you can almost see the zipper poking out from it.
But it’s one of my favorite ’80s movies, and I could watch it right now and never hit the FF button.
Your turn …
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
They Live. A lower budget film about aliens already living in disguise on the planet. Rowdy Roddy Piper really should have left the acting in the ring. But his fight in the alley with Keith David is rediculous. Longest fisticuffs scene in a movie. Ever. Terrible dialogue but for the first time watching I had to wait it out to see when it ended. Still can’t get over how long it is. Plus I love the premise of aliens really running the show. Another John Carpenter movie classic: Big Trouble in Little China. My other choice.
“The Gods Must Be Crazy” – a goofy movie made like a documentary about a remote African tribe and their reaction when a coke bottle falls out of the sky. I laughed until I cried.
- “The 13th Warrior” The production changed directors in mid-shoot; the quality was so poor that legendary actor Omar Sharif hastened himself into retirement; the action sequences are barely discernible; the actual 13 warriors are not fully accounted for – and yet, I love watching this film.
- “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” Also a film that forced a film legend – Sean Connery – into retirement; a screenplay so diluted from its source material as to be laughable; AND it drives the T of WWTW crazy that I love this film.
~ Dagnabbitt
i have too many to count but if i had to pick one it would be ‘Blown Away’ with both corey’s in it Haim and Feldman and Nichole Eggert this film takes place a t ski resort and it has murder,betrayal jilted friends and a very hokey plot but for some reason i can’t stop watching it there must be something wrong with me.
These aren’t horrible films, just ones that I stop to watch when I go bye.
Overboard (super fluff – but fun)
30 Days of Night (worst ending ever – well maybe not ever, but close)
Rock Star (cheese – done right)
Fright Night (Love Evil, and Mr. Vincent)
Oscar- a very funny, old-fashioned farce with Sly Stallone. The supporting cast is great, especially Tim Curry.
Also, I agree with the above commenters on They Live and 13th Warrior.
I can’t help it; I love “The Craft,” and “Master Mind” (“Die Hard” in a school with Patrick Stewart), and “The Cutting Edge.”
I’ll think of a few others in a while, but my first reaction: Zardoz. Drove about 25 miles to see it after Braid Searles took a lonely stand in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction defending it as a great SF film. Wouldn’t go that far, but if it’s bad it’s one of the handful of most entertaining bad movies ever made.
Just thought of one more: Species 2. By Peter Medak, another director who couldn’t fail to entertain if he tried. Artsiness, trash, TV movies, he’s always worth watching. At the beginning of S 2, a huge near-future spaceship moves slowly past the camera, and just as I wondered how the probably bankrupt near-f US was going to pay for such a ship, I saw that the last section of the ship was covered with corporate advertisements. I relaxed, clearly I was in good hands. Check out his TV movie The Babysitter, the best of that subgenre.
“Simon” – by the guy who wrote Woody Alan’s “Sleeper”. Great on a lot of levels – still not out on DVD! Ebert called it one of the 10 best movies of 1980.
“Candy” – incredibly euro kitchy, lame counter culture-ish and even immoral. Still fun. The scene with Richard Burton as the famous poet performing at the high school is worth the price. I dragged my parents to it when I was a teenager and they wouldn’t speak to me for a week.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation – the 1967 TV movie with Robert Wagner. Poor production values-derivative, yet a cool concept and fun. Also still not out on DVD.
“Big Trouble in Little China” – who says this isn’t a classic?
My wife just loves it when Kirk Russell doffs his shirt.
“Bedazzled” – the remake. The Devil never looked better. Seems to offend some people’s theology, but these days you have to take what you can get.
Well, I’ve already fessed up to “Howard the Duck,” but you can add “1941″ because it made a P-40 into comedy gold. “They Live,” if only for the “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all outta bubblegum” line. “Blade Trinity” is awful and I just can’t look away. And did someone mention “Zardoz”?!?
But maybe the worst of my little pleasures is “Airport ‘75.” I don’t know what it is: Heston’s clenched teeth, Karen Black’s crossed eyes, the painted on “hole” in the side of the 747, the most anti-climatic climax ever? I saw this twice at the theater, to my eternal (but laughing) shame.
Freddie Got Fingered. Tom Green is all Tom Greenie and Rip Torn steals the show as the fed up, pissed off, and not going to take it anymore Dad, who is either going to get his son out of the house or kill him first. Julie Haggerty plays the soft-spoken mom.
It was the only movie I remember my local paper grading as an “F,” which immediately prompted my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I to seek out the nearest showing.
Sheer over-the-top, zany, ludicrous and delirious, all at the same time. The DVD has been on my Christmas list for years, but my family’s bigotry toward the comedy of Canadian faux-talk show hosts continues.
Daddy, would you like some sausage?
I’ve got to add one more: Kangaroo Jack, which got terrible reviews but was surprisingly funny (and made great use of the Australian scenery). And I can’t stand “talking animal” movies, so I was very pleased to discover that the kangaroo only talks in a short dream sequence.
You’re a brave man to cop to liking that film! Thanks for sharing … we’ve all got a film or two like that. It’s like the Carpenters CD in your music collection …