About
This site contains writing about bad movies. Reviews of course, but also more general discussion, essays, lists, and observations. In some sense, this site is more about reading and writing than cinema itself, but bad movies are at the heart of it all.
A reasonable question is "what do you mean by 'bad movies'?" Movies can be 'bad' for as many reasons as anything else can be 'bad', so we'll not attempt a complete definition of bad here. Come to that, we'll not attempt any overarching definition of bad anywhere on this site; you'll just need to take everything within its context. That being said, there are broad themes that we address, and, being grown people with quasi-settled minds and preferences, we have biases, which are naturally reflected in our writing. Therefore we provide the following schemata to bad moviedom.
First, we're not limited to discussing films with low production values, poor special effects, bad acting, or any other such obvious drawbacks (what we call technicals). Of course, we don't ignore these movies either. As stated above, there's a lot of reasons why movies can be bad, and technicals are just part of the picture. Movies can be bad because we judge them to have an overall negative effect on the audience, or society in general. These, philosophically, are called pernicious works—art that is bad because it offends some ideal or principle. Such movies are mental offenders: they attack cognitively, rather than at an emotional or aesthetic plane. In some cases they can be very well made, of the highest craftsmanship even; indeed there can be much to admire in their construction. Overall, however, there is something offensive at their core: misanthropy of some sort, atavism, fascism... something philosophically distasteful. That being said, some pernicious works are also wretched in execution as well as conception. These are generally the worst of the worst.
There are, too, 'bad movies' which are quite enjoyable, albeit in a limited way. These generally suffer tremendously due to the technicals—low budgets, celebrity 'actors' in prominent roles, crap effects—but there are other reasons as well. A gifted screenwriter may see his idea wrecked by a hack director, a gifted director may have her vision compromised down to a bathetic mess by artless producers... the list goes on. In any case the end result may still be enjoyable to watch in the classic 'throw your popcorn' sense. You come to mock, hoot and holler. Think "The Room" or anything by Ed Wood.
Lastly in our very general taxonomy of bad movies, are the "good B's". These are films with real artistic merit that suffer only from either low production values or a gonzo, outsider ethic. They're not bad movies at all, really, but are lumped in as bad movies by an uncomprehending laity. Think of the early Peter Jackson films Meet the Feebles or Dead Alive and you've got the idea.
So there you have it. Read and enjoy!