11 Bad-Good Horror Movies You Need To See
No genre exemplifies Bad-Good like the horror genre. Sure, there are a few action movies that are unintentionally funny, but for the most part all other movies are just outright good or outright bad. Horror films often pride themselves on the fact that they're awful, and that, honestly, is why I love them. Sometimes being awful can be an art.
Here are eleven of the worst-best horrible wonderful retarded awesome movies ever made, what makes them bad, what makes them good and why you ought to watch them.
WHY IT'S BAD
This is one Peter Jackson's early films, back before he began winning Oscars for The Lord of the Rings and being the size of an elephant. Believe it or not, Jackson used to make schlocky zombie films (as well as unwatchable puppet movies like Meet the Feebles) instead of epics about little hairy-footed people and CGI-fests about giant apes. Actually, come to think of it, maybe it's not all that hard to believe. Still, this movie is about a thousandth of the budget of Jackson's later films, and it shows.WHY IT'S GOOD
This zombie movie is schlocky in the best sense of the word. There's so much blood and gore that it's beyond ridiculous, to the point of being laugh-out-loud funny. At no point does Dead Alive take itself too seriously, particularly when the best character of all time, Father McGruder, is introduced and says the following:
WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Just to behold the greatness and awfulness of Peter Jackson before studios started puking money at him.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Bad Taste, Jackson's very first movie, a gross-out extravaganza about aliens. Featuring a young, thin Jackson himself as a guy who loses the back of his skull.
WHY IT'S BAD
Let me count the ways. Not only is it the third sequel to a film that didn't need any sequels to begin with, it also happens to feature exactly zero chainsaw deaths. Keep in mind that the film is titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.WHY IT'S GOOD
It stars Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey as Scared High School Girl and Crazy Tow Truck Man, respectively. Not only that, but these two very young, desperate soon-to-be-stars are just trying their damndest to put something of value into this movie. The result? Some glorious overacting by everyone in the cast, especially one scene where Crazy Tow Truck Man gaudily howls after Scared High School Girl as if he were confused for a moment and thought he was in a werewolf movie.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
To see two now A-listers slumming it in their early careers in what must still serve as a face-reddening embarrassment every time it comes up in conversation.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Leprechaun, which most assuredly still makes Jennifer Aniston have night terrors.
WHY IT'S BAD
Because, as a parody, it fails completely. Made at the tail end of Leslie Nielsen's period of actually making decently funny movies, Repossessed was the beginning of his descent into being involved with embarrassing garbage like 2001: A Space Travesty, with its idea of humor being a priest training for an exorcism by boxing a fast bag and exorcising the devil with rock and roll. That's not funny, it's just...kinda dumb. And including Linda Blair as the possessed housewife (essentially reprising her character from The Exorcist) is not cute or clever -- it's simply a reminder that this movie is a failed parody of a movie that was actually good.WHY IT'S GOOD
Because, despite the fact that it completely falls flat in terms of being intentionally funny, it still succeeds in being unintentionally funny. Leslie Nielsen's mugging performance is so awful that it's actually kind of endearing, and the possession special effects are actually laughably worse than they were 17 years earlier. Linda Blair's attempts a humor are sort of cringingly entertaining as well, and the inclusion of a character who's a stereotype of a stereotype (Ned Beatty's televangelist) is some kind of weird meta-funny.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because this movie taught me what an aglet is -- they're the plastic things on the ends of shoelaces. (Linda Blair's character is named Nancy Aglet.)
WHY IT'S BAD
Because it basically all takes place in a warehouse basement, for one thing. Also, there's a scene where some punks go to a graveyard and dance that makes me embarrassed not only for the punks, but for any dead people that they may be dancing on. The punks, also, are the most stereotypical teenagers you can imagine, in the worst possible way. Also, the explanation for the zombies' existence (chemical spill causes rain that raises the dead) defies the zombie movie convention of just having no explanation (there's a reason for that -- the explanations, like this one, are usually incredibly stupid).WHY IT'S GOOD
It has the coolest zombies ever. Forget 28 Days Later, this was the original fast-zombie movie. Not only that, they talk. In fact, to my knowledge, this is the only zombie movie that actually features the zombies saying "Braaaaaains!" which may make it worth seeing in itself. Also, there's a scene in which, after the zombies have killed and eaten a group of paramedics, a zombie grabs the CB radio in the ambulance and insists that the dispatcher "Send...more...paramedics!"WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Braaaaaaaaains!ALSO CHECK OUT...
Return of the Living Dead 3, the greatest zombie love story ever told.
WHY IT'S BAD
It's an example of using one of the two most cliched ways to spice up a franchise: set it underwater or in space. In addition, Jason X uses the hackneyed "create a super monster" formula of making an old baddie seem threatening again. The dialogue is painful to listen to, and the premise of some kind of space college just doesn't make any fucking sense. Especially considering that the class seems to think taking Jason -- who they know as a ruthless killer hundreds of years into the future -- onto their ship is a good idea.WHY IT'S GOOD
Despite all the cliches, this movie is actually pretty fun to watch. The characters hit that nice balance of being forgettable enough that you don't mind when they die, but really pretty likeable in their pre-death screentime, especially the android character and her creator, who are kind of lovably sad. And, come on, no movie in which David Cronenberg makes a cameo just to be killed in the first fifteen minutes can be all bad. Jason X also features a great scene near the end in which the people on the space ship create a holographic Crystal Lake to fool Jason, in which Jason beats one holographic girl in a sleeping bag to death with another holographic girl in a sleeping bag.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because you can tell that the filmmakers were actually having fun making it. No one had any illusions that they were making a great movie; they knew they were making dreck and reveling in it.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Freddy vs. Jason, the Bad-Good team up of a series that is often just bad-bad (Friday the 13th) and a series that has a couple good-good entries (A Nightmare on Elm Street).
WHY IT'S BAD
It's an old black-and-white movie about giant irradiated ants attacking southwestern American cities.WHY IT'S GOOD
It's an old black-and-white movie about giant irradiated ants attacking southwestern American cities.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
It's an old black-and-white movie about giant irradiated ants attacking southwestern American cities.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Plan 9 From Outer Space, a movie that almost certainly falls into the category of bad-bad, but is like some kind of a clinic on what not to do when making a film, and should be required viewing for anyone planning to make movies.
WHY IT'S BAD
Two words: Uwe Boll. This is the first of his continually declining movies based on video games, and it lives up (down?) to the standard. The movie looks like it was shot through a thin sheet of steel wool, and the story is so non-existant that it's barely even worth mentioning. Also, Boll's trend of making once-respectable actors embarrass themselves is upheld here too, in that Das Boot'sWHY IT'S GOOD
Because, unlike all of Boll's other movies, the campy awfulness on display is actually pretty entertaining. Watch this trailer to see what I'm talking about. Just try not laughing at the opening narration ("AWFUL zombies!") or the number of times it's mentioned that the Crazy Spanish Pirate Who Was Banished From Spain was banished from Spain or the godawful acting during the leading man's big scene. That's pretty much the whole movie. Well, that plus a 20-minute scene of people shooting zombies. I'm not kidding, it's really that long.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
To get an idea of what Uwe Boll might have been if he had decided to keep making unintentionally funny horror movies instead of misguidedly taking himself at all seriously. I mean, come on. How could you direct a movie with the line "Muerte...that's Spanish for death!"ALSO CHECK OUT...
Alone in the Dark, if only to see Christian Slater and Tara Reid collapsing in on themsevles.
WHY IT'S BAD
The word "Amityville" should be a tip-off. It's a steaming pile of garbage about a house who posesses the oldest brother in a family. It's kind of a more subdued version of one of the best-best horror movies ever, The Shining. There's also an incest subplot that just makes me kind of sick even thinking about it. Oh, and there's a reticent priest who comes off as a character ripped directly out of perhaps another of the best-best of horror movies, The Exorcist.WHY IT'S GOOD
Burt Young is in it! Just looking at that guy is a comfort and a reminder that hey, it could be worse, you could be watching Rocky V. (But then again, you could be watching Rocky IVWHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because it's incredibly fun to watch this movie with other people to point out all the similarities to other, better movies. My favorite moment from when I was watching it:MY FRIEND: Look at that priest, he looks just like the priest from The Exorcist.
HIS GIRLFRIEND: What do you mean?
MY FRIEND: He's dressed just like him.
HIS GIRLFRIEND: You mean...like a priest?
And that's beautiful.
ALSO CHECK OUT...
The first Amityville Horror, which is almost as bad.
WHY IT'S BAD
The Leprechaun as a character has to be the worst thing to happen to horror movies. At least Freddy Krueger's witticisms were somewhat...witty. The Leprechaun's limericks are just tiring, and he's less threatening than he is annoying. And in this particular movie, the annoying level is taken to immense levels because the titular character is placed in...oh my!WHY IT'S GOOD
Ice T in a small role. Coolio as himself. A scene near the end where the homies have to dress up in drag Abbott and Costello-style for some reason that has something to do with getting the Leprechaun's gold back for him. I don't know, it didn't make a lot of sense. But it was pretty funny.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because over the closing credits, the Leprechaun raps, almost redeeming his existence. Actually, it would maybe be worthwhile just to skip ahead to that part and pretend it's the whole movie.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Leprechaun 3, the one set in Las Vegas, if only for the scene with the robot hooker.
WHY IT'S BAD
This movie has a huge cult following surrounding it, and a lot of people would tell you that it's outright good-good, but those people are wrong. Trust me. It's very bad-good. I guarantee you that all the good stuff you remember from this movie is actually from the sequel (which, contrary to popular belief, is not a remake, but a direct sequel with some re-shot flashbacks). The chainsaw hand, the little Ashes, Klaatu Verata Nikto, the demon that says "I'll swallow your soul!" and the eye creature that floods the cabin with blood are all bits from the second one. This one plays out like a lot of other teens-go-to-the-woods horror movies and doesn't go for the over-the-top humor of Evil Dead IIWHY IT'S GOOD
It may play as a straight crappy horror movie, but it's still a Sam Raimi movie, which means it's well-directed and pretty fun. The scenes showing the evil spirits racing through the woods (from their point of view) are really cool, and the tree rape scene (yes, tree rape) is really creepily awesomely awful. The Evil Dead isn't stylized and funny like the movies that followed it, but it has its merits and some excellent lines here and there, like "Shut up, Linda!"WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because it led to Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, and deserves to be seen just for that.ALSO CHECK OUT...
Evil Dead II, which I think I've already talked up enough.
WHY IT'S BAD
It's honestly, genuinely one of the worst movies ever made. It's kind of hard to even explain how awful it is. But I'll try to give you a couple of examples. For one thing, there are no trolls in it. Not a single one. There are goblins. And the goblins live in a town called...wait for it...Nilbog. The movie has absolutely no connection to the first Troll. The plot centers on the fact that the family in the movie is switching houses with a farm family, but for no ostensible reason. And there's a weirdly erotic scene involving corn and a druid lady. It's just...it's mind-blowing.WHY IT'S GOOD
For all the same reasons listed above.WHY YOU NEED TO SEE IT
Because you want to have your life changed forever.ALSO CHECK OUT...
A doctor, because something is wrong with you.
