A Bloody Good Time 3.13.08: Planning A Bad Movie Night
Posted by Joseph Lee on 03.13.2008
I'm going to tell you how you can spend your spring break with terrible horror films!
Welcome to…
It's good to see so many comments related to my column last week. It seems you all have a love of movie monsters and were very vocal, one way or the other, about what I listed as the top ten. Some felt I shouldn't have combined classical monsters with human-like ones, but I feel they don't need to have a grotesque appearance to be a monster. It's all about perspective, and how you look at things.
This week, I'm taking a break. I'm going to leave the fun up to you, with some simple instructions. We're going to plan out a bad movie night, and I'm going to list a group of terrible movies for you to choose from. The reason for this is that I constantly love to watch bad horror. I've had several of these with my own friends and it's always a blast. I thought I'd share the idea and some movie ideas with you this week.
The whole process is easy, and requires only three steps!
Step #1: Get some friends. Bad movie nights are not any fun by yourself. Well, they could be, if you were perhaps under the influence of something. However 411, and myself do not condone you getting wasted just to watch a terrible film. In all seriousness, a group of friends is the only way to watch this. Chances are you're going to want to mention these after you've seen them and it'd probably be better if they were in on the joke. There are lots of jokes to be
Step #2: Select the movie. This is where I come in. While it's always fun to pick and choose to get your own, I feel it's wise to have something in mind. You can either go to Bad Movies or you can choose from this selection:
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon: The ways this movie doesn't work are many. The extremely low budget is one of these reasons. The big scene with the shark attacking at the end is a fine example. The shark changes shape randomly depending on what it is eating: one guy, a lifeboat full of people or a man on a jet ski. It's the same shot every time of that shark coming out of the water and it's easy to tell it's someone reacting to a green screen. Plus there is a pretty infamous line. In possibly the greatest (or worst) pick-up line ever, our hero says to his lady friend: "What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?". AND IT WORKS. I can't find that clip, but here's one of the terrible special effects.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2: The original Silent Night, Deadly Night could be considered a flawed tongue-in-cheek slasher. The idea of Santa killing people is crazy enough anyway. But what happens when you take away the Christmas theme, find a terrible lead actor and make half of your movie flashbacks to the preceeding f ilm? Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. There's really no excuse for the things that happen in this film. The nun with the apparent leprosy (supposed to be a stroke victim), the girl giggling after hitting a guy with a car, and of course…Garbage Day.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: A classic bad movie. I personally found it most guilty of being boring, but you can't say this isn't a terrible film. It was meant to be a spoof, but it still counts. Tomatoes attack people with a very annoying buzzing sound. There's a guy who can't seem to get rid of a parachute attached to him, a master of disguise and a dim-witted hero. They manage to defeat most of the tomatoes with a song called "Puberty Love", before a really big tomato outsmarts them with ear muffs. So they just show him the sheet music. This must be seen to be believed.
The Toxic Avenger: It's a common fact that Troma makes bad movies on purpose. That doesn't change the fact they are bad. The Toxic Avenger is hilarious in every way. It's what the upcoming Superhero Movie will try to do and fail at. A geek has an unfortunate accident, gains superpowers (and a hideously deformed body) and becomes a superhero. Somehow the geek also developed a superhero voice, and is irresistible to blind girls. It also features some ridiculous deaths as he kills all of the criminals and attacks them with a mop. There is also the sliding dog (the dog was trained to slide for that very scene). This is one that should be on anyone's list.
Troll 2: The mother of all bad movies. This is probably the worst film I've ever seen, but I love it. It's a regular at all of my bad movie nights. Troll 2 is one of those movies that's just so bad, you wonder how anyone involved could continue to work on it. This movie features terrible acting from everyone involved, and it feels like a bad episode of Goosebumps. The child actor is especially bad. The biggest problem with the entire movie? There are no trolls. Not a single one. This is about a town called Nilbog, which is host to a gaggle of goblins. Nilbog, get it? Gosh, that's clever. In just mentioning the town, I've given away the biggest plot twist this movie has to offer. It is a very quotable movie for it's downright stupidity. I could describe everything that happens, but it would be pointless to give anything away. You have to see it for yourself.
Those are the movies. I've seen every single one and when planning bad movie nights these are what I have used. If this column goes over well, maybe I'll have future installments where I list more. That leave me with Step #3. Enjoy!
It was a fairly short column this week. Trust me, next week will be great. Next week I begin covering horror on television. It's a project I've long since been putting off, and now it'll finally begin. See you then.
