TFI Friday: Terrible movies and guilty pleasures
What is the worst movie you have seen? What is a 'bad' film that you love?
Happy Friday!
I absolutely love movies. I always have. I think sitting in a dark room in front of that giant screen is the closest I’ll come to a religious experience.
This week sees the release of ‘BLACKBIRD’ starring former dancer Michael Flatley. You can watch the trailer below:
That was something, wasn’t it? Needless to say, the reviews have not been kind.
Which got me thinking: what is the worst movie you have ever seen? And secondly, what movie that is generally considered ‘bad’, do you love?
There are far too many bad movies to list, however I think the only movie I’ve ever walked out of is Kingdom of Heaven in 2005. Mainly out of boredom.
However, one ‘bad’ movie I absolutely adore is Last Action Hero (1993) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It got absolutely panned by critics at the time and underperformed at the box office.
I truly believe it was ahead of its time though. Big stars playing versions of themselves in TV and cinema is commonplace nowadays, but was somewhat of a confusing novelty in 1993. Also, the movie went to great lengths to poke fun at itself and the action genre in general—something a portion of the audience wrongly perceived as being unintentional. For example, this cliched character introduction, gratuitous cameo and dreadful one-liner is so bad it’s good—but that’s the point:
Also, Charles Dance’s performance as the scenery chewing British villain is spectacular. My favourite scene is where his character escapes the movie world for the real world and discovers the rules are somewhat different:
If you have never seen Last Action Hero, or haven’t since its release, I recommend revisiting it. It stands up better in 2022 than it did in 1993.
What is the worst movie you have ever seen? What is your favourite ‘bad’ movie? Let me know your choices and reasons in the comments!
Equilibrium. Every time I watch it I know I should think it’s terrible, but I love it!
The worst film I've ever seen might be Herschel Gordon Lewis's 2000 Maniacs. Being artless, or incompetent, or long-winded can all be fine if you have something, somehow, going for your film. But if you're all those things with absolutely nothing to offer in compensation then you're just putting the viewer through an ordeal, and that's what 2000 Maniacs is. Absolutely disgraceful!
A movie that is considered bad that I genuinely think is great is that other Planet-Hollywood era action-comedy 'disaster', Hudson Hawk. I was mystified when I discovered as a child that it was considered a failure - it's an inventive, energetic, witty and loopy slapstick caper, full of great dialogue, characters and performances. I guess people didn't want a humorous Bruce Willis, but I was totally on board and I think it holds up.
Of course, then there's the issue of hilariously bad movies. I don't like the term 'so bad it's good' , as movies that are that bad are bad, but they can be fantastically entertaining. My friends and I used to have a Shit Film Thursday that ran for two years full of fantastic examples, Samurai Cop being one of the best.
Nevertheless, while people talk about The Room and Troll 2 all the time, I don't think they're even close to the most funny. The most hilarious bad movie ever made is easily Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (the English dub). Unbelievably ridiculous, inept filmmaking, and the most quotably bad kung fu dubbing of any film (and the dubbing artists are clearly having a laugh, they must be). If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it highly enough.