It’s been a while since we’ve had a bad movie night and that needed to be fixed. So we set a date and got to thinking up with a few titles.
Before I tell you about the movies let me tell you the information that led us to choose them.
Title: Surf Nazis Must Die
Reason for choice: It’s called, “Surf Nazis Must Die”
Title: The Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust
Reason for choice: The made more than one movie about a character that they named The Gingerdead Man
Title: Battlefield Earth
Reason for choice: John Travolta stars in a movie based on an L Ron Hubbard book
So, if you “like” bad movies, you’ll see why we chose these. On the surface, they’re solid gold. The problem is, choosing bad movies is a fine art. People (including me) will tell you that the IMDB rule, “Less than 3 leave it be; more than 4 show it the door.” It’s a helpful rule, but you need more.
You’re aiming for some so bad that it’s good. If you get it wrong, you’ll accidentally end up watching either a good movie, a mediocre movie, or a movie that so bad it’s bad. We messed up on this last time when we ended up watching Turner and Hooch, which turned out to be good. This time, we messed up on all three.
Surf Nazis Must Die was the closest to being a good Bad Movie. It was low budget and silly, but the creators had too many ideas and, if I’m reading it right, tried to make it artsy. Yeah, they shot a movie they called Surf Nazis Must Die and they wanted to make it artsy.
The Gingerdead Man 2 was much, much worse. Apparently, the previous movie was low budget, the sequel was not. I mean, maybe not full blockbuster money, but plenty of money. It’s also recent, like, 2008 recent. So there’s no excuse for how offensive it was. I’m not going into it but it contains the most homophobic scene I’ve ever seen in a movie. Next!
Oh, actually, the next movie was Battlefield Earth. You know, the one with John Travolta based on a book written by L Ron Hubbard? It turns out I don’t have anything to say about that. Instead, let me hand you this link to its Rotton Tomatoes page.
Next time, we’re going back to having a theme. I think the theme will probably be “haunted transplants” but I reserve the right to change my mind later.
In Becky's Head 
Cool article!
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That’s quite a collection you’ve managed to rack up there.
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I watch them so that others don’t have to. 😛
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Lol… Such selfless sacrifice 😋
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I wouldn’t get too discouraged at failing to find enough “so bad they’re good” movies. It’s a genre, like westerns or rom-coms. You just need to do a bit more research. There are both comprehensive indexes (Videohound’s Cult Flicks and Trash Pics) and various critic’s picks books (The Golden Turkeys) you can consult. That way you can read more extended previews, and find out just why the films earned their reputations. Being a “classics” snob, I want the absolute best of the wurst.
BTW, James Franco is making a movie-movie right now called “The Disaster Artist”, about Tommy Wiseau and the making of his memorably awful movie “The Room”.
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Oh, normally we do much better – I think I’ve had maybe 20 bad movie nights with this group of friends and this was by far the least successful, but I guess that makes it funny in its own way. We tend to get some inspiration from the How Did This Get Made podcast – have you checked it out?
I find Franco a bit grating, and not in a way that would be good for bad movies, but the promise of Wiseau is too good to not look out for The Disaster Artist 🙂
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Thanks! No, I did not know about that podcast and will happily take a bite. Here’s the trailer for the Franco movie, which goes wide in December:
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