These Are the Films That Prove That Fun, Campy Movies Still Exist
Most moviegoers can’t remember the last time they saw silly, campy fun on the big screen. That’s because not nearly enough of them saw Bottoms.
“Camp” in comedy is hard to define scientifically, and it’s mostly understood through examples. For instance, The Rocky Horror Picture show is considered the quintessential camp flick for its over-the-top performances, garish aesthetic and the inherent silliness of its excess. But, hey, nobody saw that movie in theaters either. In fact, it’s kind of an unspoken rule that campy comedy films can’t make a single dollar at the box office, a standard that the literal camp comedy classic Wet Hot American Summer staunchly upheld upon its release in 2001.
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However, and though many of these camp comedies failed to achieve mainstream popularity, they succeeded in influencing the next generation of filmmakers who would carry on the tradition of unashamed, unrestrained playfulness, even if the ticket sales lag behind the level of fun. When one member of Film Twitter complained that they miss the campy movies of the 2000s and wanted that style of cinema to come back, cartoonist Adam Ellis pointed out that camp never left:
Here’s a quick breakdown of the films Ellis featured as modern camp classics…
‘Bottoms’ (2023)
Gen Z comedy It Girls Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri play thirsty lesbians who start an all-girls fight club at their high school as a cover to get closer to their crushes. It’s sort of like if Wet Hot American Summer and But I'm A Cheerleader violently scissored.
A powerful storm and a gruesome death splinter an already-strained friend group full of spoiled rich twenty-somethings. A dark comedy Zoomer murder-mystery where the the real killer is class privilege — well, that and the increasingly Marx-Brothers-esque antics of the rich.
‘M3GAN’ (2022)
Allison Williams is an aloof aunt and brilliant toy/A.I. engineer who becomes the begrudging guardian of her niece following a family tragedy. Like most A.I. enthusiasts, Williams builds a dangerous, intelligent and adaptable robot as an attempt to avoid human connection and emotions.
‘The Substance’ (2024)
Demi Moore plays an aging, Demi-Moore-like actress who starts using a black market drug that’s a mix between Ozempic, Botox and Dr. Jekyll’s elixir and which temporarily turns her into Margaret Qualley. Dennis Quaid plays a sleazebag movie producer named Harvey who is almost as disgusting as the real-life Weinstein — or Quaid’s character in Reagan.
The “camp” classification may be a looser fit on some of these movies, and Ellis’ list certainly omits some important and recent works of underappreciated on-screen fun — personally, I think last year’s Dicks: The Musical should be mandatory viewing for any comedy fan — but the point remains the same: Camp is alive and well, it’s just taken a new shape as Generation Z become both movie makers and the dominant population of movie watchers.
And, if none of those movies strike the fancy of camp fans who can’t be bothered to try something new, well, at least it’s October — they can go ahead and watch Hocus Pocus for the hundredth time.